Rule of Two Sith comparison....

[errant_knight]

Agreed. Comparing one of the low level sith to sith of the rule of two era is a bit like comparing a small town beat cop to a special forces commando. Comparing Malgus, Marr or Revan,

prior to his return to the light,

would make more sense

[DougTbx]

Bane and Zannah are way too hyped, it was a near thing that they survived the duel on Tython and if not for the armor Bane was wearing that could adsorb light saber blows he would have fallen cause he was taking hits that normally would have been deadly or at least incapacitating. No armor, no Bane surviving long enough to finally get around to attacking the Jedi with the Battle Meditation , breaking that which distracted the Jedi who was beating Zannah down. If they were the powerhouses people go on about then why was there even a light saber battle? Why couldn't they simply lay waste to the Jedi with their vast, unstoppable dark side powers and Sith sorcery?

 

Honestly I can't see how the Rule of Two really could work as no Sith would try to train a apprentice who could defeat them. You'd lose knowledge because there would always be things a Master would never teach their apprentice lest it be used against them. Bane didn't want Zannah to best him, he wanted her to prove she was good enough to make it worth his while to try and steal her body then move on from there and likely repeat the process.

[GrandLordMenace]

Think of it this way: The Sith of the Rule of two are so powerful because of the fact that A: They are few, so they have the time, money, and anonymity to gather their strength and prepare without fear of a third party. The Sith of these eras often held secrets from one another, with no one sith having the entire piece of the pie. The Rule of two was designed for one Sith to get the entire pie, and the other getting scraps to fuel his need for the entire pie, and therefore the pie was passed on. The Jedi are strongest in numbers due to the Lightside being far more additive and selfless, slowly sacrificing themselves for the sake of the Light.

 

Often times in this era, if a great Sith like Malgus found the Holocron of Freedon Nadd, the guy would probably keep it for himself! In the Rule of Two, the Master would study the holocron and incorporate it in his teachings in order to fuel the apprentices' eventual lust for power and eventually claim the throne for him/herself.

 

Also you have to account for dilution of power. In the Rule of Two, the Master was always taken down by a stronger apprentice who had gained the power to surpass the master. In the old ways, a Sith who lacked power but had enough wiles to gather allies or maybe even fellow jealous apprentices could team up on a single Dark Lord. While the Dark Lord could be as strong as a great such as Sidious, if the Dark Lord was taken down by 5 apprentices as strong as Darth Maul, then the power of the Sith as a whole would be diluted. Then inevitable the apprentices would war, and the strongest one would survive, and while he would be strong, he wouldn't be as strong as the original master himself, making him the "Cream of the Crap" of sorts. This type of chain dilution slowly weakens the Sith, and the only reason the Sith can remain competitive at any sort of time is when one in a million uber powerful lords born at the right place and right time elevate the order as a whole, like Vitiate.

 

In the end, the only real way to combat this is to organize for all Sith to have 1v1 duels, and this can only be truly assured via the Rule of Two. The greatest Sith have always been hardened by constant competition and strife. The Dark Council of this Era still sort of works due to the dangerous and extremely competitive political system, but at the same time the multiple apprentices situation can still occur.

Edited July 20, 2014 by GrandLordMenace

[Stormcloudx]

I just want to add that the same number of no name sith that got wrecked..you can see the same thing in no name jedi in the game and the sacking of corsucant trailer too. Neither side seems as strong as their future versions. this may be due to so many and times of war quality just dropped..then toner factors (like sith infighting.)

[Kaedusz]

 

Also you have to account for dilution of power. In the Rule of Two, the Master was always taken down by a stronger apprentice who had gained the power to surpass the master.

 

In the end, the only real way to combat this is to organize for all Sith to have 1v1 duels, and this can only be truly assured via the Rule of Two.

 

That's only a theory on paper,which rarely survives reality.

Out of the top of my mind.Plagious didn't kill Tenebrous in combat.Sidious didn't kill Plagueis in combat.

 

The point of the Rule of Two is to take over the Galaxy .remove the Jedi as a threat and establish a dominance of the Dark Side,through the user cunning,secrecy,manipulation the Dark Side ,etc.

Being taken down by your aprentice comes by default in order the Sith Order to continue surviving.It's not a holy tenet.It's just common sense cus a sith can't asume he will live forever and ever.That's why Bane invented Rule of Two and not just one sith,which he had thouths of originaly doing.

 

With that out of the way-to to asume that the Master is always taken down by a more powerful person is just naive.

 

What if the Master is not at his prime.Why would the aprentice wait for the master to be in his prime when he challenges him.

What if he loves the Sith with all his heart and the posibility remains that he will fail and then his master would not have time to train another aprentice,hence the Sith are screwred.

 

Would the aprentice not make sure to win at all costs,making sure he wins no matter what.For example make your master drunk and then murder him while he is sleeping.This is not something Bane would have wanted.

 

So the whole spiral of endless power progression untill the end of time and the Sith are Gods is just a stupid concept and wsihful lthinking.

 

Sidious was so powerful because .... he was powerful and because Plagueis trained him without upholding anything.Not because since Bane every next generation has magically become more force sensitive.There was a bit Force knowledge progression, naturally,which then reveresed back to before Bane created the Order and they started all over again.

* * *

The problem with the Rule of Two is a word which Traya likes to use very often.It's unchecked.How can you know you are worth something if there is noone you can compare yourself to.Well except your own aprentice(lol).

There is too much at stake,too much responsibility given to too few individuals and the destruction of the Sith Order always hangs by a thread.

They wasted 1000 years being secretive and unknown just so some Psychopath who doesn't even follow Bane's tradition can rule for 20 years and then everything went to hell.

The Jedi got almost destroyed for 20 years? So what?Nothing compared to hiding in a dark corner for 800 something years.

* * *

someone above asked : if a Sith is from the Rule of Two line does that make him deadlier than Old Republic Sith?

 

Imagine Darth Baras(or w/e) with a constant Force Camouflage and masquerading as an influencial olygarch , politican or w/e in the Republic. - these are the Sith from the Rule of Two.Nothing special about them. The difference being their method of achieving their goals.They don't dress up in battle armour and rally armies to openly challenge the Republic, they make secret conspiracies.

In other words no.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Kaedusz

[SirMoody]

Good Thread.

 

I've always wondered about this myself. The way I've always understood the Rule of two is... Strong Master teaches an apprentice, until that apprentice becomes stronger than the master, and kills him. Then that Former apprentice is now the Master , who is stronger than the previous master. He now takes on an apprentice of his own. Who eventually becomes stronger than HIS master, and so on. So If this trend continues.. then the Sith that are from 100 generations into the Rule of Two should be Godlike... (Palpatine).

 

But every now and then i hear things like; yes you're strong, but compared to the powerful Sith of ancient times you are nothing. Or something Khem would say... Little Sith thinks he is strong but my master Tulok Hord can take 100 of you with his eyes closed. Or something dumb like that.

 

I never really could figure out who is stronger. The future generation Sith or the Sith of ancient times.

[October]

Bane's theory still holds up and is expanded upon by Darth Plagueis, if you would allow me:

 

Plagueis states the belief that the Dark Side held a greater sway over the galaxy in the Old Sith Wars and that over time the Dark Side waned considerably, it was easier to become strong in the Dark Side because the Dark Side itself had a large presence in the galaxy.

 

Lord Vitiate is not powerful through the natural means of having strong potential, he used a ritual to become as powerful as he did, Malgus and Marr are of the type of Sith that had dedicated their beliefs and views on the Dark Side so much that they achieved a sort of enlightened state if you will, however a massive chunk of the Sith Order was filled with chumps, the best Sith Warriors in the galaxy were picked and pulled down to 50 Sith Lords, Malgus found the rest too weak.

 

Rule of Two Sith however had all of the Dark Side in their hands, they were all powerhouses in their own way and it got to the point that the force went out of balance because the Dark Side had become so concentrate in just two beings, indeed when Plagueis expired, Sidious felt a sensation that told him he was the sole possessor of the Dark Side, it's full power was his alone, this culminated in him being the most powerful Sith Lord of all time, so strong that a body that was not his own original body would literally die because it couldn't handle his power.

Vitiate was powerful before his ritual, although.

[Ershiin]

Should also remember that Luke, arguably the strongest force user of all time, got knocked the F out by a wampa..

Power takes many forms.. Its not all DBZ power levels.

 

I mean.. Palpatine finally being the one to bring the republic and the jedi order to its knees had virtually NOTHING to do with his "mastery of the dark side". It was his inside knowledge and pre-planning, along with his skills in deception that did the trick, NOT his oh so mighty force lightning.

Edited July 29, 2014 by Ershiin

[LadyKulvax]

Vitiate was powerful before his ritual, although.

 

Yes he was, but not even close to his strength afterwards.

[Kaedusz]

Should also remember that Luke, arguably the strongest force user of all time, got knocked the F out by a wampa..

Power takes many forms..

 

This is because in Star Wars, what you watch and what you read are different things.

Luke is the most powerful because someone said so, and because some fan decided to make a drawing of him beating Abeloth,you get the idea.Not because we actually saw him do incredible stuff in what actually matters in his context- the original trilogy.Consistency,quality and believeness is in the toilet.

 

The only solid Star Wars is in games.Old Republic games to be exact.

Edited July 29, 2014 by Kaedusz

[Lucianthisis]

Okay let's all be honest here the rule of two seems a bit odd when SPIRITS of dead Sith can still wield some form of power, and their mere presence can drive people bat crap crazy without trying, are floating around in tombs all over the galaxy. So it's not just "the two" who are using the dark side, but the dead spirits of dozens? hundreds? thousands? of Sith are out there doing who knows what, I mean Exar Kun was TAUGHT by the spirit of a dead Sith so no living master needed for the Sith to continue, logic would suggest that during the rule of two era there could have been quite a few force sensitive being taught by long dead Sith who had no clue that some upstart (Darth Bane) had implemented some crazy rule, all they know is that there don't seem to be that many Sith running around and they better get to teaching if they want the order to survive. Unless the Sith have some super secret way of informing every spirit around that the order is going into hiding and they should lay low for awhile, unlikely considering that Exar Kun was taught when the Sith Empire was doing exactly that before SWTOR soooo that doesn't seem to happen.

[smartalectwo]

Bane's Rule of Two was as much about philosophical victory as it was about practicality. He wanted to see the Sith way triumph over the Jedi, so he wanted the Sith way perfected. Banding together in large numbers was the way of the Jedi, and Bane hated that, because even if the Sith armies won, they wouldn't have done it using the Sith way: deception, treachery, and the power of the individual will. The Jedi might be gone but the Force would still remain.

 

And the way to do that, he thought, was to create a system where the Sith would have to constantly be on their guard, or die - where they'd have no choice but to fight the Jedi using subtlety and cunning, and eventually prove that the Sith way was the superior, that two sufficiently dedicated Sith could defeat thousands. Do that, and the Dark Side itself would win. That's the Rule of Two's purpose.

 

So you could say that many of the TOR-era Sith might have been a match for Sidious and company in terms of power. But power doesn't always equal philosophical purity. Malgus had a twi'lek sweetheart, for example. Bane wanted Sith who were 100% SITH, every hour of every day.

Edited August 14, 2014 by smartalectwo

[BradTheImpaler]

Bane's Rule of Two was as much about philosophical victory as it was about practicality. He wanted to see the Sith way triumph over the Jedi, so he wanted the Sith way perfected. Banding together in large numbers was the way of the Jedi, and Bane hated that, because even if the Sith armies won, they wouldn't have done it using the Sith way: deception, treachery, and the power of the individual will. The Jedi might be gone but the Force would still remain.

 

And the way to do that, he thought, was to create a system where the Sith would have to constantly be on their guard, or die - where they'd have no choice but to fight the Jedi using subtlety and cunning, and eventually prove that the Sith way was the superior, that two sufficiently dedicated Sith could defeat thousands. Do that, and the Dark Side itself would win. That's the Rule of Two's purpose.

 

So you could say that many of the TOR-era Sith might have been a match for Sidious and company in terms of power. But power doesn't always equal philosophical purity. Malgus had a twi'lek sweetheart, for example. Bane wanted Sith who were 100% SITH, every hour of every day.

 

Philosophical purity definitely played a big part in Bane's formulation of the Rule of Two. Purism seems like it could be unbecoming for a true Sith, though, and that's why it seemed to be tacitly acknowledged that a master or apprentice would seek out a replacement for their partner in secret and begin that process of training well before the second of the two Sith was ultimately defeated. That, and there is an argument to be made that Bane effectively handed the galaxy over to the Jedi and the Republic (albeit an incredibly corrupted Republic and an unprepared Jedi Order) through a catastrophic betrayal motivated by his own interpretation of the Sith Code. An enforced rule or a simple convention in a larger Sith Empire determining when it is acceptable or unacceptable to challenge a rival Sith, for pragmatic purposes of preventing advances by the Republic/Jedi, far from necessarily makes the Sith less "pure" in the long run when confrontation does inevitably happen. In Knight Errant, at a point when the Sith roam almost completely unchecked, one Sith Lord even reflects that a Sith would rather lose to another Sith, a follower of the dark side, than to a Jedi. Also, as I recall, Malgus did kill his sweetheart for reasons of his Sith philosophy, and he wasn't alone in that perspective toward sacrifice.

 

In any case, if I recall correctly, Bane also justified the Rule of Two as a way to address infighting. In purely practical and highly predictable terms, all that did was shrink the scale of infighting dangerously down to the point where one kamikaze attack ultimately took out both reigning Sith Lords after one of them turned back to the light. There were a number of reasons they managed to last that long in spite of close calls, but infighting seems inescapable and in the case of the Empire it serves a purpose of letting the strong win out while still having a larger civilization steeped in the dark side.

 

This is probably more of a rant than I wanted it to be, but in short, based on the results (a millennia of planning leading to two decades of rule vs. centuries of both within the Sith Empire's borders), and on a philosophical position (the dark side is actually stronger, one would think, when it is the dominant Force in the galaxy, and plenty of Sith running around, even if they kill each other, suggests a more dominant position for the dark side), Bane was a traitorous ideologue and the Sith were better off as the Sith Empire. As strong as he was, the "Golden Age of the Sith" wasn't in Palpatine's reign, after all.

[smartalectwo]

An enforced rule or a simple convention in a larger Sith Empire determining when it is acceptable or unacceptable to challenge a rival Sith, for pragmatic purposes of preventing advances by the Republic/Jedi, far from necessarily makes the Sith less "pure" in the long run when confrontation does inevitably happen.

 

There's something psychotically frightening in the Rule of Two: and it is that every Sith had to accept their inevitable death at the hands of their apprentice. That's the intimidatingly pure part of it. Yes, being a Sith made you a treacherous, devious, totally amoral villain, but the point was that you were breeding an even MORE treacherous, devious villain and you had to accept that it was part of your job to one day be betrayed and killed. Yes, many of the Banites trained a second apprentice in secret; but none of them thought, 'wait, this sucks, I don't want to die' and simply started their own Sith mini-Empire with multiple weak disciples, or gave up on the idea altogether. They were committed, as much as Sith could be. It's that point which puts the Banites above the TOR-Era Sith in terms of ideological purity: they were all prepared to die for it, rather than live for themselves.

 

The Sith Inquisitor story makes this point, in fact, that the Sith of the Sith Empire are too much like normal people in terms of greed, love of power, fear of death etc. Bane got them off the relatively pointless goal of building and maintaining an Empire, and reminded them that they were supposed to be a crazy religious death-cult.

 

Completely removing the possibility of being able to ally with others to turn on your rival was a big part of this. Even in a rigidly policed Sith Empire, you'd inevitably have powerful Sith fighting other Sith via proxy, etc. Bane didn't want any of that.

