Welcome to Dans on Fandoms. I’m Dan.
During The Empire Strikes Back, as Darth Vader attempted to turn
Luke Skywalker towards the dark side, the Sith Lord told his son that Emperor Palpatine had
foreseen his demise at the hands of Luke. Until recently, Star Wars fans weren’t privy
to the exact details surrounding what Sidious had seen, that is until the release of From a Certain
Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back. The book features forty stories set
during episode 5, which I’d totally recommend checking out if you haven’t.
One short story, titled Disturbance, provides Star Wars fans with an inside
look at Darth Sidious witnessing his demise at the hands of Luke Skywalker,
and it’s probably my favorite in the book. So, let’s take a look at what exactly Sidious
foresaw and how this affected the events that followed in The Empire Strikes Back and beyond.
The Story opens up right around the time Luke meets Yoda on Dagobah.
We come upon Darth Sidious, who’s in the Sith Shrine that rests below the former
Jedi Temple on Coruscant, as the Sith Lord feels a powerful disturbance in the force.
As this surge in the force rose like a mighty wave, Sidious fought back against it, and,
in doing so, saw what the Dark Lord initially believed was a vision of the future in the force.
This force vision brought him to his office in the Imperial Palace on Coruscant,
where the bodies of two Royal Guards lay dead, their severed heads strewn across the floor.
Standing next to the bodies was a stoic, intimidating, and cold figure,
with power emanating from them. The figure had a red lightsaber
drawn and ignited, but Sidious initially couldn’t see the individual’s face,
as they were draped in a black cloak, He could tell, however,
that the cloaked individual was a boy. As we’ll come to find out, this hooded
boy is none other than Luke Skywalker, but Sidious is not aware of this just yet.
Sidious then realized that the cloaked Luke Skywalker was not alone, however,
and saw another hooded figure, who the Sith Lord quickly recognized as himself.
As Sidious continued to see the force vision play out, Luke moved closer to the vision version of
Sidious and began to force choke the SIth Lord. In retaliation, Sidious unleashed force lightning
against Luke, but the power of Luke's force choke stymied Sidious’ force lightning.
Hoping to beat back Luke, Sidious used the force to pull a lightsaber towards him,
but the saber never arrived in the Dark Lord's hands, as the cloaked boy
used the force to stop the saber mid-air. Sidious saw himself in this vision trying to
do everything in his power to stop Skywalker from choking the life from him and failing miserably,
even as the walls of the Sith Lord’s office trembled and shook from Darth
Sidious’ out-pour of dark side energy. Unexpectedly, a new voice whispered,
seemingly from nowhere, “do it,” and Luke used the force to thrust the floating lightsaber forward,
stabbing the Emperor and killing the Sith Lord. As Sidious observed the death of himself in this
vision, curiosity and intrigue piqued his interest, since he understood that
dark side usurpers were the way of the Sith and wondered who this young would-be conqueror was.
While the vision continued, the Sith Lord dwelled on this, but soon interrupted as the
force vision of Luke moved towards Sidious, who was still in the Sith Shrine, as if
Skywalker could see the Dark Lord of the Sith. Sidious then heard a new voice saying,
“you have done well,” right at the same location where he was experiencing this force vision.
Sidious considered the tone of the voice and realized that he was
hearing none other than that of Anakin Skywalker. The Sith Lord then realized that he wasn’t tapping
into a vision, but rather a dream that Darth Vader was having, which is so just wild and awesome that
something like that can happen through the force. Darth Sidious was unsurprised to learn that Vader
wished to overthrow his Sith Master, as that’s just the Sith being the Sith.
What did surprise him, however, was that Vader’s dream was powerful enough to cause Such a strong
disturbance in the Force, as well as the identity of this boy who Vader had hidden from him.
As Vader’s dream vision of sorts continued, Sidious realized that everything he saw was
through Vader’s eyes, who still looked like Anakin Skywalker.
Padmé Admidala then appeared and Luke referred to her as his mother and Anakin as his father.
Sidious watched Vader's dream continue to unfold and understood that Vader’s hope was
to turn his son towards the dark side, so that father and son could overthrow the Emperor.
Furthermore, When Vader’s dream dissipated and came to an end,
Sidious also understood Vader’s intense obsession in following-up on every lead
obtained on the Rebel Alliance. Sidious presumed that, at some point,
Vader learned his son was alive, withheld that information, and then
scoured the galaxy obsessively for the boy. As was the case with Vader in the past,
Sidious dwelled on the fact that his apprentice’s lack of control over his
feelings would yet again become his undoing. The Dark Lord of the Sith also considered
the potential of Luke Skywalker, his power in the force, his bloodline,
and how he would provide Darth Vader with every resource available to him through the Imperial
Military to aid in his search for his son. This would allow Sidious to plan, while his
apprentice searched the galaxy for his son, who would hopefully become Sidious’ new apprentice.
The only questions in Sidious' mind were how much did Vader know and how far had he
gone to hide his betrayal from his Sith master. To find out, Sidious summoned Vader, taking us
to the moment in Empire Strikes Back where Sidious explained to his apprentice that “There is a great
disturbance in the force,” ending the short story. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this short story
and this was, and as mentioned earlier, probably my favorite story from the book. It’s really good.
Obviously, it enhances the story of Empire Strikes Back, but it also
enhances what we know about Sidious and Vader. Obviously, Sidious is a piece of crap who has
done nothing but manipulate and use Vader, and this story just further showcases that.
But yeah, fun story and if you haven’t checked out From a Certain Point of View,
I’d recommend checking it out. But what do you guys think?
And what’s your thoughts on the short story Disturbance?
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