Darth Plagueis

A figure of legend, Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith of the Muun race. His training was at the hands of Darth Tenebrous, a Sith Master. At some point in his existence, Plagueis came into possession of 11-4D, a protocol droid. During his time as a Sith Lord and while immersed in the study of the Force, Plagueis gathered a wealth of knowledge concerning the dark side and the doctrines associated with it.

Plagueis actively undermined the Jedi during the High Republic Era. By 132 BBY, he had chosen a former Jedi, a human known as "the Stranger" or under the alias "Qimir," to be his apprentice. In that year, Plagueis was present on an island located on a planet where the Stranger resided. There, he remained hidden in the shadows of the Stranger's cave, observing the Stranger and Verosha Aniseya, a former Jedi Padawan, whom the Stranger was to take as a Sith acolyte, as they departed the planet on their ship, Exile II. Plagueis was still concealed there when the Stranger and Aniseya returned, with Aniseya now serving as the Stranger's apprentice.

The precise time when Plagueis took on his new Sith apprentice is not documented, but the Dark Lord selected Sheev Palpatine, a human hailing from Naboo, to be his student. As master and apprentice, Plagueis and Palpatine—who adopted the Sith identity of Darth Sidious—collaborated for years, endeavoring to unlock the mysteries of immortality driven by Plagueis's yearning for it, and to carry out the Sith Order's long-developing scheme to replace the Galactic Republic with a fresh Sith Empire.

During Sidious's training, Plagueis instructed him that the success of their perilous machinations depended on the presence of two Sith. He explained that by working together in accordance with the Rule of Two, with one serving as bait for the dark side of the Force and the other as a vessel, they would be able to harness the full power of the dark side and rule for ten thousand years, immortal. While under Plagueis's tutelage, Sidious also constructed his own lightsabers.

Plagueis was convinced that science held the secrets to immortality, so he undertook extensive research into the biological foundations of life. Some of this research involved unnatural experiments using his capacity to influence midi-chlorians in an attempt to defy death. These experiments, although incomplete, were encouraging to his apprentice. The Sith Order had long desired the ability to live eternally, rejecting the Jedi Order's belief that death was a natural part of life, but for centuries, successive generations of Sith Lords had failed to unlock the secret to eternal life. He was so consumed by this pursuit that he overlooked the signs that his "faithful apprentice" was progressing in a way that was unsettling for him.

According to Darth Sidious's book, The Secrets of the Sith, Plagueis discovered a way to achieve immortality through transference, a Force power that enabled the user to move their consciousness into another body, essentially using bodies as vessels. Plagueis also attempted to establish a Force dyad with Sidious, a unique Force-bond as strong as life itself, which served as the predecessor to the Rule of Two. However, Plagueis was unsuccessful in creating the dyad.

Darth Plagueis orchestrated his apprentice's rise to the position of Senator for Naboo and the broader Chommell sector, with Palpatine's election taking place in 52 BBY. As Sidious, under his public identity of Sheev Palpatine, was appointed to the Galactic Senate as the Senator of Naboo, Plagueis continued to mentor him, allowing Palpatine to hone his political skills within the framework of the plan devised by his master, before they returned to Coruscant.

Sidious claimed that Plagueis possessed such immense power that he could manipulate the midi-chlorians through the Force to both create life and prevent death for those he held dear, a rare ability that earned him the title "the Wise." However, Plagueis also came to believe that the Force might "strike back" at him because of his power. In reality, he grew so powerful that his only fear was losing his power.

Ultimately, Plagueis's greatest fear came to pass. Sidious eventually absorbed all the knowledge he could from his distracted master and decided that he no longer needed his teacher. In accordance with the Rule of Two tradition, Sidious infiltrated his master's apartment and eliminated Plagueis, murdering his mentor in cold blood while he slept. This act allowed him to ascend to ultimate power and claim the title of Sith Master. As Sidious noted, Plagueis was not quick enough to prevent his own demise. Sometime before or after Plagueis's death, Sidious acquired his own apprentice in Darth Maul, the son of Talzin, a Nightsister Mother. Maul was a young Zabrak from Dathomir, whom Sidious accepted from Talzin when he was just a child.

