Darth Millennial

"It was known by the ancients that a Dark Lord with three eyes has a secret strength possessed by none other."

- Trioculus

Darth Millennial was a three-eyed mutant Sith Lord and Shadow Hand, heir to the lineage of Darth Bane, who existed sometime after Bane's death. Apprenticed to Darth Cognus, Millennial became disillusioned with the Rule of Two and saw far more sense in Lord Kaan's Rule by the Strong. Eventually, he left his master and founded the Dark Force&mdash;which eventually became the Prophets of the Dark Side&mdash;on the planet Dromund Kaas. Proclaiming himself as a prophet chosen by the will of the Force, he attracted many Force-users from across the galaxy to his religion before passing away. His spirit lingered on Dromund Kaas for centuries afterward.

Life
Nothing is known of Lord Millennial's early life, though he was at some point in his life seduced by the dark side of the Force, whereupon he joined the Order of the Sith Lords. He was apprenticed to a female Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Cognus, who was a firm believer in Darth Bane's Rule of Two, which stated that there should always be two Sith: a master and an apprentice. A three-eyed mutant, likely of Human descent, Millennial proved to be a talented user of the Force; he had incredible precognitive abilities and was trained as a Shadow Hand of Darth Cognus.

But while Millennial was a talented Force-user, he and Cognus disagreed on many aspects of the Sith, most notably the Rule of Two. Millennial was forever questioning what he had been taught, and he vehemently disagreed with the philosophy of the Rule of Two, which the mutant found to be far too restrictive. Instead, he believed in the more martial philosophy put forward by Kaan, the Rule by the Strong, which stated that there should be many Sith, with the leader being whoever was the strongest at any one time. His master, though, rejected the concept, and she and Millennial clashed many times during his apprenticeship. Eventually, tensions reached a boiling point, and Millennial abandoned his master and fled to the planet Dromund Kaas, where he sought refuge from his master's wrath. Cognus trained a new apprentice and continued the lineage of the Rule of Two, while Millennial went about founding his own dark side religion on Dromund Kaas.

Millennial settled on the swamp world and spent much time contemplating and focusing on Kaan's ideas. Melding them with teachings of two Pre-Republic era philosophers named Plaristes and Dak Ramis, Millennial started his own unique religion, named the Dark Force, and built a temple in the swamps of Dromund Kaas. He proclaimed himself as a prophet chosen by the will of the Force and invited Force-users from across the galaxy to join him on Dromund Kaas and initiate themselves into the Dark Force. Many Force-sensitives from all sorts of backgrounds, as well as hordes of naïve Sith cultists, joined him, though they attempted to keep the religion secret. Any who did not believe in the Dark Force were slandered and labeled as heretics, and Millennial and his religion encouraged the killing of such non-believers. Millennial became the Supreme Prophet of the Dark Side, and his organization made multitudes of prophecies during his lifetime.

Legacy
Eventually, Millennial passed away, but his religion lived on. Practitioners of the Dark Force came to be known as Prophets of the Dark Side, and the order survived on Dromund Kaas in seclusion for centuries, away from the prying eyes of the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic. Eventually, the Prophets came to the attention of a Sith Lord named Darth Sidious, who recruited them as advisers in his capacity as Supreme Chancellor and Galactic Emperor. After the Prophets were attacked by Sidious's Inquisitors, they fled to Bosthirda. Eventually, Millennial's order was wiped out by a trio of dark siders: Azrakel, a former student of the Prophets, Lumiya, the Dark Lady of the Sith, and her apprentice, Carnor Jax. By the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War, they had yet to be reformed, at least not openly. A false group of prophets sprung up after the Battle of Endor, using the ancient prophecy that another three-eyed mutant would rise among the prophets to promote a slavelord named Trioculus as the new Emperor. These false prophets were themselves killed off, however.

Millennial's existence was known to the New Jedi Order, and after the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, Jedi Master Tionne Solusar published a series of texts, several of which mentioned Millennial. The New Republic, however, knew little information other than that he founded the Dark Force.

Personality and traits
Millennial was not one to blindly follow his superiors and questioned everything he was taught, formulating his own opinion on it. He saw strength in numbers and felt that the Sith would thrive under the Rule by the Strong. He felt that a leader should be the strongest of the group, and that if another became stronger than the leader, he or she had the right to claim command for himself or herself. Millennial himself was a strong leader, as he persuaded many followers of the dark side to leave their respective orders and join him on Dromund Kaas.

Millennial had great belief in himself and his abilities, particularly those which allowed him to see the future, and he thought that he was special enough to be chosen as the prophet of the will of the Force. But while Millennial was supremely confident in himself, he knew when to run and hide. After his and his master's confrontations over how the Sith should be ruled escalated, he knew he was no match for her and went into hiding.

Behind the scenes
Millennial was created by Abel G. Peña for the Dark Forces Saga and reappeared in Peña's Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties, as well as Ryder Windham's Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force. Evil Never Dies described Millennial as a "three-eyed mutant," retconing him to be the Dark Lord mentioned in the children's novel The Glove of Darth Vader.

Millennial's name is rooted in the word millennium or millennial, which means a span of one thousand years, a hoped-for period of joy, serenity, prosperity, and justice. Abel G. Peña has stated that Millennial existed around the time the Sith became extinct; his name, according to Peña, is a prophecy in itself, as the Sith remained extinct for a thousand years.

Appearances

 * The Glove of Darth Vader