Dathan, also known as "the Abomination" by the Sith Eternal, was a human male strandcast hybrid engineered genetically by Sith cultists on the planet Exegol in 12 BBY. To create cloned bodies for the preservation of his essence, the Sith cult made use of the template of Darth Sidious, who was the Dark Lord of the Sith and Emperor of the Galactic Empire. However, the strandcast later known as Dathan was a result of the cult's experiments. Despite his genetic link to Sidious, he lacked a strong connection to the Force, and therefore was considered a failed experiment by his "father." Although Sidious treated Dathan with contempt due to his lack of power, calling him a "useless creature," his excellent health allowed him to live as a means of continuing the Palpatine bloodline.
Ultimately, Dathan rejected Sidious and the Sith ways, mirroring his father's neglect, by escaping his homeworld to pursue a life away from the dark side of the Force. He eventually married Miramir, and in 15 ABY she gave birth to their daughter Rey. Rey, unlike Dathan, possessed a strong connection to the Force, making her a suitable host for her grandfather's essence. Determined to claim his granddaughter at any cost, Sidious dispatched Ochi of Bestoon, an assassin, to locate and bring Rey to Exegol.
Dathan and his family resided for a time on Jakku, where they struggled to survive as junk traders in the desert during the New Republic Era. In 21 ABY, Ochi kidnapped and impaled them with a knife, but not before Dathan and Miramir concealed their daughter by leaving her with Unkar Plutt, a junk boss. Rey remained hidden on Jakku for several years before discovering her dormant Force connection, which led her on the path to becoming a Jedi.
While details of Dathan's life are scarce, his origins can be traced to the Imperial Era. During this time, Darth Sidious, publicly known as Galactic Emperor Sheev Palpatine, and his followers conducted cloning experiments on Exegol for several years leading up to the Sith Lord's demise at the Battle of Endor. After consolidating his power as Emperor, Sidious retreated from public view and began exploring the secrets of the dark side of the Force. In his pursuit of immortality, the Sith Lord and his followers used cloning technology to prolong his life indefinitely. The Sith Eternal employed Strand-Casting, along with modified cloning techniques, to produce numerous altered clones of Sidious' original body. This was done in an attempt to create a vessel capable of containing and preserving his essence, ultimately granting him immortality.
On Exegol in 12 BBY, the son of Darth Sidious was created. The unnamed hybrid strandcast infant resulted from the Sith Eternal's attempts to produce a body worthy of Sidious' immense power. As the sole survivor of the cloning process, he became the primary byproduct of Sidious' genetic research. However, he would become a disappointment to his scientific sire. Despite carrying the Palpatine family blood, he lacked strength in the Force and could not wield its abilities like his donor, who reveled in them.
Sidious rejected the "inferior" child spawned from his flesh. Despite acknowledging their blood connection and his status as the boy's "father," he viewed the strandcast as a "useless creature," referring to him as "it" and shunning him. However, the strandcast's health, despite his powerlessness and status as a failure, offered Sidious other potential uses.
Sidious surmised that his cloned progeny, despite lacking a Force connection, might prove useful due to his Palpatine bloodline. He permitted his genetic offspring to survive, believing the strandcast's health could help continue and preserve his bloodline, potentially yielding more favorable results in producing a vessel for his spirit through more natural means.
Historians suggest that Sidious likely neglected his "son" due to the disappointment he caused. Sidious couldn't bear to look at his powerless, failed strandcast, disgusted by what he considered "disappointing ordinariness" and unworthy of his family's legacy.
Dathan, a failed strandcast from Darth Sidious' genetic template, was also shunned by the Emperor's Sith Eternal acolytes, who refused to name him and instead called him the "Abomination." The cloners on Exegol only avoided "recycling" him because Sidious offered him some protection, believing the failed clone might still be useful. However, one Exegol slave acknowledged him. Dathan, a Symeong slave with limited autonomy, raised him. Dathan taught him how to find food and survive on Exegol and educated him using teaching machines.
