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Comics Dark Empire Trilogy

Discussion in 'Literature' started by DarthDeviousTX, Jun 3, 2011.

  1. SheaHublin

    SheaHublin Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2008
    Oh, I know about those Usenet speculation origins of the "13 Dark Lords". What I've wondered for some years now is to what extent (if any) it may have influenced actual EU works. One still sees mention of it from time to time, and back in the day some authors must have at least been aware of it.

    As for the quote of "long dormant", it's from the original Essential Guide to Characters:

    That bit about "tens of thousands of years" is also meshes well with another remnant of the earlier EU bit in that the Sith originated from the First Great Schism circa 25,000 BBY, near the dawn of the Republic. While this did get changed to the later 6,900 BBY date in the 2005 New Chronology, a lot of works in between that and the first Characters Guide were written on the assumption that the Sith had actually emerged from the renegade Jedi of the First Schism.
     
  2. Dr. Steve Brule

    Dr. Steve Brule Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 7, 2012
    They ought to have remained that way. It makes so much more sense for the Jedi and the Sith to emerge from the same early split.
     
  3. Vorax

    Vorax Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jun 10, 2014
    I think they did keep the fact that Palpatine never intended for the Galactic Empire to survive without him intact in the new canon as it was noted in the Dark Empire Sourcebook.
     
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  4. SheaHublin

    SheaHublin Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2008
    Broodica- who? I had to look this one up. Turned out to be from FFG, which, while they are quality works, don't count as part of the EU if they are published after the year 2014, as the source mentioning her was. To note, my methodology for sorting out the EU does not include materials post-Disney. I do applaud your EU Apocrypha efforts, though when dealing strictly with Legends I only use works from 1976 to December of 2014.

    Yes, he certainly does. I always took him to have been one right from the first moment that I played Kotor 1 for the first time. His Tomb still contained several of what were his lightsaber crytals- ones that only came from the Alderaan System and Rafa V. When it is realized that the item placements in that game (though not in K2) are non-random and are always exactly the same, they must have been buried with Hord. How could a Dark Lord of the Sith have even obtained crystals from such worlds, so far from Sith Space, unless he had actually been to the Republic? The only conclusion is that he had to have been one of Pall's contemporaries. Kreia's mention of his lightsaber skills being considered remarkable, from the next game, only further reinforced that conclusion, given that only the Exiles used lightsabers, while their later descendants used swords. A master lightsaber combatant would also be highly likely to have survived the final Battle at Corbos that killed almost all of the other Dark Jedi.

    There is another suggestion that Hord was an Exile, courtesy of the Old Republic. If one reads the information relating to the "Jedi siege" and the Battles of Yn and Chabosh closely, there isn't really anything that prevents them from having taken place sometime during the Hundred Year Darkness. The Battle of Chabosh, for example, took place in Lahara Sector, which is nowhere near Sith Space at all. More likely that he encountered Khem Val sometime prior to the end of that conflict, and had him follow him into Exile. It doesn't really make much sense for those Battles to have taken place after their arrival in Sith Space, given that Tulak DID NOT join with Dreypa's faction that left the Stygian Caldera, for how else could he have had a Tomb in the Valley of the Dark Lords? None of those Exiles and their Sith followers who left ever returned to Sith Space.

    Hord also being the same as the unidentified Red-Armored Sith Lord Exile also helps leave open other slots in the dozen that Syn mentions.

    This is one of those things that makes me really dislike tOR, if only because so much of it clashes with what had previously been well established. I do not actually consider the Old Republic game, and most of its surrounding media, to be part of the EU in my own head-canon. I actually use the same "EU Apocrypha" approach you do for it, only accepting lore bits from it that don't contradict something previously established. That being said, there are ways to reconcile the existence of Ergast and Kallig early on without them having been Exiles. I place them among the next generation of Lords of the then-new Sith Empire, the children of the original Exiles, or from planets that the Sith Empire conquered. While they are early Sith Lords, they aren't likely to be among the original Exiles, given that they aren't among those few that left with Dreypa, nor are they among those known to have been on Korriban, nor to have actually reigned as the Dark Lord.

    For Pharshol- have we ever seen his original form? If it had any Sith features, then he couldn't have been an Exile. Vacuus- well, we don't really know when Begeren was conquered, exactly. At best, they are of the next generation that came after the Exiles, as they do seem to be Human.

    No idea on Barel-Slathborn, but Andeddu certainly is an Exile. Just going by use of a lightsaber, his Human features and seeming lack of the distinctive facial features of the Sith species (what we do see of his face is more that of a desiccated corpse), his birth on Prakith, his ability to return to Prakith (which had to have happened while a hyper-route to that part of the Deep Core was still valid), his being a known contemporary of Muur or at least close enough to have been very familiar with his works, the Jedi knowing of him and their attempts to his existence from the Galactic record (which they also did for the other Exiles), all of these indicate that he was one of those original Exiles. Nothing else makes any sense.

