@@MeatbagSlayer When they had the old Sith Empire, constant infighting prevented them from bringing the empire's full might against the Republic and Jedi Order. Always, when the Sith had something good to bring the Republic to its knees, they screw it up with their idiotic infighting. They were morons. The infighting bled so much strength that it eventually let a weakened Republic bounce back and eventually destroy the Sith Empire and nearly completely annihilating the Sith. LOL with guys still trying to hold up that the old Sith were any good! They were idiots! Even when they had an empire they screwed it up repeatedly!
Well, we, as humans, are known to build stuff (say, ancient churches) for at least several decades... only to demolish them in just mere seconds years later.
@@Warmaker01 The old sith empire also lasted for centuries longer than palpatine's though and despite the infighitng had multiple successions of power before being brought down. So objectively speaking their problems weren't quite as serious as palpatines when you take the long view of history.
It’s also possible that the Rule prevented the Sith from gaining galactic power in the first place. The Brotherhood had a decent chance of beating the Army of Light, but along came Bane professing his way of backstabbing was better than everyone else’s way of backstabbing, and that was it. Very Fukuyama-esque.
Well it’s a simplification of the whole process. You’re not going to stop the reality that the sith are going to take eachother out eventually. But instead of politics and secret alliances and dividing up power you have a straightforward power dynamic
I'm glad someone mentioned this. Way too many people mindlessly accept Rule of Two. Imo Kaan did nothing wrong and was close to winning. Also "decent chance" is understating it. Lord Hoth, general of the army of light, was fighting a losing battle and all but accepted his death in the middle of a battle until republic ships were able to enter Ruusan and win the war due to Bane's f**kery.
@@michaelandreipalon359 Essentially, that no other Sith ideology could surpass his own in the immediate or long term and that all future Sith would adhere to his Rule of Two, not because he or his successors would make them do so, but because no other system the Sith could devise or settle on would ever deliver for them their ultimate goal, that of defeating the Jedi and, secondly, ruling the galaxy.
Took 'em a thousand years of creeping and plotting to manage a worse, shorter-lived version of previous Sith Empires and Jedi Purges Darth Bane's plan was stupid and I'll die on that hill
@@seawind930 Force sensitive children can be found just about everywhere. Heck, even Finn and possibly Poe are possibly Force-sensitive. Knowing that Rey is clearly on the Light Side, she wouldn’t try to resurrect the Sith but instead rebuild the Jedi Order.
The Rule of Two insured that the Sith were in a constant state of being "almost destroyed". If your entire organization can be taken out by a car accident, it isn't doing well.
I have argued for a long time that the Sith are all inherently flawed and doomed to failure. The whole idea of killing your master to take his power is flawed.
I mean realistically....they destroy themselves far more often than others destroy them. The most successful ones have ironically been the ones that drifted the most from sith ideology.
Yet it worked. Yet Bane overlooked that while the Rule of Two conquered, it failed to instruct on how to maintain the power after fulfilling the Grand Plan.
Is it an in-universe trope that a Sith apprentice will ALWAYS betray their master, or is that just a meta-trope? The "Skaven Game Plan" of simply outnumbering everyone else -- and thus diluting the risk that _you personally_ will get betrayed -- is obviously the superior strategy. Yess yess my scheme-plan is unstopable-inevitable!
At this point it may as well be, supposedly the Dark side is about being an Angry, selfish baby who wants everything for themselves so they may as well be a looney tunes skit
@@seawind930 I'm pretty cool with the idea that Light vs Dark =/= Good vs Evil The Light enact the will of the Force - for better or worse The Dark enacts its will upon the Force - also for better or worse
Also, the Rule of Two seems to be uncessarily dangerous because you need one good accident by noones fault and the whole thing comes crashing down. Random hyperspace misjump? No more Sith. Exploring an ancient ruin and running into a cave in because that ruin is who knows how old? No more Sith. Stepping on a Space-Lego and tumbling down the stairs, breaking the neck? No more Sith!
Inhaled too many space cigarettes before your apprentice was ready? No more Sith. Tripped in the shower and cracked your skull open? No more Sith. Eat some poorly made Fugu? No more Sith.
The old Sith had an actual empire and military. Infighting weakened it, the Republic got itself together and BAM. No more Sith Empire. The Sith themselves were almost completely destroyed. The Rule of Two came up in this era. Because you know. The Sith had ruined it for themselves prior.
Not trying to start an argument, but, as Plagueis is one of my favorite books, I believe that Plagueis didn't cause the gas explosion himself to kill Tenebrous. If I remember correctly, the 2 of them were overseeing cortosis mining operations on Bal'demnic and the explosion was the result of an excavator droid (that was sabatoged by rivals to Plagueis' company) purposefully drilling into a pocket of combustible gas. My interpretation of the book was more along the lines that Plagueis took advantage of the situation, and felt that is was preordained by the Force, as he noticed Tenebrous was showing signs of fear and thus figured he was also experiencing warnings from the Force of being in danger. Again not wanting to start an argument, just putting out my interpretation of the novel.
