a brief lesson of our future history as foreseen in a vision by Ronan Starkiller
During the New Sith Wars, the Army of Light was the name given to the military force that Lord Hoth led against the Sith Lord Kaan and his Brotherhood of Darkness. The army consisted of both Jedi and regular troops serving the Republic.
The Army of Light was an ad-hoc military forced hastily assembled and provisioned to combat the sudden change of fortunes of the Brotherhood at a time the Republic had thought the Sith defeated. As the war ground on, Hoth's forces grew even thinner, and he was forced to recruit Force-sensitive children to bolster his forces. He was reluctant to do so but his aide, Pernicar, advised him that if he didn't send the children against Kaan, Kaan would send them against the Jedi.
The Army of Light was greatly weakened by its clashes with the Sith Brotherhood on Ruusan, and by the time of the seventh Battle of Ruusan, they were merely the bedraggled remnants of the army they once were (the youth Tomcat labeled them the "Army of Mud").
One unit of the Army of Light was the Third Legion of Light, commanded by Jedi General New'arforrth. The army was severely weakened by a thought bomb used by Kaan during the seventh battle of Ruusan.
Lord Hoth was a famous Jedi Master and Jedi Lord who led the Army of Light against Lord Kaan's Brotherhood of Darkness during the New Sith Wars, until their final confrontation in the Ruusan campaign. Having joined the Jedi with a dream of single-handedly ending the Sith threat against the Galactic Republic, Hoth trained several students and rose to become the commander of the Republic Military, building his army from whatever resources were available, including the recruitment of Force-sensitive children. Hoth fought Kaan and his forces across the galaxy, ultimately assaulting the Sith Lord's stronghold on the planet Ruusan.
Aided by his friend Pernicar and fellow Jedi Lord Valenthyne Farfalla, Hoth prosecuted the campaign against Kaan, facing challenges of low supplies, dwindling morale, and harsh conditions. Hoth's temper was as legendary as his battle prowess, and after the death of Pernicar a feud between Hoth and Valenthyne Farfalla almost delivered victory to Kaan. Despite their animosity, the pair reconciled, allowing Hoth to face his foe in a final confrontation. Knowing that the desperate Sith would utilize a dangerous Force power known as the thought bomb in an attempt to stave off defeat, Hoth went to face him anyway, forcing the Brotherhood of Darkness to destroy themselves in the process. Hoth's act of self-sacrifice saved the Republic and ended the Sith as a galactic threat for almost a thousand years.
In his youth, Hoth believed he had the power to end the Sith threat single-handedly and make the galaxy a better place. To fulfill this dream he joined the Jedi Order, and in time became a teacher at the Jedi Temple, where he taught many Jedi, including Dree Vandap, Tal, and Johun Othone, his Padawan. Serving as a General for the Galactic Republic, Hoth won over half a dozen victories, became a HoloNet star, and by 1,003 BBY, had been made commander of the Republic Military.
As the Republic Dark Age was ushered in by a rapid series of Sith victories and conquests, the Jedi and the Republic suddenly saw the need to fight back. Hoth was sent with a detachment to capture the current Sith leader, and that skirmish soon escalated until once more, the Republic was engaged in an all-out war. They quickly marshaled their forces, amongst them the Army of Light led by Hoth. Strapped for resources and soldiers, Hoth was forced to build his Army from whatever was available, including the conversion of freighters into warships and the recruitment of any Force-sensitive Republic citizen, including children, to augment the ranks of the rapidly dying Jedi. In response, the new leader of the Sith, Kaan, raised his own army, the Brotherhood of Darkness, which would soon become Hoth's greatest enemy.
Though made in desperation and ill-equipped, the Army of Light under Hoth saw resounding success, albeit at a heavy cost. Along with other Republic champions like Kiel Charny and Valenthyne Farfalla, Hoth drove the Brotherhood from the Cloak of the Sith and countless other worlds, including the planet sharing his name, Dromund Kaas, and Malrev IV. This initial period of victory, however, eventually gave out. The Army of Light was outnumbered by the Brotherhood, and the Sith mounted their own offensive, taking key Republic planets and driving into the Core Worlds.
Hoth's response was to unify the Republic's dispersed forces, augmenting the Army of Light. As they were still outnumbered, he shifted his strategy away from fighting massive armies and navies towards targeting the Sith themselves, particularly their leaders, the Dark Lords. To this end he focused many of his Jedi on an assault on the Sith-held world of Ruusan, hoping to draw Kaan's armies away from the Core. Kaan chose to take his Sith instead, intending to eradicate the Jedi in one blow.
