Darth Plagueis

Darth Plagueis, born and publicly known as Hego Damask, and remembered as Darth Plagueis the Wise, was a powerful male Muun Dark Lord of the Sith hailing from the planet Mygeeto. Damask was born between 147 and 120 BBY to a female Muun and a male Muun. His mother discovered his sensitivity to the Force, and she gave him away to the Bith Sith Lord Darth Tenebrous, who trained Damask—now Plagueis—in the ways of the Sith. The apprentice betrayed and murdered Tenebrous in 67 BBY.

Rising to become a Sith Lord, Plagueis, as Damask, led Damask Holdings, a financial corporation, manipulated galactic affairs and corporations to advance the Sith agenda and the Galactic Republic's intended fall. In his dark work, he learned deep knowledge of the Force, including powers over death and life themselves. While manipulating the Naboo on the planet Naboo, he discovered Palpatine, a man with the desire to rule. Plagueis manipulated the boy to kill his family, which led the young man to accept Plagueis's training as Darth Sidious.

The master and apprentice continued the Sith agenda together, with Sidious saving his master from many assassination attempts, however, Sidious, now teaching the Dathomirian Zabrak Sith apprentice Darth Maul, wished to kill his master and rule the Republic alone. Celebrating that the manipulated senators and bureaucrats of the Republic had voted Sidious, publicly Palpatine as the new Supreme Chancellor, Plagueis was betrayed and killed by his apprentice in 32 BBY while the Muun slept.

Biography

Prelude

Several years before Hego Damask's birth, his father, a Force-sensitive Muun named Caar Damask, who worked as a middle-ranking Banking Clan agent, met renowned starship designer Rugess Nome—or Darth Tenebrous—by chance on High Port Space Center.^[1] Tenebrous, in his capacity as reigning Dark Lord of the Sith, had been searching for the right apprentice to train for the sole purpose of eventually possessing through the virulent midi-chlorians he had dubbed "maxi-chlorians" in order for his consciousness to survive until the creation of the Chosen One, who would be seized by the Sith.^[4]

Years after his meeting with Damask, Tenebrous discovered another Force-sensitive Muun—a lower-caste female—and conscripted her as a disciple, for she was not strong enough in the Force to be considered for apprenticeship. Tenebrous, using Bith scientific methods, had predicted that the offspring of Damask and his disciple would be strong in the Force. For this purpose, he tasked his Muun disciple to seduce Caar Damask and bear him a child.^[1]

Birth and early life

Born on Mygeeto sometime between 200 and 100 BBY,^[2] the son of Caar Damask, who had become the planet's administrator more than ten years earlier, and his codicil wife, Hego Damask was named after his grandfather. Growing up in a domed city on a perpetually frozen and sparsely populated planet under the overly attentive gaze of his mother, Hego had a very atypical childhood for a Muun. She recorded every detail of his upbringing, encouraged him to talk with her about even the most furtive of his thoughts, and provided playmates for him, observing his interactions with them and interrogating him about his feelings regarding each specific youngling. Before his fifth birthday, Hego discovered that he could manipulate the Force by using it to ply the feelings of his playmates. He eventually tested the limits of this power by using a very potent mind trick on a Muun youngling he had grown to dislike, convincing the boy to commit suicide by jumping into a courtyard from a high window. Damask's mother instructed her son to keep his powers secret, and confided in him that they shared the gift.^[1]

Damask's parents handed him over to Nome as a youngling in return for a career advancement for Caar, presumably arranged through the Dark Lord's shadowy intelligence network. Tenebrous took the child as his apprentice,^[1] the one he intended to eventually possess,^[4] naming him—at some unknown point—Darth Plagueis. Plagueis left Mygeeto for the first time in his life, and began his life as a Sith.^[1]

Five years after handing his son to the Dark Lord, Caar Damask was appointed director of the treasury branch of the InterGalactic Banking Clan, realizing his lifelong dream of wielding real power within the IBC. His codicil wife disappeared without a trace. Five years after that, Plagueis learned the truth of Tenebrous's machinations that led to his birth. Caar Damask eventually rose to the top of the IBC as Chairman.^[1]

Darth Tenebrous and Darth Plagueis

Darth Plagueis traveled the galaxy with his master, masquerading as Rugess Nome's young accountant while the two carried out the Sith plan of spreading discontent to ripen the galaxy for their rule. During his travels, Plagueis became acquainted with the backwater of the galaxy; in the years to come, he would feel at home in the run-down spaceports, seedy tapcafs and rough cantinas common in the Rim.^[1] Around the year 104 BBY, Plagueis undertook the trial of visiting Kursid and fighting its natives with Darth Tenebrous for the first time.^[1]

Plagueis later told his own apprentice that his first mission under the tutelage of Lord Tenebrous was undertaken in the twenty-fifth year of his apprenticeship, at some point after 99 BBY:^[5] Tenebrous tasked his apprentice to murder Kerred Santhe the Elder. The assassination was accomplished by means of telekinetic strangulation during a banquet on Corulag; the Sith Lords took advantage of the fact that bloat eel was served in order to blame Santhe's death on the chefs. Following this trial, Plagueis veered from the Sith path, as often happened with apprentices when they first discovered the potency of the dark side.^[1]

Plagueis later claimed to Palpatine that he had returned to Muunilinst to meet the rest of his clan. As the son of Caar Damask's codicil wife, however, he was never accepted by his half-brothers and sisters, who saw him as an interloper and sought to have him disinherited. Soon afterwards, Caar Damask fell gravely ill at a relatively young age for a Muun, and it was discovered that he had a rare congenital defect in his tertiary heart that he had passed on to his children with his first wife. Plagueis, having been born to a different mother, did not carry the gene, and he watched as his siblings and clan mother spent millions of credits on a geneticist to help cure the condition. Plagueis claimed that he had hired the geneticist to conduct phony treatments, and that he took pleasure in his siblings' early deaths, inheriting the wealth they had tried to deny him. Palpatine suspected that the story was embellished to goad him into killing his family. Plagueis later admitted that only "some of it" was true.^[1]

Regardless to the circumstances, at some point Darth Plagueis inherited the Damask fortune and took over the Sojourn Gatherings from his father. Gatherings were clandestine annual meetings of politicians, the leaders of various trade organizations and cartels, and even gangsters, hosted by Damask Holdings on the moon of Sojourn. Hego Damask II transformed the Gatherings from the elite secret club it had been under his father into a Sith tool to influence the most influential beings of the galaxy in order to prepare the Republic for the submission to an enlightened elite promised by Darth Tenebrous.^[1]

During their long years together, Tenebrous did not invest in properly training Plagueis as a Sith. Instead, he sent him on various missions he judged pointless as a distraction, and cultivated his apprentice's unprecedented talent for midi-chlorian manipulation, all the while making sure that the Muun would only apply it to the preservation and extension of his own life, thus ensuring that he would live long enough for Tenebrous to possess the body of the Chosen One. Plagueis developed his powers in the Force and in the mundane world largely on his own, and indeed took them further than his Master believed.^[4] Tenebrous also took on a second apprentice, a Bith to whom he bestowed the name "Darth Venamis." Although Venamis was apprised of Plagueis's existence, Plagueis was kept in the dark—he believed he was his master's sole apprentice, in accordance with the Rule of Two, a rule he had come to resent.^[1]

In 67 BBY, Plagueis in his role as Hego Damask secretly negotiated for the Trade Federation to accept the expansion of Free Trade Zones in the Outer Rim Territories, even though this would cost it some of its shipping monopoly and expose it to competition from start-up companies. In exchange, the Trade Federation received full voting privileges as a functional constituency in the Galactic Senate, though the leadership remained disgruntled at the loss of some of its monopoly. Meanwhile, Plagueis advised the InterGalactic Banking Clan to invest in Outer Rim and trans-Perlemian shipping to take advantage of the new arrangement.^[1]

Darth Plagueis becomes the Master

67 years before the Battle of Yavin, Darth Tenebrous learned of a cortosis deposit on the planet Bal'demnic, and personally went there to survey it with his apprentice, a treddroid, and an M-2 mining probe provided by Subtext Mining. What neither Tenebrous—apparently—nor Plagueis knew was that the probe had been sabotaged by an unknown party, with Subtext's complicity. Inside a cave on the side of a steep escarpment on the shore of the Northern Sea, the two Sith Lords landed their craft, a ship designed by Tenebrous himself, and set out to survey the cortosis vein, using enviro-suits to protect them from the deadly heat.^[1]

Tenebrous ascribed special significance to the mission as he believed that two Sith Lords mining cortosis at the apex of the Rule of Two era amounted to the "closing of a circle," a circle that had began with Darth Bane, the Sith'ari of legend, starting on the path toward darkness in the Apatros cortosis mines. The enterprise soon came to an unexpected end, however, when the droid reported that the mining probe had discovered a pocket of a highly combustible variant of lethane directly beneath the borehole. Tenebrous ordered the droid to have the probe deactivated, but it failed; the probe overrode the droid's commands. After the two Sith unsuccessfully tried to damage the probe using Force lightning, they hastened to return to the grotto where they had landed the ship, leaving the treddroid behind. Plagueis made sure to let it know that it had been useful before running away.^[1]

As the two Sith ran through the superheated caverns, Plagueis noticed that his Master was uncharacteristically distressed, as if he sensed something alarming in the Force. They had just made it to the grotto near the surface when the gas explosion caught them—Tenebrous conjured a barrier to shield them from the fireball, and when the ceiling began to collapse, he used the Force to protect the ship. It was then that Plagueis had the impression of hearing the Force whisper to him that his moment had come to claim his stake to the dark side, and lost no time in contemplation—he betrayed his master by bringing the huge slabs of stone down on him using the Force. The rockfall, however, also buried their ship, trapping them both. Racing to Tenebrous's side, Plagueis tried to comfort his Master. The Bith went along with his apprentice's charade, and conferred the mantle of Sith Master to him. Plagueis, accepting responsibility for his action, informed Tenebrous that his death would mark the end of the Rule of Two, and that he would escape the grotto even without the ship; he then broke the Bith's neck, killing him.^[1]

Both Plagueis and Tenebrous had waited a long time for that moment—the latter had hoped that his apprentice would have made his move years earlier, and was happy to finally be allowed the chance to implement his secret scheme, while the former had wanted to carry the Grand Plan to completion alone, without being burdened with the formalities of the Banite system. As Plagueis reached out in the Force to study Tenebrous's dying midi-chlorians, the maxi-chlorians carrying the Bith's intelligence slipped out of his body undetected and infected a wound on the Muun's lower back, caused by a rock or some other projectile. As the maxi-chlorian virus propagated inside Plagueis's cells, Tenebrous accessed his apprentice's powers of foresight, the powers he had had to give up himself in order to code his intelligence into the retrovirus. What he witnessed horrified him: instead of providing access to the Chosen One, Darth Plagueis died at the hands of his own apprentice, "the shadow." After the retrovirus completed the task it had been engineered for, the infection of all the cells in Plagueis's body, the Muun Dark Lord lost his powers of foresight. Tenebrous, after slipping out of his apprentice's body in panic, remained trapped as a disembodied essence in the cave.^[4]

