The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

2513: Assassination of the Emperor

In fact, the Dark Prophets are not having an easy time right now. In the past six months or so, the Dark Prophets, led by Kadan, have suffered great criticism.

The Imperial Marshal Award Ceremony, which was originally scheduled for the New Year's celebration at the end of 10 BBY, was postponed, which was also considered a major mistake by Cardan. Of course, this incident also implicated the Black Hole in charge of the intelligence department.

The reason why the Dark Prophet Kadang went to personally inspect the construction of the Death Star and participated in the trial voyage of the Death Star was because he wanted to use the trial voyage of the Death Star to put more halo on himself, so as to...

Avoid disaster.

What exactly happened that led to the postponement of the marshal's awarding ceremony?

Emperor Palpatine was assassinated.

The masterminds of the assassination were Grand Moff Bartam, Grand Moff Trachta, and Moff Kadir.

They planned to place a bomb to blow up the shuttle barracks when Emperor Palpatine was on tour to the star zone where Baltam was located, first eliminating the Emperor's guards, and then using the excuse of strengthening the Emperor's security force to transfer a team of specially treated clone soldiers to Palpatine's side.

Finally, the assassination was completed by these clone soldiers. These clone soldiers were all specially processed by the Kaminoans, and they all had strength far beyond that of ordinary clone soldiers. In addition, they had enhanced biochips installed in their brains, making them as cold and ruthless as machines, and almost without any independent thinking.

This ensured that these clone troopers had enough power to complete the assassination, and that their thoughts would not be sensed by Emperor Palpatine and thus detected.

At the same time, the trio also organized a similar operation to eliminate Darth Vader, who was preparing the core area defense line in the Delon galaxy.

However, the assassination attempt ended in a very funny way. First, Senior Moffs Baltam and Trakhta died one after another, and then Moff Kadier personally led a company of enhanced clone soldiers to besiege Palpatine alone, but was burned to charcoal by the Force lightning.

At the same time, the enhanced clone soldiers sent to the Delon galaxy to assassinate Darth Vader were also chopped into pieces by him, leaving limbs and flesh all over the ground.

The assassination attempt was a complete failure.

This incident was considered a major dereliction of duty by the Dark Prophet Kadan, as he failed to foresee such a trifling assassination and even allowed it to be carried out.

It can be said that the assassination attempt was successful because they actually carried it out to the last step, allowing the assassin to face the emperor directly. The only reason for failure was because of Palpatine's almost invincible power.

Palpatine did not kill the Moff Kadir, but left him alive. The Imperial Intelligence Agency and the Imperial Inquisition led by Black Hole immediately intervened in the investigation. After prying open Kadir's mouth, they arrested tens of thousands of people, and after strict interrogation and torture, most of these people were executed.

This seemingly farce was actually an assassination operation with extremely profound significance, which was gradually revealed as these people were arrested.

Among the three, Kadir is only an ordinary star district governor, but he controls a large number of resource production areas in the border and outer ring areas of the empire, and his strength is not inferior to that of senior star district governors. He is mainly worried that the change in the political power structure of the empire will cause a border star district governor like him to lose power.

The problems of Senior Star Governor Traheta and Senior Star Governor Baltam are even more typical. They are both people who advocate mechanical transformation. The star regions they manage use a large number of robots and cyborgs, and they themselves have even undergone mechanical transformation surgery, turning themselves into powerful semi-mechanical cyborgs.

The most fundamental reason why they accept such transformation is fear.

Both of them are members of the Advanced Technology Alliance, but unlike the alliance chairman Orman Tag, as senior star governors, they deal with the military a lot and have more contact with Palpatine's dark followers, so they are very familiar with the power of the dark side of the Force.

Force sensitive people have perception and movement abilities far beyond those of ordinary people, and can even rely on the Force to predict what will happen in the future. The fighter planes they drive can fly freely on the battlefield and are almost never shot down by the dense anti-aircraft fire. The lightsabers they wield can always reach the position of the blaster beam 0.0001 seconds in advance and then bounce the beam back.

Such power is almost invincible.

But, they didn't.

Therefore, Trakhta and Baltam made the same choice - to transform themselves. After the transformation, they gained powerful strength and high-speed computing ability through science and technology, but this was still far from enough.

Under such circumstances, the Imperial Emperor Palpatine has been promoting the plan of allowing dark believers to enter various departments of the Empire. Especially in the recent nationalization of domestic enterprises in the Empire, Palpatine has placed many dark believers in those companies as top consultants.

Not only that, dark believers have also begun to be placed in many government departments, and the military is the hardest hit, with dark believers entering almost all legions.

The most numerous among them are the Dark Prophets under Kadan.

This was considered a sign that the dark theocracy was beginning to seize secular power, and coupled with the fact that Palpatine was already very tired of the Imperial Senate and was planning to dissolve the Senate, this incident was seen by many officials as an important sign of the upcoming transformation of the Empire's power structure.

Therefore, at this time, within the Galactic Empire, a fierce struggle broke out between the dark theocratic forces headed by Darth Vader, Kadan, and Black Hole; the military forces headed by Dunn Wessex, Wilhuff Tarkin and others; the super corporate forces headed by Allman Tag and Little Quart; and the imperial bureaucratic forces headed by Krua van der Long.

Such a struggle is very complicated, because there are different factions among these people. But in general, the conflict between the dark theocracy and secular forces is the most acute.

