The Untold Truth Of Emperor Palpatine

After becoming Darth Plagueis' apprentice, Palpatine traveled to Dathomir in order to trade his knowledge of the dark side with Mother Talzin. As Clan Mother of the Nightsisters, a tribe of Force-sensitive witches native to Dathomir, Talzin used her dark magick and connection to the spirit world to rule the planet with her coven. Sidious was impressed with her mastery of Magick, a supernatural technique that allowed her to tap into the dark side of the Force, and told Talzin he wished to train her as his apprentice to usurp Plagueis.

However, Palpatine saw Force potential in Talzin's son Maul, and instead abducted him. Talzin never forgave Sidious for taking Maul away from her, and began to plot her revenge against him. She used several children of Dathomir as tools to disrupt Darth Sidious' plans throughout the years, including Asajj Ventress, Savage Opress, and Maul himself. Eventually, Sidious had enough of Talzin's meddling and decided to deal with her. Sidious allowed Maul to think he had successfully captured Count Dooku but actually used him to track Dooku back to Mother Talzin's location. After ambushing the Dathomirians, Darth Sidious was able to overwhelm Mother Talzin with his lightning long enough for General Grievous to stab her with his lightsaber. 

Palpatine had no remorse for the people of his own home planet when he planned Operation Cinder, a contingency plan to ensure the longevity of the Galactic Empire should he ever be killed. Palpatine believed that if the Empire was unable to prevent his assassination, then the entire organization was a failure and did not deserve to live on without him. In order to fulfill his vision, Palpatine created a plan to annihilate both the Empire and its enemies should he ever perish, and entrusted a select group of Imperial officers with the duty of rebuilding a new Empire.

The plan was to use a series of satellites to form a climate disruption array capable of laying waste to resistance-allied planets with catastrophic weather events. After the Emperor's death during the Battle of Endor, one of these climate disruption arrays was used to wreak havoc upon Palpatine's home planet of Naboo. The satellites created massive hurricanes and electrical storms that ravaged the surface of the planet. It was only through the actions of Leia Organa and Lando Calrissian that the rebels were able to destroy the climate disruption arrays and stop the people of Naboo from being completely wiped out.

A few years ago, one of the longest-running Star Wars fan theories was finally confirmed: Yes, Darth Sidious really did create Anakin Skywalker. 

All of the clues had been there for a while, of course. In The Phantom Menace, Anakin's mother Shmi tells Qui-Gon Jinn that she became pregnant with Anakin without the help of a father, while Qui-Gon discovers that young Anakin has an abnormally high midi-chlorian count. In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine tells Anakin the story of his former master, Darth Plagueis, who figured out how to use midi-chlorians to create life. According to the book The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, Lucas actually wrote a scene making Anakin's parentage explicit, but the lines were cut from the final film.

Years later, Marvel's Darth Vader #25, which is canon, settled the issue. During a vision, Vader looks up at an image of Shmi and Palpatine as his iconic line "I am your father" rings in the background. He also sees Palpatine as Darth Sidious zap his mother's womb with dark side energy. There's enough wiggle room built in that Lucasfilm could retcon this if they want, but for now it's pretty clear: Palpatine is Darth Vader's daddy.

Death wasn't the end for Palpatine. Even after he died on the second Death Star, his plans lived on — and it turns out he was a "If I can't have it, no one can" type of guy.

Years before Palpatine crowned himself Emperor, he established an underground "observatory" on the planet Jakku, Rey's homeworld in The Force Awakens. His plan? Stuff it full of Sith relics with the power to cause an explosion and then, in the event of his death, detonate the whole thing and wipe out the Empire and the Rebel Alliance in one fell swoop. Any Empire that was inept enough to let Palpatine die didn't deserve to survive, Palpatine figured, and winnowing out the Empire's weaker elements would give it the freedom to reform into something stronger. If his enemies died in the explosion too? So much the better.

Palpatine put a man named Gallius Rex in charge of the plan, which unfolds in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy. It almost works. Rex manages to lure the Empire and the New Republic to Jakku for a final showdown, but a team of good and bad guys stop the planet from blowing up. Still, after the battle, the Empire heads off to the Unknown Regions to regroup, where it transforms into the lean and mean First Order. In the long term, mission accomplished.

