WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker , in theaters now.

Since 2015, fans have been speculating what the true identity of Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) is and his background. In The Force Awakens, his history was very much guarded, with plot points teasing he was a new regal leader cut from the same cloth as Emperor Palpatine. It seemed he was hellbent on subverting philosophies of the Sith to govern the First Order. But in Rian Johnson'sThe Last Jedi, with his death by the hands of his student Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), we never got confirmation if Snoke was a Palpatine fanboy, religious Sith disciple or just someone trying to tread dark waters of his own.

Thankfully, J.J. Abrams, the director who introduced him to the Star Wars universe, has officially unveiled the background behind the deformed ruler and as some fervently speculated, he is indeed a clone of Palpatine.

THE BIG REVELATION

The film opens with Kylo searching for the "Wayfinder," a Sith compass. He's been on a warpath to get his hands on it; murdering villagers across various planets since word has emerged Palpatine is ready to return with his own army. As the new Supreme Leader, Kylo's upset about being challenged and after finding one compass, he travels to Exolgor, the Sith planet in the Unknown Regions, to confront the Emperor.

In the haunted temple, Kylo meets a zombie-like Palpatine hooked up to life-saving machinery. It's a very scary scene as the Emperor tells Kylo he's always been inside the former Jedi's head and he's every voice the student formerly known as Ben Solo has known, including Snoke's. Kylo warns him he'll cut him down like Snoke, only for the laughing tyrant to remind Kylo that Snoke was a mere student, lacking the Emperor's power, and that he was indeed the fallen Jedi's true master. Then there's another twist: Snoke doesn't want to subjugate Kylo, he wants to work with him to kill Rey. At this point, Kylo looks around and we see vats in what's essentially a giant science lab.

Palpatine reveals Snoke was his creation, a puppet to manipulate until he was ready to return and in one stasis chamber, we see several aborted Snoke clones bundled together. Kylo's shaken as images enter his mind where we see obscure hooded figures, who are the equivalent of Sith lab assistants, working on the clones in various cells and plugging equipment together. We never find out how many semi-healthy Snoke ones emerged or why they were disfigured (theories suggest it's because they were bred from the maimed body of the Emperor after he was tossed into the Death Star reactor by Darth Vader).

Also, it appears some of these hooded figures were also Snoke clones, ones who had some motor function and were used as the Igor to Palpatine's Dr. Frankenstein in hopes of prolonging his life. The hooded clones are also hinted to be the Emperor's audience at the finale of the movie, egging the Prime Palpatine on to kill off Rey and Kylo.

THE CLONE INSPIRATION

In the Legends canon, Palpatine did create clones of himself as he was obsessed with immortality. While he was all about politics, Sith mysticism became a huge part of his studies, too, since his days as Darth Sidious under his master, Darth Plagueis. He worked round the clock in the shadows to combine the Dark Side of the Force with science. The haunting and supernatural process saw Palpatine using clones as vessels to live for centuries and, through spirit transference, he'd pass his life essence into various bodies.

This was how he had his soul endure to that point, as after the Return of the Jedi, he felt this was the one way to rule indefinitely. However, he was inhabiting bodies he felt were weak, which drove him on a quest to find the perfect body. In the Dark Empire storyline, as well as Dark Empire II and Empire's End, Palpatine's main mission was to use cloning to achieve the ultimate vessel, but when Luke became his apprentice to try to disarm the Sith Lord from inside the belly of the beast, Palpatine realized by then this perfect body already existed outside of cloning: that of Leia's unborn baby whom he wanted to jump into.

So, transferring mind and consciousness into clones isn't something original to The Rise of Skywalker. It's something fans have spoken of in many conspiracy theories regarding how Disney would bring the overlord back, and since the first trailer for this film featured Palpatine's cackling, the story of Snoke as a carbon copy of Palpatine has been put to rest. Ultimately, this is the first time the movies have wandered into such territory but with Snoke being Palpatine's duplicate, conditioned mentally to follow his exact word, we have our answers at long last on what connects both sinister villains.

Directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong'o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Billie Lourd, Keri Russell, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams, and Carrie Fisher, with Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant. The film is in theaters now.

KEEP READING: Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker Director on Why Palpatine Returns