Thousands of years before the battle of Yavin, the galaxy became engulfed in a terrible conflict
known as the Mandalorian Wars, which saw Mandalore “the Ultamite” lead the Mandalorean Neo
Crusaders to battle, invading and conquer worlds until finally invading the Old Republic.
Although the Jedi were hesitant to get involved in the fighting, a faction of the Order following
Revan and Malak led the Republic against the Mandalorians, culminating in the battle of
Malachor V, where Revan’s forces unleashed the Mass Shadow Generator, a superweapon which
created a massive gravitational force that pulled nearly all surrounding ships, directly
onto Malachor’s surface, destroying the planet and its population.
Yet not all perished on the planet.
A man who had lost everything in the years of war, survived the horror but was plagued
by a terrible sickness which ran through his body, using the painful memories of his past
and all he had seen on Malachor to cause physical pain in the form of hunger, torturing him
day and night.
The mass devastation created a wound in the force within the man, and soon he found the
only way to stop the pain was to consume the life energy of living beings.
And so he fed on the survivors he encountered on Malachor V, relieving his pain, only to
have it later return worse than ever before.
Although the dark side energy and power of the Malachor Survivor moved him to the side
of the Sith, in their never ending war with Jedi Order, in truth he cared nothing for
the Sith or Jedi, seeking only to satisfy his hunger for Force energy.
As the Mandalorian war ended and the Jedi Civil War erupted, Revan and Malak fell to
the Dark Side and led their forces against the Jedi Council who had not supported them
in the Mandalorian Wars.
And while Revan came close to defeating the Jedi and Old Republic, he was betrayed by
his apprentice Malak, and the Sith Advance was stopped for a time.
Revan survived the betrayal however, and returned to the light side of the force, gathering
allies and defeating Malak, to end the Jedi Civil War at the Battle of Rakata Prime.
With Malak’s forces defeated, the Sith fractured and split into a number of warring factions.
Yet from the chaos of these years, Darth Traya emerged, a former Jedi Master who had been
exiled from the Order because so many of her students, including Revan disobeyed the Council
and fought in the Mandalorian Wars.
Feeling like the Jedi had betrayed her, Kreia as she was then known, travelled the galaxy,
until finally reaching Malachor V and discovering an ancient Sith Academy teeming with powerful
darkside energy.
Kreia embraced the darkness, becoming Darth Traya, and starting her own Sith faction,
training assassins and dark side warriors in the ruins of Malachor.
Seeking powerful students and allies to help her rebuild the Sith and destroy the Jedi
Order, she sought out the Survivor of Malachor, and making him an apprentice, promising to
train him in the force and strengthen his powers so he might consume larger amounts
of Force Energy.
Traya also recruited another powerful force user and veteran of the Great Sith War, having
once served as a Sith Marauder for Exar Kun, until his body was destroyed in the fighting.
However he survived his own death by concentrating and embracing his pain and anger, using the
force to hold his fractured body together.
Though he was hideously disfigured, he remained alive and was more powerful than ever, coming
to join Darth Traya in later years, and becoming her student at the Trayus Academy.
Traya taught them a great deal about the Force and the three became a powerful Triumvirate
who ruled a new Sith Empire.
Darth Traya took the title Lord of Betrayal *Because she was once a Jedi but was exiled
While the former Sith marauder took the name Darth Sion and the title Lord of Pain.
Finally the Malachor Survivor took the name Darth Nihilus and the title Lord of Hunger.
*Because of his constant hunger As powerful as Sion and Traya had become,
Darth Nihilus was on a level on his own, developing his unique abilities as a Wound in the Force,
able to consume the life energy of whole worlds.
Yet as Traya strategized and maneuvered the Sith Empire planning for the eventual defeat
and elimination of the Jedi Order, Sion and Nihilus became impatient with her slow, methodical
leadership, desiring to take the fight directly to the Jedi so they might unleash their Dark
Side powers upon them.
And so the apprentices joined together and deposed their master, severing her connection
to the force and exiling her from the Order.
With the new Sith Empire’s leader gone, they once again fell to infighting, while
Sion and Nihilus went about destroying the Jedi order and Old Republic in their own brutal
ways.
Sion went on a rampage killing every jedi he could find.
While Nihilus lifted ships out of the wreckage of malachor V, and held them together and
functional through his force powers, using them as a fleet to travel throughout space.
He was now capable of consuming whole worlds to satisfy his hunger, but also organized
rebellions on many Republic planets to weaken them for future invasion.
