Amara

"Legend tells that in the vast future a warrior untouched by life and thus standing outside the Force shall be united with it in such a way as to become the true darkness, the perfect balance for the light that floods the world. I believe that Darth Amaranth is that legend. I believe that Darth Amaranth is the one who will balance the scales."

- Darth Abhorrus

Darth Amaranth was a Sith Lord, positively ancient, and more than likely the single longest surviving Sith of any era. It was 'born' on Orax over a period of over a century, stretching from approximately 29,600 to 29,480 BBY as a Force-Sensitive Shard, known as Bondar. After a time, the Rakatan Infinite Empire conquered Orax, and Bondar acquired a Force-imbued droid body, and has since moved on to a new body, that of a Xim Empire War Robot.

Throughout the many thousands of years, Bondar studied the Force with the Rakata, Legions of Lettow and the Sith, being old enough to see the complete development and destruction of numerous Dark Side organizations, and even assisted a little, coaxing Xendor to become the first Dark Jedi and establish the Legions of Lettow.

Darth Amaranth also founded the dark side organisation known as the Shards of the Force, leading it for almost 12,000 years. Darth Amaranth seemed to sport a dual purpose in life, searching for both power, in the true Sith fashion, and balance within the Force, but over the thousands of years had become twisted and warped into a true dark-side being, craving only power and eternal rule. Though the droid body Amaranth possessed, alongside its crystalline nature, allowed it to effectively exist for eternity if careful, Darth Amaranth nevertheless pushed the boundaries of its body, enhancing the droid chassis with the dark side talent of Mechu-deru repeatedly.

Over the millennia Darth Amaranth took on a number of personas to hide from the galaxy at large, manipulating events from the shadows, but finally met with its effective end during the Clone Wars, being sucked up by one of Darth Sideous’ Force Storm portals and deposited in a pocket dimension, where its droid body and crystalline nature would doom it to a vapid existence for all eternity.

Early Life
Darth Amaranth slowly developed over hundreds of years on the planet of Orax as a Shard, a sentient crystal who communicated through electromagnetic pulses. As a Shard, it took on the name Bondar, reaching out and sensing the names of other types of crystals from within the minds of non-Shard inhabitants of Orax. However, this was not a regular talent for most Shards, rather it was a sign of Bondar's Force sensitivity. Though Shards usually communicated with other Shards through electromagnetic pulses, they lacked any real senses. Not so for Bondar however. Its creation gifted it with the rare capacities for Force Sight and Farseeing, which allowed Bondar to comprehend the world around it.

These mysterious talents were new within the Shard society Bondar existed within at the time, and none were able to explain what these extra senses that Bondar possessed were. However, the Shard knew one thing for sure. Its Farseeing talents revealed what appeared to be almost a map, a spinning, churning disc which Bondar would later learn was the Galaxy. And across this disc Bondar visualized were churning masses of darkness, with occasional spots of glowing light. More concerning to Bondar was the fact that the disc appeared significantly tilted, weighted in one direction by the darkness. Bondar did not understand the concept of balance, being a crystal stuck to a wall, and yet for some reason these visions filled it with unease. In such a state of mind, Bondar would often attempt to discuss such matters with the elder Shards who had existed for thousands of years. Unfortunately, they were as much prisoners of their crystalline makeup as Bondar, and were unable to shed any light on the situation.

Bondar exhibited another strange talent, the capacity to read the thoughts of other beings, whether Shard or not, and even if they did not communicate with electromagnetic pulses, as was the case with the humanoid inhabitants of Orax, Bondar still found itself able to easily understand their thoughts no matter the language. Eventually Bondar honed its talent to the point where it was able to communicate with non-Shard beings, and soon began to learn rapidly of the galaxy outside its cave. With Bondar’s assistance, the knowledge base of the Shard society was accelerated by many millennia, as they caught up with the state of the universe around them.

