|
Etymology of the word Sith The first use of the word Sith (in the Star Wars Universe) was in the script for Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, as a title for Darth Vader, the "Dark Lord of the Sith." George Lucas did not explain in the script what exactly this meant, however. Early works of Expanded Universe fiction interpreted the term "Lord of the Sith," under the guidance of Lucas, as implying that there was some sort of group that Darth Vader was lord over, and from this created the story of the Sith race, who were enslaved by early practitioners of the dark side. For a decade or more additional fictional works fleshed this story out, elaborating on how, once this race had faded to obscurity, the word Sith remained the name of the villains in George Lucas's prequel Star Wars films. However, the word "Sith" was never mentioned in the original trilogy. The linguistic appearances of the worth 'sith' appears to be of Celtic origin. The word 'cait sith,' which is said in Celtic mythology to be a fairy creature (or transformed witch) resmebling a large cat with a white spot on its chest, is also spelled 'Cat Sidhe' and pronounced Caught Shee. The word 'Sidhe' is a Celtic word for fairy folk. It is unknown at the present time if these Celtic origins of the word sith had any connection with George Lucas' rendition of a sith. Sith philosophy Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hatred leads to power. Power leads to victory. Let your anger flow through you. Your hate will make you strong. True power is only achieved through testing the limits of one's anger, passing through unscathed. Rage channeled through anger is unstoppable. The dark side of the Force offers unimaginable power. The dark side is stronger than the light. The weak deserve their fate. –tenets of Sith philosophy Sith Lords are devoted to the dark side of the Force and are expected to draw on their anger, fear, and hatred in order to gain power. The Sith therefore maintain a certain psychological isolation where they continue to hold themselves above all others. The Sith Code The Sith Code was the mantra that reinforced the core beliefs of the Sith Order. This code was developed many millennia before the Star Wars films take place, and was taught specifically as a foundation of Sith Philosophy at the Sith Academy on Korriban as far back as the Old Republic: Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me. Another expression of Sith philosophy related to this "code" can be found in the PC video game Star Wars: TIE Fighter. An agent of Emperor Palpatine, providing secondary mission objectives, makes the statement: "Do not let your anger blind you. Rather, let it consume you and in the purity of your hatred you will find the deaths of your enemies." Timeline for ancient Jedi-versus-Sith conflicts The Second Great Schism The Golden Age of the Sith The Old Sith Wars The New Sith Wars The Hundred-Year Darkness In Terry Brooks' novelization The Phantom Menace for the first time information about the Sith and how they came to be is released. Darth Sidious is pondering this. It says that the Sith started as a cult, with one young man with a huge potential. He discovers, one day, the power of the Dark Side and how it prevails over that of the Light, in brute Force. He tells (foolishly) the Jedi Council of his opinions, and they cast him out for his beliefs (as Palpatine say in Stover's novelization of Revenge of the Sith "The Jedi would simply kill Darth Plagueis, not for any crime on his part, but for being a Sith.") He swears vengeance on those who cast him out. He had only wanted to help them. he gathers several followers, and they turn eventually into the Brotherhood of darkness and all kill each other over struggles for power. Terry Brooks says "they killed the leader first. then they turned against one another." And while they tore each other apart like kriks, Darth Bane stepped aside and bided his time. (See Path of Destruction.) According to Expanded Universe fiction, the Sith Order, or cult, was first established when dissident Jedi came to believe that "true" power was achieved not through reflective meditation, as taught by their Jedi Masters, but through emotion. The tension between the Jedi and these dissident "Dark Jedi" grew until conflict erupted, seven thousand years before the Battle of Yavin and the events of A New Hope. This conflict, called the