    I always took Bo-Vanda to be a later Sith Lord, and I rather like the idea of a female Sith (species) Lord. We never really saw many.

    Syn clearly was allied with Dreypa against Pall, but something had to have happened, as Lost Tribe: Spiral, in which Dreypa does mention her, does not actually show her as having went with him out of the Caldera. We know from Pall's own spirit that the Exiles did eventually turn on each other, and it is likely that the dispute was over whether or not to return to the Republic. Syn clearly wanted to return, as we know from her own writings in Book of Sith, yet she didn't. She is also not known to have actually reigned as Dark Lord, and is never actually said to have a Tomb on Korriban- only an "empty Throne" (which must be the one contemporary to her fellow Exiles seen in Empire's End). She was likely killed in the internecine fighting between her fellow Exiles.

    Something similar with XoXaan- she isn't actually ever called a Dark Lord or known to have reigned, and all we know of her ultimate fate is that her Holocron was hidden away in a very small nook on Korriban that had nothing else in it, and certainly not room for a body. She also isn't shown to be among those who returned to the Republic with Dreypa. She was also likely killed among the fighting between the Exiles when they turned on each other.

    There's also no chance she was the Ambria Sith Sorceress- that was somebody who fled the Fall of the Sith Empire almost 2,000 years later.[/quote][/quote]
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2018
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  5. SheaHublin

    SheaHublin Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2008
    I'm not keen on using the purported Dark Temple construction timeframe as evidence of beings who used it having been Exiles, as the Dark Temple might be a LOT older than most realize...

    That Dark Temple is either based on a much earlier design or is itself much, much older than even the Sith Empire. Either that, or we have an astonishing architectural coincidence between tOR and Tales of the Jedi:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    ...that Dark Temple look familiar? And the background of the (un-named) Planet shown in TotJ looking exactly like Dromund Kaas?

    Amazing coincidence, or evidence that later Sith only moved into a pre-existing structure?

    I say it's no coincidence...
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2018
  6. sidv88

    sidv88 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 22, 2005
    Sort of off topic, but I'm worried that the rich history we have from Legends of the Sith will be reduced to a checklist squashed into a 2 hour movie (something I'm worried about with Solo, I'll find out next month). If in the future they do delve into Sith origins, I hope they make it into a tv show or at least a series of movies instead of 1 movie.
     
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  7. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    I hope that there will be some consistency of direction and vision. For example, Andeddu and the TOR Sith Empire don't fit well with what was shown in Golden Age of the Sith, which itself doesn't fit well with Dark Lords of the Sith. I also thought that far too little time passed in between the era of Naga Sadow and the era of Exar Kun.
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2018
  8. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    FIFY :p

    a watsoninan possibility is that the Sith just took inspiration from the buildings seen in DotJ or similar buildings created by the same people
     
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  9. sidv88

    sidv88 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 22, 2005
    Too little time? There was an entire 1,000 years separating Sadow and Kun...
     
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  10. Sinrebirth

    Sinrebirth Mod-Emperor of the EUC, Lit, RPF and SWC star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2004
    [/quote][/QUOTE]

    Well then there’s no point me disagreeing with you if you intend to cherry pick what Legends counts... as ToR was pre-2014... no?

    None of the Exiles returned during Pall’s lifetime. That’s all we can say.

    I will say that a tomb or throne in the Valley implies a Dark Lord, not a Sith Lord.

    Regardless, the Sorceress of Ambria predates the GHW. She lived millennia plural before the Old Sith Wars, as per the TotJ sourcebook.

    Bo Vanda’s Knowledge is of the Ancient Sith; we have no evidence of Sith Holocrons created by species that are not purebloods pre-Sadow that are not among the Exiles.

    The ToR Dark Temple was built over an existing one they found when they returned. Ergast is not a Sith pureblood or half breed, but was buried in the Temple built by Parshol, a Dark Lord of the Sith; not a Sith King..:

    Yet Ergast is building a Holocron. Any Sith leader who is building a Holocron in ancient times has to be among the original bunch of human.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  11. sidv88

    sidv88 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 22, 2005
    King Adas built a holocron in 27700 BBY, long before any humans showed up.
     
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  12. Sinrebirth

    Sinrebirth Mod-Emperor of the EUC, Lit, RPF and SWC star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2004
    Yes. That’s my point.

