During the Imperial Era, sometime after the Duel on Cloud City, the Sith Lord Darth Vader undertook a mission to the planet Exegol in the galaxy's Unknown Regions to confront his Sith Master, the Galactic Emperor and Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious, also known as Sheev Palpatine, and uncover his secrets.
Following his lightsaber duel with his son and Jedi apprentice Luke Skywalker at Cloud City, Darth Vader resolved to determine how his offspring survived the death of his wife, Padmé Amidala, years earlier, disobeying orders given to him by his Sith Master and Emperor of the Galactic Empire, Darth Sidious, to undertake his own personal quest for answers. On Naboo, his late wife's homeworld, Vader eventually discovered the Amidalans, a resistance group who believed Vader to be Amidala's murderer, unaware that he was, in fact, the former Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker. Through the Amidalans, Vader witnessed the ultimate death of his pregnant wife on Polis Massa through an old holographic recording, and only returned to his master afterwards.
For his disobedience, the Emperor punished Vader and resolved to teach him a lesson in the dark side of the Force, removing his cybernetic limbs and having him dumped on Mustafar by a squad of death troopers to either strengthen his Sith apprentice with pain or leave him for dead. The Emperor also dispatched a Sith assassin, Ochi of Bestoon, to hunt down Vader, and sent an aide, the Umbaran Administrator Sly Moore, to oversee the operation. Vader temporarily repaired his suit with makeshift parts. The Dark Lord ultimately found the Eye of Webbish Bog, custodian of a Sith wayfinder, and retrieved the wayfinder from the creature after it tested him through the Force.
Before reaching Exegol, Darth Vader fought through a force of TIE fighters deployed to hold him back.
Vader captured Ochi and repaired his old Eta-2 Actis-class light interceptor, using it to travel to the wayfinder's coordinates, a planet in the galaxy's chaotic Unknown Regions called Exegol, which was only accessible by flying through the Red Honeycomb Zone of the Galactic Barrier. Moore and an Imperial fleet led by Admiral Corleque attempted to pursue Vader, but halted the chase as the Sith Lord entered the nebula, encountering a subspecies of the summa-verminoth. Vader safely navigated through the Red Honeycomb Zone and landed on Exegol's surface with Ochi.
From an overlooking cliff, Darth Vader looked upon his master, Sidious, just beyond the Sith Citadel, declaring that he was no longer the Emperor's apprentice. Ochi ran to the Emperor, warning his lord that Vader was coming, but Palpatine brushed it aside, explaining that he had anticipated Vader's arrival. By means of the Force, Vader summoned the summa-verminoth creature from the Red Honeycomb Zone to attack the Emperor, killing two used by the Emperor, but the Sith Lord killed the creature with the Force, knocking down the cliff and Vader in the process. Sidious then entered the Sith Citadel, and was pursued by Vader and Ochi.
Using the Force to take control of their knives, Vader cut down all the Sith cultists who came against him.
Inside the underground fortress, Vader stumbled on a laboratory containing a number of genetic strandcasts stored in vats while giving chase to his master, who explained that he had used "pain" as a "scalpel of creation" while Vader looked on the severed hand of his son, Luke Skywalker. Four armored strandcasts known Tankers, armed with electropoles, were then released from their vats and attacked Vader while the Emperor claimed that any of them could replace Vader as a Sith. Vader killed all four of the guardsmen, though in the process, the ground beneath them crumbled, and Vader fell further underground, where he encountered a group of Sith cultists armed with daggers. As the cultists attacked Vader, Palpatine claimed they could also replace Vader as one of the two Lords of the Sith. However, Vader used the Force to lift the group's daggers into the air and hurl them back at the cultists, piercing and killing the group.
Vader discovered a fleet under construction in the depths of the Sith Citadel on Exegol.
Vader continued his pursuit of the Emperor as Ochi shouted that his apprentice was still coming for him, but Sidious mocked Vader's desire for vengeance. Vader was drawn further beneath the temple, sensing unfathomable pain, and discovered the construction site of a massive reserve of Star Destroyers armed with planet-destroying cannons. Vader was then drawn to a building containing a mountainous kyber crystal while Ochi attempted to persuade him to reason with the Emperor. As more Sith cultists drilled into the kyber crystal, causing it great pain, it released a massive burst of fire and wailing, sending the cultists flying back and burning Ochi's eyes.