Plagueis went out of his way to make sure Tenebrous understood Plagueis had manufactured the situation while Tenebrous was dying. He had been about to warn Plagueis about Venamis (or at least that's what Plagueis later decided he had been about to do) until Plagueis made that clear.
That is actually false. I listen to the beginning part of that novel, so many times. It was a rival company called subtext mining that sabotage the mining droid. Which caused the explosion. And Darth Plagueis, took advantage of the explosion and the falling rocks above to crash down on his master killing him.
That is true, but it was more so towards his master Tenabris. The company was called subtext mining. I’ve listened to the audiobook 20 billion times. Especially the beginning part.
Okay, that's fine. They don't need a continual lineage, but that should also mean there could be 50 different "lone Sith" wandering around at any given time.
@@Stop_Gooning To be fair, there's a lot of odd Sith remnants in the EU. The black guard, the Jensarai, the Lost Tribe, the Believers, those assassins, any number of fallen Jedi stumbling upon Sith artifacts. There's maybe half a dozen Sith factions during the Clone Wars.
The Dark Side will inevitably cause the thing the user doesn't want. That's the theme of Star Wars. Everyone who embraces the Dark Side ends up causing or becoming the very thing they don't want the most. Anakin killed his wife. Jacen became the Dark Man. Luke became his father. Every Sith obsessed with their own power, was undone by their pursuit of yet more power, dying powerless.
@@heavyarms55 I would respectfully describe the theme more that the Dark Side is "Destructive and all-consuming" than that it leads specifically to the one thing the user doesn't want. It often *feels* like that, because that's dramatic, and everyone has things they love enough to want to preserve, which The Dark Side has no patience for. When you play games with the embodiment of cosmic evil and destruction, there tends to be collateral damage, especially among those you're closest to.
@@heavyarms55 Except those that turn away from it, like Luke. You kinda see this in that game The Old Republic, where the sith characters are able to, without ever becoming anything like the Jedi, turn away from the dark side and embrace sanity and a more balanced way of thinking than the sith dogma. These sith characters reject the dark side of the force because they recognize that it is the rot that is killing the Empire. Ultimately, all the Dark Side really is, is just... malignant patterns of thought, echoed back by a vast energy field that gives you back nothing but what you put into it. But the problem of the Jedi is that reversed stupidity is not intelligence.
The Sith cannot exist without the dark side. You can't take control of the force for your own aims without tapping into the dark side and their entire philosophy is doing exactly that. The dark side and by extension the sith is a destructive cannibalizing force that will always burn itself out.
The choice is between a civilization that lasted continuously from the Exiles in 6,900 bby to some point in the 3,000s bby via the Old Empire, then Vitiate’s Empire. Compare that to Bane - a thousand years of schemes, twenty odd years of power
The old sith empires were full of infighting. Its why the empire of the exiles never expanded past their sector and when they did they were immediately destroyed. Its why the second the "true" sith empire has peace with the republic it began cannibalizing itself and lost the majority of its best and brightest from backstabbing before just dissolving altogether. The banite sith did the one thing none before them had which was achieve total galactic dominance. Short lived but impressive and uniquely successful nonetheless
@@Nihoolious The original sith empire was limited by lack of hyperspace tech and defeated the rakata. Naga sadow crushed the infighting and dissent before he attacked the republic and failed anyway because it was a poorly thought out raid that relied on him blowing up some suns to make up for sheer numbers. The true sith empire has no official reason for their dissolution in legends yet so you're actively making that up, rather the better criticism would be that bioware had no idea how to end their own story because the empire's more united than ever currently unless they write something major with malgus in the next few years. The value of spreading your dominance wide but falling apart in a single generation is questionable when it didn't even survive for palpatine's own lifetime or produce a stable succession of power. Even the death star itself is kind of questionable in value when sadow and exar kun were turning stars supernova with the force to ruin whole systems anyway.
I thought that th3 mine was already collapsing, and Plagius just moved an already falling rock onto Tenebrous. The whole mine was a trap meant to kill Tenebrous's cibilian persona due to some shaddy business stuff.
That is correct. The company that sabotage the mining droid was called subtext mining. He got that information wrong. I’ve listened to that audiobook 20 billion times and know it like the back of my hand.
Yes, the small numbers of two Sith at one time, particularly upon the killing of the master by the apprentice. Left the order vulnerable to destruction of said lone Sith Lord is killed before he finds an apprentices
One issue i had with the Rule of two was that unless the master took steps to record everything they knew on top of all the other knowledge they had gathered, the Banite Sith would inevitable always lose knowledge over time would and would be weaker for it, and then you get Masters like Gravid who decided to go scorched earth with it.
But the pre-bane era, there were sith empires that lasted for centuries. Well bane descendants took 1000 years of work for a 20 year reign. I will give Palpatine credit though. He did destroy the Republic and the Jedi order which were their goals.
