Ch. 4: The War in Heaven
The War in Heaven (circa. 100,000 BBY) was an event that changed the face of the Galaxy forever. It signified the fall of the Celestials and the rise of several other species to compete for the mantle of dominant galactic power.
Leading up to the war, the Celestials had created various devices of massive power known as Cosmic Turbines. These devices were often the size of a small moon and were used to manipulate gravitational forces to form or tear apart planets and stars. These could be used to created hyperspace anomalies that blocked travel from one side of the galaxy to another. These hyperspace anomalies continue to have repercussions to this day.
The actual first causes and the direction of the war and its many battles has been lost to history. In fact, we have little information on how it was even fought. The Celestials, unlike modern navies, did not appear to use massive fleets of ships, instead the war was mainly fought both on the ground or in the form of small skirmishes for control of massive pieces of technology such as the Cosmic Turbines. The merit of this strategy is obvious, instead of throwing money and lived into ship construction and crewing, they instead targeted preexisting structures and took them over using either slave armies or their own martial powers. Once a structure was in possession, it could be used to destroy the enemy planet that it orbited or to create a hyperspace anomaly to prevent any more travel. How the Celestials traveled without massive navies is something of a mystery, but it is believed that they used the Cosmic Turbines to 'launch' smaller ships into hyperspace where they would then emerge and touch down on the enemy planet to do battle.
The two main factions were the mainstream Celestials and the Kanzer Exiles. The Exiles concern us more as they are the ones who created the Sith. Now, the Exiles wielded the dark side and were the original developers of several of the techniques that would become Sith Sorcery and Alchemy. How and why they decided to create the Sith is unknown, but one hypothesis is that they wanted a race of Force- sensitive slaves to act as soldiers. Due to the genetic resemblance of humans and Sith, humans were likely the baseline stock mutated to create the Sith. The Sith homeworld was Korriban, which the Celestials populated with the first Sith.
The parallels between the ancient Sith mythology and creation stories from other cultures is striking. Using the parallels, historians have been able to construct which parts were likely true, or at least derived from true events and individuals.
The Father of Shadows, Lady With the Locust Heart, and Shunned Deity likely represent the Ones of Mortis, a trio of surviving Celestials who were discovered and killed during the Clone Wars (circa. 20 BBY). The Ones include the Father, Daughter, and Son who were known to the Sith as the Father, the Lady, and Shunned Deity respectively. The Ones were an enigmatic group who inhabited an ancient construct known as Mortis which served as a powerful Force nexus. Their presence on such a powerful location is believed to have had an effect on the Force at large. When and why they went there is uncertain, but it is possible that they were a group that had somehow foreseen the war and wanted to keep the Force in balance to prevent it.
The Soulworm is believed to represent a being known as Abeloth who emerged after the Second Galactic Civil War (circa. 41 ABY). Abeloth was Force sensitive, but not a Celestial. She somehow came to live with the Ones. However, she grew bitter with them and ended up stealing their ancient deposits of knowledge and taking shortcuts to maximise her power. She was able to turn the Son to the dark side and escape from the Father and Daughter. In response, the daughter devoted herself entirely to the light fearing that she would be corrupted as well.
The identity of the Inscrutable One is unknown. Some believe that he was the leader if the Celestials as a species, others believe he was simply made up, while some claim that he was simply a survivor of the War in Heaven who carried on the traditions and philosophy of the Celestials as a species. However, we are almost certain that the individual that inspired the legend of Kopa Khan was real. In fact, many historians believe Kopa Khan was his real name. The reason for this is that in the ancient language, 'Kanzer' as in 'Kanzer Exiles' is derived from 'kan,' a pronunciation of 'Khan' and 'zer' which is a title of respect that roughly translates to 'a disciple of.' Therefore, the Kanzer Exiles are followers of one named 'Khan.'
It is thought that the Son and Abeloth were able to trigger the war's beginning, and they led the war along with Khan. The war lasted for an unknown period of time, but eventually, the Son turned on Abeloth and betrayed her to the Father and Daughter. They killed her, but her spirit continued to inhabit a world in the unknown regions. The Father then imprisoned himself and his two children in Mortis and he continued to use them to keep the Force in balance.
The war continued on. At this point, due to their devotion to pure power and brutal tactics, it looked like the Exiles were going to triumph as they were able to take control of a large portion of the Cosmic Turbines. This is how the hyperspace disturbance that separates the Unknown regions was thought to have been created. As the war dragged on, more and more hyperspace lanes along their territorial borders were blocked by gravitational anomalies causing a no-man's space between them.
