Resurrect

at the end of return of the jedi, emperorpalpatine is killed by being thrown into the death star’s reactor. however, in legends, the old star wars timeline,palpatine actually survived this encounter and was able to come back to life in a newphysical body. so how was he able to do this? at some point prior to his death, palpatinelearned the dark side ability called transfer essence. this ability allowed its user to preserveand transfer his or her consciousness into another body or even into an inanimate object.

powerful sith lords of the past used thispower to cheat death, usually by transferring their force spirit into a sith artifact ortomb, forever hunting those who came into contact with them. other sith lords straight up took controlof other people’s bodies, and they were able to continue actively living like thisfor as long as they wanted, by doing the same thing over and over again, whenever theircurrent physical bodies died out. there was a risk though with possessing otherpeople’s bodies, which is if the person being possessed was somehow able to resistand repel the possession, then the sith spirit would be sent into the void, which is basicallythe hell of star wars.

there, the sith spirits would wander aroundforever and go mad from endless torment. a way around this was to create clone bodiesthat didn’t possess a conscious, which is exactly what palpatine did before his firstdeath. when he died, palpatine transferred his forcespirit into a clone body that he had stored on the planet byss. after a successful transfer, he waited torecover and gain his strength back, before revealing himself to the new republic. 6 years later, almost right after thrawn wasdefeated, palpatine would finally come out of the shadows and make his moves in retakingthe galaxy once more.

he deployed newly construed super weaponsthat took the new republic by surprise and devastated their forces. he also kidnapped luke skywalker by teleportinghim using a wormhole to his citadel on byss. when he confronted luke, he tried once againto convince the jedi to join him and rule at his side. although luke dismissed palpatine’s persuasions,he ultimately kneeled down and accepted to be his apprentice, knowing that he wouldn’tbe able to defeat palpatine in a fight at his current state, and that he needed to learnthe secrets of the dark side if he were to ever defeat the sith lord.

palpatine knew that luke was deceiving himfrom the beginning, but he let the jedi continue on. palpatine understood that no matter how hardluke would try, that he would eventually fall to the darkside and become his servant, aswas the story for any jedi that tried to learn the dark side without falling to it. and he was right, as luke eventually succumbedto the darkside and became a willing minion of palpatine. however, palpatine’s gamble on obtainingone of the most powerful force users to his side would eventually backfire, as luke wouldlater be turned back to the lightside with

the help of his sister, leia. back to the lightside and with the new knowledgeof some of the dark side’s secrets, luke fought palpatine and was able to defeat himand lead him to his death. despite this, palpatine was able to keep oncoming back in his new clone bodies that he had stored throughout the galaxy. but that wouldn’t be the case for long. as while palpatine was in spirit form returningback to his clone bodies, two of his dark side students betrayed him and proceeded todestroy all of his remaining clone bodies. but their plot was foiled and they both wereexecuted, with palpatine being able to return

in the last surviving clone body. this proved to be a major blow to the sithlord, as earlier another traitor within his ranks sabotaged his clone templates, preventinghim from producing any more viable clone bodies for him to use. and because of how consumed in the dark sidehe was, the dark side itself was literally eating away his physical body, making himweak and old. desperate to be healed, palpatine went tokorriban and asked for guidance from the ancient spirits of past sith. they told him to possess leia’s newbornson, anakin solo, and take his body for himself,

and to have his loyal dark side adepts protecthim while he grew into a full adult. with no other options left, palpatine agreedand began to make preparations. when the time came, he confronted the soloswith their newborn and attempted to kidnap him. but they, with the help of luke and a fewother jedi, were able to prevent this. during the struggle, palpatine was shot andkilled by han solo, forcing the sith lord to release his spirit from his body. with a last ditch attempt to come back tolife, palpatine moved his spirit towards anakin solo, but was blocked when jedi knight brandsacrificed himself and forced the spirit into

his own body. having palpatine’s spirit within him, thedarkness itself ate away brand’s body, causing him to die shortly after. when he died, he was able to force palpatine'sspirit to be captured by every other jedi who had become one with the force when theydied. they all kept palpatine’s spirit in a prisonand never allowed him to resurrect himself back ever again. and that’s how palpatine’s story endedin star wars legends.

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