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

Sure, I meant in the sense that these early Jedi must have existed in various forms over the millennia before they became ‘the Jedi’ that we know from the movies. Proto Jedi if you like, and perhaps at one point they lived a more cloistered existence. In the real world religions and cultures change naturally over time so it would make sense for this to be the case in Star Wars.

 

There’s a line from TCW that also made it sound like the Jedi’s galactic presence may once have been much more limited. This comes from the episodes featuring the Zygerrian Slave Empire:

“For thousands of years, Zygerria supplied slave labor to the galaxy. We prospered. Our customers prospered. Then the Jedi came.”
​

This isn’t saying that the Jedi were isolated. It may be a reference to the Republic’s expansion into the region of the galaxy where the Zygerrians live. But it sounds more like a description of what the galaxy in general was like before the Jedi became prominent. Especially because in those same episodes Darth Sidious says the following:

“Long have Sith empires been built upon the backs of slaves.”
​

Which makes it sound like the two are related. The Sith ruled and slavery flourished. Then the Jedi came and both systems collapsed for the most part. And once again I bring up that quote from Lucas:

“The Sith are the arch-enemies of the Jedi, and for a long time they ruled the universe until the Jedi came along and got rid of them.”
​

So my question again is: Where were the Jedi before this? Where did they come from if they weren’t present for a long while?

Is this metaphorical language only, referring to prominence in galactic affairs rather than physical presence? Or does it refer to a slow expansion of Jedi presence across the galaxy, with forces like the Sith and slavery flourishing wherever there were no Jedi?

 

The Jedi only got rid of the Sith after their in-fighting where they nearly self-destructed. So maybe they weren't in any position before that to do anything. Nobody knows what the state of the galaxy was at the time, how long it lasted, and the circumstances behind the formation of the Republic.

 

That makes sense. An early draft of Episode IV has the first Jedi, the Skywalker, be one of the founding members of the Republic. In that draft the Jedi Order and the Republic grow in tandem. The connection between both remains strong in the story we got, but the details are likely different now.

In other news, fans asked Pablo Hidalgo on Twitter about Lucas’s view of Sith history. He basically says to look to Episode I’s novelization to learn that. But he did offer some clarification on a couple of things related to the backstory.

The first is that Lucas came up with the name “Darth Bane,” or at least that’s what Hidalgo remembers.

The second is that the intention was for Darth Bane’s order to have been the shadowy conspiracy that the EU made it out to be. So the year discrepancy in the Episode I novelization doesn’t mean the Sith had another thousand years operating under the rule of two before being thought extinct. And it’s a mystery how the Jedi learned of the rule of two.

Of course, this could just be Hidalgo’s recollection or his limited view of a richer Sith history that only Lucas knows. Hidalgo was, after all, one of the people involved in crafting the many retcons that gave us the EU’s history of the Sith.

But if we take his response as accurately representing Lucas’s Sith history, then there’s a slight revision to what we’d reconstructed in this thread:

The Sith emerge from the Jedi Order nearly two thousand years in the past. They grow in number, separately conquer parts of the galaxy, and remain in control for about a century. Like the Jedi, each Sith Lord has one apprentice only.

At some point the Sith Lords kill the original Sith Master and start fighting against one another. The war destroys most of the Sith, and the Jedi mop up any survivors, so that the Sith are thought extinct. The Republic is founded around this time too.

But Darth Bane survives this war and continues the Sith Order in secret. His new strategy is for there to be only one Sith pair, one master and apprentice, and he does not attempt to grow the Sith beyond that. At some point the Jedi find out about Bane’s rule and also find his tomb on Moraband. But the Sith do not make themselves known again until the time of Darth Sidious a thousand years later.

The EU’s explanation for the Jedi’s knowledge of the rule of two always seemed clunky to me, so I’d hoped Bane would be placed earlier in their history. But it seems their history is shorter, and their time as an open threat was limited, though memorable. The discrepancy between “almost two thousand years” and “a thousand years” must be just a sign of imprecise timing, not a hint at a thousand years of open Sith conflict. Still, the Jedi’s knowledge does also relate to how, even when other Sith Lords existed, they only operated in pairs, never in larger groups, and certainly never as armies of Sith.

 

Darth Bane coming from Lucas has been known for many years. It was part of the backstory he had developed. Same with the Sith backstory from TPM novel coming from Lucas. Terry Brooks had confirmed that too.

As for the timeline, the Sith were created aprox. 2000 years before the movies, and they came to rule the galaxy at that time. After their infighting, they had never been seen again a thousand years before the movies. Basically around the time the Republic was formed. So they did operate under the rule of two for at least a thousand years. The time they were though to have been extinct or defeated.

