User:Ressor/Dantius Palpatine

"Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen."

- Dantius Palpatine

Dantius Palpatine, also known as Darth Sidious, was a  male who served as the last Chancellor of the  and the first Emperor of the. He was a who followed the, an ancient tenet of the , and was the most powerful  in galactic history. His entire life as a was the culmination of a thousand year plan to overthrow the Republic and the  from within. As Palpatine and Sidious, the Dark Lord was responsible for escalating the until a galactic-wide conflict, known as the, began when the rebellious  challenged the Republic for primacy over the galaxy.

Born in on the   to the aristocratic clan House Palpatine, he was eldest son and heir to the   and his wife, a family he grew to hate. Palpatine discovered the Sith at a young age as a collector of dark side artifacts. After going through many private schools due to repeated lawbreaking, he enrolled at and joined the  under the mentorship of. In, the seventeen-year-old Palpatine came to the attention of , a Sith Lord known publicly as Hego Damask, of the influential. Impressed by the young Naboo's knowledge, ambition, and disregard for morality, Damask recruited Palpatine as a spy for his company. After he discovered that Palpatine had the Force, he manipulated the young man into committing parricide. Orphaned at seventeen, Palpatine pledged himself to his new Master's teachings and the ways of the dark side of. Plagueis gave his apprentice the name " Sidious".

Just as his Master lived the double life of corporate mogul in public and Sith Lord in secret, Sidious also maintained his former identity as a façade. As Palpatine, Sidious served for years as Naboo's. Though he was involved in numerous shady activities, his reputation remained untarnished by scandals. While still an apprentice, Sidious reluctantly became the guardian of a Force-sensitive male, known simply as Maul whose  mother wished to spare her infant son from the life of a. With his own Master's permission, Sidious was allowed to train the Zabrak as a. Though Sidious dubbed his disciple "Darth Maul" and Dark Lord of the Sith, Maul never knew that his own Master answered to another Master. Thus, he was also unaware of the fact that his status as a "Sith Lord" violated the Rule of Two.

Plagueis and Sidious, both exceptionally skilled and powerful in the the Force, were able to conceal the darkness within them from even the most powerful members of the Jedi Order for decades. Sidious' ability to present himself as an honest politician, and simultaneously living as a Sith Lord in secret, allowed him to manipulate many important figures and events that contributed to the blockade of Naboo by the. In the wake of the political crisis, the Galactic Senate voted to elect him as Supreme Chancellor. With the Republic's chief executive branch under Palpatine's control, the first phase of the Sith was realized while the  remained in the dark about his true identity.

Plagueis had been instrumental in Sidious' rise to power. For years, the Dark Lord delved deeper into the mysteries of the Force while his apprentice carried out the Sith's interests in the public domain. But on the eve of Palpatine's election to the Chancellery, Sidious&mdash;in accordance with Bane's Rule of Two&mdash;murdered Plagueis and usurped the role of Sith Master. Around the same time, Maul killed the, only to be killed himself by Jinn's , , during the. Despite the death of his personal assassin, Sidious continued to carry out the Grand Plan.

As Chancellor of the Republic and Dark Lord of the Sith, Palpatine orchestrated the outbreak of the, a devastating conflict on a scale unseen since the , ten years after the Naboo Crisis. He himself headed both the Galactic Republic and, secretly, the Confederacy of Independent Systems. The public leader for the Separatists was none other than, a former Jedi Master who became Sidious' second apprentice as "Darth Tyranus". As billions perished in the war, the vast majority of Republic s rallied behind Chancellor Palpatine, thus increasing his public approval to an astonishingly high level. With the support of most of the Senate and the people of the Republic, Palpatine enacted various amendments to the Constitution in the name of security, thereby transferring most of the Senate's executive authority to his own office. Despite his increasingly despotic hold over the Republic, he defended his actions by pretending to be a staunch defender of democracy and a friend to the.

In, Palpatine revealed his identity as Darth Sidious to the. All proceeded according to plan when Skywalker informed Jedi Master of Palpatine's duplicity. Windu's failed attempt to arrest him, combined with Skywalker's conversion to the dark side of the Force, contributed to the rise of Sidious'. All members of the Jedi Order were accused of treason and, as a consequence of, betrayed by their s. Without the Jedi to oppose him, Palpatine declared himself Emperor of the first Galactic Empire, thus bringing an end to the Republic that had stood for over 25,000 years. Among his first acts under the new regime, Emperor Palpatine enacted the state-sponsored systematic extermination of the surviving Jedi, ironically carried out by Skywalker, who had been proclaimed "Darth Vader" upon becoming the Dark Lord's new apprentice. Throughout most of his reign, the Emperor all but disappeared from public life, opting to live in the opulence and grandeur of the on  while Vader acted as his Military Executor and chief enforcer.

As a totalitarian despot, Emperor Palpatine effectively wielded absolute control over the entire galaxy and virtually everyone who lived within it. Despite his promises of peace and harmony, he spared no expense to build one of the most powerful military forces the galaxy had ever seen, primarily for the purpose of enforcing his rule over all others. For nearly decades, there was no serious political or military threat to his reign and, as a consequence, the of the galaxy went on unopposed for nearly two decades. At some point during the rise of the Empire, Darth Vader adopted and raised, an exceptionally powerful prodigy of the Force, as his secret apprentice. Although seemingly loyal to his Master, Vader harbored a great deal of anger at Sidious for manipulating his fall to the dark side. Under the codename "", Vader's apprentice yearned for the day when he and his Master could rule the galaxy by assassinating Darth Sidious.

When Palpatine discovered Starkiller's existence in, he forced Vader to fake Starkiller's death as part of a new plot to expose the most influential traitors in the Empire. Six months later, Starkiller was healed from his near-fatal injury and tasked by Vader to initiate a full-scale against the Empire. The apprentice believed that the insurrection's purpose was to distract Palpatine so that he and his Master could have another chance to kill the reigning Dark Lord of the Sith. However, he was unaware that the Rebellion was Palpatine's plan to destroy the disillusioned citizens and politicians within his Empire. At the same time, he fully intended to train a new apprentice by manipulating Starkiller into killing Darth Vader. Due to the extensive injuries that Vader suffered on, Palpatine bitterly judged his hobbled disciple to be a failure. Yet in Starkiller, he saw a chance to finally have an incredibly powerful apprentice who was worthy to stand at his side.

However, Palpatine's plan to rout out the Empire's subversive elements and secure Starkiller as his new apprentice ultimately backfired in a way that he never anticipated. By finding redemption in the and the Jedi Way, Galen Marek spared Vader's life in order to save a group of rebel senators. In the ensuing showdown between Palpatine and Marek on the incomplete Death Star, the former secret apprentice perished in a sacrificial act of heroism that inspired the senators to formally create the. Palpatine regarded the death of Marek and the formation of the Alliance as frustrating setbacks that threatened his entire reign and the rule of the Sith. In losing Marek, the Emperor had no choice except to keep Vader alive for a while longer. By losing control of the Alliance, he ironically had to fight against a rebellion that he started in secret.

As the broke out to determine the fate of the galaxy, Emperor Palpatine's facade as an enlightened leader all but fully disappeared. Under the doctrine of terror, Palpatine attempted to rule through fear of the threat of force, symbolized by the Death Star upon its completion in. But when the Empire suffered a devastating defeat at the in the same year, the Emperor steadily began to lose the absolute control over the galaxy that he had enjoyed for nearly two decades. The destruction of the Death Star proved to be a pivotal turning point that galvanized many beings throughout the galaxy to join the Alliance in open rebellion against the Emperor's tyranny.

The year of witnessed the undoing of Emperor Palpatine and the countless plans that initiated his rise to ultimate power. In a dangerous gamble to annihilate the Rebel Alliance once and for all, Palpatine allowed Rebel spies to learn of the existence of a second Death Star and its secret location at. He was fully aware that the desperate Alliance could not afford to pass up the opportunity to destroy the new battle station while it was still under construction and vulnerable to an attack. To further entice the Rebels into launching a disastrous assault, he placed himself in harm's way by personally overseeing the Death Star's completion. As expected, the Alliance fell for the bait and dispatched its fleet to destroy the Emperor, Vader and the incomplete Death Star.

Unknown to the Rebels, however, an entire of the Emperor's most elite soldiers were guarding the battle station's shield generator bunker in anticipation of a Rebel strike team's arrival. Meanwhile,, the son of Darth Vader, was brought before the Emperor by his own father. As with Galen Marek, Palpatine saw a new opportunity to replace Vader with an apprentice who was far younger and more powerful. After goading Skywalker to give into his frustrations with thoughts of the Alliance's defeat and the death of his friends, Palpatine eagerly watched as father and son fought one another in his throne room. Despite all his hopes, however, Skywalker refused to submit to the dark side by murdering his father. Palpatine's failure to corrupt the young Jedi, as well as the unexpected destruction of the shield generator bunker, infuriated the Emperor, who then unleashed all of his rage and hatred on Skywalker.

Unfortunately for his Empire, Palpatine was far too distracted by his own anger and frustrations to realize that Darth Vader had reverted back to the persona of Anakin Skywalker. Unwilling to stand by and watch his son die in under the agonizing effects of, Anakin lifted Palpatine over his head with one arm and threw his shocked Master down the Death Star's shaft. Although Anakin was mortally wounded for his efforts, his single act of redemption fulfilled the prophecy of the and brought about the end of the Order of the Sith Lords. The death of Emperor Palpatine and the destruction of the second Death Star marked the as a crushing defeat for the Galactic Empire. Throughout the rest of the Galactic Civil War, the remnants of the Empire experienced a sharp decline while the Alliance reformed itself into the.

Early life
"I haven't rejected the dynasty I was born into. I've rejected the name I was given."

- Palpatine to Hego Damask

Dantius Palpatine was born on, the eldest son of the House Palpatine's patriarch Cosinga and his wife. He was raised in his family's ancestral home, Convergence, situated in Naboo's, and had at least two brothers and two sisters.

From an early age, Palpatine identified himself as different from his peers and siblings, recognizing a great power within himself, and believing that he was born to lead, which led to an uneasy relationship with his family. His father also perceived his eldest son as different, and would later claim to have divined his murderous nature from the time the latter was an infant. At some point early in Palpatine's life, Cosinga had his son tested to make certain that they were related. Until the end of his life, however, Palpatine's true nature would remain a mystery to his father.

Intelligent and highly ambitious, Palpatine desired his family to take on a more active role in Naboo's politics, both to increase their own wealth and power, and also to help their make the transition into the modern galaxy. Palpatine was soon disappointed to learn that he was alone in this ambition, and that his father not only lacked the ability to improve his family's standing, but also arrogantly believed he had all the power there was to be gained. Although the young heir longed to kill his father, Palpatine grudgingly concealed his patricidal desires for years. Disgusted by his father's incompetence, and infuriated by his mother's willingness to tolerate the situation of their family, it was not long before Palpatine discontinued the use of his given name as an act of spite. From then on, he demanded to be referred to exclusively by the name of his aristocratic family.

The young Palpatine attended two coronations in the  of, and for years to come would remember his father's envy for the power the monarch wielded.

Education
"The Naboo might expect more of the eldest son of House Palpatine.''" "''I ignore the expectations of others."

- Hego Damask and Palpatine

Throughout his education Palpatine attended some of the most prestigious and exclusive academies in the galaxy, but would never remain for long, and would soon be expelled for some petty misdemeanor. Palpatine's list of offenses, while usually minor, was extensive enough that—were he anyone other than a nobleman's heir—he would have been imprisoned in a correctional facility. Sure enough, whatever his son's crime, Cosinga would be there, ready and willing to use his influence and credits to make it "disappear." Having been raised to believe that money could solve anything, Palpatine would quickly dispense with traditional notions of morality, instead forging a unique code of ethics for himself; a pedestal on which he placed himself, to be raised above all others.

Although he despised his father, more so than any other member of his family, the two were not without their similarities. Aside from an inherited violent streak, both father and son shared an insatiable passion for. Palpatine once fondly recounted an occasion from his youth when his father had bought him a state-of-the-art, prototype speeder, more as a bribe than a gift, but one he accepted, nonetheless. Indeed, the only time Palpatine thought well of the man who raised him was when they shared a cockpit together. This was not to last, however, as Palpatine would soon crash the machine, tragically killing two pedestrians in the process. As always, Cosinga bought his son a reprieve, and Palpatine himself never showed the slightest bit of remorse for the incident. Quite the opposite, in fact, if anything, the lack of punishment from the law only served to reinforce the boy's belief in his own invulnerability, and Palpatine insensitively chose this moment to announce his desire to become a professional racer. Cosinga initially banned his son from riding again, but even this feeble attempt at punishment did not last long. After many tantrums Palpatine wore his father down, who eventually relented, and Palpatine went on to race competitively, and successfully.

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

- Darth Plagueis

First encounter
"Palpatine.''" "How do you know my name?" "''I know more about you than just your name."

- Hego Damask and Palpatine

As an adolescent, Palpatine studied at, and also enrolled in the in accordance with Naboo's mandatory public service curricula. His family's social status provided him with high profile contacts, such as other aristocrats and even government officials. One such aquaintance was, who was at the time an to the Republic  of Naboo. Although Palpatine regarded Kim as a political mentor, he secretly harbored certain views that conflicted with Kim's opinions. Palpatine's own father shared Kim's conservative beliefs and lobbied for Naboo's government to maintain an isolationist policy in order to protect their homeworld from outside corporations that wanted to take advantage of Naboo. , a candidate for the Naboo throne in the monarchical elections eager to open Naboo to outside influences, was their main opponent in the political arena.

Palpatine, motivated by pride and a desire to see his homeworld become a part of the greater galaxy, sought to quietly undermine his father's political agenda during the 65 BBY election season. More importantly, however, it was the rift with his father that indirectly led to his future as a Sith. Palpatine released confidential information pertaining to the shady role certain royal houses (including, presumably, his own) in the Tapalo opposition had allegedly played during the mercenary conflict, despite the fact that he was well aware he could be disinherited for it. In aiding Tapalo's campaign, Palpatine brought himself to the attention of Darth Plagueis, Dark Lord of the Sith. The young man had craved for the power of the Sith since becoming a collector of Sith artifacts, and soon he would have his chance to join their order. Plagueis was publicly known as Hego Damask, the  of, one of the galaxy's most powerful and influential financiers and political lobbyists. Having survived an assassination attempt by an unknown party on and having killed his Master during that same incident, he was also the reigning Dark Lord of the Sith in 's line.

Plagueis learned from certain members of the Subtext Mining Group&mdash;the company that supplied the mining probe that was supposed to kill himself and Tenebrous on Bal'demnic&mdash;of a  reserve they had recently discovered under Theed. After ordering the Gossams' deaths, Plagueis instructed of Damask Holdings to look into the situation. Hill contacted Tapalo, offering to support his bid for the throne in exchange for exclusive rights to transport the plasma from the Theed reservoir. Palpatine, by joining the covert war fought in the Naboo media for the public eye, had turned Damask's eyes on him&mdash;members of Damask Holdings traced the release of the information to the heir of House Palpatine, and Plagueis decided to meet this young noble who had helped him from afar. The Dark Lord arrived on Naboo in his public guise as Hego Damask and sought out Palpatine in Theed University. After asking after him, Plagueis eventually found Palpatine outside the Youth Program's headquarters in the university campus.

Though he was aware of Damask's reputation, the haughty Palpatine initially had little interest in conversing with the Muun. Through a small effort of persuasion on Plagueis' part, however, Palpatine reluctantly agreed to give him a tour of Theed. Plagueis was able to learn much about the young aristocrat in their first encounter; Palpatine had an interest in politics, but was shy to admit it; he enjoyed art, yet his modest tastes made him disinterested in Naboo's grandiose architecture style; the estrangement with his father was augmented by their different political opinions. Aside from art and politics, Plagueis also learned that Palpatine had a passion for expensive landspeeders and competitive racing. But he was unable to peer into the young man with the Force, which intrigued him. At the end of the day, Plagueis offered to recruit Palpatine as a in order to advance the interests of Damask Holdings by ensuring the election of Tapalo as  of Naboo. Palpatine accepted the offer, but only on the condition that he would report directly to Plagueis alone.

Initiation
"It is my will to join my destiny forever with the Order of the Sith Lords.''" "Then it is done. From this day forward, the truth of you, now and forever more, will be Sidious''."

- Darth Sidious and Darth Plagueis

Cosinga Palpatine eventually learned of his eldest son's friendship with Hego Damask. Due to his estrangement with the younger Palpatine, as well as Damask's support for Tapalo's bid for the throne, Cosinga immediately attempted to thwart any further contact between his son and the head of Damask Holdings. After Cosinga failed to coerce Damask with veiled threats, the Muun contacted Palpatine, who had been away on with his class at the time. Palpatine, enraged by the revelation of his father's attempt to interfere in his affairs, desperately implored Damask for advice. Recognizing the potential that emanated within his young protégé, Damask took advantage of Palpatine's fear and hatred for his family, and thus insinuated that he had to do whatever it took to become emancipated from his father's control.

