The latest Homing Beacon has arrived, and today we get to talk about Count Dooku! One of the most enigmatic characters to arise in Episode II was Count Dooku, a fallen Jedi and the latest Sith Lord revealed in the saga. Through Dooku, important concepts are introduced to the growing story: that a Jedi could indeed fall from the light, and that a Jedi Knight could take up arms against his former master. For all his impact, the character is still shrouded in mystery. The actor who played Dooku, the legendary Christopher Lee, offers his insights.

"He's very aloof, very self-contained, obviously completely fearless," describes Lee. "He is extremely intelligent, perhaps more so than almost anyone else. He's obviously a man of immense power. I don't suppose that the question of moral values enter into his head. He's not immoral -- he's amoral. Morality is a word that doesn't figure in his vocabulary at all. It's power. Which is something that exists very much in our world today."

But was Dooku always like this? New fiction from the Expanded Universe will soon shed light on Dooku's younger days. The forthcoming Star Wars: Legacy of the Jedi, by Jude Watson and Scholastic Inc., tells a tale when Dooku was a noble Jedi Knight. Like his pupil, Qui-Gon Jinn, he will be headstrong and unorthodox for a Jedi Knight.

"Maybe at one time when he was younger, when he became a Jedi, I'm sure he did behave in a totally moral and correct way," speculates Lee. "Probably like the old Knights Templar when they started in the 12th century, they started as very good people to protect all the pilgrims on the Crusades. But gradually over the years they disintegrated morally, spiritually and in every way. I know that because I played the Grand Master of the Templars in a film. Eventually, their whole order disintegrated. Who's to say that this isn't going to happen in the third Episode?"