Prologue : Death by Creation
He had always wanted to change the world.
In another life, he was a quiet man with sharp eyes and a mind that moved faster than his words ever could. A modern-day genius with obsessions that would have embarrassed most people ancient mythologies, the psychology of tyrants, fictional empires, and most of all… the Sith.
Where others saw villains, he saw architects of absolute will.
He worked at a research and development facility. There, he helped test the newest miracle of manufacturing technology the Assembler Vats. Feed raw material and design schematics, and the vat would build what you wanted, molecule by molecule. Weapons. Tools. Even synthetic organs.
But the calculations that day were wrong.
It began with a vibration harmless, at first. Then a violent shudder. Reactors overloading. Pressure becoming heat. Heat becoming detonation.
In the final instant, as white-gold fire devoured everything, he thought only one thing:
If only power was real. If only the Sith were real… I would have rewritten everything.
And then silence.
His first memories were pain, warmth, and voices.Not as a man but as an infant.Small. Weak. Helpless.
Yet… the Force was there.
It wasn't a whisper. It was a roaring ocean, crashing and coiling inside him like a living storm, reacting to every emotion, every sensation.
He knew immediately:
This was no ordinary existence.
A face leaned over him pale, lined, aristocratic, and unknowably powerful.Eyes like burning suns behind clouds of politeness.
Darth Sidious.
Sheev Palpatine.
Future Emperor of the Galaxy.
And his father.
Palpatine did not smile often. He did now though it was a small, sharp thing. A smile of ownership, of destiny confirmed.
"My son…"His voice was smooth as polished marble."Your name… will be Palpus."
The child's mother lay still, pale and unmoving. A noblewoman of Naboo beautiful, clever, strong-willed now taken by childbirth's cruelty. Palpatine looked at her for a long moment.
No sadness.Only calculation.Only regret at wasted potential.
But to the infant, he ran a gloved hand across his cheek and the Force surged between them.
A cold voice nearby Darth Plagueis the master who trained Palpatine in the shadows observed the phenomenon with pure fascination.
"His midichlorian count is… astonishing.Thirty thousand per cell.The boy surpasses even the experimental threshold."
Palpatine's eyes gleamed.
"He will surpass all of them.There will be no chosen one.Only power.And my legacy."
Palpus even as a new-born understood.He remembered who he had been.He remembered why he was here.
This life was not chance.This life was opportunity.
He would become what he once only idolized:
A Sith not bound by fear.A ruler not bound by prophecy.A mind unrestrained by doctrine.
A Sith Emperor by birth.
Age 3 — Awakening
By the age of three, Palpus could speak clearly. His intellect was frightening adult logic in a child's face. His Force presence filled rooms, making grown men uneasy without knowing why.
Palpatine did not hide him.He studied him.Trained him.
Every lesson in politics, rhetoric, deception Palpus absorbed like breath.
Every meditation session with Plagueis awakened more.
Lightning crackled at his fingertips before he could even write his name.
And one night, as he sat alone in his private nursery, staring out over the elegant skyline of Naboo, his father spoke to him without moving his lips.
Telepathy. Sith-to-Sith.
"My son. Tell me. What do you desire?"
The boy's eyes gleamed gold.
"To rule."
A slow, sinister smile spread across the Dark Lord's face.
"Then we will reshape the galaxy together."