The Immortal Gods of the Sith

From an artistic depiction of the Battle of Yavin

 "I am defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the Dark Side will be complete..."

- Emperor Palpatine, Endor, 4 ABY

Since the release of The Rise of Skywalker there have been discussions about possible revelations concerning the Sith's Rule of Two. The Rule of Two, the ancient edict of Darth Bane created 1,000 years before the Battle of Yavin, was made to keep the survival of the Sith a secret from the Jedi, and also to create a unique system of preserving Sith knowledge. Under the Rule of Two, the Sith Apprentice would become jealous of their Master's knowledge of the Dark Side of the Force, and eventually murder them after learning all they knew, becoming the new Master and eventually taking a new Apprentice who would continue the cycle. This would continue until the Sith Lords fulfilled the Grand Plan of taking control of the galaxy. Yet, The Rise of Skywalker now suggests that the Sith Lords in truth possess their Apprentices, so that each new Master is all the Sith. Darth Sidious contains the essence of Darth Plagueis, who contained the spirit of Darth Tenebrous, and so on. This provides new context to the scene in Return of the Jedi where Palpatine urges Luke Skywalker to strike him down to turn to the Dark Side. It is likely that Palpatine initially sought to enter the body of Anakin Skywalker, but his injuries on Mustafar caused him to seek out yet another Apprentice, which he found in the form of Anakin's son. This all connects to the Sith quest for immortality, which many Sith sought outside of their practice of the Rule of Two.

But who was the first Sith to begin this tradition of taking new bodies? Who was the oldest spirit held in Palpatine's body by the time he clashed with Rey on Exegol? Logic would argue Darth Bane, but there are references in Supernatural Encounters to suggest that there is something far more ancient living inside Sidious. Something far more devilish.




Over 2,600 years before the foundation of Darth Bane's Order of the Sith Lords there lived one of the most powerful Sith Lords of all time, if not the most powerful. He was seemingly able to endlessly possess new bodies, and could even control multiple bodies at the same time. He could survive outside of a body without being dragged down to Chaos, as would happen to a lesser Sith. He was the heir to Marka Ragnos, the ruler of the Sith Empire, and after the defeat of Ragnos' successor Naga Sadow on Korriban, this heir resurrected the Empire with himself as Emperor. He was born Tenebrae; Ragnos granted him the title of Lord Vitiate; and after his first serious defeat he was reborn under the name Valkorion. But to history he was always the Sith Emperor. We shall call him Vitiate to differentiate him from a more famous Emperor, Darth Sidious.

Though he wore many bodies throughout his life, the Sith Emperor's first form was that of a pureblood member of the Sith species

The Emperor was never truly a child. He grew up raised by farmers who hated him for his pure black eyes and the sense of foreboding that surrounded him. As a child he tortured and murdered his parents without a shred of emotion, demonstrating colossal power in the Force despite no formal training. He was immediately fascinated by the Empire of Marka Ragnos and the dark knowledge it offered. Though he desired violence and ultimately the destruction of all life, he was also a scholar, and knew more about the Dark Side than perhaps anyone in history. This was due to the fact that he was around 1,400 years old when he died--he simply had more time, and more resources, through his Empire, than other any Sith Lord. In this time, one would think that he would have found true immortality, yet he seems to have been completely destroyed around 3600 BBY. Thousands of years later, Darth Plagueis would remark that Vitiate was likely the one being who came closest to discovering the secret of eternal life. Note that Plagueis was trained by Darth Tenebrous, whose Sith title recalls the Emperor's birth name. The revelations of Rise of Skywalker means that Tenebrous lives on in Plagueis. Let us assume that Vitiate survived his final death and either possessed a series of hosts until the passing of the Rule of Two or lived bodiless during that time. Like the Emperor, Darth Bane (or Dessel as he was known at birth) was hated by his father, who blamed him for the death of his wife and also sensed darkness within him. Indeed, this is true of Palpatine as well, who was hated by his father due to his inner dark nature. That some of the most powerful Dark Lords of the Sith were surrounded by the Dark Side at birth, like Vitiate, is evidence towards their being the same entity. Additionally, both Palpatine and Vitiate commanded "Eternal" Sith; Palpatine had the Sith Eternal, while as Valkorian, Vitiate ruled the Eternal Empire. This makes Plagueis' thoughts on the Emperor's failed attempt at immortality something of an ironic self-criticism, which mirrors how Palpatine's remarks about Plagueis in Revenge of the Sith turn out to be something of a self-criticism post-TROS, as Plagueis presumably lives on in Palpatine.

