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

We invest our reading in certain areas of the timeline and then that impacts our focus. I can see people allowing Legends / EU to guide their thinking. Then I can see people who read the new canon stuff letting them guide their thinking. The new canon is silent on many of the areas already delved into in the EU. Then we have new canon wookiepedia pages on major characters and lore from the EU after they have been mentioned only briefly after summer of 2014.

 

There are several references in the original TCW episodes which pretty clearly establish that there was an Old Republic which fell at one point and was then restored by the establishment of the current Republic. Saesee Tiin indicates that there were great battles in the time of the Old Republic, much like the ones during the Clone Wars. At the end of one of the unreleased TCW arcs, Yoda also talks about battles in the distant past where Jedi and Sith "fought for control of the galaxy", involving Death Star-like superweapons:




Whether or not the "thousand years"/"thousand generations" discrepancy was intentional or an oversight, in the years since Lucas seems to have had no problem with the idea that there were multiple iterations of the Republic, with the current one having been established a millennium ago after a societal collapse. Lucas also seems to have no problem with the idea that there were great battles between the Jedi and the Sith in the past. When he says there was never any war, I think he's talking about the idea that a war was responsible for the decimation of their order which led to the Rule of Two. The Jedi had little or nothing to do with that. I think the battles mentioned in TCW are referring to the time after Darth Bane established the Rule of Two. (The timeline established by the EU is wrong.)

 

Can you clarify how the EU timeline is wrong ?

To me, there is room for the current iteration of the Republic depicted in the Phantom Menace to have begun about 1,000 BBY at the Ruusan Reformations. That seems to fit with the EU.

The contradiction happened with this line from Palpatine in Attack of the Clones:

"I will not let this Republic that has stood for a thousand years be split in two."

AOTC cued up to quote:

 

The EU says the Rule of Two emerged a thousand years before the films when Darth Bane went into hiding. It's clear from Lucas's actual statements that this was the result of a misunderstanding on the part of EU authors. The original Sith Order destroyed itself in short order two thousand years before the films, at which point Darth Bane emerged under the new Rule of Two and the Sith waged war on the Jedi for a thousand years before being thought destroyed. The fact that there was a huge misunderstanding is why the EU had to come up with a convoluted retcon outside of the films in order to explain how Yoda could possibly know about the Rule of Two.

 

From the Legends Wookiepedia page for Darth Bane: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Darth_Bane/Legends

Darth Bane, born under the name of Dessel, was the Sith'ari and the Dark Lord of the Sith responsible for creating the Rule of Two. Born in 1026 BBY, he was raised as a poor miner on the Outer Rim planet Apatros. After killing a Galactic Republic ensign in a fight in 1003 BBY, Dessel was in danger of being arrested and imprisoned by the Republic.

Unfortunately, Lucas didn't care to flesh out his ideas anymore if the EU writers misinterpreted them. He did direct Attack of the Clones where Palpatine refers to that iteration of the Republic being 1,000 years old. The 1,000 year history was originally incongruent with the EU. Then we learned there could be a "Republic" and an "Old Republic."

Are you suggesting Darth Bane emerged 2,000 years before the Prequels under the new Disney-owned canon? it sounds like you are suggesting Darth Bane emerged around 2,000 BBY (instead of 1,000 BBY) under the Rule of Two then war was waged against the Jedi for a thousand years from 2,000 BBY to 1,000 BBY. This doesn't fit with the SIth being in hiding under the Rule of Two from 1,000 BBY to the Prequels era.

This is copied from the Canon Wookiepedia tab: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Darth_Bane
Darth Bane was a legendary human male Dark Lord of the Sith and the sole survivor of the destruction of the Sith Brotherhood at the hands of the Jedi Order during the Jedi-Sith War a thousand years before the Clone Wars. As the only surviving Sith, Bane recognized that Sith infighting had weakened them to the point that the Jedi could destroy them. To rectify this, Bane reformed the Sith and created the Rule of Two, mandating that there could be only two Sith—a Master and an apprentice—at any given time.

