The Sith originally were a race of people inhabiting a planet by the same name. About two thousand years before the birth of Anakin Skywalker, a small segment of the Jedi decided to follow the Dark Side of The Force. These Jedi were banished by the Jedi council and found refuge on the planet Sith. The Jedi were thought of as gods by the Sith and they easily conquered the planet and enslaved the Sith. This group of Dark Jedi later became known as the Sith and were led by the strongest of their number, who were given the title "Dark Lord of the Sith."

For the next thousand years the Jedi and the Sith were at war. At the same time, Dark practitioners fought among themselves for leadership. The result of these internal and external battles resulted in a nearly extinct Sith order.

At the end of this war, one Sith Lord named Darth Bane survived to carry on their order. He reinvented the Sith to consist of one Dark Lord and one apprentice. They operated in secrecy, waiting for the chance to defeat the Jedi and seek revenge.

Nine years after the birth of Anakin Skywalker, Darth Sidious and his apprentice Darth Maul made their first overt attempt of hostility toward the Jedi. Darth Maul was ordered to hunt down and destroy Qui-Gon Jinn and his padawan, Obi Wan Kenobi. This event takes place in "The Phantom Menace." Anakin Skywalker later converts to the Dark Side and becomes the last Sith Lord, Darth Vader. This transformation is described in Episode II and Episode III. The Sith order dies with Vader in Episode VI, or does it?

Excerpt from The Phantom Menace, by Terry Brooks:
"The Sith had come into being almost two thousand years ago.

They were a cult given over to the dark side of the Force, embracing fully the concept that power denied is power wasted. A rogue Jedi Knight had founded the Sith, a singular dissident in a order of harmonious followers, a rebel who under stood from the beginning that the real power of the Force lay not in the light but in the dark. Falling to gain approval for his beliefs from the Council of the Jedi, he had broken with the order, departing with his knowledge and skills, swearing in secret that he could bring down those who had dismissed him.

He was alone at first, but others from the Jedi order who believed as he did and who had followed him in his study of the dark side soon came over. Others were recruited, and soon the ranks of the Sith swelled to more than fifty in number. Disdaining the concepts of cooperation and consensus, relying on the belief that acquisition of power in any form lends strength and yields control, the Sith began to build their cult in opposition to the Jedi. Theirs was not an order created to serve, theirs was an order created to dominate.

Their war with the Jedi was vengeful and furious and ultimately doom. The rogue Jedi who founded the Sith order was its nominal leader, but his ambition excluded any sharing of power. His disciples began to conspire against him and each other almost from the beginning, so that the war they instigated was as much with each other as with the Jedi.

In the end, the Sith destroyed themselves. They destroyed their leader first, then each other. What few survived the initial bloodbath were quickly dispatched by watchful Jedi. In a matter of weeks, all of them died. All but one.

The Sith who survived when all of his fellows had died had understood. It was patience that had saved the Sith order in the end. It was patience that would give them the victory now over the Jedi."

Originally posted by Nova_Dust
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