Sith (species)

The Sith, also known as the Red Sith during the time of the Old Sith Empire, were a Force-sensitive species of red-skinned Humanoids native to Ziost and Korriban that were enslaved by exiled Dark Jedi.

Biology and appearance
The Sith were a Force-sensitive species of red-skinned humanoids with tentacle "beards" that evolved on Korriban. Pure blooded Sith were almost always left-handed, and thus their signature weapon, the lanvarok, was adapted purely for left-handed use. The Sith also only had four fingers/digits on each hand (with the exception of the Slave caste/sub-species which only had three) and three toes on each foot. After the fusion of bloodlines with the Dark Jedi exiles all Sith including the Slave caste had four digits on each hand, the number of digits on each foot did not change, this seemed to be the only change to the species overall after the fusion.

Culture
They were in an almost constant state of war, their civilization was quite sophisticated; they saw these acts not as cruel or barbaric, but simply basic aspects of existence. They were notable for engaging in supposedly primitive practices such as sentient sacrifices in the name of their gods. Their constant warring led to a dwindling of the population on their original homeworld of Korriban as well as cultivated an intensely xenophobic society.

Native Sith culture included the Sith language, the consumption of bloodsoup, a rigid and stratified caste-based society, live sentient sacrifices to the Sith deities and use of ancient and arcane alchemy and magic. For the Sith, war and violence were just as much a part of the natural order of life as peace or serenity. Their social order was very rigid, and while many rose to the title of Sith Lord, only one, King Adas, attained the position of monarch. Another aspect of Sith culture, the creation of Sith holocrons to record knowledge, originates from their first contact with the Rakata of the Infinite Empire.

One aspect that originated from Korriban was the position of Shadow Hand; a title that was analogous to that of a Jedi Padawan. One of the oldest and greatest strengths of the Sith was their knowledge of sorcery. This great power allowed them to accomplish great feats such as causing stars to go supernova.

Castes
"In times long past, the Sith race proved malleable&hellip;Splitting into a meek and servile Slave class&hellip;An intelligent and nimble Engineer class&hellip;Others interbred with the early Exiled Jedi&mdash;like the ancestors of Ludo Kressh&mdash;watering down the powerful bloodlines&hellip;But most useful of all were members of the vicious Massassi Warrior class."

- Naga Sadow - referring to the split of the Sith into the four different castes/sub-species: Slave caste, Engineer caste, Kissai and Massassi.

The Sith society was very hierarchical, utilizing both a rigid caste system and a stratified rank structure to put its subjects in their proper place. Due to how long Sith society has separated the Sith into castes (across approximately 130,000 years), each caste is sometimes referred to as a sub-species of Sith. All Sith castes were red-skinned humanoids with distinctly sharp, predatory features and tentacle beards. Among the Sith, the stroking of a right cheek tendril was a sign of thoughtfulness. After interbreeding with the Dark Jedi exiles, the original members of the species became known as Red Sith. Their caste system included a meek and lowly Slave caste, a skilled and intelligent engineer caste, the priestly Kissai caste, and the war-like Massassi caste.

The following were notable castes present amongst the Sith:
 * Slave Caste : Sith slaves were the meek and servile sub-species of the Sith and therefore the lowliest caste in Sith hierarchy. Pure blooded Sith slaves had only three digits on each hand unlike the other Sith castes, but after the fusion of bloodlines with the Dark Jedi Exiles, the Slaves seemed to have four digits. They worshiped the Sith Lords as gods, and were often used as sacrifices. The Sith Lords used them for slave labor. When a Sith Lord died, his slaves were buried alive with his body in his tomb on Korriban.
 * Engineer Caste : Sith engineers built and maintained Sith technology, including droids and starships.
 * Massassi Caste : Massassi were the warrior caste of the Sith. This was because Massassi tended to be taller and stronger than the other Sith castes, this combined with the natural Sith aggression made very efficient and vicious soldiers for the Sith military. Massassi were not very intelligent but they could be trained well enough to carry out complex battle plans and maintain their equipment, starships, and weaponry making them very useful to the Sith Empire. The Massassi's loyalty had to be earned but once it was they were unswervingly obedient to the Dark Lord of the Sith; they were also loyal to the individual Sith Lord they served, though this loyalty was secondary to their loyalty to the Dark Lord.   The Massassi also had a complex language of their own, which may be related to the Sith language.
 * Kissai Caste : The Kissai were the priest class in the Sith caste system and were known to study the nature of the Dark side of the Force and practice of ancient Sith magic and alchemy. The Kissai were just as ruthless as the Massassi, but they were more intelligent, observant and lacked the physical advantages that Massassi possessed.

