[COMPETITION][FAMOUS PEOPLE] - Lucyeth vs Black Eagle

The rules are as follows:

1. Each participant has to make three posts.
   Each post has to count at least 250 words and the maximum of 2500 words.
   Not meeting the minimum word count discounts a post.
   Not posting three posts makes a participant lose the debate.
   The participant, who is assigned to start a debate, chooses the first option.
   The first round lasts till the 10th of April.[/list:u]
   
   Topic of the debate: Emperor Palpatine – a genius planner or an incompetent leader?
   
   Lucyeth: You provide arguments for Emperor Palpatine being a genius planner.
   Black Eagle: You provide arguments for Emperor Palpatine being an incompetent leader?

Emperor Palpatine was a genius planner of his time. To give you some background, He had a natural interest to gain power and self-glory at a young age by collecting Dark side artifacts. According to Star Wars Wikia, he met Hugo Demask who was the Sith Lord known as Darth Plagueis. The Sith Lord manipulated the young Palpatine to kill his father and dedicate himself to the Dark Side of the Force. Now granted Darth Sidious, he trained under the tutelage of Darth Plagueis (Wookiepedia,Darth Plagueis).

This is where Palpatine began to use his great skills of planning. He became an ambassador of his home planet of Naboo while he continued his double life as a trained Dark Lord. He was a skilled master at deception, masking his identity and aiding Plagueis, who also had a double life as the leader of Demask Holdings, they both put the plans in motion for the Sith Grand Plan. According to the Rule of Two by Darth Bane, the two sith remained in the shadows with their double identities to work the pieces together from the inside(Karpyshyn,Darth Bane Rule of Two). Palpatine orchestrated Viceroy Gunray to lead the trade federation, banking clan, and other federation supporters on an invasion of his own planet. This act brought the Sith into the light of the Jedi through his sith assassin, Darth Maul. This left the Jedi off guard as they knew about the rule of two however, were uncertain whether Maul was the master or apprentice. This act further concerned the Jedi Order as they believed that the Sith have returned but the plans of Palpatine were already in step. Palpatine used the invasion of Naboo to convince the Queen to authorize a vote of no confidence against Chancellor Valorum. This allowed Palpatine to be nominated to the seat of Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. He took on a new apprentice, Darth Tyranus, who was perceived as the Sith Lord in the face of the Jedi. His apprentice, more commonly known as Count Dooku, had his own royal wealth and power of the force to fund the efforts and be seen as the Sith Lord of the whole cause.

Dooku killed his old friend, Jedi Master Sifo Dyas, who created an army of clones to combat the Trade Federation. Dooku initiated the clone army with a secret code that would kill the Jedi. Dooku assembled this army of clones under the DNA of an elite mandalorian warrior and bounty hunter known as Jango Fett. With the clone army made based on advanced combat skills of a mandalorian, he allowed the clone army to be discovered by the Jedi under Sidious’s instruction. The blood of Sifo Dyas was put into the making of General Grievous, a hometown warrior who would become the face of the Separatist Aggression. Palpatine fulfilled his duties as Supreme Chancellor while keeping the Grand Plan in motion. He was so skilled in his masking abilities that Yoda could not detect his power until it was too late. Palpatine used the separatist leaders to continue their federation under Dooku and initiated the Clone wars. The Clone Wars allowed Palpatine to manipulate the senate to grant more authority to the office of the Supreme Chancellor. By the time, he was discovered; the senate was simply a puppet body of the Chancellor. Palpatine manipulated Anakin Skywalker to the teachings of the Dark Side, thus destroying the theory of the Chosen One and begin the Purge of the Jedi through Order 66. Once this started, the war that was orchestrated by the Sith was ended and Palpatine convinced the Senate that the Republic would be better and more stable as an Empire rather than a Republic. Representatives of each planet were changed to Moffs, which were governors of a particular system. It indeed was though due to all the power given to the newly anointed Emperor, the Galaxy was dictated by one single individual.

There was more order and less corruption under Emperor Palpatine rather than the weak philosophy and hierarchy of the Galactic Republic and all of this was brought into reality through a complete reshape of the galaxy by the extraordinary planning of Emperor Palpatine.

Despite the careful and very well planned out take over by Palpatine, He made many errors that can be attributed to his downfall. One of his pitfalls is his GREAT ego for which, in my opinion, should have been put in a Galaxy world Record book if that exists instead of greatest leader.

His first mistake would be to replace the best army the galaxy had ever seen with conscripts and sub-par clones. With the fall of the Republic, Palpatine had the Clone Army in his hands to be used as he wished. These Clones were so well trained that they were able to defeat their Jedi generals. The clones were also "programmed" to be loyal to him so there was very little chance of them betraying him or the Empire. He had the resources to continue the production of clones hence the creation of his massive fleet of star destroyers and the two Death Stars. Not using clones also hurt his officer core. The loss of officers and NCOs who were trained from birth also would cause problems. This leaves room for great error due to officers who were recruited. Though many Officers in the Imperial Navy were from military families or highly educated/wealthy families, this does not mean that these officers were not prone to stupidity. The only counter to this were the Admirals who commanded fleets along side the Jedi but considering that the Jedi often commanded ground troops, Their experience and expertise were lost and would have to be replaced by new generals who hadn't seen battle. If the Kaminoans refused to continue cloning, all Palpatine needed to do was order the Clones to force them to continue.

