Template:Erasstar Warning: This infobox has missing parameters: parents, pronouns, masters, apprentices, skin, children, siblings, type, partners, families, cyber, feathers, mass and unrecognized parameters: era
- "[...] do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor [...]"
- ―Yoda to Luke Skywalker
Emperor Palpatine, also known as Darth Sidious, was the last Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic (32–19 BBY) and the self-appointed Emperor of the Galactic Empire (19 BBY–4 ABY, later 10–11 ABY), which he established after orchestrating a full-scale galactic conflict, known as the Clone Wars, to seize dictatorial powers through special emergency measures given to him by the Galactic Senate.
During the Clone Wars, he was the secret de facto leader of the Separatists as the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, as well as the de jure leader of the Republic, allowing him to plan and execute the entire war, thus resulting in his ultimate triumph with the rise of his Empire.
Considered by many to have been the greatest Dark Lord of the Sith in the history of the Sith Order—something he himself also firmly believed—he was the only Sith Lord in a thousand years to achieve the ultimate goal of the Sith: to eradicate the Jedi Order and bring the Galaxy under the rule of the Sith.
But his greatest strength, what made him the appropriate Sith to exact their order's revenge, was not his supreme and deadly skills in the dark side of the Force, but rather the way he could manipulate beings all across the Galaxy. Indeed, the shroud of the dark side clouded everything, as Grand Jedi Master Yoda had once said.
He exacted the revenge of the Sith not only through political machinations and his mastery of the Force, but also with the help of several powerful apprentices—including the Chosen One, a young man by the name of Anakin Skywalker whom he manipulated into becoming the Sith Lord known as Darth Vader.
Some people believe that he was so powerful, he had predicted his rise to glory and every other aspect of his life from his early days—except for his death.
Biography
Early days (82 BBY–32 BBY)
By the time biographers turn their attention to the early lives of history's most prominent figures, such beings often become legends far removed from reality. Without question, this is true of Palpatine. He was hailed by many as a visionary who saved civilization, and damned by many more as a monster responsible for the worst crimes against civilization. For this reason, it is difficult—if not impossible—to conceive of a time when Palpatine was young or innocent. Too often did he affect an air of innocence to achieve his ends. Nonetheless, even Palpatine was but a child before he was a man, and just a man before he became the controversial legend.
The origins of Palpatine
The difficulty lies in documenting those years of seeming innocence. Information about his youth is extremely hard to come by. Much of what exists cannot be verified, since most records on his homeworld concerning his ancestry, his immediate family and his upbringing had "mysteriously vanished" by the time he became a Senator, and most likely were deliberately destroyed to hide his identity as a Sith Lord.
However, it is known that he was born on the eleventh day of the eighth standard month, in the year 82 BBY. His birthplace was the peaceful green planet of Naboo, in the backwaters of the Chommell Sector of the Mid Rim, and he claimed the capital city of Theed, nestled on the quiet banks of the Solleu River, as his home. He was born to a family of nobles, and had at least one sibling. But that is all. The rest is hidden in shadow. This is deliberate; Palpatine wanted his personal history erased, the most important part being that he began a second life, which was to assume far more importance to him than the first one.
Darth Plagueis
As difficult as it is to learn the facts about Palpatine's youth, it is harder still to learn about the man he became. Darth Sidious, the name under which he became the architect of the Galactic Empire, was more than just a name granted to him under an ancient tradition, more than just a face hidden by a black zeyd-cloth hood and cowl. As with many Sith, this alias became his true identity. The face of his birth became his mask, under which his real face concealed itself. But the events that led from what is presumed to be a normal age of innocence to the rise of a committed agent of darkness are unknown and, perhaps, unknowable.
Palpatine was Force-sensitive, exceedingly so, but for reasons unknown, the Jedi never learned of this. And since nothing is known of his parents, there is no telling if he came from a Force-sensitive bloodline, or if his abilities simply manifested themselves spontaneously, as was sometimes the case. Whatever the reason, they missed him when they had the best chance to save themselves. Instead, through a course of events yet to be learned, this gifted and ambitious young man was discovered by the Sith Lord Darth Plagueis.
Plagueis may have somehow learned of Palpatine's great potential and tracked him down, possibly when Palpatine was only a child; or Palpatine could have developed an interest in the dark side of the Force on his own and started actively searching out Sith lore, which led him to catch Plagueis' attention. If the latter is the case, Palpatine might have had a brief life outside of the Sith before being caught up in the cult, and there might have been a point wherein the young man’s talents could have been put to noble ends.
The point that marked Palpatine's fall to the dark side, regrettably, is one of the many facts lost to history. Whatever the cause of his fall, Darth Plagueis found him suitable and at last inducted him into the cult, declaring him to be one with the Sith Order. According to Sith tradition, Dark Lords gave a new name to their apprentices. The forename Darth—as much a title as a name—was used, the last name determined by a kind of consultation with the dark side of the Force itself. Whatever inspired Plagueis in that communion is unknown, but the name he chose would endure through history; henceforth, Palpatine would be known, now and forevermore, as Darth Sidious.
The apprenticeship of Darth Sidious
Under Plagueis' tutelage, the newly-minted Sidious gained an insiders' knowledge of the Sith. It was here that he learned the history of the cult, of how there had once been many Sith Lords, until internecine warfare and Jedi intervention brought them down. He learned of Darth Bane, who had brought the cult back from near-extinction and formulated the diktat that had established the framework of the Sith ever since: that there would only be two Sith Lords at any one time—a master and an apprentice.
- "Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody power; the other to crave it."
- ―Darth Bane
Sith methods of training were brutal and uncompromising. Apprentices were broken down and remade in whatever image suited the master's desires. And this was done frankly and openly. Plagueis himself told Sidious what was expected of him:
- "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
Plagueis did exactly what he promised. Sidious was undermined, denied, forced to lose what he most cherished and face what he most feared. Then, the vessel emptied, he was filled again, this time with a new creed, the path of the dark side of the Force, the path that would lead from power over the self to power over all:
- "You must begin by gaining power over yourself; then another; then a group, an order, a world, a species, a group of species… finally, the Galaxy itself."
- ―Darth Plagueis
All this was to be learned in anticipation of the Sith Order's ultimate revenge on their Jedi enemies. Apart from Plagueis, Sidious alone knew what this revenge would involve. It had been formulated in the far-off days of Lord Bane, based on Bane's own very instructive experiences with the Sith of old. There would be no face-to-face confrontation this time. Instead, the Jedi and the Republic they served would die not from weapons, but from sickness. The Republic was destined to fall from its own corruption; the Sith would simply accelerate this process. They would facilitate war, murder, injustice and avarice, whenever and wherever possible, to demonstrate the failure of the so-called democratic system. A secret virus would be introduced into the Republic's body politic, and it would spread from one organ to another until it disrupted all the vital systems. Once crippled, once divided, the Republic would be simple to conquer. A public that had seen the deficiencies of rule by the weak clearly demonstrated to them would readily submit to rule by the strong.
Plagueis proved to be an excellent mentor. From early on Sidious learned to think as others would, to anticipate their actions and thoughts (this would be a vital component of his rise to power later). Over the years he grew extremely strong in the Force, and his knowledge of the ways of the Sith became exceptional. But it seems to be the case that none of this was enough for Plagueis. The old master still sought a more powerful apprentice. He would have done better to be satisfied with what he had.
The murder of Darth Plagueis
Plagueis was a mystic. Obsessed with spontaneous generation and immortality, he is said to have delved into forbidden teachings, and possessed—or was determined to possess—knowledge that could sustain those who were dying, or even return them from death. As far as Sidious was concerned, there was nothing alarming in this; both the Jedi and the Sith had sought ways to survive death for thousands of years, though not successfully. The most powerful of the ancient Sith Lords had supposedly known the secrets, but they had been lost or, rather, misplaced. It was expected that Plagueis should pursue this ultimate mystery.
The split between master and apprentice came when Plagueis also sought to take this research to its greatest extreme, to create new life from nothing. Whether he actually learned such powers, to defy death or create life, cannot be determined with absolute certainty, but at some point Plagueis began speaking to Sidious of an experiment he had conceived, to use arcane Sith disciplines to influence the midi-chlorians to draw life directly from the wellspring of the Force itself. The child that resulted from this experiment, Plagueis insisted, would potentially possess astounding power and be the living embodiment of the Force itself.
Sidious understood that what Plagueis was discussing with him was nothing less than his own replacement, and he would suffer no challenger to his position as Sith master-to-be. Possibly he feigned excitement at Plagueis' inventiveness, but his mind was where it should have been for a Sith—on himself. A threat existed to his power, to all he was planning. How was he to deal with it? He could just kill the "experiment", but Plagueis would keep trying, and besides, if the child proved as powerful as expected, it would be wise to keep it available for his own use. In any case, Sidious was well along in his plans, he had learned all there was to learn from Plagueis and already had his own secret apprentice; he was a master in all but name. The most superfluous element in this equation was Plagueis himself—the decision was made that simply, and that coldly.
Soon after, Sidious killed Plagueis in his sleep. There is no information as to the exact murder weapon, though it was likely a lightsaber, quite possibly Sidious' own. There was also, apparently, none of the elaborate plotting involved, as would be the case in Sidious' later schemes. He simply waited until Plagueis had gone to sleep, then made certain his master did not wake up. For all his cold ruthlessness, for decades he would look back on this moment of personal triumph, to his attainment of mastery at the cheap price of his own outdated master, with a self-satisfied smile. "It's ironic," he once remarked. "He could save others from death, but not himself."
Despite Plagueis's death, the Force-conceived child was born. Whether this process was initiated by Plagueis or Sidious remains unknown, but in 42 BBY, on an unknown world (possibly Tatooine), Shmi Skywalker gave birth to a child with a Force potential greater than any other documented in history. More than 20,000 midi-chlorians flowed in the boy's bloodstream—the apparent product of Plagueis' vision. Sidious kept a close watch on Anakin Skywalker, patiently waiting for the day he would take him as his apprentice.
Sidious had taught himself a powerful lesson. It was not unprecedented for Sith apprentices to kill their masters to gain the mastery for themselves, but he had learned it intimately, through personal experience. He would keep a close eye on his own apprentices, and tell them only the barest minimum of information about his own master; the less they knew of Plagueis and his sudden demise, the fewer ideas they would get. True, they would eventually hunger for his position, but he would forever be on his guard. Plagueis made the mistake of sleeping; he never would.
The apprenticeship of Darth Maul
While still Plagueis' apprentice, Sidious had also taken an infant Zabrak from Iridonia to be his own apprentice. He dubbed the infant Darth Maul and molded him into a deadly, unquestioning tool who lived only to serve his master's wish of destroying the Jedi and claiming the Galaxy for the Sith.
Sidious treated Maul very harshly, putting him through tests that would forge him into the ultimate tool. But Maul knew Sidious was the only person in the Galaxy that cared for him in a way, and had a great amount of respect for his master. And, perhaps, more than respect; being the only father figure Maul ever knew, there may have been something akin to familial love. Subsequent events make clear, however, that if such feelings existed, they were never reciprocated.
The rise of Palpatine (70 BBY–32 BBY)
- "Palpatine was a Rodian in Ewok's clothing!"
- ―Mon Mothma
The affairs of Darth Sidious were in order; as he went on, he had grown in power and eclipsed his master. He had an effective apprentice, and the promise of another, far greater. At the same time, either under Plagueis' direction or his own, he was infiltrating the Republic's government, carefully implementing the steps of a plan set down centuries in the past, preparing to address "wrongs" the Galaxy at large had long since forgotten.
The beginning of Palpatine's political career
Outside of his second existence as a Sith, the course of Palpatine's life is somewhat easier to trace. At a young age, Palpatine began his political career, carefully hiding his true persona of Darth Sidious. On Naboo, public service is mandatory from the ages of twelve to twenty, and he began his road to power here (70–62 BBY). Unlike most Naboo, however, he elected to stay on in politics beyond the normally accepted age, when others would move on to more refined cultural pursuits. They saw public service as an obligation; he saw it as something to be enthusiastically pursued. It was but the first instance of his habit of staying on in office longer than his due time. Was it simply that he had found a career that caught his interest, or had he already begun his double life?
Palpatine entered his full-fledged political career in local Naboo politics (62–52 BBY), working upwards through the lower levels of power. Although not every fact of this period is known, what is certain is that he did not begin with grandeur. He lost more elections than he won, missing out on a string of political appointments. There is no way to determine how many of these failures were due to the natural learning process, and how many were deliberate on his part: he may have had to suffer more defeats than victories, so as not to seem extraordinary. At this point, it was important that he was not seen as a political superman, as someone who could threaten other, more powerful beings. That risked making them into impediments to his plans before his position was firmly entrenched.
Whatever the real reasons, though his initial years in politics were disappointing by any standard, he learned valuable lessons, which he would put to use with consummate skill. When Senator Vidar Kim, Naboo's representative in the Galactic Senate, was assassinated by a never-identified gunman on a passing airspeeder (52 BBY), the thirty-year-old Palpatine stood for election to succeed him. The people of Naboo elected him as their sectorial Senator, to represent Naboo and the thirty-five other affiliated worlds of Chommell Sector. Though the murder was never solved, the assumption is that the assassin had been contracted by Sidious—or, perhaps, Darth Plagueis—to kill Kim specifically to clear the way for Palpatine to follow him. Whatever happened, the result was that a Sith Lord had become a member of the Galactic Senate itself; the plan for revenge had been set in motion.
Palpatine in the Senate
By the time Palpatine stepped onto the Senate floor for the first time, he was already a superb manipulator. He knew that the prominent power-brokers in the Senate looked down their noses at the more provincial delegates, expecting little to nothing of importance from them. It was the classic attitude of the old aristocratic moneyed families towards the newly-rich; whatever their worth, they were still poor rubes inside. He knew that he, too, was lumped in with the other hopefuls from Rimward worlds, those who, having never ventured far from their homeworlds before, would in short order be overwhelmed by Coruscanti politics.
Their perception mattered little to him. Rather than do anything to prove these elites wrong, he took a different tack. It was to his advantage to be underestimated, so he harnessed their prejudice to keep their eyes away from his affairs. It was the same strategy he had employed in local Naboo politics; by acting beneath the notice of his enemies, they would never see him until after he had struck, when it was too late. So he deliberately affected the manner of the rube they thought him to be. They reacted predictably: many simply laughed at the small and quiet provincial, and otherwise paid him no mind.
Palpatine did nothing at this stage of the game to dissuade them from their impressions. In fact, he encouraged them to continue thinking this way whenever possible, often by employing the same pattern of underachievement he had employed on Naboo, letting his potential enemies believe him too unthreatening to notice. Again, as before, he failed to take advantage of opportunities that could have landed him on important advisory boards and powerful committees. The more incidents like this occurred, the more harmless he seemed. He was determined to keep his advancement slow, knowing it would yield greater reward in the future if he did not seem to be too ambitious in the present.
Friends and allies
His performance worked to perfection; the powerful Senators looked past him, wrapped up in their own petty power struggles. His own schemes and ambitions, which in the end dwarfed the others’ by far, were easily concealed behind the facade of a kind, harmless mediocrity. So liberated, Palpatine began establishing his base of power, cultivating friendships with respected public figures in key positions of government. As the list grew, it included Senators both weak and powerful, military commanders, members of the great organs of commerce, and even Jedi Masters. He even struck up a friendship with the leaders of the Caamasi delegation, to enhance the public’s perception of his moral authority.
Many of the beings who would achieve prominent positions in the New Order to come began their relationships with Palpatine at this time. For instance, the future fleet admiral Terrinald Screed, then a young commander in the Republic Judicial Department, was contacted by Palpatine, and found that his own ideas easily meshed with those of the Senator. The future Grand Moff, Wilhuff Tarkin, then lieutenant governor of Eriadu and hungry for greater influence, also found his personal sentiments shared by the insightful representative of Chommell Sector. The future advisor Crueya Vandron, then head of a noble house in Senex Sector, joined Palpatine's camp.
Palpatine also brought his own allies with him: Sate Pestage, one of the few people who truly knew Palpatine (and possibly the only person Palpatine would have considered a friend) and Kinman Doriana, his two loyal aides. They kept his schedule and maintained his public appearances, and also covered up Palpatine's less savory activities.
During his term as a Senator (c. 43 BBY), Palpatine served as part of a Republic task force sent to monitor the demilitarization of Ando, where the native species had resumed a long-standing feud over mining rights. It was here that he met a Jedi named Jorus C'baoth, another member of the expedition. C'baoth was headstrong and arrogant, and perhaps this, in addition to gaining another source of information within the Jedi Order, is why Palpatine struck up a tempestuous but long-standing friendship with C'baoth. Even after returning to Coruscant, they met to discuss politics, philosophy, and the state of the Republic. Eventually (c. 41 BBY), at Palpatine's request, the Jedi Reassignment Council sent C'baoth to act as his personal advisor, and C'baoth became part of his staff. C'baoth later moved on (c. 39 BBY), requesting reassignment after receiving visions of the dark side returning and running off to Elrood Sector to flush out a group of darksiders (and missing the true cause of the rise of darkness right next to him). But one thing they discussed during their time together held promise for the future: they spoke of the ExGal Society, a small, dedicated group of scientists studying the possibilities of life outside the Galaxy, and the idea of an excursion beyond the galactic rim.
Palpatine surprised everyone as he became increasingly popular. He wrote extensively, his notes on power becoming popular texts among political and military science students, his theories even taught at leading universities throughout the Galaxy. Despite this growing influence, Palpatine remained unassuming, and would spend many hours alone reflecting in his modest, yet well-appointed quarters. It was rumored that he orchestrated the abdication of Naboo's King Veruna, possibly hoping that his successor, Queen Amidala, would be too young to make rational decisions and would primarily rely on Palpatine during her reign.
He grew closer to Tarkin, who shared many of his sentiments on government. They became as close to being friends as people with their personalities could. In 33 BBY, Tarkin helped Palpatine engineer the murder of the Trade Federation Directorate, which were on Tarkin's homeworld of Eriadu for a trade summit. The pirate raids on the Trade Federation that had led to the summit had also been orchestrated by Palpatine, as was Nute Gunray's rise to power as Trade Federation Viceroy.
