The revelation that Emperor Palpatine had a son — and a granddaughter — was one of the biggest
moments in The Rise of Skywalker. In many ways, though, it posed more questions than it answered,
chief among which: just who was the Emperor's mysterious son?
The Rise of Skywalker doesn't explicitly reveal how Palpatine escaped death,
although the movie does drop a couple of hints. When Kylo visits Exegol for the first time,
he finds Supreme Leader Snoke clones floating in tubes. Later, Dominic Monaghan's character,
Beaumont Kin, offers a handful of theories of his own, suggesting:
"Dark science. Cloning. Secrets only the Sith knew."
[laughter]
As it turns out, Beaumont nailed it — Palpatine's return relies on all three. Like the Star Wars
movie novelizations, Rae Carson's The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Edition fleshes out the story
that unfolded on the big screen, including the details of Palpatine's return. Long story short:
He used clones. During the Imperial era, Palpatine set up a secret cloning lab on the planet Exegol.
As he fell down the second Death Star's reactor shaft in Return of the Jedi,
he used the Force to project his consciousness into a new body on the far-off Sith stronghold — a
skill that the novel implies he learned from his former master, Darth Plagueis. Unfortunately,
things didn't go exactly as Palpatine had planned. The novel explains:
"The secret place had not completed its preparations.
The transfer was imperfect, and the cloned body wasn't enough."
Apparently, the dark side takes a big physical toll on this process,
and Palpatine's new vessel burned out pretty quickly. So, as the New Republic took control
of the galaxy and the First Order accumulated power in the Unknown Regions, Palpatine's
Sith followers worked tirelessly to craft the Emperor a new, healthier, and more permanent
body. Most of those experiments failed, but one didn't. At least, not exactly. The novel says:
"One genetic strandcast lived. Thrived, even. A not-quite-identical clone. His 'son.'"
Still, even that body wasn't perfect. While this clone survived the Sith experiments,
he couldn't actually wield the Force, and that weakness disgusted Palpatine. So,
instead of using the clone as a host, the former Emperor found another use for him.
He set his "son" free, so he could continue his bloodline through more natural methods.
In time, Palpatine's son met a woman and had a daughter whose powers met Palpatine's standards.
After that, the Sith lord began making plans to capture Rey
and take over her body. Which obviously didn't quite pan out.
The Rise of Skywalker novel's explanation for Palpatine's son
dodges a lot of the more difficult questions about Palpatine's family tree,
and while it means that Rey's father isn't technically Palpatine's son,
it's not without precedent in the Star Wars universe. Back in the prequel era, for example,
Jango Fett treated his own young clone, Boba, like a son. This is pretty much the same thing.
Or it is for now, at least. The Star Wars movie novelizations occupy a liminal space in the
franchise's continuity, and it's entirely possible that future projects will retcon Carson's work.
While Disney claims that all Star Wars material created after 2014 are a part of the canon,
that's not strictly true, and movie novelizations only seem to "count" so long as they're not
contradicted by other, higher-profile material. For example, there's a scene in Alan Dean Foster's
novelization of The Force Awakens in which Rey and Poe meet for the first time. But that's no
longer canon, as it's been superseded by a similar moment at the end of The Last Jedi.
As such, it's possible that Carson's explanation for Rey's ancestry won't survive in the long-term.
And this has all happened before, too. In the years before Disney bought Star Wars,
the Emperor had a completely different son, who fell victim
to the Mouse House's obliteration of the so-called Expanded Universe.
"I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror
and were suddenly silenced."
As told in Paul and Hollace Davids' "Jedi Prince" novels, the Emperor's original son was Triclops,
a three-eyed human with considerable Force powers. However, to understand his origins,
you actually have to go back to the prequel timeline, where you'll find a woman named
Sly Moore. A Force-sensitive native of the planet Umbara, Moore was one of Palpatine's most trusted
advisors. Not only was she one of the few people privy to Palpatine's alter ego Darth
Sidious and his plan to overthrow the Republic, but rumors suggest that they were lovers, too.
Moore gave birth to Triclops after impregnating herself with "Force-sensitive DNA" she procured
from an anonymous source, which is largely implied to be Palpatine.
On top of that, Moore is also responsible for creating Triclops' biggest rival.
While conducting her bioengineering experiments, Sly created a different three-eyed mutant named
Trioculus, who tried to take control of the Empire following Palpatine's death.
Of course, there's pretty much no chance that either J. J. Abrams or his Rise of Skywalker
co-writer, Chris Terrio, so much as glanced at Triclops' story while writing Episode
IX [nine]. Indeed, outside of the Davids' six "Jedi Prince" novels, which are aimed
squarely at children, he doesn't make much of an impact on the old Expanded Universe.
Still, there are some striking similarities between Triclops and Rey's unnamed father. For
one, neither of them got along with their dad. After Triclops was born, Palpatine banished him
to the spice mines in Kessel, fearing his power and his pacifist philosophy. Both had children,
too. While imprisoned, Triclops fell in love with a former Jedi named Kendalina.
Shortly afterwards, Kendalina gave birth to a son named Ken,
who was later whisked away to a secret Jedi city on Yavin IV by an unknown benefactor.
Like Rey, Ken — who is the titular "Jedi prince" of the Davids' saga — was an incredibly powerful
Force user. And like Rey, he was devastated when he learned that he was Palpatine's grandson.
Finally, like Rey, Ken ended up rejecting his birthright,
joining the New Republic and training under Luke Skywalker. So while both Ken
and Triclops are little more than footnotes in Star Wars' vast, sprawling history,
their legacy lives on in The Rise of Skywalker… at least, from a certain point of view.
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