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- "The Jedi live in a dream, a dream they believe everyone shares. If you attack a Jedi with a weapon, you will fail. Steel or laser are no threat to them. But an Acolyte… An Acolyte kills without a weapon. An Acolyte… kills the dream."
- ―The Stranger, to Mae Aniseya
A Sith acolyte, or Sith disciple, was an agent of the Sith Order who existed outside of the Sith Master and Sith apprentice relationship of the Rule of Two. Instead, a Sith acolyte was supposed to be trained as a lesser agent who was not a "true" Sith.
Description[]
Overview[]
- "I want a pupil, an Acolyte. But this one… went back on our deal."
- ―The Stranger, on Mae-ho Aniseya
The vengeful Asajj Ventress was a Sith acolyte with dreams of becoming a true Sith Lord.
A Sith acolyte,[1] also known as a Sith disciple,[4] was a pupil trained in the ways of the dark side of the Force[3] by a Sith, such as a Sith Lord.[5] The Sith[6] known as "the Stranger" defined a Sith acolyte as an individual who would kill "the dream" of the Jedi Order,[2] the ancient enemies of the Sith,[7] without needing to use a physical weapon.[2] Calling on her anger, the Stranger's eventual disciple Verosha "Osha" Aniseya would fulfill that requirement by executing Jedi Master Sol with a Force choke.[8] Under the Rule of Two designed by the Sith Lord Darth Bane, the Sith Order was limited to two individuals: the Sith Master and the Sith apprentice that master trained.[9] With that in mind, Rule of Two Sith could still train individuals in the dark side as their personal agents,[5] with such an agent answering to the title of Sith acolyte instead of Dark Lord of the Sith,[1] Sith apprentice, Sith Master,[5] or even Sith Lord.[10]
Instead, a Sith acolyte was—at least in theory—only provided with limited training to serve as a lesser agent who could never arise against[5] the true[11] two Sith: rather than act as one of the Sith Lords,[10] a Sith acolyte acted under their command and carried out what the Sith apprentice Darth Tyranus once disparagingly described as "grunt work."[1] Furthermore, a Sith acolyte could be disposed of once they had outlived their usefulness or had grown too powerful. Due to the deceptive nature of the Sith, however, it was more than possible the Sith apprentice would attempt to train an acolyte to overthrow their master, with plans to take that title for themselves and turn their acolyte into a true Sith apprentice. Tyranus, for example, trained[5] his acolyte[1] Asajj Ventress as a Sith apprentice[12] and told her they would overthrow his own master, the Sith Master Darth Sidious, to rule the galaxy themselves[1] until Sidious sensed Ventress's growing power and ordered her eliminated, to which Dooku reluctantly complied.[5]
Duties[]
The Stranger's Sith acolyte Mae-ho "Mae" Aneiseya"[2] also served as a Sith assassin,[13] as did Ventress.[14] As a member of Tyranus's Confederacy of Independent Systems, Ventress also served as a military leader in addition to her assassin role.[1] She held commanding power in the Confederacy military.[15]
History[]
High Republic Era[]
- "I made a mistake with Mae. I thought she wanted more than just revenge. I thought she wanted what I want."
"What do you want?"
"The power of two." - ―The Stranger and Verosha "Osha" Aniseya
Mae-ho Aniseya was trained as a Sith acolyte
During the High Republic Era,[8] the Dark Lord of the Sith[17] Darth Plagueis[8] took on[18] the human known only as "the Stranger"[19] as his apprentice.[18] In time, the Stranger longed to have an acolyte of his own to train.[3] Further, he hoped to unlock what he called "the power of two"[16] and for that disciple's aid in overthrowing the Jedi Order[2] to ensure he could live as he saw fit.[3] At that time, the Sith were thought extinct but had survived in secret[20] under the Rule of Two designed by the Sith Lord Darth Bane,[9] thereby forcing the Stranger to act in the shadows and keep his identity hidden.[3] Eventually, the Stranger found a candidate in the form of the witch Mae-ho "Mae" Aneiseya, who longed for revenge against[16] four Jedi—Jedi Masters Indara, Torbin, Kelnacca, and Sol[21]—involved in the destruction of her witch coven years prior.[22] Due to her longing for revenge, she agreed to become his disciple[16] and Sith assassin[13] without question.[16] While she wanted to please him,[21] the Stranger later concluded that Mae was only wanted revenge and had no interest in his wider power of two designs.[16]
In 132 BBY,[23] acting under her master's orders and hoping to please him, Mae began[21] a quest[24] to slay all four Jedi Masters involved in the Brendok mission, with at least one to be slain without a weapon.[21] However, after the deaths of Indara and Torbin, Mae decided to abandon the quest after learning her sister, Verosha "Osha" Aniseya, had survived. While she had been trained as a Jedi Padawan under Sol after the Brendok mission, Osha had ultimately abandoned the Jedi path, yet she had agreed to work with the Jedi in the name of stopping her sister. Mae, meanwhile, abandoned her place as the Stranger's pupil with hopes of reuniting with her sister,[25] yet the Stranger instead revealed himself, slaid Kelnacca himself, and wiped out Sol's Jedi team. Mae switched places with her sister[3] and departed with Sol, while Osha was taken by the Stranger back to his island base. There, the Stranger began to tempt Osha to the dark side of the Force.[16]
Osha joined the Stranger as his new acolyte
In the end, paths converged on Osha and Mae's homeworld Brendok, where Osha learned that Sol had killed her mother, Aniseya, during the Brendok incident years prior. While Mae abandoned her longing for revenge to instead see Sol face justice, Osha Force choked Sol in anger and killed him, thereby killing a Jedi without a weapon. The Stranger, meanwhile, learned that Mae and Osha had been artificially created by Aniseya from Sol's conversation with Mae. After the Jedi Master's death, Osha agreed to become the Stranger's new acolyte, whereas Mae allowed her memories of her sister to be wiped, falling into the custody of a newly-arrived Jedi team but unable to tell them anything. All the same, the leader of the newly-arrived team, Jedi Master Vernestra Rwoh, had briefly sensed the presence of the Stranger, who was none other than her former Padawan. While Mae would later be told about her sister's existence by Rwoh, the duo's actions allowed the Stranger and Osha to escape back to his island hideaway.[8]
Clone Wars[]
Dreams of Asajj Ventress[]
- "I defeated their plans. Now you shall grant me the title of Sith Lord!"
