[gregebowman]

Originally posted by Randallw:

quote:

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Originally posted by Kamog:
One thing I don't understand from episodes I and II is, if Senator Palpatine is the Sith Lord, why don't the Jedi sense the dark side in him? I assumed that Palpatine is able to hide his power somehow.

In AOTC Yoda and Mace Windu decide it is time to tell the senate that their ability to detect the dark side is limited these days. I know a lot more but after typing it I deleted it because there may be some people who don't want to hear spoilers.

Edit:
"If I were a Sith master, I would never get an apprentice! It would just be too dangerous"

The Sith are not evil individuals looking for their own power. They are a secret evil force Users intending to conquer the galaxy. They have been sneaking about for 1000 years, they need to have apprentices so the plan can continue. 2 Sith are harder to discover and with only 2 Sith the dark side is less diluted (compare thousands of Jedi sharing the "good bits" versus 2 supervillains with half the Dark side each). For 1000 years Sith have been planning knowing they personally will not see the victory but knowing that some day the Republic will be conquered.

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There was a Sith war back 4000 years before the current Star Wars saga. So the Sith have been around for quite awhile. Unfortunately, you get so many Sith in the same room, and they think they're the one who's going to rule, and so start killing each other. So eventually the 2 Sith rule came around. This was explained in one of the novels, but I don't remember which one.