Sheev Palpatine, or Darth Sidious as he had come to be known, opened his eyes.
It was an...
It was an...
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Not All Second Chances Are Good Things (Star Wars/Pathfinder)
- Thread starter SixPerfections
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Chapter 1
- Location
- Texas
Sheev Palpatine, or Darth Sidious as he had come to be known, opened his eyes.
It was an unfamiliar ceiling.
He blinked. The ceiling was made of wooden beams and straw. Straw. When was the last time any type of civilized person had even seen straw? What kind of hellish backwater had he ended up in?!
Sidious closed his eyes and... remembered. He remembered... betrayal. His fool of an apprentice, that treacherous worm, practically committing suicide by picking him up and throwing him into the pit in his throne room aboard the second Death Star. Sidious couldn't decide if he was more enraged or simply baffled. Vader could not possibly have survived his treachery. His apprentice must have known this. What in the Force could have prompted his apprentice to suddenly commit suicide, after so many years of service?
But, somehow, inexplicably, Sidious had survived. The Emperor of the Empire allowed himself a cruel smile. He wasn't sure where he had ended up, why or how, but soon enough he would set to putting things to right. If his apprentice had somehow survived... well, Sidious would make him dearly wish that he had not. There was only one price to pay for treachery after all.
But first things first. He needed to get some idea of where he was or what was going on. Closing his eyes and drawing deep on the Dark Side of the Force the Sith Lord Darth Sidious felt...
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
His eyes shot open as for the first time in decades, shock and panic shot through his system.
The Force. He couldn't feel the Force! It was like it wasn't there! HE COULDN'T FEEL THE FORCE!
He closed his eyes, entering a meditative trance and shutting the rest of the world away. Palpatine lay there for hours, refusing to come out of his trance even as he heard people around him and even had a few idiotic insects dare to try to wake him by speaking to him and prodding him. He searched and searched and searched. It was for naught. There was nothing. He could not feel the Force!
There were only two possible conclusions: Either the Force was no longer there... or he no longer had the ability to use the Force.
When he was forced to accept this fact... his wail of utter despair left all who heard it rattled and aching with sympathetic pain. It was a wail, they instinctively knew, of someone who had lost absolutely everything.
For three days no one was able to get any reaction out of Sheev Palpatine in his near comatose state.
000
Darth Sidi- ... No, he could no longer call himself that, now could he? How could he be a Sith Lord without the Force? No... Palpatine, after three days of being little more than a comatose zombie, was finally up from that disgusting pallet they dared to call a bed.
The final indignity had been an elderly matron sitting next to him and force feeding him some gruel. He'd been far too weak to resist. That was the point when he decided that, even though he had lost everything, at the very least he still had his dignity.
Now standing in the filthy sty they called a communal "bathroom", Sheev Palpatine looked at himself in the single tiny, blurry and cracked mirror the orphanage had hung there. Because that was apparently what he was now. A poor, filthy, disease and probably lice ridden orphan.
Also, somehow he was once again a child. And in the body of a girl. Because with how everything had been since he had first woken up, of course he was a bloody girl now!
The image looking back at him wasn't disgustingly deformed at least, so he supposed that counted for something. A grain of sand in a sea of despair but at this point Sheev would take any small silver lining he could get. While not necessary as he had proven many times over, in general physical beauty was a boon in manipulating the foolish and the easily distracted.
As far as Sheev could tell he (she?) was now about thirteen years old with...
[ ] Blonde hair
[ ] Red hair
[ ] Black hair
Well, at least he was still human. That counted for something at least. He had seen some near-human alien freaks walking around in the orphanage after all. Another tiny silver lining that he clung desperately to so as to not backslide into a pit of crippling despair.
Sheev had no idea what he was going to do now. However almost without his input his brilliant mind with decades of experience navigating the most vicious pits in the galaxy told him what his immediate priorities needed to be: One, he needed to blend in so as to not draw unwanted attention to himself. He'd already drawn enough attention as it was and as much as it galled, he was essentially helpless right now. Two, he needed information. What world he was in. What the local power structure was. How technologically advanced they were and if they'd even had any sort of contact with his Empire. He desperately needed to gather all of that information and much, much, much more.
Yes. This wasn't... good, but he needed something to do. Something to keep him focused.
Something to keep him from dwelling on the feeling he got every time he reached for the Force subconsciously and found absolutely nothing.
