james riggs

Okay, if we're doing Anakin Chudwalker, and we want a coherent story instead of just hype and aura edits, the Malfoid-style "change just one thing" has to be Padme. It's the moment in AOTC where they're discussing politics in that field in Naboo. Have her actually share Anakin's frustrations with the Republic and the broken system. You don't have to drastically change her whole personality, it's actually good if she functions as a check on his impulsiveness and anger, but let her relate to what he's saying enough that he really trusts her and feels he can talk to her about anything. If you change that, then years later when he's having visions of her death and Palpatine is manipulating him, he'll actually tell her about it, and she, being a politician and a lot better at understanding that world, will be the one who puts two and two together and realizes that Palpatine is playing everyone against each other. Now you have two things that are true simultaneously: Palpatine is the source of all their problems, and the Republic is clearly broken if its system allowed that to happen in the first place. They conspire together to hijack Palpatine's plan for themselves. The moment Palpatine kills Mace and believes he's won, Anakin strikes him down. Anakin activates Order 66, but tells the clones to capture the Jedi if possible, not exterminate them. Padme has built a political coalition in the Senate that legitimizes Anakin's mostly bloodless coup, allowing him, as the hero of the Clone Wars, to step seamlessly into the role of Emperor after he kills the Separatist leaders on Mustafar and ends the war. Anakin knows what has to be done, and Padme knows how to make it all technically legal. The Jedi are given an ultimatum: submit to the new order and continue as its knights, or face the purge if they insist on clinging to the old, broken way. Most ultimately accept legitimate Senate authority. Those that don't get crushed by Emperor Vader and his Inquisitors. Instead of Palpatine as a Hitler figure, we get Anakin as a Caesar figure. Significant government purges happen. Corrupt officials and lunatics like Tarkin are quickly retired, or executed if they try to fight it. Thrawn becomes Grand Moff instead of Tarkin. He runs the military and ensures its loyalty to the throne. Padme keeps the Senate compliant. The surviving Jedi are reorganized under Ahsoka's command. Anakin fulfills his destiny as the chosen one by bringing balance to the Force, ending the binary choice between the joyless stagnation of the light and the self-destructive hedonism of the dark by studying the path of the Bendu and the Father that runs between them. Anakin focuses on expanding the Empire's reach across the galaxy and eliminating slavery and lawlessness. His methods are harsh, those who cannot be civilized, like the Tuskens, or who cannot be trusted, like the Hutts, are wiped out. But he isn't pointlessly cruel. He doesn't do dumb shit like enslave the wookiees for no reason or blow up planets just to prove he can. He takes Thrawn's advice and builds a highly effective normal military instead of ruinously expensive terror weapons. The Outer Rim is brought to heel. The cartels are destroyed. The government is authoritarian but actually effective and overall quality of life in the galaxy has improved, so most people think Anakin has simply brought order and major rebellions don't occur. Then 45 years later, the threat Anakin has been preparing for since he discovered it in Palpatine's holocrons finally arrives: the Yuuzhan Vong. This serves as the ultimate test of the system Anakin spent his entire adult life building. Old-Man-akin leads from the front, but eventually falls in battle when the Executor is boarded and Shimrra Jamaane strikes him down in a duel. Luke, with Mara Jade as his empress, ascends the throne and avenges his father by turning back the Vong invasion. Anakin's Force Ghost smiles as his son vindicates his life's work. Once the Vong are vanquished and the galaxy is unified and at peace, the Empire's totalitarian posture relaxes under Luke, who is of a less autocratic bent than his father was, and by the era of emperor Cade Skywalker, the system has transitioned back from a functionally absolute monarchy to a constitutional one, and structurally resembles the Fel Empire with the Jedi having been rebuilt as the Imperial Knights.