Darth Plagueis the Wise: Master of Darth Sidious

1. Who is Darth Plagueis?

Darth Plagueis was a Force-user Muun male Dark Lord of the Sith who mentored both “the Stranger” and Darth Sidious. Known for his insatiable thirst for immortality, Plagueis believed that the key to eternal life lay in scientific pursuit. He dedicated his life to researching bioengineering alongside his apprentice, Darth Sidious, and conducted groundbreaking experiments in manipulating midi-chlorians to create life itself.

Through his relentless studies, Plagueis amassed an impressive wealth of knowledge about the Force. However, his pursuit of power ultimately led to his downfall. In a twist of fate that adhered to the Sith’s Rule of Two, Plagueis met his end at the hands of his own apprentice, betrayed and murdered when he least expected it.

The tale of Plagueis’ demise would later be used by Sidious as a tool to lure Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker to the dark side of the Force. In recounting the story, Sidious referred to his fallen master as “Darth Plagueis the Wise,” a title that spoke to the Sith Lord’s vast knowledge and abilities.

Even after his own death, Sidious utilized the teachings of his master to cheat death itself. However, the cycle of apprentice surpassing master would continue, as Sidious was ultimately and permanently destroyed by his own granddaughter, Rey.

2. Who Trained Darth Plagueis, and How Did He Start His Sith Journey?

Darth Plagueis received his training from Sith Master Darth Tenebrous. During his lifetime, Plagueis acquired the protocol droid 11-4D, which would serve him faithfully. As he delved deeper into the mysteries of the Force, Plagueis accumulated vast knowledge about the dark side and its teachings, setting him apart from his predecessors.

During the High Republic Era, Plagueis began working actively against the Jedi. By 132 BBY, he had taken on a former Jedi known only as “the Stranger” as his Sith apprentice. That year, Plagueis was on an island on the Stranger’s home planet, lurking in the shadows of the Stranger’s cave abode. He observed as the Stranger and the former Jedi Padawan Verosha Aniseya, whom the Stranger would later take on as a Sith acolyte, departed from the planet in their ship, Exile II.

3. How Did Darth Plagueis Choose and Train Darth Sidious as His Apprentice?

The exact moment when Plagueis took on his new Sith apprentice remains unknown, but he eventually selected Sheev Palpatine, a human from Naboo, as his pupil. As master and disciple, Plagueis and Palpatine—who adopted the Sith name Darth Sidious—collaborated for years. Their goals were twofold: to unlock the secrets of immortality, which Plagueis deeply desired, and to implement the Sith Order’s long-standing plan to overthrow the Galactic Republic and establish a new Sith Empire.

During Sidious’ training, Plagueis emphasized the importance of the Rule of Two, teaching that two Sith were essential for their perilous machinations. He proposed that by working in tandem, with one serving as bait for the dark side of the Force and the other as a vessel, they could harness the full power of the dark side and rule immortally for ten millennia. It was during this period of apprenticeship that Sidious constructed his own lightsabers under Plagueis’ guidance.

Plagueis, convinced that the key to immortality lay in science, delved into the biological foundations of life. His research included unnatural experiments, such as manipulating midi-chlorians to cheat death—a pursuit that, while incomplete, showed promise to his apprentice.

The Sith Order had long sought the ability to live forever, rejecting the Jedi Order’s belief that death was a natural part of life. Yet, despite centuries of effort, generations of Sith Lords failed to unlock the secret of eternal life. Plagueis became so obsessed with this quest that he overlooked the troubling progress of his “faithful apprentice.”

In Darth Sidious’s book, The Secrets of the Sith, it is revealed that Darth Plagueis discovered a form of immortality through transference, a Force power that enabled the user to move their consciousness into another body, using it as a vessel. Plagueis also attempted to create a Force dyad with Sidious—a powerful Force bond as strong as life itself and considered the precursor to the Rule of Two—but he ultimately failed in this endeavor.

Plagueis orchestrated his apprentice’s rise to power by arranging for Palpatine to become the Senator of Naboo and the Chommell sector, a position Palpatine secured in 52 BBY.

