Lit Red Sith darkside inclination: Genetic or Cultural?

Nobody has ever read Joe Bongiorno's cancelled article (titled Supernatural Encounters: The Trial and Transformation of Arhul Hextrophon), which is why we're reduced to speculation. Here's what Bongiorno said about his cancelled article on Dan Wallace's blog:

That's all we got.

 

So it's a male Abeloth.

 

Until DOTJ TPOB revealed the backstory of the Rakata, I always wondered if Abeloth was root of all evil in Star Wars.

 

Actually, if Bongiorno evers has a chance to publish his article, it could be a good idea to link the Bedlam spirits with the Ones and Abeloth.

 

Kind of an odd choice, since Pomojema was a benevolent god of healing.

 

Maybe it's a case of a god with apotropaic qualities?

 

All those Cthulhu cultists probably said he was a benevolent god of healing too.

 

So, have we found the corruptor of the Red Sith? LelalMekha LivingJediDream Ulicus

 

It's likely we'll never know, but on a speculative level, Typhojem makes a pretty good candidate. The fact that the Red Sith hailed Ajunta Pall as an avatar of Typhojem leaves me pensive.

 

I think there's a good chance we'll find out. Bring on the Adas novel! LelalMekha, what makes you think it's likely that we'll never know?

 

I thought the Red Sith were corrupted in their war against the Rakata. It was the New Jedi Order series except Kyp's faction won out.

 

Definately a possibility. And I love the Kyp analogy!

 

Luke's faction was the Sorcerers of Tund.

 

The Sorcerers of Tund were lightsiders?

 

They weren't corrupted by the dark side, which is why they were banished.

 

Where is it said that that's why they were banished?

On another note, are the Kwa the first known Force-users?

 

Presumably the Celestials were.

http://web.archive.org/web/20090425...om/default.asp?x=starwars/article/KOTORweben5

"Even though the original Sith were steeped in sortilege, sentient sacrifices, and wars, they lived spiritually serene lives, never doubting conflict's integral role to existence. Only with their introduction to methodic Rakatan malice did these Sith truly embrace the dark side. However, Sith priests interpreted the death of their Sith'ari in the Rakatan conflict as a sign to reject this concept. These heretics were banished from the Sith homeworld, following their instincts to the Force-soaked world Tund."

 

The Red Sith seemed to already be quite violent when the Rakata showed up according to that.

Btw, I miss Zorrixor. He would have loved this thread.

 

(edit time ran out)
Am I right that the Red Sith-Rakata encounter was created by Pena to explain how the Red Sith had Jedi stuff before 6900 BBY?

And when Essential Reader's Companion talks about the intended Vong-Sith relation, by "Sith" do they mean the Exiles or the Red Sith?

Ulicus LelalMekha LivingJediDream

 

(edit time ran out again)
What does everyone think of the Sith species? Good idea? Bad idea? Neutral?

 

Well, it was George Lucas idea to make "the Dark Lord of the Sith" the ruler of species.
Anderson and Veitch just used the same idea.
Lucas came also up with Darth Bane, the one who introduced the Rule of Two.

So, when you consider all things, Lucas did have quite some influence on the pre-TPM period.

 

This is a groundbreaking revelation to me. If you provide a source, I will worship you forever.

How I see it is that GL has ideas for the Old Republic era but doesn't care about anything that doesn't involve movie characters.

 

Originally, Zahn intended the Noghri to be Sith. That way, Vader would be 'the Dark Lord of the Sith'.
I think in the endnotes of Heir to the Empire, Zahn mentioned Lucas came up with 'the Dark Lord of the Sith'-idea, but that Zahn could not use it because maybe in the future Lucas intended to do something with it.
Although, I am not entirely sure it was in the endnotes that I read it.
I just know I read it somewhere.

 

GL repeatedly called Vader "Dark Lord of the Sith" throughout the making of the OT. EU authors interpreted that to mean that Vader rules a species called the Sith. GL told Zahn not to use that interpretation because it would contradict the Rule of Two. However, GL allowed Veitch and KJA to use that interpretation in TOTJ because TOTJ takes place too long before the movies for GL to care about continuity with the movies.

