11 Emperor Palpatine Secrets, From a Sith Vault on the Death Star to the World Between Worlds

Palpatine didn't just win a war and become emperor. He had plans inside of other plans, and some of them are completely insane: kidnapping children, a secret vault inside the Death Star, orders to attack his own home world, and an attempt to get into a place connected to time itself.

That last one might be the scariest thing he has ever done, and I have saved it for the end. Below are 11 Emperor Palpatine details that get deeper and scarier as we go, and hopefully some of them are new to you.

11. Palpatine kept a Sith artifact vault inside the second Death Star

That tower above the battle station wasn't just a throne room with a really good view of the Rebel fleet. It also held his private chambers and a vault for Sith artifacts. He even possessed a wayfinder pointing to Exegol, which we found out later.

Luke thought he was walking into the Emperor's office for the final showdown. Palpatine had actually turned the place into a private dark side museum with an escape route to a secret Sith world. It's a very small detail, but it tells you how far ahead this guy was on the chessboard, even while he sat there acting like everything depended on turning this one kid.

10. Palpatine tried to start an invasion of Mandalore with a doctored message

During the Clone Wars, Palpatine presented the Senate with a message that appeared to show a Mandalorian official asking the Republic and the Jedi for help against Death Watch. It had been doctored. The idea was to send Republic forces into a neutral world, create a big disaster, and give Death Watch an opening to present itself as Mandalore's liberator.

Duchess Satine risked her life to expose the fake before the invasion actually happened. So while everybody remembers Palpatine creating the Clone Wars, here he was trying to manufacture another front with what was basically forged evidence. As I put it, that one failed "because somebody actually checked the tape."

9. Fives came dangerously close to exposing Order 66

Fives learned the clone troopers had inhibitor chips and kept digging until the trail reached Palpatine. It was close. He actually got a private meeting with the Chancellor. Then there was a struggle, Fives appeared to threaten him, and the one clone trying to warn everyone suddenly looked unstable and violent.

Palpatine used the incident to defend the chips and keep the Jedi from understanding what they were actually looking at. It isn't true that nobody ever found out his secret. Palpatine just made sure that nobody believed Fives at the time, which is another level of manipulation.

8. Palpatine hired Cad Bane to steal the Jedi's list of Force sensitive children

Bane broke into the Jedi Temple and took a holocron. Paired with a kyber crystal, it revealed children across the entire galaxy who could potentially use the Force, because the Jedi tracked them, documented them and took blood samples. Palpatine wanted them kidnapped and trained to serve him. He didn't want to wipe them out. He wanted to make them all his acolytes, I guess you could say.

Picture the public version of this man smiling beside Jedi generals. Then picture the private version paying a bounty hunter to raid the temple and steal kids before they ever grew up. That is how far his war on the Jedi went. He wasn't satisfied with destroying the order that existed. He wanted control over all the children who might ever become the next one.

7. Maul became such a problem that Palpatine handled him personally

Surviving being cut in half was inconvenient enough, and that is a whole other conversation for another day. Then Maul built a criminal alliance, took power on Mandalore, and started looking a lot like a Sith Lord with his own empire.

Sidious didn't send Dooku to deal with him. He showed up himself. He killed Savage, defeated Maul and took his former apprentice captive. That fight is terrifying because Palpatine looks like he's actually enjoying himself. Maul spent years believing he could become a player in the big galaxy game, and then Palpatine shows up to remind him that he is still playing on Palpatine's board and always will be. "You're just a little guy."

6. Palpatine saw the Zillo Beast and wanted it studied

The creature's armor could resist lightsabers. Most leaders would focus on getting a gigantic monster away from populated areas. Palpatine saw an opportunity to learn what made its hide so durable. He backed having it transported for study, and Imperial scientists continued experimenting with the species later. A modified Zillo Beast eventually escaped and caused more destruction.

Palpatine looked at a walking catastrophe and wondered how to turn it into technology that would benefit him against the Jedi. Honestly, if somebody had told him the thing could survive a Death Star blast, he probably would have tried to wear it.

5. The Emperor's death triggered an attack on Naboo

Palpatine prepared a contingency for what would happen if he died. We know one part of it was Operation Cinder, which used climate disruption arrays and Imperial forces to devastate worlds. Naboo was among those worlds.

Naboo is his own home world. The planet that sent him into Republic politics got no special protection once he was gone. He had orders waiting that could help burn it to the ground. If you ever wanted proof that Palpatine didn't care about his people, his home, or anybody who helped him get into power, there's your proof.

4. Palpatine had Force sensitive children locked inside Mount Tantiss

In The Bad Batch, Project Necromancer is a secret Imperial program of personal interest to Palpatine. Deep inside Tantiss, children with high Force sensitivity were kept under observation as vital test subjects.

We eventually learn where Palpatine's obsession with cloning and surviving death is headed, but this shows the human cost while the Empire was still standing. These weren't just machines in a laboratory. They were kids being held in windowless cells because the Emperor couldn't accept the idea that he might actually die.

3. Rey's father came out of Palpatine's attempt to make a new body

When Vader killed Palpatine at Endor, the Emperor's consciousness transferred to a clone body on Exegol. That body was too weak to hold him properly, so the work continued. One of the clones from that effort became Rey's father. He and Rey's mother hid her to keep Palpatine from taking her.

That makes the reveal in The Rise of Skywalker much stranger than a simple surprise that the Emperor had a family and is your grandpa. Rey's father existed because Palpatine was trying to manufacture a way around death, and that man then chose to protect his daughter from the person who created him. Whoever came up with that story while they were desperate to figure out how to finish off this trilogy, I don't even know.

2. Snoke was another layer of Palpatine's plan

Kylo Ren spent years under the mysterious Supreme Leader, believing Snoke was the man directing the First Order and pushing him toward the dark side. When Kylo reached Exegol, he learned Snoke had been Palpatine's puppet.

So even after Endor, Palpatine was working against the Skywalkers through somebody else's face. He helped turn Ben Solo, he undermined Luke's attempt to rebuild the Jedi, and he let the galaxy think a new villain had replaced him. You could argue all day about how that reveal was handled in the movies, and I get it, along with the old complaint that we never knew enough about Snoke's backstory. But the actual idea is kind of horrifying. Palpatine lost his body and still found a way to get inside the family's life, as always.

1. Palpatine tried to gain access to the World Between Worlds

Hidden through the Jedi Temple on Lothal was a realm with doorways connected to different moments in time and space. Ezra Bridger entered it and pulled Ahsoka away from her duel with Vader. Palpatine wanted in too, and Ezra stopped him.

Think about the scale of this threat. Palpatine had already controlled the Senate, an army, a galaxywide empire and secret experiments to escape death. Then he found something that might actually let him reach through time itself. I'm glad Ezra closed the door, because giving Palpatine access to even more moments in Star Wars history "kind of sounds like the beginning of the worst timeline imaginable." It sounds like Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet, or like Dr. Doom.

That's the thing with Palpatine. Every time you think you have found the whole scheme, you discover another one underneath, and then another layer beneath that. There are tons of layers, which is really cool. He is a very complex and layered character.

Did you already know all of these, or is there an even weirder Palpatine detail I missed?