Shortly afterwards, Palpatine secretly funneled several million credits, believed to have been stolen by the Nebula Front, through the Bank of Aargau, and into the accounts of the Valorum family. Palpatine's aid, Sate Pestage, ensured that the exchange was uncovered by Valorum's political enemy, Senator Orn Free Taa, who revealed it to the Internal Activities Committee, thus critically weakening Chancellor Finis Valorum's already tenuous hold on power.
According to Supreme Prophet Kadann, Palpatine produced a son named Triclops some time during this period and banished him to the spice mines of Kessel. The validity of this story is not known, and is hard to determine due to Palpatine having altered or destroyed records of things in his life such as immediate family members, but it was commonly believed by high-ranking Imperial officers in 5 ABY.
In 32 BBY, Sidious convinced the Neimoidian leaders of the Trade Federation to blockade the planet Naboo, in protest of the taxation of certain trade routes. Sidious kept his identity of Palpatine unknown to the Neimoidians, although he revealed that he was a Sith Lord and made it quite clear that he held some power in the Senate.
The Naboo crisis (32 BBY)
Over the past year, Palpatine had moved the major pieces into position. The Trade Federation was now angered, threatened, and led by malleable individuals controlled by him. The Supreme Chancellor too was malleable and controllable. And, finally, the monarch of Naboo had been replaced by a new one, as malleable as the rest. Palpatine now had control of every side of the board. It was time for the next round of the game. This was the Naboo crisis, the point where all the other plots intersected and dealt the first crippling blows to the Republic.
The blockade of Naboo
Senator Palpatine of Naboo during the Naboo conflict.
The Trade Federation rapidly built up its forces in the Naboo system, assembling enough battleships to ensure a tight blockade. When they were ready—or, rather, when Sidious decided they were ready—they acted, closing the planet off and strangling its formerly thriving trade business. No supply ships could land or take off. Then the Federation secured the outer gate to the system by stationing a battleship at Station TFP-9, its own outpost at the outer edge of the system, to ward off the curious and advertise the act to all who would listen. The last free entrance was closed off, and all incoming ships were informed that the Federation was acting in protest of the illegal taxes that the Republic had levied against them. The blockade of Naboo was an accomplished fact.
For the next month, the Senate debated fiercely, but did not act to aid the people of Naboo. The Federation's representative, Lott Dod, successfully argued his case. As he put it, they had not yet violated any Republic laws; they had attacked no ships, nor had they moved against Naboo itself. Dod was using the letter of the law to violate its spirit. The Judicial Department could not be sent if no crimes had been committed. The stalling further weakened the Valorum government; their defiance of his measures was itself damaging, but the longer it went on, the more impotent Valorum appeared. Partly to keep the process moving, Palpatine kept his monarch, Queen Amidala, from disrupting his plans, urging her to wait until the Senate reached a decision.
Amidala proved somewhat harder to rein in than expected: her patience stretched to its limits, she herself contacted Valorum and held him personally responsible for the suffering on her world. Every day he delayed, she stated, he took bread out of the mouths of the starving children of Naboo. Pressed against the wall by his conscience, and desperate to shore up his crumbling support, he decided to act. He would call for a special session of the Senate to discuss the blockade, but to have a strong bargaining position, he needed the battleships sent home from Naboo. He would use the Jedi as ambassadors and send them to Naboo. Their presence would shake the Neimoidians' confidence and show them he meant business.
The invasion of Naboo
It is not known if Palpatine knew Valorum's intentions; because the Chancellor went directly to the Jedi Council without informing the Senate, as the law required, he may have been blindsided. But he did have both his creature, Mas Amedda, and his protege, Sei Taria, in the government, so one of them may have told him—either as Palpatine or Sidious—what was going on. It can be assumed that he knew Valorum was sending ambassadors to Naboo (he likely learned this through Amidala), but not that those ambassadors were Jedi. The presence of a Jedi Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, and his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, appeared to have taken him by surprise. When the panicked Neimoidians contacted him with the news, he fought hard to still his own anger.
It did not help that he had to get his sniveling tools under control. He could not expect the Neimoidians to grow backbones at the eleventh hour, but they had to deal with the matter at hand. He intimidated them back into submission, then focused them on the next task. The Jedi had been brought into the picture sooner than he would have liked; very well, the plan must be changed. "Begin landing your troops," he commanded Gunray. As for Jinn and Kenobi, he had plans for them also. "The Chancellor should never have brought them into this. Kill them immediately." The Neimoidians acted accordingly, destroying the cruiser that had delivered the Jedi and immediately jamming all communications.
The invasion itself went splendidly. Within a day, most of the major cities, including the capital of Theed, were in Federation hands. Amidala herself was captured with her entire retinue, and the Neimoidians presented her with a treaty that would bring an air of legitimacy to the invasion. But she never signed it; as reports continued to come to him, Sidious was annoyed to learn that the Jedi, far from being executed, had escaped and—more annoying still—had rescued Amidala and her retinue. With the Jedi guarding her, Amidala commandeered a ship and determined to make for Coruscant, to try to secure the Senate's help. Amazingly, an unarmed starship successfully evaded dozens of heavily-armed battleships and escaped.
Sidious was livid, or seemed so to the Neimoidians. He took the opportunity to introduce them to his apprentice, Darth Maul. "He will find your lost ship," he told them. For all the anger Sidious showed to the Neimoidians, however, he was not inconvenienced by Amidala's escape. Had he been anyone other than the Senator from Naboo, he would have been. But it was that very fact that ensured that, come what may, he would have little trouble in finding her, no matter where. He had an inside source: Amidala herself.
The search for Queen Amidala
A hologram of Darth Sidious during the Naboo conflict.
After Amidala's ship was damaged in the escape, her protectors, Jinn and Kenobi, recommended that they land and repair the ship before proceeding to Coruscant. The suggested site was Tatooine, an obscure desert world in Arkanis Sector. Amidala approved the plan, and they made for Tatooine, bringing this backwater planet into the spotlight for the first time.
From the ship, she signalled Palpatine, informing him that the ship had been damaged, was waylaid (she did not say where, in case the Federation was monitoring her communications) and that they would arrive after making repairs. Possibly, Jinn allowed this, not expecting that the true threat to Amidala should come from her own Senator. He did not know that the Sith still existed at all, let alone that one posed as a mild-mannered politician. It was the worst error she could have made, though she did not know it. Sidious now could trace the signal and find out exactly where she landed. He handed the signal data over to Maul, and with this—in addition to his many other methods—he had what he needed to find his prey. In a very short time they had narrowed the search to Tatooine.
He summoned his apprentice, Darth Maul, and gave him the latest news: the Neimoidians too had tried to track Amidala. Either by dragging Sio Bibble before a holocomm, or by technologically fabricating Bibble’s image and voice, they crafted a desperate-sounding message to be sent to her ship. They failed to get anything of use, but, desperate to stay in Sidious' good graces, they reported their scant findings. "They have accepted a communication from Sio Bibble," he told Maul. "They haven't answered it. But we can be reasonably sure that they're still on Tatooine." Maul went over what he knew of the arid world: it had a small population, so it would not take long to find them. "Move against the Jedi first," he instructed. "You will then have no difficulty taking the queen to Naboo to sign the treaty."
But there was a second agenda as well. Sidious was sure that the "experiment", the child, conceived through the Force, and believed to be the end result of Plagueis' researches into the arcane, was on Tatooine. The presence of Jedi on Tatooine meant that they could be in a position to meddle with the fate of the experiment. If the boy were taken away from Tatooine, who knew what would result? After being tainted by the Jedi, he might not be so susceptible to Sith teachings. Sending Maul to kill the Jedi under the cover of retrieving Amidala would remove the threat of their interference. This was one reason why Maul was instructed to move against them first. But it is likely that Sidious did not tell this to Maul; there is no mention of the boy in Maul's journals prior to his visit to Tatooine. As far as Maul knew, he was going to kill the Jedi and haul Amidala back to Naboo by any means necessary. The boy who would become Maul's successor was a secret Maul himself may never have known about.
Maul left for Tatooine, but though he acquitted himself well, he failed nonetheless. Soon after, Palpatine was surprised to find Amidala arriving on Coruscant, determined to rouse the Senate to her cause. Exactly how badly his plan was derailed is something that can only be guessed at, because the details of that original plan have been lost. One of Sidious' more trusted non-Sith agents, Kinman Doriana, who was present for these events, indicated that the first plan was to use the occupation of Naboo, which they expected to last for months or even years, to create turmoil and paralysis in the Senate, which Sidious and his agents could have used to devastating effect. The eventual goal, to lever Palpatine into the position of Supreme Chancellor, would have been achieved nonetheless, but more gradually. But Sidious was as capable at improvisation as he was at careful planning. He saw a new plan, one that would work far better than the original one.
The Senator commands the Monarch
Palpatine requested an audience with Queen Amidala in his apartments at 500 Republica to go over strategy. Their conversation was a masterpiece of psychological manipulation, and it marked the beginning of a gradual transition from a Republic that was weakened but salvageable, to one crippled beyond rescue. He had spent the last six months cultivating the queen's trust, knowing she would heed him better than the stubborn Veruna would have. It was all for this moment, when, in a crisis, she had to rely on him. She came believing the Senate would help her, but Palpatine slammed the door in her face by announcing, with mock disgust, that the Senate was long past caring about the common good. Worse, the corruption scandal had weakened Chancellor Finis Valorum worse than she had thought. Both the Senate and Valorum were closed off to her as options. That left her with nothing but the options Palpatine offered.
He gave her two: she could move for a Vote of No Confidence in Chancellor Valorum, and push for the election of a more effective leader, or she could take the matter to the courts. In offering her this choice, Palpatine risked nothing. He knew Amidala was not suited to betraying her friends and allies, but he also knew she pinned her hopes on a quick resolution of the crisis. Naboo was starving under Federation occupation, while she sat comfortably in a luxurious apartment on a distant and unfamiliar planet. The longer her homeworld was held, the more of her people would die. If there was to be a solution, it had to be now. And the courts took even longer to decide things than the Senate. He had given her an option he knew she would never choose, could never choose.
As Palpatine had foreseen, time was the deciding factor. She could either work in the courts, while the death toll on Naboo rose to unimaginable numbers, or she could heed her trusted Senator's advice. She had a choice, Valorum or her homeworld. As expected, she chose Naboo. He callously used her love for her people against her, and she believed him. Only fourteen and still new to the throne, she had all the qualities of the great leader she would eventually become, but little experience. If Palpatine, who knew the Senate in ways she did not, said that Valorum had become an obstacle, that was enough for her. It was perfect. She would remove Valorum, while his hands stayed clean. She would be the hammer to nail the coffin shut on the Valorum government, and, at the same time, pry the door open for himself. On the other side of this door lay the Chancellorship.
The fall of Chancellor Valorum
Palpatine and Queen Amidala just before calling for the Vote of No Confidence on Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum.
The long-anticipated special session of the Senate—the last under the Valorum government—had only two items on its agenda: a hearing of the Naboo delegation's case, and a debate on the Trade Federation's continued opposition to taxation of the free trade zones. Few expected it to be anything other than routine. Palpatine alone knew what was coming; for him, it was but a great drama, with all the actors' lines dictated in advance. He knew that the Federation's representative, Lott Dod, would try to stall the proceedings with every procedural tool at his command (Sidious may even have insisted that Dod do so, implying that it would ensure an eventual repeal of the taxation measure). He also knew that the vice chair—his servant Mas Amedda, one of the few to be aware of the true agenda—would keep Valorum shackled by procedure no matter what. And he knew that, in the face of an attempt to stall, Amidala would have no choice but to act as he had suggested.
The actors performed splendidly. Dod and his allies threw up objection after objection; Amidala could not even finish her plea. The queen grew more and more frustrated. Finally, Dod moved that a Senate committee be created to go to Naboo to determine if her "accusations" were valid, citing senatorial procedures that Amidala had no hope of understanding. Then, Amedda—as expected—pulled Valorum aside, subtly forcing Valorum to concede that Dod was within his rights. "Enter the bureaucrats," Palpatine whispered into the queen's ear, "the true rulers of the Republic, and on the payroll of the Trade Federation, I might add." When Valorum turned back from Amedda and asked the queen if she would defer her motion to allow the committee to do its work, it was the last straw. She had seen with her own eyes that Palpatine had been right–Valorum was ineffective–and she had nowhere left to go. Palpatine hid his satisfaction as, next to him, Amidala delivered the words that sealed Finis Valorum's fate.
- "I will not defer. I have come before you to resolve this attack on our sovereignty now. I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die while you discuss this invasion in a committee. If this body is not capable of action, I suggest new leadership is needed. I move for a Vote of No Confidence in Chancellor Valorum's leadership."
- ―Queen Amidala
Valorum was thunderstruck, but by the time he could recover his wits, events had moved past him. Senator Edcel Bar Gane of Roona seconded Amidala's motion, and the vote was on the floor. The Senate had waited for this for months, perhaps years, and so unpopular was Valorum that they fell on him with abandon. Like slashrats having caught a whiff of killscent, the Senators erupted into a frenzied uproar, calling out, "Vote now! Vote now! Vote now!" It was all the Chancellor could do to postpone the vote until the following day. Palpatine already knew it would be a vote the Valorum government would not survive. It now remained only for him to ensure that he would be the one filling Valorum's shoes.
The scramble for the Chancellorship
The sudden power vacuum left a choice for the two major factions in the Senate. The loyalists, those Senators who had kept their integrity, saw the danger of an unstable government and sought to elect a strong leader to truly clean up the corruption in the Senate. The corrupt Senators wanted stability too, if only to allow them to continue plundering the system, and sought a figurehead who would provide the appearance of stability and just look the other way while they fattened themselves. Bail Antilles, representative of Alderaan, was the choice of the loyal Senators, while Ainlee Teem, representative of Malastare, was the choice of the corrupt Senators. These two nominations came as no surprise; both had been campaigning for months, even before the corruption scandal.
Much of the backroom politicking that led to Palpatine's nomination has been lost to history. What is known is that he had been working for months to capture the attention of an influential clique in the Senate, led by Senator Orn Free Taa of Ryloth. Taa was not satisfied with Teem or Antilles. Possibly he knew that neither of them had a chance of winning an electoral majority, and that the result would be a government in deadlock. As early as the breaking of the corruption scandal, Palpatine had caught Taa's eye as a potential compromise candidate. From Taa's point of view, it made sense: Palpatine had few enemies in the Senate, and many friends, ensuring that all factions could work well with him. He was satisfactory, if not exactly spectacular. He was selfless, humble, but at the same time confident and assured. He would be able to meet the demand for leadership.
For months, then, Taa's clique had been considering Palpatine as a candidate. This is likely why, as dusk fell over the Senate Building, either Taa or one of those Senators in his circle nominated the Senator from Naboo. Palpatine returned to his apartments with Panaka in a jaunty mood. He was confident–indeed, was certain–that the tide was with him, and that the situation on Naboo could not help but create a strong sympathy vote that would make the difference over Teem or Antilles. "I will be Chancellor," he told Amidala back at 500 Republica. And he meant it. After all, he had arranged it to be just so.
The election of Chancellor Palpatine
When the Senate convened the following day to vote on the no confidence motion, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Valorum had few friends left, and the Senate so badly wanted him gone that they did not hesitate. Finis Valorum was swiftly voted out of office in a humiliating defeat. His political career in ruins, he was left to his own devices, to start his life over from scratch. He spent the next two years in seclusion, waiting for the public's distaste for him to wear off. It never did. He contributed where he could and received no thanks for his trouble. By the time he realized just what role his removal had played in Palpatine's grander scheme, it was too late.
The Senate quickly proceeded to the vote on a successor. Yet again, they all unwittingly did Palpatine's bidding. Probably, neither Antilles nor Teem could garner enough votes to achieve a majority to govern effectively. Neither side could overcome their hatred of the other side's candidate enough to vote for him for the sake of stability. In the face of a voting deadlock, the Senate eagerly embraced the third option. Antilles' supporters could take heart that Palpatine had kept his distance from the corrupt Senators during his tenure. Teem's supporters were encouraged by his seeming docility. This, perhaps, best exemplifies Palpatine's remarkable talent for manipulation. Almost every faction in the Senate had become convinced that while he was incorruptible, he would work nonetheless to further their specific interests.
But the ultimate deciding factor, as Palpatine intended, was the groundswell of sympathy for the representative of besieged Naboo. Palpatine could rightfully claim to have been betrayed by Valorum, who had promised to do all he could for Naboo in a time of crisis. Perhaps it was just that Palpatine himself should be given the chance to make things right. With such weight behind him, there could be no other outcome. Palpatine received the most votes by far, becoming Chancellor—the last being ever to hold the title—by an overwhelming margin. After taking the oath of office and vowing to preserve the Republic—an oath that by any standard must be considered an act of perjury—he promised to reunite the disaffected among the people and restore the remembered glories of the Republic. No one could have realized that they had elected the leader of an order dedicated to destroying the Republic.
The liberation of Naboo
Palpatine watches as Queen Amidala leaves for Naboo.
Even before the final election, Palpatine was in a triumphant mood. When Amidala made clear her intentions to return to Naboo to reclaim it from the Trade Federation, he made a show of concern and tried half-heartedly to keep her from going. She was not to be swayed. She left, taking both Jinn and Kenobi with her for protection. It was perfect: she had taken all his enemies with her into what could only be a death trap, and all those who could link the Sith to the greater scheme would vanish at a stroke. It was satisfying to see all his plans fall into place, due to his own guile and the stupid, unwilling cooperation of his pawns.
He summoned his apprentice Darth Maul, and brought him up to speed on Amidala's movements. Then he contacted the Neimoidians on Naboo, with orders to kill Amidala when she arrived, and a word of notice that Maul would be joining them to deal with the Jedi personally. Stifling his humor at their transparent attempts to act excited at the thought of Maul's imminent presence, he cut the signal and laughed. "Soon the Neimoidians will no longer be useful to us," he told Maul. "What a happy day that will be." Then he sent his apprentice off, with orders to make certain their cowardly tools killed the queen, and that the Jedi fell by his own hand.
Even while Sidious stayed on Coruscant, managing his election as Chancellor, he made time to go over reports sent from Maul on Naboo. As they came in, Amidala's behavior seemed more and more baffling: not only did she manage to escape Gunray's reach, but she had forged an alliance with the Gungans and assembled an army in the Lianorm Swamp. He gave his approval to Gunray's plan to meet the Gungans head-on. "Wipe them out," he commanded. "All of them."
