TL; DR: Tarkin är fullt medveten om att det fanns Jedi - han kämpade tillsammans med dem i Clone Wars. Men imperiet var desperat att radera Jedi från galaxens kollektiva minne och investerade en enorm mängd tid och energi för att detta skulle ske. Det var till stor del effektivt.
Obs! Kursiv i alla citat är från originalet; fet är min.
Problem med frågan:
Tarkin säger aldrig eller gör någonting som föreslår att han inte tror på styrkan, eller vet inte om Jedi.
The Jedi are extinct, their fire has gone out of the universe. You, my friend, are all that's left of their religion.
Här säger han helt enkelt "Vader, Jedi är alla döda, och du är den enda personen som använder kraften". Detta är sant, så vitt han vet - och han vet vad han vet för att han hjälpte att utrota Jedi . Och han är inte långt ifrån sanningen - när han levererar den här linjen finns det bara två Jedi (Obi-Wan och Yoda) kvar i en galax bebodd av quadrillions människor - och han vet inte att någon av dessa Jedi fortfarande är levande, eftersom de båda har gömt sig i 20 år.
Och Motti säger inte riktigt "Jedi är en myt, och kraften existerar inte".
Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels' hidden fortress...
Han säger i stort sett: "Jedi finns inte längre, och styrkan är dum. Dödsstjärnan är bättre än vad du kan göra med styrkan."
Galaxen som helhet, och Imperial-rank-and-filen:
I Disney Disney-novellen Star Wars: Lost Stars , känner två kejserliga kadetter, toppen av sin klass i den mest prestigefyllda Imperial Academy i galaxen, lite eller ingenting om Jedi trots faktum att Order 66 endast utfärdades ungefär tio år tidigare:
Yet the Imperial Palace was one of the grandest and most elegant structures on the entire planet; apparently it had once been a temple of some kind.
- Star Wars: Lost Stars
Det "tempel av något slag" karaktären beskriver, nu det kejserliga palatset, är det tidigare Jedi-templet på Coruscant. Det hade varit ett Jedi-tempel i tusentals år, tills bara 10 år tidigare.
Ännu tidigare, bara några år efter Order 66, hade galaxen redan upphört att tro på kraften, och Jedi verkade inte mer än en myt:
So far as Ciena could tell from the few holos she’d ever been able to watch, most people in the galaxy no longer believed in the Force, the energy that allowed people to become one with the universe. Even she sometimes wondered whether there could ever have been such a thing as a Jedi Knight. The amazing tales the elders told of valiant heroes with lightsabers, who could bend minds, levitate objects— surely those were only stories.
- ibid
Senare, den andra studenten - som sedan dess blivit en officer, övergav sedan imperiet efter att ha bevittnat förstörelsen av Alderaan - sammanfogar upproret, men anser fortfarande Jedi och Force som dumma vidskepelser. Detta är anmärkningsvärt med tanke på att han pratar med Dak, som faktiskt känner till Luke:
It was all Thane could do not to groan. Please, not more superstitious nonsense about the “Force.” In his opinion, the rebel troops needed to be motivated by the harsh truth about the Empire, not crazy religious beliefs.
- ibid
Så Empire försök att dölja det faktum att Jedi någonsin hade funnits var oerhört framgångsrik, och att framgången kom väldigt snabbt.
Grand Moff Tarkin:
När det gäller Tarkin själv kan vi vända oss till Disney Canon-novellen Star Wars: Tarkin . Tarkin kämpade under och vid sidan av Jedi - inklusive Anakin Skywalker och Obi-Wan Kenobi - under klonkrigen. Han känner till sin historia. Han misstänker att Vader och Palpatine är Sith. Och han vet - eller är nästan säker - att Anakin blev Vader.
Tarkin realized that the Emperor’s current residence had once been the headquarters for the Jedi — though practically all that remained of the Order’s elegant Temple complex was its copse of five skyscraping spires, now the pinnacle of a sprawling amalgam of blockish edifaces with sloping façades.
- Star Wars: Tarkin
Tarkin vet inte bara att Jedi existerade - han misstänker också att Vader och kejsaren är Sith och undrar om Palpatine ljög om de förhållanden under vilka hans ansikte var deformerade och Mace Windu (och tre andra Jedi-mästare) dog:
There were many stories about what had occurred that day in the chancellor’s office. The official explanation was that members of the Jedi Order had turned up to arrest Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, and a ferocious duel had ensued. The matter of precisely how the Jedi had been killed or the Emperor’s face deformed had never been settled to everyone’s satisfaction, and so Tarkin had his private thoughts about the Emperor, as well. That he and Vader were kindred spirits suggested that both of them might be Sith. Tarkin often wondered if that wasn’t the actual reason Palpatine had been targeted for arrest or assassination by the Jedi.