In 3951 BBY Nihilus and Sion came together again and united the Sith Order under their
rule.
Over the years, Nihilus had consumed so much energy his body could not longer hold it’s
form, and so he used the force to encase himself in a mask and robes which would keep his spirit
confined and body functional.
The Jedi Order, now weakened from years of war, secretly met on the planet of Katarr
to discuss the situation.
But they were betrayed by one of their own, when jedi Master Atris leaked the location
of the meeting in the hopes of luring the Sith Lords out into the open so they might
be destroyed.
However she was unprepared for the power and devastation of Darth Nihilus, who arrived
at Katarr and used his abilities to consume the world whole, killing nearly everyone on
the planet, including all the Jedi and the Force Sensitive Miraluka population.
Upon searching the planet after his victory, Nihilus found a single Miraluka survivor named
Visas Marr who he sparred and brought aboard his ship.
When she recovered, he showed her a vision of the Order he sought to bring to the galaxy,
making her his apprentice and Shadow Hand, creating a force bond between them.
Although she bared responsibility for the massacre, Jedi Master Atris was not present
on Katarr when Nihilus arrived, and afterwards retreated into exile on Telos IV.
As the Sith continued their war against the nearly exterminated Jedi Order and Republic
government, Nihilus came to support Rebellion on Onderon, establishing a base on the moon
Dxun.
Meanwhile Master Atris again sought to defeat the Sith through treachery and manipulation,
by sending for the Jedi Exile Meetra Surik, having her return to known space.
Surik had followed Revan into the Mandalorian Wars, and was the one to actually give the
order for the Mass Shadow Generator to be activated on Malachor V. Due to her special
force sensitivity, the suffering of those on Malachor, many of which had been her friends
and soldiers, overwhelmed and would have killed her, if she had not taken the drastic step
of severing her own link to the force.
Afterwards, she left Revan’s army, returning to the Jedi Council to accept judgment and
punishment for her disobedience.
The council, wanting to set an example, banished her from the Jedi Order causing her to leave
known space in exile.
As expected the return of a once powerful Jedi attracted the attention of the Sith,
and so Darth Sion attacked the Peragus Mining Facility, searching for her, resulting in
its destruction.
However Surik had been found and led away by Darth Traya, who had returned to her identity
as Kreia, in the hopes of using the exile to take revenge upon her former students and
reclaim the Sith Empire.
Nihilus, sensing a disturbance in the force, sent his apprentice Visas Marr to investigate,
leading her to the exile who convinced her to change allegiance, becoming a companion
of Surik.
The Exile then organized a republic defense of Onderon to beat back the Sith supported
rebellion, sending her Mandalorian allies to destroy the Sith base on Dxun.
With his plans for Onderon shattered, Nihilus travelled to Telos IV, where he learned a
Jedi Academy existed with Force Sensitives to feed his hunger, however it proved to be
a trap set by Kreia, who alerted Republic forces which engaged Nihilus upon arrival.
In addition to the trap, Nihilus discovered the Jedi Academy had only one force sensitive
present, the former Jedi Master Atris.
Kreia meanwhile, having orchestrated a confrontation between two of her most powerful enemies,
returned to malachor V, reclaiming the Sith Academy and Empire.
Above Telos a massive battle erupted, leading Meetra Surik and her allies Visas Marr and
the new Mandalore, leader of the Mandalorians, to board the Sith Lord’s ship, using Visas
force bond with Darth Nihilus to weaken allowing the others to kill his physical body.
However the powerful force energy which had kept Nihilus alive for so many years would
not allow his spirit to leave the living world, keeping it trapped within his armor.
And so once he was buried on Korriban, he was able to commune with the Dark Side energy
of the planet, living on as a force ghost.
Although Sion and Traya would soon join Nihilus in defeat, the legacy of the Triumverate and
the power they held influenced the Sith for many years to come, and played a large role
in shaping the future of the galaxy.
Darth Nihilus became a legendary figure for many in the galaxy, with some claiming he
was one of the most powerful Sith to ever exist.
As a result many attempted to associate themselves with his legacy, seeking out the mask of Darth
Nihilus which became a highly prized artifact for collectors, with many fakes produced over
the years.
Even more valuable however was the Sith holocron he had produced during his lifetime, which
would be used to train future Sith Lords like Darth Krayt, who gathered the holocrons of
Darth Nihilus, Andeddu and Bane, all of whom agreed Krayt was an unworthy Sith Lord, believing
his rule of one philosophy did not align with the ways of the Sith.