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In Disney canon, the Sith use dark side energy emanating from the Sith shrine beneath the Jedi Temple to cloud the senses of the Jedi, allowing them to hide in plain sight. No particular Force power is used.

However, this isn't known to modify one's midichlorian count. Tests for midichlorian counts are part of the standard medical checkups in the Galactic Republic. Why isn't Palpatine found out during any of the routine medical checkups a government official would have to go through?

Null
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thegreatjedi
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    Not every Force-sensitive child are studying to become Jedi. Maybe Palpatine was known as "possibly very powerfull", but no one wanted to train him. – Saphirel Jan 31 '16 at 22:56
  • Yoda says himself that Palpatine is "clouded". – Möoz Jan 31 '16 at 23:04
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    There appear to be three separate (and equally valid) questions here; 1) Why wasn't Palpatine tested in childhood? 2) Why can't the Jedi sense Palpatine's force-sensitivity? 3) Why wasn't Palpatine tested as Senator? – Valorum Jan 31 '16 at 23:35
  • Question 3 is answerable in Legends canon, BTW – Valorum Jan 31 '16 at 23:35
  • @Saphirel all infants born in the Galactic Republic - and Naboo is very much one - are tested and Force sensitives are brought to the Temple. They are only released after a certain age if no Master picked him as a Padawan by then. The Jedi would know if he had been detected. – thegreatjedi Feb 01 '16 at 00:11
  • @thegreatjedi Right, my bad. But Palpatine is child of House Palpatine, and nothing in his biography says that he had be tested. Part of answer in thinking about law application on Houses? – Saphirel Feb 01 '16 at 00:32
  • @Mooz - When does Yoda say that Palpatine specifically is clouded? You'd think he'd conclude there was something weird going on if a specific being who wasn't supposed to be Force-sensitive was more clouded than others. Are you sure you're not thinking of some other line, like Yoda saying of Anakin "clouded, this boy's future is", or saying "The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is" when he was asked (by Palpatine) if he thought there would be a war? – Hypnosifl Feb 01 '16 at 00:37
  • @Hypnosifl pretty sure the Jedi suspects Palpatine, but in the wrong way: Anakin was asked to spy on Palpatine because they suspect Sidious is someone close to Palpatine. They probably deduced this as the reason for Palpatine's clouding – thegreatjedi Feb 01 '16 at 00:42
  • @thegreatjedi - Even if they suspected Palpatine might be influenced by the Sith somehow, that still doesn't show that they sensed that Palpatine was "clouded" in the Force--I'm just asking if there were any specific lines where they said that. – Hypnosifl Feb 01 '16 at 00:46
  • @Richard - Maybe it'd be worth putting up a Legends answer to that? (assuming you aren't already working on it) I think there is also a Legends answer to 2) -- in Darth Plagueis, shortly after Plagueis met Palpatine there's a line "Again he tried to see deeper into Palpatine, but without success. The psychic walls the youth had raised were impenetrable, which made the young human something rare indeed. Had Palpatine somehow learned to corral the Force within himself, as Plagueis had concealed his own powers as a youth?" Then later there is a scene where Palpatine learns that his father – Hypnosifl Feb 01 '16 at 00:48
  • (cont) had tried to prevent him and Plagueis from communicating, and there's the quote "Palpatine's fury buffeted Plagueis. Blossoms growing along the sides of the pathway folded in on themselves, and their pollinators began to buzz in agitation. FourDee [a droid] reacted, as well, wobbling on its feet, as if in the grip of a powerful electromagnet. Had this human truly been born of flesh-and-blood parents? Plagueis asked himself. When, in fact, he seemed sprung from nature itself. Was the Force so strong in him that it had concealed itself?" – Hypnosifl Feb 01 '16 at 00:50
  • (cont) And finally, after Palpatine admits to Plagueis that he committed a murder using the Force, there's the quote "He [Plagueis] could see Palpatine now in all his dark glory. Anger and murder had pulled down the walls he had raised perhaps since infancy to safeguard his secret. But there was no concealing it now: the Force was powerful in him! Bottled up for seventeen standard years, his innate power had finally burst forth and could never again be stoppered ... He would need help rebuilding those walls, to keep from being discovered." – Hypnosifl Feb 01 '16 at 00:55
  • One of the Darth Bane books featuers a sith walking through the Jedi Temple disguised as a Jedi. She was able to mask her Dark side presence through a force power. But if your question is why didn't a blood test detect his count; He was incredibly careful to hide his true nature from everyone. –  Feb 01 '16 at 01:03
  • @Hatandboots yeah, I searched up on Force stealth. There is a dark side version that masks one as though he/she is a light-sider. But that's Legends. – thegreatjedi Feb 01 '16 at 03:55
  • @Richard Question 3 would be a dupe of this one. – Null Feb 01 '16 at 05:17
  • @null - Fair point. I'll add an answer to it when I get to a PC – Valorum Feb 01 '16 at 08:01
  • "You don't need to run the midichlorian check on me. You will enter a value of zero." –  Apr 14 '16 at 01:25

3 Answers3

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A high midiclhorian count doesn't necessarily mean that the person is strong in the force or even force sensitive they state that in The Phantom Menace. And Palpatine was a member of an aristocratic Naboo family, his father was a very influential man. And although it isn't Cannon the novel Darth Plaugeis shows that Palpatine's father had no love for Jedi or force users in general. So even if Palpatine was tested as a child his father probably would never let any of his children become Jedi and any time after that wouldn't matter. He would be to old and never would have been allowed into the order.

The Mandolorian
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I definitely have read a comic which explained this (although i'm pretty sure it wouldn't be canon anymore). I thought it was in the Clone Wars volumes of Star Wars: Republic but I looked up the summaries and I might be wrong - maybe it was in one of the Legends? anyways.

Somehow the idea that there is a Sith in the senate is presented to the Jedi council, and somehow Anakin finds out. He and his master (I believe it was Ki-adi mundi at the time, as Obi-Wan was being held captive by Ventress?) run the idea by Palpatine, because Palpatine and Anakin have some sort of closeness, who suggests that testing all senators for midi-chlorians would have grave political consequences (which makes sense from the Jedi's perspective).

IIRC, either Palpatine organizes it so that the Jedi who was championing the cause was sent on a mission where the military intelligence underestimated the droid forces by an order of magnitude and died, or he arranged for a transport vehicle for the senator championing the idea to explode leaving Coruscant as Mon Mothma and Bail Organa watch horrified, and then something else comes up that takes the attention of the Council.

This is a bit vague cause it's been years since I read these, but this was the canon explanation pre-legends.

mc-lunar
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Easy, the dark side is the art of deception. If a midichlorian count was performed on Palpatine, he could easily cause the the person administering the test to forget the exact number and write another one down.

DieFlederMaus
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    Interesting approach. Do you have some clues? – Saphirel Jan 31 '16 at 22:57
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    @Saphirel By clues do you mean evidence? – DieFlederMaus Jan 31 '16 at 23:07
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    If so, the answer is no, no proof whatsoever, but a mere assumption based on previous examples. If my answer is unsatisfactory, than this isn't the answer your looking for, you can go about your business, move along. – DieFlederMaus Jan 31 '16 at 23:29
  • We know, from legends anywho, Palpatine has the ability to convince all of coruscant that a significant event never occurred (Lusankya) so this is not out of his range of powers. –  Feb 01 '16 at 01:06
  • @DieFlederMaus as a Q&A format website, we expect concrete, developed and proved content. While being allowed, speculations must be provided with a solid background. – Ikaros Feb 01 '16 at 01:25