The Sith are a group of fictional characters in the Star Wars universe.The Sith, Expanded Universe. Starwars.com, Lucasfilm. Last accessed 2007-11-25. They are the central antagonists of the franchise. Characterized by their single-minded lust for power and disdain for sentient life, they are an alliance of warrior priests who use the dark side of the Force and serve as counterparts to the Jedi Knights.The Sith. Starwars.com, Lucasfilm. Last accessed 2007-11-25.

The Sith are portrayed in various Star Wars media as individuals who use the dark side to attain power at any cost. The Star Wars prequel films establish that they draw upon strong emotions, both negative and positive, as the source of their power, and care only about themselves. This is in contrast to the Jedi, who are portrayed as forsaking emotional attachment in order to serve others and the galaxy as a whole.

In their latter history, members of the Order receive the ceremonial title of "Darth" to signify their membership into the Order.

Film use

The first use of the word "Sith" in the Star Wars universe was in the script and novelization for Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, as a title for Darth Vader, the "Dark Lord of the Sith." The word is not used in any of the original Star Wars films. The Sith are introduced on-screen with the prequel film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace), where the order is represented by Darth Sidious and Darth Maul.

Origin

The Sith ruled over an ancient interstellar empire which flourished some 7000 years before the events in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. . The ancient Sith Lords had warred for centuries, and their common order--the New Sith Order--reflected this factionalism prior to Lord Kaan's unification of the warring Lords into the Brotherhood of Darkness.

After the collapse of the Sith Empire, the Sith order again degenerated into factional conflict, culminating in the cataclysmic Battle of Ruusan (which occurred 6000 years after the empire, or 1000 years before the events of A New Hope). As a result of this battle, the Brotherhood of Darkness was utterly destroyed--not by the Jedi, but by Kaan himself, via a suicidal thought bomb.

In the battle's aftermath came the reforms of Darth Bane. From a Sith holocron left behind by Darth Revan on the Onderonian moon of Dxun, in the tomb of ancient Sith Lord Freedon Nadd, Bane came to realize that the greater the Sith's numbers, the more self-destructive they tended to become (in distinct contradistinction to the Jedi, who had no problems with civil war). On the other hand, the historical pairings of Exar Kun/Ulic Qel-Droma and Darth Revan/Darth Malak proved quite effective.