An Abridged History of the Great Galactic War

by Kaiser Chris

After centuries in exile, the Sith Empire returned to the galaxy. Upon their entrance a great and terrible war was raged for 28 years, ending in the Sith's victory and changing the course of galactic history. This is the story of the Great Galactic War, of the victors, of the losers, and how the war transformed the galaxy forever. GGW Expanded narrative, mostly canon compliant.

3. War's Eve: Sith Empire

Sith Empire

The task of presenting a neutral narrative of the (Second) Sith Empire at the beginning of the Great Galactic War is a difficult one. Both the Republic and Empire have their says on it with the reign of Vitiate and his foul legacy leaving a bitter history that has kept Republic policies with the Empire cool during the Empire's most calming eras since the Imperial Revolution, while the Sith look towards Vitiate with a mix of admiration and disgust as it was only because of him that the Sith survived the Holocaust and returned, yet his policies created the necessity for the Schism and Revolution.

To the average Republican, even those who view the current Empire with respect and cordiality, the Sith of the 214th century were a vile and wicked order who were the definition of evil with their galactic conquest being the most heinous of crimes. The Schism and the foundation of the New Order means nothing to Republicans as it was only a miracle born through extraordinary circumstances and created by anomalies of Sith and Imperials who are only false Sith, with nothing of the Third Empire's legacy excusing the crimes of their ancestors. To the modern Imperial, the late Second Sith Empire is overall a good thing, for no matter the crimes and worst depravities of Vitiate and the era's Sith, it was under their leadership that the Sith returned to the galaxy and from the Galactic and Cold War generation came the heroes who gave rise to the New Order, heroes who would have never risen were it not for the Second Empire.

The truth of the matter is that the late Second Sith is a mixture of both narratives, though at the end of the day is undeniably a totalitarian state whose existence was centered around conquest, the oppression of lesser species, and worship of power and the archaic dark side. Any Imperial historian at this claim will then pull up numerous historical examples of the Empire as a force for good, and while they can be right these tales are only a minor portion of an Empire that was built by the galaxy's greatest evil.

Government

Emperor

The Head of State for the Third Sith Empire from its foundation until less than a decade before its reformation into the Fourth Sith Empire was the Emperor Vitiate, more commonly referred to as simply the Emperor, with his formal title being the Immortal Sith Emperor. In theory Vitiate ruled as an autocrat with no checks and balances, free to do whatever he wished with the citizens and slaves of the Empire as his playthings. The truth of the matter is that after the first centuries of the Empire's creation, Vitiate grew distant from the Empire and barely interacted as its ruler. While at first his style of rule simply transitioned to careful guidance from afar, by the 21st millennia Vitiate was completely absent from Sith governance, spending his time experimenting in the mysteries of the force and seeking all sorts of knowledge and life experience through his voices. The only time Vitiate returned to his active duties was his manipulation of Mandalore the Ultimate, his scheme with Revan and Malak to take control of the Star Forge, and his preparations for war leading up to the Great Galactic War. Even then, Vitiate was barely present for in the total planning of the invasion, only giving a broad outline and a few basic demands for how it would progress while approving the Dark Council's strategies. As it would be revealed in the first century of the New Order, Vitiate was no mastermind who had manipulated the war in its entirety, rather a distant liege who only intervened in his personal interests or matters that were threatening to the Empire as a whole. With Vitiate's absence, much of Imperial history saw the Empire be ruled by the dark council.

Dark Council

It is often said of the Third Sith Empire that the Emperor would handle the long-term planning of the Empire while the Dark Council handled day to day affairs. This is a false statement not only due to Vitiate's general apathy towards his Empire, but due to the impossibility of the Dark Council running day to day affairs of a galactic empire. No matter what one might say of the Senate controlling the fate of half a galaxy, thousands of beings are far equipped to do it than twelve Dark Lords of the Sith. In reality the Dark Council were the ones who handled long term affairs with their duties being the guidance of their respective ministries to the dedication of the promised war with the Republic and Jedi, while the true day to day affairs were handled by the Imperial bureaucracy. Due to the Dark Council being a Sith body, it's effectiveness as the De Facto rulers of the Empire depended upon its composition. At times the Dark Council was the epitome of Imperial Efficiency with members like Darth Vowrawn, Darth Marr, and Darth Jadus being upheld to Recht's Sith as the models of what all Sith rulers should strive for. Then there were times where the Dark Council was dominated by psychopathic, megalomaniacal monsters who wished to use the Empire as a toy to advance their self-interests. While the Dark Council for the most part had their worst excesses restrained during the Great Galactic War, the rise of dark lords such as Darth Thanatos and Darth Baras shows that the Dark Council was no sacred institution and it was an organization that was at times representative of the pre-Recht Sith as a whole, an order of beings dedicated to the pursuit of power who on their journey became intoxicated with the Dark Side and descended to power-addicted animals than the beings of order and strength they desired to be.

