Darth Krayt

"I have broken the spine of the Galaxy&hellip; Sometimes, things must be broken in order to be rebuilt. As I have bent the Force to my will, so I will bend the Galaxy and it will know order. My true work is about to begin."

- Darth Krayt

Darth Krayt was the founder and leader of the most recent incarnation of the Sith Order c. 130 ABY. Presumed to be a Human male, his identity and his past was something he hid under Yuuzhan Vong bioengineered vonduun crab armor, and kept secret even from most of his own Sith companions.

The rise of Darth Krayt
Krayt was born into a Galaxy deeply wounded by civil war and the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, leading him to believe that the Galaxy was fractured and weak, and that a single will was needed to make it whole and strong again. Equipped with knowledge gained from Sith holocrons found on the ancient Sith burial world of Korriban, he reestablished the cult under his leadership and pledged to reunify the Galaxy according to the will of the Sith. Unlike the previous incarnation, however, Krayt abolished the somewhat disastrous Rule of Two, Darth Bane's ancient diktat commanding that there could be only two Sith at any one time, master and apprentice. Instead, there would be the Rule of One&mdash;that One being the Sith Order itself, under which there would be many Sith.

For more than a hundred years, Krayt grew and strengthened the Sith on Korriban, surreptitiously planning to bring its vision of peace and order to the Galaxy. There is some confusion as to how he managed this apparent longevity, although a private conversation (c. 130 ABY) between Krayt and his most trusted lieutenant, Darth Wyyrlok III, reveals that he had been in stasis in the past (though there is no way to determine if he did so once, or more than once, and how long such stasis maintained), which could possibly answer how he managed to live for a century or more. Whatever methods he used, they appear not to have been without consequences. Krayt was living beyond his standard lifespan and his body began to fail him, his condition kept at bay by healing trances. He estimated that whatever was threatening him would consume him within a decade or two, and it is possible that his later interest in Cade Skywalker, motivated by a sense that the young Jedi apprentice in exile had once used the Force to revive his comrade from the edge of death, was tied into this fact.

The Sith-Imperial War
At last, in the period of 127–130 ABY, the Sith made their presence known openly under Krayt's leadership, and the result of his machinations was the Sith-Imperial War. Krayt's own holocron contains entries relating how he caused the fall of the Galactic Alliance and the restoration of the Empire as the dominant galactic power: "Lingering hatred festered on worlds that had suffered heavily at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. That hatred gave us our opening."

- Darth Krayt

Krayt harnessed that hatred to sabotage a Jedi project that was established for entirely altruistic reasons. The original intent of the Ossus Project was to use Yuuzhan Vong terraforming techniques to restore a barren section of the once-devastated Jedi fortress world of Ossus. When the test proved successful, the response was tremendous. Out of a host of applicants, one hundred worlds were selected for the Vong terraforming process. Yuuzhan Vong Shapers, overseen by Jedi escorts, produced incredible results. But Krayt's agents sabotaged the process; soon, the vegetation withered, and bony growths like those once seen on those the Vong had taken as slaves began forming on the skin of the inhabitants. The Jedi immediately suspected sabotage, but could never prove it. It did not matter; the lingering resentment the Galaxy felt towards the Vong, even decades after their defeat and exile, did Krayt's work for him, and soon the Vong were accused of trying to restart their genocidal crusade against the Galaxy by other means. "We manufactured a cause for war, making the Vong seem responsible. Split, the Galactic Alliance began to fight itself. And so died."

- Darth Krayt

The results were everything he could have hoped for. The Jedi, devoted to the truth above all, defended the Vong and encouraged the Galactic Alliance to support them. The Empire reacted accordingly; members of the Moff Council demanded retribution (quite possibly instructed to do so by Krayt himself) and, invoking the Treaty of Anaxes, declared war on the Alliance. But in addition to war with the Empire, the Alliance found itself facing dissension from within its own ranks. Worlds that had suffered the most under the Vong now aimed their resentment at the Alliance; many of them refused to support the Alliance and actively sided with the Empire, while others just stood by and watched under the banner of neutrality. So divided, the Alliance was easy to conquer.