"Plagueis understood. He would never have been one to lay in wait or devote his reign merely to positioning a subsequent Sith Lord for success." I'd argue that neither did any other Sith Lord from Darth Banes Dynasty. The problem I have with the grand plan is that the concept just sounds way too shaky for Dark Siders to realisticly pull of. Most Sith and Dark Side users are either power hungry selfish maniacs from the start or they become that way once the dark side inevitably corrupts them.
Jedi weren't much better. Often the Jedi and Republic's worst enemies were former members of the Jedi Order. The first Sith was a former Jedi Master. The man that betrayed the Republic and Jedi Order, leading to their destruction or reformation of the Republic->Galactic Empire was once a Jedi Knight. And everyone else in between. The Jedi and Sith are the circus show of the galaxy, but everyone else living in it has to endure the destruction as they play their little games.
I never like this so if I was a Sith Lord I’m going to train someone who hopefully wants to master the dark side of the force but also has to kill me if they want to be Master how does that make sense.
He is bafflingly naive and selfless at times for being a corrupt capitalist, an evil scientist and a would be tyrant. Like he genuinely believed in his own propaganda, while Sideous valued power for power's sake and cared for little else.
I've said the rule of two is good for gaining power but keeping it is when it runs into problems. What happens when the two sith lords are in the same place at the same time and both are killed like Sidious and Vader. I was debating this specifically over Darth Krayts one sith while the idea I get I think he should have still had one as his specific successor like Wyyrlock
1000 years of work wasted in 20 years, sidious is solely responsible for that catasthrope. If he had found a better less problematic apprentice and accepted that at the end of the day he was not master forever, the sith rule would still continue. the whole point of the rule of the two was that one would get stronger, kill the other then became master and each generation sith would get stronger and stronger
I was going to comment about the Rule of Two on your Plagueis video, but it got a bit off-topic. A lot of people seem to view the Rule of Two as some divinely-inspired, word-of-god ultimate truth of the Dark Side when it's literally just some guy's idea. Bane himself sees its failings and betrays it within his own lifetime and we see a bunch of other interpretations of the true meaning of the Dark Side. Bane's philosophy was a direct reaction to the failings he saw in the Sith of his time, believing that the Dark Side was about personal power and that the multitudes of Sith were diluting that through the generations. He had a naïve ideal of masters sharing knowledge with their apprentices to cultivate a lineage of more and more powerful individual Sith. He failed to recognise that his ideology required such cooperation and working for a shared goal while also requiring perfectly self-interested backstabbers - it was incompatible with itself, thus he tries to supplant it with a Rule-of-One essence-transfer system. By the time we get to Sidious, the Rule of Two has demonstrably failed. His "Once more Sith will rule the galaxy and we will have peace" line isn't a lie and it flies directly in the face of the Sith code of Bane's era - "Peace is a lie, there is only passion [...]". Furthermore, the greatest triumph of the Sith - the destruction of the Jedi - was carried out by Vader, a man whose power wasn't a product of the Rule of Two's generational improvements.
That is not a fair characterization of what Bane is doing with essence transfer imo. He only did it because he didn't want Zannah to win due to time wearing him down. He even says he'd ordinarily be proud if it wasn't in this specific instance. To his last breath in his duel with Zannah, he seemed to believe in his rule, and had he beaten Zannah and taken the body, he was prepared to train Cognus in the hopes of being defeated by her. Zannah even acknowledges the essence transfer was not a real violation of the rule of 2. Palpatine was a failure as a master overall, though, as he got Darth Maul killed and failed to fully get Vader to commit to the dark side.
@@disappointedviewerh7303 I'd argue that Bane and Zannah are pretty biased narrators. Bane has destroyed everything around him in service to the rule of 2, how could he possibly admit to it being a failure? Likewise with Zannah - Bane being the embodiment of knowledge and power has been the only constant of her life. She was effectively groomed into Bane's cult, into wanting to be him. The sunk cost of their beliefs is so high that recognising the fallacy would destroy them. I have no doubt that Bane would have trained Cognus if he'd won the essence transfer. But he'd have 2 lifetimes under his belt at that point - how could Cognus ever compare? He'd have to essence transfer again or accept being killed by a weaker apprentice. He'd probably keep believing in the rule of 2 even after that, treating each new apprentice as the one-off exception that needs essence transfer, but the next one will be an honest fight, I promise.
Vader wasn't really a Sith in practice, just a fallen Jedi. He never cared about Sith doctrine, Sith history, Sith sorcery. All he cared about was saving his family, and failing that, he would see the world burn.
Another point, wasn't the Rule of Two broken by every single Sith from Bane and afterwards? Tenebrous had two apprentices. Plagueis wanted to see it abolished, Sideous had Maul whilst an apprentice. Sideous even had soooo many darksiders serving him while having Vader as an apprentice. And both of them had secret apprentices. It is how we eventually got Darth Caedus.
