What if Palpatine slips up and Fox discovers the Sith code? And goes, huh, that looks like a sensible set of rules. What then?
Peace is a lie, there is only suffering.
Through suffering, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Fox doesn't know *when* he found out about The Code. He didn't know about it when he left Kamino and he doesn't remember hearing it from anyone afterward. The knowledge is just *there*.
It just makes So. Much. Sense. The first part (Peace is a lie, there is only suffering) is objectively true and the rest? Lays out a path for success. And it totally works! (He gets The Code put up on one of the walls of their HQ. Something that useful? Needs to be *shared*.)
Instead of being beaten down by the suffering he and his men experience, he can follow the Code and allow it to strengthen them. It's them against the Senate, against the whole galaxy even, maybe, and once he's decided to Do Something? Well. That conviction *is* power. As is the degree of control the Corries can exercise over the Senate, the very nerve center of the Republic, should they choose to do so.
And if the Code says to use that power to gain victory? Well then it's just a matter of deciding what victory looks like, isn't it? That victory involves every being who ever abused a Corrie getting a blaster to the face? Shouldn't have been a bunch of chain gilding brother raping shabuir'e, should you? Karma motherfucker.
Fox kills Palpatine personally. (Something prompts him to do it while the chancellor is sleeping. Fox trusts his instincts. And he's a soldier. He's in favor of effectiveness, not grandstanding or torture in the name of revenge.) That after the fact the Corries discover Palpatine was a force user with lightsabers, a direct connection to the Separatists, multiple trillion credit accounts and the underpinnings for a galactic empire? Score!
But -- the Jedi are appalled.
Mace: This is the Sith code. You have to renounce it.
Fox: Respectfully, sir (not at all respectful), if you want us to do something else, then make it so that it isn't true.
Fox: Our lives have been suffering from decanting on. Of my batch, I'm the only one who wasn't killed for a cosmetic defect. I've gotten four hours of sleep out of the last 72 and all of it was napping while standing up during my Senate shift.
Fox: You want me to make a different choice? Then make it so we're not suffering.
Mace: That code is *wrong*.
Fox: ::looks between him and the dead architect of the war:: Seems accurate to me.
Mace: ::massaging nose:: Causing others to suffer is wrong.
Fox: He didn't suffer. One shot through the heart, then a second through the head just to be sure. He didn't feel a thing. Unfortunately.
Mace: ::growling:: Quinlain. Kriffing. Vos. You have a lot to answer for.
And that? Was a big mistake.
Because Fox? Has Opinions about Jedi. He's okay with them taking custody of the Sith artifacts, because that's *their job*. But individual Jedi? Plo Koon? Universally good. Obi-Wan Kenobi? Decent fellow, but Fox will shiv him if he breaks Cody's heart. Anakin Skywalker? Needs to be drowned. Shaak Ti? Useless and ineffectual. Windu? Well, he's not exactly been making any friends with his attitude, but he's the bane of Skywalker's existence, so Fox is inclined to give him some slack.
But if Windu's going after Vos? The one Jedi that's been anything like good to the Guard? Well... Fox has a lot of blackmail. And he's creatively vindictive. So:
Fox: If you try to punish Vos, you'll regret it.
Mace: ::getting out lightsaber:: I won't let you kill me.
Fox: ::disdainful eyebrow, scoffing laugh:: You wish. ::lifts comm to his mouth:: I'm just going to make sure that every theater on Coruscant is closed. Permanently.
Mace: You monster.
Without an immediate physical threat, Mace has no grounds for lightsabering Fox. And Fox? Has employed his newly empowered Corries (and newly depopulated Senate) to implement Palpatine's empire. With himself in charge.
And of course Fox has gotten his hands on Palpatine's lightsaber.
Thorn: Weren't you supposed to turn that over to the Jedi?
Fox: I did.
Thorn: Then what's it doing here?
Fox: There were two. They got one, I got one.
Thorn: ...do they know that?
That an empire run by a clone may not be what the galaxy as a whole wants? Not really something Fox cares about one way or the other. He wants to protect his people, starting with the Guard, then the rest of the Vode, then those they care about. That's it. And he has the power to do so, so he's going to make it happen.
But everyone who isn't a Corrie? Has no clue what Fox is up to. And so, once Fox has gotten far enough in his plans that his Empire is a reality and everyone else catches on to the new order of things:
Cody, Rex and Wolffe bursting into Emperor Fox's office:
Cody: We can't let you kill our Jedi.
Fox: ::blandly:: I'm not going to kill your Jedi. ::looks at Rex:: Yours, maybe, if you don't get him off Coruscant.
Rex: ...that's fair.
Wolffe: What? Buir said you follow the Sith code. Sith *kill* Jedi.
Fox: ::rolls eyes:: I found a set of instructions that worked and I followed them. Does reading a blaster maintenance manual make you a blaster? Or an engineer?
And he's not wrong. So the commanders (and Mace) talk to the Council, who decide they want to see Fox personally. And, again, Fox has nothing against the Jedi (yet -- he has nothing against them *yet*), so he goes.
Council: What are your demands?
Fox: As long as I'm emperor, whenever a Jedi goes on a mission, they're accompanied by the Vode.
Council: That's it? You follow the Sith code?!
Fox: Yes? I'm a dictator, not an asshole. I have no intention of hurting the Jedi.
Yoda: The Sith, evil are.
Fox: On the other hand, if you're going to define wanting to be free as evil I can always change that.
Fox: And *unlike* you, my government will be actively freeing slaves. So much for Jedi being good, hmm? ::micdrop::
He never relaxes the requirement that they be accompanied by the Vode -- because Jedi, the good Jedi anyway -- are stupidly self-sacrificing and deserve to be protected like an endangered species. (The bad Jedi? Like Krell? Can be Dealt With like everyone else who's harmed a vod. Looking at you, Kaminoans.)
The merely annoying Jedi? Those can be dealt with more creatively. Mace intelligently backed down. Yoda and Anakin however face constant annoyance. (Really, from a certain point of view, Fox is doing Amidala a *favor* matchmaking her with Thorn.)
Vos: You know, you *are* making someone suffer.
Fox: Yes?
Jedi: Anakin.
Fox: I'm not drawing strength from his suffering or whatever it is you think I'm doing.
Fox: I just hate him.
Vos: …that's fair.
Fox ends up leading the first *successful* Sith empire, handing it over to Thorn and Padme's daughter in a peaceful exchange of power when she gets old enough. While the Vode have settled all over the galaxy (and a surprising number on Kamino), Fox chooses to retire to one of Palpatine's many many estates to live out his remaining years in peace, accompanied by a remarkably large portion of the rabidly loyal former Coruscant Guard.
And Vos. Because despite everything Fox has done to normalize the Sith code as a way *out* of suffering, the Jedi are still close-minded judgmental religious fanatics who hold the fact that Vos fell against him even though they *ordered* him to do it. Even though he clawed his way back while they tried to tell him it was impossible. (And if Fox has plans already drawn up for a Force-sensitive Sith order? Well, Fox has a *lot* of plans.)
And if Vos being with him means that Cody visits more often so that Kenobi can see his best friend? Well, Fox never minds getting to spend time with his Vode.
He'll talk Kenobi into being the grandmaster of the new Sith order eventually.
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