HoloNet News report: "Recent evidence seems to suggest that Palpatine *image of grumpy Palpy appears next to the journalist*, former Emperor of the Galaxy, was not a Sith Lord after the betrayal of his apprentice aboard the second Death Star..."

So, is he a Sith Lord in DE? He never seems to say so, he only states he IS the dark side. And in Empire's End, the Sith spirits don't treat him like one of their own, but as a traitor and a fool. And in DE I he calls Luke a Dark Jedi, he never states he is his Sith apprentice and gives him no Darth moniker. Darth monikers were unexplained back then, and I think it was not even clear that Palpatine was a Sith Lord, and surely nothing about the always-two-they-are-no-more-no-less Rule of Two thingy was heard of back in 1994. But could it be possible that Sid abandoned even the dogmatism of the Sith in his quest for ultimate power and full understanding of the Force? He wanted to become the very dark side, after all, he had great ambitions. So, the Sith could have been destroyed. The dark side was not, surely, and since the Force was balanced, there could be no victory of the dark side this time. So, the prophecy can be fufilled with no Continuity errors at all!

Now... how did he preserve his spirit? The RotS script states that only through compassion can one achieve the power to cheat death the way Yoda and Obi-Wan did. In the EU we have seen Sith imprison their spirits in holocrons, amulets, their graves, etc, so that's more a torture than a gift I'd say. I wouldn't like to be imprisoned in a place like a Korriban grave for eternity, but then I'm not a Sith. Sith are pervert.

But Palpatine didn't seem to use this power. He seemed to use the same technique Obi-Wan used, and The Essential Chronology actually states he did use the same technique, the one only achieved through compassion, not greed, through destroying one's self, one's ego. Could Palpy have done that? Well, he could have used the technique... Now you're gonna tell me: "That was a Jedi technique". Palpy seems to have been taught not only the Sith ways, but also the Jedi ways, and this is more than clear after Ep. III: "My Master taught me everything about the Force... INCLUDING the dark side..." "Anakin, if one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects, not just the dogmatic, narrow view of the Jedi. If you wish to become a complete and wise leader, you must embrace a LARGER view of the Force." Now I know he was trying to convince Anakin to become his Apprentice, but still, he surely knows the ways of the Jedi, and that was clear in Dark Empire also... "Aren't I the master of all Jedi? Your father was my own apprentice..." Also, his fighting skills are borrowed from the Jedi: Ep. III comic adaptation: Mace Windu: "You are well versed in the Jedi Arts... But you are no Jedi!" DE: Palpatine: "I've played along with your Jedi dueling games long enough!".

Why couldn't he have learned this Jedi power then? After all, he seems to vanish when he dies in the comics, in a more violent way than Ben did and Yoda did, but still the same... So, he used that technique, but it proved faulty and betrayed him in the end because he lacked compassion, just as Qui-Gon said...

Originally posted here: http://boards.theforce.net/Literature/b10003/20858208/p1