Warning! This article contains spoilers for Star Wars: Darth Vader #42 While it may seem impossible to consider that someone even worse than Emperor Palpatine could have ruled the galaxy in his stead, the latest addition to Star Wars lore confirms that Darth Vader himself would have been a far more terrifying option as Emperor. The reason this is the case is that Darth Vader is currently conducting some pretty grisly Sith science experiments on living organisms, which is just a peek into how Vader would likely handle maintaining control over an entire galaxy.
Darth Vader is currently in open conflict with Emperor Palpatine following his brush with the Scourge – the viral AI hivemind hellbent on assimilating every life form in the galaxy. Given that Vader is ‘more machine than man’, he was briefly taken over by the Scourge, only for his indomitable will and mechanical genius to prove victorious over the hivemind in the end. Vader isolated the Scourge, and used its ability to overtake droids and cyborgs for himself.
Darth Vader began assimilating his own droids, controlling them with his mind and even using them to further the reach of his Force abilities. However, the ability to assimilate droids with the isolated piece of Scourge Vader had dominion over went away when the Scourge was effectively eliminated by Ajax Sigma in Star Wars: Dark Droids #5. But, this is a power Darth Vader wasn’t about to let go of any time soon, and he’s now working to achieve his own method of assimilation.
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Darth Vader Would Remove Free Will From The Galaxy If He Was Emperor
In Star Wars: Darth Vader #42 by Greg Pak and Adam Gorham, Darth Vader is attacked by a gang of Rebel cyborgs known as the M.A.R. Corps, who use their cybernetic enhancements to decimate an entire squadron of Storm Troopers. When they challenge Vader himself, he covertly surrounds the M.A.R. Corps with mouse droids. Each one shot the cyborgs with darts that turned out to be processor implantation delivery systems, which corrupted the cyborg’s circuitry with a virus of Darth Vader’s own design.
After all the members of M.A.R. Corps were hit, their brains were overtaken by Vader’s closed-circuit hivemind, granting Vader complete control over their actions. The comic then brings readers to a secret laboratory on Mustafar, where Vader and his droids are working to perfect this method of assimilation. This all but confirms his intention of imposing his will on the minds of anyone and everyone he can in his quest to wrestle control of the galaxy away from the Emperor, while also proving what Vader would do if he was Emperor from the start.
Star Wars Just Proved Darth Vader Is A Sith Heretic
Merging technology with the dark side of the Force has long-been considered heretical in the eyes of the Sith, which is something that can be traced back to the creation of the Spark Eternal by the dark side cult known as the Ascendant. The Spark Eternal recently gave life to the Scourge, thereby confirming the dangers of this practice, and why the ancient Sith were opposed to it. However, Darth Vader was exposed to the power of assimilation, and was strong enough to rip it away from the Scourge to wield it himself. Rather than turning his back on it like a true Sith should have, Vader was inspired by this power, and sought to create his own form of assimilation after the Scourge was effectively destroyed.
Darth Vader is actively trying to use a blend of scientific experimentation and the dark side to infect the minds of the living in an attempt to control their thoughts and actions. This not only makes Vader a Sith heretic, but also the worst option for a galactic dictator. Palpatine may have sought to rule the galaxy through fear with the Death Star, but this Star Wars issue proves Darth Vader would actively seek to rid the galaxy of individualism through assimilation, making him a far more terrifying potential Emperor than Palpatine.
Star Wars: Darth Vader #42 by Marvel Comics is available now.
