Darth Bane/Legends

"I am the Dark Lord who will restore the Sith to glory. They call me Bane."

- Darth Bane

Darth Bane, born under the name of Dessel on Apatros, was one of the most pivotal Dark Lords of the Sith. By the end of the New Sith Wars, Bane was one of the last of the legitimate Sith Lords and, as the only survivor of the Last Battle of Ruusan that signified the end of the war, reinvented the Sith order after its destruction. Bane's revolution included the founding of the Rule of Two, a structure that, in limiting the number of Sith and eliminating the infighting plaguing the order, would allow Bane's eventual successor, Darth Sidious, to finally triumph over the Jedi and the Galactic Republic.

Early life
"Hurst always said you were no good. He knew there was something wrong with you... Bane."

- Gerd

Born on Apatros in 1,026 BBY to the miner Hurst, the tall and skinny Dessel was often bullied by his father and the other miners. Dessel's earliest memory was of his father hitting him. Blaming his son for the death of his wife (who had died in childbirth) and for his continued life on Apatros, Hurst considered Dessel the bane of his existence, so much so that he took to calling him "Bane" when he was in his drunken rages. Hurst seemed to despise the fact his son was even alive. It was a nickname that stuck with his father and his miner friends, and for the young Dessel, it had hurt more than any of the physical beatings that his father had dealt him. In 1,013 BBY, at the age of thirteen, Dessel began to work in the cortosis mines of his world.

In the face of such adversity, the young Dessel was forced to fend for himself. He learned to ignore the constant jibes, threats and insults directed against him by his father and the other miners, and grew ever stronger as he worked in the deep cortosis mines. Even at this young age, he felt the calls of the Force and its dark side, and after one last and particularly brutal beating at the hands of his father, Dessel would use its power to kill him, envisioning a giant hand squeezing his father's dark heart, literally willing Hurst to die. He would not understand the part he had played in Hurst's demise until many years later.

After Hurst’s death, his friends had tried to continue with their harassment of Dessel, but the young miner would have none of it, and after he handed out dozens of beatings to them in the span of a month, going so far as breaking a man's jaw, his father’s old friends decided that it would be better if they just left Dessel alone for the majority of the time.

The final straw came one day while Dessel worked a double shift, coincidentally the fifth anniversary of Hurst's death. One of his father's friends, Gerd, decided that he would put Dessel in his place. In a drunken stupor, Gerd attacked him, blaming him for Hurst's death. After they wrestled each other into a stalemate position, Gerd mocked him by calling him Bane, pushing Dessel too far. Putting Dessel into a lock that left him vulnerable, Gerd attempted to gouge out Dessel's eye with a thumb. With a premonition granted by the dark side of the Force, Dessel turned his head and severed Gerd's thumb with his teeth.

This fight led to his suspension from his mining job, but luckily a Republic cargo ship had arrived that day to pick up cortosis supplies. Using his suspension to arrive before the rest of the miners at the company-run casino in Groshik's cantina, Dessel used his gambling talents to clean out the crew of the ship in a game of sabacc. Successfully driving every other player out of the game, Dessel played his final hand against a young ensign, and both played the same card, putting the game in a stalemate. However, the ensign's card was switched out, leaving Dessel with an Idiot's Array and the ten thousand credit sabacc pot.

This success, mixed with the disparaging remarks he made against the Republic during the game, led the ensign and his friends among the crew to attack as Dessel left the cantina. Easily dominated by the miner in physical combat, the ensign attacked Dessel with a vibroblade. However, Dessel's subconscious use of the Force allowed him to detect the weapon, turning it against the ensign and killing him. Outmatched, the other Republic soldiers fled to alert their superiors. Dessel was forced to turn to his close friend, the Neimoidian barkeeper Groshik, to use his contacts to smuggle Dessel off planet and recruit him into the Sith Army.

New Sith Wars
"Now you get to see firsthand how the Brotherhood of Darkness deals with mutinous soldiers!"

- Ulabore

Dessel joined the Brotherhood of Darkness as a foot soldier, rising to the rank of sergeant in a Sith unit known as the Gloom Walkers. This could be attributed in part to Dessel's spectacular uses of the Force to guide his unit out of certain death to victory. During his time as a Sith soldier, Dessel campaigned against Republic forces at such battles as Phaseera. After a mutiny against his incompetent superior Ulabore at Phaseera, Dessel was sentenced to be court-martialed under Lord Kopecz, but was saved from this fate by the Dark Lord, who offered to take him to Korriban, where he enrolled at the Sith Academy.