Around 3 ABY, the boy witnessed Ochi of Bestoon and Darth Vader, his father's apprentice, arriving and entering the Sith Citadel. After wandering and contemplating his life's meaning, he decided to leave Exegol, possibly by his father's design, seeking help from Dathan to escape and reject the dark side. Dathan arranged for him to be smuggled off-world on the ship carrying Vader and Ochi. Before leaving, Dathan gave him a songsteel amulet with a Sith Eternal crest to make him "invisible" during the journey. Vader and Ochi's ship traveled to Koke Frost space station. After arriving, the boy found work with a sun-scooper's engineering team, abandoning his old identity and adopting the name "Dathan" after the Symeong who had helped him and been his only friend.
Having matured and desiring an ordinary life, he also rejected his cruel "father," who had rejected him as his "son." Despite this mutual rejection, Sidious considered it an unforgivable betrayal and planned to punish his son once he had fulfilled his purpose and was found.
Darth Sidious' reign ended with his death at the hands of his apprentice Darth Vader during the Battle of Endor in [4 ABY](/article/4_aby]. Dathan learned of his father's fate but, like the rest of the galaxy, remained unaware of his spiritual resurrection in a clone body on Exegol for years to come.
In addition to rejecting Sidious, Dathan married Miramir, with whom he fell in love. They had a daughter, Rey, who was born in 15 ABY. Despite his renunciation of the Sith Eternal and his donor, the Palpatine bloodline prospered through him, as Sidious had predicted.
While Sidious hadn't anticipated Dathan's relationship with Miramir, he saw it as an opportunity because his granddaughter, unlike his clone, had inherited his connection to the Force. Rey was thus deemed the perfect vessel for her grandfather's essence. Dathan and his family eventually settled on Jakku, a backwater world where Rey's parents struggled as junk traders and moisture farmers.
Despite his efforts to remain hidden from his father's agents, they eventually tracked him and his family to Jakku. Following Ochi, a Sith assassin's hunt for them, Dathan and his wife stole Ochi's starship, the Bestoon Legacy, to return to Jakku. The threat of discovery forced Rey's parents to leave her with Unkar Plutt. Although reluctant, they did so to protect her from Sidious. As they said goodbye, Dathan noticed Miramir taking a necklace of Aki-Aki beads from Plutt, which she said would be their insurance.
As Dathan and Miramir left Jakku, Ochi captured them aboard a Corporate Sector Authority ship, having tracked them using a homing beacon implanted on the Bestoon Legacy by High Colonel Enric Pryde. Ochi reclaimed the Bestoon Legacy and held them prisoner. The alien demanded to know the location of his master's granddaughter, but they refused to cooperate. The clone remained silent, while his wife lied, claiming Rey wasn't on Jakku. Ochi knew they were deceiving him, which he considered intolerable.
Unable to get information from them, Ochi killed both of Rey's parents. He first impaled the clone in the stomach with his knife. Miramir, witnessing her husband's death, was then also impaled to death on Sidious' order. Their bodies were disposed of; Ochi stuffed them in a crate and sent it drifting in space. Lando Calrissian and R2-D2 soon found the crate, recovered their bodies, and, with the help of Luke Skywalker and Komat, buried them on the frozen world of Neftali. Miramir's misdirection with the Aki-Aki beads worked, tricking Ochi into traveling to Pasaana instead of Jakku.
Rey's father's name was forgotten; Dathan and Miramir became mere fragments of memory to their daughter on Jakku. No record existed of Sidious' cloned son inheriting his father's Force power, leading historians to believe the strandcast was a disappointment to the Sith Lord who created him.
In his book, The Secrets of the Sith, Darth Sidious remembered Dathan as his errant, Force-insensitive clone who rejected him as his "father" and the Sith Order, betraying him by hiding his granddaughter with his wife, temporarily preventing him from ensuring his legacy as a Sith Lord.
Rey remained on Jakku for years, supporting herself as a scavenger while unaware of her dormant Force powers or her relation to Emperor Palpatine. She had almost forgotten her parents, subconsciously suppressing her childhood memories. Despite this, she hoped they would return, giving her a reason to stay on her homeworld instead of exploring the galaxy. However, a lifetime of isolation also left Rey struggling with loneliness and abandonment, contributing to her emotional bond with Ren during the First Order-Resistance War.
Ren, having seen Rey's parents and their lives through their shared Force-bond, urged her to admit the truth about them. When Rey confessed they were insignificant, Ren elaborated, revealing they were junk traders who bartered her away for money. Ren had learned their identities through a Force vision and told Rey her father was an insignificant junk trader seeking money to feed his alcoholism. Though she later believed Ren divulged this to turn her to the dark side, Rey sensed he hadn't deceived her but was still reluctant to admit her parents' lack of background.
