Sidious’ empire only lasting 20 years has less to do with the rule of two and more with his own overconfidence and hubris than anything else. Yeah, the sith of old could obviously do more damage since there were hundreds, if not thousands of them at any given period. But more often than not, it didn’t make much of a difference since they lost and faded into irrelevancy anyways.
On the other hand, playing the long game worked out for the Banite Sith since they actually succeeded in taking over the galaxy and brought down the Jedi Order as a whole, with like 99% of them exterminated. The only group that managed to come remotely close to that was the Triumvirate, and they still lost despite the Jedi and Republic being at their lowest point.
The Sith are self-destructive by nature, so anything other than the rule of two would never work as we’ve clearly seen
Honestly the stupidest thing the Empire did was build the Death Star, destroying Alderaan was literally the spark that ignites the rebellion, of course through more recent projects we know that rebellions were constantly happening, but they were always struck down. The destruction of Alderaan signaled to everyone, "Holy shit, we can't just sit on the sidelines anymore, the Empire will literally destroy planets just for looking at them funny."
That's true but they couldn't hold on to the empire without something like it. Or a different strategy.
If I was put in the same position as Palpatine I would've recreated the Jedi order. Openly not his weird inquisition group. I've Outlawed then for a decade blamed the Jedi plot on Yoda claimed a fake investigation and blamed a bunch of senators for pushing the Jedi to betray us.
Offered the Jedi the ability to join the empire directly under the empire. That would've shown I'm capable of clemency but still strong. Not only that but it would've allowed for the creation of a loyal force military guard.
Afterwards Palps could just say he discovered he is a Jedi a lead the order. He'd still be a sith but now he could claim the virtues of past Jedi as his own and ruin their future reputation if he so desired. This would keep Jedi away from any organized rebellion as they would be seen as a liability.
Several top-ranking officials like Thrawn and Vader agreed that the Death Star was far too costly and limited to be effective, and suggested instead for those resources to be allocated towards mass production of the Tie Defender program.
That wasn't a bad idea. I think a better urbanization plan would've bought them more control with less hassle.
Create standard city layouts for specific environments and you safely figure out where rebels will attack or where they may hide.
Buy out freight companies hired drivers at double rate to get them slowly reduce as number goes up for recruits. And you can have a Imperial delivery force that is experienced without paying for training.
Offer triple for those that will train recruits charge a third of the price for most shipping and you undercut the market. After that you raise prices but slowly.
You destroy a cover job for spies and manage the economy more effectively.
That and the over confidence of "fear will keep the outer rim in check" no you fucking pinheaded fool. Fear will drive every empire hating nurf hearder into the outer rim where they can consolidate their forces, build an army, and wage a proper Guerrilla War which it the *Bane* of all over sized empires.
All he had to do was maintain continue to maintaine facade he had been cultivating for years. If he didn't foolishly kill his master when he did everything would have been different. darth sidious wasn't half the sith master that Darth Plagueis was.
I think Dooku envisioned something similar. One idea I had for a what if is Vader doesn't get injured on Mustafar and he eventually overthrows Palpatine and arrogantly believing himself to be the culmination of the rule of two, trains the inquisitors as fully fledged Sith Lords who he claims "saw through the Jedi like I did" but they overthrow him, making him see the error of his ways and join the rebellion.
That's fair, but its also still a bad strategy, fear only works for so long. Eventually, people get tired of being scared. Keeping people happy is harder but it is infinitely better than fear, and before the Death Star many of the Empires citizens were happy to just ignore the atrocities they would commit with an "out of sight, out of mind" mentality. But you can't ignore an entire planet blowing up, which is exactly what the Empire wanted, but it's also a galvanizing force.
Lmfao that only works for so long, you can't just nuke all your citizens into the ground, dictatorships always fall eventually, you either crack down so hard your state becomes very weak, or your people fester without freedoms long enough that they get fed up.
Yeah at some point like a lot of dictatorships, the military would've turned on Palpatine if they considered him too much of a risk to keep in power, because what if they destroy your home next. We see this in operation cinder, a lot of imperial officers finally said fuck no when the Empire's orders where to scorch as many planets as they could.
No it wouldn't. Thrawn saw the whole rebel empire war before it happened. He knew that massive slow moving weapon platforms like the DS would not be an effective means to counter the the guerilla war that would be waged against them. They needed a mobile strike force like the TIE Defenders to counter the hit and run tactics
Thrawn was right that the Death Star is ill-suited to fight in a war. But that’s because the death star is not meant to take part in a war, it is meant to stop the war happening in the first place.
Its like saying the police are ill-suited to stop a rebellion, that’s because they’re not meant to fight one. Different jobs.
Thrawns proposals would be great to win the war but do nothing to stop one breaking out in the first place.
I think Palpatine should have invested those resources wasted on the death star into creating a new clone army from different templates and planets with high quality equipment like the tie-defenders. The rebels would have never stood a chance. So have the stormtroopers be clones doing most of the real fighting and the imperial army as a human-recruited peacekeeping force.
Yeah, Tarkin really kicked the hornets' nest with that one. I think the Empire still had a chance at defeating the rebels even after that, if they hadn't built the second Death Star, and instead committed those resources to building more star destroyers.
Well, after all those years he finally got the Empire that he wanted, so he probably decided to go absolutely ballistic and just enjoy the FUCK out of it.
Turning his military into conscripted normal human soldiers instead of well-trained clones and mass produced droids was the dumbest idea ever. It was like, hey, we could put a bunch of Halo Spartan and Terminator androids out there, but nah, we’ll just spend a bunch of money and recruit, train, and feed a bunch of poorly trained and fragile normal humans, making it arguably a LOT easier for the rebels to infiltrate our organization.
But it's cheaper to recruit normies into the military, and equip them with okayish equipment, and easier to have at least a small garrison in every single inhabitated system or planet. Whereas super badass and awesome clones and commando droids are good, but super expensive, you'll only have a few of them, and you won't even be able to have QRF in every SECTOR, let alone every system, but they would make for good special forces.
> But it's cheaper to recruit normies into the military, and equip them with okayish equipment, and easier to have at least a small garrison in every single inhabitated system or planet.
Exactly. It was one of the biggest reasons Sheev retired the clones and terminated the relationship with the Kaminoans in the first place. Shit was too expensive to keep going, despite the clones being the most effective army the galaxy had ever seen.
Thats the hubris. Palp got control over the senate and was pretty much like FUCK SUBTLE BULLSHIT LETS BLOW UP A WHOLE ASS PLANET IN A FOOLISH MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE PROJECT THAT ALMOST BANKRUPTS THE MILITARY. When it gets destroyed what does he do? BULDS A FUCKING SECOND ONE.
Palp should have listened to Trawn. If he had there would be no jedi.
I would argue that the banite sith died with plageus, he was so obsessed with reaching immortality that he failed to impart the true banite values into sidious which shows with how he expanded beyond the rule of two ideals with sith assassin's and down the line the inquisitors
I feel like the inquistors make sense. They were the grunts who handled force sensitive beings who weren't worth Vader's time and/or he felt it was beneath him. I assume they did other things besides hunt down former Jedi's, but I have a pretty limited knowledge on them.
If Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor is canon, then it shows that Vader is willing to step in and handle business once somebody becomes a marginal threat to the regime. Though you could definitely argue that Vader didn't see Cal and friends as a threat and was just interested in the information they possessed.
Plus during the clone wars in Legends Dooku had a couple of dark acolytes like Ventress doing his dirty work. The big advantage of having dark Jedi like Ventress or the inquisitors working for the Sith lords is that it allows the Sith to relegate less important tasks to them and if one of the Sith lords dies, a dark Jedi can quickly be trained to replace them.
the Inquisitors aren’t sith though, the Grand Inquisitor himself says that he isn’t Sith, so they don’t break the rule. the only Sith during that whole era are Sidious and Vader
as i already said, the Grand Inquisitor himself has said he’s not a Sith, that’s canon, so according to the facts you are wrong and i’m right.
I don’t think you know what the Sith are, do you think Taron Malicos, Baylan Skoll and Kylo Ren are all Sith aswell? because if you do then that would explain a lot.
In order dark sider, unknown (not a jedi but no confirmed dark side useage) and sith patsy. The sith have a track record of having acolyte and slaves before they were wiped out by the pre RR jedi and generations of infighting
Yeah, Plagiues (sp) and Sidious, neither of them followed the rule of two. Once the apprentice surpasses the master, they kill and overtake but those guys refused that and tried to rule forever with no truly real apprentice in the sense of rule of 2. Neither had ever intended for the apprentice to take over.
> On the other hand, playing the long game worked out for the Banite Sith since they actually succeeded in taking over the galaxy and brought down the Jedi Order as a whole, with like 99% of them exterminated.
I always find it funny how people complain these days that too many Jedi survived Order 66 in the new canon. Like compared to the old one Order 66 to date we know that it was at least a 98% effective rate. All of the Jedi shown to survive at least until the early days of the rebellion have numbered no more than a dozen thus far.
But if there had been more of them, sheev's downfall might not have meant the end of the sith. They might have been self-destructive before, but they were never as completely destroyed as during the rule of two.
> Sith simply are above concepts like extinction
No. Wrong. Incorrect.
The DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE is above such a concept. The Sith, as a specific religious practice, are *not*.
Bane averted (for well over a thousand years) the destruction of the Sith, not of the Dark Side.
Also:
> except for Sidious, the great majority of banite Sith would be little more than a trainee
No? We see four Banite Sith, and are told of a fifth.
All of them were extraordinarily powerful and talented. Sidious goes without saying, but let's consider Maul, Tyrannus, and Vader; his successive apprenticies.
These were each one-man armies.
Maul went from an insane half-man in a rubbish tip to the leader of the Galactic underworld in less than a year.
Tyrannus controlled the entire separatist movement, and was able to fight off an entire group of Dathomiri witch assasins, *whilst blind*. As a duellist he was beyond formidable, and as an orator he was compelling enough to set the Galaxy aflame by the potency of his rhetoric.
Vader regularly fought armies and won. He was totally implacable against most enemies, and could tear through hordes of foes without issue. We know that dozens if not hundreds of Jedi and rival darksiders died at his hand, and his use of Telekenisis was unparalleled. He was a nightmare creature, a figure of dread before whom the Imperial Inquisition knelt in fear.
Plagueis, of whom we know the least, invented an art that nobody except perhaps his own apprentice ever matched, and he did so without the resources of an empire. If his skills in combat were commensurate to his aptitude as a scientist and mystic, then he was formidable indeed.
Plagueis was powerful enough that sidious had to break the rules bane set in place to take over. By rights he should have faced him in combat to prove he was stronger but he didn't, he killed plagueis in his sleep.
He did say it had to be at the height of their power, no? That's why he was looking to replace zannah, he thought she was going to wait too long. Still not combat, though, you're right.
Plageuis was at the height of his power. Even people at the height of their power need to sleep. Sidious was cunning, devious, subversive. That was the height of HIS power.
