Criticism of the Rakatan Infinite Empire

I'd rather the New Sith and the Old Sith stay very much apart, myself.

I see the New Sith as, well, the modern typical Sith, black hooded robes, armor, red lightsaber, Darth title, essentially Dark Jedi with specific teachings and power etc. And then the Old Sith as the Exar Kuns and Naga Sadows, with arcane Sith magic, talismans, scepters, tombs... Basically I see the galaxy as divided into two mega-eras, the Modern Era, after 2,000 BBY, and the Ancient Era, before 2,000 BBY.

I very much agree with everything else in your post, though.

Two things to make the ancient Sith more powerful:

1. True Sith Empire. Doesn't really require any retcons, as TOTJ already has the Sith starting 100,000 BBY and spreading across the galaxy (enough to be a feared and known threat, indeed, even enough for the term Sith to become associated with not just the species, but their teachings etc.) long before the Dark Jedi. True Sith enslave the Rakata, use them as enforcers, war with Celestials etc. etc. And then, after losing the war, flee to the Unknown Regions, leaving the Sith on their ancestral homeworld to degenerate into squabbling, primitive tribes who would later be unified by King Adas. And then the Rakata seize the opportunity, rising up against the Sith and attacking Korriban before the True Sith's Star Forge turns them against each other, and the True Sith introduce a plague to wipe them out.

2. How about the ancient Sith, at some point or another (whether during the Hundred Year Darkness, the Great Galactic War or perhaps before the Republic), use echoes and wounds in the Force to effectively ruin it, deafening the galaxy to it, and destroying their enemies' (Jedi, Celestial, whatever) connection. Until midi-chlorians are invented, perhaps by some ancient race, e.g. the Celestials, to harness the Force, thus allowing some to access the Force once again? Perhaps could be responsible for the clear lesser power of the Jedi and Sith in the movie era, compared to the ridiculous feats performed by the TOTJ Jedi and Sith? Could tie into the plague that destroyed the Rakata also. That would be quite a lasting impact I think.

Edit:

Also, in KOTOR, the Rakata speak of "red demons." I'm sure it was meant to be the Red Rakata, but it could be interpreted as referring to the Sith. Who knows, the Rakata and the Vong could both be species created through alchemy by the Sith.

The True Sith Empire/Celestials would be good. It could be like this:

TRUE SITH, FIRST USERS OF THE DARK SIDE
CELESTIALS, FIRST USERS OF THE LIGHT SIDE
TRUE SITH LEAVE BEHIND PRIMITIVE SITH ON KORRIBAN AS THEY VANISH INTO THE UNKNOWN REGIONS
CELESTIALS, PASS ON THE TORCH TO OTHER FORCE-SENSITIVES AS THEY MYSTERIOUSLY VANISH/ARE DESTROYED
SITH ON KORRIBAN ARE CONQUERED BY DARK JEDI, FORMING A SITH EMPIRE
OTHER FORCE-SENSITIVES BECOME JEDI ON TYTHON, FORM JEDI ORDER
SITH EMPIRE/JEDI ORDER THEN CLASH...

And so begin the Sith Wars. Rather than True Sith and Celestials, it is their 'descendants' of a sort, the Sith Empire and Jedi Order.

Anyway, enough rambling for now.

 

While I've not personally got problems with the quintessential fantasy element of "ancient races", this just hit me like a thunderstrike:

...the Celestials sealed the Unknown Regions for a reason, didn't they?

 

The Sith did beat the Retaka when the Retaka came to their world though.

Personally, I would say there is one big difference: the Rataka never had any meaningful opposition. Most of the of the other ancient races were on the decline, and the vast majority of the races they conquered were primitives, lacking technology, the force or even unity.

The Sith had to go up against a galaxy united by the Republic and protected by the Jedi Order. They had the harder job, so their accomplishments are more impressive.

 

Sorry Zorrixor, I'm not entirely sure what just hit you like a thunderstrike.