Palpatine's defining moment came when his father personally journeyed to Chandrila with the entire family in tow to retrieve his heir. Once the family had left  Spaceport, Cosinga and his son clashed. In order to keep him away from Naboo during the elections and out of Damask's reach, Cosinga planned to send his son to, where he would stay with the and complete the Legislative Youth Program locally with. Palpatine did not accept the arrangement, and verbally attacked Cosinga. The altercation brought out their long-standing yet barely concealed hatred for each other, until Cosinga revealed to his son that he had wanted to kill him from the start. Overcome by years of repressed anger and frustration, Palpatine instinctively drew upon the power of the dark side and slaughtered his entire family and their security guards. When the deed was done, he contacted Damask and was assured by his mentor that none would ever learn of his role in the slaughter of House Palpatine. Damask arranged for all evidence of the crime to be purged, and for Palpatine to return to Chandrila. One standard week later, they met in a luxury cabin aboard the .

Having judged the young Palpatine worthy of joining the Sith after he murdered his family, Darth Plagueis formally initiated him into the cult. From the time of Darth Bane onward, it was common for Sith names to begin with the forename , a moniker that was as much a title as it was a name. Many factors went into deciding on the second name. At least one, based on observed ceremonies, is that Sith masters would enter a kind of communion with the dark side of the Force, question it, and within it find inspiration, an answer. In Palpatine, Plagueis saw a being completely lacking in empathy, ambitious, arrogant, and insidious. Palpatine genuflected before his master, pledged his undying allegiance to the Sith Order, and the Dark Lord of the Sith proclaimed him his new apprentice under the name Darth Sidious.

Apprenticeship
"My mentor taught me everything about the Force, even the nature of the dark side."

- Palpatine to

The training of Darth Sidious was focused on the honing of his Force abilities and combat skills, as well as his natural talents as a politician. In the first decade of his role as an apprentice, Sidious accompanied his Master to, where he was subjected to intense cold and nearly froze to death. Darth Plagueis, unaffected by the planet's freezing temperature, forced Palpatine to relate the slaughter of his family in exacting detail, as he did many times, with the goal of extinguishing any lingering feeling of personal connection. The Sith Lord's overall goal was to use his disciple's hate, anger and desperation for survival as a tool to destroy any vestiges of Palpatine the young noble from Naboo, and in his place create Darth Sidious, a true Sith. Were Palpatine to give up, he would prove himself unworthy of the mantle; the young Human endured, asking only when the trials would be over. Plagueis also demonstrated a use of the mind-clouding technique by having his apprentice struggle to reach him, only to discover he had been a, and also subjected Palpatine to deprivation of food, water and sleep.

In regard to the history of the Sith, Plagueis was more than aware of the fact that Sidious' desire to kill him would grow in time; only a true Sith Lord wanted to seize the mantle of Master by slaying his own mentor. But like many of his Sith predecessors, Plagueis was appalled by Darth Bane's, more specifically its tenet that commanded each Master to train his or her own eventual killer. Plagueis had no intention of dying by his apprentice's hand, or anyone else's either. Instead, he intended to break the cycle started by Bane and Zannah a millennium ago. In order to do so, Plagueis wanted no secrets or feelings of jealousy and mistrust to exist between Sidious and himself. In the long run of the Sith, Plagueis envisioned himself as the "power behind the throne" while Sidious&mdash;in his public guise as Palpatine&mdash;carried out the Sith's interests in the political domain.

Sidious, ever the academic with a desire for knowledge, yearned to learn more of the Sith lore. However, his Master carefully concealed much information from his apprentice, and only intended to share his full knowledge at a gradual pace, depending on how much Sidious progressed as a Sith Lord. Among Plagueis' artifacts were s that contained much of what Sidious desired to know. The Jedi mistakenly believed that these holocrons sat in the Archives room in their Temple, but those were actually clever forgeries, a form of Sith disinformation.

The beginning of Palpatine's political career
Palpatine began his political career at a young age, carefully hiding his true persona of Darth Sidious. On Naboo, public service was mandatory from the ages of twelve to twenty, and he began his political career in this fashion (presumably 70–). Unlike most of the Naboo, however, he elected to stay in public service beyond the normally accepted age and entered local Naboo politics (62–), working his way upwards. After a five-year stint in the program, he was appointed  in the reelected Senator Vidar Kim's retinue.

Palpatine lost more elections than he won in his early political career, missing out on a string of political appointments. He elected to keep a low profile so as to not undermine his Sith master, and to allow him to discreetly disappear from the radar in order to focus on his Sith training on such worlds as Mygeeto,, and , and rendezvous with Plagueis on remote planets where they did not have to risk being seen together by beings from the political sphere.

The training of Darth Maul
"Do you feel the hate? &hellip; It is the source of your strength. You still hate me. No matter. Today you have delivered yourself into my hands. I have the power of life and death over you, Maul. Someday, you will hold that power over another. It is the honour of the Sith. You will devote yourself to the idea of domination."

- Darth Sidious

During his apprenticeship under Plagueis, Palpatine had spirited a young from his family on, and had begun training him as a Sith. It was not without precedent that Sidious should have chosen a Zabrak for his apprentice. In ancient times, the Sith, taking notice of the martial prowess of the Zabrak, made lucrative contacts on, and spent exorbitant sums to hire Iridonian Zabrak as mercenaries. Long after the Sith culture died out, the influence of the Sith remained a part of Zabrak culture. Zabraks were known to endure extreme amounts of pain, but nothing could have prepared young Maul for the brutality of Palpatine's training. Despite Palpatine's harshness, Maul held the utmost respect for the man, and was fanatically loyal.

When Darth Maul was very young&mdash;so young that he would remember few memories prior to this&mdash;Darth Sidious took him to the, both of them disguised as tourists. Sidious's command of the dark side was sufficient to keep both himself and Maul from being sensed by the Jedi, as long as they did not enter the Temple itself. As the building was not open to tourists, there was very little risk of discovery. For the better part of a day, they stood there, and Sidious pointed out to Maul the various faces of individual Jedi as they entered and left the Temple, whispering into his apprentice's ear of the Jedi Order's ultimate destruction. Maul would long remember the thrill of seeing his foes, standing in their presence, hearing about their downfall, as they walked past, not one of them aware of the fate that ultimately awaited them.

Eventually, the time came for Maul's final test. Palpatine sent him out to a remote and isolated world, where he was hunted by assassin droids for a month. At the end of the month, Maul found Palpatine waiting at the mouth of a cave. Maul had not eaten for days, and was exhausted. Regardless, Palpatine challenged Maul to a duel, in which Maul was easily defeated. Palpatine stood over the broken man, and told him that he had been preparing another apprentice, should Maul fail as he had. Enraged, Maul flew at Palpatine with murderous intent. Palpatine was caught off guard, but was able to disarm Maul. Even without a weapon, Maul continued to attack, even going so far as to bite Sidious's hand before being ultimately defeated. Pleased, Sidious announced that Maul's training was complete, and that he was now a Sith Lord.

The rise of Senator Palpatine (52–)
Around the year 52 BBY, as a critical vote on seating several "client worlds" of the Trade Federation approached, Darth Plagueis and Palpatine decided, during a Gathering on Sojourn, that the galaxy was ripe for more direct forms of manipulation, as the stage of decadence required by the Grand Plan had been reached&mdash;disaffected with political corruption, both the citizens of the Republic and the beings of the lawless Rim yearned for strong central leadership, for tyranny. So, in order to place Palpatine in the, Plagueis arranged for Senator Vidar Kim to be assassinated.

Assassination politics
When Senator Vidar Kim was assassinated by a never-identified gunman on a passing airspeeder in 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 the. The murder had been ordered by Plagueis and arranged by under Palpatine's supervision.

The Sistros statue
When Palpatine first came to to begin his service in the Senate, a number of his personal effects came with him from Naboo, accompanied by a manifest. The manifest was submitted to Republic officials as part of a standard security scan. This procedure was mandatory for all equipment and furniture to enter the Senate building. One of these items was an abstract sculpture of, one of the (these were controversial philosopher-lawgivers who lived during the early days of the Republic&mdash;the others were , , and ).

Palpatine's manifest clearly stated that this sculpture was a single piece of solid-forged with a  finish. But the sculpture was not solid; it contained a small cylindrical cavity, in which rested one of his Sith lightsabers, sealed within the sculpture at the time of its forging. The security scan did not detect this cavity; neuranium was so dense that any piece more than a millimeter in thickness was impervious to sensors, and since nothing unusual was found in the scan, no one questioned it further. An advanced gravimetric detector would have revealed that one small section of the sculpture massed slightly less than it should have, but no one thought to use one at the time. The sculpture was admitted and placed in Palpatine's Senate offices (the floor had to be specially reinforced to bear its weight), and when Palpatine was elected Chancellor it was moved into the anteroom of his Suite in the Executive Office Building. Only after thirty-three years would Palpatine extract the blade within. In addition, he also gave his interior decorating the color crimson. He also used his family status as a convenient excuse for utilizing that as the color of choice (as his family prominently used crimson for their seal).

The senator's first "friendship"
"Through me, you might have a voice in the shaping of the Republic. Through you, I better understand the Jedi and their ways."

- Palpatine to

The new representative of Chommell sector wasted no time in forming relationships that could help him in the future. The first was the son of the man whose death ensured his own election. was a Jedi who had forsworn his family ties but had also been present to witness his father's murder. Palpatine approached the younger Kim even as he stood before his father's body, lying in state. Under his mask of sorrow and condolence, he studied Kim carefully. But he said little; instead, he demonstrated an art that would serve him well, and give him access to the powerful: his ability to listen, to serve as a confidant for others.

During their conversation, it quickly became clear that, rather than finding whoever struck down the father he had barely known, Kim was more concerned about himself and his own choices in life: Vidar Kim, lacking any other living family, had wanted his son to honor his bloodline again, perhaps follow him into politics. But Palpatine suggested that for a Jedi to become a politician would be a waste. Instead, perhaps the best course would be an alliance between a Jedi and a politician.

Kim agreed, and struck up a "friendship" that would last some three decades. Ronhar Kim would be the first of Palpatine's "alliances" with individual Jedi, but this particular alliance would be of great use: Kim would eventually be used as a pawn in a scheme that resulted in the creation of the feared s (32 BBY), and his eventual death in battle on  would be used as propaganda fuel to further Palpatine's war aims. For these reasons, it can be said that a significant portion of the machinery that would destroy the Jedi would be created, unknowingly, with the help of Ronhar Kim.

Palpatine in the Senate
By the time Palpatine stepped onto the Senate floor for the first time, he already 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. 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.

Rather than do anything to prove the elites wrong, Palpatine encouraged them to keep thinking this way. Again, he failed to take advantage of opportunities that could have landed him on important advisory boards and powerful committees, and unless pressed, he never shared his observations with his colleagues; apparently he purposely sought to keep his advancement slow, knowing that the more he did so, the more harmless he seemed to potential rivals. The performance evidently worked; the powerful Senators, wrapped up in their own petty power struggles, simply laughed at the small and quiet provincial, and otherwise paid him no mind.

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. People remarked on how he remained a private man, rarely attending social functions, devoting all his time to his work. In fact, he spent much of his time in the training of Darth Maul and the furthering of his private Sith agendas; it was left to his senatorial aides and to droids, such as to do much of the day-to-day work and maintain his guise as the mild-mannered representative of Naboo.

Friends and allies
Senator Palpatine began establishing relationships with respected public figures in key positions of government. As it grew, the list of friends included Senators both weak and powerful, military officers, members of the great organs of commerce, and even members of the Jedi Order. Many of those with whom he formed friendships would eventually have prominent positions in the Empire. Others would meet radically different fates.

Palpatine served as part of a Republic task force sent to monitor the demilitarization of, where the two native species had resumed a long-standing feud over mining rights. It was here that he met, a Jedi who was also a member of the expedition. Palpatine took advantage of the encounter to establish what would become a long-standing friendship with C'baoth. Upon returning to Coruscant, they often met to discuss politics, philosophy, and the state of the Republic. Eventually, 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. One thing they discussed during their time together held promise for the future: they spoke of the ExGal Society, a small, dedicated group of s studying the possibilities of life outside the galaxy, and the idea of an excursion beyond the. It would be conversations like this that would result in the ill-fated Outbound Flight project.

, then a politician on Chommell Minor, had established himself as an isolationist&mdash;in fact his political language concealed a virulent anti-alien prejudice that stemmed from his earliest formative years&mdash;with a significant popular following on his homeworld. The Greejatus family had had friendly relations with House Palpatine of Naboo, and Cosinga Palpatine, based on the rapport he perceived between his son and Janus Greejatus, had decided to send Palpatine to stay with the Greejatuses in 65 BBY. Years later, Palpatine became senator, and Greejatus came to his attention as a result of his political achievements on Chommell Minor. Palpatine did not echo Greejatus's more divisive statements, understanding that they would only do harm to his own long-term plans, but he did see a use for Greejatus and took him under his wing. Palpatine's own feelings are a mystery, but Greejatus labored under the impression that theirs was a firm friendship. That friendship, if such it was, would endure for more than three decades.

Commander, then a young officer in the Republic , was contacted by Palpatine, and found that his own ideas easily meshed with those of the Senator. With the coming of the New Order, Screed, now an Admiral, would become one of the highest-placed officers in the new Imperial Navy.

Lieutenant Governor, a government official on who was descended from a ruthless and ambitious family, was contacted by Darth Sidious, who convinced Tarkin that they actually shared many of the same sentiments on government. It is not certainly known if Tarkin ever was aware that Palpatine and Sidious were the same person, but he served both faithfully and long. Even as the New Order was inaugurated, Tarkin was placed in charge of the construction of Palpatine's most secret weapons projects.

Lord, the head of a noble house in the , secretly joined Palpatine's camp. After the Empire was inaugurated, Vandron would become an advisor and the head of COMPNOR.

Aides
Senator Palpatine also brought his own loyal aides with him from Naboo and elsewhere. They served him in legitimate political and legal roles, but they also worked his will in darker and more secretive ways. It would be these functionaries who earned the greatest rewards (with the exception of Palpatine's Sith accomplices) that could be bestowed in the New Order.

Palpatine had maintained Sate Pestage as an aide ever since he had been but a minor functionary on Naboo. Pestage performed the day-to-day duties of a senatorial aide, but he also was fully aware of Palpatine's secret identity of Darth Sidious and willingly served Sidious as a covert operative. Under the New Order, Pestage was made and given the power to control all access to the Emperor. Palpatine treated Pestage's colleague,, in a similar fashion. Doriana had a kind of unspoken wish to be a spy, and Sidious indulged this by assigning him to perform covert work, but unlike Pestage, Doriana was not informed of the secret connection between Sidious and Palpatine. As far as Doriana was aware, they were separate people, and he performed tasks for both without realizing the truth. His service was so valuable that, years after his death, it was said that Palpatine could only fill his shoes with three others: Darth Vader, Thrawn, and Mara Jade.

The ruthless was also an aide to Senator Palpatine at this time, though information about his activities is far more scarce. Dangor was eventually given a prime place among the Imperial Advisors, and Palpatine consulted with him on galactic-security issues, especially those dealing with the Rebellion. He ran much of the day-to-day affairs of the Empire, and as Dangor, like his master, was a powerful and charismatic public speaker, he was also responsible for all public addresses.

Destabilization
In, Sidious's shadow ally, Lieutenant Governor Wilhuff Tarkin, helped Sidious to engineer the murder of the , which were on Tarkin's homeworld of Eriadu for a trade summit. The pirate raids on the that had led to the summit had also been orchestrated by Palpatine, as was 's rise to power as Viceroy.

Shortly afterward, Palpatine secretly funneled several million credits, believed to have been stolen by the, through the , and into the accounts of. Palpatine's aide, Sate Pestage, ensured that the exchange was uncovered by Valorum's political enemy, Senator, who revealed it to the , thus critically weakening Chancellor Finis Valorum's already tenuous hold on power.

In 32 BBY, Sidious convinced the leaders of the Trade Federation to blockade the planet Naboo, in protest of Senate resolution BR-0371, a measure that levied a tax on the major Rim 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.

Final preparations
Before Palpatine could launch his grand plan for the extinction of the Jedi, he had to deal with a variety of dark side practitioners. The and the  practitioners were all brought into line, and under Palpatine's direct control. In addition, Palpatine enlisted the Dark Force adherents, who were led by former Jedi Master, known as the.

The Naboo crisis (32 BBY)
"At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge."

