Darth Maul
Sidious's first known Sith Apprentice was an Iridonian Zabrak whom he named Darth Maul; according to Episode I Journal: Darth Maul, he had raised
Maul from infancy, using brutal methods of negative reinforcement and deprivation to fashion the youth into a fierce and relentless warrior. After two
years of carrying out secret missions on Sidious's behalf, Maul was exposed to fourteen days of grueling tests, and then sent to a planet in the Outer Rim
where he spent a month being chased by scores of assassin 'droids; only after passing these trials and holding his own in a lightsaber duel with Sidious
himself was Maul recognized as a Sith Lord. Maul dwelt on Coruscant in between missions; Sidious's principle lair in his Sith guise – what Maul called
"a world within a world" – was located somewhere on that planet in a neighborhood where the Jedi Temple was not visible. In Attack of the Clones,
Sidious met with his new Apprentice, Darth Tyranus, in what Coruscant and the Core Worlds calls "a secret hangar in the factory district for use by his
apprentice, Darth Tyranus," located in the Dacho factory in the Grungeon block; this is probably the same location as the hidden lair in The Works
district which was connected to 500 Republica by a labyrinth of secret passages in Labyrinth of Evil, although in that source Obi-Wan Kenobi claims that
the building in question was "a corporation called LiMerge Power," which appears to contradict with the identifications of the building in Attack of the
Clones as being "the ancient factory of Dacho" ("Dark Rendezvous") or the 20-square kilometer "Grungeon block" (Coruscant and the Core Worlds).
Presumably this can be integrated as LiMerge Power's Dacho factory in the Grungeon block in The Works – Labyrinth of Evil itself hints at this by
mentioning that the labyrinth of secret passages led to "an area of The Works called the Grungeon Block" – , although when the Jedi entered the latter
site, they showed no signs of the "nightmarish hallucinations" said by "Dark Rendezvous" to afflict those "even remotely sensitive to subtle emanations
of the Force" should they draw near Dacho. Mace Windu did mention "the presence of the dark side" in this lair, so it is possible that the Jedi did not
experience the nightmares because of their mental discipline as Jedi Masters. Labyrinth of Evil mentions that the Senate District was visible from
Tyranus's hangar in The Works, while Rogue Planet mentions that the Senate District is "mere minutes" from the Jedi Temple by express taxi, so the lair
in The Works is probably not the same as the lair inhabited by Maul years earlier.
The Complete Locations has revealed that Sidious's "ultra-secret Sith lair, with its archives, Sith Holocrons and other artifacts" was located within the
Chancellor Palpatine Surgical Reconstruction Center (ChanPal SuRecon, subsequently renamed Emperor Palpatine Surgical Reconstruction Center) in
Coruscant City, Coruscant. In any event, it is clear that, as of 16 rS, this was Sidious's primary lair and "heart of Palpatine's intelligence network," which
included his meditation chamber and "environmentally controlled display case for Sith Scrolls," a "massive Sith Holocron uncovered on Korriban and
secretly removed by Palpatine, on one of his early visits to the former Sith burial planet," an "ancient Sith ritual altar originally found on Ziost," a
"sacred Sith artifact, the Great Crystal of Aantonaii," "Sith weapons stored around walls of gallery," "synthetic Sith crystals, slivers from which are used
in manufacture of Sith lightsabers," and a "dark Force reservoir, emanating from the many Sith crystals and artifacts." Notably, the layout of this lair
matches that of Sidious's lair as seen in "Sithisis," especially the meditation chamber and one of the suspended crystals.
As mentioned in Cloak of Deception, Sidious first contacted Nute Gunray – "leader of the Neimoidian Inner Circle and a member of the seven-person
Trade Federation Directorate" – in or around 3 rS, telling that his attention had been attracted by Gunray's self-serving testimony against TradeFed
participatory company Pulsar Supertanker in an internal proceeding, when Gunray had testified that Pulsar was guilty of "malicious disregard for profit"
and "charitable donations lacking discernable reward." To demonstrate his influence, Sidious "arranged for several key resource worlds to join the Trade
Federation as signatory members, abdicating their representation in the Senate in exchange for lucrative trade opportunities," and each time creating the
illusion that these successful negotiations were Gunray's doing, thereby increasing his standing in the TradeFed corporate hierarchy, eventually securing
his appointment to the Directorate. One of these schemes involved sending Maul to Chryya to use intimidation and threats to force the planet's natives
to turn the local spice industry over to the TradeFed's control, according to Episode I Journal: Darth Maul (Maul was shocked when the local merchants
destroyed their own industry rather than hand it over to the TradeFed). More successfully, Maul was subsequently sent to Dorvalla IV in the Videnda
Sector in the Mid-Rim, there to exacerbate tensions between Lommite Ltd. and the rival InterGalactic Ore so as to "deliver Dorvalla to the Trade
Federation – the ore, the trade routes, Dorvalla's vote in the senate – and, in so doing, gain the further allegiance of Viceroy Gunray and his lackeys" (as
Sidious put it), as seen in "Darth Maul: Saboteur." After this particular success, the scribe writes in The New Essential Guide to Characters that Maul
received from his Master a Sienar Design Systems courier, modified into a cloak-capable Sith Infiltrator which he named Scimitar. In return, Gunray
agreed to provide TradeFed support for Sidious's plot to destabilize the Republic. The first such plan was a scheme to seize control of the major Core
port world of Brentaal IV in Bormea Sector and with it the freight traffic along the Perlemian Trade Route and the Hydian Way using a set of 50
hyperdrive-enhanced automated starfighters; when these starfighters were stolen by Bartokk assassins in Episode I Adventures: Search for the Lost Jedi,
Sidious ordered Maul to investigate in Episode I Adventures: The Fury of Darth Maul. The destruction of the starfighters in Episode I Adventures: The
Bartokk Assassins and Episode I Adventures: Jedi Emergency rendered this scheme unsalvageable, and Sidious abandoned it; note that the scribe writes in
his biography of Nute Gunray in The New Essential Guide to Characters that this elaborate and unlikely plot took place after the betrayal of Hoth
Monchar and the assassination of Black Sun's leaders in Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter and Darth Maul, respectively, but it is preferable to disregard this
claim in light of chronological difficulties that this would create.
A few months after first contacting Gunray, Sidious began his plotting in earnest. Cloak of Deception reveals that Sidious leaked information to the
Nebula Front about a secret shipment of aurodium ingots aboard the TradeFed freighter SS Revenue at Dorvalla IV – Maul's sabotage had broken both LL
and InterGalactic and prompted their merger into Dorvalla Mining, which had been obliged to join the TradeFed as a signatory world – and as a result the
Nebula Front seized the shipment; this played into Sidious's scheme to increase the TradeFed's automated security forces, and he made arrangements
with Baktoid Armour Workshop (also called Baktoid Combat Automata), Haor Chall Engineering, and Colla Designs to produce a secret mechanical
army for the TradeFed, including main battle repulsortanks and amphibious landing craft. Even as his Senatorial alter ego arranged a trade summit on
Eriadu to discuss proposed taxation of outlying trade routes, Sidious was plotting to disrupt the summit and complete Gunray's takeover of the
TradeFed's corporate government; he placed a specially modified security 'droid with the TradeFed Directorate's mechanical escorts, and as the summit
began he arranged for the 'droids to suddenly turn on their masters and murder them all. As a result, Gunray was left to appoint his own cronies as the
murdered directors' replacements, and the TradeFed fell under total Neimoidian control. Having now provided the TradeFed with a mechanical army, he
ordered them to prepare to blockade his alter ego Palpatine's homeworld of Naboo, in order to punish him(self) for his support for the taxation measure
BR-0371, which dissolved the so-called free trade zones and brought the outlying trade routes under direct Republic control and taxation; Sidious assured
his conspirators that he would prevent the Senate from acting to stop them. At about this time, TradeFed Deputy Viceroy Hath Monchar – the so-called
"Third Neimoidian" – lost his nerve and abandoned the conspiracy, fleeing to Coruscant where he tried to sell the details of Sidious's plot. Sidious
ordered Maul to find and kill Monchar, as well as anyone he might have learned any details of the plot; as seen in Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter, this
resulted in the decapitation of Monchar, as well as the deaths of TradeFed -contracted bounty hunter Mawhi Lihnn, Master Jedi Anoon Bondara, his
Padawan Apprentice Darsha Assant, and Corellian information broker Lorn Pavan. The leak was quickly closed, and the details of Sidious's plan
remained secret.
Darth Tyranus
In 3 rS, the TradeFed undertook this blockade, and everything seemed to be going well until a pair of "ambassadors" – actually Master Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn
and his Padawan Apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi – arrived from the Supreme Chancellor in The Phantom Menace, which caused Sidious to accelerate his
time table and order the invasion of Naboo itself. Before the Neimoidians could capture the Queen of the Naboo and force her to sign a treaty legitimizing
their actions, she escaped from the planet, and Sidious ordered Maul to find her and bring her back (incidentally, this marks the first time the
Neimoidians learned of Maul's existence, as they expressed alarm at the fact that there were two Sith Lords in The Phantom Menace). Maul tracked the
Queen to Tatooine (Tatoo I) in the Arkanis Sector, where he engaged Jinn in a brief duel; when the Queen returned to Naboo after a brief stay on
Coruscant, Maul met her party there and faced Jinn and Kenobi together during the Queen's audacious counterattack on the TradeFed's mechanical army.
Although Maul killed Jinn by stabbing him through the chest (shiak in High Galactic, "the language of the earliest Jedi sages," according to "Fight Saber:
Jedi Lightsaber Combat"), Kenobi bisected him in return (sai tok), becoming the first Jedi in a millennium to kill a Sith Lord. Evidently Sidious decided
that he lacked the time to train another Apprentice from infancy, and instead recruited a fully-trained ex-Jedi, the former Master Jedi Dooku of Serenno,
who had resigned from the Jedi Order and reclaimed his hereditary title and fortune as the Count of Serenno (in Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, Sidious himself
remarks that Serenno was "born into one of the wealthiest families in the galaxy"). At around the same time, Serenno's longtime friend Master Jedi Sifo-
Dyas placed a secret order with the clonemasters of Kamino for a clone army, and at Sidious's behest, Serenno murdered Sifo-Dyas and sent the
Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett to Kamino to become the template for the army; with the murder of Sifo-Dyas, Serenno became Sidious's new
Sith Apprentice and took the name Darth Tyranus.