Because the conflicts between other forces are, after all, a matter of interests. The issue of interests is nothing more than a matter of how much money you make, and it does not involve the essence. But between them and the Dark Theocracy, that is the essential difference. Apart from the conflict, there can be no intersection between the two sides!

Therefore, even before Palpatine's plan to dissolve the Imperial Senate was put into practice, as soon as the rumor got out, the secular bureaucrats immediately felt tremendous pressure. They were worried that their power would be taken away by the dark believers, and facing those dark believers who had powerful powers and could even predict the future, once they lost their power, they would be at the mercy of others. Thus, a huge network was woven, covering many fields, from the military to administration, from the economy to technology, and almost everyone was preparing to fight against the erosion of secular power by the dark theocracy.

So at this time, Trakhta, Baltam and Kadir colluded. They all possessed enormous power and strength, and controlled countless connections and resources. Their union itself represented the union of many interest communities.

Their assassination operation was carried out very smoothly with the tacit approval of almost all those involved, until the reinforced clone company they arranged directly faced the Imperial Emperor Palpatine.

But the reason why their action failed is very funny.

During the implementation of the plan, because it was going very smoothly and they were not far from success, the three of them were immersed in joy. At this time, Traheta gradually became arrogant, and the information revealed in his words showed that he was quite contemptuous of the other two.

Because indeed, Traheta was a key person in the operation - he was the one who secretly contacted the Kaminoans to create the enhanced clone company, and it was also he who arranged to plant the bomb to destroy the Emperor's Guard.

At the same time, because the star zone ruled by Traheta is located in the core circle, he is the strongest among the three in terms of economic strength and political connections.

The result was that Baltam became extremely wary of Trachta. He thought that the assassination plan had been almost arranged and he just needed to proceed according to the plan, so he simply sent an assassin to kill Trachta in advance.

But the problem is that Traheta thinks the same way.

He also sent assassins to kill Baltam...

As a result, less than a day after Trakhta was killed, Baltam was also assassinated.

So Kadir, the weakest and least visible of the three, became the mastermind of the assassination... Palpatine, who had sensed something was wrong through the foresight of the Force, was somewhat surprised to find that two of the three masterminds had suddenly died before he had taken any action...

But Kadier was also a tough guy. Two of the masterminds of the plan had died, but he still took the last step.

All I can say is that he really knows nothing about the Force.

An entire company of enhanced clone soldiers was like a group of ants in front of the Imperial Emperor Palpatine and was easily crushed.

This farcical assassination had far-reaching consequences.

First of all, the Dark Prophet did not make any predictions or reactions during the entire operation. In addition to the three masterminds self-destructing, the entire operation was predicted by Palpatine himself when it was about to begin.

As a result, Palpatine angrily rebuked Cardan, the supreme leader of the Dark Prophets. Coupled with the uprising on the planet Talasia, where the Death Star was built, Cardan's ability was questioned, and the Dark Prophet began to be marginalized.

At the same time, this assassination also exposed the extremely sharp contradiction between the secular power class and the dark theocracy, as well as these people's inherent distrust of the Imperial Emperor Palpatine.

Think about it, it is true. When Palpatine was a senator of the Galactic Republic, these secular power classes were already high up. His process from senator to speaker, and from speaker to emperor was actually due to their support to finally succeed.

So from the perspective of these secular power classes, the emperor is just a spokesperson for their power. If they can support one emperor, they can naturally support another.

This made Palpatine more determined to establish a dark theocracy, and he became more and more convinced that the path of a single Sith was the only way for him to rule the galaxy for thousands of years.

However, the secular power class has been controlling the power structure of the entire Milky Way since the era of the Galactic Republic. They have a deep foundation of 25,000 years. It is not something that can be done overnight to completely overthrow them.

Although Palpatine's ultimate goal is a dark theocracy, now, once he leaves those secular power classes, the entire empire will collapse instantly. This is completely of no benefit to him.

So he postponed the awarding ceremony of the Imperial Marshal and turned the New Year celebration, which should have been full of singing and dancing and excitement, into a bloody purge!

All those involved in the assassination, from the governor of the star region to the warehouse manager, were arrested and executed! In just over a month, tens of thousands of people were implicated and executed!

This is a major reshuffle of the imperial power structure. The Imperial Inquisition and the Imperial Intelligence Agency are responsible for investigating this assassination. The mastermind behind these two organizations is none other than one of the three representatives of the Dark Theocracy - Dark Advisor, Coronel, 'Black Hole'!

The intelligence agency agents unscrupulously arrested and searched all suspicious persons, and the inquisitors of the Tribunal were even more rampant. Under their activities, almost everyone in the bureaucracy of the entire empire was in danger.

During this period, the interrogation rooms of the Imperial Intelligence Agency and the Imperial Court were almost full every day. In this process, Black Hole fully enjoyed the trust of Emperor Palpatine and gained great satisfaction from it.

Because in this entire investigation, Black Hole is the most powerful person in the entire empire besides Palpatine. He can investigate anyone at will, search any building in the empire at will, and as long as there is a little clue, he can arrest anyone immediately!

So, during this period, Black Hole was very busy.

Therefore, he did not know that a web of death was slowly spreading against him.

Hydra, one of the four Grand Inquisitors of the Imperial Inquisition, and also the most powerful one among them. She is believed to have been killed in the battle of Fangduo Planet, and her former sphere of influence was instantly divided up, and the entire Inquisition has forgotten her existence.

But on this day, Jerrick, the senior judge of the Imperial Court, got news about Hydra! (End of this chapter)