Birth of a Sith Lord

Birth of a Sith Lord

by Roderick T. Long

I wrote this fanfic (in three installments, for a now apparently defunct fan site) shortly after The Phantom Menace came out, in order to work out possible answers to questions that puzzled me: how does the Rule of Two work? what motivates the Sith? why wasn’t Palpatine identified as a Force-user in childhood? why do the Gungans distrust the Naboo?

I suspect Revenge of the Sith, due in theatres later this week, will probably falsify some of my speculations; but heck, Lucasfilm have been falsifying their own EU stories, so why not mine? Anyway, at the last minute before it becomes definitively outdated, here’s my version of Palpatine’s backstory. (Sorry, no Darth Plagueis; I like my names better anyway.)





Part 1

In a small, barely noticeable structure on an airlesss, lifeless moon orbiting a nondescript methane planet in the galaxy’s outer rim, two Sith Lords met. The younger one waited patiently for his master to speak. The senior lord, his steely eyes sunken in his prematurely aging face, intoned a single word: “Naboo.”

The apprentice raised his eyebrows. “Naboo, Master? It is a sparsely populated world, hardly the most promising candidate for our search.” Young Darth Mourn mentally reviewed his scant knowledge of Naboo: a damp, lush world where the survivors of the Ykkallian Wars had established an elective monarchy dedicated to peace, trade, and artistry.

His master, Darth Ghast, replied with a skull-like smile: “True enough. But now the situation is different. The Galactic Republic continues to expand its borders. Talks have begun – cautiously, tentatively – on the subject of … incorporation.”

Darth Mourn’s eyes narrowed. Now he understood. Naboo was considering joining the Republic. That made it a Priority Alpha planet.

Mourn recalled how Lord Ghast had first explained it to him long ago. There could never be more than two Sith Lords at a time, but there must also never be fewer. The Sith lineage was too precious to imperil by allowing its continuation ever to rest on one person alone. Thus the training of a third Sith Lord must begin while the first is still alive, so that upon the Master’s death the Sith-in-training will be ready to step immediately into the former apprentice’s shoes. The search for a successor was thus an important part of Ghast’s and Mourn’s acivities. Many of the prospects Mourn had brought to Ghast had already failed or been found wanting, serving useful purposes for a time until they were disposed of.

Above all, the new recruit must come from outside Republic space. Within the Republic, Force-sensitive children were identified early by the Jedi Order. Whether such children were eventually trained as Jedi or not, their identities were recorded and their activities tracked by the exceedingly thorough Jedi intelligence service. A Sith Lord could not afford to come to the attention of the Jedi. Sufficiently advanced practitioners of the Sith arts might learn to shield their abilities from Jedi awareness, as Darth Ghast had done and as his youthful apprentice Darth Mourn was beginning to do, but this would do them little good if they had already been identified as Force-users when young.

The need to recruit from the Outer Rim had never proven much of a handicap for the Sith before, for space is large and there were always plenty of prospects. But that was before Darth Ghast had developed a plan far more ambitious than his own master, Darth Kayos, could ever have conceived. Lord Ghast’s plan was nothing less than a Sith takeover of the Republic.

This had of course been a hope passed down from Sith to Sith for many centuries, but few Sith Lords had been single-minded enough to sacrifice too much of their pursuit of power on a smaller scale – for themselves, in their own lifetimes – to advance the long-term goal of galactic dominion by their successors. But Darth Ghast was an embittered man, twisted by a past his disciple had never dared ask about, and it had left him with a burning hatred of the Republic that took precedence over the personal pursuit of power.

In order for Ghast’s plan to succeed, the next Sith Lord had to become a member of the Galactic Senate. But such a Senator would have to be elected by a world that held Republic membership; and few planets would choose a naturalised citizen over a native as their Senatorial representative; nor would Sith hypnotic techniques be employed effectively on an entire planetary electorate. Hence the next Sith Lord would have to be born outside the Republic, yet native to a Republic world. This would be possible only in the case of a planet that had newly joined the Republic. Now Mourn could see why Naboo was an ideal spot to search for the new Sith candidate.

“I understand, my Master,” Darth Mourn intoned. “I shall leave for Naboo immediately.”

“Very good,” hissed the elder Sith Lord. “Search the planet for potential converts before it becomes a Jedi picnic ground. And remember – pick a hater.”

“I obey, my Lord.”

