Naboo was a world of tranquility. Soft golden lakes, elegant marble spires, gardens that seemed to sing in the spring air.It was a planet that inspired peace.
Which made it the perfect cradle for monsters.
Palpus grew beneath sunlit balconies and palace tutors, surrounded by courtiers who admired his flawless manners, clear speech, and eerie maturity. He smiled when he was expected to, bowed when required, and never once raised his voice or displayed cruelty.
The perfect young noble.
Polite. Clever. Gentle.
Everyone adored him.
Everyone was deceived.
The Hidden Lessons
When the palace lamps dimmed and Naboo slept, Palpus was taken through secret corridors carved before the Republic existed. There in a chamber lit only by crimson crystals Darth Plagueis waited.
Tall, gaunt, eyes cold and ancient a Muun whose presence felt like a collapsing galaxy, silent, crushing, inevitable.
Palpus knelt. Not because he was forced to but because power recognizes power.
Plagueis spoke in a voice like whispering tombs:
"What is the nature of life?"
Palpus, only six and yet centuries in mind, answered:
"Life is a resource.To be shaped.To be consumed.To be commanded."
Plagueis nodded.
"And what is the purpose of the Sith?"
Palpus did not hesitate.
"To control the galaxy so completely that even fate obeys."
Plagueis smiled a skeletal stretching of lips, rare and filled with pride.
"Then rise, my apprentice."
A Mind Not Reborn, but Carried Forward
He remembered his past life.
Not in perfect detail but enough.
He remembered:
Modern physics
Quantum mechanics
The principles of matter compression
Stellar fusion dynamics
The hunger of human systems for control
And the ways empires fall
Where Plagueis taught him the Force, Palpus brought science.
Where Palpatine taught him political puppetry, Palpus forged long-term imperial modelling ten thousand scenarios, ten thousand outcomes.
As young as nine, he could speak to senators with poised rhetoric .At twelve, he had studied the financial networks of the Republic and understood where to apply pressure.
By fourteen, he had already predicted the fall of the Jedi Order.
By sixteen He began building something the galaxy had never conceived.
The Matter Extractor
It started as a thought.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed…But it can be taken.
Stars burned hydrogen into helium.Planets clung to heavy elements in molten cores.
What if…
What if you could pull matter directly from the source? Not mine, not refine harvest. Feed a device on stellar fuel and the raw metal of planetary mantles.
The machine would not build ships.
It would birth them.
City-sized star destroyers. Armadas in days, not years. Weapons capable of extinguishing civilizations as a footnote.
Power not just to conquer Power to erase opposition entirely.
Plagueis watched him design it. Silent. Fascinated.
Palpatine watched him improve it. A glimmer of something almost like pride reflected in his eyes.
Age 17 The Trials of Korriban
The air on Korriban tasted like metal and grave dust.
Lightning crawled across red skies.Ancient tombs rose like jagged teeth from the cracked stone wasteland.
Palpus walked alone.
No guide.No weapon.No promise of survival.
The spirits of dead Sith Lords whispered from the shadows.
Weak… untested… mortal…Prove yourself.Bleed.
He did not bleed.
He commanded.
The dark side surged through him not as a storm he surrendered to, but as an instrument of his will.
He did not fall to rage.He did not drown in hatred.He mastered them like tools.
At the altar of the Final Trial, Palpatine waited cloaked in black. Plagueis stood opposite expression unreadable.
"Name yourself," Palpatine demanded.
The Force twisted like a serpent coiling around the young man's throat.
Palpus lifted his chin.
"I am the one who will erase prophecy.I am the will of the dark side made flesh.I am the end of the Jedi.I am Darth Scorn."
The tomb itself trembled.
Plagueis bowed his head the slightest acknowledgment.
Palpatine extended his hand not as father, but as Sith Lord greeting Sith Lord.
The Reveal
Later in the heart of the private citadel orbiting Naboo Palpus activated the projection of his creation.
A swirling holo-image of the Matter Extractor filled the chamber.
A machine the size of a moon.A living engine.A devourer of stars.
Palpatine stared for a long time.
Then slowly he smiled.
"My son…You have not merely secured the future of the Sith…You have ensured the end of history itself."
Plagueis said nothing but his eyes filled with something dangerous.
Not pride. Not fear.
Calculation.