Darth Plagueis, whose powers over life failed to save him from Palpatine's betrayal...or did they?

But the Dark Force entity that contained all the Sith did not begin with the Sith Emperor. There is another Sith, whose title of "Immortal God-King of Prakith" hints at his central ambition. This Dark Lord, Darth Andeddu, was in fact the creator of the "Darth" title; after his death it would fall into obscurity, only to be resurrected by Darths Revan and Malak thousands of years later, before falling out of prominence once more, when it was at last reclaimed by Darth Bane. To digress for a moment on this topic, the etymology of the word "Darth" is interesting. Ostensibly it comes from the Rakatan Daritha, meaning "Emperor." However, it may also come from another Rakatan phrase, darr tah, which means "conquest over death" or "immortality." Yet it is important to note that darr tah can also be translated as "conquest by death," a fitting description of the bloodthirstiness of those who bear the title Darth. This dual meaning mirrors a linguistic oddity mentioned in the Rise of Skywalker Visual Dictionary, which states that the Sith-language description of the Rule of Two and that of the Force dyad which turns out to be shared by Rey and Ben Solo share the same wording, changing only on a basis of pause and inflection. The end of the Sith and their beginning are tied together by this mystery of language.

Darth Andeddu, creator of the Darth title

Nothing concerned Darth Andeddu more than obtaining eternal life. Andeddu feared death as much as any other Sith, if not more--he sealed himself away in a palace to keep himself safe and to protect his Sith texts, which offered clues to the secret of unending mortal existence. Andeddu was a master of the Dark Side power of transfer essence, a power also used by Palpatine and the Sith Emperor. It is not known when Andeddu lived, but he could have lived at the right time to pass his essence into Vitiate. He is one of the earliest known users of this method, but he was not its creator. To discover who might have come before him, we must look at who did discover this Dark Side technique. His name is Karness Muur, and he used the power of transfer essence to live for thousands of years.

Ajunta Pall, the first Dark Lord of the Sith, and Karness Muur, creator of the transfer essence ability

Karness Muur survived into the Legacy Era because he bound his spirit to the Muur Talisman, whose wearers were doomed to become his hosts. He discovered many secrets of the Dark Side, but he had once been a Jedi. Together with such once-dignified personages as Ajunta Pall, XoXaan, Sorzus Syn, and Remulus Dreypa, he fought on the side of evil during the Hundred-Year Darkness, a rebellion against Jedi tradition inspired by the Great Schism caused by the fallen Jedi Xendor and his lover and apprentice Arden Lyn. After the end of the war, Muur and his fellow Dark Jedi were exiled to Korriban, where they subjugated the native Sith species. Ajunta Pall became their ruler, and he was the first Dark Lord of the Sith. Ajunta Pall could have lived on in Darth Andeddu using the power of Karness Muur. The reason why Ajunta Pall is so important is because of how he was treated among the Sith. It is he who reveals the entity at the dawn of the Sith lineage.

Idol of Typhojem, in his Pomojema aspect; the Kaiburr Crystal is embedded in the statue's chest

Ajunta Pall was revered as the incarnation of Typhojem, greatest of the Sith gods. Indeed, it is fully possible he was an incarnation of Typhojem. But who or what is Typhojem? Killik legend states that long ago, he was a god-like being who the galaxy battled in the last of the ancient conflicts known as the Cosmic Wars. Typhojem's ossified corpse was reshaped by the Killiks into the planets of Korriban and Kessel, among others. His Dark Side power tainted both worlds, and the glitterstim of the spice mines of Kessel is his psychic ichor. Typhojem was revered on the planet Mimban under the name of Pomojema, and his temple on that planet housed the Kaiburr Crystal, a powerful artifact which enhanced the abilities of Force users. Typhojem was fleshed out in Supernatural Encounters, where we learn he is the son of Tilotny and Cold Danda Sine, two of the unpredictable and omnipotent Bedlam Spirits.

