During a meeting near the beginning of A New Hope, there is an admiral who seems to be somewhat making fun of Darth Vader and mentions offhand that he is probably the last of the Jedi. Obviously I know there is still Luke and Obi-Wan, but the imperials aren’t aware of this yet at this point in the movie, however they have already mentioned the Emperor at this point.
My question is, are the Imperials unaware that their Emperor is a Force user? Was Palpatine keeping it a secret? Had George Lucas not yet written Palpatine as a character and this line of dialogue was simply overlooked? Is there a ret-conned explanation for this?
Curious what you guys think.
The imperials don't know that Palpatine is a Sith, they think he's just a politician. When they say Vader is the last of his kind they mean the last of the Jedi. "Their fire has gone out of the universe, you, my friend are all that's left of their religion" as Tarkin says.
I think at that point Palpatine wasn't intended to be a Sith, just a politician.
So then it would have been common knowledge that Vader was a fallen Jedi?
Tarkin had known Anakin previously so he had his suspicisions, similar to Thrawn and Yularen.
Other admirals just saw him as a generalized force user who was either previously a jedi or just a sith but really had no time or reason to question.
everyone lower just were to afraid of Vader to even think about it
Thrawn outright knew, and even liked to get under Vader's skin about it by occasionally referencing events that 'they' worked with each other during the clone wars.
Been some years, but he had his suspicions toward the beginning of the Tarkin novel and was pretty sure at the end, if not convinced.
Are you talking about Tarkin? The Tarkin novel takes places before Thrawn joins the empire, and Thrawn only meets Vader about 12 years later in 2 BBY.
Ah shit, yeah, small mobile screens. I mixed up the two of them reading too fast.
You also should realize that most of the general public couldn't distinguish between Jedi and Sith. To most of them, it was just doing "the magic hand thing" (to quote Greef). A few, more well informed, knew they were somehow using the Force and may have known that there were light and dark sides to it, but most --- if they knew of the Sith at all --- would likely consider them just an old Jedi legend. I mean, even the Jedi were quite legendary to the average person and few would have ever seen one in real life given that there were 10,000 Jedi spread out over a million star systems.
I always try to press this number into peoples head 10k Jedi in galaxy with 100s of quadrillions. 1 in 10 trillion odds
The Jedi Civil War is a prime example of this. Most people in the Galaxy just couldn't bother to try and sort out the differences between the Jedi and the Sith. Even though one group was openly attacking innocent people and the other group was trying to stop them.
"Jedi" is also sorta the catch-all term most regular people in the Galaxy use for anyone that can utilize the force. Even beyond not understanding the difference between a Jedi and Sith, they don't even realize that being force-sensitive doesn't automatically make someone a Jedi, which is a specific rank within a specific organization.
This is shown pretty well in the Clone Wars episode where Hondo and his pirates capture Dooku.
Hondo calls Dooku a Jedi, and Dooku says that he’s a Sith Lord.
Probably a bit insulting to be called a Jedi.
“Your Jedi vs sith war, to the rest of the universe, was just the Jedi Civil War. Most can’t tell the difference”
Definitely butchering it, but Atton says this in KOTOR 2
None of this existed when a new hope was made. He was the last of his kind at the time. What did that mean? Well sith didn’t exist yet so…?
Sith did exist, Vader was called a Dark Lord of the Sith in the novelization.
Pretty sure the Sith were mentioned in the earliest drafts.
There's a deleted alternate take of the "find your lack of faith disturbing" scene where the term "sith lord" is used to describe Vader:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pavxYAAcwm4
Oh so, literally this scene. Lol.
Yup, lol.
Pretty sure he was called the "Dark Lord of the Sith," maybe even on the action figure card.
EDIT: I did some digging, and it was in the novel from 1977, not the action figure.
He was called a "Sith Lord" in an alternate take of this scene.
Although of note, no one knew what a Sith Lord was. Random cool sounding words that meant nothing. Same with Mandalorian.
Yes, other than being something roughly opposite the Jedi.
"A young Jedi named Darth Vader" Back when A New Hope was the only movie and it was just called Star Wars; Anakin was dead, Vader was a different character and at least Obi-Wan, Luke, and Tarkin knew that he used to be a Jedi.
