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The Rule of Two.
Palpatine was working late at night in the Supreme Chancellors office, going over the reports of the front lines. The war was going badly as of late for the Republic and the Grand Army, to say nothing of the Jedi Order. During the last engagement, 30 Jedi including 6 senior Jedi Masters and 3 knights had been killed over six battles and skirmishes. Outwardly when he encountered the Jedi Order, notably the Council such as Master Yoda or Master Gallia, Palpatine would present himself as a mourning man apologetic and sorrowful for the loss of so many Jedi.
But for Palpatine, the war was proceeding as he had hoped.
Inwardly, however, Palpatine as Darth Sidious, Sith Master and Heir of Darth Bane's legacy and the one responsible for ensuring the Grand Plan succeeded after millennia of work, was overjoyed. With each Jedi loss and more of the Republic's precious and worthless democracy chipped away following that fool Jar-Jar Binks' passing the Emergency Powers over to him in order to better ensure the war was governed properly. Honestly, the Sith Master was amazed by how stupid the Senate was. As the war had progressed, Palpatine had found it remarkably easy to pass off one law after another to grant himself more and more powers after deliberately manipulating situations that made them essential.
Perhaps in a year or two, or maybe a few more, depending on events manipulated and planned out thoroughly by himself, which would grant himself even more power as he methodically stripped away one piece of legislation as he could while he continued to watch as the Jedi Order was whittled down, one Jedi after another before he was ready to order one of the most important parts of the Grand Plan.
The destruction of the Jedi Order. Next would be overturning the Republic and reorganise it into a Galactic Empire.
However Darth Sidious was patient and as all Sith Lords following the foundation of Bane's Sith Order, he had learnt the value of patience and he had learnt to adapt to every new situation. That was one of the reasons why he always kept watch over his pawns who were vital for the rise of the new Sith Empire his order had been steadily working to build ever since the New Sith Wars.
Anakin Skywalker was one of those pawns and Sidious had gone out of his way to manipulate him, but Skywalker was not the only Jedi or Force-sensitive he was keeping watch on. The Sith Master was not a fool; he and all of his predecessors had worked long and hard to push the Grand Plan forwards for millennia, and they had not done that by hinging all of their plots and manipulations on one lynchpin; to do so would be a mistake of incredible proportions.
Palpatine had several pawns to watch over. Anakin was merely one of them. He had others. He didn't need just one individual, but he was hoping Anakin would be the one he initiated into the Order. Anakin possessed everything every Master yearned for; raw, untamed power. He had been well trained in the Jedi Arts, and he had become a powerful and cunning warrior in his own right.
Sidious didn't need Anakin solely as a Sith Apprentice and he didn't really require any of the Jedi Knights he was steadily trying to push closer towards the dark side either. Dooku, his current apprentice was more than sufficient enough to follow through with one of the major triumphs of the Grant Plan, but having someone like Anakin join him would ensure his rise to power was met without too much resistance. For his pawns, he was merely pushing them in order to determine which one fell first and which one would embrace the way of the Sith. Through the war, Sidious was pushing all of his pawns including Anakin closer to using the dark side, forcing them to go against the frankly pathetic Jedi teachings of peace and tranquillity.
One of them was going to fall.
And one of them could very well die, that was why he had so many potential Sith Apprentices to replace Count Dooku and take his place. Palpatine mentality sighed at his bad luck when it came to finding and holding onto a Sith Apprentice while he continued to peruse the reports being constantly sent to him for evaluation. Darth Maul might have been classed as a Sith Assassin, but he had been a powerful warrior. When he had murdered Darth Plagueis and become Supreme Chancellor, granting the Sith Order unprecedented levels of power, Sidious had planned on pushing through Maul's training to make him even better as a Sith Lord.
But Maul had gotten overconfident in his battle with two Jedi, and he got sliced in half, and for a decade Maul had been recovering. Unfortunately, Maul was worthless to him - he had sensed his original apprentice alive and well after suffering terrible injuries. It was academic now; Count Dooku was his apprentice now until he had someone infinitely more powerful and better.
Palatine shook off the thoughts he had that he had never really had the best of luck when it came to gathering and holding onto his apprentices, and he focused on the Grand Plan instead. The Sith were now so close to their goal of gaining their revenge on both the Jedi and the Republic, and Palpatine had no intention of jeopardising the plans he had spent so long seeding and working towards the outcome; the victory of the Sith.
The New Sith Wars had opened up a completely new era for the Sith. Darth Bane had ensured their defeat after realising their order was destined to endure defeat after defeat. The Sith had been using the same tactics over the centuries, forging armies to conquer the Republic and bringing about the end for their enemies, the Jedi. It had never worked. The Sith of the past had been overwhelmed by the resistance, but also from infighting as the Sith Lords quarrelled among themselves.
Bane had changed all of that. He had realised the Sith Order was doomed if it continued with its current path, so he had reformed it, ensured the death of the remaining Sith to make appear the order was dead. Bane had formed the Rule of Two, an Order where the Sith would balance each other out by having only two Sith at any given time. A Master and an Apprentice. The Master would embody the power of the dark side, possessing all of the knowledge of the Sith and passed it off to the Apprentice or hold it over the Apprentice. But most of all the Rule of Two was established to balance the Sith out and prevent the wasteful infighting with had prevented the Sith Order of old from truly ruling the galaxy.
For a thousand years, the Sith had been planning and waiting for the right chance to destroy the Republic from within, seeking members to train up as an Apprentice and then take over as a Master. Over the years of his apprenticeship, Sidious had learnt of his predecessors. Plagueis had shared accounts of them over the years, and Sidious shared his former Master's respect for some of them.
Darth Bane and Darth Zannah, the original incarnation of the Rule of Two, both of them beginning the groundwork for the Sith's eventual dominance of the galaxy, and the destruction of the Jedi Order. However, Darth Gean was perhaps one of the Sith Masters who represented a new era for the Rule of Two. In fact, it was during her Master's insane and sudden turn to the light side of the Force that everything for the Sith changed. Darth Gravid had gone insane, and he had not only sold off and revealed some of the Sith funds and intelligence networks, forcing Gean and her own apprentice to clean up the mess and to rebuild the intelligence networks from scratch, but the worst of it was Gravid had destroyed the cache of Sith knowledge he and his apprentice were sitting on, and had been collected up to that point. If Gean had not won their battle, there was a possibility that was more real than any Sith would prefer to imagine or contemplate a final end to their Order.
Gean had been forced to rebuild the Sith intelligence networks and the funds, but thanks to her tenure, deeply rooted in loyalty to the dark side, the Sith Order had adapted and endured.
However it was during the tenure of Darth Plagueis and himself the Grand Plan really begun, and Sidious had every intention of ensuring the Sith plan to rule the galaxy succeeded.