Darth Ghast watched thoughtfully as his apprentice stalked off in search of his ship. Mourn was a competent disciple, no doubt, but his anger and pride had never fully congealed into hatred. Mourn did not have Ghast’s withering hostility to the Republic and the Jedi. He paid lip service to the Sith dream of revenge, but Ghast feared that once Mourn was the master, he would slight the cause in favour of pursuing short-term power and luxury in some barbaric outpost unknown to the Jedi. Mourn did not have Ghast’s vision; he was a disappointment to his master. When Mourn finds the next Sith, Ghast vowed silently, I will slay Mourn and train the child myself.

Meanwhile, Darth Mourn’s sleek, ominous spacecraft was speeding toward Naboo. Mourn hardly needed to be reminded to “pick a hater” – Ghast had made clear over and over again that the next Sith lord, in order to have sufficient dedication to follow the longterm plan to the end, had to be someone consumed with venomous hatred, a virtual sociopath who would allow nothing to stand in his way. Mourn’s lip curled with scorn. Lord Ghast was a madman whose plans held little appeal for Mourn, who had turned to the Dark Side in the hope of a quick and easy path to success, not an ascetic devotion to a millennia-old blueprint for revenge. When the time came, Mourn would have to strike Ghast down and make his own plans for his future career. But he was not strong enough to do that yet, so in the meantime he would follow his mentor’s instructions faithfully.

Finding someone consumed with hatred on the peaceful planet of Naboo might be difficult, however. By all accounts, the colonists had managed, over the centuries, to transform their settlement into a virtual paradise – not the sort of environment that breeds hate-filled sociopaths. Still, every planet had its possibilities ….

* * *


The pirate scow moved sluggishly through the murky waters of Naboo’s largest swamp. Its captain, Trophe Slurm, had evaded the Theed Police Authority once again. The scientific equipment stolen from the small research station near Fanquool would bring a high price on the offworld black market. Slurm took a final swig from his bottle while scratching absent-mindedly at the parasites that infested his seldom-bathed body. “My bottle’s empty!” he roared. “Bring me another, you vermin!” And with this he aimed a vicious kick at the cabin boy who cringed beside the captain’s chair. The boy went scurrying off with a whimper.

Life had been bitterly hard for young Loka since he had been captured by the pirates, the sole survivor of a fishing village the raiders had torched. On a pirate ship, filled with desperate criminals one step ahead of the law, usually drunken and on edge, the fate of a young boy was inevitably an endless progression of beating, whipping, rape, and other ill usage. His body was a mass of scars, his bones too often broken and then healed in misalignment – all damage easily repairable by medical technicians at Theed, but Loka was trapped in the swamps, far from the possibility of such treatment. Too weak and frail to fight back against his oppressors, chained too heavily to hope of escape, Loka had become spiritually mangled by his experience, as a deep well of rage and resentment had built up in his tortured soul. His eyes now gazed out at the world through a veil of darkest loathing and malice.

As he descended the steps to the hold, Loka sensed the first mate, Gorbakh, before he saw him. Loka often had such “second sight,” this strange ability to see things before they happened, though it rarely did him any good; nor did it this time as the hulking man laid his clawlike hand in an iron grip on Loka’s arm, leering lustfully as he pulled him forward. “Well, well, if it isn’t our young beauty,” he cackled.

Suddenly a lambent beam of crimson light whirled out of nowhere, slashing down across Gorbakh’s arm, severing the hand at a single blow. As Gorbakh screamed in pain and anger, a slim dark shape emerged from the shadows, wielding a weapon even an unschooled orphan like Loka could recognise as a lightsabre. The newcomer had cold, piercing eyes, a stern mouth, and a severe uniform of solid black. Gorbakh lunged at the dark stranger, who stepped lightly to one side and casually flipped his weapon downward to sever the first mate’s legs at the knees. As Gorbakh writhed in agony on the floor, the stranger switched off his lightsabre, then removed a curved, razor-sharp dagger from his belt and handed it to Loka.

“This man has caused you much pain,” the tall warrior said. “Feel free to kill him as slowly as you like. Then we will go up on deck and dispose of the others.”

Loka took the blade eagerly. He had suffered so much and so long …. The prospect of retribution was intoxicating.

Befoire he turned to wreak his long-overdue vengeance on the helpless Gorbakh, Loka asked the stranger, “Who are you, anyway?”

“My name is Darth Mourn,” the grim warrior replied. “And what is yours?”

“Loka,” the boy replied solemnly. “Loka Palpatine.”