Lit Banite Sith

After reading Darth Plagueis I have been thinking about the line of Banite Sith.

Luceno was great at giving insights through Plagueis' musings of the history of the line, which consisted of 30+ Sith.

I find the order to be really interesting, not only in terms of the Grand Plan objectives of dessimation of the Jedi Order and reacquisition of galactic power, but how they operated as an order. Plagueis mentions that the order have been unable to achieve their goals to date due to several reasons:

(i) individual Sith Lords succumbing to personal indulgences which distracted them.
(ii) Darth Gravid's dissention and destruction of years of collected lore and knowledge which delayed the Sith by 500 years.
(iii) Inconsistent adherence to the Rule of Two and divided opinions on the usefulness of the rule e.g. Tenebrous did not honour it (Venamis), Cognus' apprentice Millenial became a heretic and fled his master, requiring training of a new apprentice which takes time.

On top of these issues, the Sith had to operate via third parties and amass wealth in order to fund their operations and the future order. I feel that there is plenty of room for stories about the Sith Lords inbetween. Luceno has set up some background about the way in which the order operated and how each master has their own interpretation of how domination could be achieved:

(i) Tenebrous' Master - Esoteric in nature and was responsible for the opening the Rend which allowed the Jedi to begin to feel the dark side again
(ii) Tenebrous' maxichlorian virus plan (later abandoned) and future divination based on Bith mathematical calculations paired with dark side abilities.
(iii) Gravid's heretical introduction of compassion as a means to conquest.

Would anyone else be interested in stories of the reign of these Sith lords? Luceno did a great job and in my opinion should get a contract to write more Sith stories which follow their lives, their apprentices and their approach to furthering the Grand Plan?

Discuss

 

The 900 years between Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil and Darth Plagueis could be a very interesting period- despite being superficially peaceful on the surface.

The Essential Guide to Warfare has been dropping a few hints about the era.

 

Brilliant - I agree.. I think there is a lot of potential for some excellent stories.

How Sith philosophy develops between Dynasty of Evil and Darth Plagueis is hinted at by Luceno, who had the skill to introduce a the secret history of the Sith as not blindly adhering to Bane's RoT (yet Plagueis says Bane is almost deified by the dynasty, but they did not agree on all of his principles. Couple that with Apprentices who develop their own ideas which leads to an impasse e.g. Tenebrous and Plagueis between Master and Apprentice, you have a tumultuous relationship which is founded on a shared goal, but different desires on how to achieve that goal.

Its reminiscent of the diagreements between Freud and his students who branched off (such as Adler) and formed their own theories. The battle is intellectual, philosophical and physical as each generation of Sith rise and fall under the nose of the Jedi.

There could be some near misses at being exposed, abductions of Jedi or internecine struggles which would make for a really interesting read!

Also I have noticed that each generation of Sith has a pairing of Master and Apprentice with opposable skills, ie. Bane is more practical force powers and fighting skills vs Zannah with more esoteric, sorceress powers and physical skills focussed on defence rather than attack.

However, whether this choice serves a narrative better is superceded by it actually making sense for a Master to have an apprentice who can only learn so much from the master and must take charge of their own education after a certain point. This diversifies the knowledge of the whole and strengthens the individual Sith, because no Master can be sure of who will actually achieve the goals and what powers they may have.

Finally, it would be interesting to see how some Sith may work towards the goal, knowing they will not be the ones to achieve the end result, its a rather altruistic endeavour which is unusual for self serving Sith.

 

Omo Bouri! Tiin's master could be the centre of a novel/comic.

 

was Omi Bouri a sith then?

 

I'd like to see each Sith in the Bane line get their own book, all the way up to Plagueis. Start with Zannah, and show how each Sith contributed in their own way to "The Grand Plan". I've actually thought about how I'd start this whole endeavor where Dynasty of Evil left off: maybe have Zannah and Cognus go back to Bane's estate on Ciutric IV to gather all of his Sith artifacts, erase any and all evidence, then have them book it to Set Harth's mansion on Nal Hutta. Remember, Bane's estate was compromised, so it makes sense for the Sith to change locations. Zannah hinted that she would eventually have to track Set down, so heading to his mansion (and making it a new base of operations) would be a logical next step. Of course, that opens up a whole bunch of new possibilities for Zannah and Cognus to gain influence in the criminal underworld.

