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Emperor Palpatine

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Darth Sidious
Series Star Wars
Age 52-65 (Prequel Trilogy)
88 (Return of the Jedi)
119 (The Rise of Skywalker)
Birthday 84 BBY
Sex Male
Species Human
Height 5'10"/178 cm
Weight 165 lbs/75 kg
Alignment Neutral Evil

Darth Sidious, born as Sheev Palpatine, is the Emperor of the Galactic Empire and the main antagonist of the first 6 episodes of the Star Wars saga.

“ It is unavoidable. It is your destiny. You - like your father - are now... mine! „
~ Darth Sidious

“ Long have I waited... for my grandchild to come home. I never wanted you dead. I wanted you here, Empress Palpatine. You will take the throne. It is your birthright to rule. Here. It is in your blood. Our blood. „
~ Darth Sidious revealing his new goals to his granddaughter Rey.

“ YOU ARE NOTHING!! A SCAVENGER GIRL IS NO MATCH FOR THE POWER IN ME!! I AM ALL THE SITH!!! „
~ Darth Sidious' last words before his ultimate defeat.

Background[]

Sheev Palpatine was born to an aristocratic family on Naboo. Intrigued by the Dark Side and the Sith, young Palpatine spent his days secretly hunting for dark artifacts before running into Hugo Damask, a Muun business man who would soon reveal to be Darth Plagueis. To prove his worth to the Dark Lord, Palpatine killed his father and pledged himself under Plagueis' teachings. Plagueis would teach Palpatine many Force powers, including the secrets of life and immortality, before earning the name of Darth Sidious. Sidious had decided to take his master's place as Dark Lord of the Sith. While training with Plagueis, Sidious resurfaced to the public and built up a political power among the people. After killing his master in his sleep, Sidious would successfully achieve the position of Senator of Naboo, speaking for the entire planet in the Galactic Republic. Through cunning and skill, Sidious worked his way to Chancellor of the Senate before using the Clone Wars as a way to solidify his position as Emperor of the Galaxy. During that time, Sidious would take on two apprentices, Darth Maul and Tyranus, before setting his eyes on young Anakin Skywalker. After converting Anakin to his cause as Darth Vader, the two purged the Jedi into nigh extinction as they ruled the Galaxy from their Empire. Over the next 2 decades, Sidious would rule from the shadows with an iron fist before setting his sights on Luke Skywalker, whom he planned on becoming his final disciple and true successor. His plans were cut short, however, when Vader had a change of heart and killed his master by throwing Sidious into the reactor core of the second Death Star.

Sidious’s adventures did not end here, however, as Plagueis had taught Sidious how to live past death through possession. Sidious possessed many bodies and faced an adult Luke many times before finally dying through the combined will of Luke, Leia, and Leia's infant son Anakin Solo as Sidious desperately tried to take over the child. Where Sidious finally fell, his spirit transformed into a nexus of the Dark Side, empowering any Sith who treads there.

Powers & Abilities[]

