Application for Palpatine (Application Example)

[Moff]

Name: Palpatine
Date of Birth: 11:3:62 AAI (47:8:11 BrS)
Species: Human
Faction: Galactic Empire
Occupation: Emperor, Dark Lord of the Sith
Force Sensitivity: Yes
Description: Pale, scarred and wizened, seemingly frail; eyes of sulfurous yellow
Summarized Biography:
Palpatine was born into a noble family on the world of Naboo. Friction and disgust at his parents' lack of ambition and vision led him to reject his given name and ultimately have it stricken from formal records. Using the wealth and connections afforded him by his noble birth, Palpatine researched forbidden Sith writings, slowly discovering his true destiny.

Eventually, he made contact with Hego Damask, secretly the Sith Lord known as Darth Plagueis, who trained him in the ways of the Dark Side and groomed Palpatine to finally bring to fruition a thousand-year plan to destroy the Jedi and the Republic. Formally invested as Darth Sidious, Sith Apprentice, Palpatine's public persona slowly climbed up the ladder of Naboo politics. Palpatine made certain to never rise too high or too quickly; the low profile allowed him to continue his secret training and kept attention away from the plans he and his master were formulating.

Acceding to the office of Senator of the Chommell Sector (thanks to the previous Senator being assassinated, an arrangement provided by Plagueis and longtime Palpatine ally, Sate Pestage), the Sith Apprentice served the Republic he aimed to destroy for twenty years. In that time, amid manipulation and masterminding his eventual takeover, he trained an apprentice: a Zabrak known he would eventually anoint as his own apprentice, Darth Maul.

After manipulating the Trade Federation--with no small amount of bloodshed--and gaining the fealty of newly-appointed Viceroy Nute Gunray, then orchestrating the abdication and assassination of King Ars Veruna--paving the way for Padme Amidala to become queen--before preying upon Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum's noted animosity for the Trade Federation. The Sith Apprentice, in his guise as a Senator, convinced the Chancellor disband Free Trade Zones and tax trade routes to outlying systems, such as Naboo. Palpatine, in his guise as Sidious, convinced Gunray to blockade and then invade Naboo, causing the Naboo Crisis of 3BrS. Shortly after the invasion, Queen Amidala arrived on Coruscant to inform the Senate of the invasion and seek redress. Palpatine manipulated the young queen he had inspired to take office, planting seeds of doubt in her mind about the willingness of the Senate and Chancellor to act. When Valorum attempted to delay proceedings to form an investigation committee--despite the testimony of two Jedi Knights he sent to resolve the dispute; an act which ultimately precipitated the invasion--Amidala called for a Vote of No Confidence. In the ensuing election, Palpatine won the highest office in the Republic: Supreme Chancellor.

Sidious murdered his Master shortly before receiving word that Amidala had retaken their homeworld. He departed for a formal visit the following morning.

Palpatine's two terms as Supreme Chancellor are well-documented, but he remained in office as the Separatist Crisis began to engulf the Galaxy and threatened to rend the ailing Republic in twain. Ultimately, for all of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's talk of diplomacy and peaceful settlement of grievances, Darth Sidious and his new apprentice, Darth Tyranus--once the respected Jedi Master Dooku and now Count of Serenno--fanned the flames of dissent.

During his time as Chancellor, Palpatine took special interest in the career of a young Jedi named Anakin Skywalker. He became a father figure, friend, and eventually, close confidant of Skywalker. Since the two had met during the Naboo Crisis, Palpatine intended for Skywalker to become his apprentice; Dooku was merely a stepping stone.

As the Separatist Crisis boiled over into the Clone Wars, Palpatine guided the Republic war effort for the holocameras while Sidious gave orders to the Separatist leaders. He kept the Republic and the Confederacy in check, ensuring a maximum of destruction and death during the eight-year bloodbath. By the end, Palpatine had become a dictator in all but name, ruling a Republic that was already an empire. Only the small matter of arranging the downfall of the Jedi and formalizing his control remained.

Anakin Skywalker played his part beautifully. Fearing for his wife, having secretly married Amidala years before, Anakin first sought guidance and advice--in a roundabout fashion--from Palpatine. In return, Palpatine placed him on the Jedi Council as a personal representative... knowing full well the Jedi would bridle at the intrusion and deny Anakin the customary promotion to Jedi Master normally accorded those elevated to the Council. Just as he had with Amidala years before, Palpatine subtly manipulated Skywalker while playing to the man's pride, fear, and deep-seated anger. Then, he revealed his true nature to Skywalker. Never flinching from the Jedi's blade, he explained that--even though he was the Sith Lord the Jedi sought--he was also the man who had shepherded Anakin and been like a father to him with no reservation or judgment... even when Anakin had confessed to committing terrible crimes that the Jedi could never know of.

Conflicted, Skywalker did exactly as Palpatine hoped: he reported the Chancellor's identity to the Jedi Council. Four Masters, all expert swordsmen, stormed Palpatine's office to arrest him. Palpatine recorded the conversation, playing the charade of an offended politician until he drew his own lightsaber. He destroyed the recording device, then plunged his blade into the first Jedi that would fall that night. In seconds, only Mace Windu remained to battle the unveiled Sith Lord. All according to plan.

