The History of the Sith, part 2

Stardate 11-19-06

Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.
Hatred leads to power.
Power leads to victory.
Let your anger flow through you.
Your hate will make you strong.
True power is only achieved through
testing the limits of one's anger,
passing through unscathed.
Rage channeled through anger is unstoppable.
The dark side of the Force
offers unimaginable power.
The dark side is stronger then the light.
The weak deserve their fate.
-tenets of Sith philosophy

At the end of my first, and most excellent post on the Sith, we learned that Darth Bane and the Sith had evolved into a new enemy for the Jedi. Darth Bane took his apprentice, Darth Seer, to Coruscant where they used special Sith powers to hide themselves from the Jedi Council. Darth Bane died of old age and his apprentice, Darth Seer took up the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith. He formalized and established the Code for the Sith Order, which required that every new Sith apprentice had to construct his own red-bladed light saber, every Sith would now take on the title of "Darth," which means, "Shadow Warrior," and the Sith Rule of Two would strictly be enforced. Darth Seer continued to train his apprentice, Darth Mongerer, on Coruscant until he died of old age. Darth Mongerer faithfully continued the Order of the Sith, but was discovered by a Jedi. He was beheaded by the Jedi in a duel, but hid from him the fact that he was a Sith. His apprentice succeded him as Sith Master.

Darth Plagueis the Wise
Some of you may recall a conversation from Episode III that Grand Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious had with the young Jedi, Anakin Skywalker about a Sith Master who could control the midi-chlorians themselves, and through that, create and preserve life itself. Plagueis was a Jedi who discovered the Sith on Coruscant, and tracked them down. He found Darth Imperious and forced him to teach him the ways of the Sith. Plagueis was able to force Imperious to take him on as an apprentice because Plagueis had discovered a kyber crystal. A kyber crystal is a crystal that is forged with, and contains the dark powers of the Force. It is said that a kyber crystal will greatly boost the dark powers of those who wield it. Imperious accepted him as an apprentice, but had planned in his mind that he would slay him while they were training. Plagueis was too powerful and after they finished training, Darth Plagueis sliced of Imperious' arms and then sliced him in half from head to hip.

Soon afterwards, Darth Plagueis apprenticed a young boy from Naboo named Dantius Palpatine. Plagueis payed Palpatine's patents a large sum of money to not allow Palpatine to be taken by the Jedi for training. Palpatine was soon named, Darth Sidious. By means of his kyber crystal, his knowledge of dark Sith magic, and his Jedi training, Darth Plagueis did indeed discover a way to tranfer the spirit of an old body into a clone by manipulating the midichlorians. Before he could do so, Plagueis was murdered in his sleep by young Darth Sidious. Plagueis never even saw it coming.

Palpatine continued to use the dark side of the force to block the Jedi Council of his true identity. He soon became a powerful senator and used his genious to slowy plot the demise of the Jedi. As Darth Sidious, he took on Darth Maul as his next apprentice, and as Palpatine, he took the first step to gain complete dominance of the Galactic Senate. To do this, Darth Sidious approached the Trade Federation and persuaded them to blockade the planet of Naboo. Outraged, the Galactic Sentate sent two Jedi, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, to negociate with the Trade Federation. The Jedi were ambushed by droids, but easily escaped. Around the same time, the Trade Federation's droid army attacked and captured Queen Amidala. The two Jedi rescued her, escaped, but soon had to land on the planet Tatooine. While there they stumbled upon the Sith'ari, Anakin Skywalker, a child with an off the chart midichlorian levels, and who was born of a virgin mother. Qui-Gon believed him to be the Jedi Chosen One, and took him with them back to Coruscant. Back at Coruscant, Queen Amidala appeared before the Galactic Senate to plead her case. Palpatine represented Naboo in the Senate and assisted Amidala in the Senate proceedings. Outraged that no army had been sent to protect her people on Naboo, Amidala called for a Senate no-confidence vote for Supreme Chancellor Valorum. Amidala and the Jedi retuned to Naboo and with the Gungans, fought and defeated the Trade Federation's droid army. Their victory, however, came with a crushing blow. Before being sliced in half by young Kenobi, Darth Maul killed Qui-Gon Gin in a brutal light saber duel. Moments before his death, Qui-Gon pleaded with Kenobi to take Anakin on as his padawan. Palpatine's devious plans has worked; with defeat of the Trade Federation, Senator Palpatine was named the new Supreme Chancellor.