  • The Force:  Darth Sidious has always been a natural prodigy of the Force, capable of using every known Sith ability to its highest extent ever known by a Sith Lord.
    • Force Valor: At will, Sidious can drastically enhance his speed, agility, reflexes, and/or strength.
    • Force Lightning: Sidious’s signature ability and his go-to for combat, he unleashes a powerful torrent of lightning from his fingertips that is strong enough to incinerate normal men, bend lightsaber blades (yes, it happened, his lightning actually bends lightsabers), and light up a planet with its brightness. The maximum potential of Sidious’s Force lightning, however, was achieved before his final death on Exegol; when restored back to his former self, Sidious unleashed an immense wave of Force lightning towards the sky which rapidly expanded enough to disable all the ships of the Resistance.
      • Lightning Grenade: A deadlier form of Force Lightning where Sidious picks up the victim with his mind and quickly zaps them with a small jolt of lightning. Then he either drops the victim or slams them against a wall as the electricity coursing through them explodes.
      • Lightning Shield:  Sidious is capable of coating himself with a protective lightning barrier that will shock anyone who tries to harm him.
    • Telekinesis: The most versatile Force ability in his arsenal, Sidious is capable of lifting and manipulating objects with just his mind to achieve various ends.
      • Force Push
        • Force Wave: A more powerful Force Push performed across a wide area, toppling over many people at once. Can be performed in all directions. 
        • Force Destruction: Sidious pushes with fatal power, creating a telekinetic wave that tears everything it touches into bits.
          • Force Repulse: Force Destruction, but performed in every direction at once.
      • Force Jump: Sidious can telepathically lift himself while jumping to reach hundreds of feet into the air.
        • Force Flight: Taking it a step beyond jumping, Sidious can actually fly for extended periods of time with telekinesis.
      • Force Barrier: When he needs to tank attacks, Sidious can generate barriers of the Force to protect him from harm.
      • Lightsaber Throw: Sidious can throw his lightsabers like boomerangs, where they saw through anything in their wake and return to their master's hands.
      • Force Crush: Sidious can crumple up the victims organs or body and kill them.
      • Force Maelstrom: Sidious forms an extremely powerful dome-shaped Force Barrier as he lifts up everything loose and tosses it around, bombarding victims with anything around them as the Sith also unleashes a flurry of lightning to zap his enemies to dust while they fly.
    • Telepathy: Sidious is capable of telepathically talking to or probing the minds of anyone in the Galaxy, regardless of who or where they are.
      • Force Sense: By feeling the Force around him, Sidious can detect the presence of others or major events in the galaxy.
      • Force Concealment: If he wishes, Sidious can hide his presence from everyone.
      • Force Persuasion: The famous "Jedi Mind Trick," Sidious is capable of enslaving people to his will with the Force, though the strong minded can just be swayed to do simpler tasks. It takes a high level Force wielder to defy the Emperor's whim.
      • Drain Knowledge: When interrogation is needed, Sidious can look through the mind of his victim and look through their memories. If need be, he can wipe their minds clean as well.
        • Dun Möch: A type of psychic warfare used by the Sith, Sidous probes the mind of his enemies while fighting to sniff out their insecurities. He then takes these insecurities and mocks the opponent with them to try and instill doubt in their minds and break their focus. The Emperor’s skill with this ability is so great, he was able to distract nearly the entire Jedi Order while executing Order 66 long enough for the Clonetroopers to kill their Jedi generals, even throwing seasoned masters like Plo Koon off guard.
    • Sith Alchemy: Sidious is arguably the second strongest user of alchemy in Star Wars, just behind his master.
      • Transmutation: If he chooses, Sidious can transform people into various types of monsters and minions.
      • Life Creation: Sidious can create alchemical monsters, like Chrysalides or the semi-sentient Sith Meditation Spheres, at will.
      • Enchantment: Sidious is capable of bestowing objects with power of the Force, giving it special properties. The most famous examples of this are Vader's armor and holocrons.
      • Power Bestowment: With new life created by the Sith Lord, Sidious is capable of giving his creations Force sensitivity.
    • Tutaminis: With this ability, Sidious is capable of absorbing and redirecting energy with his palms. He can do this to absorb blaster bolts without harm.
    • Precognition: By meditating in the midst of battle, Sidious could see into the near future, seeing possible attacks before they happen as a way of amplifying his reflexes.
    • Force Heal: Sidious can repair damage in battle with the Force, though is incapable of replacing organs or regenerating limbs.
    • Force Cloak: Sidious can so choose to be invisible at will.
    • Force Rage: When entering battle, Sidious musters all of the rage, fear, and hate inside him to boost his fighting ability and physical power.
    • Weather Storm: By simply being angry, Sidious can will the weather to change,
    • Force Drain: One of his strongest abilities, the Emperor can drain the life force of entire planet populations to empower himself, although stronger Force wielders such as Vader can resist it.
    • Essence Transfer: Should Sidious somehow fall in combat, he is capable of living on as a spirit and tie himself to a new body or powerful artifact to live on as a spirit or possessed body.
      • Resurrection: Sidious can resurrect others using this power if he so chooses. He commonly does this to kill people repeatedly.
    • Force Storm: The strongest ability in all of Star Wars, the Emperor focuses his power into space-time itself, ripping open a wormhole that can tear apart entire star fleets or the surfaces of planets and send the debris anywhere in the galaxy, including the past and future. Worst of all, he can generate a Force Storm from thousands of lightyears away.
  • Master Lightsaber Duelist: Sidious is a master of all known styles of lightsaber combat. He has no preferred form, though he is a fan of swift, dexterous strikes and overwhelming foes with his blinding speed.
  • Master Manipulator: Pulling the strings of the Clone Wars like a harp, Sidious had a strong skill with manipulation that lead to the ultimate fall of many great Jedi, and the fall of the Republic itself as he convinced people to follow him down the dark path he envisioned.
  • Cunning Tactician and Strategist: Sidious has shown his genius in battling through running both sides of the Clone Wars and his war against the Rebel Alliance. He has particular skill with playing people into traps, such as the time he let the Rebels get the plans to the second Death Star, which lead them to attack they believed to be a "vulnerable" station, when in reality it was an ambush with a fully operational planet busting sphere. 
  • Master Politician: Sidious has shown himself to be an expert on politics, working his way up the legal system to corrupt it from the inside and rewrite the rules to suit himself.

