[These are our story planning notes for Episode I. Almost all of this was written very early, when we were only a few strips into publication. Some updates have been made as things evolved, but for the most part this is a frozen-in-time snapshot of our plans near the start of Episode I. Some of the ideas recorded on this page were not included explicitly or as-written in the comics: they may have been only hinted at, or left ambiguous, or changed slightly, or revamped wholesale. So this material does not necessarily match the story of the comics in all respects, and should not be considered a canonical description of how the comic eventually turned out.]

[Some material has been marked as “REDACTED”. This is material which was planned, but ended up not being revealed during the prequel or original trilogy. There may still be active plans to reveal this material some time during the sequel trilogy.]

Index

• The Players
  • Jim
  • Ben
  • Sally
  • Pete
  • Annie
  • The GM
  • Playing Styles
  • Player Matrix
• Characters
• Background Story
• Plot
• Important Events Timeline
• Plot Summary
• Alternate Strips
• The GM’s Original Campaign Idea
• Stupid Things we Need To Explain
• The State of Palpatine

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The Players

[These are our notes on the players, their personalities, and significant events in their lives which come through in their gaming. We planned ahead many of the features that would not be revealed until Episode IV, or VI, or (ultimately) even later. We updated this list in places to add references to the strip numbers where the relevant information was revealed. Some of the ideas here were not developed or used as the story changed over time.]

Jim

Gung-ho roleplayer, acts before he thinks. Thinks he knows everything about the GM’s campaign; makes up ludicrous explanations for new stuff as the GM introduces it. A crappy roleplayer, who treats the GM’s campaign setting as something to mess with, but actually a nice guy, which is why he’s so careful to look after Sally, and why Annie falls for him.

Jim’s playing style, while unconventional and a bit hard on the GM, is strangely successful. He’s learned through positive reinforcement that if his actions are a bit on the absurd side, it keeps the GM off-balance, and the other players will usually fill in the gaps in his logic. (#9 being the prototypical example.) So, while his ideas seem crazy at the time, they have an unnerving habit of working exactly as planned.

In reality, Jim is a very bright science student, doing a Ph.D. in geophysics during Episode I (#143). The work is demanding, and he uses the game to relax by switching off his brain and simply doing whatever sounds good at the time. Occasionally he will make comments about the science in the game, but these are usually off-the-cuff remarks that may be more-or-less accurate. However, if the conversation happens to turn to anything related to geology, his intellect kicks in and he starts getting genuinely interested and very profound.

Relationship to others

Jim has known Pete and gamed with him for many years. They went through undergraduate degrees together, and possibly came from the same high school. Jim considers Pete to be his best friend, even though Pete rags on him occasionally, because Jim basically just doesn’t notice.

Jim and Ben met more recently, possibly through a game club notice looking for roleplayers or something. This might be how they met the GM too.

Jim treats Sally more like a big brother should than Ben does. He looks after her and tries to keep her happy and interested in the game. He goes to some trouble to defuse any situations in which Sally gets upset.

Annie is attracted to Jim once she learns that the stupidity thing is an act. She is actually impressed that he is such a good actor that she didn’t realise how truly smart he was! Jim is at first oblivious to this, then confused when Anakin starts expressing feelings for Padmé in character, then receptive.

Development

Initially Jim is rather oblivious to the needs and nuances of personal relationships. He gets along with Pete for the simple reason that he doesn’t even notice when Pete abuses him. He becomes more savvy through the campaign, particularly as Annie begins to influence him.

Episode II: He is still working on his Ph.D.

Episode III: He is still working on his Ph.D., but is approaching completion. This is stressing him out even more than usual and feeds into the romance troubles with Annie. While skipping the first couple of game sessions, he is actually busy writing up his thesis.

• AJS: Perhaps his thesis is “my baby”? He obsesses about it, sometimes accidentally bringing details of it into the campaign, sometimes actually writing during the game session (a real issue in games I’ve played!), and progressively getting more stressed. Jim in stressed mode is something we don’t normally see; perhaps it changes his personality a bit (he could be more perceptive, for example, particularly of Pete ragging on him).

Ben

Thoughtful, sensible role-player (mostly). Ben keeps a firm distinction between the game and the real world. This, combined with his tendency to fast-talk the GM, sometimes leads him to act out-of-character in ways that he might regret in-character (e.g. #86/#87; #89). When Annie starts turning evil, he opposes Anakin in-character while approving of the dramatic effect; a distinction which goes completely over Jim’s head. This does mean that he doesn’t get as emotionally involved in the game as the other players.

The distinction mainly works in one direction; Obi-Wan’s mood doesn’t affect Ben. However, emotions can flow the other way: Ben’s mood has an effect on his roleplaying. When he clashes with Pete (#53), it affects Obi-Wan’s interactions with Artoo and leads to him staying on the ship (#57). The “fine I’ll go off on my own” reaction could even be a bit of a pattern for Ben; it would explain why Obi-Wan spends large portions of Episodes II and III separate from other PCs.

Ben is clever, socially well-adjusted for the most part, and quick witted. He also has a sarcastic streak, which comes out in his relation with Pete.

• Idea: It gradually becomes clear in Episode IV that Ben is starting to grow out of the whole roleplaying thing. He can even use Obi-Wan’s “I’m getting too old for this sort of thing” line. (The irony that Jim is older than him is not lost.) When he dies, he declines the GM’s offer to roll a new character. However, he still comes along because he’s bringing Sally, and because he’s still interested even though he doesn’t want to participate. There are hints that he occasionally wants to butt in and offer advice; and he finally does so during Luke’s attack run. From then on he rejoins the game as a noncorporeal advisor. He sort of acts as Vader’s counterpart—somewhere between an assistant GM and a PC. [We didn't end up using this idea.]

Relationship to others

Ben and Jim get along well. If they’d met earlier, they would probably be best friends by now. Their roleplaying styles complement each other and they don’t argue in any real sense.

Ben initially considers Pete to be a jerk, a rude min-maxer who wants to have his own twisted brand of fun at everyone else’s expense. His method of expressing this is the veiled insult or cutting remark.

Ben looks at Sally with a mixture of big brotherly love and exasperation. He likes her, but has put up with her nonsense for so long that he is pretty sick of it.

Ben may have contemplated asking Annie out at some point early on, but he quickly realised she wasn’t really his type, and so doesn’t really see her as anything other than a friend.

Development

Episode I: Ben is doing a pre-medical undergraduate degree. He takes a drama class as part of his arts classes requirement, and meets Annie through that. He is actually more interested in science than medicine, but has been bullied into a medical path by his parents. During his undergraduate degree, this isn’t such a problem, since he is studying a broad range of science subjects, and enjoying it.

