The Star Wars universe, much like ours, is ever-expanding. There are plenty of planets we haven’t seen in live-action and, with more and more series in development at Disney+, it’s basically inevitable that we’ll visit more planets — both those already existing in canon and brand-new.
The Acolyte promises to show an entirely new part of the Star Wars universe — could the rumored setting bring with it the live-action debut of a legendary Sith leader?
New leaker on the scene @Aesokass tweeted recently about The Acolyte featuring the ice planet Scipio, homeworld to the Muun people. The Muuns have popped a few times in Star Wars stories over the years. There were Muun characters among the members of the Banking Clan in the prequels, and Muun Rush Clovis appeared in a handful of episodes of The Clone Wars. Still, they remain a relatively mysterious people — especially in live-action format.
Probably the most famous (or infamous) Muun is Darth Plagueis. Plagueis was the Sith master to Sheev Palpatine before his tragic demise — a story Palpatine told Anakin over a night at the Mon Calamari Ballet. Plagueis has long been teased to be part of The Acolyte’s action as a member of the previous generation of Sith, but how probable is it?
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Plagueis’ life was most notably explained in James Luceno’s excellent Legends novel, Darth Plagueis. It followed the Muun character from his time under his master, Darth Tenebrous, to living life under his public persona of Hego Damask II of Damask Holdings, to discovering young royal-with-a-rebellious-streak Sheev Palpatine on Coruscant.
In this book, we conveniently skip over the time where Plagueis would plausibly appear in The Acolyte, but we do hear about his early life. Though the Muun people call Scipio home, they were a very intrepid species and colonized other planets including Muunilinst and Mygeeto. Plagueis was, in fact, born on Mygeeto, so visiting Scipio wouldn’t make much sense. However, as Darth Plagueis is no longer canon, Plagueis could absolutely have a more traditional Muun upbringing in The Acolyte.
Regardless of whether or not Plagueis is involved in The Acolyte, the series is going to overwrite Sith history. In Darth Plagueis and other works, Sith structure seemed to be very solitary, limited to a master-apprentice relationship which, thanks to the Rule of Two, led to an inevitable betrayal.
Because The Acolyte promises a more academy-like structure, there’s no telling what else it could rewrite. Maybe Darth Plagueis will be a classmate of the titular Acolyte, maybe we’ll see him on Scipio conducting business as Hego Damask. Whatever the possible fruition, it’s hard to imagine a Sith-focused story visiting a Muun planet without incorporating the most famous Muun Sith.
