Little known fact: after becoming Emperor, Sidious/Palpatine retained that room for use as an audience chamber, always offering his visitor the “Windu seat” (“it’s a got a great view, you can see aaallll the way down”).
That sounds really good. I’ll leave it to Lucas to ass it up somehow.
Dark Jedi != Sith Lord. I gather that “Sith” means a member of a particular exclusive school or heritage of the Dark Side. Dooku defected from the Jedi many years before (about the time the secret Clone project was established), but only was accepted by Palpatine/Sideous as an apprentice Sith after Maul died. There may only have been two true Sith at any time but there were any number of lesser dark Force wielders waiting in the wings. Sort of like farm team players waiting for their shot in the big leagues.
He was sued because of trademark infringment and subsequently unable to use that name because of a court injunction in favor of Yahoo Sidious.
But “Dark Understudy” just doesn’t have the same ring as “Dark Apprentice”, y’know? 
“Darth Intern” just doesn’t cut it.
{{{{{{{Maul}}}}}}}}
Not to get fussy, but shouldn’t it follow the pattern and be Darth Tern? Or did that sound too close to scatalogical? Do DarthTerns get hazed?
Hmm… I wonder if Maul was hired from a temp agency?
Hi, I’m Darth Sidious. This is my apprentice Darl, and this is my other apprentice Darl.
I’m just popping into the discussion say that the part of your quote that I bolded does not really make sense historically. I don’t believe Machiavelli had anything to do with tutoring the Medici and in any case didn’t practice the sorts of behavior he advocated in The Prince. Besides,the Medici were already corrupted by the time of Machiavelli (or at least they didn’t need him to tell them how to pursue power and money with little or no regard for morality).
He didn’t use it “again,” he never stopped using it in the first place. He’s elected Senator Palpatine. He manipulates the Clone War to be named Chancellor Palpatine. He claims to have uncovered a Jedi plot to undermine the Republic, but is horribly wounded in the process, and proclaims himself Emperor Palpatine in order to stop their machinations. The existence of the Darth Sideous persona was never known outside of the highest levels of the Jedi Council, and most of them were killed in the purge. To the galactic public at large, he’s just a regular tyrant. His status as Sith Lord, or even his ability to use the Force in general, is not generally known, although by the time of the Rebellion, it seems to be pretty much an open secret.
As to the, “there are only two” thing about Sith Masters and their apprentices, given the high turnover rate (and back-stabbing tendencies) of Sith apprentices, I suspect all Sith Masters keep a stable of “potential” apprentices on hand so they don’t have to start over from scratch every time their apprentice gets uppity. Darth Sidious had probably been secretly teaching/manipulating Dooku for years before Maul went and got himself bisected.
First of all, I can’t believe I know this. I’m such a geek. But this all got explained in the Star Wars “extended universe”…in other words, all the books, comics, etc. that Lucas licensed to milk the great cash cow that is Star Wars. So, here’s the history of the Sith
Anyway, it seems a long, long, long time ago (even longer than the long, long time ago referenced in the movies), there was an argument among the Jedi, with some of them saying that the whole “Dark Side of the Force” really wasn’t that bad after all, and this argument turned into a civil war among the Jedi. The Dark Jedi lost, and the rest of the Jedi said, basically, “get lost”, and exiled them from known space.
The dark Jedi travelled through the unknown reaches of the galaxy, until they came upon a planet called Korriban. Korriban was inhabited by an intelligent species, known as the Sith, who could use the force, but didn’t really understand it. When the dark Jedi came, the Sith worshiped them as gods, and the dark Jedi (being dark Jedi, after all) enslaved the Sith. This went on for a while, with the dark Jedi interbreeding with the native Sith, and meanwhile expanding their control into nearby solar systems, so that “Sith” stopped being the name of the species, and started being the name of the growing Empire. The Sith Empire was ruled by the most powerful of the Dark Side force users, who held the title “Dark Lord of the Sith”, and usually got to his position by killing his predecessor. As you can imagine, this isn’t something that leads to stable succession.
One of the most powerful Dark Lords was this guy named Marka Ragnos, and in fact, he was so powerful, he managed to die in bed, which was something that most of his predecessors weren’t able to do. But that meant, when he did die, there were two strong contenders for the throne. Meanwhile, a Republic ship went off course, and crashed on Korriban, carrying with it two Jedi. One of the rivals for power manipulated the situation, and managed to become Dark Lord by convincing the Sith to declare war on the Jedi and the Republic. The Republic won and the Sith empire was destroyed. As time goes on, there are other uprisings of dark Jedi, but they keep getting put down
So, jump ahead to a few hundred years before the movies. This disaffected Jedi falls to the dark side and takes the name Darth Bane. He decides the reason the dark side keeps losing is because it’s members keep betraying each other (which is, in fact, a large part of the reason. Being both powerhungry and egotistical, the dark Jedi have trouble putting aside personal gain for the grater good). So, Darth Bane decides that from now on, the Sith should be limited to one master and one apprentice. When the apprentice has become stronger than the master, he will kill him, and take a new apprentice of his own. This way, the Sith can survive, in secret, waiting for the day the Jedi and the Republic become weak.
Actually, it would explain a lot.
I just wanted to say, thanks for posting that. I thought it was pretty neat.
That sentence made no sense at all to me until I went back and re-read the paragraphs before it. I don’t know where I fell asleep.
Wasn’t The Prince a collection of letters addressed to de Medici on how to maintain power; basically so Machiavelli could curry favor with the ruling family?
He was teaching manipulation, while manipulating at the same time.
Maybe not a perfect analogy, but definitely a devil standing on a prominent person’s shoulder, whispering in his ear.
But the Medici had been expelled from Florence by then. Machiavelli was directing his book at the Borgias, not the Medici.
And can you imagine Darth Vader wearing a nametag with “TRAINEE” below his name?
It’s been quite a few years since I read the books, so tell me if I’m remembering correctly. Isn’t this planet where Luke Skywalker ended up establishing his new Jedi academy? And for some reason, I’m also remembering that Korriban was actually the moon of Yavin, where the Rebels were based in the first movie. I could have that mixed up, though.
Nope, that’s just Yavin 4. IIRC, during the war between the Old Republic and the Sith Empire, one of the dissenting Sith Lords ran off to Yavin to avoid getting killed, and his slaves eventually evolved into the more savage, “native” Massassi who built all the temples there (that the Rebels used, and later, Luke’s Jedi Academy) to worship him after his death.
The next big Sith uprising involved Exar Kun and another human Jedi-turned-Sith, along with a number of Dark Jedi, Sith pupils, and other dark-side users (like those aristocrats who funded a droid army) went to Yavin 4 to recover the Sith flagship and any other resources. The Massassi built a temple to Kun there. During the trilogy where Luke established his Academy, Kun’s ghost put him in a coma and tried to turn his students before being exorcised, and having his temple destroyed.
Korriban is remembered by most SW fans for being coated in Egyptian-esque tombs for Sith Lords, being populated by Jackal-like vicious black canines, etc. Exar Kun didn’t really turn to darkness until being overwhelmed by the Dark Lords’ ghosts (up until then he had been like Anakin before becoming Darth; skirting the line out of curiosity). According to background lore, Palpatine would travel there in secret from time to time during the days of the Empire to meditate and draw power from the residual dark emotions and evil will.