Offered the chance to create a new identity for himself, Dessel remembered the cruelty of his father, and elected to take the name Bane.

Training on Korriban
"I think he might be the one we've been searching for. He could be the Sith'ari."

- Kopecz

Bane arrived at the Academy and immediately began to study the ways of the Sith under such Masters as Qordis and the blademaster Kas'im. Despite his late discovery of his Force powers he began to exceed many of the students who had been trained since birth.

However, Bane would begin to abandon the archives he studied at the beginning of his training in favor of increased focus on physical and mental exercise. He defeated a Makurth student named Fohargh, who had previously beaten him. He killed his rival with the sheer power of the Force against Kas'im's instruction, earning him the attention of Sirak, the favorite of Lord Qordis and one of the most prominent students at the academy.



Things would begin to change for the worse however, when Bane, thinking on his use of the dark side to kill Fohargh, realized that he had in fact been responsible for the death of his father years before. This revelation caused Bane to doubt his ability, and he began to lose his connection to the dark side. Realizing that unless he acted he would fall behind the other students, he rashly challenged Sirak, who easily defeated Bane in combat and beat him savagely. Later, while in recovery, Bane would wish that Sirak had killed him.

After his loss, Bane was denied the right to train with the other students and was consigned to learning what he could from the archives he had abandoned. It would be while studying them that he would learn more about the Sith, the long dead Dark Lord Darth Revan in particular. Bane began to question the direction the Brotherhood of Darkness had taken, and seemed especially interested in finding out why none of the current Sith Lords took the title Darth.

It was at this time that a Jedi deserter named Githany arrived that Bane saw his chance to reclaim his place among the other students. Githany in turn saw Bane as a tool she could use against Sirak, her only real rival at the Academy. Requesting that Githany secretly teach him Force techniques she learned from the Masters, at the same time he took up lightsaber combat instruction from Kas'im, hidden from Githany. Neither teacher was aware of the other, ensuring that Bane had an edge over both.

As his training progressed, Bane learned far more from the archives at the Academy than he thought possible, supplementing his knowledge of the Force with the teachings of the ancient Sith. In one of their secret tutoring sessions, Githany was amazed at the speed at which Bane not only learned to harness Force lightning, but that in a few short hours he was able to unleash a storm none of the other students (including her) could manage. Kas'im too noted how far Bane was coming with his skill in the art of the saber and believed that soon he may surpass Sirak.

Bane once again entered the challenge ring atop the Academy but this time easily defeated and humiliated Sirak, although he stopped short of killing him. Following this victory, Kas'im presented Bane with the curve-hilted lightsaber that had previously belonged to Kas'im's master, a Sith Lord named Na'daz who saved the blademaster from slavery on Ryloth. Kas'im also revealed that he had killed his master in a personal test of skill and took his weapon as a reminder of what his master taught him, leaving a lasting impression on Bane.

Once again under the gaze of the Academy Masters, Qordis summoned Bane to his chambers and revealed to the apprentice that he has been aware for some time that Githany was teaching him. Qordis then told Bane that he was to stop studying the Archives. To defy Qordis and the Brotherhood, the young apprentice left the Academy for the Valley of the Dark Lords in search of answers from the ancient ghosts of the old Sith Lords.

Bane came to the conclusion that the Brotherhood was flawed. Their leader, Lord Kaan placed the greater good of the order over the dark side as a whole. Many of the Dark Lords were weak, and in Bane's mind this made them unworthy of the title they carried. Bane also learned that Kaan himself forbade any Sith from taking the title Darth as he held the status afforded by the title alone responsible for the infighting and jealousy that nearly destroyed the Sith thousands of years ago.

After a fruitless two weeks in the Valley, Bane returned empty handed, feeling foolish and nearly dead from exhaustion and hunger. He arrived just in time to learn that the students were to be raised to the level of Dark Lord of the Sith on the orders of Lord Kaan, and were to be sent to Ruusan to participate in the latter battles against the Army of Light. Raised with the rest of the Academy students, Bane almost fell victim to a trap in the archives orchestrated by Sirak with the participation of Githany on the night of his return. Upon seeing his power, Githany changed sides and killed Sirak's allies, watching on as Bane slew his helpless rival.

Bane did not leave for Ruusan with the rest of the Sith present. Instead, he denounced their teachings and Kaan's Brotherhood and proclaimed himself Darth Bane before stealing Lord Qordis's personal spacecraft, the Valcyn. Bane made his way to Lehon, hoping to find there true understanding of the dark side.

Lehon and the Holocron of Darth Revan
"The dark side is strong here. Far stronger than it ever was on Korriban. This is where we will find the power to destroy the Jedi&mdash;not in Kaan's Brotherhood!"

