Darth Sidious

Darth Sidious, born as Sheev Palpatine, was a Force-sensitive Human male who served as the last Chancellor of the Galactic Republic and the first Emperor of the Galactic Empire. He was a Dark Lord of the Sith who followed the Rule of Two, an ancient tenet of the Order of the Sith Lords, and was the most powerful Sith Lord in galactic history. His entire life as a Sith was the culmination of a thousand year plan to overthrow the Republic and the Jedi Order from within. As Palpatine and Sidious, the Dark Lord was responsible for escalating the Separatist Crisis until a galactic-wide conflict, known as the Clone Wars, began when the rebellious Confederacy of Independent Systems challenged the Republic for primacy over the galaxy.

History
Born in 82 BBY on the planet Naboo to the aristocratic clan House Palpatine, he was the eldest son and heir to the noble Cosinga Palpatine and his wife. As a student in the Legislative Youth Program, the adolescent Palpatine was discovered by Darth Plagueis, a Sith Lord known publicly as Hego Damask, the founder of the influential Damask Holdings. Impressed by the young human's knowledge, ambition, and disregard for morality, Plagueis manipulated Palpatine's fear and hatred of his father, until his protégé committed patricide and murdered his entire family. Orphaned at seventeen, Palpatine pledged himself to his new Master's teachings and the ways of the dark side of the Force. Hence, Plagueis anointed his apprentice "Darth Sidious".

Rise to Power
Just as his Master lived the double life of corporate mogul in public and Sith Lord in secret, Sidious also maintained his former identity as a facade. As Palpatine, Sidious served for years as Naboo's ambassador. Though he was involved in numerous shady activities, his reputation remained untarnished by scandals. While still an apprentice, Sidious reluctantly became the guardian of a Force-sensitive male Dathomirian Zabrak, known simply as Maul whose Nightsister mother wished to spare her infant son from the life of a Nightbrother. With his own Master's permission, Sidious was allowed to train the Zabrak as a Sith assassin. Though Sidious dubbed his disciple "Darth Maul" and Dark Lord of the Sith, Maul never knew that his own Master answered to another Master. Thus, he was also unaware of the fact that his status as a "Sith Lord" violated the Rule of Two.

Plagueis and Sidious, both exceptionally skilled and powerful in the the Force, were able to conceal the darkness within them from even the most powerful members of the Jedi Order for decades. Sidious' ability to present himself as an honest politician, and simultaneously living as a Sith Lord in secret, allowed him to manipulate many important figures and events that contributed to the blockade of Naboo by the Trade Federation. In the wake of the political crisis, the Galactic Senate voted to elect him as Supreme Chancellor. With the Republic's chief executive branch under Palpatine's control, the first phase of the Sith Grand Plan was realized while the Jedi remained in the dark about his true identity.

Plagueis had been instrumental in Sidious' rise to power. For years, the Dark Lord delved deeper into the mysteries of the Force while his apprentice carried out the Sith's interests in the public domain. But on the eve of Palpatine's election to the Chancellery, Sidious—in accordance with Bane's Rule of Two—murdered Plagueis and usurped the role of Sith Master. Around the same time, Maul killed the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, only to be defeated by Jinn's Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, during the Battle of Naboo. Despite the presumed death of his personal assassin, Sidious continued to carry out the Grand Plan.

The Clone Wars
As Chancellor of the Republic and Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious orchestrated the outbreak of the Clone Wars, a devastating conflict on a scale unseen since the Ruusan Reformation, ten years after the Naboo Crisis. He himself headed both the Galactic Republic and, secretly, the Confederacy of Independent Systems. The public leader for the Separatists was none other than Count Dooku, a former Jedi Master who became Sidious' second apprentice as "Darth Tyranus". As billions perished in the war, the vast majority of Republic citizens rallied behind Chancellor Palpatine, thus increasing his public approval to an astonishingly high level. With the support of most of the Senate and the people of the Republic, Palpatine enacted various amendments to the Constitution in the name of security, thereby transferring most of the Senate's executive authority to his own office. Despite his increasingly despotic hold over the Republic, he defended his actions by pretending to be a staunch defender of democracy and a friend to the Jedi High Council.

The Galactic New Order
In 19 BBY, Palpatine revealed his identity as Darth Sidious to the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker. All proceeded according to plan when Skywalker informed Jedi Master Mace Windu of Palpatine's duplicity. Windu's failed attempt to arrest him, combined with Skywalker's conversion to the dark side of the Force, contributed to the rise of Sidious' New Order. All members of the Jedi Order were accused of treason and, as a consequence of Order 66, betrayed by their clone troopers. Without the Jedi to oppose him, Sidious declared himself Emperor of the first Galactic Empire, thus bringing an end to the Republic that had stood for over 25,000 years. Among his first acts under the new regime, Sidious enacted the state-sponsored systematic extermination of the surviving Jedi, ironically carried out by Skywalker, who had been proclaimed "Darth Vader" upon becoming the Dark Lord's new apprentice. Throughout most of his reign, the Emperor all but disappeared from public life, opting to live in the opulence and grandeur of the Imperial Palace on Coruscant while Vader acted as his Military Executor and chief enforcer.