The Infinite Empire
Unfortunately, Bondar’s proud place as gatherer of knowledge for its Shard cluster would not last for too long, due to a rapidly expanding empire set on galactic conquest. This was the Infinite Empire of the Rakata, who used technology powered and controlled by the Force to subjugate lesser species. How the Infinite Empire ended up on Orax is somewhat of a mystery, given that their Force-navigated hyperdrive tended to lock onto planets with either significant life form populations or else significant concentrations of the Force, but regardless, the Empire did end up on Orax, and the Force-imbued technology lead the Rakata straight to Bondar. Utilizing its unique ability to communicate across species, Bondar spoke with the Rakata, and in doing so made them aware of the sentient nature of the Shards, dooming them to an era of slavery as the Shards were implanted into Rakatan droids and machinery to operate them with greater efficiency.

However, the Rakatan invaders sensed the different nature of Bondar, and it was inserted into a Rakatan intendant droid, before being sent back to the Rakatan capital to serve at the ancient temple. Being a Force sensitive life form, Bondar found the nature of the Force-controlled machinations of the Infinite Empire to be rather appealing to it, and through coercion and properly applied Force-assisted pleading, Bondar was able to study the secrets of the Force under the priest caste who ran the temple. For almost two thousand years, Bondar served at the temple, its droid body sporting enough self-repairing systems to continue functioning well into the future. Bondar’s study revealed to it that the visions it saw of the galaxy were in fact a glimpse at the balance of the Force, and how absolutely one side of it may outweigh the other. Clearly, the dark side was swamping the light side, however, just like all machinery of the Infinite Empire, Bondar’s droid body began to succumb to the dark side of the Force, and with it so did Bondar, failing to recognize the threat.

Xim's Empire
As the Rakatan empire began to implode, the conquerors found they needed to support their forces on any number of member worlds, and so Bondar was dispatched initially to assist the contested invasion of Korriban, but after the Rakata were forced out of the system by Adas and the other Sith Bondar was instead dispatched to a planet in the Tion Cluster. Bondar spent almost two hundred years there, but during that time the Infinite Empire collapsed entirely due to plague and the Rakata being cut off from the Force. Thus, without assistance from the Rakata, Bondar was stuck on the backwater planet until it was discovered to be a vital source of mytag crystals, which were vital for communications technology of the time.

When Xim the Despot came to the planet to mine out all the mytag crystals, he encountered Bondar and, seeing potential in the Force-sensitive ‘droid’, transferred the ‘crystal matrix core’ to one of his war-robots, granting Bondar with a large and powerful new body to play with. Even more impressive was that the war-robot was a Crimson Condottiere, utilizing reverse-engineered Rakatan technology to enhance it with the Force. So, with the Infinite Empire falling into ruins, Bondar allied itself with Xim’s Empire publicly, though it also used the time to study the balance of the Force. It was during this time that Bondar began to utilize the name Amaranth, and it observed the budding cults that supported both the light and the dark side of the Force.

However, Amaranth was forced into combat for Xim in 25,101 BBY, in the battle that routed Xim’s forces. Being a sentient creature rather than a restricted droid, Amaranth fled the battle for greener pastures, intending to shape and assist a particular budding Force cult with the knowledge Amaranth had obtained from the Rakata. Amaranth would maintain the droid body it sported for the rest of its long life, and over the years continued to upgrade the War-Robot frame, installing hidden weapons, recreating the weapons on his arms as modular units, alchemically treating the armour and utilizing a budding dark side talent for modification of machines, which Amaranth titled mechu-deru.

The Force Wars
Soon after Xim’s defeat and Amaranth’s subsequent move to the small Dark Side cult it lead its followers into the Deep Core world of Tython utilizing one of the Rakata hyperdrives that operated through Force-sensitive instinctual astrogation. The world they found matched perfectly with the galactic imbalalance Amaranth had seen on its inner map, for this was the galactic enclave for the greatest and brightest minds from the Order of Dai Bendu, Chatos Academy and the Followers of Palawa. It was here that the unknown Bogan cult engaged the great forces of the Ashla in furious combat, in a drawn-out battle that became known as the Force Wars. The battle was intense and drew heavily on the Force, and for a time the Bogan cult seemed strong, as it drew to its side the dissidents of the three great orders, those who had dabbled in the Bogan. Amaranth utilized these dissidents to begin to learn new talents and to strike at the heart of the followers of the Ashla. For a time, it even appeared that the numerically inferior dark siders would emerge victorious, as they either converted or slew all who stood in their way.

