Darth Nihilus and the Ancient Sith - A big misinterpretation
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Hello everyone,
Before I begin, I would like to give credit to @S_W_LeGenD and @Freedon Nadd for helping me out with this thread.
In this thread, I am going into the topic relating to Nihilus and the comparison made between him and the ancient Sith. As many of you know, Nihilus has been said to ‘maybe rival’ the ancient Sith as stated by Kreia, who knew a great deal about those ancient Sith. However, most people believe that Kreia was rivaling/comparing Nihilus to the ancient Sith in terms of power. In this thread, I will be discussing and showing this is not actually the case and that her statement has been heavily misinterpreted for years.
Firstly, let us state Kreia’s statement.
“I fear he may even rival some of the ancient Sith. He is already more of a force than a living thing, a hole in the Force that threatens to draw everything into it.”
-Kreia, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 - The Sith Lords
Chris Avellone has expanded upon the previous quote and clarified what Kreia was alluding to.
“Kreia is setting the stage for what we imagined KOTOR 3 to be, and as we had a sense for the power we wanted those Sith Lords to reveal, her predictions are accurate….”
-Chris Avellone , Lead writer of KOTOR 2
I am aware that possibly some events in KOTOR 3 did happen in the Revan novel in some way or form. But it was not Chris who made the novel and so we don’t really know what Chris would have done with his ‘ancient Sith’ or who those ‘ancient Sith’ would have been. The novel was written to continue what Chris made in KOTOR 2 but we don’t know if Chris would have taken another direction with it. Either way, I think I have some pretty interesting points to mention.
Kreia’s predictions, whom are stated to be accurate by Chris, at the end of KOTOR 2 were alluding to Tenebrae’s Sith Empire in the Unknown Regions but the main question is who are those ‘ancient Sith’ that Kreia and Chris were referring to? It could not have been current Tenebrae as she does not know he is alive and she is in fact talking about ‘ancient Sith’ i.e in the past. She knows that the True Sith Empire still exists in the Outer Region but that’s not what she alludes to when she says ‘ancient Sith’ as it she distinguishes between the ‘ancient Sith’ from the True Sith empire she is talking about. She does not know that the current Sith Empire is basically the ancient Sith Empire taken upon by Tenebrae.
Let’s state some important points first:
1-Kreia is knowledgeable about the ancient Sith
2-Kreia knows that a Sith Empire exists in the Outer Regions but does not know that it’s in fact the ancient Sith empire taken upon by Tenebrae
3-Chris says that the power of those Sith Lords (I.e the ancient Sith Kreia talks about) was to be revealed in KOTOR 3 meaning that the ‘ancient Sith’ Lords are not dead and would be revealed. This means that Tenebrae himself is who Kreia is referring to when she says ‘ancient Sith’ but Kreia thinks he is dead after all those thousands of years and hence says ‘ancient’ Sith.
Based on the above points, the ‘ancient Sith’ Kreia talks about is Tenebrae himself (not current Tenebrae) and not the other ancients like Exar Kun, Naga Sadow etc… as they are dead by this time and so their powers were not going to be shown and revealed in KOTOR 3 meaning that Chris was not alluding to them in his ‘ancient Sith’. He was alluding to Tenebrae only as he is the only ancient Sith alive by this time and so would be able to reveal his powers in KOTOR 3, as stated by Chris. Put simply, the ‘ancient Sith’ Chris and Kreia allude to is Tenebrae himself and not any of the other ancients that we know from our perspective.
This also explains as to why Kreia says that Nihilus may rival the ancient Sith (i.e Tenebrae) despite saying that Nihilus is the greatest of the Sith Lords up until his time:
”What do you wish to hear? That I once believed in the code of the Jedi? That I felt the call of the Sith, that perhaps, once, I held the galaxy by its throat? That for every good work that I did, I brought equal harm upon the galaxy? That perhaps what the greatest of the Sith Lords knew of evil, they learned from me? What would it matter now? There is only so much comfort in knowing such things, and it is not who I am now.”