Episode II: Ben is approaching the end of his undergraduate degree.

Episode III: Ben has completed undergrad and is now in medical school proper. He is not enjoying it.

Episode IV: Ben finally gets sick of med school. It is taking up huge amounts of his free time, and he engineers Obi-Wan’s death so he doesn’t need to be around for the following session, as he has vast quantities of assignments due and studying for exams and so on. [We changed how this plays out in the comic, with Ben dropping out of medical school during the gap between Episodes III and IV.]

At some point, he quits med school and enrols in a science Ph.D. program, which causes family stress, but results in a much happier Ben. [This was later changed to teaching music.]

Sally

Ben’s kid sister. Eight years old when introduced in Episode I, though we don’t explicitly reveal her age until Episode VI (when she’s 18). Doesn’t quite understand the roleplaying concept at first. Loves attention. Getting a captive audience while she’s playing make-believe is one of the best things that’s happened to her lately.

She is afraid of heights because she fell out of a tree when she was a bit younger. She is a little bit of a tomboy, in that she will happily do “boy” activities, but she also likes ponies and pink and so on.

Sally is extremely creative and imaginative. She has a talent for designing things like creatures, architecture, clothing, etc.

Because of the two-year time skips between episodes, Sally grows and matures a lot more than any of the other players during the course of the campaign.

Relationship to others

Sally looks up to her big brother (Ben), but also knows that she can misbehave around him and really enjoys teasing him and doing stuff that gets him (or his character) into trouble. The fact that the others encourage this behaviour makes her happy.

She idolises both Jim and Pete, however, for different reasons. Jim is so cool, and Pete is so smart! She’s excited to be doing grown-up stuff with these guys. She is completely oblivious to the fact that Pete initially dislikes her.

Sally looks up to Annie as a model for growing up into a woman.

Development

Episode I: 8 years old. A wide-eyed kid, excited at playing make-believe with the grown-ups.

Episode II: 10 years old. Thinks she’s more mature, but she isn’t really. Still does a lot of little kid things. Starts showing an interest in “woman” things like Annie’s jewellery. Realises during the droid factory scene that Pete is messing with the characters and decides she now hates him. Forgives and forgets at the drop of a hat once Pete makes up for it.

Episode III: 12 years old. She is “so mature” now and totally over all that little kid stuff. She is also developing important friendships at school and spends the first session away at a pyjama party. Boys are yucky! Her thing now is deciding what her career will be. She is fully dedicated to a particular career each time we see her—and next week a different career.

Episode IV: 14 years old. Starts to get interested in boys. (Potentially the catalyst to introduce a new player: a boy she “likes”. We need to be careful though; if this is for the obvious character of Luke, the new boy has to stick around and we eliminate the possibility of Sally getting a new boyfriend.)

Episode V: 16 years old.

Episode VI: 18 years old. A mature young woman now. She has finished high school and is moving into university, probably some sort of design or art-based course.

Pete

Min-max power-gamer who takes heaps of cool abilities, at the cost of being able to speak. Smart-arse. Pete also occasionally controls C-3PO later on.

Pete is an old friend of Jim’s and Jim invited him along to the game (after checking with the GM).

Pete’s enjoyment of the game is proportional to how much danger the party is in and how cool the technology (or magic) is. His ideal game would be a long string of successes against progressively worse odds. This is probably why he likes playing alongside Jim; their playing styles have a sort of symbiotic relationship.

Pete went through university with Jim, on a Law degree. When Jim went on to a Ph.D., Pete got a job as a junior in a big city law firm. His aim is to become a criminal defence lawyer, because he loves arguing the minutiae of rules, something that also comes out in his rules lawyering within the game.

He is technically savvy, enjoying computer programming and cool gadgets. He uses a PDA to keep track of everything in his job and outside, and likes programming custom mods into it.

Pete is not very socially adept though. He tends to look down on anyone he considers inferior, which is most people. And he never talks about what he does outside the game, so nobody but Jim even knows what he does for a living. They probably assume he works in a comic book store or something.

Relationship to others

Pete gets along with Jim merely because Jim is oblivious to Pete’s personality failings. This makes Jim into what Pete considers to be his best friend, since he’s the only friend he’s never managed to annoy.

Pete is impressed by sheer intelligence, and he recognises that in Ben. There is a hint of admiration there, but Ben’s obvious dislike of Pete makes it hard for Pete to like him in return, so the relationship becomes mutually antagonistic.

Development

In many ways, the campaign is a huge redemption arc for Pete. Through the course of the game, he comes to realise his social failings and become more mature and well-adjusted. This opens the door for him and Ben to start getting along better, and eventually they become fast friends.

Episode I: Pete is a junior in a law firm, working his way up by stepping on people. This makes him successful in the eyes of his company.

Episode II: He has worked part of the way up the ladder to career success. In the game, he gets the chance to run a session and makes a mess of it. This begins his road to emotional maturity, as he is shocked to discover that he could make even Sally dislike him. He struggles to come to terms with the fact that he is sad that Sally hates him.

Episode III: Pete is now poised to move into the world of criminal defence. He may get his first real case about now. In game, he starts trying things to make people like him more. The thing that eventually works is that he is genuinely concerned about Jim and Annie, and works to get them back together after their “restaurant incident” argument.

Episode IV: Pete’s career may be faltering as he loses cases and clients. He starts applying the social skills he is learning in the game to his career, which turns things around.

Episode V:

Episode VI: [REDACTED]

Annie

Initially sceptical of this “roleplaying thing”, quickly gets into the spirit and becomes a consummate roleplayer, before deliberately manipulating the campaign to turn Anakin evil, which she feels is the correct emotional progression for her character. Enjoys deeply exploring character emotions, much to the discomfort of the other players. Develops into Jim’s girlfriend during the campaign.

Annie is in drama school. She’s looking for somewhere to hone her character development skills, and joins this campaign through a friend of a friend (i.e. Ben). This gives her an excuse to ask for a “roleplaying challenge” early on (when she takes Anakin rather than Shmi) despite being new to the whole thing. Naturally, her inner nerd is released as the story develops.

Annie is a character that could potentially fall into the “hot, competent woman who puts up with the other idiots” stereotype. This is a bad character, because there’s no interesting places for her to develop, and no plausible reason for her to stay. Although we never explicitly say so, she is not stunningly hot or obviously beautiful.

The fact that she is neither hot nor especially beautiful pushes her into character parts in amateur short films and plays. She has played any number of “the drug addict”, “the bully”, “the emasculating girlfriend”, etc. and is getting sick of it. Her biggest roles so far are the Wicked Witch of the West (twice), and Lina Lamont from Singin’ in the Rain. She is very fond of musicals and will work especially hard to get a good role in them.

