In 1977, producer/director George Lucas gave us the Star Wars trilogy and changed the way we looked at movies. He also changed the way we looked at villains, didn’t he?
Let’s be honest. Star Wars has some of the best bad guys ever. Come on. We know the Jedi are strong, powerful, and able to use the force, but we’d much rather be Darth Vader than that scrawny wimp Luke. (I’m not the only one, am I?) The Star Wars villains are big and bad. Slaughtering millions at one time, killing their masters, even formulating a weapon that can destroy an entire planet. These guys mean business. Wherever there is light, the forces of dark will always arise to challenge that light. Across the galaxy of Star Wars, the Sith emerge boldly.
“Only two there are, no more no less, a Master and an Apprentice.” Just two against a host of Jedi? Obviously, these guys are either really strong or really stupid. Star Wars history demonstrates the former. Who’s the most powerful Sith who ever lived? That’s the question I want to answer here.
Before I can do that, I have to lay some groundwork. When we hear the word “sith,” we instantly think of a Dark Lord, like Vader, Sidious, Revan, Malak, or any one of the nearly hundreds. But the term does not apply to just any Dark Jedi. Originally, the Sith were a race of people who were incredibly sensitive to the Force. A group of Dark Jedi settled on their world and intermingled with them. Thus, the race died, and the Dark Jedi gained their Force-sensitive nature. After this, the term “Sith” began to mean one who applied himself to the ancient philosophies of that race, specifically the lust for great power, and the willingness to do anything to obtain it.
I also need to establish which elements I used to come to my conclusion. To some degree, the Sith we see in the movies, especially, look pretty much the same. They have the same Force abilities as the Jedi: mind tricks, lifting objects with their minds, shooting lightning from their hands, and wielding those wicked-cool red lightsabers. It would also seem an insult to name any of these individuals as the most powerful, since their powers are mostly identical. So I took it a step further. Not only does the individual need to a be true Sith (i. e. a named Lord like Vader, Tyrannus, Sidious, or Maul), the individual has to exhibit an unusual abilitiy, power, or element not seen in others. Galactic history is filled with candidates, and I will discuss a few of them.
Granted, this list is in no way a complete list of all Sith, or even of all notable, powerful Sith. These are just the most likely candidates as far as I’m concerned. Without further ado, let’s get into it.
Back in time to the era of the Great Hyperspace War, roughly 5,000 years before the events of Episode IV, Naga Sadow emerged as the Dark Lord to take the place of the fallen Marka Ragnos (himself a powerful Sith). It appears that at this time, the practice of Sith Lords naming themselves “Darth” had not yet emerged. Nevertheless, Sadow was crowned the successor of Ragnos’s lineage, after a brutal battle with rival Ludo Kreesh. Sadow exhibited the usual Force abilities, even the usual Dark Lord abilities. He stood above the rest with his mastery of Sith sorcery. He delved into teachings long forgotten, and in some cases forbidden – yes, even for the Sith.
Sadow demonstrated the ability to create complex illusions throughout the Galaxy. At one time, he envisioned multiple platoons of Sith troops on multiple worlds, each real enough to provoke legitimate military action.
Sadow is also one of a few Sith Lords to attempt to manipulate stellar activity. Twice, he used this abilitiy to escape from Republic forces, destroying stars in his wake.
Did you get that? The ability to dismantle a star! Not too shabby. Well, some have criticised this particular attribute of Lord Sadow’s, since he may have drawn heavily from a Sith crystal on board his ship. Regardless, he’s a strong contender for the title.
Nihilus
I absolutely love the Knights of the Old Republic series. There were just so many amazing characters there. In the first game, we meet Revan, a Dark Lord who turned back to the Light, Bastilla, a faithful Jedi and Revan’s love interest (yes, it’s official, regardless of how you ended the game), and Darth Malak, the vengeful apprentice with a wicked jaw. The sequel introduced a Sith Triumvirate, and were they ever amazing!
Darth Nihilus appears in the second game, and he unites the remnants of Revan’s and Malak’s brethren. He wreaks havoc on the Republic, and the hero, Revan, is nowhere to be found. Nihilus styled himself the Lord of Hunger, and used the power of hunger as one of his unique abilties. He used the power of hunger to strip life from bodies and feed upon the death it caused, earning his name well. The power made him stronger, but only for a time.
