It is quite possible that since the death of Darth Maul and the Battle of Naboo, Darth Sidious had set his sights on making Anakin Skywalker his apprentice. Indeed, he practically told the boy so when he met him in his public persona as Supreme Chancellor. Skywalker was not ready for some time, though, so Sidious made do with Tyranus, all the while backing Skywalker unconditionally and encouraging him to strain against the limitations imposed upon him by the Jedi Order. Palpatine eventually began letting slip some of his Sith knowledge to Skywalker, and finally came out into the open before the young Jedi. He had known that Skywalker was concerned about visions he had of his wife dying in childbirth, and he told him that only with the dark side of the Force could he hope to save her. His careful cultivating paid off when he was on the verge of being destroyed by Jedi Master Mace Windu. Anakin intervened, crippling Windu by slicing off his weapon hand. Palpatine killed Windu, and Skywalker submitted himself fully to his new master, who named him Darth Vader. Darth Vader served the Emperor well from then on, first destroying the Jedi temple and slaughtering everyone in it, then killing the leaders of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. He suffered a setback when Obi-Wan Kenobi defeated him in battle and left him for dead – catching fire did not help either. Sidious came and rescued his pupil, but in a way crippled him as well by placing him in his new armour and life-support unit, for Darth Vader’s unbridled potential was lost. However, he was strong enough to continue tracking down and slaying Jedi who had escaped the initial purge, and he enforced the Emperor’s will in other ways, such as supporting (while also keeping an eye on) Governor Tarkin as the latter supervised the Death Star Project. After the Battle of Yavin, Vader was given his own personal fleet command and given the mission of finding and destroying the Rebel Alliance’s primary headquarters, a task which coincided neatly with his own desire to find the pilot whose shot had destroyed the first Death Star – Luke Skywalker, his son. After finding and almost destroying the Rebel HQ at Hoth, Vader engineered a trap for Skywalker, and confronted him with the truth of his parentage at Bespin. Luke refused to join Vader, and somehow escaped from his clutches, but the encounter changed the two men. Luke eventually became convinced that Vader could be redeemed, and Vader’s loyalties began to waver. Luke would prove to be right, for when the Rebels made a desperate attack to destroy the second Death Star, Vader turned on his master, the Emperor, at the cost of his own life, and destroyed the tyrant, ending at a stroke the Sith dominance of the Galaxy and the power that held the Empire together.