She wants to play characters with real depth and emotional power. Anakin is probably her most developed character.

She is a drama student, but possibly is doing it for fun, not for a career. She does not like the career-focused drama students. They are, in her opinion, elitist and unpleasant, and not nearly as good at improvising as they think.

In improvisation in drama classes, people are encouraged to never “block”, i.e. dispute what another person has set up, but instead always accept it as fact and run with it. This is a Law as far as Annie is concerned. She Never Blocks, and is annoyed when other people (eg. Ben) occasionally do so.

Annie is a bit of a revhead. She has a second-hand car that she works on occasionally. She likes driving fast and furious, and this occasionally surfaces in her characters.

Relationship to others

The males in the group, although nerds, are nice, welcoming, and willing to play along with Annie’s style. She stays because she likes them, and she genuinely enjoys the scenario.

Sally looks up to Annie. Annie is not quite sure how to handle a young girl and defaults to friendly and polite.

Outside the group, Annie looked up to her father, who dies shortly before the game began and she met the others. On the other hand, she doesn’t get along with her mother. Annie’s father taught her to be self-reliant, and how to fix cars and drive them well. There may be some unresolved issues with her mother [REDACTED]

Development

Episode I: Annie is studying drama at university, with the aim of becoming an actor. She knows this is a hard career path, but it’s what she really wants.

Episode II: Annie is approaching the end of her degree and pondering her career ahead. She is falling for Jim, but is inexperienced at romance and has no idea how to broach the subject. Her in-character hints are too vague for Jim to make head or tail of.

Episode III: She has been searching for acting work unsuccessfully and has had to take a job waitressing in a restaurant. She is still a bit reluctant to talk to Jim about the difficulties of her chosen career path, and particularly to reveal that she is doing such a demeaning job.

Episode IV: Annie reveals that she doesn’t get along with her mother; her father is dead (#877), and that he died just before she met the others at the game (#884).

The GM

The GM is male, [REDACTED] [After publishing a few strips we discussed the idea of making the GM’s gender indeterminate, and we liked that idea. However, checking the published strips we discovered that we’d already referred to him as “he”, and we didn’t want to retcon use of the pronoun so we left it.]

He is an easy-going sort of guy for the most part, and primarily wants everyone to enjoy the game. This trumps both the game rules and common sense with regards to game-world physics/biology/social science.

He does like to apply realism to the game world, but is not as scientifically savvy as Ben, Jim, or Pete, so this occasionally lead to them questioning the reality of things. The GM tries to run with things and make up reasonable-sounding explanations, even if they are a bit outlandish. This often leads to new features of the campaign that later become critical story elements. The GM may not always be completely realistic, but he is consistent—once something is in the campaign, it always works that way from then on. Ben in particular picks up on this and uses it to his character's advantage.

The GM wants proper role-playing, people getting involved in their characters, people engaging with the scenario he comes up with, right? Be careful what you wish for. He has never actually had someone listen to, and run with, what he says. Annie does this.

He likes character roleplaying and making all the NPCs into real personalities with some depth to them. In an attempt to achieve this, he uses exaggerated mannerisms and attempts to give them distinctive speech patterns, but this usually manifests as silly foreign/regional accents.

The GM loves elaborate worldbuilding. He will easily spend hours developing details that the players might never see. Because if they do decide to look at things in more detail, he wants to be ready for it. He also likes to build things that will appeal to everyone in the game. He constructs elaborate puzzles for Pete to solve, he introduces strange NPCs for Sally to interact with, he provides high drama for Annie, and so on.

Relationship to others

He has probably run games with Ben and Jim in the past, but hasn't met Pete, Sally, or Annie when the story begins. A possibility is that the first episode is the first time the GM has met Ben and Jim, the three getting together via a game club notice or something.

Development

?

Playing Styles

• Jim has a gung-ho action hero adventurer style. He enjoys high-risk scenarios that he can wade into with guns blazing or infiltrate with a minimum of subtlety. He fully expects to succeed, against any odds, because he’s the good guy. His concept of separation between player and character knowledge is hazy at best, and he defaults to just playing characters as himself.
• Ben is a thoughtful roleplayer who sees the game as a puzzle to be solved within the constraints of his character. He is strict about not utilising out-of-character knowledge within the game, but is happy to debate details of rules or established campaign parameters and consistency in out-of-character discussions.
• Sally sees the game as a fun window into the imagination. She loves imagining wild things, fantastic aliens, and strange new worlds. She seeks the exotic and wants to be wowed by exciting new stuff that is different from everyday life.
• Pete looks on roleplaying as an adversarial contest between him and the GM. He enjoys being given impossible challenges and being arbitrarily thwarted, so long as he gets the occasional sweet, sweet success to make it all worthwhile. He looks to optimise his character’s performance in any way he can get away with, but always stays technically within the rules of the game—doing otherwise would be cheating. He also has an extremely strong ethic of never betraying fellow PCs.
• Annie lives for the role. She gets deeply into character and wants to explore the complexities of their personality and see where it leads, even if that is into dark places. She has no problem keeping character secrets from the other players, or betraying fellow PCs, and thinks that actively enhances the experience.

Player Matrix

How each player sees each other player. Highlighting key points of conflict and interaction. [These were written very early and never updated as personalities and relationships changed.]

	Jim	Ben	Sally	Pete	Annie
Jim	—	Jim gets on well with Ben because Ben's straight thinking leaves plenty of room for Jim's cool ideas.	Jim generally likes the way Sally thinks. He sometimes eggs her on to tease Ben.	Jim thinks Pete's geekiness is cool, and doesn't even really notice when Pete is an asshole.	Jim is a little intimidated by Annie. He's attracted, but unsure what to do about it.
Ben	Ben gets a kick out of Jim's unpredictability, even though he doesn't always understand his overactive imagination.	—	Ben is sometimes annoyed by his little sister's behaviour, but he genuinely likes her.	Ben respects Pete's uber-geek status enough to generally find his abrasiveness tolerable.	Ben likes Annie purely as a friend who shares a common interest in roleplaying.
Sally	Sally gets along well with Jim, and tends to encourage his tendency for strange explanations.	Sally sometimes plays nice with her older brother, sometimes provokes him, and sometimes takes him for granted.	—	Sally is oblivious to Pete's opinion of her. She quite admires him, in fact.	Sally looks up to Annie as a model young woman.
Pete	Pete likes hanging around Jim because he always makes Pete feel superior, and Jim doesn't notice or care.	Pete feels a little threatened by Ben's intellect at times.	Pete considers Sally to be an obnoxious brat who is beneath him in every way.	—	Pete thinks Annie is hot, merely because she's a female gamer, but realises she doesn't like him.
Annie	Annie is attracted to Jim once she learns the stupid thing is just an act.	Annie sees Ben as nothing more than a friend.	Annie is amused by Sally's youthful enthusiasm.	Annie dislikes Pete because of his abrasive personality.	—