-Kreia, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 - The Sith Lords
The comparison/rivaling here by Kreia is that both, Nihilus and Tenebrae, have drained planets completely out of life with Nihilus draining Katarr and Tenebrae draining Nathema. This big analogy between Nihilus and Tenebrae (the ancient Sith) would have driven Kreia to compare/rival Nihilus to the ancient Sith in terms of this planet draining. Not only that, but this would have driven Kreia to indeed allude to Nihilus rivaling Tenebrae in terms of being an entity/non human as a result of their planet draining. Tenebrae consuming Nathema has made him an immortal and no longer a natural or a human being and even had a side-effect of hunger on him, similar to Nihilus’s hunger. His consumption of Nathema has made him more of an entity and an immortal being. This is an exact analogy to Nihilus becoming more and more of an entity as he consumes and drains planets and thus why Kreia rivals Nihilus to Tenebrae (the ancient Sith) in terms of no longer being human and more of entities. As a matter of fact, this is exactly mentioned in Kreia’s quote itself:
“I fear he may even rival some of the ancient Sith. He is already more of a force than a living thing, a hole in the Force that threatens to draw everything into it.”
Notice how Kreia mentions the ‘rival’ part and right after says that Nihilus is ‘already’ (relating to what has been previously said; i.e the rivaling) more of an entity than a living thing and thus leading to the rivaling/comparison to Tenebrae also being more than a living thing. Note that Kreia is not rivaling Nihilus to Tenebrae’s immortality but to the fact that both of them are entities and not natural living beings anymore due to the fact that both have drained entire planets of the Force. Basically, when Kreia says Nihilus ‘may rival’ the ancient Sith, she is saying that he is becoming more and more of an entity just like Tenebrae, the ancient Sith. She is not comparing Nihilus’s power to the ancient Sith. She is comparing Nihilus’s increasing entity state/form to Tenebrae as he consumes and hungers more and more. Nihilus and Tenebrae have both been explicitly stated to being unnatural beings. This comparison/rivaling by Kreia is even more supported by the following:
[Nihilus]
"... Darth Nihilus, a being of pure hunger and dark side power, was approaching the colony."
―The Conclave at Katarr Codex Entry (Star Wars: The Old Republic
"And it devours him as he devours others - his mere presence kills all around him, slowly, feeding him. He is already dead, it is simply a question of how many he kills before he falls."
―Darth Traya (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords
"Nothing matters except his hunger. Before it devours him totally, Nihilus uses its power to displace his persona into his robes and armor. As his useless body disintegrates, he becomes living primitive intention; at last, the whole of the galaxy becomes food—for Nihilus has become the hunger."
―Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide
"He… if he can truly be called a man any longer… is one of the Dark Lords that pursues you. I do not think he knows what you are, not yet."
- Kreia, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 - The Sith Lords
"Nihilus wore a mask of possible Hendanyn origin and spoke an unsettling, literally extirpating, tongue. Jedi seers sampling it from a Sith holocron proclaimed its intelligibility required mere patience, for Nihilus’ was the language spoken billions of years hence, at the end of all time. Jedi mystics offered a slightly less fantastical hypothesis: impossibly, Nihilus spoke the raw dialect of the Force itself, untranslated by midichlorians - one needed only die to comprehend it."
―Abel Peña (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide Author)
Valkorion is an ancient Sith entity with the power to possess and control the bodies of others, using them as puppets to enforce his will on the galaxy. The Immortal Emperor is his latest mask and Zakuul his greatest, most ambitious endeavor: an idealistic playground where he can shed his past and experience a new life unburdened by archaic Sith teachings..
-Star Wars: The Old Republic: Knights of the Fallen Empire: Codex Entry titled "Valkorion."
Valkorion has lived for millennia, using his dark mastery of the Force to assume many forms. His latest incarnation is Valkorion, the Immortal Emperor of the Eternal Empire.
-Star Wars: The Old Republic: Knights of the Eternal Throne: Official Profile
Over the millennia, Valkorion wore many faces and names: Lord Vitiate; Emperor of the Sith; Eternal Emperor of Zakuul. For centuries upon centuries, he shaped and manipulated galactic events, bending the arc of history to his will during his obsessive quest for immortality. A being of unfathomable power and insatiable appetite, he transcended death multiple times, shedding his physical shells as they were discovered, defeated, and destroyed... only to return in another form.
-Star Wars: The Old Republic: Knights of the Eternal Throne: Codex Entry titled "The Fall of Valkorion."
The Emperor was no longer a member of the Sith species; his power and immortality had transformed him into a being unique in the galaxy.
-Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan
He was a living embodiment of the dark side of the Force who delighted in destroying the minds and spirits of those Jedi who came too close to him.
-Star Wars: The Old Republic: Encyclopedia
The Emperor is more than a man - he is the living embodiment of the dark side.
-Star Wars: The Old Republic: Encyclopedia
The Emperor is the dark side incarnate. You wouldn't stand a chance.....you are nothing to him."
