Palpatine proceeds to all but exterminate the Jedi Order through Order 66, and manipulates Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker into turning to the dark side and becoming his new apprentice, Darth Vader. Palpatine rules the galaxy for over two decades before Vader betrays and kills him in order to save his son, Luke Skywalker.
It may have appeared like it in some cases, but in reality, Sidious never really loved Maul. He merely used Maul to suit his purposes; an assassin to cause trouble.
The big reason why is his suit and life support system. Vader's suit and life support system are extremely susceptible to Force Lightning, meaning that should Vader shows signs of going out of line, Palpatine can electrocute him to death. The fact that Vader had no one else left to be loyal to.
He certainly didn't feel any affection for her, but he wouldn't have been happy if she suddenly died. Padmé was an integral part of Palpatine's plan, just like the clone army. At first, Palpatine only helped Padmé become the Queen because she was young, and children evoke sympathy. Padmé basically was Palpatine's face.
It almost seems like he doesn't (or can't) love or care for anyone. In Revenge of the Sith, however, there is a moment in which Palpatine seems to show affection. McDiarmid points out that, when he arrives to rescue Vader on Mustafar, Palpatine rushes to Vader's side, kneels down, and places a hand on Vader's cheek.
Sheev Palpatine is widely regarded as the most sinister villain within the Star Wars franchise. As a functioning madman, thriving on manipulation and chaos, he helped to bring the Sith back into power over an entire galaxy. However, that's just a footnote for all he created and accomplished.
And most important of all: the moment the new car came out of the factory, Palpatine was infront of it telling him to become a sith, to kill vader, to replace vader. In short, a terrible sith. So no, he didn't care about Darth Vader, because he barely thought Anakin deserved to be Vader.
Both men were blinded, anakin by rage, obi wan by his brotherly attattachment to his padawan. But obi had knew he couldn't defend anakin any longer, he was too powerful so he chose to end it. If you read the book Revenge of the Sith, Obi-wan actually mistimes a block and accidentally takes off Anakin's limbs.
Yes. Gunray knew that Sidious had a strong influence in the Senate. That's made explicit in their dialogue in TPM. He doesn't know Sidious is Palpatine though.
Darth Sidious created the Separatists as part of his long range plan to build and accept a clone army for the Republic, With the Separatists in revolt, an army became an urgent necessity for the Republic.
"I HATE YOU!!!" Anakin Skywalker's last words, spoken to Obi-Wan Kenobi, after his conversion, but before his crippling injuries that confine him to the Darth Vader suit, completing his transformation into Darth Vader. After Obi-Wan says, "You were my brother, Anakin.
Yes. Dooku did know Palpatine was Sidious. As far as Anakin knew, Dooku was the Sith Lord who orchestrated the Clone Wars. Not to mention Anakin trusted and liked Palpatine so much, that he would have had a hard time believing he was a Sith Lord.
The Confederacy of Independent Systems, also known as the Separatist Alliance, was a collection of star systems and corporate titans that left the Republic and fought for independence against the Republic's clone armies and Jedi Knights.
He knew he had to slaughter innocent children, personally, to cause him so much pain and anger and hatred (of himself) that it would fuel his dark side energy; so he could save his own family.
In Canon, the Confederacy of Independent Systems had several former Jedi serving it in one capacity or another, the most prominent of whom was Count Dooku who formally left the Jedi Order then later publicly joined and ran the CIS.
She tries to appeal to Anakin's good nature, which she sees in him till the very end. Padmé even wants Anakin to get help and go away with her to Naboo. While it's clear that Anakin is set in his plan for power and consumed by the Dark Side, Padmé didn't come to Mustafar to break up.
Force lightning required a living conduit for the energy to be channeled; thus Darth Vader, despite being an immensely powerful Sith Lord, was never able to properly employ this ability, as any attempt to generate it carried the risk of shorting out his life support systems.
From the Wookieepedia article on Anakin Skywalker, his eyes changed color as a result of embracing the dark side of the force. When Skywalker finally managed to climb up to the garden of the tower, he found Tano, brainwashed by the Son's influence, her eyes bearing the yellow hue of the dark side's taint.
Per the Matthew Stover novelization, the name "Vader" was plucked from the Force itself (emphasis mine): Darth Sidious laid a pale hand on Anakin's brow. "Then it is done. You are now one with the Order of the Dark Lords of the Sith.
Palpatine put on a kindly image of himself in order to persuade Ezra and give him the illusion of free will. If Palpatine tried to persuade Ezra with his normal appearance, he would have likely not gone through the portal (even though he didn't).
At least in the case of his duel with Mace Windu, he seems to offer an explanation: The lightning is preventing Windu from killing him, as Windu is stuck trying to block it with his lightsaber. Even though the lightning is bouncing back at Palpatine, it still gives him a few more seconds alive before Windu kills him.
Sidious himself felt that he and his peers had outgrown the use of lightsabers, and only continued carrying them to mock the Jedi. He ultimately viewed his own lightsabers as little more than an affectation, and rarely wielded them in combat.
Luke was the only other Jedi aside from Yoda, that was able to repulse force lightning. For even while he was still technically a padawan, he was already able to do what only Yoda could do, to repulse force lightning.
Padme essentially died from depression. After Anakin Force-choked her to near-death, I thought she might hold on because Episode II portrayed her as rather resilient. However, it seems that afterwards she realized what a monster he had become, which made her distraught.
