Dark Empire
From Open Encyclopedia
Dark Empire was a comic series produced by Dark Horse Comics set in the Star Wars galaxy. The full story is told in a three part cycle. The comics were written by Tom Veitch and drawn by Cam Kennedy (Dark Empire and Dark Empire II) and Jim Baikie (Empire's End).
Contents |
Entries
- Dark Empire, trade paperback, 1993. Tom Veitch, ISBN 1-569-71073-2
- Dark Empire II, trade paperback, 1st edition, 1995. Tom Veitch, ISBN 1-56971-119-4
- Empire's End, trade paperback, 1997. Tom Veitch, ISBN 1-569-71306-5
Story
In Dark Empire, which is set shortly after Timothy Zahn's trilogy featuring Grand Admiral Thrawn, Palpatine returns from the dead in the form of a spiritually-possessed clone body and successfully turns Luke Skywalker to the dark side of the Force. Palpatine is killed many times throughout the series, always returning in a new clone body. However, he meets his "final death" at the end of the series. Luke is turned back to the light side by his sister, Princess Leia.
Dark Empire is notable in that it revealed that Boba Fett, who had supposedly "died" after being swallowed by the Sarlacc in Return of the Jedi, actually survived. It is also the first appearance of Anakin Solo.
Plot
Prelude
Before the Thrawn Crisis, Imperial Forces were torn by civil war and harassed by Rebel attacks, who used captured Imperial Star Destroyers to sow further dissension among their ranks, and cherry-picked sectors: some sectors and systems fell peaceably, un-noticed by the Imperials in the chaotic communications and bureaucratic turmoil. Others did not- it was the Imperial forces fighting to the death under Lord Shadowspawn that finally made Luke Skywalker resign his commission as General for the Rebel Alliance. But in the chaos lurked a certain perverse order: some Imperials died, or seemed to (see Sate Pestage for an example of this); still others simply disappeared Coreward and never returned; a possible compromise between the New Republic and the Empire, in which the New Republic would accept Palpatine's last relative, a grandniece named Ederlathh Pallopides, as a constitutional monarch—a plan which failed when the broker, Admiral Betl Oxtroe, died at the hands of a Noghri assassin. The Noghri never said who ordered him to kill the admiral. Around the time of Thrawn, the gradual Coreward-sucking trend had to grown to such magnitude that its effects grew noticeable; why else did Thrawn go to such great lengths to procure the antiquated Katana Fleet, if not because so many Star Destroyers were locked up in fortress systems, or in the Deep Core where Thrawn's writ did not hold? Further, despite the desperate need for war materiel and funds and regular capital starships of the line, Kuat Drive Yards never seemed to halt construction on the successor to the monster Executor-class Star Destroyers, the Eclipse-class, the prototype of which would be dubbed simply Eclipse. Orders were sometimes given, but they were never obeyed, and the issuers never tried a second time.
It was into this chaos that a number of messages came over the HoloNet to the ministers and Moffs bickering over succession to the throne. The codes were genuine, and extremely high-level; there was no question they had originated with a Grand Admiral, who revealed himself to be a certain Thrawn. Given his status as a war-hero (having notably defeated, among others, Grand Admiral Zaarin's attempted coup), the Imperials rallied behind him. During the Thrawn Crisis, the New Republic was too busy fighting for its life, and Thrawn apparently too busy prosecuting his campaign, to take any notice of these or many other series of troubling anomalies. Thrawn was a genius, however, and close to Palpatine before Palpatine dispatched him to conquer and unify the Unknown Regions. So as to whether Thrawn knew he was being used as a red herring by Palpatine to cover up the evidence of his return and his machinations (similar in scope and complexity to the ones by which he orchestrated the Clone Wars and became Emperor) is ultimately unanswerable.