Aftermath of Tenebrous's death

Plagueis lost track of time after the murder, immersed as he was in the Force in order to study his Master's dying midi-chlorians. When he regained his composure, he discovered that he had been injured. After accessing the damaged ship, he realized that he could not repair it, nor could he use the Force to reach the oculus that led to the surface. So he set to work on removing the rubble from the ship using telekinesis and adding the rocks to a rubble pile he could climb to reach the surface. After he had completed his task, he entered the cockpit and retrieved his travel bag, which contained, among other effects, his lightsaber, a change of clothes, and a comlink, and also took Tenebrous's lightsaber and comlink. He changed, and after reassuring himself that the scene of the crime actually showed no evidence of a crime but rather of a simple starship crash, Plagueis left the cave. Relying on a map in Tenebrous's comlink, the Sith Lord set out in search of the nearest city with a starport, located a few hundred kilometers to the south of the grotto, taking care to avoid contact with the Kon'me, the planet's indigenous inhabitants. When night fell, the Dark Lord took shelter in a shallow cave, and as he replayed the events of the previous day in his mind in an effort to fall asleep, he sensed the presence of a being of near-equal power to his. He considered that it might be Tenebrous's spirit come to hound him, as legend claimed had happened to Darth Bane after he desecrated the tombs of the Dark Lords. Yet Plagueis, confident that he would outlive any usurpers to his rule of the Sith, did not allow this premonition to worry him, and fell asleep.^[1]

He awoke and resumed his course before sunrise. Famished, having caught little sleep, with an infected wound and tormented by biting insects, Plagueis was in bad shape, but he immersed himself in the dark side and ran. Resisting the urge to attack the lower-caste Kon'me of the nearby dwellings for sustenance, he sated his hunger on bats and dead fish washed ashore. As he reached the city, Plagueis had a vision of the future: a future of war for Bal'demnic. In the starport, the Muun looked around for an appropriate ship to stow away in. After finding one to his liking and recording its registry number—LS-447-3—in his comlink, he sneaked into the spaceport authority building, escaping the notice of the sleeping Kon'me night shift guards, and found the registrar's office. He sliced into an office computer's control network, and called up information on the ship he had selected: the Woebegone out of Ord Mantell, captained by a Togruta woman by the name of Ellin Lah. The starship was scheduled to launch in the morning, bound for several Auril sector planets, with a cargo of fresh sea life kept within refrigerated containers that had cleared customs. It was within such a container that Plagueis sneaked inside the Woebegone, taking advantage of the Muun ability to regulate blood flow to the hearts in order to survive the freezing temperatures.^[1]

Once the crew discovered the stowaway, Plagueis promised to Captain Lah that he was prepared not only to offer full recompense for the cargo he had spoiled, but moreover to reward them handsomely in exchange for passage to Muunilinst. He chose not to divulge his identity, however, and most crewmembers treated him with distrust. The deal eventually went sour, and Plagueis killed everyone—Captain Lah, first mate Maa Kaap, the pilot Blir', the navigator Semasalli, and the crewmen Doo Zuto, Wandau and PePe Rossh, all fell to Plagueis's lightsaber; he only spared Lah's droid, 11-4D. Much to Plagueis's displeasure, he was unable to sustain the midi-chlorians of the crewmembers he butchered. Plagueis ordered 11-4D to set a course for the coordinates he provided, and retreated to the captain's quarters. The droid then tended to the festering wound the Dark Lord had received in the cave-in, and served him food and drink.^[1]

Discovering Venamis

The Wobegone arrived at Deep Space Demolition and Removal, owned by Damask's ally Boss Cabra of Black Sun. There, he ordered that the Wobegone be sealed and slagged, and requested a change of wardrobe and a fueled, piloted ship to Muunilinst. He arrived on High Port Space Station with 11-4D several days after he had been expected, and was welcomed by Larsh Hill and a retinue of Damask Holdings members accompanied by Echani Sun Guards. He also had a chance encounter with Chairman Tonith of the IBC.^[1]

During the Gathering on Sojourn, Plagueis met with Gardulla the Hutt, Senator Pax Teem of the Gran Protectorate, and Qayhuk of the Yinchorri Council of Elders. Gardulla requested financial aid to restore the Boonta Eve Classic podrace circuit on Tatooine, and Plagueis agreed to put her in contact with agents of the Bank of Aargau. Qayhuk wanted Damask Holdings' support to lobby for Yinchorr's representation in the Galactic Senate, though Plagueis was more interested in taking the measure of the Yinchorri's rumored resistance to Force suggestion. Plagueis then clashed with Pax Teem over his support for Gardulla: Teem feared a new podrace course would undercut Malastare's revenues, and while Plagueis indicated that he would support an increase in rates for Malastare's fuel exports to offset the loss, Teem angrily retorted that a rates hike would benefit Damask Holdings and the Trade Federation far more than it would him.^[1]

Finally, Plagueis met with Gossam representatives of Subtext Mining. After threatening them for causing the death of Darth Tenebrous, the Gossams revealed the presence of a massive plasma reserve recently discovered under the city of Theed on the Mid Rim world of Naboo that could be highly profitable for Damask Holdings. Plagueis chose to spare their lives, ordering his Sun Guards to transport them to the most remote world they could find in the Tingel Arm in case he needed them again.^[1]

After the Gathering, Plagueis was informed by his Sun Guards that an intruder had breached the retreat's security. The Dark Lord sensed this was the work of a Force-sensitive being and set out to challenge the trespasser in the forests of Sojourn. Originally, he thought it was a Jedi, but was proved wrong when attacked by a Bith wielding a crimson-bladed lightsaber. Caught by surprise, Plagueis momentarily believed this to be his deceased Master Tenebrous, and then mused that he might be an artificially created offspring, but the Bith claimed to have been selected by Tenebrous as his Sith apprentice under the moniker of Darth Venamis. Venamis told Plagueis that he planned to execute his Master's last command—to kill Plagueis, and legitimize the title as Darth. There was a short but fierce duel; so as to better prepare his apprentice for the fight against Plagueis, Tenebrous had taught Venamis the same fighting style the Muun was proficient in so that he would have an advantage when they faced each other. Damask originally had trouble fighting this new foe, but eventually gained the upper hand and disarmed Venamis, using both his and the Bith's weapon to force him to his knees. Darth Venamis then offered to apprentice himself to Plagueis, but the Muun had other plans for him: he forced Venamis to poison himself by ingesting a coma-bloom. He then ordered his Sun Guards to locate the infiltrator's ship and move his body to Aborah, with the intention of using the Bith as a test subject in his midi-chlorian experiments.^[1]

An investigation of Venamis's ship revealed that he had kept his eye on several Force-sensitive users as potential apprentices. With the comatose Bith safely inside a bacta tank in Aborah, Plagueis set out to eliminate them and secure his position as the reigning Dark Lord. Accompanied by 11-4D, he travelled to Lianna and Colliders Casino in Lianna City, with the help of the Casino's security, Plagueis and 11-4D discovered the subject was a Shi'ido skinshifter, which they followed across the city after they parted ways with the security of the casino, when the Shi'ido was changing from an Askajian to an Ongree or a Gotal, 11-4D shot the Shi'ido in the base of the brain, and brought him to a dark corner. Plagueis inquired the Shi'ido in the reasoning for the Shi'ido transferring the winnings he gained from the casino to Kerred Santhe, upon which the Shi'ido told the Muun that Santhe was in debt to some Black Sun Vigos. Plagueis let him go with his damaged cranium, after recommending him to gain some last winnings and make himself a new life.^[1]

Plagueis and FourDee visited Saleucami where they found an Iktotchi prophet that was sharing her insight on the Republic's fall and the Jedi Order's fall into turmoil. Plagueis ascended to the prophet's event's stage and interrupted her speech; after the Iktotchi recognized and greeted him, he informed her that she had been chosen without her knowledge—by Venamis—and that her message was disturbing the Muun's cause. Although she attempted to convince the Muun that she would undo her speech, Plagueis instead put a hand on her and fatally electrocuted the prophet before utilizing a mind trick on her followers to make good his escape. Soon after, Plagueis visited Bedlam and its sanatorium, where he learnt that one of the Force-users selected by Venamis (the Nautolan Naat Lare) had recently escaped with the aid of a psychologist (actually Venamis in disguise).^[1] Plagueis flew to Abraxin after his droid informed him of a Force-user who had killed dozens of beings there. At Abraxin, Plagueis met Jedi Master Ni-Cada and his Padawan, Lo Bukk, who were investigating the mysterious murders. While hiding his Force abilities to avoid detection by the Jedi, Plagueis confronted Lare. Identifying himself as a Sith Master, Plagueis informed Lare that the Muun would take him as a Sith apprentice if he could eliminating the investigating Jedi. Plagueis then watched from concealment as the Jedi struck Lare down in a brief duel.^[1]

Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious

Politics

In 65 BBY, Plagueis, under his public name of Hego Damask II, traveled to Naboo to inspect the situation for himself. During this time, Naboo was at the peak of election season, and the candidates for the throne were divided between a conservative faction which wanted Naboo to remain an isolationist Republic member world, its resources exploited only internally and not by external megacorporations, and a liberal faction which wanted to fully integrate Naboo into the Galactic Republic. The candidate of the latter faction, Bon Tapalo, secured the endorsement of both Damask Holdings and the Trade Federation by promising to open Naboo to trade, which would allow them to profit from the plasma resources: Plagueis explicitly involved the Trade Federation in the construction of a new spaceport for Theed to export the plasma to reconcile them to the earlier Free Trade Zone Deal. He also sought to use the planet as a future base of operations. Bon Tapalo's opponent was supported by staunch royalists and traditionalists such as Cosinga Palpatine, patriarch of House Palpatine, and Naboo representative Vidar Kim, influential figures in Naboo politics both.^[1]

Plagueis eventually learned that Tapalo had an informant in the rival campaign who provided him with vital information. His agents discovered that the informant was a seventeen-year-old student in the Legislative Youth Program called Palpatine, the son of the man who stood most fervently against Tapalo and his ilk, Cosinga Palpatine. Eager to know more about the young man, Plagueis convinced him when they met at the Legislative Program's Theed headquarters to give him a tour of the town in his prized speeder.^[1]

From this first encounter, Plagueis learned much about the young aristocrat: he was interested in politics but was shy to admit it; had a modest fondness for art and desired for his homeworld to be opened to the wider galaxy. Most notably, Plagueis learned of the young man's severe estrangement with his father which had been going on for years. Impressed by the young man's ambition, intelligence and motivations, Plagueis offered to use him as a spy to secure Tapalo's election and Damask Holdings' interests on Naboo. Palpatine accepted the offer on one condition: he would report to Plagueis alone and directly. This led Plagueis to consider that Palpatine saw him as the father figure he never had. But he too was intrigued by the young man. For two standard days after leaving Naboo, Palpatine was constantly in Damask's mind. After a falling out with Senator Pax Teem of the Gran Protectorate over Damask's support of Gardulla during the Phoebos Memorial Run on Malastare, Plagueis began to consider Palpatine for the role of figurehead Supreme Chancellor that would bring the galaxy under the rule of the Sith.^[1]

