Jedi Insurgency 279 (Interlude 40)

AN: This is the theme of this chapter:

https://youtu.be/MhmlVvTvo0A?is=hVFWuX5HOLiDAd7u

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Deep beneath the red sands of Korriban, the most brilliant scientist in the galaxy was hard at work. Thin, tall, possessing a broad forehead, and the qualities of immortality it was none other than the resurrected clone:

Darth Plagueis.

His hidden laboratory had been carved into the foundations of an ancient tomb, its original occupant forgotten even by the spirits that haunted the Valley of the Dark Lords. Black stone pillars rose around humming generators and silver surgical tables. Transparisteel cylinders stood between weathered statues, their sterile glass glowing against walls covered in hieroglyphics of sacrifice, conquest, and resurrection. Modern science had invaded the sepulcher, yet it did not seem out of place. The cables crossing the floor resembled veins, pulsing with unknown energy, whilst the machinery breathed with the slow rhythm of some immense, sleeping beast.

Although absent for nearly a decade, his servants still heeded the call of their master. Damask Holdings, and countless other shell companies funded his pursuits. His own godson-San Hill-was leader of the InterGalactic Banking Clan. Money, test subjects, resources, they were of no consequence in the pursuit of science!

The Muun wore a black researcher's smock rather than the ceremonial vestments of a Sith Lord. His long fingers moved across the controls in front of him with a surgeon’s touch. The damage once inflicted upon him had been repaired, but not forgotten. Beneath his restored flesh remained the memory of poison, paralysis, and helplessness. Through a Sith ritual merging his soul with this clone body, he recalled Sidious smiling whilst he struggled for one final breath.

It was not until months earlier, when the enigmatic Jedi Master, Revan, had reached beyond the veil and torn Plagueis back from oblivion. Whether it had been an act of mercy, arrogance, curiosity, or strategy remained unclear. Plagueis suspected it had been some mixture of all four. Revan had returned him to the galaxy and then left him to decide what manner of being he would become. Now Plagueis intended to provide an answer. What rested before him was his Final Solution.

Three genetic sequences rotated within a holographic display before him.

X1.

X2.

Omega.

Only recently had his spies within the Empire obtained Omega's samples, the attack on Coruscant benefitting him greatly. Each sample was imperfect in isolation. Together, they had given him the final pieces of a puzzle that Kaminoan cloners, Imperial scientists, and Sith alchemists had failed to solve for years. X1 and X2 had demonstrated that the Force could survive replication, though instability, environmental influence, and divergent conditioning had shaped their potential. Omega’s structure was subtler, cleaner. It was a genetic foundation unspoiled by the usual alterations imposed upon clone soldiers.

Plagueis had studied their blood until every chain of nucleotides was as familiar to him as the lines of his own hands. He had isolated the markers connected to their anomalous sensitivity, compared them with archived samples from Jedi and Sith, and then gone further into his research. Midichlorians were not merely organisms residing within cells. They were intermediaries between flesh and the cosmic will, partners that could be encouraged, deceived, cultivated, enhanced.

Commanded.

Pressing several buttons, he adjusted the final step to his latest experiment. A beep suddenly echoed in the lab as a container finished its gestation period.

Within the largest cylinder in the room, suspended in translucent fluid, a figure opened his eyes.

The monitors erupted with activity. Neural pathways ignited, lungs filled with tubing drew their first ragged breaths. The fluid churned around a body grown in weeks and matured through carefully regulated waves of hormones, accelerated cellular division, and Sith alchemy. The clone’s muscles convulsed against its restraints as consciousness descended upon it like a thunderbolt.

Then the Darkside of Korriban suffused this newborn like a thick blanket. Dust spilled from the ceiling, and ancient chains holding the cylinder in place swayed despite the absence of wind. The flames burning within the tomb’s ceremonial braziers bent toward the cylinder as if bowing before a newly crowned king. Across the laboratory, loose instruments rose from their trays and hovered, trembling, in the air.

Plagueis watched without blinking. This was it. This was what he lived for.

The cylinder cracked, and a thin fracture appeared along the transparisteel, followed by another and another. The levitating instruments shot outward. Metal struck stone, glass shattered, and the laboratory lights dimmed as the machinery strained beneath an invisible pressure.

The clone’s mouth opened beneath the fluid, and released a psychic scream. This sound should never have passed through the sealed cylinder, yet it filled the tomb all the same. It came not from the throat, but through the Force. It was that of a newborn consciousness recoiling from the agony of existence. The ancient statues cracked, and a sarcophagus lid slid several centimeters from its resting place. Somewhere deeper within the tomb, a long-dead Sith spirit howled in answer.

“Live.” Plagueis commanded, infusing his psychic will into the cells he had birthed into existence. Commanding the being before him to be loyal to the utmost.

The clone’s eyes fixed upon him.

For one suspended moment, creator and creation stared at one another through the fractured glass. Plagueis reached into the Force, feeling the being’s fear, confusion, and enormous unrealized potential. There was no degeneration, rejection, or collapse of Force sensitivity. The midichlorians were multiplying exactly as predicted, settling into the clone’s cells as naturally as they would within a child conceived beneath the gaze of destiny.

But there would be no destiny for this creature beyond the one Plagueis had written.

“Kneel.”

The clone’s struggling ceased. Slowly, awkwardly, the being lowered its head within the fluid, and took a knee.

A smile spread across the Muun’s narrow face.

Success.