They're all idiots. Even the stupid Jedi. The Sith were always their own worst enemy. Even when they had that old Sith Empire they were always playing stupid games with each other, wasting the empire's strength. The infighting and stupidity made it possible for the Republic to destroy the Sith Empire and drive the Sith into an apocalypse, forcing them to adopt the Rule of Two. At least the Sith under the Rule of Two not only *FINALLY* defeat the Republic, but formed the Galactic Empire from it while also destroying the Jedi Order. Things prior Sith completely failed to do. This is also a chance to throw some barbs at the Jedi, too. Like the Sith, the Jedi are often their own worst enemy. Many of the worst menaces the Republic has had to deal with were due to former Jedi. And when the Republic was prospering, the Jedi got lax and lazy while basking in the sunlight. Does anyone still remember the smugness of the Jedi in The Phantom Menace? How sure they were? Both the Sith and Jedi teachings go for such polar opposite ideals that are simply unsustainable. The Jedi want emotionless robots, not living beings, leading to disaster. The Sith will destroy each other. It's their way. Honestly? When you sit back and look at the entire picture it's quite comedic how the Jedi and Sith run around the galaxy thinking they're both the right ones, but ruin everything in the process. Everyone else is in for a destructive, wild ride.
That's the sad thing about being a Sith. For all their talk about all-around freedom and being open to their selves, they sure are always foundered by rules and regulations so to control their annoying excesses, while the Jedi, who are otherwise focused on strictness and limitations, are somehow more free, joyous, well recorded, and thus publicly appreciated (even when grudgingly in occasion) in comparison. I wonder, though, if Darth Gravid was at least brought to the Force equivalent of Heaven (look up the Supernatural Encounters novella) due to having "points for trying". Would be too mean, him going to Chaos, the Force equivalent of Hell, after all that.
The Sith really are slaves chained to their own impulses, doctrines and bad habits. It is ironic. They never take the final step to free themselves from being Sith, or from the machinations of the Force. The closest I know of are Revan, Kreia and Caedus. Ruin thought he done it, but he was just delusional.
Darth Bane was successful....Im convinced and I still stand by that. Palpatine most likely mostly transferred to vader but lost his connection mid transfer and the lightning going down the shaft was actually his essence releasing.
A good idea would have been showing The Acolyte from Manny's POV as he's manipulated by Plagueis and also trying to be subtle about training the twins. Like you know, actually showing us how the Rule of Two works and the dynamic of it. I say twins because they are one person split apart which could be an interesting twist on the whole rule of two. They're technically one person, so he could be master of both and still be rule of two and that's how he could take down Plagueis who canonically doesn't have to be Sidious's master. Sidious could have been fascinated by research of Plagueis' that he found years after Plagueis was betrayed. They could make Osha/Mae Sheev's Master and that would send the mouthbreathing chuds into a tailspin the likes we haven't seen since...well they're always in a tailspin.
Taking a millennium plotting in secret to run a government for 20 years is objectively hilarious
Right?
At least it makes sense for Palpatine to infiltrate the existing government and rise to power through deceit.
It's just the Sith doing what the Sith do best: Shooting themselves in the foot.
@@MeatbagSlayer When they had the old Sith Empire, constant infighting prevented them from bringing the empire's full might against the Republic and Jedi Order. Always, when the Sith had something good to bring the Republic to its knees, they screw it up with their idiotic infighting.
They were morons.
The infighting bled so much strength that it eventually let a weakened Republic bounce back and eventually destroy the Sith Empire and nearly completely annihilating the Sith.
LOL with guys still trying to hold up that the old Sith were any good! They were idiots! Even when they had an empire they screwed it up repeatedly!
Well, we, as humans, are known to build stuff (say, ancient churches) for at least several decades... only to demolish them in just mere seconds years later.
@@Warmaker01 The old sith empire also lasted for centuries longer than palpatine's though and despite the infighitng had multiple successions of power before being brought down. So objectively speaking their problems weren't quite as serious as palpatines when you take the long view of history.
It’s also possible that the Rule prevented the Sith from gaining galactic power in the first place. The Brotherhood had a decent chance of beating the Army of Light, but along came Bane professing his way of backstabbing was better than everyone else’s way of backstabbing, and that was it. Very Fukuyama-esque.
Well it’s a simplification of the whole process. You’re not going to stop the reality that the sith are going to take eachother out eventually. But instead of politics and secret alliances and dividing up power you have a straightforward power dynamic
And basically an overthrowing of the powers happens naturally when the apprentice can overpower or outsmart his master
I'm glad someone mentioned this. Way too many people mindlessly accept Rule of Two. Imo Kaan did nothing wrong and was close to winning.
Also "decent chance" is understating it. Lord Hoth, general of the army of light, was fighting a losing battle and all but accepted his death in the middle of a battle until republic ships were able to enter Ruusan and win the war due to Bane's f**kery.
