Sifo-Dyas

Sifo-Dyas never appears alive in the movies. Everything the audience learns about him in Attack of the Clones comes from other people. In Tipoca City, Prime Minister Lama Su greets Obi-Wan as if he'd come to pick up an order: Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas requested a clone army about ten years earlier, and the first batches are already done.

Obi-Wan is thrown. He tells the Kaminoans that Sifo-Dyas died almost a decade earlier, around the same time as the order. When he reports the discovery to Yoda and Mace Windu, they make it clear the Jedi Council never authorized anything like it.

The movie leaves two loose ends on purpose. The first: a dead Jedi supposedly paid for millions of soldiers. The second comes from Jango Fett, the clones' genetic template, who tells Obi-Wan he was recruited by a man called Tyranus, not by Sifo-Dyas.

At the end of Attack of the Clones, Darth Sidious calls Count Dooku Lord Tyranus. That's when the viewer realizes the Sith were on the other side of the deal all along, but the Jedi still don't know, and that's the army they agree to lead when the war starts on Geonosis.

Tales of the Jedi shows how Kamino disappeared from the Jedi Archives, which is why Obi-Wan can't find the planet on the map in Attack of the Clones. Shortly before Qui-Gon's death, Dooku, still a Jedi, goes into the archives and erases the system's records using Sifo-Dyas's security code. His old colleague's name becomes the key to hiding Dooku's own handiwork.

In season 6 of The Clone Wars, released as The Lost Missions, Plo Koon finds Sifo-Dyas's lightsaber on a moon of Oba Diah, the Pyke homeworld. The official records said he died on a diplomatic mission to Felucia, and the contradiction makes Yoda send Obi-Wan and Anakin to investigate.

The episode fills in the portrait of the character: Sifo-Dyas was a member of the Council, had visions of a war that would engulf the galaxy and argued that the Republic should have an army. Without his colleagues' support, he was pushed aside and placed the order on his own.

The Jedi discover his ship was shot down by the Pyke Syndicate, paid by someone named Tyranus. They also find that Silman, an aide to Chancellor Valorum, survived the attack and spent ten years as a Pyke prisoner. Dooku eliminates Silman before he can tell what he knows. The Jedi walk away certain that a Sith Lord helped create the army, and with the bitter conclusion that they're already too deep into the war to give it up.

Sifo-Dyas's name comes back at the end of the same four-episode arc. On Moraband, the ancient Sith homeworld, Yoda goes through a series of trials and comes across what looks like Sifo-Dyas alive, trapped in a chamber. It's an illusion created by Darth Sidious, who uses the Jedi's face to dangle secrets about the war and the Sith in front of Yoda. Yoda sees through the deception and doesn't take the bait.

The audience finally sees what Sifo-Dyas looks like, and it isn't even really him.