Saga Lucas’s vision of the Sith and galactic history over time

1. I’m going to start with the third draft of the ANH screenplay. The opening crawl says, “For over a thousand years, generations of JEDI KNIGHTS were the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. Now these legendary warriors are all but extinct. One by one they have been hunted down and destroyed by the sinister agents of the Emperor: the DARK LORDS OF THE SITH.” Here, there are many Dark Lords of the Sith serving the Emperor, and Vader is their leader. Obi-Wan mentions that Vader was low-ranked among the Sith last time they saw each other and is surprised that Vader is now the leader.

2. The fourth draft removes all the Sith except for Vader, adds that The Emperor “made” Vader a Sith Lord and that Vader is “all that’s left of their (the Jedi’s) wizard ways. Instead of the opening crawl introducing the Jedi, Obi-Wan does, and “a thousand years” is changed to “a thousand generations”.

3. The revised fourth draft removes the line about The Emperor “making Vader a Sith Lord” and replaces “wizard ways” with “religion”.

Shortly after ANH was released, Lucas told Charles Lippincott that Vader is the last of the Sith. My conclusion from the “Emperor made him a Sith Lord” line is that “the Sith” were supposed to be Jedi who pledged themselves to the Emperor when the Jedi Purge began.

4. ESB and ROTJ make it clear that the Emperor is strong in the Dark Side, but none of the screenplays call him a “Sith” or a “Lord”. In 1981, Lucas told Kasdan that the Emperor was never a Jedi and that he hid his evilness from the Jedi until it was too late to stop him.


5. TPM tells us that the Sith were thought to have gone “extinct” 1000 years before the movies. The novelization and interviews with Lucas explain that the Sith began as a Jedi splinter sect and that the Rule of Two was created by “Darth Bane” to prevent them from being wiped out by infighting.

6. In AOTC, Palpatine says that the Republic “has stood for 1000 years” and Sio Bibble says that “There hasn’t been a full-scale war since the formation of the Republic”. Although “1000 years” might seem to contract “over a thousand generations”, it does match the third draft of ANH and the date that the Sith went “extinct”, implying that the Republic was formed as a result of whatever the Sith did 1000 years before the movies.

7. In ROTS, Sidious says, “Once more, the Sith will rule the galaxy,” and in the screenplay, Obi-Wan says, “The Sith rule the galaxy, like before the Republic.” This implies that the Sith ruled the galaxy before going “extinct” and that the Republic was probably formed to prevent anyone like the Sith from ruling the galaxy again.

 

"Everybody said, “Oh, well, there was a war between the Jedi and the Sith.” Well, that never happened. That’s just made up by fans or somebody. What really happened is, the Sith ruled the universe for a while, 2000 years ago. Each Sith has an apprentice, but the problem was, each Sith Lord got to be powerful. And the Sith Lords would try to kill each other because they all wanted to be the most powerful. So in the end they killed each other off, and there wasn’t anything left. So the idea is that when you have a Sith Lord, and he has an apprentice, the apprentice is always trying to recruit somebody to join him, because he’s not strong enough, usually, so that he can kill his master." - George Lucas

 

Interesting that he said there wasn’t a Jedi-Sith war. Is that just because the Sith did the Jedi’s job for them by killing each other?

 

Not just that, but the very state of the galaxy is not as it was portrayed in the EU and other works (i.e: there was no Republic vs Sith Empire). I think the point is precisely that greed caused the downfall of the Sith. They once ruled the galaxy (for a thousands years, apparently) and the infighting left them in shatters. Then Darth Bane survived, reformed them, and with the little power they had left, they were later on seemingly finished off by the Jedi.

Once the Republic was formed, there were no more full-scale wars. So much so that the Republic never had an army since the Jedi managed to keep the peace.

 

The TPM novelization does suggest that infighting alone did not destroy the Sith - that "watchful Jedi" dispatched many.

 

I wonder if Lucas made the Sith ancient (rather than Palpatine forming them when the Jedi Purge began) in order to explain how Palpatine learned to use The Force without the Jedi knowing.

