The Sith are an
order of Force practitioners who have chosen the dark side of the Force as the
source of their power. Members of the Sith Order are called Sith Lords or Dark
Lords of the Sith. The Sith are the sworn enemy of the Jedi, whom they have
fought for thousands of years.
Rather than
accessing the power of the Force through inner peace, the Sith have learned to
tap the power of the Force by giving into extreme emotion. By letting feelings
like anger or fear take over, the Sith can use emotion as a conduit to channel
the power of the Force.
There is a
common misconception that the Sith access the Force through evil or that being
a Sith Lord automatically means that you are evil. This is not true. Any
extreme emotion can access the Force. The essence of the Sith's power is in
passion, not evil. Passion can take the form of joy or love as well as anger or
hatred. Sith are typically evil in that they are often blinded by their passion
or corrupted by the power granted to them by the Force.
This plays into
the second major difference between the Jedi and the Sith. The Sith believe the
Force is a tool to be used and that the power in and of itself is justification
enough for their actions. In short, they believe they can do anything they want
simply because they have the power to do so.
Differences
aside, the Jedi and Sith share a common lineage, and the origin of the Sith
Order starts in the very halls of the Jedi Council.
Overview
Sith only
operate in pairs -- one master and one apprentice. Though it was not always so,
under the current doctrine of the Order there can only be two Sith Lords at any
given time. This doctrine was put in place by a legendary Sith Lord named Darth
Bane. Bane did this to prevent the destructive infighting that plagued the Sith
Order for millennia. With this system, Dark Lords pass the Sith legacy through
the generations in an unusual and violent way.
After years of
working together, an apprentice will kill his master when he senses an
opportunity to become the master himself. This new master then takes an
apprentice of his own. Of course, should the apprentice fail to kill his
master, he will surely be killed in retaliation and the master will find a new
apprentice. This method uses the Sith Lords' innate ambition to make sure that
only the strongest Sith survive.
Unlike the
Jedi, who use their own names, Sith Lords take a title that starts with Darth
(the ancient Aurabesh pronunciation for the word for "dark")
and that ends with a name of their master's choice, such as Darth Vader or
Darth Plagueis. This was not always the case with the Sith. It's a system used
by modern Sith Lords to hide their true identities.
Like the Jedi,
the Sith are skilled in the art of lightsaber combat. Some of the most
legendary Force swordsman have been Sith Lords. In recent history, Darth Maul
was considered one of the most talented and savage warriors ever to wield a
lightsaber. Maul used a custom-built, double-bladed lightsaber and could easily
fight several Jedi at once.
In the Jedi
Order, each Jedi student makes a journey to get Ilum crystals for the
lightsaber they will one day build. This journey is considered a rite of
passage. As a result, Jedi lightsabers are blue, green, or the very rare purple
depending on the crystals they find.
There is no
such ritual for the Sith. The Sith prefer synthetic crystals for their
lightsabers. The synthetic crystals save the Sith the long trek to get Ilum
crystals, provide more blade tuning options, and give Sith lightsabers their
characteristic red blade.
After thousands
of years and many wars, the modern Sith Lords have learned to use deception and
subterfuge rather than outright warfare to further their quest. This shadowy,
manipulative approach is what ultimately led the Sith Order to destroy the Jedi
Order and take over the galaxy during the rise of the Galactic Empire. But as
with all things, none of this would have been possible without the boundless
power afforded to them by the Force.
The history of
the Sith starts almost twenty-five millennia before the destruction of the
first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin. The Jedi Order formed during this time
along with the creation of the
The founding
members of the Jedi Order were Force-sensitive individuals who understood the
power and potential of the Force and also foresaw its abuse and danger. They
agreed to pool their knowledge of the Force, continue to study it, and most
importantly educate and regulate those who possessed the power. The Jedi Order
was dedicated to making sure the Force was used to ensure peace in the galaxy.
Though the dark
side of the Force was not well understood by the Jedi, they were aware of its
presence. Early Jedi had all felt the lure of the dark side and agreed that the
dark path was not one ever to be tread upon by a Jedi, not even for a moment.
However, not
all of the early Jedi agreed.
The debate
about the value of the dark side of the Force waged on tirelessly in the Jedi
Council. Dissident Jedi argued that the dark power could be controlled and used
to further the Jedi cause, but the Council didn't agree. This debate eventually
gave way to struggle, then war. This war came to be known as The Great Schism.
For one hundred years, Jedi fought Jedi in the first conflict between the light
and dark sides of the Force.
