Excerpt from The History of the New Sith Wars, Chapter 1, by Professor Thraken Owen Elix Dericote
The first sign of a New Sith Order establishing itself over the lesser Dark Side Cults, Sith remnants and disgruntled leaders of the far flung Outer Rim was an invasion of the traditional Sith Worlds. These worlds, placed under Cordon since the destruction of the Sith Empire after the Third Galactic War, were vital symbols for the New Sith, seen as both an ancestral holand and a way to gather legitimacy and the subservience of lesser Dark Side Cults. The Cordon Fleet, assembled from various elite formations from the last war, though deteriorated in discipline over the centuries, had been tasked with ensuring no Force users could gain access to the howorlds of the Sith.
Ziost, an unknown world outside of the purview of the Cordon Fleet, had secretly been made the capital world of the New Sith Empire, from which the New Sith began assembling armies, ships and rcenaries into a force to drive the Cordon Fleet from the Sith Howorlds. After years of raids into the Republic and unaffiliated space they had assembled a force large enough to battle the Sith Cordon Fleet.
The Sith would begin raiding the supply vessels of the Cordon Fleet, picking off its patrol sections one by one in tactics used by many a local pirate and prospector hired rcenary, until the Cordon Fleet realized sothing had gone awry. As the Sith Worlds Cordon Fleet assembled itself over three worlds of the Sith, to ensure a radiation enforced isolation of the Sith Howorlds, the New Sith struck openly.
The Sith Cordon Fleet would be defeated during the New Sith Battle of Korriban, the New Sith Battle for Dromund Kas and the New Sith Battle of Ashas Ree. Being both forced to retreat from the Sector and failing to enforce the total isolation of any of the Sith Worlds. In the end they only succeeded in partial isolation upon Korriban and Dromund Kas, far below the expected isolation of a dozen worlds.
As the New Sith Empire established itself and began conquering the various lesser Outer Rim Worlds and polities, the Republic was relatively slow to act. Even after the defeat of the Cordon Fleet, many a Coreward Senator and world leader believed it to be a problem for the Marches, Moffs and peripheral Fleets to deal with. After all, the worlds the Sith had conquered, subjugated or cajoled into joining the Empire were considered lesser, with little History to them and even less political influence.
And so, excluding the Tion Cluster and the major Colonies along the Perlimian and Hydian, most worlds fell to various Sith Warlords as Darth Ruin, Emperor of the New Sith, prepared a major invasion along the less defended Hydian. That was not to say there was no resistance. The Sith Worlds Cordon Fleet repeatedly assaulted Sith fleets assembling near the Perlimian and Hydian while the Republic Fleets stationed at Lantillies, Centares and within the Tion Cluster prepared their defensive positions, mobilized the Volunteer Regints and increased weapons and ship production.
Yet it was little too late as the Sith Fleets engaged the Republic along the Hydian and Perlimian, fighting the Republic at Makem Te, Desevro, Lianna, Telos IV, Celanon and Botajef. Yet despite the many victories the Sith were stalled, for standing in the way of the Sith advance were the erian and Belsmuth Sectors of the Republic. These storied Sectors, being the buffers between the Old Republic and the various Sith remnants and Outer Rim Warlords of the centuries past, had a well earned martial tradition with experienced soldiers. The erian Legions, Bandoerian Brigades, Belsmuth Brigades, the Steergard Defense Fleet and the Ord Cestus Hive Guard would slow the Sith advance significantly, buying more ti for defenses to be established at Bandomr, Steergard and at Taris.
The Tion Cluster anwhile began to fall under Sith influence. While many an Exarch fled into Republic exile and many more made their last stands upon their howorlds, so decided to submit themselves to Sith authority, for fear of reprisal, personal ambition or out of disgust with the Core-focused Republic. In the end it was due to Darth Ruin’s personal intervention that the final Republic Fortress worlds within the Tion Cluster were seized by New Sith forces, their people enslaved and factories converted to produce war machines for the New Sith’s war effort.
Yet it was after the Sith began expanding along the edges of Hutt Space and into the Trailing Sectors that sothing intriguing happened. As the Republic warmachine fully awoke and thousands upon thousands of ships were marshaled into reford and reactivated Fleets to defend Fortress Lantillies, vital Kashyyyk, the shipyards of Gyndine, strategic Dennon and rcantile Wroona, Emperor Ruin, Darth and Dark Lord, was killed by his supporters and the Sith Empire fractured.
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Hundreds of self proclaid Emperors, various Lords and lesser Sith began squabbling among one another almost as much as they battled the now slowly recovering Republic. It was such squabbling which allowed the Republic to push along the Harrin Trade Corridor, southern Hydian Way and the Corellian Run, slowly pushing the Sith further and further back.
