Snoke, Leader of the First Order, seducer of Ben Solo to the Darkside, and… well that’s about all we really know isn’t it? I mean we know he’s not human but humanoid, he saw the Rise and Fall of the Empire and he has force abilities. There have been a TON of theories about who Snoke is from Anakin to Palpatine to Plaguies and for the most part they are terrible. However there is one that might not be and it follows along with my thinking as of late. Lets dig in and warning possible spoilers ahead.

The latest Aftermath novel has given us a few possible clues into where Snoke comes from and they all point to Jakku.

First we know from the first Aftermath novel that the Emperor was looking for the source of the darkside and believed it to be in or past the unknown regions of the galaxy. From Aftermath:

“Palpatine felt that the universe beyond the edges of our map was where his power came from. Over the many years he, with our aid, sent men and women beyond known space. They built labs andcommunication stations on distant moons, asteroids, out there in the wilds. We must follow them. Retreat from the Galaxy. Go out beyond the veil of stars. We must seek the source of the dark side like a man looking for a wellspring of water.”

On canon maps Jakku is relatively close to the unknown regions, at least compared to most of the other known canon planets so it would be a good jumping off point for exploration. In fact, the Star Wars databank entry for Jakku. states that:

During the final years of the Galactic Civil War, Jakku was the site of a secret Imperial research base and served as a jumping-off point for warships heading into the Unknown Regions.

From the second novel, and from the Force Awakens Visual Dictionary, we know the Empire set up a research base on Jakku that the Emperor himself scouted:

The Emperor set droids to excavating something on Jakku and recruited a local boy he sensed the force in, to protect it. That boy becomes Gallius Rax who is leading the remnants of the Empire in Aftermath series.

That leads us to one of the two theories that evolve out of the main idea of Snoke being from Jakku. ReptoidRyuu posted this theory on Gallius Rax being Snoke. There is real potential for this theory in my mind however I have a couple of issues with it. First Rax is human of not extraordinary height where Snoke is humanoid and around 7 ft. Without some sort of body-modification such as some sort of growth formula, Rax then couldn’t be 7 foot tall. Second, we also know from the Visual guide that Snoke has had at least one apprentice before. I think its more likely that Rax was Snoke’s apprentice than Snoke himself. Therefore, I think the Rax theory is drawn into question, although not impossible.

The next theory is that Snoke is the one they are digging up on Jakku. Palpatine stated that Jakku was significant 1000 years before the events of the Star Wars saga. From wookieepedia:

But what exactly was this object? Could this object be some sort of stasis chamber that stores Snoke? The problem with this is that it is said that Snoke saw the rise and fall of the Empire, so he couldn’t be frozen in such a stasis chamber. He would have to be awake and alert all that time, which then draws into question why Palpatine would refer to him as an “object”. If Palpatine was unaware of what was buried Snoke would be plausible in my mind. Palpatine was not know as the most trusting soul in the Universe so he may have merely said object to prevent others from having any idea what he was digging up however this is unlikely.

So if Rax isn’t Snoke and the buried object isn’t Snoke then why does Jakku point to Snoke? We’re heading into pure speculation at this point, but Jakku could be how Snoke has monitored the events of the Galaxy. The object that Palpatine is excavating is some sort of tool or focusing device that allows Snoke and those that came before him to monitor the rest of the galaxy from the Unknown Regions. Snoke is not a Sith, but he is a darkside master. Since the Sith “past” is now mostly quantified as Legends its possible the Sith were an offshoot of the same Darkside practitioners that Snoke descends from. I believe we will find that Jakku is where the Sith met their end 1000 years before and the Darkside group that they came from set up a way to monitor the galaxy for their possible return, figuring Jakku would be a starting point. This is how Snoke monitored and watched as The Empire rose and fell and was able to influence the events after through his apprentice Rax. Time will tell, possibly in the form of the next Aftermath novel.

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