The Destructors were a mysterious species in Keshiri religion that were said to return to the galaxy and wipe out civilization every few eons, resulting in the return of all beings to their primitive origins.
The Destructors were a group of malevolent gods in Keshiri cosmology. According to these legends, the Destructors were said to periodically come to Kesh to bring destruction to the planet while the Protectors, another group of gods, were destined to defeat them. According to the Doomed leader Kaliska, the ancient Keshiri legends about the Destructors and Protectors were also based on recollections of ancient Jedi and Dark Jedi who had crash-landed on Kesh following the end of the Hundred-Year Darkness around 6900 BBY. Their actions triggered the Great Calamity and only ended when the two opposing Force orders agreed to make peace with each other and migrated to Eshkrene, a polar continent in the planet's South Pole. There, they would watch over the Keshiri while striving to find a balance between the light and dark sides of the Force. These subsequently became known as "the Doomed."
At some time prior to 5000 BBY, the Neshtovar, an aristocratic group who rode the winged uvak beasts, phased out the legends of the Protectors and Destructors in favor of a newer legend that revolved around a group of deities known as the Skyborn and the Otherside. According to these legends, the Skyborn were humanoid gods riding colossal crystal uvaks who had battled against the nefarious Otherside in the stars during the Great Battle. According to this legend, Kesh's landmass had been created by drops of blood from the injured Skyborn. The Neshtovar claimed to be the "Sons of the Skyborn" and used this founding myth to justify their rule over the Keshiri on Keshtah Minor, one of the planet's two continents. Dissidents like the geologist Adari Vaal, who tried to present alternative ideas about Kesh's landmasses, were labeled "heretics" and ostracized by the Neshtovar.
When a second group of offworlders—the Sith—crashed onto Kesh in 5000 BBY, Vaal encountered the newcomers, who were led by a Human slave named Yaru Korsin. Vaal brought the Sith to civilization, where they proclaimed themselves to be the Skyborn of legend. While the Sith castaways did not believe the myth, Korsin realized that it could be used to subjugate the Keshiri with minimal bloodshed, who outnumbered them. The Skyborn ruse ultimately worked and the Sith succeeded in overthrowing the Neshtovar in a bloodless coup and gaining control of the Keshiri on Keshtah Minor. They later established their capital at Tahv and became known as the Lost Tribe. These Human Sith would rule Kesh for over five millennia but remained isolated from developments in the wider galaxy.
The new Sith rulers also changed the ancient Keshiri legends for their own purposes. The names of the Skyborn and the Otherside reverted back to the Protectors and the Destructors, respectively, harkening back to earlier Keshiri tales. This idea was given some credence due to evidence that a planetwide catastrophe like the one that the Destructors were said to bring had been visited upon the world at least once. The Keshiri looked to the Protectors to defend Kesh from the Destructors' eventual return.
Centuries later, in 2975 BBY, the Sith were able to use the "Destructors" myth to conquer the continent of Alanciar. For millennia, the Keshiri on Alanciar had been separated from their counterparts on Keshtah Minor by a wide ocean. However, they also shared the same legends about the Skyborn and Destructors. Realizing this, Grand Lord Varner Hilts was able to win the support of the Keshiri on Alanciari by using the Alanciari man Jogan Halder to convince his people that Hilt's forces were the Skyborn and that Lord Korsin Bentado, a rival Sith Lord, was a servant of the evil Destructors. Early, Bentado had attempted to rebel against Varner and create a second "tribe" on Alanciar. However, he was thwarted by the combined efforts of Edell Vrai, Quarra Thayn, and Squab. Thus, the Sith were able to consolidate control of Alanciar with minimal deaths and disruption.
Following the conquest of Alanciar, Grand Lord Hilts, who also served as the Tribe's lorekeeper and historian, theorized that the Lost Tribe were not the first group of offworlders to have encountered the Keshiri, based on his studies of ancient Keshiri scrolls. To test his theory, he dispatched an expeditionary force to Eshkrene which discovered the Doomed. Following the defeat of the ancient Dark Jedi Remulus Dreypa during a violent rebellion which also destroyed the Doomed in 2974 BBY, Hilts speculated that if the Protectors and Destructors did actually exist, the Tribe would be no match for them. In the successive millennia, members of the Lost Tribe also conducted archaeological research which suggested that such a catastrophe occurred on Kesh at least once. As a result, several Sith including Vestara Khai came to believe that the legend could be true.
The Destructors were first mentioned in Christie Golden's 2009 novel Fate of the Jedi: Omen—the second book in the nine-part Fate of the Jedi series. They were also referred to as the "Otherside" in John Jackson Miller's eBook Lost Tribe of the Sith: Skyborn. Later novels and books in the Fate of the Jedi and Lost Tribe of the Sith series, including the Spiral spin-off comics, also explored their history and development.
During an email dating back to August 2013, Miller clarified that the Destructors actually referred to the Sith Lord Remulus Dreypa and his Dark Jedi allies whose arrival on Kesh triggered the Great Calamity, which occurred at an unknown period following the Hundred-Year Darkness. Their Jedi opponents were known as the Skyborn. This prehistoric event later evolved into the Neshtovari legends of the Skyborn and the Otherside. Later, the Lost Tribe of Sith imposed the names Protectors and Destructors on the Skyborn and Otherside respectively. By the time of the Fate of the Jedi novel series, which occurs about three thousand years following the events of the Spiral comics, later residents on Kesh attempted to fit the Force entity Abeloth into the earlier Keshiri mythology. Abeloth at one point, is called the Destructor in Luke Skywalker's thoughts. Miller also theorized that two cycles of destruction may have occurred on Kesh: Dreypa's first and second attacks overlapping and Abeloth's actions commingled in people's minds.
