Darth Plagueis

by James Luceno

Here, once every standard year, Damask and the dozen Muuns who made up Damask Holdings hosted a gathering of influential beings from across the galaxy. Their names might be known to a few, but they were largely invisible to the masses and could move among them unrecognized, though they were responsible—in no small measure—for events that shaped galactic history.

What they shared, to a being, was Damask’s belief that financial profit mattered more than notoriety, politics, or vulgar morality.

Sojourn had begun as a place of relaxation for the clan’s wealthiest clientele.

the moon had become something else: a place where only the most important players were brought together to exchange ideas.

For the present, the more covert we remain, the more influence we can have. Our revenge will be achieved not through subjugation but by contagion.

politicians were a necessary evil, and, if nothing else, Veruna burned with greed and ambition, which meant that he could be manipulated if necessary.

To Plagueis, however, the youth’s transgressions were only further indication of his exceptionality. Here was a youth who had already risen above common morality and had judged himself unique enough to create an individual code of ethics.

Plagueis held his challenging gaze. “I never asked why this or why that, what if this or what if that. I simply responded to my own determination.”

lesser minds needed guidance, and punishment on occasion, and that I shouldn’t hesitate to use whatever means necessary to protect my interests; that I owed as much to myself, my species, to life itself.”

We need instead to prepare you for what awaits you should the dark side opt to take an interest in you. The comingling of fear and joy; of being humbled and empowered; of being escalated while at the same time used, as if an instrument. To be singled out and yet subsumed by an overarching grandness.”

Reminds me of a Christian warrior-a conduit of God's will, a powerful vessel (or an evangelical)

a transforming power had curled up inside him, as dark as space without stars, born of hatred and fear but one he could now draw upon.

see every living thing as nothing more than a tool to elevate you, to move you to your destined place.

Selfish, primal, animalistic: EGO

We make no excuses. The actions of a Sith begin from the self and flow outward. We stalk the Force like hunters,

rather than surrender like prey to its enigmatic whims.”

“Success doesn’t come from summoning help from the Force, but from taking control of it and generating the power from within yourself.”

sentient life is meant to evolve, not simply languish in contented stasis.”

Glaciers and volcanoes both have the potential to transform landscapes, but one does so by burying what lies beneath, where the other spews forth new terrain.

The Sith are not placid stars but singularities. Rather than burn with muted purpose, we warp space and time to twist the galaxy to our own design.

All we do must serve our true purpose—the preservation of our Order and the survival of the Sith. We must work to grow our power, and to accomplish that we will need to interact with individuals of many species across many worlds.

I was in fact superior to them in every way. More, that they should by all rights allow me to step not merely past them but on them to get where I needed to be, because the Sith are their salvation, their only real hope. In that we will ultimately improve the lives of their descendants, they owe us every courtesy, every sacrifice, nothing short of their very lives.

Enlightened beings, guiding intelligences manipulate events to bring about a storm that will deliver power into the hands of an elite group willing to make the hard choices the Republic fears to make.

“The climate begins to shift, Darth Sidious. The body politic begins to show signs of contagion. The reemergence of anger, hatred, and fear signal a loss of faith in the Force. The light is waning, pushed into retreat by dark matter, and the universe begins to seem inimical rather than comforting. In such times, beings are wont to look for solutions in the enactment of harsh laws, the ostracism of strangers, and warfare.

Not, that is, until the Republic has been so ravaged, so weakened, that beings will willingly embrace the stability we impose.”

a microcosm of the galaxy: swarming with beings who were willing to do whatever was necessary to claw their way from the depths, overseen by a tiered elite that nursed on their misery.

The galaxy appears to have rejected the idea of enlightened leadership. The best politician presently is merely exceptional, where every Jedi is extraordinary.”

“In the absence of armies there can be no war,” Dooku said.

newly seated worlds would find themselves caught between the Republic on the one hand and the Trade Federation on the other; taxed by the former, exploited by the latter—the perfect recipe for resentment.

He recalled a stellar eclipse he had witnessed on a long-forgotten world, whose single moon was of perfect size and distance to blot out the light of the system’s primary. The result hadn’t been total darkness but illumination of a different sort, singular and diffuse, that had confused the birds and had permitted the stars to be seen in what would have been broad daylight. Even totally blocked, the primary had shone from behind the satellite’s disk, and when the moon moved on there had been a moment of light almost too intense to bear.

Hope?! Great writing analogy

The Jedi Order’s homespun cloaks announced: I want for nothing, because I am clothed in the Force; the cloaks of the Sith: I am the light in the dark, the convergence of opposing energies.

Master Dooku’s dithering over leaving the Order came as no surprise. Yoda had taken Dooku from Serenno, but he had failed to take Serenno from Dooku. Twenty years earlier Plagueis had seen the stirrings of the dark side in him and had attempted since—whenever and wherever possible—to coax more of those latent powers to the surface. At Galidraan, in clandestine partnership with the local governor and members of the Death Watch to lure the Jedi into an ultimately hopeless confrontation with the True Mandalorians; at Yinchorr and Malastare; and most recently, through Sidious’s efforts, at Asmeru and Eriadu.

Too many Senators have a financial stake in galactic war. They are heavily invested in corporations that will grow fat on profits from weapons and reconstruction. War will be beneficial for an economy they now view as stagnant.”

our common goal would be to return the Republic to what it once was by tearing it down.”