With a history dating back nearly 28,000 years,
the original Sith Empire was founded by King Adas, who united the tribes of the sith species
on their homeworld of Korriban. Their people’s natural affinity for the
dark side made them the perfect targets for conquest many years later, when the Dark Jedi
Ajunta Pall and his followers were exiled from Republic Space for rebelling against
the Order in the Hundred Year Darkness. Under the rule of Ajunta Pall, who became
the First Dark Lord of the Sith, an Empire was founded which expanded beyond Korriban,
and through the use of Force Alchemy, they interbred with native sith to birth new generations
of highly force sensitive children trained all their lives in the dark Side and Sith
Code. The Sith Empire eventually reached a golden
age under the leadership of Marka Ragnos, but soon fell to division after his death,
resulting in their defeat during the Great Hyperspace War and fracturing of the order. Over and over again, the Sith emerged from
hiding with incredible strength, threatening to destroy the Republic and Jedi, but lies,
schemes, and civil wars almost always ended their ambitions prematurely. When Darth Ruin formed the New Sith and once
again went to war, the pattern repeated and over the next thousand years, betrayal and
division prevented them from achieving victory. Nearing the end of this period, a jedi master
with extremist views left the Order with a group of loyal followers and declared himself
a Dark Lord of the Sith. Embarking on a campaign to conquer the many
warring factions of the Order, Skere Kaan recognized that their greatest enemy was in-fighting,
and so formed the Brotherhood of Darkness, an organization where everyone was equal and
shared the title Dark Lord, forbidding the use of Darth, which implied supremacy. For a time, this seemed to work and the Sith
grew in strength, taking the fight to the Jedi and Republic. Though most Sith Lords seemed to agree with
Kaan, a student of the Sith Academy on Korriban soon emerged to challenge the system and defy
the underlying philosophy of the Brotherhood. Bringing back the title of Sith Lords past,
Darth Bane as he became known, agreed that in-fighting was a problem but believed the
Kaan’s solution was equally self-defeating. The force was not fire, to be passed from
torch to torch, but venom, powerful in concentrated form and weak when diluted. In other words, with so many Sith Lord’s
sharing the power of the dark side, none could achieve their true potential, and the Order
as a whole would never be strong enough to defeat the Jedi and conquer the galaxy. Born in 1026 BBY on the poor Outer Rim Planet
of Apatros, the future Sith Master was the son of an alcoholic and abusive father, who
referred to his son as the Bane of his existence. At the age of 18 he killed his father through
raw force power, and years later killed a Republic Ensign in self defense. Knowing the Ensign’s friends would lie about
what they saw, he used the connections of a friend to flee the republic and join the
Sith Army where he proved an exceptional soldier and commander in the Gloom Walkers. Coming to the attention of a Sith Dark Lord,
who sensed his force potential, he was sent to the Sith Academy on Korriban, where he
took the name Bane and became one of their most promising students. Though he suffered setbacks, he attended special
training sessions, studied ancient texts ignored and dismissed by others, formed an alliance
with another top student Githany and defeated his greatest rival in single combat. Yet as Bane became gained more knowledge he
started to question the leadership of Lord Kaan, believing that a true Master of the
Dark Side must be unrivalled and unmatched. Equality was a lie, and victory belonged to
the powerful. Abandoning the Brotherhood, he declared himself
Darth Bane, and left the academy to search for ancient knowledge, soon finding the Holocron
of Darth Revan, a powerful Sith Lord from thousands of years in the past. Learning much from his new master, Bane manipulated
events during the decisive Battle of Ruusan and the mind of Lord Kaan, resulting in the
use of a special dark side weapon called a thought bomb, killing all Sith Dark Lords
and 100 Jedi, trapping their spirits in a cave system for thousands of years. With the Brotherhood destroyed, Darth Bane
was last of the Sith Lords, and remade the order according to the personal philosophy
he developed throughout his life, guided in large part by the Rule of Two. Believing there must be only one Master to
embrace the power of the Darkside, and a single Apprentice to desire that power. In this way they could hide their existence
and work in the shadows, secretly manipulating events to destroy the Jedi order and return
the Sith to dominance throughout the Galaxy. Realizing it would likely take centuries to
prepare the galaxy for their eventual rule, Bane believed the Rule of Two ensured his
knowledge and power survived through his heir, with each successive generation becoming more
powerful than the last. His need for an apprentice was then quickly
satisfied, as Bane soon found a young girl named Rain, alone in the Ruusan wilderness,
with 2 dead jedi at her feet, killed through raw force power. Seeing her potential at once, he offered the
chance to become his student, and with no other options, the girl agreed, choosing to
be reborn as Darth Zannah, apprentice of Darth Bane. Among the many incredible feats accomplished
by Darth Bane, he revived the lost skill of creating a personal holocron by studying the
knowledge of Darth Andeddu and wore a suit of orbalisks, small black insects which caused
tremendous pain at all times, but acted as an impenetrable suit of armour, greatly increased
his physical prowess and dark side abilities. He then survived the horrendous experience
of removing the suits from his body. While mounted on a flying Drexxl, Bane created
a force bubble around them and flew so high they escaped the atmosphere of the moon Dxun,
to reach the nearby planet of Onderon. As the decades passed, Bane grew concerned
his apprentice did not challenged him for supremacy and so learned the ancient art of
Essence Transfer, to move his consciousness into a new body so he might extend his life
and take on a new apprentice, choosing an Iktochi assassin who took the name Darth Cognus. Zannah meanwhile, made her own plans and took
the Dark Jedi Set Harth as her apprentice, in preparation for defeating her master. The first time they fought, it was in a chaotic