In truth, the outcome of what would be called the Battle of the Great Grass Plains mattered very little to him. The only reason he had even sent Darth Maul to Naboo and ordered Gunray to destroy the Gungan army was to keep up the facade that he had an interest in controlling Naboo, to keep the Neimodians from realizing his true motives. But regardless of who won the battle, Palpatine would be the true victor. After all, if Amidala and her defenders fell, she would become a martyr he could use to justify further and more definitive actions against the Trade Federation. If they succeeded, he could use her victory as a symbol of the new take-charge attitude the Republic would be showing under his guidance. Either way, he would be seen as a decisive leader, exactly what the majority of Senators were clamoring for.
The aftermath of the Naboo crisis
Palpatine was soon informed that Amidala had triumphed. Against all odds, she had taken back her throne by force, and had taken Gunray and Haako into custody to face the courts. Of all the possibilities, he had not expected this one to come to pass, but in the end it did not matter. The occupation had already served its purpose. And his state visit to Naboo after the battle tied himself firmly with that victory. He suffered a far more serious loss when he learned that Darth Maul, after claiming an admirable kill in the person of Qui-Gon Jinn, had fallen in battle against the young Obi-Wan Kenobi. This was another major setback in his original long-term plans; Maul's death had cut short a quiet but promising reign of terror, where he would have picked off individual Jedi and provided a major distraction for the order. Sidious regretted the loss of a valuable tool, but that was all; for all the childlike loyalty Maul had shown him, it was never returned.
In any case, he ended up gaining far more than he had lost. He had also been informed of the role that a certain Anakin Skywalker, a young former slave boy from Tatooine, had played in the liberation. Though barely large enough to reach the controls, he had piloted a fighter straight into the Federation battleship and destroyed it. He had caught the eye of the Jedi Council itself; suspicion was growing that he might even be the Chosen One of ancient Jedi prophecy, and after much debate the Masters decided that he would be apprenticed to Kenobi. Sidious would have preferred it if the experiment had stayed on Tatooine, living an anonymous life, free from Jedi influences, but he could still manipulate events to make the boy his apprentice one day. Sidious' ability to forsee events never failed him, even if events took a different path than the one that served him best. He made a promise to Anakin in the celebration, telling him that "we will watch your career with great interest". He would keep this promise.
Returning to Coruscant after the victory celebrations, he could not help noting that he had much to celebrate himself. True, the Jedi were now aware of the Sith's involvement, and had even claimed his apprentice. But he could find another easily, one to serve him adequately enough until the young Skywalker was ready to be turned. Plus, the Jedi were now afraid, and it gladdened him to see their pride taken down a degree. And, no matter what losses he had suffered, the greatest prize had still been won. The precious "civilization" that the Jedi so zealously tried to defend had already fallen to him. The Galactic Republic was now under the control of the Dark Lord of the Sith.
The Republic under Palpatine (32 BBY–24 BBY)
- "The Chancellor loves power. If he has any other passion, I have not seen it."
- ―Mace Windu to Obi-Wan Kenobi on Coruscant
The new Chancellor kept himself busy during the eight years of his legitimate tenure. Much of this work was an intrigue that would eventually cause catastrophic bloodshed, the Clone Wars. But he had other projects, smaller but effective, to further his ultimate goals, the end of the Jedi and the Republic they served. Many (such as the Outbound Flight Project) were designed to whittle away the Jedi ranks, a few at a time, to make his task easier when the Great Jedi Purge came. As he carried out these murderous intrigues, always he cloaked himself in the image of a responsible leader. And the people were never the wiser. This was the Republic under the Palpatine Administration.
The offices of the new Chancellor
Chancellor Palpatine and his art of choice, used as hiding places for his dark artifacts.
Palpatine maintained his private apartment at 500 Republica as his main residence, but as was customary, he also moved into the Chancellor's Suite in the Senate Office Building. Exercising the traditional prerogative to decorate the office as he saw fit, he purged all traces of Finis Valorum from it and made it practically a mirror image of his senatorial apartment. The color of blue, which had been Valorum's preference, was banished. Within weeks, no one who had spent any time in the Suite during the Valorum government would have recognized it.
Yet again he hid his Sith nature in plain sight. The color red now dominated the decor, and priceless object d'art—many of them actually Sith heirlooms too obscure to be recognized as such—were moved in. Some of these relics dated back a thousand years. Others were far older, recovered from Yavin IV and dating to the days of Naga Sadow and Exar Kun: a pair of bas-relief, some three thousand years old, depicting a battle from the Great Hyperspace War, showing overwhelmed Jedi falling before the onslaught of Sith-spawned warbeasts (others regarded them as a tribute to Jedi bravery); an ancient Sith chalice, an incense burner used in meditation rituals. Some of them had been procured for him by his servant, his vice chair Mas Amedda, an antiquarian who knew Sith history and had the funds to spend to scour the Galaxy for such baubles. There were also bronzium statues of Sistros, Faya, Yanjon, and Braata, the Four Sages of Dwartii, the controversial quartet of philosopher-lawgivers who lived in the early days of the Republic.
But there were two most favored pieces which Palpatine brought in. The first was a new Chair of Office, black, thronelike, armored with ultra-dense lanthanide alloy. This chair, with certain modifications, would be his seat of power for more than four decades, and copies of it would be installed in every ship, outpost, and facility Palpatine was likely to visit. The second, and even more important piece, was the neuranium sculpture of Sistros, concealing the even more beautiful object within it—one of his Sith lightsabers, sealed within the sculpture at the time of its forging. This he placed in the anteroom. Other reserve blades, and his black cloak, he concealed in other art objects or in shielded compartments throughout the Suite, to wait for the time when he would at last release them, and release his true self.
The coming of the Red Guard
Ronhar Kim foils a false assassination attempt on Chancellor Palpatine.
It was at this time that there first appeared a prominent symbol of the New Order to come. This was the controversial and crimson-robed Chancellor's Guard, or simply Red Guard, supplanting the blue-robed Senate Guard, who were removed from the Chancellor's protection detail and now relegated to the protection of Senators only. A personal guard for a chief of state was seen as a violation of the Republic's values, and as such, some in the Senate were bound to object. Palpatine, of course, wanted a bodyguard unit, but he could not afford to be seen as directly advocating one. So he would create a situation where one could be forced on him.
His instruments for this were two beings. The first was Captain Prid Shan, possibly the being who oversaw the Senate Guard. As the Republic continued its downward spiral, funds for continuing the Guards at then-current levels must have dwindled proportionately. And, as potential threats to the Chancellor’s person increased (there were at least two attempts on a Chancellor's life in the past year alone—both ultimately his own handiwork), Shan recognized that the Guard needed better equipment and training. He began rocking the boat and insisted that the Senate fund measures to reform the Guards and make them adaptable to the current situation. Publicly, Palpatine feigned embarrassment at the notion of trained soldiers protecting his person, but he devised a means to make clear to all that Shan's concerns were valid.
This is where his second instrument came in. This was Jedi Ronhar Kim, son of his late predecessor as Naboo's representative, and one of his first allies in the government. He arranged for his "friend" Kim to be present for a terrified warning from Senator Viento, concerned that Palpatine's proposed reforms had angered some enough to want him dead. At that moment, the Senate Guards flanking him raised their rifles. As expected, Kim's lightsaber was ignited before they could fire, and they were quickly neutralized. What methods Sidious used to compel the Guards to act, and then to kill themselves with a fast-acting poison before they could be questioned, are not known, but they were effective. Even Kim's use of the Force could not make them say anything. There was only the fact that the Senate Guard had failed at a crucial moment, and Captain Shan's words, backed by the voices of Viento and other Senators, were now given enough weight to carry the argument.
The Red Guards—later to be known as the feared Imperial Royal Guards—were quickly formed and placed under Palpatine's personal authority. As he would do many times, he saw to it that their design inspired fear in any who saw them. Their distinctive crimson robes and armor were based not only on those of the Senate Guard, but on two other, far more ferocious units: the Death Watch of the Mandalore system and the Sun Guards of the Thrysus system. As expected, there was some criticism, but as the years passed, new security laws, imposed a step at a time, and the rise of a greater threat, made certain there wasn't too much criticism.
Jorus C'baoth and the Outbound Flight Project
Among the more well-known of Palpatine's lesser intrigues was the funding, and then destruction, of Outbound Flight, a mission to venture out to another galaxy, which was the brainchild of Master Jorus C'baoth. Palpatine had known and worked with C'baoth before, of course, and for years the two of them had discussed the possibility of life outside the Galaxy. As expected, that possibility never truly left C'baoth's imagination, and by the fifth year of Palpatine's Chancellorship (27 BBY) it had blossomed into a new proposal, the Outbound Flight Project, which C'baoth presented to the Supreme Chancellor. Six Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers would be linked to a central fuel tank, becoming a single vessel, and launched on a course through the fringes of the Republic, then the Unknown Regions, then off into the great void, eventually to reach a nearby galaxy, and back again.
Extra-galactic travel had long been dismissed as impossible because of intersecting ripples formed in hyperspace by galactic masses. Palpatine himself may have begun to suspect otherwise, if the reports from Zonama Sekot of possible invaders from outside the Galaxy had any truth to them. In any case, C'baoth was certain that the Jedi could use the Force to calm this turbulence, and tests in the briarpatch border of the Unknown Regions seemed to bear this out, which is why C'baoth recommended that he and as many other Jedi as possible be allowed to accompany the expedition. Though other reasons surely factored into his decision to support C'baoth—the possibility of learning more about the so-called "Far Outsiders", for instance—ultimately the best value that Outbound Flight had for Palpatine was to provide a single target, away from prying eyes, where a number of prominent Jedi could be disposed of easily, in ways that could not be traced to him. So, while outwardly appearing cool toward the concept, he allowed C'baoth to move forward and worked behind the scenes to see the project through to completion.
But there was still Senate resistance to funding this expensive expedition, so he dispatched his spy, Kinman Doriana, to make sure C'baoth would gain the credibility he needed to sway the Senate to his cause. C'baoth was dispatched to negotiate an agreement between the Corporate Alliance and a regional government on Barlok over mining rights. Doriana beat the Jedi Master there, inflaming militant Brolfi miners into making an assassination attempt, one that was meant to fail. As usual, Doriana performed better than expected. C'baoth himself foiled the assassination and returned to Coruscant in triumph, hammering out a deal both sides had little choice but to accept. With such impetus behind the Jedi Master, it was a simple matter for the Senate to pass Measure 4213.0410, which provided full funding for Outbound Flight. Even the Jedi Council caved in to pressure and agreed—grudgingly—to assign six Jedi Masters, including C'baoth, and eleven Knights agreed to go as well. This was more than even Sidious could have hoped for, and, eventually, would be a loss the Jedi Order would be hard-pressed to recover from.
The destruction of Outbound Flight
Outbound Flight was launched (27 BBY) from Yaga Minor, on the edge of Republic space, on its course into and through the Unknown Regions. Everything had gone splendidly; it now remained only to destroy the ship and its Jedi passengers. To that end, he dispatched Doriana to see to the matter. It should have been simple: Doriana would be overseeing handpicked units selected from the private armies of Sidious' commercial allies—two Trade Federation Lucrehulk-class battleships, seven Federation escort cruisers, and six Techno Union Hardcell-class transports, commanded by Vicelord Siv Kav, the largest assemblage of firepower since Naboo. Nearly three thousand Vulture droid fighters were available. Against such a force, even six new Dreadnaughts should have been overwhelmed without fuss. But then, neither Sidious nor Doriana had reckoned on the likes of a certain Chiss commander named Thrawn.
Doriana had been setting up the ambush on the fringes of Chiss territory when his force was discovered by eight small patrol ships of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet, commanded by Mitth'raw'nuruodo, then a young CEDF officer. To his credit, Doriana counseled an attempt at peaceful contact—there was always the possibility that the Chiss could be made into allies of the Sith, after all—but the posturing Kav foolishly launched an attack without any discussion. Foolishly, because this Thrawn then succeeded in doing the impossible, rendering Kav's fighter screen useless and, through subtlety and observation, quickly discovering the weak points on each attacking ship and exploiting them. Within minutes, all but one of Doriana's ships were destroyed, and that only because Thrawn wanted someone left alive to interrogate.
Doriana feared the punishment he would receive from Sidious when the Sith Lord learned of this debacle, and rightly so. But again to his credit, Doriana found a way to turn a short-term defeat into a long-term victory. Skillfully and deviously making use of what little intelligence had been gathered from Tarkin's and Sienar's expedition to Zonama Sekot two years before, he evoked the threat of an invasion by the Far Outsiders, already establishing footholds at the edge of the Galaxy, already sending scouting parties to plan the route of conquest. If Outbound Flight should happen to meet their bridgehead, the Galaxy could be facing a massive onslaught long before it was ready, Doriana insisted. And Thrawn (who, as it turned out, already knew of an incursion on the far edge of Chiss space) was convinced, especially after Doriana opened a holochannel to Sidious so that Thrawn could discuss the matter with him personally. Even the greatest strategic minds were malleable.
Palpatine himself had work to do, even as Doriana was doing his. Using the speedy transportation available to a Supreme Chancellor, he had traveled all the way out to Roxuli, the last stop of Outbound Flight before it left the Republic behind, and met its fate. Ostensibly, he was there to secure Jorus C'baoth's services as a negotiator between the Roxuli government and its asteroid mining colonies. In reality, he was there to save Anakin Skywalker from the coming trap. Sidious had been enraged when Doriana reported that C'baoth had added Skywalker to the crew roster without anyone's knowledge; nothing could be allowed to happen to his prized apprentice-to-be. Of course, that meant he would have to save Kenobi as well, since he could not separate Master and Padawan, at least not yet. But he could live with that. So he secured Kenobi's services as a replacement negotiator, and Kenobi brought Skywalker with him.
Soon after, Doriana returned with his final report: Thrawn had succeeded in destroying Outbound Flight, partly by embroiling a second power of the region, the nomadic Vagaari, in the engagement, to the doom of both parties. This impressed Sidious, who was no stranger to maneuvering his enemies into destroying each other when it was wise. And though Thrawn knew of Sidious' existence and Doriana's true identity and position, Doriana chose not to kill him, correctly guessing that the Chiss strategist could be of continued use to the Sith cause—a loose cannon, true, but one better pointed at Sidious' enemies than at Sidious himself. As for C'baoth, an even looser cannon, that unstable Jedi Master was no further impediment to him, but he still had a way to make use of him in the future, if needed...
The search for a new apprentice
- "Soon I will have a new apprentice… one far younger and more powerful."
- ―Darth Sidious
Palpatine befriended Anakin Skywalker in order to seduce him to the dark side.
After the untimely death of Darth Maul, Sidious was faced with an urgent task. Before he could continue in his plans to divide and conquer the Republic, he needed an apprentice who could be counted on to make the necessary preparations, to sow dissension among the Republic's member worlds. Maul clearly had not had the kind of political acumen needed; of the many skills he had possessed, subtlety and oratory were not among them. So, deciding the loss was to his ultimate benefit, Sidious set about searching for a replacement.
Obviously, the ideal method would have been to locate another Force-sensitive youth to mold according to his desires, but that was impossible now. As a Senator from a less-than-prominent world, he could afford the time to train Darth Maul from infancy, but now the daily schedule of a sitting Chancellor precluded any attempt to do the same for Maul's successor. He needed a trained apprentice immediately, or else his entire timetable could be critically endangered. He could not risk his political career for his Sith duties, nor could he neglect his Sith duties for his political career. Both were part of the same plan, and that plan had to be fulfilled at any cost.
But fortune played a part in giving him the perfect candidate, in the form of a disaffected Jedi Master named Dooku. As befitting his needs, this Jedi was already well trained in the ways of the Force and was a superbly accomplished swordsman, though not exactly in the same flamboyant style as Maul's. He was also patient, intelligent, and charismatic. All of these were qualities Sidious would need for the next phase of the plan. And, most importantly, there were other qualities in him, weaknesses that Sidious could exploit to make a Sith out of him.
The seduction of Count Dooku
The Dark Lord contacts his new apprentice.
Dooku, always a maverick, made the process simple. He had been appealing to the Jedi Council to take the threat of the Sith more seriously. If there were always two Sith, and one was believed to have been killed on Naboo, why were the Jedi not devoting their best efforts to finding the second Sith? But to Palpatine's satisfaction, they remained plodding as ever. Their shortsightedness repelled Dooku, introducing to him the idea that his ideals and theirs might not necessarily be the same. There may even have been an arrogance in him that caused him to believe that he, rather than some untrained child named Skywalker, might be the Chosen One. Torn between a certainty in his success and doubt that it would make a difference, Dooku decided to find the missing Sith.
Had Dooku been a Jedi of the old tradition, Sidious would have remained unfound. But he met the requirements he had set for a new apprentice, which was why Sidious approached him. It was soon clear that this discontented Jedi was fascinated by the Sith. Or at least, he was now firmly convinced that the Jedi were not the ones to save the Galaxy from itself. Dooku was receptive to Sidious' words. They both believed that the Republic was collapsing under its own weight, that a new order was needed to improve things. After much discussion, Sidious gradually persuaded Dooku that their separate visions of improving things were actually quite similar. They needed each other. It was not long before Dooku decided to accept Sidious' offer: in exchange for Dooku's service, Sidious promised to teach him about the dark side and how to use it to achieve the positive changes they envisioned.
It is clear, however, that from the very beginning of their relationship, Sidious was leading Dooku on. Dooku was but a necessary pawn, as Maul had been. The idea that Sidious needed or wanted an "accomplice," or partner, someone on an equal footing with himself, is laughable. It was not the Sith way; it was certainly not his way. Apprentices by definition were never equals, could never be. Dooku would be a useful placeholder, until Skywalker was ready for conversion. That was all.
The Clone Army
Master Sifo-Dyas, a former Jedi Council member and a friend of Dooku's, had become concerned for his friend's sudden change in spirit. Sifo-Dyas was already convinced that very dark times were ahead, but the Jedi Council did not pay much attention. Desperate, he went to Palpatine for advice, who then duped him to contact the elite cloners of Kamino, to order a massive army of clone soldiers. This army was aimed to defend the Republic in the future.