With a deep shuddering breath and shaking limbs, Sheev Palpatine nevertheless straightened his spine and looked determinedly at his reflection in the mirror.
He had suffered a catastrophic defeat, but he was not beaten. Not yet.
000
Four months later, she was now Carno Sunchild of the world known as Golarion. As much as she (and she had found it necessary to start thinking of herself that way, if for nothing more than strictly practical reasons) had wanted to keep the name Sheev Palpatine it would have been too suspicious to do so. The orphanage had always known her as Carno Sunchild, "Sunchild" being the surname this particular orphanage gave to all orphans that didn't have a surname of their own, and thus she had been compelled to adopt that name. It galled and was yet another thing she had lost after she had been betrayed and murdered.
She had lost everything. Her name. Her connection and the immense power granted to her by the Force. Her Empire. Everything she had devoted her entire life to... destroyed, in one moment of betrayal. Stuck on a primitive pre-industrial world that worked on many strange rules and concepts completely alien to her own. Everything, literally everything he had ever known, gone. Anyone else would have been left completely broken, content to simply amble along in this new miserable life, mourning what was lost until they eventually died and were forgotten in obscurity.
But no. Sheev Palpatine, former Dark Lord of the Sith, now a young girl named Carno Sunchild... she wasn't just anyone.
Even after all she had lost, even after all the indignities she had been forced to suffer... she would not bend. She would not be broken. She would rise again, and retake her rightful place of power, and carve her name into the very molten core of this backwards, primitive world for the next hundred thousand years!
Keep busy. If she did not wish to fall into despair that is what she needed to do.
She was going to have to start from scratch. On the one hand, it was beyond galling and this time she would be without the aid of the Force. On the other hand, it would keep her too busy to think about much anything else.
After learning about this world, her eventual goal had been obvious. The former Dark Lord of the Sith would take this new life she had been given with two hands and devote herself to...
[ ] Becoming the Empress of this world, the sole supreme and unquestioned ruler. After that you might devote yourself to conquering all these other "Planes" you've heard about until this primitive backwater actually managed to create functioning FTL.
[ ] Becoming a literal god, at least in the terms this world understood it. Mere mortals had become gods of incredible power in this strange world before after all. If the stories were correct that sort of power could even surpass her previous mastery of the Dark Side of the Force. However becoming a god in this world came with some inherent limitations.
[ ] Why pick and choose? Becoming God-Empress of all the Planes had a pretty nice ring to it, you had to admit.
... yes. That is what she would do. What is a man if he does not reach for greatness? Nothing she would ever allow herself to become, that was for certain. If she failed then she never deserved such a lofty prize to begin with. If she succeeded then it was hers by right.
She had been thinking about it almost from the beginning, but after making the decision she felt like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
Carno felt herself smile for the first time since she had woken up in this new, strange world.
If a small child ran away in tears at seeing her smile, well, it wasn't like that was her problem now as it?
It was an unfamiliar ceiling.
He blinked. The ceiling was made of wooden beams and straw. Straw. When was the last time any type of civilized person had even seen straw? What kind of hellish backwater had he ended up in?!
Sidious closed his eyes and... remembered. He remembered... betrayal. His fool of an apprentice, that treacherous worm, practically committing suicide by picking him up and throwing him into the pit in his throne room aboard the second Death Star. Sidious couldn't decide if he was more enraged or simply baffled. Vader could not possibly have survived his treachery. His apprentice must have known this. What in the Force could have prompted his apprentice to suddenly commit suicide, after so many years of service?
But, somehow, inexplicably, Sidious had survived. The Emperor of the Empire allowed himself a cruel smile. He wasn't sure where he had ended up, why or how, but soon enough he would set to putting things to right. If his apprentice had somehow survived... well, Sidious would make him dearly wish that he had not. There was only one price to pay for treachery after all.
But first things first. He needed to get some idea of where he was or what was going on. Closing his eyes and drawing deep on the Dark Side of the Force the Sith Lord Darth Sidious felt...
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
His eyes shot open as for the first time in decades, shock and panic shot through his system.
The Force. He couldn't feel the Force! It was like it wasn't there! HE COULDN'T FEEL THE FORCE!
He closed his eyes, entering a meditative trance and shutting the rest of the world away. Palpatine lay there for hours, refusing to come out of his trance even as he heard people around him and even had a few idiotic insects dare to try to wake him by speaking to him and prodding him. He searched and searched and searched. It was for naught. There was nothing. He could not feel the Force!