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Characters

• Qui-Gon: “John” “Jim”.
• Obi-Wan: “Ben”.
• Jar Jar: “Sally”.
• Padmé: NPC for most of Episode I, until taken over by Jim.
• R2-D2: “Pete”.
• Anakin: “Annie”. Annie plays Anakin from the beginning (9 years old) as extremely ambitious, ruthless, and charismatic. Anakin has a dark side from the beginning - he’s from the wrong side of the tracks. Padmé falls in love with him because he’s the “bad boy”, despite knowing she shouldn’t.
• Yoda: NPC. The GM’s catch-all deus ex machina. Could be played by Sally later on when Jar Jar’s role disappears(!).
• Palpatine: NPC. A retired Jedi and senator from Naboo. He completed Jedi training, but displayed such great skills in politics and diplomacy that he was appointed senator for Naboo, a role that required him to retire from being a Jedi. (There’s some Republic rule or something.) So naturally he knows Force abilities—why wouldn’t he? He’s well-intentioned, but easily misguided. He genuinely wants the best for the people of the Galaxy, but keeps falling into morally grey plots to secure it. He’s ripe for being used as a puppet by Anakin. Characterisation note: He speaks with lots of semi-colons and colons in his punctuation.
  • Can we make Palpatine into a Knight Templar? “There will be peace in the Galaxy, if I have to destroy planets to do it!”
    • Possibly he could turn this way after he “discovers” that the Jedi were trying to overthrow him and take control of the Galaxy. He has a bit of a breakdown from realising that the corruption runs that deep (with appropriate prompting from Annie), and decides that he can’t do what needs to be done while pussyfooting around people’s “rights” and “lives” and whatnot.
• Sio Bibble: NPC. Completely loyal to Naboo and Padmé. Suspected of being a traitor by Jim because of his goatee—only revealed to be wrong much later when we reveal Captain Tarpals was the Traitor on Naboo.
• Darth Maul: NPC. Private investigator.
• Chancellor Valorum: NPC. Insane, screw loose, but powerful. In league with Dooku. When he gets voted out of the Chancellorship, he disappears and is rumoured to be killed. Becomes General Grievous. When we first see General Grievous, he talks like Valorum, which is the first indication to the readers. He is also Wat Tambor in the scene in Episode II when Dooku and Nute Gunray are in conference on Geonosis (#308), in a partially cyborged state. We reveal this in Episode III. [As it turns out, we didn’t explicitly reveal this. We only hinted at it by having Grievous’s first line be identical to Wat Tambor’s line (#466). Also, note that we hadn’t yet decided that Count Dooku would become Count Dookû (with the circumflex) in our story.]
• Captain Tarpals: A traitor to the Gungans (of course, he has a goatee). He informs the Trade Federation of the Gungan plan to destroy the droid army with geysers, prompting the Trade Federation to blow up the moon. His deceit is not revealed, but Padmé works it out during Episode III. When she becomes Vader, she approaches Tarpals to steal the Lost Orb to power the Peace Star. This is only revealed much later on, to the shock of everyone. [This plan changed. We did reveal Tarpals’s treachery, in #191. Also we were still calling the Peace Moon the Peace Star.]
• Mace Windu: Samuel L. Jackson badassery mixed with obliviousness as to what’s actually going on. Nobody ever tells him anything, and he keeps expressing his lack of understanding of events. This leads to him getting angry (and badass on various mutha-frakkers). His obliviousness is used by Anakin in Episode III, when Anakin “reports” that Palpatine is a Sith Lord, setting up Mace Windu to make a tragic mistake.
  • [REDACTED]
• Dib Foundway:
  • I forget is there an EU story about the guy with the backpack yet?
  • From shadowjack on RPGNet: Wookiepedia says he’s Dib Foundway, a spice farmer from Kessel, who spent his last credit to come to Tatooine seeking a new start. But then he gets caught up in Jabba the Hutt’s criminal machinations – the backpack contains a new variety of spice he grew himself – and eventually winds up murdered in Mos Eisley by the father of Hojon Intigua, the cantina owner in ANH. It’s in one of the comic books.
  • NB: The cantina is actually owned by a Wookiee named Chalmun.

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Background Story

[This is material we wrote to describe prior events that explain the situation before the story begins.]

Palpatine is a misguided good guy, who wants the Lost Orb of Phanastacoria so he can use it to bring peace (through deterrence) to the Galaxy. He learned about it when he became a Senator for Naboo. He thinks the Gungans were wasting it.

The Trade Federation, originally a large company on Naboo, managed to find and steal the Orb, generations ago. They used it to expand their trade empire to other planets, and build a military force. They have orbital corporate headquarters at Naboo, of course, as it’s their home planet.

Palpatine has hired a private investigator, Darth Maul, to look into the possible whereabouts of the Lost Orb. Maul has recently turned up some leads that indicate the Trade Federation might have it. Maul sends his junior partner—a young man named Jango Fett—in to infiltrate the Trade Federation, disguised as a protocol droid.

(Palpatine/Sidious are obviously the same person. Palpatine just wears a cloak and hood during the chilly Coruscant nights. There is never even a hint in our story that Palpatine is trying to maintain a second identity.)

Palpatine convinces Chancellor Valorum that the Trade Federation need to be investigated for anti-competitive trade practices, and to send two Jedi Knights to Naboo to talk to them and try to negotiate. (He weaves some story about the Trade Federation protesting against taxation of trade routes to the outlying systems by blockading foreign goods from reaching Naboo, thus forcing the people of Naboo to buy only their products.) Palpatine was secretly hoping to contact the Jedi himself when they arrived and give them orders to find out what they can about the Lost Orb once they’d gained the Trade Federation’s confidence.

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Plot

[This describes our planned plot for Episode I. Most of this was written very early on, while the first few strips were being produced.]

Naboo

The Jedi arrive and Jango Fett (disguised as TC-14) escorts them into a waiting room and serves them drinks. The Trade Federation calls Palpatine to demand to know what’s going on: Why is he sending spies? Palpatine claims they’re just ambassadors, there to negotiate a trade agreement. The Jedi screw up badly, however. When they try to search the waiting room, the Trade Federation concludes they were indeed sent as spies and, paranoid about the Orb, try to capture the Jedi using a knock-out gas.

