Writer Greg Pak has teased his current Darth Vader comic will link to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - could the Sith Lord have been responsible for rediscovering the Sith planet of Exegol? For years, Marvel's tie-in comics have seemed at best tangential to the Skywalker saga. All that began to change in late 2019, when Marvel published The Rise of Kylo Ren, revealing just how Ben Solo fell to the dark side. This essentially rewrote Kylo Ren's entire backstory, even going so far as to pin the blame for the Jedi Temple's destruction on Palpatine rather than Ben Solo.
This makes Greg Pak's current Darth Vader series all the more exciting. Although this is set after the events of The Empire Strikes Back, speaking at Comic-Con@Home Pak revealed it will tie in with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. "Vader is going to suffer a terrible punishment," Pak observed, a punishment tied to his failure to seduce Luke Skywalker to the dark side. "[He will] undertake a new journey/quest, and there are key elements that will tie into Episode 9 in a huge way. There's some doors that have been thrown wide open."
But what could this quest be, and how could it possibly set up Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker? Surprisingly, the most likely possibility is that Darth Vader will head out into the Unknown Regions to discover the ancient Sith planet of Exegol.
Palpatine Didn't Know About Exegol Until Soon Before His Death
The Sith redoubt of Exegol is hidden in the Unknown Regions, a vast uncharted area of space where navigation is hazardous due to solar storms, rogue magnetospheres, black holes, gravity wells, and countless other cosmic phenomenon. According to Rey's ancient Jedi texts, Exegol was a once-fertile planet discovered by Sith explorers, and its resources were consumed, turning it into the wasteland seen in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. These ancient Sith recognized the potential of Exegol as a last redoubt, inaccessible to anybody who did not possess the Force. When the Sith Empire fell, Exegol remained, last home of a cult called the Sith Eternal.
It's tempting to assume Palpatine always knew about the Sith Eternal on Exegol, but surprisingly that doesn't appear to be the case. Chuck Wendig's novel Aftermath: Empire's End revealed the Emperor became obsessed with exploring the Unknown Regions because he sensed the siren song of the dark side out there somewhere, and desperately wanted to discover it. As one of his closest allies, Gallus Rax, remembered:
The Emperor was convinced that something waited for him out there — some origin of the Force, some dark presence formed of malevolent substance. He said he could feel the waves of it radiating out now that the way was clear. The Emperor called it a signal — conveniently one that only he could hear. Even his greatest enforcer, Vader, seemed oblivious to it, and Vader also claimed mastery over the dark Force, did he not? Rax believed Palpatine had gone mad.
The obvious conclusion is that Palpatine was sensing the Sith Eternal, but notice he didn't even suspect what it was. It appears that, over the course of the millennia, the Sith Lords active in the galaxy had forgotten the existence of Exegol, while the Sith Eternal had existed without the rule of their Dark Lords, albeit still honoring the dark side. Palpatine spared no effort to discover this "dark presence formed of malevolent substance," attempting to chart the Unknown Regions. This was why he allowed Grand Admiral Thrawn to serve in the Empire, the only nonhuman to achieve such a high rank, in return for his knowledge of Chiss space. Evidently at some point, Palpatine succeeded; he discovered Exegol. But was it necessarily Palpatine who found the Sith planet?
Darth Vader's Quest Could Be To Exegol
Darth Vader has always been considered one of the galaxy's best starfighter pilots, in large part because of his intimate connection to the Force. As Anakin Skywalker, he became a legend during the Clone Wars, and he continued to refine his piloting skills even when he had been encased in armor; Vader even had his own customized TIE Advanced x1, a distinctive TIE Fighter with a hyperdrive and shield generator. What's more, during his time serving the Emperor, Darth Vader learned a new Force-power; one called, amusingly enough, "Skywalking."
This Force power is introduced in Timothy Zahn's novel Thrawn: Alliances, and it's an extension of the skill that allows a Jedi to block a blaster bolt. A Jedi can do this because this possess an instinctive connection to the Force, and they experience a precognitive flash in which they perceive both present reality and future danger. As they become more attuned to the Force, the Jedi learns to trust its guidance, reacting to these visions without conscious thought. It seems Force-users can do something similar in terms of navigation, using the Force to react to the chaos of the Unknown Regions and chart a course through them. According to Thrawn: Alliances, this ability is usually demonstrated by children, but lost as a Force-sensitive ages; Darth Vader is the only known person to have mastered it in the present era.
All this raises the intriguing possibility that Palpatine discovered enough about the Unknown Regions to narrow down his search, and that he then sent Darth Vader out on a quest to discover this "origin of the Force," this "dark presence formed of malevolent substance." Darth Vader would be uniquely suited to navigate the hazards of the Unknown Regions and locate Exegol, where he would no doubt be astounded to truly become the Dark Lord of the Sith. Presumably the Sith Eternal were the ones who had the Wayfinders, explaining why no previous Sith Lord had returned to their planet. Vader thus returned to the Empire successful in his mission, bringing a gift for Palpatine that would allow his Master to head to Exegol himself. And so Palpatine chose to begin transforming Exegol into the seat of his power, site of a cloning chamber that would allow him to survive death itself.