Weapons & Equipment[]

  • Twin Lightsabers: Sidious has two small handles that release plasma condensed into a magnetic field. Acting as omni-sided blades, these laser swords can cut through almost anything like wet paper. Sidious made his lightsaber handles from phrik and an electrum finish, leaving them impervious to damage from other lightsabers. Although a skilled and deadly combatant, Sidious rarely used his weapons—only doing so when absolutely necessary—as they would have immediately identified him as a Sith Lord so he preferred to exercise his powers of manipulation and used servants to carry out his hidden agenda.

Feats[]

Strength[]

Speed[]

  • Blitzed 3 Jedi Masters and killed them in ten seconds, including the swift and unpredictable Kit Fisto.
  • Blitzed multiple Jedi Masters and executed them before they could react
  • Kept pace with the infamously quick Jedi Grandmaster Yoda.
  • Effortlessly kept up with Darth Maul, a gifted and quick Sith assassin, and Savage Opress at the same time.
  • Can casually dodge and deflect blaster bolts, which are said to move at the speed of light.
  • Comparable to characters who can react to his lightning
  • Can keep up with Mace Windu in a lightsaber fight
  • Superior to Obi-Wan Kenobi, who can blitz MagnaGuards, who have reflexes that“operated near lightspeed”, and has blocked blaster bolts in a nanosecond
  • Scales above Malak, who has FTL force draining (1.2c)
  • (Disney Canon) Traveled from Endor to Exegol as a spirit. Timeframe at most is 24 years. (2166 x FTL)
  • His Force Storm traveled from Byss to Coruscant in at most a few days (574,961-2,012,332c)

Durability[]

Skill[]