Soon after Palpatine became the Supreme Chancellor, he secretly sent Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas to the planet Kamino and commanded him to create a clone army. Sifo-Dyas was a friend of Jedi Master Count Dooku who shared the same discontent with what they believed to be a corrupt Senate. Dooku, who was chosen by Sidious to be his new Sith apprentice was told by Sidious that he had secretly sent Dyas to create this clone army. Sidious commanded Dooku, now Darth Tyranus, to kill Dyas and erase Kamino from the Jedi archives before he left the Jedi Council.

10 years later, Dooku/Tyranus emerged as the leader of the Seperatist Movement. Dooku traveled from system to system in search of those who also felt that they were serving a corrupt Senate. As a the number of systems to suceed from the Republic began to rise, concern grew in the Republic of a possible civil war. Because of their fear of a civil war, the Senate created the Military Creation Act, giving its authority to create a huge army. Up until this moment, it had been the job of the Jedi to police and protect the Republic.

Senator Amidala strongly apposed the Military Creation Act. Because of this, there had been many assaination attempts on her life. The Jedi Council commanded Obi-Wan and Anakin to protect her. After one such attempt, Obi-Wan followed the bounty hunter, Jango Fett to Kamino, where he discovered the secret clone army. At the same time, Anakin was sent on his first solo mission with Amidala back to Naboo. On Naboo, Anakins' forbiden love for Amidala continued to grow.

Although Dooku/Tyranus was his Sith apprentice, Tyranus was simply a pawn in Sidious' plan to destroy the Jedi. Sidious used him to create the clone army and to lead the Seperatist movement. Because of their fear in the movement, the Senate voted and gave Supreme Chancellor Palpatine emergency powers, which gave him total dictorial control over the Senate. Palpatines first act was to activate the clone army and crush the rebellion. This started the Clone Wars, which raged on for months; both sides won and lost battles and sustained heavy casualties.

Towards the end of the war, the Seperatist army, now lead by the cyborg General Grevious attacked the capital of the Republic, Coruscant and kidnapped Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Palpatine staged his own kidnapping to draw out Anakin Skywalker, who in the process fought a bitter light saber duel with Count Dooku. Torn between his Jedi value of life and eliminating a very dangerous foe, Anakin sliced off the head of the disarmed Dooku.

Upon return to Coruscant with the Chancellor, Anakin meets his now wife, Padme Amidala and finds out that she is pregnant. Anakin's joy is mixed with fear because of recent dreams that he was having about Padme dying during childbirth.

The Jedi Council started to suspect that there was something wrong with Chancellor Palpatine, but only believed that a very powerful Sith had taken control of him. When Palpatine requested that the Anakin become his personal representative on the council, they readily accepted, but only because they believed that they could influence Anakin to spy on the Chancellor. Reluctantly, Anakin agreed to do so and soon found out that Palpatine was actually a Dark Lord of the Sith. Anakin rushed to Mace Windu to inform him of what he had found out. Windu and three others fromt he Jedi Council confronted Darth Sidious and engaged in a costly battle. Windu was about to kill Sidious when Anakin came to his aid and cut off Windu's hand. Unarmed, Darth Sidious attacked with a force bolt that led Windu to his demise. After this, Sidous was able to convice Anakin that the Jedi were power hungary and should be destroyed, and that the dark side of the Force was the only thing that could save his wife from death.

Anakin became Sidous' new apprentice and took on the name of Darth Vader. With the Jedi attempt on his life, the Chancellor transmitted Order 66, in which the clone army was commanded to kill all Jedi. Across the galaxy, Jedi were slaughtered by Clone troopers that turned on them. Vader went strait to the Jedi Temple and killed all younglings and Jedi that were there. Sidous then sent Vader to kill the remaining leaders of the Seperatists. He was met there by Obi-Wan. Vader and Obi-Wan dueled on the molten planet of Mustafar, but Vader was young and unlearned in the ways of the dark side, and Obi-Wan was able to overtake him. Vader was chopped up and then slipped into the lava. He lost most of his limbs and was burnt to a crisp. Not long after Obi-Wan's departure, Vader was found by Sidous and was repaired with numerous mechanical replacement parts and the infamous black Darth Vader suit was created.

