Title: "Walk Among the Field of Victory"
Author: KelliLeanne
Timeframe: Post ANH
Characters: Darth Sidious
Genre: Drama, Vignette
Disclaimer: I own nothing, Lucas owns everything; I'm just playing with his creations. I promise I'll put them back when I'm finished.
Summary: Set post A New Hope, Darth Sidious returns to the long abandoned Jedi temple and contemplates the nature of the Force and of victory.
It had been almost twenty years since Darth Sidious had walked these corridors--twenty long years since the Sith master had declared victory against his greatest foe. For nearly two decades, the ancient temple stood as a signpost--a trophy of sorts, declaring Darth Sidious the victor in a battle that had been waged by countless Sith before him; but it was he alone that was strong enough to subjugate this strong and ever elusive foe.
With a slight gesture of his withered hand and a precise manipulation of the Force, the Sith master unsealed the long abandoned Jedi temple. His long dark cloak rustled as oxygen generated from the building's newly activated environmental systems rushed to fill the long corridors and vast halls. It had been many years since this building could support any sort of life. The air tight seal made certain that even bacteria would find it nearly impossible to survive here.
When he was last here, Darth Sidious ordered the clones to catalog the bodies, but leave them where they had fallen. And there they remained for decades nearly untouched by the ravages of time and decay because of the lack of oxygen. The galaxy had been transformed, but these corpses remained forever serving as a macabre time capsule celebrating the rise of the New Order.
In the years following his ascension to the throne, the Sith had not felt the need to return to this mausoleum, but he had not ignored it entirely. When the Imperial Palace was built, he made a point to place his private chambers in a location that maximized his view of the ancient ruin. It was never to gloat over his victory. Darth Plageuis had strongly warned him against engaging in such foolishness. Gloating over victory tended to make one arrogant and sloppy. Instead, Darth Sidious kept the temple standing only as a reminder to him to never relent. It also served as a warning to the rest of the galaxy of the high cost of treason.
It was not long before Sidious encountered the first group of bodies. Even though it had existed in a vacuum for the last twenty years, the Sith could see signs of decay. Slowly he bent down to read one of the tags that were placed on every Jedi corpse when they were originally cataloged: "Ami Kelmour, Knight, Aged 22 Years" The Sith knew he would not find many masters here. Because of the war, the Jedi were spread out very thin leaving just a few in the temple. Sidious suspected this woman was one of those who met the initial assault led by the newly named Darth Vader--they had no idea what hit them.
The Sith walked several meters without encountering another corpse. He speculated that the entryway was where most of the adult Jedi were cut down. The remaining Knights and the few Masters met their attackers head on when they finally realized what was happening. It was foolish. Sidious learned long ago, even before becoming a Sith, that to face one's enemy from the front was the quickest way to lose a battle. Wars were not won by having a greater number of soldiers on the battlefield or by having the greatest strength of arms; they were won by destroying your opponent's will and desire to win. The Sith knew that once you destroy your enemy's will, you will have an obedient slave for the rest of your days.
He continued until the long corridor branched off. In the corridor that headed north, Sidious saw another corpse. This one had been shot in the back indicating that he had been running from the battle at the entryway. With his curiosity peaked, Sidious read the identification tag: "Lin Sorren, Knight, Aged 19 Years." He wondered about this Jedi's final moments. Along with experiencing fear, the Sith wondered if this young man experienced anger as well--true anger that years of Jedi training had prevented him from feeling. He wondered if it was the battle this man was running from, or was he running from the primal rage that he experienced when he saw the familiar face of the Jedi's betrayer.
Weaklings, the whole lot of them! Their devotion to their pathetic teachings had produced nothing but defeat. They never understood the fundamental truth that the Sith had long known: The Force was an excellent servant, but a treacherous master. For generations the Jedi had spent their time and effort serving the Force and learning its will. It was foolish. The Sith knew true unlimited power was achieved only by learning to bend Force to the will of the one wielding it.
Darth Sidious had spent most of his life learning how to make the Force serve his will. From the moment he accepted Plageuis' teachings, he had one singular goal: he would control the entire galaxy. His master taught him how to use the Force to control beings and events, but that was not enough. Plageuis was powerful, but he lacked the ultimate vision to do what was necessary to achieve the kind of power very few Sith Lords had grasped, the subjugation of the Force itself.
It was not enough for him to just bend the Force to his will as countless Sith had done in the past. Even the Jedi, though they would never admit it, manipulated the Force to serve their own ends all the while claiming that they were bending themselves to the Force's will. The corpses in their abandoned temple were a silent testament to the utter foolishness of their philosophy. They had been foolishly content to serve the Force and to never question why it deserved such deference.
