How Palpatine Was Betrayed By His Most Trusted Ally In 'Star Wars'

Sheev Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious, aka "The Senate," is depicted as a very sneaky villain throughout the Star Wars saga. He is able to manipulate the galaxy through political maneuvers, to the point where he makes some people complacent with the idea of an Empire rising and the Jedi being gone. He accomplishes this with many chess pieces on his board. Some people he straight up uses, but some people he has as allies. However, even his closest allies may not be completely trustworthy.

Before this recent revelation of a different character betraying Palpatine, we already knew about Darth Vader's attempts against his master. The current Darth Vader comic series by Greg Pak that is set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi has continued that tradition. Vader's investigation of Padme's death against Sidious' wishes (which is, overall, a good opening arc for the series) leads to the Emperor leaving Vader on Mustafar with very little to survive, testing him to see if he is still worthy to serve. Vader prevails, of course, going so far as to discover Sidious' machinations on Exegol. (This is a plot point that I personally consider a mistake, as it is odd that Anakin never seems to warn his son about Sidious having a potential backup plan.)

The series has now taken Vader into the War of the Bounty Hunters crossover event, during which Vader goes up against the bounty hunter IG-88 in Darth Vader #13. Surprisingly, the assassin droid is able to hack into Vader's suit with a device using a code given to him by someone close to the Emperor. At the end of this issue, a hooded figure meets up with others on Coruscant. When it comes to characters with dark hoods, the obvious assumption is that it is Sidious. However, that is not the case in this instance, as the hooded figure is revealed to be Sly Moore.

While the name may not ring a bell for some fans, you have undoubtedly seen her if you have watched the prequels time and time again. She and Mas Amedda are part of Palpatine's inner circle, being present in scenes pertaining to the Senate and Palpatine's office. She is a mysterious Umbaran who acts as Palpatine's advisor. Now, however, it appears that Sly Moore and this group of people are trying to gain power by attempting to take down the two Sith Lords.

I am so used to Palpatine's allies being so loyal that the possibility of this reveal never crossed my mind. Mas Amedda has definitely shown his loyalty to Palpatine in supplementary materials, but it looks like Sly Moore is on the other side of the coin. And really, we should have expected no less from someone with a name like that. Thanks to the Sly Cooper games, I have known for nearly 20 years that "sly" is another word for sneaky. And it appears that Sly Moore is more sly than we could have anticipated.

Of course, we know that, ultimately, Sly Moore will not be able to completely take down these Sith Lords, as the fates of these dark side dictators are already dictated by the films. But the twist really shook things up for this series that was on shaky ground due to the Exegol sidequest. It gets me curious to see what Sly Moore's deeper motives and ultimate fate will be. This revelation has given new life to this comic book series, in my opinion, and it is about darn time.

Written By Steven Shinder

Source(s): Screen Rant

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