Just trying to do some brainstorming for campaign ideas.

What does Sidious want with younglings?

He's been stealing them since at least the Clone Wars. But what is he doing with them? Doesn't seem to be refilling Inquisitor ranks. Are they vessels for him? Placed in stasis somewhere once they reach maturity?

Kanan, Ezra, and Ashoka rescued one from his grasp. How did they keep the child hidden? Sidious is still stealing Force sensitive younglings up until 2BBY (that's when Rebels happens right?) so he probably has a lot by that point. That's a large operation to house an army of Force sensitive younglings.

Why didn't Sidious send Vader after the younglings? Why didn't he send Vader after Kanan, Ezra and Ashoka to retrieve the youngling?

Does Sidious allude to his plans in that Clone Wars episode? I don't recall anything specific.

I think this would make such a cool campaign but I can't reconcile some of those questions.

Makes me think of the Emperor's Hands from Legends.

Well, the Sith cultists on Exegol must have come from somewhere? Perhaps he was building himself a stable of sorcerers?

1 hour ago, Inquisitor Tremayne said:

Just trying to do some brainstorming for campaign ideas.

What does Sidious want with younglings?

He's been stealing them since at least the Clone Wars. But what is he doing with them? Doesn't seem to be refilling Inquisitor ranks. Are they vessels for him? Placed in stasis somewhere once they reach maturity?

Kanan, Ezra, and Ashoka rescued one from his grasp. How did they keep the child hidden? Sidious is still stealing Force sensitive younglings up until 2BBY (that's when Rebels happens right?) so he probably has a lot by that point. That's a large operation to house an army of Force sensitive younglings.

Why didn't Sidious send Vader after the younglings? Why didn't he send Vader after Kanan, Ezra and Ashoka to retrieve the youngling?

Does Sidious allude to his plans in that Clone Wars episode? I don't recall anything specific.

I think this would make such a cool campaign but I can't reconcile some of those questions.

Definitely check that TCW episode, Sheev talks about foreseeing his own order of subordinate Force-users, IIRC.

Conjecture: Vader didn't go after the Rebels crew because he was busy elsewhere, or they weren't considered high-priority targets.

Maybe Sheev knew about Ahsoka's survival and wanted to use her inevitable confrontation with Vader in a different way.

5 hours ago, Inquisitor Tremayne said:

Just trying to do some brainstorming for campaign ideas.

What does Sidious want with younglings?

He's been stealing them since at least the Clone Wars. But what is he doing with them?

So, this is a question I asked myself once, and there's a bit of a diatribe to get to an answer, but bear with me...

First of all, if anyone who plays in my campaign is reading this, stop now. (It contains spoilers, and Lahkun would be unhappy. You know who you are)

In Episode 6, it's clear that the emperor wants to press Luke into his service, and that he should replace Vader. Several times we see this repeated, with Darth Maul being replaced by Dooku, Dooku replaced with Anakin, and Vader replaced with Luke. This, coupled with the story of Darth Plagueis and the idea of extending his life, kinda implies that he doesn't want to adhere to one of the core principles of the 'Rule of Two' that existed for a thousand years, where each subordinate would eventually take the mantle of his master through his master's death. Perpetually extending his life through use of the dark side means Sheev doesn't have to yield power to anyone, as long as he is the embodiment of that power.

So, why would he care about having force-sensitive subordinates? My guess is for the same reason the emperors of the old Sith Empire had them; they're very effective tools.

Vader is the ultimate weapon in his arsenal to deal with overt threats and rebellion. The Inquisitors are the perfect tool for acquiring more force-sensitives. The Emperor's Hands are the perfect assassins. And so on.