As a totalitarian despot, Sidious effectively wielded absolute control over the entire galaxy and virtually everyone who lived within it. Despite his promises of peace and harmony, he spared no expense to build one of the most powerful military forces the galaxy had ever seen, primarily for the purpose of enforcing his rule over all others. For nearly two decades, there was no serious political or military threat to his reign and, as a consequence, the Imperialization of the galaxy went on unopposed during that time. At some point during the rise of the Empire, Darth Vader harbored a young Force-sensitive, an exceptionally powerful prodigy of the Force, as his secret apprentice/experiment. Although seemingly loyal to his Master, Vader harbored a great deal of anger at Sidious for manipulating his fall to the dark side. Under the codename "Starkiller", Vader's apprentice yearned for the day when he and his Master could rule the galaxy by assassinating Darth Sidious.

However, Sidious's plan to turn "Starkiller" into his next apprentice backfired when the young man escaped from the Imperial facility he was held in and disappeared into the galaxy. In losing the boy, the Emperor had no choice except to keep Vader alive for a while longer.

As the Galactic Civil War broke out to determine the fate of the galaxy, Sidious's facade as an enlightened leader all but fully disappeared. Under the doctrine of terror, Sidious attempted to rule through fear of the threat of force, symbolized by the Death Star upon its completion in 0 BBY. But when the Empire suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Yavin in the same year, the Emperor steadily began to lose the absolute control over the galaxy that he had enjoyed for nearly two decades. The destruction of the Death Star proved to be an pivotal turning point that galvanized many beings throughout the galaxy to join the Alliance in open rebellion against the Emperor's tyranny.

The Battle of Endor
The year of 4 ABY witnessed the undoing of Darth Sidious and the countless plans that initiated his rise to ultimate power. In a dangerous gamble to annihilate the Rebel Alliance once and for all, the Emperor allowed Rebel spies to learn of the existence of a second Death Star and its secret location at Endor. He was fully aware that the desperate Alliance could not afford to pass up the opportunity to destroy the new battle station while it was still under construction and vulnerable to an attack. To further entice the Rebels into launching a disastrous assault, he placed himself in harm's way by personally overseeing the Death Star's completion. As expected, the Alliance fell for the bait and dispatched its fleet to destroy the Emperor, Vader and the incomplete Death Star.

Unknown to the Rebels, however, an entire legion of the Emperor's most elite soldiers were guarding the battle station's shield generator bunker in anticipation of a Rebel strike team's arrival. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker, the son of Darth Vader, was brought before the Emperor by his own father. As with "Starkiller", Sidious saw a new opportunity to replace Vader with an apprentice who was far younger and more powerful. After goading Skywalker to give into his frustrations with thoughts of the Alliance's defeat and the death of his friends, Sidious eagerly watched as the father and son fought one another in his throne room. Despite all his hopes, however, Skywalker refused to submit to the Dark side by murdering his father. Sidious's failure to corrupt the young Jedi, as well as the unexpected destruction of the shield generator bunker, infuriated the Emperor, who then unleashed all of his rage and hatred on Skywalker.

Unfortunately for his Empire, Sidious was far too distracted by his own anger and frustrations to realize that Darth Vader had reverted back to the persona of Anakin Skywalker. Unwilling to stand by and watch his son die in under the agonizing effects of Force lightning, Anakin lifted Sidious over his head with one arm and threw the Emperor down the Death Star's shaft. Although Anakin was mortally wounded for his efforts, his single act of redemption fulfilled the prophecy of the Chosen One and brought about the end of the Order of the Sith Lords. The death of Darth Sidious and the destruction of the second Death Star marked the Battle of Endor as a crushing defeat for the Galactic Empire. Throughout the rest of the Galactic Civil War, the remnants of the Empire experienced a sharp decline while the Alliance reformed itself into the New Republic.

RPG D6 Stats
(These stats are presumed to be the Emperor's stats for the Movie Trilogy Era, modified from the WEG version of Palpatine's stats.)

Type: Galactic Emperor / Sith Lord

DEXTERITY 2D+1

Blaster 8D+1, Dodge 10D, Lightsaber 13D, Melee Combat 9D+2, Running 7D

KNOWLEDGE 4D+1

Alien Species 10D+2, (s)Bureaucracy: Empire 14D, Cultures 9D, Intimidation 14D, Languages 9D, (s)Law Enforcement: Empire 8D, Military History 14D, Planetary Systems 7D, (s)Scholar: Archaic Library Systems 10D, (s)Scholar: Arcane Technologies 12D+2, (s)Scholar: Clone Vat Systems 7D+2, (s)Scholar: Dark Side Lore 10D+1, (s)Scholar: Jedi Lore 14D, (s)Scholar: Lightsaber Histories 14D, (s)Scholar: Sith Lore 13D, Survival 7D, (s)Tactics: Fleets 12D, (s)Tactics: Ground Assault 6D, Value 10D+1, Willpower 13D

MECHANICAL 2D+2

PERCEPTION 4D+1

Bargain 10D, Con 8D, (s)Command: Imperial Forces 13D, Hide 7D+1, Investigation 8D+2, Persuasion 13D, (s)Persuasion: Oration 15D+2, Search 8D

STRENGTH 3D

Brawling 8D, Climbing/Jumping 7D+1, Lifting 7D, Stamina 9D, Swimming 5D

TECHNICAL 2D

Computer Programming/Repair 5D, Droid Programming 4D, Lightsaber Repair 10D, First Aid 5D, Security 8D

Special Abilites:

Force Skills: Control 18D, Sense 20D, Alter 20D

(Palpatine has spent decades studying the most arcane and esoteric Jedi and Sith disciplines. It is believed that he has mastered nearly all the known powers, previously unknown powers and devises new ones at his pleasure.)

Force Sensitive: Yes

Force Points: 40

Dark Side Points: 50

Character Points: 85

Move: 10

Equipment: Lightsaber (5D Damage), dark robes