Skirmish in the Senate

"You will not stop me. Darth Vader will become more powerful than either of us."

- Darth Sidious to Yoda

The Duel in the Senate was an epic battle between the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious and the Jedi Grand Master Yoda.

After Order 66, Yoda, the Jedi Grand Master, managed to enter the Chancellery Secretariat undetected, determined to kill the new Emperor, Palpatine, who was revealed to be the shadowy Sith Lord Darth Sidious. Inside the Chancellor's holding office of the Senate Building, the Jedi Grand Master came face to face with the Dark Lord of the Sith after making short work of his guards. Realizing that this would not be a political dispute but a battle between two masters of the Force, Mas Amedda left the office.

The Battle
"Faith in your new apprentice, misplaced, may be, as is your faith in the dark side of the Force."

- Yoda



The Emperor struck Yoda with Force lightning, sending him flying across the chamber, though Yoda retaliated by throwing the Sith backwards with a powerful Force push. Palpatine attempted to flee, but Yoda blocked his way and ignited his lightsaber. Realizing he would have to fight the Jedi Master blade-to-blade, Palpatine ignited his hold-out lightsaber, and the two engaged in an epic duel.

The battle moved on to the Chancellor's podium, rising through the retractable ceiling into the Grand Convocation Chamber itself. Essentially, the two fighters achieved a stalemate. Sidious therefore intended to even the odds in his favor. He briefly disengaged, taking higher ground within one of the Senate pods and forcing Yoda to jump on a lower Senate pod. It was at that part of the battle that the Dark Lord achieved the upper hand. In one of the most extreme examples of Dun Möch ever seen, Palpatine attempted to overpower Yoda with an avalanche of Senate pods while he himself levitated atop one, seeming to grow more amused as the battle progressed. Despite the massive amount of Force energy Sidious was commanding, Yoda was able to avoid being crushed by the improvised projectiles, using his own powers to dodge from one pod to another.



It was at this very moment of the ultimate clash between light and darkness that Yoda finally saw the truth: He had lost before he started, he had lost before he was born. In the last millennium, the Sith had changed, grown, adapted, become new; while the Jedi Order, under Yoda's leadership, spent the same millennium merely trained to refight the last war.

Yoda understood that this new Sith could not be destroyed by merely a slash of lightsaber or a shout in the Force. He understood that war was not the way to defeat darkness, because war itself had become the weapon of darkness.



With this new insight, Yoda understood that he could not fall right there, he had to share this discovery. The tiny Jedi held one pod with the Force and sent it back to Sidious, who avoided it and retaliated by hurling Force lightning so intense that it tore the lightsaber from Yoda's hand. Finding himself disarmed and attacked with great intensity, Yoda used the same method to overcome the attack: he turned his enemy's weapon's against him. The Jedi Master reflected the Force lightning back to Sidious in a blast so powerful that it pushed the two masters apart. But while this may have saved Yoda's life, it cost him his last chance of obliterating the Sith. He fell down to the holding office while Palpatine held on to the pod they were on. Sensing troopers would soon arrive, Yoda was forced to flee, while the Emperor was cackling behind him. He crawled through the ventalation shafts and dropped into Senator Bail Organa's airspeeder.

Aftermath
"Into exile I must go. Failed, I have."

- Yoda to Bail Organa



Shock troopers led by Commander Thire were not able to recover Yoda's body, and Mas Amedda was convinced that the Grand Master escaped. Emperor Palpatine had no choice but to assign Thire for the search, as he had to leave for Mustafar immediately&mdash;he sensed that his apprentice, Lord Vader, was in mortal danger.

The magnitude of damage in the Senate Rotunda caught the eyes of the Senators. Rumors circulated in the Senate that Jedi Grand Master Yoda led an attack on Emperor Palpatine himself, and the ancient Jedi Master was killed. Through Wookiee Senator Yarua, the rumor found its way to Kashyyyk, including the ears of Chewbacca and Tarfful. Eventually the rumor reached Olee Starstone and her team of fugitive Jedi.

Behind the scenes

 * Despite the long hostility between the Jedi and the Sith, this is the first known lightsaber duel between a Grand Master of the Jedi Order and a Dark Lord of the Sith (the second being Luke Skywalker against Lumiya in 40 ABY). This was also the second lightsaber duel which took place in the Galactic Senate, with the previous one being Exar Kun slaying his former master Vodo-Siosk Baas in the old Senate Hall.


 * During the animatics stage, Steven Spielberg participated in the production of this duel.


 * According to The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, Senate hovercams were meant to broadcast the duel across the Galaxy on the HoloNet. This idea was later dropped.


 * The movie does not explain the whereabouts of Palpatine's lightsaber when he starts applying Dun Möch. Many fans speculate he discarded it or put it away to start a Force duel. Others believe he was disarmed. Neither explanation has been proved or disproved.


 * In the novelization, Yoda entered the office from another direction, so no Royal Guards attempted to stop him. Mas Amedda left the office before any exchange was made. Palpatine's Force lightning was deflected by Yoda which blasted the guards into unconsciousness instead of himself being knocked across the room. Yoda then knocked Palpatine to the floor with his physical body instead of a Force Push. At the end of the battle, the lightning energy ball did not explode. Sidious safely leapt to a nearby podium and Yoda followed. Sidious then turned around and blasted Yoda, who was still in the air, back against another podium who fell down to the bottom. Sidious was not knocked over by any blast, he was described as "a very old, very tired man" after the epic battle.


 * In the novelization, it looks like Yoda did not lose his lightsaber in the battle, as the book described Yoda as having "sliced" his way across the service accessway.


 * In the comic, the first half of the duel is a combination of scenes in the movie and the novelization. Yoda entered the office the way he did in the novel, but was blasted by Palpatine as shown in the movie. The Red Guards and Mas Amedda mysteriously vanished after the battle started, and Yoda knocked Palpatine down with his body as shown in the novel. The duel in the comic ends after Yoda disarms Darth Sidious and gets blasted into the air, the podiums struggle and further engagement is omitted.


 * After being knocked across the office, whether Yoda truly fainted or was merely playing weak is unclear since there is a contradiction between two official sources; the screenplay described Yoda as "stunned," while the junior novelization stated that Yoda faked it to surprise Darth Sidious.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith / novelization / junior novelization / comic
 * Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
 * Star Wars: Purge