Dawn of the Sith
After the war, we have very few, if any, extant writings from Ajunta Pall and as such we cannot rely upon his journal for his personal perspective like we were able to do for the Hundred Year Darkness. Instead, the information relayed in these next sections comes primarily from any surviving writings from other Dark Jedi exiles.
The former Dark Jedi aboard the transport watched as system after system flashed by. They knew that some of their former territories were located in the Stygian Caldera, including Korriban, but they had no way to control where they were going. They were in the cabin allowed to move around freely. The ship had several rooms with the necessities for survival both on a planet and in a ship for prolonged periods of time, but none of them had lightsabers or any way to get into the hyperdrive control system.
Eventually, one of them approached Pall and asked if he could help them with the problem. Pall agreed. He walked up to the front of the ship and began to meditate. Onlookers thought that he was scanning the cosmos for routes, for shatterpoints. Eventually he seemed to find what he was looking for. At once, Pall extended his hand out to empty space. There was a massive rending in the Force and suddenly in front of them appeared the massive gaping maw of hyperspace. Their craft was sucked in and they arrived in orbit around a rusted planet which they identified as Korriban. The ship scanned the planet and after identifying it as habitable, it slowly descended.
The Dark Jedi had last been on Korriban more than five years previously. They had killed the former Sith king and had set up an academy, using the hostile planet as a testing ground for new apprentices. However, due to a desire to keep the location of Korriban secret, they had abandoned it, leaving the native Sith species alone.
In the meantime, the Sith had come under the control of a new king who called himself Hakagram Graush II, claiming to be the son of the previous Sith king whom Pall beheaded when the Dark Jedi first took Korriban. The Dark Jedi had been mythologized. Many saw them as avatars of the gods, or at least demigod offspring.
When the Dark Jedi descended from their shp, many concluded that their gods had returned. This created quite an uproar among the Sith society, and news was sent to the king. Now Graush was seen as part divine as well, as all Sith kings were. He wasn't too thrilled about having to share power with others. Still, he sent messengers to greet them. However, the Dark Jedi didn't trust the king and for good reason. After all, if this king was really the son of the same Graush that Pall killed, this could be a trap. Even if he was not angry, he still probably didn't want to share power. The Dark Jedi told the messengers that they would be happy to meet the king, but that the king should come to their mountain rather than they come to the palace. The envoys were sent back.
In the meantime, the Dark Jedi began construction on lightsabers to replace the ones that they had broken. The people in the surrounding villages would often make pilgrimages to their mountain looking for blessings or imploring the Dark Jedi to heal them from various ailments. Pall and Syn were known to have been talented in Force healing techniques, and so they spent much of their time healing any visitors if they were able to. The villagers reverence for them only increased. They brought gifts, both food and materials. From these villagers, they gathered the first parts needed to construct their lightsabers.
The Sith priests, the Kissai, also made journeys to see the mysterious strangers. They wanted to verify weather or not the Dark Jedi were real. Very few had seen them when they first invaded Korriban, and so the Kissai were skeptical. However, once the Dark Jedi demonstrated their powers which were orders of magnitude above what even the king or the Kissai were able to perform, they took them to be the same and begged for the strangers to teach them their ways. The Dark Jedi agreed and they began to gather a large cult following. They became to be known as the Jen'jidai, a title signifying their divine status.
The priests were also able to futther help them on their quest to build lightsabers. They brought them the necessary materials for the machinery as well as crystals that they found or made.
A Note on Lightsabers:
Red lightsabers are the traditional lightsaber shade of the Sith Order. While many notable Dark Lords, such as Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma, used different shades and others, such as Naga Sadow and Ludo Kressh used Sith Swords instead, the most common choice of weapon has always been a red lightsaber.
While the Sith had always known how to build lightsabers since the days of Adas, they were rarely used in pre-exilic times. The reason for this is because of their low mass and lack of leverage against massive steel or crystal blades. When a lightsaber and Sith blade cross, the blade usually wins. The sword is far heavier as its blade contains weight and leverage which allows for greater momentum. The only advantage a lightsaber has is speed, but in a Sith society that values muscle over cunning, the lightsaber quickly became a sign of weakness used only by those who couldn't wield a Sith broadsword. Some of the Kissai continued to use them, but as they were priests these lightsabers were often ceremonial.
