Author's note 1: The idea for writing fanfiction in Star Wars came to me a while ago. Obviously, with the quantity of materials which exist about this galaxy, there is a lot of material and potential 'what if?' that can be played with.
However, I didn't think to begin some work on it until I really began to read A Practical Guide to Evil. One setting is a space opera, the other is more medieval warfare crossed with Dungeon and Dragons and imagining the devastating consequences of tropes in a world. On the other hand...Dread Emperors with a megalomaniac ego? Check. Doom weapons which have a tendency to be destroyed by heroes not long after their commissioning? Check. The epic fight between 'Good' and 'Evil'? Check.
It will be this role to imagine what could happen in Star Wars if some characters of A Practical Guide to Evil suddenly found their minds inserted into some of the most famous characters, be they Jedi, Sith, or someone belonging to none of these categories.
Warning in advance, the chapters of this thread are all one-shot. If I intend to write a more serious timeline, it will be in another thread.
And now, here we go...
A Practical Guide to Irritation
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. More the pity, I think I would have done better than Disney regarding certain movies' plots. I don't own A Practical Guide to Evil. It belongs to our Lord and Saviour erraticerrata.
"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha. You can't beat me now, this is the first part of my plan!" Dread Emperor Irritant I, the Oddly Successful.
Nineteen years before the Battle of Yavin
Coruscant
The Senate
Jedi were always in control of their emotions, but today it was harder for Mace to maintain his patience and his mastery of them.
At long last, the Sith Lord who had humiliated the Order and caused the indirect deaths of thousands of Jedi was now known to them.
It should have been a victory. 'Should' was of course the key word in this instance. Instead, Mace Windu, Jedi Master and loyal servant of the Galactic Republic, had felt at first only shock at the revelation.
The Supreme Chancellor was the Sith Lord they had been searching for all these years.
Sheev Palpatine, former Senator of Naboo, a man he had met thousands of time, was the enemy of the Jedi Order all along.
By the Force, how could he have been so blind? How had they missed the currents of the Dark Side strengthening over the skies of Coruscant?
There were going to be disastrous consequences for this massive failure. Dooku had been completely truthful: the Sith had been in control of the Senate from the very beginning of this crisis, and the magnitude of the possible deeds the Sith Master had engineered while they were busy fighting the Clone Wars across the galaxy was almost giving him nausea.
Thirteen years.
This was an extremely long duration, and yet this was how long the Jedi Order had let their sworn enemy corrupt the Republic from the highest existing office.
And without the user of the Dark Side overconfidence, it may have lasted longer.
Mace frowned as the traditional avenue leading to the Chancellor's office had been redecorated. While the luxurious carpet was still a deep red, there were banners of a great black tower struck by a brilliant lightning.
There were several holo-pictures of strange pyramids and sculptures vaguely looking like skulls and flames.
"We were blind," Jedi Master Kit Fisto murmured, "this is truly a sinister decoration worthy of a Sith."
Mace was forced to concede his colleague had brought excellent points.
He didn't answer it however as they had to pass through a patrol of bodyguards, who had also changed uniforms...for the worse, in his humble opinion. The security guards of the Senate, no matter how high in the hierarchy, were usually clad in blue, but those ones were in black, and in a shade which seemed to extinguish all light.
Finally there were introduced in presence of the Supreme Chancellor in his private quarters.
The Sith was alone.
Mace felt serene.
"Master Windu, what an excellent surprise," the treacherous politician welcomed him with a large smile which presaged nothing good, "may I understand you're here because General Kenobi has dealt with General Grievous?"
Sheev Palpatine shook his head before speaking like he was making a great confidence to them.
"I'd always thought the reputation of this droid was very, very exaggerated."
Mace had heard enough, and he wasn't going to let this Sith get away with his crimes a second longer than was necessary.
"In the name of the Senate of the Galactic Republic," Mace began while activating his lightsaber, followed by Masters Kolar, Tiin, and Fisto. "You are under arrest, Chancellor."
Mace had expected a lot of reactions from the Sith. Anger. Loathing. Many expressions of rage and violence which would reveal to the galaxy what sort of monster had tricked them and plunged them into the Clone Wars.
Sheev Palpatine merely chuckled.