The first three battles had been fought in space, and had been quick and decisive. But the increased importance of Ruusan to both sides turned the conflict into a bloody stalemate of a ground war that ravaged the surface of the world. Hoth would spend the last two years of his life fighting for the planet.
As the strength of both sides dwindled, Hoth looked for ways to augment his diminishing Jedi forces. Not all Jedi had answered the call to come to Ruusan, believing Hoth had made the war into a personal vendetta and was only prolonging it, or simply choosing to support the Republic on other worlds, and now he sought their aid. Valenthyne Farfalla, whom Hoth had always disliked, volunteered to seek out those Jedi and ask for their help, believing that their refusal was in part due to Hoth's bluntness, and that they would respond to his form of diplomacy and persuasion better. He vowed to return with three hundred Jedi Knights, and left Ruusan. To preserve what strength he had until Farfalla returned, Hoth changed tactics from open combat to guerrilla warfare, using the planet's rainy season and its vast expanses of forest as cover.
Hoth had fought the Sith doggedly, but the death of his close friend Pernicar in a Sith attack shook his resolute manner for a time. The arrival of Farfalla shortly after the attack, and too late to save his friend, drove a further wedge between the two Jedi. Sith tactics, too, had grown more ruthless with the arrival of Darth Bane. The Dark Lords sent a decoy force to attack the Army of Light, then, using the dark side of the Force, summoned a massive wave of destruction that burnt the forests of Ruusan, slaughtering many. Only the timely arrival of Farfalla's reinforcements breaking through the Sith blockade saved them.
Beaten down by the never-ending stalemate, the miserable conditions, dwindling troop morale, and the deaths of so many, Hoth began to seriously consider abandoning Ruusan to the Sith, though he knew that this would be a betrayal of all he stood for. The Jedi Master found himself in an impossible choice. During this crisis of faith, Pernicar appeared to him in a dream. Hoth asked for the advice of his old friend, as Pernicar had often given him while alive, and Pernicar told him to trust in the Force, to not give in to despair, and to mend the situation with Farfalla. After awaking, Hoth sent an apology to Farfalla through an envoy, and the two combined their forces to drive back the Sith. The Jedi at last had the advantage, and with Kaan fleeing into the hills and caves and the Army of Light's morale on the rise, Hoth decided to press forward and launch an assault on Kaan's base camp.
Though he was prepared to do battle, Hoth wanted Kaan to surrender to spare them all from further bloodshed. Preparation for the final battle was not entirely hopeful. Hoth and Farfalla suspected a trap on the part of the Sith, and the Jedi Tal had a premonition of disaster. Still, the general saw no other choice, and opted to press forward.
Hoth and Farfalla began their attack in the morning. Farfalla led the way, while Hoth brought up the rear. With the Dark Lords summoned by Kaan to the caves to prepare a thought bomb, a devastating burst of Force energy that would eradicate life within its range, the battle was over by the time Hoth's forces arrived, with most of the Sith taken prisoner alive and almost no casualties to the Army of Light. Hoth made his way towards Kaan's encampment, but was stopped by Farfalla, who warned him of the thought bomb. Hoth, however, had already sensed it, and knew that he had to stop Kaan from using it to cause even more destruction by either forcing him to detonate it on Ruusan or convincing him to surrender.
He and the Army entered the canyon where the mouth of the caves lay, past poles carrying the bodies and severed heads of the Jedi who had died in the previous battles. Leaving Farfalla and the bulk of the army outside the caverns and ordering them to get as far from the blast site as possible, he took one hundred Jedi, all volunteers, with him.
Together they headed down the tunnels to Kaan's chamber, where he and the Dark Lords waited, the power of the thought bomb filling the air around them. Kaan greeted Hoth, and Hoth responded that the Sith Lord could not frighten him with the prospect of death. Seeing the madness that had come upon the man, Hoth then knew that Kaan would not surrender, and made a lunge at him, attempting to kill him before he could set off the thought bomb. He was too late, however, and with a clap of his hands, Kaan released the power of the dark side of the Force. Lord Hoth, and all the Jedi with him, were killed. Their spirits remained trapped within the caverns by the power of the thought bomb, and would not be freed until Kyle Katarn came to Ruusan over 1,000 years later.
