Darth Nihilus
Darth Nihilus is a male video game character that features in Star Wars.
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Biography
The being that became Darth Nihilus was largely a mystery but it was known that he lived thousands of years ago. He was noted to had been present in the time of the Mandalorian Wars that was a galaxy-wide conflict that erupted between the Mandalorians and the Galactic Republic. In this war, it was known that he lost everything dear to him including his family, friends and even the will to live. He was present on the planet Malachor V that was the scene of the final battle of the war which was where Jedi General Meetra Surik gave the command to deploy the Republic Mass Shadow Generator super=weapon. The weapon killed almost everyone on the planet's surface and those in orbit with him being among the only survivors.
The future Dark Lord survived the superweapon's destruction of the surface and assumed a dark persona while grieving his losses, in part as a means of survival. He was trapped on the planet by the artificially-created mass shadows along with the bulk of the opposing, disabled fleets that filled space around the planet—where the Mandalorians had committed all of their forces in a last attempt at defeating the Republic—and took ill suddenly due to the shadows' effects. His emotional pain then manifested as an emptiness that swept over his idle body and it soon began to manifest as an intense "hunger." Without intent, he drained the life-force of another survivor. The act was an unpleasant experience for him, but the hunger and his painful memories faded for a brief moment alongside his sickness. Nonetheless, the emptiness returned more relentless and severe than before. He indulged in absorbing the energy of other survivors, but, the more he fed, the shorter the hunger was appeased and the more powerful it became.
After the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Malak was killed at the Jedi Civil War's conclusion in 3956 BBY, the Sith Empire became divided and its followers turned on each other, with many factions rising to stake claim to what little power could be garnered. The man was eventually discovered by the Dark Lord Darth Traya, who had sensed him as a wound in the Force. After locating him, Traya explained that it was the Force that fueled his hunger and offered to train him to devour entire worlds to help appease the hunger at her school on the planet, the Trayus Academy. He followed her there and learned the ways of the Sith alongside another prospective Sith. Traya's hungry pupil and her other apprentice each honed different aspects and skills of the dark side of the Force, until they both became Sith Lords. The man took up the name Darth Nihilus, while the second apprentice became known as Darth Sion, and they joined with Traya in the creation of a Sith Triumvirate. In addition, the three each took a unique title, with Nihilus selecting Lord of Hunger.
Darth Traya perceived Nihilus' hunger for the Force as detrimental to the Sith's goals. Nevertheless, she taught him how to harness that hunger to make him stronger for a time, as she had promised. Nihilus consumed planets on several occasions, caring only to appease his hunger, allowing the dark side to consume him more and more each time he indulged his ever-intensifying hunger. Alongside his hunger, his power also grew dramatically, until he eventually surpassed his Master. Their views on how to destroy the Jedi Order also became divided, with Sion and Nihilus wanting to destroy them outright while Traya desired a more time-consuming approach. This strained the Triumvirate's already fragile alliance to the breaking point. In 3955 BBY, Nihilus and Sion combined forces to challenge Traya, confronting their teacher in the center of her own Academy. Sion and Nihilus entered the Core and ambushed Traya. Nihilus Force-pushed her into a feature of the platform, after which Sion larruped her into submission. Sion combined his power with Nihilus' to sap Traya's Force energy, cutting her off from the Force before casting her out into exile.
With Traya gone, the Sith were left with no defined leadership and her followers fractured into many factions once again, all seeking to claim scarce power. Meanwhile, the two Sith Lords went about destroying the Jedi Order together, though they did so separately and with different vehicles. On the one hand, Sion killed as many Jedi he could find. On the other, Nihilus traveled the fringes of known space with a large fleet of ships that he had ripped from the mass shadows surrounding Malachor V. He made one such vessel, the Ravager, his flagship and led his flotilla to the largest deposits of Force energies he could find, whereupon he sated the hunger within him and further increased his power. Both Nihilus and Sion were successful in their pursuits and they extinguished the Jedi. Four years after Traya's exile, Nihilus and Sion, having been the ones who defeated her, reunited the fractured Sith to take control. Nihilus became so absorbed by the dark side of the Force and his hunger that his physical body began to erode. Knowing that he would succumb to death if he did not act soon, Nihilus ripped his spirit from his body and encased it in the armor he wore, thus allowing the dark side to consume his useless body. Using the Force, the Sith Lord was able to keep his robes, armor and mask together, giving him some form while allowing him to use his Force powers as well as a lightsaber. Apart from that, he no longer had a physical form and became simple, primitive intent. Additionally, the Dark Lord constructed a cubic holocron at some point that contained a sum of Sith knowledge and a number of their secrets.
