“Two there should be; no more, no less.
One to embody the power, the other to crave it” (309).

If the original Star Wars trilogy is a classic hero’s tale, Drew Karpyshyn’s Darth Bane series is a dark villain’s tale. It tells the origin story of one of the most consequential Sith Lords in galactic history –Darth Bane, the Sith Lord who rediscovered the ancient “Rule of Two” of the Sith. The character Darth Bane first appeared in the novelization for The Phantom Menace in 1999, before appearing in various comics and video games, until he was given a trilogy of books written by Drew Karpyshyn, best known for writing books for Star Wars and Mass Effect, along with a few other IPs. Apparently, he was a script writer for video games like Forgotten Realms and Baldur’s Gate II, and he was famously a writer for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Interestingly enough, he was once a contestant on Jeopardy! And he resides in Austin, TX with his wife.  

Book I of the Darth Bane trilogy takes place over a thousand years before A New Hope. The Sith (or “Brotherhood of Darkness”) are conducting an ongoing war against the Jedi, under the leadership of Lord Kaan who is flanked by other powerful Sith Lords like Qordis and Kopecz (the latter is a Twi’lek).  

Three years later, we meet Dessel (“Des”) a two-meter-tall miner working on the backwater mining planet of Apatros which is run by the Outer Rim Oreworks Company (ORO). Apatros is “barely more than a moon with an atmosphere and some indigenous plant life.” Des works a miner, harvesting a rare substance known as cortosis, which is impervious to heat and energy. It is prized in the construction of armor and shielding by both commercial and military interests. Cortosis alloy is resistant to blasters and can supposedly withstand the blade of a lightsaber. However, it is difficult to mine, and requires the use of hydraulic jacks. Des leads a life of strife and struggle. His mother died young and his drunken, abusive father Hurst died of a heart attack (though we later learn the true story). His father would drink heavily and taunt his son, calling him “Bane” and blaming him for their miserable life together on Apatros –“he considered his only child to be the bane of his existence” (6-7).

“Bane. It represented everything spiteful, petty, and mean about his father. It struck at the innermost fears of every child: fear of disappointment, fear of abandonment, fear of violence. As a kid that name had hurt more than all the smacks of his father’s heavy fists” (7).

Now, Des has inherited his late father’s debt and remains trapped on Apatros. One day, Des is attacked by a short drunken miner named Gerd and an enraged Des harnesses a strange feeling of anger in order to fight back. He has always inexplicably possessed otherworldly abilities like precognition. In the tussle, he bites off Gerd’s thumb. Later that evening, Des heads to Groshik’s cantina (Groshik is a Neimoidian) to play sabacc against a group of arrogant republic troops. In a heated dispute, Des questions the beneficence of the Republic: “See, that’s the problem with the Republic. In the Core everything’s great: people are healthy, wealthy, and happy. But out here on the Rim things aren’t so easy” (38). In the game, Des manages to defeat one nasty ensign and later outside the cantina, Des is jumped but in the fight he kills the ensign with his own vibroblade. Realizing he now has a target on his head, Groshik helps Des escape as cargo aboard a Rodian smuggler’s ship.

“The decision is made. Grim fate and ill fortune have conspired against you. It’s not like sabacc; you can’t fold a bad hand. In life you just play the cads you’re dealt” (58).

From there, Des joins the Sith Army (the “Gloom Walkers”) in the fight against the Jedi. His unit is under the leadership of Lieutenant Ulabore, but all of his fellow troopers (including a senior trooper named Adanar) primarily respect Des for taking charge of the situation in critical moments. He is promoted to sergeant, and becomes renowned for completing seemingly impossible shots, particularly during a raid on a Republic outpost on manufacturing world of Phaseera. But after taking charge, Des is accused of mutiny and is arrested until a mysterious robed Sith Lord orders him to be sent to Korriban, birthplace of the Sith, to an ancient temple overlooking a desolate valley near the city of Dreshdae. Here, Des meets a Twi’lek Sith in a shadowy room named Lord Kopecz of the Sith; he is Des’s inquisitor (the one who rescued him from the pit). In this exchange, Des accepts an invitation to join the “Brotherhood of Darkness” to train as a Sith in the Academy on Korribanwhich is led by Lord Qorbis. Privately, Lord Kopecz tells Lord Qordis that Des could be the one they’ve been searching for, the chosen one, or the “Sith’ari.”

“My name is Bane. Bane of the Sith.”

