Dark Empire (Galactic Empire)

The Dark Empire, also referred to as the Empire Reborn, was a faction of the Galactic Empire led by the reborn Emperor Palpatine. Although the Empire itself was formed when Palpatine revived himself in a clone body in 4 ABY, it officially revealed itself in 10 ABY, when he became strong enough to resume conquest of his Empire. It collapsed less than a year later in 11 ABY, upon Palpatine's final death on Onderon, as well as the destruction of Byss, the capital of the Dark Empire.

History
After Palpatine's death at 4 ABY, his spirit travelled to Byss by possessing Jeng Droga, one of his Emperor's Hands, a process that cost the latter his sanity until he managed to gain a clone body as well as contact Sate Pestage. Palpatine, needing to recover his strength before resuming his conquest and revealing his revival, observed the crumbling state of his Empire from behind the scenes. Likewise, the New Republic, although fully aware of Byss's existence, did not know of its connection to Palpatine, and likewise thought it was simply a civilian population, and thus did not investigate it.

In 10 ABY, having recovered more than enough of his strength, he eventually decided to reveal himself via summoning a force-created wormhole that resulted in damage to Coruscant &mdash; which had already seen enough damage from feuding warlords after it was reconquered by the Galactic Empire &mdash; although he deliberately didn't stop the mutiny sooner out of revenge, wanting them to "cull the weak." His Force Storm also resulted in Luke Skywalker being captured and delivered to Byss. He then had seemingly converted Luke into his Sith Apprentice, and proceeded to launch an attack on Mon Calamari with his World Devastators. In actuality, Luke Skywalker feigned allegiance to Palpatine in order to defeat the Dark Side from within, and proceeded to leak the override codes for the World Devastators, although this did not last long. Palpatine eventually travelled to the New Republic's headquarters, Pinnacle Moon, in his flagship, the Eclipse, and created a force storm to destroy the Pinnacle Moon, although his plan backfired when Luke and Leia cut him off from the Dark Side and had him consumed by his own creation. However, he designed a reboot method in case this were to happen and proceeded to take over another clone body, although the rest of his clone bodies were destroyed by Sa-Di and Neera, and orchestrated Operation Shadow Hand. However, the Dark Empire's leader suffered a loss of sanity as a result of this brush with death, and utilized the Galaxy Gun to destroy various targets, eventually cowing several former Imperial worlds into surrendering and having the New Republic scattered. However, several Imperials were disturbed at their clone Emperor's behavior, and arranged for Carnor Jax, a Sith Apprentice and Royal Guard, to bribe his physician to tamper with Palpatine's DNA samples to increase the clones deterioration rate from his dark side presence. Palpatine was eventually killed on Onderon, failing to possess Anakin Solo, and Byss was destroyed shortly beforehand, thus not only putting an end to the Dark Empire, but also severely crippling the Galactic Empire beyond any chance of recovery.

Appearances

 * Dark Empire
 * Dark Empire II
 * Empire's End
 * Crimson Empire