Initiation

Immediately after landing on Naboo a standard month after his first visit, Plagueis and his retinue of Damask Holdings and IBC members were detained by a group of security guards. The Muuns were forced to remain in one of the spaceport's holding areas for about an hour, after which time two Palace Guards arrived to escort the Magister to a waiting Gian speeder. Damask was taken to Convergence in the Lake Country, where he met Cosinga Palpatine. Cosinga, who had noticed the friendship between the Magister and his eldest son, demanded that the Muuns stay away from Naboo, and that Damask specifically stay away from his son.^[1]

Plagueis, undeterred, traveled to Hanna City on Chandrila to meet with Palpatine, who was on the planet participating in a month long retreat sponsored by the Legislative Youth Program at the time, and updated him on the situation. The young man was furious at his father's attempt to meddle in his affairs, and his fury buffeted Plagueis as he felt it in the Force. Palpatine demanded help and advice, to which Plagueis replied that the young Human could use this incident as a means of emancipating himself. After some back-and-forth palaver, Palpatine revealed to the Magister that he sought ultimate power, and Plagueis told him that he was willing to be his ally in this quest provided that he free himself of all restrictions, chief among them his family. The Muun then related the story—a carefully put together amalgam of fact and fiction—of his own emancipation: he told Palpatine that, following his father's deathbed advice to use whatever means were necessary to protect his interests from less enlightened beings, he had orchestrated an elaborate ruse to poison his family and inherit the Damask fortune in its entirety. In reality, Plagueis was coaxing the young Human to confront his father and break the barriers he had built to hide his true nature. In fact, he had approached him on Chandrila so that Cosinga's spies would spot them together, making the confrontation between father and son inevitable.^[1]

All went according to Plagueis's plan, and as Palpatine was preparing to leave for Naboo aboard the Jafan III, one of his father's security guards came to escort him to the family starship. Palpatine murdered his family soon after the starship entered hyperspace, and contacted Damask, who promised him that all evidence would be destroyed, leaving nothing to link Palpatine to his family's disappearance. Plagueis now saw the young man as insidious, ambitious and arrogant by nature, as well as completely lacking in empathy, ready to join the Sith as his apprentice. In a cabin aboard the starship Quantum Collosus, Palpatine knelt before his new Master and swore his loyalty to the Sith Order, and Plagueis bestowed upon him a new name: Darth Sidious.^[1]

Training Darth Sidious

Soon after the murder of his family, Sidious began the first stages of his training, designed to "break" him as an individual in order to remake him as a Sith, under Darth Plagueis.^[1] The Master promised to the apprentice that, although his training would be severe, they would be free of the Rule of Two. Breaking the cycle enacted by Darth Bane, they would neither harbor any secrets from each other, nor experience any jealousy or mistrust in their relationship, thus serving the dark side in concert.^[7] After Sidious began his training, he inherited the Sith Archives, a knowledge bank containing a thousand years' knowledge passed by master to apprentice. When Sidious read the Archives, he noted that Mother Talzin, Sorzus Syn, Malgus, Bane and Plagueis would find little common ground if they shared their knowledge, as they focused on their own dogmas.^[8]

Sidious learned from Plagueis over the course of decades,^[7] during which Plagueis taught his apprentice everything he knew to prevent the power he had amassed from being lost forever.^[3] His training included hunting on Buoyant, combat with battle droids on Hypori, and the ritual killing of native warriors on Kursid.^[1] During Sidious' training, Plagueis gave his apprentice access to his Sith holocrons. Plagueis's lessons involved forcing Sidious to face his fears, denying him pleasures, and taking from him the things he loved. He taught Sidious that emotions such as envy and hatred, though necessary to master the dark side, were simply means to the end of casting aside usual notions of morality for a greater goal. Plagueis also lectured his apprentice on the means of taking power, with the eventual goal of control over the galaxy.^[9]

The assassination of Vidar Kim

By 54 BBY, Plagueis and Palpatine were maneuvering to raise Ars Veruna to the throne of Naboo, encouraging his plans to establish a space fighter corps to allow Naboo to deal with the Trade Federation from a position of strength. When Veruna became king, Plagueis planned to lead him into a destabilizing confrontation that appeared to be of his own making. However, Veruna and Bon Tapalo's policies were still fiercely opposed by Senator Vidar Kim, who planned to vote against a bill to seat numerous Trade Federation-controlled star systems in the Senate. Kim's behavior became more intense and erratic after the death of his entire family in an airspeeder accident on Kaadara. Kim became convinced that his opponents Tapalo and Veruna had been behind the deaths of his family to force his early retirement. He devised a far-fetched plot to lead his only living son, the Jedi Knight Ronhar Kim, away from the Order and to carry on the family lineage. Returning to Coruscant within a month of his family's accident, Kim was angered when his only remaining son refused him, reaffirming his oath to the Jedi Order.^[1]

In 52 BBY, convinced of a conspiracy, Kim outlined to Palpatine his plan to reveal Tapalo and Veruna's corruption to the Jedi High Council. While on Coruscant, Kim had arranged a meeting with his son with the intention of swaying him to his cause and getting him to investigate on Naboo. Plagueis and Sidious came to the conclusion that the Senator had become too much of a liability: Plagueis saw Kim's death as an opportunity to send a message to the Galactic Senate of the growing disenchantment in the outer systems. Sidious arranged with Sate Pestage to have Kim killed on Coruscant by a Maladian assassin. A week later, Kim was riding in an open-air speeder with his last remaining heir when the hired assassin fired a round at the car, killing Kim before committing suicide to evade capture and interrogation by the Jedi.^[10]

Meeting Dooku and Sifo-Dyas

In 52 BBY, Plagueis was involved in discussions with the Kaminoans about the possibility of creating a clone army to one day eradicate the Jedi Order. Plagueis had initially hoped to produce Yinchorri soldiers, believing that their immunity to many Force powers would give them an advantage over the Jedi. However, the Kaminoan geneticist Ko Sai pointed out that the Yinchorri's natural aggression would be extremely difficult to control in a military environment and interfere with their ability to obey orders.^[1]

Later that year, Plagueis attended a meeting on the Outer Rim world of Serenno hosted by Count Vemec. Also present at that meeting was a small group of Jedi: Jocasta Nu, Sifo-Dyas, Qui-Gon Jinn and Dooku. Celanon and Serenno were in a dispute over the placement of a new hyperwave transceiver in Celanon space that would expand the reach of the HoloNet into the Corporate Sector. In compensation for the fact that placement of the repeater would necessitate changes in hyperspace trade routes, Celanon had announced that ships entering Celanon space from the systems of the upper Hydian Way (including Serenno) would be required to pay substantial transit taxes.^[1]

Plagueis privately hoped that the mediation would fail: citing controversy, Damask Holdings would then withdraw from funding the transceiver and the project would collapse, leaving systems in the Tingel Arm feeling victimized by a disagreement between two wealthy Republic worlds and intensifying disenchantment in the Outer Rim. Plagueis was more interested in taking the measure of Master Dooku, who was an increasingly dissatisfied critic of the corruption of the Galactic Senate. Plagueis felt he could recruit Dooku as an insurance policy against the possibility of losing Sidious.^[1]

After hours of talk, a brief recess was called for. Plagueis took the opportunity to speak with the Jedi, engaging in a heated debate with Qui-Gon Jinn, who accused Damask Holdings of fomenting discontent in the Outer Rim in the name of profit. To Sifo-Dyas and Dooku, he spoke of impending conflict for the Republic in the future, discussing the possibility of a split in the Republic between the Core and the outer systems. Dooku admitted to the Senate's corruption and despaired for the possibility of correcting it. Sifo-Dyas was circumspect, not wanting to admit to the possibility of war out of his loyalty to the Republic. Plagueis realized then that to destroy the Jedi the Sith must exploit their sense of righteousness and obedience to the Republic, making them appear to be the enemies of peace and justice rather than the guardians. He then considered that rather than create an army to fight the Jedi, he might instead have the Kaminoans create an army that would fight alongside the Jedi before betraying them. Preparing to exploit Sifo-Dyas' fears about the future of the Republic, Plagueis was about to tell him about the cloners on Kamino that could rapidly raise an army for the Republic. However, upon seeing Jocasta Nu approach, Plagueis felt the dark side warn him not to speak of it, and he quickly ended the discussion.^[1]

A short while later on Coruscant, Plagueis introduced Dooku and Sifo-Dyas to his apprentice, Sidious, prior to the latter's address to the Senate in his public persona of Palpatine during a vote on sitting several client systems of the Trade Federation. During their discussion, they were spotted by Senator Pax Teem, who realized that Palpatine and Damask were working together. Teem had just expected Palpatine to vote against the Trade Federation, but on orders from both King Bon Tapalo and Plagueis (the former wishing to placate domestic critics of Naboo's deal with the Trade Federation, the latter planning for the new member-worlds to be caught in between a Republic that heavily taxed them and a Federation that exploited them to foment discontent and pave the way for a future secession crisis that would destroy the Republic), Palpatine declared that Naboo would abstain from the vote, tipping the Trade Federation towards victory.^[1]

Facing death

In 52 BBY, Plagueis attended Larsh Hill's Order of the Canted Circle. Many influential beings attended the event—which also attended the Gathering—including many Muuns, from Damask Holdings and the IGBC, Larsh Hill—which was standing at the end of the circle—wore black robes, which ten other Muuns also did. The initiation ceremony would begin with the high official joining Hill on the circle him, and placing around his neck the order's signature pendant. That ceremony was offered to Plagueis twenty years prior, but Damask rejected it. The event's aims were narrow and the rituals were allegorical, filled with secret phrases and handshakes, although Plagueis understood the need to instill members with some furtive fraternity, he did not risk having the high officials know much about his past as it could unravel his secret identity and plans. Larsh Hill's past had been exhaustively shared, even the decades he had worked with Caar Damask. As Plagueis had just returned from the short holotransmission with Sidious, Plagueis was filled with triumph. The Sun Guards in the event were leaving to kill the Gran Protectorate. As members of the Canted Circle entered the building chatting with others, 11-4D rotated its head towards Plagueis to alarm him of danger. Without warning, the high official presiding over the ceremony gave a downward tug to Hill's pendant, severing his head and throat; as Hill died, several other officials and members threw off their cloaks, revealing their true identities as Maladian assassins.^[1]

These assassins began to throw dozens of decapitator disks, cutting down numerous Muuns within moments. 11-4D and Plagueis were both badly wounded by this abrupt attack, with one disk severing Plagueis' trachea and blood vessels on the side of his throat. He used the Force to clamp shut his wounds and prevent unconsciousness, before beginning to attack the Maladians with the Force, ripping them apart and blasting them with the dark side of the Force. Simultaneously, Sate Pestage informed Palpatine that a Maladian faction had accepted a contract by the Gran Protectorate to carry out a major contract on Coruscant involving someone of Damask Holdings. Realising their target, Palpatine and Pestage swiftly made his way to the Order of the Canted Circle's location, where a heavily-wounded Plagueis was lashing out with the dark side against his attackers. The two managed to defeat the assassins and save Plagueis' life; when Plagueis ordered Palpatine to call the Sun Guard, Palpatine denied this request and told him he knew who had ordered this attack, and that he would deal with it personally. Additionally, Pestage, having seen Sidious using a lightsaber and Plagueis the Force, was inducted into some deeper understanding of the Sith cause, a duty the man took to.^[1]