"The Mutiny/The Time of Destruction" (10 ABY)
After the Emperor's death, the varied factions of the Empire had regained enough territory from the Republic that a "falling out among thieves" occurred. Tragically, this "Imperial Mutiny" occurred right after what would have been Thrawn's greatest success had he lived past the Battle of Bilbringi: a combined fleet assault of great puissance attacked Coruscant, sweeping the Republic (now reduced to the Rebel Alliance again) out of the capital planet. The Mutiny began from talks among the former Imperial Advisors to Palpatine (who had arranged for Sate Pestage, chief among their ranks, to appear to be killed when he refused to yield Palpatine's personal records which might indicate even passingly Palpatine's wishes for the succession, and retire to Byss), it was proposed by a number of Advisors like Ars Dangor that they simply have a secret election of one of their number in the old Galactic Senate on who would succeed Palpatine. The rest of the Advisors would then constitute a new Senate. The Moffs and Grand Moffs of the Imperial coalition agreed to this proposal, but insisted that they be allowed votes, and vote in proportion to the number of inhabited worlds they control. Unsurprisingly, the Advisors declined. And of course, COMPNOR and the Imperial Inquisitors were upset at being left out completely of the deliberations. They expressed their displeasure in various ways, in demands for ideological litmus tests and a number of purges and show trials, respectively.
None of this involved the Imperial Starfleet or Army in the process, who proceeded the demand that they be allowed to appoint a new Grand Admiral and finish off the Rebels. Backed up by regional forces and Moff-assigned fleets, as well as the military forces COMPNOR had built up, the Moffs and Advisors and COMPNOR and the Inquisitorius refused to allow the military any say.
With all this tension, war exploded among multiple factions, including Imperial Intelligence and its equally large and competent adversary, the Imperial Security Bureau (astoundingly, each assassinated the other's operatives and agents routinely, even going so far as to publish hitlists of the other's personnel).
Entire worlds were glassed by orbital bombardment, and Coruscant became the focus, ravaged by multiple forces, all fighting each other and ravaging the civilian populace. The multifarious nature of the conflict earned it as many names: generally, "The Mutiny," or "Rebellion" or "The Galactic Civil War" (ignoring the Rebel Alliance), or even most bizaarely, "The War of Purification" (by COMPNOR). Some merely described it by naming it "The Time of Destruction."
The mutual orgies of destruction eventually came to an end when the combatants wearied themselves out, and Palpatine began cleaning up the debris with agents like Lord Cronal, testing the survivors for loyalty and eliminating the incapable or disloyal.
Dark Empire I
- "And now, my young apprentice... Your father is dead. Have you come to join me? Will you take the place that rightfully belongs to you- at my side." -Palpatine
During the Mutiny, the Rebel Alliance sought to weaken the factions as much as possible by surreptitiously entering systems and battles with captured Star Destroyers broadcasting falsified signals, and provoking attacks by one group against another.
On one of these raids to the Coruscant system, in the Star Destroyer Liberator (formerly the HIMS Adjudicator), an Imperial-class Star Destroyer captured at the Battle of Endor and, over a five-year period, repaired and beefed-up for covert missions; its sister ship, the Emancipator (originally the Accuser) would have better luck in its initial missions, destroying the Allegiance in the Battle of Calamari, where it was then devoured by the World Devastator Silencer-7 )- they emerged into the Coruscant system, where three Star Destroyers demanded novel and unusual codes for clearance. The codes the Alliance had stolen or bartered with slicers for did not work, and Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian were shot down over the former Imperial City. They should have perished, but in a curious parallel to the opening of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Luke, like his father, managed to successfully land the gargantuan vessel without too many casualties on the surface of Coruscant. For the next several days, Luke and Lando and their forces hid and fought Imperial forces.
