The Immortal God-Emperor: the Sith'ari Adas

Adas was born around 28,050 BBY. His parents, homeworld, and childhood are unknown although there are many legends surrounding it. Some say that when he was only a few months old, he snapped a hississ head off the creature's body. Another said that when an assassin disguised as a wet-nurse tried to kill him, instead of sucking her milk, he sucked out her life force. Another says that when he was a young boy, he brought a Tuk'ata back to life though the power of Sith alchemy. Yet another says that when he was only ten years old, Sith women would leave their husbands and do anything for his affection and he would oblige dozens a night. And yet another says that when he was a young warrior, he used the Force to pull a planet's moon out of orbit to kill an entire army. It is highly unlikely that any of these outlandish tales are true as these legends cropped up hundreds of years later, but they just go to show the type of reputation Adas earned throughout his long life.

As the modified Sith children grew up, it is highly unlikely that they had any contact with each other. Despite this, many were able to become respected generals and leaders on their home planets. Many made their way to Korriban where they were often heralded as saviors. It was here Adas joined the fray of Sith Lords vying for power. In his early career, his main rival was another black-skinned Sith named Set. Adas and Set were viewed as gods incarnate when they finally dueled. Adas's army won and when he ascended to the throne he was heralded as the God-Emperor of the Sith, the Overlord or Sith'ari. He began his career by ordering all black-skinned Sith to be brought before him. He then systematically beheaded them with his battle ax.

At this point the Rakata should have realized that their plan was going off the rails. However, either they thought they could handle Adas or they were simply too busy. What they did not anticipate was Adas's sheer power. His force potential was far greater than that of the average Sith, and he had hundreds of years to perfect his abilities. At the beginning of his reign, the God-Emperor consolidated his power by killing each warlord and submitting all the generals to his rule. He then systematically had each planet swear allegiance to him and him alone. After years of ruling the Imperium, it began to look like the Sith were entering a golden age. It was then that Adas appointed several satraps and viceroys to rule the Imperium. These advisors were able to do most of the work of running the Imperium by themselves, but only if they cooperated. Adas ensured this. In this way, the Imperium became completely dependant on Adas as the unifying force. Nobody wanted to risk killing him as the Imperium would collapse and hundreds of advisors would compete for succession. A successor was just not possible.

Despite this, Adas was thought to have fathered hundreds of offspring. Similarly, before he had killed them, the other dark-skinned Sith had fathered hundreds more. Luckily for these offspring, Adas allowed them to live as they appeared to be exactly like normal Sith. In addition, they were often extremely powerful in the Force- something that Adas was not against as long as that power served him. There was however one main difference between these Sith and the rest of the population. These offspring were very long lived as well. It is believed that Sith throughout the ages who have unnaturally long lifespans are simply the result of their genes popping up again.

Then Adas retreated from the public eye for decades. Adas worked on perfecting his powers and looking for ways to ensure that his reign would be infinite. Eventually, he devised a plan. He would link his most trusted generals, many of them his own sons, to him with a Sith Battlelord technique. This ritual would link their life forces to him so that if he died, they would also. He could also communicate with them from a distance and control them. However, the control was one way, if they died, it only briefly weakened him. He then began to centralize the army even more. His battle meditation would stretch across Sith space causing all military forces to be an extension of his will. Finally, he worked to unify the Imperium with a hyperspace network with himself as the central controller. He meditated deep in a dark side nexus on Korriban and reached out across space to open Force Storms allowing the military to travel more easily as well as inspiring fear of his power. To fuel the storms, he drew upon both the power of the dark side nexus as well as the combined life force of the citizens of Korriban. This was not standard Force Drain but rather a variant of an ability known as Consume Essence. It kept the citizens passive but unharmed while drawing their power to fuel his Force Storms. Additionally, he would often demand the sacrifice of those who thought about challenging his power, draining their life force to summon the storms. This level of power remained unmatched possibly until Ku'ar Danar, Vitiate, Darth Ruin, and Palpatine. (although Ajunta Pall, Karness Muur, and Darths Nihilus, Plagueis and Caedus do come close, as we will soon see)

