Time of the Rot

The events of the Time of the Rot commenced in 3960 BBY with the demise of the then Grand Lord, Lillia Venn, at the hands of the Jedi Shadow Jelph Marrian, along with some of her followers, during the Night of the Upside-Down Meteor. Her disappearance engendered a power vacuum within the Lost Tribe. Upon learning of her death, her adversaries initiated a widespread uprising in the capital city of Tahv, resulting in a large-scale slaughter of her adherents. High Lord Candra Kitai, one of her rivals, briefly took control of the Tribe but was unable to reconcile the disparate factions. The closing of Tahv's zoo, where she had been compelled to work as a slave after being unjustly accused of attempting to assassinate Lillia Venn, was her only noteworthy action during this time. Kitai was eventually overthrown and likely killed at an unspecified time. These rivals then engaged in conflict among themselves for control of the Tribe and dominion over Kesh. The Gold Faction and the Red Faction were two such factions involved. Another Grand Lord who reigned during this time was Dann Itra.

Many of the defeated soldiers escaped Tahv and sought refuge in the hinterlands, where they formed alliances with Human slaves, the descendants of those who had been expelled from the Tribe. Subsequently, these Sith rebels conscripted numerous indigenous Keshiri into their military forces. For generations, these competing Sith factions forged alliances with the aim of seizing Tahv and deposing the reigning Grand Lord. These alliances were often ephemeral and quickly dissolved due to internal rivalries, which were exacerbated by the Sith's devotion to the Sith Code. By 3000 BBY, the Gold and Red Factions had fragmented into twenty separate factions. Each of these was frequently headed by its own Grand Lord, who denounced their rivals as Anti-lords. The Marisota Floodplain became a frequent battleground for rival Sith factions' military operations.

As a consequence of the Time of the Rot, the cities of Keshtah Minor, including Tahv, deteriorated into ruins as a result of the fighting and neglect. Tahv's towering aqueducts were known to have become clogged and flooded on multiple occasions, resulting in accidents. The city's expansive arena, Korsinata, also collapsed due to frequent eruptions from the volcano Sessal Spire. The collapse of the Tribe's education system and the loss of historical knowledge also coincided with the Time of the Rot. By 3000 BBY, many Sith were unaware of their genuine history and had adopted a romanticized view of their forebears as "great conquerors" from a "great empire." Testament Day, which was observed in Tahv every twenty-five years, was the only occasion when the various Sith factions gathered peacefully. During Testament Day, the Testament of Yaru Korsin was read to the leaders of the Sith factions. The holocron containing Korsin's Testament was under the protection of the Caretaker Varner Hilts, an elderly historian and museum curator responsible for safeguarding the Tribe's historical archive.

In 3000 BBY, Iliana Merko, the leader of the Sisters of Seelah, made an effort to pressure Varner Hilts into producing a fraudulent copy of the Testament that would favor their faction. The Sisters revered Seelah Korsin, the estranged wife of the Tribe's founder Yaru Korsin, and considered her to be the "true" founder of the Tribe on Kesh. They regarded Yaru and his daughter Nida Korsin as "traitors" to the Tribe. Hilts revealed that Korsin's Testament was stored within a holocron and could not be altered. He also falsely claimed that Yaru's holocron could only be activated on Testament Day, which was twelve days away. The presence of the Sisters drew the attention of rival Sith factions, including Force 57, the Korsinite League, and the Golden Destiny. Eight days before the Testament's reading, members of Force 57 and the Korsinite League attacked the Sisters at the Circle Eternal. Hilts was able to negotiate a temporary truce between the factions by offering to read Hilt's Testament. When the Korsinite League opposed any reading of the Testament before Testament Day, Hilt's Keshiri assistant Jaye Vuhld revealed that Kesh's calendar was actually eight days behind the Galactic Standard Calendar. This allowed Hilts to legally read the Testament and convene the "Pantheon's Peace." While the Testament did not offer any solutions to resolve the conflict between the rival Sith factions, Hilts discovered that it had been recorded over an older recording.

