Sith/Legends


 * Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
 * Through passion, I gain strength.
 * Through strength, I gain power.
 * Through power, I gain victory.
 * Through victory, my chains are broken.
 * The Force shall free me.
 * —The Sith Code

The Sith Order was a Dark Side organization bent on galactic conquest. The Order existed in many forms and structures throughout history. Originally, the Sith were a humanoid species, enslaved by a group of exiled Dark Jedi. These renegades came to call themselves the Dark Lord of the Sith (or just Sith/Dark Lords). From the Jedi Civil War onwards it was common for Sith to append the name "Darth" to their own.

The Great Schism
The Great Schism was the name given to the original break between Jedi and Sith traditions, which occurred around 24,500 BBY. Xendor, who some call the first Dark Jedi, began to argue that the Jedi's focus on unemotional meditation was concealing the "true power" of the Force from them. Xendor's students went to war with the Jedi, but were defeated and banished. They arrived on Korriban, the home of the Sith people, a primitive but Force-sensitive species. The Dark Jedi impressed the Sith with displays of Force power, and became the rulers of the planet.

Over time, the Dark Jedi intermarried with the Sith, and the two identities merged. The term ‘Sith’ would later come to refer to the Dark Jedi who followed the codes of these ancient Jedi, although Dark Jedi individuals and organisations outside the Sith tradition continued to exist, such as that of the Nightsisters of Dathomir. This merging of Dark Jedi and Sith led to the first use of the title "Dark Lord of the Sith," originally awarded by a council of Sith lords to their leader.

The Fall of the Sith Empire and the Freedon Nadd Uprising
5,000 BBY, the Republic rediscovered the Sith and the Great Hyperspace War began. Though it ended with Dark Lord of the Sith Naga Sadow in suspended animation on Yavin 4 and his great war fleets destroyed, the Sith Empire survived. It was believed to have collapsed shortly afterward due to infighting and attacks by the Republic, but it was later discovered that the Sith Empire had retreated into the Unknown Regions, where the Lords of the Sith waited patiently for over a millennium for the right moment to return.

Centuries later, a Jedi Knight named Freedon Nadd fell to the dark side. On Yavin 4, he awakened former Dark Lord Naga Sadow, who trained him in the ways of the Sith. Though Sadow's definite fate is not known, it is believed he perished at his pupil's hand. Freedon Nadd used his newfound powers to conquer the Onderon system, turning it into a place of evil.

The Great Sith War
Four hundred years after Nadd's death, the Jedi Exar Kun sought out his tomb, a place strong in the dark side. Nadd's spirit materialized and corrupted Kun, but was eventually destroyed by his student. Exar Kun was pronounced the new Dark Lord of the Sith by the ghost of ancient Dark Lord Marko Ragnos. As his first apprentice he took another fallen Jedi, Ulic Qel-Droma, and the Great Sith War began. Although several more Jedi turned to the dark side and many more were killed, Exar Kun was finally defeated when Ulic realized the error of his ways and led Republic forces to Kun's base on Yavin 4. Using the drained life energies of his Massassi warriors, Kun shed his physical body and imprisoned his spirit within the walls of Yavin 4's Massassi temples. His ghost, driven half-mad by millennia of isolation, was eventually destroyed by a group of Luke Skywalker's students. Most of what remained of his Sith Brotherhood by the end of the Great Sith War was hunted down by the Republic in a purge known as "the Cleansing of the Nine Houses."

The War of the Star Forge
Less than four decades later, the Jedi Revan, hero of the Mandalorian Wars, discovered a deserted academy belonging to the old Sith Empire. He used the teachings found there to form a new Sith, taking his friend Malak as his apprentice and declaring himself Dark Lord of the Sith, creating the title ‘Darth’. Further, the academy revealed to Revan that the silent Sith Empire still lurked in the Unknown Regions, and was likely the instigator of the Mandalorian Wars. This led Revan to wage war on the Republic, with the aim of either replacing it with a stronger power or strengthening it through war, securing the galaxy against the ancient Sith. For this purpose, Revan used the remains of his war fleet along with the ancient Rakatan Star Forge (itself an artifact of the dark side) to build an immense fleet. Revan was subtle enough to inflict minimal damage to the Republic’s infrastructure, allowing either victor to steel itself against the old Sith. The resulting war was known as the Second Sith War, later the Jedi Civil War (and, still later, the War of the Star Forge).

The conflict proved even more devastating than Exar Kun's war, as more Jedi fell to the dark side, were killed in battle, or were murdered by Sith assassins. Revan was the greatest military genius the Jedi had ever seen. It was through his cunning alone that the Mandalorian Wars had been won, as the Republic soon discovered. Due to an attempted coup by Malak, however, Revan's mind was destroyed and he was re-trained in the ways of the Jedi. Taking up the mantle of Dark Lord, Malak redoubled his empire's offences against the Republic, with none of the delicate subtlety of Revan’s plans, caring nothing about preserving his enemy's resources; indeed, how much Malak knew of Revan’s intentions is still in question.