In order to keep the army secret, Sidious ordered Dooku to eliminate his old friend Sifo-Dyas. Without hesitation, Dooku murdered the Jedi Master. In doing so he fulfilled an ancient Sith covenant that proscribed the slaughter of one who was close as a measure of commitment. Sidious saw that Dooku had truly embraced the dark side. Sidious awarded him the title of Darth Tyranus, and commanded his new apprentice to remove all records of the planet Kamino from the Jedi Archives.
Sidious' next mission for his new apprentice was to continue the project and select an exceptional warrior to be the template of the clone army Sifo-Dyas had ordered. After much consideration and a brutal trial, Tyranus selected Jango Fett as the perfect candidate. On Bogg 4, Tyranus offered Fett a generous payment for being the prime clone. Fett accepted, on the condition that he received an unaltered clone of himself, whom he would make his own apprentice, and son.
The reelection of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine
In 28 BBY, the election for the Chancellorship was held as scheduled. Despite the fact that Palpatine's efforts at reform had been stymied (by his own design), his manipulation of the Senate and the lack of any genuinely viable opposing candidates, ensure his reelection.
It would be the last election for Supreme Chancellor ever to be held in the remaining history of the Republic; shortly before the next scheduled election (24 BBY), his machinations would result in the Senate amending the Constitution allowing him to serve indefinitely. And once that election had passed unobserved, there would never be another in Palpatine's lifetime.
The Separatist Crisis (24 BBY–22 BBY)
- "I will not let this Republic that has stood for a thousand years be split in two."
- ―Palpatine
Chancellor Palpatine's reassuring smile gave hope to the denizens of the Galactic Republic during the Clone Wars.
Palpatine had now completed his two four-year terms as Chancellor, and the Grand Army of the Republic was at the ready. Now he needed a full-scale galactic war to overthrow the Republic, eliminate the Jedi, and restore a long-vanished golden age where the Sith would rule the Galaxy once again. The Clone Wars would do just that.
The rise of the Separatist movement
- "The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see, the future is."
- ―Jedi Master Yoda
Under Palpatine's direction, Count Dooku united several commercial organizations—foremost among them the Trade Federation that had been Sidious's tool for seizing the Chancellorship—into the Confederacy of Independent Systems, thus forging the Separatist movement in 24 BBY. These organizations pledged the massive armies they had used to protect their profits to Dooku, thus making the Confederacy capable of overthrowing the Republic, and a threat in the eyes of the Senate.
Palpatine arranged for Dooku to construct the revolutionary government at the end of his term limit as Chancellor. Due to this, the oblivious Senate granted him an indefinite extra term in office—cancelling the 24 BBY Galactic Republic Chancery election—to settle the Separatist Crisis. But the movement continued to strengthen, despite Palpatine's "attempts" at peaceful negotiations, including the formation of the Loyalist Committee, an organization of Senators that wanted to keep the Republic together.
The false "peace initiative"
In ways both large and small, Palpatine worked to raise tensions. As the crisis expanded, he staged yet another "public relations" drama in which he could perform his favored role of the hurt innocent, offering from a position of strength the hand of peace. One day (22 BBY), trillions upon trillions of HoloNet viewers across the Galaxy found their regular programming interrupted by a signal that overrode all government channels and 90 percent of the private feeds. Donning his preferred mask of firm composure, mixed with weariness, he sat at his desk, flanked by his Red Guards, and, in a brief twelve-minute address, offered an open invitation to Dooku to parley:
- "There are many on both sides of this grand debate eager to turn this dispute into war. It needn't degenerate into so wasteful an outcome. Together, we have the intelligence and the reason to find an alternative solution."
- ―Palpatine
As he spoke, he did everything he could to keep up the appearance of the wronged party, taking the moral high ground by forgiving his enemy. It was a practiced performance by now. Even at this late hour, he said, he was willing to discuss a diplomatic solution. Little plays like this would be useful later; when the time for war came, he could say that he had done his best to prevent it, putting his own credibility as Chancellor at risk for it.
- "I appeal to your sensibilities developed as a revered Jedi. I was witness not only to your practiced brand of diplomacy during the Sevarcos Dispute of three decades ago, but also of your former apprentice's noble efforts to protect the sovereign of my world. From these examples, I know you are a proponent of peace… We have much in common, sir, for it is the inefficiencies of the Republic that are the focus of my Chancellery. But the solution lies not in insurrection, but rather through reform. The system will work, and together we will make it work."
- ―Palpatine
At the end of the address, he proposed Bothawui, a neutral world, as a potential site for a conference. For "security reasons," he named no date, but announced that all avenues of communication to his office were open to Dooku. It did not matter; Sidious and Tyranus had planned in advance that there should be no response, and that, as a result, the Separatists would be seen as implacable, unreasonable. And the next time any violence was blamed on the Separatists, the militarists in the Senate could rightly claim that negotiation with such radicals was impossible, and the call for an army would become louder still.
Putting the Senate on the defensive
The false proposal had its desired effect; the demand for a military to defend the Republic intensified. But it was still not enough to tip the majority of Senators in favor of the Military Creation Act. When it came to a vote, they needed to approve both the Act and the surrendering of their own lawmaking powers to Palpatine, and do so willingly. But how? The Senators’ individual constitutencies could not demand it of them; grassroots campaigns had long since ceased to have any effect on these self-absorbed politicians. No, to get them to go along, they would have to be threatened with the loss of what they loved most: their lives and livelihoods. There was only one thing for it: a round of assassinations that could be blamed on the Separatists, and cause the rest to circle their wagons.
Soon, various Senators, including Aks Moe of Malastare, were murdered (22 BBY). No terrorist organization claimed responsibility in any of these incidents, but with the Separatist threat on the rise, fingers were naturally pointed in their direction first, just as Palpatine had anticipated. And, also as foreseen, the inability of the Jedi to keep up with the wave of violence added to the overall effect. Ainlee Teem rose up in the Senate to decry, "Where are our vaunted guardians of peace and justice? Where was their all-powerful Force this time?" This refrain would be heard a lot more as the weeks passed. The conclusion was obvious: if the Jedi and the Judicials themselves were not enough to maintain order, an army was needed to fill the breach. Publicly undecided on the issue, Palpatine privately observed the debate with pleasure.
The night before the scheduled vote on the Military Creation Act, Palpatine made an address to the member worlds of the Republic. Again, he spun a complete fiction, expressing confidence in a peaceful solution and commitment to negotiations, though even the nonattentive press noticed that he was already "grudgingly" anticipating a Senate yes-vote.
- "Regardless of the outcome of the Military Creation Act vote, the primary path that this administration will adhere to is one of civility and intelligent discourse. If the constituents decide that a Grand Army of the Republic is indeed essential to the safety of our citizenry, we will erect a formidable force to assist our Jedi in maintaining the peace, not in starting a war... I assure the families of the Republic that hostilities will only be engaged in retaliation or in the protection of Republic soil, or in response to brazen acts of warfare brought on by the Separatists. It is not this office's desire to incite war."
- ―Palpatine
The intent was to settle their fears. Whatever would happen, he maintained, the Republic would still be the Republic; that was not going to change. The tragedy was that their fears were well-founded, and that it would be this same man who would make them come true. He concluded:
- "On election day, we will demonstrate the strength of democracy as thousands of delegates make their voices heard in the Senate. It is this cherished freedom we must protect, at all costs. The days and months ahead call for clear, rational thinking. It is only as a last resort that arms will replace words as the means of settling this dispute."
- ―Palpatine
The assassination attempts on Senator Padmé Amidala
Palpatine's successor as Senator of Naboo and the world's former Queen, Padmé Amidala, was almost killed by the Clawdite bounty hunter Zam Wessell after arriving on Coruscant to vote on the issue of creating a Grand Army of the Republic. Palpatine had the vote delayed and had the Senator put under the protection of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, her old Jedi allies from the Battle of Naboo a decade ago. After a second assassination attempt was made by using poisonous kouhun worms, Anakin was assigned by the Jedi Council to protect Amidala back on her homeworld of Naboo. The two both secretly started to fall in love with the romantic ambience of the Naboo Lake Retreat, just as the Sith Lord had hoped. Anakin was clearly breaking the Jedi Code, and this guilt and secrecy would only bring him closer to the dark side.
Meanwhile, Kenobi—who had been sent by the Council to solve Amidala's mysterious assassination attempts; found out about Kamino from an old friend in Coco Town, Dexter Jettster, located the bounty hunter Jango Fett, who was the Army's Prime Clone, and infiltrated the Separatist stronghold at Geonosis to discover that the financial leaders supporting the Confederacy had an army of battle droids in wait and that to insure the Trade Federation's backing was to have Senator Amidala killed. Kenobi contacted the Chancellor and the Jedi Council back on Coruscant, but was taken captive by the local Geonosians.
As for Anakin and Padmé, the duo had secretly voyaged back to the desert planet Tatooine after Anakin had visions of his mother, Shmi, in agony. Anakin met the Lars', who had freed Shmi from Watto years ago and learned that his mother had married Cliegg Lars. His mother's husband told him that she had been taken captive by a Tusken tribe. Anakin tracked her down to the Tusken camp, where he witnessed her die in captivity. The young Jedi slaughtered the entire tribe, creating a terrible disturbance in the Force that was felt by Yoda and Palpatine on Coruscant. The Chancellor gladdened when sensing Anakin had committed another dark act and Yoda even heard the spirit of the late Qui-Gon Jinn cry to him from the netherworld. Anakin returned to the Lars' homestead to bury Shmi and, after taking his old protocol droid C-3PO back, he journeyed with Padmé to rescue Obi-Wan.
Emergency powers
Chancellor Palpatine "reluctantly" agrees to accept emergency powers.
Though Kenobi had been captured on Geonosis, he had been able—or was permitted—to send out one transmission to the Jedi Council reporting his findings. Though he was cut off by droidekas arriving to take him into Geonosian custody, Kenobi had a great deal to say:
- "I have tracked the bounty hunter Jango Fett to the droid foundries on Geonosis. The Trade Federation is to take delivery of a droid army here and it is clear that Viceroy Gunray is behind the assassination attempts on Senator Amidala. The Commerce Guilds and the Corporate Alliance have both pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an… Wait!… Wait!"
- ―Obi-Wan Kenobi
Palpatine had in his hands the "proof" he needed to force the Senate's hand: the testimony of a respected Jedi regarding a massive military buildup. He no longer needed to convince anyone of the Separatists' intentions. Here was proof that, regardless of the Senate's hand-wringing about whether to risk a war with the Separatists, Dooku was already preparing to launch a war against them.
During a tense nighttime conference in the Senate Office Building, Palpatine and Mas Amedda met with members of the Jedi Council and the Loyalist Committee, to ponder how best to counter the threat of an imminent Separatist attack. It became clear that even with an immediate threat hanging over their heads, the Senate would still not be able to approve the use of the clone army before the Separatists launched their offensive. Following an interminable session of argument, Amedda (no doubt prompted by Palpatine before the meeting) suggested that if the Senate were to grant Palpatine emergency war powers, he could then approve the use of the army immediately. Jar Jar Binks, representing Naboo in Amidala's absence, volunteered to make the motion in the Senate.
When Binks made the motion in his broken Gunganese variant of Basic, the Senate was shocked. Not, amazingly enough, by a proposal to surrender some of their legislative powers. They simply could not believe that Binks, the being they had all derided as a clown, was now possessed of a strength and eloquence they had never seen in him before, and as radical as his proposal was, it seemed the most sensible option, given the circumstances. Binks was advocating a complete about-face on militarization, and this reconciled a great many doubters. As Amidala's chosen proxy, Binks's position was seen as her position. If Binks said it, then by senatorial rules, she had intended for it to be said. If Amidala, their leader in opposing the Military Creation Act, believed this to be the wisest course of action, how could they not vote with their leader now?
- "Senators, dellow felagates, in response to this direct threat to the Republic, mesa propose that the Senate give immediately emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor."
- ―Jar Jar Binks
The cheering and the chants of "Palpatine! Palpatine! Palpatine!" from the body of the hall went on, uninterrupted, for minutes, drowning out the few jeers of protest. By the time Palpatine held up his hands, calling for silence, he had won the Senate almost completely. The rest of it—the humble speech with which he would soothe their belated fears about the future of the democratic system, and the actual vote on Binks's motion—was merely a formality.
- "It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy. I love the Republic. I am mild by nature, and I do not desire to see the destruction of democracy. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And as my first act with this new authority, I will create a Grand Army of the Republic to counter the increasing threats of the Separatists."
- ―Palpatine
At the conclusion of this "acceptance speech," Palpatine asked only that once the crisis was over, he would be allowed to retire to Naboo and live out his remaining years in peace. Of all the lies, this surely proved to be the most blatant. He had no plans to retire. He had no love for the Republic or its weak democratic system, he had no reluctance to be rid of it, and he had no intention of laying aside the power he had spent years accumulating, as the Senate, which had just so carelessly handed it over to him, would discover to its horror. Only one thing he said could, in retrospect, be taken at face value: the clone army was already a fact, and he quickly legalized it as the Republic's armed forces. He had dealt the Republic a fait accompli, and they had not even imagined that he was even involved. Such was his skill.
The Clone Wars (22 BBY–19 BBY)
The great project that Sidious had spent more than ten years in making—the first full-scale conflict in a thousand years, and one of the most destructive in history—began on the right foot for him. He had at his command a force of well-trained, well-equipped soldiers answerable ultimately to him, and sweeping discretionary powers to use as he saw fit, which undermined the Constitution to an unprecedented degree. Now he put both of these to work in the long and bloody conflict that history calls the Clone Wars. On the surface, it was seen as the Republic’s effort to suppress the militant Separatist movement. It was actually a war waged against the Republic itself by its own chief of state.
From democratic diplomat to dictatorial despot
- "There are times when we must all endure adjustment to the Constitution in the name of security."
- ―Palpatine
During the Clone Wars, Palpatine further consolidated his power in the crisis of the war. These emergency powers included the Reflex Amendment, which permitted him to interfere with planetary matters and disputes. Some Senators, such as Seti Ashgad, protested against the act of installing security cameras in the Senate Rotunda. He was secretly exiled by Palpatine's agents to the prison world known as Nam Chorios. Even the former Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum met up with Bail Organa of Alderaan to discuss their suspicions.
As trust for Palpatine continued to erode, he continued to control the Confederacy through Count Dooku, who led an assault on Kamino to ensure that the Galaxy would be locked in conflict for years. Dooku also started training his Dark Acolytes to help with the war effort and the Sith reemergence.
Because of the clouded post-war future, the Jedi Council started to suspect one of his Inner Circle, most notably Sate Pestage, to be the "Darth Sidious" that Count Dooku had revealed to Master Kenobi on Geonosis. They started to suspect this after the First Battle of Cato Neimoidia in 19 BBY, three years into the war. Republic forces under Captain Jan Dodonna captured Viceroy Gunray's mechno-chair, which led them to Sidious' hideout in the Works on Coruscant, in turn leading to Sidious and his advisors apartment at 500 Republica. Facts became invaluable.
Palpatine knew that the end was near, and assigned the majority of the galactic capital defense fleet to take down a "triad of evil". At the same time, his alter-ego persona commanded the cyborg General Grievous to use a secret hyperroute through the Deep Core to attack Coruscant. The endgame had begun.
"Kidnapped"
- "All the players are now in place. It is time to initiate the end moves. The plan of many long years shall bear fruit at last!"
- ―Darth Sidious
Grievous, the Supreme Commander of the Droid Armies, "kidnapped" the Chancellor from his office amidst a week-long attack on Coruscant. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker led a rescue, returning from the ruined world of Tythe, eventually meeting with Palpatine and Dooku in the General's flagship, Invisible Hand. However, this was merely a test of Anakin's vulnerablilty to the dark side in a confrontation with Count Dooku.
Whilst Obi-Wan was rendered unconscious while confronting Dooku in the General's quarters, Anakin was able to defeat the Sith Lord, and beheaded him upon the Chancellor’s urging. By this point, Palpatine had long desired and plotted to take Anakin as an apprentice, and he needed to have Dooku removed to do so. Over time, the Jedi began to grow distrustful of Palpatine, fearing what this ever-increasing power might mean for the Republic.
The Endgame (19 BBY)
- "Power! Unlimited power!"
- ―Palpatine
Palpatine shows his true colors to the Jedi.
At the same time, Sidious was sowing similar seeds of doubt into the mind of Anakin. Young Skywalker saw a vision of his wife, Padmé Amidala, dying after giving birth to their child. Palpatine, who could have planted this vision of the future in Anakin’s mind himself, promised the young Jedi to open his mind to the Sith knowledge of sustaining or creating life, which—as he claimed—was the only way to escape Padmé's death. He was able to secretly lure him by making him his representative on the Jedi Council. The Council reluctantly agreed to permit Anakin's seat on the Council, replacing Master Even Piell, but he did not receive the rank of Master, angering him. Eventually the inevitable confrontation emerged, and Anakin delivered the revelation that Palpatine was really Darth Sidious, the Sith Master for which they had been searching for thirteen years, to Jedi Master Mace Windu.
Mace ordered Anakin to remain in the Jedi Temple, while he, along with Masters Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, and Kit Fisto, went to arrest the Chancellor. Palpatine greeted the Masters cordially, as though nothing had changed, though he knew that the endgame had begun. Mace boldy ignited his lightsaber, declaring that Palpatine was under arrest and that the Senate would decide his fate. "I am the Senate", Palpatine proclaimed, revealing an electrum saber of his own design hidden in his sleeve. A crimson blade ignited, and within seconds the Jedi Masters realised they had been tricked, that they were pawns that had been manipulated for the last thirteen years. With a Sith snarl more animal than man, Palpatine lunged forward and killed Masters Tiin and Kolar before they could defend themselves. Master Fisto held against Palpatine for a few seconds before he was slain by the Sith Lord's blade. Left alone with Mace Windu, the Dark Lord fought him in a one-on-one lightsaber duel.
After several minutes of dueling, where Palpatine used a combination of the Ataru lightsaber style and Juyo technique, possibly coupled with Windu's own Vaapad, the Jedi Master managed to defeat Palpatine by a kick to the head, apparently causing Palpatine to drop his lightsaber out a window only moments before Anakin Skywalker entered the room. This may not have been a coincidence, as it is possible that Palpatine was simply feigning defeat to gain Anakin's sympathy, knowing that the only way to break Anakin’s connection to the Jedi was to force Anakin to choose between loyalty to them and his promises of the power to govern life and death. Palpatine's attempts to defend himself with Force lightning were futile, as Windu used his lightsaber to reflect it back at the Sith Lord, seemingly melting and disfiguring Palpatine's face (although it has been debated whether his disfigured face had been his true form all along). Mace deemed Palpatine too dangerous to be left alive, but Skywalker had decided that only Palpatine could save his wife from the death he had seen in his visions. He had to choose between the Jedi that appeared to abuse their power and the seemingly helpless and weak old man.
