Eyrezer posted:

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What is the Empire Reborn/Hethrir mention in the article?

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Eyrezer posted:

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What is the Empire Reborn/Hethrir mention in the article?

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Halagad Ventor posted:

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Some of the elements I'd worked into my original version of Blackhole/Lord Shadowspawn for The Emperor's Pawns were integrated into the Dark Underlord's story, chiefly his being a quasi-living dark side spirit.

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Halagad_Ventor posted:

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...And somebody's head just exploded.

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JMM posted:

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Very impressed with this article.

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Blader5489 posted:

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Is there any chance poor folk like myself will get to read this article? This sounds like the definitive Sith article I've been waiting for and it would be a shame if I'm forever unable to read it (barring a future in which I can and will pay $40 for a Hyperspace account).

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Rogue_Follower posted:

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Ok, a round up of opinions, observations, et cetera on ye article.

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Rogue_Follower posted:

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-Sithspit and sithspawn are established as being Corellian curse words, which makes sense considering their (most common) sources in the X-wing novels.

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Rogue_Follower posted:

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-Bloodsoup, from Jedi vs. Sith, is established as an ancient Sith species food/beverage.

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Rogue_Follower posted:

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-As noted above, the Sith seem to be primarily left-handed. (As deduced from the Sith lanvarok, which works better on the left hand.)

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Rogue_Follower posted:

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-King Adas. Brought back from limbo, at last.

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Rogue_Follower posted:

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-It seems the Rakatans had the first holocrons.

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Rogue_Follower posted:

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Could they be possibly related to that "mind-prison" in KotOR? And could the "mind-mazes" in Children of the Jedi be Rakatan in origin?

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QuentinGeorge posted:

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Belia Darzu?

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Thrawn McEwok posted:

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Isn't that a Chewbacca Defense in itself...?

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Thrawn McEwok posted:

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It looks as though contention between competing rulers is a part of early Sith culture - I suppose you could argue that this led to a "my Sith Lord right or wrong" social setup, a nationalism that saw struggle and suffering as useful and heroic things (nice Nazi ideological parallels here); when the idea of Sith unity came about, this became an empire-wide doctrine...

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Thrawn McEwok posted:

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So the Sith are the original Space Nazis?

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DarthMane2 posted:

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Abel what is your reason for not including the Sith offer to the Mandalorians to fight hte Republic during the years before the Mandalorian Wars?

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Charlii posted:

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A question about the images used. Where is the image on the Sith (species) from? I can't remember seeing it in the comics. Also, the image accompanying the Dark Underlord tale. Is the supposed to be the Underlord himself? Where is that from? I guess these weren't original pieces, since I could identify all the other pictures.

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QuentinGeorge posted:

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I'd add Darth Bane in there as a dark-side fundamentalist. And Kopecz...ultimate pragmatist?

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Barriss_Coffee posted:

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Did you just confirm that Blackhole is Shadowspawn?

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Barriss_Coffee posted:

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Thanks for the philosophy refresher there...

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Halagad_Ventor posted:

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Oro_Orbis posted:

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Anything more on Sith philosophy?

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Some clarification...

Oro_Orbis posted:

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Halagad_Ventor posted:

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While the left-handedness of the Sith was a deliberate invokation to all things "not right" associated with it, it wasn't a ref to the Left Hand Path per se. The original Sith species was very specifically set up as anti- or (better yet) pre-dichotomatic.

More later.

Abel

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Here's the quotation from Evil Never Dies I was referring to in this statement:

"These barbarous practices were accepted [by the Sith race] not as contrary or antagonistic to life, but integral to it. War was quite literally a concept on par with peace or serenity; conceptually, the Sith people did not or could not differentiate one state from the other. There was, ultimately, only existence."

I wouldn't call this even the Sith species' philosophy, but it's pre-philosophy. Nearly every religion and in fact every ordered system of beliefs strives toward a concept of oneness, with multiplicity usually explained as a kind misperception. Here the Sith race has intuitively or pre-consciously attained oneness, circumventing not only Abrahamic dualism but the trap/game of logic in general. You could say they're presented as a race of true Taoists (daojia), philosophically. This is likely an impossible position to evolve, but it's feasibility is also essentially impossible to disprove. As I see it, the loftiest goal of fiction is to explore the impossible or an approximation of it in order to expand our imaginations.

As a whole, likely post-King Adas (who is something like the first self-conscious Sith... again, probably technically impossibly) the Sith tend to be obsessed with power, though individuals and groups vary significantly from one another. Darth Ruin was a solipsist. Lord Kaan was a social darwinist. Millennial and the Prophets were mystics. The Jensaarai are something like accidental post-modernists (which is thoroughly post-modern). The Sorcerers of Tund as I envisioned them would've been philosophical skeptics.

Lumiya in Legacy of the Force is arguably a kind of deconstructionist, though depending on how her character is ultimately handled, she may turn out to only be a sophist (a.k.a. The Chewbacca Defense).

In any case, the original Sith pre-King Adas you could say were utterly intuitive. Though they committed what we think of as barbarous acts, without a concept of barbarism (which is to say evil), these things were not looked on as evil, merely living. Pain and pleasure were two sides of the same coin, and not only was there no coin, but because there was no coin, the Sith couldn't even think, "There is no coin."

...And somebody's head just exploded.

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Halagad_Ventor posted:

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Thrawn McEwok posted:

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Isn't that a Chewbacca Defense in itself...?

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When isn't it?

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Halagad_Ventor posted:

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Interesting interpretation, T-Mac.

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Halagad_Ventor posted:

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Closer to a conceptually idealized version of Pre-Columbian Native Americans, IMO.

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