He had spent decades devoted to meditation and study, immersing himself in the secrets and lore of a thousand worlds and a thousand cults, secluded in his monasteries and libraries. He had made pilgrimages to Korriban, to Dromund Kaas, the Ziost, to Had Abbadon, to Arkania, to Apollyon, to Cos. He had mastered the great power in all its guises – the Force, the sublime Eternity, the All, the Great Unity, the Tyia, the Quwa Akhrín, the White Current – and in all its traditions – the Sith Lords, the Jedi Knights, the Krath Society, the Nightsisters of Dathomir, the Heresiarch Congregation, the Shamans of the Jarvashqiine, the Intisharim. He had learned the esoteric martial arts of Teräs Käsi and Yad Hadíd; he had mastered the forms and styles of the lightsaber. He knew the secrets of Quey'tek and the Doppelgänger, Malacia and Mortichro, Mechu Duru and Lilakhrin, and countless more. He was deeply immersed in the thousands of years of traditions from thousands of cults and sects. He was a specter of the past – a phantom menace – the revenge of the Sith.
There was Luke Skywalker, the simple farmboy from a backwater desert world, the guardian of the light side of the Force, with all his awe-inspiring power at its fullest. He was a beacon of honesty and generosity, willing to lay down his own life to save those of his friends. He had come from a planet with two suns into a galaxy lost in darkness, bringing with him a new hope for freedom. He had destroyed the Death Star and saved the brave Rebellion against the tyrannical rule of the evil Empire; he had redeemed the soul of a mighty Dark Lord of the Sith and shattered the Emperor's iron grip on the galaxy. The peoples the galaxy had been drowning in the eternal darkness of the Sith's reign, and he had brought them light.
He had only learned of the Force as a young man; his formal training had been cut short by the deaths of both his Masters. He had found few scraps of the lost traditions of the Jedi Knights; he had searched in vain for the knowledge of that noble order whose light the Dark Lord of the Sith had tried to extinguish. He had found little in the empty halls of the Jedi Temple and the wreck of the Chu'unthor, never even been to the few abandoned praxeums and libraries that still remained. He had not been instructed in the philosophies of the Jedi scribes, nor did he know their formalized techniques and disciplines and rubrics; he wielded his power in an unconscious and completely instinctive way. He did not speak High Galactic, had not been trained in the ways of the Jedi Knight's blade; he knew none of the forms, only using the Force to guide his hand. He did not know the histories and traditions of the cults of the Force that the Sith Lords and their Empire had eradicated. He had few ties to the history of the Jedi and their Order, fewer still to the countless other traditions and cults and sects. He was a vision of the future – a new hope – the return of the Jedi.
The one could never tolerate the existence of the other.
The Emperor had sought to convert the humble farmboy, to turn him to the dark side of the Force; not even his rejection of the dark side could turn the Sith Lord's thoughts away from him. The Sith Lord could not abide the Jedi Knight, could not simply destroy him. He needed to turn him, to destroy his will, to dominate his very soul. He needed to break him, to tear him apart and remake him in his own image. For his great weakness was his narcissism, his malignant and twisted self-love. To be rejected, to be challenged, to be defeated was unthinkable.
The humble farmboy had sought to defeat the darkness within his father, and within the malevolent Emperor who had seduced him and destroyed the goodness in him, the Emperor who was full of lies and was the father of lies. He had chosen to die rather than to become like him; yet he knew that he alone could ever hope to challenge the great and terrible Dark Lord of the Sith. He had risked everything to learn the secrets of the Sith, to gain from his enemy the strength he needed to destroy him forever. To stand by, to look on, to allow his existence was intolerable.
And so there they were, Palpatine the Undying and Luke Skywalker, the twin and opposing demigods. The swirl of their light and darkness was terrifying, a river of power that threatened to sweep away all around it. Luke's vast courage could never hope to overcome the Emperor's vast power; yet the Emperor's egotistical self-love could never hope to match Luke's altruistic self-sacrifice. They battled with more than just their lightsabers; they battled with their whole selves, mind, body, and soul. It was a battle between the Sith Lord who ruled and the Jedi Knight who served; the narcissist who exploited and abused and the philanthropist who defended and comforted; the darkness that chilled and the light that warmed; the abyss that consumed and the love that begot. It was a battle between the darkest evil and the purest good.
Waves of power and emotion poured off of the peerless antagonists, sending shudders through the vast warship from stem to stern. The overwhelming atmosphere of the battle struck the crew almost instantly; some collapsed at their battle stations, insensate and traumatized, while others fell dead where they stood. All throughout the galaxy those who were sensitive to the Force could feel the violence of the clash of titans, could feel the intensity of the test of wills.
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You were saying, Kun boy? Hey, if that's not enough:
He was the Master of the dark side, the Lord of all it offered. War itself had become his weapon, his tool; he had defeated the Jedi because they'd failed to realize that they lost the moment they began fighting him. Their greatest warriors became his pawns, their most noble struggles fuel for his power. And as Yoda himself had fought him with all his power, he had not realized that he only fed the insatiable hunger of the dark side – the insatiable hunger of the Sith.
And yet these two – these three – had not fought him. They had not used the Force to crush him, to sweep him aside – but to heal him, to protect him. When he had plunged himself into the very depths of the dark side, they had used the light to reach down and pull him out.
They had exposed him to the light for the barest of instants.
And that was far too long for the Galactic Emperor.
The Force storm beyond had been summoned from the Emperor's soul, formed of his rage and his will and hurled upon his enemies – his implacable wrath given form. And now as the dark side fled him, his will no longer drove the raw destruction he had unleashed. His power overreached, his rage lost cohesion – and the unfathomable force he had unleashed and driven lost direction. No longer was his rage driven outward, and so the cataclysmic storm did the only thing it could –
It returned to its maker.
All the Galactic Emperor's godlike power – the incomprehensible fury of his Force storm – uncontrolled and uncontrollable, rushed back into his soul, and not even that abyss could hold it. No longer could he control the darkness. His power was too great, too massive – it filled him until he could hold no more, and even then it pressed on – his great power grew greater and greater, filling him beyond limit – until reality itself bent, and it all collapsed inward. In a moment of exquisite agony – agony beyond words, beyond description – agony that no living being had ever felt before, or ever would again – he became in fact what he had always been in spirit:
A black hole of the Force.
At that moment, all that was Palpatine the Undying – all that was Palpatine the Emperor – dissolved into nothing at all.
And with that, the mighty Emperor – the deathless Emperor – the invincible Emperor – conquered himself.