A Note on Lightsabers:

Adas and some of his contemporaries were known to have used the lightsaber. This seems anachronistic as lightsabers were not invented by the Jedi Order until much later, but there are some precursor technologies that were utilized by the Rakata, as well as previous species possibly dating back to the Celestials. It is unknown where the Sith got this technology as they were known to have had it before contact with the Rakata. It is likely that this knowledge was from the Killiks. Although the Killiks did not use the weapons themselves, it is possible that the knowledge was stored in their hive minds by the Rakata which the Sith then discovered somehow. There are, however, some holes in this theory. Another hypothesis says that the lightsaber was invented by the Celestials and passed down to the Sith through one of Typhojem's holocrons. However, no holocron containing this information was ever found. However, if this is true, it would mean that the Rakata got the technology from the Sith, no the other way around.

Adas is famous for wielding two battle axes in battle. However, after hundreds of years of his body being ravaged by the Dark Side, he could no longer wield such heavy weapons. Therefore, he opted to use the more maneuverable lightsaber. Despite Adas's incredible strength in the Force, his lightsaber skills were lacking by modern standards. Training manuals from this era show very little knowledge about how to properly use the weapon. Specifically, the Sith seemed to think wielding a lightsaber and wielding a standard sword were comparable, rather than leveraging the strengths of a weightless energy blade.

Now back to the story:

Adas's rule lasted for 300 years. Sometime around 27,700 BBY, the Rakata sensed his presence and sought to contact him. They made a series of deals and he was able to obtain from them the technology to create holocrons. It is possible that Adas's holocron was the first Sith holocron to be created in seventy thousand years. At some point in his life, Adas was able to wipe the memories of his alternate personality as an agent of the Rakata. It is unknown how he even discovered this subconcious self, but he was apparently able to remove it as the Rakata were unable to control him directly. The Rakata were annoyed and eventually launched a full scale attack. Thus begins the Sith-Rakata War. (circa. 27,700 BBY) However, the Rakata were unable to bring their full might to bear as they, after annihilating the Kwa, the Rakata turned their attention to the Kwa's ally species, the Qonet. Thus began the Rakata-Qonet War. (circa. 27,700 BBY) Now, the Qonet were an ancient force-sensitive species that inhabited the Kathol sector. They were descended from the Ahra Naffi who an observant reader would remember as being a servant species for the Celestials. Sure enough, the Ahra Naffi and the Qonet were very skilled at manipulating life to create a wide array of organic technologies, a skill that they inherited in part from the Celestials. It is possible that this manipulation of life was in some way passed on to the Sith, but this link is being investigated at the moment. In short, the Rakata had just launched into a full scale extermination campaign against the Qonet and their arguably superior technology. As a result, the Sith were seen as a costly side-campaign.

Adas was able to use the powerful Sith warships and his battle meditation to drive off the Rakatan invaders. Although the Rakata were undoubtedly furious, they could not continue to wage war. The Rakata devised a plan. Instead of conquering the Sith, they would send a powerful fleet into the heart of Sith Space and do as much damage as possible before turning around and focusing exclusively on the Qonet. The main benefits of this plan was that it would desolate the Sith, reducing them to a non-threat while satisfying their thirst for revenge. This plan resulted in the bombing of Korriban and the death of Adas. The Rakata retreated, but it was a pyrrhic victory for the Sith whose homeworld was reduced to a radioactive waste.

For the Rakata, the plan worked. They were able to drive the Qonet nearly to extinction, but the Qonet were still able to live on in many ways. First, they passed on their technology to a descendant species, the Qella. Likewise, the ancient Kathol species that rose after them would discover their works and model their own technology on it. Finally, the Qonet were able to send a small survivor population on an evacuation route outside the Galaxy. What, if any, connection they have to other extragalactic species is currently being investigated. For the Sith however, things were much more grim. The Sith had become too dependant on Adas and Korriban. Without it, their society fell apart. Sith were stranded on whatever world they were born on and each group morphed into its own tradition. Occasionally disputes would arise between sects located on the same planet, and war would ensue. Thus begins the Age of Heresy.