Hundred-Year Darkness, the Second Great Schism of the Jedi Order, led to the Dark Jedi being banished by the Old Republic. These outcasts found a new home on the distant planet of Korriban, a desolate world inhabited by the relatively primitive Sith people. However, the Force flowed strongly with the Sith, allowing them to create their own brand of black magic. The Dark Jedi saw this as an opportunity to gain additional power. Using their training in the Force, the Dark Jedi amazed the Sith and elevated themselves to god-like status on Korriban, becoming the rulers of the Sith people. As years passed, and interbreeding occurred between the Dark Jedi and the Sith, the term "Sith" came to mean not only the original near-human inhabitants of Korriban, but their Dark Jedi masters as well. It is from this rise to power and integration into Sith culture that the term Dark Lord of the Sith was first conceived as a title bestowed upon the leader of the Sith Empire by a council of lesser Sith Lords. The Great Hyperspace War and the Naddist Uprising
The Great Sith War
The Second Sith War Less than four decades later, the Jedi Revan and Malak, heroes of the Mandalorian War (a bloody conflict instigated by an unidentified group within the Unknown Regions known only as the "True Sith"), fell to the dark side and founded a new Sith Empire. Using the ancient Rakatan Star Forge factory, they built a massive war fleet and began attacking the Old Republic. Thus began the second Sith War, later called the Jedi Civil War (and, still later, the War of the Star Forge), a conflict that proved even more devastating than Kun's war as more Jedi fell to the dark side, were killed in battle, or were murderered by Sith Assassins. Revan was the greatest military genius the Jedi had ever seen. It was through his cunning alone that the Mandalorian Wars had been won, as the Old Republic soon discovered. During the Mandalorian Wars, Revan and Malak had discovered a mysterious force called the so-called True Sith in the Unknown Regions, and were therefore careful to preserve the Republic's shipyards to use against this threat once they had conquered the galaxy. After an attempted coup by Malak, however, Revan's mind was destroyed and he was captured by the Jedi. He was re-trained in their ways and sent against his traitorous apprentice. Taking up the mantle of Dark Lord, Malak redoubled his empire's offenses against the Old Republic, no longer caring about preserving his enemy's resources. Following a long and arduous quest for the five Star Maps that would lead him to the Sith's stronghold, the new Revan led a frontal assault on the Star Forge. He battled his way through the Forge's droid army and legions of Sith and Dark Jedi. After redeeming Malak's apprentice, Bastila Shan, he slew Malak himself in a final confrontation between the two old friends, allowing the Old Republic to destroy the Star Forge and win the day. Sadness grew, as Revan told his fellows that he must go to destroy the Sith threat once and for all, leaving no whereabouts of where he went. Despite this great victory won for the Old Republic by Revan, the galaxy soon grew even darker. Barely a hundred Jedi remained after the Jedi Civil War, and those who did soon found their ranks thinning at an alarming rate. Everywhere Jedi congregated, they were murdered, struck down by an invisible enemy who, incredibly enough, was somehow attacking them through the Force itself. Darth Nihilus, the Lord of Hunger, and Darth Sion, Lord of Pain, were students of Revan's former Jedi Master, Kreia (now a Sith called Darth Traya, Lady of Betrayal), had begun a shadow war against the surviving Jedi. Despite their incredible powers, they did not believe themselves strong enough to defeat the Jedi in the same kind of open warfare employed by Revan and Malak. (Revan himself had disappeared into the Unknown Regions a year after the destruction of the Star Forge, hoping to put an end to the ever-present threat posed by the mysterious True Sith, and has not been heard from since.) Five years after Malak's defeat on the Star Forge, a Jedi exile who had served Revan as a general during the Mandalorian Wars returned from the Outer Rim to find the Jedi Order virtually extinct. Thought to be the last of the Jedi by Nihilus and Sion, the exile was hunted mercilessly by Sith Assassins from planet to planet as the "last of the Jedi" tracked down the