The Siege on Iridonia
It is really hard to maintain scientific standards when you are digging into the great mystery of the Force. There are certain nuances that have baffled and excited me in equal portion with every successive discovery. One of those nuances is that the Sith holocrons are supremely easier to unlock and access than the Jedi. At first thought, I was certain the volatile and shadowy relics would prove more formidable opponents, but was pleasantly surprised to be mistaken. By comparison, I would never have cracked the Jedi holocrons or completed my algorithm without the accessibility of the dark relics.
In retrospect I should have known the Dark Side would be less discerning and thereby more accessible, almost desperate for attention. But I found the dark relics intimidating, to say it plainly. A trio of metallic prisms, made of tarnished gold and black iron, were especially evil-looking and more than once visited me in my nightmares. They each held a symbol on them: a horn, a starburst and an open eye, and when properly manipulated they glowed magma-red.
Daunting as it was to handle them, the Intentus key proved its efficacy and unlocked the archives of a being known as Mother Talzin.
Her mysterious coven from Dathomir was known as the Nightsisters and she was their leader for centuries. Dathomir is a nearly isolated planet that does not have a place in Galactic records beyond the most basic statistics. It had twin suns, much of the world was barren or toxic and where the dessert ended strangling jungle corroded the landscape. It was a harsh place that mirrored the hard conditions of its brother planet nearby, Iridonia.
From the meager data-samples I've observed, it would appear that the Nightsisters were a clan of witches that survived a pre-historic apocalyptic event on the planet. By all of Talzin's accounts, the sisters were thriving for a time that culminated in an alliance with Emperor Palpatine himself, if she's to be believed. I look forward to learning more about her and her sisters and disseminating those tales, but the legend of the Son of Suns is not a Dathomirian prophecy... It is a legend of Iridonia and it belongs to the xenospecies, the Zabrak.
The Zabrak are a species with immense societal pride. Their race originated as an ancient Rakatan experiment gone, well... It is hard to say if the Zabrak eclipsed or disappointed their creator's expectations, but what resulted was a warrior race with an eternal chip on their shoulder. A Zabrak takes pride in being Zabrak, in surviving the trials of their society and their world and show it with their horns and their tattoos. Great sweeping and swooping curls of metalloid ink that tell the tales of their ancestors, their clan and their personal conquests. The horns, the tattoos, the attitude: the Zabrak.
Iridonians are isolationists at their core, they do not conform and they do not surrender. Mother Talzin explains it that their society was not civilized enough understand the merits of surrender, nor the value of hostages, or honest negotiation; but I suspect that is a matter of opinion. By my accounting, this bloodlust is a hereditary leftover from their inception. The Rakata that masterminded many species including the Zabrak, were foolish enough to think they could build specialized copies of the warlike Sith race.
The Rakatan Masters were incorrect and many of their misguided attempts still live with the consequences of those errors tens of thousands of years later. Another of those residual effects, I believe, is the Zabrak prophecy of a chosen one. The prophecy of the Sith'ari, the perfect Sith who would conquer and then one day destroy the Galaxy, is the keystone to all Sith history and lore. I learned of this prophecy firsthand from a Dark Jedi, who told me that it drove his brotherhood to the brink of extinction. It would appear, with the clarity of hindsight that was unavailable to Talzin, the Zabrak inherited that very same trait.
At the core of Iridonian tradition is a prophecy of a chosen one known as the "Zabrak'hao". Traditional lore spoke of the "Son of Suns" who would come to the clans of Iridonia and unite them under a single Zabrak banner. Zabrak'hao would lead the clans in a purge of the Galaxy and the Zabrak would finally experience the golden age their Rakata overlords once promised them. It is this prophecy that intrigued me and led me to dig deeper into Talzin's archive.
The parallels to the Jedi prophecy are subtle but upon completion, utterly undeniable. If this Journal is a compilation of the Chose One prophecies that have influenced our Galaxy, then the Siege of Iridonia is a necessary addition.
The Siege of Kuhl is a story of such epic proportion that it is astounding that it is not a more widely-shared legend. It's as if Mother Talzin had no way of referring to the Zabrak without bringing up the bloody conflict. It was a horrific affair that scarred Zabrak culture and wiped two great Clans from the face of Iridonia.
It is not a Jedi tale, nor is it a Sith tale-well, not directly, but I'll explain that later-but there is an unmistakable thread of truth that ties this story to the others in this Journal: the prophecy of the Chosen One as a societal necessity when hope is at its darkest. Like the Basilisk nearly 3000 years before them, the Zabrak found need for their prophecy in their most bleak hour and found hope in the Sun of Sons.