When the Empire fell and Vader killed the Emperor in Star Wars, the Emperor had one last order for the Imperial forces.
The Star Wars sequel trilogy showed a galaxy still dealing with the impact the Galactic Empire had on it. The various Disney+ projects reveal a galaxy still very much at war, dealing with Imperial remnants. This is all because of the former leader of the Empire, Emperor Palpatine. He was a strategic genius who had a plan for most events. He knew how to rise to power in the prequel trilogy, how to hold onto his power in the original trilogy, and how to regain power in the sequel trilogy. While the galaxy will always remember Order 66 as the single most devastating act the Emperor initiated, there is another that could have been significantly worse.
Operation: Cinder was the Emperor’s way of telling the galaxy that he was a sore loser. It was Palpatine’s contingency plan in case his other plans failed, or his Empire failed him. Of course, the Empire did eventually fail, with the Rebel Alliance overtaking them at the Battle of Endor. Unfortunately for the Rebels, the Empire, and everyone in between, the Emperor falling to his death was not the last they were going to hear from him. What Is Operation: Cinder?
Emperor Palpatine was a man who always needed to come out on top. He needed to obliterate his enemies at any cost, even if that included destroying entire planets. That much is evident with the Death Star’s creation. To say that Sheev Palpatine didn’t think of everything would be false, because he had plans in place even in the event of his unexpected death.
Weeks after Darth Vader tossed his master into the core of the second Death Star, messenger droids were deployed to pre-selected Imperial Officers from the former leader of the Galactic Empire. The messenger droids delivered the directive for Operation: Cinder, which saw the deployment of a network of satellites in the orbit of numerous planets. The satellites created massive planet-wide electrical storms that ultimately destroyed entire planets.