 

Luckily for us, this didn't remain non-canon, TCW Season 6 - Darth Bane pretty much confirmed Lucas's vision of the Sith.



Darth Bane: ''The Sith killed each other, victims of their own greed.''
-- The Clone Wars Season 6 Episode 13

This is true as well. Otherwise the ''Revenge'' theme that Maul and Sidious had wouldn't make sense.

Maul: ''At last we will have revenge.''
--- Episode I
Sidious: ''I have waited a long time for this moment, my little green friend. At last, the Jedi are no more.''
--- Episode III

The comic books ''Age Of The Republic - Darth Maul'' and ''Darth Maul #02'' revealed that there was a huge battle between the Sith and the Jedi in Malachor, where is a place that a huge amount of Sith died.

 

Their desire for revenge doesn't necessarily imply a last battle. While it's possible that the Jedi finished off the Sith (except one, at least), they could also seek revenge for other motives. For philosophical reasons, for seeing the Jedi (whose ways they see as a failure) prevail for so long, etc... The Jedi are, after all, their arch-enemies from the get go.

In any case, the Sith were reformed before they were considered gone by the Jedi. Not after. A great Jedi vs Sith battle doesn't make much sense.

 

Seeking ''revenge'' for philosophical reasons?

Well, surely you would want to destroy someone or something due to philosophical reasons, but that wouldn't be a ''revenge'' isn't it? They must have done something to them in the past, so we can name it ''revenge'' for something that the Jedi has done to the Sith in the past. After all, the Sith came after the Jedi, not before the Jedi, it's not like the Jedi tried to change the philosophy of the Sith, the Sith tried to change the Jedi by growing inside them (the first Sith was a former Jedi knight). But then the Sith believes that they need to take revenge from the Jedi? That's definitely due to something that the Jedi did to the Sith in the past.

 

And one thing they did was to reject and refuse to go along with them. Even the novel corroborates that:

Which is a valid source of revenge. To have a large battle between the Sith and the Jedi doesn't make sense since the Jedi were aware of the Darth Bane's reformation. That means two Sith Lords. And if they did defeat them to the point of considering them extinct, they would have defeated a single Sith Lord, not have a battle against a bunch of them.

 

But that's not ''them'', that's ''him''.
Your quote clearly says ''he'' could bring down those who had dismissed him. Not they.
If that was Sidious's and Maul's issue, then they would talk about avenging the first Sith, they are not talking about the avenging the founder of the Sith.

As for Jedi knowing Bane's reformation, that doesn't prove that they knew the Sith survived or that Jedi fought Bane, or that they failed to defeat them. All they knew Bane reformed the Sith order, and they never see or sense any Sith after that, they thought that the Sith has been destroyed a thousand years ago.

It has already been confirmed that there was a huge battle between the Jedi and the Sith.

As well as Sidious says that the Jedi struck a terrible blow to the Sith in Malachor.

We also know that the battle was at least a thousand years ago, which is around the same time that Bane reformed the Sith order, and it's possible that after this defeat they started to seek revenge, they had to reform the Sith order, and they went into hiding for a thousand years instead of openly ruling the galaxy as they did before.

Maul also pointed out that he saw the first sin of the Jedi in Malachor, where the Jedi killed a huge amount of the Sith order.

Spoiler

After seeing this battle, he believes that the Sith deserves their revenge.

Spoiler

 

About the revenge thing, Sidious might have indoctrinated Maul to desire revenge without having any desire for revenge himself.

 

Well, the Episode III's name was ''Revenge of the Sith'', I doubt that was only for Vader, it was for Sidious as well.

''At last the Jedi are no more''.

 

"Him" being the first Sith. The goal of the first Sith and desire for revenge is the same for the order he ended up creating.

It proves that if they defeated the Sith, it was after the reformation. And considering that the Sith survived, then they only defeated a single Sith and thus considered them extinct. Then again, only Ki-Adi-Mundi said they were extinct. Not the rest of the Council.

