Warning: The following contains spoilers from Star Wars: Crimson Reign #3, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
While Palpatine probably gets too much credit for Anakin turning to the Dark Side, Darth Sidious was still the ultimate Sith. He used a perfect combination of brains and brawn, orchestrated a personal takeover of the Republic, and installed himself as the sole ruler of the Galactic Empire. In order to do that, he first had to contend with the Sith’s mortal enemy -- Master Yoda and the Jedi Order.
So, Palpatine orchestrated a full-scale galactic conflict that pitted the Republic against the Confederacy of Independent Systems. From there, he essentially drafted the Jedi to serve as military leaders in the conflict, and when he believed that the war had gone on long enough, he executed Order 66. That infamous order made the Clone Troopers mindlessly kill thousands of Jedi, which nearly wiped out the Jedi for good.
However, Palpatine’s plans didn’t stop with Order 66. Sure, the Jedi were down for the count, but the evil Sith Lord wanted to make sure that they were destroyed for good. Star Wars: Crimson Reign #3 (by Charles Soule, Steven Cummings, Victor Olazaba, Guru-eFX, and VC’s Travis Lanham) recounted exactly how he tried to do that.
The Crimson Reign comic series is in the process of relating the fall of Crimson Dawn. Qi’ra, the Dawn’s leader, recruited all kinds of shady characters in a bid to overthrow Palpatine. Of course, challenging a Sith was a bad idea, and it’s probably not going to end well for Qi’ra. Regardless, Crimson Reign #3 told how Qi’ra recruited a mysterious character called the Archivist. Before Order 66, she was Madelin Sun, a Sava or scholar for the University of Bar’leth. There, she studied and taught about the Dark Side of the Force, so Qi’ra wanted to mine her knowledge for anything that could be used against Sidious.
During the issue, Madelin recounted how she lost her job and how Palpatine had really destroyed the Jedi. Obviously, Order 66 was the first step, but it was much deeper than that. After the Clones killed the Jedi, Palpatine wanted to erase all memory of their Order from history. He couldn’t take the chance that someone might be able to revive their religion and adherence to the Light Side of the Force. The way that Palpatine did that was fear. This makes perfect sense, given the Force itself was afraid of him.
Before the Clone Wars, people used to look up to the Jedi as heroes. However, the Light Side of the Force represented a state of perfection that normal people could not achieve. So, on another level, some people despised the Jedi’s loftiness and feared their power. Palpatine combined those things and called the Jedi enemies of the state. Blaming them for starting and prolonging the Clone Wars, Palpatine was able to seize on people’s inherent fear of the Jedi’s powers.
The people that spoke up, he killed. The others fell in line, as the memory of the Jedi dwindled. Thus, Order 66 wasn’t Palpatine’s greatest weapon. It was fear because he nearly succeeded in erasing the Jedi from history.