Alec Guiness's acting is so good in that scene though that the retcon of Vader being Anakin fitted perfectly.
I don’t think Yularen ever had suspicions. That’s always just been headcanon
Common assumption that he was a Jedi. I don’t think the Empire publicized much about Vader and I don’t think anything like a free press existed.
Anyone in authority positions in the Empire definitely had common knowledge of Vader being Palpatine's former Jedi Enforcer/errand boy. So you definitely knew that whatever he was doing was likely under direct authority of Emperor himself. Definitely plenty of word would be passed around because he exists in such a unique position outside the normal military hierarchy.
More likely, it would have been from the Imperial perspective "Oh that's a Jedi who stayed loyal"
THIS! "He's the ONE Jedi that remained loyal to the galactic government"
At least in the EU I thought that was the official narrative. The Jedi tried to rebel at the close of the Clone Wars, and Vader sided with the Emperor and helped hunt the rest of the Jedi down. By ANH it was assumed they were all dead
No. Tarkin was somewhat unique in the amount of knowledge he had about Vader and Palpatine. In the Tarkin novel, he knows Vader = Anakin Skywalker, but no one else knows that but the Emperor and his circle of advisors.
Even among Imperial ranks, they have no idea what Vader is. Cyborg? Some sort of special droid? Did Palpatine have a bunch of Vaders he could deploy if this one died?
I kinda like the idea that Tarkin knows about who Vader once was but just not giving a shit
Tarkin hated most of the Jedi but respected Anakin
He was definitely the inspiration for the Dark Troopers that Moff Gideon deployed.
Pretty sure most folks wouldn't know what a Sith is, or the difference between a jedi and a sith..... so when they see a force user with a lightsaber, it's "look a jedi"
No, but think about it from Everyone else’s prospective —-
Lightsaber cops for around for 1000s of years— now the empire comes and now you have red lights are cops lol it’s basically all the same to them, it’s not like they saw Old Republic Jedi daily.
Lamborghini, Ferrari it’s all the same to some people
Tarkin almost certainly knew as did people like Yularen. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ISB higher ups knew.
Some Inquisitors knew at least, if not all of them.
It would be a career limiting move to mention this, however.
People act like Vader's true identity is some kind of deep mystery that had to be kept secret or else the Empire would fall, when the only reason for the whole charade is that Vader is disassociating and Palpatine wants to help him do it for his own purposes. There is no other reason for it.
Well, he's running around with a lightsaber and force choking people and the only people in their lifetime who pulled that crap was Jedi, so it's an easy conclusion.
No. They just know he has a lightsaber and uses magic. They assume that means Jedi. The vast majority of the imperials never met a Jedi, let alone knew about how their system worked.
I don't think the Imperial generals think he is a "fallen Jedi" - he is just the ONE Jedi that remained loyal to the galactic government. And now he's the right hand man to the Emperor....
I think most people would believe lightsaber=Jedi. They didn’t know about the Sith, nor did common people care about the force.
Most people at the time of the prequels don’t know who the Sith are. They had been gone for hundreds and hundreds of years. Anyone who could use the force in the republic era was assumed to be a Jedi. So it makes sense that anyone using the force during the Imperial years would be considered a Jedi too.
I would think not many empire generals know or care that much about the differences between a Jedi or a sith. They are both just force using religions
Wdym Fallen?
The imperials think they are the good guys. They were officers in the Republic fighting alongside the Jedi in the Clone Wars. Then at the end of the war facing a loss of power the Jedi rebelled and tried to seize power. Vader was the one loyal jedi that saved the chancellor and continued to serve in the imperial navy as it was reorganized into the empire.
To the imperials, order, obedience, conformity, human supremacy are all virtues and questioning, protests, freedom are vices.
In the Tagge cutscene (now all over the internet) they know Vader is a "Sith Lord" and they seem unnerved by it. A feeling like Wehrmacht officers in WW2 discussing a gestapo agent who had just turned up to "help"...
It seems only Tarkin knows that Vader was once a Jedi.
Good analogy. It did kinda seem like Vader had just showed up
Also, Palpatine was never a member of the Jedi Order and Vader had spent most of the last 20 years hunting down every surviving Jedi he could.
