EU: Vader Croaks. Who's next Sith?

[Q99]

Let's say Darth Vader dies at the end of ANH. Or ESB, or what have you- pick a timeframe, and assume no Luke (since, duh, if Luke's available he's gonna gun for Luke).

The EU has a number of darksiders working for Sidious at different levels, who have different amounts of training (though none taught the full breath of sith training an Apprentice is). Who's he likely to pick to fill the void?

Jerec? Mara Jade? Arden Lyn? Carnor Jax?

[Simon_Jester]

Alas, no time to research anything, not for me...

Mara Jade was apparently only one of several Emperor's Hands, based on what I remember. This suggests that unless there was something very unusual about her that I don't know, she wouldn't be selected.

The most likely candidates would be people who were already running Dark Side Force-using organizations, such as the Inquisition. Palpatine will want people who know how to run at least a small organization...

No. Wait.

Palpatine picked Vader precisely because, in the suit and with his personality damaged as it was, he had no charisma and no real ability to win loyalty. And prior to Vader, his apprentices were Dooku (old, easily betrayed to the Jedi if he became a threat, and the natural fall guy for the Sith conspiracy as the public leader of the CIS) and Maul (who was a pure brute, unsuited to politics).

None of Palpatine's apprentices were ever likely to overthrow him, which is in line with Palpatine's desire to live forever. Luke is the only exception to this rule, and it's worth noting that Palpatine had degenerated to a cackling madman by the time he thought Luke would make a good apprentice...

DAMMIT! Wait.

Palpatine IS this cackling madman. He might pick whoever he deems strongest in the Force, OR he might go back to his Clone Wars-era reasoning and pick whoever he thought was powerful enough to do what he needed done, but who had weaknesses that made them unlikely to pose a threat to him.

[Q99]

Alas, no time to research anything, not for me...

Mara Jade was apparently only one of several Emperor's Hands, based on what I remember. This suggests that unless there was something very unusual about her that I don't know, she wouldn't be selected.

Arden Lyn was another Hand, yes (also the survivor of an ancient darkside organization, revived from stasis). I think the Hands were among his strongest darksiders- which might've been why they were largely kept isolated.

Lesse, the other major Hands were Lumiya and Cronal and maybe some more. Mara was the one selected to go after Luke Skywalker post-ESB, which says something on how her talents were rated.

The most likely candidates would be people who were already running Dark Side Force-using organizations, such as the Inquisition. Palpatine will want people who know how to run at least a small organization...

A thing about the Inquisitors though, is a lot of them weren't too impressive. The first Grand Inquisitor was killed by Jedi Ferus Olin. It took three members of the Inquisition including a Grand Inquisitor to take down Arden Lyn. I suspect they were not generally the top-potential people force wise, so that they could not use their command of the Inquisition in a successful coup.

Jerec, a former Jedi Master, strikes me as the strongest of 'em (and notably he wasn't in charge of the Inquisition, though he did have some rank as a High Inquisitor). Also, he actively sought the apprenticeship.

Palpatine IS this cackling madman. He might pick whoever he deems strongest in the Force, OR he might go back to his Clone Wars-era reasoning and pick whoever he thought was powerful enough to do what he needed done, but who had weaknesses that made them unlikely to pose a threat to him.

It should be noted that Vader becoming a cyborg wasn't the *goal*... though he will stick control levers in just about anyone given a shot, considering his top picks were 'Anakin' and 'Luke,' I don't think he actually will aim for lower than the best given the option.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Let's say Darth Vader dies at the end of ANH. Or ESB, or what have you- pick a timeframe, and assume no Luke (since, duh, if Luke's available he's gonna gun for Luke).

The EU has a number of darksiders working for Sidious at different levels, who have different amounts of training (though none taught the full breath of sith training an Apprentice is). Who's he likely to pick to fill the void?

Jerec? Mara Jade? Arden Lyn? Carnor Jax?

Sedriss, maybe.

I'd say Starkiller, but his canonicity was questionable even under the EU.