Sidious achieved his rise to power as a Dark Lord of the Sith by murdering Plagueis, adhering to the Sith Order's tradition where the apprentice completes their dark-side training by killing their master. Plagueis's legacy lived on through Sidious. With Plagueis's death, Sidious not only became a Master but also acquired 11-4D, the late Sith Lord's multi-limbed assistant. Furthermore, Sidious inherited Plagueis's studies, which included in-depth research into the biological foundations of life with the ultimate goal of discovering how to cheat death.

Plagueis's death served as a lesson to the apprentice who betrayed and killed him. Sidious viewed his master's trust in him as a mistake that he vowed never to repeat. During the Clone Wars, Sidious was aware that his second apprentice, Darth Tyranus, was plotting to usurp his title of Sith Master by killing him. Sensing Tyranus's impending betrayal, Sidious successfully manipulated events to have his student killed by his intended replacement, Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi Knight and prophesied Chosen One.

In the final days of the Republic, Sidious recounted the history of his deceased master to Skywalker. He had befriended Skywalker years before the Clone Wars to gradually sway him to the dark side of the Force. Skywalker, unaware that his friend was a Sith Lord and troubled by premonitions of his secret wife's death during childbirth, was intrigued by Plagueis's story, especially his ability to prevent death. When the fear of loss drove Skywalker to betray the Jedi Order, transforming him into the Sith Lord Darth Vader, Sidious reformed the Republic into the Galactic Empire and proclaimed himself Emperor. Simultaneously, he ordered the systematic execution of the Jedi throughout the galaxy through Order 66, completing the Sith plan that had spanned over a millennium.

One of the few Jedi to survive was a Padawan named Ferren Barr. Barr began investigating the reasons for the Jedi's rapid downfall and discovered Plagueis's existence, adding his file to the list of individuals involved in the crisis. In the years following his rise to power, Sidious developed a genuine, albeit posthumous, appreciation for Plagueis as a planner and prophet. Sidious sometimes pondered how his late master would have reacted to the trivial, day-to-day matters of Imperial politics, noting that Plagueis never foresaw his own ascension to Emperor. Sidious desired not only the immortality that his master had craved and achieved but also the power to fashion a universe of his own creation and prevent the Force from "striking back."

Plagueis's failure to form a dyad with his apprentice convinced Sidious that his master was unworthy of the task. However, Sidious also failed to recreate the dyad with his own disciple Vader, despite their combined power as descendants of the two strongest Force-sensitive bloodlines, the Palpatines and the Skywalkers. In 3 ABY, cultists searching the catacombs beneath the Sith Citadel on the planet Exegol, a secret Sith world that Palpatine had seized, repeated Plagueis's name in a chant-like manner, along with the names of other Sith.

During the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, Sidious was killed by a redeemed Anakin Skywalker, who returned to the light side of the Force and threw Sidious down a reactor shaft to save his son Luke Skywalker. However, as he fell, Sidious reflected that he had prepared for this scenario unlike Plagueis. He summoned all the power of the dark side to leave his body and transfer his consciousness to a cloned body created by the Sith Eternal on the secret Sith world of Exegol.

Sidious used Plagueis's secret to immortality and his own research into a blend of Sith sorcery and technology to resurrect his spirit in a new vessel, he managed to stave off death for a time, but immortality still eluded the Dark Lord. The transfer was imperfect. When Sidious thrust his essence into the new cloned vessel and awoke, he realized the painful, temporary existence he now inhabited, with the body decaying due to the immense power of the dark side within him. This led the Sith Lord toward permanent death if not addressed. Because of this, Sidious mused that perhaps Plagueis was having the last laugh as karma for his demise.

In the years following the end of the Empire, during the final stages of the war between the First Order and the Resistance, Sidious's granddaughter, Rey, tracked him down to Exegol as the Resistance and the Sith Eternal prepared for a final showdown. Before a redeemed Ben Solo came to her rescue, Sidious urged his granddaughter to strike him down as he had done to Plagueis. This allowed Rey to read his mind and understand how he had returned thanks to Plagueis's teachings. Ultimately, Rey used the voices and power of the past and deceased Jedi to destroy Sidious and the Sith for good.