- Darth Maul speaking to his master

Over the past year, Palpatine had moved the major pieces into position. The Trade Federation was now angered, threatened, and led by weak individuals controlled by him. Chancellor Valorum could also be controlled by him, a huge advantage. 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
The Trade Federation rapidly built up its forces in the Naboo system, assembling enough battleships to ensure a tight blockade. At Sidious's command, they closed the planet off and strangled 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, 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 nothing to help the Naboo. The Federation's representative,, successfully argued that they had not yet violated any Republic laws; they had attacked no ships, nor had they moved against Naboo itself. And if no outright crime had been committed, the Judicial Department could not act. The stalling further weakened the Valorum government; their defiance of his measures was in itself damaging, but the longer it went on, the more impotent Valorum appeared. Partly to allow this perception to widen, Palpatine kept his monarch, Queen Amidala, from disrupting his plans, urging her to be patient and wait until the Senate reached a decision.

Amidala proved harder to rein in than expected: her patience spent, she contacted Valorum and told him that she held him personally responsible for her world's suffering. Shocked, pushed into a corner by his own conscience, and desperate to shore up his crumbling support, Valorum decided to act. He would call for a special session of the Senate to discuss the blockade, but to give him a strong bargaining position, he needed the battleships sent away from Naboo. He decided to send the Jedi to Naboo as ambassadors, hoping they would shake the Neimoidians' confidence and show them he meant business.

The invasion of Naboo
Palpatine may not have known Valorum's full plans, since the Chancellor went directly to the Jedi Council without informing the Senate as the law required. Eventually he learned about the ambassadors, but not that those ambassadors were Jedi. The presence of a Jedi Master,, and his , , took him by surprise. When the panicked Neimoidians told him, he fought hard both to manage his own anger and to get the Neimoidians under control, to focus them on the next task. The Jedi had been brought into the picture sooner than he would have liked, and Sidious ordered the Neimoidians to begin landing their troops. He also told them that he'd make their invasion legal when Gunray questioned the legality of it. As for the Jedi, he had plans for them also, and he ordered them to be killed. The Neimoidians acted accordingly, destroying the cruiser that had delivered the Jedi and immediately jamming all communications. Then, the conference room the Jedi were in was flooded with. The Jedi however, survived. He also was in communications with Queen Amadala regarding the seeming delay in the negotiations with Valorum, but was promptly cut off when the Trade Federation jammed their communication lines during the preparations for their invasion. Unknown to Amadala, this was according to Palpatine's plan.

The invasion went splendidly. Within a day, most of the major cities, including the capital, were in Federation hands. Amidala 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; instead, the Jedi, far from being dead, had escaped, rescued Amidala and her retinue, and commandeered a ship bound for Coruscant, successfully evading dozens of heavily-armed battleships in the escape. Sidious was livid, or seemed so. He took the opportunity to introduce them to. But despite the anger Sidious showed to his Neimoidian agents, Amidala's escape did not inconvenience him. Had he been anyone other than the Senator from Naboo, his plans would have been greatly harmed. But it was the very fact of his public identity that ensured that, come what may, he would have little trouble in finding her, no matter where she fled. He had an inside source: Amidala herself.

The search for Queen Amidala
After Amidala's ship was damaged in the escape, Jinn and Kenobi recommended that they land on, an obscure desert world in the , to repair the ship before going on. Amidala agreed, and they made for Tatooine, bringing this backwater planet into the spotlight for the first time. She signaled 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. Palpatine could now trace the signal to find out exactly where she landed. He handed the signal data over to Maul, giving him what he needed to find his prey. In a very short time they had narrowed the search to Tatooine.

The Neimoidians too tried to track Amidala, crafting a desperate-sounding message from to be sent to her ship. They failed to get anything of use, but, desperate to stay in Sidious's good graces, they reported their scant findings. Maul knew the arid world had a small population, so it would not take long to find them. Sidious told him to move against the Jedi first and then take the queen. But Sidious also knew that Plagueis's "experiment" was on Tatooine. If the Jedi interfered, the child could be tainted, less susceptible to Sith teachings. Sending Maul to kill the Jedi under the cover of retrieving Amidala would prevent that. This was one reason why Maul was instructed to move against them first. But Sidious may not have told 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 bring Amidala back to Naboo by any means necessary.

Maul left for Tatooine, but he failed to kill the Jedi or retrieve Amidala. Soon after, Palpatine was surprised to find the queen arriving on Coruscant, determined to rouse the Senate to her cause. One of Sidious's more trusted non-Sith agents, Kinman Doriana, who was present for these events, indicated&mdash;or at least believed&mdash;that the original 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 Chancellor, would likely 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 first one.

The senator commands the monarch
Palpatine requested an audience with Queen Amidala in his apartments at  to go over strategy. He had spent the last six months cultivating the queen's trust, knowing she would heed him better than 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 more 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 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. Amidala had pinned her hopes on a quick resolution of the crisis. The longer Naboo starved under Federation occupation, 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.

So Amidala had to decide between working in the courts, while the death toll on Naboo rose to unimaginable numbers, or heeding her trusted Senator's advice. More specifically, she had to choose between Valorum or her homeworld. As expected, she chose Naboo. 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.

The fall of Chancellor Valorum
"Enter the bureaucrats, the true rulers of the Republic, and on the payroll of the Trade Federation, I might add. This is where Chancellor Valorum's strength will disappear."

- Palpatine to Queen Amidala

The long-anticipated special session of the Senate&mdash;the last under the Valorum government&mdash;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 BR-0371. Few expected it to be anything other than routine. Palpatine alone knew what was coming. He knew that the Federation's representative, Lott Dod, would stall the proceedings with every procedural tool at his command. He also knew that the vice chair,, 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.

During the session, Dod and his allies threw up objection after objection; Amidala, unable to even finish her plea, grew more and more frustrated. Finally, Dod moved that a Senate committee be created to determine if her "accusations" were valid - a proposition that was further supported by Senator of. Amedda then pulled Valorum aside, subtly forcing him to concede that Dod was within his rights. When Valorum then asked Amidala to defer her motion to allow the committee to do its work, it was the last straw. She saw with her own eyes that Palpatine was right&mdash;Valorum was ineffective&mdash;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 before the Galactic Senate in 32 BBY

Valorum was thunderstruck, but by the time he could recover, events had moved past him. Senator of  seconded Amidala's motion, and the vote was on the floor - before long, hundreds of Senators were demanding the vote take place. The Senate had waited for this for months, perhaps years, and so unpopular was Valorum that they descended upon him with no mercy, demanding a vote. 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
"I feel confident that our situation will create a strong sympathy vote for us. I will be Chancellor."

- Palpatine

The sudden power vacuum left a choice for the two major factions in the Senate. The loyal Senators 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 so they could 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. , representative of, was the choice of the loyal Senators, while , 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 back-room politicking that led to Palpatine's nomination has been lost to history. What is known is that he had been working for months to catch the attention of an influential clique in the Senate, led by Senator Orn Free Taa of. Taa was not satisfied with Teem or Antilles. 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. Thus, it can be assumed either Taa or one of those Senators in his circle nominated Palpatine.

Palpatine returned to 500 Republica certain that the tide was with him. He declared to Amidala that he would become the next Chancellor, and meant it.

The election of 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 wanted him gone that they did not hesitate. Finis Valorum was swiftly voted out in a humiliating defeat. His political career in ruins, he spent years in seclusion, waiting for the public's distaste for him to wear off. When he finally realized just what role his removal had played in Palpatine's grander scheme, Valorum made one last small but brave attempt to hold back the avalanche, but by then it would be too little, too late. Future generations, however, would look more kindly on him.

In his absence, the Senate voted for a successor. Probably, neither Antilles nor Teem could garner enough votes to achieve an effective majority. Rather than face a voting deadlock, the Senate eagerly embraced the third option. Antilles's supporters could take heart that Palpatine had seemingly kept his distance from the corrupt Senators during his tenure. Teem's supporters were encouraged by his apparent docility. 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 that Valorum had promised to do all he could for Naboo in a time of crisis, and failed. Perhaps it was proper, many believed, that Palpatine himself should be given the chance to make things right. With such political weight behind him, Palpatine received the most votes by far, becoming Chancellor&mdash;the last being ever to hold the title&mdash;by an overwhelming margin. He promised to reunite the disaffected among the people and restore the remembered glories of the Republic.

The murder of Darth Plagueis
In the years leading up to the Naboo crisis, Sidious and Plagueis had begun implementing elements of their Grand Plan that would eventually lead into a galaxy-spanning conflict. Darth Plagueis intended to act as a de-facto co-Chancellor, ensuring Palpatine only passed laws that he approved of. In truth, Palpatine was subtly manipulating him, fooling him into thinking the implementations were his idea while Palpatine laid the groundwork for his ascension to Chancellor and Sith master. Shortly before being elected Chancellor, Palpatine, realizing that Plagueis had outlived his usefulness, made preparations to kill him. He invited Plagueis to his apartment at 500 Republica shortly after being elected Supreme Chancellor of the Republic under the pretense of listening to his acceptance speech. He then ensured that Plagueis had enough drinks to end up eventually passing out due to alcohol intoxication. Sidious then killed Plagueis in his sleep with and took the title of Sith Master for himself, enjoying every moment of his master's agonizing death. After murdering Plagueis, Sidious felt a severe shift in the Force, feeling the dark side "anoint" him as the tool it would use to take over the universe, just as he would use it for the same purpose. Although Palpatine was by no means an adherent of Banite ideology, he would keep a close eye on his own apprentices in the future, revealing only the barest minimum of information about Plagueis to them, in order to avoid having his master's end. For much of his life, he would be on his guard, vowing to himself never to make the mistake of sleeping as Plagueis had.

The liberation of Naboo
Even before Palpatine's election, Amidala declared her intention to reclaim Naboo from the Trade Federation. He made a show of concern and tried halfheartedly to keep her from going. She left anyway, taking both Jinn and Kenobi with her for protection. Thus she had taken all his enemies along with her into what could only be a considered a death trap. He and Darth Maul contacted the Neimoidians on Naboo, instructing them to kill Amidala, and notified them that Maul would be joining them to deal with the Jedi personally. Then he sent his apprentice off, with orders to make certain the Neimoidians killed the Queen, and that the Jedi fell by his own hand.

Even while Sidious managed the election on Coruscant, he made time to go over the progress reports from Naboo that Maul was frequently sending to him. 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 s and assembled an army in the, possibly in preparation for a strike against the Federation occupation force. If true, she was acting far more aggressively than her tactical position suggested; he doubted she would last even five minutes in such a contest. He gave his approval to Gunray's plan to meet the Gungans head-on.

In truth, the outcome of what would be called the mattered little to him. He had only sent Maul to Naboo, and ordered Gunray to destroy the Gungan army, to keep up the facade that he had an interest in Naboo, to keep the Neimoidians from seeing his true motives. Regardless of who won the battle, Palpatine would benefit: if Amidala and her defenders fell, she would become a martyr he could use to justify further and more decisive action against the Trade Federation, and 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, and validate his election.

The aftermath
Palpatine was soon informed that Amidala had triumphed. Against all odds, she had retaken her throne, and taken Gunray and into custody. 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. However, this would seem to be a loss for his secret goals.

Though he lost an apprentice, he claimed that he had seen that Skywalker, whom had come to the attention of the Jedi Council just days prior, would ultimately become his apprentice and sacrificed Maul to this end. Maul was but a tool whose goal was to rattle the Jedi's long-complacent attitude regarding the Sith and to act as the catalyst for the relatively inexperienced Obi-Wan Kenobi to train Anakin.

All of this, he would claim, was carefully planned and executed by Palpatine, although he had considered using Maul to pick off individual Jedi and act as a major distraction to the Order. He did express some regret at the loss of a valuable tool, but that was all; for all the childlike loyalty Maul had shown him, it was never returned.

In the end he had gained far more than he had lost. He had also learned the role that Anakin Skywalker, a 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 control ship and destroyed it. He had caught the eye of the Jedi Council itself; suspicion was growing that he might even be the of ancient Jedi prophecy, and after much debate the Masters decided he would be apprenticed to Kenobi. He made a promise to Anakin in the celebration, telling him his career would be watched with "great interest." He would keep this promise.

Returning to Coruscant after the victory celebrations, he must surely have had much to celebrate himself. True, the Jedi now knew of the Sith's return and their involvement in the crisis, and for more than a century the Jedi had been aware of rumblings that there were neither more nor less than two Sith at a time. They might search for that "second Sith," but such searches never could lead to him. They had claimed his apprentice, but he already had his eyes on the charismatic, whom would serve him as an adequate replacement until the young Skywalker was ready to be turned. The Jedi were now afraid, and that gladdened him. The greatest prize had been won. The Republic that the Jedi sought to defend was already in Sith hands.

An end to loose ends
Quickly, Palpatine removed incriminating materials left over from the crisis. Republic investigators had seized both Maul's ship, , and his droid on Naboo. Both contained knowledge best not revealed. But the Scimitar refused to yield its treasures; the first Republic Intelligence technicians to try inspecting the ship were gunned down by security probe droids, and their bungled attempt caused the flight, weapons and communications systems to self-destruct, leaving little more than a burned-out carcass. When they called in Jedi Master to secure the ship, Tiin also found the onboard computers completely erased. There would be no clues about the "second Sith" from that quarter. Sidious had sacrificed the ship and all its equipment&mdash;Maul's surveillance gear, his explosives, his poisons and devices, and his speeder, . But it was worth it, just for the fear that ate at Tiin as he left the Infiltrator: "That ship is alive with the dark side, Master Yoda. I can feel it clinging to my robes. And worse, it still tempts me, calling me back with promises of fantastic journeys to the far reaches of the galaxy."

- Saesee Tiin

Tiin recommended that the ship's carcass be placed in the care of the Jedi Council, but the Senate representative from Kuat lobbied successfully to give Kuat Drive Yards an opportunity to study it. Before it could ever reach a KDY facility, however, it disappeared, at least officially. Few were aware that it had actually been diverted back to Naboo and stored in a clandestine hangar in Theed, an easy feat in a Republic so bloated that its left hand did not know what its right was doing&mdash;especially when Palpatine was guiding both hands. As for the droid, Palpatine saw to it that C-3PX's possibly incriminating memory was erased, then remanded it to the custody of. Under Sienar and subsequent masters, the droid was re-tasked for other uses, and throughout the rest of its operational life, whether as a corporate espionage droid, a bounty hunter, even as an assassin, it had no inkling of its link to Sidious's former apprentice.

The Republic under Palpatine (32–)
"The Chancellor loves power. If he has any other passion, I have not seen it."

- to Obi-Wan Kenobi

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. But he had other projects, smaller but effective, that further undermined the Jedi and the Republic they served. Many&mdash;such as the Outbound Flight Project&mdash;were designed to whittle away the Jedi ranks, a few at a time, to make his task easier when the time came to purge them entirely. And as he carried out these murderous intrigues, always he cloaked himself in the image of a responsible leader.

Palpatine and Mas Amedda
One of Palpatine's first decisions as Chancellor was to maintain as his vice chair and Speaker of the Senate. Amedda had gone to great lengths to persuade Senator Taa's clique to nominate Palpatine in the first place, and the had performed exactly as expected. Amedda had been Valorum's friend, but he was loyal to his ideal of the Republic first, and to the Republic's laws and regulations. That strict adherence to the law had hamstrung Valorum as Palpatine had expected, and Palpatine saw that Amedda had the potential to remain useful in the long run. Amedda, like so many others, mistook Palpatine's mild temperament for malleability, and saw a unique opportunity to manipulate Palpatine into bringing the Republic back to what he had envisioned it had been, and Palpatine encouraged this naïveté: in his first years in office the new Chancellor made himself appear open to suggestion, enacting some legislation that Amedda brought to his desk.

But while he kept his mask on in Amedda's presence, Palpatine was also gathering information on the Chagrian to use as leverage. Shortly after the destruction of Outbound Flight in, a project for which Amedda had passionately lobbied, Palpatine revealed to Amedda that he had ordered the mission's destruction and, furthermore, that he was actually a Sith Lord, Darth Sidious, sworn enemy of the Republic and the Jedi Order. At this point it was far too late for Amedda to tell anyone; Palpatine had enough incriminating material on him to keep him muzzled for life. Palpatine explained that he had known all along that Amedda and others had tried to manipulate him, but in truth, he had manipulated them, pitting them against each other. With little choice, Amedda became a willing member of the conspiracy. With the coming of the New Order, he would continue to serve Palpatine and keep his secrets, not paying too much heed to the thought that, eventually, his knowledge would make him more a liability than an asset.