At the time Sidious, under the guise of Sheev Palpatine, was appointed to the Galactic Senate as Naboo’s Senator, Plagueis continued to mentor him. This guidance allowed Palpatine to hone his political skills, following the plan his master had envisioned for him, before they returned to Coruscant.

4. Darth Plagueis’s Death

According to Sidious, Darth Plagueis possessed the power to influence the midi-chlorians to create life and prevent the death of those he cared about, earning him the epithet “the Wise.” However, Plagueis also developed a belief that the Force could retaliate against him for his immense power. In reality, he had grown so powerful that his only remaining fear was the loss of that power.

Plagueis’s greatest fear was destined to come true. At some point, Sidious had learned all he needed from his distracted master, and, deciding that Plagueis was no longer of use, he resolved to eliminate him.

Following the Rule of Two, Sidious broke into his master’s apartment and coldly murdered Plagueis in his sleep, seizing the title of Sith Master for himself. As Sidious later remarked, Plagueis failed to act quickly enough to save his own life.

Around the time of Plagueis’s death, Sidious also acquired his own apprentice, Darth Maul, the son of Nightsister Mother Talzin. Maul, a young Dathomirian Zabrak, had been given to Sidious by Talzin when he was just a child.

5. What Impact Did Darth Plagueis’s Teachings Have on the Galaxy?

5.1 How Did Darth Sidious Use Darth Plagueis’s Knowledge to Rise as Emperor?

Sidious achieved his rise as a Dark Lord of the Sith by killing Plagueis, following the Sith Order’s tradition where the apprentice completes their dark-side training by eliminating their master. Plagueis’s legacy lived on through Sidious; with Plagueis’s death, Sidious not only attained the status of Sith Master but also acquired 11-4D, the multi-limbed assistant of the late Sith Lord. Additionally, Sidious inherited Plagueis’s research—an in-depth study of the biological foundations of life aimed at discovering how to cheat death.

Plagueis’s death served as a lesson to the apprentice who betrayed him. Sidious viewed his master’s trust as a fatal error, one he vowed never to repeat. During the Clone Wars, Sidious was aware that his second apprentice, Darth Tyranus, was plotting to overthrow him. Sensing Tyranus’s impending betrayal, Sidious orchestrated his student’s demise at the hands of his intended replacement, the Jedi Knight and prophesied Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker.

5.2 How did Darth Plagueis’s Teachings Influence Sidious’s Actions and Ambitions?

In the final days of the Republic, Sidious recounted the story of his late master to Anakin Skywalker, whom he had befriended years before the Clone Wars as part of a gradual effort to lure him to the dark side of the Force. Unaware that his friend was a Sith Lord, Skywalker, troubled by premonitions of his secret wife’s death during childbirth, became intrigued by Plagueis’s ability to prevent death. This fear of loss ultimately drove Skywalker to betray the Jedi Order, transforming him into the Sith Lord Darth Vader.

With Skywalker’s fall, Sidious reformed the Republic into the Galactic Empire and declared himself Emperor. Simultaneously, he enacted Order 66, leading to the systematic extermination of Jedi across the galaxy, thereby fulfilling the Sith’s millennia-long plan.

One of the few Jedi to survive was a Padawan named Ferren Barr, who began investigating the rapid downfall of the Jedi. In his research, Barr discovered Plagueis’s existence and included him in a list of key figures linked to the crisis. In the years following his rise to power, Sidious came to appreciate Plagueis, albeit posthumously, recognizing him as a brilliant planner and prophet.

Occasionally, Sidious would reflect on how his late master might have reacted to the mundane aspects of Imperial politics, noting that Plagueis had never anticipated Sidious’s ascent to Emperor. Sidious craved not only the immortality that his master had sought and, to some extent, achieved but also the power to reshape the universe to his own design, ensuring that the Force could never “strike back.”

Plagueis’s failure to form a dyad with his apprentice convinced Sidious that his master was unworthy of the task. However, Sidious himself also failed to create a dyad with his own disciple, Vader, despite their combined power as descendants of the two most potent Force-sensitive bloodlines, the Palpatines and the Skywalkers.

In 3 ABY, cultists exploring the catacombs beneath the Sith Citadel on the secret Sith world of Exegol—over which Palpatine had taken control—chanted Plagueis’s name alongside those of other Sith Lords.