Correct, the novelization for Star Wars says he's a manipulable, weak politician that was put in place by the powers that be so that they could control things from behind the throne.
Palps didn't become an actual power and threat in his own right until Empire.
They had sith written into the originals before they ever said it. I don’t know if specifically the emperor was supposed to be but I always assumed he was because the empire was the big bad, not Vader, and Vader clearly wasn’t the top dog because of the interactions we see with tarkin.
I personally don’t think they (except Tarkin) knew Vader used to be a Jedi specifically. I imagine they believe he was a force user and the last of that kind, but not apart of the jedi order. Kind of like how medieval knights share christian beliefs but often went to war with each other. There is no doubt Tarkin knew Vader was Anakin, but I think Vader would have really tried to keep his background as a jedi a secret to the general imperial and admiral. It was implied in some Thrawn comic that Thrawn did not know who Vader was or were he came from until he met him in person and figured out that he was Anakin afterwards, implying that it was not known Vader used to be a jedi to anyone except very few.
Must have been awkward when 1.5 Jedi show up, broke into the space station, have a laser sword dance battle, and then etherealize into the oneness of the force all right in front of you
RIP Larry!
Most people don't even know what a Sith is. If you havent played Battlefront 2 you can watch this.
https://youtu.be/Tseqjjk9YgM?t=209
They are looking for one of Palpatine's vaults. Del is confused because the door has no opening mechanism so Luke opens it with the Force.
"Why would the Emperor have a vault that can only be opened with the Force?"
"Why do you think?"
"Are you telling me that the man who destroyed the Jedi Order is secretly one of them?"
"No, I'm telling you that as a boy on Coruscant you were frightened of the wrong thing."
One of the best bits that the Battlefront II campaign had, imo. I know a lot of people were disappointed that Inferno Squad did the whole defection thing, but this was a powerful scene.
If only the mission actually mattered to the story. Sure, Del began to have doubts after it, but Iden defected without having any Jedi experiences at all, and considering Del’s character, he probably would have followed Iden anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I love the mission for what it is, but it could have been cut and the plot would have remained basically the same (kind of like Han Solo’s mission). If we got any follow-up on the compass Luke took from the vault, that would have been something.
That's fair I guess - I imagine it's mostly there just to introduce us to playing as a lightsaber character.
Holy shit. Well, I just bought a copy of the game. Thank you.
I didn't LOVE the game but the Del and Luke sequence is one of my favorite video game moments.
This game has scenes of the Luke we all wanted post-ROTJ. Absolutely nailed what his characterization is
As someone who enjoyed the ST I have to hand it to BF2 Luke as the much superior Luke. Not even close. They're both canon too, its kind of funny. I get the trauma of losing a student but it felt like his whole character disintegrated except briefly on Crait.
Superb
I love ST Luke. I like it when shit doesn’t always have a happy ending.
But it’s not Luke though
Real life reason: Palpatine was not written yet as a powerful force user. For the first Star Wars movie, The Emperor was written as a spineless politician who was manipulated by the likes of Tarkin, the true “ruler” of the empire. It was only when the stakes needed to raised for TESB did Lucasfilm decide that Vader’s served some kind of dark side master,
In-universe reason: Most didn’t know about the Sith in general. Motti was basically calling Vader the only remnants of the Jedi religion.
Yep. I think GL was inspired by Shogunate Japan, and the Emperor was just a figurehead while real power was in the hands of the regional governor “warlords” like Tarkin. The concept of Palps being an absolute dictator and Force user didn’t come up until later.
Yeah, New Hope is to some degree just a pastiche of Seven Samurai and classic westerns in space. Everything that came after is a somewhat frantic attempt to convert the absolutely wild success of what is objectively a vibes and tropes based sketch of a universe into a series with lore. It's awesome, but there's definitely some cracks where GL couldn't quite get the details to match up.
The conference room conversation tells the whole story. Regional governors now directly in control, “Vader! Release him!” These are the rulers of the empire.
The idea of Palpatine being the Sith Master was being toyed with during ANH’s development but Lucas dropped it before release, and then brought it back during ESB. Vader was still supposed to have a dark side master during ANH though; it just wouldn’t have been Palpatine, it instead would’ve been a spiritual manifestation of the dark side himself whom Vader communicated with in a Force chamber.
