The New Sith, also called the New Sith Empire, the Sith Empire, or just the Sith, represented a revived empire of the Sith. This entity thrived throughout the expansive Draggulch Period, spanning millennia, before eventually splintering into various independent groups. This New Sith Empire was established around 2000 BBY through the schemes of Darth Ruin, a former Jedi Master who instigated the Fourth Great Schism within the Jedi Order and became a Dark Lord of the Sith. Gathering numerous like-minded followers, Ruin and his empire engaged in conflicts against the Galactic Republic and the Jedi during the New Sith Wars. Darth Ruin's rule was cut short by the actions of his treacherous disciples, setting a pattern of betrayal that would haunt his successors for many centuries. Regardless, the New Sith emerged into a bloody era of galactic expansion, ultimately leading to the rise of a new leader: the enigmatic "Dark Underlord" and his band of Black Knights. Despite the Dark Underlord's defeat by the Jedi, the Sith continued their crusades, further extending their territory and consolidating their power.
More than five hundred years after their re-emergence, the New Sith secured a major victory against the Republic and Jedi forces at the Battle of Mizra. This triumph resulted in widespread Jedi defections and a prolonged period of Sith dominance. Following this success, the despotic Darth Rivan ascended to leadership and created a specialized type of warriors known as the Battlelords to combat the frequent betrayals within the Sith ranks. However, this initiative came to an abrupt end when Rivan and his Battlelords were trapped and ultimately destroyed by a Sith artifact called the Darkstaff. In the final centuries of the New Sith Wars, the reigning Dark Lord Belia Darzu created an army of mutated cyborgs called the Metanecrons during the two-decade Sictis Wars. This period concluded with another Sith victory, but not before Darzu was killed by the Mecrosa Order.
By the start of the century-long Republic Dark Age, the New Sith had practically destroyed the strength of their ancient enemies. Despite the Republic's impending collapse, the Sith ranks descended into internal conflict and treachery, plunging their empire into a civil war. Throughout the Republic Dark Age, numerous Sith warlords assumed control of their own independent territories, continuing their violent conquests against the Republic, the Jedi, and each other. These fragmented remnants of the New Sith endured a period of constant turmoil—although they collectively still controlled the galaxy's Outer Rim—until the intervention of the renegade Jedi Skere Kaan around 1010 BBY. Kaan declared himself the new Dark Lord of the Sith, conquered the feuding Sith factions, and reorganized them into a group known as the Brotherhood of Darkness. However, the Brotherhood was destroyed during the Seventh Battle of Ruusan in 1000 BBY after being tricked into destruction by one of their own. This allowed the Sith to seemingly perish, but it also paved the way for the new Order of the Sith Lords.
In 2000 BBY, which marked the beginning of the Draggulch Period, the Sith Order was reborn. This cult of dark-side followers had, for millennia, aimed to destroy both the Galactic Republic and the peacekeeping Jedi Order. For centuries leading up to this point, it was widely believed that the Sith had been defeated and were inactive since the reconstituted Sith Empire era following the Great Galactic War. However, the Sith eventually returned because of the actions of a Jedi Master named Phanius. Known for his self-centered attitude, Phanius sought alternative teachings that conflicted with the prohibitions of the Jedi Order, leading him to discover the ways of the Sith within a rare Sith holocron.
Seduced by the dark side of the Force, the intelligent and charismatic Phanius abandoned the path of the Jedi with the goal of reviving the Sith Order. To achieve this, the fallen Jedi Master sought out and infiltrated several surviving Sith clans, uniting them under his leadership and taking on the identity of Darth Ruin. During this process, fifty additional Jedi chose to leave the Order and support Ruin's new Sith crusade, resulting in the Fourth Great Schism. Declaring himself a Dark Lord of the Sith, Ruin led his followers to wage war against the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic, establishing a new empire of the Sith and starting a conflict known as the New Sith Wars.
Throughout his reign over the New Sith, Darth Ruin became infamous as a particularly ruthless and egocentric leader, known for sacrificing his subordinates on a whim. This ultimately led to his assassination by his own Sith disciples, who were unwilling to tolerate his self-centered philosophy. Despite Ruin's death, his actions ushered in a new era of expansion for the Sith, resulting in the reclamation of numerous Sith worlds—particularly Yavin 4 and Ziost—as well as acts of sabotage against the Republic. However, the treachery that led to Ruin's downfall also sparked a series of further betrayals among his Sith successors, which would continue for hundreds of years.