It appears from the evidence of Revenge of the Sith that Sidious ensnared Serenno – a human supremacist – with plans to establish "an Empire of Man," a
Sithian theocracy in which "the survivors of the Jedi Order would become the Sith Army," recruited from "powerful Force-capable humans and near-
humans" not only from the Jedi, but also "from Hapes to Haruun Kal, from Kiffu to Dathomir." It is unclear how well this actually reflects Sidious's
intent, as Tyranus himself ultimately concluded that this "grand vision" had in fact been "a pathetic sham." Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Dictionary
mentions that Tyranus was "little more than a placeholder for the apprentice Sidious has sought from the beginning," and Tyranus was decapitated (sai
cha in High Galactic) by his eventual replacement, Anakin Skywalker, aboard General Grievous's flagship, CS Invisible Hand, during the Battle of
Coruscant near the end of the Clone War in 16 rS. Unlike Maul, Tyranus actually trained and controlled a cadre of dark side lieutenants of his own,
including among them General Sev'Rance Tann from Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns (killed by Master Jedi Echuu Shen-Jon in the Battle of
Krant), the three Dark Acolytes from The Clone Wars (killed by Mace Windu in the Battle of Geonosis), Saato, Trenox, Vinoc and Karoc from The New
Droid Army (killed by Anakin Skywalker), Commander Asajj Ventress from Clone Wars, fallen Master Jedi Sora Bulq from "Schism" and "Red Hands,"
and fallen Jedi Knights Kadrian Sey and Tol Skorr from Jedi: Count Dooku; Tyranus also kept a number of henchmen on hand to do his bidding,
including Jango Fett from Attack of the Clones (decapitated by Mace Windu in the execution arena), the 2,000-year-old Gen'Dai bounty hunter Durge
from "The New Face of War" (ejected into a star by Anakin Skywalker), and the cyborg Supreme Commander of the Confederacy's 'droid armies,
General Grievous (shot and killed by Obi-Wan Kenobi); Grievous was created by the InterGalactic Banking Clan at Sidious's behest and trained in
lightsaber swordsmanship by Tyranus himself, according to Labyrinth of Evil.
Darth Vader
Sidious had begun watching Skywalker "with great interest" (Palpatine's own words) since the Battle of Naboo in 3 rS in The Phantom Menace, when the
prodigious 9-year-old single-handedly destroyed SS Profiteer – Basic for Saak'ak (the Neimoidian name), the modified LH-3210 'droid control ship
coordinating the entire TradeFed mechanical army (Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter notes that Profiteer was cloak-capable). In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine
mentions that when Skywalker first arrived on Coruscant, he'd taken young Skywalker under his wing and tried to teach him "the ins and outs of
politics": this was the start of a close friendship between them, with Palpatine taking on a role that was a mix between a father figure and a confessor to
his younger friend. Although the Jedi High Council did not realize that Palpatine was Sidious – indeed, although they had identified Maul as a Sith Lord
after his death, they did not even know whether he had been the Master or the Apprentice, and had no inkling of Sidious's existence until Serenno
mentioned to Kenobi in 13 rS that a Sith Lord controlled the Senate in Attack of the Clones (they disbelieved this claim at the time) – they nevertheless
did not approve of this relationship, but made no attempt to put a stop to it, especially because Palpatine had become Supreme Chancellor of the
Galactic Republic in 3 rS as a result of Sidious's blockade of Naboo. In 16 rS, Sidious arranged for the kidnapping of Palpatine from Coruscant by
General Grievous in Labyrinth of Evil (like Kinman Doriana, Grievous did not realize that Palpatine and Sidious were in fact the same person), and he
was the sole witness to the lightsaber duel between Skywalker and Kenobi on the one hand and Tyranus on the other; after Skywalker disarmed Tyranus
by cutting off both his hands (cho mai), Palpatine encouraged him to kill the Sith Lord, which Skywalker did after a moment's hesitation. This is
especially noteworthy because it marks the first time that Palpatine used himself as bait at great personal risk; the duel took place aboard Grievous's
flagship CS Invisible Hand, which was actively engaged in a firefight with the Republic fleet, was blasted in half, and crash-landed on the surface of
Coruscant while he was still aboard. Although Sidious's powers are formidable, there can be no question that it is highly unlikely that he could survive
the destruction of a warship while he were aboard, or even an uncontrolled crash landing for that matter (Skywalker, Kenobi, and Palpatine only survived
because of Skywalker's prodigious piloting skills), and the Battle of Coruscant was unambiguously set before Sidious learned the secrets of functional
immortality.
In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine played on Skywalker's fears that his secret wife Senator Padmé Naberrie Amidala (Naboo) might die, by telling him
about The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, whom Palpatine claimed to have had the ability to manipulate midichlorians, to create life, and to sustain
life that already existed. Later, he revealed himself to Skywalker as Darth Sidious, admitting to having been Plagueis's Apprentice and claiming to have
inherited Plagueis's knowledge (he subsequently admitted that this latter claim was untrue). Taking advantage of Skywalker's confusion and resentment
of his mistreatment by the Jedi High Council, Sidious planted the idea that the leaders of the Jedi Order were plotting to assassinate him and seize power
for themselves. Although Skywalker told Mace Windu of Palpatine's Sith identity, his obsession with saving his wife's life prompted him to go to try to
ensure that Sidious was not killed; although Sidious easily killed Windu's three fellow Jedi Masters – Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, and Kit Fisto – he was
apparently defeated by Windu and was at his mercy when Skywalker arrived at his private office in the Senate Office Building. Taking advantage of the
situation, Sidious appealed to Skywalker to save him from the Jedi assassin – Windu had by that point decided to kill him, as he controlled the Senate
and the court system too strongly for them to deal with him properly, and at any rate regarded Sidious as "too dangerous" to be allowed to live – and
Windu's move to deliver the coup de grâce to the Sith Lord inadvertently prompted Skywalker to cut off the Jedi Master's hand to protect Sidious,
leaving him defenseless before Sidious's Sith lightning and ultimately causing his death when Sidious defenestrated him from his high-level office. Windu's
death was the final act that sealed Skywalker's allegiance to the dark side and he became Sidious's new Sith Apprentice under the name Darth Vader
immediately thereafter.
It appears that at this time, Sidious's plan was to create the Galactic Empire and eventually pass it on to his Apprentice, as he taunted Yoda in Revenge
of the Sith by saying that "Darth Vader will become more powerful than either of us." Although he possessed the ability to "empower" others in the dark
side of the Force and even the ability to "feed" on the lives of others, he lacked the ability to prolong his life indefinitely; any thoughts he may have had
on apotheosis would have been necessarily little more than a mental exercise; if Plagueis's alleged power to "stop death" really existed – which is not
necessarily the case – it is possible that Sidious considered using the restricted holocrons in the Jedi Temple to discover the secret (as he tells Vader in
Revenge of the Sith that "that power only my Master truly achieved, but together we will find it"). At any rate Vader certainly did not consider any
potential plans for apotheosis to be viable, as he twice offered to overthrow Palpatine and rule the galaxy in his place together with someone else (first
with his beloved wife Padmé in Revenge of the Sith and then later with their son Luke in The Empire Strikes Back), and the novelization of Return of the
Jedi reveals that Vader's "final dream" was to "learn all he could of the dark power from this evil genius, to take that power from him, seize it and keep
its cold light at his own core – kill the Emperor and devour his darkness, and rule the universe." If Vader did know of Palpatine's ability to reincarnate in
his clones' bodies, he did not consider this an obstacle to his own rise to power, as by the time of the Battle of Endor in 39 rS he was of the opinion that
"soon, the old Emperor would die – " this at Vader's own hand, of course – "and though the galaxy would bend from the horror of that loss, Vader would
remain to rule, with young Skywalker at his side." At the same time that Vader was plotting to supplant him, Sidious was of course planning on using
Skywalker to replace his father as his Sith Apprentice – yet another example of Sidious using himself as bait and exposing himself to mortal danger in
order to tempt a potential Apprentice; this plot backfired disastrously when Skywalker rejected the dark side and Vader himself killed Sidious in order to
prevent him from killing Skywalker in anger.
Like Tyranus before him, Vader kept his own cadre of dark side underlings and henchmen. In "Evasive Action: Recruitment," Sidious – by then, the
Emperor – showed him a group of "Agricultural Corp [sic] survivors and other Force adepts captured during the war," and instructed him to "select any
worthy pupils" and "dispose of the rest"; when Vader objected that "there can be only two Sith," the Emperor told him, "You are not training Sith, Lord
Vader. You are creating extensions of your will." Among the four he selected, one was Tremayne, a fully-trained Jedi Knight, whom Vader twisted to the
dark side and converted into an agent of the Inquisitorius, as seen in "Dark Vendetta" and The Dark Side Sourcebook. Other pupils included former
stormtrooper Flint, the Dark Lord of Beldarone, from "The Apprentice" and "The Dream," Kharys, the Majestrix of Skye from "The Long Hunt," and
the Firrerreons Lord Hethrir and Rillao, the former of whom became Procurator of Justice of the Galactic Empire, the Imperial State's chief executioner,
according to The Crystal Star. Taking another page from Tyranus's book, Vader trained Imperial Special Forces officer Major Shira Ellan Colla Brie into a
Ventress-esque pseudo-Apprentice whom he named Lumiya after she was nearly killed in a dogfight and left a cyborg – rather like Vader's own accident
on Mustafar and subsequent transformation (her first appearance as Shira Brie is "Hello, Bespin, Good-bye!" while her first appearance as Lumiya is
"Diplomacy"). The Dark Side Sourcebook adds that Vader "oversaw the Force training of the Emperor's Royal Guard and Sovereign Protectors,"
although this training was basic and only intended to "sustain the Emperor until help arrived" in the event that they should fail to "protect the Emperor
from any threat" (Vader shared responsibility for training the Sovereign Protectors with other "Senior Dark Side Adepts in the Emperor's service,"
according to the Dark Empire Sourcebook). Vader mentioned having a network of internal spies throughout the Empire in "Dark Lord's Gambit," and
was served by the Noghri Death Commandos first mentioned in Heir to the Empire; among his other henchmen were former Gunnery Sergeant Wrenga
"Jix" Jixton from "Shadow Stalker" and the reptilian Major Rahz from "Bring Me the Children: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker." He was also
known to hire bounty hunters from time to time to handle his dirty work, most often Boba Fett, but also including "Payback" Dengar, Zuckuss, Bossk,
4-LOM, and IG-88, as seen in The Empire Strikes Back.