I think the problem was more along the lines of the Republic existing for 1,000 years according to Palpatine in Attack of the Clones.

We do have this in the Darth Bane Wookiepedia Legends tab:

" There are two conflicting sources for this article: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction and Jedi vs Sith.

Lucasfilm has not yet established a cohesive timeline. Editor discretion is advised. "

 

I'm not suggesting anything about the Disney-owned canon. I know very little about it and honestly don't care about it.

 

Yes, really. It's not my problem, nor Lucas, that you've decided to be pedantic over the word 'generation', ignoring its polysemous nature. I'm not interested in such a pointless discussion.

I don't care about what the EU did or didn't do. We're talking about Lucas' vision, not Licensing's.

 

So until movies and shows are actually made about the Old Republic era I have my own in-head canon that tries to piece together what's currently canon (movies, Clone Wars etc) and solve apparent inconsistencies (thousand year Republic etc).

Basically you have the Republic Of Core World Systems, one of many alliances across the galaxy. The other alliances and factions are overthrown in a galaxy-wide coup staged by the Sith with only the Republic surviving thanks to the efforts of the Jedi Knights. So now you have the Republic, a small but prosperous and well defended union of worlds, surrounded by a vast Sith Empire. But the Sith Empire is itself divided with individual Sith Lords controlling territories. Every now and then a charismatic Sith Lord rises to become the Sith Emperor and unite the Sith to take on the Jedi but after every failed campaign, the Emperor ends up dead and the Sith go back to doing what they do best - fighting each other.

Eventually Darth Bane comes along, apparently just the latest to take the throne and try to unite the Sith but instead, he wipes them all out. He calls them all to Moraband to either challenge his claim to the throne or unite with him and when they arrive, he essentially nukes the planet from orbit and then goes hunting whoever is left across the galaxy, leaving himself and his apprentice as the sole rulers of the Empire, the only Dark Lords Of The Sith.

The Rule Of Two lasts for about a thousand years until a slave revolt (possibly the Mandalorians) sparks a chain of events that sees the Jedi and the Republic spread throughout the galaxy, orchestrating more slave revolts, liberating worlds and freeing the galaxy of the terror of the Sith. With the galaxy freed and the Sith apparently destroyed, many of the liberated worlds, most of which need rebuilding, petition to become part of the Republic and thus the old Core World Republic and Sith Empire are finally joined as a single Galactic Republic. But of course little do they know that a sole Sith survivor remains and begins plotting their revenge.

In this scenario, I don't think the Sith who goes into hiding was one of the two Dark Lords. I imagine that the Apprentice was planning to overthrow the Master and had been secretly training their own apprentice. That secret apprentice wouldn't have been on the Jedi's radar and could thus go into hiding without fear of being discovered. The apprentice might have even helped orchestrated the deaths of the Sith Lords in the last days of the war to help cover his or her escape.

But like I said, this is all head-canon fan fiction.

 

In addition to that Lucas has made it clear that he very much saw it as there being two Star Wars all during that time period. There was his Star Wars (his movies and his Clone Wars) then everything else. Which is not to say it wasn't a part of Star Wars but it was not The Star Wars Saga (as in his own story).

He never gave out all that much but the basics are as noted. Lucas never really mapped it out but the Jedi would likely have had something to do with it if the Sith took over the galaxy even if they mostly fought each other. The Jedi would seem the in-fighting and let events play out while limiting the damage. How exactly that all worked is unknown so all we have are incomplete pieces.

The Jedi have been around for a thousand generations which is likely at least 15 to 25 thousand years or more. The Sith were founded, took control of the galaxy at some point then mostly did themselves in. They likely had battles with the Jedi but maybe not a war in the same sense. The Jedi didn't destroy them as they fell apart themselves then after that the reformed Sith following The Rule of Two caused troubles until they disappeared 1000 years before TPM at which point a new iteration of the Republic came into being. How long it was between that version of the Republic and the one before that is another question.