- ibid
Till och med till Tarkin - som visste många Jedi - verkar Jedi vara en myt, bara 5 år efter Order 66; Han börjar också att utse vem Vader verkligen är:
That look again, Tarkin thought — or at least that suggestion of a look that always made him feel as if Vader knew him from some previous life.
“We no longer speak of the Jedi,” Mas Amedda had said when they had watched Vader issue his warnings to members of Coruscant’s underworld. It struck Tarkin now that the Chagrian’s attitude wasn’t one that was confined to the Emperor’s court. In the five short years since the Order had been eradicated— Jedi Masters, Jedi Knights, and Jedi Padawans wiped out by the very clone troopers they had commanded and fought beside— the Jedi already seemed a distant memory.
- ibid
Djupet av hans kunskaper om Jedi avslöjas också:
Tarkin had respected the Jedi as peacekeepers, but as generals they had proven failures. The Jedi Master with whom he had served most closely during the Clone Wars was Even Piell, to whom Tarkin’s cruiser had been assigned. Brusque and bellicose, the Lannik excelled in lightsaber combat, seeming to have integrated every possible fighting style, but he, too, had his flaws as a strategist. If Piell had deferred to Tarkin during their mission to investigate a hyperlane shortcut into Separatist-held space, they might have avoided capture and imprisonment, and perhaps the Lannik would have survived at least until the end of the war.
The Force had endowed the Jedi with wondrous powers, but their biggest failing was in not having used the Force in all ways possible to bring the war to a quick end. By remaining faithful to their ethical code, they had allowed the war to drag on and spiral downward into a meaningless bloodbath. The conflict’s sudden conclusion and the Order’s decision to depose Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. had taken nearly everyone by surprise. But Tarkin suspected that even if the Jedi had restrained themselves from rising against Palpatine in his moment of glory, the esoteric Order had doomed itself to extinction. Where their flame had burned bright for a thousand generations, technological might was the new standard.
- ibid
Tarkin var redan väl medveten om Vaders affinitet för Force-kvävande människor, mer än ett decennium före händelsen ombord på Death Star:
Tarkin knew merely by the gasping sounds that began to erupt from the Sugi that Vader was performing that thumb-and-forefinger dark magic of his to crush the crime lord’s windpipe.
- ibid
Och i slutändan tänkte han ut - men han var inte riktigt säker - vem var verkligen:
Tarkin didn’t always agree with Vader’s methods for dealing with those who opposed the Empire, but he held the Dark Lord in high esteem, and he hoped Vader felt the same toward him. Very early on in their partnership — soon after both had been introduced to the secret mobile battle station — Tarkin grew convinced that Vader knew him much better than he let on, and that behind the bulging lenses of his face mask, whatever remained of Vader’s human eyes regarded him with clear recognition. More than anything else it was those initial feelings that had provided Tarkin with his first suspicion as to Vader’s identity. Later, observing the rapport the Dark Lord shared with the stormtroopers who supported him, and the technique he displayed in wielding his crimson lightsaber, Tarkin grew more and more convinced that his suspicions were right.
Vader might very well be Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, whom Tarkin had fought beside during the Clone Wars, and for whom he had developed a grudging appreciation.
- ibid
Kejsaren var medveten om Tarkins misstankar, men såg dem inte som ett problem, för Tarkin tyckte helt klart inte att han leddes av två Sith:
Sidious assumed that Tarkin had puzzled out that Vader had once been Anakin Skywalker, under whom Tarkin had served during the war. Tarkin may also have determined that Vader was a Sith. If so, it followed that he accepted that Sidious was Vader’s dark side Master. But Tarkin’s intuitions were important only in the sense that he never revealed them and never allowed them to interfere with his own ambitions.
- ibid
Kejsaren hade länge försökt att skapa vänskap mellan Anakin och Tarkin, men det fungerade inte förrän efter Anakin blev Vader:
During the Clone Wars, Sidious had made every attempt to promote a rapport between Skywalker and Tarkin, but the relationship had never prospered to his satisfaction. Then came that business with Skywalker’s Togruta apprentice, Ahsoka Tano, which, while it had provoked further disaffection in Skywalker, had also created a rift between him and Tarkin that perhaps had yet to mend. Yes, they had partnered since the end of the war, but— to Sidious’s own annoyance— absent a true appreciation for each other’s talents.
- ibid
Varför Palpatine försökte täcka förekomsten av Jedi:
Eftersom så länge som människor trodde på kraften, och kände till Jedi sanna värde, kan kraften utöva sig och återställa balans - genom att förstöra Palpatine, imperiet och Sith:
Darth Plagueis had once remarked that “the Force can strike back.” The death of a star didn’t necessarily curtail its light, and indeed Sidious could see evidence of that sometimes even in Vader — the barest flicker of persistent light. Attacks like the one directed against Tarkin’s moon base [where the Death Star was under construction] and discoveries like the one on Murkhana were distractions to his ultimate goal of making certain that the Force could not strike back, and that whatever faint light of hope remained could be snuffed out for good.
- ibid