While popular culture presents the Dark Council as an all-powerful body who decided the fates of the Empire at whim, the truth is far less glamorous as while they did direct Imperial policy, the scope of their ambitions were limited by their fellow Dark Councilors with any possibility of absolute control being destroyed by a Dark Councilor having to spend more time with Sith politics and feuds than transforming the Empire in their image. As such responsibility fell to the Imperial bureaucracy and nobility, with the daily affairs of the Empire shaping their actions more often than not. Still, it should be remembered that at the end of the day final power rested with the Dark Council, and that the Third Sith Empire's greatest triumphs and worst depravities can be linked to their actions and influence.

Sith Feudalism

In theory the Third Sith Empire was an absolute monarchy where Vititate ruled in a totalitarian manner over the Empire with all words being his possessions and every citizen being his to do with as he pleased. With Vitiate's constant absences from rule, the Empire under the guidance of the Dark Council became a De Facto feudal empire, though unlike nominal feudalism there was no checks or balances against the Emperor with Sith and Imperial houses being swiftly robbed of their rights and properties if they became enemies of the state or were maneuvered into destitution, a contrast to many feudal worlds where a house can still exist from defeat.

Across the Empire each world was nominally ruled by a Governor with every system being ruled by a High Lord who maintained control of the system. The post of Governor was a hereditary one that was granted to a family as a reward for long and dutiful service to the Empire. A Govenor or High Lord had near total control over their territory, their powers only being restrained by a colonial charter that was meant to signify the relationship between the Governor/High Lord and their vassals. Depending on the conditions of the charter a Governor or High Lord could either be limited in their rule or be an absolutist. No matter how they ruled, how much autonomy they granted to their vassals, or whether they allowed democracy, one universal constant that all Governors and High Lords had to fulfill was the payment of the Imperial Tithe, the ability to meet the requirements of the Imperial Military in the providing of troops and resources proportional to the wealth of a system or world, and to maintain law and order against all dissidents of the Emperor.

The usual method of creating a feudal system was that when a system was conquered, its administration would be initially transferred to the Sphere of Expansion and Diplomacy with the entire system being property of the Empire and the Emperor. After a transitional period in which order was restored throughout the system, the Sphere of Expansion and Diplomacy would then divide the system with land being granted proportionally to members of the system's conquest based on their rank and quality of contribution. In this manner the Imperial Army and Navy was one of the fastest ways for social advancement as any man or woman could successfully participate in a system conquest and from it gain several hundred acres of land at minimum, or even become minor imperial nobility. Once the appropriate rewards are appropriated, the remainder of the territory is either kept by the Empire to be ruled directly, mostly to serve as bases and support for the Imperial Armada and Army, given to natives to be held as autonomous lands, or be kept and later sold to other nobles throughout the Empire who wish to settle on the new world.

Within the feudal structure there were two classes, Imperial and Sith nobility. Imperial nobility were non force sensistive citizens who were bestowed a noble rank by the Dark Council. While noble ranks and titles varied throughout the Empire, a rank that no one could dare obtain was that of an Emperor. Sith nobility were the Lords of the Sith who upon obtaining the title of Lord created a Sith House from which their descendants would become future members of the Sith Order. However, unlike regular feudalism a Sith House could not have its Head keep the title of Lord indefinitely. A Lordship must be earned through their service in the Sith Order and it can only be kept by that one person through a lifetime. If a Sith House has its Lord die and there are no other Lords of the Sith, then the house becomes one of lower Sith nobility until such a time that one of its members can become a Sith Lord. If a noble who is not the heir of a Sith House becomes a Lord, then they are granted the right to lead the House and from that point on their descendants shall lead the House unlesss a similar situation happens to them. If a House member becomes a Lord while the Lord of the House is still alive, then they may found a new house, though many cases see the two or more Lords and Ladies of the Sith attempt to kill the other to claim the house. The lands that Sith Lords own, while nominally under the rule of the Governor or High Lord, are granted a great deal of autonomy and less taxation to the Empire. If a Sith House is led by the Darth, then whatever lands they reside on become those of independent vassals who only swear allegiance directly to the Emperor with no Governor or System Lord having suzerainty over them.

It is rare that any noble line, whether Imperial or Sith, is granted total rulership of a world or system. Expansion of a house's lands, whether done through diplomacy or conquest, is heavily regulated by the Sphere of Laws and Justice in coordination with the Sphere of Expansion and Diplomacy in the case of foreign conquest. Each House's holdings must be kept in check and prevented from gaining too much economic power so that no Lord may declare independence or rise in rebellion against the Emperor. Only a few distinguished Sith and Imperial Houses who have proven themselves each ability to serve the Empire extraordinary well with great power are allowed full control of worlds or systems.