The young Jedi Knight chose Sidious, severing Mace's sword arm. Sidious then sprung back to life and blasted Mace from the building with a devastating blast of Force lightning. He then dubbed his new apprentice Darth Vader, and told him that while he never learned Plagueis' secret technique used to preserve life, that if they worked together they could discover the secret.
The fall of the Jedi Temple
- "First, I want you to go to the Jedi Temple. We will catch them off balance."
- ―Palpatine
Darth Sidious savors his victory over the Jedi.
But taking an oath was not enough to make one a Sith. Like Maul and Tyranus, Vader had to demonstrate his allegiance. Sidious easily nudged him into the right frame of mind, reminding him that the Jedi would not stop until Sidious was dead, and if he were gone, what hope did Padmé have? For her sake, the Jedi had to die to the last being. "Do what must be done, Lord Vader", he commanded. "Do not hesitate. Show no mercy." To this end, he placed under Vader's command the 501st Legion, a special unit he had long ago set aside for just such tasks, and sent them off to the Temple. It would soon be ablaze.
Truth be told, Sidious did not have to send Vader; the 501st alone could have dealt with the instructors and younglings efficiently. But Sidious had sensed that his new apprentice was not yet as committed as he should be. In cutting down the most vulnerable members of the Order to whom he had once sworn allegiance, Vader would tie himself firmly to the Sith cause. There would be no returning to his old life. It would especially serve to sever Skywalker's ties to his wife; no matter how much she loved him, there would be no way Amidala could understand, much less forgive, his actions. Their love would die. She might even lose the will to live, to then be dealt with at a time of his choosing. And their child would belong to the Sith.
His new apprentice performed splendidly; through the night and into the early morning Vader led his troops through the Temple corridors in an orgy of bloodletting. Before leaving the Temple on his futile charge to the Senate Office Building, Master Windu had instructed one of the few Council members present, Shaak Ti, to prepare the Temple for a possible counterattack, but her best efforts were hardly enough to repel an entire legion of his handpicked troops. So many Jedi were away that only a token force remained behind to defend the younglings. Almost unopposed, Vader's blade and the shots of a thousand guns mowed down the Temple's younglings and their minders with ease. The loss of the flower of a new generation of Jedi was irreplacable.
When Vader and the 501st—which was already earning the name of "Vader's Fist"—completed their errand, the Jedi Temple, repository of twenty-five thousand years of the Order's history, was but a smoking ruin. But for some reason Palpatine never razed the old edifice to the ground, as would be expected. Some rumors hinted that he would be converting it into his new official residence, but in the event, the monument of self-glorification that was the Imperial Palace would be erected elsewhere. Perhaps he simply wanted to be able to gloat over the ruin, to let it remain as a permanent reminder of the arrogance of the Jedi Order, and of just how far—through his cunning—it had fallen.
Order 66
- "Execute Order 66."
- ―Palpatine to various clone trooper commanders
Palpatine issues Order 66 to Clone Commander Cody.
While Vader "sterilized" the Temple, Sidious himself saw to the other Jedi. A thousand years of planning were about to bear their true fruit; at last, the time for revenge had come. His instrument was, of course, his Grand Army. From the beginning of their training, the clones had been issued a list of orders on actions to take during specific emergency situations. One of these was Order 66: should the Jedi become involved in sedition against the Republic, the clones were to deal with them. The staged "rebellion" allowed this order to be given plausibly. The Jedi would not see it coming; they had forged a bond with their troops, true, but the Jedi had forgotten that the clones served the Republic, not the Jedi Order. He—not the Council—was the supreme commander of the Grand Army, and its troops had been made to follow his orders without question, even if they were ordered to kill their own field commanders.
Returning to the sanctity of his private office, Sidious reached out to key a special frequency into his holocomm. Unit by unit, he contacted the various clone commanders to issue a single command, over and over again: "Execute Order 66.". With each savored word, each repetition of the order, his satisfaction grew. Then, the task finally complete, he leaned back, picturing the deaths of his enemies at the hands of their own troops. He could sense what was happening—not in any detail, but he felt the dark side growing stronger with each Jedi death. If only he could be everywhere at once, to see each one die in person! But such was life; the very fact of this victory would suffice.
And a victory it truly was. On a thousand battlefronts, spread over some two hundred worlds, Jedi commanders suddenly found themselves facing the guns of their own troops. Almost to a man, the clones performed spectacularly and without incident; a later estimate indicated that out of nearly ten thousand Jedi, fewer than one hundred survived the initial wave of terminations—99% of the Order had been eliminated at a stroke. Only in one known instance, on Murkhana, did troops refuse out of conscience to carry out his order and allow their targets to flee—obviously their service alongside Jedi had contaminated them, leading to a rare moment when some of his servants defied a principal commandment of his: no thinking for yourself. He later sent Lord Vader to make a proper example of them, and for the rest of their genetically-accelerated lives, no other clone trooper made the fatal mistake of forgetting who their master was.
Aside from that singular surprising incident, he had expected that a few dozen Jedi would have survived the slaughter, either by eluding or overpowering their assassins. But that was immaterial; they too would be erased eventually. He explained this to Vader in these words: "In burying their heads in the sands and snows of remote worlds, the Jedi humble themselves before the Sith. So let them: let them atone for one thousand years of arrogance and self-absorption." He would have done better to have been more concerned about those few humbled survivors than he was, for it was from the efforts of two of them—none other than Yoda and Kenobi—that he would finally be defeated. But that was in the future; for now there was only the victorious present.
So enthused was Sidious by this long-anticipated victory that after issuing Order 66, he went to the Temple site to see the fruit of his labors in person. In the Room of a Thousand Fountains, he found Vader finishing off a small group of younglings and their protector, Cin Drallig. Vader kneeled in obeisance, his first task as a Sith apprentice executed beautifully. "You have done well," Sidious said. "Now, Lord Vader, go and bring peace to the Empire." They separated again, leaving Vader to see to his second task. For there were still a few remaining loose ends: the leaders of Separatist Council. It was time to tie those loose ends up.
The fall of the Confederacy of Independent Systems
- "The Separatists have been taken care of, my Master."
- ―Darth Vader
Following their withdrawal from Utapau, the Separatist leaders and their aides had holed themselves up in their heavily-defended redoubt on Mustafar and waited for further instructions from Sidious. To pacify them until the blade fell, Sidious offered soothing words and the implication of a handsome reward. But as always, they needed further reinforcement. In his Senate holding office on Coruscant, he noted an incoming message from Mustafar. Initially he wondered if something had gone wrong; he had not expected a transmission from there yet. When he pressed the response button, and an image of Nute Gunray, with the rest of the Separatist Council behind him, appeared on the projector built into his desk, Sidious realized that Vader simply had not reached them yet. But he soon would.
Sidious endured Gunray making yet another report—the last, he hoped—about how the plan was proceeding. Sidious answered almost by rote. "You have done well, Viceroy." he said. "When my new apprentice, Darth Vader, arrives, he will 'take care' of you." Sidious was pleased by the ambiguity in his words. As if Vader would be presenting them with cases filled with credits! He had a better reward in mind. Sidious had reached for the controls to end the transmission, but thought better of it and surreptitiously kept the channel to Mustafar open, to observe the carnage as it happened. He did not have long to wait; Vader soon arrived. Equipped with the installation's deactivation codes by Sidious, his fighter landed without its automated defenses even noticing. The Separatists were fully prepared to give Vader a fawning welcome, until his blade ignited.
From his desk, it excited Sidious to see the Council members turn to face Vader as he arrived—he was outside the range of the hologram pickup, but their expressions, changing from surprise to bewilderment and finally to fear, made clear to him who had come for them. Sidious leaned forward at his desk with anticipation. Then, Vader's blue blade flashed through the pickup field and parts of Poggle the Lesser were sent aloft. He saw the rest of the Council shake themselves out of their stupor and desperately try to run, screaming, until the transmission cut off from the Mustafar end. "I see my apprentice has arrived," he said softly. "Yes, he will take care of you." There was a reason for his sense of satisfaction; thirteen years before, Sidious had remarked to Darth Maul how happy a day it would be when he no longer needed the incompetent Neimoidians and their spineless ilk. As he watched them die, no doubt he was delighted to discover that it was even more liberating than he could have hoped for.
There was but one final detail. Sidious gave new instructions to Vader. "Send a message to the ships of the Trade Federation. All droid units must shut down immediately." Vader did as instructed, and at this command, a coded signal was sent out over every HoloNet repeater in the Galaxy. When received, every battle droid, on every battlefront, marched back to its transport, resocketed itself, and simply turned itself off. The manufactured threat of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, having served its purpose, was decapitated, and the Clone Wars, the most destructive conflict in the last thousand years, had ended.
The inauguration of the Galactic Empire
- "So this is how liberty dies—with thunderous applause."
- ―Padmé Amidala
The full text of Palpatine's speech appeared in HoloNet News.
It remained only for Palpatine to win the Senate's support, so he called for a special session to inform them of the "Jedi rebellion." For the sake of his audience, he covered the damage to his face. He could have appeared in his usual black robes and hood, but for this triumphant day, something more eye-catching was needed. He chose a robe of burgundy material, with a matching velvet mantle and hood in the Sith style. As a coronation robe, it sufficed. He would wear basic black often enough in the future; he could allow himself to splurge today.
The Senate saw his face twisted and distorted, his blue eyes, penetrating but friendly, replaced by harsh yellow ones, far more penetrating and anything but friendly. For the rest of his life that face would be seen, appropriately enough, only in shadow, shrouded by a hood, those piercing yellow eyes its most visible feature. The Galaxy eventually reconciled itself to this new face; portraits and statues of him incorporated it without shame. As he intended, that countenance was seen as a mark of pride, a wound suffered in the service of the people. Yet again, he hid his true nature in plain sight.
The Senators were informed of the Jedi plan not just to kill him, but to overthrow the Senate as well. As evidence, they heard recordings from his private office, and the voice of the late Master Windu accusing the Supreme Chancellor, in whom the Galaxy had placed its trust, of being a Sith. And while the emphasis was always on the "treacherous plot against the Republic", never did Palpatine deny the accusation. Instead, he blamed the Jedi Order for everything he had done for the past three decades: they had manipulated the Galaxy. Through their "puppet" Senators (conveniently, all members of the opposition), they were blamed for fostering corruption in the government to undermine the Republic. Through Dooku, they were blamed for manufacturing the Separatist movement to push the Republic into war. Through Sifo-Dyas, they were blamed for commissioning the clone army. Between these two proxies and the armies they commanded, he insisted, the Jedi had presided over a sham war, all to weaken the Republic so that the Council could take power openly:
- "The Jedi, and some within our own Senate, had conspired to create the shadow of separatism using one of their own as the enemy's leader… The Jedi hoped to unleash their destructive power against the Republic by assassinating the head of government and usurping control of the Clone Army. But the aims of would-be tyrants were valiantly opposed by those without elitist, dangerous powers. Our loyal clone troopers contained the insurrection within the Jedi Temple and quelled uprisings on a thousand worlds… The remaining Jedi will be hunted down and defeated. Any collaborators will suffer the same fate."
- ―Palpatine
Thus he played on the long-accumulating mistrust and resentment of the Jedi, much of which he had fostered, to confirm what for some had become a firm conviction: that the war was nothing more than a Jedi plot. In so doing, he knew he could count on the prejudices of the ignorant and the uneducated, those who regarded the Jedi as an anti-democratic order of mystics, who wielded powers and followed a philosophy many did not understand, who answered not to the Senate, the elected representatives of the people, but to an oligarchic Council that held itself above the government while living high on government funding. In the face of such biases, it was easy for Palpatine to depict Order 66 as a just and necessary measure.
Those who knew the Jedi in a better and clearer light and could have defended them, including much of the Senate opposition, were in no position to argue; the mood in the hall was clearly against them. In any case, they could see armed shock troopers stationed throughout the chamber, allegedly for the Chancellor’s "protection." It was not the time to raise their voice, and thereby add their names to the list of enemies these troops would be dealing with. Instead, they held their tongues and waited for the other shoe to drop.
- "These have been trying times, but we have passed the test. The attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed, but I assure you my resolve has never been stronger. The war is over. The Separatists have been defeated, and the Jedi rebellion has been foiled. We stand on the threshold of a new beginning."
- ―Palpatine
Here the opposition held its collective breath. It had been assumed that with the end of the war, and with the destruction of the alleged "hidden powers" behind the war, Palpatine would keep his promise to relinquish his emergency powers, step down from office and go into retirement on Naboo. But he had other plans, and when he announced them, the opposition was sent reeling:
- "In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society, which I assure you will last for ten thousand years. An Empire that will continue to be ruled by this august body and a sovereign ruler chosen for life. An Empire ruled by the majority, ruled by a new constitution."
- ―Palpatine
Palpatine declares the formation of the Galactic Empire with himself as Emperor of the Galaxy.
So he had confirmed their worst fears: there would be more changes to the Constitution, if that document was not to be scrapped entirely. Conveniently, he never spelled out what the separation of powers would be, just that the Senate would "rule" and the sovereign would "direct" the Senate. But it soon became frightfully clear that there would be more direction to the Senate, than ruling by the Senate. Many just didn't care; they knew where the power lay, and their support would gain them influence later. Those who did care remembered that there were blasters in the room. Palpatine continued, skillfully evoking the glories of empires past for a Galaxy tired of disorder:
- "By bringing the entire Galaxy under one law, one language, and the enlightened guidance of one individual, the corruption that plagued the Republic in its later years will never take root. Regional governors will eliminate the bureaucracy that allowed the Separatist movement to grow unchecked. A strong and growing military will ensure the rule of law… Under the Empire's New Order, our most cherished beliefs will be safeguarded. We will defend our ideals by force of arms. We will give no ground to our enemies and will stand together against attacks from within or without. Let the enemies of the Empire take heed: Those who challenge Imperial resolve will be destroyed."
- ―Palpatine
This promise, he kept. The next two decades saw the violent suppression of all opposition, including intimidation, arrests, executions, the destruction of cities, even the destruction of entire planets. He would have gone further, and destroyed entire star systems, had his rule remained unchallenged. But the Rebel Alliance was years in the future. For the present, its future founders, Bail Organa and Mon Mothma, had no choice but to support their new Emperor; they could do more good alive than dead. When the decree came to a vote, Palpatine had already won. Seduced by promises of safety, security, justice and peace, or perhaps just intimidated into silence, the Senate unanimously voted "yes". The Galactic Empire was an established fact.
The last stand of the Jedi Order
Darth Sidious attacks Yoda with Force lightning in the Senate Rotunda.
Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda eventually caught up with the betrayal and deceit, realizing that Anakin and his troops had slain everyone in the Jedi Temple, Masters, Knights, Padawans and younglings alike. Obi-Wan begged the old master not to send him to battle his former Padawan and friend, but there was no choice; Yoda thought the new Emperor would be far too powerful for Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan was sent to confront Anakin on Mustafar, while Yoda met with Sidious in the Senate Building on Coruscant. There, the Dark Lord of the Sith and the Grand Master of the Jedi Order dueled in a battle that destroyed a good portion of the Grand Convocation Chamber. The two were equally matched, demonstrating amazing strength and skill in the Force. But as the fight progressed, Yoda grew tired while Sidious grew amused and more powerful. After being overpowered by the Sith Lord, Yoda found the strength to fight back and the battle ended in a draw after Palpatine's Force lightning was returned to him in a blast so powerful that it pushed the two masters apart. Sidious managed to grab onto a Senate pod, but Yoda fell several stories. The Jedi Master, exhausted and unable to keep fighting, realized that Palpatine could not be defeated in battle and so fled. "Failed, I have," he remarked to Bail Organa, who hurried him away in his speeder. Emperor Palpatine waited for a time while shock troopers searched for Yoda's body, but when they learned that Yoda was still alive, Palpatine gave it little more thought. He commanded them to double the search, and gave them permission to blow up the Senate Building, but took no further action himself. It was a mistake that would eventually destroy him, but Palpatine could hardly be blamed. He had more pressing problems.
Darth Sidious arrives at the EmPal SuRecon Center with a barely alive Darth Vader.
- "Rise, Lord Vader."
- ―Palpatine
The battle between Obi-Wan and Vader on Mustafar ended much differently. Obi-Wan succeeded in wounding his former apprentice, leaving him for dead. Hurrying to Mustafar with speed only the Emperor of the Galaxy could afford (and with vigor that surprised even himself), Palpatine found his apprentice more dead than alive, and commanded that he be taken back to Coruscant and rebuilt using prosthetic replacements, a long and painful process that Palpatine made sure Vader would be kept conscious for, in order to make him stronger through pain. Upon being completely rebuilt and outfitted in a life-supporting suit of armor, Vader asked his master what had become of Padmé. How much of the story Palpatine knew is unknown, but Sidious essentially lied, saying that Vader himself had killed his wife in his anger, seemingly breaking Anakin Skywalker's spirit once and for all; Anakin's transformation to Vader was now fully complete. Palpatine was pleased: one of the most powerful Sith Lords of all time was born in pain and suffering, and it was his apprentice. But Anakin was no longer the "perfect" figure to continue the legacy of the Sith. While Vader still held terrible power, the damage sustained to his form had significantly reduced his potential with the Force. Meanwhile, Yoda and Obi-Wan fled into exile, carrying the former Jedi's twin offspring.
The Emperor's reign (19 BBY–4 ABY)
- "Once more, the Sith will rule the Galaxy… And we shall have peace."
- ―Palpatine
Emperor Palpatine, tyrant of the Galaxy.