    Any Sith leader ‘who is not a Sith species, half breed or otherwise’, has to be among the Exiles and close to 6,900 BBY.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
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  13. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    That isn't long when you're dealing with 20,000-year-old civilizations.
    The EU always presented the Sith as the Pepsi to the Jedi's Coke, so they should be as old as the Jedi.
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2018
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  14. comradepitrovsky

    comradepitrovsky Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 5, 2017
    I view TOR as like, continuity adjacent. If there's something that fits nicely, keep it, if there's something that's too radical, drop it.
     
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  15. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 8, 2016
    It never bothered me honestly that the sith origins were relatively more recent and another dark Jedi group were the progenitors of the first great schism.
     
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  16. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    A Star Wars Insider issue suggested that Veitch considered the idea that Palpatine was possessed by an agent of the civilization that Dark Horse intended Nom Anor to be part of. I wonder if this was supposed to be what many speculated the "True Sith" to be: a pre-Republic, extra-galactic, Sith species civilization that colonized Korriban and over time lost contact with their colony, causing the colonists to become primitive.

    @SheaHublin, who do you think the red-saber-wielding, samurai-armored character who appears when Ood Bnar says, "Some of them, I'm ashamed to say, were Jedi" is?
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2018
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  17. Dr. Steve Brule

    Dr. Steve Brule Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 7, 2012
    Do you remember what issue of Insider that was?

    As for the True Sith from KOTOR II, there was an interview with Chris Avellone from a few years ago where he addressed it, and claimed that he envisioned the True Sith to essentially have been what they were eventually revealed as in TOR, basically just another Sith Empire cut off from the rest of the galaxy. I'm not sure I fully believe that, but that's at least what he claimed after the fact.
     
  18. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    Here's my source: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/dark-empire-article-series-in-insider.50032523/
     
  19. Dr. Steve Brule

    Dr. Steve Brule Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 7, 2012
    Oh, that article. I should point out that you're drawing an inference that's not actually there; at least from what I remember from that article there's no evidence that linked the resurrected Palpatine to the proto-Vong.
     
  20. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    I was speculating that the idea of an extra-galactic civilization that was mad about Palpatine's downfall came from there. I was half-asleep when I wrote that post.

    Other interesting things that they could have done include revealing that the Sith species was descended from the First Great Schism Dark Jedi, revealing that one Great Schism produced the "Darth" Dark Lords and the other produced the "non-Darth" Dark Lords, etc.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2018
  21. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    Luke: Who are you?
    "non-Darth" Dark Lords: We are the Knight... of Ren!
    Luke: No! Not the Knights of Ren!
     
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  22. SheaHublin

    SheaHublin Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2008
    Well, we don't know just how old the structures seen at the start of the Holocron scene from TOTJ are- if they really are much older than the Sith, or not. The Exiles could have seen them from their time as Jedi, and they or their later descendants in Sith Space could have utilized that knowledge to erect their own Dark Side focusing structures, such as the Dromund Kaas Temple.

    The possibility also exists that the artists/designers did happen to see the same images when doing background research for the game, and subconsciously recalled it.
     
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  23. SheaHublin

    SheaHublin Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2008
    Somebody currently unknown/unnamed. Originally, there was only the Great Schism- or as Thon puts it, "the ancient time, when the Jedi Knights fought the armies of the Dark Side". The Holocron (which Thon noted as having passed among the Masters for thousands of years, and which itself is very old), narrative begins "in a time before recorded history" and progresses through many ages to eventually end at the black-armored red lightsaber wielder.

    It is a depiction that is a remnant of the earlier idea that lightsabers had always been around in the same form- without cords and battery packs. You can see this same thing with the example of Roni Von-Wasaki. It is also one of the earliest, if not THE earliest, of a non-Vader Dark Jedi wielding a red lightsaber. Later changes/refinements to EU lore mean that the scene in question ahs to take place sometime well after the Great Hyperspace War, unless the armored figure somehow figured out how to create a lightsaber without external power requirements. Yet it also must take place some time before the Sith War of 4,000 BBY. That really only leaves the murky Third Schism as a potential timeframe, unless of course it was just some renegade Jedi acting on his own.

    The visual image does resemble Tulak Hord- and if Tulak had somehow figured out how to create a lightsaber without a battery pack ages before anyone else, it would certainly account for just how his skill was "considered remarkable even in his time, when many true Masters lived". It would also mesh well with the near-certainty that Hord was once a Jedi and an original Exile, and led troops (as the figure is shown doing). If this is allowed, then Hord is an excellent candidate for the figure.
     
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  24. SheaHublin

    SheaHublin Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2008
    tOR is still ongoing (isn't it?), so it is still subject to change. We can only really assess it and the lore within once it has come to an end.