Merely bending the Force to the will of the wielder, at best, it produced nothing but temporary power. The history of the Sith order was filled with those who possessed incredible abilities and controlled large empires, but lived relatively short lives. The path of the Dark Side drew those with a desire for a quick and easy way to gain incredible amounts of power, but only those who survived long enough to take the mantle of Sith Master knew the value of patience.
Slowly, Darth Sidious made his way to the highest spire of the temple and into the Jedi Council chambers. This room was where most of the smaller Jedi younglings had been cut down. It was here that his apprentice became a true Sith. It was one thing to kill armed Jedi, but it was another thing entirely to slay a room full of defenseless children. Even after twenty years, the Sith Master had the same reaction this night than he did when he first saw this scene: Darth Vader had done very well.
Darth Vader, never had one name inspired so much fear. He was the wraith that enforced Sidious' rule throughout the galaxy bringing death and destruction to all who dared oppose the New Order. For twenty years his apprentice had ruthlessly crushed every opponent of the Emperor with brutal efficiency. Of all of the Sith Master's achievements, the creation of Darth Vader was by far his greatest work.
The Jedi believed the conception of Anakin Skywalker to be an act of the Force itself. They naively thought him to be their savior who would bring balance to the Force. Sidious allowed himself to enjoy slowly twisting and molding the mind of the Jedi's "Chosen One" until he turned on the very ones whom they believed he had come to save. Damn fools.
When Anakin Skywalker first came to his attention, the Sith knew he was no ordinary child. Through the Force he could see the child's incredible potential, and his dark tendencies. Years of slavery on Tatooine had produced a great amount of anger, impatience, and fear--the three qualities that Sidious would use to mold the boy into a powerful apprentice and bind him to the dark side forever.
The boy's abilities made the Sith wonder if Anakin Skywalker had been a product of Plageuis' experiments in creating life from the Force itself. For years he meditated on that question until he realized the truth. Skywalker's conception was not caused by his master's experimentation with the darkest of Sith magics, quite the opposite. It was not the will of one man; it was the will of the Force itself. Anakin Skywalker was the Force's last ditch effort to win the war that would decide if it was to be master or servant.
Darth Sidious was not certain when the war began; but he knew that the Sith had been fighting it for thousands of years with varying degrees of success. The Jedi foolishly believed that the war was between the light and dark sides of the Force, but that interpretation proved how small their minds were and how much vision they truly lacked. Without them realizing it, the Sith had been waging a war for generations to completely subjugate the Force to serve their interests. It was not until one of their own Masters was cut down by Darth Maul that the Jedi even considered that the Sith had returned.
Knowing what Anakin Skywalker was, Darth Sidious stepped up his assault. With every passing day the Force, and the Jedi that served it, lost more ground. As the Sith slowly shaped events to his advantage, the more the Force served his interests alone. With each seed of doubt planted in the mind of the "Chosen One", the more he became a servant of the Dark Side. Until, at the very end, it took relatively little effort to convince Skywalker to betray the Jedi.
As Darth Sidious stared out of the window of what once was the Jedi council chamber, he remembered the night he finally won his victory. When Yoda ran from him after being defeated, that was the moment he felt the Force finally concede to his victory. It would be he alone that would command the Force. For nearly two decades, the Force bent to Lord Sidious' will completely. Nothing was impossible for him…Until Yavin.
The Sith briefly shut his eyes as rage washed over him at the thought of the defeat his Empire suffered just three days before. Anger was not a new feeling, the Sith relied on such strong emotions to fuel their connection to the Dark Side. However, the destruction of the Death Star caused unfamiliar thoughts and emotions to come over the aged Master. For just a brief moment, Darth Sidious considered that maybe the things he saw through the Force were clouded…Maybe he was not the master of the Force. As quickly as the thought crossed his mind, the Dark Lord angrily squelched it. He could not allow such weakness. Above all, he could not allow the Force to become the master again.
Still, he could not deny that something drastic had changed. The name Skywalker was again being uttered. It did not take Imperial Intelligence long to determine the name of the pilot that destroyed the Death Star...Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker's son. The name was a curse to him. Darth Sidious could not fathom how the boy could have remained hidden from him. He suspected the involvement of exile Jedi.
As he stared at the Jedi corpses, he realized that it would take much more than simple purges to destroy them. Since the discovery of Skywalker's offspring, the Sith had searched the Force and determined that the boy was strong in the Force, just as his father was. He would need to be found and eliminated as a threat one way or the other.
Not sparing another glance at the bodies at his feet, Darth Sidious decided it was time to leave. He could not allow this insurrection to continue. He was the Master; no rebellion, no apprentice, and not even the Force itself would stop him. When he finally reached the exit, he did not turn off the environmental systems and seal the Temple as he had done nearly twenty years earlier. It was time to finally let decay take its course and allow Jedi Order to fade into the dust of history.
The End…