With the resistance of Leia Organa severely weakened and the First Order of Kylo Ren taking
the place of the New republic, a message was transmitted across the galaxy, announcing
the return of Emperor Palpatine, also known as the Sith Master Darth Sidious, threatening
revenge upon his enemies.
Knowing that Palpatine was a threat to his power, Kylo Ren set out to kill him and used
a Wayfinder to find Exegol, the hidden world of the Sith in the Unknown regions.
Though the Dark Lord was in poor physical condition and attached to machines, the Sith
Eternal who followed him were numerous, and it was clear he still possessed a great deal
of dark side power.
Having survived his death in the battle of Endor, likely through Midichlorian manipulation
learned from his master Darth Plagueis, Sidious revealed to Kylo that he was behind most of
what occurred following the war, including the creation of Snoke and the First Order,
as well as the voices in his head which led him to the Dark Side.
After the defeat of the First Empire, Sidious retreated to the Unknown Regions, where the
Sith Eternal cultists lived for many years, building a second secret empire and fleet,
manned by the planet’s population which was entirely devoted to the worship of the
Dark Side.
Using these followers and others, Sidious manipulated events from the shadows, ensuring
that the Imperial Remnants and New Republic exhausted themselves in battle, allowing for
the First Order to take power and set the stage for the Sith Empire preparing to strike
from Exegol, consisting of the greatest fleet ever constructed, with thousands of advanced
Star Destroyers.
All of this, he offered to Kylo Ren, who might rule as a Sith Emperor, but only if he kills
Palpatine’s granddaughter Rey who was a potential rival to their power.
Accepting the mission, Kylo returned to his ship and announced their merger with the Sith
Fleet and claimed there was a spy among them, causing General Pryde to immediately suspect
General Hux.
After the destruction of Starkiller Base, the project leader General Hux suffered a
severe blow to his reputation, allowing Pryde to become the highest ranking officer under
Kylo Ren.
However Hux was determined to win back his power and so started leaking classified information
to the Resistance, hoping that they might help bring down his political rivals.
The information from hux was sent through a Resistance contact to Poe, Finn, Chewie
and R2D2 who brought it back to Resistance headquarters on Ajan Kloss, where Rey was
training under General Leia and studying ancient Jedi texts.
However the young Jedi continued to struggle with the Dark Side, like when she was contacted
by Kylo Ren while running an obstacle course, causing her to lash out in anger and fell
a tree which damaged BB8.
Returning from their mission, Finn and the team brought back the First Order intel, which
confirmed Palpatine was alive on the hidden world of Exogal, in possession of the largest
fleet in the galaxy.
Knowing she needed to stop him, Rey recalled Luke Skywalker’s notes about trying to locate
this world, and so started her search where he left off, going to the planet Pasaana,
joined by Finn, Poe, chewie, C3PO and BB8, aboard the millennium Falcon.
While on Pasaana, Rey was again contacted by Kylo Ren, who physically removed a ceremonial
necklace from her and had it analyzed to reveal their location.
Under threat from the First Order, Rey and her allies were rescued by Lando Calrisian,
who lived on the planet and noticed their presence.
Having been with Luke during the mission to find Exegol, his information led them into
the desert where they found a dagger with writing that could lead to a wayfinder and
ultimately Exegol, on the remains of Ochi of Bestoon, a Sith Loyalist and Jedi Hunter
working for Palpatine.
Confronted by the First Order as they tried to leave the planet, Chewie and the dagger
were captured leading Rey to use the force to try and stop the transport ship from leaving.
Yet when Kylo countered her efforts, Rey lost her composure and channelled the darkside,
creating a blast of force lightening which destroyed the ship.
Believing that Chewie was dead and the dagger lost, Rey and the others escaped on Ochi’s
ship, making their way to Kijimi, where a droidsmith could retrieve the necessary information
from C3PO’s memory, as he read what was on the blade but was mechanically incapable
of speaking this forbidden language.
Thanks to Zorii Bliss, an old friend of Poe from his days as a Spicerunner, they found
the droidsmith Babu Frik, and retrieved the message which stated the Sith wayfinder was
on a moon in the endor system.
Yet before they could leave, Rey sensed that Chewbacca was still alive aboard Kylo Ren’s
Star Destroyer, and with a FO captain’s medallion, given to them by Zorii Bliss they
infiltrated the enemy ship.
Splitting up, Poe and Finn rescued Chewbecca only to be captured soon after, while Rey
found the Sith Dagger but was once again contacted by Kylo Ren.
Having learned the truth from the Emperor, Kylo revealed that she was sold as a child
to protect her from Palpatine, and her parents died at the hands of his servant Ochi the
Jedi Hunter.
Realizing she was on his ship, Kylo returned to his star destroyer and confronted Rey in
person, and at last revealed the ultimately truth about her past, that Rey’s father
was the son of the Emperor.
And while Sidious wanted Kylo to kill Rey, he had no intention of obeying and instead
wanted her to join him in killing the Dark Lord so they could rule the galaxy together.
With Kylo as the Grandson of Darth Vader and Rey as the Granddaughter of Darth Sidious,
they both had enormous force potential as individuals but even more so together, as
the connection between them was in fact a Diad in the Force, a rare condition not seen
in generations, which allowed two force users to combine their powers and act as one.
With Sidious unaware of the extent of their force bond, they might have an advantage if
they attack him together, but Rey could not be swayed and escaped with her allies, who
were set free by the spy General Hux.
