The Most Powerful Sith Ranked

Just as there can be no light without shadow, there can be no good without evil. Just as the Jedi have protected the Republic for generations, so have the Sith tried to conquer and rule. Swifter and more seductive than the Jedi teachings, the way of the Sith promises power and abilities unknown to most. Many Sith Lords have risen and fallen over millennia, usually through deception and betrayal, consuming and murdering thousands in their quests for power. The following are the 10 most powerful and most evil beings to ever wield the Force in the Star Wars universe.

10. Darth Sion

One of the cruelest of the ancient Sith Lords, Sion was once human, but after decades of war with the Jedi and plundering secrets of the Force, he came to resemble something far from human. Multiple battles, failed Force experiments, and punishment by his masters led to his once human visage resembling that of a mummified body. With skin gray, cracked, and decaying, crisscrossed with lightsaber wounds, and an orb-like pure white eye, Darth Sion resembles something out of horror movie. Initially serving as a Sith Marauder to Exar Kun, Sion was struck down during the conflict. His hatred of the Jedi was so strong, however, that he was able to use it to draw upon the Dark Side and resurrect himself. After the end of the Old Sith Wars, Sion allied himself with each subsequent Sith empire, relentless in his quest to see the Jedi brought to their knees.

He found that purpose with the Sith Triumvirat. Combining his powers with Darth Nihilus and Darth Traya, Sion brought his legacy of war and destruction to bear once again against the Republic. Nihilus and Sion eventually sought to consolidate their power. and in the midst of an extremely brutal and successful military campaign, they cast Traya from their ranks. Enraged, she allied with a Jedi Knight named Meetra Surik, who had been banished to the Unknown Regions since the Mandalorian Wars. Surik and Sion eventually came face-to-face on Malachor V, where Surik struck mortal blow after mortal blow on Sion, but each time he was cut down, Sion would rise. Eventually seeing that Sion could not be defeated through combat, Surik reached out with the Force and showed Sion the true price of his immortality. Unable to defeat the powerful Jedi and weary from hundreds of years of conflict, Sion let go of his anger and became one with the Force.

9. Exur Kun

4,000 years before the destruction of the first Death Star, a Jedi Knight named Exur Kun came across writings of the ancient Sith during his studies at the Jedi Temple. Confident that he could call upon these forbidden powers while remaining on the Jedi path, Kun traveled to Onderon, a former Sith kingdom under the control of Sith Lord Freedon Nadd. Traveling to Onderon's moon of Dxun, Kun finds Nadd's tomb and, upon plundering it of its treasures, discovered a Holocron containing the spirit of the long dead Sith Lord. Nadd tought Kun lessons of the Dark Side, and Kun fell away from the light as he became a Dark Lord of the Sith.

On Yavin 4, Exur Kun enslaved the native population and forced them to build an extensive temple complex to honor him. Allying himself with the Krath cult (a group of Sith zealots founded by two other apprentices of Freedon Nadd), the Mandalorian warrior clans, and the fallen Jedi Ulic Qel-Droma, Exar Kun set out to conquer the Republic. The first warrior to wield a double-bladed lightsaber, Kun left a wake of bloodshed and destruction behind him for a full year until Qel-Droma was captured and put on trial for war crimes against the Republic. In the middle of Qel-Droma's trial on Coruscant, Kun burst into the Senate Chambers, dueling and defeating his former Jedi Master, and assassinating the Chancellor, striking a terrible blow to the Republic.

Reunited with his apprentice, Qel-Droma, the two Sith Lords sack the planet Ossus and plunder the Jedi Library there. During the battle, however, Qel-Droma was once again captured, this time by Jedi Grandmaster Nomi Sunrider. Using her Force Sever ability, Sunrider robbed Qel-Droma of his ability to touch the Force. Without the Dark Side corrupting his mind, Qel-Droma turned on his former Sith master and revealing the location of Kun's base on Yavin 4. Surrounded by Jedi warriors and refusing to go quietly, Kun attemptted a ritual to transform his essence into a spirit of chaos to bring destruction to the galaxy. The ritual was botched, however, and Kun's physical form was destroyed, leaving his twisted, corrupted soul imprisoned on Yavin 4 ,until thousands of years later, when Padawans of Luke Skywalker banished his spirit for good.