surviving members of the Jedi Council. In the end, several of these Jedi were killed, but the exile managed to turn the tide against the shadow Sith, killing Nihilus, Sion, and Traya in battle, thereby ending their Jedi purge and giving the Jedi Order a chance to rebuild. In modern history texts, the Great Sith War, the Cleansing of the Nine Houses, the Mandalorian Wars, and the War of the Star Forge are often grouped together under the collective appellation of "the Old Sith Wars." The Sithari Around the time of the Jedi Civil War, the coming of the Sith'ari, an ancient Sith prophecy, became somewhat well known in Darth Revan's Sith Empire. The Sith'ari was said to be a perfect being who would rise to power and bring balance to the Force. According to prophecy, the Sith'ari would rise up and destroy the Sith, but in the process would return to lead the Sith and make them stronger than ever before. It is believed that the prophecy of the Sith Sith'ari and the prophecies of the Jedi Chosen One refer to the same individual; namely Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, who made the Sith stronger than ever by destroying the Jedi Knights. He later destroyed the Sith when he betrayed and killed Palpatine, thus fulfilling the ancient prophecy of the Sith'ari. However, there is also evidence that Darth Bane could be the Sith'ari. He rejected the Brotherhood of Darkness for using overwhelming numbers and the philosophy that all of the Sith were equal, he thought that there should only be two sith lords, "one to embody power and the other to crave it". He then betrayed the Sith led by Lord Kaan (contradictory to his idea that all sith are equal) by giving them the instruction to create a thought bomb which would destroy all force users in the immediate vicinity. The Sith, in the midst of a war against the Jedi were desperate and making a last stand on Ruusan, they detonated the bomb in a series of caverns destroying all the Sith except Darth Bane along with one hundred Jedi led by General Hoth to defeat the Sith. Bane's intention though was to destroy all the Sith and the Jedi and didn't count on the Jedi sacrificing themselves by going near the bomb while others escaped. Regardless this fulfills the prophecy that the Sith'ari destroyd the Sith. Bane then goes on to find his apprentice, Zannah, and begins the Reign of Two where the Sith use guile and cunning rather than force to destroy their enemies. This strengthens the Sith like in the prophecy eventually leading to the near extinction of the Jedi under Darth Sidious. The New Sith Wars
The Revenge of the Sith
The fall of the Galactic Empire Eventually, however, the Rebel Alliance arose to threaten the Empire's unchallenged sovereignty. The Galactic Civil War drew many into its fold, perhaps the most notable of whom was Luke Skywalker, the son of Anakin. Shortly after Luke destroyed the Empire's terrifying Death Star superweapon, the Emperor and Vader became aware of the young man's identity. Both Sith Lords hoped to corrupt Luke to the dark side, but each had a different motive. Vader desired to kill the Emperor and rule the galaxy with his son, but Palpatine wished to replace Vader with the boy. During the Battle of Endor, Skywalker refused to join the Emperor, who then began torturing him with Force lightning. His son's suffering and pleas for help freed Anakin Skywalker from the Emperor's service, and he threw his master down the newly constructed second Death Star's reactor shaft, in the process subjecting himself to the full force of the Emperor's lightning. Severely injured by the Emperor's assault and with his life-sustaining armor non-functional, the former Sith Lord died a few minutes later. Luke escaped with his father's body (still wearing the trademark armor) shortly before the new Death Star was destroyed. Luke later burned his father's body on a funeral pyre on Endor, marking the end of the Emperor's reign. Dark Jedi