Following a long and arduous quest for the five Star Maps that would lead him to the Sith's stronghold, the new Revan led a frontal assault on the Star Forge. He battled his way through the Forge's droid army and legions of Sith and Dark Jedi. After redeeming Malak's apprentice, Bastila Shan, he slew Malak himself in a final confrontation between the old friends, allowing the Republic to destroy the Star Forge and win the day.

Despite this great victory won for the Republic by Revan, the galaxy soon grew even darker. A year after the battle, Revan departed into the Unknown Regions, leaving his friends behind. His motives for going alone to face the ancient Sith were, indeed are, unknown. Few Jedi remained after the Jedi Civil War, and those who did soon found their ranks thinning at an alarming rate. Everywhere Jedi congregated, they were murdered, struck down by an invisible enemy who, incredibly enough, was somehow attacking through the Force itself. The former Jedi Master, Kreia, in search of the reason for Revan’s fall, stumbled across the same academy that Revan had used. There she was corrupted, becoming Darth Traya. Together with her students, Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion, she began a shadow war against the surviving Jedi. Despite their incredible powers, they did not believe themselves strong enough to defeat the Jedi in the same kind of open warfare employed by Revan and Malak. Five years after Malak's defeat on the Star Forge, the Jedi Exile who had served as a general under Revan during the Mandalorian Wars returned from the Outer Rim. Thought to be the last of the Jedi by Nihilus and Sion, the exile was hunted mercilessly by Sith assassins from planet to planet as the "last of the Jedi" tracked down the surviving members of the Jedi Council. In the end, several of these Jedi were killed, but the exile managed to turn the tide against the insidious "shadow Sith," slaying Nihilus, Sion, and Traya in battle, thereby ending their Jedi purge and giving the Jedi Order a chance to rebuild.

In modern history texts, the Great Sith War, the Cleansing of the Nine Houses, the Mandalorian Wars, and the Jedi Civil War are often grouped together under the collective appellation of "the Old Sith Wars."

The New Sith Wars
Slowly, over the next thousand years, the Jedi Order rebuilt itself back to its former strength.

Then, some 2,000 years BBY, yet another Jedi, chafing under the restrictions of the Jedi Council, fell to the dark side, formed a new Sith Order, and began recruiting others to his cause. This spawned a new series of conflicts, called the New Sith Wars, which lasted for a millennium.

However, the Sith very nearly proved to be their own undoing. Hungry for power, they turned on each other, all but destroying their order. The survivors reformed under the leadership of Lord Kaan, calling themselves "the Brotherhood of Darkness." To appease his disheartened minions, Kaan abandoned the millennia-old tradition of one ruling Dark Lord and granted the title to a good number of his followers, though very few of them were deserving of it.

The final conflict of the New Sith Wars, commonly referred to, as Exar Kun's war had been, as the Great Sith War, came to a head in the titanic seventh Battle of Ruusan, in which the Jedi Lord Hoth and the Army of Light clashed with Lord Kaan and the Brotherhood of Darkness for the last time. In the end, a deranged Kaan activated a thought bomb, an ancient Sith technique that sapped the life forces of all those in the vicinity. Both armies were all but destroyed, and only one Sith Lord survived: Darth Bane.

To guard against the Sith self-destructing or losing sight of their "ideals" again, Bane took only one apprentice, starting a one-master-one-apprentice tradition to prevent the Sith from destroying themselves again. He also restarted the tradition of passing the name "Darth" to each of his successors, a trend which appears to have originated with Darth Revan millennia before. In a nod to Kaan's earlier pronouncement, both master and apprentice in Bane's Sith Order held the title "Dark Lord of the Sith", making them, nominally at least, equals. The new tenets of the sinister order would become cunning, stealth, and subterfuge.

The Revenge of the Sith
Bane's reformed Sith Order went into hiding, though they were soon discovered by the Jedi and believed to be destroyed. They survived, of course, but would not resurface for almost one thousand years, with the depredations of Darth Sidious and Darth Maul that began shortly before the Battle of Naboo.

Though Maul was slain in that battle at the hands of Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi, the day proved an unparalleled victory for the Sith; Darth Sidious, known as Senator Palpatine of Naboo, was elected to the office of Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic.

More than a decade passed, during which Palpatine manipulated the Senate into granting him more and more powers. His new apprentice, Darth Tyranus, formed the Confederacy of Independent Systems, which seceded from the Galactic Republic, thus beginning a long and bloody conflict known as the Clone Wars.