When the news reached Han Solo and Leia Organa, they rushed to the rescue along with Wookiee Chewbacca and droid C-3PO. But while they arrived in the nick of time to rescue Lando and the crew of the Liberator,they were too late to save Luke, as the Reborn Emperor had initiated Operation Shadow Hand, his master plan to retake the galaxy, destroy the Rebel Alliance, and ensure that another rebellion could never occur again. The first step required that he replace Anakin Skywalker's place at his side- preferably with his son. Palpatine had had several years to continue studying the Dark side, in a healthy and strong clone body, and he had made considerable progress: uniquely among all Sith or Jedi, he was capable of calling and commanding "Force storms", destructive distortions in the very fabric of space-time. Across the interstellar distances, he conjured a small Force storm around Skywalker on Coruscant, which transported him into an Imperial dungeon ship.
This blow to the Alliance was followed up by the initial phase of Operation Shadow Hand: fleets of World Devastators, brainchildren of Umak Leth, machines which destroyed everything in their path, plunging them into vast furnaces which produced weapons and items which could repair or build new World Devastators. The first target Palpatine selected, for their long and steadfast support of the Rebellion, is the planet Mon Calamari.
The recently rescued Lando and his crew were dispatched aboard the Emancipator to fight a holding action while the main Rebel fleets assembled. At this time, Luke Skywalker had reached Byss. There he met face-to-face with the Emperor Reborn; Skywalker's attempt at killing him was thwarted when Palpatine revealed that his vigorous fresh clone body was even more skilled at lightsaber combat than was Luke himself. Faced with an impossible situation, and deeply impressed by the power of the Emperor, his charismatic presence, his undoubted genius and deep knowledge of both sides of the Force, Luke acquiesced to becoming his apprentice. At this time, R2-D2 is modified to carry the Master Signal for the World Devastators.
With Luke gone, Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo have gone to Nar Shaddaa, pursuing rumors of an old Jedi Master named Vima-da-boda. Betrayed by their friends (Mako Spince), and pursued by the bounty hunter Boba Fett (long thought dead, eaten by the Sarlacc during the events of Return of the Jedi), Han and Leia try to escape from Nar Shaddaa. Meanwhile, the Rebels in combat over the planet Mon Calamari receive aid from an unexpected source, and Luke falls deeper into the grip of the Dark Side. Captured by the Emperor, Leia discovers that he holds hostage an even greater treasure: a mysterious and intelligent artifact called the Jedi Holocron, which the Emperor had stolen during the Great Jedi Purge from Ashka Boda. With both the Holocron and Luke Skywalker under his control, the Emperor would appear to reign supreme in the Force.
Meanwhile, on Mon Calamari, the Devestators were still invincible. Luckily, Luke managed to install a code into R2's memory banks to shut down the Devastators. Though the great war machines were down, their crew somehow powered up the factories until control was restored. But R2 created a new code to make the Devastators recycle each other.
Unfortunately, this was only half of the Emperor's plan. Great new fleet of the Empire were spreading across the Galactic core and soon the entire galaxy would fall under the sway of the dark side.
Luke traveled with the Emperor to capture his sister, aboard the recently completed and christened flagship, the Eclipse. Prior to the Eclipse's arrival, the Holocron Leia stole from the Emperor delivered a thousand-year-old prophecy to Leia, which tells of her battle against the young Emperor: "...A brother and sister born to walk the sky/But reckless brother falls-into dark side's eye!/Jedi sister carries hope for future in her womb/Only SHE can save the Skywalkers from certain doom!/A Jedi-killer wants to tame her/Now the Dark Side lord comes to claim her/She must battle join against this thief/Or the dynasty of ALL the Jedi will come to grief." It was Leia who was the one who boarded the Emperor's Eclipse-class Super Star Destroyer during its assault on the Pinnacle Moon of Da Soocha. It was she who appealed to the goodness inside Luke, redeeming him, and them both who assaulted Palpatine with the Light side of the Force, cutting him off from the Dark side and control of the titanic Force-storm he had exerted himself to the utmost to conjure, intending to utterly obliterate the Rebel Alliance fleet. The end result was the complete destruction of the Eclipse I and Palpatine (supposedly, though his spirit escaped to fight another day).
