The Dark Side - A Site For Fans of Star Wars, the Sith & the Empire

History

The Sith are an ancient order of Masters of the Force, whose modern origins can be traced back to a dissident Jedi. His name has been lost to history, and hence he has been referred to as "the Dark Jedi".

Hitherto, the Jedi Knights had devoted much of their time to passivity and contemplation. However at the same time, the order was also called upon to be the law enforcement arm of the Old Republic. Often times, this would require the use of more aggressive means than mere contemplation and reflection.

The Dark Jedi reasoned that this contradiction could best be resolved by embracing the Dark Side, which by emphasising anger, fear and aggression, had a lot more to do with law enforcement than meditation.

The Jedi Council not only rejected this idea, the Dark Jedi was expelled. However, others followed him. The problem was that the Dark Side, undisciplined and uncontrolled, can be self destructive: a power struggle within the new Sith order led to its membership being nearly annihilated.

The one survivor was Darth Bane, "Darth" being the traditional forename of all members of the Sith. Bane reasoned that the Sith could perpetuate itself by limiting its numbers to two, a Master and an Apprentice. Thus when the Master passed on for whatever reason, the Apprentice would take over the Master role, and take on a new Apprentice.

This arrangement proved to be successful. In time, the title of Sith Master fell upon Darth Sidious, who also held considerable political gifts. It was the alliance of political as well as Dark Side powers that allowed the Sith to finally emerge from the shadows as the driving force in the galaxy throughout the Imperial period.

Code

The Sith order values the following:

Loyalty - unquestioning loyalty is expected of Sith Apprentices to their Master, and the Master is expected to adhere to the goals of the Sith Order, namely its perpetuation and increase in its power.
Discipline - which goes hand in hand with loyalty. The anarchic nature of the power of the Dark Side means that military-like discipline is required in order for the Sith to be effective.
Stealth - which goes hand in hand with discipline. The Sith survived for centuries by remaining in shadow, only allowing themselves to emerge when the time was right.
Cunning - which often goes hand in hand with stealth. The most effective strategems often involve not being able to see the hand of the strategist in events as they occur.

In practice, this code allowed the Sith not only to survive, but to eventually eliminate all the pillars of the Old Republic, establish the Empire and destroy the Jedi, whom the Sith had never forgiven for the humiliation of the Dark Jedi. A tough, disciplined order, even when the Jedi smugly assumed they might have been eliminated, they were wrong.

Revenge of Sith Wars