By utilizing the Force, a Force-sensitive individual could employ the dark side power known as Transference to shift their consciousness and spirit into a different physical form. This ability also granted the user the potential to avert the deaths of other beings. The Sith Order's pursuit of immortality led to the discovery of this technique, with Darth Plagueis, a Sith Lord, achieving the distinction of being the first to master transference. However, Darth Sidious, his Sith apprentice, ultimately killed Plagueis. Sidious then applied his Sith Master's methods to relocate his own consciousness into a clone body, which met its end during the Battle of Endor. During the Battle of Exegol, he made another attempt to transfer his spirit, this time targeting his granddaughter, Rey, but his efforts were unsuccessful.
A Force-sensitive could tap into the dark side of the Force and utilize a Force power known as Transference. The user of transference could, through the Force, transmit their spirit and consciousness into another physical body. The biological fitness of this body determined how well it could host the Force user's spirit. As of 35 ABY, bodies created artificially using current methods, such as modified clones like Strand-Casts, couldn't handle the dark side power attached to the consciousness of the transference user. This resulted in rapid decay, physical deformities, and ultimately death. Furthermore, a rushed or imperfect transference could cause debilitating side effects in the new body. Factors that made a host more suitable included a strong connection to the Force and a familial link to the transference user.
Transference's main purpose was to prevent a Force-sensitive's permanent demise. Although the physical body would eventually die, transference allowed the consciousness to live on by inhabiting a new host, essentially resurrecting the Force-sensitive. The Sith therefore viewed transference as a path to immortality. Besides preserving the user's consciousness, the power could also be used to save the lives of others.
Darth Plagueis, a Sith Lord, succeeded in discovering transference, achieving what his predecessors could not. For centuries, Sith Lords had unsuccessfully sought immortality through the dark side, rejecting death as the end of physical existence, a belief held by the Jedi Order. Plagueis was a knowledgeable and potent Dark Lord of the Sith. According to his Sith apprentice, Darth Sidious, his knowledge of the Force was extensive, allowing him to manipulate midi-chlorians to "create life" and prevent death, as his Sith Master could.
Despite his power, Plagueis couldn't prevent his own death using transference. His apprentice, Sidious, killed him in his sleep, exploiting his master's trust to take his place, following Darth Bane's Rule of Two. Plagueis hadn't anticipated this betrayal and didn't have enough time to save his consciousness after his physical death. Sidious, now the Sith Lord, vowed to avoid Plagueis' fate.
Like those before him, Darth Sidious desired eternal life. Determined to escape his master's end, he secretly used his time as Galactic Emperor during the reign to ensure his survival after death. This plan depended on Plagueis' teachings and the loyalty of the Sith Eternal cult. Sidious' Sith cultists experimented on his genetic template at their base on the ancient Sith planet Exegol to create a clone that could replace him if he died. This moment arrived sooner than expected, but he managed to preserve his consciousness. Sensing a trace of the light side of the Force in his apprentice, Darth Vader, Sidious had planned his revival by the time Vader killed him at the Battle of Endor. Vader also died, ending Darth Bane's Sith lineage and fulfilling the prophecy of the Chosen One.
Transference successfully moved Sidious' spirit into the clone body prepared for him on Exegol. This effectively "reborn" the Emperor, even as the Galactic Empire fell at the end of the Galactic Civil War. However, his connection to the dark side was too strong for the new body, causing deformities and forcing him to rely on an Ommin harness for life support.
To preserve Sidious' essence, the Sith Eternal used advanced cloning techniques, like Strand-Casting, to create a more stable host from his template. Despite their skill as cloners after years of experimentation in the dark science laboratory within the Sith Citadel, they couldn't replace the flawed clone that housed his spirit. Sidious considered [Snoke](/article/snoke], a strandcast, an "unworthy vessel," but saw his value as a proxy Supreme Leader for the First Order and a mentor for Vader's grandson, Kylo Ren. Another failed strandcast, partly based on Sidious' template, was his cloned son. This clone was healthy but lacked his father's Force connection.
Sidious despised his son, seeing him as ordinary and useless. However, he recognized the clone's value due to his Palpatine bloodline and allowed him to live until a "genetic heir" could be conceived naturally. The Emperor's son eventually had a daughter, Rey, who inherited her grandfather's powerful Force-sensitivity. Sidious believed his granddaughter was the perfect host to preserve his essence and the Sith legacy because of her strength and heritage. However, her mother and father hid her away to shield her from the Emperor.
Sidious' clone body was nearing complete decay when he announced his return to the galaxy during the First Order-Resistance War. By this time, Rey had reappeared in the greater galaxy after living in isolation on the desert planet Jakku for years. Unaware of her lineage, she joined the Resistance and began learning the Jedi ways from Vader's children, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and Ren's mother, General Leia Organa. While Sidious influenced Kylo Ren's dark-side training as an heir to the Sith through the Final Order, he still saw Rey's body as the ideal vessel because of her power and Palpatine heritage.
Sidious lured Rey to Exegol, urging her to claim the Throne of the Sith as "Empress Palpatine," promising that his spirit would transfer into her once she killed him in hatred. In reality, he intended to transfer his spirit into her body. He performed the transference as a Sith ritual, witnessed by his Sith Eternal followers. The ceremony coincided with the Battle of Exegol. The threat to her allies and the dark side's allure almost made Rey submit, but she resisted with Ben Solo's help, who had turned back to the light and renounced Kylo Ren. Instead of killing Sidious with her lightsaber, as he planned, Rey transferred the Skywalker lightsaber to Solo through their Force-bond, denying Sidious his granddaughter's body.
Although Sidious failed to transfer his consciousness to Rey, he discovered that she and Vader's grandson were connected as a dyad in the Force, a uniquely powerful bond described in the Doctrine of the Dyad. He used the dark side to drain their combined life force, restoring his own strength and healing his decaying clone body. However, he was permanently destroyed, both physically and spiritually, when Rey, aided by Jedi spirits through the Force, reflected his own Force lightning back at him.
Transference was introduced as a Sith ritual in Star Wars canon in the 2019 film Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker, the final installment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. It was first identified in the 2021 reference book Star Wars: The Secrets of the Sith. The ritual was based on Transfer essence, first mentioned in Star Wars Legends in the comic Dark Empire 2, written by Tom Veitch and released on February 18, 1992. It first appeared in Dark Empire 5, authored by Veitch, penciled by Cam Kennedy, and released on August 18, 1992.