By 1750 BBY, another figure had claimed the Dark Lord title as the leader of the New Sith: an enigmatic dark-side spirit known only as the "Dark Underlord." The origins of the Dark Underlord were mysterious; some speculated that he was summoned from the realm of Chaos, while others believed him to be a reincarnation of Xendor, a darksider who lived during the First Great Schism thousands of years earlier. A bloodthirsty marauder, the Dark Underlord proved to be a formidable force among the Sith, allowing him to consolidate a Sith alliance—the Black Knights—in a destructive campaign against the Republic and the Jedi.
Operating from their base on the planet Malrev IV, the Black Knights were notorious for their violent activities along the Zona Miki route in the Outer Rim Territories, terrorizing numerous space stations under the command of the Dark Underlord. These actions drew the attention of Murrtaggh, a Jedi Master who hired a group of Mandalorian mercenaries to sabotage the Dark Underlord's forces. The Mandalorians launched a diversionary attack on Malrev IV, distracting a leading Sith commander and leaving the Dark Underlord vulnerable to Murrtaggh's assault. In the ensuing battle, the Dark Underlord was killed by the Jedi Master. However, the Black Knights were not completely destroyed and managed to reform their ranks on several occasions, even centuries after the New Sith Wars, in the absence of the Dark Underlord.
The death of the Dark Underlord did little to slow down the Sith war effort, which continued to grow in the following centuries. Despite several thwarted incursions at Corphelion, Gap Nine and King's Galquek, the New Sith had gained allies among the Devaronians and Hiitians by 1500 BBY. Decades later, the Sith assembled an army against Republic and Jedi forces during the Battle of Mizra. Many Lords of the Sith participated in the battle, each riding a personalized speeder bike named after a predatory species that represented their inner nature. The battle turned when a lone Sith sniper killed a Jedi coordinator and disrupted their battle meditation, leading to a full-scale slaughter of the Jedi forces and a decisive Sith victory. After the battle, hundreds of Jedi were captured by the Sith and quickly converted to the dark side. Following their victory at the Battle of Mizra, the Sith lacked a clear successor to the Dark Lord title. Nevertheless, Mizra was a crucial turning point for the Sith, strengthening their power base and setting the stage for a new leading Sith figure: the tyrannical Darth Rivan.
Sometime between 1417 BBY and 1250 BBY, the Dark Lord Darth Rivan led the New Sith from a personal fortress on the terraformed planet Almas. To combat the constant betrayals within the Sith ranks, Rivan sought to create an army of darksiders led by a unique type of Sith commanders known as the Battlelords. Through a series of complex rituals powered by Sith magic, the Dark Lord created a Force bond between the Battlelords and the soldiers under their command, preventing the subordinates from attacking or killing their masters.
Initially, the use of Rivan's Battlelords improved the cohesion of the Sith armies. However, this success was short-lived when the eventual betrayal of Rivan's Sith apprentice, Darsin, hindered the completion of the Dark Lord's Battlelord army. Additionally, the Jedi began specifically targeting and killing individual Battlelords, which released the bonded subordinates and allowed them to flee the battlefield. As a result, the Sith deemed the Battlelords ineffective for their intended purpose and ultimately discontinued their use.
During his reign, Darth Rivan obsessively sought to destroy a Sith artifact known as the Darkstaff, fearing its reputedly malevolent power as a potential threat to his existence. Eventually, the Jedi Order launched an assault against Rivan's stronghold on Almas, leading to a violent end to the Dark Lord's reign. By this time, Rivan had finally acquired the Darkstaff, only to have its power turn against him during the pivotal battle. The Darkstaff created a hyperspace wormhole, destroying Rivan's entire contingent of Battlelords and teleporting the Dark Lord himself forward through time. At his final destination on Ruusan during the Light and Darkness War, Darth Rivan, now deprived of his ability to use the Force, was killed by a Force-user of unremarkable power.
In 1250 BBY, the final quarter of the Draggulch Period saw the rise of Belia Darzu, a Dark Lord who led the New Sith during a two-decade period known as the Sictis Wars. Using a hidden stronghold on the Deep Core world of Tython, Darzu experimented with the power of mechu-deru, an obscure technique that allowed the manipulation of mechanical structures through the Force. These experiments led to the creation of the nanogene spore, a virus capable of transforming living victims into hulking hybrids of metal and flesh called technobeasts. Through the power of the dark side, the technobeasts were bound to Darzu's will, and she quickly mobilized the creatures into an obedient army known as the Metanecrons. Over the course of the Sictis Wars, the technobeasts were unleashed upon the Galactic Republic and the Jedi, becoming known as the defining horror of this period.