Technology
The Sith art of alchemy allowed them to embue objects as well as living beings with the Dark side. Due to their great skill in sorcery and magic, the Sith often created Talisman's in order to focus their concentration as well as to further tap great amounts of Dark side power. Such artifacts were often used during long elaborate rituals and allowed a sorceror to temporarily enhance their abilities. These constructs often took many different forms ranging from crystals to amulets. After encountering Jedi attempting to use their talismans for the Light side of the Force, the Sith developed ensnarement talismans which, when used, turned their users to the Dark side. This in turn led to Sith artifacts being outlawed following the destruction of the Sith. In addition to these artifacts, the Sith long ago developed healing talismans after a revolt led by Naga Sadow which led to pure blooded Sith finding means to provide an advantage to their faction. Healing talismans worked by fastened natural healing processes but at the expense of the uers connection to the Force. Another talisman was the shield talismans that worked by absorbing any form of energy attack and using that as a power source for the relic. Following the destruction of the Sith Empire, the Jedi discovered that talismans were very difficult to destroy due to different means employed in obliterating them - some made use of the destruction of physical components whilst skilled Jedi Masters were sometimes needed to remove the reserviour of Dark side energy in the relics and some were even capable of only being destroyed by the Dark side only. This led to certain talismans being hidden whilst others were placed in hazardrous locations such as nebulas or stars in order to prevent them from falling into anyones hands.

Talismans were not the only Force empowered artifacts that the Sith were capable of creating. They had long ago learnt that the usage of the Force created ripples that could be sensed by others which led to creation of Force mask's in order to hide this emanation from others. In addition, they were also capable of creating potent toxins such as Sith poison's that weakened their targets from the influence of the Dark side. Whilst these were many forms of common artifacts used by the Sith, there were certain relics that were unique and created by individual Sith Lords. This had led to several specially craft items such as the Gauntlet of Kressh the Younger, Muur Talisman, Dreypa's Oubliette, Eye of Horak-mul, Helm of Dathka Graush, Scepter of Ragnos, Sword of Ieldis and the Heart of Graush as well as the Yoke of Seeming.

During ancient times, the Sith often made use of tomes and manuscripts to record their knowledge. These scrolls and tablets contained teachings on how to learn certain techniques ranging from alchemy to weapon crafting to magic. It was only later that the Sith began to adopt holocrons as teachings tools. One piece of technology that did not originate from the Sith was holocrons which had been originally adapted from the Rakata. Following this event, holocrons became a preferred method of storing Sith teachings though were considered rare. By transferring a portion of the users personality into the device as well as embueing it with the Force, they were capable of creating a Gatekeeper that was a sentient presence that interacted with future users. As the different creators of holocrons had different specialities, it meant that these data storage devices often contained aspects of a single field of Sith lore. This had led to the side effect of certain Sith teachings being lost because the knowledge was either never recorded or destroyed. Those holocrons that had survived over the years either fell into the hands of Dark Side acolytes or remained within the sanctuaries of the dead Sith Lords. Their usage also had a corrupting influence on those that accessed its forbidden knowledge. Whilst holocrons were used, manuscripts and other means of containing Sith teachings were also used. Such relics included the Epistle of Marka Ragnos, the Codex of Karness Muur.