Palpatine and Janus Greejatus
Palpatine's ascension to the position of Chancellor left a small problem; someone had to assume the now-vacant position of representative for Chommell sector in the Senate. He used his influence to promote the election of Janus Greejatus from Chommell Minor, one of his political allies. Greejatus had long since demonstrated that he had a keen political mind, and though Palpatine could not be seen embracing them openly, Greejatus's anti-alien isolationism can be presumed to have served Palpatine's purposes. Still, the election did not long stand; his isolationism was at odds with Naboo's newfound multicultural stance, and prominent political voices on Naboo cleared their throats almost immediately. Eventually, Greejatus was replaced around by  of Naboo, but Palpatine continued to keep him close, making Greejatus one of his advisors.

The offices of the new chancellor
Palpatine maintained his private senatorial apartment at 500 Republica as his main residence, but according to custom he also moved into the Chancellor's Suite in the. 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 apartment. 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 objets d'art&mdash;many of them Sith heirlooms too obscure to be recognized as such&mdash;were moved in.

But there were two especially important pieces Palpatine brought in. The first was a new Chair of Office, black, throne-like, armored with ultra-dense 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, which concealed one of his Sith lightsabers. This he placed in the anteroom. Other reserve blades, and his black cloak and hood, he concealed in other art objects or in shielded compartments throughout the Suite, until the time when he would at last put them to use.

The coming of the Red Guard
It was at this time the controversial and crimson-robed Chancellor's Guard, or simply, first appeared. The original impetus for the Guard was a  of the. As potential threats to the Chancellor's person increased, Shan began rocking the boat, demanding that the Senate provide additional funding to upgrade the equipment and training of the Guards and assign a Guard detachment strictly to the protection of the Chancellor. Publicly, Palpatine feigned embarrassment at the notion of trained soldiers specifically protecting his person&mdash;in truth, he wanted just such a bodyguard unit, but could not afford to be seen as directly advocating one. A personal guard for a chief of state was seen as a violation of the Republic's principles, and some in the Senate objected. The solution was to create a situation where one could be forced on him, so he devised a means to make it clear that Shan's concerns were valid.

Palpatine arranged for his "friend," the Jedi Ronhar Kim&mdash;son of his late predecessor as Naboo's representative, and one of his first allies in the government&mdash;to be present for a terrified warning from Senator, 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 Palpatine expected, Kim quickly neutralized them, but they killed themselves with a fast-acting poison before they could be properly questioned. The Senate Guard was seen to have failed at a crucial moment, and Captain Shan's words, backed by the voices of Viento and other Senators, now had enough weight to carry the argument.

The Red Guards&mdash;later to be known as the feared Emperor's Royal Guards&mdash;were quickly formed and placed under Palpatine's personal authority. Throughout the years both leading up to and during the New Order, he was rarely seen outside their company. 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 of the  and the Thyrsus Sun Guards he had long ago consolidated under his own authority. In fact, by the time Palpatine was inaugurated as Emperor, more than a few of the fanatical Sun Guards&mdash;those that he had not by then eliminated&mdash;had found their way into the ranks of the Red Guards. As expected, there was some criticism, but as the years passed, the gradual passage of new security laws and the rise of the Separatist threat kept that criticism to a minimum.

The reelection of Chancellor Palpatine
As Palpatine finished his elected term in office in, the election for the Chancellorship was held as scheduled. Despite the fact that Palpatine's best efforts at reform had been stymied, a result that he himself had made certain of, his own scheming together with the lack of any genuinely viable opposing candidates ensured his reelection. It would be the last election for Chancellor to be held in the remaining history of the Republic; shortly before the next scheduled election in, his maneuvers would result in an amendment to the Constitution allowing him to serve indefinitely. And once that election had passed unobserved, there would never be another in Palpatine's lifetime.

The Outbound Flight Project
Among the more well-known of Palpatine's lesser intrigues was the funding, and then destruction, of the  Project, the brainchild of Master Jorus C'baoth. Palpatine had worked with C'baoth before, and for years the two of them had discussed the possibility of life outside the galaxy. That possibility never truly left C'baoth's imagination and, eventually, in 27 BBY it blossomed into a new proposal, the Outbound Flight Project, which C'baoth presented to Palpatine. Six Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers would be linked to a central storage core, becoming a single vessel, and then launched on a course through the fringes of the Republic, then the, then off into the 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 may have suspected otherwise, if the reports from of possible extragalactic invaders were true. In any case, C'baoth believed the Jedi could use the Force to calm this turbulence, and tests in the briar patch border of the Unknown Regions seemed to bear him out, so C'baoth recommended that he and as many other Jedi as possible join the expedition. Though other reasons surely factored into his supporting the project&mdash;the possibility of learning more about the so-called "Far Outsiders," for instance&mdash;its greatest value for Palpatine was to provide a single target, far from prying eyes, where a number of prominent Jedi could be disposed of easily, without being 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 the Senate still hesitated to fund such an expensive expedition, so Sidious sent his spy, Kinman Doriana, to make sure C'baoth would gain enough credibility to sway the Senate to his cause. C'baoth had been dispatched to negotiate an agreement between the and a regional government on  over mining rights. Doriana beat C'baoth there, inflaming militant i miners into making an assassination attempt, one that was meant to fail. As expected, C'baoth himself foiled the assassination and hammered out a deal both sides had little choice but to accept. With such a triumph under his belt, it was simple for C'baoth to convince the Senate to pass, which provided full funding for Outbound Flight. Even the Jedi Council caved in to pressure and agreed&mdash;grudgingly&mdash;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 in 27 BBY; now its Jedi passengers had to die. To that end, Sidious sent Doriana to oversee handpicked units from the private armies of his commercial allies. Against that, even six new Dreadnaughts should have been overwhelmed without fuss. But Sidious had not anticipated that his task force would be discovered by a young Chiss officer named Mitth'raw'nuruodo&mdash;though better often known by his core name, Thrawn. Doriana sought peaceful contact&mdash;there was always the possibility that the Chiss could become allies&mdash;but the Neimoidian commander, Siv Kav, foolishly launched an attack without any discussion. Within minutes, all but one of Doriana's ships was destroyed, and that only because Thrawn wanted someone left alive to interrogate.

Doriana feared the punishment he would receive when Sidious learned of this debacle. But he found a way to turn a short-term defeat into a long-term victory. Skillfully using the scant intelligence from Tarkin and Sienar's expedition to Zonama Sekot, 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 met their bridgehead, Doriana insisted, the galaxy would face a massive onslaught long before it was ready. Thrawn&mdash;who, as it turned out, already knew of incursions on the far edge of Chiss space&mdash;was convinced, especially after Doriana opened a holochannel to Sidious so Thrawn could discuss the matter with him personally.

Sidious, too, was occupied. He had learned that C'baoth had added Anakin Skywalker to the crew roster without anyone's knowledge; nothing could be allowed to happen to his prized apprentice-to-be. Palpatine traveled all the way out to Roxuli, the last stop of Outbound Flight before it left Republic space. Officially, he was there to secure C'baoth's services as a negotiator between the Roxuli government and its asteroid mining colonies, but he was really there to save Skywalker from the coming trap. That meant he would have to save Kenobi as well, since he could not yet separate Master and Padawan, so he secured Kenobi's services as a replacement negotiator, and Kenobi brought Skywalker with him. In their absence, Outbound Flight continued toward the Unknown Regions, and its fate.

Soon after, Doriana reported that Thrawn had destroyed Outbound Flight, partly by maneuvering a second power of the region, the nomadic Vagaari, into the engagement, to the destruction of both parties. And though Thrawn knew of Sidious's 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. Thus Palpatine gained a new tool as he lost an old one: the unstable C'baoth was dead, but he still had a way to make use of him in the future, if needed. C'baoth's blood had been drawn before the start of the doomed mission. If ever Palpatine had another special need for C'baoth, the cloning tanks would be waiting.

The search for a new apprentice
After the untimely defeat 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 never had the kind of political acumen needed; of the many skills he had possessed, subtlety and oratory were not among them.

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 could not risk his political career for his Sith duties, nor could he neglect his Sith duties for his political career.

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.

At some point in this time, Palpatine was training other possible candidates for the mantle of the Sith. One known pupil was Vergere, who, at some point, after discovering the extent of Palpatine's plots and megalomania, attempted to kill Palpatine. She failed and was forced to flee, managing to escape the galaxy.

The seduction of Count Dooku
Dooku, always a maverick, had been appealing to the Jedi High Council to take the threat of the Sith more seriously. If there were always two Sith, he asked them, and one was believed to have been killed on Naboo, why were the Jedi not devoting their best efforts to finding the second Sith? Their apparent shortsightedness repelled Dooku, thus leading him to consider that his ideals and theirs might not necessarily be the same. He may even have been arrogant enough to believe that he, rather than some untrained child named Skywalker, might be the Chosen One.

Dooku set out to find the missing Sith himself. Instead, Sidious approached him. It became clear that Dooku was fascinated by the Sith, or at least believed that the Jedi could not save the galaxy from itself. After much discussion, Sidious gradually persuaded Dooku that he too believed that the Republic was collapsing under its own weight, that a new order was needed to improve things. Dooku became convinced that their separate visions of improving things were actually quite similar. It was not long before he decided to accept Sidious's offer: in exchange for Dooku's services, Sidious promised to teach him about the dark side and how to use it to achieve the positive changes they envisioned.

Dooku chose to believe what he had with Sidious was a partnership. It is clear, however, that from the very beginning of their relationship, Sidious was leading him on. Dooku was a necessary tool, as Maul had been. Sidious neither needed nor wanted a "partner," someone on an equal footing with himself. It was not the Sith way; it was certainly not his way. Dooku would be a useful placeholder, until Skywalker was ready for conversion.

The clone army
Certain details about the creation of a clone army, which would be commissioned as the Grand Army of the Republic and would later become the nucleus of the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps, remain clouded. It is generally accepted that the impetus lay with a certain Master Sifo-Dyas, a former member of the Jedi Council and a close friend of Dooku's. Out of all the Jedi, Dooku had confided the most with Sifo-Dyas. But as Dooku grew disenchanted, Sifo-Dyas grew concerned. He became convinced that very dark times were ahead, but the Jedi Council paid little heed. Desperate, Sifo-Dyas spoke to Palpatine, who likely convinced him that if the Jedi refused to see the approaching darkness, and the fate of the Republic was at stake, they themselves would have to act. It would have to be done in secret, so as not to alarm a galaxy accustomed to peace. Even the Jedi Order could not be told. So Palpatine sent Sifo-Dyas to the Kaminoans, a species that specialized in genetic engineering, to commission a massive army of cloned soldiers, an army that would defend the Republic in the future.

Sidious could not count on Sifo-Dyas to keep silent, so Sidious sent Dooku to eliminate him. Without hesitation, Dooku murdered the man who had been his closest friend. In doing so, he fulfilled the ancient covenant that prescribed the murder of one who was close as a measure of commitment to the Sith cause. Seeing that Dooku had embraced the dark side, Sidious awarded him the Sith name and title of Darth Tyranus. But the cloning project still stood, so Tyranus carried on where Sifo-Dyas left off. The first task was to make sure the Jedi never learned about it. Until he had been silenced, Sifo-Dyas had kept the project a secret. To ensure that it stayed one, Dooku erased all records of the planet Kamino from the Jedi Archives, along with thirty-seven additional systems, including Dagobah and Dromund Kaas, that Sidious had judged to be of potential value to the Sith&mdash;his last act before leaving the Order.

Tyranus's second task was to find a source of DNA for this clone army. To ensure that the clones could challenge the Sith's enemies when the time was right, their template had to have exceptional combat instincts, supplemented by superb training and experience. Sidious ordered his new apprentice to find someone who fit this criteria. After much consideration and a brutal trial, Tyranus determined that Jango Fett, the last survivor of the old Mandalorian shock troopers, would be the perfect candidate. Tyranus offered Fett a generous payment for serving as the Kaminoans' prime clone. Fett accepted, on the condition that, in addition to the credits, he received an unaltered clone of himself, whom he would make his own son and apprentice. Tyranus agreed, and the foundation was laid for Palpatine's legions of stormtroopers, the force that would help Palpatine build an Empire out of a tattered Republic.

The Separatist Crisis (24–22 BBY)
"I will not let this Republic that has stood for a thousand years be split in two. My negotiations will not fail.''" "''If they do, you must realize there aren't enough Jedi to protect the Republic. We are keepers of the peace, not soldiers."

- Palpatine and Mace Windu

Palpatine had now completed his two four-year terms as Chancellor, and his army was nearly 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
"Master Yoda, do you think it will really come to war?''" "''The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see, the future is."

- Palpatine and Yoda

Under Palpatine's direction, Count Dooku united several commercial organizations&mdash;foremost among them the Trade Federation that had been Sidious's tool for seizing the Chancellorship&mdash;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&mdash;canceling the 24 BBY Galactic Republic Chancery election&mdash;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 and preserve its principles.

The false "peace initiative"
As the crisis expanded, Palpatine 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. In 13:3:21, trillions upon trillions of HoloNet viewers across the galaxy found their regular programming interrupted by a signal that overrode all government channels and 90% of the private feeds. In a brief twelve-minute address, Palpatine 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 on the HoloNet, addressing the Separatists

As he spoke, he did everything he could to keep up the appearance of the wronged party, assuming the moral high ground by forgiving his enemy. 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 sovereignty of my world. From these examples, I know you are a proponent of peace&hellip; 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 on the HoloNet

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. 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 criticize the Jedi. 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 non-attentive press noticed that he was already "grudgingly" anticipating a Senate yes-vote.

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:

Assassination attempts on 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 Wesell 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 ambiance of Varykino. Anakin was clearly breaking the Jedi Code, and this guilt and secrecy would only bring him closer to the dark side.

Meanwhile, Kenobi&mdash;who had been sent by the Council to solve the mystery of the assassination attempts on Amidala&mdash;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 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 family, 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 death 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 was 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
Though Kenobi had been captured on Geonosis, he had been able&mdash;or was permitted&mdash;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 Guild and the Corporate Alliance have both pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming a&hellip; Wait!&hellip; Wait!"

- Obi-Wan Kenobi's transmission to the Jedi Temple prior to being captured

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 night-time 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. 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.

"Itsa clear that desa Separatists made a pact witha desa Federation du Trade. 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."

- Representative Jar Jar Binks before the Senate

The cheering and the chants of his name 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, with the help of the unsuspecting Gungan, won the Senate almost completely. The rest of it&mdash;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&mdash;was merely a formality.

"It is with...great reluctance...that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy. I love the Republic. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated. 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, accepting his emergency powers

At the conclusion of his "acceptance speech," Palpatine asked only that once the crisis was over, he could retire to Naboo and live out his remaining years in peace&mdash;another heinous lie. Only one thing he said could be taken at face value: the clones were a fact, and he quickly legalized them 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.

Clone Wars (22–19 BBY)
In the aftermath of the Republic victory against the Separatists on Geonosis, Darth Tyranus escaped from planet and eluded the Republic forces until reaching the last place anyone would think to look for him&mdash;Coruscant, the very heart of the Republic itself. Upon reaching the secret lair of Darth Sidious, Tyranus assured his Sith master that their long-awaited plot was finally in motion with the beginning of the war. Sidious expressed satisfaction and congratulated his apprentice, noting that all was proceeding according to his plan for the future. To that end, Tyranus also left the secret schematics for the ultimate weapon in the hands of his master to better ensure that they would not be discovered by the Jedi Order.

The great project that took more than ten years in the making&mdash;the first full-scale conflict in a thousand years, and one of the most destructive in history&mdash;began on the right foot for Darth Sidious, the mastermind behind all of it. In his guise as Chancellor Palpatine, Sidious 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. With an army of unquestioningly loyal soldiers in one hand, and extraordinary political powers in the other, Sidious put both of his greatest assets to work in the long and bloody conflict that history remembered as the Clone Wars. On the surface, it was seen as the Republic's effort to suppress the militant Separatist movement. In actuality, it was a war waged against the Republic itself by its own head of state.

The Separatist threat to the Galactic Republic, a danger that no one had ever truly had to fear for over a thousand years, caused the vast majority of the Republic citizenry to rally around their leader, Chancellor Palpatine, in support of protecting and preserving the Republic as the single and most dominant force in the galaxy. The Chancellor's public support increased to high levels as the war escalated with the Separatists. SAGroup, a Republic youth organization and a sub-branch of the Commission for the Protection of the Republic, was composed of adolescent loyalists who strongly supported and admired Palpatine, which they often displayed by holding public rallies to express pride in the Republic.

From Diplomat to 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. More and more amendments were made to the Constitution in the name of security, all of them transferring more and more power to Palpatine, including Statute 312b, which gave more weight to votes cast by Senators from Core and Inner Rim worlds, those whose support of Palpatine was more dependable, than those from Rim worlds.

