Ch. 12: The Hundred Year Darkness
The Hundred Year Darkness is a series of wars, social upheavals, political turmoil, and economic hardship that lasted a century. The events leading up to it date back centuries, if not millennia. First, there was the ongoing feud between Coruscant and Alsakan. The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth Alsakan conflicts are all major contributing sources of the violence that marks this era, although the Alsakan conflicts are usually forgotten about and lumped into the wider conflicts of the era. The Corellian Empire also fought a series of wars against either side, and many outer rim planets were in a state of uproar and many sought to withdraw from the Republic. The source of this chaos dates back centuries to a web of alliances formed between Republic member worlds as well as with some outside the Republic. The overall chaos caused severe economic shortages and many planetary governments were overthrown. To map out the entire series of wars as well as its causes is the subject of many other books, but we are focused on the spark the ignited it: the Second Great Schism.
The Schism was a conflict of light and dark within the Jedi order. Many Jedi thought that certain abilities were permitted, other reformists thought that they should be restricted. The High Council itself was divided with a series of grandmasters pushing either for or against reform. By the time of the schism, a Neti named Uro Koo was grandmaster and he pushed for reform. However, many council masters were against it, most notably the Sephi Karness Muur. After years of debates that often ended in shouting matches between both parties, several very prominent Jedi Masters were declared to be heretics and asked to hand in their lightsabers. A few did, but most did not comply. A large contingent of Jedi left the Order and a series of heated lightsaber duels ensued as the Jedi from the reformist party tried to arrest the heretics.
The schism was messy with no middle ground. While the reformist party is remembered as being the true branch, it was really more of a split down the middle. Jedi heretics saw the Grandmaster as running a Jedi dictatorship and the reformists as his cronies. The reformists saw the heretics as dark Jedi in disguise. They fought each other, but the war was self-contained. However, the two orders relocated to different planets. The reformists kept Ossus while the heretics set up a base of operations on Coruscant, not far from the Senate.
Three years after the split, the Eleventh Alsakan conflict was set off (circa. 7,000 BBY). Coruscant backed by the Jedi heretics fought Alsakan backed by the Jedi reformers. Due to the intervention of the Jedi on both sides, this war dragged on for close to two decades. Jedi on either side served as generals on the front lines, often focusing on the opposite side force users. Similar, Jedi on both sides boosted their fleets with Battle Meditation and communicated with each other using telepathy. In the end, the Alsakan forces were able to blockade Coruscant for long enough to force a surrender. However, with the change in power, government policy had to be renegotiated causing a severe economic collapse. A galaxy-wide depression ensued causing severe turmoil in the outer rim. To fix this, economic policies were implemented which helped the outer rim but hurt planets such as Corellia. Meanwhile, the Jedi heretics flead the Republic to regain their strength in the free Outer Rim planets.
The war and economic collapse caused many of the outer rim systems to form alliances amongst each other. Fifteen years after the end of the Eleventh Alsakan conflict, Corellia decided to withdraw from the Alsakan-controlled Republic. (6,966 BBY) This triggered a two year long war between them before Coruscant was able to forge a treaty of alliance with Corellia. Thus began the Twelfth Alsakan Conflict. This war raged on for seven years, during which time, the Jedi heretics, now full Dark Jedi, joined in to back Coruscant. With their help, Coruscant eventually won, but the Dark Jedi were depleted in numbers. Instead of surrendering, Alsakan left the Republic anong with many other planets (6,955 BBY). The Jedi controlled Ossus then switched sides. Now Coruscant controlled a broken Republic that contained two groups of Jedi that hated each other's guts.
This state of having two groups of Jedi serve one Republic lasted for a decade. However, a series of conflicts led to many outer rim worlds leaving the Coruscant controlled Republic. (6,945 BBY) The Dark Jedi were, in general, more well liked by the outer rim planets. They voted to let the Dark Jedi rule the Republic, however Coruscant passed a law banning them. There were many other factors, but the issue of Jedi control was one of the most hotly debated topics. After several worlds declared their independence, the Dark Jedi left the Republic to fight with the Separatists.
After a three year long war, Coruscant did not have the strength to stop them. However, Alsakan saw this as a sign of Coruscant's weakness and attacked again. The Thirteenth Alsakan conflict ended after a year with Jedi-backed Coruscant pulling a surprising win. (6,940 BBY) Now with Coruscant controlling Alsakan and the burned-out Republic, the Galaxy went into a thirty year state of cooldown until the War of Darkness broke out in 6,910 BBY.
In the aftermath of the Thirteenth Alsakan conflict, the Republic was greatly reduced in size thanks to the independence of many outer rim planets. Many of these planets harbored Dark Jedi, but they were too disorganized to cause much chaos. It is into this state of cooldown that Ajunta Pall, the first true Sith Lord, grew up in after being born in 6,947 BBY.