Sith alchemy was also regularly used in the creation of weapons such as Sith sword's. These blades were one of the earliest weapons made by the Sith and were remarkably effective. Such blades were treated so that they were reinforced to withstand any blow which allowed them to combat lightsabers. Their unique creation also meant that they were capable of surviving for thousands of years and in perfect condition. The ancient Sith Lords of Ziost were known to had made use of Cortosis-weave to create Sith Tremor Sword's; a powerful vibroblade melee weapon. In addition, they made use of Sith alchemy to enhance the strength as well as destructive power of blade weapons such as Sith war swords. A primitive ranged weapon created by the Sith was the Lanvarok that was originally used as a hunting tool. In contrast to weapons, the Sith also crafted dark armor which provided additioanl protection for their wearers and were crafted to meet the individual requirements of their user.

This talent in Sith alchemy also extended to create biological weapons which allowed them to genetically engineered creatures to become tainted abominations. Such feats were used to engineer the Tuk'ata that served as guardians for various Sith tombs. In fact, the ancient Sith Empire made use of this art to create Chrysalis beasts that were used as guards as well as pets to various Sith Lords. They even engineered weapons to be employed for sieges such as mutating Silooth in order to break enemy defenses.

Sith were noted for considering the construction of structures and edifices to be a work of art. They felt that such buildings were an extension of their creators personality. This had the resulting effect of preventing enemies from being able to properly chart the internal structure of such sanctuaries and provided the Sith a tactical advantage. Such techniques were also used to create focusing chamber's designed to amplify a Sith Lords power. This allowed the Sith to create vessels such as the Sith Meditation Sphere that were imparted with a level of sentience as well as the capacity to magnify Force power to great levels. More grander scales of their technological abilities included the creation of Force-empowered superweapons such as the Dark Reaper that was constructed during the years of the Great Hyperspace War.

Origin
The dawn of the Sith civilization began in 100,000 BBY where a race of red skinned beings evolved on the planet Korriban. In their early existence, the Sith species were noted as being a cultured race that lived a barbaric yet harmonious life on their homeworld. In that age, it was known that there were sacrifices of sentients that were made to their gods and they developed a rigid caste system. War among their people was quite common and many Sith nations battled with one another on their homeworld. This harsh life was accepted by the Sith as they believed it to have been integral to their life and saw war as being a similar concept to peace. Sith society lasted as such for many thousands of years. But during this age, a rising Sith known as King Adas began to use his great fighting prowess, intelligence as well as his skills with Sith magic to unite the various nations under his rule. A bloody unification followed and the divided nations of Korriban eventually came under the rule of Adas. His subjects in turn believed their King to be immortal and that his reign be eternal; this was added by the fact that Adas was three centuries old by this point. By the year 28,000 BBY, they were united under the leadership of King Adas who formed a Sith Empire with himself as the Sith'ari; the ultimate being.

It was only later that their species' first major challenge came and in 27,700 BBY, they received visitors from beyond their world. These alien beings were known as the Rakata and had a powerful empire out amongst the stars. The Rakata came to King Adas and offered him many secrets such as the technology to create Holocron's in order to gain his confidence. However, their intentions of conquest quickly became apparent and the Sith under Adas managed to drive their foes away. This came at the cost of King Adas's life and his holocron later passed to his Shadow Hand. The loss of King Adas's command meant that the Sith once again divided with wars once more ravaging their civilization with various Sith claiming to be "Sith'ari". Following this event, the Sith people had the means to relocate to other worlds and moved their civilization from their homeworld of Korriban to Ziost. This chain of events had allowed the Sith to gain the technological secrets of the Rakata which gave them the power to colonize other worlds. It was this new power that allowed the Sith society to banish a group of Kissai who believed that the death of King Adas proved that their peoples view on the Force was wrong. For their heresy, the Sith banished these individuals to the distant world of Tund. More importantly, the Rakata also introduced the power of the Dark side of the Force to the Sith who fully embraced its power.

Certain historians had speculated that some of the attitudes of the early Sith race came from an ancient and prehistoric encounter between them and the Anzati species. In fact, Volfe Karkko often stated that his people "remembered the very first Sith". Despite this being the case, there was no evidence to prove this speculation.