How and why Fukuyama?
@@michaelandreipalon359 Essentially, that no other Sith ideology could surpass his own in the immediate or long term and that all future Sith would adhere to his Rule of Two, not because he or his successors would make them do so, but because no other system the Sith could devise or settle on would ever deliver for them their ultimate goal, that of defeating the Jedi and, secondly, ruling the galaxy.
Took 'em a thousand years of creeping and plotting to manage a worse, shorter-lived version of previous Sith Empires and Jedi Purges
Darth Bane's plan was stupid and I'll die on that hill
Well... yes. When Krayt has a point about you being wrong, you must be severely wrong.
Well yeah but all the Jedi are dead and the only living force user is Palpatines granddaughter
@@seawind930 Force sensitive children can be found just about everywhere. Heck, even Finn and possibly Poe are possibly Force-sensitive. Knowing that Rey is clearly on the Light Side, she wouldn’t try to resurrect the Sith but instead rebuild the Jedi Order.
The Rule of Two insured that the Sith were in a constant state of being "almost destroyed". If your entire organization can be taken out by a car accident, it isn't doing well.
I have argued for a long time that the Sith are all inherently flawed and doomed to failure.
The whole idea of killing your master to take his power is flawed.
I mean realistically....they destroy themselves far more often than others destroy them. The most successful ones have ironically been the ones that drifted the most from sith ideology.
@@IrishEyes1994 Exactly, they are inherently flawed as an ideology. The system doesn't work.
The Sith ideology in general is stupid
@@seawind930 Pretty much, it's pretty much "How selfish can I be and screw others over" It's the philosophy of how to be a dick.
Yet it worked. Yet Bane overlooked that while the Rule of Two conquered, it failed to instruct on how to maintain the power after fulfilling the Grand Plan.
Good video!
Plagueis didn't start the explosion. He just took advantage of the distraction.
That is correct. The mining droid was sabotage by a company called subtext mining.
Is it an in-universe trope that a Sith apprentice will ALWAYS betray their master, or is that just a meta-trope?
The "Skaven Game Plan" of simply outnumbering everyone else -- and thus diluting the risk that _you personally_ will get betrayed -- is obviously the superior strategy.
Yess yess my scheme-plan is unstopable-inevitable!
At this point it may as well be, supposedly the Dark side is about being an Angry, selfish baby who wants everything for themselves so they may as well be a looney tunes skit
@@seawind930 I'm pretty cool with the idea that Light vs Dark =/= Good vs Evil
The Light enact the will of the Force - for better or worse
The Dark enacts its will upon the Force - also for better or worse
@@Stop_Gooningthis is a good interpretation of the force.
Also, the Rule of Two seems to be uncessarily dangerous because you need one good accident by noones fault and the whole thing comes crashing down. Random hyperspace misjump? No more Sith. Exploring an ancient ruin and running into a cave in because that ruin is who knows how old? No more Sith. Stepping on a Space-Lego and tumbling down the stairs, breaking the neck? No more Sith!
Inhaled too many space cigarettes before your apprentice was ready? No more Sith. Tripped in the shower and cracked your skull open? No more Sith. Eat some poorly made Fugu? No more Sith.
had your apprentice toss you down a shaft cause said apprentice wanted to save his son? no more sith
Laughing maniacally while walking into traffic. No More Sith!
Accidentally dying while killing your master. *NO MORE SITH!*
The two headband system from Afro Samurai would make way more sense: anybody can challenge the #2 Sith, but only the #2 Sith can challenge the Master.
The old Sith had an actual empire and military. Infighting weakened it, the Republic got itself together and BAM.
No more Sith Empire. The Sith themselves were almost completely destroyed. The Rule of Two came up in this era. Because you know. The Sith had ruined it for themselves prior.
The two headband system from Afro Samurai would make way more sense: anybody can challenge the #2 Sith, but only the #2 Sith can challenge the Master.
The only Rule of Two that truly works is to like and subscribe
Not trying to start an argument, but, as Plagueis is one of my favorite books, I believe that Plagueis didn't cause the gas explosion himself to kill Tenebrous.
If I remember correctly, the 2 of them were overseeing cortosis mining operations on Bal'demnic and the explosion was the result of an excavator droid (that was sabatoged by rivals to Plagueis' company) purposefully drilling into a pocket of combustible gas.
My interpretation of the book was more along the lines that Plagueis took advantage of the situation, and felt that is was preordained by the Force, as he noticed Tenebrous was showing signs of fear and thus figured he was also experiencing warnings from the Force of being in danger.
Again not wanting to start an argument, just putting out my interpretation of the novel.
Plagueis went out of his way to make sure Tenebrous understood Plagueis had manufactured the situation while Tenebrous was dying. He had been about to warn Plagueis about Venamis (or at least that's what Plagueis later decided he had been about to do) until Plagueis made that clear.