One unique feature of Sith Feudalism is the system of feudal wars. Since the Sith are an order who thrive on conflict and the acquisition of power, with such traits being rubbed off on Imperial nobility, the Empire throughout much of its history has had to deal with millions of nobles vying for each other's land and resources in an empire that was small in space to feed their material appetites. In order to satisfy their greed while at the same time culling the nobility so that it would not become too bloated, the Dark Council introduced the system of feudal warfare to satisfy the Sith need for conflict. In feudal warfare, if two or more houses, whether Sith or Imperial, wish to gain the totality of the other's land and wealth, they may petition the Sphere of Laws and Justice to declare a feudal war against their enemy house. When reviewing the petition, the Sphere can either agree to the creation of the feudal war entirely, agree to allow the war but impose strict limitations on terms of victory, or deny it entirely if they feel that the justification for war is poor or the petitioner's victory could upset the balance of power. If the petition is rejected then the House must resort to rather illict and underhanded tactics to gain their objective, which the Sphere of Laws and Justice is willing to look over so long as it is not a blatant violation of Imperial order. If a war does take place, then the House is free to create a conflict to claim victory over their rival house, with said victory either being total to do as they please or needing to follow the Sphere of Law and Justice's guideline.

When participating in feudal wars, all participants must agree to a strict set of rules of war which limit their fighting to the territorties of each house with neutral houses or territories under the direct control of the Empire being off limits. In addition, the participating Houses cannot use the Imperial Army or Navy for their wars with their forces solely being made up of feudal levies. When war is conducted against enemy houses, each house is assigned Imperial Observers who guide each house on how much damage can be done to the enemy house, this is so that in the war's conclusion a world is not too devastated that it would severely impede the Imperial war machine. If a House breaks any of the rules established by the Sphere of Laws and Justice, they are declared the losers of the war with severe penalties in land and wealth, or in the most egregious of climes have their house be attained. By the start of the Great Galactic War, the number of feudal wars had declined significantly so that the Empire's resources may be focused completely on the war against the Republic. Feudal wars by then had become a norm inside of the Empire with even Dromund Kaas becoming a frequent battlefield of the Sith and Imperial nobility. Depending upon each system's conditions, a system could either see barely any feudal wars break out for decades, or have dozens per year.

Courts

Due to the centralized nature of the Empire the judicial system, which operated under the sphere of Laws and Justice. The Imperial court system operated under three levels; local, planetary, and systemwide with two branches dedicated to criminal and civil affairs. The Imperial Courts were heavily weaker than the Republic's as they were created only to dispense justice, not to interpret the law or render laws illegal as the Sith would never let such a bureaucracy have power over them. An appeals court system did exist, however appeals were notoriously hard to come by with only 25% of appeals reaching the local stage, 10% for planetary courts, and 2% for system courts. At the time 68% of cases resulted in a guilty verdict with only 21% of all appeals having success, with the Empire biased towards the prosecution and thus creating an uphill battle for the defense at all times.

Two special court systems existed within the boundaries of the Sphere of Laws and Justice, the Sith Court system and the Military Courts. The Sith Courts dealt with crimes that occurred within the Sith Order or crimes permitted by Sith against the Empire that were seen as too egregious beyond the usual level of power plays and schemes. Since Sith justice usually involved a lightsaber and death, the Sith Courts were rarely invoked and when they were it was a high spectacle among the order with justice being rendered based on ancient Sith law. The military courts dealt with crimes within the Imperial Armada and Army along with cases of high treason outside of the Sith. For cases of conflicting laws between planets and systems, such cases would go to to the Committee of Imperial Arbitration, or the CIA for short. The CIA was made up of 100 of the finest legal minds within the Empire, who voted on how the verdict should be dealt with, then sending said verdict to the head of the Sphere of Laws and Justice. Such Dark Councilor would usually follow the recommendations of the CIA, though there have been a number of Dark Councilors who were active in dispensing their own form of justice.

Politics

Since the Empire was a polity that was led by an immortal Emperor with the Sith entrenched in their position of power, politics within the Sith Empire did not occur in the same manner as it would for the Republic. The totalitarian nature of the Empire along with the Sith nature of conflict against one another with each Sith Lord and Darth having their own particular ideology made it impossible for large political movements to take place, especially since thinking against common Imperial philosophy and culture resulted in one being accused of treason. With this and the absence of any form of democracy beyond the occasional local government that choose to practice a heavily limited form of it, there were no organized politics in the Sith Empire persay. At the start of the war and throughout, there were two notable social movements that based itself around a form of imperial ideology, the Pureblood Conservatives and the Imperialists.

The Pureblood Conservatives were a large, though minority block of the Sith Pureblood race who desired for the Empire to go back in time to practice the culture and traditions of the Sith species before they had made contact with the Exiles under Ajunta Pall. While such an ideology was not strictly wrong as the Empire prided itself on being the heirs of Korriban, it was looked down upon as Imperial education taught that it was only with the arrival of the Dark Jedi that the Sith as a species uplifted themselves to be a truly great and galactic race. The Imperialists were a popular train of thought among the Humans, Hybrids, and Chiss who were dedicated to the practice of the Empire's ideals of order, security, technocracy, and power through merit. It should be noted that Imperialism is seperate from Sith philosophy as it refers to the Empire as a whole with the exception of the Sith who had to forever follow the ways of Vitiate and the millennia of previous Dark Lords of the Sith. Both groups would be heavily influential in the Imperial Revolution and the rise of the Rechtite Sith Order that still rule the Empire to this day.