 

This is all very interesting. It had been a while since I considered what Lucas's ideas might be of Sith history, independent of what was developed for the new canon. Interestingly, when Darth Bane showed up in TCW I was excited that we were getting a glimpse at how Lucas interpreted Jedi and Sith history. So I took it for granted that what we eventually learned about later in Rebels and in the rest of the new canon would follow that idea. But I can see that likely diverged.

I'm very intrigued by the idea that the Rule of Two has been around since the inception of the Sith. And therefore that the long centuries of trauma endured by the Jedi and the galaxy were actually instigated by Sith much like the ones in the era we're familiar with. Two Dark Lords operating with a large power-base, crafting wars and other conflict to eliminate their enemies. That's some good food for thought.

But the Sith history from the TPM novelization is a bit contradictory in terms of dates. At first it says the Sith Order was born almost 2,000 years before the movies. A rogue Jedi leaves the Order and founds the Sith, who grow in size and power and then destroy themselves. The Jedi pick off the survivors and believe the Sith to be destroyed. But one Sith survived, Darth Bane. He spent some time in hiding and eventually came out of concealment. Years passed, he grew old, and then he found an apprentice and instituted the Rule of Two. Then the text says that the events of TPM are happening 1,000 years after the Sith were thought destroyed. This could mean 1,000 years after a second destruction, and that Bane and his followers waged a millennium-long war against the Jedi and the galaxy prior to that. But there are also the comments between Sidious and Maul that seem to imply that TPM is the first time the Sith have emerged from the shadows. And there's no indication that there was any second destruction, just the first one.

But perhaps there are other comments by Lucas beyond what we see translated as that excerpt from the TPM novelization. Clearly it makes more sense, based on what we have seen, if Darth Bane is the true seed of the historical Sith, with a millennium of oppression caused by his successors following. Otherwise the great legendary threat of the Sith would only have been an event that lasted less than a year in the history of the galaxy. Which really doesn't fit too well with what we have seen, so I can assume the TPM's wording is a bit bundled. But are there other comments from Lucas on their history?

 

I wouldn't get too hung up on the dates in the novelization, but we should get the gist of what happened. As far as dates go, we know that the Sith didn't show themselves for as long as the Republic has existed (1000 years), and they ruled the universe 1000 years earlier. We don't know what happened in that 1000 years-gap, nor what led to their perceived extinction. Then again, its easy to overlook that only Ki-Adi-Mundi believed they were extinct. No other Jedi makes such claims. They are aware of what resulted of the in-fighting, so Darth Bane (or one of the Sith Lords that followed) must have done something that would explain how the Jedi acquired that knowledge.

 

I’d argue that what we see in TCW and Rebels fits with the idea of Darth Bane creating the Rule of Two early in the history of the Sith. Sidious calls the Rule of Two “the first and only reality of the Sith”, Yoda recognizes Darth Bane and knows that he’s called “Darth Bane” and created the Rule of Two, and the temple on Malachor in Rebels is designed for only two people to enter.

 

Before Darth Bane, the Sith also worked in pairs, that never changed. What I think Lucas was getting at is that each Sith Master had their own mini-empire/power base. And in their greed, they would want each other's power. Some would join together and gang up on the big guy, others would destroy themselves through direct conflict. In the end, they all fell.

This also explains how Sidious mentions past Sith empires and how he later claims that his empire is the first galactic one.

 

The Sith (in the new canon, at least) are much older than 2,000 years old.

Tarkin novel states that;

As well as the canon sourcebook Knights of Fate;

 

That's true about the dates and about how much of this info still fits with what we see of the ancient Sith in TCW and Rebels. After all, in other comments, Lucas was more general when he said that the Sith first started out thousands of years ago, quickly killed each other, and then achieved stability by numbering two only. That could have been 2,000 years before, but it could also have been many more. I think it's long ago enough to be a time of legend for the characters in the movies. And regardless of how long ago they first started, which is when Darth Bane lived, the Jedi thought them extinct about a thousand years before the movies, coinciding with the birth of the Republic (or its current iteration at least, as of the prequels).