Lightsabers require a specialized gem in order to work. The gem is sturdy enough to resist the plasma of the blade and refined enough to allow the heating radiation to pass through ionizing the blade. Few worlds have gems that fit these requirements and even fewer have gems which possess a link in or presence in the Force enabling greater usability. Korriban is not one of the worlds that has these gems. As a result, the Sith used crystal furnaces to create the temperature and pressures required to make these gems which they inbuned with the Force as it cooked.
These crystals come in many colors. Without the Force, their neutral color is either silver or white, depending upon the matrix composition. In modern times, many Imperial Knights wield lightsabers with crystals like these. When infused with the Force in a pure state, they often turn green or yellow. The legendary Jedi masters Luke Skywalker and Jaden Korr used lightsabers with these types of crystal. But when infused with the power of the dark side, the blade usually glows red. Because the Sith from Korriban and Dromund Kaas did not have access to natural crystal caves, they would often use these synthetic red lightsaber crystals. Eventually they became a part of the Order itself.
The Betrayal:
When the king received word that the Jen'jidai were refusing to cooperate, he became angry but as they were becoming more and more popular by the day, he decided that he had to go see them, and hopefully kill them, lest they become too powerful. He left and made his way to them. They first communicated only through envoy, but eventually Pall agreed to meet the king at the foot of the mountain. The king demanded that Pall be unarmed and so he left his lightsaber in the mountain. They talked for a long while, but eventually they seemed to disagree about something. The king became angry and raised his sword, but Pall disarmed him with the Force, then catching the blade, he beheaded the king. The guards tried to stop him, but his superior Force powers prevented them from doing so.
When Pall returned to the mountain, the other Jen'jidai descended. They announced that they had killed the king meaning that they would be the new rulers of Korriban. The Sith people were happy for the change. They didn't care about politics and didn't like the king very much anyway. Plus, if the Jen'jidai were really the avatars of their pantheon, it makes sense that a mere half-divine king should yield to their power or be destroyed.
The Jen'jidai were taken back to the Sith palace with the Kissai and others who supported them. When they arrived they put down any further resistance and began to work on how to run their new regime. Pall seemed to believe that the Sith could, in a way, be civilized. He saw this as the perfect opportunity to recreate a Force-using order founded on his teachings. While the Sith, being savages, were not exactly his first choice, they were an entire Force-sensitive species. Even if the plan didn't work out very well, at least he would be bringing some type of civilized society to an otherwise barbarous planet. Better than letting the Sith rule themselves after all.
Pall was seen as the embodiment of Pomojema-Typhojem and as such he became the Jen'ari, a title with a similar etymology to Sith'ari but signifying that he was the King of the Gods, not just of the Sith people. Their first order of business was to install a stable government. Since the structure was already there, the Jen'jidai simply improved upon it. A major policy was an increased scientific literacy for the Kissai and the Zuguruk castes.
The Zuguruk caste was formerly one of the lowest castes. They were the Sith 'engineers' and 'technicians.' Usually they came from the lower peasant castes but were chosen for their advanced mental learning early on and given education in Sith training schools, often taught by the Kissai. They were responsible for helping the Kissai venerate the sacred technology of old- even though they barely knew how to use it let alone improve upon it. Remember, the Sith had a strange hybrid of advanced and primitive technology at their disposal. Melee weapons were common and most Sith used iron age tools, but the Kissai were tasked with attending to spacefaring technology and other marvels from older more advanced days. However, since the Sith didn't know how to advance on this technology, the Zuguruk were often tasked with simply engineering massive pyramids and other monuments for the Sith kings. They would also play around and perform experiments in pure mathematics and geometry, although the Sith society as a whole, predictably, regarded such speculation as a trivial waste of time.
The arrival of the Jen'jidai revolutionized this caste. They were encouraged to play around with math and geometry to their heart's content and were given access to technology that the Dark Jedi had previously left on Korriban from earlier visits.
A Change of Power:
Sorzus Syn, Remulus Dreypa, and Karness Muur wanted the Sith to expand across nearby space rather than being confined to Korriban. However, Pall made it his official policy that they would not invade the Republic. Syn, Dreypa, and Muur protested, even threatening to start an uprising. Pall relented and authorized the construction of a Sith fleet using what little equipment they had. However, Pall was tired of running the show. He figured that if the other Dark Jedi wanted power, they could have it. He wrote up a constitution that engineered a type of twelve-person council, headed by the reigning Dark Lord. Ten of the Jen'jidai were put on the council, as well as two native Sith. Pall then retired to a farm on one of the more fertile plateaus of Korriban where he could watch the sunrise in peace after stepping down from his one year long role as the first Dark Lord of the Sith.