Skywalker returned to witness Palpatine leave himself open to a disarming blow from Windu, then watch as his mentor alternately cowered and plead for his life with the Jedi Master, and struck out with the Force. As Windu moved to make a killing blow on the seemingly-defenseless Palpatine, Skywalker attacked Windu and severed his sword hand. Palpatine then killed his final would-be assassin before casting the limp form from the heights of his apartment.

Aware that he had committed an unforgivable treason against the Jedi, and goaded by Palpatine's claim that the Jedi would move to kill the Senate, Skywalker pledged himself to be Palpatine's apprentice. He was formally knighted as Darth Vader.

Palpatine dispatched his new apprentice to eliminate the Jedi in their own temple, backed by the 501st Legion. Meanwhile, Palpatine relished contacting each of the twenty clone marshal commanders across the galaxy and issuing Order 66, a preprogrammed contingency order calling for the immediate disposal of the Jedi.

After the Jedi Temple had been purged, Palpatine ordered Vader to exterminate the Separatist Council on Mustafar. The Clone Wars were over, the Jedi were gone, and the Republic had been reformed into the first Galactic Empire... with Palpatine appointing himself Emperor to thunderous applause.

To the Emperor's shock, that evening he was accosted by Jedi Grand Master Yoda in his offices within the Senate Rotunda. The two battled with lightsabers and the Force, but Yoda was ultimately forced to flee when Palpatine gained superior position and Darth Vader's return from Mustafar.

For a year, Vader's existence was secret. Anakin Skywalker's face was well-known... but Skywalker was dead, officially. Notably, Imperial propagandists did not malign Skywalker the way they did other slain Jedi. Nevertheless, Vader operated from the shadows. The bodies left in his wake were usually sufficient to quell any discussion on who the Emperor's shadow enforcer might be.

Nearly a year after the formation of the Empire, with successful campaigns against Separatist holdouts, Palpatine sent Vader back to Mustafar to investigate reports of a CIS cell forming on the planet. However, the reports were a trap laid for Vader by his former master, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Sensing danger, Palpatine personally traveled to Mustafar... but too late. Vader had been maimed by Kenobi's blade and burned by Mustafar's volcanic landscape. The blindingly powerful apprentice Palpatine had once had was no more; Vader's strength was diminished greatly by his wounds. Nevertheless, Vader was reconstructed; with his face now forever concealed, the man could step out of the shadow while being forever cloaked in darkness.

For seventeen years, Palpatine ruled the Empire with Vader as his right hand. Small insurrections broke out, and were crushed. Jedi stragglers were rounded up and either converted to Palpatine's thralls or terminated. But in 33, a band of agitating Senators formally declared their intention to bring down the Empire. They attempted to fight the Empire on even terms, in large set-piece ground battles.

Operation: Domino was an unmitigated disaster for the Alliance. Imperial forces crushed set piece formations, killing tens of thousands of Alliance troops. The Alliance was forced to adopt guerilla tactics and stateless warfare; then they truly become dangerous.

But Palpatine had foreseen this eventuality. For nearly two decades, a weapon of unprecedented power had been taking shape. Commanded by the ambitious and ruthless Grand Moff Tarkin, the Death Star neared completion. Its first firing annihilated a Rebel battleship; its second devastated the world that had been its cradle. No planet would dare harbor Rebel insurgents; not when the price of disobedience went far beyond invasion or bombardment. And with this weapon and proper military personnel already in place to enforce his rule, Palpatine finally swept aside the last remains of the Republic he hated: the Imperial Senate was dissolved.

Then something Palpatine hadn't foreseen came to pass. A lone Rebel fighter, piloted by the forgotten son of his apprentice, fired two low-yield torpedoes into a secondary exhaust port... and the Death Star was no more. Enraged, Palpatine lashed out at Vader, at the station designer, and at many Rebel-leaning worlds. As whispers of this pilot's name reached the Emperor's ears, hopes of gaining a new Skywalker to replace the crippled, older one blossomed. Even as he ordered Vader to end Skywalker shortly after the Battle of Hoth in 38, Palpatine knew his apprentice sought out Skywalker to train as his own. He would allow Vader to plant the seed, but Palpatine intended to reap the dark harvest. And so, he acquiesced to Vader's plan to capture and turn young Luke. He would maintain the charade until Vader lay defeated at Skywalker's feet, in the throne room of the second Death Star.

But Skywalker did not play his role as well as his father. He defied the Emperor, and when the Emperor brought the full power of the Dark Side to bear on the young Jedi, Skywalker was able to make an escape from the doomed station. Even as the Empire fractured and crumbled, Palpatine remained fixated. The master-apprentice bond with Vader had always been strained after Mustafar; it was now severed. Each man used the other for his own ends, nothing more, nothing less. Only the ability of the continued existence of the other to further each man's goals holds a fatal confrontation at bay.

Even as the warlords were put down and an Alliance thrust at Coruscant itself thwarted, Skywalker remains Palpatine's goal. After all, a master without an apprentice is a master of nothing at all...