- Darth Bane

Bane landed on Lehon and immediately began his search for the Temple of the Ancients, taming a wild rancor in the process and using it as his steed. He felt a much stronger connection to the dark side on Lehon than he did on Korriban, which only reinforced his belief that the then-extinct Rakata were the first race to harness the dark side eons before the Sith rose on Korriban.

Arriving at the Temple, he found the holocron of Darth Revan. Learning much more about the Sith of the past, he concluded that Kaan and his Brotherhood would have to be destroyed, and set about formulating a way to ensure the survival of the Order. With the teachings of Darth Revan he would destroy the Brotherhood, and from its wreckage create a new and far stronger Order of the Sith Lords that would eventually destroy the Jedi.

Kaan, fearful of Bane and his intentions, dispatched Kas'im to kill his former student. Despite the almost matchless sword skills of the Twi'lek Sith, and his use of various secrets and tricks he had carefully kept from Bane, Kas'im could not match Bane's raw power, and was killed when his old pupil brought the Temple down on him with the aid of the dark side.

Bane sent a messenger drone to Ruusan, informing Kaan of Kas'im's death and handing the Sith Lord the weapon of his eventual demise; instructions to perform the Sith ritual to make a thought bomb, one of the many secrets he had learned from Revan's holocron.

Near death on Ambria
"I am Darth Bane, Dark Lord of the Sith. I will survive. At any cost."

- Darth Bane

By then, Kaan believed that a military victory on Rusaan was certain; with Jedi Master Pernicar dead there was nothing to blunt the antipathy that the Jedi Lords Hoth and Valenthyne Farfalla felt toward each other, and the orbital blockade sustained by the Sith battle armada kept Farfalla and his reinforcements from landing to join the battle.

Kaan received a message from a seemingly guilt-ridden Bane who wanted to join the Brotherhood. However, Githany believed that the Brotherhood no longer needed Bane and offered to kill him. Kaan agreed and she left to meet with Bane. What Kaan did not share with Githany was the small package Bane sent as a peace offering, a piece of parchment with the ritual for the thought bomb written upon it.



Bane chose the barren world of Ambria to meet Kaan's envoy. Lake Natth, a body of black and poisonous water, had become the focus for the dark side energy on the planet, and Bane made his camp right on its shores. While Bane waited for Githany he considered a question he still could not answer; once he rid the galaxy of the Brotherhood, where would he find an apprentice worthy of the knowledge he had to impart? When Githany arrived they shared a passionate kiss, but Bane tasted the poison on her lips and realized that Kaan sent her to Ambria to kill him, although he managed to keep this realization secret. Seeing that Githany understood the source of the strength in the dark side, Bane wondered if she could become his apprentice.

He realized, though, that she believed too strongly in Kaan and the Brotherhood to accept his knowledge, and he sent her away, confident that her poisons would have no effect on him.

It was almost too late when Bane realized Githany's duplicity; she had used a lesser poison to cover a far more powerful toxin, synox, used by many assassins throughout the galaxy. Weakened by the poison, Bane was unable to heal himself and traveled across one of the battlefields located on Ambria, trying to drink in the suffering of those who died there to increase his strength and heal himself. However, the dark side was too faint on the planet,and even Lake Natth was of no use, its dark side power locked in its cold, black depths by the Jedi.

Falling into unconsciousness, Bane collapsed, close to death. A small boy named Mikki, along with his father and brothers scavenging the battlefield, found Bane's lightsaber. Seeing his chance, Bane used the Force to control the lightsaber and killed the boys one by one. In so doing, he drank in their father's horror and anguish, using it to cleanse the poison from his body and buy him time to find a permanent cure. Saving the father for last, Bane struck him down, claiming that.

Bane eventually fought off the effects of the poison long enough to find a cure. Finding the Force sensitive healer, Caleb, on Ambria, Bane was at first confounded by his refusal to help him. Caleb had no fear of Bane's power, and was unafraid of any pain he could inflict. Bane responded by threatening him with the life of his daughter, forcing Caleb to relent and give Bane his cure. Once healed, Bane decided not to kill Caleb or his child, reasoning that his healing talents could prove useful in the future. Leaving Ambria, Bane was more determined than ever to wipe out Kaan and his followers.

Ruusan and the destruction of the Sith
"The Brotherhood must be purged. The Sith must be destroyed and rebuilt."