Imperialization
Main article: With the rise of the Empire, all the institutions of the old Republic found themselves either dismantled or changed beyond recognition. There was a riot of renaming all things "Imperial" to glorify the new Emperor: overnight, the Coruscant Sector was renamed the Imperial Sector, Coruscant itself was renamed Imperial Center, and Galactic City was renamed Imperial City. The Galactic Senate became the Imperial Senate. The Grand Army of the Republic became the Imperial Army, and the Republic Navy became the Imperial Navy. The four decrepit intelligence agencies of the Republic were merged into Imperial Intelligence, with former SBI director Armand Isard at its head. The Palace of the Republic was rebuilt and expanded, becoming the Imperial Palace, eclipsing all other buildings on Imperial Center. The former Commission for the Protection of the Republic (COMPOR) was renamed the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order (COMPNOR). Within days, there were few names left to remind the people that there had ever been a Republic.
Under the leadership of Palpatine's advisors, Crueya Vandron and Ishin-Il-Raz, COMPNOR gained a powerful hold over the Empire, and its organs insinuated themselves into every corner of society. The Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) was established as a branch of COMPNOR to act as a counterweight to Imperial Intelligence, and it became the Emperor's all-pervasive secret police organization. The Coalition for Progress established monitoring agencies to keep track of all aspects of life. The fleet would prove somewhat insubordinate, and a tension between the Coruscant government and the fleet admirals existed throughout this period, creating the need for the ISB to install political officers throughout the military as minders.
The Dark Times
Although this attempted totalitarian regime remained weak, it was continually strengthening until the break-up of the Empire in 4 ABY. Examples of its broad scope include an Imperially promoted aesthetic style of military-inspired simplicity, in contrast to the opulence and ornamentation Galactic Republic-era. Non-Humans and women were excluded from much of this New Order, and atrocities committed by powerful regional governors were common.
During the Great Jedi Purge, he passed a false rumor that Darth Vader tracked down and destroyed a nest of fifty Jedi singlehandedly. The false rumor helped keep fear running in the Galaxy.
Palpatine was also responsible for the devastation of Caamas. The Emperor saw the respected Caamasi as a threat to his New Order. A group of Bothan infiltrators were responsible for sabotaging Caamas's shield generators, leaving the planet vulnerable to Imperial orbital bombardment. The once beautiful world was devastated during this attack, turned into a poisoned wasteland. The peaceful Caamasi were dispersed throughout the Galaxy. In 18 BBY, the Emperor constructed the huge, asteroid-shaped superweapon Eye of Palpatine in order to use it to destroy a Jedi enclave on Belsavis. However, the deadly superweapon was sabotaged by two Jedi Knights and the Jedi on Belsavis managed to escape. The Eye would remain forgotten until 12 ABY when it was recovered by Roganda Ismaren.
Shortly after the declaration of the Galactic Empire, Darth Sidious began constructions in the dangerous Deep Core on the planet Byss to turn it into a secret throne world immediately after he became Emperor. To do this, he utilized thousands of alien workers from countless conquered worlds including Utapau, Gamorr, and Toydaria. Byss was a dark side conduit, able to give its inhabitants great power in using the Force. Along with the power of Byss, Palpatine slowly fed on the life energy of his workers, to lengthen his own life.
He and Darth Vader also brought a number of captured Agricultural Corps survivors and other Padawans to the planet in order to train them into powerful servants. Vader was ordered to select worthy pupils, and dispose of the rest. He initially selected four of the best pupils including an Agricultural Corps member named Tremayne.
On a number of occasions, Palpatine visited the ancient Sith graveyard world Korriban for advice from long dead Sith Lords. He also unlocked secrets of the Force from a captured Jedi holocron. Emperor Palpatine wrote the Dark Side Compendium, a study of the nature of the dark side, and finished two books while in power, and began a third which was never completed.
At some point during his reign, Palpatine communicated with the Shreeftut of the distant Ssi-ruuvi Imperium through the use of the dark side. He appeared in the Shreeftut's dreams and claimed that he was the ruler of an Empire in the Galactic Core. Palpatine traded with the Shreeftut for some battle drones in exchange that a large number of "subjects" be present for entechment by the Imperium. This would result in the Ssi-ruuvi invasion of Bakura in 4 ABY.
Emperor Palpatine also employed a large number of Force-sensitive agents. These people, the Dark Side Adept, were outside the Empire's official organization, but reported directly to Emperor Palpatine or (when necessary) Lord Vader. Palpatine intended to replace key officials with the Adepts, though their number was too limited. It is unknown how these adepts got around the Sith Order's Rule of Two. Technically, Palpatine and Vader were the only ones who styled themselves as Sith Lords, so they may have just been paying lip service to the Rule of Two. It is also possible that, since the Republic was gone and the Jedi extinct (or at least presumed extinct), Palpatine may have rendered obsolete the Rule of Two. But since they did not train the adepts with Sith-exclusive knowledge, they were technically not Sith.
In 1 BBY, Palpatine and Vader were the targets of a group of treacherous Imperial officers led by Grand Moff Trachta. Trachta saw the Sith as foolish and archaic, and believed that the Empire should not be ruled by a two-man cult. They planned to use a batch of altered stormtroopers loyal only to them to destroy the two Sith Lords. However, their plot failed in part because of internal fighting between the co-conspirators.
Just prior to the First Battle of Tatooine, he personally went to Bothawui with a team of elite Royal Guards to destroy the traitorous Bothans, who supplied Imperial traitor Kalast with top secret Imperial data. He gathered information that Tantive IV was headed to Tatooine.
The dissolution of the Senate
- "The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away."
- ―Wilhuff Tarkin
From the beginning, Palpatine sought to remove the Senate. The first reason was symbolic: he could not leave a reminder of the Republic lying about. The second was political: some Senators still opposed him. His obedient majority tried keeping them in check; they understood they were only there to prop up the illusion of democracy. Some, however, didn't get the joke; they actually tried passing laws against his wishes. He dealt with the outspoken ones when they appeared, but like weeds others sprouted in their place. Worse, some of them, he suspected, were providing the Rebels with funds, information, and resources.
He had waited until the time was right, all the while sapping their power. Finally (0 BBY) he was ready. Their replacements waited in the wings: the governors, Moffs, and Grand Moffs were in place, and the military, as always, obeyed him without question. It was time for the Senators to go. That they had Rebels in their ranks was excuse enough. He would have no problem manufacturing the necessary evidence, or in making it stick. And, as he saw it, no one would miss that collection of Republican has-beens.
Warrants were issued for the arrest of all suspected Rebels. Stormtroopers burst into the Senate, and hundreds were detained. Some—those learned to have had Rebel affiliations—were never seen again. The following morning, the remaining Senators, unaware of what had happened, came to work only to find themselves locked out of their offices and chambers. Some tried to appeal to Palpatine directly, but were told that their diplomatic access to the Palace had been suspended "for the duration of the emergency."
Many of them had been present when the Senate gave power to him. They had said nothing. Now there was nothing to say. They too were arrested and interrogated. Many who were released left Coruscant for their homeworlds, and a peaceful—and isolated—retirement. The small number of Senators that remained, the ones who had most voraciously upheld the party line, were generously rewarded with their lives and new positions. Many of them donned ornate jeweled robes and joined the swelling ranks of Imperial advisors.
Palpatine had killed what was left of the Constitution. A new pyramidal structure was imposed, with himself at its summit, then the Grand Moffs who ruled Oversectors, then the Moffs who ruled Sectors, then the governors of individual worlds. All of them owed their careers to the Emperor and gave him their allegiance. But even here, he had extra guarantees. He had long since inserted COMPNOR into every level of the bureaucracy, to insure that each one followed his dictates. The end of the Senate left the field wide open for COMPNOR to step in. For all the power of the Moffs and Grand Moffs, COMPNOR stood behind them, more powerful still. And behind them all stood the Death Star, enforcing his will at gunpoint.
The destruction of Alderaan
In the absence of the Senate, Palpatine had established an environment where even his subordinates were capable of terrible atrocities against sentients. From the very beginning of its design, it was intended that the Death Star be capable of destroying entire planets. But most Imperial strategists were certain that the threat alone would be enough to keep most worlds in line. Tarkin felt differently; as he saw it, the Rebels were growing bolder, and only a very public demonstration of the battle station's power against a Rebel target would succeed in giving them pause. His argument convinced Palpatine (not that he needed that much convincing).
So Palpatine approved in advance the destruction of a planet—and thereby the mass murder of its entire population. His hands are stained with blood, whichever planet was finally selected. It is doubtful that he expected Tarkin to destroy a lifeless planet as a harmless demonstration for the Rebels’ benefit. He knew it would be used on an inhabited world. But he did not know in advance that it was to be Alderaan. Tarkin alone made this decision, facing down even Vader to do so. If Palpatine knew about Tarkin's intent from that point onward, it would only be because Vader made a report to him after the decision was made, but before the station entered the Alderaan system and carried out its mission, an act that, by current estimates, caused the deaths of some two billion sentient beings.
Palpatine's private feelings on the tragedy are a mystery, but publicly he adopted his benevolent persona, announcing that he was saddened by the loss of such a noble world, and adding that had Alderaan entrusted itself to Imperial protection, it would still be thriving. In other words, the destruction of Alderaan might not have been necessary had Bail Organa simply bowed under as he was supposed to. Saddened he may have been for the press, but it had not been his choice. Their fate lay in their own hands, and they had chosen to raise those hands against him. Their punishment was inevitable. But he made a "magnanimous" offer to resettle the sixty thousand remaining Alderaanians, those who were away when their homeworld was destroyed, on his "private resort world".
- "These people have lost a homeworld through no fault of their own. Offering them a new homeworld is the least I can do to compensate them for their loss."
- ―Palpatine
Exactly how many Alderaanian survivors took Palpatine up on his offer and moved to Byss is unknown. What is certain is that it may have been better for them to have died in the disaster, considering what really happened to those hopefuls who came to his Deep Core stronghold. Many were simply rendered mindless slaves, going about their lives in a deadened bliss while Sidious and his dark side confidants fed from their life energies.
The Galactic Civil War
Tarkin had promulgated a fear-driven principle of governance later called the Tarkin Doctrine, and intended that the Galaxy sink in fear. But shortly after the destruction of Alderaan, the Death Star itself was destroyed by the Rebel Alliance in the Battle of Yavin. Grand Moff Tarkin, who was onboard the battle station at the time and refused to evacuate, was killed in the station's destruction. But while this was a great loss for the Empire, Palpatine nonetheless found ways to turn the situation to his advantage. Even so, he punished Darth Vader for this incompentance by severing his already-mechanical right hand.
It was announced by Palpatine's proxies that he himself had ordered the destruction of Alderaan after the Empire had obtained "irrefutable evidence" that this planet of pacifists, which had not even possessed a standing armed force, had supposedly been creating bioweapons. The possibility that some of these bioweapons had been taken off-world to Rebel cells was dangled in front of the compliant press, to keep the terrified Core Worlds in line and justify a permanent state of emergency. And when further Rebel uprisings sprang up, the fictitious threat would prove quite useful. As a result, the Empire put more time and resources than ever before into crushing the Rebellion, flushing out Rebel strongholds throughout the Galaxy and conquering worlds that had allied themselves with the Alliance.
Two Skywalkers (3 ABY–4 ABY)
Palpatine was unconcerned about the Rebellion. For the present, it was useful, to accustom his subjects to a state of permanent martial law. He could accept some interference from the Rebels if it helped him in the long run. Without the Force on their side, they could never truly hurt him. But someone else could, as he slowly became aware.
The threat of Luke Skywalker
Following a major victory in capturing a Rebel base on Hoth (3 ABY), Palpatine told Vader that his son, Luke Skywalker, was alive and was the Rebel pilot responsible for the destruction of the Death Star. He was now trained in the Force and becoming a great threat to the Sith. Vader convinced Palpatine that it would be beneficial for both of them if Luke was converted to the dark side. Actually, Vader already knew that his son was alive, and had been actively searching for his son, secretly planning to use Luke to help him overthrow his master. What Vader didn't know was that Palpatine was toying with him; Palpatine knew that Vader already knew about his son, and that Vader planned to use Luke against him.
The plot to assassinate Luke Skywalker
Palpatine dispatched his Hand, Mara Jade, to Tatooine, certain that, at some point, Skywalker would go there to rescue his friend, Han Solo. When he did, she was ordered to kill him. At the same time, he ordered Vader to Endor, to oversee the construction of the new Death Star. His apprentice would be useful in speeding up the workers, but it also put him well out of the way. By the time he joined Vader at Endor, he would have heard the comforting mind-touch of Jade, assuring him that Skywalker was dead. And it could never be traced back to Palpatine. Let Vader suspect all he wanted; even if he did learn the truth, it would only encourage him to remember where his loyalties lay.
But when Jade's mind-touch was heard, he was distressed to learn that she had failed him, a rare event indeed. Skywalker had eluded her by sheer chance, and by Jabba's personal strength of will. The Hutt had refused to let her on the barge that was to take Skywalker to his death, and so she could not be there to make sure he died. And there was little hope that Jabba's thugs could accomplish it themselves. Killing Skywalker was not an option now; converting him to the dark side was all the hope Palpatine had left.
It could be done; Skywalker had learned of his father's true identity, and would risk all to try to steal him back from Palpatine's grasp. The Emperor counted on this to lure the boy into his trap. First, he would destroy Skywalker's friends and loved ones. Then, he would force him to kill his father, the man he loved as much as he hated. After that, what choice could he have, but to remain with the one being who would offer him welcome? Like his father before him, it would be slow, and perhaps harder this time around. But at the end, Skywalker would accept the dark side of the Force.
The exile of the Prophets
As Palpatine made the last preparations for his trap over Endor, he received his Supreme Prophet, the diminutive Kadann. For decades he had consulted the Prophets nearly as often as he looked into the dark side himself, to be sure nothing happened that he hadn't foreseen. But upon looking deep into the dark side, Kadann saw the return of balance to the Force, and the end of the Empire. Palpatine laughed at him; he hadn't seen this in his meditations. But Kadann trusted his visions, so he gathered the Prophets and left Coruscant for Bosthirda, where they could watch events unfold in safety. Only Cronal remained. They were the first of Sidious' paladins to desert him and strike out on their own.
Was Palpatine's sight longer than Kadann's? No, it was something else: he denied even the possibility of defeat, refused to acknowledge any prediction revealing anything less than complete victory. Any scenario that fell short, he dismissed. He clung to the whispers of the dark side that assured him he would crush the Rebellion and corrupt Skywalker, because the alternative was so terrible it could never be considered. For his tremendous power could be ended by one young man, the one man he believed could destroy him. Unless he turned this man first. He feared Luke Skywalker that much.
Thus, Endor became the focus of all his hopes. He rightly believed the coming battle above that forest moon would decide everything. But at that crucial moment, his uncanny foresight, the pillar of his rise to power, failed him. The Force had become clouded, the future impossible to see. Before they had fallen, the sight of the Jedi had been clouded by the rise of darkness. Now the pendulum was swinging back against the Sith, the power of light returning as surely as sunrise. The supreme ruler of the Galactic Empire, the most powerful being in the Galaxy, was powerless against the will of the Force.
The defeat of the Galactic Empire (4 ABY)
At last came the moment of decision, the point of intersection where all patterns and plots converged. Though the Battle of Endor did not mark the end of Palpatine, it did mark the end of his absolute power as Emperor. After Endor, he would be a ruler in exile, futilely planning a triumphant return to power that would never come, over an Empire that would never be completely restored. This single day in galactic history, and more specifically a decision made in one second on that day, would decide at a stroke his fate and that of his Empire.
The trap at Endor
- "At an end, your rule is… and not short enough it was."
- ―Yoda
Hoping to put an end to the Galactic Civil War and solidify his rule once and for all, Palpatine crafted an intricate plan to lure the entirety of the Rebel Alliance into an inescapable death trap. A second, more powerful Death Star was being built over Endor, a forest moon orbiting a gas giant of the same name, protected by a shield generator on the moon's surface. In 4 ABY, Palpatine allowed Rebel spies to learn of its location while planting disinformation which suggested the Death Star was not yet operational. In reality, the station's prime weapon was complete and fully functional, and an enormous contingent of the Imperial Navy was there to protect it. Darth Vader and later Palpatine himself went onboard the battle station, believing that if the Rebels thought they had a chance to destroy the Empire's new superweapon and kill the Emperor himself in the process, they wouldn't pass up an opportunity to launch an all-out attack. Sure enough, the Rebels took the bait and planned to attack the station with all of their resources.
Subsequently, Luke Skywalker, who was convinced that his father could be turned back to the light side, allowed himself to be captured and brought to the Death Star. There, Palpatine manipulated Luke into battling his father so that he could inherit his mantle at the Emperor's side. Luke resisted at first, until Vader probed his mind and learned that Leia was Luke's sister. With this knowledge, Vader speculated that he could corrupt her instead, a threat that enraged Luke and drove him to attack Vader with full fury. Although he nearly killed Vader and cut off his right hand, Luke controlled his anger at the last minute; realizing that he was dangerously close to suffering his father's fate, he discarded his lightsaber and proudly turned to face the Emperor, stating: "You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me".
Palpatine was enraged. Everything was falling apart. Still using a portion of his powers to monitor the battle, he was aware that the Rebel fleet, though bloodied, was now holding its own against his most powerful armada, and that, worse still, the Rebels on Endor had somehow cut off the shields protecting the Death Star; the station was now vulnerable to attack. None of these problems were insurmountable, as long as he had Skywalker in his grasp. But when the boy stood before him in defiance, that was too much. In spite of his best efforts, he had failed. He would have no new apprentice now. Skywalker was a lost cause, and a real threat, and, as Palpatine had so feared, was proven more powerful than he. And that was unforgivable.
The balance of the Force
Palpatine had one concern left: the venting of his awesome rage. Even to kill Skywalker was not enough; he had to suffer horribly, to the very last, for his defiance. Raising his arms, Palpatine loosed a withering barrage of deadly Force lightning that tore through the boy and brought him to his knees. Skywalker had never been trained to repel such an assault, nor had he his saber to call on to block it. It was a satisfying sight; this was the Jedi Order's new hope? This upstart youth now shrieking on the deck? It was laughable. He taunted Skywalker without pause:
- "Young fool. Only now, at the end, do you understand. Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side. You have paid the price for your lack of vision. Now, young Skywalker, you will die."
- ―Palpatine
Emperor Palpatine aboard the second Death Star during his torture of Luke Skywalker.
Yes, Skywalker had paid a price. And Vader too would pay for conspiring to use Skywalker against his master; Vader himself would be forced to carry the dead body of his son to the edge of the core shaft and throw it into the chasm. And if Palpatine had any doubts, they were answered when he saw Vader dragging himself to his feet and resuming his place at his master's side. At that point he knew, was sure, that Vader would, however reluctantly, accept his master's will, as he always had, the faithful dog.
