Legends Lore Notes

Palpatine's Possible Lover

In this chapter I have introduced a character, who is a canon character, but didn't have much time on screen and didn't appear at all in the 2008 The Clone Wars show. I'm talking about Sly Moore, once Senior Administrative Aide to Chancellor Palpatine, then "Queen of the Empire", that's her sobriquet.

She made her first appearance in the Attack of the Clones and then in the Revenge of the Sith, usually standing atop the Chancellor's Podium opposite Vice Chancellor Mas Amedda during sessions of the Galactic Senate. However, she did not appear in the tv show, as her place was left empty during the sessions.

Sly Moore is a female Force-sensitive hailing from Umbara. However, she was not inducted into the Jedi Order, for she was abducted from her home planet by Darth Maul under the orders of his master, Darth Sidious. She was imprisoned for months in an ancient tomb in the Cron Drift, where she was mentally and spiritually assaulted by long-dead Sith Lords on a daily basis. Only her natural strength of will kept her from losing her sanity. After surviving such rigorous trials, she was rescued by Darth Sidious and nursed back to health.

Sidious, back then known as Senator Palpatine of Naboo, cared for Sly and educated her in politics, forming a close bond over years. The trust between Moore and Palpatine was so strong, that in the end the Sith Lord revealed his true identity. Over time, Sidious let Moore in on the Sith Grand Plan to topple the Jedi Order and bring peace to the galaxy. Vowing eternal loyalty, Moore went on to become one of Senator Palpatine's most trusted aides in the Senate. Once Palpatine became Chancellor during the Crisis on Naboo, Sly Moore became his Senior Administrative Aide.

When the Galactic Empire was formed after the Clone Wars, Moore was appointed one of the first members of Palpatine's Imperial Ruling Council. She was appointed to oversee the culling and training of captured padawans and Jedi Service Corps members. Torturing the captives and pitting them against one another, Moore and Sarcev Quest, another servant of Palpatine, attempted to convert the acolytes of the Jedi Order into slaves of the Dark Side. Moore thrived during the first year of the Empire, developing a cold rivalry with the jealous Grand Inquisitor Malorum.

There were numerous rumours that Sly Moore was Palpatine's lover. Not only among the population of the galaxy far-far away, but also among the Star Wars fans. The main reason for this is that in the opera scene in the Revenge of the Sith, it can be seen that Palpatine and Sly Moore were laughing before Anakin Skywalker joined them. Due to the rumours of this, Moore gained the sobriquet "Queen of the Empire", and she became a popular, glamorized figure even as her public appearances became rarer and rarer.

The Great Temple on Korriban

The main setting of this chapter is the Great Temple, a mausoleum located in the Valley of the Dark Lords, where the remains of the most honoured Dark Lords of the Sith were interred. Some of them, such as Darth Nihilus and Darth Andeddu, lived millennia ago, during the time of the Old Republic.

A massive structure built of stone by the Sith, the Great Temple towered over other structures, with the bodies of the many deceased Sith Lords, all of which remained untouched by time, preserved by their own power in the Dark Side. Tuk'ata hounds prowled the interior of the temple, and served as guardians against tomb-raiders and grave-robbers.

The Temple would be once explored by Darth Sidious, as he saw to the preparation of a tomb for his apprentice Darth Vader within the Temple; Vader would never occupy it as he died embracing his Jedi heritage on the forest moon of Endor.

Darth Andeddu and Darth Nihilus

Aside from Darth Bane and other Sith lords such as Darth Malgus from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, two Sith lords were introduced; Darth Andeddu and Darth Nihilus.

Darth Nihilus was a Human male who reigned as a Dark Lord of the Sith during the era of strife following the Jedi Civil War. Before becoming a Sith Lord, he lost everything during the Galactic Republic's war against the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders. He survived the activation of the Mass Shadow Generator superweapon during the war's final battle at the planet of Malachor V, which surrounded the planet with a destructive spatial phenomenon known as a mass shadow. Experiencing the shadow that obliterated almost everything on and around the planet made Nihilus crave Force energy. The affliction painfully ravaged his body while rendering him a wound in the Force. He was found by a seeker of these, the former Jedi Kreia, who became the Sith Lord Darth Traya and told him that she could teach him to feed his endless hunger. He accepted her offer of apprenticeship at the Trayus Academy on Malachor V, where he, over time, became one of three concurrent Dark Lords of the Sith.

