Dark Jedi/Legends

"Beware, Jedi Master, lest through carelessness and inattention you let loose on the galaxy a monster&hellip;"

- Bodo Baas

Dark Jedi, also known as "Fallen" Jedi were Force-sensitives, frequently former Jedi, who chose to deny the light side of the Force and/or follow the dark side.

Although "Dark Jedi" originally referred to "a Jedi who fell to the dark side", it could also refer to uninitiated Force-sensitives who received no Jedi training but began their careers under another Dark Jedi. In some cases, Dark Jedi also included "artificial" Force-sensitives who served the dark side, such as the Reborn and the Shadowtroopers.

Xendor was believed to be the first Dark Jedi ever and the ancient progenitor of the Sith Lords.

Description and relationship to the Sith
"A bold claim, but you are not Sith. You wear the trappings of the Sith, you fight like the Sith&hellip; but this can be imitated, however. You lack a vital quality found in all Sith. Sith have no fear, and I sense much fear in you." "You are a foolish old man who knows nothing of the dark side!" "Indeed?"

- Count Dooku and Asajj Ventress

Despite the fact that both groups called upon the dark side of the Force, Dark Jedi were not the same as the Sith, though the first group of the Dark Jedi were the predecessors of the Dark Lords in the ancient Sith Empire.

Dark Jedi was a collective and vague name of Dark Side practitioners that used Force powers and a lightsaber, not members of a certain organization; the Sith were a definite heritage of cult or ideology. Some Dark Jedi belonged or were allied to the Sith or other organizations and were usually loners. Because they were notoriously dangerous, unstable, and treacherous, Dark Jedi seldom formed well-organized groups on their own in order to expand their following or reinforce their strength. However, one notable exception to this was the Miraluka Dark Jedi Jerec and his retinue of minions.

The Sith would often seduce Dark Jedi to work for them, without really granting them any knowledge of Sith techniques. Yet most Dark Jedi were willing to serve the Sith, and saw it as a way to further their knowledge of the Force. Like the Sith, they usually used lightsabers with red blades, but were also known to use a wide variety of saber colors.

The Sith however was a cult that followed some codes and history, studied their own skills and techniques, and possessed secrets like Sith alchemy and Midichlorian Manipulation. Furthermore, after the Rule of Two was established, the Order of the Sith Lords was limited to only two members, a master and an apprentice, whereas Dark Jedi was not an organization and had no such limitations.

Many dark side practitioners, such as Count Dooku, considered the power of a Dark Jedi to be nothing compared to the power of the Sith. Other individuals, like Darth Vader, practiced both Dark Jedi and Sith techniques. According to Dooku, a prime difference between Dark Jedi and Sith is that the Sith "lack fear".

The First Great Schism and early Dark Jedi
After the Jedi Order was established, divisions began to appear within the order's structure, leading to the First Great Schism, (c. 24,500 BBY), when several Jedi were discovered delving within the "dark" side of the Force. The Dark Jedi Xendor and his followers allied with the master of Teräs Käsi Arden Lyn and her Followers of Palawa from Bunduki. In a climactic battle, Xendor was slain, Jedi Master Awdrysta Pina stopped Arden's heart with morichro, and Lyn killed Pina with a Kashi Mer talisman. After the war, the rest of these dissidents&mdash;known as the Legions of Lettow&mdash;were defeated.

The Second Great Schism and the Hundred Year Darkness
For over the next seventeen millennia, crises involving the Dark Jedi were rather isolated. One example involved a female Jedi Knight named Halbret who had brought together a contingent of Jedi Knights around 11,500 BBY to defeat a powerful Dark Jedi who had enslaved the Kathol species.

Around 7,000 BBY, however, a second war broke out between The Jedi and Dark Jedi that lasted a hundred years. The Dark Jedi were finally defeated at the Battle of Corbos and exiled into the far reaches of space. These exiles finally landed on the planet Korriban, enslaved the native Sith, and eventually interbred with them and created a new Force organization that eventually would plague the Galaxy for millennia: the Sith cult.

The Golden Age of the Sith and the Great Hyperspace War
After their defeat during the earliest Jedi Civil Wars, called the Great Schisms, the adherents of the dark side fled from Republic space and settled on the world of Ziost where they ruled over the barbaric red skinned Sith like gods. In time, the Dark Jedi and the remarkably force sensitive Sith natives interbred through the use of Sith alchemy and became one people. The united Sith formed an immensely rich and powerful empire built upon sorcery and dark side fueled technology quite possibly adapted from the scattered ruins of the earlier Infinite Empire of the Rakata.

Over the centuries, the Dark Jedi exiles were forgotten by the Galactic Republic even as all records of the Republic were lost by the Sith. The two civilizations thrived in isolation, each ignorant of the other.

The Third Great Schism and the Vultar Cataclysm
In 4,250 BBY, the Third Great Schism broke out on Coruscant, which led to the destruction of the Dark Jedi in that conflict in the Vultar Cataclysm.

The Great Sith War
Many Jedi seduced by Exar Kun became Dark Jedi. After the death of Kun, many Dark Jedi still existed and served under new Sith Lords like Darth Malak and Darth Nihilus. During the era of Lord Kaan, many dark-siders were considered Sith Lords and very few Dark Jedi were ever seen in the following millennia, until the Clone Wars.

The Jedi Civil War
Many Jedi joined Revan and Malak when they joined the Mandalorian War, and almost all of them became Dark Jedi when the Jedi Civil War started. Malak sent several Dark Jedi after Bastila Shan when she escaped Taris. When his apprentice, Darth Bandon, encountered Revan, he was flanked by the two strongest Dark Jedi in Malak's army.