At the onset of the Clone Wars, Chancellor Palpatine gradually secured his dictatorial hold over the Republic while simultaneously maintaining his façade as a defender of democracy and an ally of the Jedi Order. At the same time, he continued to control the Confederacy from behind the scenes as Darth Sidious, mainly through his apprentice, Darth Tyranus, who also hid behind his own public disguise as Count Dooku.

Together, the two Sith Lords plotted an assault on Kamino. Although the Separatists hoped to gain an early advantage in the war by destroying the Republic's main supply of clone soldiers, the true purpose of the battle was to hinder the advantages of both the Republic and the Confederacy. While relatively intact, the cloning facilities suffered damage during the battle. As for the Confederacy, their advance strike team was lost along with their top commanders. Ultimately, both sides were weakened by the losses sustained in the Battle of Kamino, thus ensuring the galaxy would be locked in conflict for years. As a countermeasure to the Republic's Jedi Order, Dooku also started training a cadre of Dark Acolytes to help with the war effort and the Sith reemergence.

Palpatine used his considerable skills at manipulation and subterfuge to play the Jedi and the Confederacy against one another. On one notable occasion, he issued secret orders to both Ki-Adi-Mundi and Aayla Secura, and as Sidious, to Dooku, for each to complete a mission on the planet Hitaka. Each mission's success depended on that of the other, with the end result being that Secura and Ki-Adi-Mundi were kept distracted by their mission long enough for Dooku to complete his own assignment.

The "Reflex Amendment"
Another wartime constitutional amendment that gave particular teeth to his emergency powers was Emergency Amendment 121b, dubbed the "Reflex Amendment" by both supporters and critics because it was claimed by those in favor that the amendment would increase the Republic's reflexes when dealing with Separatist attacks. The public justification was that 121b was necessary to compensate for the problem of overlapping jurisdictions in engagements where the battle spread across more than one system and thereby involved more than one local defense force. As usual, his supporter, Ask Aak, did the oratorical legwork by thundering in the Senate about the amendment's virtues:

"The Separatists have taken advantage of our lethargic reaction time long enough. We will no longer be yoked by bureaucracies that have been fattened by the larder of the Trade Federation and other traitors."

- Ask Aak

The larger effect of 121b was that Palpatine and his handpicked officials would have far larger control over sector- and system-based defense forces than before. With its passage, officials appointed by Palpatine's military council were moved in to replace the commanding officers of several key loyalist forces. The opposition had hoped in vain for a solution that would have allowed for equal cooperation between local forces and the Army of the Republic. What they failed to realize was that cooperation had nothing to do with it. 121b was a crucial step toward the eventual absorbing of all local defense forces into the GAR (20 BBY), without which the awesome Imperial armed forces could not have been possible.

The disappearance of Seti Ashgad
"Senator Seti Ashgad has disappeared, days after he protested the installation of the Senate's new cam droids. Palpatine's office says the timing is merely a coincidence."

- Republic HoloNet News

As Palpatine called for even more extensive security measures, more and more Senators began to balk. One of these was Seti Ashgad, a former hyperdrive engineer who had designed the first Z-95 Headhunter starfighter and then used his fame to get elected to the Senate. Ashgad, often called the "Golden Tempter," was charismatic, charming, easygoing, and skilled in marshaling support. Had Palpatine not made his own move to oust Valorum and become Chancellor, Ashgad might have done so himself. For this reason alone, Palpatine had him closely watched; the playboy courtier Sarcev Quest, actually Palpatine's spy and close confidant, kept a close eye on Ashgad. And when Ashgad argued (21 BBY) against the installation of new surveillance cam droids in the Senate building, Palpatine acted. Ashgad was abducted by Sidious's agents and secretly exiled to Nam Chorios, the site of a former penal colony.

Thus the public was told of the Golden Tempter's unexpected departure. By all rights, a dispute over holocams was hardly cause to make him disappear. After all, others like Bail Organa had opposed the measure also. But Ashgad was a cut above. More than Organa, Fang Zar, or Mon Mothma, Ashgad's case demanded a stronger answer than the strictly political measures Palpatine was employing against the others. The Golden Tempter could easily tempt others to support him. Perhaps, given time and room to maneuver, Ashgad might even gain enough support to propose a Vote of No Confidence against Palpatine. Evidently, Sidious, with his uncanny gift to see potential futures, decided to pinch off this particular future at the very beginning. Thus Ashgad was left to rot on a desolate planet, under a sky in perpetual twilight.

The assassination attempt on Bail Organa
Palpatine had plans for Bail Organa as well. Organa was less dangerous&mdash;for the present&mdash;than Ashgad had been, but he too was a symbol of the old order Palpatine meant to destroy. And, as with Ashgad, it was better to weed out such potential threats early rather than late. The opposition had recently managed to table discussion (21 BBY) on the Enhanced Security and Enforcement Act, a bill which, if passed, would centralize even greater power in his hands. An "incident" that claimed the life of a public figure such as Organa might serve to rouse the Senate and get the bill passed.

Organa and his entourage were traveling back to the capital following an emergency personal visit to his homeworld of Alderaan. Sidious made arrangements for pirates to attack Organa's cruiser while en route. The marauders actually succeeded in boarding the vessel and were but a corridor away from reaching Organa himself, until the unexpected intervention of a pair of Jedi fighter squadrons forced the pirates to withdraw. Many of them were conveniently destroyed before they could escape, or be captured and forced to talk. It was enough to permit Palpatine to reintroduce the Security and Enforcement Act. Indeed, the Senate was so offended by the attack that they "insisted" it be reintroduced.

The re-emergence of Finis Valorum
It was then that Palpatine's predecessor, Finis Valorum, suddenly reappeared. Valorum had observed Palpatine's activities, both public and private, from a distance, especially how the Chancellor's opponents, like Ashgad, had a habit of disappearing. Possibly the Enforcement Act had been the last straw, and forced Valorum to action. But Palpatine had ears everywhere, even in simple custodial droids working in Bail Organa's residence at Cantham House, so when Valorum came to visit Organa there, it was not long before tirades like this reached the Chancellor's desk:

Such words clearly buttressed Organa's courage, so the next morning he appeared at the Chancellor's Suite to insist that under no circumstances would he support the Enforcement Act, and that in fact he would opposePalpatine on it. The Chancellor said nothing about it, but he did see fit to tip just enough of his hand to put Organa on edge:

Lord Sidious decided on Valorum's death; he was tarnished, but the passage of eleven years can change things; having seen what Palpatine's election had ultimately led to, some Senators would be far more sympathetic to Valorum, more willing to listen. The simple solution was to silence him now, while he was still seen as an embittered old political has-been, who no one would truly care about. His disposal, of course, could be put to useful ends&hellip;

The Star of Iskin terrorist incident
The events behind the explosion (21 BBY) that destroyed the freighter Star of Iskin and killed everyone aboard, including Finis Valorum, were not known until a Jedi investigation uncovered the details. The actual bombing was carried out by Saljé Tasha, an Anzati assassin based on Coruscant who frequently performed high-end political murders. Either by himself or through his apprentice Darth Tyranus, Sidious instructed Sora Bulq, one of Tyranus's acolytes, to work with the corrupt Senator Viento to hire Tasha.

Once Valorum boarded the ship, Tasha drew him off to a place of privacy. As an Anzati, it was not enough to kill him; she had to drink his "soup" as well. But the wounds left by Anzati proboscises were distinctive, and it wouldn't do for his body to be discovered with such marks in his sinus cavities. Such a clue could lead to Tasha, and ultimately to Sidious. Placing a powerful explosive in a sensitive area of the ship solved the matter. In fact, considering how Palpatine exploited the incident, it is likely that Tasha was ordered to destroy the ship; he needed an incident to justify passage of the Enforcement Act. Since the pirate attack on Organa's cruiser had failed, a terrorist incident in the capital city itself would do a better job.

As Star of Iskin climbed away from the docks and into the Coruscanti sky, Tasha's bomb detonated, and the freighter faltered and dropped. It finally came to rest with such violence that it buried itself into the pavement of Jrade Plaza. And with it, in addition to the thousands of dead, was buried a specific corpse that was so charred that no traces of Anzati proboscises would be found on it, if the body could be picked out of the wreckage at all.

The Enhanced Security and Enforcement Act
The effects of the tragedy were everything Palpatine could have wished; the day after the incident, Senator Ask Aaktook the floor and harangued the assembly in support of the resolution. Aak insisted that the role of any government is to protect its citizens, and a government incapable of doing so should be provided with the necessary tools. Aak yielded the floor to thunderous applause. It remained only for Palpatine to call for silence and, as ever, modestly accept what they were more than willing to give him.

Bail Organa chose this moment to have hisvoice heard. Palpatine had expected that Organa would try to block him, and decided in advance to just let the man have his say. To muzzle him now would only lend his cause credibility. So when Mas Amedda attempted to put the matter to rest by claiming that Organa was not officially registered to speak, Palpatine held him back, then stood there, composed, as Organa shouted down the many accusations of treason and tried valiantly to stop him.

Thus Organa had declared himself as an open enemy. The Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution, and the Enhanced Security and Enforcement Act became the law of the Republic. But Palpatine still maintained the appearance of the mild-mannered politician who was magnanimous to his opponents, in victory or defeat. After the Senate had adjourned, he approached Organa and Mon Mothma and offered his good-natured congratulations. He could not be faulted if the Red Guards flanking him, their masked faces fixed on Organa, gave his kind words the flavor of a threat.

Palpatine left them behind, his guards in tow. Behind him, he knew, they would be discussing their next move against him, but he was unconcerned. After the conspicuous losses of Ashgad and Valorum, one upon the other, it would be too obvious if he arranged for Organa and Mothma to disappear as well, but he had well-tried political weapons at his disposal. And he would need them; Organa had committed himself to blocking Palpatine at every juncture. It was not yet a fight requiring arms and soldiers; Organa too used his natural weapons, his political and oratorical skills. Though he had lost his respect for Palpatine, it would be a long time before he could be made to consider armed insurrection.

The trap on Vjun
At around this time, Sidious and Tyranus arranged a trap for Master Yoda. Dooku sent a message to Yoda, stating that he had gone too far and that Yoda should come to meet him on Vjun to discuss peace. In reality, Dooku simply intended to kill Yoda. To reinforce the plan, Palpatine sent Skywalker and Kenobi to Vjun, as well.

In Dooku's headquarters at Château Malreaux, Yoda attempted to convince Dooku to renounce Sidious. Just as Dooku appeared to consider the offer, he was informed that Skywalker and Kenobi had arrived: Palpatine's backup plan should Dooku appear to be swayed. Accusing Yoda of betrayal, Dooku escaped, remaining staunchly on Sidious' side.

The Sector Governance Decree
Throughout the war, Palpatine appointed governors answerable to him every time a Separatist world was freed. A few instances speak for many others. After a local uprising liberated Esseles, Palpatine appointed Griff Takel to serve as governor (21 BBY) instead of restoring Senator Gabrial Atanna. That same month, he did the same on Brentaal IV, which had languished under the provisional authority of Jerrod Maclain since its liberation the year before. Rather than restore Senator Arcel Mosbree, Palpatine arrested Mosbree for his role in allowing the Separatists to take Brentaal in the first place, and Maclain became the permanent governor. Even then, his critics speculated that it was only a matter of time before he did so everywhere. In the closing days of the war (19 BBY), Palpatine issued the Sector Governance Decree, which installed governors on allRepublic member worlds.

That was the reason he gave to his critics, and most felt it was the right approach. Increased coordination at the system and sector level seemed a sensible move in wartime. Palpatine now controlled those systems directly. With the rubber-stamp approval of his Senate supermajority in his hand, he wasted no time in sending his handpicked governors to their respective systems. They arrived practically before the ink had even dried on the decree. And to ensure that the planetary populations would accept the governors without too much complaint, he sent with each of them a full regiment of clones&mdash;security forces, he called them&mdash;more than enough to keep the locals quiet.

The search for Darth Sidious
"Sidious. I know the name&hellip;"

- Palpatine's reaction to Mace Windu's revelation that the Jedi are attempting to expose Darth Sidious

Because of the clouded post-war future, the Jedi Council started to suspect somebody from 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, the LiMerge Power building, in the Works on Coruscant, in turn leading to Palpatine and his advisor's 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 what he dubbed the "Triad of Evil." At the same time, his alter-ego commanded the cyborg General Grievous to use a secret hyperlane through the Deep Core to attack Coruscant itself. The endgame for his decades long plan 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

Palpatine then gave his state of the union address to the public after secretly commanding General Grievous to commence the attack during this ceremony. During the address, he also supplied medals to X1 and X2 for their heroism during the Invasion of Tatooine, although he also mixed up the two, and also hinted that something other than the time of their births separated them.

During the chaos of the battle, Palpatine was spirited away to his bunker with General Grievous, the Supreme Commander of the Droid Armies, in close pursuit, killing many of his bodyguards and Jedi on the way. However, thanks to his own planning, he was "abducted". Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker were ordered to Coruscant from the ruined world of Tythe where their hunt for Count Dooku had led them to rescue the Chancellor. They eventually found Palpatine, bound to a chair in the General's quarters of Grievous's flagship, Invisible Hand. Before they could rescue him however, Tyranus appeared and the three of them dueled. In reality, this was merely a test of Anakin's vulnerability to the dark side in a confrontation with Darth Tyranus.

Tyranus was aware that this duel was meant to lead Anakin to the dark side, but he was unaware that he would be sacrificed to achieve this. Sidious led him to believe that after he let Anakin subdue him, he and Sidious would together convince Skywalker to switch to the dark side. Tyranus would then surrender, pretend to having been unaware of the atrocities committed by General Grievous, and then emerge as the venerable leader of a new Sith army and the right hand of Sidious.

However, Tyranus had forgotten Darth Bane's dictum&mdash;there could be only two. As they dueled, Palpatine silently rooted for Anakin. Obi-Wan was rendered unconscious while battling Tyranus, but Anakin continued to fight. When Anakin sliced off the Sith Lord's hands and had him down on his knees with both Dooku's lightsaber and his own crossed at his neck, Palpatine was ecstatic and broke his silence, urging the young Jedi to kill Dooku. The Count realized he had been nothing more than a pawn in Sidious's schemes, while Anakin argued that he should not murder a defenseless prisoner in cold blood. Palpatine continued to goad Anakin to finish Dooku off, and he finally gave into his hatred of Dooku and sliced off the Count's head, his body falling lifelessly to the floor. This was another victory for Sidious. The only event he had not expected was that Dooku failed to kill Kenobi and that Anakin refused to leave him behind. It was of little concern, however. By defeating Tyranus in combat, Anakin had proven that he was now powerful enough to take his place at Sidious's side, something that the Sith Lord felt he would have little trouble in orchestrating.

Palpatine becomes Supreme Commander
The day after the Battle of Coruscant, the Security Act amendment was passed by the Galactic Senate by a wide margin. The amendment was personally written by Palpatine but given to a loyal senator to introduce, in order to maintain the facade of the Senate forcing power on him against his will. It nominally transferred command of the Jedi High Council from the Senate directly to the Chancellor, thus providing him with the Constitutional authority to disband the Jedi Order. It also removed Jedi and Senatorial oversight of the Republic's military, placing the Chancellor in direct command and naming him Supreme Commander of the Republic Military.

Endgame (19 BBY)
"Power! Unlimited power!"

- Palpatine

Jedi suspicion
"The Chancellor is not a bad man, Obi-Wan. He befriended me. He's watched out for me ever since I arrived here." "That is why you must help us. Anakin, our allegiance is to the Senate, not to its leader - who has managed to stay in office long after his term has expired." "The Senate demanded that he stay longer!" "Yes, but use your feelings, Anakin. Something is out of place!" "You're asking me to do something against the Jedi Code! Against the Republic! Against a mentor and a friend! That's what's out of place here! Why are you asking this of me?!" "The Council is asking you."

- Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi about spying on Palpatine.

Over time though, the Jedi began to grow distrustful of Palpatine, fearing what this ever-increasing power might mean for the Republic. Not long after Palpatine became Supreme Commander, the High Council wanted Anakin to use his closeness to the Supreme Chancellor as an excuse to spy on him and report his activities to the Council. Shocked by this assignment, Anakin argued that the Senate had, supposedly, voted unanimously to give the extra powers to Palpatine, and that he was only doing it in the name of preserving democracy in the Republic, but Obi-Wan was less sure and tried to convince Anakin that something had to be out of place for the Chancellor to accumulate so much power and for him to remain in office far longer than was usually allowed. But Anakin was convinced that Palpatine's intentions were good and admantly refused to spy on the man who'd acted as a mentor and father figure to him. With this new development, Anakin's loyalites became tremendously conflicted.