Darth Skywalker?
Palpatine took advantage of his particular brand of functional immortality to reincarnate on Byss in approximately 40 to 41 rS, according to the Dark
Empire Sourcebook. He would spend the next four years recuperating from his ordeal; he had "never foreseen having to transport his spirit so far across
space," and had "nearly dispersed forever," according to the Dark Empire Sourcebook. Dark Empire shows that as part of his Shadow Hand Strategy,
Palpatine brought Skywalker to Byss in 45 rS and persuaded the young Jedi that the only way to defeat the powerful Sith Lord was to learn his secrets
and then turn them against him, a tactic that seems consciously adopted from Ulic Qel-Droma's plan to infiltrate and then destroy the Krath in Tales of
the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith; the Dark Empire Sourcebook indicated that Skywalker was intended to be "a new servant to replace Vader," implying
that Palpatine still intended to make Skywalker his Sith Apprentice (indeed, in Dark Empire, he refers to Luke as "my dear Apprentice"). By this time,
the Dark Empire Sourcebook explains that he had finalized his plans: After consolidating all knowledge of the Force into his Dark Side Compendium, he
would "create an eternal dynasty, with the descendants of Skywalker as its nobility, and Palpatine itself as its omnipotent ruler," ultimately planning to
"journey across the universe spreading the shadow of his rule, blotting out the stars themselves, and taking his Dark Rule to other helpless galaxies."
Even the betrayal of Skywalker and his own defeat and death at Da Soocha V in Dark Empire failed to deter him; in Dark Empire II Palpatine takes
pains to make clear to Military Executor Sedriss – the leader of his so-called Dark Jedi, the Dark Side Elite – that he wants Skywalker taken alive, and
takes no steps to select another candidate for his Apprentice. In Empire's End, the ancient Dark Lords of the Sith on Korriban warned Palpatine that the
necrosis of his last cloned body – Skywalker destroyed most of his clones in Dark Empire; those he did not were destroyed by Nefta and Sa-Di in Dark
Empire II, and his physician's treachery had rendered the genetic source material unsuitable for use – was irreversible, and that the only way to restore
himself was to take the body of Anakin Solo, Skywalker's nephew and Vader's grandson. He met his final death while trying to do this on Onderon –
ironically, Onderon was the site of Qel-Droma's first encounter with the dark side and the Sith in 3,965 BrS, in "Ulic Qel-Droma and the Beast Wars of
Onderon."
The Great Purge
As one would expect from a Dark Lord of the Sith, Sidious hated the Jedi Order and is directly responsible for the Great Jedi Purge, which resulted in the
complete destruction of the Order (although a handful of Jedi survived). By the time of A New Hope, the Jedi Knights were generally regarded as a semi-
mythical "dying religion" and the Force as mere superstition. Sidious had long been arranging for the deaths of Jedi; he was responsible for the Yinchorri
rampage that claimed the life of High Council member Master Jedi Micah Giiett, Master Jedi Lilit Twoseas, and a number of others in "Acts of War,"
and his Apprentices Maul and Tyranus had murdered a handful of others. The most grandiose of Sidious's plots, the Clone War, claimed the lives of an
enormous number of Jedi, starting with the massacre of most of the 200 Jedi in the Execution Arena on Geonosis in Attack of the Clones; Sidious
personally began the Great Purge at the end of the Clone War by killing four Jedi Masters – Agen Kolar, Saesee Tiin, Kit Fisto, and Mace Windu, all four
"celebrated swordmasters" according to Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Dictionary – in his private office in the Senate Office Building. He then issued
Order 66 to the clone forces throughout the Republic and ordered Darth Vader's concurrent attack on the Jedi Temple at the end of the Clone War in 16 rS
in Revenge of the Sith; as a result, the Jedi Order was left leaderless and scattered across the galaxy. Palpatine then established his Inquisitorius
(occasionally seen as "Inquisitorium"), which the Dark Empire Sourcebook states was charged with "rooting out all that smacked of the old ways during
the Great Purge," which the Rebellion Era Sourcebook even more explicitly calls it "a secret division of Imperial Intelligence" used to periodically
"conduct searches of the farthest reaches of the Empire, most notably in the Outer Rim Territories," looking for "Force-users – adepts, shamans, dark
side devotees and alien students of the Force in all their forms, as well as any ancient Jedi that may have escaped the purges of the previous generation."
Many Jedi that had escaped the Purge were later killed by Darth Vader and the agents of the Inquisitorius – whom the Ta'a Chume of the Hapes
Consortium described as "Lord Vader and his Dark Knights" in The Courtship of Princess Leia – including a group of 50 or so Jedi refugees in the Hapes
Consortium (The Courtship of Princess Leia), Master Jedi Darrin Arkanian ("Dark Vendetta"), Master Jedi An'ya Kuro – who renounced her own name
and became known simply as "the Dark Woman" ("Darth Vader: Extinction"), Master Jedi Ranik Solusar (The Jedi Academy Sourcebook), Sia-Lan Wezz
(Galactic Campaign Guide), a fugitive Jedi hiding on Talasea (Rogue Squadron), Taj Junak ("The Phantom Affair"), Aidan Bok (Galaxy of Fear: Ghost
of the Jedi), Master Jedi Echuu Shen-Jon (Galactic Battlegrounds), and ultimately even Vader's old teacher, Master Jedi Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi (A New
Hope); although he survived the confrontation, Empatojayos Brand was hunted down by Vader and his ship was destroyed, leaving him a quadriplegic
adrift in space according to Dark Empire II. Early in his reign, just after the Great Purge, Palpatine acquired the services of the psychopathic Cerean Jedi-
hunter Del Korrot, but ultimately tired of Korrot's shenanigans and had him killed by Vader, according to The Dark Side Sourcebook.
Nor were the Jedi Knights the only victims of the Great Purge. As Sidious charged the Inquisitorius with "rooting out all that smacked of the old ways"
(emphasis added), groups that were closely associated with the Jedi Order were also proscribed as Enemies of the Empire. Thus, the Antarian Rangers –
the Hero's Guide calls this organization originating on Antar IV "a unique paramilitary organization of non-Force-users who [...] actively assist [the Jedi]
whenever possible," dedicated to "acting as support troops for the Jedi" often deployed on "reconnaissance and covert operations to make the work of
the Jedi easier" – were outlawed and "found themselves hunted in a similar fashion" by the Inquisitorius. Likewise, Wanted by Cracken mentions the
outlawry of the Pendarran Warriors of Pendarr III, whom Lieutenant General Airen Cracken describes as "an independent group that fought with the Jedi
Knights and the armies of the Old Republic during the Clone Wars" who met the same fate as the Jedi Knights and the Antarian Rangers. Jedi schismatics
and other Force cults were not ignored; Imperial agents – including Grand Inquisitor Lord Torbin, High Inquisitor Tremayne, and Inquisitor Ameesa
Darys – tracked down and captured Arden Lyn, an ancient Follower of Palawa and master of Teräs Käsi, according to "The Emperor's Pawns," while "I,
Jensaarai" and I, Jedi describe Imperial persecution of the Jensaarai, a quasi-Sith sect founded by heretical Jedi Nikkos Tyris near the end of the Clone
War, to which "Droids, Technology and the Force: A Clash of Phenomena" adds the Iron Knights, a schismatic Jedi sect founded by Master Jedi Aqino
prior to the Clone War.
Others were converted to the dark side of the Force; aside from child prodigy Anakin Skywalker, who renounced his Jedi Knighthood to become a Sith
Lord as Darth Vader, the equally prodigious Tremayne became Vader's protégé and a High Inquisitor in his own right, according to "Dark Vendetta"
(notably, Tremayne was accepted for training by the Jedi Order despite being 15 years old, six years older than Skywalker had been when he was
initially rejected for training as "too old"). Halagad Ventor lost his mind and fell to the dark side after a particularly vicious interrogation by Vader (in
which Vader extracted the locations of a very large number of surviving Jedi from Ventor's mind) in Domain of Evil. Quarmall was also seduced by the
dark side and became an agent provocateur for the Empire according to Gamemaster Screen for Second Edition. Master Jedi Jerec, an expert archaeologist
and scholar who spoke fluent Sith, returned from a long-range mission to find that the Jedi Order had been eradicated during his absence, and he was
subsequently converted to the dark side by Tremayne and became an Inquisitor himself, according to The Dark Side Sourcebook (Dark Forces: Soldier
for the Empire is explicit that Jerec "kept his Jedi abilities secret," indicating that not all Inquisitors are Force-sensitive); the scribe writes in The New
Essential Guide to Characters that Jerec "embarked on several long-range missions to find other 'lost' Jedi and turn them to the dark side of the Force."
Winslau Da'k, a Padawan Apprentice to an aged Jedi Master, was twisted to the path of darkness by an encounter with Vader, and he imprisoned his
master on Morcanth in the Unknown Regions in Gamemaster Screen for Second Edition. Danaan Kerr also fell victim to the dark side according to New
Republic Intelligence (NRI) in Wanted by Cracken. Interestingly, Kerr did not serve the Empire in any way; Sidious was simply content to leave him be,
satisfied that he was immersed in the dark side of the Force. This particular incident is not isolated, as the Revised Core Rulebook mentions that "the
Emperor left other dark Force-users alone while he focused on more important goals." He also tolerated the existence of the Nightsisters of Dathomir,
although he kept them carefully isolated on Dathomir in The Courtship of Princess Leia (partially out of fear, as the leader of the Nightsisters, a dark side
witch called Gethzerion, was one of the few Force users in the galaxy whose power rivaled his own, alongside Vader, Jerec, and the ghost of Exar Kun, a
long-dead Dark Lord of the Sith).
