CoruscantSenatorial Quarters – Naboo Delegation32 BBY
He awoke to luxury.
Silken robes. Polished floors. The faint vibration of a world that never slept. Coruscant, heart of the Republic, glowed beyond the window like a furnace of ambition. He was tall now. Healthy. Powerful. But what thrilled him most wasn't the strength in his limbs—it was the clarity in his mind.
The Force.
It curled around him like smoke—ancient, raw, dangerous. He felt the Light and Dark pressing against each other across the galaxy. Jedi meditating in marble towers. Sith whispers clawing through ruined temples.
And in the center of it all... him.
Senator Sheev Palpatine.But not the man history remembered.
This one remembered Earth.This one remembered pain.This one remembered what it meant to be powerless.
No more.
He stood before the mirror, yellow eyes simmering beneath a mask of diplomacy.
"The Clone Wars must happen," he whispered. "The Jedi must fall. But not as pawns in someone else's plan."
He would not be a slave to prophecy, nor a mad emperor drowned in lightning and delusion.He would sculpt destiny. Guide both Light and Dark like a master conductor.
Balance, yes. But not peace. Not harmony.
Control.
His voice, when he spoke, was velvet and steel.
"I will not be ruled by power. I will rule through it."
Today, he would enter the Senate as a humble voice from Naboo.
Tomorrow, the galaxy would kneel.