Prophets of the Dark Side
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In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, the Prophets of the Dark Side (also known as the Emperor's Secret Order, though in fact forming a distinct sub-section of this organization, or the Emperor's Mages) was a coterie of dark side Force-users originally founded as a splinter cult of the Sith. They later returned to galactic consciousness to serve the Sith Order during the reign of the Galactic Empire. They acted as assistants in the Emperor's secretive Force research, and slowly helped him establish the model of a dark side theocracy he intended to implement one day. Their primary duty however was to make predictions through the dark side of the Force in order to help guide the Emperor's decisions. Palpatine primarily relied on his own predictions, using the Prophets to double-check his predictions' accuracy and ensure that he missed nothing. The many areas the Prophets' prophecies touched upon and the prophecies' general accuracy meant that their power was pervasive; while the average Imperial citizen knew of them at the absolute most by faint rumor, they had great influence over the affairs of the Galactic Empire.
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[edit] Origins
The Prophets of the Dark Side were not founded by Palpatine himself; instead, he took a Sith cult isolated on the remote world of Dromund Kaas and a wayward Jedi with a flair for prophecy and the dark side, combining them to create a dark side order in his service. The original Prophets themselves were a small Sith splinter group, like the much older Bladeborn and Krath, founded by Darth Millennial, a Sith apprentice who lived some time after the Battle of Ruusan. Darth Millennial disagreed with Darth Bane's philosophy of the "Rule of Two," according to which the Sith could number no more than one Master and one apprentice at a time. Instead, he preferred the ideals of Lord Kaan, who espoused a "Rule by the Strong" model where a number of weaker Sith would fight amongst themselves for supremacy. Millennial fled from his Master to create this "ideal" order, while the true Sith Order continued under the rule of Millennial's former Master and his/her new apprentice.
Darth Millennial eventually settled on the distant world of Dromund Kaas, a world that, like Korriban and Malachor V, was located within the boundaries of the original Sith Empire. The world was covered in bogs and swamps, and was filled with hostile native life transplanted there from other worlds, including dianogas, swamp-adapted sub-species of wampas, and vornskyrs. On this hostile and foreboding world, he established his own derivative of the Jedi and Sith's Force, which came to be known as the "Dark Force." On this isolated planet, this cult survived for almost 1000 years, diverging from traditional Sith teachings and plumbing the depths of the dark side in many ways. Rumors and isolated reports of a world with a surviving Sith cult slowly filtered out over the centuries, but were never substantiated.
During his tenure as Supreme Chancellor, before becoming Emperor, Palpatine rediscovered this world as the Republic expanded into many parts of the galaxy that were lost or forgotten. Never one to discard a potentially valuable resource, Palpatine quickly turned the Prophets to the service of the true Sith Order. The great Jedi Master Dooku, now a Sith apprentice in Palpatine's thrall, expunged all references to Dromund Kaas from the Jedi Temple Archives. The Dark Force cult became Palpatine's Prophets of the Dark Side, and he instituted as the Prophets' new leader the Dark Jedi Kadann, whom Palpatine had personally selected from the Jedi ranks. Palpatine gave the Prophets what they craved most: power. They had a chance to be more than an isolated cult on a forgotten world; they could work behind the scenes on the galactic stage, ensuring more power for themselves (and their Emperor). Dromund Kaas changed from the home of the Dark Force cult into a training ground for Palpatine's swelling ranks of Dark Side Adepts.
[edit] Supreme Prophet Kadann
Kadann, a fallen Jedi recruited by Lord Darth Sidious (the Sith alterego of Chancellor Palpatine), was the Supreme Prophet of the Dark Side. He was a small man, a dwarf with a black beard, who dressed in dark robes that appeared to show the inky, starry depths of space itself. Originally a Jedi Knight during the Clone Wars, Kadann had a gift for seeing the future, and an affinity for the dark side. Kadann had many disturbing visions of the future, foreseeing the Jedi Purge and the rise of the Sith to power in the galaxy. A talented scholar and philosopher, Kadann also had many philosophical problems with the Jedi Code, and eventually decided that to truly master the Force, one must also understand how to use the dark side in addition to the light. He began traveling the galaxy, carrying out curious experiments, and meditating. The Force opened up to him in these meditations, and showed him many things; in the words of Yoda, "Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future . . . the past. Old friends long gone . . ." Kadann was conflicted by his visions—he saw the things that the path of the dark side could offer him, with the coming rise of the Empire. Eventually, before Palpatine crowned himself Emperor, Kadann was visited by Darth Sidious, and after a long discussion on the true nature of the Force, Kadann understood that his place was at Palpatine's side, as a servant in the approaching New Order. Granted the title "Supreme Prophet" by Palpatine upon the founding of the Galactic Empire, he was placed in control of the Prophets of the Dark Side.
