Darth Plagueis

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 Alignment | Lawful Evil

**Darth Plagueis** is the posthumous overarching antagonist of the *Star Wars* franchise. He is the titular villainous protagonist of the 2012 novel *Darth Plagueis.*

## Background

Darth Plagueis was the Sith Master of Darth Sidious, also known as Emperor Palpatine. He was obsessed with the manipulation of midi-chlorians to preserve, extend, and even create life. His birth was orchestrated by Darth Tenebrous, who bought him from his parents once his strength in the Dark Side of the Force was confirmed. Tenebrous trained Plagueis to hide in plain sight as a prominent banking mogul. Using the power he amassed through extreme wealth, Plagueis was able to orchestrate the rise and fall of many star systems, crime lords, and policitians, which threw the Galactic Republic into chaos.

After Darth Plagueis murdered his master, he was determined to meet a different fate. Plagueis planned to end the Rule of Two by discovering the secret of eternal life through the Force, and rule indefinitely. His experimentation with midi-chlorians inadvertently created a child born purely of the Force, named Anakin Skywalker. Darth Plagueis and his apprentice, Darth Sidious, caused many crises throughout the galaxy, destabilizing the Republic and preparing for a war in which they would exterminate the Jedi Order. Plagueis manipulated Palpatine's path to becoming the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, and expected his apprentice to appoint his Master as co-chancellor.

Together, they would rule, and Plagueis would be allowed to devote more time to his obsession of immortality. But on the eve of their victory, Sidious betrayed Plagueis, and murdered him, claiming control of the galaxy for himself. Years later, Sidious (in his civilian guise of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine) recounted Plagueis' story as The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, an old "Sith legend", to sway Anakin Skywalker to the dark side. Twenty-three years later, during the Battle of Endor, Sidious came to be killed by a redeemed Anakin Skywalker, who turned back to the light side of the Force and threw Sidious down a reactor shaft to save his son Luke. While falling, however, Sidious reflected that he had prepared himself for that scenario unlike Plagueis and called on all the power of the dark side to leave his body and thrust his consciousness far, far away to a cloned body created by the Sith Eternal on the secret Sith world of Exegol.

In the years following the Empire's end, during the final stages of the war between the First Order and the Resistance, Sidious' granddaughter Rey tracked him down to Exegol as the Resistance and the First Order prepared for a final showdown. Before a redeemed Ben Solo came to her rescue, Sidious insisted his granddaughter to strike him down as he did with Plagueis, allowing Rey to read his mind and realize how he came back thanks to Plagueis' teachings.

## Powers and Abilities

* **The Force:** Plagueis was a master of esoteric and unnatural aspects of the Force.
	+ **Force Lightning:** An offensive Force technique that uses Force energy to produce electricity with one or two hands that stream outwards from the fingertips, its speed is usually great enough to catch an opponent off-guard even when prepared, and can be used either in bursts, or simply torrent out in a gush of agony on its victim.
	+ **Force Scream:** Plagueis unleashes a force enhanced scream.
	+ **Telekinesis:** Plagueis can use this through the Force to put his mind literally over matter, capable of blasting opponents, shielding himself or disarming people, its limits are only those of the creativity that Force User has. His prowess with this power was great enough to atomize his opponents.
	+ **Telepathy:** Can easily manipulate others mentally with the Force to trick, deceive, maim or even kill outright. Can also use this power externally or internally when it comes to illusion creation, manifestation and manipulation.
	+ **Tutaminis:** Can use this ability to protect himself from direct harm or disperse energy and attacks. Plagueis was skilled enough with this power that he could even absorb the energy of his opponent's attacks and channel the energy he absorbed into attacks of his own.
	+ **Convection:** A Force ability that allows the user to increase their body temperature to extreme levels
	+ **Heart Stun:** Plagueis used it on himself to keep both of his remaining hearts from failing.
	+ **Force Barrier:** Plagueis can surround himself with Force energy, protecting him from blaster fire and even close ranged physical attacks.
	+ **Force Stealth:** Plagueis can cloak his dark side nature from Jedi, even experienced Jedi Masters like Dooku and Sifo Dyas.
	+ **Midi-chlorian Manipulation:** Plagueis was able to manipulate the essence of life, a power Palpatine believed was directly tied to his inward sight. Plagueis could save others from death and, when his power was applied to the extreme, he could create new life from the midi-chlorians found in all lifeforms. Plagueis even discovered the ability to retain one's identity in the Force while becoming one with it, but this manner of surviving death did not appeal to him, as he was not concerned with the non-material world.

