Return of The Jedi

[Yukaphile]

They planned to eat the stormtroopers. I'm pretty sure this is supported by canon.

[Seaward]

After playing SWKOTOR I actually have a theory of how the battle of Endor can start so woefully one sided and yet somehow the Rebels manage to best the Emperor's strongest fleet and troops. KOTOR introduced a force ability I believe was called Battle Meditation, in which a well focused mind can somehow influence the minds and actions of entire armies at a subconscious level, increasing their overall effectiveness in combat. What if Palpatine possessed that ability? As he sat there in his chair relatively calm and content, he was influencing his troops as they launched their attack on the rebels. Then when suddenly Luke and Vader are engaged in battle, that becomes all Palpatine is focused on, everything else just appears to lose relavence in his mind and yet it is conveniently at that time the tide of the battle begins to turn. Basically the Battle of Endor was lost by the Empire because that one edge they had kept up for years was suddenly missing because Palpatine was distracted.

Chuck does bring this up in his review of KOTOR, but that is a theory that appeared in the Thrawn trilogy. Thrawn theorized that battle meditation is the most logical explanation for why everything went to shit as soon as Palpatine died.

Though I've never personally heard the observation in regards to the movie itself, but that does kind of gel with the idea.

Did the EU not end up making it a step more complicated? I'm sure it's eventually revealed that Palpatine didn't know Battle Meditation, but one of his trusted advisors was a Force Sensitive with a talent for it. Sensing Palpatine's death was enough of a distraction that he couldn't keep his concentration up, or something like that.

Honestly, it's sort of indicative of the issues that ended up being a part of the EU, the constant retconning and fudging that people did to try and make a mass of stories into a single, semi-coherent universe.

[Jonathan101]

Legends wise, I find it hard to believe that Palpatine didn't know Battle Meditation, since the whole point of the Rule of Two is that each Sith attempts to master as many aspects of the Force as possible, and Palpatine was a genius and supposedly the most powerful Sith who ever lived up to that point with the debatable exception of Vader. At the very least, he should know HOW to do it even if he never actually used it before.

At the same time, I also don't think Palpatine was using it- he was more than a little distracted during Endor, after all, and Battle Meditation requires a fair amount of concentration. And really, he was just arrogant enough to think that he didn't need it- the Rebels faced an entire Imperial fleet AND a Death Star (that they didn't know was active), with inferior ships and no expectation that they were flying into a trap. As far as he was concerned, this was an easy win, to the point that he was more concerned with how their crushing defeat would infuriate Luke than whether or not they actually had a chance.

[Yukaphile]

I believe what others have said. He got distracted by the far more interesting spectacle of Luke vs. Vader, and was arrogant enough to believe his forces could crush the Rebels anyway. He didn't know about the Ewoks, and that he lost focus was around the time Chewbacca commandeered an AT-ST walker.

[Alinis]

They planned to eat the stormtroopers. I'm pretty sure this is supported by canon.

Yeah there were even a few old EU stories that did take into account the ewoks behavior and had the ewoks to have killed and eaten some of the imperial stormtroopers stationed on the moon before the rebels even showed up on the moon.

Which admittedly makes the empire's defensive planning for their shield generator look even more stupid given they had to know about the whole natives wanting to eat them bit though maybe Palpatine thought it was amusing his stormtroopers were getting eaten...

Which given some of his behavior both in the movies and the old EU wouldn't surprise me one bit to be honest.

[Yukaphile]

I maintain he didn't know about the Ewoks.

[Deledrius]

I maintain he didn't know about the Ewoks.

Does the force not provide for this? It seems like sensing a clump of lifeforms would be an automatic ability.

[Yukaphile]

He couldn't sense Luke in the shuttle approaching Endor. I rest my case.

[Deledrius]

He couldn't sense Luke in the shuttle approaching Endor. I rest my case.

Good point.

[Yukaphile]

Sometimes, it's just that easy.