This older recording was revealed to be a transmission from the ancient Sith Lord Naga Sadow to Yaru Korsin. The assembled Sith leaders soon learned that Yaru Korsin and the Tribe's ancestors were merely slaves of the Sith Empire. The ancient Sith starship Omen, which had transported the Tribe's ancestors to Kesh, had actually been extracting Lignan ore from Phaegon III to Kirrek during the Great Hyperspace War. The ship had crash-landed on Kesh, which became the Tribe's new home. The Tribe also discovered the true nature of the original 57 Red Sith. This revelation of the Tribe's "inglorious past" discredited the popular myth that the Tribe had been "great conquerors" or the revered Skyborn, divine gods in Keshiri mythology. Iliana personally destroyed the holocron in an attempt to conceal the Tribe's "inglorious" history.

Despite the Sith leaders' efforts to keep the Lost Tribe's history a secret, news of the recent Testament Day meeting was leaked to their Sith followers. Varner Hilts believed that a drunken Sith individual was responsible for the leak. The Tribe was driven into a homicidal frenzy by the revelation of their "inglorious past," which sparked a series of violent killings and riots throughout Keshtah Minor. Within two weeks, much of Keshtah Minor's cities had been reduced to ashes. The so-called Great Crisis threatened the Tribe's very existence, as its population had dwindled to a few thousand individuals. The various Sith factions also engaged in combat with each other before turning on themselves. Many Keshiri were also killed in the crossfire.

During the fighting, Iliana injured several rival Sith, including Korsin Bentado, whose left hand she severed. Fearing retribution, Iliana sought refuge in the Kesh Sith Temple, which had been sealed for centuries. Meanwhile, Hilts and Jaye embarked on a mission to the Sith Temple. Hilts had learned from Korsin's Testament that Korsin had mentioned "secrets" behind the throne that could save the Tribe. This throne was located within the Temple. There, the pair encountered Iliana and persuaded her to join their quest. After much effort, the three explorers discovered Korsin's vaunted "secrets": a collection of charts depicting a map of another continent known as Keshtah Major, also known as Alanciar. Hilts quickly realized that the discovery and conquest of Keshtah Minor could be used to unite the Tribe and save it from destruction.

In the meantime, the other Sith ended their hostilities and joined forces with Edell Vrai, the leader of the Golden Destiny, to destroy the Omen in order to erase the Tribe's "inglorious history." While the Golden Destiny had previously believed that the Tribe was descended from "great conquerors" and that they needed to return to the stars, Korsin's secret transmission from Naga Sadow had demoralized and disillusioned Vrai. Believing that the Tribe was destined for annihilation, he persuaded the other Sith to assist him in destroying the Omen. They intended to collapse the Sith Temple's tower onto the chamber housing the Omen, crushing it from above. However, they encountered Hilts, Iliana, and Jaye. While Jaye was killed during a skirmish with Korsin Bentado, Hilts was able to end the fighting by revealing his discovery of Keshtah Major.

Hilts successfully persuaded the rival Sith factions to set aside their differences and work together to reach Keshtah Minor. The other Sith elected Hilts as their new Grand Lord, and he became the Tribe's recognized leader. Iliana became his Grand Consort and later became the commander of the Tribe's military forces.

Under the leadership of Grand Lord Hilts, the Tribe rebuilt Keshtah Minor's ruined cities and infrastructure, restoring it to its former splendor. Later generations would remember Hilts' reign as the Hilts Restoration. One of his most important policies was to establish a power structure that allowed the Sith Tribe to channel their ambitions without causing civil war. In his testament, Hilts outlined his belief that the Tribe's old ways had been forgotten and that they needed to be restored in order to ensure the Tribe's survival. As part of his reforms, Hilts established a meritocracy in which power within the tribe was earned rather than inherited. This helped to reduce conflict between the ruling families. Within this system, assassination was tolerated, but open warfare was strictly forbidden.