- Darth Bane

Shocked by Bane's return, Kaan agreed to follow Bane's instructions to defeat the Jedi through the power of the dark side. Before the Sixth Battle of Ruusan, the Sith joined together in meditation&mdash;and Darth Bane unleashed a wave of destruction upon the unsuspecting Jedi. Sensing the smothering darkness in Bane's heart, however, Lord Kaan broke the circle, intending to finish off the Jedi with more conventional tactics. Lord Kopecz was the last Sith to leave, informing Bane that his loyalty to the dark side before the Brotherhood would not be accepted by Kaan or the other Sith Lords.

Bane traveled back to the Sith camp to continue his plan to wipe the Sith out. Arriving back in the deserted camp, Bane was confronted by Qordis who offered to help him overthrow Kaan and seize control of the Brotherhood. Disgusted that Qordis did not understand the necessity of the Brotherhood's destruction for the survival of the Sith, Bane used the dark side to choke his former teacher to death, then ordered the Sith fleet to quit their blockade and engage the Jedi.



Lord Hoth and his army ran in almost blind fear of the inferno that followed at their heels. As they emerged from the forest they were met by an enormous army of Sith. With the first Jedi lines cut down by a torrent of blaster fire, Hoth rallied his troops and fought back. Hoth knew that the real trap had yet to be sprung, noting that the Dark Lords were absent from the battle. At that very moment they arrived in their fliers and began to blast the Jedi with heavy cannons, as the Jedi fell back. Hoth resolved to make a worthy last stand.

Just as Kaan prepared to kill Hoth with a volley of cannon fire, Farfalla and his gunships arrived and forced the Sith to withdraw. On the ground the last remnants of the Sith army were pinned down and forced to surrender, while Farfalla himself landed and was taken by surprise as Hoth embraced him in a great hug. Bane openly admitted that he ordered the Sith fleet to attack the Jedi and break their blockade; in their confrontation Bane actually made Kaan believe that he was manipulating his mind just as Kaan had manipulated the other Sith Lords. Believing that Bane now answered to him, Kaan led the Sith into the caves of Ruusan where he intended to lure the Jedi into them and unleash the thought bomb. Hoth and Farfalla discovered where Kaan was heading, but not the reason why and rallied their troops to follow.

Taking stock of his situation, Kaan gathered the remaining Sith Lords and prepared to unleash the thought bomb on the pursuing Jedi. Both Githany and Kopecz suspected that something was amiss with the entire situation, but while Kopecz fled the cave, Githany was forced by Kaan's power to take part in the ritual nonetheless. As she began to chant with the rest of the Sith, she wrenched her mind free and was at last able to realize that something was terribly wrong and fled the cave.

The Sith troops guarding the cave entrance offered only token resistance and instead surrendered in mass to the Jedi. Kopecz, wounded and dying, told Farfalla of Kaan's plan after demanding a quick death at the hands of the Jedi Master. When Hoth arrived, Farfalla told him what he had discovered. Hoth believed that he would never leave Ruusan alive and asked for volunteers to undertake a suicide mission into the cave to force Kaan to detonate the thought bomb and wipe themselves out. Choosing exactly ninety nine others to accompany him, Hoth led them into the tunnels and certain death.

Hoth found Kaan, but was unable to prevent him from actually detonating the thought bomb. The wave of destruction killed Hoth, Kaan, the Jedi in the cave, Githany and every Sith Lord still there. Many miles away, Farfalla and the other Jedi felt Hoth's death and assembled a team to finish off any Sith survivors.

Bane, also many miles away, now knew his plan had worked, with the Jedi unaware of his existence they would think the Sith wiped out, when in fact he would carry on the Order in his own fashion. Still, one question troubled him: where would he find an apprentice to pass on what he had learned?

In the aftermath of the battle, a small girl named Rain who somehow survived was awakened by her bouncer companion, Laa. Her peace was cut short when two Jedi killed the Bouncer in front of her. Consumed with anger, she used the Force to kill both of them. Bane found her sometime later and knew that in her he had found an apprentice worthy of his knowledge.

Bane survived along with Rain—who revealed her true name Zannah—and they stumbled across her cousin Darovit, who tried to stop Bane. Zannah caused Darovit's hand to explode, and Bane questioned her on why she allowed him to live; she replied that she was still young. As a final test, Bane told Zannah to find her own way off Ruusan. They would meet on Onderon, and then, and only then, would she be worthy of joining the Sith.

After Ruusan
"Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody the power; the other to crave it."