Dark Empire II
With the defeat and "death" of the Emperor, and with the blunting of the threat of the World Devastators, hammer of Operation Shadow Hand, the Empire has retreated and lies quiescent. In this period of relative peace, Luke Skywalker has begun the preliminary operations to restore the Jedi Order. With the recently redeemed Dark Jedi Kam Solusar, Luke travels to the planet Ossus, where the Jedi holocron stolen from the Emperor claims that large caches of ancient Jedi artifacts and documents remain intact.
Solo and Leia depart as well, back to Nar Shaddaa. They hope to track down Vima-Da-Boda, and draw upon her ancient knowledge. In the Empire, the Dark Side Elite has not been idle: on Byss, the Executor Sedriss, returned from an inconclusive battle against the revolting industrial planet Balmorra (in which Sedriss secured a number of X-1 Viper war droids from the Empire to reverse-engineer and study), discovered the Dark side adepts Nefta and Sa-Di killing the remaining clones of Palpatine. Slaying them for their treason, Sedriss discovers that their killings had been futile: the Emperor had already been reborn, exceeding everyone's expectations. Upon his return, the Emperor ordered Operation Shadowhand re-commenced.
On Nar Shaddaa, Boba Fett discovered the Solos after they had escaped the Imperial Star Destroyer and the Blackhole/Imperial stormtoopers led by two of the Dark Side Elite, Zasm Katth and Baddon Fass. They had fled to the underworld of the Smuggler's Moon after their initial haven, the hidden repair center ran by Shug Ninx, was taken over by storm troopers. Confronted by an array of bounty hunters like a clan of Gank killers, and the news that the Hutt clans had doubled the bounty on them, they had little choice but to leave the moon- where Boba Fett had patiently waited for the Millennium Falcon to take off. Their second attempt at penetrating the depths had greater luck; they had just found Vima-Da-Boda when Fett attacked. His assault was defeated when Chewbacca ignited his jet-pack (in a replay of Fett's undoing in Return of the Jedi), and the Falcon soon took off again. However, their immediate departure was sabotaged by Mako Spince who from his perch in the Traffic Control spire forwarded their location to the waiting Dark Siders aboard. The Star Destroyer soon locked on a tractor beam, and the Millennium Falcon was soon caught in its firm grip. Taunted by Spince, Han figured out a clever dodge: he piloted the Falcon under the spire- the officers did not realize that the lock had been broken, and the beams inexorably ripped off the spire and pulled it into the Star Destroyer itself, killing Spince and destroying the engines of the ISD. Bereft of impetus, and in a decaying orbit, the Destroyer plunged into the surface of Nar Shaddaa, killing millions and all hands aboard.
This was not the only setback for the Empire: Palpatine had dispatched Sedriss and Vill Goir to capture Skywalker and Solusar. Solusar quickly killed Goir, but Sedriss, outmatched by Skywalker, took hostage one of the Force-sensitive natives, leaning against a tree. To all the combatant's immense surprise, the tree turned out to be a millennia-old Jedi Master named Ood Bnar. Sedriss and Bnar faced off. The two perished in an explosion of Force energy. But even in his death, Bnar had protected his cache of ancient lightsabers- a gift to the would-be Jedi. With the aid of the Ysanna, Luke discovered precisely what he had hoped for: an intact Jedi library.
Elsewhere, Lando Calrissian and a team of Rebel commandos such as Zev Veers organized an attack on Byss itself; Balmorra suspected the Empire of intransigence with regard to its promises to allow Balmorra to leave the Empire (as it was indeed correct to suspect; Sedriss planned to reduce Balmorra for its rebellion, as soon as he received the shipment of X-1s), and thus sought to aid the Rebellion in anyway it could- including hiding Rebel special forces aboard a shipment of War Droids space-bound for the Emperor's throneworld. The droids proved to be superior to even the defenses of the Citadel, until they ran into an army of monstrous creatures- "chrysalis monsters"- rancors mutated by the dark side and Sith alchemy into crazed and nigh-invulnerable beast of destruction. The Rebel force is decimated, and only rescued at the last moment by a force of smugglers led by Salla Zend and Shug Ninx. They were allowed to escape by the Emperor, but little did they know that the Empire was tracking them and that their new superweapon, the Galaxy Gun was ready. The Emperor fired the weapon, which reached Da Soocha V and destroyed it while Luke's Jedi Explorer, (with the other Jedi aboard) which would have landed shortly had they not seen its projectile.