The cornerstone of Hilts' policies was the discovery and peaceful annexation of Alanciar in 2975 BBY. After twenty-five years of research and experimentation, the High Lord and mathematician Edell Vrai succeeded in creating a fleet of airships powered by helium extracted from the Sessal Spire volcano. Vrai led a scouting mission to Alanciar, where he discovered that the Alanciari Keshiri had formed a militaristic society dedicated to repelling the Sith. The three airships used in this mission were named after three historical figures from the Time of the Rot—Candra, Lillia, and Dann Itra—in an effort to rehabilitate these figures from the Tribe's history. Millennia earlier, the Keshiri rebel Adari Vaal and her supporters had fled to Alanciar, where they founded a new society based on resisting the Sith. This society was governed by a highly centralized military regime known as the War Cabinet. While Vrai's airships were shot down by the Alanciari, he managed to capture the Alanciari man Jogan Halder and his lover Quarra Thayn. Vrai blackmailed Quarra into assisting him in exploring Alanciar on foot.

Shortly thereafter, Vrai's rival High Lord Bentado launched an invasion of Alanciar. As before, the Sith's Ebon Fleet was destroyed by Alanciari ballistae. However, the survivors under Bentado regrouped and succeeded in infiltrating the Alanciari capital of Sus'mintri and assassinating the War Cabinet. This effectively decapitated the Alanciari leadership and allowed Bentado to secretly seize control of Alanciar. He then attempted to assassinate Grand Lord Hilts and establish a "Second Tribe" on Alanciar. However, he was thwarted by the combined efforts of Vrai, Thayn, and his own Keshiri assistant Squab, who was secretly working for Hilts. Ultimately, Hilts succeeded in manipulating the Alanciari Keshiri into submitting to Sith rule by using Halder to convince his people that the Sith posed no threat to them. Instead, the Tribe were the ancient Protectors, while Bentado was a "servant" of the malevolent Destructors, a rival group of deities associated with evil in Keshiri religion.

As a result of Alanciar's conquest, the Lost Tribe gained access to a new continent abundant in lumber and land to accommodate Keshtah's surplus population. This enabled the Tribe to construct a sizable fleet of wooden sailing ships to facilitate further maritime exploration efforts. Following the annexation of Alanciar, Hilts sponsored a marine exploration program to explore uncharted lands and seas beyond Keshtah Minor and Alanciar. In 2974 BBY, a Sith expedition led by the Alanciari captain Chegg discovered the Doomed, the descendants of stranded ancient Jedi and Dark Jedi who had caused the Great Calamity millennia earlier but had since relocated to the frozen continent of Eshkrene in the South Pole. This expedition included Parlan Spinner, a former criminal, and Hilts' daughter, Takara Hilts.

During the Time of the Rot, the Doomed had monitored developments on Keshtah Minor through ice mirrors created by the Force. Around 3000 BBY, the Doomed had considered intervening to stop The Rot but changed their minds after Hilts managed to restore order to the Tribe. During his time on Eskrene, Spinner managed to escape his Doomed captors. He also freed the ancient Dark Jedi Remulus Dreypa from his oubliette on Eshkrene and brought him back to Keshtah. Dreypa and Spinner then instigated a rebellion against the Lost Tribe. This development effectively ended the "peace" that accompanied the end of the Time of the Rot.

During his brief insurrection, Dreypa also unleashed several Leviathans that had been hibernating for millennia within Sessal Spire. These Leviathans killed many Sith, Keshiri, and members of the Doomed, and also devastated Tahv. He then attempted to escape offworld by stealing the Last Hope, a Jedi starship hidden beneath Tahv. However, Dreypa was defeated by his former ally Spinner and his former Sith adversary Takara.