"No. You destroyed their outpost but you did not defeat them. You must prove yourself worthy."
"I have more than done so. Even Grievous couldn't—"
"I will tell you when you have done so." - ―Asajj Ventress demands she be granted the title of Sith Lord from her master, Darth Tyranus
The invasion of[20] the Mid Rim planet[11] Naboo by the Sith-aligned Trade Federation[20] in 32 BBY[26] finally revealed the survival of the Sith Order to the Jedi. First, Sith apprentice Darth Maul was dispatched by his master, the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, to the planet Tatooine, where he clashed with Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn. Afterward, Sidious dispatched Maul to Naboo, where he killed Jinn but was himself cut down by Jinn's Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi.[20] While Maul actually managed to survive, Sidious moved on by naming Count Dooku, a former Jedi Master[11] who secretly had already been working with the Sith,[27] as his second apprentice, Darth Tyranus.[11] Despite the Rule of Two, Dooku would go onto take an apprentice of his own, the Nightsister and former Jedi Padawan Asajj Ventress,[5] who he trained in the ways of the dark side.[11]
Asajj Ventress (right) was the Sith acolyte of Darth Tryanus (left), who trained her as a real Sith apprentice in order to overthrow his own master, Darth Sidious.
So long as Ventress remained a mere agent not trained as a Sith Lord, Sidious was unbothered by her existence[5] and even made use of her in his own plans.[28] Formally, she was simply a Sith acolyte[1] and Sith assassin[14] known also as a Dark Acolyte. However, Ventress's ultimate dream was to be seen as a true Sith[11] with the title of Sith Lord.[10] Indeed, Dooku secretly told her they could overthrow Sidious to rule the galaxy themselves[1] and trained her[5] as a Sith apprentice[12] who would help in overthrowing Sidious.[29] As Dooku's disciple, Ventress served him as a member of the Confederacy of Independent Systems with ranks such as Supreme Leader[15] and commander[30] during the Clone Wars between the Galactic Republic and Dooku's Confederacy,[15] a war that fed into the Sith Order's Grand Plan.[28] During a mission to Cato Neimoidia, she also expressed interest in capturing Jedi Initiate Mill Alibeth, promising her a future under a true master away from the ways of the Jedi. However, she was stopped by Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker,[31] who, along with Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, became one of her greatest foes.[28]
Early in the war, Ventress carried out the capture of Republic Outpost 716, a posting even[10] Dooku's greatest general, the cyborg Grievous,[32] was unable to conquer. In return for her victory, Ventress demanded the title of Sith Lord, but Dooku maintained that she had not proven herself and instead ordered she track down a Jedi artifact they could use in overthrowing Sidious. In the end, however, she gave up on the quest, having deduced that Dooku only cared for his own interests instead of her own. Upon returning to him empty-handed, Dooku declared she would never become a real Sith Lord and left her, to which she privately stated she would never give him what he desired. Despite that proclamation,[10] Ventress would decide to continue loyally serving him as his apprentice, with Dooku continuing her training.[5]
Betrayal of Asajj Ventress[]
- "There is a disturbance in the Force. Your assassin, she has become very powerful. […] I would hate to think you are training your own Sith apprentice to destroy me…"
"Never! My allegiance is to you and you alone."
"Then you must prove it. Eliminate her."
"She's my most trusted—"
"I said eliminate her!" - ―Darth Sidious and Darth Tyranus, on Asajj Ventress
During the Battle of Sullust, Count Dooku left Asajj Ventress for dead and attempted to kill her on the orders of Darth Sidious.