 

The novelization hammers home that Bane's Way is of stealth and subterfuge, and that the Rule of Two was created specifically to put a stop to the infighting problem.

It was patience that had saved the Sith order in the end. It was patience that would give them their victory now over the Jedi.
The Sith who had survived when all of his fellows had died had understood that. He had adopted patience as a virtue when the others had forsaken it. He had adopted cunning, stealth, and subterfuge as the foundation of his way- old Jedi virtues the others had disdained. He stood aside while the Sith tore at each other like kriks and were destroyed. When the carnage was complete, he went into hiding, biding his time, waiting for his chance.
When it was believed all of the Sith were destroyed, he emerged from his concealment. At first he worked alone, but he was growing old and he was the last of his kind. Eventually, he went out in search of an apprentice. Finding one, he trained him to be a Master in his turn, then to find his own apprentice, and so to carry on their work. But there would only be two at any one time. There would be no repetition of the mistakes of the old order, no struggle between Siths warring for power within the cult. Their common enemy was the Jedi, not each other. It was for their war with the Jedi they must save themselves.
The Sith who reinvented the order called himself Darth Bane.

So maybe we should take Hidalgo's word for it that the Rule of Two being around for almost 1900 years, with 900-odd years of open war between "Rule of Two-following Sith" and the Jedi, after Bane, is not what Lucas intended.

 

Yes.

When did I say that any of that is what Lucas intended? I said that the rule of two had been in effect for at least a thousand years. Which is true. The Jedi in TPM had not seen a Sith for a thousand years.

 

Here, you suggest Bane's era was 1000 years before "the creation of the Republic".

with the creation of the Republic itself, being 1000 years before TPM.

 

That wasn't the comment that you quoted though. And that comment you're now citing was just me speculating. As I've already said, we don't know how long their rule lasted, we don't know how long their in-fighting lasted. I'm of the opinion that if all of that happened early on in that millennium, then Bane's reformation also happened right in that period, not at the end of it. And that accounts for the Jedi being aware of the rule of two and having last seen a Sith around the formation of the Republic.

 

@Alexrd

We knew Lucas created the character of Bane and the Sith’s backstory in TPM. But I hadn’t seen clear confirmation that he also came up with Darth Bane’s name, though it was likely.

Regarding the ambiguity over the time periods, I think that confusion stems from two things:

1. The TPM novelization says the Sith were born “almost two millennia” in the past. They grew in number and gained power. Then they destroyed each other in a matter of weeks. Darth Bane survived and remade the Sith so there would only be two. The novelization then says the Sith had been thought destroyed for “almost a thousand years.” There’s a sudden time jump there that could mean an implied millennium of Sith action after Bane or a simple mistake by the author or Lucas.

2. The Jedi know of the rule of two and of Darth Bane, so they must have known the Sith survived their original self-destruction. This supports the millennium of Sith action after Bane. But it can also read as an oversight on Lucas’s behalf.

The EU clearly believed both issues were an oversight by Lucas and/or Brooks. Hidalgo’s comments repeat that interpretation, implying the Sith’s destruction was followed by Bane’s secretive order, which was unknown to the Jedi until they found out later on somehow.

While the millennium of implied Sith action after Bane resolves both issues cleanly, and it’s been the main interpretation supported by this thread, I can’t help but admit that it rests on a shaky foundation.

It relies on a very specific reading of the TPM novelization, adding a millennium of unmentioned Sith history that’s only there by virtue of an omission that could be a simple mistake. The actual language and phrasing of that chapter imply that the Sith were thought destroyed only once, after their initial rise and before Bane’s reformed order.

This line refers to the destruction of the original Sith almost two thousand years before the movies:

“When it was believed all of the Sith were destroyed, he emerged from his concealment.”​

After a few more paragraphs, we get another line with similar language but this time referring to how the Sith had been thought extinct for a millennium:

“A thousand years had passed since the Sith were believed destroyed, and the time they had waited for had come at last.”​

Now, Lucas doesn’t seem to necessarily care too much about specific years, as evidenced by the “thousand years”/“thousand generations” question. When he describes Sith history in general, the focus is on saying there were originally many Sith, thousands of years ago, and that they were in control for some time. Then they destroyed each other until only two remained. Now the Sith operate only in pairs. That’s it.

So perhaps he doesn’t care whether Bane lived two thousand or one thousand years ago, or how the Jedi found out about him. Ultimately, it doesn’t affect his story. And so it remains undefined by him, and any specific interpretation by others is just that, as Alex mentioned.

Which, yeah, leaves a fan wanting to know more. But I guess understanding the core message of that history is more important than figuring out the timeline details. But I do suspect Lucas probably considers the simpler story to be the case.