5.3 What Was the Role of Darth Plagueis’s Research in Sidious’s Resurrection?

During the Battle of Endor, Sidious was killed by a redeemed Anakin Skywalker, who returned to the light side and threw Sidious down a reactor shaft to save his son, Luke Skywalker. However, as Sidious fell, he recalled that he had prepared for such a scenario, unlike his former master, Plagueis. Drawing on the full power of the dark side, he projected his consciousness into a cloned body created by the Sith Eternal on the secret Sith world of Exegol.

Utilizing the immortality secrets of Plagueis and his own research blending Sith sorcery and technology, Sidious was able to resurrect his spirit in a new vessel. Although this allowed him to stave off death temporarily, true immortality remained out of reach. The transfer was flawed; upon awakening in the cloned body, Sidious found himself in a painful, decaying form that struggled to contain his immense dark side power, pushing him toward permanent death. This led Sidious to reflect that Plagueis might have had the last laugh, as retribution for his own demise.

Years later, during the final stages of the war between the First Order and the Resistance, Sidious’ granddaughter, Rey, tracked him to Exegol as the Resistance and the Sith Eternal prepared for their final battle. Before a redeemed Ben Solo arrived to aid her, Sidious urged Rey to strike him down, just as he had done to Plagueis, allowing her to glean the knowledge of his resurrection through Plagueis’ teachings. Ultimately, Rey drew upon the voices and power of past Jedi to destroy Sidious and the Sith for good.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Exegol, the Exegol Excavation Project was initiated to unearth the Sith Citadel. Led by Beaumont Kin, this archaeological effort uncovered a defaced file on Darth Plagueis within the Arcane Library. Despite the damage, the information within helped bring to light the existence of Plagueis and contributed to constructing a partial hierarchy of known Sith Lords.

6. What Defined Darth Plagueis’s Personality and Vision?

Darth Plagueis was a wise Dark Lord of the Sith, renowned for his extensive knowledge of the dark side of the Force. A Muun with striking orange eyes, he was a meticulous planner, dedicated to achieving the Sith’s ultimate goal of replacing the Galactic Republic with a Sith Empire. However, his immense power also bred paranoia, as he feared the Force might “strike back.”

Obsessed with achieving immortality, Plagueis sought to uncover the secrets of eternal life, aspiring to rule the galaxy alongside his apprentice, Darth Sidious, for thousands of years. He believed that the key to cheating death lay in scientific discovery, viewing his quest as a subversion of the natural order and a manipulation of the universe and the will of the Force.

Although Plagueis grew increasingly fearful of losing his power, he never anticipated that his apprentice would be the one to bring about his downfall. Trusting and underestimating Sidious, Plagueis was ultimately betrayed and murdered when he least expected it. While Plagueis did not live to realize his ambitions, Sidious managed to survive his own death through an imperfect transfer of consciousness, leading him to wonder if Plagueis, in the end, had the last laugh.

7. What Were Darth Plagueis’s Most Formidable Force Abilities?

Darth Plagueis possessed formidable Force abilities. According to Darth Sidious, Darth Plagueis could manipulate the midi-chlorians through the Force to create life, a rare and extraordinary ability.

This power, possessed by only a few Force-sensitive individuals, could even be used by certain Sith Lords to extend life or cheat death. Using this skill, Plagueis conducted unnatural experiments in his pursuit of immortality. His deep knowledge of the dark side of the Force also enabled him to prevent the death of those he cared about.

Plagueis focused on achieving immortality through scientific exploration and the biological foundations of life. He eventually discovered a method to transfer his consciousness into another body, using it as a vessel to continue his existence. This technique was later employed by his apprentice, Darth Sidious, who survived his first death through this process—though the transfer was imperfect.

Plagueis may have possessed the ability to see into the future, as Sidious later reflected on his master’s prophetic insight. However, what Plagueis failed to foresee was his apprentice’s eventual rise to power.

External Sources

• Darth Plagueis | Wookieepedia – Fandom
• Darth Plagueis | Wikipedia
• Darth Plagueis – The Acolyte | Star Wars Databank

---