User blog comment:Brandon Rhea/CONTENT RELEASE: New short story released, plus updated TCO prologue/@comment-20644-20100302010812

That's good that it wasn't too confusing for you. I tried to make Maul's responses as simple as possible so you would know exactly what the Dark Lord was saying through the Force without actually having to see exactly what he's saying.

 *SPOILER (FOR TCO) ALERT* 

The Dark Lord will be appearing in The Chosen One, towards the end of the novel. So yeah, that means Maul isn't the Dark Lord as Sarus has surmised (you probably knew that already, but still it's an AU so it could go anywhere, and The Tragedy could've been a fake-out). Again, he will not have any dialogue but will instead communicate through the Force again.

All of that helps to contribute to the characterization. He's a presence, not a man, but rather an unstoppable force who's so powerful that he doesn't need to lower himself to some primitive thing such as verbally communicating. Like Sarus said, the Dark Lord is powerful in ways that simply defy description.