Darth Plagueis had survived the Maladian attack with grievous injuries—a considerable part of his lower face had been taken off by a decapitator disk that had also severed his trachea and several blood vessels. In order to survive, the Dark Lord had been forced to wear a type of transpirator which covered his face below the nose. One standard month after the attack, Plagueis summoned Sidious to Aborah to reveal the true nature of his studies and experiments to his apprentice. For the next twenty years, Damask lived an eremitic life in his laboratory, devoting all of his energy to the study of the midi-chlorians and healing himself by controlling them, while Palpatine devoted himself to the political machinations that the last stages of the Grand Plan entailed. Additionally, Sidious began training his own apprentice, Darth Maul, under Plagueis's watchful eye. The Muun found the Dathomirian Zabrak to be useful to the Sith since he had been brought into Sidious' hands by his mother as a baby.^[1]

Darth Plagueis's manuscript

At some point after Plagueis exclusively devoted himself to his studies, writing everything he learnt of in a book that Sidious would call the Book of Sith: Darth Plagueis sought to understand the Force in a purely scientific context, doing away with the trappings of mysticism he believed the Jedi had corseted it with. He accepted the classification of the Force's aspects into three categories: the aperion (equivalent to the Unifying Force), the anima (equivalent to the Living Force), and the pneuma (conscious thought as expressed in the Force). His focus was midi-chlorians, which he believed benefited from a uniquely strong connection to all three aspects and could be used to master life and death, however, the three aspects could exist entirely without midi-chlorians. Apart from the extension and creation of life through midi-chlorians, Plagueis sought to explore such extreme and unusual applications as the direct manipulation of space-time and continuity of consciousness after death (going as far as to discuss the essence transference technique). He traveled to the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban, seeking contact with long-dead Sith, but found none in the tomb of Hakagram Graush or on the throne of Sorzus Syn. As he boarded his ship to leave the planet, however, he had a vision of the admonishing spirit of Marka Ragnos. The long-dead Dark Lord challenged Plagueis's claim to the title, and railed against his plan to dismantle the traditions of Korriban, but offered no answers to any of the Muun's questions and inquiries. After this experience, Plagueis assumed he might have hallucinated the event remained unconvinced about the reality of life after death of the body.^[8]

The manuscript also included his thoughts on the Mortis legend, in which section Plagueis claimed that creating the Chosen One—not to save the Jedi but to be an extension of his will—would be a trivial matter once he had mastered the art of manipulating the midi-chlorians. The surviving manuscript concluded with Plagueis's interpretation of the Sith'ari prophecy as a description of his achievements, even though he rejected the concept of prophecy.^[8]

Tipping the scales

Around the year 42 BBY, Darth Plagueis finally took Venamis's life. He then resurrected him and killed him again, repeating the process until the Bith's organs gave out, and he finally died. Both Sidious and 11-4D were present. Sidious and Plagueis then entered a meditative trance and managed to tip the scales of balance in the favor of darkness. Plagueis attempted to go one step further and attempted to create life by mentally reaching out to the inhabitants of the galaxy. An act in direct violation of the nature of the Force, Plagueis and Sidious attempted to will a being of their own design into creation, pouring their malicious intent into waves through the Force to the countless midi-chlorians spread across the galaxy. The experiment did not yield fruit, however, as Plagueis perceived the Force growing silent to his probing. Immediately afterwards, Plagueis's test subjects began to succumb to various diseases, and he set most of the survivors free; some of the animals he had experimented on adapted to the forests of Sojourn. Plagueis had developed a theory that the Force was actively opposed to the Sith's efforts, and he saw each setback in this light.^[1]

Yinchorr Uprising

In 33 BBY, Plagueis and Sidious provoked a key conflict in order to advance their goals. They urged the Yinchorri, themselves new admissions to the Republic, into an aggressive war which concluded with multiple victories for the Sith plan. The Yinchorri, a race immune to mind tricks, were thought by Plagueis to be good potential hosts and trainers of a secret cloned army, which he planned to use to destroy the Jedi. Though this would not ultimately be the case, the resolution of the Yinchorri Uprising still proved to be of great benefit.^[1]

In terms of simple bloodshed, the conflict saw the deaths of seven Jedi; one of whom was a member of the Jedi Council. But of greater long-term value, the telepathic manipulative-immune Yinchorri were eliminated as a threat to the rise of the Sith by seeing them defeated and isolated to their own world. But perhaps most significantly, the Yinchorri incident critically undermined the Chancellorship of Finis Valorum. This created the circumstances necessary for Palpatine to ascend to political supremacy in the Republic.^[11]

Cog Hive Seven

By 33 BBY, Sidious was busy fomenting dissent in the Outer Rim as part of the Grand Plan's goal to pit the Republic against disgruntled star systems in the outlying regions. Plagueis was kept appraised of his apprentice's efforts but seldom took part in the attempts, preferring to continue his experiments on midi-chlorians. However, when Sidious sent his own apprentice, Darth Maul, to the prison Cog Hive Seven to track down influential arms dealer Iram Radique to covertly manipulate a rogue Force-worshiping cult—the Bando Gora—in order to acquire a weapon with which to kill Darth Plagueis, Plagueis took an interest in the mission. He sent an IBC agent named Vesto Slipher to monitor Maul's progress.^[12]

Veruna's revenge

Ars Veruna requested Palpatine's presence on Theed, which interrupted his journey to the Eriadu summit, Palpatine arrived at Theed, and went directly to Veruna's palace. When he arrived, he sat in a table directly in front of the King, which welcomed him. Veruna offered Palpatine many beverages, which Palpatine enjoyed and consumed. Most of the most corrupt of Veruna's supporters in the electorate were present at the meeting. Everyone—but Palpatine—laughed maliciously, at Veruna's right, sat Alexi Garyn, head of the Black Sun crime dyndicate, and to Veruna's left, Gardulla. There were many Bando Gora terrorists in the room. Veruna and Palpatine engaged in a conversation regarding the latter's goals at the summit on Eriadu, although Palpatine attempted to cloud his motives, by saying it was for the good of Naboo, Veruna told Palpatine that he was aware of his plans with the Trade Federation. Again, clouding his motives, Veruna attempted to draw him out, he told Palpatine that he had some of his men present when Palpatine offered the Naberries to present her daughter to the coming election. Veruna told Palpatine that a little girl would not dethrone him, however Palpatine continued to deny it—Veruna informed Palpatine that he would no longer be the Senator of the Chrommel sector, instead, Lago Kun. Palpatine attempted to suggest Janus Greetajus, but Veruna dismissed his suggestion and told Palpatine that he had information to ruin him, as well as to ruin Damask. Veruna finally informed Palpatine that he would not be seeing Damask again.^[1]

Plagueis and 11-4D began to kill every test subject in Sojourn, as Plagueis and 11-4D killed beings, they erased data from all computers and devices and turned them to scrap. After every subject was killed, and every computer was erased, they prepared the Scimitar and contacted the Sun Guard to go to Thyrsus, when they were leaving the moon, a flotilla began to bombard Sojourn, although the Scimitar could not be detected by the flotilla's sensors, various volleys of laserfire almost hit the ship. One of the flotilla's attack ship was racing to the surface, however, the Scimitar was able to evade it, the forests, fortress and everything on the Muun's private moon burned and was destroyed. Plagueis and 11-4D raced to real space and witnessed the Black Sun, Bando Gora and Gardulla's forces using a nuclear device to destroy Sojourn. The Sith Lord and his assistant escaped the doomed moon. The Scimitar docked on one of Jabba's ships and they were safe, protected by Jabba.^[1]

Plagueis and 11-4D narrowly survived the nuclear bombardment of Sojourn after King Ars Veruna attempted to have him eliminated with the aid of Alexi Garyn's Black Sun, Gardulla the Hutt, and Komari Vosa's Bando Gora terrorist cult. Fortunately, Plagueis was intercepted by Jabba the Hutt in his personal ship, Star Jewel. Plagueis then revealed his miraculous survival, through a communication by Jabba, to a terrified Veruna, who promptly abdicated his throne and fled Theed in attempt to escape from the Sith Lord. When Veruna went into hiding in the Western Reaches of Naboo, he was discovered by Darth Plagueis and Sidious, who enacted a plan to kill him in retribution for the failed assassination attempt. Sidious suggested that they send Darth Maul to kill him, but Plagueis wished to attend to Veruna personally. Plagueis secretly traveled to the ancient Nabooian manse of the Count of Vis (Veruna's forebear) with his droid 11-4D and silently broke into Veruna's bedroom, waking the old man. Sitting across from him, Plagueis held Veruna in a Force choke, preventing him from calling his security chief, Maris Magneta, for help. The Sith Lord confessed to having been behind Tapalo and Veruna's ascension to the throne and divulged his allegiance to the Sith, striking terror into Veruna.^[1]

At the same time, he manipulated the limited amount of midi-chlorians in Veruna, slowly killing him. The former King pleaded for Plagueis to spare him, so that he could be of further use to the Muun. But Plagueis insisted that Veruna already was helpful by dying, which would increase the Sith Lord's power. Beyond satisfying revenge for the second assassination attempt on Plagueis's life, Veruna's death also served as further fuel to inflame the Neimoidians enough to agree to invade Naboo, as per the Grand Plan.^[1]

Invasion of Naboo

Livid about the Galactic Senate's recent shipping-taxation legislation that promised to impact not only the galaxy's free-trade zones but also the Trade Federation, Viceroy Nute Gunray—somewhat reassured by Darth Sidious' confidence that Naboo was significant enough to ensure galactic interest in their planned blockade of the planet—was now sufficiently prepared to execute the Sith Lord's directive to seal off all trade with Naboo. But because of recent threats and information breaches that included the Monchar-Pavan holocron incident, but also the Neimoidians' bungled compromising of their secret droid-army foundries on Eos and Alaris Prime, Darth Plagueis ordered Sidious to postpone the blockade until after Coruscant's political rally for Supreme Chancellor candidates at the Perlemian Orbital Facility. In preparation for the coming conflict that would be called the Clone Wars, Darth Plagueis (who was the planned conflict's guiding engineer) ordered that these recent breaches be partially dealt with by relocating Baktoid Armor to the planet Geonosis.^[1]

