Exegol, Throne World of the Sith, 43 ABY
Lightning flashes in the everlasting atmospheric storm, chasing away any hope the dreary world has of peace. It is better that way. I am the world's only hope after all. However empty a shell I inhabit now.
Like his father before him the Last Jedi fell, and another so-called Chosen One has been named, rising from the sands and filth of mediocrity. My heir, my intended vessel, she was born with the light of divinity in her veins.
While you, Vader… You were only a pawn, moved around by the hand that controls the Shadow.
You were never as great as I desired, you failed me, and now the galaxy pays the price for your weakness.
I foresaw it, your betrayal. I sensed that your resolve to choose the darkness had been shattered. While I sought to prevent it, to shore up your hatred, I prepared. I readied for the time when you would give into your weakness. I know you tried to hide it, how cracked through you were with inconstancy and regret, hope that someday the stars would align for you. Absolve you of your deeds.
I know you watch, my once great Lord Vader. You peer into my work from your vantage point in the beyond… and are powerless to stop me. The stars will never forgive you for your transgressions, because they are mine. They bow to divinity, and I am undiminished.
The weak may think they have won, that you brought some vaunted "balance". No such thing occurred. Balance was not achieved. You eradicated the Light, and blotted out the Darkness. But in the Shadows of the Light you tried to restore, my first order was given.
You were my greatest apprentice, and yet a tool only, like Cronal, and the Inquisitor, and Tyrannus before them. Yet without the ambition of the first nor the wisdom of the latter. I showed you my throneworlds of Byss and Exegol not to welcome you into my inner mysteries, rather to impress upon you the hopelessness of your miniscule ambition.
I am the one who destroyed your son. Chipped away at him piece by piece. Every conflict the son of Skywalker fought, I controlled. Cronal, the man who thought he controlled the Dark, merely did as I desired. As I decreed. Cronal chose an apt name for the face he showed the galaxy, unaware as he was who was the true Pawn, unaware where the Shadows lay. You think it is a victory that both you and your son joined the Dark and then returned to the light? It is victory, but not yours.
The son of Skywalker desired to know you better, and like his father he discovered his great weakness. His desire to be loved. And now he is dead. Like you. Like his sister will soon be. I freed you from the chains of the Jedi, I will free your children too.
The Princess is headstrong and angry, but she is disciplined. She knows how to control her anger. She knew when to walk away. The son however? Until he abandoned his family to hide like a coward, I believed he would simply soldier on to his inevitable end in my grasp. He would have been mine so thoroughly that the galaxy would have bowed to the Emperor, eternally.
That the boy is dead is disappointing, but unavoidable. That my creature Snoke failed to bring him to me is infuriating, but predictable. Lumiya worked so hard to destroy him, I guided the politicians of the Republic and Galactic Alliance to betray him. In the end he showed everyone his weakness, ran from his hatred, his anger, and gave up. Instead of running to me, he simply ran.
The Grand Plan may have many possible paths to fruition, yet the path we tread is contingency. This body, held together by magicks and the prayers of my followers, is your cursed legacy.
Vader, my blood and yours stalk each other.
Your flesh and blood stalks the galaxy leaving terror in his wake.
Mine is misguided, but she will come to me and fulfill her destiny. Palpatine will rule forever. That will be your legacy.
Ahh. I sense you have hope Vader, that the Sword will rise and defend the Jedi. The Sword is shattered, like her father, like her uncle. She will not interfere.
The boy, your blood, yearns to hear you speak to him, to hear your guidance. But it is I who guide him. He is not as powerful as his brother, but his motivation is pure, free of weakness. He desires power over those who saw him as their pawn. I gave it to him and with it he decimated your son's legacy, just as his brother destroyed your son's reason for living. He will bring me the girl and he will fall and she will rise and carry forward my divinity.
The Princess… she thinks that because the Skywalker line has caused me grief that I am undone. It is true Exegol was never my intention, to rise from the ashes of a rotting clone disturbs me greatly. Byss was to be the throne I had crafted in my image, glorious and divine. Beautiful to gaze upon and full of ambition underneath the surface. And Exegol? My predecessors crafted the world in their image, it contains power, yet no beauty. No artifice. No gardens that lure the weak to apathetic adoration, no lakes for fools to drown in. Yet artifice has not won me the loyalty of the weak or the strong. It has not created a fear so bone deep that no rebellion or resistance is unfathomable.
Here on Exegol the spirits of those who came before whisper to me, offering a vision I have been reluctant to heed. Yet… I see a galaxy free of the need to choose, of the need to live and work and die for the self. I see a galaxy bound to the Sith. To me.
You will see Vader, as I strike fear and confusion into their hearts. They will turn, they will bow, and I will rise.
At last the work of generations is complete, the great error is corrected!
The Day of Victory is at hand, the Day of Revenge, the Day of the Sith!
Throughout the galaxy in the corners where the scum and slime crawl, where the loyal and the opportunist wait, a voice and laughter echo with a promise. A promise of power and order.
Throughout the galaxy on the fields of blood and embattled stars, where the rebel and resistor fight and die, a voice and laughter echo with a threat, and hope seems to shatter.