The galaxy was still tormented by the echoes of betrayal. Order 66 had been carried out with brutal accuracy; within days, the once-powerful Jedi Order had been destroyed. As the clones turned their weapons on their commanders—the guardians of peace reduced to pursued ghosts—star systems fell silent. Once alive with optimistic and wise voices, the Jedi Temple on Coruscant's halls were now stained with blood and deserted, the sacred archives raided by Imperial troops.
Palpatine triumphed in the shadows of this catastrophe. No more existed the Galactic Republic. Declaring the dawn of a new era, the Galactic Empire, he spoke with a voice weighted with inevitability. Senators bowed, terrified or complicit, as the metamorphosis swept through the galaxy like a tidal of iron and fire.
Staying on Coruscant, Padmé Amidala collaborated with the fading peace movement in the Senate to chart a course back toward democracy. She never doubted Anakin's possibility of salvation even though she knew he was lost to her, corrupted by the Dark Side.
She passed out in labor not long after Obi-Wan left. The work was too much. She died even as her twins, Luke and Leia, were born; medical droids were assisting her. Her body was collapsing. Darth Sidious showed up precisely now.
Using forgotten Sith alchemy proscribed by the Jedi, Sidious conducted a gruesome ritual to resuscitate Padmé. Sidious conjured the full force of the Dark Side before a silent Vader, bending the forces of life and death. Padmé inhaled once more amid a shroud of crimson and black thunder; her eyes blinked with an unnatural sparkle.
Vader stopped motionless. He had killed for power and betrayed all he knew. But now, his spirit was chained as the woman he loved reappeared before him. Sidious had linked Vader's will to his hand, not just saved Padmé.
In the volcanic world of Mustafar meanwhile, the duel between master and apprentice had come to a ferocious climax. Obi-Wan Kenobi, scarred and battered, had fallen before the unrelenting anger of Vader's blade. Among the smoking lava rivers, the former Jedi Master defied all logic and survived left for dead. Among the few still faithful to the Jedi way, his escape was a secret whispered.
Coruscant's skyline saw the downfall of the Jedi Temple, a pillar of Republic now desecrated. The Order, formerly vibrant, was dead. Survivors fled into the shadows, dogged relentlessly by Vader and his stormtroopers, their lightsabers switched out one by one.
The Senate itself became a hollow shell of authority as the Empire tightened its grip. The course of events was molded by Palpatine's remarks; his orders changed law and liberty as well. Under the boot heel of dictatorship, the democratic principles of the Republic were broken. Senators disappeared or bowed, suppressed by fear or ambition.
Looking for knowledge to expand his power outside of basic political command, Palpatine examined old Sith holocrons and prohibited writings in the quiet halls of power. Through dark ceremonies, his body—once thin and deceptive—was toughened. Each inhale became a testament of his will to control destiny itself.
Though the shadows deepened, embers of rebellion shone faintly in the emptiness—this was the darkest hour of the galaxy.