When they were over, the Jedi ranks had been thinned considerably. At last, the moment had come for the Sith to reclaim their former glory. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine—Darth Sidious—crowned himself Emperor, and replaced the ancient Republic with a "New Order"—the Galactic Empire—a galaxy-spanning dark side theocracy the likes of which had not been seen for millennia.

The Jedi Purge began, led by Palpatine's Dark Jedi underlings (including groups known respectively as the Inquisitorius, the Emperor's Hands, and the Prophets of the Dark Side) and his third and greatest apprentice, Darth Vader, in which what few Jedi remained became even fewer, until only a handful were left alive out of an Order that had once included ten thousand of them. It is remembered as a dark time for the galaxy.

Eventually, however, the Rebel Alliance arose to threaten the Empire. The Galactic Civil War drew many into its fold, perhaps the most notable of whom was Luke Skywalker, the son of Anakin Skywalker—Darth Vader in his former life as a Jedi Knight. Shortly after Skywalker destroyed the Empire's terrifying Death Star superweapon, the Emperor and Vader became aware of the young man's identity. Both Sith Lords hoped to corrupt Luke to the dark side, but each had a different plan for the future. Vader desired to kill the Emperor and rule the galaxy with his son, but Palpatine wished to replace Vader with the boy. Neither goal was successful, and it appeared that the Sith had finally come to an end with the destruction of the second Death Star at the Battle of Endor, in which Darth Vader returned to the light side, slaying his master and being slain in return.

The Sith Legacy
Unfortunately, this was not the case. Six years after the Battle of Endor, Palpatine returned to threaten the New Republic. Unbeknownst to the Rebellion, the Emperor had maintained a secret supply of Spaarti cloning cylinders on the planet Byss in the Deep Core. Years before his death at Endor, Palpatine's body had begun to decay so rapidly from the ravaging dark side energies it contained that he had been forced to begin periodically transfering his soul into fresh clones of himself. Vader's treachery, however, had been unexpected, and Palpatine's spirit had been forced to take possession of the body of Emperor's Hand Jeng Droga. Though Droga went mad in the process, he journeyed to Byss, where Palpatine was able to take possession of a new clone. Unfortunately for the Sith, spending such an extended period outside his body had driven the Emperor half-mad. Though he and his loyal Imperial forces managed to briefly retake the galactic capital of Coruscant and wreak havoc on the galaxy for a year, the resurrected Palpatine eventually began to succumb to clone madness and the genetic tampering done to his clones by the treacherous Sovereign Protector Carnor Jax. He died a final death on the planet Onderon, when dying Jedi Knight Empatajayos Brand, a survivor of the Jedi Purge, bound the Emperor's departing life essence to his own, taking the Dark Lord with him as he became one with the Force.

Though Jedi have continued to fall into darkness since then, none have proved as great a threat as that posed by the newest Sith Order. Lumiya, a former Emperor's Hand and Darth Vader's secret apprentice, became Dark Lady of the Sith upon her master's death at Endor. She trained two apprentices: Flint, who was redeemed by Luke Skywalker, and Carnor Jax, who was killed by Palpatine loyalist Kir Kanos shortly after the Emperor's final death on Onderon. Afterwards, Lady Lumiya went into hiding, returning the Sith Order to the secret, underground existence begun by Darth Bane a millennium before.

Dark Lords of the Sith
The Dark Lords of the Sith are acknowledged as the leaders of their order, and the most powerful Sith of their time. Only one Dark Lord exists at a time until the reign of Kaan.

see main article

First Sith Empire

 * Ajunta Pall
 * Marka Ragnos
 * Simus
 * Naga Sadow
 * Gav Daragon
 * Ludo Kressh
 * Horak-mul
 * Dor Gal-ram
 * Freedon Nadd

Exar Kun's Brotherhood of the Sith

 * Exar Kun
 * Ulic Qel-Droma
 * Crado
 * Aleema Keto

Darth Revan's Sith Empire

 * Darth Revan
 * Darth Malak
 * Darth Bandon
 * Jorak Uln
 * Uthar Wynn
 * Yuthura Ban

Post Jedi Civil War

 * Darth Traya
 * Darth Nihilus
 * Darth Sion

Lord Kaan's Brotherhood of Darkness

 * Kaan
 * Qordis
 * Githany
 * Kopecz
 * Darth Bane
 * Darth Rivan

Darth Bane's Sith Order

 * Darth Bane
 * Darth Zannah
 * Darth Millennial
 * Darth Plagueis
 * Darth Sidious
 * Darth Maul
 * Darth Tyranus
 * Darth Vader

Lady Lumiya's Sith Order

 * Lumiya
 * Flint
 * Carnor Jax