The Inquisitorius
"Byss and the Deep Core, Part 3: Prakith" states that the Inquisitorius was headquartered in Citadel Inquisitorius on Prakith (Prak III), and the Dark
Empire Sourcebook explicitly states that it was led by the Grand Inquisitor; after Grand Inquisitor the Lord Torbin was assassinated on Weerden
(mentioned in the Star Wars Sourcebook and the Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook), the office remained vacant, apparently leaving the
Inquisitorius to the direction of Chief Inquisitor Loam Redge from Galaxies: An Empire Divided and Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine. Known High
Inquisitors include dark Jedi Knight Tremayne from Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim, actor-turned-Jedi Adalric Cessius Brandl, who fled from
the Empire in "The Final Exit" and was subsequently hunted by his fierce rival Tremayne, the sadist Mox Sloxin from Alliance Intelligence Reports, and
Volytar from the Galactic Campaign Guide; notably, Sloxin does not appear to have been Force-sensitive. Inquisitors – who are not necessarily Force-
users, given that Jerec, a dark Jedi Master, was known as an Inquisitor but scrupulously kept his Jedi powers secret – are rather more common than high
inquisitors; the Dark Empire Sourcebook notes that each "Inquisition Module" for the Tagge Industries Shipyards Ltd. modular taskforce cruiser was
crewed by 100 inquisitors, and The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology mentions that only Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) interrogators and
inquisitors were authorized to carry disruptors in place of the more common (and more humane) blasters. Known inquisitors include Jerec, his former
Apprentice and fallen Jedi Knight Ameesa Darys ("The Emperor's Pawns"), Malorum (The Last of the Jedi: The Desperate Mission), Drayneen
(Rebellion Era Sourcebook), Shynne ("Byss and the Deep Core, Part 3: Prakith"), Vialco ("Uhl Eharl Khoeng"), Lanu Pasiq (“Evasive Action:
Recruitment”), Sancor (The Last of the Jedi: Dark Warning), and the scientifically-minded Olof and Xarot Korlin (Galaxies: An Empire Divided).
Dark Side Elite
As mentioned earlier, the Dark Side Elite is a concept Palpatine wrote of in the Dark Side Compendium, a "unit of seven Dark Jedi perfectly absorbed
into the Emperor's will"; in Dark Empire II, Palpatine himself calls them "Dark Jedi... extensions of my own power," and they are described as being
"each a living extension of his power." Jerec was fascinated by the subject, but Palpatine restricted Jerec's access to the Dark Side Compendium and
prevented him from learning more about the Dark Side Elite concept (Jerec would subsequently assemble his own version of the Dark Side Elite in Jedi
Knight: Dark Forces II, composed of Sariss the Prophetess, her lover/foster son Yun the former neophyte Follower of Palawa, Maw the fallen Jedi
Knight, Bocas'eca (alias Boc the Crude), and the so-called Brothers of the Sith, Gorc and Pic, a pair of Sithspawn mutants created by Lord Cronal, former
Prophet of the Dark Side and Emperor's Hand under the codename Blackhole). The first version of Palpatine's Dark Side Elite appear in Dark Empire II,
where they are called "the Emperor's Dark Jedi" and are seen to be composed of Military Executor Sedriss, Vill Goir, Kvag Gthull, Baddon Fass, Zasm
Katth, Krdys Mordi, and Kam Solusar (who had escaped from the Empire during the brief 'little intraregnum' before Palpatine reincarnated for the last
time); Fass and Katth were killed on Nar Shaddaa and Sedriss and Goir on Ossus, leading to the appointment of Palpatine's military aides de camp Xecr
Nist and Tedryn-Sha as the new leaders of the Dark Side Elite. Three other Dark Jedi must have been created in the meantime, as Nist's attack on New
Alderaan included seven Dark Jedi rather than only four; this attack was disastrous, as it resulted in the deaths of Sha, Gthull, Mordi, and the literal
disarming of an unknown fourth, such that only three Dark Jedi – Nist and two unnamed others escaped. Seven more Dark Jedi were killed during Luke
Skywalker's attack on Vjun in Empire's End with Empatojayos Brand, Rayf Ysanna, and Kam Solusar, and Nist was taken into New Republic custody.
Emperor's Hands
The Emperor's Hands are essentially watered-down versions of Sidious's first Apprentice, Darth Maul (the Core Rulebook calls Maul "the 'Hand' of
Darth Sidious"). Like Maul, the Hands are not intended for use as powerful warlords or alter egos à la Darth Tyranus and Darth Vader; rather, they are
intended as "specially trained and solitary agents," each "working directly for the Emperor," according to the Rebellion Era Sourcebook. Each Hand
typically believed he or she was the only Hand in existence, and "might be sent anywhere in the galaxy to carry out the Emperor's orders, including
espionage, sabotage, and assassination." The Emperor's Hands were kept carefully secret, to preserve their utility as secret "aces in the hole" for
Palpatine's private use; Darth Vader and Grand Admiral Thrawn knew of the Emperor's Hands, but it is unclear who else may have known. The first
known Emperor's Hand was the assassin Sa Cuis ("In His Image"), but the best known is the first one introduced, Mara Jade (Heir to the Empire), with
whom the Emperor could communicate telepathically from across the galaxy; others include Vess Kogo (Rebellion Era Sourcebook), who was used for
"pure mayhem and destruction" as opposed to Jade's "subtle missions." Other known Hands include courtesan Roganda Ismaren (Children of the Jedi),
the cyborg Lumiya ("Figurehead"; formerly Major Shira Elan Colla Brie, Imperial Special Forces), the Empire's ace of aces Tan Maarek Stele (TIE
Fighter), master swordsman Jeng Droga ("The Kaal Connection"), Ruling Councilman and intrigant Sarcev Quest ("The Emperor's Pawns"), 25,000-year-
old Follower of Palawa and Teräs Käsi master Arden Lyn (Masters of Teräs Käsi), Zabrak agent Ylairo Iteu (Galaxies: An Empire Divided), assassin and
combat instructor Sheyvan (“Two-Edged Sword”), an unnamed male infiltrator (The Dark Side Sourcebook), and intelligence czar Blackhole ("Gambler's
World"), elsewhere said to have been a former Prophet of the Dark Side ("The Emperor's Pawns") and identified with important dark side adept Lord
Cronal, one of Palpatine's most powerful dark side servants ("The Dark Forces Saga, Part 5: Two Peas in a Pod"). Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the
Rim mentions that "it is rumored that Tremayne has trained to be a type of specialized operative of the Emperor's will, an 'Emperor's Hand,' but these
rumors have never been substantiated and prudent beings avoid asking the Inquisitor about it."
Dark Side Adepts
The "Dark Side Adepts" (occasionally also referred to as "Byss Mages") were "beings of great intelligence" who had "proven their loyalty to their
master"; while guests on Palpatine's private retreat world of Byss, they were introduced to the ways of the dark side of the Force, according to the Dark
Empire Sourcebook. Many of these dark side adepts were nonhumans who "had already mastered the unique sorceries of their own species" and were
invite to Byss by Palpatine "as much to study their knowledge as to train them in his." Some of them were "taught ways of combat and made into Dark
Jedi," while others were infiltrated into the Emperor's court and the Imperial State to assume high office, "traversing the galaxy and seeing to the proper
enforcement of Palpatine's decrees." As part of a plan to gradually theocratize the Empire, many of these dark side adepts were "gathered into the
Imperial Ruling Council" before the Battle of Endor, in order to "replace the system of Moffs, Grand Moffs, and governors." These adepts were experts
in Palpatine's Science of Darkness, creating mutated clones called Imperial Sentinels, what the Dark Empire Sourcebook calls "living statues dependent
on the will of the Adepts themselves for purpose or movement," and also creating Sithspawn Rancors called "Chrysalides" as an additional means of
defense for the Imperial Citadel on Byss, as seen in Dark Empire II. Known dark side adepts include the Chandrilan nobleman Savuud Thimram and
former inquisitor Gwellib Ap-Llewff (Dark Empire Sourcebook), T'iaz (Empire's End), Palpatine's close friends and betrayers Nefta and Sa-Di (Dark
Empire II), scientist and mystic Lord Cronal (Gamemaster Screen for Second Edition; identified with the former Prophet of the Dark Side and current
Emperor's Hand code-named Blackhole in "The Dark Forces Saga, Part 5: Two Peas in a Pod"), longtime aides and Ruling Councilmen Janus Greejatus
and Sim Aloo ("* Janus Greejatus" and "* Sim Aloo"), the Constable of Homonculi, supervisor of the Clone Lab and overseer of the Clone Keepers on
Byss (Dark Empire Sourcebook), the Grand Vizier's "Advisor's Hand" and aspiring "Dark Adept" Lady Brigta Hejaran of the Lords of House Mecetti
(Tapani Sector Instant Adventures), and three otherwise unidentified "Dark Adepts" from the Lords of the Expanse of House Melantha (Lords of the
Expanse Gamemaster Guide).
Other Dark Siders
The Dark Empire Sourcebook mentions that some Sovereign Protectors "who distinguish themselves are sometimes selected to become Dark Jedi
themselves." There were a handful of other dark side users in the Empire not obviously associated with the Inquisitorius, the Prophets of the Dark Side,
the Dark Side Elite, the Emperor's Hands, such as the aforementioned Lord Hethrir and Quarmall, or Rokur Gepta, the Sorcerer of Tund, brother and
sister Teles and Shela Jalahafi (Star Wars Introductory Adventure Game), and Joruus C'baoth, the Emperor's Guardian of the secret Mount Tantiss
storehouse in Heir to the Empire (by the time of 44 rS, C'baoth had succumbed to advanced clone madness and no longer even remembered that he was
the Emperor's Guardian, and believed that he had killed the Guardian and seized the mountain from him). Presumably these would be the nebulous
"other" Dark Jedi who were under Vader's supervision and drawn from the ranks of the Sovereign Protectors (although it is possible that any of the Dark
Side Elite other than Sedriss, Solusar, Nist, and Sha were also selected from the Sovereign Protectors); some of these "other" Dark Jedi were seen in Bast
Castle on Vjun – formerly Vader's castle, to complement his castle on Imperial Center seen in Before the Storm – in Empire's End under Nist's command.