The Jedi try to fight their way out, but the extreme competence and cool command of the Trade Federation forces them to flee to the hangar deck. The Trade Federation decide to finish them by evacuating the hangar deck, but the Jedi sneak aboard troop ships just in time.

The Trade Federation call the Queen to try and get to the bottom of this and to intimidate her a bit. She has no idea what’s going on (since Palpatine hasn’t told her his plan), and figures the Jedi really are there to negotiate some sort of trade agreement. The Trade Federation don’t believe her.

Palpatine calls the Queen to spin her a story about what’s happening; that he has a lead on recovering a lost Gungan artefact which could help win an alliance with the Gungans, but the Jedi have messed it up. The Trade Federation decide to cut communications because of their suspicion that Palpatine is plotting some sort of spying with the Queen. The transmission is interrupted just after Palpatine reveals that the Trade Federation took the Orb and he knows where it is, but before he can actually say where it is.

Bibble is in the pay of the Trade Federation. Bibble passes the info on to the Trade Federation that Palpatine knows where the Orb is, not knowing himself that the Trade Federation actually have it. They let Bibble know some Jedi might be running around and to look out for them. (We have no scenes of Bibble talking to the Trade Federation, but we can describe it if we need to, or maybe leave it mysterious.) (Bibble’s true loyalty should remain an unsolvable enigma right to the end. All of his actions should be readable two ways. Qui-Gon merely assumes he’s a traitor because of his goatee.)

The Trade Federation has been planning a coup to take over Naboo and (apparently incidentally) wipe out the Gungans, to remove any claim they have on the Orb. The appearance and escape of the Jedi causes them to panic and push forward the invasion, as the Orb is on that ship, and they fear the Jedi may have sensed it. In any case, they realise that Palpatine has gotten intel on them.

The Trade Federation capture the Queen and Bibble briefly (maintaining Bibble’s cover), but the Jedi rescue them. Bibble asks them sarcastically how the trade negotiations went (since he actually knows what happened). The Jedi take the Queen away on her ship. Bibble stays behind, because he knows he’s safe with the Trade Federation.

The Trade Federation now contact Palpatine to warn him off. P.I. Darth Maul, who Palpatine hired ages ago, reveals to the Trade Federation that he has unimpeachable sources that have traced the Orb to them (i.e. Jango, who has now seen the Orb first hand).

Tatooine

Meanwhile on Tatooine, Jar Jar questions Padmé about Palpatine, and she reveals to him that Palpatine thinks the Trade Federation took the Orb from Naboo. The Jedi get up to various unimportant shenanigans on Tatooine and, in order to win a bet by rigging a major racing event, end up turning an innocent young boy (Anakin) into a mentally unstable murderer. They then help Anakin to flee justice.

The Trade Federation want to track down the Jedi, so tell Bibble to trick them into sending a reply to him. He does so. The Jedi radio back with a taunt, which actually also allows Palpatine to locate them on Tatooine. He sends Maul to warn them and get them back on the mission of trying to recover the Orb.

Maul goes to Tatooine and sends some scout droids out to track down the Jedi so he can talk to them. One finds Qui-Gon, but Qui-Gon destroys it in a fit of paranoia. Maul has enough information to find him though, and tries to approach and talk to Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon assumes he’s a bounty hunter after the local bounty on Jedi and attacks blindly. The Jedi flee in the Queen’s ship.

On board, Anakin gives Padmé the japor snippet necklace, after Annie finds it in his inventory. This is secretly a powerful Force artefact that the GM put on Anakin’s character sheet before the pod race, so he’d have an out if Annie rolled badly and Anakin crashed. It preserves the wearer from death, but none of the players know this yet.

Coruscant

The Jedi bring the Queen to Coruscant, where Palpatine is (genuinely) pleasantly surprised to see her, but a little annoyed that the Jedi have gone so far off track. He reveals to the Queen that he knows the Trade Federation have the Orb at Naboo (NPC scene where Jar Jar and Anakin are waiting outside), and she tells him about the invasion. He suggests they raise the matter in the Senate to try to get sanctions against the Trade Federation and perhaps military aid.

In the Senate, Palpatine makes his accusations. The Trade Federation delegation object, saying they know nothing about the Orb or any invasion. Chancellor Valorum completely ignores the importance of these events and goes off into his own deluded fantasy world, imagining a bright future where humans are turned into cyborgs. Incensed, Padmé calls for a vote of no confidence in Valorum—entirely her own idea.

Palpatine is genuinely surprised when he is elected Chancellor. He pledges to use his new powers to stop the Trade Federation and get the Orb off them. Padmé tells Jar Jar that the Orb is on Naboo somewhere, and Jar Jar decides they need to go back there right away. Padmé requests the Jedi to accompany them, so they can help with Jar Jar’s mission of recovering the Orb.

Naboo

On Naboo, Jar Jar locates the hiding Gungans and negotiates an alliance between them and the Naboo (with his great diplomatic skill). He then takes charge of the Gungan forces (being the most qualified military expert they have) and gives a stirring speech to rally the troops in the face of overwhelming odds.

The battle plan relies on the peculiar geophysics of Naboo. Tidal forces from the huge moon periodically squeeze water out of the interior ocean through geysers. The Gungans set up large hemispherical force fields, planning to let the geysers fill them with water. This keeps the Gungans safe since they can breathe water, while the droids will malfunction if they enter the force fields. Once full of water, the Gungans can deactivate the fields, flooding the battle plain and destroying the droid army. Unfortunately for the Gungans, Captain Tarpals is a traitor in the pay of the Trade Federation (of course, he has a pseudo-goatee), and informs them of the plan.

Jango Fett overhears this treachery, and the Trade Federation’s planned response, which is to use the power of the Orb to blow up the moon, thus cancelling the tides and the geysers.

Maul lost track of the Jedi when they flew to Coruscant, and figured his best course of action was to go to Naboo and do the job of recovering the Orb himself, with Jango’s help. He shows up at the palace on Naboo to try intimidate the Trade Federation (and to make sure the Jedi don’t give the Orb to the Gungans). They treat him with some respect but try to get rid of him.

Maul contacts Jango behind the scenes and discovers the Orb is on the droid control ship, and that the Trade Federation plan to blow up the moon to foil the Gungan battle plan and wipe them out. He decides he’ll have to go up to the orbital HQ to stop the Trade Federation blowing up the moon, and to deactivate and recover the Orb, with Jango’s help. Maul heads down to the palace hangar, to find the Jedi blocking his way.

Qui-Gon attacks before Maul can explain what’s going on, and Maul is forced to defend himself until they get separated by the force fields. Then Maul reveals some of the above backstory in flashback sequences, but Qui-Gon stubbornly refuses to listen. When the force field drops, Qui-Gon resumes the fight, and Maul is forced to stab him. Maul reveals some more backstory while Obi-Wan is forced to wait. But all Obi-Wan can think about is saving Qui-Gon.

