Star Wars The Clone Wars: Padme Mon Cala ARC (Full plot)
This episode takes place just before the kidnapping of Chancellor Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith. Palpatine’s prolonged stay in office is suggested by the Senate. Padmé is against the vote to prolong Palpatine’s stay in office and discusses the matter with Bail and Mon Mothma who are also against it. She decides to have Bail Organa, Mon Mothma and herself, along with some other senators (Senator Kin Robb, Fang Zar, Senator Chuchi etc) observe the movements of the Chancellor’s supporters such as the Trade Federation, the Banking Clan who now openly support the Chancellor and the war effort –and are the ones who initially suggested during a hearing that Palpatine’s stay in office should be prolonged.
Padmé is certain that something fishy is going on –and she suspects that the Chancellor has made a deal with the Trade Federation and all the various independent corporations such as the Techno Union to keep financing him in order for him to advance his political career and keep himself in office longer than needed, and in exchange the Chancellor would give them benefits. She only suspects that he’s corrupt and that he has potentially sold himself to the enemy, not that he's a Sith Lord. She also suspects that Palpatine uses Count Dooku and the war as a whole as an excuse and scapegoat to keep himself in power longer than needed.
Padme starts investigating things on Naboo and learns that a lot of people are not satisfied with how Palpatine is handling things, because he seems to have forgotten about his home planet altogether. Padmé gets a speeder and goes into the Gungan home to discuss with them, and gathers the support of the Queen of Naboo, who will give a vote of no confidence for him -- just like Padmé had once done for Valorum.
In the meantime the Jedi Council has received word that the Quarren leader is dead, so Anakin and Padmé volunteer to go on an official mission to Mon Cala as ambassadors in order to find out exactly what happened. Padme has an ulterior motive, since she knows the Prince of Mon Cala, so she decides to go to him to support her cause. She asks Anakin for help in supporting her decision, even though Anakin is opposed to the idea, but he only does it for Padmé and agrees to stand neutral as an observer and bodyguard.
Apparently Count Dooku was behind the assassination of the Quarren leader Nossor Ri, but there was no proof. Count Dooku did it because he wanted to stir up conflict between the Mon Calamari and the Quarren again. Palpatine elected Senator Tikkes as provisional leader by overstepping the will of the Quarren people and forcing Tundra Dowmeia to officialize and accept the election of Tikkes. King Lee Char had no choice but to accept Tikkes because he was the only candidate left and the closest to the previous Quarren leader, Nossor Ri.
Tundra is outraged at how they forced him to accept Tikkes, because Lee Char stands in favor of denying Palpatine a prolonged stay in office. Lee Char doesn't want to upset either faction after their previous war, and the election of Tikkes appears legitimate to him according to Mon Cala traditions. He tells Padmé and Anakin that the Mon Calamari will not oppose Palpatine, but it’s more likely that the Quarren will because there’s been some discontent from the Quarren given the election of Tikkes.
Tundra Dowmeia formed his own faction that opposes Tikkes, and they will join Padmé only if they help them get rid of Tikkes and the corrupt part of the Quarren people that support Tikkes. Palpatine pretends that he suspects Count Dooku to be the one secretly supporting Tundra Dowmeia, and he claims that Tikkes is the legitimate leader instead; so he opts for sending Republic support to Mon Cala in order to protect the "democratic" Tikkes against the "anarchical and tyrannical" Tundra Dowmeia.
This sees a struggle between Republic forces who now act as a police force –and Tundra Dowmeia’s loyalists. Count Dooku is instructed to make Tundra Dowmeia look like an evil leader in the eyes of the people, and Tikkes instead fakes his loyalty to the Republic when in reality, he’s a covert Separatist instead. The clones are shown to be more loyal to the Republic and to the Chancellor than the Jedi. The clones are also willing to go against the will of the people if it means that the Chancellor ordered it.
This causes most of the Jedi (especially the council members who know that Dooku created the Clone army) to become suspicious of clones, and over time, lose the bond Jedi and clones once had. Not all Jedi, but most.
Prince Lee Char is also slightly distrusting of the Jedi, since he knows that the Jedi Council expelled Ahsoka from the Jedi Order, but he agrees to help Padme and Anakin in this conflict, despite not being opposed to the Chancellor fully. Tundra Dowmeia is distraught and emotional at the state of things. He would make himself look bad every time he reacts violently; thus playing into Dooku’s and Sidious’s game even more.
Palpatine uses this to justify his actions in the Senate and present Tundra Dowmeia as a violent anarchist. Anakin and Padmé are forced to leave -- not to take part in the conflict, while King Lee Char and the Mon Calamari are drawn into the conflict when trying to pacify everyone. Since this is an internal matter, the Republic will only send military support if needed --but cannot actively fight the battle by launching an invasion, because the planet is technically still contested at this point and there is no apparent Separatist invasion, only a stir up between two Quarren factions and the government (the king).
This leads to Padmé investigating things in order to prove to the Senate that Tundra Dowmeia is actually the good guy. She does this and the fighting eventually stops, but at the end, Tundra Dowmeia himself is brought to the Senate to speak and Palpatine apologizes to him stating that the manipulations and schemes of Count Dooku were getting more and more severe by the minute. He says the Republic needs to stand firm even more than before, and that the Supreme Chancellor needs to stay in office now more than ever, because Count Dooku is trying to rip the Republic apart from within by stirring up doubt and turning friends against each other.
This makes Palpatine appear as the victim of those manipulations by Dooku. Palpatine’s stay in office is prolonged, but in the meantime, Padmé has formed the rudiments of what will later be the Delegation of 2000, so her allies will come in handy later on, as shown in the deleted scenes of Revenge of The Sith.