Kadann's gift for prophecy was in some ways a curse, as, much like Cassandra, he sometimes could not convince others of the accurate prophecies he saw. When Palpatine was departing for Endor to oversee the completion of the second Death Star and the final destruction of the Rebel Alliance, Kadann foresaw the Emperor's death and the eventual collapse of the Empire, and tried to warn his Emperor. Palpatine dismissed the warnings, either having seen nothing like that in his own meditations on the future, having too much confidence in his clones, or having refused to accept any possibility beyond the corruption of Luke Skywalker and naval victory. As Palpatine left for Endor (and his death), Kadann gathered together the Prophets of the Dark Side and fled Coruscant, knowing that without its Emperor, the Empire would fall into civil war and the Prophets would quickly fall victim to one faction or another. Since that time, the true Prophets have yet to make their presence known.
[edit] Azrakel the Dark Warrior
One of Kadann's projects was the training of Azrakel the Dark Warrior. This project was begun by Palpatine as an experiment in creating the ultimate Dark Jedi warrior, a project that Kadann assisted with. Palpatine and Kadann tormented and tortured the young man to try and break his will. When Azrakel demonstrated far more endurance against these cruel experiments than Palpatine had expected, the project was abandoned. Kadann, however, decided to complete the experiments in private. He rehabilitated the broken man, and realized that his mind had been virtually wiped blank by Palpatine's Sith techniques, leaving Azrakel with only anger and hate. With a healthy body, a blank mind, a black soul composed only of hatred, and talent in the Force, Azrakel was trained to be a secret weapon, a martial arm of the Prophets of the Dark Side who reported only to Kadann, and to direct his hatred at Darth Vader and Palpatine himself (in case Kadann ever wanted to make a play for power and overthrow them, he wanted to have a secret weapon). With Kadann's disappearance and Palpatine's first death at the time of the Battle of Endor, Azrakel severed his ties to the Prophets and the Empire, concealed his talents in the Force, and, wielding a double-bladed lightsaber, became a mercenary, selling his formidable skills to the highest bidder. With his master missing and the Emperor and Darth Vader dead, Azrakel directed all of his hatred toward Vader's son, Luke Skywalker, and vowed to kill him one day. About a year after the Battle of Endor, Azrakel led Grand Admiral Afsheen Makati to the Prophets' new headquarters: Space Station Scardia in the Null Zone. Makati's fleet destroyed the station, killing all the Prophets aboard, as well as Imperial Intelligence's Kadann imposter.
[edit] High Prophet Jedgar
Jedgar, the true High Prophet of the Dark Side, was Kadann's apprentice and second-in-command. A tall, bearded, bald man, Jedgar had, as was common with Force-sensitive children in the last years of the Republic, been taken in infancy to study at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Like his superior, Kadann, he also suffered from dark dreams that often turned true, and he too had visions of the coming Clone Wars and Jedi Purge. However, his predictions went unheeded, and he could find no Jedi Knight to take him as a Padawan. When he turned thirteen, he was assigned to the Agri-Corps for a life as a menial civil servant, farming and tending to crops. Horrified at the prospect, he fled from the Jedi and sought out the dark side of the Force, believing that the Jedi had turned their back on him. His visions led him to Kadann, already in the service of Darth Sidious and preparing for the Jedi Purge. Jedgar became the apprentice of Kadann, and together they administered the Prophets of the Dark Side, with Jedgar serving as Kadann's bodyguard and majordomo. Jedgar was one of two specific Prophets of the Dark Side whom Imperial Intelligence would select impostors to impersonate, founding the Church of the Dark Side at the behest of Imperial Grand Vizier Sate Pestage.
[edit] The Emperor's Secret Order
Palpatine's Prophets composed a distinct sub-group of shadowy Secret Order. On some warships of the Imperial Navy, these cloaked figures maintained a quiet presence. With the backing of Emperor Palpatine, they sought out skilled members of the Imperial armed forces to serve the Emperor in a more direct capacity. The Secret Order recruited some of these into their own ranks, when they found Force-sensitive members of the Imperial military. One of the most talented and skilled of these recruits was Maarek Stele, who was turned over to the Emperor himself to become an Emperor's Hand secret agent, much like Mara Jade and Shira Brie, who were not members of the Secret Order.
[edit] Ranks of the Secret Order
The Emperor's Secret Order of Prophets of the Dark Side was a hierarchical organization composed of the following ranks, listed here in ascending order.
- Sithspawn
- Examples: Azrakel, Gorc, Picaroon C. Boodle
- First Initiate
- Second Circle
- Third Circle
- Fourth Circle
- Inner Circle
- Emperor's Hand
- (NOTE: This rank is a completely separate and distinct position from the title of Emperor's Hand which belonged to such Imperial agents as Mara Jade.)