Because of
greater numbers, the Jedi eventually prevailed and decimated the dark Jedi. The
battered, surviving dark Jedi were captured and exiled. They were ordered to
take the remnants of their broken fleet across the galaxy into uncharted space
and never again darken the doorstep of the Republic.
As they
traveled backwater space in exile, the outcast Jedi eventually came across the
uncharted world of Korriban. There they found a primitive race of Force adepts
known as the Sith. The native Sith knew nothing of the Force and used their
untapped power for simple magic. The dark Jedi immediately saw an opportunity.
They conquered and enslaved the Sith.
For the next
several thousand years, the Sith worshipped the dark Jedi as gods. The rebel
Jedi came to call themselves Sith Lords. These Sith Lords used the indigenous
people as slave labor to build a great new civilization. Inter-breeding blurred
species lines and eventually the term Sith came to mean the off-world, native
and hybrid peoples of Korriban.
Now the dark
side of the Force was studied and practiced with the same resources and
diligence as the light side of the Force. The Sith grew in numbers and power,
eventually spreading to the many systems near Korriban. The Sith Empire was
born. The Sith Empire was led by one all-powerful dark master called The Dark
Lord of the Sith. There was only one, and this title was usually won by
defeating the previous Dark Lord of the Sith. The first Dark Lord of the Sith
worth noting ruled 5,500 years before the Trade Federation of Naboo. He was
Marka Ragnos.
Ragnos defeated
the previous Dark Lord Simmus for the title and Ragnos' rule ushered in the
pinnacle of the Golden Age of the Sith. Ragnos was in power for nearly two
hundred years. He brought unparalleled prosperity, growth and order to the Sith
Empire. Ragnos was never successfully challenged and eventually died of old
age. At his funeral two Sith Lords named Naga Sadow and Ludo Kressh began to
duel over who would next hold the title Dark Lord of the Sith.
Sadow believed
that the Sith needed to expand the Empire, while Kressh believed that the Sith
needed to avoid attracting the attention of the Jedi. Both Sith Lords knew of
the Jedi and the Republic, but knowledge of the Sith's ancient enemy was not
something shared by many other Sith. After remaining hidden for thousands of
years, the Sith were unsure if the Republic and the Jedi still existed.
Then two
hyperspace explorers from the Republic accidentally crashed on Korriban,
unwittingly providing the Sith with the proof and information they needed to
declare war.
In the midst of
a temporary truce, the two Dark Lord candidates Naga Sadow and Ludo Kressh
convened to discuss the fate of Jori and Gav Deragon, the two hapless explorers
who stumbled across the Sith Empire.
Kressh saw the
intruders as a threat and wanted them executed immediately, while Sadow saw
them as a path back to the Republic and eventual control of the Galaxy. Sadow
eventually staged a rescue attempt on Korriban and blamed the Republic.
Outraged, the Sith voted Sadow onto the throne of the Dark Lord and authorized
Sadow's invasion of the Republic.
The Sith
invaded and brutalized the Republic. The Jedi fought hard to defend the Republic,
but in the end the leader of the Sith invasion force betrayed Sadow and turned
the tide of the war. Sensing imminent defeat, Sadow used the force to detonate
a nearby star, wiping out Jedi, Sith, Republic forces and billions of innocent
bystanders.
Sadow was
exiled by the Sith, then took the remainder of his broken fleet and created a
new Sith Empire on the remote world of Yavin IV. He ruled here until his death
one hundred years later. All that remains of Sadow's Empire are the ruins of
the Massassi Temples.
Over the next
thousand years, the Sith on Korriban all but died out and Sadow's empire was a
distant memory. An ambitious Sith Lord named Freedon Nadd was fed up with the
decline of the Sith Empire and wanted to reform it with him as the new Dark
Lord of the Sith. Unable to defeat the current Dark Lord, Nadd left Korriban
and settled on the planet of Onderon. Nadd took over the ruling family of
Onderon and ruled until his death. For generations afterwards, the power of the
dark side was the driving force behind the government of Onderon.
When the Beast
Wars erupted on the planet, the Jedi Council sent three Jedi to restore peace,
including Ulic Qel-Droma. Though the Jedi successfully stopped the war there,
their intervention fueled an uprising. The worshipers of Freedon Nadd revolted,
but the Jedi quickly ended this bloody battle.
Four thousand
years before the formation of the Galactic Empire, the Sith Empire was extinct.
It was born again in the hands of a Jedi named Exar Kun. Fascinated by the dark
side, Kun secretly studied the Sith during his Jedi training. His research led
him to the moon of Onderon. From there he traveled to former Sith home world of
Korriban and later to Yavin IV. Exar was led down the dark path by the ghost of
Freedon Nadd who reavealed all of the Sith's dark secrets to the curious Jedi.
Kun was eventually seduced by the dark side and swore his allegiance to the
Sith.
At the same
time, on the recently war-torn world of Onderon, a secret society of aristocrats
called the Krath practiced the rituals of the Sith right under the noses of the
Jedi.
The Jedi Ulic
Qel-Droma discovered the Krath and set out to stop them. In retaliation, the
Krath had Ulic's master killed by assassins. Ulic vowed to destroy the Krath
from the inside, so he faced them and joined the dark organization. He was not
strong enough to resist, however, and Ulic eventually slipped to the dark side.
As a Jedi, Ulic was the Krath's greatest instrument.
Eventually the
power of two Sith amulets -- one possessed by Exar and one by Ulic -- led the
two Jedi to one another. The two dark Jedi were ready to kill each other when
they were visited by a council of ghosts made up of past Dark Lords. The shades
instructed them to work together to resurrect the Sith Order and restore the
former glory of the Golden Age of the Sith. With Exar Kun as the Dark Lord of
the Sith and Ulic Qel-Droma as his apprentice, the two Sith Lords waged the
bloodiest war in Galactic history -- The Great Sith War.
Exar Kun
returned to the
Exar and Ulic
allowed the Republic to learn of their invasion and lured the Republic fleet
away from Coruscant. The Sith forces then attacked the Capitol world. Ulic was
captured by the Jedi, but was freed at his trial by Exar. Exar killed his
former Jedi master that day and then compelled other Jedi students to do the
same.
Later in the
war, Ulic unleashed a powerful Sith weapon that caused a chain reaction and
destroyed many stars. The fallout from this chain reaction vaporized many
systems, destroying the Sith fleet and killing billions and billions of
innocent people.
In the final
days of the war on the planet Ossus, Ulic faced and killed his own brother.
Horrified at what he had become, Ulic fell apart and was defeated by a Jedi who
used a forbidden Force block spell that destroyed Ulic's ability to use the
Force forever.
The Republic
eventually tracked Exar to Yavin IV and began orbital bombardment of the
planet. Surrounded by the mutated descendants of Sadow's followers, Exar used
powerful Sith magic to drain these followers' life force and seal his own in
the walls of the
Shortly after
the Great Sith War, the remnants of the Mandalorians sensed weakness in the
Republic and decided to strike. A long and bloody war followed between the Jedi
and the Mandalorians, but in the end the Jedi prevailed. Two Jedi named Revan
and Malak led a Republic fleet to the outer rim and successfully wiped out the
Mandalorians. At the end of the war, Revan and Malak were revered as heroes.
Little did the
Republic know that their Jedi heroes were destined to become two of the most
brutal Sith Lords ever known. While in deep space, the two Jedi landed on
Korriban and uncovered many secrets of the Sith. Corrupted by their newfound
knowledge and the brutality of the war they had just won, the two Jedi
renounced the Order, became Sith and changed their names to Darth Revan and
Darth Malak -- master and apprentice.
The two Sith
Lords had the loyalty of Jedi and Republic forces that they had led to destroy
the Mandalorians. They took their new Sith fleet and waged a two-year war on
the Republic's outer-rim territories.
Eventually,
power hungry Darth Malak tried to destroy both his master Revan and the Jedi. His
plan failed, but it did allow the Jedi to capture Revan alive.
The Jedi wiped
the Sith master's memory, brainwashing and retraining Revan as a Jedi. In a
most uncharacteristic move, the Jedi Council approved the use of Revan as a
pawn to find the fugitive Sith Lord Darth Malak.
Eventually
Revan tracked Malak to Star Forge and defeated him in a lightsaber duel. After
that, Revan disappeared.
Formation of the Brotherhood of the Rancor
During the Jedi
civil war, due to ever diminishing numbers and faced with the threat of defeat,
the Jedi council set up a contingency plan in which a handful of the more
gifted Jedi would be sent individually to distant, quiet worlds, in order to
survive and pass on their teachings.
They were
betrayed by one of the members of the council who had turned to the dark side,
but a young Jedi named Jomel managed to survive the trap and survive. He
crashed landed on the planet Dathomir, where the settlers had bred gigantic
rancors which they controlled through force mind control. In time, the rancors
had not only become resistant to the force abilities, but managed to control
their own. The lead Rancor had turned on his masters, killing almost the entire
settlement, leaving the few force sensitive behind to live as his slaves.
Jomel battled
the beast and proved victorious, yet the monster would not die peacefully. His
body transformed into raging force energy and manifest itself in Jomel and the
other survivors in a last ditch effort for some form of survival.