Confirmed in the new canon, yes. Doesn't mean it makes sense considering the lore established by Lucas.

 

Your quote cleary says ''he'', it doesn't say ''they'' could bring down those who dismissed them, but it doesn't say that. It's an individual vendetta, it has nothing to do with the order.

The first Sith's personal vendetta doesn't apply to the whole Sith order, because they were never Jedi knights like the first Sith was, the first Sith was felt betrayed because he was a former Jedi and he thought his Jedi friends would accept his new order but they didn't. So ''he'' swear them in secret. While the rest of the Sith, was never friends with the Jedi like the first Sith was, they had no connection to the Jedi.

Why would that prove they defeated the Sith after Bane's reformation? You don't need to defeat someone to learn about them. They could easily learn their new order, but failed to defeat or find them at the same time.

Your suggestion is that; Yoda knows the new Sith order, so if there was a battle, then that must be after Bane re-establishing the new Sith order. There are few things here that's not certain;
- Other Jedi might not know what Yoda knows, or believes what Yoda believes, Yoda could learn that in a Force vision or from someone else, that doesn't apply to the others, or that doesn't mean that the others should believe Yoda's theory.
- And Mace said ''I do not believe they could have returned without us knowing.'' , he confirms what Ki-Adi said, and he implied that the Sith wasn't active, they needed to be ''returned'' first and the Jedi would surely know if they did return.

So, just like you suggested by saying that ''only'' Ki-Adi said they were extinct, ''only'' Yoda knew, or he theorized that there was only 2 Sith, no more no less. Perhaps only Yoda knew or suspected about the Bane's new Sith order, not the other Jedi.

Well, it's not like Lucas doesn't change his mind easily from time to time (he changed his mind many times before even before selling Star Wars to Disney), also it was all the same in the old canon as well.

 

No, it isn't. The context makes it pretty clear. He is the Sith, and the vendetta is against the Jedi Order. That's what he set out to do, thus the Sith were created.

What does that got to do with anything? They don't have to be friends. They don't have to know each other. The Sith as an order are intrisincally connected to the Jedi. The goal of the first Sith is exactly the same as the Sith we see in the movies. They are part of the same order. The revenge is one and the same.

Precisely because they are aware of the reformation. If they weren't aware, they wouldn't rely on the knowledge that there are no more than two Sith.

If they had failed to defeat them, nobody would consider them to be extinct.

No Jedi questions Yoda's statement of fact, so one way or the other they are aware of it. We (the audience) know it to be a fact, so Yoda's knowledge doesn't come from mere belief. He knows the Bane reformed the Sith so that there are no more than two. If he discovered the rule of two after the fact, he wouldn't be so resolute in his claim, since the Sith could have had other reformations that he wasn't aware of.

No, he doesn't confirm what Ki-Adi said. Mace says something else altogether. One considers them to be extinct, the other thinks they couldn't have returned without the Jedi being aware of it.

Like I previously explained, none of the claims of Ki-Adi or Mace contradict what Yoda said. Not just that, but Yoda isn't theorizing. He's stating. Mace is theorizing. Ki-Adi is stating too, but regarding their survival, which Yoda does argue that he could be wrong.

It's obviously not all the same. First, Lucas is pretty consistent with his own lore, and the topic of the Sith is an example of that. And second, his works don't mention a great battle between the two factions. As Lucas himself stated, there was no war between the Jedi and the Sith. The Sith destroyed themselves from within and were reformed because of that. That the Jedi finished off the "last" of them is a possibility which I've pointed out from the start. However, a large Jedi vs Sith battle is not really compatible with this established lore since the Sith were reformed. Worse, making said battle a source of revenge is ridiculous. Not only it ignores the fact that the Sith caused their own destruction, but it also ignores the fact that the Sith were enemies with the Jedi ever since their inception. Their desire for revenge started from that moment on. Not in some random battle that the Sith obviously survived.

 

C'mon now, Lucas is definitely not consistent with his own lore.