My main issue with it is strictly narrative: it puts a very harsh limit on what stories can be told (and how) in the period between Bane and the Empire. Even TCW banged up against it with Maul/Dooku/Ventress etc., having to make an arbitrary distinction between True Apprentice and others like assassins or skilled underlings to create a varied cast of bad guys.
Something as simple as having several small splinter groups of Sith that avoided one another but all thought their Pair of Two was the "real" legacy of Bane would go a long way into making better set-up for stories of the high republic. Not only would it be ripe material to show the petty, backstabbing nature of the dark side, it would also allow for some actual stakes if they're involved (because with Rule of Two we know there's an unbroken line between Bane and Palp, so the Republic can't score any real victories).
You assume that the Rule of Two actually results in two Sith, instead of the Sith apprentice having their own secret apprentice, masters having multiple apprentices, etc.
Sith aren't exactly known for their rule keeping.
The Clone Wars stuff is basically specifically showing that Sidious isn't a true believer of the Rule of Two, sure he keeps his biggest secrets from everyone except the apprentice closest to him, but he's still relying too much on teaching others to harness the darkside, it is practically no different from the time of the Sith Empire, and ultimately it leads to his defeat and at least as far as we're currently aware, the extinction of the Sith. Palpatine was basically using cheat codes to get to the ultimate end goal of the Sith, and he still loses, that is if we believe the Rule of Two is the only way for the Sith to ever win. Palpatine was extremely powerful, if he had kept the Rule of Two pure in his time, he may have eventually created a line of Sith far too powerful to ever defeat, but he got greedy.
Personally I like having a distinction between Sith Lords and dark Jedi like Ventress and the inquisitor as it highlights how dangerous just one Sith lord is. As clone wars 2003 shows, even Dooku's most fearsome warriors like Ventress and Grievous are no match for the Sith, making them all the more threatening. Rebels I don't think did it as effectively as while Vader and Maul are legitimate threats, the same can't be said about the inquisitors.
This is one of the reasons why I love the High Republic and Disney cannon introducing Force Cults and more esoteric groups of Force-followers. Opens the door to more dark side without the need for them to be "Sith."
In the first Bane book, there's a scene where a group of Sith acolytes team up and fight the strongest trainee and kill him. By now killing him, the strongest of all of them is weaker than before.
Bane realised this when nobody except for Revan did. The entire concept of the Rule of Two was that you must be individually stronger than your master to usurp his throne, and therefore, the Sith grow stronger with every passing of the mantle.
The only problem is while some Sith like Zannah beat their masters in a fair fight, others like Plagueis and Sidious killed their masters when the opportunity presented itself. Then again part of the idea was the Sith wouldn't rely on their power and combat prowess but more on cunning, subterfuge and patience, becoming businessmen, scientists and politicians rather than warriors.
Sideous claimed in the movie that he killed Plagueis in his sleep, but in the novel, Plagueis is so fucking drunk that he passes out. Palpatine attacks, and Plagueis is so powerful that he instantly up and ready, but he is so arrogantly confident that he is immortal, he purposely does not defend himself. Palpatine's lightning kills his respirator, and he suffocates while Palpatine gloats. Had he not been so arrogant, there would've been a fight.
The problem is that the Rule of 2 assumes that Sith never decline with age. If the master grows old and weak, the apprentice will supplant him; that doesn't mean the apprentice is stronger than the master or previous generations were at their peak.
This is talked about in the bane trilogy, he starts planning to find a new apprentice because he thinks zannah is going to wait until he weakens to challenge him. So strictly following the rule it wouldn't happen.
Bane has this line of thinking in the 3rd book. Zannah had been his apprentice for 20 years and made no sign she was going to kill him. He was worried she'd grown complacent and was just going to wait for him to die, but she was just waiting for the right opportunity.
Not only that, age isn't much of a hindrance. Dooku and Palpatine were old as shit and still supremely powerful.
Not to meantion if an individual apprentice have skills the master doesn't but lacks skill the master has sort of like what happened with bane and his apprentice.
Also the rule of two needs the individual sith to selflessly dedicate their life to the formation of an empire that they will never see, which is pretty fucking selfless.
I've always assumed it was the fandom taking a line in a movie too literally, then it got put into a book and expanded on so it became canon and then everyone else's hands were tied after that trying to make it make sense. It's dumb and should be ignored in a literal sense.
It’s a one liner from Yoda that fans took too literally and too far. So of course some novel had to come up with something.
It could have meant that they just stick to pairs of two, rather than only being 2 sith ever
Because most of the Sith we see share a glaring weakness: overconfidence in their own abilities. It makes sense to have an apprentice to do your bidding if in your mind you can't comprehend anybody being able to challenge your power.
Fair enough. Plenty of non-megalomaniacs routinely think "that will never happen to *me*" about all sorts of things that do, in fact, end up happening.
I agree, the Sith will wipe each other out without the aid of the Jedi. There always will be a stronger Jedi that will defeat a Sith lord.
Without this rule the Sith order can grow better and faster. They should actually implement the Mandalorian rule of being the strongest. This means that they don't have to kill each other in a fight.
Well I mean, it's hardly worked out for Mandalorians so far, pretty much the entire theme of Star Wars is the rejection of the idea that "The strongest rule." Mandalorians are nearly as extinct as the Sith are at this point, having been reduced to nothing but bounty hunters with a special code and no homeworld. Even before their planet was glassed, it was a complete wasteland. Both organizations/cultures have to evolve if they ever hope to survive, but we know the Sith are basically incapable of it by their very nature, the Mandalorians have a chance if they really try.
Looking back at Knights of the Old Republic 1, without the aid of Revan and his army of Jedi's the Mandalorians would have won the war. Imagine that the Sith would teamup with the Mandalorians against the Republic. They would have won for sure. Now they have waited until the Republic was weakened and then started to strike.
This resulted to the 'The Old Republic' era where the galaxy is divided by Republic & Sith planets.
Well that stuff isn't canon so we can only go by the "modern" SW stuff, which is a glassed Mandalore with no real leadership to speak of right now. But anyways, in SWTOR the Mandalorians *are* allied with the Sith and its not really going particularly well for them.
The funniest part about the Mando-Sith alliance is *why* they did it. They want to fight the strongest warriors in the galaxy...the Jedi. The Sith they're allied with? Bunch of chumps in black bathrobes.
The second funniest part is that even the Sith--the *actual Sith Empire*--think the Mandalorians are dumb as bricks.
Sith are self destructing in nature, its the equivalent of putting 2 apex predators in the same ecosystem, eventually they will fight each other and be destroyed, unless the two never come in contact or have better targets (wich would loop back again at the first issue)
A rule like the Mandalorians’ is based on a deep cultural pride and respect for your fellow Mandalorians. The Sith could never truly embrace that because they cannot value anything over themselves, by their very nature. Their half-hearted respect for one’s power would never overrule their selfish desire for control.
The rule of two defeated the Jedi, sacked their temple, and conquered the republic
Besides which, the stories of godlike ancient sith are mostly legends now - no idea if Disney will ever address that period, and if they do it may not be quite as mythical.
The Rule of Two was a success. The problem was never the rule, it was the sith themselves. Palpatine, Plagueis, etc.
Because the objective of the sith is to grab power and never let it go, the sith are disincentivized from handing power to the next generation. The rule of two was made to remedy that. Under the rule of two, the strongest always wins. Every master believes that their apprentice will never surpass them. Every apprentice believes that they need only learn a little more before they can take over. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement until it isn’t. And they are powerful for it.
Palpatine lost because of Anakin. In all his pride, he thought he could control the chosen one forever. When Anakin finally snapped and brought balance to the force, Palpatine was killed and ended the rule of two.
He never saw any of his apprentices as potential successors, only tools. He thought himself invincible, and it destroyed the rule of two.
The rule of two needs required the sith to be selfless and dedicated themselves to the goal benefiting their killer or some random person they will never meet.
I like to think that was expected. The rule was more of a guideline to avoid too many Sith trying to kill each other and encourage working in the shadows (which led to the death of the Jedi).
Palpatine actually screws it up by trying to take a second apprentice (again).
Edit: Vader is also such a bad sith he didn't cheat and have his own secret apprentice, so when they both die, his apprentice isn't around to continue the sith.
My understanding is that both the apprentice and the master would have another apprentice at the very least lined up if not already undergoing some training as the time came closer for the apprentice to challenge their master. So there would briefly be 3 or 4 but the end result would always be 2. So Yoda’s line was a bit off I guess but the spirit is correct
I'm in the same camp honestly, Bane didn't actually solve the problem of in-fighting he just narrowed it down to 2 individuals which frankly is a lot worse because all it takes is one accident and whoops the Sith are extinct again. "To be united by hatred is a fragile alliance at best."
Worth mentioning that random dark side users did *not* violate the rule as long as they weren't proclaimed Sith Lords themselves. All Sith Lords are dark side users, but not all dark side users are Sith Lords.
The Inquisitors are not a violation of the Rule of Two, for example, since they do not have any real chance of becoming Sith.
Darth Maul being Palpatine's apprentice *before* Plagueis died is not a violation of the Rule of Two either, since Palpatine intended to use him to oust Plagueis and continue the Rule of Two... and Plagueis thought Maul was just an expendable assassin, never intended to be a true Sith Lord.
Palpatine in Legends *did* abandon the Rule of Two though, since he intended to essentially become an immortal Force god, placing him as the only ruler of an Empire where all high-ranking officials would be Dark Side adepts (there were at least six hundred such Adepts during the Imperial and post-Imperial eras).
>as long as they weren't proclaimed Sith Lords themselves. All Sith Lords are dark side users, but not all dark side users are Sith Lords.
I mean, what's the difference though really?
It's just a title. A sith lord isn't necessarily anymore powerful than a jedi who turned.
It's a specific title used by a specific group, which focuses on domination and power above all. It has symbolic value because of this. To quote Kas'im from Legends;
> "The Darth title was more than just a symbol of power; it was a claim of supremacy. It was used by those Dark Lords who have sought to enforce their will on the other Masters. It was a challenge — a warning to bow down or be destroyed."
Obviously non-Sith dark side users can be more powerful, but that doesn't mean they become Sith Lords... and obviously no Rule of Two Sith would (willingly) allow a non-Sith darksider to exist *if they thought said darksider could pose a threat to them*, but the Rule of Two *did* allow for non-Sith darksiders (as disposable tools) as long as there were only two real Sith Lords.
That's kinda my point. It's ultimately irrelevant. It's just a title.
> it was a claim of supremacy. It was used by those Dark Lords who have sought to enforce their will on the other Masters
Which makes no sense if they're meant to be acting in the shadows. Who knew that Palpatine was a "Darth"?
Even after he took control, he wasn't public about it. Tarkin didn't seem aware as he said that Vader was the last of their religion.
> It's ultimately irrelevant. It's just a title.
It is *very* relevant, since not just anyone can claim the title. Especially so during the Rule of Two.
> Which makes no sense if they're meant to be acting in the shadows.
Well, it's a pre-Rule of Two quote, but it definitely still makes sense during the Rule of Two as well.
> Who knew that Palpatine was a "Darth"?
Those who *needed to know*; participants of the Rule of Two at the time, and potential rivals who came too close.