Meanwhile, on the forgotten and nebula-hidden world of Ganath, Han Solo has to equip his damaged Millennium Falcon with an antique weapon called the Lightning Gun, hopefully sufficient to defeat Slave I and Boba Fett, who lurks beyond the cloud, waiting for Solo to escape. Defeating Fett yet again, with the former Jedi Knight and ruler of Ganath, Empatojayos Brand, Han Solo and Princess Leia take refuge with their infant twins on the planet New Alderaan. There, Luke explains about a great Jedi power known as Battle Meditation. They had to regroup with Lando and Wedge... if they were still alive. Han and Chewbacca left the planet to search for them. During the night, Luke had a terrible nightmare that him and Vader were one. Little that he knew that robotic bugs were injecting poison into his veins. He woke up and saw two Darksiders ready to kill him. Jem Ysanna and Leia killed two of the Darksiders but Jem was killed. Vima saw what happened and saved Luke. Meanwhile, three other Darksiders were kidnapping Leia's twins. Luckily, Brand, Kam and Rayf were on the scene and dueled them. After the fighting was over, Jem joined the Force as Rayf cried over her lost form. Then, an AT-AT attack was destroying the settlement. Thankfully, Han arrived with Salla and Shug including an X-wing group based on a nearby system. Once the village's population was all picked up, the four freighters and three X-wings jumped into hyperspace. The Rebels relocate to the space stations of Nespis VIII, where Luke and Kam had their confrontation and found out that the Alliance evacuated Pinnacle Base before it was destroyed. There Anakin Solo is born and the Alliance plots the final destruction of the Empire.
Empire's End
After perishing in battle with Luke and Leia Skywalker in Dark Empire I, Emperor Palpatine was forced to occupy an inferior clone-body. Unbeknownst to him, his personal physician had been suborned by Carnor Jax, backed by a number of other high-ranking Imperial personnel. The physician deliberately inserted genetic material and contaminants into all stored samples of the Emperor's original body, to the effect that these bodies would be nowhere as resistant to the ravaging effects of the Dark side as the original.
The last remaining clone body undestroyed by Skywalker or traitorous Imperials is now aging rapidly, and Palpatine's final, irrevocable end is near unless he can either fix his genetic material (an impossibility since no unadulterated samples remain) or insert his spirit into another body. After consulting with ancient Sith Lords on the funereal plaent Korriban, Palpatine learns that Han and Leia's youngest child, Anakin is the only workable body.
After an attack on Byss, in which the second Eclipse-class Star Destroyer, the Eclipse II, is steered into the Galaxy Gun by R2-D2, and a projectile from the Gun was shot into Byss (destroying Byss utterly), Palpatine followed the Solos to Onderon. Killed by an unexpected blaster bolt from Han Solo, he desperately tried to force his spirit into the infant Anakin Solo, but was balked by the dying soul of Empatayojos Brand, who made the ultimate sacrifice, willingly sending his eternal soul into the "madness beyond death" that is the Dark side to ensure Palpatine would go as well, and could never return.
Trivia
- Dark Empire #1 included a fan letter submitted by Skip Shayotovich, founder of the FidoNet Star Wars Echo, the pioneering on-line fandom forum.
References
- The Dark Empire sourcebook, West End Games, 1st edition, 1993. Horne, Michael, ISBN 0-87431-194-2
- The Dark Side sourcebook, Wizards of the Coast, 1st printing, 2001. Bill Slavicsek, J. D. Wiker, ISBN 0-786-91849-7
External links
