SPOILER General state of affairs

People often tend to forget that Leia wasn't originally going to be Luke's sister. The "other Skywalker" was going to be an unknown sibling that would be introduced in the third trilogy, Luke was going to go off on an epic search for them and it would culminate in the confrontation with the Emperor.

Read in the Lost episodes of the Clone Wars... Disney cancelled the series, and then for questionable reasons the 13 "lost episodes" of season 6 appear on NetFlix... not Disney, oddly...

Spoiler: Mild The Clone Wars: Season 6 Spoilers

The culmination? Qui-Gon sends Yoda to Dagobah to the Dark Side Cave to begin his journey. The training eventually leads him to the ancient Sith home world of Moraband (and a Mark Hamill cameo – he’s Darth Bane!). When he passes the tests, the Sages casually throw out, “There is another… Skywalker.”

Much debate has been made as to if this is a foreshadow of Yoda (who, btw, was originally named "Buffy", no kidding) telling Luke about Leia. However, at this point in time, they had not even been conceived, so it is a bit of a stretch, as the foreshadow would have absolutely no relevant context. Of all the events to come, telling Luke that Leia was his sister doesn't even come close to "most important thing we need to foreshadow". Much more plausible is that there WAS, at that point, another Skywalker running around...

Let's assume for a moment that Clone Wars had their own arc on this... whatever it could have been can be discarded. Now, let's look at JJ pouring over all the original source material for the third trilogy involving Luke going off on a search for "the other Skywalker" and boom... here is a gem that can be thrown into Clone Wars to tie it all together.

 

I think it would have to have been a sibling for Anakin... and therefore a cousin for Luke/Leia

First, I will admit that the Yoda arc COULD have been referring to Yoda's final words... with the exception for the fact that when the Sage says, "There is another Skywalker" Yoda repeats it... with perhaps a little surprise in his voice. This, to me, seemed to indicate it was something contemporary, and not "this will happen later" where Yoda would be less surprised about future events... it COULD have been referring to Padme, as in "There is another Skywalker, a MRS Skywalker, your padawan is married and getting busy, pay attention as this could lead him to the dark side"

However... if that had been the Yoda arc, it would have led to Yoda knowing about Padme and dealing with the issue, which never happened. As Clone Wars is no more, we will (alas) never know what was ORIGINALLY intended by this. But, the events that brought the end to Clone Wars brought us the beginning of the new trilogy, so we can't be all mad.

However, what might get made FROM this is another subject. We know already that when Yoda utters the infamous line in ESB, he was NOT (at that time) referring to Leia (a plot device Lucas didn't work out until well into RoTJ) Remember, Luke had just left, and Yoda was talking with Kenobi. Why would Yoda be foreshadowing another Skywalker to Kenobi when Obi-Wan KNEW about Leia already? At that point in the story development, Yoda was NOT referring to Leia, but "another" that had been up to that point hidden.

Let's look to Anakin's origins... Shmi is the mother of course, but "he didn't have a father" There were hints that it was an immaculate conception, but there were also overtones that either Sidious or Plagueis manipulated the Force to impregnate her... a more likely scenario...

Here are two others: First, clones are afoot... we have the ability to CREATE life, and we know that life can be manipulated to control intelligence (and implant chips) so is it a far stretch that the people who just arranged the creation of an entire genetically tweaked army (that is under development) might not have had the idea to genetically alter a super-jedi chosen one?

Second, whether Anakin was genetically altered, or Force manipulated, if we accept that Sidious/Plaguous arranged for Anakin's conception, could they not have done the same thing... perhaps with another genetically compatible match... such as Shmi's sister? Because, you know, a Dark Lord of the Sith having another apprentice, totally hidden from the first, tucked away somewhere remote... that's just like SUCH an alien concept for SW

 

Hmmm... what if Anakin had been a twin...

 

I absolutely disagree... JJ has a rich history of taking things we think we know and looking at them in entirely unexpected ways... and he loves weaving in things that make you look at (in the case of ALIAS and LOST) things that happened 12 episodes ago that you thought you understood perfectly well and making you realize you really had no clue...

 

The beauty of an evolving story is that we can go back and apply all sorts of meaning to seemingly irrelevant incidents to bring new meaning to it.

However, we do know at the time Yoda made the comments in ESB, Leia was not the intended "another" that was being referenced. Lucas changed this... the story evolved drastically over time (contrary to the "I have notebooks of how this all works and it is all cannon" rope that is towed), so at that time it wasn't Leia... Leia wasn't Luke's sister, heck Vader had just become Luke's father. So Yoda was telling Kenobi something he didn't know...

This has caused problems in the plotline which have been worked out well in such memorable moments as the famous "from a certain point of view" speech.

In the same line, certain things we think we know now may be revealed to be different, from a certain point of view