Like elsewhere, the plague had come upon them, and once it had settled like a blanket over them, there had been nothing they could do. There had, he had been told, been those who not only had profited from its spread, but those who had gained considerable influence and power as its grasp had taken hold. Those had been the days in which the gods had been excusable, when it had been possible to believe that what occurred in life was part of some grand scheme overseen by the distant gods, their divine shapes locked away in distant mountain fortresses. If the plague had come upon them, then surely the gods had some reason for allowing such a thing to happen. Vespasianus had seen many men preaching such things, had heard many reasons as to why they had all been obliged to suffer. He believed none of them.
‘Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?’
I resisted the introduction of Darth Plagueis deeply when first I caught wind of the character’s debut in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Not, of course, that I have ever held any position of power within any circle even remotely related to the development of Star Wars, but my objection to this character was threefold: firstly, I thought the name was stupid. I have always felt that any Sith name that can be linked back to a.) the character’s function, and b.) a term describing that function in English is a bad idea. I know that, if you stop to think about the origins of the names of both Darth Vader and Darth Maul, you’ll realise that there are, in fact, no good Sith names, but at least these two are obstructed slightly, whereas calling a character Darth Plagueis is like calling a character Darth Badman. Secondly, I resisted the way in which Revenge of the Sith told its story. I actually have never seen this film all the way through, so displeased was I with Attack of the Clones, and being stubborn, I resented any detail that might have arisen from the story. Last of all, I felt that detailing the events of Palpatine’s back story was unnecessary, and I absolutely wasn’t jealous that I had not been the one to write this story.
Del Rey’s Darth Plagueis novel was published in hardback in early January, 2012. Written by James Luceno, who had also penned a number of other Expanded Universe books and had a long history with the franchise, the book is one of the few titles in the old canon that I’m not as familiar with as I maybe should be, mostly because I always felt it unnecessarily complicated the events of The Phantom Menace. There has always been a trend with this in Star Wars, this need to document every moment of the universe’s chronology so that the story is one vast tapestry, yet with the character of Plagueis, I believe it not only robs Palpatine of the significance of his role, but also is inconsistent with what is suggested in Revenge of the Sith, in which Palpatine tells the story as if it is an event that long predates the modern era. Of course, that’s not to say that Palpatine wasn’t casting the story in this light for his own reasons, but to assume that he was cheapens the scene, I feel, and there must be some merit in letting it stand alone as even I, a Star Wars fan who will not watch the film, am out here trying to defend it.
Within the book, Plagueis, having long since dispatched his old master, Darth Tenebrous (ugh!), and taken on Palpatine as a pupil, is hard at work cheating death through the manipulation of midichlorians and bringing about the downfall of the Jedi Order. With the assistance of his pupil’s aides, Maul and Count Dooku, he works behind the scenes, posing as a member of the Intergalactic Banking Clan instrumental in precipitating the Clone Wars, and plans to have Palpatine rise to office in the Republic so he can do all the things he ends up doing in the films anyhow. The arrival of Anakin Skywalker on Coruscant soon throws him off guard, however, and he struggles to understand whether the Force has not begun somehow to work against his attempts at controlling midichlorians and achieving immortality—and then he is murdered by Palpatine, who decides that he doesn’t really need his old master cramping his style, and would rather pursue his own agenda than act as Plagueis’s pawn. It is a story that introduces a lot of new elements into the back story of the Prequel Trilogy, but doesn’t really change anything about how that story was told, and, as such, I find it difficult to recommend it.
Regardless of this, James Luceno’s Darth Plagueis did come out in 2012 and was part of the last phase of the Expanded Universe’s life, quickly excised from canon once Disney purchased the franchise, and, presumably contradicted by events in the most recent film, Rise of Skywalker—alas, I wouldn’t know about that, however, having not seen the end of that particular trilogy either. :p