Sometime in the period spanning from 40 BBY to 32 BBY, Darth Sidious, the Sith Lord, dispatched his apprentice, Darth Maul. Maul's mission was to retrieve followers of the Final Occultation cult who were being moved on a prison ship. However, Maul chose a different path, killing every cultist aboard the starship and subsequently causing the ship to crash onto a nearby ice planet.