Throughout his training on Korriban, Des continues to grow in strength as he reads the ancient Sith texts in the library. He adopts a new Sith name, the very same pejorative his father called him: “Bane.” He rises above the other trainees, in relentless pursuit of perfection, and kills a Makurth named Fohargh during a duel challenge in a shocking scene. However, Bane is later brutally defeated by the top pupil, a Zabrak named Sirak, which necessitates three weeks in a bacta tank. This causes Bane to be shamed and ostracized, and so he retreats into the library archives. At the same, a striking female with emerald eyes arrives at the Academy, a former Jedi trainee named Githany. She helps to train Bane in the Force while Blademaster, Kas’im, instructs Bane in the use of a lightsaber. Around this time, Bane realizes that he himself was the true killer of his own father by unknowingly harnessing the dark side of the Force. This realization leaves Bane in a state of fear over his powers.

Bane challenges Sirak again, this time at the urging of Githany, and this time he decimates Sirak, even if he disappoints Githany by failing to execute Sirak. Increasingly, Bane is growing disillusioned with Lord Kaan and the “Brotherhood of Darkness” and he ventures out of the Academy to the Valley of the Dark Lords where the tombs of all the ancient dark masters are seated on Korriban. “The spirits of the ancient Dark Lords were beings of pure dark side energy; they were as eternal as the Force itself. The spirit would linger for centuries –millennia, even—until a worthy successor came along…” But all he discovers is dust and sand, the tombs having been raided and looted long ago.

“He had given himself over to the dark side completely in that moment. It had been more than simple rage or bloodlust. It went deeper, to the very core of his being. He’d lost all reason and control… but it had felt right” (125).

Meanwhile the war on Ruusan between the Jedi (under General Hoth) and the Brotherhood of Darkness (under Lord Kaan) continues its frustrating stalemate. General Hoth leads the Army of Light wit hthe help of other Jedi Masters, like Lord Valenthyne Farfalla. Ruusan is an important border planet between the Core and the Outer Rim. And gradually, Bane grows disillusioned with Lord Kaan’s vision for the Sith as essentially a brotherhood of “equality” which forms an army to fight the Jedi. He believes in the words of the ancients, like “Peace is a lie, there is only passion” and “The weak will always be crushed by the strong.” Bane rediscovers the ancient use of the title “Darth” rather than “Dark Lord.” Then Githany decides to join forces with Sirak to destroy Bane. Bane abandons the brotherhood of darkness after battling Sirak ending his decapitation (also killing Yevra and Llokay with help from Githay, whose loyalties are quite evidently exclusively to herself). And Bane abruptly departs from Korriban, rejecting the Brotherhood of Darkness, and declaring himself to be “Darth Bane.”

Bane heads to the “Unknown World” commonly known as Lehon. Three thousand years ago, Darth Revan and Darth Malak discovered the Rakata, an ancient species of Force-users who ruled the galaxy long before the birth of the Republic. Lehon also had a Star Forge, an orbiting space station and factory and monument to the dark side that was destroyed long ago. Now, wreckage and debris still covers the planet in a ring, though the Rakata are extinct. The Republic has marked it as a historical planet, technically forbidden to visit. The Republic has isolated and quarantined the whole system. Navigating through the floating debris, Bane lands on the “Unknown World” and quickly encounters a Rancor which he tames and rides to the ancient Rakatan Temple. Deep inside, he finds a Sith holocron and once awoken, the voice of Darth Revan begins offering an ancient Sith teaching to Bane. Note that Drew Karpyshyn also wrote the Star Wars Revan novel in the Expanded Universe. One example of Revan’s teaching includes:

“Those who accept the power of the dark side must also accept the challenge of holding on to it… By its very nature, the dark side invites rivalry and strife. This is the greatest strength of the Sith: it culls the weak from our order. Yet this rivalry can also be our greatest weakness. The strong must be careful lest they be overwhelmed by the ambitions of those beneath them working in concert. Any Master who instructs more than one apprentice in the ways of the dark side is a fool. In time the apprentices will unite their strength and overthrow the Master. It is inevitable. Axiomatic. That is why each Master must have only one student” (283).