"I have a lot of respect for the Jedi Order, but...Master Windu, you need a mandate from the Senate to arrest me." The Supreme Chancellor smiled. "And I know for certain that today, the Senate wasn't in session. You have not forgotten you need a mandate, I hope."
Mace descended two of the steps and pointed his lightsaber directly at the throat of the Sith. And he was a Sith, Mace could feel the Dark Side pouring out of him.
"You are under arrest, Chancellor." He repeated, certain the Sith was not going to let them arrest them and was going to try to fight his way out any moment now.
"I resign."
The two words struck him like the volley fire of a Star Destroyer. No, he hadn't heard right, it was impossible.
"What?" Agen Kolar managed to articulate.
"I resign," repeated Sheev Palpatine. "Your quarrel is obviously with the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. So I resign. If I'm not the Supreme Chancellor, surely you have no reason to arrest me, Master Windu."
Jedi didn't feel anger or loathing, but with every word, the four Masters present in the Supreme Chancellor's office began to feel a sizeable amount of frustration.
"We have come to arrest you, Sheev Palpatine," Mace didn't lower his lightsaber. In fact, he was really hoping this venomous politician was going to give him the excuse to slay him once for all. "The Jedi Order knows you're a Sith Lord. Whether you're the Supreme Chancellor makes no difference."
"But I am a simple citizen of the Galactic Republic!" the Sith smiled innocently. "What kind of Jedi war-hero arrests a simple citizen?"
"You are a Sith Lord!"
"Assuming this accusation has the shadow of a shadow of a truth," the Dark Side's user sighed like he was disappointed in him, "being a Sith is not illegal."
"You're lying!" Saesee Tiin barked. "The laws of the Ruusan Reforms-"
"They were completely obsolete and I took upon myself to modify them two years ago," Sheev Palpatine retorted smugly.
"How by the Force could you justify something like that in front of the Senate?" Kit Fisto asked in astonished voice.
"Quite simply, Master Fisto, quite simply," the former Chancellor boasted. "As long as the Sith is loyal to the Galactic Republic and swears to respect its laws, Senators saw no need to demonise a near-extinct species."
"The Sith are an abominable Order which uses the Dark Side for cruel purposes!"
"The Sith are also a near-extinct species living on certain distant worlds of the Outer Rim after the Jedi tried their best to exterminate them," Palpatine shrugged. "You should have made the distinction clearer to the Senate, Jedi Masters."
"Enough," Agen Kolar snarled. "Surrender!"
Sheev Palpatine raised his empty hands.
"Of course, I surrender!" the Sith Lord looked at them like they were crazy. "I am defenceless, and you have four lightsabers. What do you expect me to do, resist arrest? I just hope you're ready for the consequences of your actions..."
"Your fate will be decided by the Senate!"
Palpatine looked at him like with the kind of expression he reserved to the children invited to visit the Senate each year.
"Master Windu, until a few minutes ago, I was the leader of the Centrist Party. A political party which according to my estimations, controls over seventy-seven percent of the votes, with ten percent independent Senators sometimes voting in favour of my policies. Are you sure you really want me to be judged by the Senate?"
"You are a private citizen now, you said it yourself," Mace was more and frustrated by the arrogance of the Sith. One more remark...
"And even a private citizen can't be arrested by Jedi without a mandate, no matter what certain security forces believe," the grey-haired man told him with a charming smile. "Without a mandate, without the protection of a law, there is a word for your actions: coup d'état. For all your accusations today, it is evident you have not a single true proof to support your words. You are deciding that you don't like the laws of our Great Republic, and you-"
"It doesn't matter," Saesee Tiin spoke. "You are a Sith Lord, and you will be stopped."
Sheev Palpatine smiled before pushing a red button. Mace braced himself for a violent Sith attack, but Sith lightning never came.
Instantly the reinforced glass structure behind the ex-Supreme Chancellor began to light up, revealing hundreds of holographic individuals watching the Masters with expressions varying from disbelief to loathing.
"I am ready to let the Senate decide my fate," the Sith gloated as Mace grimaced internally at the sheer number of Senatorial eyes which had seen them try to arrest the Chancellor...and none of them were from the Peace Party or noted to be friends of the Order. "Are you ready to do the same thing?"