situation that ended in a stalemate when they were forced to flee, and so they met on the
planet Ambria, engaging in a fair and decisive battle to determine the true Master of the
Sith. Although Set Harth fled and was no longer
a Sith hopeful, Darth Cognus remained and agreed to becoming the apprentice of the victor. A hardened killer from a young age, Darth
Zannah was an excellent student but could not hope to best her master in lightsaber
combat, and so used her specialized skill in Sith Sorcery to gain the advantage. Yet before Darth Bane was defeated, he made
an all or nothing gamble by attempting an Essence transfer, and while part of his spirit
did manage to enter her mind, Zannah proved resilient and repelled his consciousness,
condemning it to the great void. Declaring herself Master of the Sith, Darth
Zannah vowed to continue the legacy of Darth Bane, and with everything she had experienced,
Darth Cognus also became a strict adherent to the rule of two. So much so, that years later, when she became
Master of the order, she cast out her apprentice Darth Millennial, because he questioned the
ways of Bane and restrictions of his rules. No longer a Sith, Millennial fled to Drumond
Kaas, where he started a religion called prophets of the Dark Side, which ruled the planet for
centuries. Darth Cognus meanwhile found a new apprentice
and ensured the Baneite line continued, eventually leading to the rule of Darth Vectivus, a unique
Sith Lord who earned a fortune as a successful business man and retained his disciplined
mind and ethical code throughout his life. Unlike his predecessors and heirs, he had
no interest in violence or conquest, and dedicated his life to studying the dark side and intricacies
of the universe, becoming so powerful he could create an army of phantom spirits. Darth Vectivus died in his home, of old age,
surrounded by friends and family. Later dark lords like Darth Guile did not
share his thoughtful approach to the dark side and instead viewed the Sith like malignant
cells, to small to be detected but powerful enough to spread and kill. When Darth Gravid rose to power, the Sith
Order suffered a severe setback, as he tried to combine the teaching of the dark side and
light, eventually losing his sanity and destroying many of the sith artefacts and teachings they’d
collected over the years. Learning what he was doing, the apprentice
Darth Gean killed her master and in doing so lost her left left arm as well as part
of her face and torso. When Darth Ramage was in power, he created
a holocron teaching about how the bota plant and pyronium metal could increase their connection
to the force, and experimented on Cephalons, a species who viewed the universe in 4 dimensions,
hoping to gain mastery over time travel. The revenge of the Sith took another step
forward during the reign of a Twilek male who opened a rift in the force, allowing the
jedi to sense the dark side for the first time in centuries. Yet when his apprentice Darth Tenerbous killed
him and became Master, the Sith started to see the endgame approaching, and each successive
generation believed they would be last Master of the Banite order. Tenebrous foresaw the coming of the chosen
one, a being who would end the rule of two, so the rule of the One Sith could emerge. With that in mind, Tenebrous made it his goal
to keep his consciousness alive long enough to inhabit the body of the chosen one, so
he might rule forever as the One Sith. But like the masters before him, Tenebrous
was eventually killed by his apprentice, a brilliant Munn from an influential family
who took the name Darth Plagueis. Plagueis also thought he was the final heir
of Bane’s legacy, and after defeating a rival named Darth Venamis, a secret student
of Tenebrous, he dedicated himself to mastering midichlorian manipulation, becoming so powerful
he was able to restore life and prevent death. By combining his powers with those of his
apprentice Darth Sidious, they attempted to design a being of pure force energy, but failed
and instead triggered a counter-strike which created Anakin Skywalker, the chosen one who
would destroy both Jedi and Sith. Making the final preparations for the long
awaited revenge of the sith, Plagueis manipulated the senate, outer rim, interstellar corporations,
and criminal underworld to create the conditions through which his apprentice Darth Sidious,
posing as Palpatine of Naboo, could become a senator and eventually chancellor of the
of galactic republic. Unfortunately his victory led plagueis to
momentarily let his guard down, allowing Sidious to kill him with force lightening. Becoming Master of the Sith, Sidious was in
the perfect position to unleash 1000 years of vengeance against his enemies, creating
the clone wars to gain emergency powers and enacting Order 66 to turn their army against
the Jedi Order. Establishing the First Galactic Empire, the
Sith Lord finally achieved the dream of Darth Bane by destroying the republic and wiping
out its jedi protectors to establish a Dark Lord as ruler of the galaxy. Believing the lineage of Bane ended with him,
Sidious took on apprentices like Darth Maul, Darth Tyrannus and Darth Vader, using them
to help forge his empire but not teaching them near enough to become a rival for power. Yet in the midst of a war with a rebel alliance,
Luke Skywalker convinced his father Darth Vader to return to the lightside and he sacrificed
his life to kill the Emperor during a moment of weakness. Although Sidious was so powerful his consciousness
survived and was transferred into clone bodies, he was eventually defeated for a final time
by the new jedi order of Luke Skywalker, and with him died the last direct dark side descendant
of Darth Bane. While his sith order ultimately failed to
secure their long-term rule over the galaxy, their thousand year journey succeeded in its
primary mission of destroying the republic and exterminating the jedi. And even after the death of Palpatine, a remnant
of the Banite order remained, as the Dark Lady Lumiya formed her own Sith Order in the
hopes of continuing the Bane’s lineage by taking Jacen Solo as an apprentice and turning
him into Darth Caedus, Master of the Sith. Now leading the Order, Caedus took the former
jedi Tahiri Veila as an apprentice only to be betrayed when she returned to the light
side. Darth Caedus then died at the hands of his
twin sister Jaina, ending the last Master of the Banite Sith