  • Has been referred to as the strongest Sith of all time at various points in time by various individuals.
  • Outmatched Yoda in combat.
  • Single-handedly brought down the fall of the Galactic Republic.
  • Oneshot 3 Jedi Masters in less than a second.
  • Ruled the galaxy with an iron fist for over 2 decades.
  • Trained Darth Vader in the ways of the dark side and made him into one of the most feared entities in the galaxy.
  • Managed to revive himself in a clone body by using his great mastery over the dark side of the Force along with the knowledge on how to cheat death by manipulating the midi-chlorians. 
  • Created Snoke as a figurehead, thus making him responsible for the creation of the First Order and Ben Solo's fall to the dark side as Kylo Ren.
  • Tracked down his son and daughter-in-law and had them murdered by an assassin named Ochi.
  • Created a massive fleet of Star Destroyers known as the Final Order that were capable of destroying planets. 
  • Usurped full control of the First Order from Kylo and ordered the destruction of the planet Kijimi through a Star Destroyer (commandeered by Pryde) as a show of force. 
  • Tricked Rey into bringing the entire Resistance to a trap in Exegol so that his entire fleet armada could wipe them all out.
  • Siphoned Rey and Kylo's Force dyad and rejuvenated himself in the process.
  • Used his powers to unleash a series of Force Lightning blasts into Exegol's atmosphere, putting the entire Resistance armada in chaotic disarray.
  • Was only permanently defeated by the combined might of the spirits of every Jedi who had ever been born over the last 25,000 years.
  • Destroyed the Republic from the inside out
  • Initiated a Jedi Purge
  • Manipulated a war from both sides
  • Is the first sith to achieve the power of Force Storm
  • Put Chewbacca into a complete trance
  • Went undetected by the Jedi Order for years while sitting right in front of their faces and in the public eye daily.
  • Other users of Force Drain such as Vitiate and Nihilus could sap entire planets of life
  • Took the spirits of literally every single Jedi to ever exist holding his soul down to keep him from coming back (Though some guides contradict this)
  • Probably scales to the legend of the two Jedi who got so pissed at each other they turned the planet they were on into a star  (Though it is an unproven myth)
  • Fellow Sith Lord Darth Tenebrous could live as a spirit for potentially millions of years (although he trapped himself in an ironic hell by doing so)
  • Defeated Darth Maul, Savage Opress, Mace Windu, Master Yoda, and many other Jedi
  • Turned the planet of Byss into the most potent Dark Side Nexus of its time, potentially on par or beyond the power of the Valley of the Jedi.
  • …..Somehow, Darth Sidious returned

Faults[]

  • Arrogance: While Sidious’s unending strength makes him a monstrous foe in combat, it also leaves him thinking of himself as a god amongst men, and thus has a tendency to underestimate heroes or overlook details while planning. It also leads him to believing he is above the use of lightsabers, so he never draws his blades unless he wishes to mock lesser Jedi.
  • Force-less Beings: Sidious is at a disadvantage against beings who are cut off from the Force, as they are impervious to most of his abilities and undetectable to his non-human senses.
  • Limits to Essence Transfer: While he is practically immortal in almost every way, Sidious can be killed if no one is around to possess when his body fails. It's also possible for a being with a strong enough will to reject his possession, thus leaving him without a host to live on as he dies.
    • Degeneration: When the Emperor revived himself from his first death, the clone body he used was physically impaired because it could not handle Sidious’s spirit, so he took refuge in the ancient Sith world of Exegol, where he had to be moved and sustained by machinery before carrying out the orders of Operation Cinder. 

Fun Facts[]

  • While his first physical body lasted 86 years, Essence Transferring from body to body added another 7 years to Sidious' life. Because of this, Sidious' soul was 93 years old when he died for the last time.
  • From a certain point of view, Darth Sidious did win at the end of The Rise of Skywalker by destroying the Skywalker family, given that Rey had to sacrifice her life to destroy Sidious and thus Ben Solo sacrificed his own to revive her, becoming one with the Force. As Ben was the last member of the Skywalker bloodline and never had descendants, even if he was killed for good, Sidious was in some ways successful in destroying Anakin Skywalker's lineage. However, as Rey ultimately disowns her birth surname and adopts that of the Skywalkers, it can be argued that the Skywalker family's legacy will live through Rey and the actions of their members will always be remembered by all in the galaxy, whereas no one will remember Sidious in a positive way and all will repudiate him and his legacy for his heinous actions.
  • Some have speculated Sidious created Anakin Skywalker given that the final issue of the Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith comic book series seemed to suggest that Sidious was behind Anakin's mysterious conception. Indeed, George Lucas originally intended to reveal in Revenge of the Sith that Darth Sidious or Darth Plagueis manipulated the midi-chlorians to conceive Anakin, so in some ways, Sidious could be considered Anakin's father. The idea was dropped from the final cut, and Lucasfilm has affirmed since then that this isn't the case.
  • Darth Sidious is often considered one of the most evil villains in television and film history - as his reign of terror in addition to his tyrannies have led to billions of casualties and the destruction of countless planets, thus devastating the galaxy altogether.
  • Historical leaders such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Napoleon Bonaparte, Richard Nixon and Alberto Fujimori served as the main influences for his character.
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