Over the years, Vader and Sidious continued to hunt down and slaughter the remaining Jedi, but was the prophesy of the Sith'ari fufilled? Anakin had faught to bring down the dark side, but then turned and became a Dark Lord of the Sith. After that he wiped out almost all the Jedi; all except for Obi-Wan and Yoda who survived in hiding. With Yoda and Obi-Wan on the light side, and Sidious and Vader on the dark side, a balance was brought to the force, and the prophesy of the Sith'ari was indeed fufilled.

My Solution For Getting the Troops Out of Iraq

Stardate 11/08/06

As we all know, the Dems won the house last night and may possibly take the senate. It is a dark day indeed for our nation. I don't know about the rest of you, but I was terrified to wake up this morning and leave my house. Even with the Dems in power for less then 12 hours, I fully expected to see terrorists and suicide bombers roaming the streets of St. George, looking for their next target. Gays and lesbians freely frolicking; painting the town in various shades of rainbow. Globs of stem cells that resemble humans selling their body parts on the black market, or should I now say "rainbow market." In fact, I dont know why I even decided to leave my house and go to work, because I knew fully well that when I got there, I would find that some Mexican had stolen my job.

Then, in flash of inspiration, it came to me. LET THE DEMOCRATS CREATE A CLONE ARMY. This brilliance came to me while I was watching Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the Clones, and thinking about the dems satanic desire to do more stem cell research. Now a lot of you may be thinking, "Wouldn't it be sinful to create a clone army?" Well we wouldn't be sinning, the dems would, and they are going to hell anyway. Its the same thing as when you ask your inactive brother to go buy you pizza on sunday. He's the one who is actully breaking the sabbath and sinning, but we all get to enjoy the delicous outcome.

Think about it...we would be able to bring all of our troops home, we could keep the clones there for as long as it takes to successfully inforce democrocy, and if they were captured by the insurgents and tortured, no one would really care. Well, I can't guarantee that no one would care, there would probably be some stupid liberal group out there crying for the rights of American Clones. Maybe we could look into creating Mexican Clones...well, mabye not, who would be affraid of a short skinny Mexican Clone? Unless, they looked like a gang member...well, we can work out the details later.

We can only pray that the Clones dont become self aware, such as the Cylons, SkyNet, or the Artificial Intelligence from the Matrix Movies.

ALL FEAR THE DEMOCRAT CLONE ARMY

The History of the Sith, part 1

Stardate 11-04-06

Peace is a lie, there is only passion
Through passion, I gain strength
Through strength, I gain power
Through power, I gain victory
Through victory, my chains are broken
The Force shall set me free

Jedi have always been lured to the amazing powers of the dark side. About seven thousand years before the events of Star Wars IV, a New Hope, a group of Jedi came to believe that true power was achieved not through meditation, as taught by their Jedi Masters, but through emotion. The tension between the Jedi and these Dark Jedi grew until conflict erupted. These Dark Jedi were rounded up and exiled. They were given a spacecraft and were sent into the unknown. The idea was that these Dark Jedi would be sent out into such vast and undiscovered space, that they would have no home, and would eventually just die out.

This however, did not happen. These Dark Jedi emerged into an unknown region of the galaxy and found a planet, Korriban, that was inhabited by a race called the Sith; aliens with red skin, cranial horns, bony chins, and insectile features. The Force flowed strongly with the Sith, allowing them to create their own form of black magic. The Sith were a feudal, violent society, whose nobles were always fighting in order to gain power. The Dark Jedi saw this as an opportunity to gain power. Using their training with the Force, the Dark Jedi amazed the Sith, elevating their status on Korriban to be equal with their gods, and soon became their rulers. It was at this point that the Dark Jedi began to interbreed with the most powerful Sith rulers, forming a new breed of magicians, both strong in the Sith arts and in the dark side of the Force. From this point on, the term "Sith" came to mean not only the original near-human inhabitants of Korriban, but their Dark Jedi Masters as well. Out of this new breed of Sith came the Dark Lords of the Sith, the ones who rule over all Dark Jedi and Sith. This title was bestowed upon their leader by a group of lesser Siths.