Spoiler

-He says that Yoda can't fight in reality, he only teaches how to do it and he is like a guru, not even a real Jedi, and when it comes to fighting with Vader he would be in trouble in OT.
-Then he turns Yoda into the best Jedi master, with top level fighting skills, and possibly as strong as Sidious, and obviously a stronger fighter than Vader in PT.

-Then he says Maul died in TPM.
-Then he decides to resurrect Maul in TCW.

And countless edits that Lucas has done for OT in 2004 and then 2011?

Lucas was never consistent with his own statements, we can't actually take his statements as set in stone, he always changed his mind easily.

Ok, let's assume that Lucas never changes his mind. It still doesn't contradict with an idea that there was a huge battle between the Sith and the Jedi. Lucas himself says that everyone assumed there was a big battle, but he says it didn't happen. I understand the infighting between the Sith was the key, which I also agreed with you by using Darth Bane's quote from the Clone Wars Season 6, that's also canon right now.

But what we don't agree that you're saying there can't be a huge battle with Jedi.

There are simply two reasons for the Sith's destruction;
- Infighting
- Jedi's attack

This can happen in different timelines, and in different places. Sith vs. Sith could happen in a different timeline, which can weaken them, and then the Jedi attacks the Sith temple in a different time and they can kill multiple Sith.

Sith had two distinctions;
- Being only two; to prevent the infighting.
- Revenge; taking revenge from the Jedi for what they have done to the Sith.

If that was only a philosophical issue, the Sith need to take revenge from many pacifists, and democrats, not only from the Jedi. That was never the issue. The Sith needed to take revenge because the Jedi slaughtered many of their kind in the past, as they told us in the new canon.

I understand why the first Sith felt betrayed and wants revenge from his Jedi friends, but I don't see why the rest of the order would feel the same when they were never a Jedi knight like the first Sith was or they never know anything about that Jedi order that didn't join the first Sith. That looks like a personal vendetta to me, and they never said they need to take revenge for that reason. That doesn't make sense.

If they don't hear about them like for hundreds of years, they would easily consider them to be extinct for sure. They don't need to directly involve and defeat them. They would never guess that the Sith lords were making plans for hundreds of years and waiting patiently for the right moment, the Jedi would never expect that will power and long time planning from the greedy and selfish Sith.

Yoda was never sure on what he was talking about when it comes to the dark side.

''Mace : I do not believe they could have returned without us knowing.''
''Yoda : Ah, Hard to see, the dark side is.''
--- Episode I

If it's hard to see it, as he admitted, how can he be sure about how many Sith lords there are? He can't, because as he said, he can't see it clearly. He can't be sure about that.

 

Imagine how differently things would have developed if Ki-Adi-Mundi said, “the Sith have been extinct for over a thousand generations” in TPM.

 

How do we know that the Jedi learn of the Rule of Two during Bane's time? Bane created the concept, and if they knew he was one of them, and they obviously never killed him...

 

They know because Bane was the one who created it. And "they obviously never killed him"? We don't know how Bane died to begin with, and they don't need to kill him to learn of the reformation.

 

Yes, I agree that they don't need to kill him to learn of the reformation. But that then begs the question of - how did the Sith survive if the Jedi knew about the very thing that kept them alive and allowed them to hide?

 

The Star Wars Databank used to have a detailed description of Darth Bane after the TCW episode with him aired- unfortunately much of the info was deleted, but I think I can recreate most of it from Wookieepedia.

The Sith essentially took over the Republic and ruled the galaxy for the first time- however they killed each other in their lust for power, and this allowed the Jedi to defeat them. Bane was the only survivor, who took on an apprentice and established the Rule of Two. The Jedi learned about this at some point, and went about to face them. Bane was either killed by the Jedi or by his apprentice, who somehow faked her death and led the Jedi to think the Sith where gone. Bane was then buried in The Valley of the Dark Lords.

 

That sounds like the Darth Bane novels.

 

I wonder how long Corucant was in sith empire control.

 

Yoda is over nine hundred years old, so his own master could have met Darth Bane.