Let's check back in on Ku'ar Danar:
After escaping from known space, Danar made his way to a remote corner of Sith space known as the Nilrebmah system. He apparently took refuge in an old library on one of the planets of the system, and he spent over half a century studying and meditating there. Many believe that during this time he was planning his final ritual. After this, he went back to greater Sith Space and recruited dozens of followers to his cause. His two most trusted and well-educated followers were named Moloch and Beelzebub. These two appeared to think of Danar as some type of divine entity and while they were strong in the Force, they never challenged him. It is from their records that historians even know what happened in the Nilrebmah system.
To mention briefly some details about the Nilrebmah system, it has over thirteen rocky 'planets' however most of these are just large asteroids. Exactly how or why Nilrebmah came to be known as having over thirteen planets is unknown. It is highly likely that whoever discovered the system simply said 'thirteen' but meant 'three' or perhaps he was just really bad at counting. Additionally, its remote location likely hindered the efforts of the Intergalactic Union of Astronomers (IUA) efforts to inspect the system, as the IUA at that time ran a dictatorship on what got to be called a planet and what's not a planet- and they were very serious about it. The three 'real' planets are II, X, and XIII. Planets II and X still support life, but originally all three did. The system is extremely difficult to get to as all hyperspace lanes leading up to it are unstable, and the system, in some circles, is regarded as cursed. Apparently legends circulated about the tragedy that happened on XIII and the entire system is believed to best be avoided. Despite this, the exact nature of the tragedy is not widely known, and many just know the system as a cursed place where some horrible event took place millennia ago.
Danar intended to build a massive stone structure which would serve as a focusing lens for his power. He then intended to use the power that it gave to conduct a massive ritual. Details are sparse, but later Sith seem to be under the impression that it's purpose was to drain the life of his followers to grant himself immortality, but the exact details are unknown. Additionally, as Danar seemed immune to ageing, bodily immortality seems like an odd prize, but don't question the greed of the Sith. To build his structure, first he was able to obtain several large hyperspace enabled transport ships. Beelzebub appears to have had knowledge about hyperspace suggesting that his group of Sith were one of the more technologically advanced groups.
Danar travels to Nilrebmah II, a warm tropical planet, and is able to use Sith sorcery to enslave the minds of the small native population. It is unknown what species the natives belonged to, but it is highly likely that they were a type of Sith offshoot. Archeology in this system has been difficult due to shifting hyperspace lanes, but the ruins of their civilization appear to be very similar to the ruins of other early Sith settlements. According to the records of the early Sith Imperiums, they had knowledge of this system. Additionally, the Sith were known to have had a few small enclaves on some of the further out planets. However, the system was abandoned for unknown reasons not long before the Hathor Heresy broke out, so if there were any leftover Sith, they would have had very little connection to greater Sith Space.
He then takes these enslaved natives and uses them to harvest a species of force-sensitive crystal from Nilrebmah X. These stones are then transported to Nilrebmah XIII where they are used to construct a massive obelisk. The exact details regarding what actually happened when the obelisk was complete is unknown as there was a lack of surviving witness to document it. From what we can gather, the ritual began and ended in 6,947 BBY, and it drained the life force of every living being on the planet. It is believed that Danar died in the tragedy, but there is, of course, no way to prove this as the body was never found and there are no surviving witnesses.
The results of the ritual are threefold. First, the Force itself was twisted in the direction of the dark side which created a shockwave that any powerful force user in the galaxy could have felt. The result of this Force manipulation is that for the next few hundred years, the dark side clouded the precognitive and extrasensory abilities of the Jedi. Perhaps this is why the Sith were able to grow in power without the Jedi's knowledge in the following centuries. Second, the planet itself became like a hole in the Force. The dark side was reported to have been so strong there that it appeared to bend the very fabric of reality. According to legend, notable Sith such as Darth Vahl, Vitiate, and Naga Sadow were said to have discovered it like this. Finally, whatever happened caused the planet's orbit to shift slightly. Over the next few thousand years, its orbit decayed until the planet collided with Nilrebmah XII, a dwarf planet in one of the system's asteroid belts in 3997 BBY. This caused the dark side stain to seemingly spread and now the entier asteroid belt is tainted with the Dark Side, although in a lower concentration. The remains of the two planets (or planetoid, whatever) remain as a single volcanic planet constantly being bombarded by meteors and asteroids. The molten planet itself is still highly concentrated with the dark side, but other than that all evidence of the event is gone.
There are some old spacer legends that hold that before the planets collide, the spirit of Danar was encountered and defeated by a band of time traveling explorers. The actual history is that while there was a large battle fought in the Nilrebmah system during the Great Sith War, all this stuff about time travelers is completely fabricated. It was revealed to have all been an elaborate hoax based upon blending strange events reported by historical documents with old campfire tales. It is unknown if the ritual had any lasting effects other than the discoloring of the Force, but the legend of Ku'ar Danar would inspire many generations of Sith, none the least of which are those who became the first true Sith Lords in the aftermath of the Hundred Year Darkness.