See also:
Sidious's first known Sith Apprentice was an Iridonian Zabrak whom he named Darth Maul; according to Episode I Journal: Darth Maul, he had raised
Maul from infancy, using brutal methods of negative reinforcement and deprivation to fashion the youth into a fierce and relentless warrior. After two
years of carrying out secret missions on Sidious's behalf, Maul was exposed to fourteen days of grueling tests, and then sent to a planet in the Outer Rim
where he spent a month being chased by scores of assassin 'droids; only after passing these trials and holding his own in a lightsaber duel with Sidious
himself was Maul recognized as a Sith Lord. Maul dwelt on Coruscant in between missions; Sidious's principle lair in his Sith guise – what Maul called
"a world within a world" – was located somewhere on that planet in a neighborhood where the Jedi Temple was not visible. In Attack of the Clones,
Sidious met with his new Apprentice, Darth Tyranus, in what Coruscant and the Core Worlds calls "a secret hangar in the factory district for use by his
apprentice, Darth Tyranus," located in the Dacho factory in the Grungeon block; this is probably the same location as the hidden lair in The Works
district which was connected to 500 Republica by a labyrinth of secret passages in Labyrinth of Evil, although in that source Obi-Wan Kenobi claims that
the building in question was "a corporation called LiMerge Power," which appears to contradict with the identifications of the building in Attack of the
Clones as being "the ancient factory of Dacho" ("Dark Rendezvous") or the 20-square kilometer "Grungeon block" (Coruscant and the Core Worlds).
Presumably this can be integrated as LiMerge Power's Dacho factory in the Grungeon block in The Works – Labyrinth of Evil itself hints at this by
mentioning that the labyrinth of secret passages led to "an area of The Works called the Grungeon Block" – , although when the Jedi entered the latter
site, they showed no signs of the "nightmarish hallucinations" said by "Dark Rendezvous" to afflict those "even remotely sensitive to subtle emanations
of the Force" should they draw near Dacho. Mace Windu did mention "the presence of the dark side" in this lair, so it is possible that the Jedi did not
experience the nightmares because of their mental discipline as Jedi Masters. Labyrinth of Evil mentions that the Senate District was visible from
Tyranus's hangar in The Works, while Rogue Planet mentions that the Senate District is "mere minutes" from the Jedi Temple by express taxi, so the lair
in The Works is probably not the same as the lair inhabited by Maul years earlier.
The Complete Locations has revealed that Sidious's "ultra-secret Sith lair, with its archives, Sith Holocrons and other artifacts" was located within the
Chancellor Palpatine Surgical Reconstruction Center (ChanPal SuRecon, subsequently renamed Emperor Palpatine Surgical Reconstruction Center) in
Coruscant City, Coruscant. In any event, it is clear that, as of 16 rS, this was Sidious's primary lair and "heart of Palpatine's intelligence network," which
included his meditation chamber and "environmentally controlled display case for Sith Scrolls," a "massive Sith Holocron uncovered on Korriban and
secretly removed by Palpatine, on one of his early visits to the former Sith burial planet," an "ancient Sith ritual altar originally found on Ziost," a
"sacred Sith artifact, the Great Crystal of Aantonaii," "Sith weapons stored around walls of gallery," "synthetic Sith crystals, slivers from which are used
in manufacture of Sith lightsabers," and a "dark Force reservoir, emanating from the many Sith crystals and artifacts." Notably, the layout of this lair
matches that of Sidious's lair as seen in "Sithisis," especially the meditation chamber and one of the suspended crystals.
As mentioned in Cloak of Deception, Sidious first contacted Nute Gunray – "leader of the Neimoidian Inner Circle and a member of the seven-person
Trade Federation Directorate" – in or around 3 rS, telling that his attention had been attracted by Gunray's self-serving testimony against TradeFed
participatory company Pulsar Supertanker in an internal proceeding, when Gunray had testified that Pulsar was guilty of "malicious disregard for profit"
and "charitable donations lacking discernable reward." To demonstrate his influence, Sidious "arranged for several key resource worlds to join the Trade
Federation as signatory members, abdicating their representation in the Senate in exchange for lucrative trade opportunities," and each time creating the
illusion that these successful negotiations were Gunray's doing, thereby increasing his standing in the TradeFed corporate hierarchy, eventually securing
his appointment to the Directorate. One of these schemes involved sending Maul to Chryya to use intimidation and threats to force the planet's natives
to turn the local spice industry over to the TradeFed's control, according to Episode I Journal: Darth Maul (Maul was shocked when the local merchants
destroyed their own industry rather than hand it over to the TradeFed). More successfully, Maul was subsequently sent to Dorvalla IV in the Videnda
Sector in the Mid-Rim, there to exacerbate tensions between Lommite Ltd. and the rival InterGalactic Ore so as to "deliver Dorvalla to the Trade
Federation – the ore, the trade routes, Dorvalla's vote in the senate – and, in so doing, gain the further allegiance of Viceroy Gunray and his lackeys" (as
Sidious put it), as seen in "Darth Maul: Saboteur." After this particular success, the scribe writes in The New Essential Guide to Characters that Maul
received from his Master a Sienar Design Systems courier, modified into a cloak-capable Sith Infiltrator which he named Scimitar. In return, Gunray
agreed to provide TradeFed support for Sidious's plot to destabilize the Republic. The first such plan was a scheme to seize control of the major Core
port world of Brentaal IV in Bormea Sector and with it the freight traffic along the Perlemian Trade Route and the Hydian Way using a set of 50
hyperdrive-enhanced automated starfighters; when these starfighters were stolen by Bartokk assassins in Episode I Adventures: Search for the Lost Jedi,
Sidious ordered Maul to investigate in Episode I Adventures: The Fury of Darth Maul. The destruction of the starfighters in Episode I Adventures: The
Bartokk Assassins and Episode I Adventures: Jedi Emergency rendered this scheme unsalvageable, and Sidious abandoned it; note that the scribe writes in
his biography of Nute Gunray in The New Essential Guide to Characters that this elaborate and unlikely plot took place after the betrayal of Hoth
Monchar and the assassination of Black Sun's leaders in Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter and Darth Maul, respectively, but it is preferable to disregard this
claim in light of chronological difficulties that this would create.
A few months after first contacting Gunray, Sidious began his plotting in earnest. Cloak of Deception reveals that Sidious leaked information to the
Nebula Front about a secret shipment of aurodium ingots aboard the TradeFed freighter SS Revenue at Dorvalla IV – Maul's sabotage had broken both LL
and InterGalactic and prompted their merger into Dorvalla Mining, which had been obliged to join the TradeFed as a signatory world – and as a result the
Nebula Front seized the shipment; this played into Sidious's scheme to increase the TradeFed's automated security forces, and he made arrangements
with Baktoid Armour Workshop (also called Baktoid Combat Automata), Haor Chall Engineering, and Colla Designs to produce a secret mechanical
army for the TradeFed, including main battle repulsortanks and amphibious landing craft. Even as his Senatorial alter ego arranged a trade summit on
Eriadu to discuss proposed taxation of outlying trade routes, Sidious was plotting to disrupt the summit and complete Gunray's takeover of the
TradeFed's corporate government; he placed a specially modified security 'droid with the TradeFed Directorate's mechanical escorts, and as the summit
began he arranged for the 'droids to suddenly turn on their masters and murder them all. As a result, Gunray was left to appoint his own cronies as the
murdered directors' replacements, and the TradeFed fell under total Neimoidian control. Having now provided the TradeFed with a mechanical army, he
ordered them to prepare to blockade his alter ego Palpatine's homeworld of Naboo, in order to punish him(self) for his support for the taxation measure
BR-0371, which dissolved the so-called free trade zones and brought the outlying trade routes under direct Republic control and taxation; Sidious assured
his conspirators that he would prevent the Senate from acting to stop them. At about this time, TradeFed Deputy Viceroy Hath Monchar – the so-called
"Third Neimoidian" – lost his nerve and abandoned the conspiracy, fleeing to Coruscant where he tried to sell the details of Sidious's plot. Sidious
ordered Maul to find and kill Monchar, as well as anyone he might have learned any details of the plot; as seen in Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter, this
resulted in the decapitation of Monchar, as well as the deaths of TradeFed -contracted bounty hunter Mawhi Lihnn, Master Jedi Anoon Bondara, his
Padawan Apprentice Darsha Assant, and Corellian information broker Lorn Pavan. The leak was quickly closed, and the details of Sidious's plan
remained secret.
Darth Tyranus
In 3 rS, the TradeFed undertook this blockade, and everything seemed to be going well until a pair of "ambassadors" – actually Master Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn
and his Padawan Apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi – arrived from the Supreme Chancellor in The Phantom Menace, which caused Sidious to accelerate his
time table and order the invasion of Naboo itself. Before the Neimoidians could capture the Queen of the Naboo and force her to sign a treaty legitimizing
their actions, she escaped from the planet, and Sidious ordered Maul to find her and bring her back (incidentally, this marks the first time the
Neimoidians learned of Maul's existence, as they expressed alarm at the fact that there were two Sith Lords in The Phantom Menace). Maul tracked the
Queen to Tatooine (Tatoo I) in the Arkanis Sector, where he engaged Jinn in a brief duel; when the Queen returned to Naboo after a brief stay on
Coruscant, Maul met her party there and faced Jinn and Kenobi together during the Queen's audacious counterattack on the TradeFed's mechanical army.
Although Maul killed Jinn by stabbing him through the chest (shiak in High Galactic, "the language of the earliest Jedi sages," according to "Fight Saber:
Jedi Lightsaber Combat"), Kenobi bisected him in return (sai tok), becoming the first Jedi in a millennium to kill a Sith Lord. Evidently Sidious decided
that he lacked the time to train another Apprentice from infancy, and instead recruited a fully-trained ex-Jedi, the former Master Jedi Dooku of Serenno,
who had resigned from the Jedi Order and reclaimed his hereditary title and fortune as the Count of Serenno (in Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, Sidious himself
remarks that Serenno was "born into one of the wealthiest families in the galaxy"). At around the same time, Serenno's longtime friend Master Jedi Sifo-
Dyas placed a secret order with the clonemasters of Kamino for a clone army, and at Sidious's behest, Serenno murdered Sifo-Dyas and sent the
Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett to Kamino to become the template for the army; with the murder of Sifo-Dyas, Serenno became Sidious's new
Sith Apprentice and took the name Darth Tyranus.
