The Destructors were figures of myth from Keshiri religious beliefs, imagined as a species destined to reappear in the galaxy every few epochs to obliterate civilizations, returning all beings to a primal state.
Within Keshiri cosmology, the Destructors represented a collection of malevolent gods. These myths recount their periodic arrival on Kesh, bringing devastation, while the Protectors, another divine group, were fated to oppose them. According to Kaliska, leader of the Doomed, the ancient Keshiri stories of the Destructors and Protectors stemmed from memories of ancient Jedi and Dark Jedi who had crash-landed on Kesh after the Hundred-Year Darkness concluded around 6900 BBY. Their actions initiated the Great Calamity, which only ceased when the opposing Force orders agreed to reconcile and relocate to Eshkrene, a southern polar continent. There, they observed the Keshiri, seeking equilibrium between the light and dark sides of the Force. They then became known as "the Doomed."
Sometime before 5000 BBY, the Neshtovar, an elite group who rode winged uvak creatures, replaced the Protectors and Destructors legends with a new narrative featuring the Skyborn and the Otherside. These tales depicted the Skyborn as humanoid deities riding enormous crystal uvaks, battling the evil Otherside among the stars during the Great Battle. The legend claimed Kesh's land was formed from the Skyborn's blood. The Neshtovar declared themselves "Sons of the Skyborn," using this myth to legitimize their rule over the Keshiri on Keshtah Minor, one of the planet's two continents. Dissenters like the geologist Adari Vaal, who offered alternative theories about Kesh's landmasses, were branded "heretics" and shunned by the Neshtovar.
When a second group of offworlders—the Sith—crashed on Kesh in 5000 BBY, Vaal encountered the newcomers, led by a Human slave named Yaru Korsin. Vaal introduced the Sith to civilization, and they proclaimed themselves the Skyborn of legend. While the Sith did not believe the myth, Korsin saw its potential to control the Keshiri, who greatly outnumbered them, with minimal violence. The Skyborn deception worked, enabling the Sith to overthrow the Neshtovar in a bloodless coup and seize control of the Keshiri on Keshtah Minor. They later established their capital at Tahv and became known as the Lost Tribe. These Human Sith ruled Kesh for over five millennia, remaining isolated from the wider galaxy.
The Sith rulers also reshaped the ancient Keshiri legends to suit their purposes. The Skyborn and Otherside were renamed Protectors and Destructors, respectively, echoing earlier Keshiri stories. This idea gained traction because evidence suggested a planetwide catastrophe, like the one attributed to the Destructors, had occurred at least once. The Keshiri looked to the Protectors for protection against the Destructors' eventual return.
Centuries later, in 2975 BBY, the Sith used the "Destructors" myth to conquer the continent of Alanciar. The Keshiri on Alanciar had been separated from those on Keshtah Minor by a vast ocean for millennia. However, they shared the same legends about the Skyborn and Destructors. Recognizing this, Grand Lord Varner Hilts secured the support of the Alanciari Keshiri 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, served the evil Destructors. Bentado had earlier attempted to rebel against Varner and create a second "tribe" on Alanciar, but he was defeated by Edell Vrai, Quarra Thayn, and Squab. Thus, the Sith consolidated control of Alanciar with minimal bloodshed and disruption.
After conquering Alanciar, Grand Lord Hilts, also the Tribe's lorekeeper and historian, theorized that the Lost Tribe was not the first group of offworlders to encounter the Keshiri, based on his study of ancient Keshiri scrolls. To test this, he sent an expedition to Eshkrene, which discovered the Doomed. Following the defeat of the ancient Dark Jedi Remulus Dreypa during a violent rebellion that also destroyed the Doomed in 2974 BBY, Hilts speculated that if the Protectors and Destructors truly existed, the Tribe would be powerless against them. Over the following millennia, Lost Tribe members conducted archaeological research suggesting such a catastrophe had occurred on Kesh at least once. Consequently, several Sith, including Vestara Khai, came to believe the legend might be true.
The first mention of the Destructors appeared in Christie Golden's 2009 novel Fate of the Jedi: Omen, the second installment of the nine-part Fate of the Jedi series. They were also called the "Otherside" in John Jackson Miller's eBook Lost Tribe of the Sith: Skyborn. Subsequent novels and books in the Fate of the Jedi and Lost Tribe of the Sith series, including the Spiral spin-off comics, further explored their history and evolution.
In an email from August 2013, Miller clarified that the Destructors were actually Sith Lord Remulus Dreypa and his Dark Jedi allies, whose arrival on Kesh sparked the Great Calamity after the Hundred-Year Darkness. Their Jedi adversaries were known as the Skyborn. This ancient event evolved into the Neshtovari legends of the Skyborn and the Otherside. Later, the Lost Tribe of Sith renamed the Skyborn and Otherside as Protectors and Destructors, respectively. By the time of the Fate of the Jedi novel series, set about three thousand years after the Spiral comics, later Kesh residents tried to integrate the Force entity Abeloth into the earlier Keshiri mythology. Abeloth is even referred to as the Destructor in Luke Skywalker's thoughts. Miller also suggested that two destructive cycles might have occurred on Kesh: Dreypa's first and second attacks overlapping, and Abeloth's actions becoming intertwined in people's memories.