So then how did Vader fit into that as of episode IV being the only movie at that time?
Same as he always was - the enforcer. Vader was the stick wielded by the ruler(s) of the Empire. Initially that could have been Tarkin and other military/political leaders. Eventually it became the Emperor.
The conversation OP references is exactly about this topic. To date, the Empire has not had the tools to enforce their dominance. While the military is vast and strong it can't truly control and intimidate every system. Vader with his evil space wizard magic abilities helped fill the gap. He was incredibly intimidating; normal citizens would see him as literally unstoppable. But he is just one person and the military leaders wanted something they could control and use - enter the Death Star.
In the 1977 movie Vader is Tarkin's enforcer, there's no mention of him working for the Emperor. Vader isn't the Emperor's second in command, above Tarkin, so the admirals and generals feel free to sass him.
In episode IV didn't Vader say something like 'the Emperor said x' as tho he was his messenger? Or was that just Tarkin?
Tarkin. And i believe what you refer to is when he enters the Death Star's war room. Even in that scene he tells Vader to stand down and Vader complies pretty quickly albeit with sass
I see, good info. Thanks
Actually, I believe there were several politicians who were supposed to be manipulating the Emperor. If I remember correctly, those same politicians orchestrated the fall of the Old Republic and positioned Palpatine as the Emperor. They convinced him what they were doing was the right thing to do for the Galaxy and continued to manipulate him from behind the scenes. The Emperor was originally conceived as very weak and feeble minded, as you said. But the issue was that there was an entire council controlling him and by extension the Empire as a whole.
I believe the intention was that it was the regional governors manipulating the emperor in the early drafts of the film and they were led by Tarkin.
Where did you get the info that palpatine was essentially controlled by tarkin? I’ve never heard of that before
From the preface to the original printing of Star Wars from the Adventures of Luke Skywalker. Don't know if it was left in printings after RotJ, since I only have an early print.
True, though it’s unknown whether Lucas wanted that or if Foster came up with that himself.
Foster has a tendency to introduce a lot of original content to others IP when he writes - not a bad thing, but he can definitely go in bold directions while he's at it.
That’s not what it says at all, Palpatine is a puppet for the bureaucrats and politicians
Well, Tarkin was in charge of the Death Star, so pretty much the most powerful person in the Empire from the time it became active until it was destroyed.
From the wiki:
The novelization of A New Hope describes Palpatine as a weak-willed Senator with delusions of grandeur who was elevated first to President of the Republic and then Emperor, controlled by the Imperial bureaucracy, conformed by ministers like Wilhuff Tarkin. However, he was neither a Force user nor a great political strategist.[326] This concept was superseded by The Empire Strikes Back, which revealed Palpatine to be the mastermind of the events of the Star Wars saga.
This was the intro to the novelization of the original movie: “Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic. He promised to reunite the disaffected among the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic. Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office, and the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears.”
That was how he was described in the original novelization
^
Wrong.
https://youtu.be/ZWeoL0lMWIg?si=0zXCpDhOdGvIvKp5
Wrong about what?
Nope. He is known as the same "Chancellor Palpatine". Most people didn't know about "Darth Sidious". He was just seen as a politician who turned himself into an Emperor
As far as most of the Empire is concerned, Darth Vader is the last loyal Jedi following Order 66. The existance of the Sith as a religious order is largely relegated to the history books as far as anyone outside of the Jedi remnants knows. The Order of Bane's biggest strength was its secrecy.
As far as the Imperial Navy is knows, the laser sword & supernatural powers marks Vader as a pre-Imperial Jedi general. Which is technically true. He's still the commander of the 501st Legion, even after the Grand Army of the Republic was restructured into the Storm Trooper Corps.
For an out of universe reason, I just read the novelization of a new hope recently, which came out before the original film and based on an earlier script. In it Palpatine is described as being manipulated by politicians after he took power. Basically he became the puppet. So it seems George's early ideas did not involve him being a sith. Also cool he is named Palpatine so early on even though that name is not used in the original films themselves.