 

totally!

Cognus is an interesting character. I would imagine the Sith gained knowledge from this skill and it would be interesting for apprentices who come further down the line to refer back to her knowledge and holocrons

 

I think the fall of Darth Gravid would make a really interesting book. What is it that would drive a Sith to embrace compassion? What was he like as a dark lord before that? What did his apprentice think about it?

I really like that the Rule of Two has been 'weakened' in a way. Ever since I first started reading about it I've had serious doubts as to how much the Sith between Bane and Sidious followed it, considering how many different dark siders Palpatine was manipulating, It was nice learning that he wasn't the only post-Bane Sith to simply pay lip service to it.

 

I'd be on board with a "LEGACY OF BANE: ORDER OF THE SITH LORDS" collection of short stories, or something. That's about the extent of it, though. Every Dark Lord getting their own book would be overkill.

 

No, she was not. She was just a prominent Jedi in the time period in between the Bane novels and TPM.
She could be an interesting character in a novel set in this time period!

 

I like that! Maybe done by Drew and Luceno I'd like.

 

One of my favourite things about Plagueis was the dual identities of the sith lords and how they acquired wealth and power through business dealings. It would be interesting to see more of that rather than the usual "herp derp dark side power lighting" and "flashing swords" which is usually all that sith do these days

 

My favourite too. To me its just so much cooler that the sith become further distanced from the militarised order or lightning wielding, lightsaber swinging psychopaths. The more contemporary Sith lords are just as passionate about the cause, but more reserved in their dealings. They forge careers and labour to secure further resources such as wealth and influence that serve them personally in their lives, but also contribute wealth to the Sith legacy.

So far, we know that:

Bane (Sep Omek) was a information broker
Zannah was also an information broker during her apprenticeship
Cognus (The Huntress, actual name unknown) was an Assassin before her apprenticeship
Vectivus (?) Businessman and mining entrepreneur
Tenebrous (Rugess Nome) was a starship designer
Plagueis (Hego Damask) was initially an accountant (or posed as such for Tenebrous) and was Magister of Damask Holdings

Sidious (Palpatine) Chancellor.
Tyranus (Dooku) Prior Jedi Master

We need some more stories which fill in the blanks of the other Sith lords, their aliases and professions as their 'beards' for their real identities.

I'd be particularly interested in who Darth Gravid was and who he posed as which may be linked to his 'fall' to the light side.

 

Once I made up a backstory for Count Dooku.
It involved Palpatine and Valorum sending Dooku on a mission seeking a missing senator. Dooku ultimately ended up on Korriban.
The Senator was under the influence of Sith spirits. Dooku had to use the Dark Side in order to survive.
It also dealt with Dooku returning to Serenno and meeting his family members.

 

That's lightning.

 

I think that the generations between Bane and Palpatine are just a gold mine waiting to be tapped by the writers, a perfect opportunity to expand on various aspects of the mythos, as well as many things we saw during the PT. As i've often said before, though Palpatine was assuredly the most powerful Sith of all time and the one who finally achieved the dream of millenia of Sith before him, his achievement was only possible due to ane entire line of Sith working towards the same goal as him. Because of their actions, their successes and failures, Palpatine was the man he was and achieved galactic dominance for the cause. It would be truly interesting to see the part each individual Sith played in helping or hampering the Grand Plan.

 

This is a bit random, but I wonder what they do with the master's lightsabers?

After Zannah killed Bane she gave it temporarily to the Huntress. After Plagueis killed Tenebrous he took his lightsaber and used it briefly on the Woebegone against the crew. After that, it's no longer mentioned and I wonder what they do with them?

