When The Mandalorian‘s Dr. Pershing spoke about his past work for the Empire to an assembly on Coruscant, he revealed something monumental about Star Wars‘ inevitable future. His cloning research is likely the foundation for how scientists will one day create Snoke in a lab. The ramifications of Snoke’s emergence will change the galaxy far, far away forever. Palpatine’s bio-engineered puppet will corrupt Ben Solo’s soul, turn the First Order into a super power, lead to countless deaths, and nearly doom the galaxy to darkness.
But someone else nearly rose to power before the Emperor unleashed his evil avatar on the New Republic. The Mandalorian‘s season three finale showed Moff Gideon was close to taking command of the galaxy with his own Force-sensitive clone army. Now that we know how close he came to achieving that goal we know how someone will eventually create the powerful Supreme Leader. The major question Star Wars still has to answer is who scientists used to make Snoke.
Dr. Pershing, former lead scientist for Moff Gideon, had been trying to advance cloning technology for well-intentioned reasons. Kamino’s scientists could “duplicate an individual from a single genetic strand” as they did with Jango Fett and the Old Republic’s clone army. But Pershing was working to combine “multiple strands that created replicas that incorporated the best genetic attributes of both donors.” He had hoped his work would save peoples’ lives.
Instead his efforts led him to do Gideon’s unholy bidding. Pershing was overseeing the Imperial officer’s own secret cloning endeavor. Gideon’s project independent of the Shadow Council’s “Project Necromancer,” which was about building the dead Palpatine a clone body. The Mandalorian revealed why Gideon was keeping his work hidden and why he had Pershing’s mind fried to keep it that way. Gideon was building his own clone army, only his clones would have been made from both him and the blood of Grogu, giving the Gide-clones Force powers.
An entire army of clones capable of using the Force would have all but guaranteed Gideon’s rule over the galaxy. That nearly happened, too. He told Din Djarin his “unstoppable army” was nearly ready before the bounty hunter destroyed them and helped Bo-Katan (seemingly) kill the Moff.
While Gideon’s Force clones will never “draw their first breath,” though, Snoke will. Someone will use Pershing’s work to accomplish Gideon’s dream. They will make a wholly new being not born with the ability to use the Force bur rather given it. (Yes, that has major ramifications for the Force and midichlorians at large.)
But who will those scientists combine to create Snoke? Will it be Palpatine and someone else? Two Force-users? Will Grogu still be the key to Supreme Leader’s creation? Will it be another famous Jedi? And will Snoke look so weird because Pershing’s brain is fried and no one will successfully match his work? Or is the tall, bald, strange-looking Snoke’s appearance a major clue about whose genes he carries? Gideon’s clones looked exactly like him. Does Snoke look exactly like his own genetic donors?
Snoke is coming. We know how his story will end. We also know his story is not even his, it’s part of Palpatine’s. But The Mandalorian‘s season three finale made clear Star Wars still needs to reveal who else is part of the Snoke story. The unknown people used to create him is one of the galaxy far, far away’s biggest unanswered questions.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at @burgermike, and also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.