* **Lightsaber Skills:** Plagueis was very skilled in lightsaber combat, although he disdained using his blade in combat, regarding lightsaber duels as tedious affairs; Tenebrous viewed his apprentice as a master of the art. He was able to run so fast during his duel with Venamis that an onlooker would have thought him a thunderbolt racing through the trees. Plagueis had on one occasion utilized Jar'Kai on Bal'demnic.
* **Intelligence:** Plagueis was wise and intellectual, so he possessed a logical mind, and his apprentice Palpatine believed that the extent to which he turned his sight inward was the source of his power and knowledge. He believed that power was to be gained incrementally, beginning with the self and culminating with control of the entire galaxy. As his own powers grew, he became afraid of nothing but losing that power.

## Equipment

* **Lightsaber****:** This red-bladed lightsaber was crafted sometime in Plagueis' years as an apprentice under his master, Darth Tenebrous. After Plagueis murdered his master on Bal'demnic in 67 BBY, his lightsaber continued to be in his possession, even at the time he trained Palpatine as his apprentice. When Palpatine executed Pax Teem as retribution for outwitting him and his master he used Plagueis's lightsaber. He noted that it had been built for a larger grip and had to use two hands to effectively wield it.

## Feats

### Strength

* Scaled a building by clinging to the wall.
* Broke Darth Tenebrous' neck with a chopping motion.
* Broke into a transparisteel cockpit by assailing it with his fists.
* Launched a Zabrak across a cabin with a kick, crushing his chest cavity and slamming him against a bulkhead with enough force to snap his spine and burst his arteries.
* Could snap necks, smash skulls and windpipes, and plunge his fists through armored torsos with his bare hands and in a severely injured state.
* Disarmed Venamis through sheer force, nearly removing his fingers in the process.
* His Force Waves are so powerful, investigators who were inspecting the remains of his victims were convinced that they were killed with explosives.
* Stronger than Palpatine.
* Held up several enormous slabs of rock.
* Pulled down massive plummeting slabs with such speed and momentum that Tenebrous barely registered what hit him.
	+ The resultant impact left Tenebrous’ head cracked open and his chest cavity pierced by a stalactite.
* Levitated massive slabs of rubble to form a pile high enough for him to reach the oculus at the roof of a grotto.
* Snapped a Klatooinian’s neck with a click of his fingers.
* Without gesture, Plagueis hurled a young Palpatine to the ground before pulling him back to his feet.
* Without gesturing, caused the floor to shake, knocking down several assassins.
* While suffocating and intoxicated, conjured a telekinetic storm that rendered himself anamorphic, washing over his apartment to hurl objects about the suite.
* Could generate lightning powerful enough to burrow through solid rock.
* With a tangle of lightning, launched a Klatoonian into the ceiling of a cabin, leaving him as if his bones had turned to dust and his body paralysed from the waist down.
* Killed an Iktochi Priestess by trickling lightning into her body, causing her blood to boil and almost setting her hands aflame.
* Generated a storm of Force lightning that spreads across a landscape.
* Summoned a sonic shockwave that shattered the eardrums of his attackers within a ten-meter radius despite his trachea being severed and the lower half of his jawbone removed.

### Speed

* Raced across a landscape in a dazzling blur.
* Can all but outrace rainfall.
* Alongside Palpatine, all but took flight in pursuit of a herd of quadrupeds.
* Appeared to 11-4D as a gust of wind, forcing him to adjust his processing input to properly perceive him.
* Could move at such speeds he appeared like flashes of lightning to an onlooker.
* Leaped over a ten-meter-high wall with ease.
* Was slightly more agile than Tenebrous.
* Evaded, deflected and absorbed a barrage of blaster fire from omnidirectional shooters, moving at speeds almost beyond 11-4D’s processing ability, despite it extending to the calculating blaster bolt trajectories.
* Through a combination of speed, acrobatics and agility, Plagueis deflected and evaded omnidirectional blaster fire from the first ring of two hundred heavily armed automata.
* Repeated the above process with Palpatine until the floor was piled high with smoking husks.
* Bypassed Venamis’ defenses with an attack velocity that turned his lightsaber into a blinding rod, scorching his opponent from chest to chin.
* In a test of speed, agility and accuracy, defeated an army of several hundred Kursid warriors without killing them or suffering a scratch, and armed only with Force pikes alongside Palpatine.