I'd like to think that unlike the jedi, the sith keep these lightsabers of fallen masters in all their archives, along with all the other artifacts like holocrons and amulets and dark side instruments/paraphenalia.

What do you guys think?

 

DarthJenari, I love your posts, we think alike!

The 900 years need to be explored! How do you let these writers know there is so much demand for these types of stories? Any advice?

 

SaucySarlaac I like the idea of the Sith keeping each master's lightsaber in some kind of masoleum or temple as a tribute to the generations who came before, the ones who laid the foundation.

I think the writers may know and are just biding their time. After all, both the Darth Bane trilogy and Darth Plagueis were insanely successful. And the Sith keep popping up post ROTJ, though I think they're now overused, so they don't have a problem using Sith. It's just a matter of them moving to a different and rather unexplored time period.

If I had to choose who i'd want a novel on next it'd either be Zannah and Cognus (Both are just begging for a duology) or Dooku.

 

Yeah thats what I thought.

Bane kept a library in an annex to his mansion and Plagueis had his own massive library. He mentions that Tenebrous also had some items he would acquire through probate.

I think they would have a penchant for keeping them in order to honour them out of respect for their work. It stands to reason that they dont always carry their lightsabers anyway, most of the time they must hide them somewhere because carrying one constantly would be a bad move.

I would like to think maybe some masters re-use the past master lightsabers, like maybe Bane's. It would be like a holy relic to them.

 

I'm not sure about the lightsabers, but keeping all Sith-related information, holocrons and artifacts makes sense given that the Banite Sith desired to amass knowledge, and wanted to do so at least partly to avoid making the same mistakes that weakened/brought down previous Sith orders.

As for the thread's original questions, I'd love to see, say, a trio or quartet of novels about the Banite Sith, with each novel focusing on one particularly important/controversial member of the lineage. That would IMO be enough to keep the novels really interesting without them becoming too many and (likely) repetitive, at least in terms of themes. Luceno is the obvious choice to write these novels, but Karpyshyn and Stover could also do great work.

 

[quote="Darth_Xeres, post: 50446017, As for the thread's original questions, I'd love to see, say, a trio or quartet of novels about the Banite Sith, with each novel focusing on one particularly important/controversial member of the lineage. That would IMO be enough to keep the novels really interesting without them becoming too many and (likely) repetitive, at least in terms of themes. Luceno is the obvious choice to write these novels, but Karpyshyn and Stover could also do great work.[/quote]

Luceno all the way! and agreed, not a book on each just one which follows an important/controversial member and cover those sith immediately preceding as it was done in plagueis, that way we get the story fleshed out, but some mystery remains.

 

I like the idea of the novels focusing on immediately preceding Sith generations as well as the Sith Lord who's the main subject of the book. Also, each novel could show the overall progression of the Sith's grand plan for the galaxy, with political/mercantile/financial corruption in particular affecting more and more leaders, common people, worlds, whole sectors. And/or you could have the Sith working from the shadows to weaken/exterminate important political leaders/families known for their traditional honesty and integrity in one novel, and have good characters in a following novel lamenting that "if leader/family X was still around, things would have never devolved into this mess."

 

Yes, like Tenebrous uses a metaphor to describe Plagueis as a stone dropped in water, the ripples of the sith's toiling in the shadows would be nice to see though the eyes of the rest of the galaxy hurt by the endeavours of the sith, but unaware of why or how... I would love to see maybe a Sith heading up like a crime organisation like black sun in a covert way, but even more covertly, is actually a Sith lord.

The sith keep an eye out for forceful beings who slip through the jedi's fingers and I'd like to imagine some apprentices are recruited through some strange backgrounds.

I'd also love it if Gravid were a doctor or something like that, working in a field where helping others influenced his herectical leadership.

 

We actually that Cognus eventually overthrew Zannah. And took Darth Millennial as an apprentice. But went rogue or something and founded the Prophets of the Dark Side on Dromund Kaas