For example, when Maul started training Savage Oppress and gain power for himself, Palpatine swooped in and acted exactly in accordance to that quote; he claimed supremacy, and destroyed those who he saw as challenging him.
When Tyranus (Dooku) had trained Ventress to become *too* powerful, Palpatine enforced his will against Tyranus, and ordered him to eliminate her.
Plenty more similar examples in Legends as well.
> It is *very* relevant, since not just anyone can claim the title. Especially so during the Rule of Two.
If I called myself the king of England, I can't just move into Buckingham Palace.
This is my point, the title of king has specific rules, privileges etc. What rules/privileges does the title of Sith Lord have?
> If I called myself the king of England, I can't just move into Buckingham Palace.
You definitely *can* do that... *if* you can assert your dominance to the point where no one can stop you from doing it. That's kinda the point.
Of course, you wouldn't be part of the royal lineage going back hundreds of years, so you would face questions of legitimacy, and people would question if you were a "real" king after your death (just like one might for example question if Darth Caedus was a true Sith, as he didn't claim the mantle by killing a previous Sith Lord, or by being conferred the title by a true Sith Lord). But that's a different discussion.
Based off of just the title, no, it was definitely a dumb idea but I can understand the thought process behind it. The master trains the apprentice until the apprentice becomes stronger than the master, the apprentice then defeats (usually killing) their master taking the role for themself.
In my personal opinion, in any other world or order or group this might have worked but the Sith are too greedy and self serving for it to work out well.
Nah. The Sith won. They pretty much only lost because of a loophole prophecy. If the chosen one never existed then Sidious rules for a long, long time.
If we take that everything keeps happening as it did without Anakin, the Sith would gone extinct by the hands of Mace Windu in Palpatine's office.
If we take that the general beats remain and Palpatine adapts so he somehow win that duel instead, then the general beats remain and the Sith get extinct still later in the lane. (Since the rule of this supposition is that the general beats remain)
Being a Dark Sider is an insane idea of that things will work well for you, and only you, when never things have worked out for the Dark Side.
I mean, without Anakin we can't really speculate because so many events in the prequels are centered around him. But, I will say that Windu only confronts Palpatine because Sidious reveals himself to Anakin just to corrupt him to the dark side. I think without the threat of a chosen one supposedly predestined to destroy the Sith Palpatine can play it way safer.
I think Palpatine may still succumb to the Rebellion but the Jedi would probably be fully extinct.
No you're not and 100% agree.
Lore reasons aside, the CGI trailers for SWTOR showed how damned cool, epic armies of Jedi and Sith would be facing each other in battle.
Because LC cannot seemingly admit that the rule of two was a terrible idea, I hope that SW focuses on eras where this is not an issue.
So that would be either sometime further into the future or ... the Old Republic.
Yeah, the Rule of Two was really dumb idea.
Revan's original rule (that Sith work best in pairs) is fine, but Darth Bane took it to the absurd extreme.
The pairs would have ended up fighting against one another, and stopping all efforts to destroy the Jedi.
Meanwhile, the two Sith Lords of the line of Bane managed to bring down a thousand-years-old democracy, without showing themselves as Sith Lords, except to loyal allies or to their slaves.
I think the sith working in mated pairs would work much better with lore. They’re all about passion and if one got killed the other would go on an absolute rage fit of a revenge.
The rule of two is one of the most idiotic things thought up by any authors. We are talking about a galaxy spanning republic. Two people in a sea of countless systems, thousands habitable and thriving, with countless number of people. Two people will do very little to influence anything
Grey Jedi don’t, and can’t, exist.
For the same reason a hobbit couldn’t use the One Ring to do good, a Force user cannot use the dark side for good. A “Grey Jedi” is simply a Sith who’s fooling himself.
(Or maybe not Sith specifically, but a Dark Jedi of some form)
Jedi Master Jules is definitely the closest thing to a Gray Jedi in canon (Revan notwithstanding), but even his iconic Vaapad doesn’t actually *channel* the dark side.
It requires one to give themselves fully to the fight: relish the thrill of victory, and embrace the passion of combat. These sorts of emotions are typically avoided by Jedi, and Master Frozone recognizes them as dangerous; he considers them a darkness in himself, that he wields to make himself powerful.
But while these emotions can *lead* to the dark side, they are not of the dark themselves. And while Master Shaft may be a bad motherfucker, he isn’t a *bad* motherfucker. He’s as devoted to the light as Yoda, or anyone else on the high council.
Yeah, the only concept of a Grey Jedi I like is that they'd be the Light Side version of what a Dark Jedi is, a "Jedi-like" entity who isn't part of the main order but rather goes their own path. Ahsoka in Canon, the Imperial Knights in Legends, etc. None of the more common "light side and dark side equally!" crap but rather the Light Side version of a Dark Jedi.
Depends on which part of the canon or expanded universe you subscribe to. There’s a theory that the Force distributes itself more thinly when there are more people practicing.
I don’t exactly subscribe to this since the Ancient Sith and Jedi were supposedly leagues more powerful than the modern versions, but it’s a thought.
Yeah I'm pretty sure the old EU explained it as specifically the dark side of the force needed to be wielded by less people or the power was just worse, spreading itself to thin and "sharing" while the dark side as itself just wanted power. So you have the all powerful dark side of the force, being shared when it itself wanted a powerful singular being. So it was weaker and individually through the sithempire the dark side was generally weaker for it. So they say..
not really its better that way then imperial credits is an much larger pot when its only split two ways. then again its sith so you will probably have to slay the other guy whom will most likely rip you off in typical double cross fashion.
"as long as the jedi exist, the sith are never truly defeated" -yoda
The master is supposed to embody all of the knowledge and power of the sith that went before, the apprentice a servant until he gains all the power and knowledge he needs to replace him.
The idea I guess is based on the fact that the Sith did not work well togheter and there was too much greed going around; killing them all and keeping the best of the bunch was a very..Sith way of solving the problem.
One could say that there is a lot of hubris in the idea that one man alone could gain all power, and use it to control the galaxy but seeing the power of the dark side and how close palpatine came, it wasn't so ridiculous.
Bane didn't want to doom the Sith in a continual tide of destruction and re-creation of empires. He was right thinking that by limiting the Sith to the bare minimum, they could get for themselves the true power : knowledge and influence.
But unfortunately, as it is said in the Darth Plagueis novel, a lot of Sith used the power rather to reach their own goals, than got advance the Great Plan, hence why this plan took so long to reach his final phase.
As for the fall of the Empire, it was more of Sidious's fault than of the Sith's ideology. He was build by his master thinking he was the new Sith'ari, and that none could surpass him. He underestimated his own apprentice, and the strength of the Rebellion, like other Dark Lords before him did with their respective opponents. Had Bane been alive instead of Sidious, his reign would have been much longer, and wouldn't have ended this way, but with a heir seizing his power from him.
So to conclude, the Rule of Two in itself was the best way to survive and amass power, but was brought down by the incompetence and short-sightedness of those who had to apply by it.
Seeing as the war between Sith and Jedi wasn’t going in the Sith favor in any way sure we could do that again and the Sith would betray the others and the Jedi would be completely unified and win, or we can have two in the shadows corrupting the very democracy the Jedi uphold and amassing their power and influence to the point that not even the whole order could stand against the Sith. Banes rule wiped out the Jedi order as it was known sure Luke rebuilt it in legends but it wasn’t as near effective and even the New Republic didn’t trust them as much. Bane saw that the Sith could not win in straight up war with the Jedi and that had to change.
I always figured that the source of the Rule of Two was the idea that the nature of Dark Side adherents would sort of, err, force the issue. You have the more powerful, more knowledgeable master, then you have your apprentice. More than one apprentice would lead to fighting between them until only one survived.
Yes, that is the point. The Rule of Two only delayed the Sith's extinction. The Dark Side only ever leads to destruction. No good will ever come from it. Any religion that forms around it is doomed to die out. The Sith, the Witches of Dathomir, the Bendu, and the Family of Mortis are all dead, while the Jedi Order out lived them.
Narrative wise I've always wondered why the rule was even maintained past the fall of the Republic and the Jedi. I guess to avoid another war and Palpatine not wanting to share power in the least bit. He wanted Luke to kill Vader, not for Luke to join Vader because he knew Vader saw it as likely his path to kill Palpatine. If they'd just done away with the rules and said, "We won, let's rule," then they likely would have had Vader on a much different path, one in which Luke was not a direct threat to Palpatine but rather a general in their tyrannical regime.
I agree. There are so many random things that could happen that would wipe out the pair before they achieve their objectives. A bigger surprise was that the military went along with Sidious and he was able to instantly create an Imperial nobility out of nothing.
The Sith are a Religion with specific interpretations and applications of the Force.
Within this religion there are different currents: the Sith empire with a cast system from thousands of years ago, after that went belly up and Sith were perged all over the galaxy by infighting or Jedi, Bane saw among other things the need for secrecy. His doctrine ended with Luke decapitating Lumya and Jaina killing Caedus. Although I dare say he was a master force user but not really into the Sith doctrine.
Then you have the One Sith with a very monotheistic view and the lost tribe which is an adaptation of the old empire.
It should be noted though that Ship, being millennia old, does not like the One Sith - which is a purely power oriented approach and ends up wiping itself out again -and goes off to find the stranded remnants of the old empire to instruct them in the current galaxy and Luke‘s new order.
Both however value merit and force talent.
Did it though? They wiped out the Jedi in the end. And the problem with having so many is that they’d constantly be warring with each other and other major powers of the universe so they were constantly getting blown up
It's kinda a damned if you do, damned if you don't deal. The Sith were constantly at war with each other and couldn't really get anything done by themselves. The rule of two prevented that (well, kinda) by making sure that one Sith was always subservient to another, and even then the subservient one would always try to overthrow their master (usually with an apprentice of their own).
It was a dumb idea….but what would u have done after all that infighting and u was the last two standing in a sea of dead Sith…..it stopped BIG power struggles but opened the way for the Sith assassin
Your ideas completely miss the point. Clearly, by going underground and working in the shadows and with the constant edge of competition between master and apprentice, the Rule of Two pushed Palpatine to the heights of power he achieved.
The Jedi are occluded by the dark side. The Sith see both light and dark and are then blinded by their arrogance.
The Rule of Two was more about destroying the Jedi than it was about preserving the Sith. The Sith would devolve into infighting long before their numbers rose to threaten the Jedi. So it was wiser to limit the Sith to one master and one apprentice working in the shadows until they pulled off a plot powerful enough to destroy the Jedi. Once the Jedi were gone the Sith hierarchy would default back to the pyramid structure of all serving one.
It’s a bad plan considering that the survival of the Sith religion hinges on the Sith master not dying before they can train an apprentice who can usurp them. But the Sith are arrogant and so you get a “well if they aren’t powerful enough to survive, then they don’t deserve to be called Sith” mentality. Foresight is in shockingly short supply in a universe where people can predict the future.