Sidious told Vader that only by experiencing pain could he share his power, and offered him a choice. A greatly weakened and hurt Vader chose to remain by the Emperor's side; even though he had a vision of Skywalker telling him he was destined to destroy Sidious, Vader had witnessed the immense power he possessed over him, convincing the Sith Lord to return to his master's service because of that power. The Emperor and Vader then departed Exegol alongside Ochi, Mas Amedda, and Sly Moore.
After his mission to Exegol, Darth Vader was brought back to the Imperial capital of Coruscant, where he faced the reconstruction of his cybernetic suit of armor in the secret laboratories of the throneworld.
The Emperor was destroyed by the redeemed Anakin, who sacrificed his life to save his son Luke Skywalker.
Vader remained loyal to the Emperor in the year that followed, feeling that he had to remain loyal to his master due to the power of the dark side of the Force. During the Battle of Endor, Vader brought his son, Luke Skywalker, before the Emperor in his throne room aboard the second Death Star, where the Emperor sought to convert Skywalker, the last of the Jedi, to the dark side. However, the good in Vader was reawakened by his son's compassion and love for him, for Skywalker had regained his composure and refused to kill his father, throwing away his lightsaber. The Emperor attempted to kill Skywalker, but Anakin intervened, sacrificing himself to save his son by destroying the Emperor. The redeemed Anakin died in his son's arms moments later, having destroyed the Sith and brought balance to the Force.
Kylo Ren discovered the location of Exegol by using the Sith wayfinder of his grandfather, Darth Vader.
Approximately three decades later, during the First Order-Resistance War, Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order and grandson of Anakin Skywalker, sought to track down the source behind a mysterious broadcast using the late Emperor's voice, which he perceived as a challenge and threat to his power, and eliminate it. Guided by the arcane lore of the Sith religion that he had uncovered from the bases of his predecessor and former master, Snoke, Ren was drawn to Mustafar to find artifacts that could help him in his search.
During his mission to Mustafar, Ren uncovered his grandfather's Sith wayfinder from the Eye of the Webbish Bog, which led him through the Unknown Regions to Exegol, the legendary hidden world of the Sith. There, Ren found a resurrected Darth Sidious, reborn in a clone body following his death by the redeemed Anakin Skywalker, alongside his followers, the Sith Eternal, and their Contingency military force, the Final Order. Ren learned that Sidious and his disciples had groomed him as heir to a new Sith Empire waiting to be unleashed from Exegol and to inherit the legacy of the Sith; as well as that his master, Snoke, had been a genetic strandcast and proxy created by the resurrected Dark Lord and his followers.
The Sith fleet was completed a generation after the Emperor's first death.
However, Ren ultimately renounced the dark side when his mother, General Leia Skywalker Organa Solo of the Resistance, sacrificed herself to reach out to him and reaffirm her love and forgiveness for him, and when he subsequently experienced a vision of his father, Han Solo, whom he had murdered, forgiving him. The Supreme Leader reclaimed his birth identity as Ben Solo and joined up with Rey, the Emperor's granddaughter and the Jedi apprentice of Luke and Leia Skywalker, in confronting the last Sith Lord. Empowered by the spirits of the Jedi past, Rey defended herself against the Emperor, ultimately destroying him and his followers and preventing the rebirth of the Sith and restoration of the Empire.
Though Rey died in the process, Solo gave his life force to resurrect her, made possible by their being a dyad in the Force, making a sacrifice that recalled that of his grandfather. Redeemed by this selfless act, Solo passed away into the Force, joining with his mother. Rey went on to repudiate the Palpatine name, and declared herself Rey Skywalker as the spirits of Luke and Leia watched on approvingly, honoring her mentors and continuing the Skywalker family legacy. Rey went on to become a Jedi Master herself as she fought to restore galactic peace.
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