The Tenebrous Way " The Tenebrous Way " is a short story written by Matthew Stover and illustrated by Brian Rood for " Star Wars Insider 130 " . It introduces Darth Plagueis ' s Sith Master , Darth Tenebrous , who later appeared briefly in the novel " Darth Plagueis " . The story is from the point of view of Tenebrous . It takes place when he is killed by Plagueis , but his consciousness remains in the Force while he is trapped within his own decaying body . This story also touches on the fact that he made sure to manipulate Plagueis throughout his training so that Plagueis would be obsessed with immortality . Plot summary . The story describes the last horrific and panicked account of Darth Tenebrous . It starts with Tenebrous dying on the floor with ice barbs stabbing through his only lung . The etymology of his name is given as Darkness . While dying , Tenebrous uses the force to shield himself from the pain and transfers his essence into a small amount of his own midi - chlorians as they are leaving his body . During the transfer , he watches Plagueis next to his body , studying the midi - chlorians as they depart . Tenebrous describes choosing Plagueis for his single specific fear of death . Tenebrous then builds this fear by needling at it and pricking at it for decades until it becomes Plagueis ' wound that wouldn ' t heal and his obsession . Darth Tenebrous ' entire life goal was immortality . As an apprentice , Tenebrous taught himself the Sith power Essence Transfer , he has known it for more than a century . He discovered it through his Bith experimenting and was not taught it through his unnamed master . He speaks of his master ' s training in spite and as secondary to his Bith science . He only thought of the force as a source of energy that could be harnessed . He vastly developed his foresight more than others before him but he disregarded it when he could foresee the future through his calculations of numbers . He saw the end of the Bane order by the " Shadow " and the rise of the " One Sith " order after it . He consulted the prophetic book Journey of the Wills . Four of the eleven translations prophesied the coming of the " Savior , " the " Chosen One , " " born of pure force . " He studied this book for three years . He calculated the Savior ' s midi - chlorian count at fifteen thousand or higher . So he decided he would transfer his essence into the body of the Savior when he was born . So Tenebrous then kills his master and went searching for an apprentice of his own . The scene comes back for a moment to Tenebrous watching Plagueis then returns to his past . Plagueis came up with the idea that midi - chlorians migrated back into the force at the death of the host but Tenebrous shot down the idea . Truly he secretly believed this idea and it inspired his plan of the Retrovirus . The retrovirus was midi - chlorians that Tenebrous experimented on and perfected into what he named Maxi - chlorians . These maxi - chlorians were given a prolonged life or at least a life span longer than that of normal midi - chlorians . Their side - effect was that they cut off a person from using the force entirely so Tenebrous adjusted them to only infect a small amount of midi - chlorians while leaving the majority untouched . He fine - tuned the virus to affect the power foresight , which Tenebrous thought as a necessary loss since he already knew the future through his calculations . When Tenebrous first needed the time to develop the retrovirus , he would send his apprentice Plagueis on many useless , doomed - to - fail missions to give him time to develop it . Before Tenebrous ' death , he had infected himself with the retrovirus and he lost his foresight ability . In his dying state , he transfers his essence into the maxi - chlorians and enters Plagueis ' body through his eyes , mouth , skin and wound on his back . Tenebrous recalls why he picked the name Plagueis for his apprentice , the etymology foretelling his future , his name meaning " The diseased one . " While inside Plagueis , Tenebrous explores the powers of Plagueis , being amazed that he was so powerful and that he had underestimated him . He then uses Plagueis ' vastly developed foresight to see far into the future to watch Plagueis ' death . He is utterly panicked when he realizes that Plagueis had died before he made the Savior into his apprentice , thus ending his chance to steal the Savior ' s body . He watches until the foresight completely disappears , leaving Plagueis without his foresight power . Panicking at what he saw , Tenebrous rips himself from Plagueis ' body and contemplates a way to reverse his failed plan . He wonders to himself how long he would live since he didn ' t know how long the maxi - chlorians lived for . He is shocked to see that his Bith body has become ancient and mummified . He wonders if he has been alive in the maxi - chlorians for decades or centuries . He then wonders if his foresight power had truly been destroyed , that maybe it keeps him seeing this same moment in time . He panics and starts to wonder how many times he has seen this moment . Is this the millionth time ? Billionth ? He wishes he had a mouth so that he could scream . The story then starts over again , confirming that Darth Tenebrous is going through the same events again and again .