This simple smile was not the uncontrolled grin of a madman, nor the triumphant sneer Palpatine had so often worn. Plagueis smiled with the quiet satisfaction of a scientist whose theorem had survived contact with reality. The impossible had become repeatable. The mystical had become measurable. Life itself had yielded beneath his instruments.

“Successful Force Sensitivity.” A nearby medical droid reported. “No detectable cellular instability. Neural conditioning remains intact. Loyalty imprint is absolute.”

“Drain the cylinder, cloth my servant.”

The fluid descended into multiple drains, and the clone collapsed to his knees as the glass opened, coughing violently while cables tore free from its skin. Steam rolled across the floor as his naked body shook beneath the cold air, yet the Force continued to coil around him, vast and hungry.

Standing on shaky feet, the large forehead marked him as a Cerean. This was a clone of none other than Ki-Adi-Mundi!

Plagueis placed the robe on the clone's shoulders. The gesture might have appeared paternal to an ignorant observer. Yet this was not the case. A father created life and hoped that it would find its own path. Plagueis had created life so that it would never possess one.

He turned toward the laboratory’s upper gallery. Beyond the machinery stood dozens of empty cylinders, arranged in rows. Waiting. At his command, lights flickered to life beneath them, one after another, illuminating the scale of what he had built. The first chamber held space for a hundred subjects. The deeper vaults could nurture thousands.

Yet ordinary templates no longer interested him. Korriban itself would provide the rest.

Above his laboratory stretched the Valley of the Dark Lords, its monuments rising from the desert like the bones of dead gods. Within those tombs lay the remains of warriors, sorcerers, kings, and conquerors. Even after millennia, sealed bone marrow might retain viable fragments. Teeth could preserve genetic material, mummified flesh rested beneath alchemically protected wrappings, and blood remained trapped upon sacrificial blades and within the grooves of ancient armor.

Tulak Hord.

Marka Ragnos.

Naga Sadow.

Ludo Kressh.

Perhaps even samples from Sith whose names had been deliberately erased, or perished on other worlds. Even now, one of his subordinates was traveling to far flung worlds in search of samples: Yavin, Abraxas, Ossus, all to obtain the most valuable of test subjects.

Plagueis would enter their tombs not as a pilgrim seeking wisdom, but as a physician visiting a morgue. He would cut open their sarcophagi, drill into their bones, and take from them the only secrets that mattered. Their hereditary gifts would be catalogued. Their defects would be removed. Their strengths would be combined, refined, and placed within bodies designed to obey.

The ancient Sith had built empires through lineage, ambition, and betrayal. Every apprentice coveted the master’s throne. Every heir imagined himself greater than his ancestors. That flaw had destroyed them again and again.

Plagueis would correct it.

His Sith would possess the ferocity of the ancients without their treachery, the power of legends without their pride. They would not scheme against their creator, for obedience would be embedded deep within their genetic code. They would awaken knowing his voice. They would regard his commands as instinct and his survival as the highest law of existence. That he was their new God.

This plan of his, this Final Solution was to replace the entire residents of the galaxy with a perfectly loyal Sith Empire. One where treacherous apprentices did not have the slightest chance at betrayal!

This would not be an empire of politicians, moffs, or frightened bureaucrats. Nor would it be Palpatine’s so-called Empire, where even now he was beholden to the masses. Forced to placate the uneducated, and lowest common denominator. No. The inheritance of the Sith was his, and Plagueis would achieve their dream once and for all.

Plagueis approached a sealed case and opened it. Inside rested a collection of extraction drills, molecular preservation vials, and alchemical instruments made from blackened metal. Their edges gleamed beneath the laboratory lights, promising a glorious future.

Then, turning on his communicator, he barely contained his excitement as he issued his next set of orders to some droids waiting on stand-by.

“Prepare the excavation teams, begin with the nearest tombs. Every corpse is to be tested, each viable fragment is to be brought to me.”

Behind him, the first clone struggled upright. He towered amid the steam, pale and trembling, his movements uncertain but his gaze was completely fixed upon his creator. Lightning flickered over its fingertips. The newborn Sith looked down at the power crawling across his hands, then back toward Plagueis, awaiting instruction.

For the first time since his resurrection, Plagueis laughed. The imprint had gone better than expected! Force abilities, lightsaber forms, each of his creations would understand the basics of combat. This was only the beginning!

The sound of his dry laughter rolled through the tomb, low and terrible. It passed through corridors choked by sand and chambers sealed for thousands of years. Ancient spirits stirred in their sarcophagi, disturbed by the presence moving among them. They felt the cold machines beneath their graves, and bided their time, seeking to possess a body of their own.

Plagueis let his laughter die down as he thought towards the future. Sidious had stolen his victory, murdered him in his sleep, and built an empire upon knowledge he had not earned. Soon, Palpatine would learn that death had merely given his master time to reconsider the scale of his ambitions.

And Revan-brilliant, infuriating Revan-would finally have an adversary worthy of his genius.

The Jedi had resurrected one Sith Lord.

Plagueis intended to resurrect an empire.

Outside, a storm gathered over Korriban. Red lightning crossed the desert sky, illuminating the tombs of the ancient Sith as though the dead world itself had awakened upon a laboratory table. And deep beneath the sands, its new heart began to beat.

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AN: We haven't had a Plagueis POV for like, ever. BUT that was for good reason, as you can see here! The next couple chapters will be the Bad Guy POVs, and I tell you, Vader is not the only SSS tier threat rn!