Cast Your Vote: The Ultimate Sith Lord Showdown – EU vs. Canon!

[Cedric]

View attachment 113Let's go to the dark side of the Force and settle an age-old debate that has echoed through the corridors of our beloved Star Wars community. We've seen a multitude of powerful Sith Lords across both the Expanded Universe (EU) and current Canon, each with their own terrifying abilities, cunning strategies, and dark legacies.

But who stands above all as the ultimate master of the dark side? Is it the sheer force of Darth Vader's presence? The insidious machinations of Darth Sidious? Or perhaps the ancient and mighty Darth Bane, who instituted the Rule of Two?

Here are your candidates for the title of the Ultimate Sith Lord:

• Darth Vader: The Chosen One turned Sith, feared across the galaxy for his ruthlessness.
• Darth Sidious: The Emperor himself, the cunning manipulator who brought the galaxy to its knees.
• Darth Revan: A legend of the Old Republic, a Sith Lord who left a mark on both the light and dark sides of the Force.
• Darth Bane: The founder of the Rule of Two, ensuring that only the strongest Sith would survive.
• Darth Plagueis: The Wise, a master of life and death, who sought to unlock the secrets of immortality.

Or is there another Sith Lord you believe deserves this dark honor? Cast your vote and defend your choice in the comments! Perhaps you'll sway fellow fans or even introduce us to a lesser-known dark side user whose story is waiting to be told.

Let the ultimate Sith showdown begin!

 

[Darth Cognus]

Allow me to propose some obscure options to think about, none quite with the brand recognition but all leaving their mark one way or another. Though for this question Sidious probably tops the list overall. Nearly the perfect combination of wits and knowledge and skills.

• Darth Traya: Kind of cheating because her real value is sith/jedi agnostic, but she had the juice to wrangle the next two for a while. I ramble about her philosophy here. That's what makes her an enduring and as of yet, underused galactic force. My personal choice...
• Darth Sion: Literally heals himself off hatred and as such literally can't be killed unless you play mind games. I can't think of a lot of people on these lists who could actually keep him down for long, though he wasn't the best duelist necessarily. Not the secret of immortality but Plagueis would have wanted this in his toolbox...
• Darth Nihilus: If you think Vader baring down on you is terrifying, imagine a dubiously human shadow that's ripped the life off entire planets for breakfast piloting the star wars equivalent of the Flying Dutchman.
• Vitiate: The olden Palpatine. Didn't have a full galactic empire but he lasted longer and certainly had the sith juice to compete. He'll never compete for being iconic and I'm not especially fond of SWTOR but in galactic power he's as close as Palps gets to a peer, down to the devouring worlds business.
• Darth Malgus: A lot of people who're into the old republic like this guy. He doesn't follow rules even by sith standards and yet he's sacked the jedi temple once or twice so he's a pretty big deal. Not a leader in wit, prowess or knowledge but he's a clever sort.
• Darth Tyranus: You know this guy, the name might throw you for a loop. As sith lords go he wasn't the most strictly evil. He could even argue his faction was fighting for a good cause even though he was a puppet of Palps and went ignobly. He's remembered one way or another I'm sure, better than others mentioned here.
• Abeloth: Not a sith lord, actually an eldrich dark side horror thing, but if you recognize the name from the EU books she spawned from you'll understand why she can't be discounted in this list.
• Darth Krayt: An older EU creation, more or less responsible for carrying the torch when the rule of two was destroyed. Worth a passing thought but not my preference in character or lore.
• Darth Cognus and Darth Zannah: Both apprentices of Bane. Zannah was first and was an extremely powerful sith sorceress. Cognus among other things could dampen another being's connection to the force, rather useful I would say on top of a distinguished history in bounty hunting before becoming a Sith Lord. I don't claim either actually rise to the impact of Bane, and Cognus had this one apprentice who totally lost the plot...

I'm mixed on Sidious, on one hand he carried the entire Sith order on his shoulders and did it well, on the other he got cocky and made many thousands of years of history go straight down the drain at the pivotal moment. I don't know that Bane would forgive him for that. Vitiate is probably the most sustainably effective ruler of the Sith out of anyone mentioned.

It didn't last too long but the Sith Triumvirate immediately following Revan's antics came very close to wiping out the Jedi via KOTOR 2, think a hair's breath away from order 66 effectiveness, so I take another opportunity to elevate Kreia as a badass despite her never being the strongest.