With this new
power, Jomel learned to appreciate the true nature of balance in the force, not
fearing to use his rage and anger, along with calmness and serenity.
He eventually
returned and killed the traitor. The Sith world of Treigua felt the full extent
of his power, yet none remain to say exactly what happened. The other survivors,
with their own new found fierce force powers, scattered themselves throughout
the galaxy, with their descendents proving to be some of the most powerful Jedi
Masters, and Sith Lords in history.
Just as they
had been born 25,000 years ago, the Sith were born again in the halls of the
Jedi Council. This happened 1000 years before the Battle of Naboo.
It began when
an unknown, lackluster Jedi began to discover the power of the dark side. He
was shunned by the Council and forbidden to continue his study of the dark
side. He eventually left the Order and was able to take other Jedi with him,
convincing them that the council was holding them back. After a short while and
a few more defections the new Sith Order had grown to fifty sworn Lords.
As time passed,
the new Sith Order recruited an army of minions and declared war on the Jedi
Order. The war was brutal but short and played out over several small battles.
In the end, the Sith were responsible for their own defeat. The infighting,
poor organization and endless power struggles destroyed the Sith Order from the
inside.
The final
battle of the New Sith War took place on the planet of Ruusan. The Jedi backed
the Sith Lords into a cavern and were only minutes away from ending the war. In
the final moments of the battle, the Sith Lord Darth Bane was arguing with
another Sith Lord about the best way to turn the tide of the battle. He had a
plan, but so did the others. Bane was betrayed in the heat of battle by a Sith
Lord named Kaan and this resulted in the massacre on Ruusan. Kaan detonated a
bomb that killed all the Jedi and all the Sith Lords save one, Darth Bane.
The Jedi felt
they had finally wiped out the Sith. They were careful to guard all of their
secrets and closely monitored students who showed dark side tendencies. After
thousands of years of war and mistakes, the Jedi were determined to never again
let the Sith rise.
Darth Bane, the
sole surviving Sith Lord, slipped away into the shadows. Bane reformed the Sith
doctrine and founded what is known as the modern era of the Sith. Now there are
only two Sith at a time -- a master and an apprentice. They bide their time,
work from the shadows, pass the Sith tradition down from master to apprentice
and wait for the day they will have their revenge.
Darth Plagueis
the Wise was a Sith Lord who lived during the thousand years of Sith
'extinction' between Darth Bane and the Battle of Naboo. He trained Darth
Sidious in the ways of the Sith.
Plagueis
furthered the teachings of Darth Bane, unlocking the deepest, darkest secrets
of the Force. Darth Plagueis became a powerful Sith Lord during the thousand
years leading up to the Battle of Naboo, and took on a Sith apprentice to whom
he gave the name Darth Sidious. Sidious' early life remains shrouded in
mystery, though he learned much from Plagueis, and grew even more powerful than
his Master. Plagueis realized Sidious could well implement the final stages of
the revenge of the Sith, and began to teach his apprentice his most important
secrets. In his study of the dark arts, Darth Plagueis had somehow found a way
to cheat death; to manipulate midi-chlorians to sustain and even create life
through the Force. This secret he never taught to his pupil, forcing Sidious to
assassinate him and attempt to discover the secret himself. Sidious would later
remark on the irony of Plagueis' ability to save anyone from death but himself.
Sidious later
told the 'tragedy' of Darth Plagueis to Anakin Skywalker, luring him to the
dark side with the notion of eternal life. Skywalker, plagued by disturbing
visions of the death of his wife, was soon corrupted. As Anakin swore
alligience to him, Sidious declared that together they could rediscover
Plagueis' lost secret.
It has been
speculated that, given that Anakin was supposedly born of a virgin birth, it is
possible that Darth Plagueis was the one who influenced the midi-chlorians that
'fathered' Anakin, thus making him a sort of father by extension. Further
speculation produces the possibility that this may have spurred Sidious into
killing his master, so that he may take Anakin as his own, potentially as a
vital piece in discovering the Plaugeuis' secret.
That revenge
finally came almost two hundred years later, when a senator from the peaceful
planet of Naboo rose to power as Chancellor of the Republic. Senator Palpatine
orchestrated an invasion of his home world of Naboo, thus setting a series of
deft political moves into motion. No one around him knew that Chancellor
Palpatine was actually Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith. The Republic was
now controlled by the Sith.
Sidious' first
apprentice, Darth Maul, was killed in the invasion of Naboo by the Jedi Obi-Wan
Kenobi. He later took a second apprentice, Darth Tyranus (a well-respected Jedi
and political idealist named Count Dooku), whom he used to lead the orchestrated
Separatist movement that threatened the Republic with war.