It appears from the evidence of Revenge of the Sith that Sidious ensnared Serenno – a human supremacist – with plans to establish "an Empire of Man," a
Sithian theocracy in which "the survivors of the Jedi Order would become the Sith Army," recruited from "powerful Force-capable humans and near-
humans" not only from the Jedi, but also "from Hapes to Haruun Kal, from Kiffu to Dathomir." It is unclear how well this actually reflects Sidious's
intent, as Tyranus himself ultimately concluded that this "grand vision" had in fact been "a pathetic sham." Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Dictionary
mentions that Tyranus was "little more than a placeholder for the apprentice Sidious has sought from the beginning," and Tyranus was decapitated (sai
cha in High Galactic) by his eventual replacement, Anakin Skywalker, aboard General Grievous's flagship, CS Invisible Hand, during the Battle of
Coruscant near the end of the Clone War in 16 rS. Unlike Maul, Tyranus actually trained and controlled a cadre of dark side lieutenants of his own,
including among them General Sev'Rance Tann from Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns (killed by Master Jedi Echuu Shen-Jon in the Battle of
Krant), the three Dark Acolytes from The Clone Wars (killed by Mace Windu in the Battle of Geonosis), Saato, Trenox, Vinoc and Karoc from The New
Droid Army (killed by Anakin Skywalker), Commander Asajj Ventress from Clone Wars, fallen Master Jedi Sora Bulq from "Schism" and "Red Hands,"
and fallen Jedi Knights Kadrian Sey and Tol Skorr from Jedi: Count Dooku; Tyranus also kept a number of henchmen on hand to do his bidding,
including Jango Fett from Attack of the Clones (decapitated by Mace Windu in the execution arena), the 2,000-year-old Gen'Dai bounty hunter Durge
from "The New Face of War" (ejected into a star by Anakin Skywalker), and the cyborg Supreme Commander of the Confederacy's 'droid armies,
General Grievous (shot and killed by Obi-Wan Kenobi); Grievous was created by the InterGalactic Banking Clan at Sidious's behest and trained in
lightsaber swordsmanship by Tyranus himself, according to Labyrinth of Evil.
Darth Vader
Sidious had begun watching Skywalker "with great interest" (Palpatine's own words) since the Battle of Naboo in 3 rS in The Phantom Menace, when the
prodigious 9-year-old single-handedly destroyed SS Profiteer – Basic for Saak'ak (the Neimoidian name), the modified LH-3210 'droid control ship
coordinating the entire TradeFed mechanical army (Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter notes that Profiteer was cloak-capable). In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine
mentions that when Skywalker first arrived on Coruscant, he'd taken young Skywalker under his wing and tried to teach him "the ins and outs of
politics": this was the start of a close friendship between them, with Palpatine taking on a role that was a mix between a father figure and a confessor to
his younger friend. Although the Jedi High Council did not realize that Palpatine was Sidious – indeed, although they had identified Maul as a Sith Lord
after his death, they did not even know whether he had been the Master or the Apprentice, and had no inkling of Sidious's existence until Serenno
mentioned to Kenobi in 13 rS that a Sith Lord controlled the Senate in Attack of the Clones (they disbelieved this claim at the time) – they nevertheless
did not approve of this relationship, but made no attempt to put a stop to it, especially because Palpatine had become Supreme Chancellor of the
Galactic Republic in 3 rS as a result of Sidious's blockade of Naboo. In 16 rS, Sidious arranged for the kidnapping of Palpatine from Coruscant by
General Grievous in Labyrinth of Evil (like Kinman Doriana, Grievous did not realize that Palpatine and Sidious were in fact the same person), and he
was the sole witness to the lightsaber duel between Skywalker and Kenobi on the one hand and Tyranus on the other; after Skywalker disarmed Tyranus
by cutting off both his hands (cho mai), Palpatine encouraged him to kill the Sith Lord, which Skywalker did after a moment's hesitation. This is
especially noteworthy because it marks the first time that Palpatine used himself as bait at great personal risk; the duel took place aboard Grievous's
flagship CS Invisible Hand, which was actively engaged in a firefight with the Republic fleet, was blasted in half, and crash-landed on the surface of
Coruscant while he was still aboard. Although Sidious's powers are formidable, there can be no question that it is highly unlikely that he could survive
the destruction of a warship while he were aboard, or even an uncontrolled crash landing for that matter (Skywalker, Kenobi, and Palpatine only survived
because of Skywalker's prodigious piloting skills), and the Battle of Coruscant was unambiguously set before Sidious learned the secrets of functional
immortality.
In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine played on Skywalker's fears that his secret wife Senator Padmé Naberrie Amidala (Naboo) might die, by telling him
about The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, whom Palpatine claimed to have had the ability to manipulate midichlorians, to create life, and to sustain
life that already existed. Later, he revealed himself to Skywalker as Darth Sidious, admitting to having been Plagueis's Apprentice and claiming to have
inherited Plagueis's knowledge (he subsequently admitted that this latter claim was untrue). Taking advantage of Skywalker's confusion and resentment
of his mistreatment by the Jedi High Council, Sidious planted the idea that the leaders of the Jedi Order were plotting to assassinate him and seize power
for themselves. Although Skywalker told Mace Windu of Palpatine's Sith identity, his obsession with saving his wife's life prompted him to go to try to
ensure that Sidious was not killed; although Sidious easily killed Windu's three fellow Jedi Masters – Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, and Kit Fisto – he was
apparently defeated by Windu and was at his mercy when Skywalker arrived at his private office in the Senate Office Building. Taking advantage of the
situation, Sidious appealed to Skywalker to save him from the Jedi assassin – Windu had by that point decided to kill him, as he controlled the Senate
and the court system too strongly for them to deal with him properly, and at any rate regarded Sidious as "too dangerous" to be allowed to live – and
Windu's move to deliver the coup de grâce to the Sith Lord inadvertently prompted Skywalker to cut off the Jedi Master's hand to protect Sidious,
leaving him defenseless before Sidious's Sith lightning and ultimately causing his death when Sidious defenestrated him from his high-level office. Windu's
death was the final act that sealed Skywalker's allegiance to the dark side and he became Sidious's new Sith Apprentice under the name Darth Vader
immediately thereafter.
It appears that at this time, Sidious's plan was to create the Galactic Empire and eventually pass it on to his Apprentice, as he taunted Yoda in Revenge
of the Sith by saying that "Darth Vader will become more powerful than either of us." Although he possessed the ability to "empower" others in the dark
side of the Force and even the ability to "feed" on the lives of others, he lacked the ability to prolong his life indefinitely; any thoughts he may have had
on apotheosis would have been necessarily little more than a mental exercise; if Plagueis's alleged power to "stop death" really existed – which is not
necessarily the case – it is possible that Sidious considered using the restricted holocrons in the Jedi Temple to discover the secret (as he tells Vader in
Revenge of the Sith that "that power only my Master truly achieved, but together we will find it"). At any rate Vader certainly did not consider any
potential plans for apotheosis to be viable, as he twice offered to overthrow Palpatine and rule the galaxy in his place together with someone else (first
with his beloved wife Padmé in Revenge of the Sith and then later with their son Luke in The Empire Strikes Back), and the novelization of Return of the
Jedi reveals that Vader's "final dream" was to "learn all he could of the dark power from this evil genius, to take that power from him, seize it and keep
its cold light at his own core – kill the Emperor and devour his darkness, and rule the universe." If Vader did know of Palpatine's ability to reincarnate in
his clones' bodies, he did not consider this an obstacle to his own rise to power, as by the time of the Battle of Endor in 39 rS he was of the opinion that
"soon, the old Emperor would die – " this at Vader's own hand, of course – "and though the galaxy would bend from the horror of that loss, Vader would
remain to rule, with young Skywalker at his side." At the same time that Vader was plotting to supplant him, Sidious was of course planning on using
Skywalker to replace his father as his Sith Apprentice – yet another example of Sidious using himself as bait and exposing himself to mortal danger in
order to tempt a potential Apprentice; this plot backfired disastrously when Skywalker rejected the dark side and Vader himself killed Sidious in order to
prevent him from killing Skywalker in anger.
Like Tyranus before him, Vader kept his own cadre of dark side underlings and henchmen. In "Evasive Action: Recruitment," Sidious – by then, the
Emperor – showed him a group of "Agricultural Corp [sic] survivors and other Force adepts captured during the war," and instructed him to "select any
worthy pupils" and "dispose of the rest"; when Vader objected that "there can be only two Sith," the Emperor told him, "You are not training Sith, Lord
Vader. You are creating extensions of your will." Among the four he selected, one was Tremayne, a fully-trained Jedi Knight, whom Vader twisted to the
dark side and converted into an agent of the Inquisitorius, as seen in "Dark Vendetta" and The Dark Side Sourcebook. Other pupils included former
stormtrooper Flint, the Dark Lord of Beldarone, from "The Apprentice" and "The Dream," Kharys, the Majestrix of Skye from "The Long Hunt," and
the Firrerreons Lord Hethrir and Rillao, the former of whom became Procurator of Justice of the Galactic Empire, the Imperial State's chief executioner,
according to The Crystal Star. Taking another page from Tyranus's book, Vader trained Imperial Special Forces officer Major Shira Ellan Colla Brie into a
Ventress-esque pseudo-Apprentice whom he named Lumiya after she was nearly killed in a dogfight and left a cyborg – rather like Vader's own accident
on Mustafar and subsequent transformation (her first appearance as Shira Brie is "Hello, Bespin, Good-bye!" while her first appearance as Lumiya is
"Diplomacy"). The Dark Side Sourcebook adds that Vader "oversaw the Force training of the Emperor's Royal Guard and Sovereign Protectors,"
although this training was basic and only intended to "sustain the Emperor until help arrived" in the event that they should fail to "protect the Emperor
from any threat" (Vader shared responsibility for training the Sovereign Protectors with other "Senior Dark Side Adepts in the Emperor's service,"
according to the Dark Empire Sourcebook). Vader mentioned having a network of internal spies throughout the Empire in "Dark Lord's Gambit," and
was served by the Noghri Death Commandos first mentioned in Heir to the Empire; among his other henchmen were former Gunnery Sergeant Wrenga
"Jix" Jixton from "Shadow Stalker" and the reptilian Major Rahz from "Bring Me the Children: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker." He was also
known to hire bounty hunters from time to time to handle his dirty work, most often Boba Fett, but also including "Payback" Dengar, Zuckuss, Bossk,
4-LOM, and IG-88, as seen in The Empire Strikes Back.
