Dawn of the Republic
Timeline Bot
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2016
- Messages
- 37
- Reaction score
- 251
History of the Empire
The history of the Sith Empire begins in the ancient past. Once, the Jedi and the Sith were one, brothers and sisters in the Force. But that harmony broke as the dark side corrupted many Jedi to its call. The first Dark Lords of the Sith formed the Sith Empire and began a reign of terror that lasts to this day. This thread overviews the history of the old Sith Empire, the Sith Brotherhood, and the new Sith Empire as well as the philosophies shared by the Sith Order and the Imperial Legion.
Dawn of the Sith
Millennia ago, in the forgotten reaches of the galaxy, a group of monks, philosophers, wizards, and the greatest visionaries the galaxy has ever known came together to form the Jedi Order. At its core was a belief in the powers of the Force and the interconnectedness of all beings. For thousands of years, the Jedi Order stood as an unbroken beacon of peace and justice in the galaxy. The Force was in harmony.
Over six thousand years ago, that harmony was broken. A group of rogue Jedi became consumed with a lust for power. For them, it was not enough to merely wield the power of the Force in order to help others. They saw it as their birthright to use the Force to rule over the galaxy, to bring order and stability in a galaxy that was largely not under the rule of the Republic that the Jedi were sworn to serve. These rogue Jedi were ensnared by their anger, their passions, and their desire for power. For one hundred years, the followers of this new philosophy, intent on ruling the galaxy with the Force, fought the Jedi and the Republic from their homeworld of Moraband and its Twin World of Korriban.
From this Hundred Year Darkness, the Dark Lords of the Sith were born.
The Old Wars
At first, the philosopher kings of the Sith set out as conquerors. Their first empires were built on the backs of slaves forced to worship their masters and the dark powers they commanded. Zygerria, Yavin, and countless other planets were first seeded as Sith slave colonies. Other species were less fortunate, such as the natives of Vjun who were extinguished entirely by the old Sith Empire and its iron dominion. On the Twins Worlds and other planets, their presence was written into the earth itself. As is often the case, their civilization waxed and waned between periods of sociocultural triumph and regressive ages of chaos and infighting. Each incarnation grew more and more twisted upon the values of its predecessors, disappearing for centuries only to arise further warped by the dark side they worshiped. Fundamentally opposed to the Republic, intermittent war was frequent, the frontiers between both great nations rarely enjoying the quiet respite of peace.
However, the conflict took on another shape as the Jedi and the Sith grew ever more into the other's reflection. The Republic railed against the Empire to protect itself from conquest and to defend those sworn under their protection, and the Jedi warred against the Sith to restore the balance in the Force. No longer were the Sith their wayward brothers, victims of misguided hedonism, but something vastly more dangerous. They were the very face of the dark side. The galaxy was a sacred grove, the Jedi its guardians, and the Sith were a fire that would see every star devoured and every life snuffed out in their pursuit of power.
More and more the Sith pandered to this fanatic struggle against the Jedi, at times victoriously hunting their last refuges and at others narrowly escaping extinction. In time, however, the Sith used the dark side to uncover certain unintended secrets of the Force. On the tombworld of Moraband, they discovered immortality. By interring the remains of their sacred dead, their spirits were able to thrive, becoming the tombs of ancient knowledge the Sith would need to forever rule the galaxy. The planet itself became grisly proof of the Sith's power, and a wound in the Force that the Jedi fought to heal. Driven by fresh zeal after the confirmation of their belief, the Sith pushed knife-deep into Republic space. They burned a path towards the Core, their ultimate goal to conquer Coruscant and transform the galactic jewel into another morbid altar to the dark side. For the first time in living memory, the Jedi were helpless to stop them. Coruscant's fall marked the beginning of a dark age where no power could hope to rival the glory of the Sith, even as they destroyed themselves from within. It was on Coruscant that the Sith built a shrine to their power, one far beneath the surface of the city-planet.
The Empire's staggering size weakened its infrastructure. The Sith had finally succeeded in taking the Core, but the greater scope of their culture became decadent under the lackluster leadership of zealots who had forgotten the ways of the philosophers that ruled before them. Eventually, the Jedi and Republic were able to overturn the Sith hegemony. The Sith were never able to fully recover from this defeat; each successive incarnation was weaker than the one before. Faith dwindled, and divine blood thinned. For a time, the secrets of Moraband were forgotten, and Korriban's stillborn sister was worshiped in ignorance of the centuries of knowledge hoarded there in the courts of its undead kings.
The Fall of the Sith Empire
Though the Sith Empire would never grow to the heights of its once-claimed power, it had one last war to fight with the Jedi and the Republic. With few territories under its command, and with even Moraband and Korriban lost to them, the Sith turned their attention towards Ziost and a fierce band of warriors who dwelled there. Ziost became a symbol of the Sith principle of survival of the fittest. Individuals who knew the Sith would return sought pilgrimage to the planet, to prove their worth. Mandalorians, Echani, Transhodans, dark side adepts, and more were among the many that coalesced onto the planet in the course of a decade. These individuals fought against each other, and with each other. When a group of Jedi came to the planet, to seize the Sith monuments there, they were vastly outnumbered. The short-lived skirmish saw the Jedi slaughtered by a consortium of mercenaries, criminals, warriors, and dark side adepts, the pinnacle sorts of individuals who were now known as the Sacred Band of Ziost, slave warriors for the Sith.
