A Forgotten Star Wars Villain Could Completely Redefine Sith Canon
Like father, like clone son.
Cloning is integral to Star Wars, and not just in Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars. Order 66 and the creation of the Empire wouldn’t have happened without a clone army, and even after the Empire fell, cloning is how Palpatine pulled off the comeback of the millennium in The Rise of Skywalker. Cloning plots continue to be explored in The Bad Batch and The Mandalorian, but what are they leading toward?
The answer may lie in one of the strangest chapters of Star Wars history, and a character who could tie together all these cloning loose ends.
In 1993, Bantam Spectra published the Jedi Prince series of young-reader books. Part of the non-canon Legends timeline, the story follows Ken, a 12-year-old Force-sensitive child swept up in the burgeoning New Republic. Along the way, he hears of Trioculus, a mutant who claims to be the three-eyed son of Palpatine. But while the three-eyed part was true, Trioculus wasn’t the real son of Palpatine.
Lost Legends is an Inverse series about the forgotten lore of our favorite stories.
Trioculus enjoying incredible depth perception on the cover of the novel The Glove of Darth Vader.
The true son of Palpatine — and the true father of young Ken — is actually Triclops, a mutant with three eyes (the bonus eye is on the back of his head). It’s unclear how Palpatine fathered Triclops: he may have been cloned from the Emperor himself, or Palpatine’s close advisor and so-called “Queen of the Empire” Sly Moore may have given birth to him. Regardless, he’s considered the son of Palpatine, but bears no direct relation to the discarded clone who fathered Rey.
Triclops was raised to be a powerful prophet whose predictions came from the Dark Side, but Palpatine, sensing his son would become stronger than him, disowned and enslaved him. Because of this, Triclops was completely unlike his father, becoming a pacifist who hated the Empire.
But unknown to Triclops, the Empire was controlling his thoughts with a mind-control device implanted in his teeth. Even after he escaped slavery his dreams were being used by the Empire to design new weapons, and he was last seen interrupting the wedding of Han and Leia in a fit of implant-induced madness.
Don’t make funny faces while standing behind Triclops.
Triclops, or some less-silly variation of him, could be the perfect conclusion to Star Wars’ recent cloning storylines. We now know, whether we wanted to or not, that Palpatine made sweet love, so a biological son is technically possible. But why not build from Star Wars’ many clone subplots? With Rey getting her own standalone movie, pairing a Palpatine son against a Palpatine clone-granddaughter would be a fun plot. Throw in mind control or conflicted loyalties, and Triclops could serve as a villain before being redeemed and joining Rey. After all, he’s one of the few people who knows what it’s like to be created by the most evil man in the galaxy.
Alternatively, Triclops could be part of the big finale to the New Republic saga that’s centered around The Mandalorian. Triclops, as Palpatine’s son, would have been considered the heir to the Empire in the years following Return of the Jedi, which is exactly when the upcoming Mando-verse movie directed by Dave Filoni will be set. Ahsoka appears to have set Thrawn up as Mando’s big villain, but the galaxy is big enough for a couple of baddies. We know the Empire’s obsession with cloning isn’t going out of fashion, so why not build towards a twist rather than just Palpatine’s return?
As Star Wars ventures back into movies, there needs to be a villain who can stand in the shadows of Palpatine. Why not his literal successor? He could offer a terrifying new take on an Emperor, while maybe also serving a new role after a tooth extraction.