Truly, Palpatine's hubris knew no bounds. But here lay his greatest miscalculation: he had taken Vader's subservience for granted. The sight of Vader's son writhing in unbearable agony, screaming so loudly that it overwhelmed his audio pickups, was too much. Palpatine had forgotten the very thing that had enabled him to convert Anakin Skywalker: his desperate need to keep those he cared for from dying. And he had never anticipated that Vader might actually refuse to watch his son die, that, instead of forever waiting on his master's empty promises, he would stop his son from dying, now, through action. He would vindicate his wife's faith in him. And his son's.
The first death of Emperor Palpatine
Emperor Palpatine's first death at the hands of Darth Vader on the second Death Star.
Without warning, Vader sprang up and grabbed Palpatine from behind, pinning his upper arms to his torso. Shocked, unbelieving, the Emperor struggled against Vader's grip, his hands, still blasting out a torrent of lightning, now forced high into the air, away from his intended prey. Now the lightning shot out in all directions, raining down upon Vader and shorting his life-support systems past repair. Mortally wounded, ignoring his own pain, and ignoring Palpatine's wailing and screaming, Vader carried his master to the edge of the core shaft, lifted him high over his head, and, with the very last of his strength, hurled the Emperor into the abyss.
Palpatine's flailing body, his dark robes flapping as he fell, electricity still crackling around him, plummeted four hundred kilometers (250 miles) down the shaft, from the uppermost story of his private tower on the northern pole, to the reactor core in the very center of the station. And even as he fell, screaming in impotent rage, unable to accept that Vader, of all people, could have foiled his plans, he was still plotting, refusing to admit defeat. He still had ways to win, eventually. Was he lying to himself? Or did he know things that Vader and Skywalker did not? Did he in fact possess the absolute certainty that death could never claim him? If he did, it may have softened the blow for him in the seconds before his body dashed itself against the power core. The massive energies of the reactor incinerated the tyrant's body on impact, causing a massive explosion that engulfed the shaft.
Emperor Palpatine was dead, at least for the present. Minutes later, his apprentice Vader also died. With them also died, again for the present, the Sith Order that had existed unchanged since the time of Darth Bane. It was this, it is believed, that brought about the long-awaited restoration of balance to the Force. The Rebel Alliance—and later the New Republic it established—still had much work to do in its own right before the era of peace foretold by the ancient Jedi prophets came to pass. The Empire would not surrender its holdings without pitched struggle. The Emperor himself was loathe to cast off his power, or his life. But this moment on the Death Star was the moment that made the era of peace to come a possibility at last.
The question of Palpatine's battle meditation
In Palpatine's absence, the Battle of Endor continued unabated for several hours, but his fleet was not acquitting itself well. The very fact of his death, it was later commented, seemed to trigger a significant and noticeable demoralization in the ranks of the Imperial forces. This raises a crucial question: did his death play an even more significant role in the Empire's humiliating defeat at Endor than has been assumed?
Though some of Palpatine's Grand Admirals were present at Endor, the one who was, perhaps, his greatest, Grand Admiral Thrawn, was not—he was still on Nirauan, overseeing the pacification of the Unknown Regions. But by the time he returned to the Empire proper nearly five years later, his suspicions—aroused by his insider's knowledge of the Emperor's methods—had crystallized into a working theory, which he related to one of Endor's most pivotal participants, Captain Gilad Pellaeon, the man who had ultimately sounded the Imperial retreat:
- "…you must have wondered how a few dozen Rebel ships could possibly rout an Imperial force that outgunned it by at least ten to one… The Rebels did indeed fight better, but not because of any special abilities or training. They fought better than the fleet because the Emperor was dead… you must have noticed it. The sudden loss of coordination between crew members and ships; the loss of efficiency and discipline. The loss, in short, of that elusive quality we call fighting spirit… You had no real fighting spirit of your own anymore—none of you in the Imperial fleet did. It was the Emperor's will that drove you; the Emperor's mind that provided you with strength and resolve and efficiency. You were as dependent on that presence as if you were all borg-implanted into a combat computer."
- ―Thrawn
Was this true? Were the Emperor's forces, his legions of troops and his fleets of ships, guided in the end by their master’s own indomitable will? This tasks the belief of even the most credulous observer. His ships numbered in the hundreds of thousands, his soldiers in the billions, trillions, perhaps quadrillions. Was it within the power of a Sith Lord, even one as powerful as Darth Sidious, to be this all-controlling? We can only speculate. Thrawn later demonstrated (9 ABY) that it worked, and was limited only by the insanity of the Dark Jedi he had found, Joruus C'baoth. But Palpatine was not insane—cruel and pitiless, yes, but very sane. One could not rule an Empire otherwise.
Thrawn also may have been aware that one of his colleagues, Grand Admiral Nial Declann, a secret Force-sensitive who himself died at Endor, had been trained by Palpatine himself in the use of the dark side, and since Declann was said to have possessed the ability to telepathically meld the forces under his command into a more effective fighting force (subsequent research has revealed that after Palpatine died, Declann himself used this power to maintain coordination of the fleet), it stood to reason that he had learned it from the Emperor.
So, amazingly, it seems to have been very much within Palpatine's power to use this facet of the dark side—a perversion of Jedi battle meditation, perhaps—to control his forces, even across great distances. He guided their thoughts, nurtured their fighting prowess, caressed their killing instincts. And then, without warning, that control was cut off. The fleet was scattered, and the Rebels were able to lead a successful assault against the Death Star, which was finally destroyed in a risky attack on the station's reactor core. Without its leader and its ultimate weapon, the fragile foundation of the Empire crumbled, bringing all above it crashing down at a stroke. The Empire itself soon fell apart, plagued by warlordism and eventually shrinking to the small and insignificant Imperial Remnant.
Palpatine reborn (4 ABY–11 ABY)
- "Flesh does not easily support this great power."
- ―Palpatine
The Emperor "reborn".
But even death was not the end for Palpatine. Unlike his Sith predecessors, Palpatine had never intended to be replaced by an apprentice, expecting his Empire to rule the Galaxy eternally, with only himself as its true leader. At an unknown point in time prior to his death at the Battle of Endor, Palpatine had found a way to cheat death by preserving his spirit after the death of his body. He arranged for a series of clones of himself to be created for his spirit to possess, in the event that he would perish. His primary supply of clones was kept on Byss, guarded by loyal Dark Jedi and immense genetically-altered guards, and maintained by a trusted private physician.
After the destruction of the second Death Star, Palpatine's spirit was forced to journey in the maddening, bodiless existence of the void, eventually taking possession of the body of Emperor's Hand Jeng Droga. Though Droga went mad in the process, he was able to journey to Byss, where Palpatine was able to take possession of a clone of himself. There, on Byss, he would remain for years and would rebuild his strength and Empire. Resurrected, Palpatine planned to replace the Galactic Empire with a "Dark Empire", a universe-spanning magocracy ruled through the dark side of the Force alone, without the need for regional governors or technological domination.
The fragmentation of the Galactic Empire (4 ABY–10 ABY)
Palpatine's rule was so absolute that his apparent death at the Battle of Endor fragmented the Galactic Empire. Without an heir, opportunistic Moffs and other officers turned into warlords and set out to carve their own kingdoms wherever they could. This worked to the advantage of the New Republic, which succeeded in reclaiming much of the Galaxy.
Palpatine's reaction to Thrawn's campaign
While Palpatine was still recovering in his Deep Core stronghold, his former advisors recieved word (8 ABY) of the arrival, from deep in the Unknown Regions, of the last surviving grand admiral. This was the Chiss strategic mastermind, Grand Admiral Thrawn, armed with a plan he outlined to them that would defeat the New Republic. Heartened by the possibility of wresting back their power from the Rebels, they managed to set aside their differences and grant him overall command of their forces, with an eye toward making him their figurehead emperor once they had a throne back to give him. When Palpatine learned of this, he was genuinely devastated. He had liked Thrawn, as much as he was capable of liking anyone. He had entrusted much to Thrawn's genius, even as he had used that genius for his own ends. He had hoped Thrawn would have known better.
But, in fairness, was there any way that the grand admiral, for all his genius, could have guessed that Palpatine had planned to live beyond death? If he had expected that to happen, it may constitute one of Palpatine’s greater misjudgments. Many of his apprentices and acolytes, those who gave the proper credence to the Force and their Emperor’s role as a Sith Lord, knew enough to stay out of the fighting. But Thrawn was not so constructed, nor is there any evidence that Palpatine ever took Thrawn into his confidence on this matter. How could Thrawn have been expected to know enough to proceed straight to Byss from Nirauan to offer his renewed allegiance, as opposed to siding with the Council? Not knowing about Palpatine's survival, Thrawn did know that the declared government of the Empire was in danger, and, for his own reasons as much as theirs—largely his old hope of securing the Galaxy against the so-called Far Outsiders—he offered his help. It was, in retrospect, the most logical conclusion he could have reached.
The secret to Palpatine's reaction may have something to do with whatever role he was planning for Thrawn in his own upcoming offensive, Operation Shadow Hand. If anyone knew everything there was to know about Thrawn's activities in the Unknown Regions, that person had to be Palpatine. He had to have known just what forces and resources the grand admiral had at his command. It may even be possible that Palpatine was in fact only waiting for the right moment to bring Thrawn into his confidences, to reveal himself to Thrawn and offer him a proper place in his revived Empire, as he was soon to do with so many others. It may eventually have happened, possibly at the same time as he contacted the rest, in a few months, a year at the most. But Thrawn had denied him this chance.
Even more shocking, for all his sadness, Palpatine apparently made no attempt to contact Thrawn after the fact and set him straight. It was certainly in his power to do so; he had spies moving freely in every faction. But there is no evidence that he ever did. Instead, he let the grand admiral make his bid to defeat the New Republic and, in secret, made every attempt to undermine that campaign. That he did not contact Thrawn and offer him another chance to side with him is a terrible example of Palpatine’s pettiness, even in exile and decline. And it may have cost him everything. A combined offensive, consisting of his own forces launched from Byss, and Thrawn's launched from Nirauan, would have meant the quick and painful death of the New Republic.
The Empire in resurgence (10 ABY–11 ABY)
- "You've grown very strong in the Force since we last met… But then, so have I!"
- ―Palpatine to Luke Skywalker
Emperor Palpatine reborn in a young clone body.
Thrawn's cunning tactics and unerring strategies brought the Imperial Remnant to the brink of victory in 10 ABY had it not been for betrayal by his Noghri bodyguard, Rukh. Encouraged by Thrawn's successes, the remaining Inner Circle of Imperial warlords staged a devastating attack on the galactic capital Coruscant. Much of Imperial City was laid waste as a result, and the New Republic was forced to evacuate. Once on the surface, the Imperials splintered again, and skirmishes dragged on in the devastated cityscape.
It was then that the resurrected Emperor struck. Using his dark powers to create a powerful Force Storm, he swept Jedi Master Luke Skywalker to Byss. There, he revealed himself to Luke, and revealed the power of the dark side. Faced with an immortal foe, Skywalker did the unthinkable—in order to defeat the dark side from within, he knelt before Palpatine, and submitted himself as the Emperor's new Sith apprentice.
Skywalker's subterfuge
Regrettably, Skywalker stubbornly clung to his old loyalties. Immediately after being appointed supreme commander of all Imperial forces, Skywalker accessed the top-secret codes that remotely controlled the World Devastators, and transmitted improper signals. It was this abuse of his new authority that enabled Skywalker to scuttle the Devastator Silencer-7, for instance, and in other ways, both large and small, sabotage Palpatine's work.
Skywalker’s treachery obviously could not go unnoticed for long. From the beginning, Palpatine was aware of it. And not just him, but also his most trusted officers. Behind the scenes they began expressing their concerns to him about how Skywalker's antics risked putting a crimp in his campaign. Palpatine reassured them, at the same time reminding them that military considerations were not the only considerations:
- "I expected to take some damage from him. Any worthy opponent is going to inflict injury. If he doesn't, he’s not worth troubling with. Let a few Devastators be destroyed. Let Skywalker think he's getting the best of me. As long as he believes he’s succeeding, I have him in my grasp. And as long as I hold him, the more vulnerable he becomes to the unfathomable power of the dark side. Think what he'll do when he is fully mine, when he is working for the Empire, working to help us win!"
- ―Palpatine
Quietly, Palpatine countered Skywalker's moves, maximizing his gains and cutting his losses. In the end, victory or defeat in a single battle, success or failure in an entire campaign, was less important than gaining an apprentice as powerful as Skywalker promised to be. It was hardly the first time; during the Clone Wars he had planned entire campaigns in such a way as to ensnare Vader. He could easily do the same for a greater find.
- "One day soon Skywalker will wake up and find that he can no longer go back to his friends. He will look in a mirror and he will see his true face, the pace of power… the face of the dark side."
- ―Palpatine
In the end, Skywalker was too enmeshed in the dark side to successfully rebel against his new master. Although he sabotaged some of Palpatine's military projects, he still could not free himself from the grip of the dark side. It was only by his sister, Leia Organa Solo, that he gained the strength that he needed. Together, the pair was able to defeat the Emperor temporarily onboard his flagship, Eclipse, during the Battle of Pinnacle Base.
Palpatine's last body rapidly degenerating.
Having returned in yet another clone, Palpatine continued his scourge against the New Republic. Armed with the deadly superweapons, the Galaxy Gun and his second Eclipse-class Star Dreadnought, Eclipse II, Palpatine forced many New Republic worlds to submit to Imperial rule. Despite his growing Empire, Palpatine was again growing frail and weak.
Even worse, the Emperor began to succumb to genetic tampering done to his clones by the treacherous Sovereign Protector Carnor Jax. He tried to clone other bodies so that he could resurrect himself, but Jax had succeeded in tainting even the genetic source material. Even his scientists and doctors were rendered helpless. With his body wasting away rapidly, he went to the Sith world Korriban to consult the ancient Sith Lords. They advised him to enter Leia's newborn son Anakin Solo.
Palpatine brought Eclipse II to Onderon, where the Solos had relocated their children. While the New Republic engaged the Imperials, a team of Jedi, led by Luke, sought out the Emperor. They did not find him onboard his ship since he had slipped down to Onderon to find Leia. During the battle, Lando Calrissian and R2-D2 had infiltrated the flagship. R2-D2 then sabotaged the vehicle's automated hyperdrive engines and set the coordinates to match the location of the Galaxy Gun, which was in Byss. The flagship fled into hyperspace, despite the efforts of the crew to regain control of the vessel. There above Byss, both superweapons collided with each other. The Galaxy Gun's final missile was pulled into the planet's gravity and exploded, destroying the reborn Emperor's throne world.
Palpatine's spirit departs the last clone body he is known to have occupied.
Meanwhile, the Emperor faced Leia and demanded that her newest child be his to possess. She fought back, but was no match for the Emperor. Before he could complete his plot, Luke Skywalker and two other Jedi, Rayf Ysanna and Empatojayos Brand, arrived. Palpatine fatally injured Ysanna and Brand, but was shot in the back by Han Solo during the conflict.
His last body destroyed, the Emperor's cackling spirit flew towards young Anakin Solo, but was intercepted by the dying Brand, who threw himself in the way. The Jedi Knight bound the Emperor's soul to his own departing life force, taking it with him as he became one with the Force. Railing and cursing against the Skywalker family, Emperor Palpatine's spirit was dragged into the depths of the Force. There he would experience disembodiment in darkness, perpetual madness as if to always live with an open wound, terror without respite.
Darth Sidious, once the greatest Dark Lord of the Sith, was finally dead.
The Great Leader of the Second Imperium scam (23 ABY–24 ABY)
But even his final death was not the end of Palpatine's leadership. Some nineteen years after the Battle of Endor, and more than a decade after the last of the clone bodies of Emperor Palpatine were destroyed, it seemed that he had arisen in another and became head of a coalition seeking to reestablish the Empire. The Great Leader of the Second Imperium was supposedly the Emperor reborn yet again. The Emperor's image was transmitted regulary to the Shadow Academy. Although the academy leader, Brakiss, found it difficult to imagine how the Emperor had survived, he knew that with the Force, many things were possible.
The Great Leader was transported to the Shadow Academy sealed within a room-sized containment unit. Brakiss eventually discovered that the Great Leader was not Palpatine after all, but a series of recordings and props used by four Imperial Royal Guards to trick the Galaxy into thinking that the Emperor had returned to rule the Second Imperium.
Conclusions
Palpatine claimed—and fully expected—that his New Order would endure for ten thousand years. In the end, it endured, with and without him, in one form or another, for roughly fifty years. It could not have lasted much longer than this, for in the end it had never truly been intended to operate without its Emperor. And, when that man was gone, it remained only for those who came after to realize that it could never work, and accept the inevitable, despite the attempts by others to give it a new lease on life as "the New Order with a personal face."
What was the Galactic Empire that Palpatine had established? It was, at first, simply the irrational and terrible culmination of the blood feud begun thousands of years ago, of a difference of opinion over the nature of power as argued by opposing bands of mystics. It was a vainglorious attempt by one of those bands to reverse the course of thousands of years of history, to resurrect the golden age of a long-fallen Sith Empire and then hold it in eternal stasis. It was the physical embodiment of the belief, long held by the Sith, that power denied is power wasted, and it was living proof of the fact, learned at a terrible cost, that power indulged is power abused.
And its inaugurator, Palpatine himself? He was at first the beneficiary of a plot formed long before he had first drawn breath, an agent-provocateur whose subtlety and manipulative nature allowed him to succeed where his progenitors had failed. In mirror image of his dual identities as both Palpatine and Sidious, he was a pleasant facade concealing a cold core. He had close friends, and yet had no friends at all. He claimed to be able to save the ailing Republic from its demons, and who was later laid bare as the most terrifying of all its demons. He was both a believer in the principles of the Sith, and a believer in no principle at all, save what he decided would benefit himself. He was both a man of faith and a man of no faith, who strongly believed in the Force and yet viewed it as nothing more than a source of power for his taking. He was, in his way, both an idealist and a cynic.
