Tulak Hord's Gang
Despite being one of the founding Dark Jedi, Pall did his best to make sure that Tulak Hord never rose in his ranks. The reason for this is because Hord was not exactly an ideal 'Jedi reformer.' However, this is to be expected. All if the other founding Dark Jedi were Jedi once, and they were driven, for the most part, by the desire to recreate the Jedi Order. Hord was not a Jedi, and he simply wanted to conquer things.
Pall writes that he contemplated killing Hord but refrained from doing so. At first, it was because Hord hadn't yet done anything 'that bad' and Pall saw him as a valuable asset, and towards the end of the war, Hord was so loved by a certain percentage of Dark Jedi that Pall couldn't take any serious action against him without losing popularity amongst his most devoted followers.
Khem Val:
Khem Val was a Dashade who became Hord's most devoted follower. He was born on Urkupp where he became the greatest shadow assassin on the planet. He was a hulking monstrosity with various cybernetic implants, but his real power came from the Force. Dashade, as a species, are mildly Force-sensitive. (That is to say, their average midichlorian count is higher than that of, say, Iktotchi, but lower than that of Force-sensitive species such as Sith Purebloods.) However, very rarely do Dashade learn to use the Force in any way past the most basic applications. (Biologists believe this is another inherited genetic trait.) However, they are especially adept at using the Force to resist others Force attacks. They can draw upon their own power to nullify direct Force based attacks, such as telekinesis.
Khem Val was a master of this technique. However, Val also possessed an additional ability that made him even more dangerous: he had the ability to form powerful Force bonds with others. This instinctual ability allowed him to not only forge bonds between him and his allies, but to draw upon their experience to increase his own instinctual knowledge of combat. Many Jedi neurologists believe that this works by utilizing a much lesser form of the Force Meld technique. The minds of those who share a Force bond with each other become so in-sync that 'muscle memory' is transferred from one brain to another. This can even happen between enemies. In an intense fight, a weak Force bond can form between one who is apt to form bonds and their enemy. The enemy's skills and abilities can then be 'copied,' at least subconsciously, by the one who formed the bond.
Using this instinctual technique, it is no wonder that he became so deadly. However, his ability to form Force bonds did not stop there. His most insidious ability manifested itself in his ability to draw upon these bonds to 'feed' upon the life force of his enemies. When he struck down an enemy, he could draw upon their fading life force, consuming it, draining it, to regenerate or heal himself. People with this ability are often called 'Force Anomalies,' as they are similar to living Force vergences, but they draw their ability at least partially from others. There have been other famous Jedi and Sith with this ability, most notably Zelashiel the Blasphemer, Vitiate, Darth Nihilus, Darth Sion, the Jedi Exile Meetra Surik, the Emperor's Wrath Lord Scourge, and the Brotherhood of Darkness leader Lord Kaan.
When Hord captured Urkupp, Val challenged him to an honor duel. The terms of the deal were that the winner would have the loser at his mercy. Although Hord was in a superior position (he did conquer the planet after all) he wanted to look good in front of everybody, so he accepted. Both combatants walked into the ring utterly confident in their abilities, and after a long fight, Hord won. Val swore a life-debt to Hord, and they became best friends who literally bonded over fields of corpses.
Interlude: Korriban at the Time:
As mentioned before (in ch. 16) around 7,000 BBY, Korriban was engulfed in yet another civil war. Around this time, the Sith were able to reach spacefaring status, or at least they were to an extent. Most Sith lived in a primitive state of poverty, with many belonging to the nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes of their ancestors, as was the case for Tulak Hord himself. Eventually, Dathka Graush was able to become the reigning Sith king, and he often used half-forgotten technology from the time of the Hathor Heresy to gain power. He was a sorcerer who was infamous for reanimating the dead and creating legions of corpses from the trenches and mass graves of Korriban's battlefields and slaughtered cities. Eventually Graush unified Korriban and died circa. 6,950 BBY.
He was succeeded by Hakagram Graush I who reigned up until Pall formally took control of the planet in 6,911 BBY. When the Dark Jedi invaded, Hakagram was brought before Pall. Pall then took his lightsaber and beheaded the Sith king. The Dark Jedi demanded respect from the Sith people, but there was no strong, central government left in place, as Pall believed that the only way to ensure peace amongst a Force-sensitive and warlike people would be to dismantle their government and leave nothing in place. That way the Sith peasants and nomads would be free to do their own thing, while atrocities would happen on a much smaller scale.
Pall then authorized the creation of a secret academy and research institution on a remote part of Korriban. Since the Sith were in a state of disorganization, they would not be able to bother the Dark Jedi academy. Now, Korriban was supposed to be carefully guarded and off the maps, as were all worlds relating to the ancient Rakata, but Pall still authorized the creation of the academy on Korriban to serve as a secret proving-ground for promising apprentices and for Dark Jedi scholars to study the ancient Sith people under the understanding that the academy and research there would be hidden. The most powerful of these hidden apprentices was Aloysius Kallig.