Unfortunately, this delay has allowed the Trade Federation to go through with blowing up the moon. The geysers fail to erupt and the droid army begins slaughtering Gungans. Jar Jar performs heroically in the ensuing battle, holding off the droid army long enough to allow Padmé and the Jedi to infiltrate the palace. But eventually the droids prevail and the Gungans are forced to surrender.

Meanwhile, R2 has taken control of the ship that Qui-Gon put Anakin into for safety and flies it into space to attack the Trade Federation. Despite Annie’s pleas for sanity, Pete has had enough pussyfooting around and just wants to shoot some stuff. He locates a massive power source on the HQ ship and (correctly) deduces it must be the Orb, so attacks that.

Obi-Wan rushes to attack Maul, but Maul pushes him into the pit. While Obi-Wan hangs helplessly, Maul gives the rest of the backstory. Obi-Wan realises the horrible mistake they’ve made and tries to talk Maul into cooperating to get Qui-Gon to a hospital, save the Gungans, and recover the Orb. However, Obi-Wan wants to give the Orb back to the Gungans, while Maul wants to give it to Palpatine so he can get paid his huge bonus. Obi-Wan realises the only way out is to kill Maul, and does so.

Horrified by the destruction of the moon, Jango Fett takes matters into his own hands by deactivating the Orb. This allows R2 to fly his ship right into the HQ hangar deck and start shooting things up. Jango takes the Orb and races to his escape pod. R2’s cavalier attitude to destruction causes the HQ to blow up just before Jango can reach safety. The Orb drifts off into space, as does the horribly scarred Jango. Jango manages to survive his ordeal in vacuum by reaching the escape pod after 60 seconds or so, and flies off, disillusioned and bitter. He later learns that his partner Darth Maul is dead...

R2 locates a power source floating in space amidst the wreckage of the HQ. Correctly deducing it must be the Orb, he flies over and retrieves it, storing it in his body cavity. Back on Naboo, Obi-Wan manages to convince R2 to hand the Orb over and gives it to Padmé. Palpatine is frustrated, but has no means to keep the Orb once Padmé has it. She ceremonially hands it back to the Gungans. Palpatine starts thinking about ways to steal it back, for the good of the Galaxy...

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Important Events Timeline

[This section of the notes was filled in as the comics were being published, so we could keep track of significant events that affected the story planning.]

• Jedi meet TC-14 (Jango Fett in disguise). (3)
• Jedi search room; Feds get suspicious, blow up ship, gas the room. (5)
• Jedi attack droids. (7)
• Laser swords are awesome! (9)
• Jedi try to cut their way on to the bridge. (11)
• Jedi flee HQ ship. (14)
• Jedi land on Naboo. (16)
• Jar Jar appears. (17)
• Jedi arrive in Otoh Gunga. (24)
• Boss Nass tells the Jedi about the Lost Orb. (27)
• Jedi leave Otoh Gunga. (30)
• Jedi arrive in Theed. (35)
• Droid army has already taken Naboo. (37)
• Jedi meet Padmé and Bibble. (38)
• Bibble says that Palpatine has information about the Orb on Coruscant. (41)
• Jedi leave Naboo, leaving Bibble behind. (44)
• R2 appears. (46)
• Jedi decide they have to stop for repairs. (50)
• Jar Jar tells R2 about the Orb. (55)
• Jango tells Maul by coded message that the Orb is on board the HQ ship.(flashbacked to in 185)
• Jedi arrive on Tatooine. (56)
• Padmé tells Jar Jar that Palpatine thinks the Trade Federation took the Orb “from Naboo”. (59)
• Anakin appears. (61)
• Sandstorm. (68)
• Shmi appears. (70)
• Qui-Gon orders the others to reply to Bibble’s message. (73)
• Maul traces reply to Bibble’s signal to Tatooine. (flashbacked to in 186)
• Maul tells Palpatine that the Orb is on board the HQ ship. (not seen, but must happen around here)
• Palpatine orders Maul to follow the Jedi; Maul protests but follows orders. (flashbacked to in 186)
• Qui-Gon explains midi-chlorians. (76)
• Qui-Gin injects midi-chlorians into Anakin. (86)
• Qui-Gon makes brilliant plan to win pod race. (92)
• Pod race starts. (93)
• Qui-Gon reveals he sold blasters to Sand People; Sand People shoot at racers. (100)
• Anakin wins pod race. (106)
• Maul’s signal droid appears near Qui-Gon. (110)
• Anakin kills Greedo. (112)
• Annie takes over Anakin. (118)
• Qui-Gon destroys Maul’s signal droid. (120)
• Maul tries to talk to Qui-Gon, but Qui-Gon attacks him. (121)
• Jedi leave Tatooine for Coruscant, to see Palpatine because Palpatine has information about the Orb. (123)
• Anakin gives Padmé Japor snippet. (125)
• Maul follows the Jedi back to Coruscant. (flashbacked to in 187)
• Jedi arrive on Coruscant. (126)
• Jar Jar tells Anakin about the Orb. (131)
• Padmé tells Jar Jar that Palpatine has told her that he thinks the Feds are powering their HQ with the Orb. (138)
• Valorum is voted out; Palpatine meets Jar Jar. (140)
• Maul and Palpatine meet again; Maul says the Jedi are loose cannons and heads to Naboo to get the Orb. (flashbacked to in 187)
• Jedi leave Coruscant. (147)
• Jedi arrive back on Naboo. (151)
• Maul tries to trick the Feds out of the Orb; this fails. (flashbacked to in 187)
• Jar Jar makes great battle plan for the Gungan army. (159)
• Captain Tarpals contacts the Feds and tells them the Gungan battle plans.
• Maul contacts Jango and Jango tells him about the plan to blow up the moon, and that the Feds got info about the Gungan battle plans from Captain Tarpals. (flashbacked to in 187)
• Droid army activates on Naboo. (164)
• Qui-Gon gives Anakin (and R2) the mission to assassinate the Fed leaders on the HQ ship. (165)
• Maul gets intercepted in the Naboo hangar by the Jedi. (166)
• R2 takes off. (169)
• Jango gets worried that they’re going to blow up the moon soon and decides to do something about it.
• Maul tells the Jedi the Feds are planning to blow up the moon. (173)
• Jango deactivates the HQ ship’s entire security system, because he knows the Orb on the bridge is protected by a force field (they wouldn’t just have it sitting on the bridge completely unprotected!)
• This allows Pete to fly into the hangar. (175)
• The Feds don’t realise the force field is gone (or they do, and scramble to get it restored, but it takes them too long).
• Maul stabs Qui-Gon. (177)
• The Feds blow up the moon with the Orb. (178)
• Maul tells Obi-Wan the story. (179)
• Maul says he felt a disturbance in the Force a minute ago. (180)
• Maul starts flashbacks. (181)
• Jango reaches the Orb too late, but steals it anyway.
• Maul tells Obi-Wan that Captain Tarpals is a snitch. (188)
• Jango races for an escape pod.
• Jango calls Maul and tells him the Feds have effectively won the battle for Naboo. He starts to tell Maul he has the Orb, but is interrupted... (189)
• The security system deactivation also allows Pete to hack the droid army control commands (he never would have managed it normally). (190)
• Droid army deactivates. (191)
• R2 blows up the HQ ship, interrupting Jango’s phone call to Maul and casting him adrift in space. Jango loses the Orb. (192)
• Maul realises his call is interrupted. (193)
• Obi-Wan kills Maul. (194)
• Qui-Gon dies. (197)
• R2 retrieves Orb adrift in space. (199)
• Padmé gives Orb back to Boss Nass. (205)