Once finished, the holocron is no longer functional and Bane crushes it into dust. Sensing Bane is growing too strong, the Blademaster Kas’im is sent by to find Bane and either persuade him to rejoin the Brotherhood or else kill him. But during the confrontation, Bane uses a burst of the Force to collapse the temple upon Kas’im, killing him. Then, Bane attempts to orchestrate a peace-meeting between himself and Lord Kaan on the orange planet of Ambria, a world with with violet rings located in the Stenness system. Many centuries earlier, the failed rituals of a powerful Sith sorceress had inadvertently unleashed a cataclysmic wave of dark side energy across the surface of Ambria, leaving it a barren rock. The jedi tried to cleanse the planet but the power was too great and it left the planet scarred. The dark side of the Force has now been concentrated in one area: in the black, stagnant waters of Lake Natth. There are a few scattered settlers trying to eke out a life on Ambria, but for the most part it is a wasteland littered with fallen weapons everywhere. Bane has also learned of a healer named Caleb on Ambria who came to this world once as an “idealistic fool.” Now, the Republic ignores this forgotten place. At any rate, instead of Lord Kaan, Githany arrives and kisses Bane with poisoned lips (actually double-poisoned with a layer of rock worrt venom powerful enough to kill a bantha and also a layer of synox –the odorless, colorless, tasteless toxin favored by the infamous assassins of the GenoHaradan). Githany flies away believing she has killed Bane, but Bane, realizing the synox is tearing his body apart, tracks down the healer Caleb who only agrees to help Bane when he threatens Caleb’s daughter.  

Filled with rage and resentment, Bane returns to the Brotherhood of Darkness on Ruusan. “Kaan had perverted the entire Sith order, transforming it into a sickly assemblage of mewling sycophants” (296). Taking his cues from Revan’s holocron, Bane realizes that the key to defeating the Jedi is not fleets or armies, but rather secrecy and deception. His great revelation is the Rule of Two, the salvation of the Sith. He returns to the Brotherhood of Darkness to exact vengeance. Donning black armor and the robes of the Sith with a hook-handled lightsaber, Bane strangles and crushes Qordis, the leader of the Academy on Korriban. He persuades the Sith to launch the “thought bomb” from the caves on Ruusan (after sabotaging their war efforts). The “thought bomb” is a massive explosion of dark side energy Bane learned from Revan’s holocron. Once detonated by all the Sith, the “path of destruction” utterly obliterates the Sith and Jedi in the surrounding area. The ritual for the thought bomb takes place in the caves. When the Jedi enter under General Hoth, Kaan claps his hands and the thought bomb detonates, vaporizing every living thing in its wake –Githany was attempting to flee and her body when her body was also reduced to dust. And Kopecz was killed by the Jedi Farfalla. Thus, Bane’s mission of annihilating the Brotherhood of Darkness is complete. He has purged the Sith of its weaknesses –especially its newfound desire for “equality.” In doing so, he quotes the ancient Sith by saying: “equality is a myth to protect the weak.”

Bane alone has survived and he departs Ruusan before the Jedi can find him, he is content to live in the shadows in search of a Force-sensitive child untainted by the Jedi:

“He was the only Dark Lord of the Sith, the last of his kind. The burden of rebuilding the order would fall to him. But this time he would do it right. Instead of many there would be only two: one Master and one apprentice. One to embody the power, and one to crave it… To survive, the Sith had to vanish, becoming creatures of myth, legend, and nightmares. Hidden from the eyes of the Jedi, they could seek out the lost secrets of the dark side until its full power was theirs to command. Only then –once victory over their enemies was certain—would they tear aside the veil of shadows and reveal themselves” (383).

In a brief epilogue, Bane discovers a lone ten-year-old girl named Zannah (whose cousins call her “Rain”). She has crash-landed on Ruusan and in an accidental squabble, she unknowingly uses the Force to murder a pair of Jedi by snapping their necks. Witnessing her potential, Bane takes her in, intimating his future plans of training her to become his Sith apprentice.  

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Suffice it to say, Darth Bane is a dark anti-hero’s tale –this is an utterly violent, brutal story. Throughout the book, Bane slaughters countless people, including an entire family on Ambria simply to gain strength in the dark side and combat the poison in his body; he also crushes a dying Sith’s skull with his boot on Ruusan; strangles several characters to death; and memorably decapitates his arch-nemesis Sirak inside the Academy on Korriban. Essentially, Bane murders everyone who comes within his vicinity. With that being said, Darth Bane is regarded as an essential book of the Star Wars Expanded Universe for good reason. It offers a rare glimpse into the intriguing era of the Old Republic, long before the rise of the Empire, and it uniquely confronts readers with the shadowy perspective of the Sith. As a character Darth Bane is remarkably grim anti-hero; and he is surrounded by sycophants and self-seeking figures like Githany (who switches allegiances several times throughout the book), as well as the followers of a false prophet, Lord Kaan. The Jedi are mostly background figures in this novel, but we are given brief examples of internal conflicts plaguing their leadership alongside the strife within the Sith Army of Darkness. Like James Luceno’s Darth Plagueis, Drew Karpyshyn’s Darth Bane helps to explain the mythology and lore of the ancient Sith, and in my view, this is undoubtedly one of the best Star Wars books I have yet encountered.