Aloysius Kallig:
Kallig was an incredibly powerful apprentice who trained to be a Dark Jedi and Sith Warrior. He was born circa. 6,928 BBY, and so was twenty when he was discovered by the Dark Jedi. It is unknown why he was passed over by the Jedi, but it is likely that due to the war-torn and fragmented state of the galaxy, the Jedi were just not around to discover him. Pall discovered the boy and believed him to be one of the few Force-sensitives alive with close to his own level of potential. Circa. 6,908 BBY, Pall put Kallig into the secret elite academy that he opened on the planet Korriban, and at this academy Kallig excelled.
Kallig quickly surpassed his teachers in lightsaber combat, Force abilities, and war strategy. In fact, these abilities combined made some believe that Kallig could be Pall's heir. However, in 6,906 BBY, the academy was shut down to preserve secrecy. Kallig did not want to get sent on some random mission in service of the war, instead he wanted to put his skills in war strategy and leadership to the test. He approached Tulak Hord, who at the time was preparing for an attack on the planet Yn, and asked if he would advocate Kallig gaining a position under Hord. Hord laughed and kicked the kid out.
Kallig then challenged Hord's top general to an honor duel. The general laughed as well, but agreed. When Hord heard about this he was amused and came to watch. The fight was quick, and Kallig, despite having only two years of experience, was able to defeat the general, but spared his life. Hord couldn't believe it, but he gave Kallig the order to kill the general and he would reconsider Kallig's offer. Kallig did so, and Hord promoted him to the dead general's rank, and together they went off to take the planet Yn.
Pall did not find out about Hord executing one of his generals until much later, but when he did it was one of the few crimes brought against Hord that did not relate to genocide.
Ortan Cela:
Ortan Cela was Tulak Hord's apprentice and by all accounts a complete joke as a Dark Jedi and later Sith Lord.
A, possibly apocryphal, goes that one time he was sent to board a ship to capture a Jedi. He ran into the Jedi's bodyguard who was a common Republic ensign. The ensign sealed shut a pair of blast doors in order to trap himself in the same room as Cela. He was willing to sacrifice his life to give the Jedi time to escape. The ensign faced off against the Dark Jedi- and the ensign won, with Cela retreating back to his ship in shame. Another story goes that he was beat up by a team of astronomers from the Intergalactic Union of Astronomers.
Whatever the case may be, Cela was a terrible Dark Jedi. The only reason that Hord chose him to be his apprentice is because he was, rightly, afraid that an apprentice could one day become a threat. Unlike most Dark Jedi or Sith who like to choose powerful apprentices knowing that they could one day be a threat, Hord chose a weak apprentice knowing that he could never be a threat. In essence, Hord wanted someone whom he could boss around without the possibility of said person fighting back.
However, due to Cela's weakness, he sent the Dashade warrior Veshikk Urk, who was a rival of Val, to babysit him. Officially, Cela was Urk's boss, but in actuality Urk was just there to make sure that Cela didn't get into too much trouble.
In time, Val, Kallig, and Cela would become Hord's most devoted followers who would become infamous for their contributions to the genocides at Yn and Chabosh.
Yn and Chabosh:
Yn and Chabosh were both held firmly in the grasp of the Black Legions. The Jedi knew this and they knew that if the Legions continued their unstoppable advance the entire Republic would be overrun. To counter this, they sent Jedi to infiltrate territory held by the Legions in order to find pockets of resistance. The Jedi were to help these pockets grow for that hopefully they would be a cancer that would eat the Legions from the inside.
The most successful operations were performed on the planets of Yn and Chabosh. These planets had a large population of Republic loyalists, and with some encouragement from the Jedi, they sprang up into nexuses of resistance. These planets were the bases of black market operations to supply resistance fighters with weapons, and they themselves had considerable resistance movements as well. The Black Legions expended considerable energy and resources in various attempts to stop the spread of these movements, but these campaigns were ineffective. To make matters worse, the Jedi were running underground Jedi academies. Resistance fighters who displayed signs of Force-sensitivity were trained as emergency Jedi padawans. In fact, resistance fighters from all over who were believed to be Force-sensitive were sent to these two locations for training. The result was that these planets were turning out armies of Jedi trained in guerrilla warfare. Eventually, circa. 6,906 BBY, Tulak Hord and his gang were sent in to deal with the problem.
Author's Note: I realize that this fic will be a lot longer than I originally intended it to be. As I do not want to end up with one 500,000 word behemoth, I will be breaking this up into multiple 'Books' each covering a span of time. As a result, this will likely be only the first. I do this for clarity and also because people may want to read about only their favorite sith rather than a flood of information about ancient sith.
Also, thank you to everyone who has read and commented on this. It means a lot. If you have any questions, suggestions, or criticisms, please let me know.
(This note will be deleted in the future)