He ruled with power, and was finally ruled by power. He was a man who saw all, and knew much, and yet was totally blind, and knew nothing, when it mattered the most. He was a vigorous leader who stood proudly astride the colossus of the most powerful modern state ever devised, a man who claimed to represent the new direction of the universe, but was totally taken aback and possessed by fear when the universe changed direction again. He died many times, and while his spirit survived, and no doubt will survive for all eternity, it was consumed by the dark side of the Force, which now embraces him in death as he embraced it in life.
Abilities and traits
- "The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural."
- ―Palpatine
When angered, Sidious was a frightening sight to behold and an overpowering opponent.
Darth Sidious possessed a superior intellect, had a cunning understanding of the human mind, and was skilled in the use of the Force in foreseeing the future, so he could manipulate events as though he were a dejarik grandmaster moving pieces on a board. Therefore, he had a penchant for complicated schemes, and such was his patience that he could wait years to see them come into fruition. Sidious had a broad expertise in areas such as psychology, bureaucracy, and philosophy. The dark side energies flowing through his body were so intense that they ravaged his mortal frame. Lord Sidious was a gnarled, ancient man with pale skin, searing, sickly yellow eyes, a heavy dark cloak, and a glossy black cane, which he used to create the illusion of weakness.
Darth Sidious was an enormously talented fighter. Apparently, the only Jedi ever known to defeat Sidious in battle was Mace Windu, though Anakin Skywalker intervened and Sidious eventually killed the Jedi Master. It is also possible that the loss itself was merely a ploy on Sidious' part to attempt to turn Anakin, as Mace said that Yoda bested him in combat while Sidious defeated Yoda. Due to his expertise in lightsaber fencing, he killed Agen Kolar, Saesee Tiin, and Kit Fisto in mere seconds, and was also a master practitioner of Force lightning.
Darth Sidious with one of his lightsabers ignited.
Luke Skywalker, his power augmented by Leia and her unborn child through the Force, once defeated Sidious in battle by slicing off his hand. Immediately afterward, Palpatine declared that he had had enough with "Jedi dueling games" and summoned a Force Storm against Skywalker. The Skywalkers, however, were able to cut off the Sith Lord's control, and the storm consumed both the body he occupied, as well as Eclipse.
As Palpatine, he had gained a reputation for being a good and modest man from Naboo, an extremely humble and peaceful backwater world. As both Senator of Naboo and Chancellor of the Republic, he promised to bring justice to the government, which had been mired in corruption and chaos. In truth the Dark Lord of the Sith, he had used his genius-level intellect to become the most powerful tyrant in galactic history. He was a self-proclaimed savior and political mastermind who had immense power and immeasurable cunning. In his roles as Senator and Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, though, he appeared as an unassuming old man, almost grandfatherly, with elegant robes.
Lightsabers
One of Darth Sidious's lightsabers.
Like Darth Maul and Darth Tyranus, two of his three apprentices, Palpatine used a lightsaber of unique design. But unlike Maul and Tyranus, Palpatine owned two unique lightsabers.
When four Jedi Masters stormed into his office to arrest him, the Supreme Chancellor slaughtered the three of them with an electrum lightsaber similar to Mace Windu's. Unlike Mace Windu's blade, Palpatine's lightsaber had no belt attachment. Sidious concealed his lightsaber in the long sleeves of his regal clothes and used it only when absolutely necessary. Over the years of his chancellorship, his lightsaber was well hidden in a piece of neuranium sculpture that graced his office. The handle was also constructed of phrik alloy, thus making not only the blade resistant to other lightsaber blades but the handle as well.
Sidious's small holdout lightsaber was kept concealed within his robes.
Another detail making Palpatine's saber unique was the lack of an emitter hole for the blade to come out of; the crimson blade sprang from a hard surface. With no belt attachment or emitter hole and its ceremonial design, the lightsaber handle could be mistaken for a simple ornament, further surprising the opponent when a Sith blade appeared, a transformation similar to the one its owner underwent when letting his Sith nature take over him. Three Jedi Council members fell within seconds after being surprised by this transformation. A kick by the one that survived caused this lightsaber to fall into the depths of Galactic City.
But the Dark Lord was not weaponless when another determined, dangerous, and threatening opponent stormed into his office—this time not to arrest him, but to kill him. At first, Palpatine appeared to have no intention to engage in a lightsaber duel with Yoda, but after a failed attempt to disable the tiny Jedi Master by using Force lightning, he understood that he would have to fight and drew his lightsaber.
Another of Sidious's lightsabers, used in his duel with Yoda.
This weapon was almost identical to the one he used against Windu, with no belt attachment or emitter hole and phrik structure, but with a black instead of a gold covering. It could be even said that Sidious choice of weapon was based on his choice of clothing or the other way around, an assumption that seems logical given his narcissistic personality. The golden handle was a fitting accessory for the opulent crimson robes he wore as Chancellor, while the black handle matched the dark cloak of the Sith he wore during his battle against Yoda. Like the first's, the second saber's fate is unknown, though the new Emperor was never known to have lost it. Even if he lost it during his duel with Yoda, it would have returned to his hands as the battle took place inside the Grand Convocation Chamber, Sidious's own ground, that was methodically searched by his shock troopers and reconstruction teams after the duel that ruined it.
The frail, elderly, and unassuming Emperor of later years would never arouse suspicion of his dueling capability to anyone but those who knew his darkest secrets. Nobody would have expected the Galactic Emperor to be one of the greatest masters of the lightsaber in the Galaxy, and his long black robes hid his dark secrets from the denizens of the Empire. It was not until he had entered a new body, young and well-conditioned, that the Emperor would once again be seen wielding a lightsaber against a foe. A pool of Jedi lightsabers, perhaps remnants from the Great Jedi Purge, hung from the walls of his cloning laboratory on Byss. He drew one against Luke Skywalker, an opponent who proved himself as potent as Windu and Yoda. He would need to use others as the Rebel Alliance pressed in on him, until his final death on Onderon.
Behind the scenes
Emperor Palpatine surrounded by his Royal Guards and Darth Vader.
Like many personalities in the Star Wars universe, parallels can be drawn between Palpatine's character and certain historical figures. Dictators such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, and Ferdinand Marcos used methods similar to the Galactic Emperor's while turning their respective republics into personal dictatorships. Some commentators see similarities between Palpatine and Abraham Lincoln, who also centralized political power in response to a secessionist Confederacy. During the 2005 release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, many viewers compared Palpatine to US President George W. Bush (a parallel picked up by the Expanded Universe; such Bush parallels as the "Triad of Evil" and the "Homeworld Security Command" have been added to Star Wars continuity). George Lucas has denied writing Palpatine specifically as an allegory for Bush, pointing out to the Associated Press that he wrote the original drafts of the Star Wars films during the mid-1970s, inspired by then-US President Richard Nixon and the constitutional crisis he ignited that caused the fall of his administration. As Lucas said,
"You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control."
Thus, though the character's creator was inspired by certain real life figures, it is probable that it is Palpatine's nature as an archetypal dictator rather than deliberate, specific references which make him seem similar to any politician who a viewer sees as an actual or potential tyrant.
In many ways, Palpatine is an archetypal villain, whose only motivation seems to be pursuing and maintaining power, although Palpatine viewed himself as a savior and truly believed that creating a totalitarian state would bring about peace, as revealed in Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Dictionary and Lucas' commentary on the Revenge of the Sith DVD. Nonetheless, he relies on deception and manipulation to control and corrupt individuals throughout the films and Expanded Universe, and as a result is a classically diabolical character. As the Emperor, he appears to be a frail, weak old man, but is actually quite supernaturally powerful. Palpatine may be viewed as the quintessential wolf in sheep's clothing.
Original version
Palpatine was originally concieved as a much different type of person. He was neither a user of the Force nor a great political strategist; instead, he was a weak-willed dullard with delusions of grandeur who had been elevated, first to President of the Senate and then Emperor, by his plotting ministers (such as Tarkin) who controlled the Republic/Empire by controlling Palpatine, their figurehead.
Although this version of Palpatine appeared (through descriptions and recollections) in the Episode IV novelization, it is obviously superseded by every other appearance since which revealed Palpatine to be the mastermind of the events of the Star Wars saga.
Aside from this, although after Episode V it was clear Palpatine was a Force-user, it was not made explicity clear that he was a Sith until the Prequel Trilogy; before that, several Expanded Universe sources had even implied that Palpatine was not a Sith.
Portrayal
Ian McDiarmid as Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious in The Empire Strikes Back DVD.
The younger Palpatine of The Phantom Menace, the middle-aged Palpatine of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith and the elderly Emperor Palpatine of the Original Trilogy are all played by actor Ian McDiarmid, although the holographic image of the Emperor that briefly appeared in the original version of The Empire Strikes Back was played by an unnamed actress (a woman with the composite image of a chimpanzee for the eyes) and was voiced by Clive Revill.
Palpatine in the pre-DVD version of The Empire Strikes Back (non-canon).
For the 2004 DVD release of the Original Trilogy, the scene in The Empire Strikes Back was reshot with Ian McDiarmid replacing Revill as the Emperor, with new lines recorded for both McDiarmid and James Earl Jones (the voice of Darth Vader).
His lightsaber sequences during Revenge of the Sith, especially his fight with Mace Windu, were done by Kyle Rowling (who was also the stunt double for Christopher Lee) and Bob Bowles. Much like Lee, his face would be replaced in post production by McDiarmid's. Sebastian Dickins performed Palpatine's acrobatics, but when the Emperor broke the laws of physics, a digital stunt double was used for his most inhuman and spectacular feats.
In the Clone Wars cartoon series, Nick Jameson voiced Palpatine. Jameson has also voiced Palpatine in different video games, including Star Wars: TIE Fighter, Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, and Star Wars: Battlefront II.
For the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi National Public Radio dramatizations, Palpatine was voiced by Paul Hecht.
Commentary
In a January 24, 2002 Star Wars Insider interview, Ian McDiarmid compared Palpatine's character to that of Shakespeare's Iago, the villain in the play Othello:
- "Everything he does is an act of pure hypocrisy, and that's interesting to play. I suppose it's rather like playing Iago. All the characters in the play—including Othello until the end—think that 'Honest Iago' is a decent guy doing his job, and he's quite liked. But at the same time there's a tremendous evil subconscious in operation. There's a moment in one scene of the new film where tears almost appear in his eye. These are crocodile tears, but for all those in the movie, and perhaps watching the movie itself, they'll see he is apparently moved—and of course, he is. He can just do it. He can, as it were, turn it on. And I suppose for him, it's also a bit of a turnon; the pure exercise of power is what he's all about. That's the only thing he's interested in and the only thing that can satisfy him, which makes him completely fascinating to play, because it is an evil soul. He is more evil than the devil. At least Satan fell; he has a history, and it's one of revenge".
In a recent interview, McDiarmid commented on this complex character:
- "He has a black, irredeemable heart. There's nothing that can be said about him that's good. When we first saw Vader in the original trilogy, we thought he was the heart of darkness, and nobody could be darker. But now we understand what happened to him. And one of the exciting things about seeing this movie is that you can follow Vader through Anakin's journey every step of the way even if you don't agree with the choices he's making. In part his decisions stem from his traumatic childhood, and his impatient lust for power. And it's that which my character takes and then uses against him".
Debates and discrepancies
Disfiguration debate
- "The attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed. But, I assure you, my resolve has never been stronger!"
- ―Palpatine
The frequent use of the dark side took its toll on Palpatine's features.
During his fight with Mace Windu, Palpatine's appearance changed as he was hit with his own Force lightning, which was reflected from Windu's lightsaber back at him. Palpatine went from being a handsome middle-aged man to having a sagging face with burning yellow eyes, scarred grayed skin, and long black fingernails. What caused this change of appearance has been the subject of much debate.
One possibility was that his own lightning simply scarred and melted his face, in the same way electricity in the real world damages anything it hits. Though most of the circumstances behind Palpatine's duel with Windu and the other Jedi Masters were not publicly revealed, he did garner sympathy in the Senate by claiming that he had been disfigured when the Jedi attacked him, a claim that may have been truthful. But no other human hit by Force lightning was physically deformed in the Star Wars movies and Expanded Universe.
Another theory is that Sidious' deformed appearance was his true face, which had been gradually deformed due to the immense dark energies he wielded (a process that has happened to other devotees of the dark side, though to a lesser extent), and that prior to his fight with Windu he had been using some kind of Sith or other technique (like Force Concealment) in order to cloak his true form and appear normal to others. He may also have had cosmetic surgery which "corrected" his real face, like Seti Ashgad did, who looked many years younger than he actually was. According to this theory, he dropped the guise either because he wanted to look injured and weak to Anakin, or because he lost concentration while fighting Windu, or because he had been using too much energy to continue to maintain it, or just because the lightning melted the mask away, and kept this look in order to frame the Jedi for deforming him. The short story Sithisis supports this theory, depicting Sidious literally masking his face with a Sith ritual. Sithisis could possibly explain Palpatine's younger and healthier appearance in Revenge of the Sith when compared to Attack of the Clones. Additionally, the official Star Wars Role Playing Game published by Wizards of the Coast features a dark side feat aptly titled "Force Mask", in which it alchemically alters the user's features. The mask could be dispelled by another dark side power such as Force lightning, but once it withers away completely the "Force Mask" ability cannot be used again.
It is most likely, though, that both theories are partially true. It makes sense that some of Palpatine's deformities (presumably those that seem characteristic of concentrated burn wounds, such as melted skin and facial indentations) were caused by the lightning itself, while other supposed deformities (presumably those that couldn't possibly be caused by lightning and are known to have been the side effects of intense Force—and particularly dark side—use, such as pale and wrinkled skin, raw eyesockets, yellow eyes, bad teeth and elongated, blackened fingernails) were aspects of Palpatine's true appearance being revealed. Moreover, Sidious's hands (and presumambly his entire body) remained unchanged after the disfiguration of his face. The next time he was seen though, he had pale, swollen hands with long, black fingernails.
Name
Palpatine's full name (assuming he has any names other than "Palpatine" alone) has never been revealed. The usage "Emperor Palpatine" suggests that Palpatine is in fact his only name, though the use of titles such as "Senator Palpatine" suggests it may be his family name. Of course, Palpatine might be a name of state, as the name Amidala is, so it may mean that neither Palpatine's given or family name is known. Notably, two other would-be Galactic Emperors—Demetrius Zaarin and Xandel Carivus—have been referred to as "Emperor Zaarin" and "Emperor Carivus," which suggests that they at least regarded Palpatine as a dynastic or state name rather than a given or personal name.
Nevertheless, since the original version of his character in Lucas' early scripts was named "Cos Dashit", many Star Wars fan fiction writers have quite incorrectly adopted the name "Cos Palpatine" in their stories and web pages — so much so that it has become fanon. The name "Dantius Palpatine" has also been adopted, though its origins are more ambiguous, seeming to come from SuperShadow, a website of fraudulent Star Wars material. Another first name, Ethril, was apparently used in early drafts of The Phantom Menace Visual Dictionary, but was vetoed by George Lucas. Other names postulated by fans include "Augustus" (based on the presumption that Augie's Great Municipal Band on the Episode I soundtrack refers to Palpatine) and "Albert". On the official website, it is stated that Palpatine's first name, if he has one, has not yet been revealed.
A long-running joke among fans claims that Palpatine's first name is "Frank". The "evidence" is a line spoken by Palpatine in The Phantom Menace: "I must be frank, your majesty…"
The origin of the name "Palpatine" is not known. It may come from the word "palatine," meaning, "relating to a palace," which is fitting for a supreme dictator. Some have speculated that it refers to Senator Charles Palantine, a character in Taxi Driver portrayed by Leonard Harris. Another theory suggests he was named for Palatine Hill, where Romulus and Remus were found and raised by a she-wolf according to Roman mythology and where the palace of the Roman Emperors was located.
Palpatine's Sith name, Sidious, is believed to be derived from insidious, a word with multiple meanings, such as treacherous, cunning, and seductive—all of which accurately describe the Dark Lord.
Dark Empire possible discrepancy explanation
The Emperor's clone body.
In the Dark Empire series, Palpatine tells Luke that the Battle of Endor was not his first death, and that he had started transferring his spirit into clone bodies years prior to that, when his original body had degenerated as a result of heavy use of the dark side. However, Lucasfilm official Leland Chee has recently stated that Palpatine was lying to Luke about having died previously, and that Palpatine's demise on the second Death Star was definitely the first time he died, although not the last.
Chee also stated that, while Palpatine's clone bodies do degenerate as a result of the strong presence of dark side energy within them, his original body did not degenerate in the same way, and he only had to start switching bodies periodically as a result of having to use clone bodies following the destruction of his original body at Endor.
Was Palpatine an orphan?
The first issue of the comic Jango Fett: Open Seasons discloses that appoximately 32 BBY, Sidious revealed to his apprentice, Darth Tyranus, during a discussion regarding a potential candidate for a project of his that "the most dangerous men are always orphans". While this comment may have been benign and not intended to imply anything about Sidious himself, it is possible that Palpatine was suggesting that he, himself, had been an orphan early in his life. This cryptic comment could also be interpreted to mean that Palpatine was orphaned in the sense that he no longer had any family and because of that he was a dangerous man. Palpatine could also have only been making a derisive remark towards Tyranus, a member of a prominent family from Serenno. The truth behind his words is unknown, but Palpatine rarely spoke without careful consideration.
Styles of address
- Senator Palpatine of the Sovereign System of Naboo.
- His Excellency Supreme Chancellor Palpatine of the Galactic Republic.
- His Imperial Majesty Emperor Palpatine of the Galactic Empire.
- Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith or Lord Sidious.
Appearances
- Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (First identified as Darth Sidious)
- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
- Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (First mentioned)
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (First appearance)
- Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Sources
| Storyboards | Concept art | Digital renderings |
- A Guide to the Star Wars Universe
- Star Wars Sourcebook
- Galaxy Guide 5: Return of the Jedi
- Dark Empire Sourcebook
- The Essential Guide to Characters
- Star Wars Trilogy Sourcebook - Special Edition
- The Phantom Menace Visual Dictionary
- The Essential Chronology
- The Emperor's Pawns
- The New Essential Guide to Characters
- Vader: The Ultimate Guide
- Revenge of the Sith Visual Dictionary
- The Complete Locations of Star Wars
- The New Essential Chronology
- Star Wars Roleplaying Game
- The Official Star Wars Fact File Issue 61
Palpatine in the Databank (content now obsolete; backup link)- Darth Sidious in the Databank (content now obsolete; backup link)
