Lit Mother Talzin & Gethzerion Alliance

What do you think the relationship was that Mother Talzin had with Gethzerion, if any? How did Gethzerion take over the New Nightsisters after the destruction of Mother Talzin? Use your imagination.

 

I would speculate that Gethzerion might not be her actual birth name - there's a mountain called Mount Gethzerion in the newcanon, so if we're mixing newcanon with Legends, then Gethzerion the Nightsister might have named herself after it, on becoming a Nightsister.

In The Courtship of Princess Leia, Teneniel Djo says of Gethzerion "We cast her out of our clan only seven years ago" - which suggests that, unless she was a secret Nightsister for very many years, she might not actually have known Talzin - but instead, gotten hold of Talzin's writings, etc. long after her death.

Kyrisa, a Nightsister who fought Gethzerion and was exiled, was exiled during the Star Wars Galaxies period, which was around 1 ABY or so. Given than The Courtship of Princess Leia was in 8 ABY, the battle between Kyrisa and Gethzerion must have taken place very close to Gethzerion's exile from the Singing Mountain Clan.

 

Sai's Nightsisters were active in 22 BBY, before Talzin's big falling-out with Dooku in 21 BBY.

Maybe when Talzin says to Dooku "Long ago, you chose to help me" - she's talking about Dooku's allying with Sai Sircu, who, in this conception, was one of Talzin's senior agents, and giving them all those lightsabers? Admittedly one year isn't very long.

If Talzin replaced Ros Lai as Nightsister leader during Ros Lai's time in custody, it makes sense for Ros Lai to resent her and see her as usurping her position - and work against Talzin's agents.

 

Talzin was active long before Ros Lai's time, given her dealings with Palpatine and Maul long pre-TPM as well as her Book of Sith parts.

So I doubt Talzin took over while Ros was in custody, rather Ros took over while Talzin was offplanet. And the entire shenangian with Maul's mother being either Talzin or Kycina or "Kycina Talzin" as one and the same.

The real question is, when was Old Daka the leader of the Nightsisters and how old is she?

 

But Ros Lai took over from Zalem, the "Queen of the Nightsisters". Though, strictly speaking, while she managed to kill Zalem, she didn't have enough time to really establish a grip on them before being taken off-planet.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Zalem
After Zalem's death, her murderer was expected to take her role as Clan Mother, but Ros Lai never got the opportunity, as she was foiled and taken away to Coruscant by Quinlan Vos.[1] The Queen of Dathomir's plans for galactic domination had failed, and the Sisters once again split into several competing covens. Eventually, the shaman Talzin was appointed to the leader of the Nightsisters.

Oddly, someone on Wookieepedia seems to think Gethzerion is centuries old:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Gethzerion
Born on the planet of Dathomir many centuries before the start of the Galactic Civil War, Gethzerion belonged to the Daughters of Allya, a society of Force-sensitive females who used "magic" to control the Force, with the male population serving as servants and mates.

And that Zalem took a title that Gethzerion had already held before her:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Zalem

At some point, Zalem brought together many warring covens of Nightsisters under her banner, and she appointed herself as "Queen of Dathomir".[1] She had become the leader of all Nightsisters, a position the founding Mother Gethzerion once held until the Nightsisters broke into separate covens and would regain years later.[2]

Which is not at all consistent with the story of Gethzerion's very late exile, as portrayed in The Courtship of Princess Leia.

IMO it would be much simpler to have Gethzerion refound them, then to have her found them, lose control, and then regain control decades later.

I'd speculate that the Nightsisters present in the Chu'unthor era:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chu'unthor

After Yoda saved the life of Rell, a young witch, the two were able to negotiate a settlement. The Chu'unthor and its library would be abandoned on Dathomir, but the Jedi were free to leave. Yoda asked Rell to hide the ship's reader disks until a Jedi Knight came, who would free her world from the Nightsisters, the witches who had enveloped themselves in the dark side of the Force.

were not Gethzerion's, and that she is not that old. After all, she is supposed to be Augwynne's daughter, and Augwynne is supposed to be younger than Rell.

 

@Iron_lord Fact is Talzin was a Clan Mother before Zalem already as per Book of Sith and other Maul related stories. Even if others ruled in her place when she was offworld, like maybe Zalem as one of her second in command, she returned to the duty afterwards regardless of what Ros Lai did.

Unless Zalem is another incarnation of Talzin by another name and she survived death more times than we can count. But I think we do not need that. Talzin is becoming like Vitiate with his various bodies already.

But I still think Old Daka is key here.

 

Maybe "clan mother" ranks below "queen of the nightsisters" - it simply referring to the head of one coven, with there being several.

 

Possible but Book if Sith is rather explicit as to Talzins role. Unless she exaggerates herself...

 

Centuries later, the Jedi returned. Their great training ship, the Chu'unthor, was called to our shores, and the Jedi who came to reclaim it could not match our strength. Even their Master Yoda, the strongest of all the Jedi, abandoned the prize and fled.

Few visits have come to Dathomir since then. But the Nightsisters spread throughout the galaxy after I unified the clans following the death of Mother Zalem.

She makes it pretty clear that she wasn't leader of the Nightsisters before Zalem - only after.

And that there are multiple clan mothers:

Only the clan mothers may broker the services of the Nightsisters. But not all Nightsisters have equal expertise. We will not repeat the mistakes of Shaman Yansu Grjak, who too eagerly sold the services of her clan to Separatist buyers and then could not protect her sisters from the Jedi counterattack.

Since it's on the last page of Talzin's section of the book, Talzin probably wrote that as a little addendum not long before she gave that copy of the Nightsisters' writings to Ventress - because Yansu's mistakes would have taken place only a short time before Ventress joined the clan. Sai being part of Yansu's clan.