Wookieepedia:Featured article queue/Week 18, 2014/0

The Sith Emperor was a Dark Lord of the Sith who reconstituted the Sith Empire after its destruction in the Great Hyperspace War and went on to rule it for over 1300 years. Born in 5,113 BBY as Tenebrae, the illegitimate Sith son of Lord Dramath of Medriaas and a poor farm woman, the child who eventually became the Emperor killed his own father at the age of ten and was granted the title of Lord Vitiate by the then–Dark Lord Marka Ragnos three years later. Vitiate renamed his world Nathema and ruled it for the next century, content to exclude himself from Sith power struggles and even the Great Hyperspace War when the Galactic Republic destroyed the Empire in 5,000 BBY. Summoning the remaining Sith Lords to Nathema with the promise of salvation from the Jedi, Vitiate turned on his fellows and used their strength to perform a ritual that made him immortal, at the expense of every living thing on Nathema.

Shedding his identity as Lord Vitiate, the self-proclaimed Sith Emperor led the scattered survivors of the Empire on a twenty-year odyssey into the Unknown Regions, where he established a new Sith Empire on the lost colony world of Dromund Kaas. He delved deep into the mysteries of the dark side of the Force as his people built a new civilization and expanded the Empire's domain over the next thousand years. His life prolonged through the power of the ritual, the Emperor sought a way to repeat the same feat of Sith magic on a galactic scale. However, doing so required a war&mdash;war that would destroy civilizations and fuel his power so that he could consume everything in the galaxy and become like a god. To that end, the Emperor arranged for the Mandalorian warrior culture to attack the Republic, and he turned the powerful Jedi Knights Revan and Malak to the dark side and set them upon the Republic after the Mandalorians were defeated. Yet a redeemed Revan returned to challenge the Emperor once more, and Revan's near-success and subsequent capture led the Emperor to pursue further safeguards against his death. Protecting his true body through the transference of his consciousness between host bodies known as Emperor's Voices, the Emperor launched his own war on the Republic almost three centuries later.

During the course of the war, the Emperor's efforts to create the extensions of his will known as the Children of the Emperor were nearly derailed by his traitorous apprentice Exal Kressh, but Kressh was eliminated before she could do lasting harm to her Sith Master's plans. As the war neared the end of its third decade, the captive Revan was able to mentally influence the Emperor to sue for peace with the Republic, and the resultant Treaty of Coruscant saw the Sith leader return control of the Empire to the ruling Dark Council and retreat into seclusion in order to prepare his ritual. A powerful young Jedi who would become known as the Hero of Tython drew the Emperor's attention during the subsequent Cold War, on account of the visions that centered around the Jedi Knight, but the Emperor easily crushed the Jedi's will and turned the Knight to the dark side along with the rest of a strike team sent to capture the Sith ruler. The Knight broke free of the Emperor's control months later with the help of the immortal Lord Scourge, the Emperor's personal executioner or Wrath, but the Emperor had already set his plans in motion as the galaxy spiraled into renewed war.

As the Hero raced to stop the Emperor's agents from starting the ritual, the Emperor was trapped briefly by the traitorous Sith Lord Darth Baras on the planet Voss. Nevertheless, he escaped with the help of his newest Emperor's Wrath and returned to Dromund Kaas, to activate his Children across the galaxy and prepare for a final confrontation with the Knight. While a Republic fleet invaded Dromund Kaas, the Emperor fought the Hero and the astromech droid T7-O1 in a climactic battle that ended with the Emperor's defeat. The loss of his Voice drove the Emperor into a deep slumber while the galaxy escalated further into war, prompting the Sith Lord Darth Malgus to try to seize the throne of the Empire. The Emperor eventually died a final death, though his powers and accomplishments were still remembered millennia later.