After Hoth's death, his former Padawan Johun Othone petitioned the Jedi and Republic to construct a memorial to the Army of Light on Ruusan. The Jedi turned down his request, wanting to let the tragedy be forgotten, but the Senate chose to honor it. Othone had a mausoleum constructed in what had become known as the Valley of the Jedi. Towering above the statues of the many other members of the Army a statue of Hoth was carved. When Kyle Katarn visited this site one year after the Battle of Endor, he received a vision from the spirit of Tal, in which he saw Lord Hoth from Tal's perspective on the day of the last battle. Hoth was also honored with the central star of the Ruusan system receiving the name Hoth's Brand.
Though a leader of a mighty army, Hoth was a man devoted to peace. He was said to be a wily and stalwart general and a master of strategy, and was seen as a hero by the Republic. In the latter stages of the New Sith Wars his exploits were widely known, even in isolated colonies on the Outer Rim Territories.
As a young man, Hoth had been a dreamer who saw only resounding victory in his mind. The conflict, however, had hardened him against the galaxy, and, by the time of the final Battle of Ruusan, the once idealistic youth had become a cynical and haggard veteran. His closest friend and main advisor was fellow veteran Pernicar.
Hoth clashed continually with his contemporary Lord Farfalla, whose foppish nature was the direct opposite of Hoth's own pragmatism. Unlike the charismatic Farfalla, Hoth had little time for diplomacy, and his bluntness often brought him into conflict with his peers.
Kaan was Dark Lord of the Sith in the last years of the New Sith Wars and ascended to leadership of the New Sith Empire almost a decade before the Ruusan campaign, ending a long and protracted civil war among various self proclaimed Sith warlords. After uniting the surviving remnants under his banner, Kaan led them into a final war against the Jedi on the world of Ruusan, before destroying himself and his followers with the thought bomb in the Seventh Battle of Ruusan.
Kaan was once a Jedi Master who fell to the dark side of the Force, joining the New Sith Empire. He became a Sith Lord, and eventually the Dark Lord of the Sith. He was known to his supporters as the "Dark One."
At the time of Kaan's ascent, the New Sith Empire had fractured, with dozens of Sith Lords claiming the title of Dark Lord and waging endless campaigns against each other, rather than uniting to bring down the ailing Republic. Sensing that their endless quest for supremacy and power would destroy the Sith, Kaan set about reuniting the various splinter states under his banner.
His idea of cooperation and equality among the Sith Lords was unique in their history. Rather than challenge each of the self-proclaimed "Dark Lords" and threaten the war effort, Kaan acquiesced to their vanity, and named them all "Dark Lord of the Sith", and declared "All are equal in the Brotherhood of Darkness." But he forbade any Sith to take the historic title of Darth, since he held that title as being solely responsible for the jealousy and infighting that had destroyed the Sith in the past.
Kaan became the founder of the Sith army known as the Brotherhood of Darkness, and managed to turn it from a scrabble of feuding warlords into a powerful force to take control of the galaxy. The two most powerful Sith warlords—Kopecz and Qordis—pledged themselves to his cause, and they were followed by others, such as Kas'im, LaTor and Kaox Krul.
With his charisma and power, the Sith struck back at the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order. Thousands of Sith and Jedi battled one another across the galaxy. Among the most notable opponents of the Sith was the aged Jedi Master Lord Hoth, who became a General with the Republic forces. Although the conflict was widely regarded as an all-out war, the Republic claimed that it was simply fighting a series of engagements against an illegal organization.
A startling victory at the Battle of Korriban enabled the Sith to retake their ancestral homeworld. Kaan authorized the reopening of the Sith Academy, and placed Qordis in charge.
The reinvigorated Sith pushed the Jedi back, winning great victories. Kaan proved to be a brilliant strategist, and an excellent tactician, capable of winning victory after victory against the Jedi forces. All the while, putting his charisma to good use, luring many Jedi to serve him.
While Kaan was a charismatic and skilled general, his rule was more fragile than it seemed, a weakness that would be exploited as the war ground on. As long as the victories continued, however, the Sith would remain united behind him.
Kaan tried to provoke Hoth into a confrontation, laying waste to worlds such as Bespin, Sullust and Taanab, but his main strategy seemed to have already been to push towards the Core Worlds, with Sith armies seizing Kashyyyk as a staging-ground in the Mid Rim, and winning battles on Trandosha and Phaseera.