For the next 2000 years, the Sith prepared to return and slay the Jedi. They built up their forces, grew in number and in strength, but could never reach of point of pure power because power, was what all desired. Feuds and civil war raged on Korriban with all desiring to be called the Dark Lord of the Sith. Soon Naga Shadow became the Dark Lord of the Sith and put his plans in motion to return to war with the Jedi. Before they could launch their surpise attack, the Jedi discovered them and war broke out. The war lasted 10 years as the Jedi slowly killed each and every Sith, including Naga Shadow. Believing that all had been destroyed, the Jedi returend to the Old Republic.

The following 4000 years in Sith history is very much the same thing over and over. One Jedi or groups of Jedi begin to study the dark side of the Force. Their desire to learn everything about the force leads them to find the spirit of a dead Sith or a Sith Holocron. A holocron is a cube like object invented by the Jedi that stores their history and every thing that they have learned. Pretty soon, a new Dark Lord of the Sith arises and is either killed by a Jedi or killed by a lesser Sith.

Two important things then took place about 1000 years before the events of Star Wars IV. Kaan, a Sith Lord formed the Brotherhood of Darkness and eliminated the title of Dark Lord of the Sith. The Brotherhood was similar to the Jedi Council; a group of lords ruled all, they formed a school where younger Sith could train under them and in turn, create a new Sith army. At the same time that this was happening, a civil war broke out in the Old Republic among light and dark Jedi. The light Jedi prevailed, but there were severe casualties, which left only about 100 Jedi to protect the Old Republic. It was around the time of this Jedi civil war that the prophesy of the Sith'ari became well known. The Sith'ari was said to be a perfect being who would rise to power and bring balance to the Force. According to prophesy, the Sith'ari would rise up and destroy the Sith, but in the process would return to lead the Sith and make them stonger then ever before. It is believed that the prophecy of the Sith, Sith'ari and the prophesies of the Jedi Chosen One refer to the same individual; namely Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, who made the Sith stronger then ever by destoying the Jedi Knights.

One of the most important persons in all history of the Sith was Darth Bane. Bane was an average student with the Brotherhood. Because he had no special abilities, he was soon shunned by the other students. He became a loner and dedicated all of his time to ancient Sith studies. As he learned more and more about the ancient secrets of the Sith, his power in the dark side of the force began to grow. His prowess as a swordsman also secretly grew. He soon challenged the most powerful student to a duel and brutally slaughtered him. After the duel he insulted the Brotherhood and declared that they were a tainted pretender of true Sith power. He was banned from Korriban and traveled to a forgotten planet where he came across a Sith Holocron. Through this Holocron, Bane completed his training, learning new and devastating Sith techniques, including the "thought bomb," which destroys all Force sensitive beings within a certain radius. It should be noted that the term bomb may be misleading-it is a force attack, rather then a physical item.

He also realizes from his studies with the Holocron that any Sith order with multiple lords is doomed to failure and so he creates the Sith Rule of Two: "Only two there shall be. One to embody the power and one to crave it." In order to start his rule of two, Bane realizes that he must destroy all remaining Sith. Its at this time that the Brotherhood is at war with the Jedi. Though it was a small group of Jedi, as a result of the many casualties in the Jedi civil war, the Brotherhood is spread thin and is losing. In desperation they call on Bane to save them. Bane teaches them of the true power of the dark side and convinces them to use the thought bomb. The Sith join together in meditation, and Bane unleashes a wave of power upon the unsuspecting Jedi. Sensing the darkness and ambition in Bane's heart, the other Sith Lords break the circle and send Bane away. Kaan, the Sith Lord who formed the Brotherhood is driven mad by the glimpse that Bane showed him of the true power of the force, later, unleashes the thought bomb, destroying not only all the Jedi involved in the battle, but also all the Sith.

Bane's plan to kill all Sith was a success. Bane forever changed the mantle of the Sith. He took for himself the name Darth Bane. From now on, there would only be two: a master and an apprentice. The master would teach the apprentice and when the master died, the apprentice would become master and seek out a new apprentice. Both would take the title of Dark Lord of the Sith. The new Sith would be cunning, stealth, subterfuge, and in a virtue learned from their greatest enemy, patient. Darth Bane took his apprentice to Coruscant, the center of the Old Republic and the great Jedi Council, and there the Sith would remain, shadowy and unseen, but ever-present.

Stay posted for History of the Sith, part 2, where we will learn about the events leading up to the Revenge of the Sith.