Author's Note: The scrupulous among us know that I'm contravening apparently-established continuity regarding the species of Lord Plagueis. But then...I never liked Muuns, and the announcement of his canon species came after I'd originally scribed this installment. So I hope the following depiction isn't too wild for your imaginations. Happy reading.


Reconciliation

This is Darth Plagueis:

A mystic.

A magician.

Long ago--the natives of Bpfassh would have said 'many moons'—his official title had been Religious Cleric of the Ruling Families, on the planet Csilla. He had seen some remarkable people in that place, but...he never felt truly at home.

He served the Ascendancy dutifully—as a good cleric of the Families does. Made acquaintances and secured societal standing. And he tried to hide an emerging power he possessed. The power to intuit the future and sway it to his fortune—the power to save and preserve lives.

But then, a small Expeditionary Force had come to Csilla, claiming authority of the Galactic Republic, and snagged Plagueis at a young age. The Ascendancy was set against it, but the Expedition insisted. "He has great power," they'd said. "Power that can be put to use in the service of the Republic."

The Ascendancy refused the Republic's overtures, and a small skirmish was made. Ten of fifty-five Expeditionaries returned to Coruscant with a very clear message:

Stay out.

Plagueis remained. In league with a young and powerful Aristocra, Plagueis had almost single-handedly killed those Expeditionaries. The experience gave Plagueis his first bloodlust. And he left Csilla, scant hours after the murders, contravening centuries of tradition by dishonorably leaving his post.

Despite the breach in tradition, the Ascendancy had empathized and granted him safe escort to their borders. They didn't even protest. Part of Plagueis hated them for that. He had given some of the best years of his life to the Ascendancy, and true to form they had overlooked him. Taken him for advantage.

And he hated the Expeditionaries. Unbidden and unwelcome invaders from the so-called "Republic" had intended to take Plagueis' destiny out of his own hands. This was unforgivable.

The Ascendancy had granted him a parting gift: a reasonably-sized craft capable of long range hyperspace travel. Plagueis used it to travel to Onderon and its moon, where the disembodied spirit of a long-dead Sith Lord had haunted his dreams.

A religious cleric would be expected to know of the so-called "state religion." the Jedi.

And their opposite number…


He stares out into the ecumenopolis that is Coruscant, and he doesn't even need to open his eyes. He doesn't have to turn his head to see his apprentice waiting for him.

He doesn't even need to reach into the Force.

The Force reaches into him.

The universe becomes a crystallized brilliance. Across the capital world, Plagueis can see the points of light of particular Force adepts. Plagueis reaches across the Galactic City, to the Jedi Temple. The quintuple-spired ziggurat is light itself. A structure built and maintained by generations upon generations of Jedi. Each of them melding and interacting and feeding their respective essences to the Force and to the building. Plagueis felt himself sneer at the thought.

The ziggurat of light filled Plagueis with questions.

Who andHow were peripheries. What truly mattered was why.

Why does the patriot fight for that which he barely knows and has never done without? Why does the mother care for her child so ardently when she knows he will simply grow up and die like everyone else. Why do the Jedi fight to keep a dying animal alive.

Passion.

To Plagueis, this answered everything.

The Jedi were in love with the Republic. And that was a cardinal sin to the earth-toned robes crowd. Jedi were not permitted to love, or covet, or even appreciate…Nature. They were not allowed and thus ill-equipped to have personal relations with anyone save those sharing the ivory towers. And this meant they were weak. Blind.

Perfectly susceptible to a trap—the kind of trap Plagueis and millennia of Sith before him had been quietly engineering. But a Jedi trap was more problematic than snaring a rat in a cage. The Jedi were cleverer than an average rat, though it pained Plagueis to admit it.

Again: why.

Because…they love.

Love is not passion. Passion is heated—boundless enthusiasm. Martyrdom. Love? Dedication and foolish promises between two beings unwilling and unable to take them seriously.

Love was the way to the heart of the Jedi. The key to their destruction, and the final stage of the revenge of the Sith.

They would strike at the heart. Disable the Order to the universe around it. And when the Force had grown sufficiently dark? Well…

Treachery is the way of the Sith.


Palpatine gave instructions to the Senate Guards that he was not to be disturbed. Not even by Pestage. The power in his voice had convinced the guard enough.

Palpatine's suite was on the top floor of 500 Republica. Lights were dimmed, solar shades in place over the windows. The sitting room was darkness. And a deeper shadow sat cross-legged in the center. Darth Sidious. Dark Lord of the Sith.

The very name was vindicating.

Months ago, Sidious had been meditating. Had been exploring the ethereal tendrils of the Force. Those tendrils had led him to an impoverished desert planet. And a contingent of rowhouses on the south end of a particular settlement.

He had sensed something there. In a woman picking mushrooms off a nearby moisture vaporator. There was her heartbeat, and then something else. A surge within her. As if the crystal perception of the Force had suddenly caused this slave to sprout…life.

The evidence was, frankly, thin. Palpatine had little other than a cutting instinct. Without a body and without the slave woman showing any sign of the so-called Sith'ari…Sidious had nothing.

Except questions.

Plagueis had been speaking of the Sith'ari at some length, ever since returning from Yavin IV, and Sidious had been thinking of the Sith'ari at some length.

That woman on that desert planet knew something, or perhaps—even better—she was the vehicle for the Sith'ari.

Sidious gave a quiet noise of impression. Or discontent.

The leitmotif of the "Chosen One" was not balance or some manner of equity within the Force.

It was belief.

The belief that one can be part of something extraordinary. The belief that one holds within his very soul the power to change lives and events—for better or for worse. For the present or for the future.

It was choice.

In the one hand, there existed the "Dark Side." And in the other—

Jedi.

They believed fully in the Dark Side, and they feared it. In the Chancellor's office so many months ago, Palpatine had sensed a micron of fear in Yoda. A micron is the perfect start to something larger. The Jedi believe in equity. That life must be fair and a level for all the children of the Universe.

Life was more complicated--more interesting than that.

The Jedi believe in balance, and that the Sith'ari—their "Chosen One"—will be the means by which balance can be attained and kept. They disregard thought, instead relying on…instinct. A millennium of Jedi had been blind to the other side of the argument. A millennium of Jedi had not thought.

Thinking People need not apply.

The Sith'ari is power.

And the realization that with that power comes the opportunity to make things the way one wishes them to be. To hold the universe in one's thrall. To believe that one can change the universe on the most fundamental of scales. To believe that you are meant for something extraordinary, that your life is not meant to be lived inside some office. No, you are meant for far greater things.

And finally, the power to act on that belief. The belief that the path you will follow is the only way.

That once you start down the "Dark Path"…forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will.

Sidious drew a deep inspiration.

He could live with that.


To Be Concluded...