Darth Plagueis/Legends

"If you don't already want to murder me, you will before I'm through with you. The urge to kill one's superior is intrinsic to the nature of our enterprise. My unassailable strength gives rise to your envy; my wisdom fuels your desire, my achievements incite your craving. Thus it has been for one-thousand years, and so it must endure until I have guided you to parity. Then, Sidious, we must do our best to sabotage the dynamic Darth Bane set in motion, because we will need each other if we are to realize our ultimate goals. In the end, there can be no secrets between us; no jealousy or mistrust. From us, the future of the Sith will fountain..."

- Darth Plagueis to Darth Sidious

Darth Plagueis&mdash;born under the name of Hego Damask and remembered as Darth Plagueis the Wise&mdash;was a Muun Dark Lord of the Sith, heir to the lineage of Darth Bane and a master of midi-chlorian manipulation, who lived during the century leading up to the Invasion of Naboo. Obsessed with eternal life, Plagueis experimented with ways to cheat death and create new life from the midi-chlorians.

His great contribution to the history of the galaxy was training Darth Sidious in the ways of the Sith and the dark side of the Force, whom he incited to take control of the galaxy and bring about an age of the Sith. Sidious, convinced that his master had outlived his usefulness, eventually killed the Muun in his sleep.

Sidious later recounted the tale as The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise&mdash;an old "Sith legend"&mdash;to sway Anakin Skywalker to the dark side, though Plagueis himself remained a mysterious figure to the Jedi and their allies well into the time of the Galactic Alliance.

Pre-birth
Several years before Hego Damask's birth, his father, a Force-sensitive Muun named Caar Damask, who worked as a middle ranking Banking Clan agent, met renowned starship designer Rugess Nome by chance on High Port Space Center. Nome, in his capacity as reigning Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Tenebrous, had been searching for the right apprentice to train for the sole purpose of eventually possessing through the virulent midi-chlorians he had dubbed "maxi-chlorians" in order for his consciousness to survive until the creation of the Chosen One. Years after his meeting with Damask, Tenebrous discovered another Force-sensitive Muun&mdash;a lower-caste female&mdash;and conscripted her as a disciple, for she was not strong enough in the Force to be considered for apprenticeship. Tenebrous, using Bith scientific methods, had predicted that the offspring of Damask and his disciple would be strong in the Force. For this purpose, he tasked his Muun disciple to seduce Caar Damask and bear him a child.

Early life
"In truth, and in ways you that you will eventually come to understand, you belong to him."

- Caar Damask to his son, referring to Darth Tenebrous

Born on Mygeeto sometime between 200 and 100 BBY, the son of Caar Damask, who had become the planet's administrator more than ten years earlier, and his codicil wife, Hego Damask was named after his grandfather. Growing up in a domed city on a perpetually frozen and sparsely populated planet under the overly attentive gaze of his mother, Hego had a very atypical childhood for a Muun. She recorded every detail of his upbringing, encouraged him to talk with her about even the most furtive of his thoughts, and provided playmates for him, observing his interactions with them and interrogating him about his feelings regarding each specific youngling. Before his fifth birthday, Hego discovered that he could manipulate the Force by using it to ply the feelings of his playmates. He eventually tested the limits of this power by using a very potent mind trick on a Muun youngling he had grown to dislike, convincing the boy to commit suicide by jumping into a courtyard from a high window. Hego's mother instructed her son to keep his powers secret, and confided in him that they shared the gift.

Hego's parents handed him over to Nome as a youngling in return for a career advancement for Caar, presumably arranged through the Dark Lord's shadowy intelligence network. Tenebrous took the child as his apprentice, the one he intended to eventually possess, naming him&mdash;at some unknown point&mdash;Darth Plagueis. Plagueis left Mygeeto for the first time in his life, and began his life as a Sith.

Five years after handing his son to the Dark Lord, Caar Damask was appointed director of the treasury branch of the Banking Clan, realizing his lifelong dream of wielding real power within the IBC. His codicil wife disappeared without a trace. Five years after that, Plagueis learned the truth of Tenebrous's machinations that led to his birth.

Tenebrous and Plagueis
"We Sith are an unseen opposition. A phantom menace. Where the Sith once wore armor, we now wear cloaks. But the Force works through us all the more powerfully in our invisibility."

- Darth Tenebrous to a young Darth Plagueis

Darth Plagueis traveled the galaxy with his master, masquerading as Rugess Nome's young accountant while the two carried out the Sith plan of spreading discontent to ripen the galaxy for their rule.

Plagueis's first murder under the tutelage of Tenebrous was Kerred Santhe the Elder, accomplished&mdash;as Plagueis later told his own apprentice&mdash;through telekinetic strangulation during a banquet. The Sith Lords took advantage of the fact that bloat eel was served in order to blame Santhe's death on the chefs. Following this trial, Plagueis veered from the Sith path, as often happens with apprentices when they first discover the potency of the dark side.

Around the year 104 BBY, Plagueis undertook the trial of visiting Kursid and fighting its natives with Tenebrous for the first time.

