Holy Snoke — Snakes, Mace Windu, the Rakata, Jorus C’Baoth and a theory that doesn’t suck

My Snoke theory, stage left

(Spoilers for Revenge of the Sith, The Empire Strikes Back and The Force Awakens — though if you haven’t seen them at this stage, you probably won’t be interested in this).

Of all the theories doing the rounds about who Supreme Leader Snoke is, the dumbest, most implausible, but equally most hilarious and in a twisted way, genius, is that the Star Wars sequel trilogy’s big bad, is really just a nest of snakes hiding inside a bipedal flesh suit. Those scars? Seams where the flesh suit is sewn together.

I can just imagine the big reveal when Luke confronts his new arch enemy;

“You don’t know who I am do you Luke?”

“I know enough, I know you revived the Empire and turned my nephew to the dark side.”

“No Luke, I am just a bunch of snakes sewn into a a flesh suit that resembles a bipedal alien.”

“What?”

“Yeah, one of us met you before as it happens. Remember that cave on Dagobah where you had the vision of Vader and you chopped off his head but it turned out to be you behind the mask? Yeah, that snake that hissed at you?”

“Huh, small galaxy.”

We all have our Snoke theories though, don’t we? Even if you think that Snoke is just a completely new character who has never been seen or alluded to in any previously released Star Wars media before, you have a theory. If you are anyway tuned into popular culture, you will probably have heard the phrase “Your Snoke theory sucks”. It’s become a kind of a meme because, well the vast majority of Snoke theories suck. Rian Johnson even thinks they suck. Here he is, letting us know how much he thinks they suck.

Tarkin? Your theory sucks.

The Plumbing the Death Star podcast (PDS) recently gave a run down of some of these theories, including the snake one and rightly laughed at most of them. I don’t want to dwell on the ones they covered for too long, but do want to mention one theory that sucks that they also think sucks but for the wrong reasons, the Mace Windu theory.

So the Mace Windu is Snoke theory is simple enough; In Revenge of the Sith, Windu and Sidious face off in a duel for the fate of the Galaxy. Windu has gotten the upper hand and is about to slay the Sith lord when Anakin Skywalker steps in and, completing his turn to the dark side and slices of Windu’s sabre hand, giving Sidious/Palpatine the opportunity to blast him with force lightening sending him out the window to a six kilometre high fall.

Recently, Samuel L Jackson who played Mace Windu told the press that he believes Mace Windu survived the drop and presumably after asking George Lucas if this could be the case, Lucas said, “yeah, sure, whatever”, safe in the knowledge that it doesn’t really matter. Some people however, took this as a clue and jumped to the conclusion that Snoke is Windu. Well, that’s just silly, but I do take issue with one of the reasons PDS gave that he isn’t.

One of the PDS guys remarked that Mace Windu was a noble Jedi who had just suffered the worst defeat of his life at the hands of dark siders, so he wouldn’t turn to the dark side. Well, that’s not how the dark side works. Firstly, how noble was Windu? From the moment that he encountered young Anakin Skywalker he was a complete dick to him, his behaviour seemed very like jealousy. Furthermore, Windu’s plan was to overthrow Palpatine and install the Jedi Council as a kind of interim executive of the republic. His defeat came about precisely because he was about to summarily execute Palpatine, rather than arrest him. Not the Jedi way when you think about it.

So, as far as I’m concerned, Windu was a prime candidate for the dark side. He was arrogant, jealous, ruthless and sought power. He also had to have been pretty angry as he fell from that window being fried by force lightening, and we all know what anger leads to. However, the gaping hole in this theory is that Mace Windu was an average height human male not a seven foot alien with long arms and long creepy hands. Not to mention the fact he fell six kilometres. Having said that, maybe he used the force to cushion his fall and his body got stretched out by the force lightening and then his brain became infested by dark side snakes. Imagine the moment Windu comes back to himself in episode IX and casts them out: “I have had enough of these mother fucking snakes on my mother fucking brain!”

