Darth Sidious was the most powerful Sith in Star Wars, but he made some dumb decisions – and this mistake was worse than rebuilding the Death Star.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers from Star Wars: Crimson Reign #3 and Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #19. Both are on sale now from Marvel Comics.
While Darth Vader might be the most popular Sith of all time, Darth Sidious consistently is identified as the most powerful. He clearly did something right because he infiltrated the Republic, nearly destroyed the Jedi, and ruled the galaxy for over two decades. However, that doesn’t mean that he didn’t make a few critical mistakes along the way.
Besides getting too much credit for turning Anakin to the Dark Side, Sidious also abandoned his commitment to the Sith Order Rule of Two, instead maximizing his power while keeping Vader in his thrall. Besides that, Sidious was notorious for putting all of his eggs in one doomed basket. For one, he enjoyed his Force Lightning a bit too much, managing to end each trilogy by electrocuting himself unintentionally. Yet, that was only one of Sidious’ major downfalls.
Many Star Wars fans have noted how Darth Sidious had a thing for superweapons. First, he made the Death Star, but the Rebel Alliance destroyed it. So, he built another, bigger Death Star, which the Rebels also destroyed. Then (through his proxy, Snoke), he gutted Illum and built Starkiller Base, which the Resistance also managed to blow into smithereens. One failure was catastrophic, but a second exploding space station should have been a hint that a third try wasn’t going to be the charm. That, however, wasn’t Sidious’ stupidest mistake.
He spent all of his time as a Sith focused on eradicating the Jedi from history. However, by only focusing on the Jedi, Sidious ignored some pretty important threats. The Crimson Reign comic crossover has proved that point by introducing the Ascendant Cult and how two Force-adjacent characters could end up posing threats to Sidious’ Empire.
The first character of note was Crimson Dawn’s Archivist. In Crimson Reign #3 (by Charles Soule, Steven Cummings, Victor Olazaba, Guru-eFX, and VC’s Travis Lanham), she received an important backstory. Initially, the Archivist was a Sava (teacher and scholar) at the University of Bar’leth. Madelin Sun specialized in studying the Dark Side and its ancient artifacts. Years after Order 66, Crimson Dawn found Sava Sun, and Qi’ra convinced her to join in a fight against the Empire. Agreeing to that proposition, Sava Sun became known as the Archivist and received some secret training from Yoda.
The second character was also a teacher at the University of Bar’leth. Sava Iglan’tine Nos was the Chair of Occult Archaeological Studies. In the latest Doctor Aphra Comic (by Alyssa Wong, Minkyu Jung, Rachelle Rosenberg, and VC’s Joe Caramagna), a character named Kho Phon Farrus found Sava Nos. The two of them were intent on reviving the Ascendant Cult in a bid to make themselves Sith with the cult’s ancient technology.
Obviously, Savas Sun and Nos didn’t end up destroying Sidious’ Empire — that was Luke Skywalker’s role. However, Sidious should have had the foresight to see that Savas, who specifically studied the Dark Side and ancient cults, could have been a real threat to his endgame. Sure, hunting down the Jedi was important, but he should have addressed this other danger. In fact, it’s a wonder that neither of those Force-adjacent Savas didn’t end up posing a more significant threat.
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