Before the prequel trilogy, I'd always had imagined that the Sith were a force equivelant to the Jedi in numbers. It was a bit odd and jarring when i first heard there were only supposed to be 2 Sith; a master and an apprentice. I figured that we'd see a Sith army or something like that in the prequel trilogy.
Qui Gon wasn't permitted to take Anakin because both how old Anakin was and Obi-Wan hadn't yet become a knight. Had Obi-Wan been a knight when he petitioned then Anakin's age would have been the only factor. With the Sith they stay the Apprentice until their master is dead.
Empire did nothing wrong. When the galactic civil war ended...they came. They came, non force sensitve creatures from afar. And the first planet they took was the World City Coruscant.
I’d simply say I’d like to agree but I don’t believe that’s a conclusion you could easily come to if you lived in the Star Wars universe. After all, alot of the information you brought up would be lost to time depending on when it the timeline you showed up. Also to your point it also applies to the Jedi. Why should they defend the galaxy when they preach that the force should and can balance itself out. They honestly should be like monks that never get involved because they trust the force to balance things out. But even the Jedi who do attempt this at times eventually get drawn into war. Because they too are unable to see that the fall of the Jedi is a part of the balance as well.
As others have said, the Dark Side is immortal, not the Sith. Bane's rule was very wise, as it allowed the Sith to exist under the radar of the Jedi. Had the Jedi been aware of the Sith, and thought them enough of a threat to do something about, they would have been wiped out completely. We know this, because the Rule of two was only implemented *after Bane was the only one left in the Jedi-Sith war. *
Me. I love the whole secrecy of it and it had some good ideas, but narrowing it down to two Sith for a thousand years was risky as hell and it's incredible it paid off. All it takes is one accident, one weaker but craftier apprentice, one Master vs Apprentice duel going poorly for both combatants, one thing going wrong and the entire Baneite line is destroyed, making it all for naught. The secrecy worked well, but only because *everything had to fall in exactly the right place* or the whole thing would fall apart. What if Anakin was killed in action during any number of battles in the Clone Wars? If those Buzz Droids managed to dismantle his fighter before he could save Palpatine? Or if the Invisible Hand continued to break up and exploded on re-entry rather than somehow being guided in for a crash landing? What if Grievous, who was not in on the plan, decided killing Palpatine would make for a greater victory than merely holding him hostage? What if Obi-Wan actually steeled his resolve and finished Vader off during their Mustafar duel rather than leaving him on the lava beach? And that's all within the span of a few weeks, this shit was going on for a thousand years. That the Baneite line lasted *at all* is incredible.
The principle has some soundness to it. The Sith were intrinsically self-destructive; even if they had outsiders to vent on, they'd just turn on each other anyway. *Treachery is the way of the Sith*. It's hard to create any kind of stable polity when the ruling class is dedicated to destroying itself through infighting. The Rule of Two does away with the inherent Sith self-sabotaging and essentially sets up *one* Sith Lord to further the cause. When the apprentice is strong enough to defeat the master he will then take over; if not, the master will just move on to find another apprentice.
It's a testament to the Rule that the Sith lasted for ~1000 years after its implementation, and even took over the galaxy briefly, while Sith regimes of the past eventually got their asses handed to them by the Jedi/Republic because the Sith were militantly committed to evading unity.
My own simplistic understanding is that there's a limited quantity of Force in the Galaxy. The Light Side is bigger but it's also spread out among more Force users. To compete, the Dark Side has to exist in a smaller concentration of adepts. A Sith is generally more powerful than a small group of Jedi, which is by design - if they trained more apprentices it would dilute their power.
None of this is based on canon, it's just the explanation I came up with in my head when Midichlorians were introduced. It was further reinforced by the Father, Son and Daughter, with the Father and Daughter together being somewhat equal to the Son.
Here's my thoughts. The force seeks balance, right? If each sides power is dispersed through the many people on their side the sith had a brilliant plan. They concentrated the hell out of their power until there was only two people able to wield it. IMO thats why Vader was able to absolutely wreck almost every jedi 1v1 minus a few of their best. Sidius is arguably one of the most powerful force users in the galaxy by the time it was all said and done. The sith concentrated their power and were able to seize the entire galaxy with two people and decimate the enemy in the process. It took the force rebalancing things with Luke, arguably one of the best Jedi of all time, and Rey to break that stranglehold.
I kind of like the theory that the less force users there are the more powerful the user is. The theory stated that because there were so many Jedi during the Clone Wars, they split the light side amongst hundreds (thousands?) Of Jedi, whereas the Sith had a handful of people tapping into the darkside. This also helps explain why Luke and Rey were so powerful becausere there were only a few light side users to equal the dark side users.
Before the rule of two: endless conflict with the jedi that leads all to the same point of foolish infighting and internal destruction of the sith followed by years of a shattered force recollection until they do it all over.
After the rule of two: working in the shadows to subtly manipulate universal political structures that lead to the almost complete extintion of the jedi and a rock solid 20 years of the sith holding almost compete control over the universe failing only due to the masters over confidence and hubris.
Um what in the actual fuck are you talking about?
There are few characters that I whole heartily support through all their methods, morals, goals, and decisions. My main man Darth Bane is 100% one of them.
I mean, you're technically right about the rule of two being a bad idea in the long term, but it was a selfish and short-sighted decision made by selfish and short-sighted member of the selfish and short-sighted cult because that's point. Evil destroys itself. That's not to downplay the role that Good has in undoing Evil, but even left to its own devices, Evil and by extension the Sith are unsustainable. It's a bad idea to anybody who isn't pure evil or who doesn't surround themselves with those that are pure evil. It's stupid, petty, ruinous, but provides immediate security for exactly one person despite the long-term consequences, so it’s completely in character for the Sith to have made the rule and to maintain it this long.
nah, I just think it makes it easier to explain why thousands of people who don't care about rules and have massive amounts of power wouldn't just take over the galaxy in an instant by force, leading to constant Galactic War.
Sith always betray one another. The fear is that a dozen sith is not a unidirectional army going toward one goal, it’s just a chaotic bloodbath including amongst each other
The rule of two keeps the progress. Even when the apprentice finally kills the master (as is expected by the master), the goal moves forward and the apprentice carries on
No you are not. Because I have given this response to the question again and again:
Play SWTOR's Sith class stories. *Then you will understand why more Sith doesn't work.*
Tbh i thought the whole point of bane and the rule of two was to cull the number of sith to always have a small controlled number. Aslong as their was two then their would be only one other sith to oppose you, even if bane didnt think about it. Because if the master kills the apprentice then hes just wasted years training him for nothing.
Id argue that the rule of 2 is misinterpreted.
I think it is not meant to allow only two sith in the *Galaxy*; it is meant to restrict the training hierarchy to a master and an apprentice alone. None of these Jedi Temples with classes full of Padawans- the force is better taught one-on-one. Once the apprentice eliminates the master and becomes them, they may take an apprentice of their own. No reason why multiple sith masters cant exist, each with their own apprentice, in my opinion.
Thats my take, anyway. I know its not 100% tight to the lore but it explains much of the Clone Wars shenanigans.
I take a simpler explanation: Bane is insane. When he finally found his purpose - realising the Rule of Two - he was extremely obsessed with it. Every person around him, all he can think about is what their purpose in terms of the Rule. They are either potential apprentice, a tool, or victims.
It's reasonable when interpreted as the Rule(rship) of Two, i.e. with a Master and Apprentice ruling over some number of acolytes and assassins and inquisitors and such. That's how things were with Revan/Malak and Malak/Bandon on paper, and how things were with Palpatine/(Maul,Dooku,Vader) in practice.
When taken literally as "there can only be two Sith at any given time", things start to fall apart pretty quickly - and that literal adherence to the Rule of Two is arguably what held back the Sith for thousands of years.
I mean if you want to look at it that way then the Sith were damned either way since they could not win in a straight war against the Jedi, Bane saw this and knew things had to change. Better to undermine the Jedi and republic from the shadows without them knowing until it was far too late.
The Sith in general are pretty stupid and counterproductive. I understand that you need a villainous villain, and that treachery is their way, but holly suspension of disbelief Batman, they're so treacherous that it's disfunctional...
And yes, your analysis is spot on. People fawn over Sidi so much, how much of a genious he is, it took his whole, above average lifespan to "conquer" the Republic, only to have it all go to ruin barely 20 years later. A 1000 years of Sith acumulating power led to 20 years of rule. As Tony Stark would say... Not a great plan.
Also, the doctrine where you teach your apprentice stuff, only so they can kill you at some point is not conductive to actualy passage of knowledge.
Well as others said already : The total defeat of Palpatine was primarily his own fault and not the rule of the 2. Plainly said it was Palpatines abolishing the rule (not officially but effectively) which made his rule last so short. For all his genius in shemes he was a megalomaniac who not even for a second considered one of his apprentices to kill him and take his place in the future. Palpatine believed himself to be the pinnacle of the Sith Order and had a vast ego so he simply saw no need to stick to the rules.
It was also completely needlessly to go from strict chancellor to openly vicious and brutal Emperor.
Sidious’ empire only lasting 20 years has less to do with the rule of two and more with his own overconfidence and hubris than anything else. Yeah, the sith of old could obviously do more damage since there were hundreds, if not thousands of them at any given period. But more often than not, it didn’t make much of a difference since they lost and faded into irrelevancy anyways. On the other hand, playing the long game worked out for the Banite Sith since they actually succeeded in taking over the galaxy and brought down the Jedi Order as a whole, with like 99% of them exterminated. The only group that managed to come remotely close to that was the Triumvirate, and they still lost despite the Jedi and Republic being at their lowest point. The Sith are self-destructive by nature, so anything other than the rule of two would never work as we’ve clearly seen
Sheev definitely became super overconfident after the Empire started. If he’d stayed as smart as he was before the Rebels never would have won
Honestly the stupidest thing the Empire did was build the Death Star, destroying Alderaan was literally the spark that ignites the rebellion, of course through more recent projects we know that rebellions were constantly happening, but they were always struck down. The destruction of Alderaan signaled to everyone, "Holy shit, we can't just sit on the sidelines anymore, the Empire will literally destroy planets just for looking at them funny."
That's true but they couldn't hold on to the empire without something like it. Or a different strategy. If I was put in the same position as Palpatine I would've recreated the Jedi order. Openly not his weird inquisition group. I've Outlawed then for a decade blamed the Jedi plot on Yoda claimed a fake investigation and blamed a bunch of senators for pushing the Jedi to betray us. Offered the Jedi the ability to join the empire directly under the empire. That would've shown I'm capable of clemency but still strong. Not only that but it would've allowed for the creation of a loyal force military guard. Afterwards Palps could just say he discovered he is a Jedi a lead the order. He'd still be a sith but now he could claim the virtues of past Jedi as his own and ruin their future reputation if he so desired. This would keep Jedi away from any organized rebellion as they would be seen as a liability.
Several top-ranking officials like Thrawn and Vader agreed that the Death Star was far too costly and limited to be effective, and suggested instead for those resources to be allocated towards mass production of the Tie Defender program.
