Ok, so I was kicking back and reading the latest LotF book (which will remain nameless, as I think I got it early) and it got me thinking. In the books, there's a nasty Sith who can project thoughts to others. So here we go. Keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle, and hang on for the ride.

Everyone presumes Anakin Skywalker was such a powerful Force user that, even without focusing, he could get random visions of the future (like, say, in dreams). These visions gave him goals that he fought for, to the point of driving himself to the edge of insanity and over to the dark side of the Force. These visions led to the fall that would cast the galaxy into the dark for decades.

But were they truly visions of the future?

After following the career of Jedi Skywalker with great interest, Palpatine had become a close friend and advisor to the young man. During this time, it's very likely that Anakin would have shared his thoughts, worries, fears, and ambitions.

Now, years later, Anakin gets a vision of his mother, in trouble, being hurt, and near death. The one strong, emotional link to his past life, the main reason that Yoda didn't want him trained, and suddenly he has a vision that makes him run off with no plan and eventually leads to one of his first major expressions of the Dark Side.

A few years later, he gets yet another vision, this time of his one solid touchstone to the future - his wife and children, his family - in danger of dying. Again, he runs off with little in the way of goal other than "Save Padmé" and ends up completing his fall and becoming the newest Dark Lord of the Sith.

So, what if they weren't visions? What if they were projections? What if Palpatine, the True Lord of the Dance....er....Sith, knowing Anakins fears and weaknesses, projected these images, knowing exactly what buttons to push to make the youngster loose all sense of right and wrong? Palpatine manipulated the Senate, the courts, his 'friends,' pretty much the entire galaxy. Why should Anakin, the powerful force that Palpatine desperately wanted as his muscle, be an exception?

I present for your consideration that he was not an exception. I suggest that the 'nightmare visions' that led Anakin to his fall were actually planted there by Lord Sidious, soon-to-be-Emperor Palpatine. The visions were planted as dreams, and we exactly the right thing to make Anakin act recklessly, but predictably to one who knew his innermost thoughts.







Or maybe it was a bad glass of blue milk, leading to indigestion....