Kaan's next target was Ruusan, a world near Kashyyyk, mostly insignificant except for its crucial role as a staging ground for attacks on Sith-held Kashyyyk. Striking without warning, the Sith fleet staged a devastating assault on the unprepared planet, completely overwhelming the planet's meager defenses. From his flagship Nightfall, Kaan directed the campaign, utilizing his skill in Battle meditation to confound the Republic defenders and bolster his own forces. The First Battle of Ruusan was an absolute victory for the Sith.
Republic forces were repulsed again from Ruusan in the Second Battle of Ruusan, and Kaan launched an ambitious invasion of the Core with his fleet, thrusting into the Bormea sector to conquer Chandrilla, Corulag and Brentaal IV. The Sith seemed almost poised to conquer Coruscant, and the Jedi seemed not to be attempting to defend the Core.
However, Lord Hoth had gathered a Jedi army, known as the Army of Light, and had arrived on Ruusan to defeat the remaining Sith forces in the Third Battle of Ruusan, and wipe out the Brotherhood, once and for all.
By the Fourth Battle of Ruusan, the war had moved to the surface of the planet itself, and, though outnumbered and outmanned by the Army of Light, Kaan sensed victory—the Jedi had spread themselves far too thin in a vain attempt to protect the inhabitants of Ruusan. In addition, the defection of the Jedi Githany gave the Sith vital intelligence on the Jedi battle plan. Though the Sith were suffering high casualties, Kaan believed he would prevail, and sent for reinforcements.
While most of his followers remained loyal, a few prominent Dark Lords within the Brotherhood began to question his leadership: Githany, Kopecz and most notably, Darth Bane. With the attentions of the Sith Lords focused against the Jedi on Ruusan, the tide of the war seemed to be turning against the Sith, with the Republic reclaiming areas like the Stenness Node.
Bane was opposed to Kaan's battle tactics against the Jedi, believing that Lord Kaan was acting more like an ordinary military commander than a Dark Lord of the Sith, and was not properly using the dark side of the Force. Lord Kaan tried to kill Bane—first, by sending Kas'im to murder him, then, when that failed, by having Githany poison him. Bane was too strong—and survived both assassination attempts.
Darth Bane returned, and declared Kaan unworthy of his title, but not before sending to Kaan a peace offering—a scroll inscribed with an ancient Sith ritual—the thought bomb.
While surprised at Bane's survival, Lord Kaan accepted Darth Bane's tactical advice. Using the Force and attacking as one, the members of the Brotherhood meditated and focused their dark energy into Bane. The combined power of the Sith devastated the Army of Light, and victory was in the Sith grasp.
Even as the Jedi defeat was imminent, Lord Kaan and the other members of the brotherhood broke the meditation circle. Impatient and overconfident, Kaan believed that the Jedi could be quickly and easily defeated if the Sith took to the field. Secretly, Kaan and his followers were jealous of Bane and his power, and felt that Darth Bane was using their energy for his own benefit.
When the Sith masters broke their mediation and took the field, however, the Jedi counterattacked, and the Sith took severe losses. Most of the Sith Masters died in the battle. Kaan took his defeated forces into a deep caves to wait for the Jedi's final strike. There he used his ultimate tactic: a "thought bomb".
Kaan believed that the thought bomb would destroy the Jedi, but that he and the rest of the Sith would be strong enough to survive. That belief would lead to not just his own doom, but that of every Force-user within the radius of the explosion. With the aid of LaTor, Kaan studied and refined the thought bomb ritual until he and the other Dark Lords were ready to unleash it. With Qordis dead, and Githany and Darth Bane having left the Brotherhood, it was left to Kopecz to defend against the approaching Jedi forces under Valenthyne Farfalla.
When Lord Hoth and his retinue finally arrived and confronted the Sith, Lord Kaan detonated the thought bomb, killing himself, his Sith followers and Lord Hoth's Jedi. The New Sith Wars were over and the Sith presumed extinct.
The caves where Kaan and his Brotherhood had died would eventually be known as the Valley of the Jedi. Darth Bane, his apprentice Darth Zannah, and her cousin Darovit were those that survived the bomb, being distant from its effects and suffering little damage. Bane's callous assessment of his rival and former leader was that Kaan's "suicide" was his "smartest decision".