Together, they formed a triumvirate with Darth Traya at its head and her other apprentice, Darth Sion, as the third member. The trio chose individual titles for themselves, Darth Nihilus becoming the Lord of Hunger. The apprentices grew in strength throughout their training and eventually overpowered their Master. Sion defeated Traya, while Nihilus sapped her energy. The two Sith then combined power to sever her connection to the Force and sent her into exile. Nihilus' affliction developed to the point where the Dark Lord was forced to call upon the dark side of the Force to encase his spirit within his mask and armor to stay alive. He and Sion then began a Jedi purge, causing the virtual extinction of the Jedi Order. Nihilus was responsible for the devastation of the planet Katarr in 3952 BBY, killing and absorbing the Force energy of the Jedi at the Conclave on Katarr along with every other living thing on the world save one Miraluka woman named Visas Marr. Marr was collected from the surface and Nihilus began to train her as his Shadow Hand.

One year later, Nihilus sensed a growing presence in the Force and sent Marr out to eliminate it. That presence was a woman exiled from the Jedi Order, Meetra Surik, who was on a quest to find the few Jedi Masters who had survived the Purge with the aid of Darth Traya, who had put away her Sith trappings and identified herself once more as Kreia. When Marr attempted to assassinate Surik, the exiled Jedi defeated her and convinced her to turn to the light side of the Force in the process. Although Nihilus returned to lurking the fringes of known space, he was eventually tricked by Kreia into initiating the Battle of Telos IV in an attempt to absorb a Jedi Academy that lacked any Force-sensitives aside from the headmistress. Nihilus met a large Republic and Mandalorian fleet at Telos IV that distracted him. Meanwhile, his flagship, the Ravager, was secretly boarded by a small force consisting of Surik, Marr, Mandalore the Preserver, and his Mandalorians. The trio confronted and slew Nihilus in the ensuing duel while the Mandalorians rigged explosives that destroyed the ship. The Sith Lord's armor maintained his spirit and was collected for burial on the Sith homeworld of Korriban, where his soul could be contacted with a holocron of his own creation.

Darth Andeddu, also referred to as the Immortal God-King of Prakith, was an ancient humanoid male who reigned as Dark Lord of the Sith and was dubiously thought of as the forebear of the "Darth" title. A paranoid man, Andeddu believed that his subordinate Sith Lords—whom he regarded as his enemies—wanted to claim his vast collection of Sith lore and ritual for themselves. He was eventually betrayed and overthrown by his followers, forcing him to flee the planet Korriban for the Deep Core. Andeddu made the world of Prakith his domain where he ruled for centuries as a deity until his physical demise, at which time he entombed himself in an attempt to deprive his pursuers of the power they sought to steal. Prior to his physical death, Andeddu stored all of his wisdom within a holocron which also contained his most arcane secret: the ability to cheat death by transferring one's essence into another vessel. A Sith cult founded by Lord Andeddu called the "Malevolence" constructed a temple in reverence of their Dark Lord and guarded the fortress for generations in anticipation of the God-King's return.

The legend of Darth Andeddu and his incredible powers remained at large long after his death, and the Jedi Order even attempted to erase all knowledge and reference of the Dark Lord from galactic record. Despite their best efforts, whispers of Andeddu's existence still remained prevalent. His holocron survived as well—first uncovered by fallen Jedi Freedon Nadd, next by the Sith Lord Darth Bane on Prakith in 980 BBY, then rediscovered by Darth Tyranus on Korriban in 21 BBY, and later recovered by Darth Krayt and his One Sith Order more than a century later. Krayt, who suffered from a Yuuzhan Vong slave seed infestation that threatened to leave him bereft of sentience, allowed his lieutenant Darth Wyyrlok III to access Andeddu's holocron in search of possible solutions. The device led the Chagrian Sith on a journey to Andeddu's Keep on Prakith, where he encountered and defeated the Malevolence cultists, but in doing so, he revived the ancient body of Darth Andeddu. The Dark Lord then dueled Wyyrlok on a battlefield of the mind, a contest which ultimately resulted in Andeddu's demise. His corpse was resealed within the tomb that had housed it for countless millennia, and his collection of Sith doctrines was pillaged by Wyyrlok, who hoped to obtain a viable means of ending Darth Krayt's plight.