Strangely, this does fit nicely with how the video game KOTOR portrayed the ancient Sith. They had only a master and an apprentice, they had the internecine conflict that results when there were more than that, and they had them all named "Darth." Not saying that's canon, but it's a look at how that period of Sith activity while still under the Rule of Two could look like.

Another interesting thing to consider, especially in light of TROS and the sequels, is the role played by servants of the Sith. While the comments only mention the Sith Lords, as we know from Darth Sidious and his apprentices, the truth is that they often have a significant power-base. It's not literally just two people against the world, just two Sith Lords. And in the past, we may have seen this a few times: with the other Sith apparitions in Moraband in the TCW Yoda arc, with the other ashen corpses in Malachor in Rebels, and with Darth Sidious's cult in TROS. I know some of you disregard the Disney canon (and therefore the second two examples), but I'm just thinking about how that power-base has been depicted in the works that have been created, and how this older Rule of Two concept can still apply to the new canon.

 

I think it's easier to picture the Sith before Darth Bane as something similar to crime syndicates, like the Hutts, Pykes, etc... Each Sith pair (master and apprentice) held power over a certain sector and they all craved each other's power. I also think Darth Bane could have reformed the Sith too early, otherwise, way wait?

Under the rule of two, or before it? I don't recall much about KotOR's Sith, but wasn't there some Sith academy and a bunch of Sith apprentices going around?

 

So you’re saying that Darth Bane was not a part of the first generation of Sith, that he appeared some time later, not at the 1,000 year mark before TPM but not at the start? Or do you mean that he was indeed part of that first generation, which killed itself off in short order, and thus is essentially a true founding member?

I didn’t actually play the games. I thought the academy and other apprentices were something from the second game, but I could be mistaken.

In Legends canon, Kotor predated Bane and the Rule of Two. But per this discussion, that may have been an error on the EU’s part, and Lucas may have seen Bane as the founder of the only lasting Sith Order, which existed out in the open for centuries before being thought destroyed and going into hiding for a millennium.

 

I wonder if during this era (let’s go with 2000-1000 BBY) the Jedi were whodunit detectives and they would try to figure out the identity of the Sith Lord causing the conflict of the day. When the Jedi identify and start to arrest the Sith Lord, the Sith Lord reveals and activates a red lightsaber and there’s a duel.

 

We know Darth Bane still started the Rule of Two in the new canon (I think).

BUT
1. It is no longer certain that Bane existed when the Sith started to go into hiding. In fact, I always found this illogical in the old canon, for the Jedi to associate the Rule of Two so strongly with the Sith.
2. It is no longer certain how many centuries/millennia there are between the first Sith and Darth Bane. In old Legends canon it was 6000 years. I also heard that Lucas’s original notes say it was just a generation or two.
3. Unlike old Legends canon, there isn’t any indication yet that there was ever a Sith species.

As I hinted with my proposal I posted earlier, I hope there’s never been one great galactic Sith empire in the past. Palpatine and Mace do allude to the Sith ruling the galaxy in the past, but Palpatine also says in the same movie that he is forming the FIRST “Galactic” Empire. This, especially all these references being in ROTS so know it’s not Lucas changing his mind again, heavily imply that there were one multiple Sith Kingdoms/Empires but no single Sith ruler, or at least no single Sith ruler who can claim their empire was “galactic” by any stretch.

So more similar to the Knight Errant series’ take on the Sith in the galaxy.

This implies that Multiple kingdoms/empires were ruled by the Sith for at least several centuries of not millennia, enough for Mace and Palpatine to still remember eons later. And that they then destroyed themselves and allowed the Republic to either form or resurge to combat them. But also that the Rule of Two Sith have been around even longer, for the Sith to automatically be equated with them, so I would think at least a couple thousand years... but also knowing that their rule, while long a presence in the galaxy, can never be considered “galactic.”

