Order of the Sith Lords (ASWS)

"Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody the power; the other to crave it."

The Order of the Sith Lords was the Sith Order founded by after the devestating and climactic Seventh Battle of Ruusan which saw the annihilation of the  and the. The order was founded upon the principles of a holocron by that inspired Bane to create the Rule of Two. The Rule of Two continued on after Bane for one thousand years.

Beginnings
After the Seventh Battle of Ruusan, Darth Bane, the only surviving Sith Lord, started to reform the Sith in order to ensure their continued survival. To guard against the Sith destroying themselves or losing sight of their "ideals" once again, Bane took only one apprentice, restarting the tradition of one master, one apprentice and of passing the name "Darth" to each of his successors. Perhaps in a nod to Kaan's earlier pronouncement, both master and apprentice in Bane's Sith Order held the title "Dark Lord of the Sith", making them, nominally at least, equals. The new tenets of the sinister order would become cunning, stealth, subterfuge and most of all, a virtue borrowed from their worst enemy, patience.

Eventually, Bane inducted his new apprentice, giving her the name Darth Zannah, and set his new order in motion. Future Sith Lords were taught the virtues of patience, planning, and secrecy, and each was to take on the title of Darth, a tradition that had dated back to before the Jedi Civil War, nearly three millennia ago. It would not be long, however, that Bane's fledgling order was rediscovered by the Jedi and (once again) thought eliminated. The Jedi discovered both the new Rule of Two and the identity of Darth Bane, but did not foresee that the new Sith he had founded would long survive Bane's death.

Millennium of Hiding
Shortly after the death of Darth Bane and the official beginning of the Millennium of Hiding, several problems came to light. The way of the order demanded that the apprentice would have to destroy his or her master before attaining the title of Dark Lord of the Sith. With only two active Sith permitted in the galaxy at one time, battles of successions left whichever side survived the conflict without an apprentice. Therefore, the Dark Lord would be forced into having to allocate a great deal of resources and time in order to find and train a new Sith Lord as their apprentice. This wasted a great deal of time on the part of the Dark Lord, as it took years to train a new apprentice.

Very early on, the Sith attempted to bend the Rule of Two on multiple occasions, as some wanted to return to the golden age of the Sith Empire. However, the results were always catastrophic. The most well-known documented incident involved the Dark Apprentice Darth Tayyl. Tayyl was secretly training her own apprentice, Darth Hol, to better confront her master. However, Hol betrayed Tayyl and killed her. While in hiding, Hol began his own lineage of Sith Lords, and because Hol’s own training was incomplete he was not able to properly train his disciples. Because of this, his Sith almost revealed themselves to the Jedi Order. This led to a small skirmish between the two sides of the Sith known as the Hol Insurrection. The conflict nearly destroyed them all, but in the end it was Hol and his followers that were destroyed.

The incident proved to be a pivotal one, especially once Darth Vectivus rose to power roughly five hundred years after the death of Darth Bane. Following a lead given to him by Republic defectors, Vectivus made his way to Lehon where he found the Dark Guardians of Lettow. He spent weeks learning about the order in the Temple of the Ancients, and during that time he came to realize how beneficial the Lettow could be, as it would see an end to rebellions such as the Hol Insurrection. He realized that it would also prove beneficial when a Sith Lord needed a new apprentice, as the Dark Lord would always have someone there ready to become his or her apprentice. Vectivus spoke with the leader of the Lettow, Deak Starkiller, and discussed how best to implement them into the Sith Order.

Over four hundred years later, Damien Nightblade, the man who was the Jedi Grandmaster during the Great Territorial War, returned from a self-imposed exile with a twisted mind and lacking the soul of the man he once was. Wanting to gain more power than he already had, he killed the apprentice of Darth Dante, the Dark Lord of the Sith of the time, and became the new Dark Apprentice. Knowing what Damien could bring about, Dante dubbed his new apprentice Darth Plagueis. Shortly thereafter, Plagueis killed Dante and became the Dark Lord of the Sith. However, he felt that he had no use for the Dark Guardians of Lettow, so he removed them from the Sith hierarchy and they were forced to return to Lehon and wait for a new Dark Lord of the Sith to re-establish contact with them. However, they did not have any idea as to how long that wait could have been.

While Plagueis never wanted the Lettow to be a part of the Order of the Sith Lords while he was the Dark Lord of the Sith, he did pass on information about them to his apprentice, Darth Sidious. However, he did not pass on the location of them. Despite this, Sidious did not immediately seek to locate the Lettow, but rather he murdered Plagueis and began training his own apprentice, Darth Maul, in the ways of the Dark Side.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Episode I - The Chosen One
 * Star Wars: Episode I - The Chosen One
 * Star Wars: Episode I - The Chosen One