As already noted, Emperor Palpatine spent the majority of his time studying in seclusion, often on Byss. As described in the Prologue to
Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, "Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace";
The Essential Guide to Characters expands on this (p. 123), saying
Palpatine effectively set up a system whereby the Empire couldn't survive without him. Once that system was in place, he became more distant and reclusive, seen only by those who needed to see him. His leaders and commanders would present the public face for him, while Darth Vader would present a public threat.
Along with the dark side arcana that Palpatine continued to master, he studied much of the old knowledge put aside with the conquest of the Old Republic. Palpatine was fascinated with the Spaarti cloning cylinders, and hoped they might be used to clone his own bodies; he was old and frail already, and using the dark side was consuming him faster.
This is confirmed even further by
The New Essential Guide to Characters, which states (p. 132) "By the time of the Battle of Hoth, Pestage was, in fact, running the Empire. Palpatine, consumed with dark side studies, had surrendered the day-to-day responsibilities of rule to his Grand Vizier".
The Emperor's preoccupation with his studies continued even beyond his death at the Battle of Endor. The
Dark Empire Sourcebook states (p. 37) that "As years passed and he grew stronger, he began to concentrate more on his Dark Side studies. Still, he did grow occasionally concerned when one leader or another would come close to silencing the others and claiming the throne". It even states in the summary of his special abilities (p. 39) that he has "spent decades studying the most arcane and esoteric Jedi disciplines".
The
Dark Empire Sourcebook contains a few other clear indications of how the Emperor spent his free time. On page 64, it is stated explicitly, "
While his Vizier and ministers maintained the day-to-day operation of the Empire, Palpatine spent decades, frequently in seclusion, in meditation and study on a master work of his thoughts and teachings. No one can say when he first began work, but his advisors suspect it dates back to the time he first embraced the Dark Side.
It continues:
With the resources of a galaxy at his disposal, he gathered the greatest works of knowledge from over a million worlds. He studied the Force in all its guises throughout the galaxy, whether it was the shamanism of Jarvashqiine or the tales of the Tyia. Coupled with perversions of the secrets he ripped from the living minds of Jedi he captured during the Purge, he learned more than he ever expected
and
He sifted this lore till he could find every secret he needed to continue his studies. He had long ago gone beyond any knowledge to be found in the recovered teachings of the Krath or the Heresiarchs. Since then, his studies had principally been experimental. He gathered this knowledge, mostly crude and simplistic variations on traditional Jedi teachings, into a great assemblage of Dark Side Lore. He completed two volumes in this Dark Side Compendium: The Book of Anger and The Weakness of Inferiors.
The Emperor's third volume, The Creation of Monsters, is still in manuscript. Prior to his death above the Pinnacle Moon, the Emperor had planned hundreds of additional volumes. With the immortality his clone tanks provided him, he thought he literally had all the time in the universe with which to probe the limits of the Force.
It is known that the Emperor kept a harem of concubines. However, it is not in fact clear that he actually made use of them.
The Essential Guide to Characters, for example, states (p. 123)"Palpatine set up a group of Force-sensitive candidates for training in different areas of the dark side. Some became the warrior-like Dark Siders, while others, such as Roganda Ismaren, became his companions"; "companions" is a very vague term, and could mean any number of things.
It is of course known that Roganda Ismaren is reputed to be one of the Emperor's concubines or mistresses. However, the interesting revelation in "The Emperor's Pawns" that the Emperor had nothing at all to do with the birth of her bastard son Irek (fathered by the Emperor's Hand Sarcev Quest), and that none of the Emperor's other concubines ever became impregnated leads one to wonder if they were really used as concubines at all.
Appearances are effectually reality in an environment such as the Emperor's court. The Emperor is already known to be a professor of that school of thought; he regularly uses illusions and façades to control those around him (the
Visual Dictionary notes that even something so simple as his gnarled black cane is part of a masquerade on his part). Indeed, he need not have anything to do with his concubines for them to be so; one need look no further for an illustration of how this might be accomplished than Francisco d'Anconia, in
Atlas Shrugged, who carefully crafted an image of himself as a dissolute womaniser without ever actually sleeping with his supposed mistresses.
Publius