The novelization wasn’t entirely George’s, there were some details Foster came up with himself, and this was likely one of them because George tells Foster a lot about the Emperor in their story conferences and never mentions to him that he’s a puppet. While it is true he didn’t intend for him to be a Sith at that point, he did toy with the idea of Palpatine being the Sith in earlier drafts before scrapping it by the time ANH released
I can see that being the case. In reading the novelizations for the first time it can be hard to see what the author added and what was in the script. James Kahn's experience with Return of the Jedi novel seems really interesting. He wrote a memoir on it and I just picked it up. Excited to read it.
Yep. Khan talks a bit about how much of the novel was his idea in this interview too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-L1_og3iKg
The novel even mentions multiple Emperors. The current one wasn't even the first one according to the novel.
Palpatine being one of many emperors was never Lucas’s plan. Though ANH’s novel does say that, that particular line was written entirely by Alan Dean Foster without Lucas’s input; we actually have a transcript of their story conferences in 1976 where Foster mentions he wrote that line in the novel and Lucas is like “No that’s not correct, Palpatine is the same emperor who founded the empire”. Why Foster didn’t remove the line after Lucas told him that I’m not sure; my guess is he probably just forgot about it/made an error
Keep in mind that in Phantom Menace the rest of The Jedi are of the belief that the Sith are gone and have been for hundreds if not thousands of years. Its only until Qui Gon is killed that they accept that there is a Sith out there but even then that's all they know.
Come Attack of The Clones and into Clone Wars while they eventually accept that Dooku is a fallen Jedi, they don't put two and two together that the Darth Tyranus the heard about is Dooku until near the end of the series.
and that's just The Jedi. By and large most of the galaxy don't know shit about The Jedi themselves, let alone their old enemies that haven't been active for many generations. To a lot of people, The Jedi, Sith, Force Witches, etc are all in the same group of "mysterious people I want no part of"
With the rise of The Empire, Jedi were hunted down or became Inquisitors and by the time of Episode IV the Inquisitors were all dead. So to an admiral or Moff Tarkin (who never seemed to respect the Jedi besides Anakin) yeah it would seem like Vader is the last force user.
TLDR: If people don't know much about Jedi, they certainly don't know about The Sith.
The Emperor’s status as a Sith Lord is kept a secret to most of the Empire. Only a few like Mas Amedda know that Palpatine is a Sith Lord.
The early script drafts and the 1976 novelization portray the emperor as a puppet figurehead and not force sensitive. In later canon it wasn't publicly known that he was a sith outside of his inner cabal. I don't think even Tarkin knew the difference between sith and Jedi.
As I recall, early drafts of Star Wars had the Emperor as a simple figurehead controlled by the military and the moffs.
And Darth Vader was his name, not a title. So he would have been the last "Jedi".
But no, even in canon now, most of the Empire had no idea the Emperor was a Sith Lord. In Legacy, he had Vader wipe out an entire village because they had seen him use the Force.
Last of his kind = Jedi. Not Sith and nothing to do with the emperor.
Palps would have no reason to show his force powers. It would raise questions, considering he was not seen as a force user throughout the entirety of his time as a Chancellor. He has Vader do his dirty work requiring force powers.
I would hazard a guess that Palpatine was never truly outed as a Sith during his reign outside of maybe his elite guard. For most he wa still but a normal man who became Emperor after being a Senator. Presuming he ever did use his powers on anyone he punished personally- it likely was an execution.
The Emperor being a Sith is pretty much a secret to the citizens of the Empire, and even a lot of Imperial officers.
Tarkin likely suspects if he doesn’t outright know by then.
But Vader was also a Jedi, and that’s more likely what they are referring to.
They definitely had no idea that he was who/what he was. He was very good at hiding it...the Jedi Council, who he dealt with directly...couldn't even sense it.
Vader is the only guy going around openly using a lightsaber and the force. You've gone from a bunch of Jedi, who turned out to be traitors, and now you've got one Imperial one left. From the cut scene where he is referred to as a Sith, it seems they have some knowledge of Jedi vs Sith, but they probably think of the Sith as an off shoot or reformation of the Jedi.
There doesn't seem to really be any indication that people openly know that the Emperor has force powers and he also does not regularly wield a lightsaber. In fact, he has framed himself as a victim of the Jedi.
The ambiguous area with evolving and constantly changing cannon are the Inquisitors. Are we to assume that they have all been killed off by the time of A New Hope and the program has been dismantled? I don't know of any Inquisitors appearing in media after ANH, aside from Marrok in Ahsoka... which doesn't probably count.