Eventually, his body succumed to the hunger he used and gave up. Lord Nihilus overcame this by ripping his own spirit out of his body. He actually turned his power of hunger upon himself! He encased his spirit in his battle armor, thus cheating death. Darth Krayt would eventually learn of this through Nihilus’s holocron and duplicate the ability.
Sion
Sion is one of only few apprentices I considered for this title. Why? Well, he was the apprentice of the above Lord, Nihilus. Certainly, he had a great deal of power to reach that status. Sion called himself the Lord of Pain, a title he well deserved. He mastered the arts of pain and used the Dark Side to hold his body together, long after it had begun to decay. Whenever struck down, he would would call upon the forces of pain within him to revive himself, thus cheating death a little while. This earned him a spot on this list.
Jumping forward quite a bit, I can’t really say too much about this guy. It’s not because he wasn’t notable. On the contrary, he was a main factor in one of many Sith civil wars, in fact the most recent to the times of the films. He was a contemporary of Darth Bane, and the two fought for control of the Sith. This was nearly 1,000 years before the events of Episode I. This was the event that left the Sith extinct, or at least that was the belief, for nearly a millennium.
He earned his place on this list for a special ability he exhibited only once. Only once, because he could only do it once. Kaan was the last person in Galactic History to produce a Thought Bomb. This ability was one of the most destructive applications of Dark Side energy. It sought out the nearby Force-sensitives and vaporized them whole: body and clothes. The Bomb also sucked the souls of its victim into a sphere of Dark Side energy, trapping them until the end of time.
This ability earned Kaan a place in contention, but cost him his life, as well as the lives of his forces and supposedly every Sith on Ruusan. This led the Jedi to believe the Sith had died out.
Bane
But someone survived the Seventh Battle of Ruusan. Bane picked up the pieces of the Sith left behind at the destruction of Ruusan. He hid himself and his followers from the Jedi, living in seclusion. Yet still, they sought the Darkness. Bane instituted the Rule of Two, that only two Sith could exist in the Galaxy at a single time, a Master and an Apprentice. This Rule had been implemented to some degree by Sith Lords of the past, but never rigorously held to.
It was Bane who made the practice famous, and it was this rule only that makes him a contender, if even a minor one, for that title.
Maul
The only other apprentice to appear on this list. I only included Maul for one reason: he demonstrated an uncanny loyalty to the Dark Side. Sith Lords of old often tattooed themselves with markings of the Order. At the time of Episode I, the Sith were thought extinct, and much of the Order had been lost or kept hidden for millennia. Maul decided to bring back the ancient art and submitted himself to the tattooes.
Contrary to popular belief, Maul is not the first Force-sensitive to wield a double-bladed lightsaber. Had he been, I would consider him a stronger contender. As it occurs, Exar Kun was the first to use such a blade. I include Maul only for his devotion to the Dark Side.
Plagueis
I hesitate to mention the Lords in the films. Quite frankly, they’re not all that exciting. Vader is amazing, but it’s mainly the suit and breathing. He doesn’t demonstrate any powers other than the norm. He certainly could have. Anakin is the Chosen One, but his seduction by the Dark Side kept him from realizing his true potential, in my opinion.
Sidious himself was a master of manipulation, but I don’t feel he warrants the awards. He ruled the Galaxy, sure. But he was more politician than Sith Lord. His master, on the other hand, deserves far more merit.
Known to a Muun, Plagueis’s past is shrouded in mystery. It’s unclear how he came to pursue Dark Side teachings, how he trained young Palpatine, and how he came to learn such wells of knowledge about the Force. Plagueis had the uncanny ability to influence the midi-chlorians to create life. This led to the infamous Plagueis Experiment, a demonstration of using the Force to birth an individual into existence. The child produced would be the living embodiment of the Force, and the One to bring Balance, as some speculate. Many believe Plagueis did indeed carry out his experiment before he as murdered by his own apprentice. Perhaps that child became Anakin Skywalker.
That sure is a long list of Dark Lords. After serious consideration, and consulting the Holocrons daily, I have come to one and only decision. I very nearly gave the title to Nihilus, since he’s just so bad. But I simply must give the title to Darth Plagueis. The ability to indirectly create life is one that I cannot pass up, even giving it precedent over ripping up stars and planets. It was this ability that seduced the Chosen One and turned the tide of Galactic History for the Sith.
Now, this can all be argued from many viewpoints. My award is by no means decisive, just a thoughtpiece. There are countless other Sith Lords out there who might make better candidates, and who knows who is awaiting the Jedi in the future. After weighing the evidence, I vote for Plagueis.