Once Darth Maul was finished dealing with the loose cannon that was the Monchar-Pavan incident, the Zabrak assassin was recalled by his master to the offworld Perlemian facility, where he was to deliver the recovered Sith holocron to Sidious himself but where, quite by accident, the Sith crystal was instead delivered by Lorn Pavan himself to Sidious' public persona, Palpatine. Maul—from whom the holocron had been re-acquired by a pursuing Pavan in the orbital facility's docking bay concurrent with the political rally's proceedings—had nearly failed Sidious in catastrophic fashion. But Pavan, in flight from the enraged Zabrak, had delivered the dangerous article containing incriminating information about the Trade Federation's imminent blockade into the trusted hand of the Senator from Naboo himself (what Plagueis later saw, in private converse with Palpatine, as a delivery by "the dark side"). With this potentially devastating political mine now safely defused, Sidious issued the blockade order to Nute Gunray, who, in prompt fashion after setting his freighters in place, warned the Republic that any attempt to break the embargo would be met with "deadly force" and that if the new regulations were not rescinded the Naboo populace would starve.^[1]

Sensing the extremely delicate and volatile nature of the situation, Supreme Chancellor Valorum consulted with the Jedi High Council that continued to faithfully support him, and clandestinely arranged (unbeknownst to the Galactic Senate) for two Jedi "ambassadors" to enter into negotiations with the Trade Federation that had, in utter defiance of Republic law, launched the blockade. Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi were the Jedi selected to attempt to appease the Neimoidian anarchists. Valorum knew that any other kind of Republic response to the matter would be bogged down or stalled in legislative procedure and red tape by the Senate. This secretive collusion of the Chancellor with the High Council blindsided Plagueis and Palpatine, who had been confident, because of the unsavory events of Galidraan, Yinchorr, and Baltizaar—but more especially on Asmeru and Eriadu—and the resultant restrictions placed by the Senate on the Chancellor's use of the Jedi Order, that neither the High Council nor Valorum would ever be so foolish to again risk a measure so bold. Both Sith Lords were also very much aware of the "pesky" Jinn-Kenobi duo that had become "the nemesis of the Nebula Front at Dorvalla, Asmeru, and on Eriadu."^[1]

Thus—in retaliation for the Jedi Order's most recent intrusive gesture that sought to circumvent, but which, in any case, dramatically diluted the hoped-for impact of the Sith-forced embargo, and which also now threatened to uncover (via loose-tongued Neimoidians) the existence and political ambitions of both these powerful figures—the Dark Lords accelerated their plans, ordering the Trade Federation to immediately kill the Jedi envoys and to invade Naboo ahead of schedule. They tempered their new mandate by reassuring Viceroy Gunray that henceforth the Republic would not intervene; indeed, the Sith would take measures now to make their actions legal (Queen Amidala, who, it was certain, would not permit her people to suffer, would in short order sign a treaty that would at once legitimize the Neimoidian occupation and make Naboo and its plasma reserves property of the Federation). The Grand Plan now required that Naboo be secured in preparation for the planet being annexed by the shipping cartel.^[13] All of these converging power plays and reversals combined to prompt Plagueis's solemn resolve that "It is the will of the dark side that we finally reveal ourselves," to which Sidious concurred: "I will see to it that Maul is ready."^[1]

Second meeting with Sifo-Dyas

It had been at the political gathering at the Perlemian Orbital Facility hosted by Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum, above Coruscant, that Plagueis had approached Sifo-Dyas, who was in attendance alongside Jedi Masters Yoda, Mace Windu, Adi Gallia, and Jorus C'baoth. With the galaxy seemingly on the brink of civil war, Sifo-Dyas's concerns had become all the more urgent, and the Jedi Council was apparently no more willing to listen to their Jedi colleague's warnings of doom than it had been in the past. As such, Plagueis preyed on the Jedi's fears, convincing him that a military capable of defending the Republic needed to be created now, while there was still time, to afford the Republic a fighting chance. Plagueis, in his alter-ego persona, approached Sifo-Dyas, just as he would done twenty years before on Serenno, and once again attempted to deceive him by openly professing once again that a growing darkness was approaching. Once a harborer of skepticism, Sifo-Dyas now agreed fully with Damask's claims, and the cloaked Sith Lord advanced a step further: he informed Sifo-Dyas of cloners on Kamino that could grow an army, one that Damask himself was prepared to fully finance, and hold it in reserve until it was needed. The Jedi Master, still hesitant to take bold action, was, at the very least, persuaded to accept Damask's argument and would seriously ponder the matter, with Dyas unaware that he was being manipulated deceived by the Sith.^[1]

Following the Battle of Theed, with the death of his former apprentice Qui-Gon Jinn, Dooku resigned from the Jedi Order and later fell to the dark side of the Force, becoming the new apprentice of Darth Sidious. It was at this time that Sifo-Dyas, having settled his mind, approached the Kaminoans and requested a clone army for the Republic. With the funds provided by Damask Holdings, Sifo-Dyas paid the Kaminoans, and Dooku recruited the storied bounty hunter Jango Fett, with his recent successful bounty of apprehending Bando Gora leader Komari Vosa, to serve as the clone army prototype.^[14] Little did the Jedi Master know, however, that Sidious and Dooku had learned of this clandestine measure taken under Damask's counsel, and together they plotted the steps to ensure Sifo-Dyas' demise.^[1]

The boy from Tatooine

As Palpatine's star rose in the Coruscant political scene, Plagueis carried on his life-extension research—by 34 BBY, he believed he was close to a breakthrough that would save himself and his apprentice from death. During the Naboo crisis of 32 BBY, Plagueis and Palpatine became aware of the powerfully Force-sensitive Anakin Skywalker, a human slaveboy from Tatooine who stood at a vergence in the Force and who had been born around the same time that they had saturated the galaxy with the dark side a decade earlier. Plagueis became convinced that the midi-chlorians, unwilling to comply to his and Sidious's "unnatural" usurpation of the power of the Force, had struck back in retaliation, conceiving a savior to ultimately destroy the Sith: the prophesied Chosen One,^[1] whom Plagueis had blasphemously endeavored to create, or "father," in the past.^[8]

Palpatine informed his Master of the boy's arrival on Coruscant, and Plagueis felt compelled to meet Anakin for himself. He was able to gain access to Palpatine's suite, where Anakin was staying, by using a mind trick on one of the Queen's handmaidens, who nevertheless informed Damask that he had just missed the boy. For the first time, Plagueis began to fear that the Sith were in danger of being undone, and indeed held himself responsible, as he interpreted Skywalker's creation as the Force striking back at him and Sidious.^[1] He had previously boasted about being able to create the Chosen One of Jedi prophecy,^[8] as his Master had expected of him.^[4] Now, he made it his priority to stop the boy from falling into the hands of the Jedi.^[1]

As Plagueis spied on the departure of the Jedi and the Queen from Coruscant, wherein he caught his first glimpse of the boy prodigy, he received a vision of a cyborg clad in dark armor and a dark helmet;confirming his fears, that this boy would change the course of history in the galaxy. Not wanting the Jedi therefore to train the boy, he ordered Sidious to have Darth Maul kill Qui-Gon, in order to prevent his catastrophic Force vision from becoming a reality; Sidious, as added insurance—for he knew well Kenobi's reputation and status, that he stood on the brink of Jedi Knighthood and might perchance take the boy as his own apprentice—ordered that Master and Padawan both be killed.^[1]

The tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise

Giving the Sun Guard the night off, Plagueis retired with Palpatine and 11-4D to his penthouse suite, where in celebration, Plagueis and his apprentice drank Sullustan wine. Sidious complimented Plagueis on his part of the plan and told him he would endeavor to live up to Plagueis' expectations and fulfill his responsibility. Sidious rehearsed the speech he would give the next day to the senate after he was elected chancellor at Damask's request several times, saying that the Republic had been intact for a millennia thanks to largely invisible beings whose accomplishments needed to be brought to the light of day, such as Hego Damask II. As the night wore on, Palpatine amended and corrected his speech with Plagueis' critique while drinking more and more wine, intoxicating Plagueis with the Sullustan foodstuff.^[1]

Although Plagueis attempted to stop drinking, his apprentice did not let him, forcing the Muun to intoxicate himself to a point at which he started to sleep. As Plagueis fell asleep, Sidious attempted to leave but stopped when the Dark Side called out to him to kill his master. The Human from Naboo then betrayed Plagueis by throwing Force Lightning at his master, which woke up the Muun. While mocking Damask, Sidious threw more and more lightning at the Sith Lord, destroying his breathing device and making Plagueis suffocate. Although Plagueis had denied his death, he feared it could happen, and attempted to stand up and fight, even conjuring a small weather phenomenon to try to protect himself. However, he fell onto the couch thanks to his intoxication. He was slowly killed by Sidious's tangle of Force lightning, eventually suffocating and losing his life, one that he believed he would never lose with his midi-chlorian studies. Darth Plagueis's body released an explosion of Dark Side energy that could be heard as a ripple throughout Coruscant, and knocked out Sidious. Plagueis's body did not dissolve, however, and was left behind.^[1]

Legacy

With the attention of the galaxy focused on the new Chancellor, the death of Hego Damask II went barely noticed by the galaxy at large—a galaxy from which he had completely removed himself in his last twenty years. A few hastily prepared obituaries mentioned only the scant information about his life that was available publicly. Members of the InterGalactic Banking Clan refused to release any information about Damask's funeral or about the disposition of his holdings.^[1] Darth Sidious cremated his master`s body and kept his master's ashes in one of the two spirit urns he kept at the entrance of his private office on Coruscant.^[15]

Though Plagueis purportedly taught Palpatine all he knew,^[3] and Palpatine himself had also participated in the earlier failed attempt at manipulating midi-chlorians that resulted in Anakin's birth,^[1] Palpatine himself was unable to fully master Plagueis's teachings to cheat death through the Force via midi-chlorians, and was forced to rely on clone bodies to hold his spirit instead.^[16]

Sidious spoke little of Plagueis to his apprentice Darth Tyranus,^[17] who himself knew the Muun as Hego Damask II.^[1] Sidious used Plagueis's story to seduce Anakin Skywalker into becoming Vader. The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, Chancellor Palpatine's Sith legend, told of Plagueis's abilities to create and preserve life; according to Palpatine, the tragic irony was that though he could keep others from dying, he could not save himself. Skywalker, seeking Plagueis's power to save his own wife, Padmé, later apprenticed himself to Sidious.^[3] In the following decades, Sidious only gave Vader brief hints about Plagueis.^[18]

At some point after Palpatine brought the galaxy under his heel by reorganizing the Republic into the First Galactic Empire, probably between 19 and 18 BBY, the Dark Lord included a manuscript fragment from Plagueis's scientific journal on the nature of the dark side and the progress of the Aborah experiments written by Plagueis's hand around 45 BBY (both dates were Master Luke Skywalker's non-scholarly estimates) into his Book of Sith, showing respect for his master by including him among the handful of Sith who advanced the cause and left behind documents detailing their approach to the dark side. Sidious later archived the Book of Sith in his secret storehouse at Mount Tantiss on Wayland.^[8]

At some point after Plagueis's death, some of the members of a Sith cult known as the Apex Society believed that Collan Eislo, the leader of the cult, was being guided by the spirits of deceased Sith Lords, such as Plagueis.^[19] Sidious eventually achieved "immortality" through cloning and the transfer of his soul, although he was ultimately defeated by Luke Skywalker.^[20]

