While the Sith have a long history in the Star Wars Galaxy, one scene from Star Wars: The Clone Wars Makes it clear that they also have a dark and oppressive history worthy of their reputation. The Sith began after a rogue Jedi fell to the dark side, and, in legends, traveled to the Sith planet Korriban. There, the Dark Jedi conquered the native Sith species, calling themselves the Lords of the Sith.
It takes place after the Hundred Years of Darkness, a Jedi Civil War that is also a part of Star Wars Canon narrative. In the many ways that canon diverges from legends, this one line of The Clone Wars Might make the Sith feel a lot bigger – though The Clone Wars Was initially a part of legends. It confirms to us that the Sith had a much bloodier history than before..
Palpatine confirms that there have been many Sith empires in history
The Clone Wars Season 4, Episode 13 “Escape from Cadavo”
in The Clone Wars Episode “Escape from Cadavo,” part of the Zigerian arc, Palpatine tells Dooku that “LSith empires have been built on the backs of slaves.” This implicitly acknowledges the fact that there have been multiple Sith empires in the past. This works in Elements of Legends narrative, but also confirms to the audience that the Sith have a long and deadly history.
Sith Empires have long been built on the backs of slaves.
“Escape from Cadavo” involves slaves taken by the Zigerian Slave Empire, which collaborates with the Confederacy of Independent Systems. This shows that slavery is a tool for the modern Sith just as much as it was for the ancients. Even more importantly, it shows that even during the Clone Wars era of his manipulation, Palpatine saw himself as founding a new Sith EmpireRe-framing the Galactic Empire in an interesting way.
Why were there so many Sith empires?
Imperialism and the evil of the dark side
This begs the question of why and how there were so many Sith Empires. The Sith are a naturally conquering ideology, focusing on the oppression of others in order to gain power for themselves. Given the nature of imperialism and imperial tendencies, this actually makes sense; Sith seek power and conquer others to gain it, just as Palpatine wants more than anything else to control the entire galaxy. Oddly enough, however, recent comics have finally clarified why there were so many Sith Empires.
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According to The High Republic: Echoes of fear #1, by George Mann, Vincenzo Federici, and Vincenzo Riccardi, the early Sith actually used to spread out to their own regions of the galaxy, establishing their own smaller empires, including the newly revealed Sith Lord, Darth Ravi. This makes a lot of sense for the Old Republic era, as hyperspace travel was significantly less developed as a technology at the time, leading to smaller, more spread out Sith Empires. These are what Palpatine references in The Clone Wars – but his empire was the first to rightfully claim the word “galactic.”