Darth Skywalker?
Palpatine took advantage of his particular brand of functional immortality to reincarnate on Byss in approximately 40 to 41 rS, according to the Dark
Empire Sourcebook. He would spend the next four years recuperating from his ordeal; he had "never foreseen having to transport his spirit so far across
space," and had "nearly dispersed forever," according to the Dark Empire Sourcebook. Dark Empire shows that as part of his Shadow Hand Strategy,
Palpatine brought Skywalker to Byss in 45 rS and persuaded the young Jedi that the only way to defeat the powerful Sith Lord was to learn his secrets
and then turn them against him, a tactic that seems consciously adopted from Ulic Qel-Droma's plan to infiltrate and then destroy the Krath in Tales of
the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith; the Dark Empire Sourcebook indicated that Skywalker was intended to be "a new servant to replace Vader," implying
that Palpatine still intended to make Skywalker his Sith Apprentice (indeed, in Dark Empire, he refers to Luke as "my dear Apprentice"). By this time,
the Dark Empire Sourcebook explains that he had finalized his plans: After consolidating all knowledge of the Force into his Dark Side Compendium, he
would "create an eternal dynasty, with the descendants of Skywalker as its nobility, and Palpatine itself as its omnipotent ruler," ultimately planning to
"journey across the universe spreading the shadow of his rule, blotting out the stars themselves, and taking his Dark Rule to other helpless galaxies."
Even the betrayal of Skywalker and his own defeat and death at Da Soocha V in Dark Empire failed to deter him; in Dark Empire II Palpatine takes
pains to make clear to Military Executor Sedriss – the leader of his so-called Dark Jedi, the Dark Side Elite – that he wants Skywalker taken alive, and
takes no steps to select another candidate for his Apprentice. In Empire's End, the ancient Dark Lords of the Sith on Korriban warned Palpatine that the
necrosis of his last cloned body – Skywalker destroyed most of his clones in Dark Empire; those he did not were destroyed by Nefta and Sa-Di in Dark
Empire II, and his physician's treachery had rendered the genetic source material unsuitable for use – was irreversible, and that the only way to restore
himself was to take the body of Anakin Solo, Skywalker's nephew and Vader's grandson. He met his final death while trying to do this on Onderon –
ironically, Onderon was the site of Qel-Droma's first encounter with the dark side and the Sith in 3,965 BrS, in "Ulic Qel-Droma and the Beast Wars of
Onderon."
The Great Purge
As one would expect from a Dark Lord of the Sith, Sidious hated the Jedi Order and is directly responsible for the Great Jedi Purge, which resulted in the
complete destruction of the Order (although a handful of Jedi survived). By the time of A New Hope, the Jedi Knights were generally regarded as a semi-
mythical "dying religion" and the Force as mere superstition. Sidious had long been arranging for the deaths of Jedi; he was responsible for the Yinchorri
rampage that claimed the life of High Council member Master Jedi Micah Giiett, Master Jedi Lilit Twoseas, and a number of others in "Acts of War,"
and his Apprentices Maul and Tyranus had murdered a handful of others. The most grandiose of Sidious's plots, the Clone War, claimed the lives of an
enormous number of Jedi, starting with the massacre of most of the 200 Jedi in the Execution Arena on Geonosis in Attack of the Clones; Sidious
personally began the Great Purge at the end of the Clone War by killing four Jedi Masters – Agen Kolar, Saesee Tiin, Kit Fisto, and Mace Windu, all four
"celebrated swordmasters" according to Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Dictionary – in his private office in the Senate Office Building. He then issued
Order 66 to the clone forces throughout the Republic and ordered Darth Vader's concurrent attack on the Jedi Temple at the end of the Clone War in 16 rS
in Revenge of the Sith; as a result, the Jedi Order was left leaderless and scattered across the galaxy. Palpatine then established his Inquisitorius
(occasionally seen as "Inquisitorium"), which the Dark Empire Sourcebook states was charged with "rooting out all that smacked of the old ways during
the Great Purge," which the Rebellion Era Sourcebook even more explicitly calls it "a secret division of Imperial Intelligence" used to periodically
"conduct searches of the farthest reaches of the Empire, most notably in the Outer Rim Territories," looking for "Force-users – adepts, shamans, dark
side devotees and alien students of the Force in all their forms, as well as any ancient Jedi that may have escaped the purges of the previous generation."
Many Jedi that had escaped the Purge were later killed by Darth Vader and the agents of the Inquisitorius – whom the Ta'a Chume of the Hapes
Consortium described as "Lord Vader and his Dark Knights" in The Courtship of Princess Leia – including a group of 50 or so Jedi refugees in the Hapes
Consortium (The Courtship of Princess Leia), Master Jedi Darrin Arkanian ("Dark Vendetta"), Master Jedi An'ya Kuro – who renounced her own name
and became known simply as "the Dark Woman" ("Darth Vader: Extinction"), Master Jedi Ranik Solusar (The Jedi Academy Sourcebook), Sia-Lan Wezz
(Galactic Campaign Guide), a fugitive Jedi hiding on Talasea (Rogue Squadron), Taj Junak ("The Phantom Affair"), Aidan Bok (Galaxy of Fear: Ghost
of the Jedi), Master Jedi Echuu Shen-Jon (Galactic Battlegrounds), and ultimately even Vader's old teacher, Master Jedi Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi (A New
Hope); although he survived the confrontation, Empatojayos Brand was hunted down by Vader and his ship was destroyed, leaving him a quadriplegic
adrift in space according to Dark Empire II. Early in his reign, just after the Great Purge, Palpatine acquired the services of the psychopathic Cerean Jedi-
hunter Del Korrot, but ultimately tired of Korrot's shenanigans and had him killed by Vader, according to The Dark Side Sourcebook.
Nor were the Jedi Knights the only victims of the Great Purge. As Sidious charged the Inquisitorius with "rooting out all that smacked of the old ways"
(emphasis added), groups that were closely associated with the Jedi Order were also proscribed as Enemies of the Empire. Thus, the Antarian Rangers –
the Hero's Guide calls this organization originating on Antar IV "a unique paramilitary organization of non-Force-users who [...] actively assist [the Jedi]
whenever possible," dedicated to "acting as support troops for the Jedi" often deployed on "reconnaissance and covert operations to make the work of
the Jedi easier" – were outlawed and "found themselves hunted in a similar fashion" by the Inquisitorius. Likewise, Wanted by Cracken mentions the
outlawry of the Pendarran Warriors of Pendarr III, whom Lieutenant General Airen Cracken describes as "an independent group that fought with the Jedi
Knights and the armies of the Old Republic during the Clone Wars" who met the same fate as the Jedi Knights and the Antarian Rangers. Jedi schismatics
and other Force cults were not ignored; Imperial agents – including Grand Inquisitor Lord Torbin, High Inquisitor Tremayne, and Inquisitor Ameesa
Darys – tracked down and captured Arden Lyn, an ancient Follower of Palawa and master of Teräs Käsi, according to "The Emperor's Pawns," while "I,
Jensaarai" and I, Jedi describe Imperial persecution of the Jensaarai, a quasi-Sith sect founded by heretical Jedi Nikkos Tyris near the end of the Clone
War, to which "Droids, Technology and the Force: A Clash of Phenomena" adds the Iron Knights, a schismatic Jedi sect founded by Master Jedi Aqino
prior to the Clone War.
Others were converted to the dark side of the Force; aside from child prodigy Anakin Skywalker, who renounced his Jedi Knighthood to become a Sith
Lord as Darth Vader, the equally prodigious Tremayne became Vader's protégé and a High Inquisitor in his own right, according to "Dark Vendetta"
(notably, Tremayne was accepted for training by the Jedi Order despite being 15 years old, six years older than Skywalker had been when he was
initially rejected for training as "too old"). Halagad Ventor lost his mind and fell to the dark side after a particularly vicious interrogation by Vader (in
which Vader extracted the locations of a very large number of surviving Jedi from Ventor's mind) in Domain of Evil. Quarmall was also seduced by the
dark side and became an agent provocateur for the Empire according to Gamemaster Screen for Second Edition. Master Jedi Jerec, an expert archaeologist
and scholar who spoke fluent Sith, returned from a long-range mission to find that the Jedi Order had been eradicated during his absence, and he was
subsequently converted to the dark side by Tremayne and became an Inquisitor himself, according to The Dark Side Sourcebook (Dark Forces: Soldier
for the Empire is explicit that Jerec "kept his Jedi abilities secret," indicating that not all Inquisitors are Force-sensitive); the scribe writes in The New
Essential Guide to Characters that Jerec "embarked on several long-range missions to find other 'lost' Jedi and turn them to the dark side of the Force."
Winslau Da'k, a Padawan Apprentice to an aged Jedi Master, was twisted to the path of darkness by an encounter with Vader, and he imprisoned his
master on Morcanth in the Unknown Regions in Gamemaster Screen for Second Edition. Danaan Kerr also fell victim to the dark side according to New
Republic Intelligence (NRI) in Wanted by Cracken. Interestingly, Kerr did not serve the Empire in any way; Sidious was simply content to leave him be,
satisfied that he was immersed in the dark side of the Force. This particular incident is not isolated, as the Revised Core Rulebook mentions that "the
Emperor left other dark Force-users alone while he focused on more important goals." He also tolerated the existence of the Nightsisters of Dathomir,
although he kept them carefully isolated on Dathomir in The Courtship of Princess Leia (partially out of fear, as the leader of the Nightsisters, a dark side
witch called Gethzerion, was one of the few Force users in the galaxy whose power rivaled his own, alongside Vader, Jerec, and the ghost of Exar Kun, a
long-dead Dark Lord of the Sith).