Mace Windu, in particular, became wary of the relationship between Anakin and Palpatine, going so far as to say that he didn't trust him and that it was "dangerous" seeing them together. Even in the last days of the war, Windu claimed to sense that the dark side of the Force surrounded the Chancellor, and suspected a plot to destroy 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&mdash;as he claimed&mdash;was the only way to avoid Padmé's death (he had known of Padmé and Anakin's marriage after the head of the Royal Naboo Security Forces, Captain Panaka, informed him). Sidious was able to secretly lure Anakin by making him his representative on the Jedi High 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 Master Windu.

Confrontation in the Chancellor's Suite
"In the name of the Galactic Senate of the Republic, you are under arrest, Chancellor. ''" "Are you threatening me, Master Jedi?" "The Senate will decide your fate." "I AM the Senate!""Not yet!" "''It's treason, then."

- Mace Windu and Palpatine in the Chancellor's office.

Mace ordered Anakin to remain in the High Council chamber at the Jedi Temple to try and calm his raging emotions, 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 boldly 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 realized they had been tricked, that they were pawns that had been manipulated for the last thirteen years. Shrieking a bestial Sith war cry, Palpatine lunged forward and killed Masters Kolar and Tiin 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, despite Palpatine's formidable lightsaber style and technique, the Jedi Master managed to disarm Palpatine with a kick to the head, causing Palpatine to drop his lightsaber out of the office window only moments before Anakin Skywalker entered the room.

Palpatine's attempts to defend himself with Force lightning were futile, as Windu used his lightsaber to reflect it back at the Sith Lord, which he used to reveal his true form. Palpatine's face began to sag and turn pale, his eyes, finger nails and teeth turned yellow as his voice grew ragged and deep. He pleaded with Anakin, convincing him his grotesque visage was the result of Windu's attack, and that he was too weak to hold off the attacks any longer. Windu proclaimed that he would put an end to Palpatine, but Anakin argued that it was not the Jedi way and that he must stand trial. Mace deemed Palpatine too dangerous to be left alive, as he had complete control over both the Senate and the Courts, 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. As Windu raised his lightsaber, preparing to deliver the killing blow, the young Jedi Knight chose Sidious, severing Mace's sword hand. Sidious then sprang back to life and assaulted Windu with a devastating blast of Force lightning and hurled the Jedi Master from the building to his death far below.

The birth of Darth Vader
"To cheat death is a power only one has achieved, but if we work together, I know we can discover the secret."

- Darth Sidious

With Windu eliminated, Sidious regarded Skywalker. At last the boy was where the Sith Lord needed him to be; isolated and unable ever to go back to the Jedi Order now that he was an accomplice&mdash;no matter how unwittingly&mdash;in the revered Master Windu's murder. Desperate to save his wife's life, Skywalker had effectively sacrificed an ally and compatriot, perfectly fulfilling the Sith covenant that commanded the slaughter of one who was close. With no other place to turn, he finally yielded to Sidious's temptations, asking only that a way be found for Padmé to live. To smooth the transition, Sidious soothed his fears, and his conscience.

So for the second time he openly promised Skywalker that Padmé could be saved from death. This was strictly a deception, meant to turn Skywalker away from the Jedi fold. In the end, whether or not there truly was a way to save Amidala was unimportant. Anakin Skywalker went down on bended knee before his new master and pledged himself to the Sith.

The fall of the Jedi Temple
"First, I want you to go to the Jedi Temple. We will catch them off balance&hellip; Do what must be done, Lord Vader. Do not hesitate; show no mercy."

- Darth Sidious

Like Maul and Tyranus, Vader had to demonstrate his allegiance through decisive action. Sidious had already convinced him that the Jedi were conspiring to take power, so it was easy to nudge 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. He ordered, "Do what must be done, Lord Vader. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy. Only then will you be strong enough with the dark side to save Padmé." To this end, he placed under Vader's command the 501st Legion, a special clone trooper unit he had long ago set aside for just such tasks, and sent them off to the Temple. Operation: Knightfall would prove successfull, and the Temple would soon be ablaze.

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. The slight chance that he could try to return to his old life would become nonexistent. 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. She might even lose the will to live, and could then be dealt with effortlessly at a time of his choosing.

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 carnage. 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 clones butchered the Temple's younglings and their masters. The Jedi losses were tragic.

When Vader and the 501st&mdash;which would soon earn the name of "Vader's Fist"&mdash;completed their errand, the Jedi Temple, repository of twenty-five thousand years of the Order's history, was but a smoking ruin. Originally, the building was to be destroyed; however, for some reason, Palpatine decided not to raze the old edifice to the ground. Some rumors hinted that he would be converting it into his new official residence, but 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
"What about the other Jedi spread across the galaxy?''" "''Their betrayal will be dealt with."

- Darth Vader and Darth Sidious

While Vader "sterilized" the Temple, Sidious saw to the other Jedi. After a thousand years of planning, the time for revenge had come. His instrument was, of course, his Grand Army. 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. Order 66 was not hardwired into the clones by the Kaminoans. The "rebellion" allowed this order to be given plausibly. The Jedi would not see it coming; they had forged a bond with their troops, but the Jedi forgot that the clones served the Republic, not them. He&mdash;not the Council&mdash;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. He contacted the various clone trooper commanders to issue a single command: Execute Order 66. With each repetition of the order, his satisfaction grew. He could sense what was happening&mdash;not in detail, but he felt the dark side growing stronger with each Jedi death.

On a thousand fronts, 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; an official estimate indicated that out of nearly ten thousand Jedi, fewer than one hundred survived the initial wave&mdash;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&mdash;obviously their service alongside Jedi had contaminated them. The Emperor 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 would have done better to have been more concerned about those few humbled survivors than he was, for it was through the efforts of two of them&mdash;none other than High Council members Yoda and Kenobi&mdash;that he would finally be defeated.

So enthused was Sidious by this long-anticipated victory that after issuing Order 66, he went to the Temple site himself, to see the fruit of his labors in person. Indeed, he could not have gone, so long had he worked and waited for this moment. In the Room of a Thousand Fountains, he found Vader finishing off a small group of younglings and their protector, Cin Drallig. Vader knelt in obedience, and Sidious praised him. "You have done well, my new apprentice," Sidious told Vader. "Your skills are unmatched by any Sith before you. 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 the Separatist Council.

The fall of the CIS
"After you have killed all the Jedi in the Temple, go to the Mustafar system. Wipe out Viceroy Gunray and the other Separatist leaders."

- Darth Sidious

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.

Sidious endured Gunray making yet another report&mdash;the last, he hoped&mdash;about how the plan was proceeding. Sidious answered almost by rote, congratulating the Viceroy, and promising his new apprentice to 'take care of them', hiding the euphemism in his words. Sidious was pleased by the ambiguity in his words. Vader would not exactly 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. Vader soon arrived. Equipped with the installation's deactivation codes by Sidious, his fighter landed without its automated defenses even noticing.

From his desk, it excited Sidious to see the Council members turn to face Vader as he arrived, offering him a fawning welcome. Vader was outside the range of the hologram pickup, but the expressions of the Separatists, changing from surprise to bewilderment and finally to fear, were clearly visible. 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 rouse themselves and desperately try to run, screaming, until the transmission cut off from their end.

"The war is over! Lord Sidious promised us peace! We only want—""

- Viceroy Nute Gunray's last words.

There was a reason for his satisfaction; thirteen years before, Sidious had remarked to Darth Maul how happy a day it would be when he no longer needed the Neimoidians and their ilk. One by one, Vader killed the Council members, until only Viceroy Nute Gunray was left alive. Pleading with the Sith Lord, Gunray tried to convince him that the war was over and all that they wanted was peace, but like all the others, the Viceroy was slain by Vader's blade.

Sidious gave new instructions to Vader, telling him to deactivate the droid armies. Vader did as instructed, and a coded signal was sent out over every HoloNet repeater in the galaxy. When received, every battle droid simply turned itself off. The manufactured threat of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, having served its purpose, was deactivated, 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&mdash;with thunderous applause."

- Padmé Amidala

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.

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.

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 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:

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 the face of anti-Jedi 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."

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:

So he had confirmed their worst fears&mdash;there would be more changes to the Constitution, if that document was not to be scrapped entirely. 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:

The next 25 years 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. 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
"I have waited a long time for this moment, my little green friend. At last, the Jedi are no more.''" "''Not if anything to say about it, I have."

- Palpatine and Yoda

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda eventually caught up with the betrayal and deceit, realizing that Anakin, now Vader, 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 knew 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 combatants demonstrated amazing strength and skill in the Force, as well as lightsaber prowess. 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 began to realize that Palpatine could not be defeated in battle, and that a renewed fight would only end in failure. Outmatched, Yoda fled. "Into exile, I must go. 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.

The transformation of Vader
"Rise, Lord Vader."

- Palpatine

The battle between Kenobi and Vader had ended much differently. Kenobi had succeeded in grievously 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 badly burned but alive.

Even as he made his way to the body, Sidious wrestled with anger and indecision. Part of him wanted to leave what was left of Vader to burn to ashes in the rising lava; even if he had survived, his body would be crippled, as would be his powers. Even the dark side of the Force required living beings to generate it, and too much of Vader's living flesh would have to be sacrificed in the act of saving him. Whatever the outcome, Vader would no longer be the perfect being to continue the Sith legacy, no longer be able to fulfill his promise. However, hobbled as he was, Vader would still be powerful, and there were no more Jedi to oppose him. So Sidious kept walking and, finally reaching his apprentice, placed a hand on Vader's forehead, using the dark side to keep him stable, while his shock troopers prepared a medical capsule for the return to Coruscant.

"Live, Lord Vader. Live, my apprentice. Live."

- Palpatine's thoughts upon saving Vader

In the shuttle's rear compartment, Vader lay in his capsule as if in state, flanked by Red Guards. Sidious sat before him, using all his powers, every potion and device his medkit contained, to keep Vader stabilized, and wrestled with his own feelings. What if Anakin should die? he thought. Though he had nearly left Vader to die back on Mustafar, Sidious held, perhaps, the merest sliver of affection for him that he had never held for Maul or Tyranus. The reason for this may lie in Vader's one-of-a-kind potential. To find another being even half as powerful could take many years, and even then it would probably never happen. Sidious would have to really discover a way to bend the midi-chlorians to his will, to conceive a being as powerful as Skywalker had been, and that too promised to be impossible. It would be miracle enough if Vader was restored to life, which was far removed from actually returning someone from death.

Back in the capital, at the Emperor Palpatine Surgical Reconstruction Center, Palpatine commanded that Vader be 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 he apparently believed Vader himself had killed his wife in his anger, which worked to his own advantage by breaking Anakin Skywalker's spirit once and for all; Anakin's transformation to Vader was now fully complete. Vader fell into a rage and destroyed the operating theater, and even attempted to reach out and kill Sidious. However, he proved unable to do so; his injuries had cut his potential in half, and he was no longer strong enough to stand against Palpatine. Ultimately, Vader gave up, understanding that Palpatine was the only one who would accept him. Palpatine was pleased: one of the most powerful Sith Lords of all time was born in pain and suffering, and it was his apprentice.

Meanwhile, Yoda and Obi-Wan fled into exile. Anakin's offspring were also separated; Leia went with Bail Organa to Alderaan, while Luke would be taken by Obi-Wan to Anakin's stepbrother Owen Lars on Tatooine, their existence hidden from Palpatine.

The Emperor's reign (19 BBY–4 ABY)
"Once more, the Sith will rule the galaxy&hellip; And we shall have peace."

- Palpatine

Imperialization
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 Republic's clone troopers had already been rechristened the Imperial stormtroopers and formed into the Stormtrooper Corps; now the remaining surface-based and space-based forces of the Grand Army of the Republic became the Imperial Army and the Imperial Navy, respectively. The four decrepit intelligence agencies of the Republic were merged into Imperial Intelligence, with former SBI director Armand Isard at its head. The old Palace of the Republic, or Presidential Palace, 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. In the first months of Imperial rule, a series of spectacles designed to showcase the military might of the Empire and unify its citizens were arranged.

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 Gentis coup
Not too many officers, however, were happy with Palpatine's plans of Imperialization&mdash;quite a few Imperials resented his warmongering ways and longed for peace after the years of fighting the Separatists. A few months after the Declaration of a New Order, the first graduating class of Imperial cadets arrived on Imperial Center from the Imperial Academies of Carida, Corulag, Raithal, Arkanis and Prefsbelt IV, and were presented to the Emperor by Headmaster Gentis. That same night, during the celebration gala, Gentis led many of his graduates in a coup against Palpatine.



Hundreds of explosives placed by the cadets destroyed 72 Imperial targets, killing hundreds. Fighting broke out in the Imperial Plaza between the putschists and loyal Imperial forces, including Lord Vader. Gentis himself, under the pretext of presenting his "future Moffs," the most decorated graduates, penetrated into the throne room, released the Aorth-6 virus, and detonated the explosives inside the Palace. The only survivors were the Emperor himself, who was infected but kept himself alive with the Force, and Moff Trachta, whose prosthesis protected him from the poisoned air. When Vader arrived with Raithal class valedictorian Lieutenant Laurita Tohm, one of the few graduates who didn't join the coup, Trachta and Palpatine proposed that the latter should hide until cured.

Meanwhile, Gentis assumed control of Imperial Center awaiting Grand Moff Tarkin's arrival. After scouring the Jedi Archives for a cure, Vader, Trachta and Tohm set out to find the Prism, hoping that the ancient fortress contained a cure for the Emperor. Vader, Trachta, Tohm, and the Emperor eventually arrived at the fortress, and Palpatine's condition was stabilized, although he still needed to regain his strength and recover, resulting in Vader and Tohm using the opportunity to recruit the inmates in the Prism for their counterattack against Gentis.

The dark times
"He's a most disturbing man."

- Ko Sai

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. Palpatine's first purge of the Imperial Navy occurred within just two weeks into the Empire's rule. At some point during the Great Jedi Purge, he also stole a Jedi Holocron from Jedi Master Ashka Boda, which also contained a prophecy that eventually led to his second death years later.

In 18 BBY, Palpatine invited former Jedi Ferus Olin to Coruscant, to ask him a favor: find the saboteur of the computer system of the planet Samaria. Olin refused at first, but when Palpatine told him about the arrest of two of Olin's friends, he had to accept. As Olin later found out, Palpatine had been using the crisis as a way to gain complete control of the planet. Darth Vader also thought that the Emperor wanted Olin to turn to the dark side of the Force. Palpatine would later taunt Olin with the same thing he had used to turn Anakin to the dark side: the ability to create and save lives, soon after Vader had killed Olin's friend. Palpatine also promoted Olin in the Empire and provided him with a Sith holocron that would tempt him and urge him to use the dark side.

During the Great Jedi Purge, Palpatine passed a rumor that Darth Vader tracked down and destroyed a conclave of fifty Jedi single-handedly, greatly exaggerating the event, which only involved eight Jedi and also required the aid of the 501st. The false rumor helped keep fear running in the galaxy.

Palpatine, deducing that Moff Wilhuff Tarkin needs motivation to become a more efficient officer, orders Vader to go to the Ghost Nebula and rescue his son, Garoche Tarkin, although he later secretly orders Vader to kill him, knowing already that the younger Tarkin had defected.

Palpatine soon began his tests for Vader's gradual descent to becoming a true Sith. He enlisted a historian Fane Peturri to secretly assist Vader in the history of the Sith. He also knew of Vader's desire for an apprentice to help him overthrow the current regime. As part of the ongoing Jedi Purge, the Emperor sent Vader to Kashyyyk to find and destroy Kento Marek, a Jedi survivor of Order 66. Vader's mission, however, became complicated by his unexpected discovery of the Jedi fugitive's son, Galen Marek. Vader was taken aback by the child's exceptional potential in the Force&mdash;a potential that rivaled the Emperor's power. After a moment of hesitation, Vader killed Kento and took Galen into his care, deciding not to waste the boy's potential by killing him. Hence, Vader began raising Galen as his secret apprentice in violation of the Rule of Two. His brutal training regimen caused the boy to suppress the memories of his childhood until he had completely forgotten his Jedi past and heritage, including his birth name. Known only by the codename Starkiller, the apprentice was promised by his master that they would eventually combine their strengths to kill Emperor Palpatine in order to take control of the Galactic Empire.

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.

The Secret Apprentice
"You have forgotten your place, Lord Vader. By taking this boy as your apprentice, you have betrayed me. Now you will kill him, or I will destroy you both."

- Palpatine ordering Vader to "kill" Starkiller.



In time, the Emperor became aware of Vader's training of a secret apprentice: an exceptionally powerful Force-sensitive induvidual who, for much of his existance, was known by the code name "Starkiller", and whom Vader had recovered during a Wookiee rebellion on Kashyyyk after slaying his father, a reclusive Jedi Master who'd survived the Great Jedi Purge until that point, in 18 BBY. While initially angry at Vader for this, he used it to his advantage - in both uncovering the treacherous members of the Imperial Senate rumored to be trying to start rebellion against the Empire and as an opportunity to finally dispose of Vader. Ever since the setback on Mustafar, Palpatine was disappointed to see his apprentice wither away into a broken shell of the man he once was. Palpatine had spent years engineering Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side, only to see his life's work all but destroyed because of Vader's carelessness. But with Starkiller now in his plans, he sent his spies to follow him on his missions for Vader. With the reports he received, he was thrilled with the prospect of taking the young Sith hopeful as his own apprentice.