Anyway, that leads me on to my Snoke theory. No, it’s not the Plagueis one, though I was swayed towards that in the last week before The Force Awakens came out. My theory is based on a clue on the official Galactic map that was released in the run up to TFA. On the extreme left hand side of the map was the Rakata Prime system. For those of you who don’t know, the Rakata were a race of Dark Side reptilians who ruled what was known as The Infinite Empire, around 35,000 years before the the events of the films. Rakata Prime was their capital system.

A member of the Rakata species

The Rakata first appeared in the Knights of the Old Republic computer game, when the Sith discover some of their technology and attempt to use it in their bid to conquer the republic. Rakata Prime has, to date not appeared in any other Star Wars canon material and it certainly wasn’t put on that map for no reason. In fact, not only is Rakata Prime now canon, but other elements of the KoTOR games have been reintroduced — the obvious one being the planet Malachor which appeared in the season two finale of Rebels.

Prior to being sucked into the Plagueis theory, I thought that maybe Snoke was an ancient Rakata, who had been somehow held in stasis for thousands of years and was discovered at some stage by Palpatine. After I stopped believing that Snoke was Plagueis, I revisited the theory, however the fact that other elements of the old Expanded Universe (Now known as the Legends continuity) had been brought into canon in one way or another got me thinking and I altered the theory. Pray I don’t alter it any further.

In Legends there was a Jedi master named Jorus C’Baoth who was a bit of a pariah in the Jedi Order. He was arrogant, saw himself as something of a philosopher and saw non force sensitives as being inferior. He lead the Outbound Flight mission, which traveled to the unknown regions in search of new species to train in the ways of the force. The Outbound Flight disappeared into the unknown and was never heard from again. C’Baoth encountered the Chiss Grand Admiral Thrawn (who of course has been reintegrated into canon in Rebels), and fell to the dark side in trying to kill him. C’Baoth died, but Palpatine used recovered samples of his DNA to create the insane clone Joruus C’Baoth, who was tasked with guarding a secret research facility.

Jorus C’Baoth

I’m not saying that Snoke is literally C’Baoth, more so that he was inspired by the character and the legends of the Rakata. Here’s my theory. Snoke, a pre-clone wars Jedi, went out into the unknown regions to search for new species and clues as to the origins of the force and is never heard from again. He discovers the ruins of the Rakata and studies their dark side inspired technology, which sends him towards the dark side.

At some stage, Snoke, somewhat weakened by his meddling with this technology and the dark side lore of the Rakata is discovered by Thrawn, who delivers him to Palpatine, who then locks him up to be both guard and prisoner at his research station on Jakku (We know there is something that was important to Palpatine and is critical to the formation of the First Order on Jakku from Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath novels).

After the fall of Palpatine’s Empire, Gallius Rax (a shadowy Imperial tactician from the Aftermath novels), frees Snoke and aims to use him for his own cause. Snoke returns to the New Republic, posing as a Jedi who survived Order 66, he befriends Luke Skywalker and helps him establish a new Jedi Academy. Slowly, over the following decades, he sneaks dark side teachings into the syllabus, eventually turning Ben Solo and others who would become the Knights of Ren to the dark side. Snoke then usurps Rax’s power and takes control of the First Order.

Other than the map, the fact that Star Killer base’s origin point is in the unknown regions supports this theory. Star Killer, may have been widely touted as just another Death Star, but it was far more powerful and could have been a product of Rakata technology. Speaking of Rakata technology, in the KoTOR games there was this thing called the Star Forge that the Sith wanted to use to quickly construct a fleet to conquer the republic. The First Order were certainly very well equipped for a military operation that didn’t exist thirty years prior.

So that’s my Snoke theory. It could possibly be refuted later this month when the third instalment of the Aftermath trilogy, Empire’s End is published, but I believe it’s better than most of the theories out there. As Ahsoka Tano said, “There’s always a bit of truth in legends”, and while a reveal of Snoke as some character we already know would be a bit of a let down, tapping into the lore of Star Wars is something I believe would really work and be well received. Does this theory suck? Well I’ll leave that to you and Rian Johnson to decide.