Emperor Palpatine (Commander)

After player fleets are deployed, and before the start of the first round, place 1 defense token of each type on Emperor Palpatine’s card. At the start of a Ship Phase, you may choose to discard 1 of the defense tokens of your choice. For the remainder of the round, an enemy ship or squadron that spends a defensive token matching the spent token in the “Spend Defense Tokens” step, must discard that token.

If the ship Emperor Palpatine is equipped to is destroyed, a defensive token that was discarded and the card ability will remain in effect.
The only exception being if a 1st player uses the squadron “Han Solo” to destroy a 2nd players ship equipped with Emperor Palpatine before the 2nd player has a chance to resolve the shared timing during “start of the ship phase”.

Emperor Palpatine can only resolve against one opponent chosen in the “Assign Targets step” of an “All-Out Offensive” in the Corellian Conflict or Team games.

Emperor Palpatine can only resolve against enemy ships that spend tokens in the “Spend Defense Tokens” step. Any defense tokens that are spent “while attacking” that match the spent token, are not discarded.

Emperor Palpatine will resolve against Jan Ors card ability. As it is still a defense token being “spent” in the “Spend Defense Tokens” step.

The Injured Crew damage card only affects the ships defense tokens, not Emperor Palpatine’s.

If Emperor Palpatine is discarded due to Darth Vader (Officer or Boarding), any remaining defensive tokens cannot be discarded. However if a defensive token was discarded, the card ability will remain in effect.