Although there were Clones in the Imperial Army most were not of Jango Fett's genetic DNA and therefore did not have the greater aptitude of the original Clones. After the attack on Kamino the genetic material of Jango Fett was lost and the Empire resorted to Clones of another host. These Clones were noticeable much less potent then the original Clones and many “Fett Clones” voiced concern over these genetically inferior clones. Even with these Clones the Empire began enlisting Humans further decreasing the effectiveness of the Imperial Army. The least Palpatine could do was find a suitable host similar to Jango Fett's stature. Over time the Fett Clones would dwindle and be outnumbered by humans and inadequte clones.

The next pitfall I found in Palpatine is his over-extended ego that would end up being his downfall. Killing Darth Plagueis, his master, would be one of the first big events that help prop up his ego. This would continue with the success of his manipulation of Queen Amidala of Naboo and appointment to the position of Chancellor. All of this would culminate to create the biggest narcissist the galaxy had ever seen. This overblown ego would lead to his feelings of near invincibility. He would create second death star despite having his first super weapon destroyed by a couple of fighters and bombers. In addition to ignoring the fact that he lost such an expensive tool, he also goes on to purposefully inform the rebels, his enemies, the location of the second death star which wasn't even completed yet.

Going back to my first point, the Battle of Endor is the perfect example of the flaws in the Empires military. (Though I will not mention the Ewoks because that was obviously what is referred to as the “Stormtrooper Effect” and does not properly reflect the quality of Imperial ground forces.). The Naval forces, on the other hand, where massed against the motley fleet of the Rebel Alliance. Despite this great advantage The officers in charge were still unable to defeat the Rebels.

Palpatine, despite his accomplishments, is an incompetent leader. His ego has led to numerous failures on his part. His new military doctrine resembled CIS tactics of overwhelming the enemy with numbers but on a lesser scale. The Clones who relied on creative and adaptive thinking. This was something that was strongly lacking in Imperial forces.

I disagree that Palpatine has a big ego but, rather he emanated an enormous amount of self-confidence and high motivation. This may come off as arrogant however; he has every right with such brilliant planning that took over the galaxy without the Jedi even discovering before it was already too late. He had everything he wanted to achieve with his perfect planning that even his apprentice never truly knew his full intentions. He provided his own security of his careful planning by only giving his apprentice certain set of instructions and doing his bidding while remaining in the dark of his entire scheme.

The clone army was indeed a great army, for its own purpose which it served well as part of Palpatine’s Grand Plan. They were designed to appear as the perfect army for the republic to ward off the impending threat of the Separatist forces. There were outfitted based on the DNA of a perfect soldier with some units personally trained by Jango Fett himself. The order 66 was coded into each clone that no one had any idea about. However, this is not to say that the code was perfect as there was a small fraction of troopers that disobeyed the direct order of the code. This was set up to ensure that there would be minimal rebellion and maximum obedience in the plans of Palpatine, which came to bear with the destruction of the Jedi Order and the restructure of a democratic republic into a dictatorial empire.

In the era of the Galactic Empire, the military did have some humans in active duty with fewer clones over time. This was also planned out by Palpatine through his skills of planning and superb leadership role. This was intended by Palpatine to cover his tracks from the days of the republic and prevent any possible mishaps that could occur. The possibility of someone that could tamper with codes such as Order 66 in the brains of clones would destroy everything that Palpatine had planned and worked up to that point. An example is the use of humans for platoon commanders or admirals who ensured that there was more obedience and order throughout the chain of command of the Imperial military. This also provided Palpatine with the popular approval of his actions with the citizens. The incorporation of human officers generally came from military families or upper class elites. This was done intentionally to essentially disarm the masses and arm the elite. This was the foundation of order and security of the empire which was an efficient method of a rule through fear concept. This was an era of the galaxy that has seen more order and less corruption than any point in history of the galaxy.

Palpatine was always an individual that craved more power. To clarify, Palpatine killed Plagueis when there was no more power that could be gained. He had harnessed all the skills he could learn from him and simply followed the Rule of Two. There was no longer a need to keep Plagueis alive and it was the time to take the mantle of the master, to keep the Sith Order strong. Furthermore, he was in a better position than Plagueis as an ambassador and later, nominated for Chancellor, which he won. The seeds of his leadership were already planted with his Grand Plan therefore, Plagueis became useless and more so, a potential threat.

The battle of Endor can be directly pointed at the fact that Luke Skywalker, then a Jedi was captured and brought before the Emperor. Palpatine had a sufficient size military to wipe out the rebellion at this key battle. He had not anticipated that Skywalker would manipulate his apprentice during the encounter. Skywalker being there and Vader’s failure to taking care of his son himself when the chance presented itself was the problem. Palpatine had to divert his efforts towards the Jedi rather than coordinating the battle or using battle meditation which led the battle to a failure, not Palpatine’s tactics of planning.

Palpatine had many pieces of his plan that could be seen as a flaw but rest assured, these pieces were all part of his plan and he knew exactly how to proceed. His big ego was merely his tremendous self confidence in his plans combined with high motivation that had shown through his great planning.