8. Darth Malgus

Born under the rule of the Sith Empire, Malgus was one of the few who flourished under the Sith. His adopted father was made rich and influential by the Dark Lords. After Malgus murdered a Twi'lek servant as a young boy, displaying a cold, malicious mind easily molded by Sith ideals, he was sent to the Sith Academy on Dromund Kaas to be trained. There, he rose quickly through the ranks as a Sith warrior and was given his own command within the Imperial Military. Malgus and his master were influential in leading the Sith recapture of their ancestral homeworld of Korriban. During the battle, Malgus' master was wounded by a Jedi and, seeing a swift ascension at hand, Malgus finished the job and murdered his master.

Malgus would go on to lead the sacking of Alderaan after a brutal surprise attack, but the core world would be wrestled back under Republic control by Jedi forces led by Satele Shan. Approximately 3,500 years before the Battle of Yavin, the Sith Empire entered into peace talks with the Republic. In true Sith fashion, these talks were simply an underhanded ruse to direct Republic attention away from the capital city on Coruscant. Darth Malgus was handpicked by his superiors in the Sith Military to lead a strike team against the Jedi Temple. By the conclusion of the battle, half of the Jedi High Council had been wiped out, including the Grandmaster by Malgus' own hand, and the temple burned. While Malgus pressed his superiors to finish the Republic once and for all by razing Coruscant, the Sith instead occupied the world and sued for peace with the Republic. Disgusted by the betrayal of the Dark Side by the politicians of the Sith Empire (known as the Dark Council), Malgus gathered his military legions to him and journeyed into the Unknown Regions, claiming worlds for his "New Sith Empire." Little is known about what became of Malgus, only that toward the end of his recorded life he was plagued by visions and dreams of once again being subjugated to the corruption of the Dark Council, and he set off on a mission to Dantooine to rid himself of these phycological tremors.

7. Darth Plagueis

The Muun Sith Master of Darth Sidious, Plagueis was fascinated by midi-chlorians and how the dark side could be used to influence life. Part scientist, part business tycoon, Plagueis hid in plain sight using the civilian name Hego Demask, instructing Palpatine not only on how to influence the galaxy through the dark side, but also with a well placed threat or bribe. It is of little surprise that Sidious gravitated and flourished under the tutelage of a masterful puppet master like Plagueis, who was able to direct the galaxy via the influence of the Muun Banking Clan. Putting the right amount of credits in the right hands is a skill that allowed the Sith to flourish for 1,000 years in the Republic, undetected by the Jedi Council.

Plagueis grew up on the Muun-controlled diamond-mining world of Mygeeto and quickly began to exhibit talents in the Force. This came as little shock to his mother, who in turn revealed herself to be a Sith Cultist and began instructing Plagueis in the ways of the dark side. As his powers grew, so did his need for a suitable teacher. This was found in the Bith Darth Tenebrous, whose fascination with controlling life was shared by Plagueis. Agreeing to be his apprentice, Plagueis was granted access to immense amounts of wealth, equipment, and influence that the Sith had been stockpiling since the days of Darth Bane. In keeping with Bane's Rule of Two, Plagueis betrayed and murdered his Master, bringing a cavern crashing down on top of him.

With the resources of the Sith entirely at his disposal, Plagueis was able to continue his experiments, some speculate with far reaching effects. He was eventually able to discover a way to transfer one's essence into another body as a vessel through a dark side ritual, much to the encouragement of his apprentice, a budding Sith Sorcerer. As powerful as the Muun was, Darth Plagueis the Wise was not immune to the tendencies of the dark side, as he was also murdered by his apprentice, Darth Sidious, on the night that the latter was elected Supreme Chancellor.

6. Darth Vader

The fallen Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, one of the most powerful Force users to exist in the universe, was seduced to the dark side by Darth Sidious, who masqueraded as his friend and mentor Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Combined with the powers and experience gained as a general in the Clone Wars, Vader was also fueled by the hatred and suffering of his christening. Determined to save his pregnant wife, Vader embraced the promises of Sidious to help him save her, in exchange for pledging himself to the dark side. He was dispatched by his Master to destroy the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Leading a detachment of the 501st Legion, Darth Vader cut his way through the Jedi who had once been his friends and comrades, including a group of younglings he found hiding in the Council chambers when he went to confront any remaining Masters.

After the slaughter at the Temple, Vader was sent to Mustafar by his new master, Darth Sidious, where he confronted his old master Obi-Wan Kenobi on the treacherous, volcanic surface of the planet. Defeated in combat, Skywalker was left maimed and crippled, burning alive on the banks of a lava river. Anakin's betrayal was ultimately in vain, as his wife perished while giving birth to their twin children. After retrieving his fallen apprentice, Sidious had him encased in a suit of life-saving black armor, based on the appearance of Sith Berserkers of the Old Sith Wars.