 

Ulicus, first, thank you immensely for making me aware of that archived version of Evil Never Dies. I didn't know that had survived.

Secondly, regarding Adas and the Sith species generally, there's a narrative I've been building there through Evil Never Dies, my work on the KOTOR Campaign Guide, and the Karnak Tetsu/Sorcerers of Tund supplement, and I'll get to that more explicitly in a moment. But I presaged the path (or "the way," as it were) a long time ago regarding the different Sith-related philosophies we'd seen when I wrote END (re-posted below):

'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.'

So, yes, the reference to the Anzati's connection to the Sith race was a way to hedge my bets ... though also, or more so, a way to reference a highly ambiguous throwaway from an Anzati article in Star Wars Gamer #1 (which you can see very clearly here). Next, regarding the above statement about the Sorcerers of Tund, I was referring to a version of them I'd written before doing Karnak Tetsu ... though the two aren't that far apart philosophically. The form of philosophical skepticism of which I was speaking was more specifically Pyrrhonism, which has some strong parallels with Taoism. And when I decided to make the Sorcerers of Tund outcasts of the original Sith species, I was an intention to reinforce the Taoist concept outlined for them above.

So, you have the referent line suggestive of non-dichotomatic Taoism in Evil Never Dies quoted in the mini-Sith philosophy essay above. Now the corroborative passages from the KOTOR Campaign Guide and Karnak Tetsu supplement.

"Three thousand years before the founding of the Republic, Adas's hegemony is invaded by the Rakatan Infinite Empire, an immensely powerful interstellar nation. Here, later Sith would say, they prove their right to rule the galaxy. Outsmarting the technologically superior invaders, Adas conquers the conquerors, sacrificing his life in the process. With the aliens' technology, the Sith prosper, colonizing nearby worlds and even banishing a group of pureblooded Sith as far away as Tund. But there is still a greater gift the Infinite Empire bequeathed to the Sith--the dark side of the Force."

As you can see, the thrust here toward what upset the non-dichotomatic balance of the Sith species is strongly attributed to the Rakata after all, who rupture the "only existence" paradigm they had by bequeathing to them knowledge of the dark side of the Force as a distinct concept. To complete the old metaphor: the coin has been revealed.

Now the complimentary Karnak Tetsu passage:

"The secret of the universe -- its professed possession is no small claim. But beyond Republic space, an entire people allege just that. Karnak Tetsu is one of these Sorcerers of Tund, descendants of the Sith race.

Even though the original Sith were steeped in sortilege, sentient sacrifices, and wars, they lived spiritually serene lives, never doubting conflict's integral role to existence. Only with their introduction to methodic Rakatan malice did these Sith truly embrace the dark side. However, Sith priests interpreted the death of their Sith'ari in the Rakatan conflict as a sign to reject this concept. These heretics were banished from the Sith homeworld, following their instincts to the Force-soaked world Tund.

This pureblooded Sith society combines science, ontology, and magic. Convinced by their Rakatan interactions that all sentients are Force-sensitive, the Sorcerers of Tund proclaim that the omnipresence of the Force (or "the Unity") illuminates the deception of dualities and multiplicity. Their cosmology views life as perfectly harmonious and the existence of true opposites as an illusion."

Here the point is really driven home. The Sorcerers' "secret of the universe" is the Tao-like non-dichotomatic beliefs of the Sith species prior to the Rakata's "revealing the coin" trick, and is hence, almost tautologically, called the Unity. The Sith priesthood took umbrage with the Rakata's introduction of dualism, and were banished by the Sith majority (or else "the Strong," per Kaan) which had already bought into the new dichotomy.

And, of course, you can see in the concept of the Unity the ultimate foreshadowing of Darth Ruin's thinking and his completion of the Sith'ari prophecy, a la reductio ad perfectus.

Take care,
Abel