Dooku's Dark Acolytes

In Legends, Dark Acolytes, also known as a dark side apprentices, were dark side adepts that joined the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars, which was led by the Head of State Count Dooku. We all know one such Dark Acolyte; Assajj Ventress.

Gathered and recruited by Count of Serenno Dooku, who was secretly the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Tyranus, the Dark Acolytes were apart of military and functioned as anything from assassins to spies to civilian commanders, depending on individual vocations, but all operated first and foremost as the Dark Lord's enforcers. Most of the members would become casualties of the war, and eventually even Tyranus was killed during the Battle of Coruscant.

Assajj Ventress

Assajj Ventress was arguably the most prominent member of the Dark Acolytes, even receiving an introduction to Darth Tyranus's own Sith Master, Darth Sidious. A Dathomirian sold to Rattataki slavers, Ventress became a powerful warlord on the blood-soaked world. When Tyranus arrived onplanet during the weeks following the beginning of the Clone Wars, Ventress challenged him, impressing him with her lightsaber skills despite being soundly beaten. After becoming one of the Dark Lord's top lieutenants, she operated primarily as a commander and even an administrator.

Kadrian Sey

When the Clone Wars began, the Jedi Kadrian Sey essentially vanished, failing to report to Coruscant following the Battle of Geonosis. One of Darth Tyranus' earliest known recruits, Sey served as a personal bodyguard for the Dark Lord, alongside Tol Skorr. She and Skorr enjoyed a tense relationship, being set against one another by Tyranus, but both would unite against a perceived threat to their position.

Savage Opress

Effectively recruited as a replacement for Assajj Ventress after Darth Sidious ordered her execution, Savage Opress was a Zabrak born into the Dathomiri Nightbrothers, essentially as a slave to the Nightsisters. Reinforced by Nightsister "Shadow Magic", Opress was presented to Darth Tyranus ostensibly as a new apprentice, but in truth as an agent of the vengeful Assajj Ventress. Opress' initial assignment was the seizure of the Devaron Temple of Eedit, a task Opress completed with brutal efficiency. Greatly satisfied with Opress, Tyranus immediately took him under his wing, training him as a true Sith apprentice, believing they could one day rival Sidious.

Sora Bulq

Thought dead during the Battle of Geonosis, the Jedi Master Sora Bulq emerged accompanying Jedi Master Tholme to Bakura. There, they both confronted Darth Tyranus, himself having just fled Geonosis and fresh from an engagement with Yoda. Despite the advanced skills of both Jedi, they were overcome. Taken and treated for his injuries by Tyranus, Bulq was swayed to his cause and recruited into the Acolytes. He rescued the wounded Tholme and returned to the Jedi Temple as an enemy operative and was tasked with creating a schism within the Jedi Order. The scheme was exposed by Jedi Master Mace Windu, squandering Bulq's potential as a double-agent, though this allowed him to become one of the most prominent and capable of the Dark Acolytes. Sora Bulq was made secondary leader of the Dark Acolytes shortly afterwards. He was often at Tyranus' side during the war, acting as bodyguard and advisor, though he was occasionally trusted with high-level administration and government positions.

Tol Skorr

A former Jedi, and whom Aubrie beat up, Tol Skorr was shot down by pirates above Korriban, but was rescued by Tyranus. Developing a strong loyalty to his savior, Skorr followed Tyranus unquestioningly ever since, even leaving the Jedi Order and defecting to the Confederacy. A faithful acolyte, Skorr served primarily as one of Tyranus' bodyguards, alongside Kadrian Sey. Set against one another by the Dark Lord, the two enjoyed a tense relationship, though as Jedi Master Tholme noted, they would unite against a perceived threat to their positions.