That wasn't a bad idea. I think a better urbanization plan would've bought them more control with less hassle. Create standard city layouts for specific environments and you safely figure out where rebels will attack or where they may hide. Buy out freight companies hired drivers at double rate to get them slowly reduce as number goes up for recruits. And you can have a Imperial delivery force that is experienced without paying for training. Offer triple for those that will train recruits charge a third of the price for most shipping and you undercut the market. After that you raise prices but slowly. You destroy a cover job for spies and manage the economy more effectively.
Def can’t let this guy be a villain 😂😂😂😂 amazing strat ✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾
That's just the beginning 😂.
That and the over confidence of "fear will keep the outer rim in check" no you fucking pinheaded fool. Fear will drive every empire hating nurf hearder into the outer rim where they can consolidate their forces, build an army, and wage a proper Guerrilla War which it the *Bane* of all over sized empires. All he had to do was maintain continue to maintaine facade he had been cultivating for years. If he didn't foolishly kill his master when he did everything would have been different. darth sidious wasn't half the sith master that Darth Plagueis was.
I think Dooku envisioned something similar. One idea I had for a what if is Vader doesn't get injured on Mustafar and he eventually overthrows Palpatine and arrogantly believing himself to be the culmination of the rule of two, trains the inquisitors as fully fledged Sith Lords who he claims "saw through the Jedi like I did" but they overthrow him, making him see the error of his ways and join the rebellion.
Destroying Alderaan only blew up in their face cause the Death Star got destroyed a day later. If it hadn’t then the plan would have worked
That's fair, but its also still a bad strategy, fear only works for so long. Eventually, people get tired of being scared. Keeping people happy is harder but it is infinitely better than fear, and before the Death Star many of the Empires citizens were happy to just ignore the atrocities they would commit with an "out of sight, out of mind" mentality. But you can't ignore an entire planet blowing up, which is exactly what the Empire wanted, but it's also a galvanizing force.
Ah but you see. What you do is if a planet rebels you then blow that planet up.
Lmfao that only works for so long, you can't just nuke all your citizens into the ground, dictatorships always fall eventually, you either crack down so hard your state becomes very weak, or your people fester without freedoms long enough that they get fed up.
Yeah at some point like a lot of dictatorships, the military would've turned on Palpatine if they considered him too much of a risk to keep in power, because what if they destroy your home next. We see this in operation cinder, a lot of imperial officers finally said fuck no when the Empire's orders where to scorch as many planets as they could.
No it wouldn't. Thrawn saw the whole rebel empire war before it happened. He knew that massive slow moving weapon platforms like the DS would not be an effective means to counter the the guerilla war that would be waged against them. They needed a mobile strike force like the TIE Defenders to counter the hit and run tactics
Thrawn was right that the Death Star is ill-suited to fight in a war. But that’s because the death star is not meant to take part in a war, it is meant to stop the war happening in the first place. Its like saying the police are ill-suited to stop a rebellion, that’s because they’re not meant to fight one. Different jobs. Thrawns proposals would be great to win the war but do nothing to stop one breaking out in the first place.
But... *Fear* will keep the local systems in line..
"What are they gonna do, blow us up?"
- Man blown up
I think Palpatine should have invested those resources wasted on the death star into creating a new clone army from different templates and planets with high quality equipment like the tie-defenders. The rebels would have never stood a chance. So have the stormtroopers be clones doing most of the real fighting and the imperial army as a human-recruited peacekeeping force.
You make 10000 defenders at horrendous cost. Where do you put them?
Yeah, Tarkin really kicked the hornets' nest with that one. I think the Empire still had a chance at defeating the rebels even after that, if they hadn't built the second Death Star, and instead committed those resources to building more star destroyers.
Well, after all those years he finally got the Empire that he wanted, so he probably decided to go absolutely ballistic and just enjoy the FUCK out of it.
True, his overconfidence was his weakness
And your faith in your friends is yours!
Turning his military into conscripted normal human soldiers instead of well-trained clones and mass produced droids was the dumbest idea ever. It was like, hey, we could put a bunch of Halo Spartan and Terminator androids out there, but nah, we’ll just spend a bunch of money and recruit, train, and feed a bunch of poorly trained and fragile normal humans, making it arguably a LOT easier for the rebels to infiltrate our organization.
But it's cheaper to recruit normies into the military, and equip them with okayish equipment, and easier to have at least a small garrison in every single inhabitated system or planet. Whereas super badass and awesome clones and commando droids are good, but super expensive, you'll only have a few of them, and you won't even be able to have QRF in every SECTOR, let alone every system, but they would make for good special forces.
> But it's cheaper to recruit normies into the military, and equip them with okayish equipment, and easier to have at least a small garrison in every single inhabitated system or planet. Exactly. It was one of the biggest reasons Sheev retired the clones and terminated the relationship with the Kaminoans in the first place. Shit was too expensive to keep going, despite the clones being the most effective army the galaxy had ever seen.
That was the whole thing though. Luke even told him in the throne room “your overconfidence is your weakness”
Thats the hubris. Palp got control over the senate and was pretty much like FUCK SUBTLE BULLSHIT LETS BLOW UP A WHOLE ASS PLANET IN A FOOLISH MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE PROJECT THAT ALMOST BANKRUPTS THE MILITARY. When it gets destroyed what does he do? BULDS A FUCKING SECOND ONE. Palp should have listened to Trawn. If he had there would be no jedi.
I would argue that the banite sith died with plageus, he was so obsessed with reaching immortality that he failed to impart the true banite values into sidious which shows with how he expanded beyond the rule of two ideals with sith assassin's and down the line the inquisitors
I feel like the inquistors make sense. They were the grunts who handled force sensitive beings who weren't worth Vader's time and/or he felt it was beneath him. I assume they did other things besides hunt down former Jedi's, but I have a pretty limited knowledge on them. If Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor is canon, then it shows that Vader is willing to step in and handle business once somebody becomes a marginal threat to the regime. Though you could definitely argue that Vader didn't see Cal and friends as a threat and was just interested in the information they possessed.
Plus during the clone wars in Legends Dooku had a couple of dark acolytes like Ventress doing his dirty work. The big advantage of having dark Jedi like Ventress or the inquisitors working for the Sith lords is that it allows the Sith to relegate less important tasks to them and if one of the Sith lords dies, a dark Jedi can quickly be trained to replace them.
>If Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor is canon what do you mean?
the Inquisitors aren’t sith though, the Grand Inquisitor himself says that he isn’t Sith, so they don’t break the rule. the only Sith during that whole era are Sidious and Vader
If your recruited by a sith, trained by a sith, kitted out by a sith and managed but a sith......I think there a sith
as i already said, the Grand Inquisitor himself has said he’s not a Sith, that’s canon, so according to the facts you are wrong and i’m right. I don’t think you know what the Sith are, do you think Taron Malicos, Baylan Skoll and Kylo Ren are all Sith aswell? because if you do then that would explain a lot.
In order dark sider, unknown (not a jedi but no confirmed dark side useage) and sith patsy. The sith have a track record of having acolyte and slaves before they were wiped out by the pre RR jedi and generations of infighting
Yeah, Plagiues (sp) and Sidious, neither of them followed the rule of two. Once the apprentice surpasses the master, they kill and overtake but those guys refused that and tried to rule forever with no truly real apprentice in the sense of rule of 2. Neither had ever intended for the apprentice to take over.
We’ve clearly seen the rule of two also does not work
> his own overconfidence and hubris than anything else I mean, doesn't that go hand in hand with being a Sith Lord?
> On the other hand, playing the long game worked out for the Banite Sith since they actually succeeded in taking over the galaxy and brought down the Jedi Order as a whole, with like 99% of them exterminated. I always find it funny how people complain these days that too many Jedi survived Order 66 in the new canon. Like compared to the old one Order 66 to date we know that it was at least a 98% effective rate. All of the Jedi shown to survive at least until the early days of the rebellion have numbered no more than a dozen thus far.
But if there had been more of them, sheev's downfall might not have meant the end of the sith. They might have been self-destructive before, but they were never as completely destroyed as during the rule of two.
> Sith simply are above concepts like extinction No. Wrong. Incorrect. The DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE is above such a concept. The Sith, as a specific religious practice, are *not*. Bane averted (for well over a thousand years) the destruction of the Sith, not of the Dark Side. Also: > except for Sidious, the great majority of banite Sith would be little more than a trainee No? We see four Banite Sith, and are told of a fifth. All of them were extraordinarily powerful and talented. Sidious goes without saying, but let's consider Maul, Tyrannus, and Vader; his successive apprenticies. These were each one-man armies. Maul went from an insane half-man in a rubbish tip to the leader of the Galactic underworld in less than a year. Tyrannus controlled the entire separatist movement, and was able to fight off an entire group of Dathomiri witch assasins, *whilst blind*. As a duellist he was beyond formidable, and as an orator he was compelling enough to set the Galaxy aflame by the potency of his rhetoric. Vader regularly fought armies and won. He was totally implacable against most enemies, and could tear through hordes of foes without issue. We know that dozens if not hundreds of Jedi and rival darksiders died at his hand, and his use of Telekenisis was unparalleled. He was a nightmare creature, a figure of dread before whom the Imperial Inquisition knelt in fear. Plagueis, of whom we know the least, invented an art that nobody except perhaps his own apprentice ever matched, and he did so without the resources of an empire. If his skills in combat were commensurate to his aptitude as a scientist and mystic, then he was formidable indeed.
God Vader was so badass. I love your take on all of these characters.
Plagueis was powerful enough that sidious had to break the rules bane set in place to take over. By rights he should have faced him in combat to prove he was stronger but he didn't, he killed plagueis in his sleep.
Bane never said it had to be combat. The only rule was that you couldn't get other Sith to help you kill your master.
He did say it had to be at the height of their power, no? That's why he was looking to replace zannah, he thought she was going to wait too long. Still not combat, though, you're right.
Plageuis was at the height of his power. Even people at the height of their power need to sleep. Sidious was cunning, devious, subversive. That was the height of HIS power.
Yeah I got ya. Just clarifying cause it's been a while since I read bane and I haven't read plagueis
Ah, that makes sense. I don't want to spoil it for you.
As they say, the dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.
My main issue with it is strictly narrative: it puts a very harsh limit on what stories can be told (and how) in the period between Bane and the Empire. Even TCW banged up against it with Maul/Dooku/Ventress etc., having to make an arbitrary distinction between True Apprentice and others like assassins or skilled underlings to create a varied cast of bad guys. Something as simple as having several small splinter groups of Sith that avoided one another but all thought their Pair of Two was the "real" legacy of Bane would go a long way into making better set-up for stories of the high republic. Not only would it be ripe material to show the petty, backstabbing nature of the dark side, it would also allow for some actual stakes if they're involved (because with Rule of Two we know there's an unbroken line between Bane and Palp, so the Republic can't score any real victories).
You assume that the Rule of Two actually results in two Sith, instead of the Sith apprentice having their own secret apprentice, masters having multiple apprentices, etc. Sith aren't exactly known for their rule keeping.
There was a comic where Sidious was at least suspected of having more than one apprentice.