There were only two possible conclusions: Either the Force was no longer there... or he no longer had the ability to use the Force.
When he was forced to accept this fact... his wail of utter despair left all who heard it rattled and aching with sympathetic pain. It was a wail, they instinctively knew, of someone who had lost absolutely everything.
For three days no one was able to get any reaction out of Sheev Palpatine in his near comatose state.
000
Darth Sidi- ... No, he could no longer call himself that, now could he? How could he be a Sith Lord without the Force? No... Palpatine, after three days of being little more than a comatose zombie, was finally up from that disgusting pallet they dared to call a bed.
The final indignity had been an elderly matron sitting next to him and force feeding him some gruel. He'd been far too weak to resist. That was the point when he decided that, even though he had lost everything, at the very least he still had his dignity.
Now standing in the filthy sty they called a communal "bathroom", Sheev Palpatine looked at himself in the single tiny, blurry and cracked mirror the orphanage had hung there. Because that was apparently what he was now. A poor, filthy, disease and probably lice ridden orphan.
Also, somehow he was once again a child. And in the body of a girl. Because with how everything had been since he had first woken up, of course he was a bloody girl now!
The image looking back at him wasn't disgustingly deformed at least, so he supposed that counted for something. A grain of sand in a sea of despair but at this point Sheev would take any small silver lining he could get. While not necessary as he had proven many times over, in general physical beauty was a boon in manipulating the foolish and the easily distracted.
As far as Sheev could tell he (she?) was now about thirteen years old with...
[ ] Blonde hair
Well, at least he was still human. That counted for something at least. He had seen some near-human alien freaks walking around in the orphanage after all. Another tiny silver lining that he clung desperately to so as to not backslide into a pit of crippling despair.
Sheev had no idea what he was going to do now. However almost without his input his brilliant mind with decades of experience navigating the most vicious pits in the galaxy told him what his immediate priorities needed to be: One, he needed to blend in so as to not draw unwanted attention to himself. He'd already drawn enough attention as it was and as much as it galled, he was essentially helpless right now. Two, he needed information. What world he was in. What the local power structure was. How technologically advanced they were and if they'd even had any sort of contact with his Empire. He desperately needed to gather all of that information and much, much, much more.
Yes. This wasn't... good, but he needed something to do. Something to keep him focused.
Something to keep him from dwelling on the feeling he got every time he reached for the Force subconsciously and found absolutely nothing.
With a deep shuddering breath and shaking limbs, Sheev Palpatine nevertheless straightened his spine and looked determinedly at his reflection in the mirror.
He had suffered a catastrophic defeat, but he was not beaten. Not yet.
000
Four months later, she was now Carno Sunchild of the world known as Golarion. As much as she (and she had found it necessary to start thinking of herself that way, if for nothing more than strictly practical reasons) had wanted to keep the name Sheev Palpatine it would have been too suspicious to do so. The orphanage had always known her as Carno Sunchild, "Sunchild" being the surname this particular orphanage gave to all orphans that didn't have a surname of their own, and thus she had been compelled to adopt that name. It galled and was yet another thing she had lost after she had been betrayed and murdered.
She had lost everything. Her name. Her connection and the immense power granted to her by the Force. Her Empire. Everything she had devoted her entire life to... destroyed, in one moment of betrayal. Stuck on a primitive pre-industrial world that worked on many strange rules and concepts completely alien to her own. Everything, literally everything he had ever known, gone. Anyone else would have been left completely broken, content to simply amble along in this new miserable life, mourning what was lost until they eventually died and were forgotten in obscurity.
But no. Sheev Palpatine, former Dark Lord of the Sith, now a young girl named Carno Sunchild... she wasn't just anyone.
Even after all she had lost, even after all the indignities she had been forced to suffer... she would not bend. She would not be broken. She would rise again, and retake her rightful place of power, and carve her name into the very molten core of this backwards, primitive world for the next hundred thousand years!
Keep busy. If she did not wish to fall into despair that is what she needed to do.
She was going to have to start from scratch. On the one hand, it was beyond galling and this time she would be without the aid of the Force. On the other hand, it would keep her too busy to think about much anything else.
After learning about this world, her eventual goal had been obvious. The former Dark Lord of the Sith would take this new life she had been given with two hands and devote herself to...
