Darth Tenebrous

"For the last time I call you apprentice and I applaud your skillful use of surprise and misdirection. Perhaps I was wrong to think you had no stomach for it."

- Darth Tenebrous, to Darth Plagueis

Darth Tenebrous, born Rugess Nome, was a Dark Lord of the Sith of the lineage of Darth Bane. A Bith male possessed of a calculating intellect, Tenebrous was obsessed with shaping the future. He was the Sith Master of Darth Plagueis. In the style of many Sith Lords throughout history, Tenebrous's name included the Darth title.

Biography
At some point, Tenebrous and Plagueis traveled to the planet Bal'demnic. There, Plagueis set in motion his plan to kill his master; Tenebrous realized that his apprentice's desire to kill him had seriously endangered the continuation of the Sith by stranding the Muun where he required an enviro-suit to survive, and expressed disappointment in his pupil. Plagueis, angered by this, broke the Bith's neck. As the unconscious Tenebrous slowly died, Plagueis utilized the Force to study microscopic changes in Tenebrous's body, observing the slow death of his neurons and midi-chlorians.

But this was not the end of the Dark Lord. He ensured the survival of his own consciousness into altered midi-chlorians which he labeled maxi-chlorians. Those maxi-chlorians would then migrate not in the Force but in Plagueis, the diseased one. Not possessing a Bith precision, Plagueis would never suspect Tenebrous was inside his body. Infecting cells with maxi-chlorians cut off the host of its Force-sensitivity : to fulfill his goals, Tenebrous sacrificed his ability to sense the motion of the future, something he did not require anymore. He already knew his future.

As his body died, Tenebrous entered his apprentice's body and slipped into his cells. As the retrovirus propagated, Tenebrous gained access to Plagueis' powers of foresight. At that moment, he discovered and felt Plagueis' own death at the hands of his apprentice, only visible as a smear of darkness. That vision horrified him. Plagueis would die too soon, and Tenebrous would not fulfill his ultimate goal: seizing and becoming the Chosen One when he will appear.

Seeking an answer to understand Plagueis' complacent behavior, Tenebrous threw again his mind at the future but couldn't see anything as the retrovirus infected Plagueis' every cell. His apprentice was now robbed of his foresight power. Wholly giving himself to panic, Tenebrous escaped Plagueis' body to think about a way out, only to discover his mummified remains. Time had passed but how much? Tenebrous couldn't tell. He then wondered if his foresight hadn't been eliminated, but had been twisted in upon itself, forcing him to endlessly relive his death. At that moment, the Dark Lord wished he still had a mouth to scream.

Behind the scenes
Darth Tenebrous's name was included in a 2006 blog entry by Leland Chee, the keeper of the Holocron continuity database, marking the character's first mention in Star Wars canon. Chee stated that Tenebrous's name may have been derived from the word "tenebrous," a word meaning dark, gloomy, or obscure. In 2008, author James Luceno indicated that if he were able to, he would choose "Darth Tenebrous" as the name of the first Sith to ever use the Darth title. Tenebrous is set to appear in Luceno's 2012 novel, Star Wars: Darth Plagueis, as the Master of Darth Plagueis.

When deciding Tenebrous's species, Luceno was seeking an existing intelligent and "brainy" species in Star Wars canon. The Bith species fit the bill, but Luceno found that he associated Bith with harmless jizz-playing bands rather than menacing Sith Lords. However, cognizant of the fact that many different personality types could be found in a single species, he ultimately said "what the heck."

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Darth Plagueis
 * Star Wars: Darth Plagueis