### Durability

* Withstood the polar weather conditions of Mygeeto in thin clothing and with seemingly without discomfort, where the temperature was cold enough to freeze Palpatine’s blood.
* Could endure the same planet’s most violent storms without an enviro-suit before he was even eight years old.
* Was seemingly unaffected by a swarm of voracious insects feeding off his blood.
* Despite making no attempt to defend himself, was able to endure Sidious blasting him with lightning whilst drawing on the dark side more deeply than he ever had.
* Numbed the pain of having his lower back pulped by a rock.
* Was attacked by Maladin assassins, a decapitator disk removing a portion of his face, and severing his trachea along with several blood vessels, yet despite being having also lost copious amounts of blood and multiple of his hearts threatening to fail, he summoned the strength to attack his assassins physically and with the Force.
* After Plagueis’ second heart failed, he remained conscious despite the paralyzing pain, before shattering the eardrums of his attackers, smashing their skulls and windpipes and blowing apart their bodies.
* Despite incurring additional damage, Plagueis remained capable of using the Force against the Maladians and before the arrival of his apprentices was on the brink of unleashing a final hell on his opponents.
* In spite of his grievous injuries, Plagueis, alongside his apprentice, delivered swift death to the remaining Maladians.
* Palpatine remarked that the damage Plagueis had sustained had done nothing to diminish his strength in the Force.

### Skill

* Unintentionally created the Chosen One when he attempted to manipulate the living force itself.
* His mere presence alone changed the hot climate of Naboo into a cold winter that lasted an entire year.
* During his duel with Venamis, he was so fast that an onlooker mistook him as a lightning bolt rushing through the trees.
* Manipulated the young Palpatine into murdering his family and becoming his Sith Apprentice.
* As a child, he mind tricked one of his playmates into inadvertently committing suicide.
* Successfully killed his master, Darth Tenebrous.
* Subtly manipulated Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas into creating a clone army to serve the Republic, which would bring the downfall of the Jedi Order.
* Can conjure force illusions of himself that are so convincing he even fooled his apprentice.
* Mastered manipulating midi-chlorians, essentially creating life.
* Was dubbed by his mentoras a master of lightsaber combat.
* Was ultimately responsible for laying the seeds of the rise of the Galactic Empire by placing himself and Sidious in the halls of power.
* Duscovered the secret of becoming a Force Ghost.
* Despite being heavily injured he was able to kill a handful of Maladian assassins by himself before Sidious saved him.
* Sidious himself admitted that Plagueis was more powerful than he is, which was the reason he murdered him in his sleep.
* Attempted to create a Force dyad with Sidious.

## Weaknesses

* Ironically despises lightsaber combat, seeing it as a tedious waste of energy.
* Incredibly arrogant.
* Is more of a scholar and scientist than a fighter.
* Requires lengthy concentration to manipulate an individual's midi-chlorians.
* Suffers from a god complex.
* Was forced to wear a Transpirator mask over his face for the remainder of his life.
* Failed to create a Force dyad with Sidious.
* His trust in his apprentice ultimately led to his death at the latter's hands.
* Contrary to popular belief, lightsabers can't cut through everything.

## Fun Facts

* Unlike other characters who lived before the movies took place, Darth Plagueis has not made any significant in-person appearances, though he was briefly mentioned by Palpatine in *Revenge of the Sith*.  However, the suggestion that Darth Plagueis may have manipulated the midi-chlorians to conceive Anakin Skywalker aside having trained Palpatine could make Plagueis the Greater-Scope Villain of the entire *Star Wars* saga.
	+ Despite never making any appearance in the films, Plagueis was originally written to appear in an hologram of a Sith holocron in the second draft of Colin Trevorrow's original script for *The Rise of Skywalker* before Trevorrow was fired by Lucasfilm. In this version of the story, Plagueis' hologram was going to tell Kylo Ren that he wasn't a true Sith and then explode on his face only to be healed afterwards by the native population from the planet where he found the holocron, which would have eventually led to Ren's redemption.
* It was theorized that Supreme Leader Snoke from the franchise's sequel trilogy is Darth Plagueis; however, this was quickly proven wrong, as Andy Serkis said that Snoke is "just Snoke". *The Rise of Skywalker* furthermore clarified Snoke as a creation of Palpatine.
* Since he has the ability to create illusions, he may have known that Palpatine would kill him and Palpatine actually killed a convincing illusion of Plagueis.
* In the first draft of Colin Trevorrow's original script for *The Rise of Skywalker*, Kylo Ren was going to find an holocron with a hologram of Emperor Palpatine which would guide him to the Remnicore system to be trained under Tor Valum, Palpatine's Sith Master. Once on Remnicore, upon being asked if he trained Plagueis, Valum would have revealed that such name meant nothing for him. It's unknown if this suggested that Trevorrow intended to retcon Plagueis' mention into a lie, possibly suggesting that Palpatine invented the story to manipulate Anakin.
* There were plans for him to appear in the video game *The Force Unleashed*.
* In the novelization of *The Rise of Skywalker*, it's explained that Palpatine survived his death in *Return of the Jedi* thanks to Plagueis' teachings. The novel details that when Anakin threw Palpatine into the reactor shaft of the Death Star II, Palpatine recalled Plagueis' technique to cheat death and called all the power of the Dark Side of the Force to leave his original body as a spirit and send himself to a clone that awaited him on Exegol.