When we last left off, Palpatine had successfully engineered the rise of Gunray and the Neimoidians to the head of the Trade Federation, having killed the prominent members of other species within the Directorate. He also had mired Chancellor Valorum in false scandal, and as such he became a leader crippled of his power and essentially a lame duck ruler. The bureaucrats were in charge now.

And so it was that Palpatine as Sidious ordered the greedy Federation to blockade Naboo, homeworld of Palpatine, as a protest to the new trade taxes which Palpatine himself had a hand in creating. The Federation believed that they would be given new power and the Senate would agree to their demands. They believed their blockade would work.

To Palpatine, it mattered not. Whether by force or his intervention, the blockade would eventually cease. What was truly important was that the blockade was the mechanism through which he would manipulate his way into the office of Supreme Chancellor and become one step closer to galactic domination.

Chancellor Valorum, though officially incapacitated from taking action, did manage to use his relationship with the Jedi to dispatch Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan to resolve the blockade. When driven from the Trade Federation battleship and escaping attempts on their lives, the Jedi realized they had to get to Queen Amidala before it was too late. This played right into the hands of Palpatine.

Palpatine knew Valorum would send Jedi, and that is exactly what he wanted. Though he ordered them dead, in reality he just wanted them to be driven to Naboo and therefore rescue the Queen. By bringing her to Naboo, Palpatine would be able to use the young and naive Queen to get Valorum out of the way. Everything was going as he had planned.

But when the Queen's Royal Starship was damaged and forced to detour, a kink was thrown in Palpatine's plans. Any other world would have been fine to land for repairs, but Tatooine held something vital to Palpatine's schemes: Anakin, the life form created through midi-chlorian manipulation. Surely the Jedi would find him through the Force, and surely they would take such a powerful being to Coruscant. Fearing an interference with Sidious' plans for Anakin, Darth Maul was dispatched, his mission being "to kill the Jedi and capture the Queen." But Sidious' true goal, one which Maul was not privy to (due to the fact that Anakin was to be his eventual replacement), was to ensure Anakin was not interfered with by the Jedi.

Palpatine most likely foresaw that Maul would not kill the Jedi, but drive them off to Coruscant, hopefully without Anakin in their company. But even if he succeeded, Maul would have captured the Queen's decoy, and the true Queen would have most likely escaped to Coruscant and inform the Senate, thus fulfilling Palpatine's plans. As it occurred, Maul did drive off the Jedi, but with Anakin in tow.

Palpatine perhaps saw this as the will of the Force, and indeed if Anakin became a Jedi and Sidious was Chancellor, the corruption of the Chosen One would be all the more easier, with both men residing on Coruscant, close together. And that is how it would play out.

On the capital world, Amidala was successfully manipulated by Palpatine's schemes, and called for a no-confidence vote in Valorum. Thanks to Palpatine's secretly increasing power base, he was most assuredly one of the beings nominated to succeed Valorum. His plans had worked.

Despite Amidala's defiance in returning to Naboo and organizing an attack, Palpatine's schemes were barely impacted. It remains to be seen what he would have done with Naboo had the Battle of Naboo not occurred or had been a defeat, but it mattered little. Most likely, despite feigned protests, Palpatine wanted the blockade defeated. It would only serve to ferment the corporate greed and anger of the Trade Federation and other corporate entities, which Palpatine would exploit in the coming Separatist crisis.

But the one curious element is the use of Darth Maul in the battle. Perhaps Palpatine wanted his apprentice to grow stronger and satisfy his urges for Jedi blood. Perhaps he wanted the Jedi dead, leaving Anakin without a clear mentor, a role Palpatine could fill. Perhaps he wanted the Jedi to have their Sith target, and wanted to show them that they had returned. Perhaps Maul's usefulness had expired, and Sidious wanted him out of the way while he cultivated a new apprentice: the charismatic Dooku. Whatever the reason, Maul was slain in the duel that also claimed Qui-Gon Jinn's life, leaving Obi-Wan Kenobi to train young Anakin.

In the end, the true winner was Palpatine, the whole time. He was elected Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, and Anakin Skywalker was now apprenticed to Obi-Wan Kenobi on Coruscant. Palpatine would serve as a mentor over the coming years, shaping Anakin's will, telling him what he wanted to hear, filling him with confidence, even arrogance. Combined with the Force training from Obi-Wan, Anakin would become the perfect template for a Sith Apprentice.



NEXT TIME: Part VI: A New Apprentice

Palpatine seduces Count Dooku and implements the earliest stages of planning for the Clone Wars, including the order of the Clone Army.