Sith

The Sith Order at the start of the war was a truly great behemoth which had it operated under a more effecient system that placed more emphasis on the survival of its members would have truly destroyed the Jedi. At the start of the war there were 15 million acolytes in training, 2.7 million apprentices, 643,000 Sith Warriors, 578,000 Sith Inquisitors, 129,000 Sith Lords, and 14,000 Darths. Such a force using organization on paper should have been unstoppable and destroyed the Republic, however the self-destructive nature of Vititate's Sith prevented the Sith from being used to their full potential. Unlike the Jedi who carefully trained their padawans and cultivated their full potential to Knighthood, the Sith lived by a rule of the strong where only the most powerful could become members of their order and anyone who didn't have the necessary power would perish. Only 1 in 12 acolytes would survive their trainings at the Academies, the high death rate being as a result of their trials, combatting native wildlife on death worlds, and becoming victims of intrigue from their fellow acolytes and masters. Becoming an apprentice hardly garunteed once's safety as they had to face the demands of their masters, compete against fellow apprentices if their masters trained more than one, and endure hellish training which furthered their powers. At this point 1 in 9 Apprentices would live to either become a Warrior or Inquisitor, the Sith equivalents to Jedi Knights, or somehow obtain enough accomplishments to become a full fledged lord. 18% of all Warriors and Inquisitors would become lords while a further 27% of Lords would become Darths. The odds of any Sith living to old age and dying nonviolently past the apprentice stage was 1 in 3, it was a truly challenging lifestyle. While few Sith would be able to meet non-violent ends, if they managed to last long enough and rise high enough to gain the title of Darth, then they would be masters of the force, champions of the Dark Side whose powers were so vast and great that few Jedi could stand against them as equals. Then again, this would also make them targets against other Sith. Thus in the end, most Sith would live and die in the Empire, not getting close to the front lines and as such preventing the order from unleashing the strength of its numbers against the Jedi.

Unlike the Jedi who lived to serve others, to be a Sith was to advance one's own interests and powers with them only having nominal allegiance to the order as a religion and the greater Empire as both were institutions that advanced the Sith cause and thus provided an environment where a Sith could gain strength. To the Sith, the Dark Side was a tool to be exploited for raw strength so that they could dominate their wills over other beings and the rest of the galaxy. Passion and emotions were derived as source of strength with Vitiate's Sith deriving power from negative emotions such as hate, greed, hate, and the suffering of others; a stark difference from Recht's Sith of today who draw from all levels of the emotion spectrum to fuel their usage of the force in its entirety. To gain power as a Sith one would have to research into the archane practices of their ancestors and uncover lost techniques to claim as their own, steal from their peers in order to claim their powers as their own, or create new techniques through manipulation of the darkside to aid them in their journey.

Out of the entire history of the Sith, Vitiate's Sith was the most militaristic in form as the goal of the order was its dedication to the eradication of the Jedi and the reclamation of their ancestral homelands, with further goals of conquering the entire galaxy as Sith domain. Thus in addition to being powerful in the force or strong combatants, each Sith had to be well versed in military tactics and strategy as they were expected to be the vanguard of the Imperial invasion of the galaxy upon which the Sith would decime the enemy and create opportunities for the Empire to claim opposing worlds. As such the Sith were heavily integrated with the structure of the Imperial military with many units having Sith masters of whom they swore allegiance to. To serve under a Sith in either the Army or Navy was a heavily mixed experience. There were many Sith who in their militarism became soldiers much in the same manner as those under them and thus formed a sense of camaraderie where in turn they gained respect with troopers and sailors following them to hell and back, with Darth Marr and Malgus being the model Sith millitant. Then there were other Sith who saw the Imperial Army and Navy as playthings to be used as they pleased in their sadistic quests for power. It could be said that being in the Imperial military was like rolling a die with their Sith lieges determining their life.

Despite the rather dark, pun intended, nature of the Sith of this era, it was not as if every Sith was a living monster of the force that sought to inflict as much evil and tyranny on the galaxy, for if the entire order was like this then the Third Sith Empire would have never survived more than a century and would have fallen in quick order from infighting like Exar Kun's Brotherhood of the Sith, Revan's Sith Empire, or the Sith Triumvirate. Among the Sith there was a highly complex code of honor and function in which Sith had to treat with their peers and masters. While power games and manipulation were the norm, a Sith could not simply attack and wipe out all of their enemies, they had to do so discreetly and in a way that preserved the order of the wider Empire, otherwise the Dark Council would strike on them as renegades and thus they would be free to attack from their enemies. While the vocal image of the Sith was one of a slave to their vices and passions, many Sith were rather benign (for their culture) in their method of operations where they sought to only use the dark side as a tool instead of falling in corruption to its despair, with these Sith operating under Imperial culture and thus creating a working and stable feudal structure. While a Sith by nature would gain countless enemies within the order, they could also find many allies and even some who could be considered friends and family. Countless social cliques and feudal houses existed within the Order. If a Sith who had moved past apprenticeship could affiliate themselves with a clique or family who could guarantee their protection and not turn on them at the slightest whim, then their life expectancy would heavily increase and from here they would be able to find a support system to create a small but strong social network and maybe even start a true family. Unfortunately, this happy ending was an extremely difficult one to obtain, as in the end the life of a Sith was one of conflict, with a Sith's legacy being defined by the countless dark deeds they have committed over their career in the order.

