Sith Lord

The Sith, an ancient order established by a renegade Jedi during the Hundred-Year Darkness, employed the dark side of the Force and waged war against the Jedi. Each Sith Lord incorporated the title Darth into their designation, with "Darth" generally signifying "Dark Lord." The title Dark Lord of the Sith itself was a title used by the lords of the Sith Order. During the era of the Old Republic, numerous individuals held the position of Sith Lord, engaging in countless conflicts against the Jedi Order. However, internal strife led to a decline in their numbers, which the Jedi exploited, ultimately resulting in the Sith being defeated and nearly eradicated by the Jedi. Following Darth Bane's implementation of the Rule of Two, Sith tradition mandated that only two Sith Lords could exist at any given time—a master and an apprentice.

During the High Republic Era, Darth Plagueis, a Sith Lord instructed by Darth Tenebrous, took a former Jedi human as his apprentice. Under Plagueis's guidance, this human became a Sith Lord and served as a Sith warrior. The man would eventually claim to have no name, instead going by the moniker "the Stranger." By 148 BBY, the Stranger, identifying himself as the Master, encountered and enlisted Mae-ho Aniseya, the lone surviving witch from Mother Aniseya's coven.

The "Master" rigorously trained Mae in the ways of the Force, making her his Sith acolyte. In 132 BBY, he assigned her a mission to kill four Jedi who had been stationed on her homeworld of Brendok at the time her coven was destroyed. Mae succeeded in eliminating her first two targets, first by ambushing Jedi Master Indara on Ueda and then by manipulating Master Torbin into ending his life at the Olega Jedi temple, drawing the Jedi Order's attention and causing them significant concern. After identifying the connection between Indara and Torbin, a Jedi Order panel led by Masters Vernestra Rwoh, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and Holden decided to keep the matter a secret from the Jedi High Council, as they would be required to notify the Galactic Senate of the matter. Instead they assembled a task force, led by Master Sol and consisting of his Padawan Jecki Lon, Jedi Knights Yord Fandar and Ithia Paan as well as another Jedi and Mae's sister Verosha Aniseya who Sol believed could approach Mae without risk.

The team traveled to Khofar, where the third Jedi from Brendok, Master Kelnacca lived. Unbeknownst to them, Mae was already on the planet with the Stranger, who had assumed the persona of Qimir, a friend of Mae and supposed associate of the Sith Lord. The pair made their way to Kelnacca's shelter before the Jedi did, but before they reached it Mae tricked Qimir and drew him to one of Kelnacca's traps having decided to betray the Master and surrender to the Jedi. The Stranger freed himself from the trap, donned his cortosis armor and reached Kelnacca's shelter before Mae, killing the Wookiee and waiting for Mae to confront her. Mae, however, arrived at the same time as the group of the Jedi, who witnessed the Stranger. To keep his existence a secret, the Sith drew his lightsaber and attacked them, killing the entire team save for Sol, Osha, and their tracker Bazil.

With Mae switching places with her sister, the Stranger took Osha back to his island hideaway and tried to tempt her to the dark side as his new acolyte. Both eventually made their way to Mae and Osha's homeworld of Brendok, with their departure secretly witnessed by Plagueis. On Brendok, which Sol had also arrived upon with Mae, the Stranger engaged Sol in a duel while Osha and Mae came to blows. However, upon learning that Sol himself had killed their mother years prior, Osha herself killed the Jedi Master and fell under the sway of the dark side. With Mae's blessing, the Stranger wiped Mae's memory of her sister while Osha departed back to the island with the Stranger, who sought to train her as a new Sith acolyte. Meanwhile, Jedi Master Vernestra Rwoh covered up the recent Jedi murders as Sol betraying the Order and began a hunt for the Stranger, whom she had sensed on Brendok before his departure, with the amnesic Mae.