So, what does a man - completely ruthless and without conscience - who plans to rule for a long time and desires unlimited power do with all the other force sensitive beings in the galaxy? How would he put them to use? There are a couple of really disturbing options which can lead to some great premises for really long campaigns:

1. Consumption . There are a couple of instances in Star Wars Legends and Extended Universe that deal with stealing the living force from another being (or place) in order to sustain and imbue oneself with power. (See The Nathema Conspiracy ) If you want a really dark campaign, terrorize your players with the idea that the Emperor literally feeds on those who aren't strong enough to become inquisitors. (A little bit 40k, but fun to reveal)
2. Conscription . Acolytes and slaves with force sensitive abilities could help pad the ranks of the ever-expanding Empire and make the army more efficient. Squads of mildly force-sensitive pilots, teams of enhanced militia, and spies that can relay information without communicators would all be terrifying additions to the ranks of the navy.
3. Experimentation . Perhaps the mysteries of the force just require more test subjects, and the lives of force-sensitive children are of such little consequence to him that they are just a tool to further his research. They sit in cages waiting to be experimented on, sometimes with horrific consequences (See Red Harvest ).
4. Subjugation . Train them and keep them pitted against each other in order to distract them from killing him, while also making them more ruthless weapons for him to dispose of on a whim. The constant jostling of underlings competing for favor can mean they'll take on the most diabolical or risky tasks, and they'll be a large barrier between him and any real threat. To that end; political assassinations, wiping out rebel insurgencies, infiltrating enemy ranks are all projects to train force sensitives to deal with. It's a much more long-term game plan, and the original Sith Empire did it for millennia. (See KotOR/SWtOR )
5. Eradication . If you have all the power already, why would you need them at all? Sometimes the best way to deal with the only potential threat to you is to just wipe them out. All of them. No hesitation, no mercy. He sends in an inquisitor and they are instructed to kill them all as a test of their loyalty and obedience, and also to deal with a potential problem before it becomes one.

I'm running a campaign right now which is based on this train of thought. It gets real dark in places. If your party are ok with being traumatized, then run with it.

Lots of great ideas!

Shipping them off to Exagol makes sense. And fits with his own order of subordinate force users.

Also, I really like the thought that he's now perverted/evolved Bane's Sith: he's the only one in power now and forever.

2 hours ago, Inquisitor Tremayne said:

Also, I really like the thought that he's now perverted/evolved Bane's Sith: he's the only one in power now and forever .

(Bolding is mine)

I'm no expert in the KotOR/SWtOR era, but wasn't there a Sith emperor who tried that?

2 hours ago, Bellona said:

(Bolding is mine)

I'm no expert in the KotOR/SWtOR era, but wasn't there a Sith emperor who tried that?

Yes. Emperor Vitiate.

On 5/23/2020 at 3:48 PM, Inquisitor Tremayne said:

Also, I really like the thought that he's now perverted/evolved Bane's Sith: he's the only one in power now and forever.

That was the Legends plan too. In the Revenge of the Sith novelization before Anakin and Obi-Wan arrive to "rescue" the chancellor, he and Dooku have a conversation where we basically hear that both of them think the Rule of Two is outdated - much to Dooku's shock later on when Palpatine encourages Anakin to behead him. We also have Palpatine keep a stable of dark acolytes, some of which have even received some proper Sith training (such as Cronal and Kadann) throughout Legends and I'm pretty sure in Dark Empire we find out his plan was to slowly replace the entire ruling class of the empire with dark acolytes subservient to his will (although I can't quite remember this one exactly, its been a decade since I've read any DE material) and I always assumed that would also result into effective immortality as he has invested his spirit into so many vessels that killing him becomes an eventual impossibility.

I had it in my head that the younglings he captured would mostly go on to become the inquisition, an order of diet dark sliders who were raised to be hunting hounds and not much else. Kinda telling that in Rebels the Grand Inquisitor seemed to have biggest pressence of all of them; he knew whom he used to be, but now all he is Vader’s number two in a comparatively small field.

Hands of the Emperor is also an idea, especially if we are onboard with the idea of Sidious wanting to raise people in indebted servitude to him. Especially interesting for a post Endor campaign where Jakku basically makes the resulting power struggle between warlords a fractured mess. Looking how Romans dealt with succession crisis’s is fun.

then again, I am in a campaign where one of our nemesis’s cloned a small army (roughly 260!) of one of our PC’s that used to be his student. So we would typically fight six of these pack hunters at a time within our darkest hours. Ended up eventually storming the facility and now she is literally beside herself with an impromptu family of... herself. XD

It would be nearly impossible to convict an individual from a batch of clones for any crime. So many alibis, and forensic evidence would be next to useless.

Just throwing that out there 😏

In one of the Vader comics it is alluded that Sidious wants to replace Vader so it looking for someone stronger that battered and burned former jedi.