If you're meaning that the Celestials sealed the True Sith in the Unknown Regions, then yes, that's the general theory used by us True Sith Retconists. It all makes perfect sense, really. Now we just need someone to make it canon. Abel?

Edit: An idea I like is that the Rakata were used by our proposed True Sith like Palpatine's dark side adepts or even the Old Sith Empire's Massassi. An entire species of Force-sensitives to be the backbone of the early armies of the ancient Sith. The True Sith flee to the UR, are sealed there by the Celestials, and still have a few Rakata with them (thus the Rakata in The Unknown Regions). The remaining Rakata are left leaderless (and perhaps are thankful for the fact), and form the Infinite Empire, and then attack the more primitive Sith on Korriban.

 

This.

There's really no problem with the Rakata. They don't undermine anything/one else.

Well, okay, there IS one problem. The supplementary material made humanity a slave race of the rakata even though the game outright tells us that such was not the case.

And "bleh" at making the ancient racial Sith more powerful, with an added "lol" at the idea that they created the rakata.

 

The Rakata only travelled to worlds they could home in on in the Force. That wasn't more than a speck of dust in the beach that is the GFFA. I wouldn't worry too much about their importance. They certainly didn't seem to be remembered by the Founding Worlds of the Republic, I assume their decline began so long before 25,200 BBY, so by that time, they were barely active in the galaxy at large.

 

Whoa, did you just "bleh" the ancient Sith being more powerful?

It would make a lot of sense. Everything's already there, really. It's about time the ancient mysteries of the galaxy were revealed; the True Sith does that perfectly and more.

The Rakata being the Sith's servants is nothing new. However, it would make some sense if they were something like Sadow's Massassi; a race twisted through dark side alchemy into something else, for a specific purpose.

 

Are these immensely powerful, ancient Sith in any sourcebooks, comics, or books? Or is it something that people would like to see?

It was my understanding that the Sith species was a tribal culture limited to Korriban, until Adas united them and repelled the Rakatan invasion, giving them access to the hyperdrive to colonize surrounding systems like Ziost.

 

The pre-Republic True Sith Empire is mostly fanon, but has a lot of basis in canon. The True Sith in KOTOR 2, of course, started the idea, however, TOTJ and the TOTJ Companion make mention, several times, of the Sith starting 100,000 BBY, spreading across the galaxy and becoming a known and feared threat (and indeed for the term Sith to apply to their teachings as well as the species), with many Sith sorcerers, all long before the Dark Jedi.

And then there are such as the Killik Sith Lord (30,000 BBY), a Sith Lord on Alpherides (8,000 BBY), a Sith outpost on Krayiss II (14,000 BBY), the Trayus Academy ("tens of thousands of years old" according to Kreia), and you have some credible support for the so-called True Sith Retcon.

 

Yuuuup. /Lana Kane

What's the point? There's no need, and it's rule of groan instead of rule of cool.

"Before the Dark Lords of the Sith threatened the galaxy... there were... THE ORIGINAL SITH OOOO!"

They're fine isolated as they are and they were only supposed to have ever been important because the Dark Jedi conquered them. Dark Lords > Sith.

(Note: I don't actually care if they choose to go down such a route -- it could even work well. I just think it's horrendously uninspired)

It sure is.

Having just scanned the .tlk file, I can say without a doubt that the above is false. The closest are:

"It has been here for thousands of years. It is a place where the Sith teachings run strong... it is the threshold of the borders of an ancient empire." (Sion)

Or:

"The Trayus Academy on Malachor is an ancient structure that was built thousands of years before the Mandalorian Wars." (Loading screen)

 

Well, since we all know Ludo Kreesh survived FotSE P), and the mega-Sith Empire is in TOR as a large threat, it wouldn't be all that hard to make the Ancient Sith and all that dissappear and then return in the late 2000s, near 2200 or 2100 BBY, to eventually unite with Ruin and his Schism in 1999 BBY or somewhere near that. They could be a 200-year long threat that could control half the galaxy until finally breaking apart in the New Sith Wars. By having them killed off by the New Sith, it keeps the legacy of Ruin as strong as it has been, and the return of the Ancient Sith keeps them as strong as they were long before.