Military

Army

At the start of the Great Galactic War the Imperial Army numbered 11.3 billion beings, with 10 billion humans, 1 billion hybrids, 240 million Purebloods, and 76 million Chiss, an additional 4 billion were kept in reserve. The Imperial Army was organized into two groups, one a highly specialized strike force that would cut through the enemy defenses with overwhelming firepower and mobility, with the other half being defensive forces dedicating to protecting the Empire and installing order on its conquered worlds. Unlike the Republic whose highest formation were system armies numbering in the millions, the maximum unit size of the Imperial Army was a division. This limitation was designed by the Empire to limit the amount of influence an officer or Sith could have over a group of soldiers and thus prevent any sort of threat to rise and divide the Empire with a rebellion, though this limitation was quickly abolished in the early Galactic War due to the nature of the galaxy spanning conflict. The Empire enforced conscription on all of its citizens, with men serving 8 years in the Imperial Army while women served 5 before either had a chance of a honorable discharge.

Due to the great demographic disparity with the Republic, who could call hundreds of billions of beings into service without it hampering the workforce, the Empire by necessity had to automate much of its warfare through the usage of combat droids. The number of combat droids within the Empire versus the Republic was a disparity of 15 to 1, with the number only increasing as time went on. Combat droids were designed to bear the brunt of damage for the Imperial Army in wave attacks, tearing wholes through enemy defenses alongside Sith, with organic forces soon joining after to deliver the final blow. If the Empire had access to the Star Forge as Vitiate intended then the Republic would have likely fallen to a Sith-led droid army instead of the Great Galactic War being known among the common people today as a conflict where black-clad armored titans conquered the Outer Rim.

Navy

Due to its dedication to conquest and never once daring to decrease the number of their forces, the Imperial Armada greatly outnumbered the Republic Fleet at the start of the war, though this disparity would soon decrease until the Imperial Navy only outnumbered the Republic by 3 to 1 at the tail end of the conflict. The Imperial Navy at the start of the war numbered 35, 461 Dreadnoughts, 25,452 Carriers, 20, 068 Cruisers, 18, 351 Destroyers, 16, 861 Frigates, 15, 166 Corvettes, and 33, 146 Transports. Unlike the Republic who used the classical strategy of a fleet focused on a capitol ship that was escorted by a diverse and well numbered force of escort ships, the Imperials believed that overwhelimg firepower and size would win the day, with Dreadnoughts expected to win battles and sieze worlds on their own while the lesser classes were only meant to support large scale invasions, patrol the Empire's territories, or scout in enemy territory. This was based off of the Sith belief that strength shall triumph over all with might making right, though the Empire would soon learn the hard way of how this format worked horribly against an equal quality entity, with changes being implemented at the tale end of the war and fully finished by Darth Marr during the Cold War. The Empire was divided into 120 fleets with 100 participating in the first years of the conquest while the remaining 20 protected the Imperial homeland. The main reason the Empire did not overwhelm the Republic quickly with their superior ship numbers was due to their reliance on slow and steady conquest and integration, to pick apart their enemy until the final strike would be delivered at a living carcass. Having witnessed Exar Kun and Revan's Sith Empire fall to death within mere years, they were wise to believe that a brutal rush through the galaxy would only lead to destruction.

Intelligence

One field which the Empire would continuously excel over the Republic throughout the Great Galactic War and until the end of the Cold War was espionage. Over a thousand years Imperial Intelligence had been built up as the eyes and ears of the Empire, the foundation upon which the Empire's totalitarian rule could be built up. It was thanks to Imperial Intelligence that tens of thousands of plots from both the common Imperial citizenry and the Sith Order would be eliminated every year, severely limiting the Empire's dissent and allow it to continue for centuries whereas many Sith states before had risen and fallen within a few short years. Imperial Intelligence, under the Sphere of Imperial Intelligence, was one of the three pillars of the Empire alongside the Sith and Imperial Military. The institution was the one place where non force sensitives could rise through merit to great power and in some cases act above Sith. Thanks to the lack of an equal enemy which could infiltrate the Empire, Imperial intelligence excelled at foreign infiltration and subversion, with operations beginning as early as the start of the 21st millenia to infiltrate all facets of the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order to prepare the groundwork for invasion. While Imperial Intellegence was not perfect and their abilities were nowhere near the omniscent or omnipresent state that they claimed to be, it was thanks to their contributions that the Republic would fight the war blindly for much of its duration and Republic and Jedi weaknesses could be pinpointed for destruction.