The Sith hierarchy Like the Jedi Order, which has a clearly defined hierarchy of titles (Jedi Initiate, or "youngling," to Jedi Padawan to Jedi Knight to Jedi Master to Jedi Grand Master), the Sith Order has a ranking system to divide the strong from the stronger, though it should be noted that, due to the great number of successive incarnations of the order, Sith hierarchy didn't maintain a single continuous ranking system throughout its history. Like the Jedi and the Old Republic, the Sith underwent a great reformation after the apocalyptic Battle of Ruusan, and the ranks of the Sith Order were among the things changed. Prior to that, however, Sith hierarchy remained much the same for almost 6,000 years: Sith Minion to Sith Acolyte to Sith Warrior to Sith Lord to Dark Lord of the Sith. For the most part this ranking system remained the same, through the ancient Sith Empire, Exar Kun's Brotherhood of the Sith, and Darth Revan's Sith Empire, until Lord Kaan declared that all of his highest ranking followers in the Sith Brotherhood of Darkness were Dark Lords of the Sith. Following the Sith Order's destruction at the Seventh Battle of Ruusan, Darth Bane reformed the order and decreed that there would only be two Sith at a time from that point onward: a Master and an apprentice. Both would bear the title "Dark Lord of the Sith," which at that point in time became interchangeable with the term "Sith Lord." The Sith legacy
Dark Lords of the Sith The Dark Lords of the Sith are acknowledged as the leaders of their order, and the most powerful Sith of their time. Only one Dark Lord existed at a time until the reign of Kaan. An asterisk (
Lesser Sith Note: An asterisk ( The Old Sith Empire The Onderonian Dynasty The Brotherhood of the Sith The Second Sith Empire The Lords of Malachor The New Sith Empire The Sith Legacy The Fist of the Empire Though technically not Sith, the darksiders who belonged to the Galactic Empire are sometimes referred to as the Emperor's Army of Sith Knights: the Fist of the Empire. See Inquisitorius, Prophets of the Dark Side, Emperor's Royal Guard, Emperor's Hand, Dark Jedi, and Dark side devotee. The Bladeborn The Bladeborn were an offshoot of the Sith formed sometime before the Sith Civil War. They specialized in sword mastery instead of lightsaber combat, and the greatest among them, known as "masterblades," were capable of defeating ten lightsaber-wielding opponents at a time. The Disciples of Ragnos The Disciples of Ragnos were a Sith cult dedicated the ancient Dark Lord Marka Ragnos. Led by the Dark Jedi Tavion Axmis, the Disciples attempted to resurrect the spirit of the millennia-dead Sith Lord, only to be stopped by Jedi Knight Jaden Korr. Known Disciples of Ragnos include: The Krath The Krath were a cult founded by Empress Tetan nobles Satal and Aleema Keto, using dark side magics taught them by the shade of the Dark Lord Freedon Nadd. The Krath allied themselves with Exar Kun's Brotherhood of the Sith during the Great Sith War and were largely annihilated in that conflict. Sebban Keto, however, would reestablish the cult in the Empress Tetan capital of Cinnagar millennia later. Known Krath include: The Mecrosa Order The Mecrosa Order was a Sith-inspired order of assassins sponsored by House Mecetti, the rulers of the Tapani Sector's Mecetti Province. Speculated to have been formed by the survivors of Exar Kun's Sith Brotherhood, the Mecrosa Order was wiped out by the Jedi and House Pelagia of the Tapani Sector's Pelagia Province during the Cleansing of the Nine Houses. It was later reestablished during the reign of the Galactic Empire. The Naddists The Naddists were a Sith cult on the planet Onderon that worshipped the deceased Dark Lord Freedon Nadd. Comprised of the both Force-sensitives and non-Force-sensitives, the Naddists, under the leadership of King Ommin and the specter of Freedon Nadd, were destroyed by a group of Jedi under the leadership of Arca Jeth and Ulic Qel-Droma during the Naddist Revolt, though the cult's surviving texts and lore allowed for the quick and easy formation of the Krath. Known Force-sensitive Naddists include: Prophets of the Dark Side|The Prophets of the Dark Side The Prophets of the Dark Side were an offshoot of the Sith formed by renegade Sith apprentice Darth Millennial sometime after the New Sith Wars. Believing the Rule of Two created by Darth Bane to be too restrictive, Millennial fled from his Master and founded the Prophets of the Dark Side on the ancient Sith world Dromund Kaas, where they were free to practice Lord Kaan's more martial philosophy of Rule by the Strong. Centuries later, the Prophets were reunited with the Sith when Darth Sidious persuaded them to join his future Empire and they became a part of the Emperor's Secret Order. Just prior to the Emperor's death at the Battle of Endor, the Prophets went into hiding and were eventually wiped out