A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
It is a time of deceptive peace for the Republic. The star spanning government appears outwardly strong, but it is rotting from within.
The respected Senator Palpatine is, in truth, the sinister Sith Lord, Darth Sidious. Lurking unsuspected among his peers, he plots the downfall of the Republic and its defenders, the Jedi Knights.
Palpatine's true origins have been carefully hidden from everyone. But now the Sith Lord is about to reencounter the one person who knows where it all began - his own father...
Prologue: 20 years before the Battle of Naboo...
Senator Palpatine was home, and the people of Naboo were glad to have him back, if only for a brief visit. They listened to his every word with respect and admiration; their adulation was impossible for the Senator to miss. He paused in his speech to bestow a warm smile upon the crowd.
Good looks were not the source of the senior politician's undeniable charisma. The Senator's face was dominated by a large nose that jutted over a small mouth and a deeply cleft chin. He had watery blue eyes below a receding hairline, and a thick mass of reddish curls behind his head. It was the kindly, mild face of a middle aged man, homely and unremarkable.
Perhaps his strong effect on the crowd arose from his connection to them. He seemed like one of them, their equal, a companion who worked tirelessly on their behalf. It was a message that Palpatine encouraged with his words. "The Republic needs more of you to follow in my footsteps," he told the crowd. "The galaxy needs the values of the Naboo people to counter the rising tide of corruption and disregard for the common good."
The audience proudly murmured their agreement. Their voices washed across the cavernous audience hall in the Royal Palace of Theed. Palpatine's gaze swept over the mass of people and came to rest upon the quiet, silver-haired Queen Breha seated at his side on the platform. A nearby floating hovercam adjusted its view to encompass both the Senator and the Queen, broadcasting images of the popular figures across Theed and far away to the great city of Keren.
The Senator seemed to address his next remarks to the Queen herself. "The Republic would benefit from the Naboo traits of rationalism and nonviolence. All too often, the worlds of the Republic clamor for war. The galaxy will continue to increase in needless suffering, without the guidance of those who value peace, art, and philosophy above destructive power. Our own history shows that we were able to overcome our own warlike nature. We must lead others to do the same. I have had some small success as a voice of reason in the Senate..." The crowd applauded warmly in support, and Palpatine smiled appreciatively but humbly. "...but the more voices that are joined to my own, the louder our message will be. If I can make my voice heard, despite my humble beginnings, how much more can some of you accomplish?"
On Naboo, it was well known that as a child, Palpatine had been an impoverished orphan. It only added to his popularity that he had taught himself what he needed to know in order to take up public service in politics at age sixteen. For four years, he had served the elder Naboo Senator at home. Then he left Naboo to go to Coruscant with the Senator, who took the young man into his inner circle and groomed him as a replacement.
"I ask the nobly born among you, those of wealth and privilege, the leaders of your communities, to consider what I have said here today," Palpatine concluded. There was more applause, and many receptive, thoughtful faces looked back at the Senator. Of course, if the audience knew that the good Senator was actually Darth Sidious, the only living Dark Lord of the Sith and a true Master of the dark side of the Force, they would certainly be justified in questioning his motives for making that speech.
Lord Sidious knew he wanted to use, and even sacrifice his people at some point, for the sake of his personal rise to ever greater power. Among the many possibilities of the future, he could foresee the pain and suffering of the Naboo along the pathway of his ascent. But his plans for them were not immediate. For now, it would help him in general if the Naboo were to shed their isolationism and expose themselves to the outside galaxy. At the very least, some of them would be influenced or corrupted in a way he could later exploit. Additionally, a significant, though little spoken of, Naboo value might spread to the rest of the galaxy in exchange, namely the Naboo penchant for pro-human racism. Palpatine smiled pleasantly at these thoughts.
That was when he looked down and made direct eye contact with a man in the front row. The spectator looked back at Palpatine with intense interest. The Senator took in the man's long, thin face, and tall, lanky shape. He didn't seem to fit among the well dressed audience. His modest clothing contrasted with the elegant attire of his neighbors, and with Palpatine's own expensive blue and green cloaked and vested finery. It was as if he had snuck in where he did not belong.
For a suspended moment, the Senator and the stranger gazed at one another. Then Palpatine took a step backwards, his mouth falling open. In the space between one second and the next, the man was no longer a stranger. A lock clicked open in Palpatine's mind, and a door of memory opened. He found himself looking down from the high platform at his aging father.
The usually calm and collected Senator was shaken. He realized he had not spoken for half a minute. People were beginning to notice. He broke eye contact with his father, who did nothing but continue to stare openly, an expression of wonder dawning on his face.
Palpatine glanced hastily around the crowd. Pulling himself together for a moment, he managed to speak to the hovercam. "Thank you all very much for coming here today. I look forward to speaking with many of you individually before I return to Coruscant. But for now, I regret I must leave your company." He quickly bowed to Queen Breha, who looked at him with a strange expression. Palpatine spun on his boot heels and strode away from the platform. His thoughts reeling, he hurried into the columned hallways of the Palace, not even seeing those who stepped aside to make way for him. The eyes of his father seemed to float in front of him all the way to his private rooms.
Palpatine shoved the heavy door to slam shut behind him. He began to pace across the red carpet next to the scarlet bedspread. Finally, he sat down on the bed to try to regain his composure. It was no use. His father. He had seen his father. Chaotic memories rushed to his mind, undesired but unstoppable. He was drawn steadily into a past he had tried to forget, a time of weakness he had rejected and buried. He stared blindly at the red d?cor he favored, and all at once, the memories crystallized, focusing on the image of an old red cap, a cap his mother had made and given to him, a cap which he had last seen a lifetime and another world ago...
