|
Darth Sidious The embodiment of pure evil, the man known as Palpatine has left his enduring mark on the galaxy. Also known as the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, Palpatine studied the ancient Sith arts and religion and took an apprentice, a Zabrak named Khameir Sarin, to whom he gave the name Darth Maul. Powerful in the dark side of the Force, Palpatine was yet unsatisfied with his shadowy status as an unknown Sith Lord. Becoming the Republic senator of a small planet called Naboo in the outer regions, he decided to take for himself the position of chancellor of the Republic. He forged ties with a powerful trade group known as the Trade Federation, controlled by a race called the Neimoidians. Posing as Darth Sidious to the head of the Federation, Nute Gunray, he ordered the Trade Federation to cut off all trade to his home planet of Naboo. Then, appearing as Palpatine to the Senate, he argued for relief of the blockade. His deception managed to deceive Chancellor Valorum of the Senate as well as Queen Amidala of Naboo. However, the weak Senate could not decide on a course of action. Palpatine therefore took more drastic measures, appearing as Sidious to Gunray to order an attack on Naboo. The Federation captured the queen, but she escaped with the help of two Jedi Knights, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Sidious then ordered Maul to find the Jedi and kill them. Maul tracked the Queen's ship to Tatooine, but lost his quarry. Meanwhile, Amidala and the Jedi arrived on Coruscant, where Palpatine as a senator urged her to plead her case before the Senate. Telling her that Chancellor Valorum was weak and ineffective, he suggested that she call for a vote for a new chancellor. She did so, and Palpatine was nominated, then elected. However, before Palpatine's victory was complete, Amidala and the Jedi returned to Naboo, where they faced Maul once more. Maul managed to kill Jinn, but Kenobi struck down Maul. Palpatine would have to find a new apprentice. He did not have far to look. Anakin Skywalker, a slave boy whom the Jedi had freed on Tatooine, had amazing Force powers. Palpatine shadowed Skywalker as he was trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi, becoming a hero of the Clone Wars. Little did Kenobi and Skywalker know that Palpatine was influencing Skywalker with the dark side. In the meantime, Chancellor Palpatine had declared himself the Emperor of the galaxy, forming a New Order and toppling the Republic. He enticed Skywalker with promises of becoming his second-in-command and commander of his fleet. In the end, Skywalker turned against his home, his wife, and Kenobi, becoming the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader. Palpatine and Vader waged war against the Jedi Knights, initiating a vast purge in which they killed almost all of the Jedi in the galaxy. Now, Palpatine had riches, power, and many mistresses. But he was still unsatisfied. He took control of the entire Imperial fleet, using the dark side of the Force to link it to his mind, therefore subconciously controlling it. His fleet grew massive, with two Death Stars and four Super Star Destroyers, and he built vast cloning facilities on the worlds of Wayland and Byss. Besides Vader, he had a special detachment of Royal Guards, other dark apprentices, and his own personal assassin, a woman, Mara Jade, known as the Emperor's Hand. Yet Palpatine still wanted more power. An opportunity came when he learned that Vader had had a son, Luke Skywalker. If he could turn Skywalker to the dark side, his victory would be complete. He sent Vader to complete the task, but instead the dark lord revealed to Luke his true parentage and asked the boy to join him to defeat the Emperor instead. Palpatine then told Vader to capture the boy and bring him directly to his throne room on the second Death Star over Endor. He succeeded in goading Luke towards attacking his father, but in the end the boy renounced the dark side. Palpatine then decided the boy had to die. He struck at Luke with dark side lightning, but Vader betrayed his master and threw him over a railing in the throne room to a nuclear reactor below. To all knowledge, Palpatine had died. But few knew that in his cloning facility at Byss, there were young clones of himself that he had made ready for such a disaster. Infusing his mind into one of these clones, Palpatine reappeared and waged war against the New Republic. This time he succeeded in turning Skywalker to the dark side, but then the boy betrayed him, killing him and destroying his flagship. None know how many clones Palpatine has of himself, but as long as he is able to keep from dying through the minds of his clones, Darth Sidious may well live on into eternity. |
Lord Darth Vader
But the times were troubled ones, as a man named Senator Palpatine took control of the Republic Senate and declared a New Order throughout the galaxy. Seduced by Palpatine's promises of power and glory, Anakin disregarded the warnings of Obi-Wan and the Jedi Master Yoda and sought the teachings of Palpatine. He thought himself strong enough to resist the dark side on his own. Like so many others through the ages, Anakin was wrong. The ultimate turning point came when Obi-Wan confronted Anakin, urging him to realize how far he had fallen from the light side. The two battled and Anakin fell into a pit of molten lava. Crawling from the pit, scarred and burned, Anakin denounced his friendship with Obi-Wan and the light side of the Force. He became, in the moment, Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith. At that time, Anakin had left his wife and did not know she had given birth to twins, Leia and Luke Skywalker. With the help of Obi-Wan, Padmé hid the children, leaving Luke with Obi-Wan's brother Owen Lars on Tatooine, and escaping with Leia to Alderaan. She died there, and Leia was left under the protection of Senator Bail Organa, who she grew up calling Father. Needing a black breath mask and heavy equipment to breathe, Darth Vader hid these bulky apparatuses under a suit and cape of black, thereby enhancing his feared image throughout the galaxy. At the Palpatine's bidding, he started a great Jedi purge to eliminate all light-side Jedi, declaring the old order outdated and defunct. However, the Jedi Vader most wanted killed, Kenobi, escaped, as did Yoda. Now calling himself the Emperor, Palpatine imposed his New Order with Vader as his second-in-command. Vader was the symbol of the Empire. While Palpatine stayed shadowy in the background, Vader boldly confronted his enemies, his feared visage symbolizing the cruelty and bleakness of Palpatine's presence. When a small group of rebels declared their freedom from the Empire and began to make raids against it, Vader did not worry. The group was too small and their equipment too outmoded for concern. But the Rebels, instead of disappearing, gained strength. Soon the galaxy erupted into a full-fledged civil war which Vader was powerless to stop. Even the Emperor's pet creation, the Death Star, which could destroy whole planets and did destroy Alderaan, did not stop the Rebels. Leia Organa, carrying the plans to the battlestation, escaped Imperial hands with the blueprints. Carrying these plans to the Rebel base on Yavin IV, she and the Rebel generals were able to identify a weakness in the station which destroyed it. The hero of the mission was Luke Skywalker. Vader, who had commanded the Imperial defense at the Battle of Yavin, felt the Force power emanating from Luke and set out to find the pilot's true identity. Learning Luke was indeed his son, Vader trapped him on Bespin, where he cut off Luke's hand, and telling him the brutal truth, called on him to join the Empire. Refusing to be seduced by Vader's visions of glory, Luke chose instead to fall into the Bespin atmosphere to die, but was rescued by Leia and her friends Lando and Chewbacca. Refusing to give up, Vader planned to trap Luke once more, seduce him, and then overthrow the Emperor. For Darth Vader was not content with his status as the Emperor's right hand. He wanted more power, more control of the galaxy. Through the dark side, he was sure he could accomplish all of that, and through Luke, who was so strong in the Force, he felt he could accomplish even more. Luke, on the other hand, let himself be captured on the moon of Endor because he wished to turn his father back to the light side. Both of them were too stubborn to bend. Vader took Luke prisoner and brought him before Palpatine on the second Death Star. The Emperor, letting Luke watch the Rebels fighting a losing battle outside, again tried to seduce him. He almost succeeded but Luke in the end controlled his anger and refused to yield, throwing his lightsaber away. Palpatine, in his rage, released Dark-Force lightning on Luke's body, prepared to kill him. But he had not counted on Darth Vader. After all these years, the one spark of light that had remained in Anakin Skywalker resurfaced as he saw his son dying at the hands of his master. With a violent lunge, Vader picked up Palpatine and threw him down an energy shaft to the nuclear reactor of the Death Star. Palpatine's lightning bolts found his heart, and as he lay dying in the arms of his son, Vader conceeded that Luke was right. Unlike the former Dark Lords of the Sith, good remained in Darth Vader until the end, and at his death, Anakin Skywalker was redeemed.
|
Names Darth Sidious: Darth-a form of "dark" insidious-(adj) 1. characterized by treachery or slyness. 2. more dangerous than seems evident Anakin Skywalker: ana,an-"no," "without" kin-"family, relatives" Skywalker-"one who walks the sky, reference to the gods of Greece and Rome Darth Vader: Darth-a form of "dark" Vader (Dutch)-"father" |
From
slave in the sweltering town of Mos Espa, Tatooine, to Dark Lord of
the Sith and the second most powerful man in the galaxy, Darth Vader's
path to the dark side was tortuous and shadowed. Once a boy named Anakin
Skywalker living with his mother Shmi Skywalker in the slave quarters
of Mos Espa, Anakin caught the eye of the then-young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi
and his mentor, Qui-Gon Jinn. After a succeeding in a daring mission
to save the life of the young and beautiful queen of Naboo, Queen Padmé
Naberrie Amidala, Anakin trained under the tutelage of Obi-Wan and became
a Jedi and a famous fighter pilot, eventually marrying the queen.