In 21 BBY,[26] Sidious sensed Ventress's growing power and, recognizing that Dooku could use her as a Sith apprentice who would help in overthrowing him, ordered Dooku to eliminate Ventress. While he initially objected, Dooku obeyed and ordered Separatist forces under her command at the Battle of Sullust to turn on the assassin, whom he contacted via hologram to reveal she was no longer his apprentice. Believing her dead, Dooku contacted Sidious to reveal he had followed through with his master's demands, much to Sidious's delight. Secretly, however, Ventress survived and returned to her homeworld of Dathomir, where she reunited with the Nightsisters and plotted to enact revenge on Dooku.[5] Her ultimate plan involved allowing Dooku to take on the Nightbrother Savage Opress—who was, unknown to her, the brother of Maul[33]—as his new apprentice[34] and Dark Acolyte,[11] in which capacity he would be trained by and get close to Dooku. Unknown to Dooku, Oppress would be a sleeper agent who Ventress would activate when the time was right.[33]
As he had with Ventress,[1] Dooku planned to train Oppress as a Sith apprentice who would help him in overthrowing Sidious,[34] but his failure to capture King Katuunko alive during a mission to the planet Toydaria enraged Dooku. Dooku only promised Oppress redemption when Ventress suddenly revealed herself aboard their Providence-class Dreadnought. While Ventress activated Oppress, he broke free of the Nightsister spell and betrayed both Ventress and Dooku, ultimately leaving on a quest to find his brother Maul,[33] with whom he would forge a splinter Sith Order that Sidious later put down[35] in 19 BBY.[26] Meanwhile, Ventress remained a fugitive from the Confederacy and was branded a traitor, leading to the eradication of the Nightsisters on Dooku's orders[36] in 20 BBY.[26] She then took up the life of a bounty hunter and,[1] in 19 BBY,[26] joined Jedi Master Quinlan Vos in a mission to assassinate Dooku.[1]
Ventress with her lover Quinlan Vos, who would fall to the dark side as Dooku's third apprentice
In their work together, Ventress and Vos fell in love before finally making their move against Dooku on the CIS capital world of Raxus Secundus. The mission ended in failure, however; Dooku captured Vos and tempted him to the dark side as his newest apprentice, with Dooku later heralding Vos as the Dark Lord of the Sith Ventress could never become. While Vos hoped to use Dooku to get close to and wipe out Sidious, his plan brought him into the fold of the dark side, which he only broke from when Ventress[1] seemingly[37] sacrificed herself to protect him during the second battle of Christophsis. Much like Vos, whose fall into darkness Kenobi blamed on himself and the Jedi High Council at large for approving an assassination mission in the first place,[1] Ventress also found herself returned to the light side through her actions[38] and survived past[37] Dooku's own demise[17] as an independent agent active during the Imperial Era.[39]
Legacy[]
In his text The Secrets of the Jedi, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker reflected on Ventress, referring to her as a Sith disciple.[4] Sidious himself also reflected on Dooku's efforts to usurp him with Ventress, Opress, and finally Vos in his text The Secrets of the Sith.[29]
Behind the scenes[]
An unidentified Sith Acolyte in Star Wars Legends
The position of Sith acolyte first appeared in the current Star Wars canon through the character of Asajj Ventress in the 2008 film Star Wars: The Clone Wars,[28] although the title of "Sith acolyte" was not used to describe her until the 2015 reference book Ultimate Star Wars, where she was described as a "Sith-acolyte-turned-bounty-hunter."[40] The 2015 novel Dark Disciple by Christie Golden then used the phrase "Sith acolyte" on its own, confirming[1] the hyphen seen in Ultimate Star Wars was only used for grammatical purposes[40] instead of being part of formal name.[1]
The rank of Sith Acolyte,[41] whose holders were also identified as Sith adepts,[42] also existed in Star Wars Legends continuity as a position in[41] the pre-Rule of Two[43] Sith Order, where they held a disciple position.[41] In Legends, the Rule of Two-era Sith also continued to make use of the term for certain lesser agents,[44] including the Legends incarnation of Asajj Ventress,[45] until the Sith Lord Darth Krayt restored the Sith Order as a organization with multiple Sith, including acolytes.[46] In Legends, the Sith Acolyte position first appeared through Ventress in the 2003 comic Jedi: Mace Windu,[47] but she would not be outright confirmed as a Sith Acolyte in Legends until Star Wars Insider: Lords of the Sith, a 2017 Star Wars Insider compilation that included the Legends-era article "The Sultry Sith" by Jonathan Wilkins, whose work was originally published in Star Wars Insider 122[45] from December 14, 2010.[48] In its contents page, the 2017 compilation referred to Ventress as a Sith Acolyte in its blurb for "The Sultry Sith."[45]
Appearances[]
Sources[]
- Ultimate Star Wars (First identified as Sith acolyte)
- Star Wars Insider: Lords of the Sith
- Star Wars: The Secrets of the Jedi (First identified as Sith disciple)
- Ultimate Star Wars, New Edition
