“Not all knowledge is pure; some is touched by evil. There are secrets that must remain hidden; forbidden teachings that should remain forever buried. There is a dark side to the Force. Unchecked it brings death and destruction” (66).
The finale to the Darth Bane trilogy packs an exciting punch and it nicely rounds out this celebrated trio of Star Wars books. My one qualm is that Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil feels a bit rushed and contrived, with familiar characters continually appearing in each other’s journeys unlike the first two books in the series –this is the case, particularly, for the last two-thirds of the book– but otherwise this conclusion to the Darth Bane saga is sure to give fans a satisfying pulpy adventure. In Dynasty of Evil, it has been ten years since Bane has shed his painful orbalisk crustacean armor. Bane (now in his mid-forties) and Zannah reside in an opulent mansion on Ciutric IV, outside the capital city of Daplona. Bane’s holocron sits upon a pedestal in his house, it contains the summum bonum of all his knowledge. Thanks to Zannah’s quick thinking in the previous book, the Jedi now believe that the Sith are wholly extinct, and Bane and Zannah have assumed secret identifies, posing as wealthy entrepreneurs who are siblings: Sepp Omek (Bane) and Allia Omek (Zannah). Notably, Bane has developed a slight tremor in his left hand…
Once again in this sequel, the central driver of the plot is a mysterious Sith Macguffin –a Holocron. This time, Bane is searching for a way to rejuvenate and extend his own life. He found in one of his ancient books some vague references to an ancient Sith Lord named Darth Andeddu who had supposedly lived for centuries. However, in recent years the Jedi have managed to suppress all references to Darth Andeddu. Recognizing his own weakness after shedding the orbalisks, Bane is presently searching for the missing Holocron of Darth Andeddu. This leads him to send Zannah on a distracting mission to Coruscant while he pursues any and all unearthed references to Darth Andeddu –in particular, he encounters a scummy merchant named Argel Tenn who delivers a scroll which mentions Darth Andeddu as the “Eternal King” of the whole world of Prakith. This leads Darth Bane to Prakith. The act of treasure-hunting for ancient artifacts is a chief theme throughout the book, as some knowledge is apparently regarded as too dangerous for the great masses of people.
Meanwhile, miners on Doan have dug up a mysterious grave on the planet Doan. And in response, a Cerean Jedi named Medd Tandar is suddenly murdered by a young Iktotchi assassin in a detonation incident from inside the cave. The Jedi Council begins to grow concerned about recent events on Doan. Was Medd’s killing ordered by the royal family on Doan? Doan is an Outer Rim mining planet plagued by divisions between upper and lower classes, and the daughter-in-law of the royal family just so happens to be Serra –the young girl who was sent away from Ambria by her father, Caleb, the healer who encountered Bane in the first two books. After being sent away for protection by her father, Serra saved the life of a young woman, Lucia, who previously was as a sniper in the Gloom Walkers Sith army unit before serving time in a Republic POW camp. As thanks for saving her life, Lucia pledged herself as Serra’s trusted bodyguard. Serra then fell in love with Prince Gerran of the Doan Royal House and married to become Princess of Doan. However, her husband was murdered amidst the rising divisions on Doan and the King, who never approved of the union, wonders if Princess Serra was involved in the recent murder of the Jedi, Medd Tandar. Why was the Jedi on Doan in the first place? In the same way that the Sith are seeking out ancient talismans and holocrons, the Jedi are quietly acquiring as many as possible to store in their archives and protect the galaxy from unleashing their evil teaching. In order to prove herself to the King of Doan, Serra offers to travel to Coruscant herself, and defend Doan against any accusation of wrongdoing. However, Lucia secretly reveals to Serra that it was she who hired an assassin to kill the murderers of Prince Gerran, the Jedi who was killed was merely an unfortunate casualty, caught in the crossfire.
From here, we learn about the “Dark Jedi” (recall Joruus C’baoth in Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy) and there is an interesting exploration of the differences between the Sith and Dark Jedi –the Sith are the sworn enemies of the Jedi, whereas the Dark Jedi are much smaller in their ambitions, “the ultimate goal is not galactic conquest, but personal wealth and importance.” A Dark Jedi named Set Harth is introduced. He was trained as a Jedi under Master Obba but has since been lured by the dark side and is in search of Sith artifacts, lost to the underworld of mercenaries and bounty hunters. The Jedi Council fears he is the assassin who killed Medd Tandar on Doan. Set Harth follows the clues of a Sith artifact from a shifty Rodian cantina owner named Quano on Doan, and after confrontations with the miners and Quano, Set Harth is led into the cave where he acquires a ring and amulet and returns them to his mansion on Nal Hutta. Easily recognizable due to his long white hair, Darth Zannah chases after Set Harth, murdering people along the way, until she confronts him inside his mansion on the polluted, industrial planet of Nal Hutta, the homeworld of the Hutts. During their confrontation, Zannah is easily proven to be the superior fighter (thanks to the use of her “Sith Sorcery”) and she extends an offer of apprenticeship to Set Harth as she contemplates murdering her master, Bane.