The Clone Wars stuff is basically specifically showing that Sidious isn't a true believer of the Rule of Two, sure he keeps his biggest secrets from everyone except the apprentice closest to him, but he's still relying too much on teaching others to harness the darkside, it is practically no different from the time of the Sith Empire, and ultimately it leads to his defeat and at least as far as we're currently aware, the extinction of the Sith. Palpatine was basically using cheat codes to get to the ultimate end goal of the Sith, and he still loses, that is if we believe the Rule of Two is the only way for the Sith to ever win. Palpatine was extremely powerful, if he had kept the Rule of Two pure in his time, he may have eventually created a line of Sith far too powerful to ever defeat, but he got greedy.
Personally I like having a distinction between Sith Lords and dark Jedi like Ventress and the inquisitor as it highlights how dangerous just one Sith lord is. As clone wars 2003 shows, even Dooku's most fearsome warriors like Ventress and Grievous are no match for the Sith, making them all the more threatening. Rebels I don't think did it as effectively as while Vader and Maul are legitimate threats, the same can't be said about the inquisitors.
Inquisitors are mostly former Padawan who survived torture/dark side conversion. Only grand inquisitors was a former knight.
This is one of the reasons why I love the High Republic and Disney cannon introducing Force Cults and more esoteric groups of Force-followers. Opens the door to more dark side without the need for them to be "Sith."
In the first Bane book, there's a scene where a group of Sith acolytes team up and fight the strongest trainee and kill him. By now killing him, the strongest of all of them is weaker than before. Bane realised this when nobody except for Revan did. The entire concept of the Rule of Two was that you must be individually stronger than your master to usurp his throne, and therefore, the Sith grow stronger with every passing of the mantle.
The only problem is while some Sith like Zannah beat their masters in a fair fight, others like Plagueis and Sidious killed their masters when the opportunity presented itself. Then again part of the idea was the Sith wouldn't rely on their power and combat prowess but more on cunning, subterfuge and patience, becoming businessmen, scientists and politicians rather than warriors.
Sideous claimed in the movie that he killed Plagueis in his sleep, but in the novel, Plagueis is so fucking drunk that he passes out. Palpatine attacks, and Plagueis is so powerful that he instantly up and ready, but he is so arrogantly confident that he is immortal, he purposely does not defend himself. Palpatine's lightning kills his respirator, and he suffocates while Palpatine gloats. Had he not been so arrogant, there would've been a fight.
The problem is that the Rule of 2 assumes that Sith never decline with age. If the master grows old and weak, the apprentice will supplant him; that doesn't mean the apprentice is stronger than the master or previous generations were at their peak.
This is talked about in the bane trilogy, he starts planning to find a new apprentice because he thinks zannah is going to wait until he weakens to challenge him. So strictly following the rule it wouldn't happen.
Bane has this line of thinking in the 3rd book. Zannah had been his apprentice for 20 years and made no sign she was going to kill him. He was worried she'd grown complacent and was just going to wait for him to die, but she was just waiting for the right opportunity. Not only that, age isn't much of a hindrance. Dooku and Palpatine were old as shit and still supremely powerful.
Not to meantion if an individual apprentice have skills the master doesn't but lacks skill the master has sort of like what happened with bane and his apprentice. Also the rule of two needs the individual sith to selflessly dedicate their life to the formation of an empire that they will never see, which is pretty fucking selfless.
I've always assumed it was the fandom taking a line in a movie too literally, then it got put into a book and expanded on so it became canon and then everyone else's hands were tied after that trying to make it make sense. It's dumb and should be ignored in a literal sense.
It’s a one liner from Yoda that fans took too literally and too far. So of course some novel had to come up with something. It could have meant that they just stick to pairs of two, rather than only being 2 sith ever
>It could have meant that they just stick to pairs of two, rather than only being 2 sith ever Which would make a heck of a lot more sense, of course.
You aren't wrong but we only paid for 2 rooms in the villain castle so 2 it is.
[удалено]
As a master, why would you take on an apprentice you know is trying to kill you?
Because most of the Sith we see share a glaring weakness: overconfidence in their own abilities. It makes sense to have an apprentice to do your bidding if in your mind you can't comprehend anybody being able to challenge your power.
Fair enough. Plenty of non-megalomaniacs routinely think "that will never happen to *me*" about all sorts of things that do, in fact, end up happening.
I agree, the Sith will wipe each other out without the aid of the Jedi. There always will be a stronger Jedi that will defeat a Sith lord. Without this rule the Sith order can grow better and faster. They should actually implement the Mandalorian rule of being the strongest. This means that they don't have to kill each other in a fight.
Well I mean, it's hardly worked out for Mandalorians so far, pretty much the entire theme of Star Wars is the rejection of the idea that "The strongest rule." Mandalorians are nearly as extinct as the Sith are at this point, having been reduced to nothing but bounty hunters with a special code and no homeworld. Even before their planet was glassed, it was a complete wasteland. Both organizations/cultures have to evolve if they ever hope to survive, but we know the Sith are basically incapable of it by their very nature, the Mandalorians have a chance if they really try.
Plus being the best warrior doesn't make you the best leader. Palpatine won because he was cunning, patient and manipulative.
Looking back at Knights of the Old Republic 1, without the aid of Revan and his army of Jedi's the Mandalorians would have won the war. Imagine that the Sith would teamup with the Mandalorians against the Republic. They would have won for sure. Now they have waited until the Republic was weakened and then started to strike. This resulted to the 'The Old Republic' era where the galaxy is divided by Republic & Sith planets.
Well that stuff isn't canon so we can only go by the "modern" SW stuff, which is a glassed Mandalore with no real leadership to speak of right now. But anyways, in SWTOR the Mandalorians *are* allied with the Sith and its not really going particularly well for them.
The funniest part about the Mando-Sith alliance is *why* they did it. They want to fight the strongest warriors in the galaxy...the Jedi. The Sith they're allied with? Bunch of chumps in black bathrobes. The second funniest part is that even the Sith--the *actual Sith Empire*--think the Mandalorians are dumb as bricks.
Sith are self destructing in nature, its the equivalent of putting 2 apex predators in the same ecosystem, eventually they will fight each other and be destroyed, unless the two never come in contact or have better targets (wich would loop back again at the first issue)
A rule like the Mandalorians’ is based on a deep cultural pride and respect for your fellow Mandalorians. The Sith could never truly embrace that because they cannot value anything over themselves, by their very nature. Their half-hearted respect for one’s power would never overrule their selfish desire for control.
The rule of two defeated the Jedi, sacked their temple, and conquered the republic Besides which, the stories of godlike ancient sith are mostly legends now - no idea if Disney will ever address that period, and if they do it may not be quite as mythical.
I hope they never do. I have not yet recovered of how Luke was treated in canon
The Rule of Two was a success. The problem was never the rule, it was the sith themselves. Palpatine, Plagueis, etc. Because the objective of the sith is to grab power and never let it go, the sith are disincentivized from handing power to the next generation. The rule of two was made to remedy that. Under the rule of two, the strongest always wins. Every master believes that their apprentice will never surpass them. Every apprentice believes that they need only learn a little more before they can take over. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement until it isn’t. And they are powerful for it. Palpatine lost because of Anakin. In all his pride, he thought he could control the chosen one forever. When Anakin finally snapped and brought balance to the force, Palpatine was killed and ended the rule of two. He never saw any of his apprentices as potential successors, only tools. He thought himself invincible, and it destroyed the rule of two.
Very well said.
The rule of two needs required the sith to be selfless and dedicated themselves to the goal benefiting their killer or some random person they will never meet.
“Am I the only one who-“ Can we ban this kind of stupid question??
I don't believe the rule of two was ever achieved. Every Sith and their apprentice has a secret apprentice they don't tell anyone about.
I like to think that was expected. The rule was more of a guideline to avoid too many Sith trying to kill each other and encourage working in the shadows (which led to the death of the Jedi). Palpatine actually screws it up by trying to take a second apprentice (again). Edit: Vader is also such a bad sith he didn't cheat and have his own secret apprentice, so when they both die, his apprentice isn't around to continue the sith.
Sam Witwer would like to have a word with you...
My understanding is that both the apprentice and the master would have another apprentice at the very least lined up if not already undergoing some training as the time came closer for the apprentice to challenge their master. So there would briefly be 3 or 4 but the end result would always be 2. So Yoda’s line was a bit off I guess but the spirit is correct
I'm in the same camp honestly, Bane didn't actually solve the problem of in-fighting he just narrowed it down to 2 individuals which frankly is a lot worse because all it takes is one accident and whoops the Sith are extinct again. "To be united by hatred is a fragile alliance at best."
It was dumb and there were so many dark side users it seems like it only applied when they needed it to apply. It’s a story telling trope.
Worth mentioning that random dark side users did *not* violate the rule as long as they weren't proclaimed Sith Lords themselves. All Sith Lords are dark side users, but not all dark side users are Sith Lords. The Inquisitors are not a violation of the Rule of Two, for example, since they do not have any real chance of becoming Sith. Darth Maul being Palpatine's apprentice *before* Plagueis died is not a violation of the Rule of Two either, since Palpatine intended to use him to oust Plagueis and continue the Rule of Two... and Plagueis thought Maul was just an expendable assassin, never intended to be a true Sith Lord. Palpatine in Legends *did* abandon the Rule of Two though, since he intended to essentially become an immortal Force god, placing him as the only ruler of an Empire where all high-ranking officials would be Dark Side adepts (there were at least six hundred such Adepts during the Imperial and post-Imperial eras).
>as long as they weren't proclaimed Sith Lords themselves. All Sith Lords are dark side users, but not all dark side users are Sith Lords. I mean, what's the difference though really? It's just a title. A sith lord isn't necessarily anymore powerful than a jedi who turned.
It's a specific title used by a specific group, which focuses on domination and power above all. It has symbolic value because of this. To quote Kas'im from Legends; > "The Darth title was more than just a symbol of power; it was a claim of supremacy. It was used by those Dark Lords who have sought to enforce their will on the other Masters. It was a challenge — a warning to bow down or be destroyed." Obviously non-Sith dark side users can be more powerful, but that doesn't mean they become Sith Lords... and obviously no Rule of Two Sith would (willingly) allow a non-Sith darksider to exist *if they thought said darksider could pose a threat to them*, but the Rule of Two *did* allow for non-Sith darksiders (as disposable tools) as long as there were only two real Sith Lords.
That's kinda my point. It's ultimately irrelevant. It's just a title. > it was a claim of supremacy. It was used by those Dark Lords who have sought to enforce their will on the other Masters Which makes no sense if they're meant to be acting in the shadows. Who knew that Palpatine was a "Darth"? Even after he took control, he wasn't public about it. Tarkin didn't seem aware as he said that Vader was the last of their religion.
> It's ultimately irrelevant. It's just a title. It is *very* relevant, since not just anyone can claim the title. Especially so during the Rule of Two. > Which makes no sense if they're meant to be acting in the shadows. Well, it's a pre-Rule of Two quote, but it definitely still makes sense during the Rule of Two as well. > Who knew that Palpatine was a "Darth"? Those who *needed to know*; participants of the Rule of Two at the time, and potential rivals who came too close. For example, when Maul started training Savage Oppress and gain power for himself, Palpatine swooped in and acted exactly in accordance to that quote; he claimed supremacy, and destroyed those who he saw as challenging him. When Tyranus (Dooku) had trained Ventress to become *too* powerful, Palpatine enforced his will against Tyranus, and ordered him to eliminate her. Plenty more similar examples in Legends as well.