When historians in later years were unable to find much information on Plagueis, they suspected that Sidious had destroyed everything about his master. The Wavlud Manuscript, one of the few sources of knowledge for the Jedi on the Sith and Sidious, revealed information on Plagueis to the Galactic Alliance and New Jedi Order.^[7] It is not known whether the information revealed about Plagueis identified him as the same individual as Hego Damask II. Another was his scientific journal included in the Book of Sith, which was kept intact by Sidious and even jotted down his own personal notes on the subject. In 24 ABY, the Book of Sith and Plagueis's journal were recovered from the Mount Tantiss storehouse and were passed to Grand Master of the New Jedi Order Luke Skywalker. Skywalker proceeded to scribble his own notes onto it before passing it on to the New Republic Intelligence Service.^[8] Even by 36 ABY, however, public knowledge of many details of Plagueis's life was still uncertain: the writers of a Galactic Alliance official history could chart only the broad strokes of his life, and were even uncertain as to the exact date of his murder by Sidious.^[16]

Personality and traits

Darth Plagueis was considered a mystic,^[16] despite the fact that he sought to develop an entirely rationalistic system of Force study, was among the few Sith Lords to have serious doubts about the existence of Force ghosts—even after confronting the purported ghost of Marka Ragnos—and was similarly weary of supposed prophecies.^[8] That said, he believed in the signs and portents.^[1] Plagueis was a devotee of the dark side, and a lover of things otherworldly and arcane.^[21] Obsessed with the prospect of eternal life^[16] and ideas of spontaneous generation,^[22] he remained focused on matters of the material world,^[21] though in later years Darth Vader mused that Plagueis had also desired a way to preserve the immaterial self after the death of the body.^[18] Although Plagueis, as a Sith Lord, rejected common morality and interpersonal ties as artificial restrictions fabricated by the weak to control the strong, he did develop a genuine bond with his apprentice, Darth Sidious, in an attempt to break the cycle of death started by Bane and thus further their own goals. Plagueis's effort was not reciprocated, however, and Sidious ultimately betrayed and murdered his Master in cold blood.^[1]

Plagueis was a vegetarian (though when direly hungry ate bats and even considered consuming people and took a bit out of a Kursid’s heart as a sign of dominance and savagery),^[1] and possessed a logical mind,^[23] and his apprentice Sidious believed that the extent to which he turned his sight inward was the source of his power and knowledge.^[24] He also was able to think wisely and make sure to cover his tracks and also had a grim sense of humor.^[1] When he wrote his journals on the nature of the Force, he wrote them primarily in Basic, although, in a chart he drew which demonstrated a triangular relationship between the aperion, anima, and pneuma, he curiously wrote his words backwards, with backwards Aurebesh characters.^[8] He believed that power was to be gained incrementally, beginning with the self and culminating with control of the entire galaxy.^[9] As his own powers grew, he became afraid of nothing but losing that power.^[3] Plagueis was pathologically afraid of death, and this was the main reason he was chosen by Darth Tenebrous as an apprentice, Tenebrous would provide him immortality while Plagueis provided Tenebrous access to the Chosen One—or so Tenebrous thought—.^[4] The Sith was willing to barter and bargain for passage with the Woebegone crew and honesty was confused by the idea of a ship having communal leadership. He told 11-4D that the droid agreeing with his plan of vigilance was a comfort. Though he executed Veruna for having turned against him and trying to nuke him, he respected the effort for trying to kill him and admired the man’s honesty when he said he would never have worked with Plagueis, had he known that Demask as really a Sith.^[1]

Plagueis argued that a Jedi could not properly touch the dark side and only Sith, always brought up in the dark and a greed for power, could belong to Bogan. Likewise he did not respect the Jedi Order since though they could rule the galaxy as tyrants and queens and impose a guiding order, demanding obedience as knowing best via the Force; yet they chose empathy and to merely guide, not dominate. Moreover he thought only a Sith Lord could guide the peoples of the galaxy, who he regarded as small-minded plebeians who needed the Sith Imperative to take care of them and show them their place. So he felt his role was not a crazed berserker as Sith of old were, but instead a guide for the galaxy. Likewise he was humble enough to accept the takes of scientists in fields of expertise he was not an expert in.^[1]

He elected to change the usual means of Sith succession, death of the master by the hand of the apprentice,^[7] by becoming immortal together with his own apprentice and forgoing the need for succession. Eventually, by his devoted and morally-unbound study, he achieved a level of midi-chlorian control that allowed him to kill and resurrect sentient beings, as well as regenerate damaged or aged portions of his body through direct mental contact with the organelles,^[1] and came to see himself as the Sith'ari, the being free from all restrictions.^[8] Plagueis sometimes lied, but at the same time, he sometimes he told the truth from a certain point of view, such as when talking to a casino manager afraid that a rogue Force user was cheating by his powers, the Sith (as magister Damask) admitted that he too was interested the chemistry of Force potential. However, because of his arrogance^[1] and his weakened precognitive abilities resulting from his maxi-chlorian infection, as well as inability to realize he was being manipulated and deceived by Sidious, he never saw his own death coming.^[4] He despised being near humans and their practices of eating meat and taking meals while doing business, but otherwise held a certain respect for them as highly evolved and intelligent creatures. As such, he thought that they, were on par with his people the Muuns, and should be deferred to and respected by the “lesser” species as he saw them. The way humans worked with these species and would take seemingly any job seemed silly to the Sith, while Muuns would only take a lowly job if it was for the greater good of all the kind. The Sith found the high gravity on Malastare oppressive and the Gran there even more insufferable. He also had a good relationship with the people of Kamino, hiring them as the clone masters who supplied Sojourn with the spawn of samples he gave them to resurrect dead species or propagating them as the hunting targets for his hunts. He claimed to never lie to Palpatine and argued that Jar Kai and Form Six and Taris Kasi were lesser than Dun Moch. Moreover he thought saberstaffs were a bit much, though he admitted that Darth Maul was an expert user of it.^[1]

Plagueis thought that the secrets of immortality were not meant for common beings, as he believed that if they all knew about them, civilization's structure would be destabilized. He especially did not want "common" beings to know the secrets as any "fool" could perpetuate their ignorance. Plagueis considered that life was not "mystical", like Tibanna gas or nova crystals, he believed life was a resource to be exploited, which is unique in that those who possess it to find it priceless, yet, he believed it is so common that it's functionally worthless. As billions of beings come into existence, and billions more die, Plagueis believed that the ones who advance his goals or whose work was complementary to his, were to be preserved.^[8]

Powers and abilities

Plagueis was very strong in the Force. He delved into the depths of the dark side and had awesome powers, capable of of hurling the dark side in battle, controlling and sensing others, healing the injured, and controlling life, among other things. Moreover, as of 52 BBY, Darth Sidious considered him to be a being of inspirational power far above his strength then. Being wounded and having parts of his body cut off did nothing to reduce his powers. Indeed if anything the attempt on his life drove him to learn how to forgo sleep and develop command over order/disorder and life/death, becoming like a nuclear blaze to Sidious’s Force sight.^[1] Years after his death, his command over life and ability to hold back death were held as legendary to the Sith Order and the tales of his powers were used to turn Anakin Skywalker’s heart.^[3]

With the Force, Plagueis was able to manipulate the essence of life,^[25][23] a power Palpatine believed was directly tied to his inward sight.^[24] Plagueis could at a distance hold death at bay from his victims,^[1] save others from death and, when his power was applied to the extreme, he could create new life from the midi-chlorians found in all lifeforms.^[22] Early in his reign as Lord of the Sith, he could see the midi-chlorinan count of others and tell if they had enough to be Force-sensitive, though he could not touch these strange subjects of the Force to impose healing at this time. The Sith looked at Tenebrous with the Force, seeing the brain and heart of his lord dying as well as using his limited power in the organelles of the Force to see them dying out inside the Bith Sith, though back then he could not keep him alive had he wanted to. He never used this ability to study a Jedi, for fear that a knight of light would realize the Sith were at large. Through two years of research of midi-chlorian manipulation Plagueis was eventually able to bypass the defense an inherent near-immunity to telepathic defenses of a Yinchorri to mentally manipulate him and he hoped to one day be able to use the command over the organs of the Force to mind-control anyone, even the leaders of planets. In this work he did experiments on many Hutts due to their resistance to mental tricks. Likewise, he plotted to be able to use the midi-chlorians to create life, even Force-sensitive life. He was able to make creatures become pregnant by his powers and by the time he used his power to do this, his magic and experiments had imbued his laboratory and the mountain it was in with the dark side. When early in his work he was using his powers to try to restore Venamis, he was shocked out of the event when Palpatine murdered his family with a force that seemed like the second most deep connection with the Force to date for him. Later in his work, he could do these arts to heal people. Another extreme example of this technique's applications is how it could be used to raise the dead back to life, as shown when it was used against Darth Venamis in 42 BBY to resurrect him many times. Sidious stated he killed and resurrected many people. He was able to use these powers cure his scars, breathe better than even before he was wounded, and stop them reverse aging. When Sidious shot his mask with lightning he simply gathered power and healed himself, too proud to die, though once he was being choked he could not heal himself. Over the course of eight years, he did make his midi-cloroian count grow, but he could now create Force-sensitive life and his efforts to make such a thing killed a great number of his beasts which were afflicted by diseases. Another deadly side of this power was when he made Ars Veruna’s midi-clorians slowly fade out of him over the course of their conversation, a feat he admitted took a lifetime to develop and sparked a vision of his death.^[1]

With normal Force healing arts he held skill and found value, once rebuking Sidious for not bothering to learn about them (or mind-tricks) enough. Plagueis found that in his interest in murder he had not noticed his back getting wounded by a rock. So, he quenched his pain and made his body heal faster. On the Woebegone, he temporarily healed two people while meditating and standing over them as they slipped into death, but he could not keep them alive, much to his chagrin. He found that in general repairing blood vessels, bones, muscles, and organs was not harder than lifting rocks with the Force and that healing someone else was easier than self-repair. As an incentive for his student, he offered to heal Sidious after depriving him for weeks and forcing him to climb to him. In the years after claiming the mantle of the Sith Master, he also studied healing in his prisoners, using the midi-chlorians of his prisoners and captured beasts to make them self-repair. While fighting his assassins, Plagueis was able motionlessly self-diagnoses his wounds and blood loss then chose to use a Sith heart stunning technique to alter chemistry inside and keep two of his three hearts from failing. By 42 BBY, was able to make others come back from death (unless their organs were too worn out), a power he learned the same day after he and Palpatine claimed a sense of control over the Force. From this he turned the technique on himself, slowly starting to fix his mutilations over the course of months of study and years of effort.^[1] Plagueis also discovered the ability to retain one's identity in the Force while becoming one with it, but this manner of surviving death did not appeal to him, as he was not concerned with the non-material world.^[21] Indeed he thought the power was rather rubbish, since he thought that no Sith Lords could or did guide the order which proved to his mind that Sith ghosts were weak.^[1]