Mace felt the Dark Side engulf everything. In hindsight, coming here had been the wrong decision. The Sith Lord had waited for them. The Sith Lord was in total control of the Senate.
And yet at the same time, Palpatine was here, defenceless, or at least as defenceless as a Sith Lord could be.
A loud echo of footsteps echoed in the corridors not far away. To make such a noise, there had to be a lot of armoured boots, Mace knew this from bitter experience.
"There are over one hundred thousand troops on their way," declared Sheev Palpatine, looking at his nails with a concerned look. "If I were you, I would surrender, Master Windu. I am ready to agree you are a truly peerless warrior, but four against one hundred thousand seem to be quite high odds, even for you."
"Perhaps, but you won't be alive to see it end!"
His lightsaber rose to deliver the decisive strike. Mace was going to do it. He was going to rid the galaxy of the Sith!
The holo-screens darkened and suddenly, Mace and the three Masters screamed in agony as a torrent of ionic rays came out of the ceiling and struck them.
His lightsaber felt deactivated on the ground, out of reach.
Hundreds of troopers poured into the room, and Mace tried to use the Force, only for the strength of the pain to break his focus.
And the Sith was laughing. The Sith was laughing!
"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! This truly may be the most lamentable coup ever engineered against my person!"
"We will stop you! The Order will stop you!" Agen managed to retort before collapsing.
Sheev Palpatine stopped laughing but the gloating didn't stop.
"You can't stop me, this is the first part of my plan!"
Mace wished to say they opposed more resistance after this, but the pressure of the Dark Side went from a suffocating aura to an ocean of hatred, and the Light side of the Force was dimming as the seconds passed.
Black-clad troopers manacled his arms and brought chains and collars, and the same was happening for the three other Masters he had led into this trap.
Because as more and more devices came out from behind sculptures and paintings, it was evident Sheev Palpatine – the true Dark Lord of the Sith – had prepared for this moment for weeks, perhaps even longer.
"I've given the warning to the Order," Mace tried to bluff. "Skywalker knows who you are, he will evacuate the Temple."
"In this case, why exactly is he on his way to the Senate?" The Dark Side's user asked in a malicious voice before cackling at his stunned expression. "Skywalker is loyal to his friends, Master Windu. And I, in all humility, am his friend."
"You will betray him." Mace accused.
"Why?" Palpatine for once looked genuinely surprised. "I intend to propose it an important position in my administration! He will be chief executor and a special army commander...he will be my Black Knight, much like I made Ventress my Assassin."
The words left him shivering. There was something incredibly wrong with them. There was something incredibly wrong with the Dark Side. It was like the entire Senate was beginning to reek of the Dark Side. The Force itself was corrupted.
"I will need a Warlock and a Chancellor, naturally to have a complete band of five," the Sith continued to gloat, the words registering to Mace's ears, but their true meaning escaping him. "I will also need to establish a tax on lightsabers and expel the Jedi on the temples, I have a good pyramid scheme in place to manipulate the finances, and your Temple is on the way of my new Palace."
"You are a monster of arrogance, Supreme Chancellor!" Mace Windu said before a soldier gagged him and many others forced him to stand, chained and bound in front of the cackling maniac.
"Citizen! I am Citizen Palpatine for a few hours...the time for the Senate to vote me back in power. But not as Chancellor this time."
The man most of the galaxy had sold their souls to give him a smile where power, avidity, lies and a formidable amount of arrogance struggled with each other.
"You stand in presence of Dread Emperor Irritant, new Master of the Galactic Empire! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Commander, lead these Jedi to the agreed chambers! Their trial has been prepared...and their execution awaits!"
By the Force, Mace was hating completely and utterly this cackling.
"Everything is proceeding exactly as I have planned! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
Author's note 2: My personal take on possible events if the personality of Darth Sidious was replaced by the – infamous – Dread Emperor Irritant of the A Practical Guide to Evil series.
As you can see, butterflies have been massive, and the Jedi are even more screwed than they are in canon...this is the guy who in his own setting managed to abdicate three times and return to power three times after, just to give him an idea about his personality.
Hope you have enjoyed this one-shot!