"Give it back, or I'll break your face."

"Get...get off me...Augie."

He hated it when the other kids called him Augie. Especially Talonn. It gave the young Palpatine a cause for aloofness. A reason to be angry when someone stood in the way, or took what was rightfully his.

Most of the other children usually avoided him, and let him have his way; they could not figure him out. The young Palpatine was reliable and helpful if needed; he had a sharp wit and silver tongue that could ruin any other child by simple hearsay. He had all the trappings of a sissy, but could not be conceivably construed as such. He was too...calm and too self-reliant, had too much quiet scrutiny and disturbing contempt for everyone. He was unafraid of anything.

It was easy enough for young Talonn to steal the allowances of the kids in the Legislative Youth program. While the rest of the class was learning legislative processes, Talonn slipped away, unnoticed, and rooted in the other kids' topcoats and cloaks.

When 'Augie' stepped out from the lesson, he found Talonn on his hands and knees, rooting through a pile of coats. Desperate for a pittance.

Palpatine's thin lips curled into a scowl. His eyes narrowed, his hands formed into fists. Before pouncing on the boy however…a scrupulous passer-by would have noticed that Talonn was slowly rising into the air, and that Palpatine wasn't even touching him. It was a trick of the light. Talonn was a meter in the air when Palpatine extended a hand, with the thumb and forefinger held three centimeters from each other, and Talonn started choking.

Palpatine released the choke when Talonn's face turned blue, and let the boy fall to the ground. In his disorientation, Talonn did not see Palpatine pounce. Taking advantage of the boy's weakness, Palpatine started pummeling Talonn with as much determination as a ten-year old could muster. When it was finished Talonn had a broken nose, five missing teeth, and a small clot in his neck, this only detected after a medic's inspection. No doubt, it was the work of Palpatine's choking trick.

When it was finished, Palpatine stood, dusted himself off and turned to see the instructor of Legislative Processes standing a meter away; hands held at her side, shielding the other students from him.

But he was no madman. He tugged on the robes draping his shoulders curtly, and stared frankly at the instructor.

"Talonn is a bully. He steals from the kids." His voice was calm and reserved. Not hateful, not specious. Simply factual.

The question of punishment thereafter became an ethical problem. It was difficult to punish Augie because, technically, he was serving the public good—as young Naboo were oft taught—by exposing and dispatching of a ne'er-do-well. This was fact. Despite knowing that the young Palpatine had committed a wrong—deliberate malice, the courts would have called it—there was little his parents or his instructors could do. It seemed wrong that they would have to punish a boy who had avenged injustice. Indeed, Talonn had been expelled indefinitely for theft, while the young Palpatine was merely sent to bed without his supper.

This was the way of things. The way of the universe.


The young Palpatine was a thin and pale boy with a bad stomach. His mother had watched and lorded over him at great length, ensuring that the diamond of her eye never fell ill in any sense of the word. Palpatine's voice was calm and slight; he never spoke at great length, except when it suited him. In his lessons he was a model pupil. He had the neatest copytablets, dressed the best, and preferred reading and Dejarik over athletics, the latter of which he assiduously avoided. He excelled at Linguistics, at history, at civics; later, at psychology and sociology.

He studied conscientiously and hard. He was determined and single-minded. He did the expected, rather than the chaotic, and everyone who knew it came to him for advice, help, and even a cheat or two. Those were the children he incriminated when no one was looking. He had an absolute conviction in justice, and was willing to administer it by his own hand—the only hand capable. He was a spectator, but one who knew the limits of the playing field.

He lived a minimalist existence, even as a child. Decorations were decadent. This was a personal affectation he had; not brought on by an implacable authority. Palpatine made his own rules, and those around him simply abided them.

At the age of twelve, Palpatine found mythology--or more appropriately, the Force. Near the culmination of his study in the Legislative Youth Program, Palpatine was approached by a man identifying himself to the administrators only as 'Dee' and claiming to be a retired government official from the far side of the planet. He was a tall man, with gaunt and dark features, and he spoke very little. The only thing he told the program administrators at Theed was that he was looking for a boy named Palpatine, and that seeing the boy was of pressing importance.

The program administrators feared him on first sight, and the man himself took an immediate liking to Palpatine.

The truth is...lost to time. What survives is this: Palpatine learned the history of the Force from this man. Palpatine poured himself into the study of Force lore and histories, learning all he could before tradition dictated that he seek public office.

He decided, eventually, on the Quæstorship. It was a financial office; if elected Palpatine would oversee the affairs of the Theed treasury and appropriations of money—in his capacity, for what little security force existed. After his election, Palpatine saw to it that the security force's ranks stayed low.

Over time, as he fulfilled his duties as the urban Quæstor sufficiently, Palpatine moved up the ladder. After serving in the Quæstorship for two years, he became the Praetor Urbanus—a post which required his permanent presence in Theed as a magistrate of justice, and a seat in the cabinet of the King.

And it was there that Palpatine watched. And learned. And catalogued everything about the Palace and its monarch.

Six months after becoming the Praetor Urbanus, Palpatine gave his power back to the King, effectively resigning, and left Naboo. He left but a single document reader on his desk, told no one he was leaving or even where he was to go. His secretary found it the morning after he left, and read it aloud to the King:

Your Majesty,
I have resigned my powers to your august body and hope you may find someone as steadily-minded and dedicated as myself to fill the position. Naboo requires only the brightest minds to ensure her continued success. In my absence, I shall expand my capabilities, the likes of which shall lead our world to the next horizon.

He signed his surname only in a grand flourish. And for years, no one heard anything from him. He did not write or send transmissions of any kind, and without a return signal the King and the rest of Naboo had no idea where Palpatine had gone.

It was only on his return that anyone had an idea of the intimacies of his pilgrimage--if it could be called that. And even then, Palpatine's whereabouts had become rumor. In all the wrong circles, it was said that he piloted a ship into the Unknown Regions and came back unscathed--remarkable in itself. Others said he went to the ancient Jedi homeworld of Ilum to find his destiny, whatever that may be.

No one knew where he went, or what he did while there, until it was too late.

Until no one could do anything about it.


Continued...