What's that, you say? You still can't get enough of that masked Sith Lord, the former Anakin Skywalker? It wasn't enough to watch him get his legs chopped off, see his wife die in childbirth, and hear him howl in anguish at his rebirth as an oversized droid? Well, fortunately for you, the cottage industry that is Star Wars is glad to give you another fix. Enter James Luceno, whose Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader purports to pick up where George Lucas' cinematic finale left off.
Luceno characterizes the Vader/Anakin dichotomy as akin to two people inhabiting at least a portion of the same body (i.e., the same portion salvaged after his battle with Obi-Wan Kenobi on the molten hellhole of Mustafar). Vader, the new entity birthed by Anakin's fall from grace into the dark side of the force, is ruthless in his pursuit of power (and, of course, his master's wishes). To Vader, Anakin is indeed dead; at the very least he might as well be another person, whose life and actions are uniquely removed from Vader's existence.
Consequently, it is no surprise that others likewise believe Anakin dead - indeed, many thought that he died on Coruscant during the brutal assault on the Jedi Temple. The Emperor never introduces Vader as Anakin; instead, Vader simply appears, a mysterious fusion of man and machine wielding the fearsome powers of the Sith. Since we already know that neither Yoda nor Obi-Wan ever make another run at Vader until Luke Skywaker has reached drinking age, however, Luceno has to come up with some characters we've never heard of before to serve as the foils for the dark side here.
The conclusion of Revenge of the Sith left the impression that the Emperor's victory was essentially total and complete; the only Jedi that escaped his clutches were Kenobi and Yoda, each of whom slipped into hiding and awaited the second coming of Skywalker. The separatists had been crushed, and Palpatine was a dictator in all but name. But as with any war, whether largely pretend or not, in the aftermath of victory there is still plenty of "mopping up" to do. One can only assume that is especially true in a far-flung interstellar republic transitioning its way to a galactic empire.
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