In 3 BBY, as Starkiller's training was on the verge of completion, Darth Vader dispatched his young apprentice on a final series of tests to determine the level of his strength before they could confront the Emperor. Starkiller pursued his objectives with great anticipation at the thought of fulfilling his primary purpose in life, from defeating Jedi fugitives to training in the ruins of the Jedi Temple. Due to the secret nature of his existence, Vader commanded Starkiller to execute anyone who saw him, with the exception of the holodroid PROXY and Captain Juno Eclipse, so as to not alert Palpatine of their plans to assassinate him. As such, his targets included Imperials who had the unfortunate accident of crossing his path.

After completing his final mission by killing Shaak Ti of the former Jedi Council on Felucia (Master Ti had been living on exile on the planet with her padawan, Maris Brood, ever since escaping Coruscant during Operation: Knightfall), Starkiller returned to his master's flagship, the Executor where he believed they would assassinate the Emperor together. Unknown to Starkiller, however, Palpatine's spies had been tracking him since his victory over the exiled Aleena Jedi Master, Kazdan Paratus, on Raxus Prime. With the element of surprise lost to them, Vader was forced to "betray" his apprentice after the Emperor threatened to destroy them both unless Vader complied. As Starkiller stared at his master in shock, the Emperor angrily commanded Vader to kill the secret apprentice. Though he hesitated for a brief moment, Vader used the Force to assault Starkiller before launching him out of the bridge's observation window.

When Starkiller awoke on the Empirical six months later, he learned that he had never truly died; Darth Vader staged the apprentice's execution and then nursed him back to full health aboard his secret medical starship. Vader convinced Starkiller that it was not too late to take revenge on the Emperor. But since Palpatine's spies tracked Vader's every move, a distraction was required to divert his attention elsewhere. Thus, Starkiller was ordered to organize an alliance of rebels and dissidents. With Palpatine distracted by a full-scale rebellion, Vader assured Starkiller that they would capitalize on their second chance to kill Palpatine as soon as the rebels served their purpose.

But Starkiller was deceived once more. Emperor Palpatine was fully aware of the apprentice's survival and even ordered Vader to continue the charade by manipulating the young man into believing that the Rebel Alliance was part of their assassination plot. In truth, however, the real goal was to gather all of the Empire's enemies to one location where they could be rounded up and summarily executed in one swift stroke. When Starkiller completed his task to perfection, the Emperor dispatched Darth Vader and a large Imperial force to capture the Rebel leaders on Corellia.

Thanks to Starkiller's efforts, the Emperor's greatest political enemies, Senators Bail Organa, Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis were brought to the incomplete Death Star by Vader. Palpatine took satisfaction in describing how they would all be interrogated, tortured and executed as traitors to the Empire. Before he could carry out his threats, Vader's former apprentice revealed that not only had he survived his master's second betrayal on Corellia, but that he had also infiltrated the battlestation with the intention of rescuing the Rebel leaders. After rediscovering his birth name and certain memories of his past, Galen Marek dropped his codename and abandoned his Sith identity in favor of the Jedi and the Rebellion.

Emperor Palpatine ordered Darth Vader to eliminate Marek once and for all, but much to his surprise, the former apprentice emerged victorious in a duel that left Vader in a severely damaged state. However, Palpatine was actually delighted to witness Vader's defeat. Enthralled by Starkiller's power, Palpatine's goal to replace Vader with Starkiller was now within his reach. Thus, the Emperor seized the chance to rid himself of his hobbled disciple's dead weight by joyfully encouraging Marek to slay the cyborg Sith, hoping that the young man's hatred for his traitorous Master was strong enough to make the killing blow. He promised Marek that the reward would be great; Vader's death would allow the young man to finally become a true apprentice at the Emperor's side.

"You were destined to destroy me. Do it. Give in to your hatred!"

- Palpatine, to Galen Marek

But when the Jedi Rahm Kota, who had also been taken prisoner along with the senators, sensed Palpatine's intentions, he used the Force to snatch the Emperor's lightsaber. He then charged at Palpatine with the goal of striking the Dark Lord down with his own weapon. In a rage, Palpatine unleashed a barrage of Force lightning on the Jedi General. Caught off-guard for a few moments, Marek could only stand and watch as Kota was tortured by Palpatine's deadly lightning, unresponsive to Senator Organa desperately pleading that he help him. Marek was torn between aiding his Jedi mentor and taking his revenge on Vader. In the end, he drove away the dark thoughts of vengeance and chose the path of a Jedi by coming to the defense of his allies by standing against the Emperor.

Through the Force, Marek hurled bits of broken transparisteel and debris at the Emperor, who was forced to break off his attack on Kota to defend himself. As they engaged in a vicious telekinetic battle, Marek came to the conclusion that Palpatine was behind Vader's every move ever since his discovery on Kashyyyk. Palpatine confirmed this, telling Marek that Vader never plotted alone. As their battle progressed, Marek gained the upper hand by using the Force to pummel the Emperor around the throne room before apparently subduing him. Cackling, Palpatine abruptly dropped to his knees and goaded Marek into striking a death blow. With Kota's urging, however, Marek resisted the seduction back to the Sith way and spared the Emperor's life.

Palpatine's failure to secure Marek as his new apprentice caused him to lose all control of his anger. As Marek turned to leave, Palpatine rose to his feet in an uncontrollable rage and unleashed his Force lightning on Kota once again, declaring that he would never allow the Jedi to have someone as powerful as Galen Marek. But the reformed Jedi used his own body to block the Emperor's attack to provide Kota and the Rebel leaders with enough time to escape. While his allies made their way to the Rogue Shadow piloted by Eclipse, the full strength of the Emperor's power pushed Marek to the brink of desperation. In comparison to his years of suffering under Vader's tutelage, nothing that Vader ever did to Marek was as excruciating as the pain that he felt from Palpatine's lightning. Before succumbing to oblivion, Marek compared the pain to an imploding star within his chest. Despite his desire to live, Marek knew that there was no escape or hope for survival. As such, he used all of his energy to create a massive Force explosion that all but destroyed the throne room, as well as nearly killing both Sith Lords. Marek's sacrifice had cost him his own life, but had also turned him into a martyr. His actions also enabled the Rebel leaders to escape from the Death Star, thus ensuring the survival of the fledgling Rebel Alliance. As Vader regained his senses and limped towards the fallen corpse of Galen Marek, the Emperor also recovered and inspected the dead apprentice with a look of shock and disappointment on his face.



"He was meant to root out the Rebels, not give them hope. His sacrifice will only inspire them..."

- Palpatine, on the death of Marek.

Palpatine took no joy in the death of Galen Marek. He had envisioned a far different future for the boy, as he once had with Anakin Skywalker. Marek was meant to root out the rebels so that they could all be revealed and destroyed, yet Palpatine bitterly admitted that Marek's sacrifice would only inspire them to fight a full-scale war against the Galactic Empire. On a more personal note, the Emperor lost what was supposed to be Vader's successor; a new apprentice who was worthy to stand at the Emperor's side. The loss of someone of Marek's caliber was a major setback in his plans. But the fact that he still had to make due with an imperfect apprentice like Vader was also frustrating to Palpatine. Overall, the death of Galen Marek and the survival of the Rebel leaders bought Palpatine to a wise conclusion; all of the rebels had to be exterminated or the two Sith Lords would suffer the bitter irony of being destroyed by the very rebellion that they created.

The Emperor, left with no alternative at the moment after Marek's death, was forced to keep Darth Vader as his slave for the time being. The loss of Marek did not stop him from seeking out other candidates as he fully intended to cast Vader aside one day, just as he had done so with Darth Tyranus years ago. The incident with Galen Marek also served to drive Palpatine and Vader even further apart than they already were. Like Tyranus before him, Vader had been betrayed by his master in favor of an apprentice far younger and more powerful. With the Emperor's treacherous intentions finally revealed, Vader truly committed himself to overthrowing his master before it was too late. But to do so, he needed someone of Marek's potential to aid him in such a daunting task.

Marek's untimely death, however, forced Vader to take a desperate course of action. He preserved his fallen apprentice's corpse on Kamino where he used it as a template in the hopes of creating a more powerful and obedient version of Marek. The cloning project was initially flawed, resulting in various genetic failures in the early trials of the experiment, including a renegade clone who escaped from the Kaminoan homeworld. Despite the constant rate of failures and disappointments, the project ultimately produced a single perfect clone who emerged as Darth Vader's new apprentice.

Dark Side Adepts and Trachta's insurrection
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 Adepts, were outside the Empire's official organization, but reported directly to Emperor Palpatine or&mdash;when necessary&mdash;Lord Vader. Palpatine intended to replace key officials with the Adepts, though their number was too limited.

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.

Moff Kalast's defection and the subjection of Bothawui
In 0 BBY, Moff Kalast aided the Rebel Alliance in secret by supplying secret information about the recently-completed Death Star. After the identity of the traitor was discovered, the Emperor dispatched Darth Vader to hunt down Kalast's flagship, the Star Destroyer Avenger. Vader's forces clashed with Kalast's on Thyferra and Atzerri, until eventually defeating him and capturing the Avenger as it was preparing to jump to lightspeed. Kalast was interrogated, revealing that Bothan members of the Spynet had supplied him with the top secret information concerning the Death Star. The Emperor considered this treason on the part of the entire Bothan species, and decided to deal with the situation himself. He traveled to Bothawui in his personal shuttle, accompanied by two of his Royal Guards, and slaughtered hundreds of Bothans. He gathered information that Tantive IV was headed to Tatooine, and informed Lord Vader, who had already learned the same thing in a separate mission.

The New Order in practice (0 BBY)
"We were establishing a new era: an era of order and peace."

- Entry from the Journal of the 501st.

The dissolution of the Senate
"The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away. ''" "That's impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?" "''The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station."

- Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin and General Cassio Tagge discussing the dissolution of the Senate.

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. He dealt with the outspoken ones when they appeared, but 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, in the third month of the year 35 after the Great ReSynchronization, with the governmental infrastructure in place (the governors, Moffs, and Grand Moffs), with the military, as always, obeying him without question, and with the Death Star, the Tarkin Doctrine's ultimate tool, finally complete and tested, he was ready.

Warrants were issued for the arrest of all suspected Rebels. Stormtroopers burst into the Senate, and hundreds were detained. Some&mdash;those learned to have had Rebel affiliations&mdash;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 too were arrested and interrogated. Many who were released left Coruscant for their homeworlds, and a peaceful&mdash;and isolated&mdash;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. 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.

An example is made
Palpatine was equally thorough in dealing with Senators who were off Coruscant at the time, or had escaped. One was Senator Canna Omonda, Mon Mothma's successor as representative from Chandrila. Many Senators had hoped Omonda would intercede for them. But Omonda, seeing no point, did not try to gain an audience, instead becoming one of the few Senators, perhaps the only one, to leave Coruscant before the noose tightened. But she made a parting shot in her remarks to the press as she boarded a transport bound for Chandrila:

"I am gratified that my colleagues are coming, however late, to the realization that talk is not a suitable means of communicating with Palpatine."

- Canna Omonda to Palpatine

Omonda left the capital; just in time, as her colleagues were arrested. But Palpatine could not let her remain at large; he dispatched an "honor escort" of three Imperial Star Destroyers to Chandrila, to bring her back to Coruscant for a "short interview" with High Inquisitor Halmere. The Chandrilans took the hint that the "escort" would devastate Chandrila if they refused to release her; Omonda was turned over to the Inquisitorius. Omonda soon confessed to acts of treason, giving her interrogators the names of people she had passed classified information to. The night of the confession, in his before-dinner remarks at the Palace, Palpatine again donned his well-worn mask of firm benevolence for the sake of the press:

"I have always valued Omonda's counsel and advice. After all, no leader is so wise and great he cannot benefit from criticism. Sadly, while seeing Omonda return to the Imperial fold pleases me, the penalty for high treason is quite specific. However much I may wish to do so, I cannot spare her now and remain true to my pledges to honor law and order above all else. The Empire will miss her."

- Palpatine, after Omonda's execution

Omonda's public execution was scheduled as part of the traditional New Year Fete Week celebrations (1 ABY), but this was canceled in light of "security concerns." No specific reason was given, but the government likely feared that Rebels or their sympathizers might disrupt the event. Even without the executions, the awesome power of the New Order was displayed to full effect. The traditional parade passed before the Palatial Balcony, where Palpatine occasionally appeared, flanked by Vader and numerous lieutenants. Since Palpatine was not on the balcony throughout the entire parade, it is possible that he went to visit her before her death&mdash;or to watch her die. Palpatine was also heard remarking that if sending up two traitors in a row was how Chandrila rewarded him for his favor, it might benefit from more direct supervision. Chandrila duly received its direct supervision, and its legal government soon vanished. In its place, Grandon Holleck was installed as governor.

The same event in different languages
A postscript to the dissolution of the Senate can be found in the way it was explained by the government. At some point, of course, the obedient press and the citizens of the Empire's member worlds would have to be told what had happened to the Senate. The duty to explain the new decree fell on Ars Dangor, one of Palpatine's ranking advisors. Appealing to a people that had endured the threat of war and unrest from the Clone Wars onwards, Dangor painted the Rebels as just the latest variation on the Separatists of old:

"During this time of crisis&hellip;"
Dangor issued a galaxy-wide holomessage, directed to all the citizens of the Galactic Empire. Appealing to a people that had endured the threat of war and unrest from the Clone Wars onwards, Dangor used all the tried and tested hallmarks of New Order propaganda to paint the Rebels as just the latest variation of the Separatists of old:

"No longer of any concern&hellip;"
Dangor also sent out another holomessage, this one specifically to the regional governors. This message, not intended for public distribution but nonetheless leaked and exposed by Rebel sympathizers, dispensed with the flowery rhetoric about law and order that the people had come to trust over more than two decades and made an honest appeal to rule through fear and intimidation.

Some of these governors, such as Wilhuff Tarkin, were greatly encouraged; it cannot be doubted that Tarkin recognized in Dangor's message many of the same sentiments he and his mistress and confidant Daala had expressed in his memorandum to the Emperor some five years before. Palpatine had demonstrated that his and Tarkin's ideas on governance were closely linked. The doctrine that already bore Tarkin's name was becoming widespread.

Death Star rising (0 BBY–0 ABY)
"This station is now the ultimate power in the universe. I suggest we use it."

- Conan Antonio Motti

The exemplar and symbol of the New Order was no longer to be the stormtrooper, or the fleet, or even, to an extent, Palpatine himself. It was to be an armored space station he and his lieutenants had spent some two decades in the building, enduring a seeming eternity of research and development, accident, sabotage, great leaps forward and disappointing steps backward. He did not know, or did not care, that in the end, it would make the Rebellion even more emboldened than before.

The destruction of Alderaan
"Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the Rebel base, I have chosen to test this station's destructive power on your home planet of Alderaan."

- Wilhuff Tarkin, to Princess Leia

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 battlestation's power against a Rebel target would succeed in giving them pause. His argument convinced Palpatine.

So Palpatine approved in advance the destruction of a planet&mdash;and thereby the mass murder of its entire population. 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 1,999,940,000 sentient beings.

Palpatine's private feelings on the tragedy were 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. 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."

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.

It was later 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. 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.

The Galactic Civil War
Tarkin, with his Doctrine, had promulgated a fear-driven principle of governance. But shortly after the destruction of Alderaan, the Death Star itself was destroyed by the Rebel Alliance in the Battle of Yavin. Palpatine ordered the creation of a second Death Star at Endor, ironically shortly before Luke Skywalker had destroyed the first Death Star. Grand Moff Tarkin, who was aboard 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 incompetence by severing his already-mechanical right hand. Likewise, Palpatine later ordered Grand Admiral Osvald Teshik to rescue Veshiv from Esseles with the threat of death should he fail. Teshik failed to rescue Veshiv or kill the one responsible, Captain Dhas Fenoep Vedij, and thus Palpatine made good of his threat by arranging him to be sent to Andalia on a suicide battle to fight the Hapan Consortium fleet with insufficient materiel or manpower as a demonstration of how even the Grand Admirals are not beyond reproach, also sending a snoopship to survey the battle. After Teshik was revealed to have survived the battle, Palpatine then had 3/4ths of Teshik's body replaced with cybernetics, and then had him resume command. He also suspected that Vader was searching for the force-sensitive pilot in order to betray him. The Emperor deduced the name of the pilot and dropped a hint to Vader about the pilot's identity to indicate his knowledge of his apprentice's intentions. In various points of the war, Palpatine was briefed by Darth Vader on the progress of their fights against the Rebellion. In particular, Palpatine expressed some disappointment at the setback to the Blockade of Yavin, although Vader assured him that it was only temporary. Shortly thereafter, Palpatine also ordered for an attack on Ralltiir after it became apparent that the scientists on the planet were creating weapons for the rebellion. In spite of one of his Imperial officers, Tycho Celchu's defection to the Rebel Alliance, and thus potentially supplied them with valuable information, Palpatine was not concerned about this, as he was fully confident that Ralltiir being fully blockaded by the Imperial Navy would be more than enough to prevent the Rebel Alliance from saving the scientists.

