Who is darth plagueis really

Believing the secrets to immortality lie in science, Plagueis conducted in-depth research into the biological underpinnings of life. Some of that research constituted unnatural experiments, through his ability to coax the midi-chlorians , in an attempt to cheat death, that, though incomplete, were encouraging to his apprentice.

According to Darth Sidious' book , The Secrets of the Sith , Plagueis discovered a form of immortality through transference , a Force power that allowed the user to transfer his consciousness to another body, essentially using bodies as vessels. According to Sidious, Plagueis was powerful enough that he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life and keep the ones he cared about from dying , a precious knowledge that awarded him the epithet of "The Wise.

Ultimately, Plagueis' only fear was bound to come true; at some point, Sidious had learned everything he needed from his master, [3] after which he decided that he had no further use for his teacher. In accordance with the Rule of Two tradition, [8] Sidious disposed of Plagueis, murdering his mentor in cold blood, killing him in his sleep , [3] and ascending to ultimate power and acquiring the title of Sith Master for himself.

Following Plagueis' demise, Sidious acquired his own pupil in the Nightsister Mother Talzin 's son, Darth Maul , [6] a young Dathomirian Zabrak whom Sidious had kidnapped from Talzin when he was only a child.

Plagueis' legacy was inherited by Sidious, who used his mentor's knowledge to further his own ambitions. Sidious accomplished his ascendance as a Dark Lord of the Sith by killing Plagueis, adhering to the Sith Order's tradition in which the apprentice completed his dark-side training by killing his master.

Plagueis' death served as an example to the apprentice who betrayed and killed him; Sidious regarded his master's trust in him as a mistake, which he vowed to never make. During the Clone Wars , Sidious was aware that his second apprentice, Darth Tyranus , plotted to usurp his title of Sith Master by killing him. Sensing that Tyranus' betrayal was imminent, Sidious successfully conspired to have his student killed by his intended replacement, the Jedi Knight and prophesied Chosen One Anakin Skywalker.

In the waning days of the Republic, Sidious recounted the history of his late master to Skywalker, whom he befriended years before the Clone Wars in an effort to gradually turn him to the dark side of the Force.

Skywalker, who was unaware at the time that his friend was in fact a Sith Lord, and having developed premonitions of his secret wife's death in childbirth , was intrigued by the story of Plagueis, particularly his ability to prevent death. At the same time, he had the Jedi systematically executed throughout the galaxy by Order 66 , completing the Sith plan that lasted for over a millennium.

One of the few Jedi to survive was a Padawan named Ferren Barr. Barr began investigating as to why the Jedi fell so quickly and learned of Plagueis' existence, putting his file on him in his list of individuals involved in the crisis. Sometimes, Sidious mused about how his late master would have reacted when confronted with the trivial, day-to-day matters of Imperial politics , remarking that Plagueis never foresaw that he would become Emperor. Plagueis' failure to form a dyad with his apprentice had convinced Sidious that his master was unworthy of the task.

However, Sidious also failed to recreate the dyad with his own disciple Vader, despite their combined power as scions of the two strongest Force-sensitive bloodlines , the Palpatines and the Skywalkers. Sidious used Plagueis' methods to transfer his consciousness to a new body after his first demise. However, Sidious' use of transference had confined his essence in a flawed vessel that was incapable of containing his dark side energy, causing severe physical deformities to his new body.

Though reborn in a clone body, Sidious' new vessel suffered from rapid decay due to its imperfections and the dark side. When Sidious used Plagueis' secret to immortality to resurrect his spirit in a new vessel, [4] he was able to stave off death for a time, but immortality still eluded the Dark Lord.

Because of this, Sidious mused that perhaps Plagueis, in the end, was having the final laugh over his apprentice, as karma for his demise. In the years following the Empire's end , during the final stages of the war between the First Order and the Resistance , Sidious' granddaughter Rey tracked him down to Exegol as the Resistance and the Sith Eternal prepared for a final showdown.

