What if Palpatine Cared So Much for Anakin He RENOUNCED the Sith?

What if Palpatine Cared So Much for Anakin He RENOUNCED the Sith? Merch: TheTheorist.co Darth Theorist Podcast: https://pod.link/1896934294 Three Eyed Theorist:    / @threeeyedtheorist   Half Blood Theorist:    / @halfbloodtheorist   Discord:   / discord   YT Memberships:    / @darththeorist   Voice Acting & Narration: Steven Waters @bobablackfly602 , @masterlukeskywalker Writing: Myself, @quadeong7453 , @khuz377, @pathogdragonsradio, and @risingofthethorn1197 Chancellor Palpatine sits alone in front of a private terminal, looking at the plan he has spent years building. Padmé is at the center of it, and it ends with Anakin Skywalker falling to the dark side. All it needs is his authorization, and he can’t give it. A few months earlier, he would not have hesitated. Three years into the Clone Wars, Anakin Skywalker has become one of the Republic's most celebrated Jedi Generals, and his relationship with Chancellor Palpatine has grown far beyond politics or protocol. Their conversations happen late at night in the Chancellor's office, long after the aides have gone. He admits frustration with the Council, confesses fears about the war, and speaks openly about losses he buries in front of Obi-Wan. Anakin (quiet): “Sometimes I think if I lost her… if I lost any of them, I don't know what I would become.” Palpatine: “Then we will make sure you never have to find out, my boy.” Palpatine listens and asks the right questions at the right moments. He offers the exact kind of validation that the Jedi Order has always withheld. Every word of it is calculated, because Sheev Palpatine has been grooming Anakin Skywalker since the boy joined the order, and each conversation is another thread in the design that will eventually turn the Chosen One into a Sith apprentice. He also knows about Padmé. The marriage and the exact shape of Anakin's terror of losing her. It is the single most valuable piece of information he has ever learned about anyone, and he has been sharpening it patiently for the moment it will be needed. During a brutal campaign in the Outer Rim, Anakin makes a decision that costs the Republic a strategic chokepoint. He pulls his forces back to extract wounded clones and civilians trapped behind Separatist lines, and the position they abandon takes several weeks to recapture. The Council sends a formal reprimand. Palpatine reads the report and begins drafting a message to Anakin about the value of acceptable losses, and then he stops and reads the casualty figures Anakin prevented instead. Anakin tells him about it later. Anakin (tired): I know it was the wrong call tactically. But those men…they trusted me and I…I just couldn't leave them there to die so I could hold a position on a map. Palpatine: “And if you had held that position, how many more lives might have been saved?” Anakin: “Maybe thousands. But I had people dying right in front of me. I couldn't pretend they were numbers.” Palpatine: “Perhaps that is why you are a better man than I ever expected you to become.” Palpatine should see weakness, the exact kind of emotional vulnerability the Sith have exploited for a thousand years. He finds himself proud of the boy instead, and the reaction makes no sense for the man he is supposed to be. He starts sabotaging his own operations after that, and the worst part is how long it takes him to notice. He drafts a plan that would place Anakin in genuine danger during a fleet engagement over Cato Neimoidia, then finds a logistical reason to delay it. A week later, he pulls Anakin from a second operation with a different justification. Then a third. Dooku notices during a routine holographic report. He pauses, studying his master through the blue projection. Dooku: “Master, there is something unusual about your recent orders. Skywalker has been removed from three operations that should have proceeded as planned.” Sidious: “You presume there is something to understand.” Dooku: “I presume nothing. I merely find it curious that your plans have changed whenever Skywalker was placed in significant danger.” Sidious: “You have always been an observant apprentice, Tyranus. Do not mistake that quality for permission to question me.” Dooku: “I would never presume to question you, Master. I only wonder why the Jedi's most valuable weapon has suddenly become one you are unwilling to risk.” Sidious: “Enough. Concern yourself with the war, and leave Skywalker to me.” Dooku bows his head and lets the matter drop. But after the hologram disappears, Sidious remains alone in the darkness, staring over Coruscant. He tells himself he is protecting a future apprentice, that the investment is too valuable to risk on a single engagement. #starwars #starwarswhatif #whatif