- Emperor's Eyes
- Emperor's Voice
- Emperor's Reach
- Example: Maarek Stele
- Lesser Prophet
- High Prophet
- Examples: Jedgar, Tremayne
- Supreme Prophet
- Examples: Darth Millennial, Kadann
[edit] The False Prophets
Palpatine never planned to die, and thus the mighty Galactic Empire had no formal provisions for what should happen in the event of his death. In the aftermath of the death of the Emperor at Endor, the power vacuum created lead to various figures well placed within the Empire jockeying for position. Each one trying to gain some semblance of legitimacy. The actual Prophets of the Dark Side had fled the galactic political scene, but that did not stop some factions of the Empire from trying to claim the support of the Prophets of the Dark Side.
One major faction was the Central Committee of Grand Moffs, an alliance of Grand Moffs who intended to rule the galaxy as a coalition. In their attempts to wrest power away from the Emperor's Grand Vizier Sate Pestage (Palpatine's de-facto successor, as the Empire's Head of government) and Ysanne Isard (the Director of Imperial Intelligence, who had the loyalty of much of the military), the Central Committee planned to curry favor with the other factions by making it appear that the late Emperor's own Secret Order supported them. Publicly, the Emperor always disclaimed any belief in the Force, and encouraged the public to disbelieve in mysticism and sorcery, but most of the higher-ranking members of the military and government knew that the Emperor had some skill in the Force and had Force-using servants (although many only knew of Darth Vader). With the actual Prophets unavailable, the Central Committee decided to fake their presence.
By 5 ABY, the Central Committee had proclaimed that Trioculus, the Supreme Slavelord of Kessel, was the rightful heir to the Empire as Palpatine's long-lost son (who, of course, was manipulated by the Central Committee), and supposedly supported by the Prophets of the Dark Side aboard their Space Station Scardia. In reality, these "Prophets" were impostors hired by the Grand Moffs to give them an air of authority. Their "prophecies" were written by the Central Committee, and unveiled with much ceremony and ritual by these false Prophets. The accuracy of these predictions was ensured by secret machinations of the Central Committee. Operating out of Space Station Scardia in the Null Zone, the false Prophets traveled the galaxy, frightening the disloyal and attempting to create an aura of awe and fear of the Empire. The false Prophets couldn't actually predict the future, so they would give the prediction the Central Committee told them to give, and agents, spies and saboteurs in the service of the Central Committee made the "prophecies" come true, giving these impostors the illusion of foresight. It was intended that once their credibility was well established, they would strongly back Trioculus's claim to the Emperor's throne, and with it the power of the Central Committee, although they were thwarted by the efforts of Luke Skywalker and the Jedi Prince Ken. Some of the Imperial forces rallied behind Trioculus, the false Prophets, and the Central Committee, but most forces stayed loyal to Ysanne Isard for the time.
Eventually, the false Prophets of Scardia betrayed their former supporters and tried to claim power for themselves. Seeing Trioculus thwarted by the Rebel Alliance in his aspirations for control of the Empire, the pseudo-Kadann formally withdrew his recognition of the "Son of Palpatine," and turned his attention to undermining the authority of the Central Committee. He staged an elaborate show trial in which Moffs Hissa, Muzzer, Thistleborn, and Dunhausen, along with others involved in the plot, were accused of high treason. For their part, the Moffs and especially Hissa declared that they had acted in the best interests of the Empire, questioning the tribunal's authority and calling upon their records of distinguished service in the Galactic Civil War. The outcome of the trial had never been in doubt, however, and upon conviction, the conspirators were given vindictively harsh sentences: most were imprisoned and put to hard labor, while the already-paralyzed Hissa was to be tortured and executed. (Whether these sentences were actually carried out remains in doubt, although the convicted Moffs virtually disappeared from the galactic record following the trial).
Having successfully disposed of Trioculus's main political supporters, "Kadann" became overconfident and proclaimed himself to be the true successor of the Emperor, going so far as to appropriate the glove of Darth Vader for himself as a symbol of his supposed Dark Side power and legitimacy. Although Isard had shown little concern over Trioculus's short-lived bid for power, she could not ignore this new challenge to her regime, and promptly dispatched a task force under Grand Admiral Makati to deal with the latest would-be usurper. When the fleet arrived in the Null Zone, led there by the true Kadann's former pupil, Azrakel, they found Scardia in chaos: most of the leading Prophets had been sent on a disastrous expedition in search of the fabled Lost City of the Jedi on Yavin 4, from which "Kadann" had barely escaped. In this state of near-anarchy, the remaining false Prophets could offer little resistance to the waves of stormtroopers that invaded their sanctuary, and were swiftly slaughtered. Upon his return to the Null Zone a short time later, "Kadann" himself fell victim to Makati's turbolaser batteries, and Scardia was destroyed in the onslaught.