[Q99]

Oh yea, Starkiller. He'd be a natural choice... but I think he was dead by then anyway.

[NecronLord]

It's outright stated that Jerec was the chief candidate to replace Vader in one of his biographies. Publius covers it here.

the former Master Jedi Jerec’s standing in the Hierarchy was second only to Darth Vader himself, noting that he “outranked the Dark Side Adepts such as Hethrir, Sedriss, and Kadann”

[Q99]

That does answer that I suppose. Jerec seems like he'd make a good Dooku-esque Sith. Not as powerful as Sidious or Vader, but generally pretty solid and able to pass things on.

I do wonder who was next on down the list...

[Lord Revan]

I suspect who will Darth Sidious' replacement apprentice if Darth Vader dies depends on what Palpatine wants from this replacement apprentice.

Darth Maul was an enforcer/assassin style sith with little to no leadership/organization qualities, great if you if Sidious wanted someone to act as threat to keep his minions in line but more or less useless at leading his minions, Death Tyranus (aka Count Dooku) was almost the total opposite, while he had better combat skills then Maul had leadership skills, Dooku's old age was a serious limiting factor to his combat effectiveness, in fact in the ROTS novelization (which I don't know if it's still considered canon or not) it's implied that big reason why Anakin Skywalker beat Doooku at Corusant was due to Anakin being good enough that his greater stamina (due to being signigantly younger) that allowed Anakin to win Dooku since Dooku became too exhausted to properly employ his greater skill at lightsaber combat. Speaking of Anakin Skywalker, Vader is somewhere between the ealier 2 apprentices.

So if Palpatine wants/needs an enforcer to keep the imperial hierarchy in line thru fear he'd pick an Apprentice who is like Maul, on the other hand if Palpatine needed someone to lead that hierarchy he's pick someone like Dooku (possibly with another potential apprentice already picked as back up), but if Palpatine needed someone who could do both jobs he'd pick someone who was like Vader.

[Solauren]

I am always of mind it would be Mara Jade and then Jerec.

Mara was supremely loyal to Sidious, and would make an excellent apprentice. Remember, training with Luke, she became a Jedi Master.
She could handle the assassination stuff, handle the political stuff, and command respect.

Jerec, while powerful, would be to dangerous to embolden like that.


Mara would rule at her master's side, possibly willingly continuing his line.
Jerec would be waiting for the opening to cut Sidious in half.

[Ralin]

I am always of mind it would be Mara Jade and then Jerec.

Mara was supremely loyal to Sidious, and would make an excellent apprentice. Remember, training with Luke, she became a Jedi Master.
She could handle the assassination stuff, handle the political stuff, and command respect.

I was going through the Hand of Thrawn duology on audio book not long ago. Luke makes the point that Mara never really had any of the hardcore selfishness and malevolence that he associated with a true Dark Sider, and either said or implied that this was probably intentional on Palpatine's part. Palpatine expected Mara to be a direct extension of his will and his authority, and for a servant like that it was in his best interest to maybe not have her be a borderline insane treacherous bastard trained to mainline the corrupting power of the Dark Side and probably betray him the moment she thought it was in her best interest. Meaning that he cultivated what would generally be considered altruistic and Jedi-like qualities in her like honor, loyalty, etc. All of which makes her a poor candidate for Sith apprentice.

Plus she was IIRC not really all that powerful in the Force without whatever Palpatine was doing to bolster her abilities.

[Elheru Aran]

In the new canon, Palpatine has been working on this. Spoilers below--

After the end of the Clone Wars he commissions a, well, more or less literal mad scientist to experiment with creating agents for him. Three in particular could have well succeeded Vader-- a brother and sister Force user pair, and a Mon Calamari with a droid body patterned after Grievous. Vader has to deal with them after the loss of the first Death Star.

[Kingmaker]

if Palpatine needed someone to lead that hierarchy he's pick someone like Dooku

That was more or less my interpretation of what Tarkin was anyway. Vader seems to be more of a troubleshooter who has the personal competence and leadership skills to Get Shit Done, but lacks the temperament and charisma to be good at actually running something long term - which is the role we mostly see him in the movies. He's more than a thug, unlike Maul, but not a serious challenge to Palpatine's power (he might be materially capable of shanking Palps, but he's not going to successfully take the throne).

