All right, I've brought this up before in a previous entry but the response was minimal... so while reading through the New Essential Guide to Characters, I happened across a little something and thought I'd return to the topic.

In terms of the films, we know very little about Darth Plagueis the Wise, mysterious master of Sidious, a.k.a. the Palpatine we all know and love. But looking deeper... maybe Plagueis has already been introduced to us in some form. I think it's very possible that Darth Plagueis true identity was indeed that of King Veruna, the monarch to precede Amidala on the Naboo throne. It all makes sense if you step back and look at it. Six months before the Battle of Naboo, Veruna abdicates his throne in the midst of corruption charges and is later killed.

Let's consider also that Palpatine was an up and coming Senator during Veruna's rule. As Plagueis, Veruna could easily hold private meetings with Sidious, labeling them as important political and diplomatic proceedings.

To further support the theory, Captain Panaka's entry in the NEW Essential Guide to Characters reads:

"On one mission to oversee the removal of a beached sando aqua monster from the Naboo shoreline, Panaka discovered a secret underground chamber filled with decomposing bodies and enigmatic locked rooms. Both King Veruna and Senator Palpatine seemed to have some connection to the chamber, but Captain Magneta ordered the area "cleansed" with a proton torpedo strike before Panaka could examine all the evidence" (129).

While I'm not sure in what source this story was recounted in, or if it was later addressed in another, this seems very strong evidence of a sinister relationship between Veruna and Palpatine. It's now known that Plagueis dabbled deeply into the Dark side, manipulating midi chlorians and even going so far as to experiment on living subjects.

And at the same time, while many seem to balk at the idea that he was ever successful, or that Anakin Skwalker is the surrogate son of Plagueis. The NEW Essential Chronology goes on to explain that the Sith was "a mystic obsessed with eternal life, Plagueis is believed to have possesed knowledge that could sustain those wwho were dying adn perhaps had even gained the ability to use midi-chlorians to draw new life directly from the wellspring of the force."

How else to pefect knowledge than through experimentation... and a suitable guise and location to do it.

Well, take that as you will, just some food for thought....

Peace.