Darth Plagueis’ appearance in The Acolyte was a shock to everyone except those who remembered Palpatine’s wise words from Revenge of the Sith: “Have you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?”
But that story only tells the end of Plagueis’ story. The beginning contains a secret Sith battle that bears a striking resemblance to what happens in The Acolyte — and could contain the key to Qimir’s future in a possible Season 2.
Lost Legends is an Inverse series about the forgotten lore of our favorite stories.
In James Luceno’s non-canon Legends book Darth Plagueis, we learn of Plagueis’ beginnings on the planet Mygeeto and his rise as a Sith under the tutelage of Darth Tenebrous. As foretold in the Rule of Two, Plagueis slaughtered Tenebrous while the two were exploring the Cortosis mines on the planet Bal’demnic (believed by many to be the “Unknown Planet” in The Acolyte.)
But Plagueis’ rise to power was a lot more complicated than just defeating his master. Tenebrous hid a nasty secret: Darth Venamis, a second apprentice trained in secret in case Plagueis failed. Plagueis eventually found Venamis and slayed him, but kept him comatose for years as a guinea pig for medical tests in his search for eternal life.
Now that we know that Plagueis is the one pulling the strings behind Qimir, it looks like Plagueis too will fudge the rules of The Rule of Two in order to hedge his bets. He may go on to find and train Palpatine, but perhaps Qimir will become his backup plan, a Sith living in the shadows for decades just in case he should be useful.
Venamis also bears some similarities to Osha. Much like how Plagueis kept Venamis around to conduct tests on, Osha could be pulled from Qimir’s training and be used for tests to reverse engineer her “spontaneous life” origin. Her birth being so similar to Anakin’s can’t just be a coincidence — Osha is valuable to Plagueis for more than her Force sensitivity.
The most complicated part of Plagueis’ appearance in The Acolyte is how it messes with the Rule of Two — technically, only two Sith should exist, a master and an apprentice. But in an interview with Inverse, Leslye Headland explained that Qimir and Osha’s powerful connection means that they in a way are an exception to this rule.
“The added complication that master and apprentice — or in this case apprentice and acolyte — there’s always an imbalance. One to hold the power, one to crave it,” she said. “And seeing these two characters completely aligned with each other in this hugely satisfying way, the tease is: How will they survive the structure of how the Sith work?” So while Qimir is presumedly Plagueis’ apprentice, Osha isn’t Qimir’s apprentice, she’s his acolyte. Does that mean that, like Tenebrous before him, Plagueis is essentially training two apprentices? Where does the Rule of Two come in, and does this moment of equality and unity mean they’ve skirted it?
The Rule of Two means one thing for sure — because Palpatine goes on to murder his master, Qimir cannot do the same. So somehow, a rift needs to form between Plagueis, his apprentice, and his acolyte in order to drive Plagueis towards Palpatine. That could, unfortunately, be through Qimir’s demise, but it also could be through a dual apprentice face-off or even Qimir and Osha walking away after realizing Plagueis’ true intentions with her.
We may not know much about Plagueis, but the little we do know proves that he’s aware of how to work around the Sith doctrine, and he’s unafraid to take on even the most powerful Force users in order to get what he wants. Thanks to Palpatine, we know that he lived in pursuit of creating life through midichlorians — it’s just a matter of how he intends to get there.
