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| “ | "Where the Neimoidians should be grateful to Senator Palpatine for proposing the summit, they are instead furious. Everything is in place for launching the blockade." "Almost everything. First, there is the matter of our revenge." |
„ |
| ~ Darth Sidious and Darth Plagueis planning revenge on Veruna for attempting to kill Plagueis |
Ars Veruna, officially known as His Royal Highness, King Veruna of Naboo, is the secondary antagonist of the novel Star Wars: Darth Plagueis of the Star Wars Legends timeline.
He is a corrupt Naboo nobleman who is elected to the Monarchy of Naboo with the aid of lobbyist Hego Damask (secretly the Sith Lord Darth Plagueis). Although initially a useful pawn to the Sith, his corruption proved so all consuming that he eventually became a burden to the Sith plan, and thus he became enemies of Damask and Naboo's Senator Palpatine (secretly the Sith Lord Darth Sidious).
Biography[]
At the beginning of the story, Ars Veruna was the right-hand man of fellow nobleman Bon Tapalo, who is also corrupt. They were both leading members of the liberal faction who supported fully integrating Naboo to the rest of the galaxy and selling their rich plasma reserves. With aid from Damask Holdings and the InterGalactic Banking Clan, Bon Tapalo was elected King of Naboo and Ars Veruna was made Governor of Theed. Together with Damask, Tapalo and Veruna fully integrated Naboo into the Galactic Republic. Veruna eventually succeeded Tapalo as King of Naboo, and himself was aided by Hego Damask and the Trade Federation.
Like his predecessor, Veruna was highly criticized as a corrupt ruler, allowing megacorporations like the Trade Federation and even criminal organizations such as Black Sun, the Bando Gorah and Gardulla the Hutt's crime syndicate to take root. He was more corrupt than Bon Tapalo ever was. Eventually Veruna was seen as a liability by Plagueis and his apprentice Darth Sidious.
After intense political clashes, Veruna had enough. He planned to have Palpatine removed as Senator and attempted to outright murder Damask via nuclear bombardment of his base on Sojourn. Damask survived, and Veruna abdicated the throne and went into hiding. Damask tracked down the recently abdicated monarch and murdered him one midi-chlorian at a time while revealing his identity as the Sith Lord Darth Plagueis
Veruna was succeeded by the 13-year-old Padmé Naberrie, later known as Padmé Amidala, the wife of Anakin Skywalker and the mother of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa Solo.
Appearance[]
Veruna is described as a man of medium height with blue eyes and long brown hair and a thick beard. The hair and beard became silver as he grew older. He is described by Palpatine as having a "swashbuckling" appearance. He often wore rich and ornate clothing, as part of Naboo's culture and as a noble.
Personality[]
| “ | You know, like even a fourteen-year-old girl could run a planet better than King Veruna. | „ |
| ~ Ian Lago talking about Veruna's reign |
Ars Veruna was corrupt, ambitious, greedy and arrogant. Coming from a powerful royal family, he was willing to do anything to gain more power. His hunger for power was such that he was even willing to work with crime syndicates and even terrorists in order to maintain control. This willingness to turn to outside forces was looked down upon by the mostly conservative Naboo, who wished to remain isolated in fear of exploitation by the rest of the galaxy. These traits made him, at least initially, a perfect pawn of the Sith. Veruna was widely regarded as corrupt by his opponents, which was true, and became increasingly difficult to hide as his reign continued, His association with crime syndicates and terrorist organizations only confirmed this. As the charges of corruption piled up, Veruna only became more determined to maintain power.
He was also spiteful, petty and elitist. He attacked his conservative rivals by calling them 'regressives' who dreamed of Naboo decades earlier, and labeled Padmé and the Naberrie family as, 'mountain peasants.' He arranged for several N-1 Starfighters to flyover during one of Padmé's speeches, both as a means of mocking her as well as showing off. After his falling out with Damask and Palpatine, he says he would thank Senator Pax Teem for putting Damask into 'early retirement.'
Veruna is shown to be willing to resort to murder as a means to an end. After realizing Damask and Palpatine were working against him, he resorted to murdering Damask via nuclear strike. This backfired horribly, as he had no idea that Damask was secretly a Sith Lord. Naboo Senator Vidar Kim also believed that Ars Veruna and Bon Tapalo arranged the death of his family by sabotaging their vehicle, although it is never confirmed if this is true.
Despite this, Veruna did seemed to have some level of decency and a moral code. While he aligned himself with gangsters and terrorists, he admitted that even one as corrupt as himself would never have allied himself with Damask had he known from the beginning he was a Sith Lord.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Ars Veruna's cold murder by the hands of Darth Plagueis led the Naboo Royal Guard to come up with the idea of using body doubles and lookalikes to protect their monarchs, as seen during the reign of Queen Amidala during The Phantom Menace.
