Which Ancient Sith Will Crimson Dawn Unleash On Palpatine?

Star Wars

Nov 19

The dead speak. Star Wars: Hidden Empire #1 kicked off the new comic miniseries in a big way. From prominent Star Wars writer Charles Soule, Hidden Empire acts as the third part in the Crimson Dawn trilogy. Starting in 2021 with War of the Bounty Hunters, we saw the crime syndicate return under the leadership of Lady Qi’ra. To restore the organization to prominence, Qi’ra took the carbonite-encased Han Solo from Boba Fett and attempted to auction him off to the galaxy’s major crime families. Even though the auction was foiled by Darth Vader, Qi’ra used her display of power against the Empire to go on to the next phase of her plan.

In Crimson Reign, Qi’ra sent her newly acquired acolytes to cause chaos for the Empire in preparation for their ultimate mission; assassinating Emperor Palpatine. The miniseries saw Chanath Cha and the Orphans cause a Syndicate War, Ochi of Bestoon kill Palpatine’s Royal Guards, Deathstick kidnap an heir to rival crime syndicates, the Knights of Ren steal a device from Fortress Vader on Mustafar, and the Archivist assists the knights in retrieving an artifact known as the Fermata Cage. In the first issue of Hidden Empire, we discover the Fermata Cage’s purpose.

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As Qi’ra personally explains to Palpatine in a direct communication with him, the Fermata Cage was originally sought after by Maul himself, due to rumors of the Cage containing the spirit of an ancient Sith Lord. Maul’s plan was to unleash the spirit and allow them to kill Palpatine due to the Sith’s need to kill one another. However, he was unable to locate the Cage up until his death. But now that Qi’ra has located the Cage herself, she has ordered the Archivist, the Knights of Ren, and Kho Phon Farrus to open the Cage and release the ancient Sith inside.

The experiment goes wrong and they are unable to open the Cage, allowing Darth Sidious to unleash the full might of the Galactic Empire on Crimson Dawn. As Qi’ra and her followers regroup, Sidious contacts Vader on Mustafar and tasks his apprentice with destroying the Fermata Cage, along with anyone who knows of its existence. Hidden Empire’s second issue is likely to have Vader going after Crimson Dawn as he searches for the Fermata Cage and the Sith spirit contained within. Until then, we are left to wonder; which ancient Sith Lord is inside the Cage?

There are several possibilities. Among them are the ancient Sith Lords created by Soule himself. In his Darth Vader comic run, he established Darth Momin; a morbidly sadistic Sith Lord who used the dark side to create gruesome works of art. Though sadly, I would say Momin is unlikely since his spirit and body were destroyed by Vader when he turned on the Sith while helping him to construct his fortress. However, there is also Lady Shaa; Momin’s Sith master who he killed during his training. As of now, we only know that Shaa was struck down by Momin.

This doesn’t exclude the possibility that Momin sealed away her spirit in the Fermata Cage as another one of his twisted works of art. But if we are to go outside of the comics, another candidate could be Darth Bane, whose spirit we saw in the sixth season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. This spirit, however, was merely an illusion acting as a test for Yoda on Moraband. Since Sith spirits are a canon part of the Star Wars universe, Darth Bane’s spirit could very well be out there somewhere. He could have even been locked in there by his former apprentice Darth Zannah, in an alternative version of how she sealed his essence away in the legends novel Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil.

At the end of the day, we’ll have to see which ancient Sith spirit Charles Soule chose to lock away in the Fermata Cage. He may have even just created a new Sith for the Cage, which I would be wholly on board with as well. Whichever Sith ghost Palpatine does end up facing, he’d better know who to call.

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