Darth Sidious
used the threat of war to justify the creation of a huge clone army. The Clone
Wars had begun.
The Jedi and
clone army fought side by side, eventually defeating the Separatists. Darth
Sidious blamed the Clone Wars on the corruption of the Republic and used the
special emergency powers granted to him during the wars to re-organize the
Galactic Republic as the first Galactic Empire and name himself Emperor.
The Jedi
Council was opposed to Emperor Palpatine (Darth Sidious). The Emperor named the
Jedi enemies of the Republic and used one of the Clone Wars' greatest heroes, a
Jedi named Anakin Skywalker, to lead the clone army against the Jedi. Anakin
killed Darth Tyranus, went over to the dark side, and became Darth Vader, the
most legendary of all Sith Lords.
Vader and his
clone army began to hunt down and destroy all of the Jedi. Vader eventually
faced his former Jedi master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, in a lightsaber battle. Kenobi
defeated him and Vader was seriously wounded. He was restored by several
operations that made him half man, half machine. Now in his new form, Darth
Vader became the dark enforcer of the Emperor. With the Republic dissolved and
the Empire formed, Sidious had secured the Sith as the rulers of the galaxy.
For twenty
years the Empire ruled with an iron fist. The Jedi and the Force were long
lost, but a tiny rebellion of politicians and soldiers formed to oppose the
rule of the Emperor. The first great battle of the Galactic Civil War was the
Battle of Yavin. Rebel pilot Luke Skywalker made a force-guided shot that
destroyed the Empire's mighty battle station, the Death Star. Darth Vader
managed to escape the battle with his life and kill his former master Obi-Wan
Kenobi.
After the
Battle of Yavin, Vader took the Imperial fleet and scoured the galaxy,
searching for the rebel base and more importantly his son, Luke Skywalker. Both
Vader and the Emperor felt that Skywalker was a great threat but could be a
powerful ally if he could be turned into a Sith Lord. Luke Skywalker had
actually been training with Jedi Master Yoda, who hid for years on the
backwater planet of Dagobah.
After Vader and
his forces crushed the Rebels in the Battle of Hoth, he continued to search for
his son. They eventually faced each other in a lightsaber duel on Cloud City in
the sky of Bespin. After severing Skywalker's right hand at the wrist, Vader
pleaded with son to join him. Vader wanted to destroy the Emperor, end the
Civil War and rule the Galaxy together with his son as his apprentice. Luke
refused and escaped.
The Empire
built a second Death Star and the Rebel Alliance set out to destroy it.
Skywalker knew his destiny was to face his father. He believed that his role
was not to destroy his father, but to turn him back to the light side of the
Force. On the forest moon of Endor, Luke surrendered to Darth Vader and was
taken before the Emperor.
The final
battle of the Galactic Civil War was fought on many fronts. The Emperor lured
the Rebels to the second Death Star and trapped their fleet between his own
fleet and the functional, though incomplete, battle station. On Endor, a band
of Rebels fought to knock out the shield generator that protected the second
Death Star. In the Emperor's throne room, Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker fought for
his destiny, as Darth Sidious tried to turn him to the dark side of the Force.
Luke eventually
faced his father again in a lightsaber duel. After a moment of weakness
revealed Luke's knowledge of his sister Leia to Vader, the Dark Lord promised
to turn her to the dark side. Giving in to the dark side, Luke attacked his
father and severed his mechanical right hand. Then he regained control and
refused to fight. The Emperor, disgusted with Luke, began killing him with
Force lightning.
Vader,
realizing his life had been spared by his son, turned on his master and killed
the Emperor. He died minutes later, after reconciling with his son.
The Rebels took
down the shield generator and destroyed the Death Star. Both the war and the
Empire were over.
After the
Battle of Endor, the Sith continued to cause problems for the fledgling New
Jedi Order established by Jedi master Luke Skywalker. Using the deepest and
darkest of the Sith arts, the ghost of Emperor Palpatine (Darth Sidious)
eventually found its way to a new clone body. In an attempt to stop the new
Emperor, Luke traveled to face him on the dark world of Byss. This resurrected
Sith Lord managed to turn Skywalker to the Dark Side, but he was later saved by
his Jedi sister, Princess Leia Solo.
Later, the
ghost of ancient Sith Lord Exar Kun was awakened from its sleep deep within the
Temples of Yavin IV when Luke set out to establish a new
It's clear that
as long as there are Jedi in the galaxy, there will also be the potential for
the Sith to rise again.