Economy

Shortly after its founding the Sith Empire adopted the "Eternal War" economy that was proposed by Darth Logos, the first Dark Councilor as the head of the Sphere of Production and Logistics. Under Logos' plan, the Empire's economy would be centered almost entirely around the military and the prophesized final war with the Galactic Republic and the Jedi. Waste had to be weeded out of the Empire with an economy focused around maximum efficiency so that all possible materials and manpower could be devoted to the war that would see the Sith return to the galaxy. By the start of the war 38% of the economy was focused on industries related to the military, with 19% of the economy controlled by the Imperial government, Imperial nobility, or the Sith Order and its many programs, with the remaining 43% belonging to the private sphere. Outside of matters focused on the military, the Empire practiced State Capitalism where a few key industries would be controlled by the state while the rest would be controlled by private individuals. With few Sith seeking to engage in business, the private sphere could see an individual rise high, though it was a cuthroat environment as the Empire had few welfare programs or regulations on labor and the workplace beyond basic citizen's rights.

Up to the creation of the Fourth Sith Empire, the Empire proudly boasted a zero unemployment rate. In reality all citizens under the age of retirement who did not choose to stay at home as family caretakers and were not employed were mandated by the Ministry of Finance to join the Civil Service Corps, a government program dedicated to providing citizen labor wherever it was needed. Usually the Civil Service Corps labor was divided into three specialties; menial labor spread out through the bureaucracy, various positions in the defense industry, and construction and other blue collar labor on sensitive projects which could not be trusted to slaves. Those in the Civil Service Corps were often given low salaries with few prospects of advancement in society.

Slave labor in the economy was usually dedicated to hard labor on private sphere projects or the construction of vital infrastructure across the galactic empire. A slave could either be owned by an individual, the state, or a corporate entity. In total 32% of slaves were owned by private individuals, 25% of slaves belonged to various members of the Sith Order, 24% by the imperial government, and 19% belonged to corporate entities. While there were rare cases of individuals, or even Sith, treating their slaves well, the system in majority was a cruel and evil one with hundreds of billions of beings throughout the Empire's history suffering until the abolition of slavery at the near end of the Third Sith Empire.

For most of the Third Sith Empire's history the Empire practiced serfdom, which solely applied to humans with the Serfs differing from the slaves in that they had legal and basic rights along with a small amount of private ownership. In 880 RE, the practice of serfdom was abolished by the Emperor with all serfs becoming free citizens of the Empire. This was not done in some act of kindness by Vitiate, rather to add billions of humans into the greater workforce and more importantly the military for his original plan of declaring war on the Republic with the usage of the Star Forge.

Astropography

In contrast to the Republic that in many ways was synonymous with the known galaxy, the Sith Empire was miniscule at the start of the Great Galactic War, a far cry from their modern territorial boundaries. In 1299 RE (21,372 AGC 62 BNO), the Sith Empire only numbered 15,000 systems, spread from the Jakar Arm to the great galactic west where they were recorded to be one thousand light years galactic north west from Rakata Prime. The reason for the lack of space for the Sith in comparison to the Republic is due to scarcity, time, and the nature of the unknown regions.

For the first three centuries the Sith struggled to build their nation from the remains of the exile fleet, a challenge made harder by their choosing to make the death world of Dromund Kaas their new capitol. Alongside the lack of development to build off of as the Dark Jedi Exiles did off the original Sith, there was also a lack of sentient resources with the Empire only passing a billion sentients in 179 RE. With the constant fear of attack by the Jedi and the Republic, the Empire had to choose its expansion carefully on the galactic fringe, thus they had to bypass many resource rich worlds due to them presenting a greater threat of contact with the Jedi, such a danger could not be afforded as it was all thanks to two hyperspace explorers that the Empire fell in the first place.

The second factor in their lack of space was pure time. The Sith only had 1300 years to build an Empire that could possibly stand as an equal to the Republic while the Republic itself had over 20,000 years of development and expansion across the galaxy, with most of the years since the Great Hyperspace War being ones of golden bliss with the exception of the Sith Wars era. The fact that the Sith were able to conquer an average of ten systems per year is already a pretty impressive feat for a young interstellar nation, especially since it outnumbered the march of the early Republic in its first millenia.

Lastly there were the perils of the Unknown Regions and how the area's lack of stable long-range hyperspace routes made travel difficult under the best of circumstances. With the necessity to stick on the edge of the galaxy and avoid any possible areas with potential Republic expansion, there were few, if any natural hyperspace routes for the Sith to exploit. Unlike travel through the Republic where a starship need only to make between 5 and 10 jumps on average, travel through the Empire necessitated dozens of jumps per every thousand light years, setting travel back by weeks or months in comparison to the time it would take for one to travel the same distance on one of the Great Routes. The Unknown Regions are also heavily notorious for the unstable and fluctuating nature of their hyperspace routes, with route stability impossible to predict as a route can stay stable for centuries or collapse and reform dozens of times within one year. It is here that the Chiss Ascendancy's alliance with the Empire was a boon of the force as thanks to Chiss starmaps the Empire was able to use 200 stable routes which made up the core of their empire, accelerating their entrance into the galaxy by centuries and allowing the Sith to survive in case of defeat.