So I think we could have something like this:

3000 years to 2500 years before the movies: time of the multiple Sith empires ruling most of the known galaxy of the time.

2500 years to 2000 years before the movies: time of the collapse of the various Sith warlords fighting each other, and return or creation of the Old Old Republic.

2000 years to 1000 years before the movies: time of the Banite Sith, who are an evil presence and the Jedi’s sworn enemy, but never rule TL the galaxy.

1000 years before the movies: the Banite Sith appear to be wiped out but survive in secret, and the Old Old Republic was either wiped out at some point with the Banite Sith (unlikely) or heavily reformed as they retake the known galaxy from the Sith when they seem to finally disappear for good (much more likely) and become the Galactic Republic we know from 100 years before Yoda’s birth to the time of the Prequel Trilogy.

The years can be lengthened (perhaps 1000 years of Sith kings playing their game of thrones and many thousand years for the Banite Sith as constant threat but never-galactic rulers), but I think the sequence and overall proportion and story have to stay the same in order to be consistent.

And as said earlier, I’m very partial to the idea of the first Sith Lords not knowing about the dark or light side, and the Jedi Knights sworn to them until they go Order 66 (but without the brainwashing) on the overlords who are evil, to help the common folk form the first Republic. Knights are supposed to be sworn to their Lords, and it’s interesting the battle ever afterwards is a war between the Lords and the Knights. With the titles of nobility, like Princess of Alderaan and Count Dooku, being the descendants of those few Sith Lords who chose to reject the dark side and make way for democracy, and all their force-sensitive children eventually recruited over the years into the Jedi as only non-sensitive descendants continue the bloodlines. Could be the reason behind Jedi not marrying or having families too, so they don’t do what Count Dooku eventually did, and get involved in politics and bloodlines that led to the first dark Sith Lords.

 

My comment has a typo. I meant to say that Darth Bane couldn't have reformed the Sith too early. We don't know how old the Sith are, but I believe that after the Sith began, over time they rose in ranks and in power, and then the in-fighting left them in ruins. From that event, Bane survived and reformed the Sith. But the in-fighting didn't happen right at the beginning. Gaining power, creating empires and ruling the galaxy takes time. As Lucas said, they ruled the galaxy 2000 years before the movies. So that was the apex of their power before Bane's reformation. Bane reformed them not long after, so the Sith post-Bane have existed for 1000 years before the creation of the Republic. Plently of time for the Jedi to discover about him and what he had done. And considering what Ki-Adi-Mundi said, the Jedi must have dealt with the Sith one way or the other 1000 years before the movies. That's for how long he thought they were extinct, not more.

I'm pretty sure there was an academy on Korriban with a bunch of Sith wannabes. But it doesn't matter...

 

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,23298-4,00.html

“One of the themes throughout the films is that the Sith lords, when they started out thousands of years ago, embraced the dark side. They were greedy and self-centered and they all wanted to take over, so they killed each other. Eventually, there was only one left, and that one took on an apprentice. And for thousands of years, the master would teach the apprentice, the master would die, the apprentice would then teach another apprentice, become the master, and so on. But there could never be any more than two of them, because if there were, they would try to get rid of the leader, which is exactly what Vader was trying to do, and that's exactly what the Emperor was trying to do. The Emperor was trying to get rid of Vader, and Vader was trying to get rid of the Emperor. And that is the antithesis of a symbiotic relationship, in which if you do that, you become cancer, and you eventually kill the host, and everything dies.”



At 0:58, Lucas says, “The Sith knights were started by a fallen Jedi knight who was tempted by the dark side. The secret was that they were patient and they trained and studied but they didn’t make their presence known to anybody until we get to Episode I here where they finally make their move trying to take over the universe.”

https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace-oral-history

“I’d already established that all Jedi had a mentor, with Obi-Wan and Luke, and the fact that that was a bigger issue — that’s the way the Jedi actually worked. But it was also the way that the Sith worked. There’s always the Sith Lord and then the apprentice.

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, 2,000 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.

