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Darth Sidious is the Emporor correct? Well, if he is, will he fight in Ep.II? The thing is, nobody has every seen him weild a lightsaber. Does that mean he will attack with the electricity like in the OT? Hmmmm....

We are lead to believe that they are the same person, but Lucas might change it up a bit. We will probably never see him fight in the prequels, that is why he always has his apprentices.

It's still to early to tell if George will show us how Darth Sidious fights. Yes, Darth Sidious IS Emperor Palpatine. The galaxy will not realize it until it's too late.

Yeah, it even says on the back of TPM video box that they are the same person, I thought that everyone knew that. As for him fighting, I just don't see it. He may use his Force Lightning again to kill a few Jedi....perhaps Plo Koon or Ki-Adi Mundi.

Yeah, I could easily see him use force lightning if somebody really made him mad or to make a point out of killng somebody, but I don't he's gonna break a sweat over it. Thats why he has apprentices to do his dirty work.

But will he be capable of using force lightening yet? I have a feeling the Force Lightening is a quite a hard skill to master and that Sidious may not gain that skill until later on.

But if he can't use Force Lightning then what will he do? I can't see him using a Lightsaber or anything. I bet that he can use the Lightning and maybe its something the Jedi have never seen before, thus proving how powerful Sidious really is.

Could be. Actually, when you consider that we haven't seen Sidious use any Force powers yet, to start with a ball of Force Lightening would be amazing.

Yeah..on OB1...oooooooooooooooooooh..that would be bad.

He is a sith master I think he has the skill tho use the lightning bolts.

In ROTJ palpatine says ' ah a lightsabre , a jedi's weapon , much like your fathers' this implies to me that he has never used one. You don't need one if you have force lightning.

Good point, kraut. If Palpy can already keep a whole group of Jedi in the same room from sensing him, which is pretty impressive to me, why shouldn't he have the knowledge and ability to produce force lightning at this point ?

In Dark Empire, Darth Sidious (Emperor Palpatine) fought very well with a lightsaber in Dark Empire. He also knocked Luke on his butt with a blast of force lightning.

It would be fantastic to see the Grand Sith lord in action....all the raw darkside power at his finger tips..

Though, didn't he die rather similar to one of his apprentices ( Falling down a deep shaft.!! )

well thats dark empire and it is eu, in other words it does not count.

I imagine Darth Sidious can do pretty much whatever he wants. Maybe there is some other way of using the Force that we have not seen yet.

It's a bit of an odd one. Sidious would have very little chance to practice his sabre fighting without a support facility like the Jedi Temple.

But then, neither would Maul, and he was bloody lethal.

We have no guarantee that Force Lightning is superior to a sabre. We have only seen it used on a cripple and an untrained boy (Gl's words, by the way, though not in direct conncection with the lightning). However, by the time of the OT, Sidious is far too old and decrepit to be using a sabre, even if he did have one (though don't get me started on the whole 'Yoda using a sabre' thing...)

I would imagine that Force Lightning is a very lethal weapon, but not so good that he will conquer every Jedi with it single handed. It's sheer surprise factor is probably its greatest asset.

Let's not over-do it on how powerful Sidious is, though. he did lose in the end, after all.

Supposedly in Ep2 there is a secret sith temple that the jedi had no chance of finding.

I'd love that...Hopefully we'll learn alot more about how the Sith work.

And why there are only two....

Altough no big fan of the EU (mainly because it doesn't feel right somehow) I do know that when Palpatine fights with a lightsabre in Dark Empire he says something once again along the lines that it isn't his weapon of choice, when he starts to fight Luke. We wont see Palpatine with a sabre , I'd be very very very suprised if we ever see him fight much at all. It's all back to the whole sith being hidden, working from the shadows. A clue was given in TPM when the viceroy contacts Sidious at the start; ('your plan has failed lord sidious.....' etc) , it cuts back to obi wan who comments how he senses something 'elusive'.

There's another nice thought: who trained Maul? I suppose the one who did (Palpy) knows a little about lightsabres. But then I too doubt that we'll see him with a sabre in the PT. He seems a little too powerful and clever to let himself get entangled in a sabre fight. That's what he has his henchmen for (Maul, Vader, (Dooku?))

one other thought is that at some point palpatine must have been the apprentice. What did he do then?

Well, that I'm not so sure of, kraut. It might well be that Palpy found a Sith secret, like the temple or a document or whatever. Remember what the Jedi Council members said in TPM, they believe they would have sensed the RETURN of the Sith. That means tehy were wiped out completely. I believe Palpy is the one who singlehandedly revives the Sith cult.

Either that or I guess it's possible that he was perhaps taught by an ancient sith much the same way Yoda taught Luke.

So you're implying the Sith had never gone. That I doubt.

According to stuff, that may well be considered EU, the 1 master/1 apprentice idea was adopted down the ages by the Sith with the goal of maintaining the Sith order without detection and without the infighting that caused the Sith to almost self annihilate themselves.

I think we may find that the Sith have been around for a long, long time.

It is certainly the most likely outcome at this point.

Yeah, you're probably right...might be too confusing otherwise.

Well why? What if Palpy has found some Sith secret, then he could be the one to single-handedly revive the cult, adding to his evil. Maybe the spirit of Bane came to help him, hehehehe, but very unlikely.
I would just like that idea, that Palpy revives it himself.

Actually, according to background cannon the Sith never went, they were just in hiding.

According to background CANON? For sure? From what source?

The new Sith Order went into hiding (it states that in the novel). We DON'T know how many Sith masters and came after Darth Bane. It just states that there was always one master and one apprentice. I wish the TPM novel could've at least given us the name of Sidious/Palpatine's Sith master or talked about Sidious/Palpatine when he was an apprentice. It certainly would've been DIFFERENT to read about Palpatine FOLLOWING ORDERS (from a Darksider), instead of ALWAYS GIVING ORDERS.

That's true..I wish we did know more about Palpatine's background too..
As for the background canon...we all know that GL very well could change that...so why even bring it up.

nobody thinks we'll learn anything about the past of Sidious/Palpatine? I have a feeling we might get a couple of secrets or tips in Ep.II.

Ok, so there's no 100% canonical reason to think that Sidious had a Master, but it seems most likely that he did (the same 'most likely' scenario applies to the Darth Bane story as well). But I get the feeling that GL won't feel TOO obliged to explain the past... you don't want TOO much backstory before your Episode I, really.

i guess ur right on that one Ushgarak

I doubt that GL will give us any info on that in the movies. More opportunities for EU books and comics and therefore for mo' money.