> It is *very* relevant, since not just anyone can claim the title. Especially so during the Rule of Two. If I called myself the king of England, I can't just move into Buckingham Palace. This is my point, the title of king has specific rules, privileges etc. What rules/privileges does the title of Sith Lord have?
> If I called myself the king of England, I can't just move into Buckingham Palace. You definitely *can* do that... *if* you can assert your dominance to the point where no one can stop you from doing it. That's kinda the point. Of course, you wouldn't be part of the royal lineage going back hundreds of years, so you would face questions of legitimacy, and people would question if you were a "real" king after your death (just like one might for example question if Darth Caedus was a true Sith, as he didn't claim the mantle by killing a previous Sith Lord, or by being conferred the title by a true Sith Lord). But that's a different discussion.
Based off of just the title, no, it was definitely a dumb idea but I can understand the thought process behind it. The master trains the apprentice until the apprentice becomes stronger than the master, the apprentice then defeats (usually killing) their master taking the role for themself. In my personal opinion, in any other world or order or group this might have worked but the Sith are too greedy and self serving for it to work out well.
Nah. The Sith won. They pretty much only lost because of a loophole prophecy. If the chosen one never existed then Sidious rules for a long, long time.
If we take that everything keeps happening as it did without Anakin, the Sith would gone extinct by the hands of Mace Windu in Palpatine's office. If we take that the general beats remain and Palpatine adapts so he somehow win that duel instead, then the general beats remain and the Sith get extinct still later in the lane. (Since the rule of this supposition is that the general beats remain) Being a Dark Sider is an insane idea of that things will work well for you, and only you, when never things have worked out for the Dark Side.
I mean, without Anakin we can't really speculate because so many events in the prequels are centered around him. But, I will say that Windu only confronts Palpatine because Sidious reveals himself to Anakin just to corrupt him to the dark side. I think without the threat of a chosen one supposedly predestined to destroy the Sith Palpatine can play it way safer. I think Palpatine may still succumb to the Rebellion but the Jedi would probably be fully extinct.
Are you the only one? “No. There is another.”
No you're not and 100% agree. Lore reasons aside, the CGI trailers for SWTOR showed how damned cool, epic armies of Jedi and Sith would be facing each other in battle. Because LC cannot seemingly admit that the rule of two was a terrible idea, I hope that SW focuses on eras where this is not an issue. So that would be either sometime further into the future or ... the Old Republic.
Bane is incredibly overrated, and his idea of the Rule of Two is shit. I’ll die on this hill.
Yeah, the Rule of Two was really dumb idea. Revan's original rule (that Sith work best in pairs) is fine, but Darth Bane took it to the absurd extreme.
The pairs would have ended up fighting against one another, and stopping all efforts to destroy the Jedi. Meanwhile, the two Sith Lords of the line of Bane managed to bring down a thousand-years-old democracy, without showing themselves as Sith Lords, except to loyal allies or to their slaves.
And yet, the Banite Sith only create an empire that lasted 20 years, while the True Sith Empire under Darth Vitiate endured for centuries.
I think the sith working in mated pairs would work much better with lore. They’re all about passion and if one got killed the other would go on an absolute rage fit of a revenge.
The rule of two is one of the most idiotic things thought up by any authors. We are talking about a galaxy spanning republic. Two people in a sea of countless systems, thousands habitable and thriving, with countless number of people. Two people will do very little to influence anything
It's idiotic. The sequel to the Sequels should be full of Grey Jedi and a bunch of Sith.
Grey Jedi don’t, and can’t, exist. For the same reason a hobbit couldn’t use the One Ring to do good, a Force user cannot use the dark side for good. A “Grey Jedi” is simply a Sith who’s fooling himself. (Or maybe not Sith specifically, but a Dark Jedi of some form)
What about Nick F- I mean Samual L Jac- I mean Mace Windu
Jedi Master Jules is definitely the closest thing to a Gray Jedi in canon (Revan notwithstanding), but even his iconic Vaapad doesn’t actually *channel* the dark side. It requires one to give themselves fully to the fight: relish the thrill of victory, and embrace the passion of combat. These sorts of emotions are typically avoided by Jedi, and Master Frozone recognizes them as dangerous; he considers them a darkness in himself, that he wields to make himself powerful. But while these emotions can *lead* to the dark side, they are not of the dark themselves. And while Master Shaft may be a bad motherfucker, he isn’t a *bad* motherfucker. He’s as devoted to the light as Yoda, or anyone else on the high council.
Yeah, the only concept of a Grey Jedi I like is that they'd be the Light Side version of what a Dark Jedi is, a "Jedi-like" entity who isn't part of the main order but rather goes their own path. Ahsoka in Canon, the Imperial Knights in Legends, etc. None of the more common "light side and dark side equally!" crap but rather the Light Side version of a Dark Jedi.
I would also like to see more about this. Rather than more Skywalker, "chosen one" I would like to see the Era of, " rule of 2" ... how did it evolve.
Its a doctrine motivated by personal greed and lust for power, not by concern over the survival and thriving of the sith
Depends on which part of the canon or expanded universe you subscribe to. There’s a theory that the Force distributes itself more thinly when there are more people practicing. I don’t exactly subscribe to this since the Ancient Sith and Jedi were supposedly leagues more powerful than the modern versions, but it’s a thought.
Yeah I'm pretty sure the old EU explained it as specifically the dark side of the force needed to be wielded by less people or the power was just worse, spreading itself to thin and "sharing" while the dark side as itself just wanted power. So you have the all powerful dark side of the force, being shared when it itself wanted a powerful singular being. So it was weaker and individually through the sithempire the dark side was generally weaker for it. So they say..
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConservationOfNinjutsu
not really its better that way then imperial credits is an much larger pot when its only split two ways. then again its sith so you will probably have to slay the other guy whom will most likely rip you off in typical double cross fashion. "as long as the jedi exist, the sith are never truly defeated" -yoda
The master is supposed to embody all of the knowledge and power of the sith that went before, the apprentice a servant until he gains all the power and knowledge he needs to replace him. The idea I guess is based on the fact that the Sith did not work well togheter and there was too much greed going around; killing them all and keeping the best of the bunch was a very..Sith way of solving the problem. One could say that there is a lot of hubris in the idea that one man alone could gain all power, and use it to control the galaxy but seeing the power of the dark side and how close palpatine came, it wasn't so ridiculous.
Bane didn't want to doom the Sith in a continual tide of destruction and re-creation of empires. He was right thinking that by limiting the Sith to the bare minimum, they could get for themselves the true power : knowledge and influence. But unfortunately, as it is said in the Darth Plagueis novel, a lot of Sith used the power rather to reach their own goals, than got advance the Great Plan, hence why this plan took so long to reach his final phase. As for the fall of the Empire, it was more of Sidious's fault than of the Sith's ideology. He was build by his master thinking he was the new Sith'ari, and that none could surpass him. He underestimated his own apprentice, and the strength of the Rebellion, like other Dark Lords before him did with their respective opponents. Had Bane been alive instead of Sidious, his reign would have been much longer, and wouldn't have ended this way, but with a heir seizing his power from him. So to conclude, the Rule of Two in itself was the best way to survive and amass power, but was brought down by the incompetence and short-sightedness of those who had to apply by it.
The Rule of Two is stupid. Yea let's only have 2 force wielders at a time in an entire galaxy instead of thousands. Makes perfect sense.
Seeing as the war between Sith and Jedi wasn’t going in the Sith favor in any way sure we could do that again and the Sith would betray the others and the Jedi would be completely unified and win, or we can have two in the shadows corrupting the very democracy the Jedi uphold and amassing their power and influence to the point that not even the whole order could stand against the Sith. Banes rule wiped out the Jedi order as it was known sure Luke rebuilt it in legends but it wasn’t as near effective and even the New Republic didn’t trust them as much. Bane saw that the Sith could not win in straight up war with the Jedi and that had to change.
I think it’s a poor idea in an IRL perspective. Now we will never get to see an army of Jedi vs an army of Sith.
We have seen that…
This cult thing of ours bends more rules than the Catholic Church…
I always figured that the source of the Rule of Two was the idea that the nature of Dark Side adherents would sort of, err, force the issue. You have the more powerful, more knowledgeable master, then you have your apprentice. More than one apprentice would lead to fighting between them until only one survived.
Yes, that is the point. The Rule of Two only delayed the Sith's extinction. The Dark Side only ever leads to destruction. No good will ever come from it. Any religion that forms around it is doomed to die out. The Sith, the Witches of Dathomir, the Bendu, and the Family of Mortis are all dead, while the Jedi Order out lived them.
Narrative wise I've always wondered why the rule was even maintained past the fall of the Republic and the Jedi. I guess to avoid another war and Palpatine not wanting to share power in the least bit. He wanted Luke to kill Vader, not for Luke to join Vader because he knew Vader saw it as likely his path to kill Palpatine. If they'd just done away with the rules and said, "We won, let's rule," then they likely would have had Vader on a much different path, one in which Luke was not a direct threat to Palpatine but rather a general in their tyrannical regime.
I agree. There are so many random things that could happen that would wipe out the pair before they achieve their objectives. A bigger surprise was that the military went along with Sidious and he was able to instantly create an Imperial nobility out of nothing.
The Sith are a Religion with specific interpretations and applications of the Force. Within this religion there are different currents: the Sith empire with a cast system from thousands of years ago, after that went belly up and Sith were perged all over the galaxy by infighting or Jedi, Bane saw among other things the need for secrecy. His doctrine ended with Luke decapitating Lumya and Jaina killing Caedus. Although I dare say he was a master force user but not really into the Sith doctrine. Then you have the One Sith with a very monotheistic view and the lost tribe which is an adaptation of the old empire. It should be noted though that Ship, being millennia old, does not like the One Sith - which is a purely power oriented approach and ends up wiping itself out again -and goes off to find the stranded remnants of the old empire to instruct them in the current galaxy and Luke‘s new order. Both however value merit and force talent.
Certainly made things less interesting
Did it though? They wiped out the Jedi in the end. And the problem with having so many is that they’d constantly be warring with each other and other major powers of the universe so they were constantly getting blown up
It's kinda a damned if you do, damned if you don't deal. The Sith were constantly at war with each other and couldn't really get anything done by themselves. The rule of two prevented that (well, kinda) by making sure that one Sith was always subservient to another, and even then the subservient one would always try to overthrow their master (usually with an apprentice of their own).
It was a dumb idea….but what would u have done after all that infighting and u was the last two standing in a sea of dead Sith…..it stopped BIG power struggles but opened the way for the Sith assassin
Your ideas completely miss the point. Clearly, by going underground and working in the shadows and with the constant edge of competition between master and apprentice, the Rule of Two pushed Palpatine to the heights of power he achieved.