Golden Age
More than twenty millennia would pass before the year 6,900 BBY, when a successor to King Adas finally came. Banished from the Galactic Republic after the Battle of Corbos, exiled Dark Jedi were left stranded on the Sith homeworld of Korriban. Following their defeat in the Hundred-Year Darkness, these fallen Jedi awed the Sith race with their powers and were called Jen'jidai. They later used the aid of the ruling King's Shadow Hand to lure the Sith ruler into their confidence whereupon they destroyed him. Seeing the Exiles power, they accepted them as gods that were more powerful than the Sith'ari. They bestowed upon the Jen'jidai Adas's holocron, and thus became the reign of the first Dark Lord of the Sith; the Jen'ari. Among their number were Karness Muur and XoXaan. The first of the new Dark Lords of the Sith Empire was Ajunta Pall. Over the generations, the Sith interbred with the Humanoid Dark Jedi through Sith Alchemy. For nearly two thousand years, the union of the two races mixed Jedi with Sith as well as removed any undesirable traits from both species - this included sympathy, loyalty and superstition. In contrast, qualities such as cunning, ambition and raw power in the Force were encouraged, which shaped Sith society over the centuries.

One of the last great Dark Lords of the Sith was the half breed Marka Ragnos who had used his ruthless nature to win a short series of campaigns against his enemies in order to claim leadership of the Sith Empire. He maintained his position by pitting his rivals against one another, manipulating them into challenging him, and even assassinating them. In this age, he was one of the few Sith that remembered the stories of the distant Galactic Republic and its protectors; the Jedi Order. Ragnos had ruled for over a century when he died; the cause of his death is not known though many suspected it being due to his advanced age. His body was later interred in a tomb, and, true to form, within minutes a power struggle broke out. Two rival Lords: the cautious and conservative Ludo Kressh, and the more radical Naga Sadow, who claimed a pure bloodline and intended to expand the Sith Empire, sought control of the now headless Sith Government. Their animosity roused the spirit of the recently deceased Marka Ragnos who urged them to put aside their differences, revealing their links to the Republic beyond Sith Space. It was only later that a pair of explorers, Gav and Jori Daragon stumbled upon Korriban, blazing a trail from the heart of Republic space. This ill-fated encounter gave the Sith a way out of the confines of the Stygian Caldera. Through deceit, Sadow installed himself as the reigning Dark Lord of the Sith and led his people out in order to conquer the Galactic Republic. This chain of events instigated the Great Hyperspace War in 5,000 BBY which ultimately saw the defeat of the Sith.

Something not known to many that a small contingent consisting of fifty-seven members of the Sith species served as crew on the Omen, a Sith dreadnaught that crash-landed on the planet Kesh during the Great Hyperspace War, founding the Lost Tribe of Sith. They were represented in the Grand Lord Yaru Korsin court by Ravilan, Omen quartermaster for the Massassi warriors. Despite successful breeding among Humans in the Lost Tribe, not a single Sith infant survived more than a day on Kesh. After Ravilan had poisoned the water supply of Tetsubal, killing 18,000 Keshiri in order to make the rest of the Tribe think that it was the will of the Dark Side that they try to leave, Seelah Korsin secretly poisoned several other towns, killing more than 100,000 Keshiri and revealing the fact that Ravilan was behind it to Yaru Korsin. Korsin responded by exterminating all the remaining Red Sith. Before her son killed Ravilan, Seelah revealed that the reason Sith infants were dying was because she was murdering them after birth. Little did the Korsins know that they were playing into the hands of the Keshiri Adari Vaal and Tilden Kaah, who were part of a underground group dedicated to ridding Kesh of the Sith presence.

The Dark Lord Naga Sadow later fled to the jungle moon of Yavin 4 along with a contingent of Massassi followers to escape the pursuing Jedi and the Galactic Republic. There, Naga Sadow committed cruel experiments on his own Massassi warriors which resulted in them becoming dark side-wielding savages. On the planet Tund, the banished Kissai had turned their society into the Sorcerers of Tund and also welcomed the few remaining Massassi and Kissai on one occasion, descended from outcasts much like themselves. Around 22 BBY the Sorcerers of Tund were destroyed.