The Fourth Great Schism & The New Sith Wars
2,000 BBY, Umbaran Jedi Master Phanius fell to the dark side. He left the Jedi Order with fifty Jedi Knights and became Darth Ruin. He eventually established a New Sith Empire that later resulted in the New Sith Wars.

The Republic Classic era
Approximately 600 BBY, fallen Jedi Knight Allya is banished to Dathomir where she becomes the founder of the Witches of Dathomir.

In 188 BBY, a Dark Jedi conflict occurred on Genarius, led by fallen Padawan Kibh Jeen.

Clone Wars


After the death of Darth Maul, Darth Sidious apprenticed Darth Tyranus who in turn apprenticed several Dark Jedi, including Asajj Ventress and Sora Bulq. He also supposedly had under his wing the Jedi-turned-Dark Jedi, Quinlan Vos. Ventress and Bulq hardly ever worked together, since she mostly worked with a Gen'Dai bounty hunter named Durge.

Near the end of the Clone Wars, everything went wrong for Dooku. Ventress, after faking her own death, fled to an unknown location. Sora Bulq was killed by Quinlan, after the latter had turned back to the light, during the Siege of Saleucami. Another Dark Jedi named Tol Skorr, was also killed by Quinlan during the battle. A few weeks after the siege, the Count himself was killed by Anakin Skywalker onboard General Grievous's flagship, the Invisible Hand. Soon after, he became Darth Vader, Palpatine's newest apprentice and the Sith ruled the Galaxy once more. This would lead to the employment of many more Dark Jedi.

Galactic Empire


27 months after the Battle of Geonosis, the Bpfassh Dark Jedi crisis occurred, one of them commandeered Jorj Car'das's ship which eventually landed on Dagobah. The exiled Jedi Grand Master Yoda dueled with the Dark Jedi for a day and a half and destroyed him. The remains of the Dark Jedi haunted the swamp, resulting in the birth of the Dark Side Cave.

During the span of the Galactic Empire, Palpatine established his own Dark Side Elite forces which were composed of Dark Jedi. As Palpatine would not risk living with another apprentice after losing three, the Dark Side Elite became the right hand of Lord Sidious during Operation Shadow Hand. Palpatine also trained several Emperor's Hands, special assassins that did his bidding. Vader took on at least a few apprentices who were not real Sith but Dark Jedi. Famous ones included Vader's daughter-in-law, Mara Jade Skywalker, and Shira Brie, who would later become Lumiya, Vader's apprentice. Mara was later redeemed by her husband, Luke Skywalker, and became a Jedi Master.

Post-Palpatine era


In the Empire Reborn campaign, Lord Hethrir, Desann, and Admiral Galak Fyyar created an unusual hybrid of Dark Jedi and stormtroopers by giving them cortosis-weave armor and crystals from Artus Prime. These soldiers were called the shadowtroopers. Jedi-in-training Kyle Katarn and his partner Jan Ors put a stop to the project and defeated two of the three heads.

After the Battle of Endor, Dark Jedi sporadically appeared throughout the years, until the creation of the Second Imperium. Many Dark Jedi, led by a former Jedi named Brakiss, assaulted Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy on Yavin 4. Brakiss was eventually killed when a Royal Guardsmen trigged an explosive device after nearly being killed by him, thus destroying the Second Imperium.

Another group of Dark Jedi rallied under Jerec in an effort to locate and siphon the power of the Valley of the Jedi. This faction, often known as the Seven Dark Jedi, was defeated by Kyle Katarn.

In 14 ABY, Master Katarn and his new apprentices, Rosh Penin and Jaden Korr, came to the New Republic's rescue as Desann's former apprentice, Tavion Axmis, discovered the Scepter of Ragnos and created a new Sith cult called the Disciples of Ragnos. The cult consisted of cultists and Desann's old Reborn warriors, and was also allied to the Imperial Remnant. The Disciples and Tavion were defeated by Korr and Katarn, and Rosh was redeemed after joining.

During the Yuuzhan Vong war and the Dark Nest crisis, scarcely any Dark Jedi remained. The only ones seen during both these crises, were Nightsister Lomi Plo and Shadow Academy student Welk. Both were killed by Luke Skywalker during the Dark Nest crisis. Also, a former Jedi named Alema Rar, became a Dark Jedi during the Dark Nest Crisis, but was supposedly killed during one of its final battles. Alema was later proven alive but grievously wounded.

Despite all these tragic deaths and defeats, the Dark Lady Lumiya eventually resurfaced.

Path of Dark Jedi


While Jedi were capable of falling to the dark side, it was also possible for a Dark Jedi to be brought back to the light. Notable examples of redeemed Dark Jedi through history, include: Juhani, Atris, Yuthura Ban, Quinlan Vos, Bastila Shan, Yun, Luke Skywalker, Kyle Katarn, Rosh Penin, Zekk, Kyp Durron, Flint, and Kam Solusar.

Dark Jedi who became Sith

 * Ajunta Pall
 * Bastila Shan
 * Carnor Jax
 * Dooku
 * Exar Kun
 * Flint
 * Freedon Nadd
 * Jacen Solo
 * Kyp Durron
 * Lumiya
 * Ulic Qel-Droma
 * Uthar Wynn
 * Visas Marr
 * Yuthura Ban

Behind the scenes
A great deal of controversy has arisen over the issue of who is and is not a Dark Jedi. Perhaps due to uneven usage within canonical sources, many fans have argued that Dark Jedi describes only those dark side users who had previously been a Jedi or were at some point in the process of being trained as a member of the Order. Leland Chee cleared up the confusion in two posts on the StarWars.com forums: