Time of the Rot

The commencement of the Time of the Rot occurred in 3960 BBY with the demise of the then-reigning Grand Lord Lillia Venn, who was assassinated by the Jedi Shadow Jelph Marrian and some of his followers during the Night of the Upside-Down Meteor. Her disappearance resulted in a power vacuum within the Lost Tribe. Upon learning of her death, her adversaries initiated a widespread rebellion in the capital city of Tahv, resulting in a large-scale slaughter of her supporters. One of her rivals, High Lord Candra Kitai, briefly assumed leadership of the Tribe but failed to unite the various factions. Her only notable accomplishment during her tenure was the closure of Tahv's zoo, where she had been forced to work as a slave after being falsely accused of attempting to assassinate Lillia Venn. At some point, Kitai was overthrown and presumably killed. These rivals then engaged in conflict among themselves to gain leadership of the Tribe and control over Kesh. Among these factions were the Gold Faction and the Red Faction. Another Grand Lord who reigned during this era was Dann Itra.

Many of the defeated combatants fled Tahv and sought refuge in the hinterlands, where they formed alliances with Human slaves, descendants of individuals who had been expelled from the Tribe. These Sith rebels then compelled many of the native Keshiri to join their military ranks. For centuries, these rival Sith factions forged alliances with the aim of conquering Tahv and overthrowing the ruling Grand Lord. However, these alliances were often short-lived and quickly dissolved due to internal rivalry, which was fueled by the Sith's adherence to the Sith Code. By 3000 BBY, the Gold and Red Factions had fragmented into twenty separate factions. Each of these was often led by its own Grand Lord, who denounced their rivals as Anti-lords. The Marisota Floodplain became a frequent battleground for conflicts and military campaigns between rival Sith factions.

As a consequence of the Time of the Rot, the cities of Keshtah Minor, including Tahv, fell into disrepair due to the ongoing fighting and neglect. Tahv's imposing aqueducts were known to have become clogged and flooded on multiple occasions, leading to accidents. The city's large arena, Korsinata, also collapsed due to frequent eruptions from the volcano Sessal Spire. The Time of the Rot also coincided with the collapse of the Tribe's education system and the loss of historical knowledge. By 3000 BBY, many Sith were unaware of their true history and had adopted a romanticized view of their ancestors as "great conquerors" from a "great empire." The only occasion when the various Sith factions convened peacefully was during Testament Day, which was held in Tahv every twenty-five years. During Testament Day, the Testament of Yaru Korsin was read to the leaders of the Sith factions. Korsin's Testament was stored within a holocron guarded by the Caretaker Varner Hilts, an elderly historian and museum curator responsible for preserving the Tribe's historical archive.

In 3000 BBY, Iliana Merko, the leader of the Sisters of Seelah, attempted 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 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 Sisters' presence attracted the attention of rival Sith factions, including Force 57, the Korsinite League, and the Golden Destiny.

Eight days before the reading of the Testament, several members of Force 57 and the Korsinite League attacked the Sisters at the Circle Eternal. Hilts managed 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 contain anything that would end the conflict between the rival Sith factions, Hilts discovered that it had been recorded over an older recording.

This older recording turned out to be a transmission from the ancient Sith Lord Naga Sadow to Yaru Korsin. The assembled Sith leaders quickly learned that Yaru Korsin and the ancestors of the Tribe 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 vessel had crash-landed on Kesh, which became the new home of the Tribe. The Tribe also learned about 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. In an attempt to conceal the Tribe's "inglorious" history, Iliana personally destroyed the holocron.

Despite the efforts of the Sith leaders to conceal the history of the Lost Tribe, news of the recent Testament Day meeting was leaked to their Sith followers. Varner Hilts speculated that a drunk Sith individual was responsible for this leak. The revelation of the Tribe's "inglorious past" plunged the Tribe into a homicidal frenzy, triggering a wave of violent killings and riots across Keshtah Minor. Within two weeks, much of Keshtah Minor's cities had been reduced to ashes. The so-called Great Crisis threatened the very existence of the Tribe, which had dwindled to a few thousand individuals. The various Sith factions also fought each other before turning on themselves. Many Keshiri were also killed during the crossfire.

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

Meanwhile, 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 expunge the "inglorious history" of the Tribe. 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 predestined to annihilation, he convinced the other Sith to help him destroy the Omen. They planned to collapse the Sith Temple's tower on the chamber holding 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 convinced 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 recognized leader of the Tribe. 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 glory. Hilts' reign would be remembered by later generations as the Hilts Restoration. One of his most important policies was to create a power structure that allowed the Sith Tribe to channel their ambitions without causing civil war. In his testament, Hilts outlined his view that the old ways of the Tribe had been forgotten and that they need to be restored in order to secure the Tribe's existence. As part of his reforms, Hilts created a system of meritocracy where power in the tribe was earned rather than inherited. This helped lessen conflict between the ruling families. Within this system, assassination was tolerated but open warfare was strictly prohibited.

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 that were powered by helium extracted from the volcano Sessal Spire. Vrai led a scouting mission to Alanciar which discovered that the Alanciari Keshiri had created a militaristic society bent on 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 attempt 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 led by a highly-centralized military regime known as the War Cabinet. While Vrai's airships were downed by the Alanciari, he succeeded in capturing the Alanciari man Jogan Halder and his lover Quarra Thayn. Vrai blackmailed Quarra into helping him explore Alanciar by foot.

Shortly later, 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 killing infiltrating the Alanciari capital of Sus'mintri and assassinating the War Cabinet. This effectively decapitated the Alanciari leadership and enabled Bentado to covertly seize control of Alanciar. He then attempted to kill Grand Lord Hilts and found a "Second Tribe" on Alanciar. However, he was thwarted through 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 were not a 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 that was rich in lumber and land to house Keshtah's surplus population. These enabled the Tribe to construct a large fleet of wooden sailing ships to enable 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 that 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 maintained a watch over developments on Keshtah Minor through ice mirrors created by the Force. Around 3000 BBY, the Doomed had considered intervening in order 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 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 which 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 under Tahv. However, Dreypa was defeated by his former ally Spinner and his former Sith adversary Takara.