Legacy
In the aftermath of the Great Hyperspace War the Republic and the Jedi destroyed many Sith strongholds and Sith Lords, Jedi Shadows were tasked with the destruction of Sith teachings and Artifacts. The sheer thoroughness of the Republic and Jedi in exterminating the Sith Empire in the aftermath of the Great Hyperspace War was criticized by many as rivaling that of a Bothan Ar'krai. The Republic and the Jedi destroyed the Sith Empire and thought they were extinct, but despite their efforts, the teachings of the Sith were preserved over the years and would continue to haunt the galaxy over the millennia. Unknown to many, Naga Sadow managed to escape and his Massassi crew that served him continued to live on their new home of Yavin 4 where they constructed the Massassi Temple's for him. Naga Sadow conducted cruel experiments on his Massassi and they were mutated into hunched creatures through Sadow's powers. After Sadow's death, the Massassi eventually devolved into a primitive society. Other Sith Lords also managed to escape the aftermath of the Great Hyperspace War and fled to worlds such as Thule and Vjun, while another made random Hyperspace jumps in desperation to escape, and after twenty years he and his armada would come across the forgotten world of Dromund Kaas. There he used dark rituals to prolong his life and rebuilt the Sith Empire to its former glory to eventually have revenge on the Republic and the Jedi in the Great Galactic War. Despite the attempts of the Jedi Order, two relics remained behind namely the Sith holocron of King Adas as well as the disembodied spirit of Naga Sadow who resided on Yavin 4. These two relics of the Sith were later used to empower fallen Jedi Freedon Nadd and bring about the Freedon Nadd Uprising until this new breed of Sith was defeated.

These would later be used to corrupt the Jedi Exar Kun who became the Dark Lord of the Sith after being anointed by the spirit of Marka Ragnos who made the fallen Jedi Knight Ulic Qel-Droma Kun's apprentice. In addition, Sith teachings were uncovered by Aleema Keto and her cousin Satal Keto who used them to form the Krath cult. Together, these forces instigated the devastating Great Sith War which saw many Jedi fall under the corruption of the Sith and destruction following their wake until the eventual defeat of Exar Kun. In his last act before he was defeated, Kun used the great power of the temples on Yavin 4 as well as the life force of every one of the Massassi to preserve his essence within the Great Temple. This act saw the virtual extinction of the Massassi population on the moon. Despite this being the case, a number of Massassi had been taken off world by this point where some join the resurgent Sith Empire or remain on the fringe in order to live their lives in peace whilst some sought to get revenge on the Sith for the abuse they had suffered. Also, not known to many, there were several scattered settlements of both Massassi and Kissai that existed on Korriban at this time.

By the time of the Great Galactic War, the overseers at the Sith academy on Korriban were members of the true-blood Sith species. Due to their history of association with dark side Force-users, the word 'Sith' went on to be used by many dark side organizations not connected with the original Sith species, even though they still existed.

Behind the scenes
For the Thrawn Trilogy, Timothy Zahn initially intended the Noghri to be the Sith, but was told to change that by Lucasfilm. It is also rumored that originally the Yuuzhan Vong were intended to be exiled Sith, but that this was changed midway through the New Jedi Order series.

Appearances

 * Tales of the Jedi: The Golden Age of the Sith
 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice
 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Skyborn
 * Lost Tribe of the Sith: Paragon
 * Tales of the Jedi: The Fall of the Sith Empire
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
 * Timeline 7: Peace for the Republic?
 * Star Wars: The Old Republic, Blood of the Empire Act 1: Shades of the Sith
 * Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
 * Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
 * Exile
 * Crosscurrent
 * Star Wars Legacy 30: Vector, Part 11

Notes and references
Sith (Spezies) Sith (especie) Sithowie (rasa) Ситы Sithit (laji)