The Core Worlds were not burning.
They were thriving.
Unlike the Outer Rim, fractured by war and scarred by rebellion, the Core basked in the stability Emperor Palpatine had promised. On Coruscant, on Chandrila, on Kuat, relief centers distributed food, power, and medical care. Black-armored stormtroopers escorted convoys—not to oppress, but to shield. The streets were lit. Crime was low. The people, weary of chaos, had chosen order.
And Palpatine gave it to them.
Behind the scenes, the machine of the Empire tightened its grip.
Every shipment of aid bore the sigil of the Imperial crest. Every relief worker wore the black and silver badge of the Emperor's Service Corps. And every grateful face became another voice in support of the regime. No longer through fear alone—but through necessity, and even admiration.
In exchange, civilians lined up in record numbers to serve in the Empire's ever-expanding war machine.
Citizens for Order, a new initiative pushed by the Imperial Ministry of Unity, swept through the HoloNet. Young men and women of the Core—once scholars, artists, and merchants—now trained in boot camps on Corellia and Brentaal IV. Patriotism flared not from firebrands, but from parents urging their children to serve "for the good of all."
The Rebellion, meanwhile, grew more bold.
Mon Mothma's fiery speeches, smuggled into the HoloNet via encrypted transmissions, called the Empire a "gilded tyrant cloaked in false peace." Bail Organa funneled wealth and arms through secret syndicates, arming cells on Sullust, Bothawui, and even Coruscant itself. Their raids grew sharper. Their message clearer.
Palpatine watched it all unfold from his obsidian tower.
And he smiled.
The Death Star Assembly Briefing
The chamber deep beneath Imperial Center was sealed with obsidian blast doors and lined with sensor-dampening alloys. Only a handful of beings had access.
Inside, holograms of engineers, scientists, and fleet commanders flickered into being—projected from Scarif, Geonosis, and Kuat.
Grand Moff Tarkin stood tall in person, his hands clasped behind his back.
"The superlaser array nears stability," said Dr. Silar Tenn, the aging lead of the Kyber Core Integration Project. "The kyber crystals harvested from Jedha are aligning to required thresholds."
Tarkin nodded. "And the thermal exhaust vulnerabilities?"
"Minimized," Tenn assured. "We're reinforcing all output shafts with redundant shielding. No outside projectile can compromise it unless intentionally funneled through a very specific, narrow path—one statistically impossible to exploit."
Palpatine leaned forward from his throne-like seat, hood shrouding most of his features.
"Good," he rasped. "The galaxy is not held by starships... but fear. Fear of annihilation. Proceed."
Tarkin bowed. "Yes, my lord. The Death Star will be fully armed and operational within the coming cycles."
Palpatine's eyes, yellow and cold, flashed briefly with satisfaction. But beneath the surface, a darker purpose stirred.
This was merely Phase Two.
Phase Three had already begun.
Return to Exegol
The skies above Exegol crackled with unnatural storms, twisting purple lightning across a sky that had never known sunlight.
Palpatine descended alone, his shuttle veiled in cloaking protocols known only to his most loyal guard. There, in the shadowed labyrinths below the surface, he walked the halls of forgotten Sith, beneath monolithic statues of the ancients.
Star Destroyer fragments—fused, reforged, perfected—hovered in the drydock chambers like leviathans being born. The Star Forge, nested in a half-living cage of machinery and dark matter conduits, churned silently at the center of it all. Fed by captured suns and Sith alchemy, it no longer simply built—it created.
The engineers of the galaxy brought him raw materials.
The Star Forge returned death incarnate.
Tens of thousands of Exegol-born stormtroopers drilled in silence, grown and conditioned in accelerated chambers. Programmed not just for loyalty—but for belief. They would fight not as soldiers, but as zealots.
In the deepest sanctum, Palpatine entered the meditation sphere.
A dozen Force ghosts lingered in the edges of perception. Revan. Nihilus. Bane. And more—watching, judging, whispering in a thousand tongues. The Star Forge, once corrupted by the darkness of the Rakata, now pulsed with his singular will. Not even Revan's echo could withstand him.
"I do not serve the dark side," he said into the void. "I am the dark side."
They did not argue. They could not.
A War of Faiths
The Rebellion was growing.
Palpatine did not fear it. He welcomed it.
The larger it became, the more he could crush. The more he crushed, the stronger his image of the eternal Emperor would become. Across the galaxy, propaganda surged—a battle not just of blasters, but of belief. Jedi were myth. Rebels were criminals. The Empire was peace.
And soon… invincible.
The next stage was ready.
He opened a secure channel to Kuat, Rothana, and Sienar Systems.
"Commence planetary lockdowns along all critical trade routes. No transport leaves or enters without Imperial authorization. Redirect all classified shipments to coordinates Sigma-Eleven—use the Veil Protocol."
"And the prototypes, my lord?" asked Tarkin.
"Send them to Exegol."