Plagueis and Sidious
"Tell me what you regard as your greatest strength, so I will know how best to undermine you; tell me of your greatest fear, so I will know which I must force you to face; tell me what you cherish most, so I will know what to take from you; and tell me what you crave, so that I might deny you."

- Darth Plagueis to a young Darth Sidious

In 65 BBY, Plagueis, using the public name Hego Damask, went over to Naboo so his plasma mining company, Damask Holdings, would attempt to make a profit on the plasma reserves on Naboo, and secretly to find an apprentice. He then met Palpatine, and was impressed with both his high ambition and his equally high proficiency with the Force. After Palpatine then murdered his family onboard their starship, he took Palpatine in as his apprentice, naming him Darth Sidious. He also promised him that, although his training would be severe, they will both attempt to break the cycle enacted by Darth Bane, and thus they shall neither harbor any secrets from each other, nor experience any jealousy or mistrust with each other. Sidious learned from Plagueis over the course of decades, during which Plagueis taught his apprentice everything he knew to prevent the power he had amassed from being lost forever. During Sidious' training, Plagueis gave his apprentice access to his Sith holocrons. Plagueis' lessons involved forcing Sidious to face his fears, denying him pleasures, and taking from him the things he loved. He taught Sidious that emotions such as envy and hatred, though necessary to master the dark side, were simply means to the end of casting aside usual notions of morality for a greater goal. Plagueis also lectured his apprentice on the means of taking power, with the eventual goal of control over the galaxy.

Sidious, meanwhile, began training his own apprentice, Darth Maul, under Plagueis' watchful eye. Sidious would not kill his master, however, until he understood the lessons of Plagueis and had become powerful enough to defeat him.

The death of Darth Plagueis
"You lost the game on the very first day you chose to train me to rule by your side—or better still under your thumb. Teacher, yes, and for that I will be eternally grateful. But Master—never."

- Palpatine to Darth Plagueis

After being elected as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic Palpatine decided the time had come for him to continue the Grand Plan alone. Having learned all he could from Plagueis, the aging Muun became nothing more than an obstacle. In Damask's penthouse in the Kaldani Spires building, Palpatine plied his master with wine while rehearsing the acceptance speech he would soon deliver before the Senate. Watching as Plagueis became increasingly intoxicated, Palpatine waited patiently until his master fell asleep before unleashing torrent after torrent of Sith lightning upon him, basking in the Muun's agony, as he slowly tortured his master to death. As Plagueis expired his apprentice experienced a monumental shift in the Force.

Legacy
"Did you ever hear the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?"

- Palpatine

Nearly a decade before his death, Darth Plagueis, and his apprentice, Darth Sidious, committed an act in direct violation to the nature of the Force. To further the Grand Plan, the two Sith had attempted to will a being of their own design into creation, pouring their malicious intent into waves through the Force to the countless midi-chlorians spread across the galaxy. The experiment yielded unfruitful however, and the midi-chlorians, unwilling to comply, not only denied Plagueis' efforts, but struck back in retaliation, conceiving a savior to ultimately destroy the Sith: the prophesied Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker. Though Plagueis purportedly taught Palpatine all he knew, Palpatine himself was unable to use Plagueis' teachings to cheat death through the Force, and was forced to rely on clone bodies to hold his spirit instead.

Sidious spoke little of Plagueis to his apprentice Darth Tyranus, who himself knew the Muun as Hego Damask, and in the following decades, only gave hints to his apprentice, Darth Vader. However, he did use Plagueis' story to seduce Anakin Skywalker into becoming Vader. The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, Palpatine's Sith legend, told of Plagueis' abilities to create and preserve life; according to Palpatine, the tragic irony was that though he could keep others from dying, he could not save himself. Skywalker, seeking Plagueis' power to save his own wife Padmé, later apprenticed himself to Palpatine.

At some point after Palpatine brought the galaxy under his heel by reorganizing the Republic into the First Galactic Empire, probably between 19 and 18 BBY, the Dark Lord included a manuscript fragment on the nature of the dark side and the progress of the Aborah experiments written by Plagueis's hand c. 45 BBY (both dates are Master Luke Skywalker's non-scholarly estimates) into his Book of Sith, showing respect for his master by including him among the handful of Sith who advanced the cause and left behind documents detailing their approach to the dark side.

At some point after Plagueis' death, some of the members of a Sith cult known as the Apex Society, believed that Collan Eislo, the leader of the cult, was being guided by the spirits of deceased Sith Lords, such as Plagueis.

When historians in later years were unable to find much information on Plagueis, they suspected that Palpatine had destroyed everything about his master. The Wavlud Manuscript, one of the few sources of knowledge for the Jedi on the Sith and Sidious, revealed information on Plagueis to the Galactic Alliance and New Jedi Order. It is not known whether the information revealed about Plagueis identified him as the same individual as Hego Damask.

Personality and traits
"You must begin by gaining power over yourself; then another; then a group, an order, a world, a species, a group of species&hellip; finally, the galaxy itself."