As for the Rakata being the Adepts to the Ture Sith, wouldn't that have been the other way around? I'm not too versed in the
So-Ancient-It's-Not-Star-Wars-Anymore history, but how could the Sith have ruled the rulers of the galaxy?

 

The TOTJ Companion says "The Sith have existed for well over a hundred thousand years. Over that barely imaginable space of time many Sith magicians emerged with the might of the dark side firmly in their hands."

It doesn't say anything about them having interstellar travel, unless there's more that I'm missing. And having the Sith species exist for 100,000 years isn't really any different than humans existing that long, if they're descended from the Zhell, I think that was 200,000 years.

And I would think those powerful Sith magicians tend to be weighted toward the end of their existence, i.e. the Dark Lords, Dathka Graush, Adas.

 

To be honest, I very rarely ever even think about the Rakata and it seems Del Rey holds true to that as well rarely if ever even mentioning them in any of the novels.

What all is the sources for the Rakata?

 

It all came from the KOTOR series and its supplements.

 

Del Rey avoids the Rakata mostly because it just talks about the Celestials instead... who are even older than the Rakata.

 

I really don't like how there are all these "ultra beings" from way back when, that we'll never get any real backstory on or learn how they were so powerful and then died so quickly. IT's just to sci-fi for the Star Wars universe, IMO.

If we get any EU pre-Republic, it'd need to be about the Zhell and the Taung, duking it out Halo-style for control of Coruscant. That would rock.

 

Is it confirmed that the Celestials were, indeed, destroyed? I thought all we know is that they disappeared. They could have been destroyed, they could have left the galaxy, they could have "devolved" like the Kwa or Sharu. I figure FOTJ will answer this eventually.

 

I could use a good brief description of the following please:

* Celestials
* Rakata
* Kwu
* Sharu
* Killik

As well as a general timeline for them. I don't feel bothered to read a huge mass entry on each of them at the Wookiepedia (which is surprisingly blocked here at work; whilst TFN isn't. Odd).

 

Interesting theory... I absolutely love the subtlety of it.

The idea of the Killiks being so karked up just because the hive mind absorbed a Sith King, rendering Celestial civilisation inert practically overnight? Yeah, the Sith wouldn't have defeated the Celestials in a great big war of clichés involving guns and laserswords... but... holy kriff... talk about being so poisonous that a single drop was enough to taint an entire empire? Emperor's black bones! That'd be nuts!

It wouldn't be about a display of war or military power... but testament to how damaging the Sith beliefs were.

And how foolish the Dark Jedi were for allowing those beliefs to be set free from the Caldera...

You've suddenly made me want the Sith to have not been widespread prior to the Exiles' arrival. The idea of Korriban representing this... cancer... which even the Celestials and the Rakata knew to keep contained? That makes the Sith a lot more worrying. They may not have ruled the galaxy until much later, but great scott, talk about being a... disease.

 

-Celestials
Immensely powerful extinct beings who supposedly shaped the Galaxy.

-Rakata
A species of warrior force users who used advanced Force-powered hyperdrives to conquer the galaxy and build the Starforge Factory Station.

-Kwa
A reptilian species that built the infinity gates, powerful teleportation devices.

-Sharu
The Sharu are a species that were driven into servitude millenia ago, before reawakening to their true potential when Lando Calrissian activated the Mindharp of Sharu.

-Killiks
An insectoid race that once inhabited the Galaxy, before being driven to the unknown regions.

-EDIT-
Damn, you beat me to it Sinre.

 

Sinre, that was an amazingly succinct and useful summation. You're great, thanks a lot for that