Comics Dark Empire Trilogy

Oh, I meant Lightsider.

 

You mean the DE2 audio intro? We don't know what resemblance, if any, that has to Lightsider.

From the details that are known, that it was some sort of Force game, it doesn't appear to match.

 

I thought I’d heard a rumor that the Lightsider novella was being released online, like Cult Encounters.

 

Yeah, it was mentioned some posts back - be interesting to see if it happens.

 

What's interesting about that scene is that the Korriban Sith mention that Vader has a throne among them, but Sidious doesn't. This implies that Vader must have went through their trials and was coronated by them as a Dark Lord of the Sith at some point. Vader probably hoped to use their teachings to resurrect Padmé. They don't care about the Banites, hence they don't recognize Palpatine as a Sith.

 

I think it’s more that Palpatine built Vader a throne because he expected Vader to die. Palpatine doesn’t have one because he’s supposed to live forever.


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However, the Korriban Sith speak of Vader as if he was one of them, and the intention at the time was that Palpatine wasn't a Dark Lord of the Sith. They never address Palpatine as "Lord". All of these things point to the existence of separate Korriban and Banite Sith Orders.

 

The last few days, I've been reading through DE a lot closer, and there is some stuff that is surprisingly prescient of the ST, even moreso than I already thought. I think when I actually have the time, which may be a few weeks, I might need to do a dedicated write-up of it here.

 

DO IT!

 

Dark Empire is one of the best Star Wars comics, because it has an epic story that's adventure and action ridden and includes everything that the OT also has.
I also love the art style!

Though, I can understand some fans who don't like it because it kind of marginalizes the events in the OT.

 

I don't think it marginalizes the OT. DE shows how far Luke will go to save the New Republic (a bit too far maybe). He doesn't run, he goes straight to the darkness and fights.

They keep calling the good guys the Rebellion, but when Luke defeats Palpatine in DE1 he triumphantly orders Palpatine to "surrender to the New Republic." That's a victory.

 

The Test of Wills is by far the best Dark Empire novelization out there.

“Jedi Master,” he repeated softly, gesturing to the fallen lightsabres on the ground around him. “Do you know how many of these belonged to Jedi Masters? Do you know how many of these I have pried from their cold, dead fingers?”

 

I bought that Humble Bundle offer as well. It was brilliant but was bummed that it didn’t include EE

 

Re-reading DE recently, it actually struck me how Luke's comments to Rey in TLJ can kind of line up with DE. He remarks how when she encounters the dark side, she heads right into it - from DE, Luke learns that's a mistake (he also learns that being a Jedi is about forging connections with others, while isolation is the hallmark of the dark side, which I guess is also a lesson he learns in TLJ).

The New Republic being referred to as the Rebellion in DE also kind of lines up with the TLJ motif of "the Rebellion is reborn."

On the other hand, in contrast with the connections with the OT and ST, I think the one place where DE is kind of glaring in not lining up with the PT is both Luke and Palpatine talking about how Anakin's fall to the dark side was because of his attempts to understand and control it, which obviously don't line up with the PT (and for obvious real-life reasons). I actually think Anakin falling to the dark side because of his pursuit of selfish love would fit the theme of DE better, given Luke's fears for Leia, Leia's fears for her children, and Luke learning to reach out to his loved ones rather than try to shoulder the burden entirely on his own as Anakin did in the PT.

 

I would love to see a dark empire and Plagueis re-read how they line up how DE fits in with it, etc..l

 

DE doesn't line up with the ST at all. What does DE teach Luke? That he can't save the galaxy alone. He needs to be with others. By DE2 he has put together a little entourage and he works via group.

The ST Luke is making decisions all on his own, going to end the Jedi all on his own, talks about how he went to the most unfindable place in the galaxy etc. I just don't see how a Luke who went through DE could ever become the ST Luke honestly.

 

The DE Luke doesn't lead to the ST Luke because they're in different continuities (and for that matter, I have a hard time accepting that the ROTJ Luke becomes the ST Luke). But over the course of TLJ, Luke learns (or I guess re-learns) the lesson he did in DE about isolation.