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Plot Summary

[One of us started writing this more comprehensive summary of our story so we could keep track of things. However, he ran out of steam and this is as much of this plot format as was ever written.]

Qui-Gon (JIM) and Obi-Wan (BEN) begin their adventure on a Trade Federation vessel as ambassadors to negotiate a trade agreement [1][2][3][4]. They search the waiting room for valuables. In response, the Trade Federation, suspecting they are spies, disable their ship and flood the room with knockout gas, intending to capture the “spies” and question them [5]. The Jedi hold their breaths [6] and decide to fight the group of combat droids who are sent to drag them out [7][8]. In the process, Obi-Wan fast-talks the GM into making their laser swords more useful than expected [9][10].

The Jedi try to break into the bridge [11], but advanced battle droids drive them away [12]. The Trade Federation’s leader, Darth Sidious, gives the order to invade the planet below, convinced that the Jedi are spies sent from the planet on a hostile mission. The Jedi escape to the hangar deck [13], but rather than returning to the bridge and explaining the misunderstanding to the Trade Federation, they stow away on separate dropships bound for Naboo [14][15]. The droid army and gravcraft cause a wildlife stampede, and the GM halts play for the week to give time to prepare a map of this planet that he never expected the players to set foot on [16].

Next session, Ben brings along his little sister SALLY because he has to babysit her. The GM invents a PC for her to play: an alien who needs rescuing by the heroic Qui-Gon [17]. When Qui-Gon asks Sally about her character, she quickly descends into make-believe and invents Jar Jar Binks [18]. After Obi-Wan rejoins Qui-Gon [19], the players start roleplaying with Sally [20], asking her for details about the planet, which she happily makes up: Naboo is ruled by a 14-year-old queen who lives on the opposite side of the planet [21]. Sally also invents the underwater city of the Gungans [22]. Ben and Jim run with Sally’s ideas, causing the GM to discard his painstakingly created map of the planet’s surface [23].

Upon arrival at Otoh Gunga [24], the Gungan Captain Tarpals reminds Jar Jar that no humans are allowed there. Sally’s suggestion to use the humans as food finally gets Ben and Jim to listen to the GM rather than her for a while [25][26]. Boss Nass, the Gungan leader, offers to let the party go if they agree to find the Lost Orb of Phanastacoria, a powerful artefact sacred to the Gungans [27]. The Jedi agree to help Jar Jar, who is revealed as the last of a long line of questers searching for the Orb [28]. Qui-Gon then uses a Jedi mind trick to fast talk Boss Nass into giving them transportation in the form of a “bongo”, which Sally suggests they should take through the core of the planet [29].

The Jedi survive the curiosity of several nasty aquatic life forms along the way through the planet core [30][31][32][33]. They eventually arrive at Theed, the Naboo capital [34], adrift at the edge of a waterfall [35]. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan climb to safety, but Sally’s fear of climbing requires her to swim to shore instead [36]. They find Queen Amidala and her retinue being led away by Trade Federation droids [37]. The Jedi destroy the droids while Sally and the GM discuss the pros and cons of dice [38].

The party encounter Sio Bibble, the Queen’s shifty-looking advisor [39][40], who reveals that Senator Palpatine on Coruscant has a lead on the Lost Orb [41]. The Queen and her entourage agree to travel to Coroscant with the party [42]. The Jedi destroy a group of droids protecting the Queen’s ship and board the ship [43][44], which captain Ric Olié pilots off the planet [45]. PETE, a friend of Jim’s, joins the game, playing an astromech droid named R2-D2 [46]. While the Trade Federation blockade attacks the ship [47], Pete learns about the background of the campaign [48], then uses his optimally-skilled character to save the ship as it takes damage from the blockade [49].

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Alternate Strips

[Strips went through many revisions during writing. In some cases we preserved particularly interesting or funny versions that we ended up not using.]

Episode 155: Queen’s Gambit, Declined

[An alternate version of strip 155.]

GM: Queen Amidala steps forward and—
Qui-Gon: Who?
GM: The Queen. You know. The... Queen.
Qui-Gon: We sold her to get weapons, didn’t we?
Queen Amidala: Oh great Boss Nass, the humans of Naboo need your help to defeat the evil Trade Federation. Will you help Us?
Boss Nass: Okay, wesa helping you. If’n yousa giving us the Queen to eat at da big feast!
Queen Amidala: Er... um... I abdicate! Padmé, you’re the Queen!
Padmé: What?! No, you’re the Queen! I’m just a lowly handmaiden!
Queen Amidala: Um... Jar Jar, I appoint you Queen!
Jar Jar: Nosa, nosa!
Queen Amidala: Qui-Gon. You’re the Queen!
Qui-Gon: Cool! Off with their heads!

[A slightly modified version of this script was eventually published as the intermission strip #1523.]

Episode 176: Pas de Guerre

[An alternate version of strip 176, with our original note about it.]

Qui-Gon: Attack! I use the spin-thrust manoeuvre! 14!
[SFX]: Krrrzkk! Whoom! Krzzzkk!
Obi-Wan: No! Wait! Listen to him!
Qui-Gon: Reverse parry! Critical!
GM: A critical parry, huh?
Qui-Gon: Yeah, he hits himself! I’ve been studying the advanced combat rules.
GM: Let me see that book...
Obi-Wan: Do I make it past the force fields?
GM: It’s eight hexes. See if you’re fast enough.
Obi-Wan: Ah. I don’t think I make it.
GM: The last force field cuts you off from the fight.
Qui-Gon: You and me, bounty hunter! Bring it on!
[SFX]: Whoom! Whoom! Krrrzkk! Whoom!
Qui-Gon: I arabesque pas de chat and glissade into a plié.
GM: He rolls a critical pirouette.
Qui-Gon: Wow, this guy’s good!