In three years, the Galactic Alliance was defeated and the Empire absorbed all its former holdings, even reclaiming Coruscant as the Imperial throneworld. It was a reversal of the galactic order that no one could have foreseen, or believed was possible. But despite the grandeur of this victory, it was but a stepping stone for Krayt. Quite possibly he felt that it would be easier to establish his definition of order over the Galaxy under an Empire than under a democratic government, even if that Empire was no longer the absolute tyranny his predecessor Darth Sidious had intended.

The Consolidation of power
Now that the Empire was triumphant, it was time to remove the last obstacle to the Sith; their ancient enemies, the Jedi. With the fall of Coruscant, the Empire's ruler, Emperor Roan Fel, had called on the Jedi to surrender and submit to the Empire. But by now, the Jedi were aware of the Sith's involvement in the war and refused to join them. They withdrew from Coruscant, yielding their Temple to their enemies, and holed themselves in their praxeum on Ossus. Krayt dispatched his Hand, Darth Nihl, on a devastating attack against the Jedi Temple. "I know the Jedi from old. They could never share my vision. Two days ago the Jedi Temple on Coruscant fell. Today, at their academy on Ossus, the last of the Jedi will die."

- Darth Krayt

What came to be called the Massacre at Ossus did not prove to be as absolute a victory as he had hoped for. True, Nihl managed to make several significant kills, especially one of the most prominent members of the Jedi Council, Kol Skywalker, scion of the very bloodline that had proven to be both the greatest boon and, later, the greatest impediment to Sith dominance. But the death of even a good number of Jedi did not make for victory. The Jedi were sent to flight, scattered, but they were not yet defeated.

But the Jedi had still been brought low enough to allow him to take the next step; now that the Empire was triumphant, it was time to claim its throne as his own. He launched a daring palace revolution, marching with his cohorts straight into the audience chamber of Emperor Roan Fel himself, killing the man who sat on the throne and seating himself in his place. Noting the confusion and outrage from the members of the Moff Council who were present, he laid out the facts of life for them: "Roan Fel never really embraced the war or the idea of a unified Galaxy. He went along with it as a political necessity. That's not what the Empire&mdash;what the Galaxy&mdash;needs. The Galaxy writhes in chaos and disorder. It requires a man of vision. I am that man of vision. I am the new Emperor."

- Darth Krayt

Faced with little choice, the Moff Council swore loyalty to him. For the first time in more than a hundred and fifty years, a Sith Lord held the galactic seat of power. At once he set about imposing order on a Galaxy that sorely needed it, but this too was an incomplete victory. The "Emperor" he had killed had been anything but. It had to be a double; the real Fel was a fully trained Imperial Knight and would surely have defended himself, rather than just stand there and let himself be slain. It was imperative that the real Fel be found, before he recruited allies among the moffs, the military, or those Jedi who had survived.

And there was a further concern that he kept to himself and his lieutenant, Wyyrlok. Krayt knew all too well that his health was failing him; he was ruling on borrowed time. But he had felt a murmur in the Force during the Ossus massacre; someone, a Jedi, had somehow used the Force to heal someone else, bring them back to life from the brink of death. If his reign was to endure, if he was to establish his vision of galactic order, he had to find this Jedi with the power to bring beings back to life, and bend his power to serve the dark side.

Behind the scenes

 * Speculation abounds as to who Darth Krayt really is. Many believe that he could really be Jacen Solo, as Jacen pledged himself to the Sith in the first Legacy of the Force novel, Betrayal, which is set in 40 ABY, ninety years before the first Legacy comic takes place. However, others assert that this theory does not work, since the scant evidence available thus far suggests that Krayt's order, as of 130 ABY, has been around for a hundred years, suggesting it was established c. 30 ABY, roughly a decade before Jacen had turned. Whatever the many speculators have to say, it is obvious that there is much more to be learned before Krayt's true identity can be guessed.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Legacy: Broken