With the low amount of systems against the Republic, one must call into question how the Sith were able to fight as effective equals, and for the first decade superiors to the Republic, with such resource disparity. This is because of the Sith implementation of the Eternal War economy that was developed by Lothos during their first century of exile. While the Eternal War economy is abysmal for any galactic power, for a secret interstellar empire whose sole focus of existence was to prepare for total war against a one galaxy nation, it was perfect. Every system that the Sith inhabited would be exploited to the fullest with no square meter of terrestrial objects going unused. While most of Republic space had barely any sentient impact, the Sith would turn each system into forge worlds where their raw materials would be stripped and fed to the great war machine. With the exception of the 1,000 settlement systems, every system was an industrial powerhouse that had the same production capabilities as a nation that was 50-100 times its own size. While the Republic lazed in its Golden Age of exploration, the Sith spent every second preparing for war.

Demographics

At the start of the war the Empire's population numbered 160 billion, divided into citizens and slaves. Of the citizens, 120 billion were human, 14 Billion were Sith-Human hybrids, 3 Billion were Sith Purebloods, and 2 Billion were Chiss. The remaining 21 billion were slaves were in addition to species that they had enslaved in the Unknown regions, were a large amount of species native to the greater galaxy mainly Twileks, Zabraks, and Zabraks who were descendants of prisoners of the Great Hyperspace War. While humans and Sith Purebloods were the dominant species of the Empire, there were many human and Sith Pureblood slaves who were either descendants of the original slaves of the Sith, enslaved for high crimes, or in the case of the Sith Purebloods enslaved for a lack of force sensitivity. While humans and Purebloods were the only species who could be freed from slavery, at the start of the war there were 1 billion human slaves and 150 million Pureblood slaves.

The reason that the Sith were able to explode in demographics over their 1300 years of exile was due to a combination of intense natalist programs along with semi-cloning programs where every non force sensitives DNA at birth would be cataloged in the Imperial Ministry of Health, and then each year a lottery would pick a pool of DNA and make partial clones with their DNA made partially different in order to increase genetic diversity. The cloning of force users was banned since such a practice would discourage Sith Lords and Ladies from producing heirs naturally and instead create an endless lineage of clones, along with the potential for Sith cloning armies. As such, Humans and Chiss were only part of this policy.

Despite the fact that they were descended from the true Sith species and claimed rightful rulership of the Empire in service of their eternal liege Emperor Vitiate, the Sith Pureblood numbers were incredibly low in comparison to their once inferior human counterparts who overtook them in management of the Empire. This is due to the Sith Purebloods high force sensitivity, and since by law any citizen with over 10,000 midi-chlorians was mandated to become a Sith, over 2/3rd's of Sith Purebloods would mandatory enter the Academy while the remainder had either bare force sensitivity, with 38% still volunteering for the Academies, or no force sensitivity with the few being ostracized. With high mortality rate of the Academies, and the numbers of Sith being further decreased through the casualties of war and endless intrigue and the Order, only 45% of Sith Purebloods survived to adulthood and produced children. In addition to the lifestyle of the Sith, another factor was the high amount of cross-species marriage with humans, with over a third of adult Purebloods marrying humans or hybrids, and those offspring in high majority choosing humans or fellow highbreeds. With these factors the Sith Pureblood species was always destined to remain low and be overtaken by Imperial Humanity.

By law all Sith are required to marry another force sensitive to produce offspring to serve as the next generation of Sith Lords. This law also included low force sensitivity individuals who did not choose to become Sith, and as a result people of this class were forced either to enter marriage or become paramours and do their duty of conceiving the next generation of Sith. The duty of a Sith or force sensitive to produce force sensitive children was considered a high honor for any Sith as not only would their bloodline be merged with another powerful bloodline to produce a greater dynasty, but their children would contribute to the greater glory and power of the Sith Order. It did not matter if a force sensitive was a trueborn child or a bastard, their birth was considered a cause of joyous celebration as they were material to become future Dark Lords of the Sith. These Natalist mandates were a sign of how the Sith may have had the most power in the Empire, they also had the least freedom.

While the Empire was nominally egalitarian in gender with many prominent women rising to positions of power across its history, every woman was expected to do their part and produce enough offspring to ensure that there was net growth to the Empire to give them the necessary population to fight the Republic. Laws were passed which highly encouraged each non-force sensitive woman to bear three children at minimum. If a woman was infertile or had difficulty conceiving and giving birth to a third child, then they were expected to adopt. For single men or women they were expected to at least adopt children with bachelors and spinsters ostracized from society. The only exception were active members of the Imperial military and Imperial Intelligence who were excused due to their dedication of service to the Empire and its ultimate victory.