Note: This changes the meaning of Qui-Gon’s “he hits himself” to actually not be just spouting rubbish, but it paves the way for his later ballet moves “arabesque... plié” line to (potentially) be something from the real rules, allowing the “critical pirouette” to be the GM’s retort.

[We had considerable discussion about this alternative script, mostly focused on the question of whether Jim should know a lot about ballet or not, and how this meshed with our and readers’ perceptions of Jim.]

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The GM’s Original Campaign Idea

[This is our first record of the adventure that the GM originally had in mind. A modified version of this was published as strip #206.]

Chancellor Valorum sends the Jedi to negotiate a trade agreement with the Trade Federation. The Trade Federation are maintaining a blockade of certain incoming goods in protest of taxation of trade routes. This blockade allows them to operate a monopoly on Naboo with their goods.

Once the Jedi have settled the trade dispute, they are to hang around and perform some small missions for the Trade Federation as a show of goodwill (perhaps they can offer their services as a sweetener for the trade agreement).

After gaining the trust of the Trade Federation, they would receive a coded message from Senator Palpatine, who was actually the one who requested their assistance from Chancellor Valorum. Palpatine says that the Trade Federation have stolen a precious artefact from the people of Naboo, and now that they have gained the Trade Federation’s trust, the Jedi’s true mission is to subtly investigate them and find out about this Lost Orb.

After some adventures, the Jedi should find and recover the Lost Orb. They should also uncover hints that the Orb originally belonged to the Phanastacorians, the indigenous race of Naboo, and had been taken by the humans some time ago (for ostensibly noble purposes). Whether they decided to hand the Orb over to Palpatine or return it to the Phanastacorians would determine their role in an ongoing campaign, if the players have enjoyed it so far.

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Stupid Things we Need To Explain

[We made this section to lists things that make little or no sense in the movie, as a stimulus to us trying to find some plausible explanation within our comic.]

• If the hyperdrive is damaged on the way out of Naboo, how do they make it as far as Tatooine?
• Coruscant. What the? How is this planet even remotely possible?
• Why does R2-D2 accompany everyone through the swamp to look for the Gungans, instead of just staying on board the Queen’s ship like an astromech droid would actually do?
  • So he could project the map of the palace that they point to when they’re planning the attack. ’Cause this is “a long time ago”, and they haven’t invented paper yet. (Actually, is there paper anywhere in Star Wars?)
• What the hell is that entire video game arrangement of sequentially activating force fields that interrupt the Darth Maul fight?

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The State of Palpatine

[The following material was pasted from an e-mail from DMc (one of the writing team), dated 10-Dec-2009. This was when we were most of the way through Episode II, with the publication of strip #347. We needed some more insight into exactly what Palpatine had been up to during Episode I, in order to begin planning for Episode III.]

To the best of my knowledge, here’s what we know about the relationship between Palpatine and the Orb quest:

• Palpatine initially sent the Jedi to meet with the Trade Federation (#182).
• The Queen and most of her entourage (including Bibble) know that Palpatine was involved in the search for the Orb (#184).
• Bibble told the party that Palpatine has information about it (#41).
• Padmé told the party that Palpatine thinks the Trade Federation took it (#59). Qui-Gon wasn’t paying attention (#138).
• Qui-Gon asked Palpatine about it when they arrived on Coruscant (#127).
• Padmé asked Palpatine about it off-screen on Coruscant (#138).
• Palpatine hadn’t met Jar Jar before (#131), and was reluctant to talk to him on Coruscant (#138), although this could be because of the Gungans’ tendency to eat humans (#131). He doesn’t say much when they finally meet (#140).
• Palpatine hired Maul to look for the Orb (#180). He was eager for Maul to join up with the Jedi (#186), and intended to talk to them about it on Coruscant (#187).
• Palpatine wants the Orb to be used for peaceful purposes (#185).
• Maul has the impression that Palpatine wants the Orb for himself, not the Gungans (#189), as part of some plan to bring peace to the Galaxy (#193).

Here’s what we don’t explicitly know:

• Palpatine is keeping his search a secret. The only way we’ve implied this is by omission; the Gungans never mentioned Palpatine, which is unlikely if they knew that he had been looking for it and had information. However, there are other possible reasons for this omission (the Gungans and humans don’t like each other so they don’t cooperate; or Boss Nass didn’t tell the Jedi everything because he didn’t fully trust them; or the GM hadn’t made that bit up yet). And Palpatine didn’t seem to have a problem telling everyone other than the Gungans about it. He never does anything that gives the impression that he’s hiding something (except being reluctant to meet Jar Jar, but as mentioned, that could be for fear of being eaten).
• Palpatine is interested in using the Orb himself. This is interesting; even assuming that the flashbacks are accurate, we actually only have Maul’s word for it in #189 that Palpatine wasn’t going to give it back to the Gungans himself. (Keeping giant fish away from the Gungans would probably come under “peaceful purposes” #185). Maul could have been lying, or gotten the wrong impression from Palpatine, or wanted to steal it himself. (Note: I’m not suggesting we should do anything with this; just that it is, technically, ambiguous.)
• Palpatine knows that anyone other than the Gungans know that it rightfully belongs to the Gungans. However, he does know (at least from Coruscant onwards) that the party have been travelling with Jar Jar, who obviously does know. (He may even assume that Jar Jar asked for their help.) He still seems to be in support of the party, and still wants Maul to join up with them after they’ve arrived on Coruscant (#187), by which point he probably already knows about Jar Jar.
• Palpatine knows that Maul told anyone anything. He wanted Maul to join up with the Jedi (and presumably tell them stuff), but he doesn’t know that it actually happened.

So, basically, the only thing we know about Palpatine’s motives is what Maul tells Obi-Wan, which is that he wants to use it himself (i.e. not give it back to the Gungans) for peaceful purposes. Apart from that, he may or may not know a lot of things, and we have very little indication that he was trying to keep it a secret from anyone.

So.

What I’d like to do (and I’ll add some of this to the wiki) is for Palpatine to fill in some of these details at some point.

Rough idea: We already have a vague plan for Palpatine to send them on the Episode II quest, but not give them all of the details up front, and possibly lie about a couple of things. During Episode III, during one of the early Palpatine/Anakin scenes, Palpatine explains why he hid things from them—because he didn’t trust them to act in his interests after the shenanigans in Episode I. By saying this, we imply (or say explicitly) that he now does trust Anakin.