That’s why I call it a Rule of Two — there’s only two Sith Lords. There can’t be any more because they kill each other. They’re not smart enough to realize that if they do that, they’re going to wipe themselves out. Which is exactly what they did.

In The Phantom Menace, Palpatine was the one Sith Lord that was left standing. And he went through a few apprentices before he was betrayed. And that really has to do with certain talent and genes that allow you to be better at what you’re doing than other people.”

"The Sith are the archenemies of the Jedi," George Lucas explained, "and for a long time, they ruled the universe until the Jedi came along and got rid of them. The Sith characters in the previous Star Wars films were Darth Vader and the other apprentices-Darth Maul from Episode I and Count Dooku, or Darth Tyrannus, from Episode II and the soon-to-be released Episode III. The evil master Sith in all of the films is Darth Sidious, who becomes Emperor of the universe." --George Lucas, Star Wars Insider, issue 78; page 80

 

This implies that the Jedi were deeply involved in the destruction of Sith rule.

Which kind of contradicts:

So Lucas's position on the Sith is pretty hard to decipher.

This implies that the "secret" of the Sith after they lost their "rule of the universe" was staying hidden.

At least in the TPM novelization, Bane is the only Sith who really grasps the value of staying hidden.

So the description here:

https://www.starwars.com/databank/darth-bane

which emphasises that the Jedi decimated the Sith (although Sith squabbling was a factor that made it much easier for them to do so), and that Bane was the one who came up with "don't make your presence known to anybody":


These Sith would operate in the shadows, favoring guile and conspiracy to bring down their opponents rather than brute force -- that is, until it was time to rise and subjugate the galaxy.

is consistent with some of what Lucas wrote, except where he contradicts himself.

In Legends, it's certain, In Newcanon, it's certain (Databank is a Newcanon source). The only place where it's uncertain is "Lucas's headcanon" so to speak.

Which is kind of contradictory - since he doesn't seem to be able to make up his mind whether it was Sith infighting that ended the Sith rule of the universe, or The Jedi.

"Both" is a reasonable compromise in both Legends & Newcanon.

 

I agree. I said this before that Lucas changes his opinion from time to time, we can't actually say Lucas's statements are set in stone.

Matt Martin from Lucasfilm also mentioned this before;

Spoiler

 

It's true that Lucas's comments may sometimes be contradictory, and that makes sense. A lot of them are elicited in interviews, and there might have been details that he either hadn't pinned down at the time or didn't think were especially important. The legendary time spans are an example, besides the one clear date of 1,000 years before TPM that indicates the start of the current era. But Lucas's comments show that he does have clear ideas about Sith history, and especially about how that plays into his stories.

The Rule of Two is not just a Sith policy, it's a fact of their reality. What Darth Bane did was realize a truth about the dark side and the only way in which it can function for long periods of time without destroying itself. There can only be two Sith Lords at a time because that's the only stable organization, otherwise they will kill each other off.

Several arcs in TCW showed this to us directly. Think about the complicated web of treason that we see with Sidious, Tyranus, Ventress, Opress, and Maul at various points throughout the Clone Wars. And in the end, only Sidious and Vader remained, keeping the dark side stable for another generation, until another powerful Force user emerged.

So placing Darth Bane in the earliest era of the Sith now makes so much sense to me. It's unlikely that the first generation of Sith, which numbered more than fifty members, could have lasted too long. Likely as soon as they began to grow in power they began to fight one another, which I can easily picture resulting in a large-scale conflict. But once that bloodbath ended, it must have been Darth Bane's more stable order that warred against the Jedi for millennia, before finally going extinct to the galaxy at large. All the centuries of strife and superweapons and oppression that became part of Jedi legend make more sense if they happened after Bane. Like we see in TCW, that doesn't mean there were really only ever two Sith at a time throughout. More likely than not, there were many more webs of betrayal and destruction and war.

And that's why Sidious's line from TCW, shared earlier in this thread, now seems to me to perfectly capture this idea: "Remember the first and only reality of the Sith. There can only be two."