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History of the Sith - Origins of the Sith and the Ancient Sith Empire
Part II : The Golden Age of the Sith Empire
The exodus of the Sith took them to the Outer Rim, where they landed on Ziost, the homeworld of the primitive Sith species. The Sith had existed for a hundred thousand years, but evolved on a world rich in stone but poor in metal. They had a fantastic society built entirely of massive stoneworks, monumental in design yet efficiently structured. Iron was known only through meteorites, and the entire planet was unified in a single Bronze-age society. This was the planet that saw the landing of the exiled Legions of Lettow, descended from the Minions of Xendor and a score of Force traditions such as the Jedi, refined into a perfect study of the Dark Side. It were these people, with a society stretching back a hundred thousand years without ever seeing vehicles made of iron or aluminum, much less durasteel or plasticrete, who saw the technology of the Dark Lords and Ladies before them, and proclaimed them gods.
It was most certainly the technology of the Lettow that impressed the Sith more than their powers over the Dark Side. Sith Priests had been studying the Dark Side of the Force far longer than the century that the Lettow had been in existence. If the survivors of Lettow arrived armed only with their powers of the Force, they could not have awed these Masters of the Dark Side. But a spaceship, even without enough fuel to launch again, was something beyond their dreams, and swords that could cut through any weapon or armor they had of bronze was a reality they could not fight. The remaining Lettow, largely consisting of Humans and near-Humans, took over the planetary society of the Sith almost immediately.
Ziost had a simple caste structure, which the Lettow decided to enforce more rigorously. They began by making a new caste of Lords for themselves, above the existing three castes. The next highest caste, the priests, were then examined for Force power, with those most powerful in the Force being encouraged to breed with each other.
In some cases, Lords and Ladies were known to mate with those from the priest caste, and discovering enough genetic similarity between the Sith and the Human and near-Human species to allow interbreeding. Among the noble caste, the half-Sith offspring were marginalized, but their numbers swelled over the millennia until it was simple fact that only a few families maintaining a purist regime of in-breeding between themselves were still of completely human descent. On the other hand, half-breeds who stayed in the priest caste took advantage of their social status and by the end of the Sith Empire all members of the priest caste had at least some human DNA.
The next caste was the warrior caste. Like the priests, the warriors were tested and encouraged to breed according to eugenic guidelines, except in their case selected for physical prowess, not Force ability. Of course, any selective breeding program increases the chances of producing Force-sensitives. The factors created by the eugencis program, combined with occasional intermarriage with the priestly caste, resulted in Dark Side warriors who were trained in elite sects, such as the Massassi and the Assassins.
Providing the support for these privileged minorities was the slave caste. Based on what records survived, it appears that more than half of all Sith were from the slave caste, maybe as much as a third of the Sith belonged to the warrior caste, with the priests accounting for less than a tenth of Sith society. The Lord caste held all the power in only a few thousand men, women and children, who belonged to those families who ruled a society of billions. Then, once enough material was brought together to build a few asteroid-mining ships, the technology level of the Sith Empire leapt forward and within a few generations the same few thousand Sith of the noble class ruled trillions of people on dozens of worlds. [The development of the Sith castes is largely speculative based on hints from GAOTS, TOTJC and DSS.]
A thousand years after their ancestors were banished from Republic space, Sith Lords ruled a hundred worlds along the Outer Rim, and a new societal structure began to emerge. While several thousand descendants of Lettow and Sith priests were part of the noble class, only those who ruled one or more worlds were called a Sith Lord or Sith Lady. Of those, a single Dark Lord of the Sith ruled over them all, and when the Dark Lord or Lady died, the various Sith Lords would engage in a power struggle to become the next ruler of of the Empire [GAOTS]. In one variety or another, this basic structure remained in place for twenty thousand years, although it is worth noting that some irregularities must have surely existed during this time. Early in the period, a warlord who conquered a unified a single world was called King Adas, indicating that at least at that time, a Lord may have been in a similar position to a King, as an Admiral is to a Captain: someone who has to manage several power structures, as opposed to someone who only has to manage one [TOTJC].
