The Teachings of the Sith

When the first Sith prophet, Typhojem, died, he passed on his teachings. It is unknown by which method he accomplished this by, but it is thought that he utilized some sort of primitive holocron technology.

A Short History of Holocron Technology:

The first known use of holocron technology was by the Kwa species. An observant reader may remember that the Kwa were briefly mentioned in chapters 3 and 6 in relation to the Celestials and the Rakata. In fact, the Kwa can be thought of as the intermediary species that directly links the Celestials to the Rakata.

Their history is far too long to go into in depth, but it should be noted that they were a species of Force-sensitive reptiles native to Dathomir in ancient times. Their story begins with the Celestials. It is thought that they were a Celestial slave race circa. 100,000 BBY, although after the War in Heaven and the collapse of the Celestial empire, they were driven underground and nearly to extinction due to the overall turmoil. However, they rose to galactic dominance several times, notably circa. 40,000 BBY after another period of near-extinction. They are remembered as being the species who gave the monstrous Rakata their technology as well teaching them to use the Force. This later on came back to bite them when the Rakata finally put an end to the Kwa species. However, their technology is remembered as being some of the most advanced that the Galaxy has ever seen, their species being placed at 'Tier 1' on a standard Obroa-Skai Technological Advancement Scale.

One of their Force-imbued technological marvels is the holocron. I mention that Typhojem is likely to have had some primitive form of a holocron there is evidence to suggest that similar devices were used by the Celestials and their servant races. However, as far as we know, the technology for proper holocrons was only developed by the Kwa. This technology has two direct descendants: the Jedi and the Rakata.

This holocron technology was left behind on Tython when the Kwa were forced to vacate the planet, circa. 37,000 BBY. When the Je'daii Order developed on Tython, occasionally these old holocrons were studies, but the technology wasn't widely replicated until after the collapse of the Je'daii and the formation of the Jedi Order.

The Rakata also inherited this technology, and they used it to store their teachings for the duration of their empire. As mentioned in ch. 8, this technology was introduced, or reintroduced, to the Sith during the reign of Adas.

Alchemy and Sithspawn:

The original teachings of the Sith were passed on throughout the Age of the Gods. They were based mainly off of texts attributed to Typhojem, but also from other ancient Sith leaders. Around the time of Adas's reign during the First Imperium of the Sith, these teachings were finally compiled into several holocrons, such as the Dark Holocron, so named because it was thought to contain all information on the dark side in existence.

Ajunta Pall came into contact with one of these holocrons circa. 6,911 BBY when he beheaded Hakagram Graush. He and the other Dark Jedi studied from this holocron, but it's teachings were not put into effect until much later, towards the end of the war. The reason for this is because most of it contained alchemical texts which required long periods of study and experiment to put into effect. However, it was from these holocrons that the Dark Jedi learned a great deal about the Sith, and using their teachings, the Dark Jedi were able to create massive alchemically created monsters, known as Sithspawn. Sorzus Syn was by far the best sorcerer and alchemist of the Black Legions, but they all knew the basics of the art.

Some of the most dangerous of these new life forms were the Pit-Horrors, were amphibians who bred rapidly and were known to inhabit swampy marshes and the blasted out craters of battlefields. In this long and grueling war, there were many planets that were turned into massive no-man's-lands with long muddy trenches on either side. The Pit-Horrors were unleashed hoping to break these stalmates or to fortify the Black Legions position by making their trenches unusable and dangerous. The Pit-Horror would often lay its eggs in a corpse, or sometimes a still-living sentient, and these spawn would burst out and continue to haunt the area of their birth, preying upon those foolish enough to fall in the mud. They were also unleashed on more wet planets, in which they became an invasive species. Republic and Black Legion troops alike suffered heavy casualties wading through the waist high marshes and swamps. But worst of all, the Pit-Horror could enter a dormant state in which they could sleep for years when food became scarce, meaning that for years to come, these ancient battlefields were practical mindfields full of them.

Another created creature was the Howler. These were fast and agile predatory lizards who lived on jungle worlds. They were infamous for unleashing a thunderous shriek to stun and deafen their prey before attacking. Interestingly, this shriek was both audible and, to an extent, telepathic. They were not very durable, and as such they relied mainly on ambush tactics. Along with Pit-Horrors, Howlers were used to great effect on swamp worlds, with the Horrors haunting the waters and the Howlers haunting the trees.

Perhaps the deadliest of these pests was the Shambler. Shamblers were small, leech-like predators who attached themselves to their prey. They had a strange blister on their backs which literally drained the life force of their prey. In essence, they were a creature designed for the sole purpose of being a weaponized Force-drain. The first Shamblers were created using Syrox embryos. Syrox are worm-like parasites, closely related to the Sarlacc, that can grow to enormous sizes. Syrox have the strange and terrifying ability to be able to suck the life force out of its victims and keep it trapped in its body, while the life force itself remains intact. Many believe that over time, as these intact life forces build up, they telepathically merge and form some type of demonic sentience in the worm. This is not thought to be a natural occurrence. Indeed, many believe that the Kanzer Exiles are responsible for their creation.

Since these creatures are basically breedable weapons, it is of no surprise that they were chosen for the experiment. However, due to their slow incubation time, they were modified to breed extremely quickly, at the cost of their size, lifespan, and draining power. These new creatures were known as Shamblers not for their own movement patterns, rather they were infamous for latching onto sentient beings and inducing a state of confusion and then stupor as they drained their victim to death. They were also used in conjunction with Pit-Horrors to infest the craters and trenches of battlefields.

