Let us suppose for a moment the existence of a being of enormous intelligence, vast power, and an evil will. This hypothetical “Evil Genius” would also exist beyond the realms of Known Galaxy, but have the ability to contact select people there to carry out its will. But, why would these pawns in the Known Galaxy willingly choose to carry out the will of the Evil Genius whom they do not know, cannot immediately reward them, and has no ability to coerce them into anything? The Evil Genius would have to present a “False Face” whom its pawns trust or owe allegiance to. Of course, this False Face could not just be as simple as a mask or voice altering microphone in order to be convincing enough to attract capable followers. It would have to be a full recreation of the face’s original template. In other words, a clone.
Throughout The Mandalorian, the concept of cloning has cropped up again and again, far too many times to be coincidental. It usually manifests in the form of a secret Imperial cloning project, with vague goals that our heroes (and by extension the audience) never really get to learn about. Another oddity is the fact that villains who should logically be dead have been appearing alive and well at an unusually high rate. These returned villains have also been known to act in erratic and uncharacteristic ways. An uncreative person may say that both of these reoccurrences are just due to lazy writing. However, I believe that there is a far more deliberate and sinister explanation for these phenomena. Our supposedly hypothetical Evil Genius is very much real, and the “Returning” Villains are all clones created by it to metaphorically wear as False Faces to manipulate events in the Known Galaxy to its whims. But that of course raises an important question. Who are the False Faces?
The most obvious example of a False Face would be Emperor Palpatine, specifically when he appears in The Rise of Skywalker. But of course, this is not the real Emperor. In the novelization, Kylo Ren explicitly recognizes him as a clone. The Cloned Emperor claims to be inhabited by the original Emperor’s soul, but there is no way to explicitly tell if he is being honest or not. There are two potential ways that this could align with the Cloned Emperor being a False Face for the Evil Genius.
The Cloned Emperor is a direct avatar for the Evil Genius, and he is simply telling a lie to maintain the illusion that he is the Emperor reborn.
The Cloned Emperor is a semi-independent being who does not even realize that the Evil Genius is pulling his strings, and was mentally programmed to believe that he contained the soul of the Original Emperor.
Using the Emperor as a False Face would make perfect sense for the Evil Genius. Given that the Imperial Military borderline worshiped him, just about nobody in the Imperial Remnants would dare disobey him or question whether or not he was the real Palpatine. Just look at all of the cultists on Exegol. The mere thought that their “Emperor” could be a fake has clearly never crossed their minds. But obviously, the Evil Genius could not do everything with just one False Face. The Emperor is more an overarching figure, who is useful for large-scale coordination. But he cannot be used to personally lead and micromanage military campaigns. For this, the Evil Genius would need someone else. Someone like a certain Moff with a heavy association with cloning.
I believe that Moff Gideon was also a False Face used by the Evil Genius. When he was first introduced, Cara Dune expressed confusion about his state, believing that he had been executed by the New Republic for his war crimes. Perhaps he actually was? Additionally, throughout The Mandalorian, Gideon’s Remnant is constantly experimenting with cloning and midichlorians. If Gideon was the first of the Evil Genius’s False Faces (it is not entirely clear when the Cloned Emperor was created), then it stands to reason that he would be experimenting with how to create more, and how to make them more powerful. The reason it was so important to him that Dr. Pershing be permanently silenced was so he could not reveal the true purpose of his experiments, and Gideon’s nature as a False Face. In fact, it is entirely plausible that Pershing was the one who created the Gideon False Face, and was thus one of the few people in direct contact with the Evil Genius. This would make disposing of him absolutely crucial. I am less sure about it, but I also believe that Elia Kane, the Communications Officer who eliminated Pershing, may have also been a False Face. If I am not mistaken, she was previously shown getting killed during the bridge shootout when Moff Gideon was originally captured. I am less certain about this though, because I do not see why the Evil Genius would bother to create a False Face for such a minor role, and risk its discovery.
One last villain I think may be a False Face is Grand Admiral Thrawn, as he appeared in Ahsoka. When we last saw him in Rebels, things did NOT look good for the Grand Admiral’s long term health. He was getting immobilized and strangled by Purrgil, about to jump to Hyperspace on a ship with destroyed viewports, and had Ezra Bridger (an enemy with more than enough reason to kill him) right in front of him. And yet somehow, he shows up alive and well 10 years later with not even a scar. His remaining stormtroopers seem to have an unhealthy devotion to him, which goes far beyond the normal Imperial sense of duty, just like the Cloned Emperor’s cultists on Exegol. For all we know, the Evil Genius has turned Thrawn into a messianic figure for these stormtroopers, by having him rise from the dead as a clone. As for how the Evil Genius can reach Peridia to do this, remember that it exists outside of the Known Galaxy.
Even with all of this, there is still one question that remains unanswered. Just who is the Evil Genius behind all of these False Faces? While it is hard to say for sure, I have someone who I think is a strong candidate: Atha Prime.
Atha Prime was a villain created for a Star Wars toyline that never got off of the ground. He was described as a brilliant genetic scientist and “Clone Master”, who was the original architect of the infamous Clone Wars (this was before the Prequel Trilogy). He lived in a dominion called the Dark Worlds outside of the Known Galaxy, where he ruled as a cruel despot. After the death of his rival, Emperor Palpatine, Atha Prime would begin waging war upon the freshly-liberated galaxy with an army of Clone Warriors, and would ally himself with Imperial Remnant Forces.
If you changed just a few details of the above description, you would have a perfect match with the Evil Genius. They both heavily use clones, got involved with Imperial Remnants, and live beyond the Known Galaxy. With all of this, I believe that the Evil Genius is a reworked version of Atha Prime who has been manipulating the events of the entire Star Wars franchise after Return of the Jedi from the shadows using his cloned False Faces. He is the mysterious evil alluded to on Peridia in Ahsoka, and the force that Emperor Palpatine felt calling out to him from the Unknown in the Aftermath Trilogy before his death. When Atha Prime finally takes off the false faces, that will be the true ending of Star Wars.