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Other Notes:

• In the beginning, on Apatros, we learn about the high cost of miner’s insurance, as Gerd will need to have his thumb reattached using a scalpel and synthflesh, though if he had more money or the company was willing to cover the cost, he could be back to normal in a few days fter kolto injections, or with more money he could sit in a bacta tank and be back in a day.
• Inside the Neimoidian, Groshik’s cantina, we are given a panorama of various Star Wars aliens like: Twi’leks, Sullustans, Cereans, Ithorians, and even Rodians.  
• Corellian ale is briefly mentioned as the drink the Republic ensigns are drinking.
• Some of the weapons mentioned in the Sith Army include: the TC-22 blaster rifle, as well as a GSI-21D disruptor pistol which was made by Galactic Solutions Industries; and also a TC-17 which can make twelve shots before requiring a recharge.
• Kashyyyk is briefly mentioned as a resource-rich planet with “wroshyr trees.”
• A prior disaster on a planet called “Hsskhor” is mentioned. Hsskhor is the capital city of Trandosha.  
• By this point, the Sith have been apparently outlawed by the Senate nearly three thousand years ago when Revan and Malak brought destruction to the entire galaxy. Much of this is explained in the Revan Star Wars novel, also written by Drew Karpyhsyn.  
• In addition to the elite Sith Academy on Korriban, those with noticeable but limited ability are also sent to Honoghr, Gentes, or Gamorr to become Sith Warriors or Maruaders; those with greater strength are sent to Ryloth, Umbara, Nar Shadaa; but the academies on Dathomir, Iridonia, and Korriban train under the Sith Masters.
• Korriban ancestral home of the Sith, “the dark side lives and breathes in the very core of this world” and it is filled with an air of “malice.”
• On Korriban there is ruthless competitive training under Sith Masters Qordis, Kas’im, Orilltha,, Shenayag, Hezzoran, and Borthis.
• Is General Hoth intended to be the namesake for the icy planet of Hoth as featured in The Empire Strikes Back?
• When first accepted into the Academy on Korriban, Lord Qorbis anoints Bane with the blood of a Sith Master.
• Githany’s old Jedi Master was a Cathar named Handa, and her former lover was Kiel Charny, a Jedi padawan. She notably uses a whip rather than a lightsaber.
• Like the Jedi archives, the Sith store records on Korriban, but unlike hologrammic and electronic records, the Sith store their history on scrolls, tomes, and manuals.
• In the tombs on Korriban, there are dangerous force-sensitive pelko bug swarms and large predators called tuk’ata.
• While spending a lot of his time in the library poring through ancient text, Bane encounters the likes of a Sith Lord named Naga Sadow who wrote on the uses of alchemy and poisons; or Revan and the Rakata on the Unknown World some three thousand years ago. Back then the Sith used the moniker “Darth,” Revan was one of the last great Sith to use that designation. Revan eventually returned to the Jedi after being betrayed by Darth Malak.
• Kas’im’s master had a double-bladed lightsaber, he was a fellow Twi’lek who initially found Kas’im in the slave markets on Nal Hutta. Kas’im took this blade when he killed his master Na’daz. Kas’im was the Blade Master on the Academy on Korriban.
• There is an old Corellian expression: “Fear the wrath of a female scorned.”
• A Valcyn T-Class long-range personal cruiser is what Bane takes from the Academy when he leaves.
• While spending thirteen days rummaging through the dusty tombs of the ancient Sith, Bane survives on “hydration tablets” –something I don’t recall ever being in Star Wars before.
• The wild Rancor is the top of the Unknown World’s food chain on the “Unknown World.”
• The Brotherhood of Darkness believes the Jedi defeated the ancient Sith: such as Exar Kun, Darth Revan, and others.
• It is mentioned that the dark side is weak in the healing arts –perhaps because the dark side is largely destructive rather than creative.   
• The war between the Jedi and Sith on Ruusan is apparently known as the “Seventh Battle of Ruusan.”

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Karpyshyn, Drew. Darth Bane: Path of Destruction. Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, NY, NY (2006, republished in 2007).

He dedicated the book to his wife Jen, “who makes everything possible.”

Click here to return to my survey of the Star Wars series.