On a side note, while being very poor in metals, Ziost is rich in other mineral resources, in addition to the sandstone, granite and jade that marked their architecture, the Sith found an incredible diversity of crystal development on their homeworld. This may or may not be directly related to the amount of Force-sensitivity among the Sith, but it is certainly related to their aptitude with using the Force. By focusing on particular crystals, a wide variety of amulets, talismans, gauntlets, and even primitive holocrons were known to the ancient Sith, from the earliest days of the Empire. We know the history of King Adas because we have his holocron in the Sith Temple and I have interviewed him at length about his career. The remarkable part is that he does not consider himself particularly educated with the subtleties of the Dark Side as alchemists and scholars can be, and thinks his ability to make a holocron is insignificant compared to the combat abilities with the Force he wielded while alive. I know that much of this is due to his exagerration of his life’s story, especially without any sources we can use to verify his claims, but he still does not comprehend that we consider the construction of a holocron to be a major undertaking only possible to the greatest of Sith Lords, Alchemists or Scholars. I speculate this is actually because of the particular crystal used for the holocron, which I have not been able to identify.
The Sith Empire expanded unimpeded for its first nine thousand years, until roughly fifteen millennia ago, they reached the edge of Republic space, in what is now the Colonies region. Up to this point, the Republic had limited their expansion almost entirely to the region they call The Slice, between the Corellian Run and the Perlemian Trade Route. The Sith Empire, on the other hand, was growing along, and expanding out from, a predecessor to the Hydian Way. Then the Republic expanded just a little further towards the Sith Empire and began to encounter the Arkanian race, who lived on the most coreward planet of the Empire. Arkanian explorers brought back word of the Republic to the Sith Lords who still maintained secret teachings about what the Jedi had done to them.
Cautious, the Sith Lords decided to test the defenses of the Republic before committing to anything that would expose the existence of the Sith Empire. They carefully maneuvered to supply a series of uprisings along the recently colonized worlds, that the Republic was unaware nearly bordered Sith space. After some initial successes, several worlds had broken away from the Republic and were fighting off attempts to bring them back. This prompted the Senate to create Republic Fleet Systems, and create a navy to bring the rebellious systems in line [EGVV]. When the Sith Lords saw the reports of how completely the new Republic navy destroyed all resistance, they decided on a severe but necessary tactic. Using the same technology that Naga Sadow unleashed on the Denarii system ten thousand years later, the Sith caused several stars to go nova along the hyperspace route that connected the Sith Empire to the core. It would be twelve thousand years before the Hydian Way was rediscovered as a stable route [speculation based on GOATS, DLS and DSS].
It was not until only seven thousand years ago, do we know of another contact between the Old Republic and the Ancient Sith Empire. An war erupted within the Jedi Order, between Light Side and Dark Side Jedi, and in a bizarre reprise of the defeat of the First Great Schism, the Light Jedi defeated their Dark Jedi enemies, exiling the survivors past the edge of the known space. This second group of exiles, including still famous figures such as Tulak Horde and Ajunta Pall, found the Sith Empire and joined the noble class, bringing new technology and techniques over the Force that the Republic had developed [EC, NEC and KOTOR].
Sith historians mark this as beginning of the Golden Age of the Sith Empire, as it produced a revival of power to a waning society that had deliberately cut off further growth into the rest of the galaxy. New designs in hyperdrive technology allowed easier travel and greater ability to find new hyperspace lanes. More planets were colonized in areas relatively close to known routes, but had previously been considered too far from the main lane to be worth the fuel expenditure. The Sith Empire began growing again for the first time in millennia, not outward, but simply exploring the space within their borders to a greater degree. New worlds were being discovered every year. After two thousand years of such growth, the Sith Empire was nearly as populated as the Republic, which was by contrast, suffering from internal conflict and uncontrolled bureaucracy.
The last Dark Lord of the Sith who ruled over this era, Marka Ragnos, saw what lay before the Sith Empire, and held a precarious position in place for more than a century of rule. The Sith Empire had grown inwardly as much as was possible, and needed to expand towards Republic space, or stop expanding. Dark Lord Marka Ragnos had kept this expansion in check, and upon his death, the Empire had two paths before it: deliberately stunt further growth as had been done ten thousand years earlier, or invade the Galactic Republic.
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Lord Scourge
(( Main Administrator ))
Dark Sith Lord of the Council, Historian to the Empress
Master to Vulpine, Sith Apprentice
Under the Dark Patronage of Lady Lumiya
"You truly are evil."
-Abel Peña, Star Wars EU writer, to me
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