This always was how I read the vibe of that scene. Vader is literally the only one running around with a lightsaber at that time, constantly reminding people of “force here, force there… blabla force blabla”. So to the military leaders he appears like a powerful figure in a leading position who has this weirdo occultist touch as force religions are gone. That was to show that military simply didn’t believe in the “force stuff” and they find it pointless if not annoying that Vader keeps bringing that topic on.
are you talking about Tarkin? yeah, not only does he say Vader is the last of the Jedi religion, it's right after Vader says he hasn't felt Obi Wan's presence since he was in the presence of his old master.
It's a pretty quick back-and-forth, and maybe it's a result of fleshing out too many things too early in the story, but that's pretty definitive. Tarkin doesn't just know he's a Jedi, he knows which one he is too
They mean Jedi. They don’t know the difference between Sith and Jedi.
Seems so from what we also see in the prequels and series that take place prior to ANH. Remember that Palpatine has had a very public, long, political life prior to the end of Republic in which he never hinted to anyone that he was a Force user. Suddenly revealing that to those outside of his most trusted inner circle (likely Vader and his advisors) would likely raise a bunch of serious questions. To maintain power, he needed to continue being that same person, though with a different title and some gnarly scars.
People knew vader was a jedi, they just didn't know which jedi, they thought there was a vader walking around in the jedi temple before the fall, they didn't know he had another name.
Tarkin knew that he was a Jedi and that he was Anakin, and by ANH it was considered that all the Jedi were dead to the point where what was left of the Inquisitors were phased out by 0 BBY
Because they had no idea that so many more movies would be made.
Lucas himself didnt know he was going to make anymore at that time.
Oh no, they were referring to Vader’s black helmet. As the Stormtroopers and rebel soldiers show, lighter coloured helmets were starting to become much more in fashion.
At the time he was just a Jedi that had gone bad, “the Sith” wasn’t what it was, so there wasn’t a distinction between a good Jedi or evil one
At that point in the creation of the movies, it was still up in the air as to what the Emperor was. Early in the story process the Emperor was an old isolated guy and real power was being wielded by people like Tarkin. Evil dark wizards and the Emperor were different people, just like Vader and Luke's dad were different people and Leia and Luke were not siblings. Lumping these roles together came in ESB and ROTJ.
yeah, the only one who suspects it is of course Tarkin
A New Hope also tells us that Vader killed Anakin, so people who knew of Anakin’s would believe that he was murdered.
All of this changed and the canon started getting fleshed out with Empire. I just choose to believe that Vader pissed Palpatine off prior to ANH and was punished by being made to serve under Tarkin for a bit.
I don't think Lucas had decided to make the Emperor a Sith yet, but it still makes narrative sense. The Jedi are being eliminated from the public consciousness, so Palpatine wouldn't want most people to know what he really was. Within the Imperial military and government, only those closest to the Emperor would know much about his relationship with Vader. Touting Vader as a lone Jedi who chose to serve the Emperor, who led the destruction of the rest, would serve Vader's position as an enforcer without handling any official rank to him. Simultaneously, a Jedi loyal to the Emperor makes the Emperor seem more legitimate and suggests strength and power not glimpsed by men like those in that room.
They just meant force user
no, only his inner circle and royal guards knew. if somebody found out that person and their whole family/village/city would be killed.
I cant remember where I read it, but I've seen someone say before that it was a practical deception by palpatine that virtually no one knows he is a sith ( basically only palps, vader, obiwan and yoda knew until Luke came around)
He just overthrew a galactic government that had been in place for a thousand years and convinced the average being that the Jedi were actually the ones doing it.
And since most beings didnt know the minutiae between light and dark side users, palpatine would have just looked like a rogue jedi who betrayed and ordered the eradication of his former allies
Not a great look for your shiny new empire if the info ever got out
I always wondered if people thought he was some form of force user they would unimpressed ... he got his ass kicked enough that he's in a mechanical suit that barely keeps him alive.. Or did they think he wanted to be in that thing?