Though he took a wound to the leg to cover up his betrayal, General Pride was not convinced
by his story, and immediately executing Hux as a traitor.
Arriving in the Endor Syste, Rey and the others met with a resistance contact and with the
Dagger located the wayfinder among wreckage from the second deathstar.
After experiencing a force vision in which Rey was confronted by her own dark side, the
wayfinder ended up in the hands of Kylo Ren who just arrived.
Destroying it, to force her to work with him, she instead attacked in anger fought a duel
ending with Kylo victorious.
Yet as he moved to strike the killing blow, he was contacted through the force by his
mother Leia, who used the last of her life energy to try bringing him back to the lightside.
This feeling led him to drop his lightsaber, allowing rey to catch it and stab him through
the stomach, at which point they both felt Leia’s death.
Realizing what she’d done, Rey used force healing to save his life, and claimed the
person she felt connected to was Ben Solo, and not Kylo Ren.
With Rey departing aboard his Tie fighter, Kylo was left to think about his life and
after remembering his father, at last resolved the conflict within him, and abandoned the
dark side, becoming Ben Solo once more.
Meanwhile Rey, terrified of becoming the Sith Empress from her vision, retreated to Ahch
To, where she could disappear like Luke Skywalker, but his force ghost soon appeared, explaining
he was wrong to have done so, and she must face her fear and confront Palpatine in the
name of the Jedi Order.
Shown that there was a second wayfinder to Exegol on Kylo Ren’s Tie Fighter, Rey who
already held Luke’s lightsaber, was given the weapon Leia used in training, which she
put down after having a vision that someone would need it in the future.
Armed with both lightsabers Rey boarded Luke’s old XWing and left for Exegol.
With Kylo Ren gone and Hux dead, the former Imperial Officer Enric Pryde took command
of the First Order and pledged himself to Sidious and the Sith Empire.
On his orders, Pryde launched an attack to destroy the planet Kijimi, afterwhich a message
was sent across the galaxy, announcing a new Sith Empire and Final Order, threatening to
destroy any planet which did not submit to their rule.
Learning that every Star Destroyer in the Sith fleet had planet destroying weapons,
the resistance lost hope, but R2D2 soon received a signal from Luke Skywalker’s old Xwing,
realizing Rey was leading them to Exegol.
Seeing this as their last chance to stop the enemy Fleet, the resistance formulated a plan
and sent every available ship into battle.
Once arrived they set out to keep the Sith Star Destroyers from leaving the planet’s
atmosphere, as this meant they could not activate shields and remained vulnerable to attack.
Although they originally targeted a navigation tower which sent a necessary signal, Pryde
saw what they were doing and shut it down, with his ship the Steadfast taking over the
task of leading the fleet into space.
However Finn, having recently discovered he was force sensitive, felt what happened and
redirected their attack to the Steadfast, successfully preventing them from breaking
atmosphere.
Yet even so, the resistance had no chance of victory on their own, and so awaited Lando
and Chewie on the Falcon, who put out a galaxy wide call for reinforcements.
As all this occurred, Rey met with Sidious in the throne room, where the full extent
of his plans were at last revealed, explaining that the power of all past sith lived within
him, and if she struck him down, it would pass into her so she could rule as Empress
of the galaxy.
With Sidious having lost so much of his strength after falling to Darth Vader, he planned for
the new Sith Empire to be led by a new apprentice and heir.
Although this role might was originally reserved for Rey, her parents helped her evade capture
as a child, and so it instead went to Kylo Ren, who Palpatine groomed to be a Sith Lord.
Yet even though he passed the final test by killing his master Snoke, Kylo was unable
to fully commit himself to the Dark Side, and so now Palpatine offered Rey the chance
to become heir to the Sith legacy.
Though she did not want to accept, she might have if only to take command of the Sith Fleet
and save the Resistance from slaughter, but the arrival of Ben Solo gave her renewed strength
and she refused to kill the Emperor.
Taking on the Sovereign Protectors with Leia’s lightsaber, Rey transferred Luke’s Lightsaber
to Ben who swiftly defeated the Knights of Ren to join her in the throne room.
Disappointed by both his potential heirs, Sidious seized them and soon realized that
the bond between them was a Diad in the force, so powerful it could restore his body and
making him stronger than ever.
Abandoning his plans to take an heir, Sidious drained Rey and Ben of their force powers
and relished in his new abilities, tossing Ben Solo into an abyss before launching a
savage lightning strike into the sky above, causing great damage to the last resistance
ships fighting alongside thousands of reinforcements from all across the galaxy, who answered the
call and came to fight for their freedom.
Sidious stopped when Rey stood to face him after summoning the spirits of Jedi past to
give her strength for one last confrontation.
The Dark Lord, claiming to represent the power of all Sith launched a final lightning assault
against Rey, but with the help of both Luke and Leia’s Lightsabers, she in turn harnessed
the power of all the Jedi and reversed the attack, physically destroying the Emeperor.
Though Rey did not survive the battle, Ben Solo did and sacrificed his own life to bring
her back.
With the First Order, Last Order and Sith Empire defeated, the survivors of the Battle
on Exegol spread word of their victory leading to celebrations across the galaxy, but Rey
still had one more mission to accomplish, visiting Luke’s childhood home on Tattooine,
where she buried his and Leia’s lightsabers.
When asked her name by a local, the force ghosts of Luke and Leia appeared, the last
Jedi, proudly called herself Rey Skywalker.