Plagueis was also skilled in lightsaber combat, and although he disdained using his blade in combat—regarding lightsaber duels as tedious affairs—Tenebrous viewed his apprentice as a master of the art. Though starving, Plagueis easily, if a bit clumsily (by his standards), carved through the Wobegone’s crew when no deal came about, nearly beheading the captain and her ally, then hacking his way to the rest of the crew, before butchering the rest with his blade and dark powers, parrying or returning barrages and crossfires of bolts. Plagueis also was an agile combatant and could fight off attackers without recourse to his weapon. He was able to fight so fast during his duel with Venamis that an onlooker would have thought him a thunderbolt racing through the trees, though he took light wounds in the contest. Eventually after taking a light wound, using the Force to fight better he sent his mind out of his body and used his flesh like a puppet, defending as needed but not attacking until throwing himself back into himself to fight, slashing the other man across the body then disarming him. On Mygeeto he lashed Palpatine with his saber, leaving the man with many burns to make him learn how to cope with pain and on Hypori he and his student stood side by side with their sabers (for defense and deflection only) against two hundred training droids. He also carefully opened a Kursid warrior’s chest and ripped out his heart for the fear factor.^[1]

Plagueis was a master of augmenting his body with the Force. Examples being how, to get inside Darth Tenebrous's personal starship the Muun Force punched its jammed door open, on the Woebegone he Force punched a Zabrak so hard his spine broke. He punched through the chests of Maladians and made himself strong, to able to snap their necks in his hands, using these powers frequently, before and after a heart failed when he beat skulls apart with blows. The Dark Lord cloaked in the name Demask showed power in deflecting shots off his hands and absorbing blaster bolts and then channeling it into Force lightning, an ability that he was also very skilled in, and showed in that struggle that he could also make his body too tough for blunt attacks to harm him. Though trained in the skill to augment his jumps with the Force, he admitted to himself that he could not use the Force to fly or leap out of the grotto he slew his mentor in from ground level, instead using telekinesis to shift slabs of rock to make a crude pile, such that after climbing it he could Force jump to freedom. Decades later, he effortlessly leap atop a ten meter high wall guarding the Veruna castle without breaking stride and dropped down into the garden. He could make himself able to hear better, a power he reprised when he invaded Veruna’s home. The Sith was a prolific user of Force speed, running alongside his mentor to escape a collapsing tunnel and then chaining it into his runs for two nights, using bursts of this power to travel to a spaceport. While running with the dark side's speed, he sometimes looked like little more than a blur, though the strain of this Force-empowered marathon and his wounds left him exhausted and hungry. The Sith Lord used the dark again to move as a blur to storm into the ship he stole’s crew room. He was able to run so fast during his duel with Venamis that an onlooker would have thought him a thunderbolt racing through the trees, after already having run out rashly to find whoever was breaking in. He again used the Force to move with swiftness against the Maladians. When he went to seal Ars Veruna’s fate, he ran as fast as a Naboo four-legged creature, fast enough to trick scanners. Plagueis could use Force stealth, developing the skill on his own as a young Muun to keep his powers secret from any save his parents and using it to hide from his enemies such as Venamis on Sojourn and twice to avoid the Jedi on Abraxin. Likewise, he buried his presense on Serenno and Coruscant, so well that firstly Qui-Gon, Nu; both times Dooku, Sifo-Dyas; and latter his own student could not sense his powers, though the latter time Dooku got an idea that there was something a bit strange about the Sith, but no more. Through his life, he attended parties and events with Jedi, but was not found out. The first time he looked closely at Maul, he watched while his Force presence was buried. At times his eyes glowed, as when he attacked the Wobegone; and he called himself a “yellow-eyed monster” once to Sidious. When preaching the outline of the Clone Wars and the Empire to Sidious on Sojourn, his eyes once more shone. His orbs turned yellow again when he was told how foolish and wild the Trade Federation underlings were acting. During his fight with Venamis, his sudden counterattack was so fueled by rage that his saber blazed with a brief, eye-hurting, light. Plagueis sometimes meditated to pass the time. He apparently was also capable of Convection and/or Pyrokinesis as he was able to melt snowflakes before they reached his person on Mygeeto, and could use the dark to keep himself able walk through that world’s blizzards without protective clothing at the age of eight. On his run after becoming the only true Sith Lord to fight the attention of bugs, he lowered his body temperature and altered the gasses his breath exhaled, but to no real effect so he gave up. His Force bellow was as powerful as any sonic weapon, breaking the ears of Maladians within ten meters and making the rest cover their ears. In the Veruna estate, he twice made a camera malfunction and get flashed into giving a false image of a clear room. The Sith also could command doors to open for him and make security alarms fail.^[1]

Darth Plagueis was an expert in telekinesis. On Bal'demnic working with and aided by his master, the Muun raised a Force barrier to keep back an explosion and then reached out with both his arms and Force yanked down a rain of stone to mortally wound his master, nearly burying the Bith and putting a spike of rock through his lung. To get out of the cave he had usurped power in, he shifted slabs of stone to give himself a platform to Force jump out of the grotto that the Sith Order had just lost half its members inside. When he pirated the Woebegone, he killed an enemy and literally disarmed another with a saber throw, then took the last wounded crewman’s life with a telekinetic impulse invoked by a snap of his fingers. During his duel with his master’s other student he pulled his weapon to his hand (at the end of the duel pulling the same trick an instant faster than his foe to steal his saber), then cut a tree branch with a Force blow. The first time that he saw Palpatine overtly use the Force he remained unphased through a buffet of the Force. Likewise, while training his human to try to catch him as a show of skill he pushed Sidious over when the human lunged at him, then Force pulled him to his feet without lifting a finger, much like how eleven years later, he knocked a Kursid warrior over for a ritual slaughter. On Sojourn, the Muun Force choked Sidious as a demonstration of the strength of the dark side and as flexing of his power. This was much as Plagueis had closed the neck of, then broken Kerred Santhe’s trachea in the Sith’s mission for his master. When killers came for him on Coruscant at the Lodge of the Canted Circle, he Force clamped his neck and where his jaw had been cut off and barely kept himself awake through the pain, then rose to his feet with the lifting force of his mind and pushed close killers with the dark before fighting with Force-powered melee and he was able to turn any object into a deadly projectile with just a clap of his hands to be flung at the assassins.^[1] After two of his hearts were down, he still made a Force shield to keep off the assassins' daggers then soon conjured up a Force Wave so powerful, that he was able to atomize six of his assailants, and bring it around to kill a six more; though he was unable to keep up his wall of will and was cut more. He tried to pull a gun to himself, but one of the Maladian threw his own body to tackle down the incoming blaster. Lying on the ground, he shook the floor with his mind, staggering some of his foes. The Sith was able to be very precise as well, using the Force to push a plane of glass out of a window and floated it harmlessly onto a table. He also made Veruna choke a bit to stop being hysterical.^[1]

As Sith were wont to do, Plagueis often employed Sith lightning to fight and destroy. During his last meeting with his master, he worked with the other Lord to shoot blue lightning bolts down a shaft to try to destroy a rogue probe droid driller that had been programed to dig in such a way as to blow him and Tenebrous. He channeled a blaster bolt that hit his hand into more blue death, blasting a man to death on the Wobegone. To remove a prophetess, he grabbed her hands and subtly ran Force lightning into her body until her bodily fluids fairly boiled and she died. Teaching on Buoyant, he flung a barrage of lightning that ignited the grass around him. When the Maladians came for him, due to his wounds, one of his hearts gave out when he tried to use lightning to defend himself. In his final moments, he evoked a Force storm over himself, but the minor weather phenomenon was useless beyond scattering objects.^[1]

Plagueis had a range of powers relating to the mind. The Sith was able to affect the minds of others, even as an untrained child, mind-tricking a fellow youngling to jump out a window. While skilled, a limitation he came up against was the natural Yinchorri resistance to mental trickery. He was able to find a way to trick the minds of that species after two years of trying on an enslaved prisoner and did similar things to other captives. When he met an Iktotchi prophet and killed her with lightning, he used mind tricks to make her followers “help her” and agree that he totally had not attacked her. He also mind-tricked one of Padme’s handmaidens to tell him where Anakin was. Similarly, as a youngling he had a limited mental empathy which he used to trick and harass his playmates. He was skilled in conjuring Force illusions, making and speaking through a doppleganger a few feet away convincing enough to fool Sidious (albeit at the start of Palpatine’s Sith training). In concert with his apprentice in Sidious’s 23th Sith year, they meditated for months, then both Sith projected their spirits out as one joined entity rising into the Force to alter it towards darkness and claiming sovereignty over the Force, a feeling like overthrowing a god.^[1]

He has a potent Force sense. On Bal'demnic, Plagueis was able to sense his teacher thinking that he was figuring out that he had killed him and was able to shrug off a slash of mental rage. A few nights later, he was disquieted by being able to sense someone of about equal power but not who or where, he opened himself to the Force when looking at the hologram of the woman whose ship he would hijack and the next day. Shortly after taking control of the Sith, he suddenly felt the dark side’s grandeur as like a great storm and heard the voices of the Banate Sith Order for a moment. On Sojourn, he mentally scanned his vicinity after a security breach, soon being drawn to face Venamis, who he soon discovered was a Force user but not that he was a darksider until he faced him face to face. In his last meeting with Palpatine before the young man murdered his family, he casually sensed that a woman in the same courtyard was Vidar Kim‘s paramour. He was about to make a final attack when the Maladians almost killed him, but stopped when he felt Sidious and Pestage were there to help him. In the duel with Venamis, he sensed a build-up of lightning, responding thus in time to capture the other Sith. Likewise he saw how strong Sidious was getting over the years, impressing the Dark Lord. At Colliders Casino, he sensed a cheating Shi'ido and how he was using the Force, but the other Force user noticed his second and deeper look; the Sith also used his Force sense to know when his quarry had shapechanged. Later, again he sensed that the planet Abraxin was no longer a loadstone of dark side power and used his powers and ears to tell when the Jedi hunting Lare were coming at him. Before training as a Sith, he had developed this capability of seeing when others used the Force. Plagueis could sense if others could use the Force, coming to be aware that the Jedi his father met with were able to use powers like he could but in a nature different to him and also sensing that Tenebrous could use powers like him. Once Sidious took ownership of murdering his family, Plagueis sensed his strength growing. He tried and failed to feel why his master was so agitated when the Cortosis mine was about to blow up. When he first met Palpatine, he drew himself deeply into the Force and tried twice to empathetic read what the young man but failed to glean much from the young Force user’s cloudy mind, realizing the next day that he was stymied by Palpatine’s psychic walls. He also knew that Sidious felt a bit of conflict about being told to kill his closest friend, Vidar Kim, though Palpatine, of course, carried out the murder without speaking up. Plagueis was able to reach into Jabba the Hutt with his power and know Jabba was not lying.^[1]