Although Ren hadn't lied about Rey's parents, he later realized his vision was incomplete. He learned the full truth from Sidious while confronting him on Exegol. Sidious revealed Rey's father was his son, making Rey his biological granddaughter. The revelation reignited Ren's desire to rule the galaxy with Rey. Additionally, he discovered they formed a rare and powerful dyad in the Force, further convincing him of their shared destiny.
Rey, who began training as a Jedi apprentice, was astonished by her connection to the fallen Emperor. As a Jedi, she struggled to control her anger, but knowing Sidious ordered her parents' deaths fueled her desire for revenge. However, her devotion to the Jedi Order and the light side of the Force helped restrain her from killing in anger. The memory of her parents also prevented Rey from turning to the dark side. While Sidious believed this made her weak like her parents, she considered them strong for protecting her. During the Battle of Exegol, their daughter vanquished the reborn Emperor with the aid of the spirits of past Jedi.
Dathan, genetically a human male, was a hybrid strandcast resulting from the cloning experiments of Darth Sidious' followers using donated blood cells and other tissue samples. Although a modified specimen created from the Sith Lord's genetic template through Strand-Casting, Dathan wasn't a direct clone replicate of his donor and wasn't identical in appearance to Sidious. The Emperor's son had short, dark hair, blue [eyes](/article/eye], and light skin. He became a father at a young age and had a scruffy red beard by the time he lived on Jakku.
Cloned from the Sith Lord who masterminded the fall of the Galactic Republic and ruled the Galactic Empire through fear, the strandcast sought to live an ordinary life with his family, rejecting his father and the Sith ways and pursuing a life apart from darkness. Having inherited neither his progenitor's power nor his character, Sidious regarded him as a powerless and useless disappointment. Despite Jakku's harsh conditions, he took on the difficult life of surviving in a desert environment to keep Rey hidden from her grandfather. Dathan was haunted by his past, reliving his time on Exegol in nightmares and not looking back on his time on his homeworld fondly. He deeply loved his wife and fondly remembered their time on her homeworld. Like his wife, he was saddened by their decision to sell their daughter. Before leaving Rey with Unkar Plutt, Rey's father promised she would be safe on Jakku.
During his time on Exegol, Dathan knew fear, but not of his father, the dark side, or the cultists, but of himself. He often pondered the meaning behind his father's protection and his purpose in life, fearing what he could become if he led the Sith cultists in their quest for the planet's secrets or became evil and cruel like Sidious. Despite not being like his father in character or Force power, he was known to have a "glib tone and a charming smile," traits he shared with Sidious, his progenitor, who was known to be a charmer and manipulator.
Despite being created from Darth Sidious' base genetic template, one of the most powerful Sith Lords ever, the Emperor's son was an ordinary man with no ability to harness the Force. However, as part of the Palpatine bloodline and in excellent health, Dathan was able to sire a Force-sensitive child with strength comparable to the Emperor.
Dathan was physically strong enough to survive Jakku's harsh conditions and skilled enough with his wife Miramir to keep himself and their child hidden from Sidious for years until Ochi of Bestoon found them.
Dathan was first mentioned, albeit indirectly, in the 2015 film Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens, the first installment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. He first appeared in a flashback sequence of the 2019 film Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker, portrayed by Billy Howle.
In Star Wars Legends, Emperor Palpatine also experimented with cloning himself to transfer his spirit. He also had a son named Triclops, who first appeared in the 1993 book Mission from Mount Yoda, the fourth installment of the young-readers Jedi Prince series written by Paul and Hollace Davids. Similarly to Dathan, Triclops also conceived a child with a woman, and that child became an apprentice of Luke Skywalker.
Adam Christopher, author of Shadow of the Sith, named the character after a childhood friend named Dathan. The author wanted an earthly name, like Luke and Ben, but not too common. According to the author, "Dathan" rhymes with "Nathan." In The Rise of Skywalker, Kylo Ren claims Dathan and Miramir sold Rey to protect her. Shadow of the Sith retconned this, revealing they paid Unkar Plutt to keep Rey hidden. Dathan and Miramir's brief appearance in The Rise of Skywalker is an emotional moment for Christopher.