The Trayus Academy continued producing legions of Sith Lords, assassins and marauders, with Sion and Nihilus at its head. They spread death throughout the galaxy and turned many other Force-sensitives to their cause. What his followers experienced while simply being in Nihilus' vicinity allowed them to leech off other Force-sensitives' Force energy, increasing their own power. He also taught them how to sense their prey across the vastness of space. In 3952 BBY, the Jedi Master Atris organized a large gathering of Jedi on the Miraluka colony world of Katarr, which most of the remaining Jedi were expected to attend. After organizing the event, she then leaked the location as a ploy to lure a dark presence that she had recently sensed so that she could destroy it. Atris' plan worked, drawing Nihilus toward Katarr. However, when Nihilus neared the planet, he spoke, his voice a great hunger that the Miraluka could see and feel through the Force. The Sith Lord's hunger overwhelmed them and obliterated the surface of Katarr, wiping out the entire colony and anything else touched by the Force.[10] Nihilus destroyed much of what remained of the Jedi Order, including the Jedi Masters Zhar Lestin, Dorak and Vandar Tokare; Atris herself did not actually attend the conclave, though she was reported to have done so. As he afterward walked on the surface of Katarr, Nihilus found only a single living being, an injured Miraluka woman named Visas Marr. He put her in a deep sleep and brought her aboard his ship. Days later, Marr awoke, completely healed aboard the Ravager, and approached the Dark Lord. When she asked him why the wave of death had spared her, the Sith Lord did not speak. Instead, he showed her a vision of the galaxy as he perceived it: beings on other planets unable to feel the Force, disconnected from one another and lost in the crush of humanity. To that chaos, the Dark Lord felt he brought order. The vision crippled her ability to see through the Force and carved out the flesh of her vestigial eye sockets. Marr agreed to be trained by the Sith Lord as his Shadow Hand and developed a powerful Force bond with Nihilus that strengthened both; further, they could support or weaken each other in battle.
Nihilus allied himself with General Vaklu, the leader of a separatist movement that wanted the planet of Onderon to leave the Galactic Republic. He wanted to aid Vaklu in breaking away from the Republic so the planet would fall under his influence and become a staging ground for the Sith. Colonel Tobin, Vaklu's second-in-command, became Nihilus' contact. The Sith Lord also established a base on Onderon's moon, Dxun, inside the tomb of an ancient Dark Lord of the Sith named Freedon Nadd. The tomb contained a dark energy Force nexus upon which Nihilus hoped to feed after his underlings performed a dark side ritual to influence the outcome of the upcoming Onderon Civil War between the separatists and the Onderon Royalists to his favor.
Overview
Personality and attributes
After he indulged his hunger for the dark side he lost his corporeal form, preserving his existence only by having his spirit linger within his mask and armor. Due to his power, he came to be known as the Lord of Hunger.
The Dark Lord fully embraced his condition, as the mysterious and monstrous facets of it instilled in people who met him a deep-rooted fear upon which he could prey. Ceasing to feel fear and other emotions, he became an entity of pure intent.
Darth Nihilus was a man who always craved greater power. However, unlike most Sith Lords, he cared very little for the Sith as an organization. Nihilus saw death as the sole purpose of life, and power as the means to achieve it. He was cautious, as his actions during the campaign against the Jedi showed, and was known as an aggressive, dominant figure who would not abide a threat to his power.
Powers and abilities
Originally, the being that became Darth Nihilus was a Force-sensitive human who came to be trained in the ways of the Jedi and learnt to harness the Force. This allowed him to achieve a number of superhuman feats.
As a Sith, he wielded a self-built lightsaber containing a red crystal. During combat, Darth Nihilus fought in an aggressive, one-handed style.
He had learned some of the greatest of the Sith teachings, but such practices took the form of dependence. They would make him stronger, but only for a time, and he would have to feed upon Force energy to replenish his strength. For this reason, Force-sensitives and worlds rich in the Force would draw him. His reach in the Force eventually extended to a point where he could feel Force users throughout the galaxy to find planets he would then cleanse entirely, killing everything who was touched by the Force. Prolonged use of this power made him a threat to all life, as his craving grew more intense with each feeding. Eventually, Nihilus' hunger controlled him, not the other way around, and the Sith Lord would instinctively feed upon those around him, slowly killing them. Nihilus' very speech caused pain and death to all who heard it, and those who served him became utter slaves in time.
To enable his addiction to devouring worlds, he led a flotilla from his personal starship, the Ravager. He created these ships from the wreckage left behind after the Battle of Malachor V. As such, they were badly damaged and held together with Nihilus's will. He only allowed the particle shield to barely maintain atmosphere, and staffed them with slaves whose bodies were badly damaged from being in contact with the Dark Lord.
Notes
- Darth Nihilus was created by Obsidian Entertainment where he appeared in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II video game.
- His name was derived from the latin word, "Nihil", meaning "Nothing".
- The character was part of the Star Wars Legends continuity.
Appearances
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords:
External Links
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