I don't know enough about Jerec to comment, but I don't think Mara Jade fits that mold. She's not as thuggish Maul, but she's in the same vein: an operative, not a general. She might do okay as a political officer for senior Imperial leadership, but she doesn't seem like the kind of agent you'd give a whole fleet and task with hunting down the Rebels.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, Vader's role in the early Empire is basically being Palpatine's bully-boy. He could have been more, but then he got Cusinarted by Obi-wan and flame-broiled to boot.

If you want to run with old EU interpretations of events, Palpatine didn't care *that* much about having another Sith around; there were a few (many actually) assorted Force users around him, but Vader was the only legitimate Sith, and what with the whole mess of Dark Empire we can assume Palpatine wasn't planning on being usurped in the ordinary order of events-- he only needed followers, not potential successors.

When Skywalker shows up, though, that tosses everything to hell because now he's got a definite possibility for replacing Vader. Vader in his turn takes prominence by assuming executive command over the military, or at least a significant portion of it.

[NecronLord]

That does answer that I suppose. Jerec seems like he'd make a good Dooku-esque Sith. Not as powerful as Sidious or Vader, but generally pretty solid and able to pass things on.

I do wonder who was next on down the list...

There's not much doubt that Jerec could take on the dark side lore, indeed it's mentioned that Palpatine deliberately limited his access to dark side lore because of his ambition:

One man who took the title of Dark Jedi with pride was Jerec -- the enigmatic Force-user who murdered Kyle Katarn's father -- but he did not do so alone. Inspired by glimpses into the Emperor's Dark Side Compendium, Jerec intended to bring to fruition an experiment Palpatine had spoken of in his malignant tome: the creation of a unit of seven Dark Jedi perfectly absorbed into the Emperor's will, a "Dark Side Elite." Unfortunately for Jerec, the Emperor readily recognized the darksider's ambition and denied Jerec further access to the Compendium, ending the audacious experiment.

He clearly had respectable faculty as a force user having an ability to paralyze a jedi survivor in a saber fight - his later feats in the novels and game cinematics aren't really helpful in establishing his ability (for instance when he uses the force to disable a bulk freighter) as by that point he's drawing on a special power source, but it's clear that he can defeat most contenders with ease.

He's also able to at least run finance comparatively well, having assembled an independent financial base sufficient to afford a private army including a star-battlecruiser and manipulating several post-imperial warlords to fund him (without them being aware of one another). The page linked below has as Yun's backstory that he was from a wealthy family targeted by Jerec for absorbing their assets, later it mentions he's a billionaire.

He's a pretty well rounded Sith Lord candidate.

I am always of mind it would be Mara Jade and then Jerec.

Mara was supremely loyal to Sidious, and would make an excellent apprentice. Remember, training with Luke, she became a Jedi Master.
She could handle the assassination stuff, handle the political stuff, and command respect.

Jerec, while powerful, would be to dangerous to embolden like that.


Mara would rule at her master's side, possibly willingly continuing his line.
Jerec would be waiting for the opening to cut Sidious in half.

Having the potential to be a Jedi master hardly gives an advantage here. Jerec was a Master in the old order after all. There's no doubt however that Jerec was more ambitious than almost all other imperial dark siders - most tried to rebuild the Empire, Jerec tried to become a deity.

[Q99]

A thing about Mara Jade is while she has high potential, didn't Luke note she hadn't really been trained in darkside lore? Like, she'd been taught force abilities but not really delved into the philosophy of the dark. It may be the case of 'has the power and talent but not the mindset.' So she still needs a good deal of work.

There's not much doubt that Jerec could take on the dark side lore, indeed it's mentioned that Palpatine deliberately limited his access to dark side lore because of his ambition:

Limiting access to sith lord to all but the apprentice is pretty standard, but yea.