Oddly, although the Force ghosts of all the Jedi and the Sith were thought to have been trapped in the Valley of the Jedi, Kaan's consciousness seems to have somehow escaped his own trap and communicate with Bane. Along with Qordis, who had died before the detonation of the thought bomb, he appeared to him after the battle. Former acrimony apparently forgotten, Kaan guided Bane on Dxun to a Sith holocron that would help him restore the Sith Order—and also tricked him into symbiosis with the orbalisks that would become his living armor.
For most of the Sith that followed the Rule of Two, he was considered symbolic of the flawed Sith of old—his narcissistic, paranoid and backstabbing cowardice representing the Brotherhood of Darkness as a whole.
Not all of Bane's order dismissed Kaan, however—the apostate Darth Millennial considered Kaan's philosophy of "Rule by the Strong" as superior to Bane's "Rule of Two" and Millennial left his own master over such a disagreement.
Darth Bane, born under the name of Dessel, was the Sith'ari and the Dark Lord of the Sith responsible for creating the Rule of Two. Born in 1,026 BBY, he was raised as a poor miner on the Outer Rim planet Apatros. After killing a Galactic Republic ensign in a fight in 1,003 BBY, he was in danger of being arrested by the Republic. With the help of his friend Groshik, Dessel escaped off-world to join the Sith Brotherhood of Darkness. Initially serving as a foot soldier in the Gloom Walkers, he was recognized as a Force-sensitive, and taken to the Sith Academy on Korriban.
He studied there for a time, quickly becoming one of the best students before he lost his faith in the dark side of the Force. After a short time, Bane, as he was now known, was able to regain his faith and determination to become the best. However, he would soon lose confidence in the Brotherhood of Darkness, believing its leader, Kaan, to be a coward and a fool. Deserting the order, he studied the holocron of Darth Revan, and, armed with new knowledge, helped destroy the Brotherhood, allowing him to create his own Sith Order. Bane then instituted a Rule of Two, which stated that there could be only two Sith to avoid the infighting that had plagued the Sith for millennia. He styled himself as Darth Bane, and took as his apprentice a Human female, whom he christened Darth Zannah.
In 990 BBY, he sought to learn how to create a holocron, through which he would pass down his knowledge to future Sith Lords. The Sith journeyed to the Deep Core world of Tython to locate the Sith holocron of the ancient Dark Lord Belia Darzu. However, while Bane was on Tython, the Jedi learned of his existence, and sent a group of Jedi to kill him and his apprentice, who had recently arrived to tell him that they were being hunted. Once the Jedi arrived, they confronted the two Sith in Darzu's fortress. Though outnumbered, the Sith were able to defeat the Jedi; however, Bane was grievously injured. Zannah took him to Ambria, where she convinced the healer Caleb to help them. Caleb notified the Jedi Council, only to have Zannah use her powers to drive Caleb's assistant Darovit insane. He then killed Caleb, and was killed by a group of Jedi when they arrived, as they believed him to be the Sith Lord. Thus, Bane's order was kept safe from the Jedi.
A decade later, Bane began to worry that his apprentice was too weak to overthrow him and assume the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith, as was necessary under the Rule of Two. He began to research the secrets to prolonging his life by transferring his essence to another body, and traveled to Prakith, where he claimed the holocron of Darth Andeddu. However, while Zannah was returning from a mission on Doan, Bane was ambushed by a team hired by Caleb's daughter, Serra, and, grossly outnumbered, he was defeated and captured. Taken to Doan, Bane was imprisoned and interrogated, only to covertly gain his freedom a short time after. Bane was then attacked by Zannah, who sought to become the new Dark Lord, but he escaped and tracked Serra to Ambria with Darth Cognus, an Iktotchi assassin skilled in use of the dark side who Bane planned to take as his apprentice if Zannah proved herself weak and unworthy. After Cognus killed Serra, Bane, determined to test his apprentice for the last time, sent Zannah a message to meet him on Ambria. Following a heated duel, Bane attempted to transfer his essence into Zannah's body. However, her will proved to be too strong and Zannah defeated him, ending the life of the Sith'ari, yet also validating herself as his successor. Nearly a millennium later, Bane's Sith Order would defeat the Jedi and overthrow the Republic.
Subject: "An Army of Light to face the Brotherhood of Darkness." -lord kaan 
Fri Jul 23, 2010 4:53 am