- Darth Plagueis

Darth Plagueis was considered to be a mystic, despite the fact that he sought to develop an entirely rationalistic system of Force study, was among the few Sith Lords to have serious doubts about the the existence of Force ghosts, and was similarly weary of supposed prophecies. He was a devotee of the dark side, and a lover of things otherworldly and arcane. Obsessed with the prospect of eternal life and ideas of spontaneous generation, he remained focused on matters of the material world, though in later years Darth Vader mused that Plagueis had also desired a way to preserve the immaterial self after the death of the body. Although Plagueis was ultimately a Sith Lord, he also intended to have a genuine bond with his apprentice, Darth Sidious, in an attempt to break the cycle that the Sith'ari, Darth Bane, had started and thus further their own goals, although it ultimately failed when Sidious murdered him.

Plagueis was wise and possessed a logical mind, and his apprentice Palpatine believed that the extent to which he turned his sight inward was the source of his power and knowledge. He believed that power was to be gained incrementally, beginning with the self and culminating with control of the entire galaxy. As his own powers grew, he became afraid of nothing but losing that power. Nonetheless, though the death of the master by the hand of the apprentice was the usual means of Sith succession, he never saw his own death coming.

Powers and abilities
"Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself.''" "Is it possible to learn this power?" "''Not from a Jedi."

- Palpatine and Anakin Skywalker

Plagueis was a master of esoteric and unnatural aspects of the Force. With it, he was able to manipulate the essence of life, a power Palpatine believed was directly tied to his inward sight. Plagueis could save others from death and, when his power was applied to the extreme, create new life from the midi-chlorians found in all lifeforms. Plagueis even discovered the ability to retain one's identity in the Force while becoming one with it, but this manner of surviving death did not appeal to him, as he was not concerned with the nonmaterial world.

Behind the scenes
"In some respects, Plagueis is a different breed of Sith, he's passionate and arrogant, but loyal to the Sith imperative to topple the Republic and eradicate the Jedi Order. But he is not infallible, and his sense of commitment could be interpreted as a fatal flaw."

- James Luceno

Darth Plagueis was named as early as the first draft of Revenge of the Sith (April 2003), and possibly earlier than this. His name is clearly derived from the English word "plague," a connection later made in-universe in the Wizards of the Coast article Behind the Threat: The Sith, Part 2: The Becoming.

Plagueis' first appearance of any sort was in the non-canon Tag & Bink: Revenge of the Clone Menace. In this comic it was stated that Plagueis' manipulation of the midi-chlorians produced Force-sensitivity in Tag Greenley and Bink Otauna. It also caused the destruction of a red sun and its planet, whose only survivor would go on to become a hero on Earth&mdash;references to Krypton and Superman, respectively.

Although strictly non-canon, the image of Plagueis in Tag & Bink appears to have inspired the design of his miniature in Star Wars Miniatures: Jedi Academy. The weapon and pose exhibited in Plagueis' miniature (and the accompanying card illustration) exactly match those in the comic image. Plagueis' appearance as a miniature in the Jedi Academy set marks his first representation in toy form.

The Darth Plagueis novel
James Luceno was scheduled to write a novel about Plagueis. The book's announcement on StarWars.com was the first source to identify Plagueis as a Muun. However, in March 2007 it was announced that the novel had been removed from the publishing schedule. Sue Rostoni's official explanation for the cancellation was that "this was not the right time to delve into Palpatine's back story and Plagueis's beginnings." The novel was replaced with Darth Bane: Rule of Two. Though Plagueis' species had been revealed in the novel's announcement, Leland Chee stated that its cancellation did not affect that decision, as it had not originated in the novel. A panel on continuity at the Celebration IV convention revealed that his identity as a Muun had originally come from George Lucas. Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force confirmed his species as a Muun and was the first source to give him a canonical image. On July 27, 2010, information from a sales database leaked indicating that the novel was once more on the publishing schedule. Sue Rostoni subsequently confirmed the announcement. The novel was finally released on January 10, 2012 in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook format.

The Force Unleashed
When creating the multimedia project Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, the development team looked to a number of unexplored characters and events for inspiration, amongst them Plagueis. The initial plan was to use Plagueis as a Sith spirit who would give the player of The Force Unleashed game new dark side powers and information. Another idea involved the Secret Apprentice, the main character, sent to find Plagueis as part of a plot by Darth Vader to resurrect Padmé Amidala. Still other ideas included revealing that the Apprentice was Plagueis reborn, or using a reformed Plagueis as the Apprentice's mentor.

As the team did not know much about Plagueis at first, they started with Human designs, including famous actor Michael Gambon. Concept artist Greg Knight explored a number of directions, including the undead, a character from a different time, someone using machines to stay alive, eerie youthfulness, the occult, and a number of "freaky and exotic" ideas.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Darth Plagueis
 * Restraint
 * End Game
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith comic
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith novel
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith junior novel
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith PhotoComic
 * Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
 * Death Star
 * The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader
 * The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader

Non-canon appearances

 * Tag & Bink: Revenge of the Clone Menace