The true Prophets of the Dark Side were quite aware of the trickery being performed, and chose not to reveal their presence or expose the frauds, letting their plans fail by themselves.
[edit] Byss and the Dark Side Adepts
Since early in his reign, Palpatine had a dream of establishing a galactic government without a need for a vast fleet, and without a need for super-weapons. His ideal was to create a government of the dark side, where citizens obeyed because they were controlled to obey by the Force, and where all those strong in the Force served him through the dark side. He slowly worked on a prototype of this model at the planet Byss in the Deep Core over a course of many years, with many of his Dark Side Adepts, Force-sensitives who used the Prophets' home world of Dromund Kaas. Gwellib Ap-Llewff and Savuud Thimram were two of his Dark Side Adepts who resided on Byss helping his plan come to fruition. Under this plan, the Skywalker blood-line would be the new nobility, while the Dark Side Adepts would be courtiers and minor nobles, helping their immortal Emperor rule the galaxy. After the Emperor's death, many of the adepts fled to Byss, to seek refuge from the civil wars tearing the Empire apart.
The Dark Side Adepts on Byss also were responsible for many of Palpatine's more "routine" work in the dark side. Trained alchemists using ancient Sith techniques prepared strange poisons and serums for the use of Imperial Intelligence and even Darth Vader himself, and followed their master's instructions to create the Imperial Sentinels, giant mute warriors who acted as imposing guards throughout Byss.
Betrayal has always been a hallmark of the dark side. Palpatine's first death at the hands of Darth Vader was followed by another death from his own ranks. Two of his Dark Side Adepts had betrayed him while he was recuperating from another death aboard the Super Star Destroyer Eclipse. A conspiracy within the Dark Side Adepts led to the sabotage of Palpatine's cloning facilities, greatly limiting his ability to be reborn after death. This forced Palpatine to seek out a new host body, and the unborn child of Han and Leia Solo, Anakin, was his intended target. This placed him once again in direct confrontation with Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa Solo in a final battle he would not survive. As he died, Byss died with him as the Galaxy Gun superweapon misfired and its awesome firepower engulfed the dark world. When Byss was destroyed all the Dark Side Adepts on the planet, which made up the majority of their numbers, were instantly killed.
Most of the Prophets of the Dark Side who had gone into hiding after the Battle of Endor retreated to their training world of Dromund Kaas, although they fared no better. Kyle Katarn and Mara Jade encountered the planet at roughly the time of the Emperor's rebirth, and destroyed the enclave of the Prophets of the Dark Side on that world as well. With Byss utterly annihilated and their training grounds purged, no members of the Prophets of the Dark Side are known to have escaped the events of the year 10 ABY. If any did, they have not made themselves known to the galaxy at large.
[edit] The Emperor's Other Servants
The Prophets of the Dark Side were the largest and central body of the Emperor's Force-using servants, but not everyone who called Palpatine "Master" was a member of their order (although, the story of Maarek Stele seems to indicate that it was from the Prophets that these other bodies were sometimes recruited from). Besides his own personal apprentice in the ways of the Sith, Darth Vader, the Emperor also had the Inquisitorius, a secret arm of Imperial Intelligence that was composed of Dark Jedi who pledged their service to him in exchange for their own lives, as they helped him hunt down and turn or destroy the remaining Jedi in the galaxy. He also had his "Emperor's Hands," those servants who acted as his eyes and ears throughout the Empire, reporting only to him, with no formal title or rank, their very existence as servants known only to a handful of his closest confidants, such as Grand Admiral Thrawn. Lastly, he even had the Imperial Royal Guard who were recruited from the stormtrooper corps because of their strength, size, intelligence, and Force-sensitivity. After Palpatine's resurrection, his primary Force-wielding minions were the Imperial Sentinels, the Imperial Royal Guard, a variety of Dark Side Adepts, and a cadre of seven Dark Jedi who were little more than extensions of the Emperor's will, and were called the "Dark Side Elite."
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Slavicsek, Bill & Wiker, JD (2001). The Dark Side Sourcebook. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast. ISBN 0-7869-1849-7.
- Anderson, Kevin J. (2000). Star Wars: The Essential Chronology. New York, NY: Ballantine Publishing Group. ISBN 0-345-43439-0.
- Horne, Michael Allen (1993). The Dark Empire Sourcebook. Publisher=Honesdale, PA: West End Games. ISBN 0-874314-194-2.
- Davids, Paul & Hollace (1993). Prophets of the Dark Side. New York, NY: Ballantine Publishing Group. ISBN 0-553-15892-9.
- Pena, Abel G., Schwartz, Juan & Hidalgo, Pablo (August/September 2001). "The Emperor's Pawns". Star Wars Gamer 6: 44–51.