Vader proceeded to hunt down and destroy the remaining Jedi Knights, seeking his revenge on Kenobi. Darth Vader became one of the most feared beings in the galaxy during the Dark Times of the Galactic Empire, both to the rebels he fought and to his own men. Quick to anger, Vader was no stranger to strangling incompetent officers aboard his capital ship, the Executor. Vader led the Imperial Navy during the Galactic Civil War, crushing rebel cells and eliminating the last of the Jedi. The conclusion of this conflict came at the Battle of Endor, when Vader's son, Luke Skywalker, defeated his father in combat but refused to strike him down in anger. Rather than watch his master destroy his son, Vader sacrificed his own life and hurled Sidious down a reactor shaft, vaporizing his physical body.

5. Darth Sidious

The final Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic before becoming first Emperor of the Galactic Empire, Darth Sidious was once a young politician from the fuel-rich world of Naboo. Handpicked by Plagueis to be his apprentice due to his high social standing and political acumen, in addition to his strength in the Force, Sidious quickly became indispensable to the Muun's plans. Carrying out missions, both sinister and political, on behalf of Plagueis or the front for their operations, Demask Holdings. Sidious was also one of the few Sith able to wield the power of Sith sorcery, conjuring spells with the aid of the dark side. It is even speculated that Palpatine used these powers to plant visions of death and suffering in Anakin Skywalker's dreams, and to drain Padme Amidala's life force to heal the ravaged body of Lord Vader.

Sidious was able to mask the foresight of wise Jedi Masters like Yoda during the final days of the Republic, frequently meeting with the Jedi Council during the Clone Wars with them completely unaware that Palpatine was a Sith Lord. At the height of the Clone War, Palpatine revealed himself as Darth Sidious and enacted Order 66, all but exterminating the Jedi Knights, realizing the millennium-long plan first laid down by Darth Bane to topple the Republic and the Jedi Order and once more install Sith rule across the Galaxy. With the guardians of freedom and justice eliminated and the Galactic Senate in the palm of his hand, Sidious was able to dissolve the centuries-old Republic and put himself in power as the Emperor of the First Galactic Empire.

While victory for the Sith was short-lived, as Sidious' apprentice Darth Vader betrayed his master and destroyed his physical form at the Battle of Endor, the lessons learned from Darth Plagueis served Sidious well. During the height of the Empire, Sidious had set the groundwork for his rejuvenation on the Sith planet of Exegol. The Sith cult there had long been building a Sith army to lay siege to the galaxy in the event that the Empire fell, and they set about bringing their master's spirit back into a physical form. Through cloning science and Sith sorcery, Palpatine was reborn. This was discovered thirty years after his reported death when Kylo Ren traveled to Exegol seeking to eliminate any dark side user who would oppose him as Supreme Leader. Ren instead agreed to kill Rey in exchange for the vast military resources that the cultists on Exegol spent the past 30 years amassing. Instead, through a joint effort from Rey and his mother Leia, Ren was redeemed and once again became Ben Solo. Rey and Ben were able to destroy Darth Sidious once and for all, freeing the galaxy from the tyranny of the Sith and ending the Line of Bane permanently.

4. Tenebrae

One of the original Sith species, Tenebrae was born into the old Sith Empire, 5,200 years before the rise of the Galactic Empire. As a Sith by birth, Tenebrae was naturally gifted in the dark side, torturing and massacring hundreds with the Force by the age of 10. When confronted by his own father with his crimes, Tenebrae, instead of repenting, severed his father's spirit from his body. Soon afterward, he took lordship over his homeworld, renaming it Nathema. Seeking to eliminate any threats to his power, he lured the remaining Sith to his court and consumed their life force, destroying his victims, prolonging his life, and expanding his power in the Force. Taking control over all Sith forces left over from the Great Hyperspace War, Tenebrae, now christened as Dark Lord of the Sith Vitiate. He led his forces to the planet of Dromund Kaas and established it as the capital of the New Sith Empire, expanding his resources and control over numerous planets out of the eye of the Republic. One of these planets was the lost world of Zakuul, which was where the Eternal Fleet had been abandoned. Tenebrae left his physical body and took possession of a Zakuul warrior named Valkorion to become the figurehead of his new Eternal Empire. However, his plans were foiled by two Jedi Knights named Revan and Malak, who were able to defeat the Sith Empire on Dromund Kaas.

