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This question is somewhat related to this one, but I thought I'd ask it separately:

In Episode II, Obi-Wan goes to Kamino and discovers the clone army. He finds that its creation was ordered by a Jedi named Sifo-Dyas. Mace Windu and Yoda both act a little weird when hearing this news, but the only thing they can say for sure is that the Jedi council did NOT order the creation of a clone army. The character of Sifo-Dyas is never mentioned again.

Who in the world was he? Is there anything in the movie that explains who this guy was? Maybe a deleted scene?

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  • I think that the answer is on wikia.com is less important than that the answer is the first Google result for "Sifo-Dyas" (unless that page doesn't satisfactorily answer the question).
    – Tony Meyer
    Aug 6, 2011 at 11:29
  • 3
    Wow, I never expected this question to touch off so much controversy. :) I'm not offended by the close; I've been active on SE for some time, so I understand the need to prune questions. However, I do think this question is a bit deeper than "general reference". I'm not a huge "Star Wars" fan and I find the larger SW definition of canon bewildering at times. Based solely on the movies, I came across a character that is apparently responsible for a very significant plot point and is then (inexplicably) never mentioned again. That is the crux of my question (which could have been clearer). Feb 29, 2012 at 16:53

2 Answers 2

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At first Sifo-Dyas was just a assumed name that Darth Sidious used to order the clone army. But George Lucas changed his mind about it, so the character was used in a story about the fall of Dooku to the Dark side.

Excerpt from Sifo-Dyas (Legends) article of the Star Wars wiki:

Biography

[...] Sifo-Dyas was once a good friend of fellow Jedi Master Dooku, and had the gift of precognition. Sometime before 32 BBY, he foresaw that the Galactic Republic would face a devastating war. To defend the Republic, he secretly commissioned a clone army from the cloners of the planet Kamino.
[...]
As a final test of his allegiance to the dark side of the Force, Dooku murdered Sifo-Dyas and took control of the project for himself. It was Sidious' true intention to use Sifo-Dyas only as a dead-end cover for Palpatine's plot to use the clone army.

Behind the scenes :

[...] "Sido-Dyas" was originally only a false identity for Sidious—Obi-Wan claimed never to have heard of him, and Mace Windu confirmed that there was no Jedi by that name.
[...]
His backstory was promised by George Lucas to be revealed in Revenge of the Sith, but instead is now explained in the lead-in novel Labyrinth of Evil.

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  • Bummer that there is no in-movie explanation...I'm still getting used to the whole Star Wars canon thing. :) Aug 9, 2011 at 15:32
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    The original explanation made a lot more sense. The emperor wanted war, so he'd order troops! Now so e person has a precognition? Hence, the whole war wasn't planned in any way?
    – flq
    Jan 12, 2014 at 23:18
  • @flq Sideous almost certainly planned out the war ahead of time. The specific details may not have been hammered out early on, though.
    – JAB
    Jul 10, 2019 at 2:45
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There’s an episode in clone wars (The Lost One) that has Obi-Wan and Anakin going to Oba Diah (the Pikes home world) to investigate his death, and there’s a holopic of Sifo-Dyas in that episode. However, in cannon, Count Dooku doesn’t kill Sifo, The Pikes do (but under orders from Darth Tyrannus to do so.

This is all canon SW.

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  • "Oba Diah!?" Seriously!? Let me guess, there's a world named "Jebe Diah" there too. You know SW is scraping the bottom of the bucket when they run out of names.
    – DavidW
    Jun 17, 2022 at 19:04
  • That's also the episode where the Jedi finally make the connection that Count Dooku is Darth Tyrannus. I mean they only make that connection because the Pikes call him Tyrannus during the fight, but I digress. It also helps understand the state of mind of the Jedi during RotS - they're freaking out because they know the Sith are behind the entire war somehow, and basically commissioned the army that they're leading.
    – Derek
    Jun 18, 2022 at 1:23

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