Amaranth was pleased by its followers, and served as the leader and rallying point for the Bogan followers, leading strikes against the enclave repeatedly and slaying the greatest leaders of the Ashla cults. By the time of the Force Wars, Amaranth had employed mechu-deru so extensively that its body moved unlike a machine at all, with a reaction speed bordering on precognition, and with dense armour plating that protected against all but the strongest of attacks, as well as an inexhaustible supply of stamina. All in all, Amaranth killed hundreds, from the common followers of Ashla to the great leaders, the council members, the squires of the three Ashla cults. It amassed a significant collection of trophy weapons, and as the leader and currently almost the embodiment of the Bogan, Amaranth was seen by one Bendu monk to be the ‘focal point’ of the Force Wars. Relaying this to the remaining significant warriors of the Ashla cults, an attack force was formed that was intended to destroy Amaranth. Amaranth’s military camp was assaulted, overwhelmed by the followers of the Ashla, and they united to remove the danger of Amaranth once and for all. Even as Amaranth battled the most adept warrior from each of the three Ashla orders together, the others formed a ring around them and performed an experimental Force technique, developed specifically to destroy Amaranth. By connecting their Force talents, the Ashla forces managed to create a bubble within the ring, cutting off everyone within from the Force. The three light warriors were rendered powerless, and Amaranth overwhelmed them with the superior capacities of its robotic body, cutting them down and using the moment to breech the ring and escape deeper into the camp. Once out of sight of its foes, Amaranth shed the battle armor and regal cloth that disguised it as a Bogan leader, to reveal the body underneath, that of an old War-Robot, and hid itself in plain sight, appearing to all as a deactivated droid in the armory, dead to the Force.

Fearing now for its life, Amaranth fled the encampment as soon as the Ashla warriors had left, boarding its personal ship and setting off for another planet, a backwater world known as Shola. Without their illustrious and powerful leader to rally them, the Bogan warriors soon fell to the remnants of the Bendu, Palawa and Chatos knights, who banded together to form a new sect from their remnants, sharing their knowledge and becoming the Jedi Order.

Exiled; The Legions of Lettow
Amaranth spent the next twenty or more years on the hostile volcanic planet of Shola, utilizing recon droids and contacting various shady dealers in order to gather information on the activities of the newly formed Jedi Order, as well as seek out any knowledge or artefacts that may have been of use to restoring the Force to Amaranth’s body. Soon enough news began to filter back to Amaranth about the instability of the Jedi Order and how a Jedi named Xendor had fallen, taking a significant number of Jedi with him. Realizing that an opportunity was at hand, Amaranth decided to leave Shola and return to Tython in order to track down this Xendor and seek his assistance in reversing Amaranth’s terrible plight.

When Amaranth met with Xendor, it was everything that could have been hoped for, and more. With dark-side Rakatan technology and the promise of tutelage under Amaranth to learn the secrets picked up from four millennia of experience, Xendor became keen to discover the technique to reconnect a being to the Force. Working together as partners, Amaranth educated Xendor with Rakatan holocrons and in return learnt new talents as found by the Jedi Order. Eventually, working together, and with the assistance of some of the other Fallen Jedi they together created the technique known as Force Reforging, which allowed a selected individual who had been previously removed from the Force to be reconnected through the sacrifice of another Force-sensitive being. This sacrifice was Xendor’s own apprentice, slain by Amaranth in a blood-christening.

The Legions of Lettow had a significant impact on the way of the Force, as the organization lured away many Jedi, cementing the ‘Dark Jedi’ role for the future. The result of this divide in philosophy between those who revered the Ashla and those who revered the Bogan could lead only to conflict, and the first Great Schism of the Jedi Order began. This Great Schism became part of the Unification Wars