3. Darth Bane

The founder of the Rule of Two, Darth Bane was disgusted with the abundant corruption, betrayal, and murder prevalent in the Sith Academy on Korriban. While the dark side by its nature was abundant with these underhanded acts, Bane saw how it was undermining the Sith, with multiple apprentices banding together to attack a more powerful Master, only to be in turn destroyed by infighting and bickering, thus weakening the ranks of the Sith. Bane was so disgusted by the state of the Sith a millennium before the onset of the Skywalker saga that he orchestrated a plan to purge the Sith and start anew.

With the Sith embroiled in another war with the Jedi, Bane traveled to their base on Ruusan to meet with the leader of the Brotherhood of Darkness, Lord Kaan. What Bane found further convinced him that the Sith must start anew: Kaan was a broken man, driven to paranoia and doubt by the never-ending conflict with the light and betrayal within his own ranks. The supposed Dark Lord of the Sith was little more than a crazy old fool. Bane hand delivered to him what he describes as a weapon to destroy the Jedi. Instead, it was a dark side ritual that would obliterate all Force-sensitive life in its blast radius. The "Thought Bomb" as it was called required a significant amount of power to conjure. Kaan called his Brotherhood to him and they proceeded down into the catacombs of Ruusan to detonate the Bomb. While the bomb did succeed in annihilating Jedi Master Hoth and a third of his Jedi Army, it also consumed the entirety of the Sith Brotherhood, leaving only Bane alive.

In the wreckage of Ruusan, Bane discovered a young girl who was powerful in the Force and who also managed to survive the Thought Bomb. Bane took her as his apprentice and faded into shadow and obscurity, laying the groundwork for the eventual revenge of the Sith and the destruction of the Jedi.

2. Darth Revan

One of the most unique beings in the galaxy, Revan was a Jedi Knight who, along with his apprentice Malak, fell to the Dark Side after years of galactic war. While this being's birth name is unknown, he took the name Revan upon founding the Revanchist, or Jedi Crusaders, to fight at his side during the Mandalorian Wars. However, during this conflict, Revan and Malak both slipped closer and closer to the dark side, as their tactics grew more and more extreme and their moral compasses slipped.

On Malachor V, Revan defeated Mandalore the Ultimate and activated a superweapon that annihilated the Mandalorians and Revan's own forces, thus ending the war. Revan and Malak then disappeared from the Jedi Order, journeying with the remnants of their military into the Unknown Regions to confront another rumored Dark Lord of the Sith. There they encountered the dark side entity Tenebrae, now existing as Dark Lord Vitiate, who successfully pulled them both into the clutches of the dark side. Tenebrae ordered them to find the location of the Star Forge, a shipyard designed to draw upon the power of stars to create the most powerful armada of all time. The newly christened Darth Revan and Darth Malak instead betrayed their new Sith Master and took the Forge for themselves.

Launching an invasion of the Republic with their newly built fleet, Revan and Malak came close to toppling the Jedi Order. As Revan's flagship was ambushed by a Jedi fleet led by Bastila Shan, Malak ordered his cruiser to fire upon his former friend and mentor. Revan was almost killed in the ensuing blast, but Bastila was able to recover him, wipe his memory, and redeem him to the light. Revan completed his redemption by leading the Jedi to the Star Forge, destroying it, and killing Malak in combat.

1. Darth Nihilus

Shortly after the defeat of the Mandalorians on Malachor V at the hands of Revan, a new Dark Side presence emerged to consume the galaxy. Darth Nihilus, self-styled Lord of Hunger, was a survivor of the battle on Malachor and survived the activation of the Mass Shadow Generator superweapon. However the weapon stripped him of most of his physical form, leaving him to subsist as little more than spirit and cursing him with an insatiable hunger for Force energy. Those knowledgeable in the workings of the Force began to refer to Nihilus as a "wound in the Force," neither truly dark side and certainly not of the light. Instead consumed with feeding on the Force, often by consuming the life force of those who were able to tap into the Force.

He saw potential for abundant consumption by allying with Darth Traya and Darth Sion in the first Sith Triumvirate. Feeding on those who could touch the Force allowed Nihilus to not only slacken the intense agony racking what was left of his body, but also prevented him from being consumed by his own painful memories. However, the more he fed, the more his hunger grew. This power, created under such unique circumstances, is completely unique in current Star Wars lore. With no other way to sate his hunger besides feeding on life, Nihilus set about consuming entire plants with his power, leaving them lifeless and uninhabitable. Eventually, with the help of Mandalore the Preserver, the Jedi were able to lure Nihilus into a trap at Telos IV, board his flagship The Ravager, and destroy what remained of his physical form.

Written By Weston Erickson

Syndicated From Culture Slate

Join The Team