Star Wars Destiny Chronicles: Darksiders -- Rule of Two

THE BANITE SITH

The Way of the Dark and the Heresy of Darth Millennial

    When the Galactic Empire established the Church of the Dark Side to spread propaganda in the wake of its failure at Endor, it went full in on the mockery it made of the Prophets of the Dark Side that had forewarned such failure. Not only were Imperial agents remade to serve as parodic imitations of such prominent Prophets as Kadann and Jedgar, but the warlord they would eventually sponsor, the three-eyed Trioculus, was in many ways a twisted repetition of the very man that had founded the Prophets nearly a thousand years ago.

    Born in the slums of the Sub-District on Tralon IV as the result of a drunken one-night stand, the three-eyed infant that would eventually become known as the Sith Lord Darth Millennial was immediately rejected by his frightened and spiteful mother, who abandoned him in the very alley he had been given birth in. The child would have died then and there had he not been found by a wandering Gran merchant. Having been rejected by society for her own appearance, the Gran took pity on the three-eyed boy and took him into her care, giving him the name Argos. 

    Growing up in Roth's Town, Argos did not fully escape discrimination and ridicule for his unusual appearance. Even the many non-humans that resided in the settlement shunned him and mocked his mother for having ever taken him in in the first place. Unable to fit in, Argos spent his entire childhood living in and working at his mother's shop, getting his education from a protocol droid she had acquired from her travels. When his Gran caretaker passed away when he was seventeen, her Besalisk business partner took over and ran the shop with an iron fist. His controlling leadership style and the way his underlings agreed to everything he said caused Argos to despise those who were unable to form their own people and never questioned what they were told. After his new boss fled town when a scheme of his backfired, Argos took it upon himself to run the shop in his place. While business drastically dwindled when it was discovered that a three-eyed man was now running the shop, he was nonetheless able to make enough money to get by each day, maintaining a minimalist lifestyle for several years.

    Argos's life would change forever when an Iktotchi woman stepped foot into the shop. As soon as he laid eyes on her, Argos knew that he was in love. The feeling was, in some way, mutual: upon seeing Argos, the Iktotchi knew right away that there was something special about him. Her species' natural precognitive abilities allowed her to peer into his future and realize that he was destined for greatness. Not only that, but Argos had unknowingly demonstrated precognitive abilities of his own by predicting the woman's words minutes before she even spoke them. When Argos finally mustered the courage to ask her for a night out, she eagerly accepted.

    It was on the fifth date that the woman revealed to Argos who she truly was. She told him that her real name was Darth Cognus and that she was part of an ancient order known as the Sith. Long believed to have been wiped out four decades prior, the Sith had survived in secret under the Rule of Two, a creed which dictated that there be only two Sith: a master and an apprentice. Cognus herself was the apprentice in this setup, with her master Darth Zannah being involved in the political scene on Tralon. Due to being a non-human, Cognus was forbidden from setting foot in Tralon's capital city, even posing as a slave, and she had thus been tasked with seeking out artifacts left over from the time when the Sith had once ruled over Tralon three thousand years ago.

    But, as she told her wide-eyed lover, she had found something far more important, far more precious than mere artifacts. She had found him.

    The Sith had come to Tralon in the hopes of getting Larith Valsas, a leading figure in Tralonist politics, nominated for the seat of Supreme Chancellor in place of her rival Senator Alron Sendor and use her to control the Republic from behind the scenes once Valsas had been elected, thereby bringing about the revenge of the Sith. But, upon receiving the Force vision that seeing Argos had given her, Cognus realized that the time was too early for the Sith's revenge and that Darth Zannah's plot would not only end in failure but end the Sith once and for all. Not wanting to see Darth Bane's legacy undone so soon, Darth Cognus left Argos that night to set things right. When she returned, she offered to take Argos away from Tralon and help him start his life anew. Smitten by her and resentful of everything his homeworld represented, he accepted her offer with the same eagerness she had shown him.

    By the time they had left Tralon, Alron Sendor had been nominated for Supreme Chancellor and Darth Cognus had become the sole reigning Sith. She was quick to amend the latter part by teaching Argos the ways of the dark side, bestowing onto him the name Darth Millennial for being the catalyst towards the Sith's preservation for the next millennium to come. 

