(This post assumes you are relatively familiar with all six episodes of the Star Wars saga. Just peg me an uber-geek if you're not.)
After watching Revenge of the Sith for the second time a couple weeks ago, it finally dawned on me that the machinations of Darth Sidious were farther reaching than I had originally thought. Or so I here claim.
Here is what I think: (And this is by no means a new thought. The Star Wars geek-iverse is rife with this sort of speculation.)
Darth Sidious, through manipulation of the midi-chlorians in the Skywalker line, intentionally brought about the conception of Anakin Skywalker to be trained as his Sith successor, thereby unwittingly fulfilling the 'prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the Force' and ultimately spelling his own demise.
Consider the following:
From The Phantom Menace:
Shmi claimed that she could not explain Anakin's birth. She simply bore him and gave birth to him. This had never, so far as we know, happened to anyone else in the whole wide galaxy. Given the lack of any sort of pantheon of gods in the Star Wars universe, this smacks much more of some sort of mortal intervention than immaculate conception.
At the end of the movie, Palpy was rubbing Anakin's hair (very paternally and casually for a senator, 'twould seem) and saying, "we shall watch your career with great interest!" Why would he have any interest in Anakin's burgeoning career?! Though he's a Sith Lord, all Palpatine would know at that point is that here's some recently rescued slave-boy about to be trained as a Jedi. Whoop-ti-do.
From Attack of the Clones:
Two Sith apprentices are evident at the same time, even though it is clearly known that 'always two there are; no more, no less'. (I don't know this for a fact, and will have to peruse the first two movies a little more closely to confirm.)
Jango said to Obi-Wan that he was recruited by a man named Tyranus. Now, Tyranus is Count Dooku, and for him to have recruited Jango to be cloned (at the behest of Sidious), it would had to have happened over 10 years previously, given the age of the oldest clones. (Obi-Wan clearly states in a transmission to the council that the Jedi who allegedly placed the order was killed '...over ten years ago.')
I'm a little fuzzy here, but that would seem to me to indicate that Dooku was extant as an apprentice before the demise of Maul at the hands of Kenobi. If this is true, and this is the point on which I am least confident, then what reason could Sidious possibly have had for two apprentices other than deeming them both necessary until such time as Anakin was ripe for plucking? They were both simply intermediary flunkies until his true apprentice was ready to assume the full-time job. Anakin was his goal all along.
From Revenge of the Sith:
Sidious tells Anakin about his master, Darth Plagueis, who was able to manipulate midi-chlorians to create life. He then goes on to say that "...he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep."
Anakin is led to believe this way lies the method to saving his wife from the death he has foreseen in his dreams. Dreams, I am convinced, supplied by Sidious.
If Anakin had never turned to the dark side then Padme would never have died of a broken heart after child birth, having 'lost the will to live'. So if her death would not have taken place had Anakin remained that sweet little boy she remembered from Tatooine, then how did Anakin start having those dreams?! They were foisted on him by Sidious, that's how! How incredibly, umm, insidious of him. It's a vicious cycle that could only have started with Sidious's intervention.
So that's what I think about that.
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