Cold Danda Sine, Tilotny, and Horliss-Horliss meet Leia Organa

Typhojem was born to the demons alongside several siblings: the Night Spirit, who would haunt the forest moon of Endor; Waru, an interdimensional creature which resembled bleeding meat wrapped in golden scales; and the Mnggal-Mnggal, a goo-like creature which could possess lifeforms and turn them into its zombies. Tilotny, who was obsessed with beauty, hated her spawn, especially Typhojem, who, as per the image above, resembles the grotesque form of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu. In his letters, Lovecraft mentioned that Cthulhu was the descendant of Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat with a Thousand Young. It is possible that Cold Danda Sine is an avatar of Yog-Sothoth, while Tilotny represents the Goat with Thousand Young. This title is appopriate for her, as she gave birth to many of the galaxy's monsters or was an ancestor of them. She was defeated by her father, the Force demon known as Wutzek, when she was tricked into morphing into El'Shuddem, the Soulworm. The Soulworm was the parent of silans, glooths, exogorths, and many other monstrous worm-like beings of the cosmos. When the Soulworm died, her crystal heart ended up on Mimban, cradled by an idol of her son--this is the Kaiburr Crystal. The Soulworm also left behind a human-like avatar, her final child. This child would become known as the Mother, raised on the planet Mortis by the powerful family known as the Ones. However, in an attempt to be as powerful as her newfound husband and children, the Mother consumed forbidden power and was mutated into something which shared a shadow of the Soulworm's hideousness: Abeloth.

The Ones, who represented the Dark Side, Light Side, and Balance in the Force. Their fourth member, the Mother, became an enemy of both Jedi and Sith after she transformed into Abeloth.

So is it possible that Typhojem's spirit passed from Ajunta Pall to Darth Andeddu, to Vitiate, to Darth Bane, to Plagueis and Palpatine? Did Rey in truth defeat Great Cthulhu on Exegol? Did she escape being possessed by this ancient demon, just as Anakin and Luke Skywalker did? All of Sith history points towards a cohesive timeline. After his defeat in the Cosmic Wars, Typhojem was not dead, only severely weakened. In this form he took over Ajunta Pall and Darth Andeddu to learn the ways of mortality. Andeddu referred to himself as an Immortal God, linking him to the Immortal Gods of the Sith like Typhojem. Vitiate represents the entity at his greatest peak--having warmed up with his previous hosts, Typhojem possessed a child from birth and expressed his true inhuman personality. The defeats the Emperor suffered after the fall of both his Sith Empire and his Eternal Empire of Zakuul severely weakened the immortal entity, but did not kill him. There was a time where Typhojem did not have a famous host. Perhaps he was unable to physically incarnate until the rise of Darth Bane. It is also possible that he existed among the minions of the Brotherhood of Darkness, the Sith army which Bane rebelled against and ultimately destroyed in his question to "purify" the Sith. Prior to the formation of the Brotherhood he may have been Darth Ruin, the leader of the New Sith Empire, who ruled a thousand years before the end of the Brotherhood and inspired their formation. The chaotic and self-destructive reign of the Brotherhood of Darkness may have inspired Typhojem to reorder the servants of the Dark Side to be more effective, and he carried out that dream in Bane. Bane also provided an eternal supply of hosts through the Rule of Two. Ironically, he based the Rule of Two on something he saw in the future: the rise of two powerful Force-sensitives who would change the galaxy forever. He did not know that what he saw was Rey and Ben Solo bringing about the final defeat of the Sith.

I do believe that individual Sith retained their personalities within the transfer process. Upon killing their Master, a Sith Apprentice would find themselves joined by the shadow of ancient Typhojem, who gave them the true power of the Dark Side. Typhojem and the previous Sith within him shadowed the Sith Lords, allowing them their own history and independence while still "possessing" them. Upon death the Sith Lord would be assimilated into Typhojem and their wisdom would supply the future Sith. In a grotesque parody of how the secrets of the Whills could preserve the spirit of one who entered death consumed by love, the spirits of the Sith live on in the afterlife provided to them by one of the ancient progenitors of the Dark Side.

In the Legends continuity, I believe that Typhojem met his final defeat much later, during the Legacy Era. In his last duel with Cade Skywalker, Darth Krayt tellingly attempted to possess the Jedi, failing due to Cade's rejection of the darkness. Darth Krayt was in fact the last bearer of the spirit of Typhojem, but his fall into a blazing star ended the Dark Lord's return once and for all. In both universes, he had conjured an army of Sith to aid him, in the forms of the Sith Eternal and the One Sith. But both of these ultimately failed him in the end and the Dark Side was defeated.

...

...or was it? Remember that Star Wars is set a long, long time ago compared to us. If Typhojem is the same as Cthulhu, then we know from the stories of Lovecraft and others that Cthulhu presently resides on Earth. He was active during the 20th Century, and has inspired dozens of cults all over the world. Are these cults the heirs of the Sith? Only time will tell, but for now it seems the battle against evil may only be beginning.

Image Sources: Wookieepedia, comicslist.wordpress.com