The Sith robes, saggy pale skin, and yellow eyes should've given it away, but even after Palpatine transformed the Republic into the Empire, he worked very hard to hide his Sith background. People knew (or, at the very least, rumors suggested) that Darth Vader was familiar with the ways of the Force. That Palpatine was his master was a tightly-guarded secret.

According to the books Lords of the Sith and Tarkin, only a few people were privy to what Palpatine was. His apprentices — Darth Maul, Count Dooku, and Darth Vader — knew, of course. So did his royal guards. Almost everyone else was kept in the dark. Even Grand Moff Tarkin, one of Palpatine's closest allies and most trusted confidants, only suspected that Palpatine was Sith. He didn't know for sure.

It's not clear why Palpatine didn't flaunt his Sith heritage, although it's easy to guess. For one, Palpatine spent his entire career operating in the shadows. Why start moving into the light now? For another, to Palpatine, information was power. There's no use in telling people more than they need to know. Every fact that's revealed can eventually be used against you.

Palpatine didn't establish the Empire to get famous. He just wanted power. While serving as a senator made Palpatine a celebrity, he retreated from the public eye once he became emperor, letting the Imperial Ruling Council handle most of the day-to-day work of governing and leaving nastier tasks up to his apprentice, Darth Vader.

As a result, Palpatine was safe from his enemies and could devote as much time as he wanted to his own pursuits, but it had an unintended side effect: Because no one saw him, some conspiracy theorists argued that Palpatine was dead. The most common story alleged that the Jedi killed Palpatine during their "uprising," and that the Imperial leaders were using Palpatine's name to grab power for themselves.

The Empire tried to dispel these rumors in a few ways. In Tarkin, Tarkin's friend Nils Tenant admits that the Ruling Council sent out "processions of Imperial skylimos" — basically, fake flying motorcades — to make it look like Palpatine was traveling from place to place. In Aftermath, we learn that the Empire used body doubles to give the impression that Palpatine was giving speeches or making other public appearances. In reality, however, Palpatine preferred to stay at home — although he was very much alive.

Don't let anyone tell you that Palpatine didn't have a sense of humor. The way he treated the Senate proves that he does.

Despite what you might think, Palpatine didn't dissolve the Galactic Senate as soon as he took power. In fact, he kept it around for decades. Before the Death Star, Palpatine saw the Senate as a valuable political tool that let its constituents feel like they had some say in politics as a means of quashing potential rebellions. It was an illusion, of course. Over time, power moved from the Senate to local, regional leaders, robbing the politicians of any real influence. Once Palpatine created the Death Star, which would let the Emperor control the galaxy via fear instead of politics, he disbanded the Senate entirely, but that didn't happen until the beginning of A New Hope.

However, nobody bothered to let the senators know what was happening. In a comic in Star Wars Rebels Magazine, the crew of the Ghost runs into a senator from the planet Thrad, who still believes in the legislative body. The senators still debate policy, she says. They still pass bills, which they send to Palpatine to be signed into law. They don't realize that Palpatine simply ignores them. They think they're making a difference. Instead, they're frittering away in the Senate chamber, doing absolutely nothing. Heartbreaking? Kind of. Tragically hilarious? Oh, absolutely.

So, Palpatine had a son. That's the secret fueling The Rise of Skywalker's biggest twist, and it raises a number of questions — most importantly, who was that man's mother? Lucasfilm might already know. In 2005, George Lucas began working a live-action Star Wars TV show known as Star Wars: Underworld, which was going to focus on the seedy underbelly of the Star Wars universe, and was set between Episode III and Episode IV. About 50 scripts for the show were written, while LucasArts, Lucas' video game company, began work on a spinoff called 1313.

That's where things get interesting. According to Cory Barlog, who worked on 1313, Underworld featured a tragic love story starring the Emperor. "They made the Emperor a sympathetic figure who was wronged by this... heartless woman," Barlog tells VentureBeat. "She's this hardcore gangster, and she just totally destroyed him as a person."

Underworld never happened — first it was postponed due to its budget, and then Disney swooped in and changed everything — but elements from Underworld have made their way into modern Star Wars canon. Saw Guerrera, the hardcore revolutionary who appears in Rogue One, The Clone Wars, Rebels, and Jedi: Fallen Order was created for Underworld. So was The Force Awakens' Church of the Force, the entire premise of Rogue One, and many elements of Star Wars Rebels. Could Palpatine's mysterious lover join them? Knowing Lucasfilm, it sure doesn't seem impossible.