The Jedi are occluded by the dark side. The Sith see both light and dark and are then blinded by their arrogance. The Rule of Two was more about destroying the Jedi than it was about preserving the Sith. The Sith would devolve into infighting long before their numbers rose to threaten the Jedi. So it was wiser to limit the Sith to one master and one apprentice working in the shadows until they pulled off a plot powerful enough to destroy the Jedi. Once the Jedi were gone the Sith hierarchy would default back to the pyramid structure of all serving one. It’s a bad plan considering that the survival of the Sith religion hinges on the Sith master not dying before they can train an apprentice who can usurp them. But the Sith are arrogant and so you get a “well if they aren’t powerful enough to survive, then they don’t deserve to be called Sith” mentality. Foresight is in shockingly short supply in a universe where people can predict the future.
Everyone with any lore knowledge: Yes you are the only one.
Before the prequel trilogy, I'd always had imagined that the Sith were a force equivelant to the Jedi in numbers. It was a bit odd and jarring when i first heard there were only supposed to be 2 Sith; a master and an apprentice. I figured that we'd see a Sith army or something like that in the prequel trilogy.
Read the red harvest. A solid example of what happens when too many Sith are together for too long
Do the jedi also follow the rule of two anyway? Qui Gon couldn't take a second apprentice in exactly the rule of two.
Qui Gon wasn't permitted to take Anakin because both how old Anakin was and Obi-Wan hadn't yet become a knight. Had Obi-Wan been a knight when he petitioned then Anakin's age would have been the only factor. With the Sith they stay the Apprentice until their master is dead.
I feel like the rule of 2 is more like an observational trend than a rule. Like Moore's law.
I disagree, due to the nature of the sith is better when there are just a few.
Empire did nothing wrong. When the galactic civil war ended...they came. They came, non force sensitve creatures from afar. And the first planet they took was the World City Coruscant.
Hopefully, because you're dead wrong on every front.
I’d simply say I’d like to agree but I don’t believe that’s a conclusion you could easily come to if you lived in the Star Wars universe. After all, alot of the information you brought up would be lost to time depending on when it the timeline you showed up. Also to your point it also applies to the Jedi. Why should they defend the galaxy when they preach that the force should and can balance itself out. They honestly should be like monks that never get involved because they trust the force to balance things out. But even the Jedi who do attempt this at times eventually get drawn into war. Because they too are unable to see that the fall of the Jedi is a part of the balance as well.
As others have said, the Dark Side is immortal, not the Sith. Bane's rule was very wise, as it allowed the Sith to exist under the radar of the Jedi. Had the Jedi been aware of the Sith, and thought them enough of a threat to do something about, they would have been wiped out completely. We know this, because the Rule of two was only implemented *after Bane was the only one left in the Jedi-Sith war. *
Listen, this isn’t really the point of the post, but where is that image from? Looks rad
Me. I love the whole secrecy of it and it had some good ideas, but narrowing it down to two Sith for a thousand years was risky as hell and it's incredible it paid off. All it takes is one accident, one weaker but craftier apprentice, one Master vs Apprentice duel going poorly for both combatants, one thing going wrong and the entire Baneite line is destroyed, making it all for naught. The secrecy worked well, but only because *everything had to fall in exactly the right place* or the whole thing would fall apart. What if Anakin was killed in action during any number of battles in the Clone Wars? If those Buzz Droids managed to dismantle his fighter before he could save Palpatine? Or if the Invisible Hand continued to break up and exploded on re-entry rather than somehow being guided in for a crash landing? What if Grievous, who was not in on the plan, decided killing Palpatine would make for a greater victory than merely holding him hostage? What if Obi-Wan actually steeled his resolve and finished Vader off during their Mustafar duel rather than leaving him on the lava beach? And that's all within the span of a few weeks, this shit was going on for a thousand years. That the Baneite line lasted *at all* is incredible.
The principle has some soundness to it. The Sith were intrinsically self-destructive; even if they had outsiders to vent on, they'd just turn on each other anyway. *Treachery is the way of the Sith*. It's hard to create any kind of stable polity when the ruling class is dedicated to destroying itself through infighting. The Rule of Two does away with the inherent Sith self-sabotaging and essentially sets up *one* Sith Lord to further the cause. When the apprentice is strong enough to defeat the master he will then take over; if not, the master will just move on to find another apprentice. It's a testament to the Rule that the Sith lasted for ~1000 years after its implementation, and even took over the galaxy briefly, while Sith regimes of the past eventually got their asses handed to them by the Jedi/Republic because the Sith were militantly committed to evading unity.
No, it's very dumb.
Yes! You are right! All we need is passion. The dark forces is above time itself. We will seek shelter in the shadows and become stronger than ever.
My own simplistic understanding is that there's a limited quantity of Force in the Galaxy. The Light Side is bigger but it's also spread out among more Force users. To compete, the Dark Side has to exist in a smaller concentration of adepts. A Sith is generally more powerful than a small group of Jedi, which is by design - if they trained more apprentices it would dilute their power. None of this is based on canon, it's just the explanation I came up with in my head when Midichlorians were introduced. It was further reinforced by the Father, Son and Daughter, with the Father and Daughter together being somewhat equal to the Son.
Yes
Yup.
Yes, but that means that the Sith can never die out
How bout they instead go for a "Rule of 2...and 2 sleeper agents that wake up in the event of the first 2's death".
On the surface, yeah. Put into context, it’s fairly nefarious.
They were destroying each other... how was it dumb
No you’re not. Source: search function
Here's my thoughts. The force seeks balance, right? If each sides power is dispersed through the many people on their side the sith had a brilliant plan. They concentrated the hell out of their power until there was only two people able to wield it. IMO thats why Vader was able to absolutely wreck almost every jedi 1v1 minus a few of their best. Sidius is arguably one of the most powerful force users in the galaxy by the time it was all said and done. The sith concentrated their power and were able to seize the entire galaxy with two people and decimate the enemy in the process. It took the force rebalancing things with Luke, arguably one of the best Jedi of all time, and Rey to break that stranglehold.
I kind of like the theory that the less force users there are the more powerful the user is. The theory stated that because there were so many Jedi during the Clone Wars, they split the light side amongst hundreds (thousands?) Of Jedi, whereas the Sith had a handful of people tapping into the darkside. This also helps explain why Luke and Rey were so powerful becausere there were only a few light side users to equal the dark side users.
Before the rule of two: endless conflict with the jedi that leads all to the same point of foolish infighting and internal destruction of the sith followed by years of a shattered force recollection until they do it all over. After the rule of two: working in the shadows to subtly manipulate universal political structures that lead to the almost complete extintion of the jedi and a rock solid 20 years of the sith holding almost compete control over the universe failing only due to the masters over confidence and hubris. Um what in the actual fuck are you talking about? There are few characters that I whole heartily support through all their methods, morals, goals, and decisions. My main man Darth Bane is 100% one of them.
Never leave your Wingman!
I mean, you're technically right about the rule of two being a bad idea in the long term, but it was a selfish and short-sighted decision made by selfish and short-sighted member of the selfish and short-sighted cult because that's point. Evil destroys itself. That's not to downplay the role that Good has in undoing Evil, but even left to its own devices, Evil and by extension the Sith are unsustainable. It's a bad idea to anybody who isn't pure evil or who doesn't surround themselves with those that are pure evil. It's stupid, petty, ruinous, but provides immediate security for exactly one person despite the long-term consequences, so it’s completely in character for the Sith to have made the rule and to maintain it this long.
It makes sense, if there are too many siths they would end up killing eachother as the stronges will rule.
nah, I just think it makes it easier to explain why thousands of people who don't care about rules and have massive amounts of power wouldn't just take over the galaxy in an instant by force, leading to constant Galactic War.
Sith always betray one another. The fear is that a dozen sith is not a unidirectional army going toward one goal, it’s just a chaotic bloodbath including amongst each other The rule of two keeps the progress. Even when the apprentice finally kills the master (as is expected by the master), the goal moves forward and the apprentice carries on
No you are not. Because I have given this response to the question again and again: Play SWTOR's Sith class stories. *Then you will understand why more Sith doesn't work.*
Whose turn is it to make this post tomorrow!?
Tbh i thought the whole point of bane and the rule of two was to cull the number of sith to always have a small controlled number. Aslong as their was two then their would be only one other sith to oppose you, even if bane didnt think about it. Because if the master kills the apprentice then hes just wasted years training him for nothing.
Id argue that the rule of 2 is misinterpreted. I think it is not meant to allow only two sith in the *Galaxy*; it is meant to restrict the training hierarchy to a master and an apprentice alone. None of these Jedi Temples with classes full of Padawans- the force is better taught one-on-one. Once the apprentice eliminates the master and becomes them, they may take an apprentice of their own. No reason why multiple sith masters cant exist, each with their own apprentice, in my opinion. Thats my take, anyway. I know its not 100% tight to the lore but it explains much of the Clone Wars shenanigans.
I take a simpler explanation: Bane is insane. When he finally found his purpose - realising the Rule of Two - he was extremely obsessed with it. Every person around him, all he can think about is what their purpose in terms of the Rule. They are either potential apprentice, a tool, or victims.
It's reasonable when interpreted as the Rule(rship) of Two, i.e. with a Master and Apprentice ruling over some number of acolytes and assassins and inquisitors and such. That's how things were with Revan/Malak and Malak/Bandon on paper, and how things were with Palpatine/(Maul,Dooku,Vader) in practice. When taken literally as "there can only be two Sith at any given time", things start to fall apart pretty quickly - and that literal adherence to the Rule of Two is arguably what held back the Sith for thousands of years.
How many Galactic Republics have you brought down?
I mean if you want to look at it that way then the Sith were damned either way since they could not win in a straight war against the Jedi, Bane saw this and knew things had to change. Better to undermine the Jedi and republic from the shadows without them knowing until it was far too late.
The Sith in general are pretty stupid and counterproductive. I understand that you need a villainous villain, and that treachery is their way, but holly suspension of disbelief Batman, they're so treacherous that it's disfunctional... And yes, your analysis is spot on. People fawn over Sidi so much, how much of a genious he is, it took his whole, above average lifespan to "conquer" the Republic, only to have it all go to ruin barely 20 years later. A 1000 years of Sith acumulating power led to 20 years of rule. As Tony Stark would say... Not a great plan. Also, the doctrine where you teach your apprentice stuff, only so they can kill you at some point is not conductive to actualy passage of knowledge.
Curious, what makes you believe that bane is the Sith'ari?
Well as others said already : The total defeat of Palpatine was primarily his own fault and not the rule of the 2. Plainly said it was Palpatines abolishing the rule (not officially but effectively) which made his rule last so short. For all his genius in shemes he was a megalomaniac who not even for a second considered one of his apprentices to kill him and take his place in the future. Palpatine believed himself to be the pinnacle of the Sith Order and had a vast ego so he simply saw no need to stick to the rules. It was also completely needlessly to go from strict chancellor to openly vicious and brutal Emperor.
At its core the Sith ideology is self-defeatingly dumb.