It is known, for example, that the Sith maintain their own body of knowledge.
The Complete Locations makes repeated reference to Sidious's stores of information ("ultra-secret Sith lair, with its archives, Sith Holocrons, and other artifacts," "environmentally controlled display case for Sith Scrolls," "a massive Sith Holocron uncovered on Korriban"), and the
Dark Empire Sourcebook notes that the Clone Labs inside the Imperial Citadel on Byss were furnished with "a full library of Dark Side texts for the master's personal study."
Whether these materials contain information completely different from the library of the Jedi is unknown, and perhaps unknowable; if two techniques result in the same actual manifestation -- say, psychokinesis -- but operate on completely different psychic mechanisms, how does one determine whether they are the "same" or not?
The Sith regard knowledge as power, and it is no surprise that Darth Sidious could be exceedingly mean about sharing it. In
The Dark Side Sourcebook, Sidious warns specifically in his manuscript
The Creation of Monsters against creating 'a perfect specimen' because it cannot be controlled and can too easily be turned against its creator (which matches his own reluctance to share with Darth Tyranus, as
Attack of the Clones: The Visual Dictionary comments that Sidious did not give him a Sith holocron to study, but instead only "holographic cells containing mystic teachings of shadowy power"). Of course, this attitude toward sharing knowledge is not unjustified, as revealed by
Return of the Jedi:
Vader felt complete at the Emperor's side. Though the emptiness at his core never left him, it became a glorious emptiness in the glare of the Emperor's cold light, an exalted void that could encompass the universe. And someday would encompass the universe... when the Emperor was dead.
For that was Vader's final dream. When he'd learned all he could of the dark power from this evil genius, to take that power from him, seize it and keep its cold light at his own core -- kill the Emperor and devour his darkness, and rule the universe. Rule with his son at his side.
It may be useful to distinguish between the 'proprietary knowledge' of the Sith Lords (such as the Doppelgänger of
Dark Empire and the 'dark side empowerment' of
Dark Empire II) and Palpatine's own efforts. Palpatine himself is probably the foremost scientist in
Star Wars, seeing that he actively pursued new data and experimentation, and made a concerted, decades-long effort to integrate virtually all known information about the Force. The
Dark Empire Sourcebook mentions that after becoming Galactic Emperor he "gathered the greatest works of knowledge from over a million worlds" and "studied the Force in all its guises throughout the galaxy, whether it was the shamanism of the Jarvashqiine or the tales of the Tyia," to the point that "he had long ago gone beyond any knowledge to be found in the recovered teachings of the Krath or the Heresiarchs." In
The New Essential Guide to Characters, the scribe writes that "Palpatine was known to have studied [the Sorcerers of Tund] prior to their destruction."
What's more, Palpatine is known to have described his research and body of knowledge as the "Science of Darkness," and was in the process of recording it in an encyclopedic Dark Side Compendium, "a great assemblage of Dark Side Lore" which was intended to contain the sum total of his 'Science.'
The Dark Side Sourcebook claims that studying each volume of the Compendium requires "96 hours of reading time, over the course of a minimum of two weeks." He completed two volumes,
The Book of Anger and
The Weakness of Inferiors, with a third volume,
The Creation of Monsters, still in manuscript at the time of his death over Pinnacle Moon in
Dark Empire.
The Dark Empire Sourcebook and
The Dark Side Sourcebook both remark that he intended to write hundreds of volumes, but met his final death before he could do so.
