When Disney started up their new Star Wars content, wiping the previous Expanded Universe material from continuity, there was dismay from fans who were furious that this wealth of novels, comics, games, etc., was now relegated to Legends status. As the years have gone by, though, certain concepts, storylines or characters have been carried over from the old canon to the current one. The Clone Wars and Rebels have been good value for this, for example.
But a new novel has made a major change that completely separates it from the Legends canon, and it’s all to do with Darth Plagueis. After the reference to Palpatine’s Sith master in Revenge of the Sith, fans had to wait until 2012’s Darth Plagueis novel, written by James Luceno with input from George Lucas, for his full story. That’s now a Legends title, however, and E.K. Johnston’s Queen’s Peril has officially contradicted its recount of Plagueis the Wise and his mentorship of Darth Sidious.
For one, Luceno’s novel revealed that Palpatine was actually still an apprentice in The Phantom Menace, only killing his master when he became Chancellor of the Senate. Queen’s Peril, meanwhile, which is set in a similar period, establishes Palpatine as the numero uno Sith Lord operating in the galaxy during this time. Plagueis himself may still be canon, then, but his reign now ended much earlier than it did in the old canon.
Of course, this is the second major retcon to the Palpatine/Plagueis dynamic Star Wars has served up over the past year. The Rise of Skywalker finally – albeit indirectly – revealed the secret to immortality that Sidious discovered from his master: Essence Transfer, which is how he was able to survive his death in Return of the Jedi and transplant his soul into a back-up clone body on Exegol. How, when and why he murdered Plagueis, however, is now once again a mystery.
