Palpatine got a new clone body.
Notice he used to be scrawny.
Many clones are stronger, Starkiller, Joruus C’baoth etc.
Sidious lost to Luke who was 30 years old. He firstly contended with him on a potent dark side nexus seizing him in a saberlock. Sidious was force severed by him (Leia adds nothing Luke notes he can’t feel her). Luke had 8 years of growth from RoTJ where he was already Vader territory who is already Sidious territory.
Luke simply grew 1 tier above Yoda maybe more. Anyway seeing as Luke didn’t grow gigantically it means Sidious really wasn’t that much stronger in Dark Empire. Half a tier if you want to be exact. Meaning he’s slightly above Yoda.
Ignoring all statements and sticking to the reality of feats, Sidious would have been greatly degenerated at age 80. Bane was only 40 when he noted dark side degeneration taking its toll on his body giving him a hand twitch and noticing an ‘edge’ missing in his speed.
Sidious devised a cunning way to stave of his dark side degeneration and live on. This power of Byss he is referring to was a nexus of suffering that naturally boosts dark side users. He says ‘the entire population feeds me even now’. ‘Slowly surrendering their life energies to mine’. And when Vader asks ‘Immortality?’, Sidious responds ‘Ha! Not yet, Lord Vader.’ He then says ‘The power of Byss will strengthen the body and the mind merely slowing the decay of crude matter.’ Finally he says ‘But we will yet discover the ultimate secret’.
So you might read in an another answer something absurd about Sidious being a godlike being but in reality he admits the Byss conduit is merely slowing his degeneration. I’d like to compare this to something Darth Bane once did.
As he drove, his world became a waking nightmare of darkness and shadow, all tinged with red. He was barely even conscious of where he was going, letting the Force guide him even as he tried to use it to keep his body from succumbing to the effects of Githany's poison. The fear of death wrapped itself around him, smothering his thoughts. His will began to falter; it would be so easy to just surrender now and let it all end. Just let it all slip away and be at peace . Snarling, he shook his head, dragging his thoughts back from the brink by repeating the first line of the Sith mantra over and over: Peace is a lie. He reached back into his training as a soldier, taking his fear and transforming it into anger to give him strength. I am Darth Bane, Dark Lord of the Sith. I will survive. At any cost.
"Throw it away, Mikki! Now!" Too late. The lightsab
er sprang to life in the boy's hand, spinning in the air and striking him dead on the spot. The father screamed; his brothers tried to run. The blade leapt after the eldest, cutting him down from behind. Bane, drawing strength from the horror of their deaths, rose to his feet, coming into view like an apparition disgorged from the bowels of the planet. "Nooo!" the father howled, desperately clutching his youngest son to his chest. "Spare this one, my lord!" he begged, tears streaming down his face. "He's the youngest. The last one I have." Those weak enough to beg for mercy do not deserve it. Still too weak to even raise his arms Bane reached out once more with the Force, bringing the lightsaber up to hover over his helpless victims. He waited, letting their horror mount, then plunged the burning blade into the young boy's heart. The father clutched the corpse to his breast, his tortured laments echoing across the empty battlefield. "Why? Why did you have to kill them?" Bane feas
ted on his anguish, gorging himself, feeling the dark side growing stronger in him. The symptoms of the poison receded enough so that he could raise his arm without the muscles trembling. The lightsaber sprang to his hand. The father cowered before him.
Darth Bane healed himself by using the suffering generated from the event. This is what Darth Sidious is doing but to a greater quantity. Sidious is so absolutely frail and decrepti (40 years more than Bane who had developed a degenerative twitch in his hand from dark side immersion) that he needs this connection to Byss like a patient with a drip keeping his lifeline alive. Whats more is that he was not the only one using Byss.
--Taken from The Essential Atlas
Years ago, Emperor Palpatine chose Byss as his private retreat, and Imperial architects and engineers were commissioned to build him an opulent palace. Several million humans were allowed to emigrate to the world, where the Emperor and his adepts used the dark side to feed off their life energies. The planet's population eventually reached almost 20 billion, and all outgoing communications were censored by security agents.
His ‘adepts’ refers to the likes of Sedriss and the other weak acolytes Sidious had recruited.
They too fed from Byss. In reality any dark sider can do this because all they have to do is - like Bane - feed of the suffering that they can detect. It’s not a skillful feat in of itself as anyone attuned to the force can detect ripples in the force from suffering and certain events. Therefore likening it to a Nihilus-esque force drain is just something the fanboys developed and spread around.
All in all when we scan the lore there is nothing suggesting Sidious grew in power other than quotes.
"But the Emperor cannot be overcome so easily. He gives Leia a painful demonstration of his ever-expanding power, crowing in triumph that he has finally captured the last of the Jedi!" - Dark Empire.
"Even now, as Luke appears to fall under the Emperor's ever-expanding power, massive engines of destruction are inflicting death blows to the floating cities of the Calamari, long-standing allies of the Rebel Alliance..." - Dark Empire.
"Yes, he grows continually more powerful in the way of the Dark Side." - Dark Empire endnotes.
"Luke knew that without clones to inhabit, Palpatine's spirit would be consigned forever to the void. But Palpatine was able to transfer himself at the last moment. Within a new clone body, the Emperor was more powerful than ever." - Handbook 3: Dark Empire.
"He was still too vulnerable to take command back, but as the years passed and one pretender after another rose and fell, he grew stronger and angrier." - Dark Empire Sourcebook.
"As years passed and he grew stronger, he began to concentrate more on his Dark Side studies." - Dark Empire Sourcebook.
"Soon he was ready to strike. Fully healed and in greater control of the Dark Side than ever, he finally acted to end the Mutiny." - Dark Empire Sourcebook.
"You've grown very strong in the Force since we last met… But then, so have I!" - Emperor Palpatine, Dark Empire.
"His Force skills have increased significantly in the six years since he was last seen in Return of the Jedi." - Dark Empire Sourcebook.
George Lucas himself said Palpatine is stronger in RoTJ. But saying something and demonstrating it are two different things. In RoTJ Sidious doesn’t do anything and the expanded universe gave him most of the feats.
There is a quote that says Sidious moved the Lusankya with his ‘dark side powers’. However we never see it. In the end he scales under Luke meaning any outlier feat contradicting his power level is already retconned. I could now go into force storms but Luke already severed Palpatine from the storm meaning Luke >> Force storm. Sidious obviously did not use telekinesis to rip open space like a can opener. Instead he merely used a version of fold space which is a known technique that when altered can cause a dark side disturbance that grows in power.
The disturbance gets larger and larger hence why Sidious needs to concentrate to guide it.
Sidious also had a dark side compendium, which is supposed to be packed with dark side knowledge. He even restricted the access of it from Jerec after he became interested and read some.
However in the lore we see Darth Sidious is greatly degenerated by the dark side. We see he loses to Luke. We see that his body disintegrates upon becoming an essence transfer manifestation which is exactly what happened to Darth Bane - again another fascinating comparison of feats both done by Bane and Sidious.
If you’re going to read the Darth Bane books this a spoiler.
Bane was aware of his flesh being utterly consumed by the unimaginable heat, reduced to ashes in a thousandth of a second. But he was no longer a part of his own body. His spirit had discarded it like an old shell in favor of a new one. Bane was suddenly fully aware of his physical surroundings.
This is the same thing happening to Sidious.
I bring that up because essence transfer is something actually very basic and lacking as those with massive power levels over history have merely remained as spirits which is much much more preferable.
So in short Dark Empire Darth Sidious is merely 0.5 tiers above Yoda - the difference in power the extra presence of midichlorians in his more superior body donates him.
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