Another, much larger, entity created by the Dark Jedi was the Silan. They were massive tentacled creatures with many tentacles and many mouths that would often dwell in and grow in a hole where they would wait for their prey. Silan have an interesting genetic history. They were created by alchemically splicing together genes taken from the Kdak, a slug-like predator native to Arda-2, and the Sarlacc. Interestingly, both the Kdak and the Sarlacc are thought to have been created by either the Kanzer Exiles, the Celestials as a whole, or one of their servant races. It is thought that the Dark Jedi targeted these ancient bioweapons as their genes would be more mutable and already predisposed to the dark side. Silan were not as effective as the previous three creatures as they simply couldn't breed fast enough. However, they had a very long lifespan leading many to outlive the war and entrench themselves in various ecosystems across the galaxy. Due to their dark side signature, later Jedi would often hunt them down.

The pinnacle of this genetic research was the Leviathan. The Leviathan was introduced in the final days of the war, and they can be seen as the culmination of all previous experiments. They were created by splicing together the genes of the Pit-Horror, Howler, Shambler, and Silan in the most unusual way possible. In fact, many geneticists are baffled by their tissue samples so much that they don't know how the Leviathans were even viable, much less how they could avoid collapsing into a pile of cancer cells. Similarly, they were created by combining the research of Sorzus Syn, Broodica, XoXaan, and Karness Muur together, although of these Syn was their main architect.

They were massive dragon-like creatures that came in various forms due to their highly unusual genetic structure. They were highly Force-sensitive and imbued with the dark side, like the Silan, and much like the Pit-Horror and the Silan, they could hibernate for years, even centuries by entering into a Force-induced coma. They could emit powerful telepathic screams, much like the Howler, but their most infamous ability was the one that they inherited from the Shamblers. Their backs were covered with strange blister pods. These blisters could drain all life in the area, and they could even capture and contain still-intact life essences. Using these essences, they could telepathically drain knowledge, thereby learning to adapt. Due to these factors, they were often considered to be the most terrifying Sithspawn created, although their confirmed kill count is low due to their size making them vulnerable to cannonfire. However, they were the perfect hidden weapons, and many were left dormant for centuries, their larvae scattered across many worlds.

Another Sithspawn weapon, this one designed specifically to hunt Jedi, was the Terentatek. These monsters looked like rancors with giant tusks and longer claws. They were Force-sensitive and could smell Jedi in the Force. They were created by splicing together rancor genes with genes from the Terenta. The Terenta were a species that was actually developed by the ancient Je'daii in their own experiments with alchemy. They were found on the planet Tython on one of Ajunta Pall's trips to the planet for a pilgrimage, and he brought them back out of curiosity. These creatures were bred and employed to great effect against the Jedi. When the tide of the war turned, many Dark Jedi sought to leave behind young Terentatek on various worlds as a hidden trap. They would become a danger for many generations of Jedi.

There was at least one Sithspawn species that was sentient, the Gen'dai. The body of a Gen'dai is made of mostly muscle and nerve fibre, but it is designed to regrow at an extremely rapid rate. As a result, they look like large, twisted masses of muscle and sinew. Their heads were small in comparison to their bodies and look to be very reptilian in appearance. In order for their bodies to perform all the functions necessary for life, the Dark Jedi scientists had to work to make every muscle fibre as if it were its own self-contained organism. The connecting tissue between their distributed nervous system and these muscle fibres could also allow them to sense the electric pulses of other living things. While these processes require an extremely high metabolism, their bodies can actually go dormant for years at a time during periods of hibernation. Due to these factors, Gen'dai had very long lifespans, and it is thought that some of the original may still be alive today. In all, Gen'dai were created to be the perfect predators.

The entire species had a low level of inherent Force sensitivity, however for the most part, the Force was only used as a method of communication between cells and a source of additional power for cell regeneration. However, this sensitivity was too low for them, as a species, to be trained as Dark Jedi. There was, however, one who's inherent Force signature was high enough. The name of this individual has been lost to history and it is likely that he had no name, as the Dark Jedi saw him as little more than an experiment, but in later years he would come to be known as the Deconstructor. He was used as a living weapon during the war, but ended up running away and going into hiding. He does not concern us at the moment, but the Deconstructor would go on to be a terror in later Sith wars, specifically during the days of Darth Ruin.

Pall's Reaction:

Although Ajunta Pall was a skilled alchemist, he wasn't exactly thrilled by the new developments. He didn't try to stop them, but he saw the Dark Jedi's reliance on alchemy to be a desperation tactic, and given the state of the war effort, it was. This will be discussed next.

However, it should be noted that for Pall, Sith lore was valuable for an entirely different reason. For him, Sith lore gave valuable insights into the nature of the Force from a different point of view. Because of this, when the war started to go south and most of the work had been delegated to other Dark Jedi generals, Pall spent much of his time researching and compiling information on the Sith.

Because he had a reputation for having a decaying mental state, many just left him alone in this task. At this point, he also grew close to the alchemist and sorceress Broodica, and even makes occasional references to having had an apprentice whom he taught much. In short, like most people, he took refuge from the hardships of life both in other people and in his work.