2852, Heir of the Dark Side
Darth Sidious had made an enormous mistake—or rather, he had never realized it was a mistake.
That mistake had been planted deep within his mind by Darth Pregas—not as some conspiracy, but because Darth Pregas himself genuinely believed it from the bottom of his heart.
Darth Pregas's beliefs had in turn been inherited from Darth Tenebrus. It could be said that three generations of Sith Lords in their lineage had already embarked upon the wrong path.
That path was Immortality.
The path to Immortality had, in truth, betrayed the greatest essence of the Dark Side—inheritance.
Since the Sith Cult's birth, they had possessed one supreme ironclad rule: kill one's own master. Only by slaying one's master could the Dark Side erupt into new life amid destruction. Only a throne steeped in blood was worthy of bearing true power.
Likewise, every Sith Lord who stood at the pinnacle would devote every effort to teaching their apprentice, caring nothing for life or death. They understood deeply that only by pouring all their power into their successor could they ensure the Dark Side's purity and ferocity.
They enjoyed the process of tormenting their apprentices, and they also enjoyed the outcome of being killed by those same apprentices.
Even Marka Ragnos, a supreme being who faced no internal challengers, had stood atop his own tomb as a Sith spirit after his death, watching Naga Sadow and the other contenders for the throne fight to the death with great enjoyment, then happily acknowledging the victor.
Even Darth Bane's later Rule of Two was, in essence, inheritance. The pairing of one Sith Lord and one Sith apprentice was precisely the relationship between teacher and challenger. When the apprentice killed the master, it meant that he had surpassed his master, or