Eventually, Khan was killed by an usurper named Korman Lao. This caused a rift between the followers of Khan and those of Lao. In frustration, the followers of Khan decided to wage a scorched-planet campaign. This was the Muurshantre Extinction. The followers of Khan retaliated by causing all of their Cosmic Turbines to destroy nearby planets, causing untold destruction. Since the Turbines has some degree of intelligence to carry out this order, they had to be destroyed to stop the devastation. After that Muurshantre Extinction, the galaxy was a cinder. Whatever remained of the Exiles fled deep into the unknown regions where they inhabited the Nihl retreat.
There is another thing that finished them off and kept them from ever becoming dominant again, and that is the Mnggal-Mnggal. It is a single massive organism that resembles grey slime. It infects its victims and takes control of their minds, devouring them from the inside out to produce more of itself. Through this, it is able to kill entire planets. It is thought to have been the idea behind the Sith god Ooru. The Mnggal-Mnggal was likely created by the Exiles as a type of biological weapon, similar to the infamous Imperial biological agent 'Blackwing,' but it soon got way out of control. This organism was able to devour worlds preventing the Exiles from ever becoming a dominant power again. Eventually they died off, but ruins of their culture can still be found in the Unknown Regions if one knows where to look or is extremely unlucky.
The mainstream Celestials were able to survive as a civilization, but most of their elders were killed and their repositories of knowledge were destroyed causing them to lose most of their Force traditions. It is thought that they even lost the ability to manipulate midichlorians, an ability which had become the backbone of their society. As a result, they likely turned to cloning to keep their species alive. Eventually, likely due to complications caused by cloning Force sensitives, their species gradually lost its connection to the Force. They still had some access to their previous technology which became the new backbone of their civilization. The slave races that were under their control were mostly wiped out in the Extinction. However, over the millennia they grew in power by learning how to use remnants of the Celestials teachings. The Gree were able to control and reverse engineer and improve on most of the Celestials advanced technology, and the Kwa were able to improve on the Celestials Force traditions. Due to the advancement of their former slave races, the Celestials were pushed back to a small corner of the galaxy. They continued to survive until circa. 30,000 BBY when the Celestials wiped out the remainder of their empire and caused their main star to go supernova, ending their reign forever.
But what does this have to do with the Sith? To answer that, let us examine the creator of the Sith culture and species himself.
Typhojem:
Typhojem may or may not be the name of the actual individual, but there is enough evidence of his existence to conclude that the individual who inspired the myth of Typhojem was a real being. For convenience, most historians simply call him Typhojem.
Typhojem's species is unknown, but many believe he was some type of Celestial creation but not a Celestial himself. He is depicted as a massive green humanoid being with octopus-like tentacles around his mouth and leathery wings on his back. He is said to have hailed from the planet Xoth, a watery world orbiting a binary star far outside of the galaxy. This in itself is interesting. If this is true, it means that the Celestials had made progress in trying to move to other galaxies. A world that meets the criteria of Xoth has recently been discovered. On it, the remains of an ancient civilization have been found. From what little genetic remains of the original inhabitants have been found, many biologists believe that a known species called the J'feh are actually descended from them. This is further reinforced by Yevetha having creation myths similar to those of the Sith and their homeworld having the possible remains of ancient Celestial technology, although this matter is still uncertain and is the subject of much debate and biological/archeological research. However, if this is confirmed, it would mean that the progenitors of the J'feh were powerful servants of the Celestials who could have created many of the Galaxy's sentient species.
What is known about Typhojem is that after the Sith were created, he traveled to Korriban to educate them and instal the line of Sith kings. Many of the Sith rituals and teachings have their ancient roots credited to Typhogem. It is thought that after the Exiles were defeated, he returned to Korriban to go into hiding. Not much is known about his personal life beyond this. As to the circumstances of his death, historians are unsure. Legend says that he was killed by a demon, and this is a very real possibility. There is an ancient Sith technique known as Dwomutsiqsa, which translates to 'summon demon.' When a sorcerer uses this technique, it causes a dark side entity known as a 'smoke demon' to be created. Perhaps Typhojem or one of his disciples used this ability but lost control of the demon. Or perhaps the ability has its roots in the Celestials and one of their demons killed him. It is unknown.
However he may have met his eventual demise, Typhojem's life serves the Sith in a threefold manner. First, he was a warlord. In life, he led many bloody campaigns to unite the Sith species and install some type of governmental structure. Second, he was a prophet. He is responsible for installing the ancient Sith religion and forcing the Sith to worship the Celestials as gods. Finally, he was a philosopher. His teachings on the subjects of law, meditations, alchemy, and sorcery continued to be used and improved or adapted by Sith for millenia. In all, on his teachings the Sith order is founded.