 

on a philosophical position (the dark side is actually stronger, one would think, when it is the dominant Force in the galaxy, and plenty of Sith running around, even if they kill each other, suggests a more dominant position for the dark side)

 

The one thing I'd say there is that this is not the case; lots of Sith does not mean a more powerful Dark Side. The Dark Side was at its canonical strongest during Palpatine's ascent to power, and had been steadily gaining strength due to the actions of the Banites. The spread of corruption in the Republic, the moral decay everywhere else, there were rituals undertaken in secret... This was why the Jedi in the Prequels were frequently muttering that the Dark Side clouded everything, and this was a key part of the Banite strategy, to blind them.

 

The corruption in the Republic and the unpreparedness of the Jedi Order was at least in part due to the work of the Banites.

 

As far as success goes, the way I tend to look at it is that the Banites were so successful that it took a specific prophecy and a very specific destiny to take them down.

Edited August 17, 2014 by smartalectwo

[BradTheImpaler]

Bane himself almost gave up on the possibility of Zannah killing him and sought the secret of essence transfer to extend his life, potentially indefinitely. Plagueis and Sidious both sought immortality because each was convinced the Rule of Two ended with them. In any case, is it more Sith-like to die for the sake of ideological purity, or to live for oneself? That seems to be the heart of cognitive dissonance in Bane's thoughts. The strongest winning also doesn't universally match up with the aims of the Sith as much as the aims of the dark side do. What would a Banite Sith apprentice do, faced with a genuinely stronger master, perhaps one with power on a massive scale of the likes of Nihilus or Vitiate? If teaming up with other, 'weaker' Sith temporarily can accomplish a Sith's goals, it goes against Sith nature not to do so, by Bane's own admission. "Purity" doesn't mean trying to artificially limit infighting.

 

I've played the Inquisitor storyline, and it makes the point that 'Sith' is a broad category with different potential approaches, goals, interpretations of the Code, etc. It's Ashara, speaking as a Jedi, who argues that that can't be sustained. Who says they were supposed to be a "crazy religious death cult"? Some interpretations, and probably better ones, emphasize "breaking chains" by gaining power, taking their rightful place, conquering, etc. The reason the Rule of Two worked for a while is not because it was the purest embodiment of Sith nature, it is because it was such an unexpected approach and so contrary to the Sith's nature. Nobody would have expected Sith of a single generation to give up their own lives for the sake of a victory that would happen centuries after their deaths, let alone for a millennia's worth of generations. That is the strength of the Rule of Two, but it doesn't negate the practical and philosophical problems I mentioned in my above post, because when it reaches its limit it is catastrophic.

 

It's mischaracterization to say he didn't want any infighting (I know you didn't)---he just wanted it done while the Sith were already in a precarious position. The Rule of Two might work as a failsafe in the event of the Sith's near-destruction, but it shouldn't be adopted as a default practice or dogma.

 

The dark side is strongest, not just in the sense of pure potency but in the sense of enduring dominance, in an essentially 'chaotic' universe bursting with passions. Even if Plagueis and Palpatine's manipulative sorcery made the dark side the strongest it ever was, canonically, the fate of both speaks for itself. You can't just rely on one or two Siths' sorcery. It's no accident that Force nexuses or "wounds in the Force" played so significant a role for the Sith up to SWTOR's era.

 

The corruptibility may not have been due to Banite activity, but its corruption was largely due to that, yeah. I freely admitted as much.

 

As far as success goes, the way I tend to look at it is that the Banites were so successful that it took a specific prophecy and a very specific destiny to take them down.

 

That's one way of looking at it. You could also say they were so fragile that it only took a neophyte Jedi Knight and an attempt at replacing Vader on Palpatine's part to take them both down, and exposed the flaw in the Rule of Two in that it's such an ad-hoc position,inappropriate as a general rule, that a single betrayal, something which Sith Empire's had survived on much larger scales many times before because it was a fact of existence they prepared for, ruined them completely.