That is actually false. I listen to the beginning part of that novel, so many times. It was a rival company called subtext mining that sabotage the mining droid. Which caused the explosion. And Darth Plagueis, took advantage of the explosion and the falling rocks above to crash down on his master killing him.
That is true, but it was more so towards his master Tenabris. The company was called subtext mining. I’ve listened to the audiobook 20 billion times. Especially the beginning part.
To be fair, most sith wouldn't care if the order survived past them
Okay, that's fine.
They don't need a continual lineage, but that should also mean there could be 50 different "lone Sith" wandering around at any given time.
@@Stop_Gooning To be fair, there's a lot of odd Sith remnants in the EU.
The black guard, the Jensarai, the Lost Tribe, the Believers, those assassins, any number of fallen Jedi stumbling upon Sith artifacts.
There's maybe half a dozen Sith factions during the Clone Wars.
Hot take: Darth Gravid had a point.
It's not the rule of two that's a danger to the Sith, it's the Dark Side.
I mean, he was still kinda out of his mind, but he was out of his mind vaguely approaching the right idea.
The Dark Side will inevitably cause the thing the user doesn't want.
That's the theme of Star Wars. Everyone who embraces the Dark Side ends up causing or becoming the very thing they don't want the most.
Anakin killed his wife.
Jacen became the Dark Man.
Luke became his father.
Every Sith obsessed with their own power, was undone by their pursuit of yet more power, dying powerless.
@@heavyarms55 I would respectfully describe the theme more that the Dark Side is "Destructive and all-consuming" than that it leads specifically to the one thing the user doesn't want. It often *feels* like that, because that's dramatic, and everyone has things they love enough to want to preserve, which The Dark Side has no patience for.
When you play games with the embodiment of cosmic evil and destruction, there tends to be collateral damage, especially among those you're closest to.
@@heavyarms55 Except those that turn away from it, like Luke. You kinda see this in that game The Old Republic, where the sith characters are able to, without ever becoming anything like the Jedi, turn away from the dark side and embrace sanity and a more balanced way of thinking than the sith dogma. These sith characters reject the dark side of the force because they recognize that it is the rot that is killing the Empire. Ultimately, all the Dark Side really is, is just... malignant patterns of thought, echoed back by a vast energy field that gives you back nothing but what you put into it. But the problem of the Jedi is that reversed stupidity is not intelligence.
The Sith cannot exist without the dark side. You can't take control of the force for your own aims without tapping into the dark side and their entire philosophy is doing exactly that. The dark side and by extension the sith is a destructive cannibalizing force that will always burn itself out.
The choice is between a civilization that lasted continuously from the Exiles in 6,900 bby to some point in the 3,000s bby via the Old Empire, then Vitiate’s Empire.
Compare that to Bane - a thousand years of schemes, twenty odd years of power
The old sith empires were full of infighting. Its why the empire of the exiles never expanded past their sector and when they did they were immediately destroyed. Its why the second the "true" sith empire has peace with the republic it began cannibalizing itself and lost the majority of its best and brightest from backstabbing before just dissolving altogether.
The banite sith did the one thing none before them had which was achieve total galactic dominance. Short lived but impressive and uniquely successful nonetheless
@@Nihoolious The original sith empire was limited by lack of hyperspace tech and defeated the rakata. Naga sadow crushed the infighting and dissent before he attacked the republic and failed anyway because it was a poorly thought out raid that relied on him blowing up some suns to make up for sheer numbers.
The true sith empire has no official reason for their dissolution in legends yet so you're actively making that up, rather the better criticism would be that bioware had no idea how to end their own story because the empire's more united than ever currently unless they write something major with malgus in the next few years.
The value of spreading your dominance wide but falling apart in a single generation is questionable when it didn't even survive for palpatine's own lifetime or produce a stable succession of power. Even the death star itself is kind of questionable in value when sadow and exar kun were turning stars supernova with the force to ruin whole systems anyway.
The Rule of Two is basically an evil space wizard pyramid scheme
*literally just done with "The Acolyte", opens youtube to check the final thoughs episode and sees this.*
06:39 the sith really said "edging is the path to success"
Honestly, it *should* have doomed it, but the narrative demanded it work. 😂
Wonderful video, Corey!
Loving the recent sith videos. Might be a interesting check out every instance of a Sith trying to achieve immortality for a video
I thought that th3 mine was already collapsing, and Plagius just moved an already falling rock onto Tenebrous. The whole mine was a trap meant to kill Tenebrous's cibilian persona due to some shaddy business stuff.
That is correct. The company that sabotage the mining droid was called subtext mining. He got that information wrong. I’ve listened to that audiobook 20 billion times and know it like the back of my hand.
Had the Two Sith been eliminated, there were still the Lost Tribe Sith, and the Harbinger still out there.
And the ghosts, and the holocrons. Darth Ruin brought about a galactic dark age with a handful of holocrons and a few apprentices.
True but we’re speaking of the Bain lineage
That info is a lot to consider.