    The longer Darth Millennial studied under Cognus however, the more prominent it became that the two of them had differing ideals and views on the Sith and the direction they should take. Upon learning about the Sith Lord Skere Kaan and his idea of there being many Sith, Millennial formed the opinion that the Sith would be a far more greater threat to the Jedi if they restored the numbers they had before the cataclysm that had gone down on Ruusan. He believed that Darth Bane had acted prematurely in wiping out Kaan and his Brotherhood of Darkness and that the current formula of acting through guile and patience was a fragile one at best. Sooner or later, the Sith would make one wrong step and expose themselves to the Jedi, ensuring their destruction by sheer number alone.

    Naturally, Darth Cognus rejected her apprentice's ideas, being a firm adherent to the Rule of Two. After all, she herself had been taught by Darth Bane himself before becoming apprenticed to Darth Zannah and had seen the wisdom in his principles. When Millennial pointed out that Bane had violated his own rule by taking on Cognus as an apprentice in the first place, the Dark Lady lashed out at him and made him swear that he no longer voice such thoughts ever again. While Millennial acquiesced at first, he would later find other opportunities to push his heretic ideas, further widening the rift between them. 

    It did not take long for things to reach a boiling point between them. Having had enough of her student and ex-lover's heretical vision, Darth Cognus attacked Millennial, deeming him no longer fit to carry the vision of the Sith in her stead. Still harboring feelings for her, and acknowledging the fact that he was nowhere near strong enough to defeat her in battle, Darth Millennial fled from his former master, taking a ship deep into the Outer Rim Territories. For reasons Millennial was not privy to at the time and never would be, Darth Cognus did not take pursuit.

    Fleeing into the depths of Sith Space, Darth Millennial settled on the lost world of Dromund Kaas and chose to use it as the staging ground for his own order of dark side followers. Attracting Force-users of considerable intelligence, Millennial established a new religion, one that blended Sith teachings with those of pre-Republic philosophers, and declared himself Supreme Prophet of the Dark Side, chosen by the Force itself. Any who questioned the Way of the Dark were branded as heretics and promptly executed, solidifying Millennial's reign over his followers. Naturally, none of them even thought to point out the hypocrisy of the man who advocated that one form his opinion rather than blindly follow others. 

    While Darth Millennial would eventually pass away in the centuries that followed, the Dark Force he had established continued to live beyond him. The Prophets of the Dark Side withstood the test of time and continued to operate in the years that followed the deaths of Darth Sidious and Darth Vader, the last adherents to the Rule of Two. While the Prophets would eventually be wiped out themselves by one of their own, they nonetheless served as a testament to Darth Millennial's principles and how they stood in the face of the Rule of Two.

Blinded by the Light: The Setback of Darth Gravid

Black Hole Sun: The Tale of Darth Erebus
Crimson Dawn: The Many Rises and Falls of Darth Maul

   Within the Order of the Sith, it is very rare for a Sith apprentice who has failed to meet his master's expectations to live as long as Darth Maul has. Yet somehow this Dathomirian Zabrak has managed to surprise even the Emperor himself.

    Accounts conflict with one another on how exactly Maul ended up in the clutches of Darth Sidious. According to one account, Maul was born to a Nightsister named Kycina who gave her infant son to a young Sidious while he was visiting Dathomir. However, the Nightsister Mother Talzin claimed that Maul was her child and that Sidious had taken him from her after promising to make her his apprentice.

    Regardless of the actual scenario, Maul was nonetheless raised as Sith since birth and trained to be an assassin, even if he was not aware of what a Sith actually was. Unbeknownst to him, Sidious was in fact serving a master of his own at the time, to whom he presented Maul as nothing more than a mere acolyte. Behind Darth Plagueis' back however, Sidious was slowly molding Maul to be a true Dark Lord of the Sith. After years of rigorous training, Maul was finally named a Sith Lord and bestowed the title of "Darth."

    Over the next five years, Darth Maul would be sent on many a mission by his master, being pitted against Jedi to prove his strength in the dark side. Many a Jedi Knight fell to his double-sided blade, though not enough for the Order to take notice or suspect the Sith of having returned. This would eventually change in 7945 C.R.C. when Darth Maul was sent to track down Queen Amidala's ship to bring her back to Naboo and force her to sign a treaty with the Trade Federation. This brought him into conflict with Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, who managed to escape Maul's wrath and report to the Jedi Council of the encounter.