[ ] Becoming the Empress of this world, the sole supreme and unquestioned ruler. After that you might devote yourself to conquering all these other "Planes" you've heard about until this primitive backwater actually managed to create functioning FTL.
[ ] Becoming a literal god, at least in the terms this world understood it. Mere mortals had become gods of incredible power in this strange world before after all. If the stories were correct that sort of power could even surpass her previous mastery of the Dark Side of the Force. However becoming a god in this world came with some inherent limitations.
[ ] Why pick and choose? Becoming God-Empress of all the Planes had a pretty nice ring to it, you had to admit.
... yes. That is what she would do. What is a man if he does not reach for greatness? Nothing she would ever allow herself to become, that was for certain. If she failed then she never deserved such a lofty prize to begin with. If she succeeded then it was hers by right.
She had been thinking about it almost from the beginning, but after making the decision she felt like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
Carno felt herself smile for the first time since she had woken up in this new, strange world.
If a small child ran away in tears at seeing her smile, well, it wasn't like that was her problem now as it?
Last edited:
Chapter 2
- Location
- Texas
[X] Blonde hair
[X] Why pick and choose? Becoming God-Empress of all the Planes had a pretty nice ring to it, you had to admit.
[X] Why pick and choose? Becoming God-Empress of all the Planes had a pretty nice ring to it, you had to admit.
While it was very clear that many things in Golarion were very different than what she was used to it also became apparent that many things remained the same. It confirmed what she had already known. No matter where they came from or what their society professed, all sentients were at the end of the day mostly a selfish and self-serving lot.
Carno Sunchild, formerly the galactic emperor and Sith Lord Darth Sidious, quickly came to realize that many of the universal truths across his galaxy translated to this world. For one thing, the people with all of the wealth and power tended to make sure only their families and those who proved themselves to be useful to them gained any measure of wealth and power of their own. There was not even a pretense at democracy that she had seen in this world as there had been in the waning days of the Republic. A pity, since using the gullibility of the masses could have been used to propel her to a position of power and influence.
In fact, there was really next to no upward mobility in this world, not like there had been in most of the core worlds. A commoner could perhaps do well and become a wealthy merchant but at the end of the day that sort of economic power seemed to be somewhat limited in this world,... especially when taking into account that a king or princeling could potentially seize all of your wealth with only a very thin excuse or perhaps even no justification at all needed. No, that was not a route that would lead her to her goals.
Unless she wanted to start working menial jobs for mere coppers - or worse, since even as a thirteen year old girl she drew a frankly disturbing amount of attention from the opposite sex - she was going to need to take some drastic actions.
After much research and talking to as many people as she could without drawing too much attention Carno had come to a conclusion.
In this world, the only way an inconsequential orphan like herself could rise to power, greatness and influence was by following one route and one route only: becoming an Adventurer.
Apparently in this backwards world all of the various kings and lordlings were far too weak and incompetent to maintain proper order throughout their lands. Various bandits, beasts, rebels and all sorts of "magical" threats that the various rulers were either incapable or unwilling to deal with directly were left in the hands of roving bands of free-lance mercenaries known as "Adventurers". For monetary rewards and "loot" Adventurers risked life and limb to take care of the problems those who dared to call themselves rulers failed at dealing with for one reason or another.
At first the thought of becoming some sort of mercenary filth had filled Carno with disdain and she had sneered at the very idea. However it quickly became apparent that this particular brand of mercenary, on this particular world, was something much different than what she was used to. Adventurers who were successful and charismatic were well known to amass great influence, fantastic wealth, large followings and tended to elevate and refine their own personal combat powers to an insane degree. It was just the sort of opportunity - and platform - she would need to get her global domination plans underway.
000
This city she found herself in... it was for sure peculiar. In her experience every city, nation and planet had their own flavor, their own priorities and eccentricities. Before she could being to make any real meaningful progress she would have to carefully decide how she was going to navigate this dangerous - but potentially very profitable - primitive little runt of a settlement that fancied itself one of the most important cities in this world. Playing someone else's game and then subverting it for her own benefit was how she had risen to power the first time, after all.
The name of the city Carno Sunchild found herself in was...
[ ] Niswan
[ ] Starfall
[ ] Absalom
[ ] Katapesh
(This choice will have a significant impact on how this quest plays out. Choose wisely.)