This small conflict with the Jedi led to a unification of purpose among the scoundrels and rogues on Ziost, to fight with strength against the Jedi. As this newly formed Sacred Band of Ziost was emerging into public perception, so too were the Sith revitalizing in the Gordian Reach. Centered around the Massassi, the Sith were assuming control over the entire Gordian Reach, amassing strength to retake the Twin Worlds. The two entities would merge into one military body. Their first act as one nation was the liberation of Korriban and Moraband from their enemies. Over the course of decades, the Sith dominion grew in size. Many planets were conquered. Others joined willingly, either out of fear or greed. Zygerria was one of the first planets to join willingly. Its annexation led to its prosperity, the evolution of its slave trade into a slave empire.
Serenno was another planet to join willingly. With more sinister purposes, the Counts of Serenno sought to take over the Empire. In union with Ord Radama and Zygerria, Serenno established the Imperial Legion, one of the largest military bodies inside the Empire. It established a presence on Ziost, home to several internal conflicts and wars, which turned the fertile world barren. In a massive planet-wide war, the Serenno Counts executed a coup d'etat. The Sacred Band was quick to retaliate. Showing its supremacy in strength, the Sacred Band retook Ziost and slew the rebels. The Sacred Band's Warlord then declared himself the new leader of the Sith Empire, heralding the beginning of the rank known as the Supreme Leader, a throne held not just by a Sith, but by the most powerful individual in the Empire. Over the decades, Warlords and Dark Lords of the Sith alike would rise to the mantle of Supreme Leader. The failed coup led to the ruin of numerous Counts, with the Sacred Band taking control of several ancestral homes. The Sacred Band proved that nothing could stop it.
Nothing but the greed of the Sith.
The Empire once more turned its attention towards the Republic. The years-long war devastated the Empire and the Republic. In a bid to annihilate the Republic by striking at the heart of its power, the Sacred Band joined their Sith brethren in a campaign towards Coruscant, seat of Republic trade; the Sacred Band believed retaking Coruscant would cripple the Republic permanently, the final show of strength. However, the Empire failed to reach their goals. The economic toll crippled expansion. Territory was lost on both sides. The Corporate Sector, once nurtured by the Sacred Band in order to fuel its war machine, seceded from the Empire, believing separation was the only way to return to economic prosperity. They saw that the Sith Lords were beginning to turn on one another in quests for power, and that the rule of the Empire was crumbling.
Finally, the Sith infighting and the limited power of the Sacred Band to stop them gave the Jedi and the Republic an opening. They struck a fatal blow and the Sith Empire collapsed, the end of yet another dynasty of Sith. That was one hundred years ago. Few are the Sith Lords long-lived enough to remember the last time the Jedi stamped out the embers of their order's ancient fire. Once again the word Sith passed into the annals of history, a name for archivists to remember and for mothers to wield while they discipline their unruly children. For nearly a century the Jedi have been reduced to cynics and overbearing grandfathers, doomsayers lost in the bygone years when their oldest enemy gave them purpose.
But the galaxy's memory is ever shortening.
The Sith Brotherhood
In the decades after the fall of the Sith Empire, the Sith Lords rediscovered the secrets of Moraband. The result was a transformation. For too long, the Sith had waged their war with only half their power, all the vicious passion of Korriban without the freezing darkness of Moraband to temper their hatred. After a long dark age, the Sith unearthed the knowledge of their forgotten fathers. When they emerged from the tombworld, it was after a renewal of focus, after whetting their hunger on the crumbs of an empire nearly as old as the Republic itself. Ancient alliances were called upon and new ones forged. Worlds were conquered and peoples enslaved; again the Jedi were given the purpose they lacked, the darkness to balance their light. Again, the name of the Sith was whispered on a thousand lips - in hatred, in fear, in reverence.
This was the Sith Brotherhood, a new dynasty of Sith intent on claiming the whole of the galaxy. So, too, did the Sacred Band intend to claim its rightful place. In the century since the Sith Empire fell, the Sacred Band became a true force to be reckoned with, and one to represent the backbone of the Sith Brotherhood. No longer were they slaves, but warriors and leaders in their own right, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Lords of the Sith in the fight against the Republic. Though they were not an actual military, this band of misfits, mercenaries, patriots, criminals, and warriors alike proved their worth.
The Resurgent Sith Empire
The Sith Brotherhood was a necessary step in the direction of galactic domination, but not one that was sustainable. Born of weakness, suffering, and necessity the Brotherhood was passionate, fierce and vicious, but not always effective. Based on division, jealousy, and competition the Brotherhood wasted too much energy fighting itself, energy that could have been put forth into the war machine against the Republic. Gone is this inefficiency, and born in its place is a sleek, streamlines power. A flag under which the Galaxy will find itself kneeling, the reborn Sith Empire.
Ancient legends still tell the days that the Sith Empire once ruled over the land. The cold fist of the Empire enforced stability and structure. With the fall of Coruscant the Brotherhood planted their flag in the core once more, and paved the way for the rebirth of the Sith Empire. Everything that the flawed institutions of the Jedi and Republic have built will fall, and upon its ashes will stand the legions of Sith - back to their rightful place at the helm of galactic destiny.
It was realized during the late months of the war that unity was the key to victory over the Republic. The reason for the Sith Brotherhood's countless losses, despite their raging war machine was division. The new Empire, built on order and authority is the most fearsome government to grace the galaxy since the Sith Empire of old. Whereas the old Empire fell due to the greed of the Sith, this is not the old Empire. This Empire is born of unity between the old Sacred Band and Lords of the Sith, and will succeed others have failed. Once and for all the Republic & Jedi Order will be no more.
Last edited by a moderator: