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The History of the Sith
The Sith originally were a race of humanoid,
insectile people; inhabiting a planet they called Sith, as well. They were a
primitive species, but were Force-attuned, nevertheless. They used a small
portion of the Force, combining it with their magic. Their sorcery was
extremely powerful, able to do incredible feats. The weapons of Sith were also
part of their sorcery. Made of hard metal, the Sith swords were small bastions
of Sith power. The sword-maker, as the sword cooled, would pour into the metal,
vast amounts of Sith magic. Thus, through all that power, the sword did not
take any damage and could cut through anything. As their world became more and
more populated, their world changed greatly: Sith society changed. Everything
was separated into castes. The least Force-attuned and the poorest were placed
into the lowest caste, while the most power and the most Force-attuned among
the Sith became the ruling class: the Sith Lords. The caste system stayed with
the Sith for a long time. However, the world of the Sith changed abruptly
again: Sith society had become feudal. No one knows why or how this happened.
Perhaps, as the peasantry class grew, more and more disgruntled Sith wanted
change. And then, perhaps, there was a revolt (much like Earth's history).
Revolt, or no revolt, society did indeed change from a society revolved around
castes, to one revolved around kings and vassals. The feudal system produced
clans, or Houses, as the Sith called them. Each House owned a portion of land
and each had a head. The ruling head of each House was a Sith Lord. Among all
of the Sith Lords, there was always one who was the most powerful and the most
Force-attuned. He was the Dark Lord of Sith, given that title by the other Sith
Lords because of his strength. The title Dark Lord of Sith was given to the
strongest of the Sith Lord, who was the ruler over all Sith (much like the
Shogun of feudal Japan). However, the inevitable soon came about. Houses
clashed with one another, as they vied for more land and more power. Entire
Houses were wiped out. Amid this chaos, a few extremely powerful Houses arose.
The names of these are long forgotten, they certainly did exist.
Meanwhile, about two thousand years before the
birth of Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi Knight believed that he had found the true
source of the Force. He went before the Jedi Council and revealed to them his
newfound powers. The Jedi Council was horrified, for they soon realized that
the Jedi had found and tapped into the secret and forbidden power: the Dark
Side of the Force. The Jedi Council immediately banned the use of such
destructive powers and tried to force the young Jedi to swear never again to
use the Dark Side. However, the Jedi refused, seeing that he had found true
power. He believed that the Dark Side was the real Side of the Force.
The ensuing events caused a great disturbance among the previously harmonious
Jedi Order. Again, the Jedi elders tried to convince the brash Jedi Knight that
this was not the way. But, the rebel Jedi, realizing that he would never get
consent, refused again and this time, he broke away from the sacred Jedi Order,
with the immense knowledge and skill of a Jedi and a burning vow in his soul to
seek revenge on those who had rejected him. The secession caused great
discussion among the Jedi. He was alone at first, but others from the Jedi
order who had seen the immense powers of the ex-Jedi believed that this was
indeed the true way of the Force. They sought him out and decided to study the
Dark Side, with him and train in the ways of the Dark Side of the Force. The
next event caused an even greater chasm to open. The Jedi Council alarmed at
how big the Dark Jedi’s had grown to, banished them from Coruscant. And so,
after much searching, the band of rebel Jedi’s landed on the planet Sith. Upon
showing the natives their powers, the Jedi’s were immediately believed to be
gods. He soon found out that the natives, too, had Force powers as well. But,
as he investigated, they did not use their powers to the full extent. They used
only a small fraction of their powers and called the phenomenon magic. The
Jedi’s then decided to awe the native Sith in their ways of the Force by
showing them the extreme power of a lightsaber. However, during these mock
duels, Sith Lords decided to challenge the Jedi. In the first of these duels,
the Dark Jedi were shocked to learn that a Sith sword could easily fend off a
blow from a lightsaber. They had previously believed that the lightsaber could cut
through anything. Thus, they became even more incredulous at the power of the
Sith. Gradually, as time went on, the Sith Lords and the Dark Jedi interbred,
creating human offspring who were VERY Force-attuned. Soon, the Sith became
obsolete in extinction, as the Human-Sith offspring soon evolved into total
human beings. Only a few were of pure Sith blood. Society soon saw them as
elite and they became an elite priesthood, composed of sorcerers with pure Sith
blood, their name being long forgotten. The Dark Jedi, along with their
Human-Sith offspring, had created the cult of Sith, a cult given over to the
Dark Side of the Force, embracing to the last detail, the dark powers that were
offered. They called themselves the Sith, in memory of the original natives of
the planet. Their leader was the Dark Lord of Sith, given the traditional
title, because he was the strongest among them. Other were recruited, and soon
the ranks of the Sith swelled. Disdaining the concepts of cooperation and
consensus, relying on the belief that acquisition of power in any form lends
strength and yields control, the Sith began to build their cult in opposition
the Jedi.
For the next thousand years the Jedi and the Sith
were at war. The rogue Jedi was still alive at the time. He had used the Dark
Side to prolong his life thousands of years after the normal human life. He was
still the leader of the Sith, but his greed excluded any sharing of power.
However, since their order was not one created to serve, rather to dominate,
his disciples began to conspire against him and each other. The war with the
Jedi was the external war. The internal war was with each other. The result of
these internal and external battles resulted in a nearly extinct Sith order.
In the end, the Sith destroyed themselves. They
destroyed their leader first, then each other. The watchful Jedi soon
dispatched what few survived the initial bloodbath. In a matter of only weeks,
all of them died...
All but one.
The Sith who had survived when all of his fellows
had died had understood the truth. He was Darth Bane. He had adopted patience
as his virtue when the other had forsaken it. He had adopted cunning, stealth,
and subterfuge as the foundation of his way-old Jedi virtues the others
disdained. He stood aside while the other Sith tore each other's throats and
were destroyed. When the carnage began, he went into hiding, biding his time,
waiting for his chance.
When he and the Jedi was believed all of the Sith
were destroyed, Darth Bane emerged from his concealment. At first his worked
alone, but he was growing old and he was the last of his kind. Eventually, he
went out in search of an apprentice. Finding one, he trained him to become a
dangerous Dark Lord of Sith, teaching him the ways of the Dark Side, as well as
Sith history and tactics. But, he taught, there would only be two at any one
time, because if there were more, as history told, they would try to get rid of
each other. Thus, he had reinvented the Order of Sith to consist of two Dark
Lords: a Master and an apprentice. And for thousands of years, the Master would
teach the Apprentice. The Master would die, and the Apprentice became the
Master and taught a new Apprentice, and so on. They operated in secrecy,
waiting for the chance to defeat the Jedi and seek revenge. There would be no
repetition of mistakes of the old order, no struggle between Siths warring for
power within the cult. Their true enemy was the Jedi, not each other. It was
for the war with the Jedi, that they saved themselves.
And then, nine years after the birth of Anakin
Skywalker, Darth Sidious and his apprentice Darth Maul made the first open move
of the Sith; the first hint to the Jedi, that perhaps the Sith were still
alive. At his Master's order, Darth Maul began to hunt down and destroy Qui-Gon
Jinn and his padawan, Obi Wan Kenobi. As time goes on, Anakin Skywalker turns
to the Dark Side. During this time the entire galaxy is transformed by the rise
of the Galactic Empire, lead by the Emperor Palpatine, who had previously been
a secret Dark Lord, the infamous Darth Sidious. And then, a new, terrifying
Dark Lord arises: Darth Vader. He, a transformed Anakin Skywalker, became the
apprentice of the Emperor, and together, they began to wipe out the Jedi,
during the Great Jedi Purge. Although a few escaped, they never were strong
enough to band together to fight back, against the two powerful Dark Lords of
Sith. However, as his son pleads with him, Vader turns back to the Light Side,
and killed the Emperor. The Galactic Empire crumbled down and the New Republic
was born. Everyone thought that the Dark Side was defeated, yet a few claiming
to be Dark Jedi’s, arose. However, these impostors were no matches for the new,
strong order of the Jedi.
The Phantom Menace | Attack of the Clones | Revenge of the Sith
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