Ultimately, Rey used the voices and power of the past and deceased Jedi to destroy Sidious and the Sith for good. Darth Plagueis was a wise Dark Lord of the Sith who possessed a vast knowledge of the dark side of the Force.

The droid then tended to the festering wound the Dark Lord had received in the cave-in, and served him food and drink. There, he ordered that the Wobegone be sealed and slagged, and requested a change of wardrobe and a fueled, piloted ship to Muunilinst.

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.

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.

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.

An investigation of Venamis's ship revealed that he had kept his eye on several Force-sensitive troublemakers 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 D, he traveled to Lianna and Colliders Casino in Lianna City to deal with a Shi'ido skinshifter whom he allowed to live , to Saleucami where he killed an Iktotchi prophetess, then Bedlam and its sanatorium , and finally to Abraxin.

He confronted Naat Lare and tasked him with the elimination of the Jedi. Hiding, Plagueis watched as the Jedi struck Lare down. 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. 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.

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 and 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.

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.

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. 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. 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. 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.

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. Sidious learned from Plagueis over the course of decades, [3] during which Plagueis taught his apprentice everything he knew to prevent the power he had amassed from being lost forever. 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. Sidious would not kill his master, however, until he understood the lessons of Plagueis [8] and had become powerful enough to defeat him.

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 even 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. 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.

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. In 52 BBY , Plagueis was involved with discussions with the Kaminoans about the possibility of creating a clone army to one day destroy 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. 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.

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. 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.

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.

The Maladian attack was preceded by Palpatine's kidnapping by members of Santhe Security, which Damask had made sure would occur by acknowledging his apprentice as an acquaintance in public with Teem as a witness. Teem had been waiting for nearly ten years to exact retribution after Plagueis's support for Gardulla the Hutt's new podrace course and Naboo's plasma reserves, both of which threatened to seriously affect Malastare's finances.

Meanwhile, Santhe Security's leader Kerred Santhe the Second appeared to have discovered that Plagueis was responsible for his father's death and joined with Teem. As Plagueis focused his efforts to foil the kidnapping attempt and use it to locate Teem, he was not aware that a second attack had been planned against him. Pestage was contacted by Maladians with the information, who were embarrassed by the complications surrounding the death of Vidar Kim, and he immediately notified Sidious.

The two arrived at the Fobosi Lodge as Plagueis, gravely injured and barely holding himself conscious, was lashing out with the dark side against his attackers. All the others, including the Muuns who made up Damask Holdings, had been killed. Hill was the first victim of the attack, his head sliced from his neck. The police were unable to find any culprits behind either incident, even though the Senate Investigatory Committee formed a special task force to look into the matter in the wake of Senator Kim's assassination.

Damask Holdings was not reformed, and Hego Damask II retreated from the affairs of the galaxy, with some believing him dead. He would still continue business in the Banking Clan, all the while grooming the late Larsh Hill's son, San , to become the next Chairman.

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, 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. At some point after Plagueis exclusively devoted himself to his studies circa 45 BBY by Luke Skywalker's estimate , he put some of his theories and experimental results on paper.

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. 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 remained unconvinced about the reality of life after death of the body. 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.

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 D 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.

This book has excited readers and fans, as it has revealed so much about the Sith characters and stories from the Star Wars universe. The Sith have always intrigued fans, and having a collection of, what reads as notes by Palpatine himself, really helps to lend answers to many of the questions that have been asked.

It is revealed in the book that Darth Plagueis attempted to create a Force Dyad with Palpatine, but was unsuccessful. Darth Plagueis really did find a way to stop someone from dying and, later on down the road, Palpatine learned how to master the art of Essence Transfer so that he could stay alive even after his body was destroyed.

Palpatine writes in the book:. Though he was wise in the ways of the Force, he proved unworthy of the task. I, too, attempted to facilitate such a connection with my apprentice, Anakin Skywalker.