The dark side spoke to the Muun, telling him when to kill Tenebrous. Although Plagueis briefly lost long-term foresight after Tenebrous died at his hands, that power seemed to reappear a day after Tenebrous' murder, as demonstrated when he had received a vision of the Battle of Bal'demnic. Another spark of understanding came at the time when Palpatine slew his kindred and Plagueis got a sudden deluge of understanding of past, present, and future. He did, however, follow the signs and portents that showed, he thought, that the Republic and Jedi were vulnerable to the Sith plans. An example was how he interpreted the nuclear obliteration of his sanctum on Sojourn as the Force guiding and balancing the scales, a blow against him in return for his gains over the Trade Federation. Similarly to when his master’s death was announced by the dark, on Dooku’s homeworld the Sith was suddenly found himself choking up, the dark side protecting him from saying too much by making him unable to speak when he almost talked about Kaminio in front of Dooku, Sifo-Dyas, Jinn, and Nu. As he killed Veruna, he got a strange sense he had done this already, in truth a premonition of how Sidious would betray and kill him in almost the same way. He also knew before it happened that Master Sifo-Dyas was going to agree to make the Clone Army. When observing Maul receiving his marching orders to go to Jabba’s domain, he decided to risk a look into fate and foresaw that Maul and Sidious might never meet again and that the aggressive Sith plots might reveal them. Later, days before his own death, he glimpsed events surrounding Darth Maul and Anakin Skywalker, foreseeing the Clone Wars and Skywalker’s role in the war, and the armoring of Darth Vader. As such, he understood before the Battle of Theed that Anakin would live and the Trade Federation armies would lose. Moreover, his short-term precognitive abilities remained functional, as when he knew that he was fated to fight the Wobegone’s crew. When he was attacked at a Canted Circle meeting, he sensed there was going to be a fight, but hesitated, attempting to keep hidden as much as possible and nearly died from that.^[1]

Skilled in the more unorthodox applications of the Force, Plagueis was also believed to have perfected Sith alchemy,^[26] On Abraxin, he twice flared his dark side presence, once to see if a Jedi would notice him, again pretending in mind-nature to be a Marsh Haunt to call Naat Lare as the Muun lurked in a mud pit. When converting Palpatine to joining the Sith, he allowed the young man to sense a bit of his might. Similarly, when he fought for his life in the lodge of the Canted Circle, the amount of dark side power he unleashed was clear to Sidious as soon as the human opened himself to the Force and tainting the ground he fought upon with the dark side. Though badly hurt by the Maladian murderers at the Canted Circle lodge, he was able to get rid of them all, some disposed of with his powers with the help of Sidious holding them off. He might have pushed Palpatine with a burst of air early in the human's training. Yet, he could not call air flows or rain and lightning storms, become invisible, fly, or fold space, though he had tried to learn these powers based on legends of old.^[1] Additionally, he was aware of some of the more obscure techniques of the Jedi Order, such as Emerald Lightning and Sever Force, though he was not known to use these powers himself.^[1][8]

Beyond his Force powers, he was a very capable combatant, breaking his master’s neck with a single heavy hand strike and fighting an army of almost thousand Kursid with just a Force pike and Palpatine as his ally, not taking a scratch or having to kill any other than one who was ritually slaughtered. He could speak Muun, Basic, Barabel, and Klatooinian. Plagueis knew a huge range of weapons and what their uses were, a trait he passed to Sidious. He was tough enough to get to his feet for a moment after Sidious shot his breath mask and then went all out blasting him with lightning. Palpatine also stated that he had clouded the Muun’s mind. The Sith was a skilled scientist and ran many tests on himself and others, such as checking and seeing that his midi count did not automatically grow even when he became more powerful. The Sith also invented the mask he wore in response to his wounds. He also was a canny manipulator of others, working designs to collapse the Republic via corruption, greed, and stirring people against the light; likewise he read the young Palpatine’s personality and was skilled at the management of his business and the other responsibilities of the life he lead apart from his role as a Sith. On Buoyant he hunted with his student, lancing animals and on Hypori he argued all weapons must be understood. He was a good researcher and had a better sense of direction than his master, though a poor sense of smell. He was a gifted slicer and sneak.^[1][12] He was able to infiltrate Ars Veruna’s castle and kill him, though even his resources had limits: Plagueis couldn’t get the base’s floor plans and had to go in blind.^[1]

He was able to read maps.^[1]

Equipment

Darth Plagueis used a red-bladed lightsaber that was crafted sometime in his years as an apprentice under his master, Darth Tenebrous. After Plagueis murdered his master on Bal'demnic in 67 BBY, his lightsaber continued to be in his possession, even at the time he trained Palpatine as his apprentice. When his own apprentice Palpatine executed Pax Teem as retribution for outwitting (and nearly killing) him and his master, Sidious used Plagueis's lightsaber. He noted that it had been built for a larger grip and had to use two hands to effectively wield it. Wealthy, he had a whole library and lab filled with his dark experiments and knowledge, a water breather for his mouth, and countless other assets and fiscal resources. He also had self-invented transpirator mask from 52 BBY to 32 BBY, owing to his wounds, worn until the time of his death.^[1]

Behind the scenes

Darth Plagueis was named as early as the first draft of the 2005 film Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith (April 2003) and possibly earlier.^[28] His name is clearly derived from the English word "plague," a connection later made in-universe in the Wizards of the Coast article "Behind the Threat: The Sith, Part 2: The Becoming".^[29] Plagueis's first appearance of any sort was in the non-canon Tag & Bink: Revenge of the Clone Menace. This comic stated that Plagueis's manipulation of the midi-chlorians produced Force-sensitivity in Tag Greenly and Bink Otauna who would later become heroes. This also marked the only appearance of Darth Plagueis's staff in any Star Wars story.^[30]

The Darth Plagueis novel

On June 8, 2006, StarWars.com announced that James Luceno was scheduled to write a novel about Darth Plagueis that would be released in 2008. The book's announcement was the first source to identify Plagueis as a Muun.^[31] However, on March 27, 2007, Sue Rostoni announced that the novel had been removed from the publishing schedule. Rostoni's explanation for the cancellation was that "this was not the right time to delve into Palpatine's backstory and Plagueis's beginnings."^[32] The novel was replaced with Darth Bane: Rule of Two.^[33] Though Plagueis's species had been revealed in the novel's announcement, Leland Chee stated that its cancellation did not affect that decision, as it had not originated in the novel.^[34] A panel on continuity at the Celebration IV convention revealed that his identity as a Muun had originally come from George Lucas.^[35] Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force confirmed his species as a Muun and was the first source to give him a canonical image. On July 27, 2010, information from a sales database leaked indicating that the novel was once more on the publishing schedule. Sue Rostoni subsequently confirmed the announcement.^[36] The novel Darth Plagieis was finally released on January 10, 2012 in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook format.^[37]

Contradictions

The New Essential Chronology and Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader implied that Palpatine killed Plagueis out of the suspicion that Plagueis was secretly crafting a new apprentice to take over when doing the Grand Experiment.^[16][6] These, however, where deemed incorrect in Darth Plagueis.^[1] In the 2011 short story "The Tenebrous Way," an illustration by Brian Rood depicts Plagueis with a large, human-like nose,^[4] in keeping with the Muun characters shown in both Star Wars: Clone Wars^[38] and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.^[39] However, this contradicts the depiction of the Muuns with noses that were nearly flush with the rest of their faces in most other sources, including their appearance in films like Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones^[40] and Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.^[3]

There also exist contradictions in the birthyear of Darth Plagueis. According to Darth Plagueis, Damask told Palpatine, in 65 BBY, that he would be "well over one hundred" in human years, suggesting a birthdate of c. 170 BBY or earlier. However, this is contradicted by "The Tenebrous Way", which states that, after killing his master, Darth Tenebrous embarked on a "decades-spanning quest" for a new apprentice. Considering that, according to Darth Plagueis, Tenebrous killed his master c. 167 BBY and arranged for Plagueis's birth, the earliest date for Plagueis's birth would have to be c. 147 BBY. Elsewhere in Darth Plagueis, Damask mentions that he undertook his first mission as a Sith, the assassination of Kerred Santhe the Elder, approximately twenty-five years into his apprenticeship. Per Mission to Lianna, this cannot be earlier than 99 BBY, suggesting a birthdate of c. 130 BBY.

Cut content

Darth Plagueis was originally intended to appear in the Wii version of the non-canonical video game LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, but was removed from the game. His name, however, was listed in the game's text files.^[41]

Plagueis' death at Palpatine's hands was originally going to be shown in the Darth Maul-themed video game code-named Battle of the Sith Lords, which would have happened earlier in the game to start Maul's training with Palpatine. In April 2020, Dan Borth, the former head of Red Flyer was interviewed by the YouTube channel "Bombastic" where he discussed the projects development and cancellation and revealed unseen footage and story details including the depiction of Darth Plagueis' death and the rise of Palpatine, with the game's structure consisting on Maul's origins, his apprenticeship with Palpatine, tie-ins with the Clone Wars, and Maul meeting Darth Talon in the Legacy era.^[42]

When creating the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed multimedia project, the development team looked to a number of unexplored characters and events for inspiration, amongst them Plagueis. The initial plan was to use Plagueis as a Sith spirit who would give the player of The Force Unleashed game new dark-side powers and information. Another idea involved the Secret Apprentice, the main character, sent to find Plagueis as part of a plot by Darth Vader to resurrect Padmé Amidala. Still other ideas included revealing that the Apprentice was Plagueis reborn, or using a reformed Plagueis as the Apprentice's mentor.^[43] As the team did not know much about Plagueis at first, they started with human designs, including famous actor Michael Gambon. Concept artist Greg Knight explored a number of directions, including the undead, a character from a different time, someone using machines to stay alive, eerie youthfulness, the occult, and a number of "freaky and exotic" ideas.^[43]

Appearances

• Darth Plagueis (and audiobook)
• "The Tenebrous Way" — Star Wars Insider 130 (reprinted in Star Wars Insider: The Fiction Collection Volume 1) (First canonical appearance)
• "Restraint" — Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter (Mentioned only)
• Maul: Lockdown (and audiobook)
• "End Game" — Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace novelization, 2012 edition (Mentioned only)
• The Wrath of Darth Maul (Indirect mention only)
• Labyrinth of Evil (First mentioned)
• Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith (Mentioned only)
• Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith novelization (and unabridged audiobook) (Mentioned only)
• Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith junior novelization (Mentioned only)
• Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith Cine-Manga (Mentioned only)
• Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader (and unabridged audiobook) (Mentioned only)
• "The Mask of Darth Nihilus" — The Unknown Regions (Mentioned only)
• Death Star (Mentioned only)
• The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader (Mentioned only)

Non-canon appearances

• Tag & Bink: Revenge of the Clone Menace (First appearance)

Sources

Dark Lord of the Sith with Darth Tenebrous and Darth Venamis[4]
Darth Tenebrous with Master[4] ← 167 BBY–67 BBY[4] Himself with Darth Sidious[16] →
Dark Lord of the Sith with Darth Sidious
Himself and Darth Venamis with Darth Tenebrous[4] ← 67 BBY–37 BBY[1] Himself with Darth Sidious and Darth Maul[1] →
Dark Lord of the Sith with Darth Sidious and Darth Maul
Himself with Darth Sidious ← c.37 BBY–32 BBY Darth Sidious with Darth Tyranus →

Non-canon sources

• LEGO Star Wars: The Dark Side (Mentioned only)

Notes and references