palpatine's yacht

Appearances [ ]

• Darth Plagueis (First appearance, simultaneous with audiobook )
• Darth Plagueis audiobook

Notes and references [ ]

• ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Darth Plagueis

Star Wars: How Palpatine's Sith Fleet Was Built By a Mysterious Cult

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10 Jedi Who Were Never Knighted in Star Wars

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With a few years passing since the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker , many fans still have questions that are left unanswered. Most revolve around the return of Palpatine , with the line, "Somehow Palpatine returned," becoming a joke in the film community. However, as with much of Star Wars , many questions have been answered through comics and visual dictionaries, including the origin of Palpatine's massive Sith fleet.

After 40 years of building up his strength, Palpatine finally revealed his return to the galaxy . And with him, hundreds of Star Destroyers lifted off from the planet Exogol to aid his new reign of terror. Yet these weren't any old Star Destroyers, as they were far stronger than those seen in the original trilogy, and even possessed the power to destroy planets. However, with how advanced these ships were, it's clear they would've taken years, if not decades, to build.

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Palpatine's return, and the entire Sith Fleet, revolves around a mysterious cult called the Sith Eternal. These shadowy beings can be seen all around Palpatine's lair, but their true faces are never shown. While it's unknown if they were Force-sensitive themselves, they worshiped the dark side and believed the Sith to be gods, aiding them in their conquest for power.

The age of the Sith Eternal cult has never been specified, but Palpatine was well aware of their existence during the Empire's reign. To stay secret and out of sight, the Sith Eternal lived on the hidden planet of Exogol, and here Palpatine commanded them to work on new cloning technology. With this, he hoped to find methods of prolonging his death as long as possible, which clearly he succeeded in doing. It's this technology that also gave birth to the first Palpatine clones, such as Snoke and Rey's father .

But before his death in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi , Palpatine also commissioned an entirely new milliary. Separate from his Empire, the Sith Eternal got to work raising new soldiers, officers and an incredibly powerful fleet. While they likely planned on blending in with the Empire, this would be an entire army devoted to Palpatine alone -- one from which he would not have to hide his Sith origins.

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During his career as Emperor, he snuck resources onto the hidden Sith planet, and things were going smoothly all throughout the original trilogy. But with Palpatine's death at the hands of Anakin Skywalker , things were made complicated. The Sith Eternal were determined to keep their master alive, and so managed to create a crude Palpatine body for his spirit to inhabit. Then for the next 40 years they continued their gradual growth of the Sith army, all while Palpatine devised his final plan of gaining control.

Despite the First Order being relocated to Exogol, it was mostly the Sith army that controlled the fleet. Many of the Sith Eternal stayed to praise Palpatine and keep him alive, but their decades of work was finally unleashed into the galaxy. Although, despite knowing what the Sith Eternal built, much of their cult is still shrouded in mystery, and it's unknown how far back in the Star Wars timeline they really go.

• Movie Features

Screen Rant

Darth maul's phantom menace sith interceptor was nearly 70 years ahead of the first order.

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Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Cast & Character Guide

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• The Scimitar, used by Darth Maul in Episode I, had advanced tracking tech decades before the First Order's hyperspace tracking.
• Palpatine later used the Scimitar during the Clone Wars and as Emperor, secretly utilizing its advanced features ahead of its time.
• The Scimitar's ability to track ships through hyperspace may have influenced the Empire and First Order's research into hyperspace tracking.

Darth Maul ’s personal vessel in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace , the Sith Infiltrator known as the Scimitar, successfully used a seemingly impossible form of tracking almost 70 years before the First Order . The Scimitar was a unique and heavily armed starship with experimental and rare technology, utilizing a cloaking device (an extreme rarity for a ship of its size) and an advanced tracking system. The Empire would struggle to replicate one element of the Scimitar’s tracking technology, though its successor state, the First Order, would deploy it against the Resistance.

The Scimitar only briefly appears in The Phantom Menace , with Darth Maul flying the vessel to Tatooine on a mission to track down Queen Amidala. After Maul’s presumed death on Naboo, the ship fell into the hands of his mentor, Palpatine (Darth Sidious), who would use the ship during the Clone Wars and his reign as Emperor. One Star Wars original trilogy era appearance by the Scimitar reveals that one of its advanced features was decades ahead of its time.

The Scimitar nearly appeared in a story arc of Star Wars: The Clone Wars , as evidenced by its appearance in Star Wars: Darth Maul—Son of Dathomir , by Jeremy Barlow and Juan Frigeri.

The cast of the Star Wars prequel trilogy features great actors like Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, and Samuel L. Jackson playing iconic characters.

Darth Maul's Sith Interceptor Had Hyperspace Tracking Long Before The First Order

Maul & his scimitar had this "innovative" technology at his disposal.

As revealed in Lando #3 by Charles Soule and Alex Maleev, the Scimitar was capable of tracking ships through hyperspace , a feat thought impossible before the events of Star Wars: The Last Jedi . With Lando Calrissian having stolen Emperor Palpatine’s yacht, the Imperialis, the bounty hunter Chanath Cha commandeers the Scimitar and tracks down the ship through hyperspace by locking onto its drive signature. The Scimitar’s ability to track ships through hyperspace precedes the Empire’s research and the First Order’s deployment of this technology, though there may be a reason for this inconsistency.

Did The Sith Keep Hyperspace Tracking Secret?

The technology may not have been perfected yet.

As shown in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story , research into hyperspace tracking was one of the Empire’s many projects referenced by Jyn Erso during the movie's third act on Scarif. The Empire still had not perfected the technology well after the Galactic Civil War, as shown in Adam Christopher’s Shadow of the Sith . As the novel reveals, the Empire had been experimenting with buoys planted throughout the known galaxy, which would lock on to a ship’s unique energy signature. By the start of the First Order’s war with the Resistance, however, the technology had finally become operational.

The Empire and later First Order might have studied the Scimitar’s method of tracking the Imperialis in their own research into hyperspace tracking.

The Scimitar’s ability to track a ship through hyperspace may have been exclusively for the Imperialis, and thus the technology would not have been perfected for general use yet. The Empire and later First Order might have studied the Scimitar’s method of tracking the Imperialis in their own research into hyperspace tracking, however. In any case, the connection between the two factions and Darth Maul’s ship in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace creates a fascinating throughline across all three Star Wars trilogies.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

The beginning of the Skywalker Saga, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace sees young Anakin Skywalker put on his path to discovering his ability to influence the Force. While attempting to thwart the nefarious Trade Federation in their plans for the planet of Naboo, two Jedi discover an exceptionally-gifted slave with the ability to wield the Force. Little do they know, rescuing him is just the beginning of a saga that will span generations of the Skywalker family.