In Star Wars Legends-era lore, a rogue Sith Lord kept his splinter religion secret from the Jedi Order for over a thousand years. The Star Wars Legends continuity, which was the franchise’s official timeline until its partial reboot in 2014, introduced a unique Sith Lord who spun off from the famous lineage of Darth Bane to form his own version of the Sith. This new dark side cult managed to also stay hidden from the Jedi for a millennium, using an ancient and obscure world as its headquarters.
Following the Sith Brotherhood of Darkness’s near destruction during the Ruusan Campaign, Darth Bane – the sole surviving Sith Lord – resolved to keep the Sith Order alive by introducing the infamous Rule of Two. The doctrine kept the inevitable betrayals among Sith in check by reducing them to only two Dark Lords: An apprentice who would try to usurp their master, who would, in turn, seek to replace their current pupil with a stronger one. Darth Bane’s Sith dynasty would work in secret, undermining the Jedi and Republic from the shadows until their greatest Dark Lord, Palpatine, enacted their ultimate revenge.
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How A Rival Sith Order Was Formed 1,000 Years Ago
The third Sith Master of Bane’s Sith Order, Darth Cognus, would take a three-eyed human mutant under her wing, training him to become the Sith Lord known as Darth Millennial. Millennial rejected the mainstream doctrine of Darth Bane in favor of the Sith Brotherhood of Darkness’s philosophies. Darth Cognus labeled Darth Millennial a heretic, leading him to flee and form his own Sith counterculture called the Dark Force. Darth Millennial’s Dark Force Temple was built on the nightmarish world of Dromund Kaas, an ancient Sith colony world.
The Sith of Dromund Kaas Became Palpatine’s Agents In The End
The corrupting energy of the Dark Force further putrefied the already dark side-steeped Dromund Kaas, interfering with technology and making the planet’s flora and fauna extremely dangerous to visitors. While the Dark Force had far more members than the Sith Order, both cults kept their existence from the Jedi a secret, though the Sith were far more active than the Dark Force. Following Darth Millennial’s passing, the Dark Force would become known as the Prophets of the Dark Side, who, despite their penchant for precognition, did not expect the Imperial Inquisition to eventually discover them during the Galactic Empire’s reign.
The legacy of Darth Millennial would come full circle, as the Prophets of the Dark Side would become agents of the Galactic Empire – and thus the Sith Order of Darth Bane – through their servitude to Emperor Palpatine. Fascinatingly, Palpatine took the Rule of Two less seriously upon becoming the Emperor and destroying the Jedi Order. While Palpatine and Darth Vader were proper Dark Lords of the Sith, the Empire had many dark side agents, including the Inquisitors, the Prophets, and the Emperor’s Hands, with one Hand – Lumiya – eventually forming the next true iteration of the Sith in Star Wars Legends.
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