From being a spoiled child of a wealthy family
on naboo to becoming Emperor of the Galaxy, Palpatine achieved what no other Sith Lord
before him had, which was wiping out the Jedi Order and ruling the entire galaxy. So when he wasn’t scheming to achieve power
or later flexing said power as emperor, what did Palpatine do in his free time? Well as a child Palpatine mainly spent his
free time alone. He didn’t have many friends and his family
treated him like an outcast. As he grew older and became a teenager, he
used his family’s wealth to purchase forbidden texts on Sith lore. He read these texts on his own time outside
of school and his other responsibilities. It was from these books that he realized how
he was going to achieve the power he so craved. He kept his knowledge of the Sith a complete
secret, even to his soon to be Sith Master Darth Plagueis, initially telling the Muun
that he barely knew much about the dark side order. The one thing he really enjoyed doing as a
teenager was speeder bike racing. He actually desired to become a professional
racer at one point in his life. He loved the thrill and the sense of danger
the races gave him. The rush they gave him was unlike anything
else. Once he became a senator and later the supreme
chancellor, his tastes in entertainment changed quite a bit. Instead of speeding down a track at a hundred
miles an hour, Palpatine now enjoyed the simple pleasures of the opera, frequently attending
the famous Galaxies Opera House and owning his own private viewing chamber within the
theater. He found himself appreciating fine artwork
and sculptures, going out of his way to surrounding his offices and apartments with antique art
and statues. He also took an interest in reading tons of
literature, particularly poems. One collection of poems he really enjoyed
reading were written by a poet by the name of Asenec, who was infamous for his poems
being very dark, sickening and outright offensive. Once he arose to the title of Emperor, Palpatine
found his first few years as ruler of the galaxy to be an extremely busy task. The few moments of time he had for himself,
Palpatine had surviving Jedi who had been starved in their cells be brought before him
and forced to fight each other just for his mere entertainment. The Jedi that won would be allowed to live
if they submitted to him and served his will. He also spent a ton of time training secret
spies and assassins to look after his subordinates whom he feared could betray him. And this was done for pretty everyone, even
Darth Vader. One of the more interesting things Palpatine
did in his free time was write a ton of books. These books went over many things, including
his political beliefs and how he rose to power, to his research and experiments concerning
the dark side and Sith sorcery. Researching all the secrets of the Jedi archives
and obtaining Sith artifacts from ancient Sith Temples was another activity he did outside
of his formal work as galactic emperor. One of the things he spent much of his time
studying was trying to learn the secret to immortality. He owned many palaces and resorts across multiple
planets, from naboo to his secret fortress world Byss. His most famous palace was the one on Coruscant,
which was the largest building on the entire planet. Once he created the entire structure of his
new empire and appointed the appropriate moffs and governors to rule on his behalf, he began
to reduce his direct impact on the empire and began doing the things we mentioned earlier
rather than rule. Although Palpatine craved power throughout
his entire life, once he finally got it and had no serious opposition against it, he kind
of got bored. There was nothing super thrilling of just
sitting on a throne and watching your empire expand and build itself up. He liked being in danger, being right there
in the moment where history was being made. A natural tick in him which has been within
him since his young teenager years during his speeder bike racing days to the very moment
up to his death, where he put himself right in the front lines of the galactic civil war
during the battle of Endor. Just so he could witness the destruction of
the Rebellion in his own eyes and also be the one who turned Luke Skywalker to the dark
side. This can also be seen with Palpatine playing
power games with the Black Sun leader Xizor and Lord Vader, forcing the two into a bitter
rivalry to appease him. A rivalry that amused him but also indirectly
caused chaos within the political structure of the empire. Even as the emperor Palpatine enjoyed scheming
and creating elaborate plots to achieve his plans, such as when he tried replacing Vader
with Galen Marek, later referred to as Starkiller, by constructing an overly complex plan of
rooting out Rebellious leaders while also forging Starkiller to take Vader’s place. Seeing how things played out, Palpatine pretty
much indirectly caused the Rebel Alliance to be created and lead to his eventual downfall.
