Sith

"Once more the Sith will rule the galaxy, and we shall have peace."

- Darth Sidious

The Sith, collectively known as the Sith Order, were an order of Force users who utilized the dark side of the Force in an effort to gain power over the galaxy. The Sith were the ancient enemies of the Jedi Order and fought numerous wars with them for thousands of years.

Ancient times
Formed during the Hundred-Year Darkness, thousands of years prior to the Clone Wars, the Sith were the ancient enemies of the Jedi Order. Established by a rogue Jedi, the Sith sought further knowledge and power through learning the dark side of the Force. The Sith built empires on the backs of their slaves and fought wars against the Jedi for control of the galaxy. During these wars, they built massive superweapons powered by giant kyber crystals. At one point, nearly six thousand years before the rise of the Galactic Empire, the Sith built a shrine on Coruscant, which became a place of immense dark side power. Later in history, the Jedi raised their own temple over that shrine, in an attempt to contain and eliminate its power. The Sith Order's traditional homeworld was Moraband, a planet of red sands that the group was forced to abandon after it was scarred by many wars. tvehetbejryjrryjrn67n467im5757inii67i r6i8i57 567

Their quest to gain power was ultimately the undoing of the Sith, as the dark side made them turn against one another. With their numbers reduced, the Sith were all but defeated by the Jedi. Darth Bane survived, however, and created the Rule of Two, mandating that only two Sith&mdash;a master and an apprentice&mdash;could exist at any given time, lest they fall prey to in-fighting.

Return
The Sith continued for a thousand years in secret, their survival unknown to the Jedi, as they plotted their revenge against the Jedi Order. The Sith remained a distant memory until the rise of Darth Sidious, a Dark Lord of the Sith, and his apprentice, Darth Maul, in the last days of the Republic. Sidious hid in plain sight as the unassuming Senator Sheev Palpatine of Naboo, while secretly orchestrating the Trade Federation’s invasion of the planet. This allowed him to make a play for the galaxy’s highest office in his civilian persona and sow the seeds of Sith revenge. Maul attacked Queen Amidala of Naboo and later killed Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, but fell to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Despite this setback, the Sith had returned, clouding the Force with the power of the dark side. And the arrival of Anakin Skywalker, a young boy especially strong with the Force, offered a potential new recruit for the Sith with Darth Sidious in the public persona of Palpatine, who had become Supreme Chancellor.

Fulfilling the Grand Scheme
With the loss of Darth Maul, Darth Sidious took on a new apprentice, a former Jedi, named Count Dooku. Adopting the Sith name Darth Tyranus, Dooku became the face of the Separatist movement and pushed the galaxy into war. Jedi, once peacekeepers, now became generals and warriors, a rank they formerly denied due to the Jedi Code. During this time, Count Dooku took on an apprentice of his own named Asajj Ventress. She became his personal assassin, engaging Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ahsoka Tano in lightsaber duels on numerous occasions. While loyal, she was ultimately betrayed by her Master on the orders of Darth Sidious. Dooku soon after traveled to Dathomir to meet with the Nightsisters in hopes of finding a new apprentice. Dooku and the Nightsisters eventually decided on a young Zabrak named Savage Opress, brother of Darth Maul. However, Asajj Ventress sought revenge for Dooku's treachery and used Opress as a means of attaining her goal. Torn between two demanding masters, Opress eventually turned on both Dooku and Ventress. Returning to the Nightsisters, Opress found that his brother, Darth Maul, had not been killed as previously believed. Maul had survived his injuries on Naboo because of his sheer reliance on the dark side, and was living in the junk heaps of Lotho Minor. However, Maul's tragic events had driven him to insanity. He remembered only one word: "Kenobi." Guided by an Anacondan named Morley, Opress was able to return Maul to the Nightsisters for treatment. Now fully healed by the Nightsister's magic and given a pair of new robotic legs, Darth Maul began a hunt for the man who had nearly destroyed his life, Obi-Wan Kenobi. His revenge scheme eventually ended with Maul's control of Mandalore and the death of Kenobi's true love. However, Darth Sidious sensed his former apprentice's actions, and traveled to Mandalore to put an end to it. He killed Opress and took Maul captive, locking him away in an old mountaintop prison known as the Spire, in an elaborate Sith gambit to settle a longstanding and deadly dispute with the Nightsisters.

Later during the war, Yoda visited Moraband, the Sith homeworld. The Jedi Master encountered an illusory spectre of the ancient Sith Darth Bane, who was buried on the barren planet, and battled Sidious on a spiritual plane as the result of an ancient, arcane Sith ritual. Through his experience, Yoda gained a new enlightenment about the Force that the Sith did not foresee.

After three years of the Clone Wars, Darth Sidious' grand scheme was almost complete. He sacrificed Count Dooku to a violent killing by Anakin Skywalker in order to manipulate the young Jedi. As Palpatine, he told Anakin a Sith legend about Darth Plagueis the Wise. Plagueis, through the dark side, had gained the ability to keep people from dying until his apprentice killed him in his sleep. This story entranced Anakin, who was desperate to learn this power in an effort to save his wife, Padmé Amidala. Eventually, Palpatine revealed himself as Sidious, and converted Anakin with this temptation. With Anakin now a Sith called Darth Vader, Sidious enacted his masterstroke. He executed Order 66, the slaughter of all Jedi, with Vader leading the assault. In the political arena, he reorganized the Republic using the powers given to him as a result of the Clone Wars to transform the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire, installing himself as Emperor. Once more, the Sith ruled the galaxy, unbeknownst to all but the few surviving Jedi.

Downfall
Following the collapse of the Republic and the Jedi Order, Darth Sidious and Darth Vader ruled for over 20 years until the Battle of Endor. During the battle, when Luke Skywalker faced Sidious, now the Galactic Emperor, aboard the second Death Star weapon, the Emperor attempted to convert him, too, to the dark side of the Force. Luke, however, steadfastly refused to join him, leading the Emperor to torture him with powerful Force lightning. Vader, unable to stand by and watch, picked up the Emperor and threw him into a reactor core, returning balance to the Force. Badly damaged from taking a hit from the Force lightning, Vader, now once again Anakin Skywalker, perished, but his selfless act allowed him to transform into the Force and join Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Sith Order, along with their tyranny, was seemingly no more. The Jedi had returned and a new age dawned.

Behind the scenes
Sam Witwer, who has voiced Maul and Sidious in animation, opined the Sith do not believe in life after death. That is why they go to such extreme lengths to survive. However, the Jedi will sacrifice themselves as they believe their deaths can inspire others. "You have Darth Vader, who lives a terrible life, he lives a pathetic, tortured existence but it’s still preferable to having nothing, which is how he views death. Same thing with Darth Sidious, you look at him in Return of the Jedi. He's over 100 years old and is a bent, old man. But that's better than the alternative, which is nothing." An appearance from the Force spirits of Darth Bane and Revan in "Ghosts of Mortis" was removed at the last minute by George Lucas due to the disconcerting notion that the Sith could return.