Yes, the small numbers of two Sith at one time, particularly upon the killing of the master by the apprentice. Left the order vulnerable to destruction of said lone Sith Lord is killed before he finds an apprentices
One issue i had with the Rule of two was that unless the master took steps to record everything they knew on top of all the other knowledge they had gathered, the Banite Sith would inevitable always lose knowledge over time would and would be weaker for it, and then you get Masters like Gravid who decided to go scorched earth with it.
That's why Sidious's rule of one is better than both rule of two and sith empire
But the pre-bane era, there were sith empires that lasted for centuries. Well bane descendants took 1000 years of work for a 20 year reign. I will give Palpatine credit though. He did destroy the Republic and the Jedi order which were their goals.
"Plagueis understood. He would never have been one to lay in wait or devote his reign merely to positioning a subsequent Sith Lord for success."
I'd argue that neither did any other Sith Lord from Darth Banes Dynasty. The problem I have with the grand plan is that the concept just sounds way too shaky for Dark Siders to realisticly pull of. Most Sith and Dark Side users are either power hungry selfish maniacs from the start or they become that way once the dark side inevitably corrupts them.
That was the point of the quote. The thing Plagueis was understanding was that prior Sith also felt that way.
That is the thing, even before becoming Sith lords, they are the kind of people who would never do anything for anyone else.
Darth Millennial? 😂 brilliant
The reconstituted sith empire had the right idea, well at least after all the reforms.
3:20 S tier joke
Sith happens!
Being a Sith is a bad idea.
Jedi weren't much better. Often the Jedi and Republic's worst enemies were former members of the Jedi Order. The first Sith was a former Jedi Master. The man that betrayed the Republic and Jedi Order, leading to their destruction or reformation of the Republic->Galactic Empire was once a Jedi Knight.
And everyone else in between.
The Jedi and Sith are the circus show of the galaxy, but everyone else living in it has to endure the destruction as they play their little games.
@@Warmaker01Better to have such games than be stuck in mindless, non-progressive entropy. Believe me, unjust peace can be quite overrated.
I never like this so if I was a Sith Lord I’m going to train someone who hopefully wants to master the dark side of the force but also has to kill me if they want to be Master how does that make sense.
Plagueis is such a weird madlad
He is bafflingly naive and selfless at times for being a corrupt capitalist, an evil scientist and a would be tyrant.
Like he genuinely believed in his own propaganda, while Sideous valued power for power's sake and cared for little else.
I've said the rule of two is good for gaining power but keeping it is when it runs into problems. What happens when the two sith lords are in the same place at the same time and both are killed like Sidious and Vader. I was debating this specifically over Darth Krayts one sith while the idea I get I think he should have still had one as his specific successor like Wyyrlock
hello from down under (US)
1000 years of work wasted in 20 years, sidious is solely responsible for that catasthrope. If he had found a better less problematic apprentice and accepted that at the end of the day he was not master forever, the sith rule would still continue.
the whole point of the rule of the two was that one would get stronger, kill the other then became master and each generation sith would get stronger and stronger
I was going to comment about the Rule of Two on your Plagueis video, but it got a bit off-topic. A lot of people seem to view the Rule of Two as some divinely-inspired, word-of-god ultimate truth of the Dark Side when it's literally just some guy's idea. Bane himself sees its failings and betrays it within his own lifetime and we see a bunch of other interpretations of the true meaning of the Dark Side.
Bane's philosophy was a direct reaction to the failings he saw in the Sith of his time, believing that the Dark Side was about personal power and that the multitudes of Sith were diluting that through the generations. He had a naïve ideal of masters sharing knowledge with their apprentices to cultivate a lineage of more and more powerful individual Sith. He failed to recognise that his ideology required such cooperation and working for a shared goal while also requiring perfectly self-interested backstabbers - it was incompatible with itself, thus he tries to supplant it with a Rule-of-One essence-transfer system.
By the time we get to Sidious, the Rule of Two has demonstrably failed. His "Once more Sith will rule the galaxy and we will have peace" line isn't a lie and it flies directly in the face of the Sith code of Bane's era - "Peace is a lie, there is only passion [...]". Furthermore, the greatest triumph of the Sith - the destruction of the Jedi - was carried out by Vader, a man whose power wasn't a product of the Rule of Two's generational improvements.
That is not a fair characterization of what Bane is doing with essence transfer imo. He only did it because he didn't want Zannah to win due to time wearing him down. He even says he'd ordinarily be proud if it wasn't in this specific instance. To his last breath in his duel with Zannah, he seemed to believe in his rule, and had he beaten Zannah and taken the body, he was prepared to train Cognus in the hopes of being defeated by her. Zannah even acknowledges the essence transfer was not a real violation of the rule of 2. Palpatine was a failure as a master overall, though, as he got Darth Maul killed and failed to fully get Vader to commit to the dark side.
