During the Clone Wars, Count Dooku and General Grievous were able to rally many citizens around the galaxy who were completely sick of the Republic’s corruptions and disgusting treatment of the outer rim world in enough numbers to begin a war. During the war, one Separatist commander looked up to Grievous so highly that he eventually tried to be like him in every way, with the help of a mad scientist… Including copying his body and welding multiple lightsabers… So lets find out why this separatist scientist literally tried to turn a fallen Separatist commander into General Grievous
This is part part 5 of the Vader + Aphra series, so if you haven’t seen part 4 make sure you check that out, as the story won’t fully add up with seeing the previous part.
So the story begins right where we left off last time, with Darth Vader facing down the non-force sensitive creations of the mad scientist Cylo, who were created to replace Vader as Palpatine’s sith apprentice. Cylo believed that the force was obsolete and that Vader himself needed to be replaced.
Because of this, Palpatine allowed Cylo to begin creating and finding these non-force sensitive abominations who were enhanced in other ways, to fight Vader and see who should become the true sith apprentice.
As Vader is about to begin battling Cylo’s creations, Palpatine watches on in anger, warning Cylo that he has been working on this plan for many years, and it would be unwise to disappoint his emperor now.
Cylo simply responds “of course, my emperor”, before displaying his first set of candidates to defeat Vader, The Astarte twins. Cyclo tells Palpatine that their family funded much of his early work and these two twins have had the best genetic tweaks and combat training ever since he began the program.
The two twins begin to surge forward at Vader, both attacking the Dark Lord at once, but they they are quickly blocked at every turn. As vader and the twins continue their fierce battle, Cyclo tells his emperor that ever since their formative years, he has been teaching them lessons which could roughly be paraphrased as “hail palpatine”… He was completely brainwashing them from the moment they could even think for themselves.
The wins eventually use the power of fire to try to stun Vader and catch him off guard, but the Dark Lord of the Sith is not going to stumble at such a simple trick, and instead uses the force to blast it back in their faces.
Cylo continues his rant, telling Palpatine how the two were once mere humans, but are now closer to complete cyborgs, and Palpatine is happy that he will have a spare if one happens to be killed, but is very quickly bored and wants to see more.
Following this, Cyclo unleashes his finest Trandoshan warrior on Darth Vader, before he very quickly swings his sharp claws at him. This trandoshan however has some pretty crazy modifications, including ones that could be considered dangerously inhumane. The trandoshan has has a cyberanimate modification installed into it’s brain, which allows Cylo to guide its instincts and in a way, control it’s every move. On top of this, the beast feels absolutely no emotion, no pain, no feeling or literally any feeling other than what the Emperor desires. Once again however, Vader is very quickly able to dispatch this beast, plunging his red lightsaber right into it’s shoulder.
Palpatine is slightly more impressed with this sample, but Cyclo is not one to dwell, very quickly moving on to his next subject.
Next is a heavily modified woman named Tulon, who surprisingly, wasn’t born and bred to be a warrior. At her core she is a scientist who has been capable of exploring very exotic sciences and high-level R&D work for many weapons systems. This peaks Palpatine’s interest greatly as the second Death Star is currently being considered.
Cylo then tells Palpatine that Tulono Voidgazer was a genius before he even enhanced her, and her new topic of research under Palpatine’s leadership will be revenge. Palpatine calls this charming, but wants to very quickly see the next candidate.
The next candidate on the list shocks both Palpatine and Vader. Cylo very quickly explains that this mon Calamari is the infamous Commander Karbin who served the separatist alliance during the Clone Wars. Sadly, his ship was destroyed near the end of the war and he suffered considerable injuries that simply weren’t treatable. Because of this, he has been kept barely alive on life support for a whole 18 years. The cruelty of keeping him on Life support for 18 years when he’s only moments from death is horrific.