The Inquisitorius
"Byss and the Deep Core, Part 3: Prakith" states that the Inquisitorius was headquartered in Citadel Inquisitorius on Prakith (Prak III), and the Dark
Empire Sourcebook explicitly states that it was led by the Grand Inquisitor; after Grand Inquisitor the Lord Torbin was assassinated on Weerden
(mentioned in the Star Wars Sourcebook and the Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook), the office remained vacant, apparently leaving the
Inquisitorius to the direction of Chief Inquisitor Loam Redge from Galaxies: An Empire Divided and Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine. Known High
Inquisitors include dark Jedi Knight Tremayne from Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim, actor-turned-Jedi Adalric Cessius Brandl, who fled from
the Empire in "The Final Exit" and was subsequently hunted by his fierce rival Tremayne, the sadist Mox Sloxin from Alliance Intelligence Reports, and
Volytar from the Galactic Campaign Guide; notably, Sloxin does not appear to have been Force-sensitive. Inquisitors – who are not necessarily Force-
users, given that Jerec, a dark Jedi Master, was known as an Inquisitor but scrupulously kept his Jedi powers secret – are rather more common than high
inquisitors; the Dark Empire Sourcebook notes that each "Inquisition Module" for the Tagge Industries Shipyards Ltd. modular taskforce cruiser was
crewed by 100 inquisitors, and The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology mentions that only Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) interrogators and
inquisitors were authorized to carry disruptors in place of the more common (and more humane) blasters. Known inquisitors include Jerec, his former
Apprentice and fallen Jedi Knight Ameesa Darys ("The Emperor's Pawns"), Malorum (The Last of the Jedi: The Desperate Mission), Drayneen
(Rebellion Era Sourcebook), Shynne ("Byss and the Deep Core, Part 3: Prakith"), Vialco ("Uhl Eharl Khoeng"), Lanu Pasiq (“Evasive Action:
Recruitment”), Sancor (The Last of the Jedi: Dark Warning), and the scientifically-minded Olof and Xarot Korlin (Galaxies: An Empire Divided).
Dark Side Elite
As mentioned earlier, the Dark Side Elite is a concept Palpatine wrote of in the Dark Side Compendium, a "unit of seven Dark Jedi perfectly absorbed
into the Emperor's will"; in Dark Empire II, Palpatine himself calls them "Dark Jedi... extensions of my own power," and they are described as being
"each a living extension of his power." Jerec was fascinated by the subject, but Palpatine restricted Jerec's access to the Dark Side Compendium and
prevented him from learning more about the Dark Side Elite concept (Jerec would subsequently assemble his own version of the Dark Side Elite in Jedi
Knight: Dark Forces II, composed of Sariss the Prophetess, her lover/foster son Yun the former neophyte Follower of Palawa, Maw the fallen Jedi
Knight, Bocas'eca (alias Boc the Crude), and the so-called Brothers of the Sith, Gorc and Pic, a pair of Sithspawn mutants created by Lord Cronal, former
Prophet of the Dark Side and Emperor's Hand under the codename Blackhole). The first version of Palpatine's Dark Side Elite appear in Dark Empire II,
where they are called "the Emperor's Dark Jedi" and are seen to be composed of Military Executor Sedriss, Vill Goir, Kvag Gthull, Baddon Fass, Zasm
Katth, Krdys Mordi, and Kam Solusar (who had escaped from the Empire during the brief 'little intraregnum' before Palpatine reincarnated for the last
time); Fass and Katth were killed on Nar Shaddaa and Sedriss and Goir on Ossus, leading to the appointment of Palpatine's military aides de camp Xecr
Nist and Tedryn-Sha as the new leaders of the Dark Side Elite. Three other Dark Jedi must have been created in the meantime, as Nist's attack on New
Alderaan included seven Dark Jedi rather than only four; this attack was disastrous, as it resulted in the deaths of Sha, Gthull, Mordi, and the literal
disarming of an unknown fourth, such that only three Dark Jedi – Nist and two unnamed others escaped. Seven more Dark Jedi were killed during Luke
Skywalker's attack on Vjun in Empire's End with Empatojayos Brand, Rayf Ysanna, and Kam Solusar, and Nist was taken into New Republic custody.
Emperor's Hands
The Emperor's Hands are essentially watered-down versions of Sidious's first Apprentice, Darth Maul (the Core Rulebook calls Maul "the 'Hand' of
Darth Sidious"). Like Maul, the Hands are not intended for use as powerful warlords or alter egos à la Darth Tyranus and Darth Vader; rather, they are
intended as "specially trained and solitary agents," each "working directly for the Emperor," according to the Rebellion Era Sourcebook. Each Hand
typically believed he or she was the only Hand in existence, and "might be sent anywhere in the galaxy to carry out the Emperor's orders, including
espionage, sabotage, and assassination." The Emperor's Hands were kept carefully secret, to preserve their utility as secret "aces in the hole" for
Palpatine's private use; Darth Vader and Grand Admiral Thrawn knew of the Emperor's Hands, but it is unclear who else may have known. The first
known Emperor's Hand was the assassin Sa Cuis ("In His Image"), but the best known is the first one introduced, Mara Jade (Heir to the Empire), with
whom the Emperor could communicate telepathically from across the galaxy; others include Vess Kogo (Rebellion Era Sourcebook), who was used for
"pure mayhem and destruction" as opposed to Jade's "subtle missions." Other known Hands include courtesan Roganda Ismaren (Children of the Jedi),
the cyborg Lumiya ("Figurehead"; formerly Major Shira Elan Colla Brie, Imperial Special Forces), the Empire's ace of aces Tan Maarek Stele (TIE
Fighter), master swordsman Jeng Droga ("The Kaal Connection"), Ruling Councilman and intrigant Sarcev Quest ("The Emperor's Pawns"), 25,000-year-
old Follower of Palawa and Teräs Käsi master Arden Lyn (Masters of Teräs Käsi), Zabrak agent Ylairo Iteu (Galaxies: An Empire Divided), assassin and
combat instructor Sheyvan (“Two-Edged Sword”), an unnamed male infiltrator (The Dark Side Sourcebook), and intelligence czar Blackhole ("Gambler's
World"), elsewhere said to have been a former Prophet of the Dark Side ("The Emperor's Pawns") and identified with important dark side adept Lord
Cronal, one of Palpatine's most powerful dark side servants ("The Dark Forces Saga, Part 5: Two Peas in a Pod"). Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the
Rim mentions that "it is rumored that Tremayne has trained to be a type of specialized operative of the Emperor's will, an 'Emperor's Hand,' but these
rumors have never been substantiated and prudent beings avoid asking the Inquisitor about it."
Dark Side Adepts
The "Dark Side Adepts" (occasionally also referred to as "Byss Mages") were "beings of great intelligence" who had "proven their loyalty to their
master"; while guests on Palpatine's private retreat world of Byss, they were introduced to the ways of the dark side of the Force, according to the Dark
Empire Sourcebook. Many of these dark side adepts were nonhumans who "had already mastered the unique sorceries of their own species" and were
invite to Byss by Palpatine "as much to study their knowledge as to train them in his." Some of them were "taught ways of combat and made into Dark
Jedi," while others were infiltrated into the Emperor's court and the Imperial State to assume high office, "traversing the galaxy and seeing to the proper
enforcement of Palpatine's decrees." As part of a plan to gradually theocratize the Empire, many of these dark side adepts were "gathered into the
Imperial Ruling Council" before the Battle of Endor, in order to "replace the system of Moffs, Grand Moffs, and governors." These adepts were experts
in Palpatine's Science of Darkness, creating mutated clones called Imperial Sentinels, what the Dark Empire Sourcebook calls "living statues dependent
on the will of the Adepts themselves for purpose or movement," and also creating Sithspawn Rancors called "Chrysalides" as an additional means of
defense for the Imperial Citadel on Byss, as seen in Dark Empire II. Known dark side adepts include the Chandrilan nobleman Savuud Thimram and
former inquisitor Gwellib Ap-Llewff (Dark Empire Sourcebook), T'iaz (Empire's End), Palpatine's close friends and betrayers Nefta and Sa-Di (Dark
Empire II), scientist and mystic Lord Cronal (Gamemaster Screen for Second Edition; identified with the former Prophet of the Dark Side and current
Emperor's Hand code-named Blackhole in "The Dark Forces Saga, Part 5: Two Peas in a Pod"), longtime aides and Ruling Councilmen Janus Greejatus
and Sim Aloo ("* Janus Greejatus" and "* Sim Aloo"), the Constable of Homonculi, supervisor of the Clone Lab and overseer of the Clone Keepers on
Byss (Dark Empire Sourcebook), the Grand Vizier's "Advisor's Hand" and aspiring "Dark Adept" Lady Brigta Hejaran of the Lords of House Mecetti
(Tapani Sector Instant Adventures), and three otherwise unidentified "Dark Adepts" from the Lords of the Expanse of House Melantha (Lords of the
Expanse Gamemaster Guide).
Other Dark Siders
The Dark Empire Sourcebook mentions that some Sovereign Protectors "who distinguish themselves are sometimes selected to become Dark Jedi
themselves." There were a handful of other dark side users in the Empire not obviously associated with the Inquisitorius, the Prophets of the Dark Side,
the Dark Side Elite, the Emperor's Hands, such as the aforementioned Lord Hethrir and Quarmall, or Rokur Gepta, the Sorcerer of Tund, brother and
sister Teles and Shela Jalahafi (Star Wars Introductory Adventure Game), and Joruus C'baoth, the Emperor's Guardian of the secret Mount Tantiss
storehouse in Heir to the Empire (by the time of 44 rS, C'baoth had succumbed to advanced clone madness and no longer even remembered that he was
the Emperor's Guardian, and believed that he had killed the Guardian and seized the mountain from him). Presumably these would be the nebulous
"other" Dark Jedi who were under Vader's supervision and drawn from the ranks of the Sovereign Protectors (although it is possible that any of the Dark
Side Elite other than Sedriss, Solusar, Nist, and Sha were also selected from the Sovereign Protectors); some of these "other" Dark Jedi were seen in Bast
Castle on Vjun – formerly Vader's castle, to complement his castle on Imperial Center seen in Before the Storm – in Empire's End under Nist's command.
See also:
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| This article was initially published in 2005. This section was republished on 18 April 2008. |
| Something Wicked This Way Comes Part II: Dark Lord of the Sith |