- Darth Bane



After leaving Ruusan, Bane headed for Onderon in his ship, Valcyn. He hoped to learn secrets from deep inside the tomb of the ancient Sith Lord Freedon Nadd, but his past returned to haunt him. The ghostly spirit of his former mentor, Lord Qordis, chided him for abandoning the Brotherhood. Bane insisted that he was only furthering the Sith cause, but Qordis' spirit created a malfunction in the starship controls and Bane plummeted down into the forest of the beast-infested moon of Dxun.

Bane survived the crash, but his ship was destroyed beyond hope of repair. The jungle itself seemed intent on stopping Bane, but he pushed on nonetheless. He was attacked by beasts and monsters, and cried out in frustration.



In reply, surprisingly, the spirit of Lord Kaan appeared to him, offering help. Though in life they had loathed one another, Bane followed Kaan's ghostly silhouette and eventually found himself at the ruined crypt of Freedon Nadd's tomb. He could feel the dark side in the tomb, and knew he would find what he was looking for here. Kaan led him to a Sith holocron, where he was attacked by barnacle-like creatures called orbalisks. They attached themselves to Bane's body, causing tremendous pain as they became a part of him.

After spending days studying from the holocron, Bane exited the tomb with a new vision: not only would there be just two Lords at a time, but the armies and minions the Sith had once relied on would be done away with too; slowly and in secrecy the Sith would erode the Galactic Republic until the time was right for them to reveal themselves to the Jedi once more.

Taming a flying beast using the powers of the dark side, he mounted it like the fabled Beast Riders and rode towards the edge of the atmosphere, where he planned to "nudge" the entire moon closer to its planet, Onderon, so he could cross to the inhabited world to find his apprentice.

Eventually, Bane inducted his new apprentice, giving her the name Darth Zannah, and set his new order in motion. Future Sith Lords were taught the virtues of patience, planning, and secrecy, and each was to take on the title of Darth, a tradition that had dated back to before the Jedi Civil War, nearly three millennia ago.



Legacy
It would not be long, however, that Bane's fledgling order was rediscovered by the Jedi and (once again) thought eliminated. The Jedi discovered both the new Rule of Two and the identity of Darth Bane, but did not foresee that the new Sith he had founded would long survive Bane's death.

At some point in his life, he made a holocron that eventually fell into the hands of Darth Krayt. In 137 ABY, his holocron was accessed (along with those of Darth Nihilus and Darth Andeddu) on Korriban by Krayt, so Krayt could learn from Bane's experience with the parasitic orbalisks how to survive his own infection by Yuuzhan Vong organisms. Bane chastised Krayt for not following the Rule of Two, telling Krayt his "Rule of One" would be the very undoing of the Sith itself.

Behind the scenes

 * The character of Darth Bane, and his creation of the Rule of Two, were created by George Lucas as part of his backstory of the Sith he developed for the prequel trilogy. Bane's history and other details were elaborated upon by further expanded universe writers, especially Kevin J. Anderson, Darko Macan, and Drew Karpyshyn and also tied in with the battle of Ruusan, known from the Dark Forces saga.
 * It is also important to note that Darth Bane is a good candidate to be the Sith'ari, because he destroyed the Brotherhood of Darkness and the generic Sith Order, and replaced it with the Rule of Two &mdash; an event which, eventually, led to the rise of the Empire under the rule of Darth Sidious, and the near-extermination of the Jedi.
 * Darth Bane was a practioner of Djem So.
 * The mention of the Vaapad lightsaber combat form is a continuity error, since that form was created by Jedi Master Mace Windu a millennium later. It was later stated by the author Drew Karpyshyn he was up late when he wrote "Vaapad," and actually he meant "Juyo"; he didn't realize his mistake until it was too late.
 * Like most Sith, Darth Bane's name is significant. The word bane in the English name basically means "death; destruction; ruin." Also, Bane is an English name which means "long-awaited child." Though there is no current proof that the English name applies, there may yet be undisclosed information concerning his family life and childhood. It is also possible that this meaning is implying how important he was to the Dark Side, reaffirming the possibility of him as the long awaited Sith'ari.

Contradiction
In Path of Destruction, Bane's lightsaber is described as being "hooked," similar to that of Count Dooku's. It was said many times in Path of Destruction that Bane has a hooked lightsaber, and when he first received it, one of the things he notices is its unusual appearance, so this is more than likely the correct version. However, in almost every illustration, Darth Bane seems to carry a standard-hilt lightsaber.

Appearances

 * Darth Bane: Path of Destruction
 * Jedi vs. Sith
 * Bane of the Sith
 * All for You
 * Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace novelization
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith novelization
 * Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
 * Resurrection
 * Star Wars: Galaxies
 * Star Wars Legacy 5: Broken, Part 4