He's been secretly cloning himself. Luke Skywalker has been cloned and revived by Mara Jade so she can kill him but falls in love and they team up to not get pregnant with Darth Caedus but accidentally give birth to Darth Plagueis who tries to convince Anakin that he can travel back through force time and stop Palpatine from dying so he could kill him himself. And Rey is really powerful.

Hmm ok I guess.

Well that would be an unexpected twist

Either way, star wars would've ended then and there

The Final Order would reign over the galaxy for some years.

A 19 year old orphan on a desert planet would eventually team up with a hotshot pilot and/or Final Order deserter and fly an iconic ship on adventure to find some old Jedi on a green planet and blow up a planet-killer in the process. Orphan would become Jedi and the galaxy last last last hope, starts off with blue saber and then later a non-blue one. Jedi finds out they have connection to the Emperor or his apprentice, epic throne room showdown eventually ensues while the ever ragtag rebels fight an all or nothing battle against planet destroying device(s). Palpatine begs the protagonist to kill him and lightning is used. Emperor *dies* although we’ll never know if he’s really gone. Rebels celebrate, plan to rebuild a new New Republic, telling themselves that 3rd time’s the charm!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the OT 3.0, brought to you by Lucasfilm while George Lucas hangs himself over what a cash bantha Star Wars became.

^ Poor old Lucas never made a dime from the kind of franchise tie-in marketing that he invented.

Maybe he did win? Rey killed him like he asked her to do, just didn't physically cut him down.

She destroyed his physical body yeah. But his essence? Not sure. Perhaps she dispersed it as finely as possible so it would take potentially thousands of years to put itself together again.

I mean if he could survive the death star explosion, surely he could survive this!

What, he didn't win?