It had all made sense to the Grand Master. He had been born just as the Sith last fell, he'd had one of the highest Force potentials in millennia, and he was the most elder of the Jedi Order.
Surely, if the Sith had returned as Qui-Gon Jinn foretold, this was his time to rise, to embrace his destiny.
So then who was this boy, who was the Skywalker boy, with the potential that eclipsed even his own.
The answer, Yoda remembered as he picked up his broth, had come to him sooner than he thought.
As he meditated on Coruscant one fateful night, amidst the Naboo Crisis, he experienced a tremor in the force, a cry of rage that was swiftly silenced, killed.
A being who had immersed himself in the Force, manipulating and controlling it. Someone he would only learn about when it was too late.
Darth Plagueis.
And that vision of his sudden death confirmed Yoda's fear. He had withheld from his fellow Jedi something he knew about the Force.
It was a ally, but also a manipulative entity, one which could offer destruction while pledging solace.
This boy could have been connected to the Sith. Indeed, he appeared to be a promising young Jedi, but one tainted with a dark past, and the dark side itself.
Anakin Skywalker was likely a false hope.
A false chosen one.
He had told the boy's master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, that the "prophecy, misread, could have been".
Anakin Skywalker was a test, Yoda sat down to eat, he'd believed him to been an outlet, a possible escape from destiny, to determine if Yoda would hold the burden of being the chosen one.
And he was shown the danger of accepting that outlet, through Count Dooku.
Dooku had been one of the most esteemed Jedi of his generation. Trained personally but Yoda, he was briefly considered by the Grand Master to be a possible successor to himself.
But that came to ruin, Yoda thought as he finished dinner, even before Dooku turned to the dark side.
And the turn of Dooku taught him an important lesson.
No Jedi, no matter who, was truly immune from the dark side.
And if Dooku, a Jedi who strayed from their principles, and used his power to ensure his success, could turn to the Sith…
…could the same not be said of the young Jedi very similar to Dooku, Skywalker.
"If only foreseen, had I" Yoda mused, "that the same politician, It was, that persuaded them both"
It had been Palpatine, or as he now knew him, Darth Sidious.
Dookus master, likely Plagueis's apprentice…
…and his Sith rival.