Darth Bane, meanwhile, travels to the lost world of Prakith (in the Prak system), the third planet orbiting a small red sun which is largely covered by active volcanoes, burning lakes of magma, and dark fields of sulfuric ash. Gallia is one of its larger cities, but in a remote region, Bane finds a group of cult-like worshippers who praise the ancient Sith Andeddu. Bane battles the cult members and descends deep into the temple where he finds Andeddu’s coffin with his mummified corpse clutching a small crystal pyramid –the Holocron Bane has been seeking. Bane rips the Holocron from Andeddu’s crypt and returns it to his mansion on Ciutric. From this Holocron, Bane learns that “essence transfer is the secret to enternal life…”
Serra begins having dark visions and dreams of the Sith (or “dark man”) whom she learns has killed her father. She decides that she must avenge her father by hiring the assassin Lucia hired to kill her husband’s murderers –Lucia returns to the Iktotchi assassin inside the Stolen Fortune, an “anything goes” casino on the Paradise Space Station located on the hyperspace route branching off the Corellian Trade Spine, known for its illicit pirates and slavers. The assassin is known as “The Huntress” and she is given a small squad of twenty elite warriors to attack Darth Bane as well as a neurotoxin called “senflax” which dulls all of his senses in order to return him to Serra. The Huntress is also skilled in the dark side of the Force –in particular, she has clairvoyance and sees foreboding visions of the future. She agrees to the mission and leads her fighting force to a violent ambush of Bane at his mansion on Ciutric, which leads to the death of several warriors, but The Huntress still manages to infect Bane with the neurotoxin and deliver him to Serra where he is imprisoned in the old “Stone Prison” beneath the palace on Doan. However, by happenstance, Lucia recognizes Bane by his former identity –Des—from back in their days together in the Gloom Walkers (as detailed in the first book of the trilogy). Bane is brutally tortured by Serra which gives him painful seizures, but instead of finishing him off, Bane encourages Serra to cultivate her rage and desire for revenge by continuing to torture him, so she flees in terror, feeling the dark side suddenly emboldened within her. Lucia, then left alone with Bane, decides to free him, still believing she can resuscitate the memory of Des, the heroic savior during the Gloom Walkers during the campaigns on Kashyyyk, Trandosha, and Phaseera. But in the ensuing drama, Darth Zannah suddenly arrives on Doan and slaughters the unwitting Lucia before confronting her master, Bane. In these moments I wondered: where has the royal family gone on Doan? Why do they seem to be entirely absent following the start of the book?
A fight breaks out between Zannah and Bane, and The Huntress and Set Harth, until Serra initiates the self-destruct sequence of the whole building. They all then follow Serra to her former home planet of Ambria where The Huntress quickly pledges herself to Bane as his new apprentice as “Darth Cogus” –and she hurriedly murders Serra. In the end, Zannah confronts Bane on Ambria to prove herself the stronger Sith Lord, only this time, instead of resorting to a simple lightsaber fight, she uses her Sith sorcery, tormenting the mind of Bane and ultimately raising gigantic dark-side tendrils and tentacles from the ground which begin burning, hacking, and mangling Bane’s body. Before he dies, Bane attempts to complete the “essence transfer” of himself into Darth Zannah. Was he successful? His body is reduced to a pile of ash, while Zannah suddenly notices a tremor in her left hand, not unlike the same left-handed tremor which plagued Bane. Cognus becomes Zannah’s new apprentice. In a brief epilogue, Set Harth returns to Nal Hutta with Darth Andeddu’s Holocron in his possession –he cares for neither the Sith nor the Jedi, exclusively focusing on extending his own life.
“Thus would the Sith line always flow from the strongest, the one most worthy. Bane’s Rule of Two ensured that the power of both Master and apprentice would grow from generation to generation until the Sith were finally able to exterminate the Jedi and usher in a new galactic age” (7).
Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil ends on a somewhat ambiguous note –did Darth Bane successfully complete his essence transfer to Zannah? If not, why does she suddenly have a tremor in her left hand? Was the essence transfer only partially achieved? Regardless, Drew Karpyshyn set this novel up nicely for future continuation novels or even a series that explores the new adventures of Darth Zannah. Tragically, after the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm, there has been no interest in continuing this story into the new “Canon,” despite Darth Bane and Darth Zannah being fan-favorite characters in the Star Wars litverse. At least Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil delivers a satisfying conclusion to this Old Republic trilogy.
Other Notes:
- The Outer Rim planet Ciutric IV has twin moons and its capital city is Daplona.
- “Djem So” and “Soresu” are described as forms of lightsaber practice.
- Doan is an Outer Rim planet that described as an ugly brown ball of rock; 80% of the planetary surface has been converted to a massive strip-mining operation which has made it wealthy and divided the planet by class.
- Cereans apparently have binary brain structures.
- The Huntress is an Iktotchi, with horns of reddish color.
- Zannah’s ship called the Triumph is a Cygnus Spaceworks Theta-class T-1 vessel.
- Set Harth typically carries a GSI-24D pistol.
- The Corellian Trade Spine is a hyperspace route under Republic jurisdiction, but the quadrant discussed in this book was largely neglected by most major shipping corporations, known for pirates and slavers. It was led by a group of Muun investors to create an orbital platform catering to a segment of Republic society shunned on more civilized worlds.
- Paradise is a space port of casinos, slave-trading, bounty hunters, and general “scum.” Stolen Fortune is the largest of six casinos on the space port.
- Boarwolfs and Terbeasts are mentioned.
- The Hutts on Nal Hutta covered the surface of the nearby moon, Nar Shadaa, with a sprawling cityscape. Nal Hutta’s natural marshland had been filled with industrial pollution, turning the surface into a cesspool of fetid swamps capable of supporting only mutated insect life, the capital city of Bilbousa, and it is covered with grey skies and acid rain.
- Some other things mentioned are: Dalonian Crystals, Wrodian carpets, Jood Kabbas, a renowned Duros sculptor, landscapes from Unna Lettu, Antar 4’s most famous painter, Fen Teak the brilliant Muun master, and Drammassian silk.
- Senflax is a neurotoxin extracted from a rare plant found only in the jungles of Cadannia. Clouds the mind and numbs the body.
- “Carbonite guns” are mentioned briefly.
Karpyshyn, Drew. Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil. Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, NY, NY (2009, republished in 2010).
This book is dedicated to Drew Karpyshyn’s wife, Jennifer, while on the cusp of “a new chapter” in their lives.