Jerec really does poke all the Sith buttons. He's got ambition beyond his fellows, he's the one most directly noted to be angling for the job, he's strong and experienced... he may not be as moldable as a 'train from a young adult or earlier' Sith, but he's already so sithy that he doesn't have to be shaped too much. The only reason to pick someone over him/aside from him is if you wanted someone for a very specific role.

[Lord Revan]

It actually makes sense for Mara Jade style spy/asssassin/enforcer (what the "emperor's hand" essentially boils down to) to not be that well trained in the dark side lore, just good enough that they can get the job done (possibly with some covert boosting) after all the public persona of Palpatine was "talented politician/leader with no special powers" with the idea being the he controls Vader thru sheer charisma not by being his Sith master. So the emperor would need a loyal covert force to deal with enemies that he cannot deal personally thru the authority of the imperial throne, after all it would harm the public image if Sidious was seen swinning a Lightsaber or throwing Force lightning in public.

[Imperial Overlord]

Jerric's really the leading contender. He's already doing the same job Vader is essentially doing, he's a master of the Jedi arts, and has fallen to the dark side. Only Cronal of all the mentioned contenders has his kind of mastery of the Force and Cronal is from a very different Force tradition (he was trained by people who don't even believe the Force has a light side and believe its nature is to destroy) and is probably too slippery to trust with that kind of power. The only other option would be someone still young and moldable, which wouldn't be anyone in any senior position of power.

[NecronLord]

The only other option would be someone still young and moldable, which wouldn't be anyone in any senior position of power.

Well yes. We're excluding the obvious candidate for the sake of discussion.



It really depends if the Emperor wants pawns or if he wants a true sith successor; Sedriss, and Nist were probably not intended to ever be Sith Lords, but they were heads of the Emperor's dark side force users for a while.

[Q99]

Personally I don't have all that much respect for Sedriss on this scale of things- while strong enough to lead the 'Dark Side Elite,' most of them were frankly chumps, Kam Solusar excepted (with just very brief Luke training he was able to beat their blademaster). And while Kam's good, even later down the road at his best he got to 'solid council member,' level, but not someone at the top of the council. Even figuring in Sedriss has a bit higher potential than Kam, he's not exactly a cerebral type so the less brute-forcey sith stuff may be tricky for him.

Then again, starting him with full training early on may help... still no Vader, but maybe a Maul.

[NeoGoomba]

What ever stopped Jerec from outright challenging Vader? Was it purely the Emperor's grace that kept Jerec from directly taking him on? Because it seems like Jerec was actually a superior Sith Lord in knowledge, temperament, and skillset.

[Elheru Aran]

Mostly the Emperor, I'm guessing. That, and it's a bit hard to challenge Vader when he's always haring about the galaxy doing the Emperor's work. I certainly wouldn't put it past Palpatine to arrange affairs so that his strongest Force users were never in the same room together, something like that. Who knows if they might *team up* and try to kill him?

[Solauren]

One has to wonder, if he'd try cloning Vader to replace him, or even trying for another Starkiller clone.

[NecronLord]

What ever stopped Jerec from outright challenging Vader? Was it purely the Emperor's grace that kept Jerec from directly taking him on? Because it seems like Jerec was actually a superior Sith Lord in knowledge, temperament, and skillset.

Vader is really good at fighting, and a prodigy in some ways. Jerec was a Jedi Master, but a Jedi Archeologist. He's probably more thinker than fighter.

I imagine Jerec wanted to wait until he had a decisive advantage over Vader, and probably Palpatine too. Both of his story appearances feature him trying to obtain something to make him personally more powerful.

[Q99]

Vader has greater power in the force as well as being one of the most talented duelists there is.

Also, due to being the full apprentice, his actual darkside knowledge should be greater even if his application tends towards more straightforward.

Jerec would really have to study hard in more esoteric areas to catch an advantage over Anakin.

[Solauren]

You don't need an advantage if you have a clear shot with a Turbolaser from orbit.

Jerec didn't move against Vader because he wasn't allowed to.