The punishment of Bevel Lemelisk
"I just received word that your Death Star was destroyed at Yavin. A puny band of Rebels with outdated fighters found a weakness in your design&mdash;a thermal exhaust port that allowed a single X-wing pilot to strike a fatal blow. One pilot obliterated an entire battle station!"

- Palpatine

Others would have to answer for their incompetence, most notably the Death Star's principal engineer, Bevel Lemelisk. Upon hearing of the Yavin fiasco, Lemelisk, correctly fearing for his life, went into hiding. It did not take long for Imperial Intelligence to track the engineer to his remote retreat on Hefi, and "summon" him to an audience with his Emperor. When he entered Palpatine's audience chamber, he made the tragic mistake of trying to bluff his way through, believing that Palpatine did not know what had really happened. The Emperor set him straight at once. Palpatine used the Force to trap Lemelisk within a wire-mesh cage, and then released into the cage a swarm of winged insects, piranha beetles he had long ago "rescued" from Yavin 4. Palpatine was greatly amused as the insects made shreds of his engineer. But he still needed Lemelisk, so he used the Jedi Holocron taken from the late Ashka Boda, transferring Lemelisk's unwitting essence to a clone body. The exercise properly expressed his disappointment to Lemelisk, but it made for a trial run of the process he himself might yet have to endure, should his own body at last fail him.

"Now don't fail me again, Lemelisk. I'd hate to have to think of an even worse execution for next time."

- Palpatine

Inevitably, as Lemelisk sought to rectify the failures of the Death Star's design, Palpatine did have to conceive even more excruciating deaths for every subsequent failure, seven executions in all, ranging from the horrid to the whimsical, each time reviving him and letting the lesson of his latest execution press him onward. The engineer was launched out an airlock, his organs destroyed by the pressure and cold. He was locked in a vault filled with thickening acid mist that ate into him with even bloodier vigor than the piranha beetles had. He was once slowly lowered into a vat of molten copper which burned his body away a centimeter at a time. When, a month later, Lemelisk felt bold enough to ask why copper, Palpatine simply told him that that was what the smelter had used that day. These were not mere acts of sadism; they had an underlying purpose, employing pain to encourage progress.

Plotting against Luke Skywalker (3–4 ABY)
"We have a new enemy. The young Rebel who destroyed the Death Star. I have no doubt this boy is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker."

- Palpatine

Despite his unintended role in creating the Rebellion five years earlier, and telling Vader to be ruthless in his attempts to crush the rebellion and kill them all, 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. Palpatine also believed that the Rebels were not fully aware of the scope of his plans to ultimately defeat them, due to the Rebel defector, Sarkli's resourcefulness, especially in regards to the latter successfully retrieving scientists that the Rebels were attempting to rescue at Bakura.

"The Force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi.''" "''If he could be turned, he would become a powerful ally."

- Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader

Following a major victory in capturing a Rebel base on Hoth (3 ABY), Palpatine demanded to the de jure head of Death Squadron, Admiral Firmus Piett, to tell Vader to make contact with him. After getting out of Hoth's asteroid field, Palpatine, after delaying his communicating with Vader due to a foul mood, then told Vader that his son, Luke Skywalker, was becoming a grave threat to the Sith due to his growing force potential and training, and that he must not become a Jedi, also informing him that he is Vader's son. Vader convinced Palpatine that it would be beneficial for both of them if Luke was converted to the dark side. Actually, Vader already knew by that point that Skywalker was force sensitive as well as alive, and had been actively searching for him, secretly planning to use Luke to help him overthrow his master.

"You will kill Luke Skywalker!"

- Palpatine to Mara Jade



Shortly after the duel at Bespin, Palpatine chastised Vader's failure to convert Luke to the dark side, and also implied suspicions of Vader not even wanting turn Luke, although Vader replied that he did nonetheless manage to sow the seeds of ambition into him, and reminded him that turning Luke to the dark side was Vader's idea. The Emperor also sent Vader over to escort supplies shipped by Prince Xizor's merchant fleet to the second Death Star. In actuality, the escort mission was a miser's bargain to distract him while he arranged for Prince Xizor to assassinate Luke Skywalker. However, this plan failed when Xizor and his Skyhook were destroyed by Darth Vader.

Around the same time, 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. 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 the last hope Palpatine had. It could be done; Skywalker had learned of his father's true identity, and would risk it 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. 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 Raygar threat
With the approval of Emperor Palpatine, the scientist Doctor Raygar went to Endor aboard a ship commanded by Admiral Kazz to seize the powerful artifact called the "Sunstar" from the native Ewoks. His mission was successful; meanwhile, Palpatine traveled to the system to retrieve the Sunstar. But when Raygar analyzed the gem and recognized the power it held, he decided to use it to kill Palpatine upon arrival and make himself the new Emperor. Raygar constructed a powerful weapon to use against Palpatine's shuttle, but as he prepared to test the weapon, Raygar was attacked by the Ewok Wicket Wystri Warrick who had infiltrated the ship. As Palpatine's shuttle approached, the scuffle between Warrick and Raygar resulted in the misfiring of the weapon; it hit the starboard wing of Palpatine's shuttle, forcing a retreat until all was clear. The Ewoks reclaimed their Sunstar, while Raygar was accused with fabricating the gem's existence. He was charged with high treason, and Palpatine personally saw to Raygar's punishment.

Partnership with Black Sun
During this time, Palpatine also had extensive involvement with Xizor, the leader of the Black Sun crime cartel. Xizor saw himself as a rival to Darth Vader and worked hard to ingratiate himself to Palpatine and alienate Vader from his master. According to Xizor, Palpatine seemed to enjoy goading the two rivals, ordering Vader to express gratitude after Xizor revealed the location of a Rebel shipyard. Palpatine also approved a plan of Xizor's to eliminate the Bounty Hunters' Guild, again over Vader's objections. While Vader desired to capture Luke Skywalker, Xizor made repeated attempts to kill the aspiring Jedi. Palpatine observed this power struggle and planted the Second Death Star plans on a freighter of Xizor's&mdash;which was intercepted and captured by the Rebels. However, when Vader destroyed Xizor's skyhook and fleet, Palpatine showed little concern over the loss. To him, Xizor was merely another in a long line of expendable servants.

Treachery of Zaarin
The ambitious Imperial officer Grand Admiral Demetrius Zaarin, dissatisfied with his status, led a coup d'état against Palpatine while the Emperor was aboard his ship, the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Majestic. Miraculously, Zaarin's forces boarded the ship and captured the Emperor, putting him on a transport to be delivered to Zaarin himself aboard the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Glory. How Zaarin's forces were able to detain the powerful Sith Lord is unknown; it is possible that Palpatine merely feigned weakness and allowed himself to be captured much like at the end of the Clone Wars, possibly as a test for his servants or merely to humor Zaarin. Nevertheless, refusing to make the mistake of the Republic in 19 BBY, the Imperial forces, led by Darth Vader, Admiral Thrawn, and Maarek Stele rushed quickly to the scene and battled Zaarin's forces. Vader and Stele fought their way through Zaarin's forces in their TIE/D Defenders to reach and "rescue" Palpatine much in the same way that Vader had, as Skywalker, done almost twenty five years ago at the Battle of Coruscant. Zaarin escaped Coruscant, however; Thrawn hunted him down and destroyed him soon after. After his rescue, Palpatine awarded the Emperor's Will medal to Stele for his heroic efforts in rescuing the Emperor.

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 this time, 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. Only Cronal remained. They were the first of Sidious's paladins to desert him and strike out on their own. Palpatine could not let their defection go unanswered, so he sent his Inquisitors to Dromund Kaas to "reeducate" them. To escape his wrath, they fled to a more secure temple on Bosthirda, where they could watch events unfold in safety.

It is doubtful that Palpatine dismissed Kadann's vision because his foresight was any clearer: rather, he denied the very possibility of defeat, and refused to acknowledge any prediction revealing anything less than complete victory. He clung to his belief that he would crush the Rebellion and corrupt Skywalker, because the alternative was so terrible he could never consider it. Skywalker could destroy all his power, unless he turned Skywalker first. For this reason, Endor became the focus for all his hopes. He correctly believed the coming battle would decide everything. But at that crucial moment, his uncanny foresight seems to have failed him.

The trap at Endor
"Everything that has transpired has done so, according to my design. Your friends, out there on the sanctuary moon, are walking into a trap, as is your Rebel fleet. It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator - it is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best troops awaits them. Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive."

- Palpatine explains his plan to Luke.

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. During this time, he also orchestrated various Rebel victories to get them to become overconfident enough to walk into his trap when the time is right, including an assault on the Fondor Shipyards that resulted in the destruction of a prototype Super Star Destroyer with cloaking abilities.

In 4 ABY, Palpatine undertook a pilgrimage to the Sith tomb world of Korriban, accompanied by a large number of stormtroopers. Although he sensed the presence of the Rebel Renegade Squadron on Korriban, he dismissed them as an insignificant threat and allowed his stormtroopers to deal with them. However, after the squadron not only captured a Sith tomb close to the Emperor's shuttle but also began destroying valuable Sith artifacts and a large statue, the enraged Palpatine entered the chamber and began slaughtering the members of Renegade Squadron. The squadron managed to flee, and as they left, they blew explosives that closed all three of the tomb's entrances, trapping Palpatine inside the tomb. While he was trapped, Renegade Squadron stole his personal datapad from his shuttle and learned he would be on the Death Star at the time of their attack.

Palpatine turned this temporary setback to his advantage and allowed other Rebel spies to learn of the Death Star's location while planting disinformation which suggested the superweapon 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, and they were correct. In addition, as he was completely confident of the Empire's victory against the Rebel Alliance, he also dismissed reports of the Rebel Fleet massing near Sullust as being of no concern when Vader inquired if he was to respond to that information. Despite this, however, he failed to sense Luke Skywalker onboard the Tydirium. When Darth Vader, disobeying his prior orders to remain on the Executor, returned to the Death Star in order to tell him about Luke being on the vessel&mdash;although he was aware of Tydirium managing to land on Endor&mdash;he was genuinely surprised that Vader sensed Luke on the vessel whereas he himself had not. However, when making sure Vader's thoughts were clear on the matter, Palpatine assigned him to capture Skywalker, stating that he would come to Vader.



"I have been looking foreward to compleating your training. In time, you will call me...Master."

- Palpatine attempts to convince Luke that he will become his apprentice.

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&mdash;just as Palpatine had foreseen. Upon meeting Luke, Palpatine learned about Yoda's recent death from probing Luke's mind, but did not show any emotion regarding the former's death. When Luke insinuated the imminent death of all on board the Death Star, Palpatine revealed how he was well aware of the Alliance's plans, both to Luke's surprise and his own amusement. The Emperor further taunted the Jedi aspirant with the revelation that he had manipulated the Rebels into a trap of his own design; the Rebels had been allowed to discover the location of the new battlestation, and thus Palpatine anticipated their infiltration of Endor. Palpatine had also ordered Fleet Admiral Firmus Piett to not have the Star Destroyer fleet attack the Alliance Fleet when they arrive, as he intended to unveil a surprise for the Rebels, and only wanted the Star Destroyers to prevent them from escaping. When the Alliance Fleet arrived, Palpatine unveiled his surprise: the Death Star's superlaser was operational, contrary to what the Rebels had expected. As Luke's frustration grew with the Alliance's desperate situation, the Emperor manipulated him into a duel with Darth Vader. Palpatine also ordered for Jerjerrod to blow up Endor if the shield is taken down by the rebels, regardless of who got caught in the crossfire. Luke initially restrained himself at first, until Vader probed his mind and learned that Leia was his own daughter. With this knowledge, Vader speculated that he could corrupt her instead, but the threat enraged the young Jedi and drove him to attack Vader in a frenzy.

"Good! Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side!"

- Palpatine tries to convince Luke to give in to his hatred.

Although he nearly killed Vader and cut off his mechanical 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 turned to face the Emperor, stating that he was a Jedi, like his father before him.

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 as with Galen Marek, he had failed once again. He would have no new apprentice now. Skywalker was a lost cause, and a real threat.

The balance of the Force
"So be it&hellip;Jedi. If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed! 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&hellip;you will die."

- Palpatine to Luke Skywalker

Palpatine had one concern left: the venting of his awesome rage. He knew that it would not be enough to simply kill Skywalker; he had to suffer for his defiance. Raising his arms, Palpatine released a withering barrage of Force lightning that tore through the boy and brought him to his knees. Skywalker had never been trained to repel such an assault, nor could he call on his saber to block it. He taunted the Jedi without pause, calling him weak and feeble and a fool.

Palpatine intended that Vader also pay for seeking to use Skywalker against him; Vader would be forced to carry his son's dead body to the core shaft and throw it into the chasm. 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. However, Palpatine had forgotten what had first enabled him to convert Anakin Skywalker&mdash;his desperate need to keep those he cared for from dying&mdash;and he had never expected that Vader would refuse to watch his son die, and act to prevent it.

The first death of Palpatine
Without warning, Anakin grabbed Palpatine from behind, pinning his upper arms to his torso. The Emperor struggled against Anakin's grip, his hands forced high into the air, shooting bolts in all directions, damaging Anakin's life-support systems beyond repair. Anakin carried him to the edge of the shaft, lifted him high over his head, and, with the last of his strength, hurled the Emperor into the abyss. He plummeted four hundred kilometers down the shaft, and even as he fell, he refused to admit defeat. Shortly after hitting the reactor, still discharging his force lightning, he then exploded into dark side energy, with it encompassing the throne room before eventually falling back down the shaft.

Emperor Palpatine was dead. Minutes later, his former apprentice Anakin Skywalker also died. With them ended the lineage of Sith Lords that had existed unchanged since the time of Darth Bane. It was this that brought about the long-awaited restoration of balance to the Force. But the Rebel Alliance&mdash;and later the New Republic it established&mdash;still had much work to do on its own before the era of peace foretold by the ancient Jedi prophets came to pass. The Empire would not surrender its holdings without pitched struggle, and the Emperor himself was loathe to cast off his power, or his life.

Palpatine's Battle Meditation
"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&hellip; 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&hellip; 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&hellip; You had no real fighting spirit of your own anymore&mdash;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 to Pellaeon

In Palpatine's absence, the Battle of Endor continued for several hours, but despite its best efforts, his fleet was losing. His death, it was later commented, seemed to trigger a significant demoralization in the Imperial forces. This has caused some to ask if his death played an even more significant role in the Empire's defeat at Endor than has been assumed.

Though four of Palpatine's Grand Admirals&mdash;, Makati, Takel, and Teshik&mdash;were present at Endor, the one who was, perhaps, his greatest, Grand Admiral Thrawn, was not&mdash;he was still on, overseeing the pacification of the Unknown Regions. But by the time he returned to the Empire proper nearly five years later, his suspicions&mdash;aroused by his insider's knowledge of the Emperor's methods&mdash;had crystallized into a working theory, which he related to one of Endor's most pivotal participants, Captain, the man who had ultimately sounded the Imperial retreat:

Thrawn was speculating that the Emperor's forces were all guided by Palpatine's own indomitable will. While essentially correct, Thrawn was wrong on the part of Palpatine using at Endor. During the battle, Palpatine was quite busy trying to turn Luke Skywalker over to the Dark Side. It was actually Thrawn's colleague, Grand Admiral Declann, who was improving the coordination and efficiency of the fleet.

It was within Palpatine's power to use the dark side to control his forces, even across great distances. 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 ism and eventually shrinking to the small and insignificant.

Fragmentation of the Empire
Following Palpatine's death, a year-long period of mourning was instituted throughout the Empire.

Palpatine's rule was so absolute that his 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.

Legacy
Palpatine's legacy would endure long after his death. His entire reign as the Dark Lord of the Sith led to the galaxy's ruin and the deaths of trillions. The loss of the Emperor did not stop the remnants of the Empire from continuing the Galactic Civil War for almost another decade. The New Order also managed to survive despite the Empire's defeat, even though it was largely amended to exclude many of Palpatine's tyrannical policies. There were even people who craved for his return.