by the Dark Jedi and Sith Lords Lumiya and Carnor Jax. Known Prophets of the Dark Side include: Weapons of the Sith The Sith's traditional weapon was the lightsaber. It is usually red, but some Sith used different colors (even blue, a traditonal Jedi color), especially just after turning to the dark side of the Force. Many Sith preferred the double-bladed lightsaber variant, which was invented by Exar Kun, as it allowed the wielder to slaughter enemies faster. Some Sith, especially during the reign of their first empire, preferred specially crafted Sith swords to lightsabers. Sith swords were altered by Sith Alchemy to be harder and sharper. They never dulled, they could block blaster fire, and they were even able to resist lightsabers. Quite a few Sith Lords, including the Dark Lords Ajunta Pall, Naga Sadow, and the Dark Underlord used Sith swords rather than lightsabers—either for tradition, or because they preferred the more visceral feeling of sword cutting through flesh. Another traditional Sith weapon was the lanvarok, a wrist-mounted projectile launcher which could fling a number of thin but solid metal discs in a spray towards a target. To increase the weapon's accuracy, Sith would often guide the projectiles into their targets using the Force. Lumiya, is seen to prefer a lightwhip which has a flexible cutting edge. According to Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Tempest, this lightsaber variant was once in common use among at least one force-using order. Cultural influences The Star Wars mythos were created by Director George Lucas, who wrote most of the storylines behind the movies. The cultural origin of the Jedi Order is clearly a parallel to the feudal Japanese Samurai class, including the traditional Japanese robes worn by the Jedi and the focus on the use of a 'sword' type weapon even in an era of 'gun' technology (the 'blaster' equivalent). Other clear parallels are the dedication to removing emotion from battle, to being true to oneself and one's heart, and above all, to eradicate fear from one's emotional set, all clear links to the way of the warrior, or Bushido, in Japanese culture. Lucas went so far as to begin training the actors with a traditional Kendo sword artist from Japan, who was asked to invent a futuristic form of Kendo, based on the concept of a katana (traditional Samurai sword) that was capable of cutting in all directions simultaneously, which is the concept embodied in the lightsabre weapon. The Sith then are the true opposites of the Jedi, trained to embrace fear and use it rather than reject it. While there is no clear parallel in Japanese culture to an 'anti-Samurai', they must have been present, but are not discussed in Japanese culture due to the extreme shame. An anti-Samurai could be a general who relished war and enjoyed killing, or one who deliberately took advantage of weaker people to advance his aims. A warrior who rejected the traditional tenets of Budo and instead adopted a strategy of embracing hatred and anger in his kata would be a good model for the Sith. Such schools and people must certainly have existed in Feudal Japan. The concept of the ancient Sith Empire may have been influenced by the culture of Ancient Egypt. Particularly, the god-like status accorded the Dark Lord of the Sith is similar to that of the Egyptian Pharaohs, and much of the architecture on Korriban (as seen in the comics) bears a noticeable resemblance to that of Egyptian tombs. Despite the name "Sith" being identical to one version of an Irish term for fairies (sidhe), which in folklore were sometimes malignant, there appears to be no relation between the terms. Though not confirmed another possible origin Lucas used were the secret societies of the Egyptian Seth and/or Set (both groups being preoccupied with a rebellion against nature and an argument for the lefthanded path), as well as Nietzsche's The Will to Power. A final comparison can be made to Satanism. Pronouncing "Sith" The sound of English written as (phonetically the voiceless dental fricative, ) is not used in many languages, including French, German, Italian, Swedish, Polish, Chinese, Russian, and Japanese. In foreign language versions of the Star Wars franchise, the | in | Footnotes Sources Official Star Wars Website Star Wars Essential Guide Series (Del Rey Books Copyright 1999) ISBN 0-345-4 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
| |