Part One: Naboo
50 years before the Battle of Naboo...
Ten year old Espaa Pestage, the boy who would one day name himself Ethril Palpatine, sat in his favorite place at the edge of the cliff, and dangled his red cap above the long drop visible between his legs. The cap, his favorite item of clothing in his favorite color, was a gift from his mother, and a comfort to him. The dangerous, beckoning fall in front of him was not a comfort, but he liked to sit there nonetheless. He often wondered what it would feel like to fly downwards, before and after he hit the rocks below. Sitting there gave his life an element of danger, a small thrill he could control. That was sometimes necessary in the rather dull Naboo wilderness where he lived.
The warm colors of sunset drenched the cliff face with its rough ledges and natural stone stairways, creating a multitude of interesting shadows that Espaa loved to watch. Behind the boy, a wide gravel road wound its way up to his house. It was a lonely, mountainous region, with no other homes or people living there.
Espaa didn't mind the isolation. By nature, he was a loner, a moody child who his mother gently accused of being too sensitive. He favored the solitary arts of reading and painting. When, rarely, other children came to their home, Espaa tended to shun them until their families concluded their business with his mother and left.
Espaa was a small child, thin and pale, with a serious face, and wavy brownish-blond hair. His yellow eye color was quite rare among humans. He wore loose clothing with bloused sleeves and pants, and knee-high boots, all colored in shades of brown and gray. The red cap was the only bright thing he wore.
At the moment, Espaa was thinking about the dream he had had last night. In it, a Jedi, robed and menacing, had come to take him away. When he had told Gemsaa, his mother, about the nightmare in the morning, she had hugged him, and told him that dreams cannot tell the future. Yes, the Force sometimes allowed a trained Jedi to glimpse what might come to pass, but Espaa was neither trained nor a Jedi. His mother had promised again to keep him safe from the Jedi, and apologized for letting her concerns give him nightmares. She had told him not to worry.
Espaa couldn't help but worry. He knew he was Force-sensitive, and he knew that part of the reason his family lived so far away from the city was so that the Jedi wouldn't discover him. Any Jedi might sense his potential if they came close enough. His mother and father didn't want him to be taken to the Jedi Temple against their will. They thought it was horrible, the way the Jedi broke up families and removed helpless children from their homes in order to train them in the Force. Usually, those children never saw their parents again. From the day his mother told Espaa about this, he had been afraid it would happen to him.
Espaa's mother had a low opinion of the Jedi in general, even though she was a Jedi healer herself. Gemsaa saw the Jedi Order, and especially the Jedi Council, as isolated and arrogant. She claimed they had forgotten how to help the people who needed them. In obeying their strict code, they refused to step in when they should help, and interfered when they should not. Gemsaa shared these views with her son frequently, and that combined with Espaa's fears to give him a strong dislike for the Jedi without his ever having seen one.
Hiding Espaa was not the only way in which Gemsaa defied her Order. Ignoring a rule that she found especially offensive, Gemsaa was happily married to Espaa's father, Sate Pestage. Espaa had never understood why Jedi were so strongly discouraged from falling in love and marrying. Like so many of their rules, it made no sense. It was obvious to Espaa that his parents loved each other very much, and that they both loved him. That was what a family was all about. Were the Jedi anti-family? If so, how could they call themselves good?
Espaa couldn't stand the thought of being taken from his family, especially from his mother. In a way, he felt as if he owned his mother. She was his. As long as he had her, he really didn't need anyone else. Through the Force, Espaa and his mother could sometimes sense each other's feelings. That enhanced their bond in a way that was impossible for Espaa and his non-Force-sensitive father.
Although he never said it out loud, his father was less important than his mother was to him. He was more distant from his father, who was as introverted as Espaa. This similarity pushed them apart instead of drawing them together. While Espaa read history, Sate, a scholar of government studies, would do his research. Both of them spent days without really talking to each other in a meaningful way. It was up to Gemsaa, who was so different from both of them, to draw her family together from time to time. They needed some togetherness, living as they did so far from others.
The other reason the Pestage family lived in the wilderness, far away from Theed, was that Gemsaa's healing skills with the Force were so well known. Her curative powers were so great that her fame spread far and wide in a short time. Her reputation reached to other planets. When they lived in Theed, so many sick people in need of her talents came to her, that she was overwhelmed. To cut down on the sheer number of supplicants and attain some peace and privacy, she insisted years ago that her family move to the mountains. Now, despite the distance, people still came to her for healing, traveling by landspeeder or atmospheric craft. But there were fewer of them, and Gemsaa felt she could handle that.
Sometimes Espaa worried that his mother might be too much like the Jedi she disliked. Like the Jedi, she isolated herself. Weren't there people she didn't help, who didn't know where she was, or who couldn't make the trip out to see her? But then Espaa told himself that she was nothing like the awful Jedi. She did help everyone who came to her, without question, while the Jedi refused those in need because of their code. Obviously, his mother understood the code better than the Jedi back on Coruscant did.
Espaa never wanted to see Coruscant or the Jedi. But he couldn't get the nightmare out of his head. The Jedi in his dream had been powerful, dark, and irresistible. There had been nothing Espaa could do to escape being taken away. His mother might say it was just a dream, born out of anxiety, but it felt real.
Then, as if in answer to his thoughts, the setting sun's light glinted redly off of a distant approaching starship, flying low through the atmosphere towards his home. Espaa stood up and put on his cap, staring intently at the growing shape. A wave of cold fear washed through him. It was a ship, coming for him. It was his dream, coming true. It was the Jedi, coming to take him away at last. Espaa swallowed against a suddenly dry throat and watched the ship until there was no doubt of its direction. Then, he turned and ran as fast as he could up the rocky slope to find his mother.