    Darth Maul would eventually face Qui-Gon again on Naboo along with Jinn's apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi. After a lengthy duel that brought the three combatants into the heart of Naboo's plasma refinery complex, Maul delivered a fatal blow to Qui-Gon's stomach, killing the Jedi Master. Enraged by his master's death, Obi-Wan attacked the Sith and, although it seemed for a moment that Maul had the upper hand, eventually severed the Zabrak in half at the waist.

    As far as the Jedi were concerned, this was the end of Darth Maul and they proceeded to set their sights on the "Second Sith." Even Darth Sidious believed him to be dead and, after killing his own master, took on a new apprentice in the form of former Jedi Count Dooku. Unbeknownst to all however, Maul had in fact survived; through sheer and utter spite, Maul had survived what would have killed another man and found his way to Lotho Minor. Blinded by rage and amnesiac of who he was, Maul built himself a massive droid carapace to keep himself mobile and he would spend the next twelve years living off of the planet's rodents.

    In 7957 C.R.C., Maul was rediscovered when his brother Savage Opress, an acolyte of Darth Tyranus, arrived on Lotho Minor in search of his sibling, having been sent by Mother Talzin. After helping Maul regain his memory, the Zabrak Sith properly rebuilt himself and set out on a path for revenge against the Jedi who had bested him: Obi-Wan Kenobi.

    Maul's campaign brought him and his brother into the seedier realm of the galaxy as they recruited criminal organizations to their cause. The Mandalorian sect Death Watch was the first to join them, followed by the Pyke Syndicate, Black Sun, and even the Hutt Cartel. This "Shadow Collective" proceeded to take over Mandalore, ousting the New Mandalorian government. Upon declaring himself Mand'alor however, Death Watch leader Pre Vizsla turned against Maul and Savage, imprisoning them. Enraged by this betrayal, Maul broke free and killed Vizsla, declaring himself ruler of Mandalore.

    Upon hearing word of Maul's actions on Mandalore, Darth Sidious -- who had originally been content allowing Maul to serve as a nuisance to the Jedi -- decided that his former apprentice was too dangerous of a wild card and thus a threat to his plans. While an uprising ruptured across Mandalore, Sidious arrived on the planet to confront Maul and his brother. After a duel in which he toyed with the two would-be Sith, Sidious eventually killed Savage before subduing Maul. Rather than kill him however, Sidious decided to keep his former pupil alive and had him imprisoned on the Separatist world of Stygeon Prime.

   Maul would eventually escape however and retake command of the Shadow Collective. Returning to Mandalore, Maul and his forces remained in occupation for some time before they fell under siege by the forces of the Republic, led by former Padawan Ahsoka Tano. In the midst of the battle however, Darth Sidious -- as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine -- delivered Order 66 to the clone troopers, causing them to turn against the Jedi. While Tano and the renegade clone Rex dealt with the repercussions of their allies' betrayal, Maul slipped from their grasps and fled from Mandalore.

    Although he had lost Mandalore, Maul was still able to retain some of his hold on the intergalactic underworld. As a result, Crimson Dawn was born from the ashes of the Shadow Collective. While Maul hid in seclusion on Dathomir, he oversaw Crimson Dawn's activities through his underling Dryden Vos. Aware of his former student's persistent survival, Darth Sidious kept a close eye on the criminal faction through his Inquisitors.

    What eventually befell Crimson Dawn is unknown, though Dryden Vos was reportedly killed in 7967 C.R.C. At some point, Maul traveled to a planet in the Malachor system in search of an ancient Sith superweapon, only for his ship to crash leaving him stranded. In 7974, Maul was able to escape from Malachor after manipulating a team of Jedi into helping him. He would have repeated encounters with these Jedi, particularly with the young apprentice Ezra Bridger whom he hoped to make his apprentice, before eventually making his way to Tatooine where he finally located the source of all his anger: Obi-Wan Kenobi, now in hiding as a hermit named "Ben."

    Maul's duel with Ben Kenobi was brief, quickly ending with his death. Yet despite everything, Maul found himself at peace. Having never truly found his place in the galaxy, whether it be Sith or gang leader, Maul could at last pass on content with the knowledge that the Chosen One would avenge him and his brother.