Warning: The following contains spoilers from Star Wars: Crimson Reign #3, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
Emperor Palpatine might get too much credit for some of the things that happened during the prequels, but he was still one of the best Sith ever. As a practitioner of the Dark Side, he was worried about his personal power and his ability to rule through fear -- nothing else mattered to the wrinkled, old Emperor. So, it goes without saying that he wasn’t a benevolent ruler, and it also goes without saying that he wasn’t a popular fellow. However, everyone was too afraid to oppose him, -- that is, until Crimson Dawn’s Qi’ra came along.
The War of the Bounty Hunters showed the resurgence of Crimson Dawn and just how wide-spread its influence was. Qi’ra had been planning for years, and her endgame was to take down Sidious and Vader. Unfortunately, she would end up failing, and the Crimson Reign series (by Charles Soule, Steven Cummings, Victor Olazaba, Guru-eFX, and VC’s Travis Lanham) has been telling the story of her criminal organization’s tragic downfall.
Qi’ra’s recruited a number of bounty hunters and the incredibly stupid Knights of Ren to her cause, but she also pulled in someone called the Archivist. Until now, the character was a complete mystery. Now, Crimson Reign #3 finally revealed her backstory, and it involved the legendary Master Yoda.
Before Order 66, the Archivist was Madelin Sun. She was a Sava (teacher and scholar) at the University Bar-leth, who specialized in studying the Dark Side and its ancient artifacts. She couldn’t use the Force, but she could sense it, which made her very successful in her work. However, that all came crashing down when Emperor Palpatine banned anything that had to do with the Force. Her career was over. That’s when Qi’ra found Madelin working as a junk trader. If she joined Crimson Dawn, she could help overthrow Palpatine and get her life back. Having nothing else to lose, Madelin joined up, and Qi’ra gave her an impossible job: find Master Yoda so that he could help destroy the Sith.
Impossible as the task was, Madelin succeeded. With a whole lot of research, endless resources, and a Thought-Dowser-influenced interrogation, she tracked Yoda to Dagobah. After she landed, though, things got complicated. A huge monster attacked her and took her to the Dark Side Cave where Luke saw a vision of Darth Vader during The Empire Strikes Back. Inside, she saw her own visions and had her appearance scarred by the Dark Side.
From there, interpretations may vary because, the next panel showed her leaving Dagobah. However, she said that Yoda chose to teach her, rather than kill her and keep his hiding place a secret. So, either Yoda made the monster take Madelin to the cave, where she learned about the Force, or Yoda taught her after she came out of the cave. Regardless, Yoda showed Madelin a valuable lesson. Hitherto, the former Sava had only studied the Dark Side, but Yoda taught her that the Light Side had compassion. And together, the two sides formed a balance. With her newfound revelation, Madelin kept Yoda’s location a secret, claiming that he was dead.
The fact that Madelin found Yoda is incredibly impressive and said a lot about her character. However, what happened on Dagobah also said a lot about Yoda’s character. Although he was in exile and surrounded by the Dark Side, he didn’t let that harm his outlook on life. He was a Jedi and a teacher at heart. So, it was good to see that he hadn’t abandoned that part of himself, even before Luke showed up. In fact, it's arguable that he better understood the Fore. During the prequels, he was rigidly used the Light Side, but his time on Dagobah must have taught him what balance truly meant.