The trial of Ahsoka Tano over the murder of Letta Turmond was among the pivotal events
that led Anakin to lose faith with the Jedi Council,
who had turned their back on his padawan.
This anger and distrust also extended to Admiral
Tarkin, as not only was he the lead prosecutor against Ahsoka, but he also pushed for the
penalty of death if she were to be found guilty.
This resentment among the two continued into the early years of the Galactic Empire, with
Darth Vader ultimately getting revenge on Tarkin
over what he did to his former padawan.
It was during the early months of the Empire when Tarkin’s son, Garoche Tarkin, had gone
missing.
Garoche was a recently promoted Admiral of the Imperial Navy and had been sent to
the Atoan system to eliminate the growing insurgency there.
This mission ended in a failure, with Garoche believed to have been captured
by the enemy.
Despite Tarkin’s initial protest, Emperor Palpatine assigned Darth Vader to retrieve
his son.
Tarkin did not trust the Sith Lord to accomplish the mission, believing his obsession with
the Jedi would cause him to lose focus on the
task at hand, as he had on earlier occasions.
As a compromise, Tarkin assigned Captain Shale
to oversee the operation alongside Vader; as the
officer was a longtime colleague of Garoche from their academy days.
Nonetheless, when Vader and his troopers arrived on Atoan, they faced heavy resistance from
the rebel fighters.
After a hard-fought battle, Vader came out victorious and captured several of
the insurgency’s officers, later interrogating them over their knowledge on Garoche’s location.
Around this time, Emperor Palpatine contacted his apprentice to learn about his progress.
In their conversation, Palpatine reminded Vader
over how important this mission was, as Tarkin was vital to his expanding Empire and that
his talents as a ruthless leader could not be
undermined over the loss of his son.
However, Vader had other plans in mind for Garoche.
He wanted to kill the man as revenge, so he began
to argue to his master that doing so would simply amplify Tarkin’s devotion to crushing
the enemies of the Empire, by making him believe his son was killed by the insurgents who had
captured him.
Palpatine agreed with this new plan and gave his apprentice permission to carry it out.
As Vader proceeded, he was soon ambushed by Imperial
troopers under the command of Captain Shale.
Shale had realized the Sith Lord was planning on killing Garoche and decided to turn on
the Empire.
Vader was able to swiftly take out the traitorous troopers, later being forced to abandon
his Star Destroyer after it had been sabotaged from within.
Crash landing on another planet within the Atoan system, Vader and his handful
of loyal troopers were once again attacked by
the insurgents, who were able to successfully capture the Sith Lord.
While under their custody, Vader finally met with Garoche, who told him that he was never
captured but rather defected to the insurgents, as he did not wish to carry out the brutality
the Empire and his father expected him to.
The leader of the Atoan insurgency, a priestess named
Saro, believed she could convince Vader to join their side by using her powers to project
the image of Padme’s ghost.
This backfired on her, as rather than the memory of Padme turning
Vader back to the light, all it did was remind him of her death and his weakness in saving
her, resulting in him going berserk and freeing
himself from his restraints.
Deeply enraged, Vader fought through all the guards until finally
reaching Garoche and Saro.
Now at his mercy, the two desperately attempted to get him to see reason,
but Vader was far too distraught from the visions of Padme he had seen, so much so,
that he used the Force to bring down the entire labyrinth they were in on top of themselves,
as an attempt to take his own life over the sins he
had committed and self-hatred over losing Padme.
Vader of course survived this collapse, later being rescued by the Empire a few days later.
Everyone else had died, including Garoche; with Tarkin being fully convinced that the
insurgents were the ones that killed his son.
Therefore, Tarkin went on to commit a genocide within the
Atoan system, establishing himself as a true brutal leader that Palpatine wanted him to
be, while on the other hand Vader got his revenge and
gave Tarkin a taste of the pain he himself felt
when Ahsoka left him at the Jedi Temple years earlier.