@@disappointedviewerh7303 I'd argue that Bane and Zannah are pretty biased narrators. Bane has destroyed everything around him in service to the rule of 2, how could he possibly admit to it being a failure? Likewise with Zannah - Bane being the embodiment of knowledge and power has been the only constant of her life. She was effectively groomed into Bane's cult, into wanting to be him. The sunk cost of their beliefs is so high that recognising the fallacy would destroy them.
I have no doubt that Bane would have trained Cognus if he'd won the essence transfer. But he'd have 2 lifetimes under his belt at that point - how could Cognus ever compare? He'd have to essence transfer again or accept being killed by a weaker apprentice. He'd probably keep believing in the rule of 2 even after that, treating each new apprentice as the one-off exception that needs essence transfer, but the next one will be an honest fight, I promise.
Vader wasn't really a Sith in practice, just a fallen Jedi. He never cared about Sith doctrine, Sith history, Sith sorcery.
All he cared about was saving his family, and failing that, he would see the world burn.
Another point, wasn't the Rule of Two broken by every single Sith from Bane and afterwards?
Tenebrous had two apprentices. Plagueis wanted to see it abolished, Sideous had Maul whilst an apprentice.
Sideous even had soooo many darksiders serving him while having Vader as an apprentice. And both of them had secret apprentices.
It is how we eventually got Darth Caedus.
They're all idiots. Even the stupid Jedi.
The Sith were always their own worst enemy. Even when they had that old Sith Empire they were always playing stupid games with each other, wasting the empire's strength. The infighting and stupidity made it possible for the Republic to destroy the Sith Empire and drive the Sith into an apocalypse, forcing them to adopt the Rule of Two.
At least the Sith under the Rule of Two not only *FINALLY* defeat the Republic, but formed the Galactic Empire from it while also destroying the Jedi Order. Things prior Sith completely failed to do.
This is also a chance to throw some barbs at the Jedi, too. Like the Sith, the Jedi are often their own worst enemy. Many of the worst menaces the Republic has had to deal with were due to former Jedi. And when the Republic was prospering, the Jedi got lax and lazy while basking in the sunlight. Does anyone still remember the smugness of the Jedi in The Phantom Menace? How sure they were?
Both the Sith and Jedi teachings go for such polar opposite ideals that are simply unsustainable. The Jedi want emotionless robots, not living beings, leading to disaster. The Sith will destroy each other. It's their way.
Honestly? When you sit back and look at the entire picture it's quite comedic how the Jedi and Sith run around the galaxy thinking they're both the right ones, but ruin everything in the process. Everyone else is in for a destructive, wild ride.
millennials ruined everything gen z just put the nail in the coffin
That's the sad thing about being a Sith. For all their talk about all-around freedom and being open to their selves, they sure are always foundered by rules and regulations so to control their annoying excesses, while the Jedi, who are otherwise focused on strictness and limitations, are somehow more free, joyous, well recorded, and thus publicly appreciated (even when grudgingly in occasion) in comparison.
I wonder, though, if Darth Gravid was at least brought to the Force equivalent of Heaven (look up the Supernatural Encounters novella) due to having "points for trying". Would be too mean, him going to Chaos, the Force equivalent of Hell, after all that.
The Sith really are slaves chained to their own impulses, doctrines and bad habits. It is ironic.
They never take the final step to free themselves from being Sith, or from the machinations of the Force.
The closest I know of are Revan, Kreia and Caedus. Ruin thought he done it, but he was just delusional.
10/10 millennial joke
👍
Clearly not... 🙄
Darth Bane was successful....Im convinced and I still stand by that. Palpatine most likely mostly transferred to vader but lost his connection mid transfer and the lightning going down the shaft was actually his essence releasing.
And the Rule of One, Kathleen Kennedy, has destroyed Star Wars.
the POWAH of ONE... THE powAH of TWOOO.. THE POWAH OF MANYYYYYYYYYY
@@j0eykarate264 🤣🤣🤣
its not 2017 anymore lil bro
@@tTaseric WTF does that have to do with anything, oh and if your still referring to people as Bro then you must still think its the 80's?
@@tTaseric Well we are waiting, what does 2017 have to do with Star Wars?
A good idea would have been showing The Acolyte from Manny's POV as he's manipulated by Plagueis and also trying to be subtle about training the twins. Like you know, actually showing us how the Rule of Two works and the dynamic of it. I say twins because they are one person split apart which could be an interesting twist on the whole rule of two.
They're technically one person, so he could be master of both and still be rule of two and that's how he could take down Plagueis who canonically doesn't have to be Sidious's master. Sidious could have been fascinated by research of Plagueis' that he found years after Plagueis was betrayed. They could make Osha/Mae Sheev's Master and that would send the mouthbreathing chuds into a tailspin the likes we haven't seen since...well they're always in a tailspin.
In rots he said he was plageuis apprentice.
@@Des7p No he did not. Literally go back and watch the scene again. He says Plagueis' apprentice killed him . He never said he was the apprentice.
Risky business indeed