They don't know about the exists of the sith at all. To them Vader is a jedi that sided with the empire rather than the jedi order, not a sith. This is also how almost anyone who knows of Vader sees him, even those in the rebellion. Sidous has also kept the fact that he is force sensitive relatively secret. There are those among the highest ranks of the empire that know he's force sensitive, but even most of them aren't aware that either he or Vader are sith lords. Essentially the only ones who are even aware that there was ever such an order as the sith (even during the clone wars by the way) are the jedi, people who the jedi have told, and people who learned about the sith through intense study of history (because info on the sith was not easy to find because the jedi would lock away or out right destroy most things to do with the sith that they found and the rule of two sith would hord what was left).
The Imps don't know Palpatine is a Sith, and by ANH the Inquisitors had essentially made themselves redundant as a result of their own success ironically. Chances are those Jedi killers/former Jedi themselves, would have been eliminated by Vader himself to avoid future competition now the job was done
Firstly, I don't think a well-developed idea of the Sith existed yet. Vader was a "dark Jedi" at that time and there was no concept of a Sith Order.
I was born in '90 which limits my perspective of events, but I don't remember seeing any mention of "Sith" until the merchandising for The Phantom Menace (t-shirts is the first place I saw the word---and I was reading some SW novels around that time).
[Anyone remember all the "Jedi vs Sith" merchandising before/during episode 1? It was literally introducing the concept of Sith because it wasn't here during the Originals].
It is almost certain that Moff Tarkin and Moff Motti (the one he choked) were referring to the Jedi when they referred to the "ancient religion." Vader at that time was a betrayer/killer of the Jedi, not a convert or adherent to the Sith.
In fact, if you think about it, this early concept is much more consistent with George Lucas. Nowadays, there's an almost constant debate about what "balance" in the Force means, with a lot of fans believing in "Grey Jedi" or the idea that there have to be equal parts light and darkness / Sith and Jedi. But Lucas has always maintained that the Dark Side is a corruption, not an essential aspect. This idea makes a lot more sense with what seems to be the original concept---Vader being a lost Jedi rather than part of a separate order.
We know that Tarkin was referring to Vader as the last of the Jedi because he was talking about the assumption that Kenobi was dead. Vader says he senses Kenobis presence. Tarkin says "surely he must be dead by now" and adds,
"The Jedi are extinct. Their fire has gone out of the universe. You, my friend, are all that's left of their religion."
To Tarkin, Vader and Kenobi were the part of the same order, not separate ones. The Emperor was also not a "Sith" and was probably only established as a Force wielder until ESB.
The reveal of the Emperor as a Force wielder was a creatively interesting decision, and viewers today whose perspective has been altered by the Prequels and other media can never appreciate the surprise the first time the Emperor revealed his power in RotJ. My initial impression (first watching Star Wars a few years before Ep 1 released) was that the Emperor was an ancient evil who assumed power, sort of the only one of his kind. I like that perspective better than what we have now, because the Jedi and the dark side were much more mysterious.
What complicates matters is that Lucas has never been a reliable source on the evolution of SW, maintaining that mostly what we see was part of his original plan all along (common sense reveals that as a lie). Also, Lucas version that he planned everything all along distorts the fact that other minds were key influences in the original SW trilogy, which is why (in my view) there are a lot of tonal and conceptual disconnects between the Prequel and Original films (and Anakin/Vader characterization in particular)
The Sith are mentioned in every draft of ANH, including the shooting script
The Inquisitors were running around openly and how they suddenly disappeared before ANH hasn't been resolved, nor is it likely to be as one of them is running around in Ahsoka.
It really only makes sense in light of the inquisitors, I don’t think most of the galaxy and even those in the highest ranks of imperial power who weren’t personally clued in by Palpatine would believe that Sith were a real thing, but the Jedi were definitely real and so were the inquisitors, but now (as of ANH) the Jedi have all been hunted to extinction and Vader is the last remaining Inquisitor, the last of his kind, and without a real purpose because no single combatant could stand against him
Tatooine, which we're repeatedly told is basically the backyard of the galaxy (despite Jabba's presence), had no problem understanding who the Inquisitors were and what they could do when they showed up in the first episode of Obi-Wan. I find it hard to believe that Imperial officers with more galactic experience would know or believe less than Tatooine peasants.
It doesn’t make much sense whatever way you look at it