On homosexual couples, while the Empire had legalized and was culturally accepting of homosexuality, they were still expected to bear children through adoption, or artificial insemination for lesbian couples, a case that was necessary for nobility and Sith in order to keep the bloodline going at all costs. Homosexual Sith, while allowed to marry others of the same gender, were expected to produce heirs through some method to continue the bloodline and raise future Lords. As such, these Sith were expected to take paramours with whom they would breed with and produce the necessary heirs. Often times these paramours were either single Sith of the opposite gender or fellow homosexuals already in a relationship which created very complex and dangerous family dynamics.

While the Sith Order may seem like an institution obsessed with heavy breeding to produce as many force sensitives as possible, there were many exceptions to the rule and a number of Sith who produced no children. While having children was encouraged, there was no law mandating that children be produced as a Sith child was expected to follow the Order's traditions and as such could be potential threats to their parents. As such there would be a number of adult Sith who did not raise children out of the fear that they would be usurped by their blood, a sad reality among the Order. In addition the cultural stressors of producing heirs was mainly focused on minor Sith Lords and Sith Warriors and Inquisitors. If a high Lord or a Dark Lord of the Sith were to produce heirs with another powerful force user, then their offspring could wreak havoc on the Empire with dynasties so powerful that they could threaten Imperial Order. A Dark Lord of the Sith who had no offspring could be considered to be a blessing as their legacy would end with them with a potential bloodline that could dominate over most of the Empire never coming into fruition.

Culture

Unlike the extremely diverse culture of the Galactic Republic, the Third Sith Empire was divided into two distinctive culture, Sith Culture and Imperial Culture. Sith culture was primarily that of members belonging to the Sith order, though in many respects it also applies to the Sith Purebloods due to their dominant numbers among the Sith Order and the Purebloods descending from the True Sith. Sith culture primarily revolved around the pursuit of power and one's strength in the dark side. Unlike the Jedi who placed an emphasis on serenity and peace, the Sith were driven by their passions with conflict being the main vehicle through which they would gain victory and thus freedom. To be a Sith was to be a being of self-interest, always advancing one's cause above others with loyalty to the Empire being mainly to protect the environment upon which the Sith shall rule.

Imperial culture was the dominant cultural force of the Sith Empire and was mainly followed by Humans, Hybrids, and Chiss. Imperial culture mainly centers around complete dedication and duty to the Empire and its glory, with its creation being done by the Emperor and early Sith as a means to place their non-force using population in line as citizens and serfs upon which they would be used as a base for the eventual crusade against the Republic and Jedi. What the Emperor did not expect was for the millennia in exile to force Imperial culture to have its own distinct character which was followed with near religious devotion by the majority of the population. Concepts such as honor, duty, patriotism, and loyalty became fixtures of Imperial culture, with non-noble Sith who grew up in Imperial Society then spreading these values across the Sith Order with a large minority of the late Vitiate Sith following Imperial values in their lives as Sith.

In contrast to the Republic which prided itself upon its diversity of species, the Third Sith Empire at the start of the great galactic war was one that was dominated and focused on Sith Purebloods and Humans. The belief in Sith Pureblood supremacy descends from the True Sith who saw themselves as masters of the force with their species' destiny being to claim the galaxy as their own. Humans were allowed to be equals of the Sith as it was under the human Dark Jedi Exiles led by Ajunta Pall that the Second Sith Empire arose with the Exile's technology allowing them to expand across Sith space and reclaim lost worlds. Alongside Purebloods, Humans, and their Hybrids, Chiss were accepted as equals due to the Ascendancy's alliance with the Empire. While in the centuries after first contact, Chiss who immigrated to the Empire were treated as second class citizens, by the start of the Galactic War they were true equals. While the Empire's xenophobia ingrained in its citizens that all aliens were inferior and to be ruled over as it was the natural right of the Sith, near-humans were favored and received higher treatment than non-humans, with reform movements setting the stage for the creation of the subject class and the abolition of slavery in the Imperial Revolution.

A/N: In this chapter we go over the society of the Sith Empire and how they functioned while in exile from the greater galaxy along with hints of the Empire's greater change which allowed them to survive in some form after the SWTOR era. For the Sith Empire I wanted to create a complex, nuanced, and somewhat realistic portrayal to show how the Sith managed to be stable and last for 13 centuries while most Sith destroy themselves within a couple years. While the Sith of the story will not be cartoon evil like how the Galactic Empire is in Disney Canon, at the same time they will not be the good guys and can still be rightly viewed as an antagonistic role with a Fascist society. Over the course of the story the Sith shall evolve with many interesting developments to show how they got to what they are in SWTOR while at the same time creating some divergences for a reformation of sorts into the Fourth Empire.

The next three chapters will be mostly canon-ish following the lore of the Empire's entrance from the Tingel Arm campaign to the Battle of Sluis Van, though they shall go into far greater detail with some minor changes to show how the campaign took place with complex maneuvers and how the Republic fought back with greater intensity then simply being curbstomped with no damage to the Sith. After Chapter 3, I shall begin to write some original content on how the Outer Rim campaign went up to the Battle of Bothawui, which shall be heavily different in how it occurred with a similar-ish result. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more.