Yeah, going to agree with earlier discussions that we need more Confederate friendly SW stories. Somehow the people (even if some of them are greedy corpos) fighting against what is rapidly and priorly for many years- slowly- becoming the Empire which is the villain of the OT are somehow the bad guys. I mean what? The people who want to leave a corrupt, inefficient, unfair, exploitative, neglectful, and so on system and who were canonically attacked first are somehow the villains of the piece and not the corrupt regime that is rapidly becoming an authoritarian dictatorship (which is also led by an evil space wizard) and who are using force against people who only wish to seek self-determination. Suuuuure.
So yeah, I'd probably want to see some stories- probably fanfics since the Mouse and LucasFilm seem steadfast in refusing to actually make it nuanced. Really dig into why things are the way they are in the OT...which Legends actually tried to do. One option is a Count Dooku returns to the light and goes legit (like the path from the upcoming HOI mod). Or maybe he was running a long con. Or focus on the people who are the actual grassroots members of the movement...
Another side thought, I wonder how Stormtrooper armour actually would work against actual Shrapnel and not fragmentation, because people conflate them and checking on wikpedia it seems to actually be strong against the latter and not actual Shrapnel which is actually designed to pierce things. Also going to say that Stormtrooper armour being strong against firearms makes little sense, since you know they are largely facing people with Blaster weapons- so it should be heat resistant and not resistant to kinetics (but still resistant to fragmentation)
The Separatists were worse than the Republic by basically every metric; as sad as that is. Sure, that was largely because Palpatine was running both sides and wanted to make the Separatists the baddies but it's still true.
Dooku can't "return to the light" once the war starts properly. Or to be more precise, him trying plays right into Palpatine's hands.
If the Jedi refuse to take him back then nothing changes, well besides Palpatine having to slot in whomever is his on tap Dooku replacement as Separatist leader.
If the Jedi try to take him back then he activates Order 66 early on the grounds of Jedi treason and if they try to call him Sith, well they are the ones who just took back the leader of the Separatists, the former apprentice of Yoda, the man that the Jedi were calling Sith only days before, and suddenly on his word the Chancellor of the Republic (the politician with the highest approval ratings in the entire Republic incidentally) is the big bad Sith?
If Dooku tries to break with Palpatine/go light but remain as Separatist leader/not return to the Jedi then Palpatine just has him assassinated (or does it himself if he has to) and again replaces him.
By the time the war starts, the Jedi are already screwed and Palpatine has already won. The Jedi's last true chance to fuck over Palpatine would have been to publicly condemn the Grand Army of the Republic as a slave army, publicly refuse to have anything to do with it, and publicly call the Senate slave masters and demand an investigation into just how the Republic happened to have a slave army on hand and ready to do. Of course, that has the risk of backfiring as the Jedi are officially the ones who created that army but whether or not the Jedi knew that at the time *shrug*; and the Jedi Council publicly condemning the whole thing and repudiating whomever was involved in its creation could likely be enough.
Of course, even then Palpatine just reforms the Separatists somewhat and goes for the Separatist victory (or at least stops holding them back so much).
By the time the war starts, Palpatine controls most of the major transstellar corporations, including the Banking Clans and Kuat. He controls at least a third of the Senate. He controls a great many of the core world and critical world governments. He controls the droid armies of the Separatists.
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The really interesting thing is what happens if Anakin wins at Mustaffar or Padme doesn't follow him. Because if Padme dies without it being Anakin's direct fault (at least in his own mind)? After he swore allegiance to Palpatine specifically to save her? A healthy Anakin in that situation would turn on Palpatine immediately and thanks to Palpatine's own PR and the Senate situation at the time he could very well make his own claim to the throne stick.
Hell, just Padme surviving childbirth without Palpatine having to intervene would cause issues. The one person that Palpatine can't really turn on at that time is a healthy Anakin. He isn't the mysterious Darth Vader, Palpatine's personal hit man and problem solver. He is Anakin Skywalker, the Hero With No Fear, the Saviour of the Emperor, the one who saved the Republic from the treasonous Jedi and threw them down. Padme is, again, one of the most beloved people in the galaxy and a bonafide war hero while also appealing to basically every anti-Palpatine faction politically speaking. And she's married to Anakin, the mother of his two children.
The Skywalkers are very much the first family of the Empire. Anakin basically has to be Palpatine's declared Heir, PR alone demands it. Until and unless Palpatine takes a wife, Padme is the First Lady of the Empire and everyone knows that Luke will be Emperor someday.
Moving against the Skywalkers? Palpatine can't survive that in the early days of the Empire, it would see open revolt against him. He has the Force, but Anakin is a Master level Force user in his own right and would absolutely have unlimited access to everything from the Jedi temple along with being able to basically demand that Palpatine fulfill his bargain and teach him the Sith ways. If he tries to move against Padme or the kids, well he would never risk that because if Anakin gets even a whiff of his culpability then its open war between the two of them.
Then you have the other issue. A few whispered words from Padme and suddenly Anakin remembers his anti-slavery stance and that he became a Jedi to free the slaves on Tatooine/from the Hutts. The Empire does have that nice shiny, battle hardened, army and navy on hand. Why not go conquer those deplorable Hutts? Chasing Jedi down? Well Palpatine has his Inquisitors and Hands for that, Anakin has better things to do as head of the military. Padme? "Hey Bail, Mon Motha, thanks for coming over to dinner. It would be a crying shame if I accidentally misplaced this datastick with all of the intel needed to his this pet project of Palpatine's that is over the top evil.", two days later the Rebels assassinate some critical Palpatine supporter or fuck with his plans in a way that benefits Anakin/Padme.