Today’s episode of The Mandalorian somewhat revealed what the Imperial remnants really want with Baby Yoda, and it might have to do with Emperor Palpatine’s clandestine operations on Exegol.
As we learned in The Rise of Skywalker, Darth Sidious never really perished. Instead, he used his powers to transfer his soul to a Sith planet in the Unknown Regions. There, the cultists who served the dark side assembled a new body for the phantom Emperor, but he was too feeble to leave the secret stronghold. As such, he resorted to using the First Order as a puppet organization to exact his revenge on the galaxy.
The fact that Palpatine has been behind it all from the beginning was a game-changing revelation in Episode IX, but it also had some implications for Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian. Fans even speculate that Moff Gideon is actually working for the big bad. And while what the Empire wants with Baby Yoda, specifically, is as of yet unclear, today’s episode has revealed more about their intentions.
As Mando, Greef Karga and Cara Dune learned in the Imperial lab, Doctor Pershing has been trying to infuse The Child’s blood with other random individuals in an attempt to give them midi-chlorians and make them Force-sensitive.
The simplest explanation for this would be that Moff Gideon is looking to resurrect the Empire. And what better way to do that than having a legion of powerful individuals like the Jedi of yore? It could also be that Palpatine is searching for a way to extract Baby Yoda’s midi-chlorians for himself, which would resurrect his body, something he finally achieved many years later through Rey and Ben Solo’s Force Dyad. After all, The Mandalorian has all but confirmed that the Child is also part of a Force Dyad, so it’s not really a stretch of the imagination.
Ultimately, we’ll have to wait and see for ourselves, but we wouldn’t be surprised if there was actually a much more powerful and influential individual like Palpatine controlling Moff Gideon from behind the curtains.