 

The reference always came from the content of TPM novel, and that history, including Darth Bane himself, came from George. But as far as we know he never named, for example, the renegade Jedi who became the first Sith. Yet that character certainly exists to him.

Lucas is pretty clear about a handful of this:
- the Sith being in power happened circa 2000 years before the movies.
- they lost their power due to in-fighting.
- Bane was the only Sith that survived their in-fighting.
- the Jedi last saw a Sith 1000 years before the movies.

The unknowns (not necessarily oversights) are:
- how long did the Sith stay in power?
- how long did the in-fighting last?
- how and when did the Jedi learn about Bane's reformation?

I do agree that the core message is much more important that knowing the specific years when things happened.

 

Here’s some observations of mine that support the theory that Darth Bane created the Rule of Two 2000 years before the movies and that the Jedi battled Banite Sith from 2000-1000 years before the movies.

- The EU’s interpretation of the novelization raises the question of why the novelization doesn’t say, “Over the next 1000 years, the Sith battled the Jedi and each other” rather than saying that they quickly self-destructed.

- If you watch the movies with no knowledge of the EU, novelizations, or Lucas’s statements, you would conclude from Yoda’s words that the Sith have followed the Rule of Two from the moment they were founded. Yoda says “always two there are”, not, “now two there are”, and Windu doesn’t express any disagreement.

The TPM novelization says that Bane “emerged from his concealment”. That doesn’t sound like he remained in hiding for the rest of his life.

- In TCW, Yoda recognizes Darth Bane and knows his story. That sure doesn’t seem like he just heard a rumor about the Rule of Two.

 

@darklordoftech

That’s very true. If one just watches the movies, the impression is that the Sith always exist in twos only. That’s how we see them in the movies, and it’s how the Jedi describe them when they make their first appearance.

 

@Sauron_18 @Watcherwithin

If they go with the Jedi fighting Banite/Rule of Two Sith from 2000-1000 years before the movies, they could make “whodunnit” movies, Disney+ series, books, etc. in which the Jedi try to figure out the identity of the Sith Lord causing trouble and then capture or kill whoever it is. Who better to write and direct such a story than Rian Johnson?

 

A lot of people I'd wager

 

Agreed, based on the dialogue between Yoda and Mace in TPM, “Always two there are, a master and an apprentice.” It appears that the Sith operated in Rule of Two mode for a while before they were thought to have been completely eradicated.

Edit: @darklordoftech I think that would be a great idea.

 

it is interesting that in his universe he envisioned that the Jedi and the Sith never fought each other in battles apparently his version of the Sith were always like the Rule of Two Sith always hidden in the shadows

 

It's a bit hard to be "ruling the universe" from the shadows.

 

If that's a genuine limitation Lucas set, that Jedi and Sith never fought each other in battles, that would be a deadend. The saga cannot develop further.

 

Apparently Lucas wasnt interested in Expanding Star Wars outside of the Darth Vader story is just like Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit with Tolkien the Ring story is the only thing that matters and the rest is not important If Lucas wasnt so interested in telling a post ROTJ Luke story i think he would be even less interested in Ancient Jedi and Sith that are not Skywalkers in Lucas vision the Darth Vader story was the principal story i think we were lucky that TCW and the EU even came out with Lucas

 

Not necessarily. Nothing in his statements inherently leads to that conclusion.

How is it a dead end? The saga did develop further. It's under that backstory that the story of his movies stand on.

None of those assumptions and correlations are true.

 

The average Galactic citizen didn’t know that Palpatine was a Sith Lord, so it would be accurate to say that the Sith ruled the Empire from the shadows.

 

Lucas was more likely to do a Sequels movies with Luke and Leia than an Old Republic movie
i know that Lucas can change his mind but if he had been so interested in Ancient Jedi and Sith he would have written a book or a script for a movie with ideas for the Pre Episode 1 era
TCW is different because that show takes place during Darth Vader story.

 

Lucas licensed out all that. Spinning out those stories was too much work, decades.

 

He said there was no war between the Jedi and the Sith, not that they never came into conflict. This was also the case for the movies and TV series. The point is that the Sith do not operate as an army, and for most of history neither did the Jedi. They may be in control of armies that then do fight in conflicts and wars, but they are not foot soldiers as was depicted many times in the EU.

And there’s certainly room for stories set in the distant past. Lucas himself had fairy clear ideas about the creation of the Sith Order and the subsequent war between Sith Lords that led to their destruction. According to one of his producers, one of Lucas’s early treatments for Episode I dealt with that specific conflict, so it was clear enough in his mind that it could’ve been dramatized.