By 1230 BBY, an alliance that had once existed between Lord Darzu and the Mecrosa Order, a secret society from the Tapani sector, had broken down. The Mecrosa sought revenge against the Dark Lord for an unwanted incursion into their territory. Additionally, Darzu, like many of her Sith predecessors, fell victim to treachery at the hands of her own Sith followers, culminating in her assassination by the Mecrosa. Despite Darzu's death and the resulting sabotage of her technobeast army, the New Sith were considered victorious by the end of the Sictis Wars. Furthermore, Darzu's successors continued to use the technobeasts for the remainder of the New Sith Wars, although in smaller numbers than before. However, the victory of the Sictis Wars came at a cost and once again left the Sith without a clear successor for the Dark Lord title.
By 1100 BBY, the relentless Sith crusades had weakened the Republic's economic, military, and political strength to the point of complete collapse, beginning an era known as the Republic Dark Age. However, this new era also brought about a period of intense division among the power-hungry Lords of the Sith. Unable to unite under a single leader, the New Sith failed to take advantage of the Republic's decline. Instead, they turned against each other in a period of disagreement and backstabbing, which irreparably fragmented their ranks. The century-long Republic Dark Age saw the rise of many Sith warlords who, despite their lack of unity, continued their bloody conquests throughout entire star systems, with some controlling their own independent territories. Even in their divided state, the Sith collectively dominated the galaxy's Outer Rim while advancing towards the Core Worlds.
Discord persisted among the fragmented remnants of the New Sith until 1010 BBY. Around this time, Skere Kaan, a Jedi Master known for his radically disillusioned view of the Republic and the Jedi, organized a group of like-minded individuals called the "Brotherhood." Leading a campaign to conquer the remaining Sith enclaves on his own terms, Kaan defeated the most powerful of the warring Sith Lords within months, all while falsely claiming to be rebuilding the Republic. In the process, the Jedi Master, who had since declared himself a Dark Lord of the Sith, took leadership over the surviving Sith, uniting them under the principle of "Rule by the Strong." Gathering his twenty-thousand-strong following, Kaan founded a new, unified Sith faction called the Brotherhood of Darkness, and he promptly declared war against the Republic in the final decade of the New Sith Wars.
Following the collapse of the New Sith, Kaan and his Brotherhood of Darkness sought to suppress the constant betrayals that had ultimately led to the downfall of their predecessors. To achieve this, Kaan allowed all members of the Brotherhood to hold the title of Dark Lord of the Sith, hoping to foster a sense of equality within their ranks. Additionally, Kaan forbade his followers from using the coveted title of Darth, believing that it only provoked conflict among the Sith. Despite these preventative measures, the Brotherhood met its end in the climactic Ruusan campaign, which ended the thousand-year-long New Sith Wars in 1000 BBY. However, the Sith were not completely destroyed, as a surviving Brotherhood member, Darth Bane, who had orchestrated the Brotherhood's destruction through manipulation and deception, started a new Order of the Sith Lords and the Rule of Two.
After the Draggulch Period, succeeding generations of the Sith Order came to view the New Sith Wars as the bloodiest and most wasteful conflict in galactic history. The consequences of the Fourth Great Schism were documented in a Jedi guidebook called The Jedi Path, which cited the Sith revival as nearly causing the end of galactic civilization. Nevertheless, the Republic avoided extinction and escaped the Dark Age caused by the Sith, rebuilding its government after the Ruusan Reformation. In a collection of historical writings called the Book of Sith, Darth Bane criticized the New Sith, stating that their constant infighting caused them to waste a perfect opportunity to defeat the Republic. This, combined with Bane's strong opposition to the Brotherhood's promotion of equality, led him to establish the "Rule of Two," a doctrine intended to curb the ambitions of the power-hungry Sith. Under this doctrine, Bane's successors enacted a centuries-long plan for galactic domination, eventually succeeding where the New Sith had failed by overthrowing the Republic and almost completely purging the Jedi Order.
By 40 ABY, the New Sith and several of their leading figures were discussed in a historical compendium about the Force, compiled by Jedi historian Tionne Solusar.
The New Sith were first mentioned in the novelization of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, written by Terry Brooks and published in 1999. The novel established the New Sith (simply called the "Sith" at the time) as the first Sith Order, despite being founded "almost two thousand years ago," which contradicted the Tales of the Jedi comics. In 2000, this contradiction was resolved in The Essential Chronology, a reference book written by Kevin J. Anderson and Daniel Wallace, which first identified the faction as the New Sith. The Power of the Jedi Sourcebook incorrectly attributed the history of the New Sith to the Brotherhood of Darkness, a separate organization that existed after the New Sith collapsed. While most commonly known as the New Sith in various sources, the faction was later called the New Sith Empire in the sixth volume of Star Wars Comic UK, released in 2011. In 2012, the group was simply named the Sith Empire in Book of Sith: Secrets from the Dark Side.