 

So regarding palpatine we know he possessed somebody's(Jenga I think) body after his first death at Endor. We also know he spent time in chaos.

My question is how much time? An indeterminate amount? Or something that can be measured? Or can something like this not be measured at all given Chaos isn't within the physical universe?

 

I believe we have conflicting sources regarding this, with some saying mere months and others saying years.

 

That bit is a remnant of several earlier ideas that eventually fell by the wayside and/or were later retconned: the "13 Dark Lords", of which Vader was the most recent to have taken up what had been a "long dormant" title that was thousands of years old; Palpatine not originally having been a Sith at all until the late 90's; and the ancient Sith having originally been all Human (notice that the Throne Figures are all Human and so is the ancient statuary outside of their Tomb, and also refer to the original depictions of Naga Sadow and Marka Ragnos from Dark Lords of the Sith).

It is a scene that later EU works have made a bit awkward in terms of how it fits in, but there's a much better way to meld it with the rest of the EU. Notice how Palpatine refers to them specifically being "preserved by the very alchemy that made them outcasts", and that they (and all of the statuary outside depicting them) are Human- not possessing the distinctive facial features of the Sith species. They're some of the original Exiles!

This meshes well with the mention by Sorzus Syn in Book of Sith that only a dozen Exiles survived to make it to Sith Space after the Hundred Year Darkness, and we only know the names of a few:

1) Ajunta Pall
2) Sorzus Syn
3) Remulus Dreypa
4) Karness Muur
5) XoXaan
6) The un-named Red-Armored Sith Lord from Golden Age of the Sith and the Dark Side Sourcebook

assuming that Tulak Hord and Darth Andeddu are also both Exiles (which they must have been, and which I have a write-up of from my own notes I'll be posting soon), that leaves us with 6 still unidentified Exiles, described by Sorzus Syn as "other less distinguished Dark Jedi were prominent within our company only because they had not perished in the war". 7, if Tulak Hord is the same as the Red Armored Sith Lord, as his armor is only "blackened with age"- meaning it wasn't originally black.

So, we have 6 and probably 7 lesser (though only lesser in comparison to those named by Syn) Exiles unnamed, and we know from Lost Tribe that only 2 or 3 followed Dreypa out of the Stygian Caldera back to the Republic. The rest stayed in Sith Space. This number accords perfectly with the visual evidence from Empire's End, which shows 6 different Thrones but only 4 different "Ancients" sitting on them (we aren't clearly shown one of the Thrones). This leaves the matter of the vacant Throne- "Lord Vader's". If all of the Thrones around it are contemporary to the Exiles, then logically the empty one that was later offered to Vader must also have originally been used by an Exile. But which Exile?

There is a line further along in the Plagueis section of Book of Sith that indicates he visited Korriban and noted that "the throne where Sorzus Syn once sat contained no mocking, imperious specter". This description perfectly matches the scene in Empire's End, and can be assumed to refer to the same Throne! Additional support comes from a notation by Palpatine himself, who wrote right above it that "the dead Dark Lords are evasive in their speech and are ultimately treacherous" and that "on one occasion they nearly killed me". The scene from Empire's End and the reference from Book of Sith thus align perfectly, and it can safely be assumed that the empty Throne later given to Vader was originally Sorzus Syns Throne.

 

The scene in EE also fits in fairly well with the later developments of the PT if you assume, as stuff like Plageuis and The Tenebrous Way nod towards, that Palpatine viewed himself as something like a culmination and transcendence of the Sith, that by destroying the Jedi and the Republic and achieving immortality he had basically become the only person worthy enough to be considered a Sith, especially compared with ancient has-beens who got themselves kicked out of the known universe by the Jedi. Palpatine building Vader a tomb there is also pretty easily to accept as something between an ultimate backhanded compliment and a blatant trolling of his apprentice.

 

This is a video by eckhart's ladder he discusses material from DE and its sourcebook but I think this really shows the core of who Palpatine is as a character.

 

"13 Dark Lords" came from a timeline that someone posted on Usenet and wrongly attributed to Lucas. It never had any basis in the EU. Also, in Dark Apprentice, Durron contemplates how the "Dark Lord" lineage continued "all the way to Vader".

I love everything else you said.