It is generally understood that many of the Sith cared little for the precision required of a planetary ruler, preferring to lead their armies in conquest and battle instead. This resulted in quite a few worlds with industrial might or large populations to go about similarly to how they had before their conquest by Sith hands. Only as the tide of war turned towards stalemate and infighting began to ravage the Sith did worlds see more heavy handedness which often ended after these periods of Sith instability, creating many a Logistical World where Sith refused to fight one another openly and would rally to the world’s defense when the Republic approached.
Yet despite repeated Sith infighting this war was far from over. The Sith had begun sending saboteurs and spies into the depths of the Republic, sabotaging factories, shipyards, research and developnt, databases and universities. They planned to cripple the Republic’s ability to assemble modern armies, planned to eliminate the Republic’s ability to fight the Sith on an even technological ground. Yet the squabbling between Sith and the Republic’s own agents had a similar effect upon the various Sith’s forces.
Over hundreds of years, Republic and Sith technology alike began to decline. Republic Volunteer Armies, once armored in almost modern plastoid, cortosis and durasteel, began arming themselves with thin plates of these materials layered upon one another as blaster technology began to regress. These armies who once wielded massed artillery, armored vehicles and electronic warfare almost comparable to the modern age, began wielding rudintary armored vehicles, cortosis lined spears and swords, tal shields and rudintary slugthrowers and blasters.
And the Sith were in a similar predicant. Once their forces wore armor on par with that of the Republic, supported by massed formations of heavy weapons droids and elite starfighters, yet their infighting and Republic sabotage began to force their armies to deteriorate in quality as well. No longer did the Sith wield a core of elite professionals with droid and rcenary shocktroopers. Instead they began to levy the masses and force slave armies to battle with explosive collars around their necks.
Over the course of the war, modern Hamrheads, Invincibles, starfighters and corvettes went from a common sight to a rarity. Only a few shipyards retained the ability to produce ships on par with those of the early war in the coming centuries. Logistical bottlenecks, the destruction of various factories and the mobilization of workforces into levied armies forcing all yards excluding Rendilli, Corellia, Kuat and Fondor into supplying lesser and lesser versions of the original warships, though even these four were forced to reduce the annual number of ships they produced.
It is said, and correctly so, that a Hamrhead Cruiser made to the specifications of their 2000 BBY designs is equivalent to most warships fielded in the first year of the Clone Wars while the exact sa cruiser made by the sa yard nine hundred ninety years later was barely usable as an ard transport such as the Captor, though lacking the cruiser’s starfighter complint.
From a standing army of fifty thousand warships, and twenty four standing Federal Armored Divisions the Republic forces would balloon to five hundred thousand warships and a standing army of three hundred and sixty thousand regints in the first three hundred years. Yet these numbers would only decline as the war progressed. In the end, out of all warships under the Republic in the final years of the New Sith Wars, only eight thousand out of a hundred and seventeen thousand were to the standards of the warships of the first century. Showing the devastation throughout the war, out of the hundred and two thousand warships of the Brotherhood of Darkness only a twentieth of the Sith warships during the Seven Battles of Ruusan were up to the standard the Sith had set themselves in the first century.
Side-note: There were many myths and legends which originated during this ti of Sith Alchemy creating monsters once more. Behemoths of flesh and crude steel fashioned into killing machines whose only purpose was to destroy and kill. However it is questionable if these tales can be relied on. Far more likely is it that warbeasts beca more and more common during the technological decline and rare or now extinct species were simply mistaken for the vile perversions which Sith Alchemy has been proclaid to be able to produce in ages past.
Either way, the Seventh Battle of Ruusan ended in the destruction of Sith leadership, the deaths of many Jedi and the total devastation of all but the smallest dregs of the Sith army and fleet, leaving only a paltry number of apprentices, cultists, renegades, twenty one thousand warships and maybe a hundred regints behind. Many a Logistical World would throw off the Sith after this battle as Republic warfleets and their massed soldiery began liberating territory which had remained under Sith influence for a millennia.
Eventually only a handful of Sith Loyalist Worlds remained. These worlds, it was decided by the remaining Admirals and Generals, would be destroyed and their people eliminated one and all. The idea that a Force wielder could re-establish the Sith through the use of their texts, philosophies and forr supporters was seen as too much of a threat for the war-weary Republic. And so it was decided, despite the protests of Supre Chancellor Valorum.
The Sith Cordon Fleet would lead these exterminations, purging the few remaining Sith acolytes and cultists on Korriban, exterminating the Sith loyalists upon Dromund Kas and after all other Sith Loyalist Worlds had been turned to tombs, the Cordon Fleet turned on Ziost. They left none alive.
It was in part this heavy handedness which lead to the disbandnt of the Republic Navy and Army by Chancellor Valorum’s Ruusan Reformations, though the demobilization and reformation into the Judicial Forces would only end well after Valorum’s Chancellorship.
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