    As it relates to characters mentioned within it having possibly been Exiles, it really isn't possible to fit them in with there having only been 12. Although, we do have to assume that Sorzus Syn was telling the truth about there only being 12.

    In addition to the confirmed Exiles:
    1) Ajunta Pall
    2) Sorzus Syn
    3) Baron Remulus Dreypa
    4) XoXaan
    5) Karness Muur
    6) The red-armored Sith Lord (possibly Tulak Hord)

    ...and all but explicitly confirmed:
    7) Tulak Hord
    8) Darth Andeddu

    ...we also have the 4 Throne Figures seen in Empire's End:
    9) enthroned Exile #1 (with the Oracle Stone)
    10) enthroned Exile #2
    11) enthroned Exile #3
    12) enthroned Exile #4
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    They are specifically noted as being Exiles by Palpatine, and are clearly not of the Sith species. They are also buried in a part of Korriban where only Human statuary is present. While we clearly see 5 Thrones, only 4 (at most) have Figures on them, and only 4 spirits communicate with Palps (the "Darth Vader Throne" would originally have belonged to Sorzus Syn). Those 4 round out the count for the full dozen, or there is room for only one more if Red-armor and Tulak Hord are the same. Of that original dozen, only Pall and Hord are known to have become the supreme Dark Lord of the Sith, based on burials in theor own Tombs in the Valley of the Dark Lords (as opposed to elsewhere on Korriban) and on various lore descriptions.

    Dreypa took at least 2 followers with him out of the Stygian Caldera, but not more than 4, as shown in Spiral. Luckily, they aren't really shown very clearly, and can be reconciled as having been among the slave species already present among the worlds of the Sith as found by the Exiles. Either that, or minor minions sent along with them as punishment, as if Hord was an Exile he had to have already had Khem Vhal with him prior to Corbos. But Dreypa himself is the only actual Exile known to have left, with the exception of Darth Andeddu, which likely happened separately. Spiral shows Dreypa as the only prominent person to have left, which given Syn's own desires to leave, indicates that something might have happened to her. Dreypa was not the sort to share power with an equal, even though he worked with her prior to leaving to map Sith Space.

    None of the characters you mentioned in tOR can be an Exile by simple process of elimination, or at most only one can. Nobody among the Exiles seen in Empire's End can also have been buried in a Dark Temple on Dromund Kaas. The tOR characters can, however, easily be among the first of the next generation, the children and so on of at least two of the Exiles (both Pall and Dreypa are said to have left descendants). Still early enough to have mostly or entirely Human features.

    Same thing for the Holocrons- we know from the examples of Adas's Holocron AND that of King Nakgru from around 17,000 BBY being found by Sorzus Syn that it wasn't long after their arrival that the Exiles discovered how to make Sith Holocrons. XoXaan made her own, for example. We know from the example of Naga Sadow's Holocron that descendants of the Exiles were heirs to that knowledge, which had been passed down to them. Those Holocrons from tOR can easily have been made by those of the next generation of Sith- children of the original Exiles. Not proof that they themselves were Exiles, though.

    Regarding Bo Vanda- no explicit timeframe is ever given for her beyond sometime during the ancient Sith Empire.

    That Sith Sorceress from Ambria- well, this is where TotJC seems to contradict itself: it explicitly indicates that survivors of the Fall of the Sith Empire were responsible, but it doesn't say that they fled the Fall. It also, later, says that they and the Sorceress were there for millennia. Or their spirits, after the cataclysm. It is known that the ancient Sith knew techniques for living for centuries, but not for 2,000-plus years. The logical conclusion is that very old Lords were already on Ambria when the Great Hyperspace War broke out, and that Ambria escaped the ravages of the war and was overlooked, only for the surviving Sith on it to destroy themselves. Their spirits were then sealed by Thon over 1,000 years later. Alternatively, they were already spirits by the time of the Fall, spirits that the Jedi did not come across and destroy until Thon arrived, a scenario that allows for the Sorceress and her spirits to have been over 2,000 years old (the "millennia" plural) yet also have been considered as survivors of the war from a certain point of view.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    There is another explanation. Notice how the first blurb indicates that Ambria was a focal point for the gathering of Sith who survived the Fall- that could be a reference to Vitiate's group. The Jedi of Thon's time simply might not have realized that, and assumed it was other survivors. We know that Vitiate's group wandered for some time, and we also know he conducted rituals that left behind widespread planetary devastation. Could the Sorceress have been aligned with him?
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2018
  25. comradepitrovsky

    comradepitrovsky Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 5, 2017
    Wouldn't Kallig have been one of the original exiles?
     
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