-The Emperor's Wrath, Star Wars: The Old Republic: Shadow of Revan
All of the above quotes highlight the very clear similarity between Nihilus and Tenebrae’s form/state and is even further supported by their planet draining similarities. Both are beings of pure dark side power and are entities both driven by hunger. This further elaborates on Kreia’s comparison between the two and further shows that Kreia’s comparison was about how Nihilus was becoming closer and closer to reaching/rivaling Tenebrae’s entity state.
The conclusion here is that Kreia’s quote was not alluding to power between Nihilus and the ancient Sith, as has been misinterpreted for years , but to their entity state-like forms becoming closer and closer in comparison and hence the ‘rivalling’.
My interpretation of Traya comparing Nihilus and the Ancient Sith is she is taking into account all the extremely powerful dark side objects that the Ancients had such as Naga Sadows Sith battleship the Corsair which had immense dark side energies powerful enough to cause stars to go supernova and rip out the core of stars. You also had Sadows Meditiation Sphere, with it Sadow nearly toppled the Republic in a day thanks to being able to increase his invading fleet to make it appear as though there were 10x as more forces than he actually had.
Then you factor into the rituals the ancient Sith were capable of doing that could obliterate the surface of a planet as well then it becomes more clear Traya probably is referring to things like that over an Ancient Siths personal power. Would be ridiculous to say that Ludo Kressh could defeat Nihilus or rival him in power as an example...
__________________ "Vader's pulse and breathing were machine-regulated, so they could not quicken; but something in his chest became more electric around his meetings with the Emperor; he could not say how. A feeling of fullness, of power, of dark and demon mastery -- of secret lusts, unrestrained passion, wild submission -- all these things were in Vader's heart as he neared his Emperor. These things and more."
Interesting take, but the blog's take is just as valid.
"I fear he may even rival some of the ancient Sith." - can be easily attributed to Tenebrae's exploits on his homeworld Medriaas.
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Lord Vitiate returned to his homeworld while rest of the Sith Empire waged the Great Hyperspace War against the Republic. When the hasty Sith offensive ended in failure, the Empire collapsed - but Lord Vitiate was stronger than ever. He bid every surviving Sith to unite or die at the hands of Jedi. Eight thousand Sith Lords gathered on Medriaas and agreed to partake in a ritual that would bind the Sith together as an ultimate dark side weapon.
The ritual lasted ten days. Lord Vitiate orchestrated the sorcery and the planet Mediraas was consumed by the largest dark side nexus the galaxy would ever see. When the ritual ended, Lord Vitiate emerged as the only survivor. The pain, energy, and suffering of every living entity on the planet fueled his power and would prolong his life for centuries. The lifeless planet of Mediraas became a void in the Force and was erased from history. From that moment forward, the world would forever be known as Nathema, birthplace of the one and only Sith Emperor.
From Star Wars: The Old Republic: Encyclopedia
+
The Emperor had consumed everything. Life, sound, color, even the Force - nothing remained. This wasn't about conquest or domination or destroying an enemy - all concepts Scourge embraced.
Everything on Nathema had simply been snuffed out, extinguished so completely that it ceased to have any meaning or purpose. It was a vacuum of existence; a blight on the natural order.
From Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan
One of the most terrifying developments without any doubt.
Now the rituals could easily be attributed/compared to Nihilus by Kreia due to their planet draining but I don't really understand how your first paragraph could be attributed to Nihilus. What did you mean?
I mean that in time Nihilus basically would become this OP star busting monster who can topple galactic civilizations in a day like Sadow nearly did with his sphere and Corsair.
__________________ "Vader's pulse and breathing were machine-regulated, so they could not quicken; but something in his chest became more electric around his meetings with the Emperor; he could not say how. A feeling of fullness, of power, of dark and demon mastery -- of secret lusts, unrestrained passion, wild submission -- all these things were in Vader's heart as he neared his Emperor. These things and more."
But Sadow and all the past dark lords are gone. It is(more) logical that Kreia alluded to Tenebrae.
__________________ RealistRacism: "Sheevites, much like the Banites, were meant to increase in power with each member. From Lightsnake to Gideon to Azronger, this was supposed to be the case. However, knowledge must've been lost in some kind of Gravid-like incident, as Az turned out to be a mid-tier debater with a sub-par track record, sh!itting all over Tempest's legacy. Sad."
Jun 20th, 2020 06:47 AM