Eventually, Darth Plagueis acquired an apprentice named Darth Sidious, who subsequently killed Plagueis and chose Darth Maul as his own apprentice. Sidious's secret identity, Sheev Palpatine, became the senator representing Naboo to infiltrate, deceive, and ultimately dismantle the Jedi and the Galactic Republic. Sidious laid the groundwork for the Confederacy of Independent Systems by forging an alliance with the Trade Federation, a corporation headed by Viceroy Nute Gunray. Sidious persuaded the Trade Federation to deploy their army of battle droids to blockade and invade the peaceful planet of Naboo, with the aim of removing Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum and installing Palpatine as the Chancellor. The invasion failed, and Maul was seemingly killed by a Jedi Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Palpatine was elected as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic.

The Sith resurfaced ten years later. Darth Tyranus, Darth Sidious's apprentice, convened with Gunray and other influential figures on Geonosis. They supported the Confederacy of Independent Systems, triggering the onset of the Clone Wars against the Republic. Several other Sith were also active during the war, including Sidious's former apprentice Maul, Tyranus's first apprentice Asajj Ventress, and Tyranus's second apprentice and Maul's brother Savage Opress. Since Sidious held the positions of both Chancellor of the Republic and master of Tyranus, the Separatists' Head of State, he was able to manipulate both sides of the war to further his own goals. A number of other Sith agents were also active during the war: Asajj Ventress served as a Sith Acolyte, one Tyranus' disciples, as did Savage Opress. Both were ultimately cast aside, with Opress becoming the pupil of the returned Maul. The two Sith warriors founded the nefarious organization of the Shadow Collective, but were soon defeated by Sidious, who viewed them as a threat. The machinations of the reigning Sith Lords led to Order 66 and the establishment of the Galactic Empire, at the cost of Tyranus' life.

Shortly after Tyranus was sacrificed and betrayed by Sidious, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker embraced the dark side and became Sidious's new apprentice, receiving the name "Vader" which was preceded by the moniker Darth. With the Great Jedi Purge underway, Sidious solidified his control over the galaxy as the self-proclaimed Galactic Emperor, while Vader served as his forces' Commander-in-Chief.

Years into the Imperial Era, Governor Wilhuff Tarkin and Lord Vader oversaw the deployment of the Death Star battle station. However, the Rebel Alliance destroyed it along with Grand Moff Tarkin during the Battle of Yavin. The Rebels then continued to defy Imperial rule for a further five years, leading to the Battle of Endor with the destruction of the DS-2 Death Star II Mobile Battle Station and both Sith Lords. As the battle turned in the Alliance's favor, Vader sacrificed his life by killing his master in order to protect his son, Luke Skywalker, thereby renouncing the dark side, fulfilling his role as the Chosen One, and dying as Anakin Skywalker.

The thousand-year lineage that began with Darth Bane concluded with the death of the last Sith Lord, Darth Vader. Unbeknownst to the galaxy, Darth Sidious was resurrected when his consciousness transferred to a clone body on the desolate planet Exegol, where his followers, the Sith Eternal cult, preserved the teachings of the Sith religion. Alongside a Sith fleet known as the Final Order, the Sith Eternal trained an army of Sith troopers, organized into legions named after ancient Sith Lords, such as Revan, Andeddu, Darth Tanis, Darth Tenebrous, Phobos, and Desolous.

The Dark Lord aimed to revive the Sith Order through Vader's grandson, Kylo Ren and his granddaughter, Rey. Upon Ren's arrival on Exegol, he heard the voices of Sith Lords from the past—Locphet, Mindran, Felkor, Naga Sadow, and Sissiri—and encountered Sidious, who had been preparing him for his plans for decades. Ren was not a Sith Lord, but he embodied the Sith Order's teachings as well as those of the Jedi Order. Sidious doubted that Ren could overcome his connection to the light side of the Force, but still tasked him with killing Rey as a final chance to prove himself. Despite Ren's intention of becoming the new Dark Lord of the Sith, for which he had been groomed to inherit through the machinations of the Sith Eternal, he ultimately rejected the dark side like his grandfather before him. During the Battle of Exegol, Rey prevented the return of the tyranny of the Sith by destroying Sidious.