Following the victory at the Battle of Exegol, the Exegol Excavation Project was initiated to excavate the Sith Citadel on Exegol. This archeological effort, led by Beaumont Kin, uncovered a file about Darth Plagueis within the Arcane Library. According to Kin's notes in the book The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire, the file was notably defaced, but the information within revealed the existence of Darth Plagueis and helped construct a partial hierarchy of information about the known Sith Lords.

Darth Plagueis was a sagacious Dark Lord of the Sith who possessed a deep well of knowledge regarding the dark side of the Force. Being a Muun, he had orange eyes. He was a meticulous planner, dedicated to achieving the Sith's objective of replacing the Galactic Republic with a Sith Empire. His powers also led to paranoia, as he believed that the Force might "strike back."

Plagueis was obsessed with achieving immortality, and he dedicated himself to discovering how to become an eternal being alongside his apprentice Darth Sidious, with the goal of ruling together for millennia. He believed that the key to immortality lay in science. His desire to cheat death represented a perversion of the natural order and the ultimate act of manipulating the universe and the will of the Force. While Plagueis feared losing his power, he never anticipated that his apprentice would be the cause of his downfall. Ultimately, Plagueis trusted and underestimated Sidious, who betrayed and murdered him when he least expected it. Although Plagueis did not live to see his goals realized, Sidious managed to survive his own death, but because his transfer was imperfect, he wondered if Plagueis had the last laugh after all at his failure.

Darth Sidious described Darth Plagueis as a formidable Sith Lord capable of using the Force to influence midi-chlorians to create life. This power was reportedly extremely rare among those sensitive to the Force and could even be used by certain Sith Lords to prolong their lives or even cheat death. Using this ability, Plagueis conducted unnatural experiments in his quest to discover immortality. His extensive knowledge of the dark side of the Force could also help him protect those he cared about from dying.

Darth Plagueis focused on achieving immortality through science and the biological foundations of life and discovered a way to become immortal by transferring his consciousness to another body, using it as a vessel. However, Plagueis did not have the opportunity to use this skill to evade death when his student struck him down. His apprentice Darth Sidious later survived his first death using this method, but the transfer was imperfect.

Darth Plagueis may have possessed the ability to see into the future, as his apprentice later mused in appreciation of him as a prophet. However, Plagueis never foresaw his apprentice's rise to power.

Darth Plagueis was first mentioned on-screen in the 2005 film Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, the concluding installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Although the film never confirmed Palpatine as Plagueis's apprentice, a link to the official encyclopedia on StarWars.com identified Sidious as having been "trained by Darth Plagueis." He appeared unnamed in "The Acolyte," the eighth episode of the 2024 television series The Acolyte, with showrunner Leslye Headland later confirming his identity in an interview. In that episode, the character's appearance was created entirely using computer-generated imagery, without motion capture.

George Lucas created the character as early as the first draft of Revenge of the Sith, dated April 2003, and possibly earlier. His story was greatly expanded in the 2012 Star Wars Legends novel Darth Plagueis, written by James Luceno. The novel established Plagueis as a Muun, as Lucas had proposed, a trait that was reused in The Acolyte. Plagueis was always intended to appear in the season 1 finale of The Acolyte. Headland later confirmed that Plagueis was the Master of "the Stranger" when speaking with Entertainment Weekly. Having been talking immediately beforehand about the character's cameo in the episode alongside that of Yoda, Headland stated "We wanted to show Qimir's master. We weren't going to wait a second season for that."

Although Legends works depict Plagueis as having power over life and death, Lucas himself stated that Palpatine's tale about Plagueis's abilities was a lie. Canon also dispensed with the idea of these powers being a lie. The Biography gallery of Darth Sidious's Databank entry and the "Senator Palpatine" card from the 2020 Topps Star Wars Holocron Series both state that Sidious killed Plagueis after taking Darth Maul as his apprentice. However, the 2019 reference book Ultimate Star Wars, New Edition states that Plagueis's murder at Sidious's hands occurred before Sidious took Maul under his wing.