With the ongoing "DarthWho?" contest, I figured it was a good time to revisit the subject of the Darths I've named.

So far I've explained how Darth Ruin got his name. I decided to tackle Darth Millennial next. Brace yourselves.

Darth Millennial was formally introduced into Star Wars lore in Part 5 of Kyle Katarn's Tale. However, I had conceived of the character long before that, back when I first wrote Evil Never Dies in 2001. There was some pressure to play it safe with Darth Ruin's name, since that character was conceived as the progenitor of George Lucas' Sith of the prequels, but since Millennial was my own invention, I figured I'd stretch my wings.

First, some background on the guy. Darth Millennial was a Sith Lord active at some point in the 1000-year stretch between Darth Bane's rise to power and the coming of Darth Sidious. A three-eyed mutant, he was the apprentice to a Sith by the name Darth Cognus, who was firmly entrenched in Bane's philosophies, including the rule that only two Sith Lords would exist at any one time. Millennial, however, was more fond of the social Darwinism of Bane's rival, Lord Kaan, who insisted it was natural for the strong to rule over the weak. This ideological rift caused a conflict between the Sith master and apprentice, and Millennial split to start his own Sith tradition, the Prophets of the Dark Side, while his ideas were codified into the Dark Force religion.

It's important to note that the Prophets of the Dark Side were villains (along with their friend/foe the three-eyed mutant Trioculus) introduced in the infamous Glove of Darth Vader series, a group of children's books that have been vilified by a segment of the Star Wars community for their, well, childishness. I, however, have always been fond of them in a Jar Jar-like way. In general, I find children's stories like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm fascinating. Like children themselves, there is a directness and simplicity to what they say that, while perhaps not true, has the stunning force of truth...not unlike a religious text. And, they're just plain fun.

Now, to the point. The immediate derivation of Darth Millennial's name is obvious. But why "millennium"?*** Well, because Darth Eternal is too easy, and I already used the name Ultimate for a ruler of the Mandalorians.

Folks who have visited my website will be familiar with the quotation that greets visitors on the main page: "There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite." Among theologians, no concept has been as important to the monotheistic faiths as that of infinity, which was often equated or analogized to God/perfection. Now, many cultures have a version of a number representing infinity: the sleepy 8 of Western culture is familiar, depicted thus ∞. Another numerical version is that of the Chinese Taoists, who represented the totality of all being as 萬物 (wanwu), or "the 10,000 things." In Arabic culture, the numerical symbol for infinity is similar though less dramatic. It is 1,000, as in The Thousand and One Arabian Nights (which were also fairy tales of a kind).

Now, the number 1,000 pops up periodically in Star Wars. In A New Hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi tells us that the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice for over a thousand generations. In Attack of the Clones, Palpatine tells us that the Republic has stood for a thousand years. The Dark Empire series reveals that the Emperor intends to rule the Empire for a thousand more years, an echo of the Third Reich's "thousand-year plan." Of course, in one version of the speech Palpatine gave declaring a new Galactic Empire, he promises the new government will last instead 10,000 years. (But when both 萬 and 1,000 = ∞, really, what's the difference).

That said, the quotation we're really concerned with comes from The Phantom Menace, wherein a shocked Jedi Council member asserts, "The Sith have been extinct for over a millennium!" Which is to say, since time immemorial, or indeed, forever.

So we come to Darth Millennial. It's likely that Millennial became a Sith close to the time the Sith were believed to have become extinct, making his name literally prophetic. But what is known for certain is that he believed he was special enough, perhaps even perfect enough, to be chosen as a prophet by the will of the Force.

As a religious figure, I wanted to integrate the concept of infinity into his name. But while the nature of the character was heavily indebted to the juvenility of the Glove of Darth Vader books, I wanted to pay homage, not actually one-up them with something as pretentious as Darth Infinitude or Darth Perfectus. As I mentioned previously, I'd scrutinized Uncle George's pattern for naming Sith, and while Darth Ruin was inspired by Maul and Bane, this time the long-winded Sidious and Plagueis were the models.

Still, the Glove of Darth Vader set the bar for bad taste pretty high (one might say infinitely high). Eight letters, Plaugeis? Only three syllables, Sidious? C'mon, is that the best you evil Sith evildoers can do? ~ Abel Gustavo Lopez Peņa IV

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** Riddle me this: when does a Dark Jedi prefer a vibroblade to a lightsaber? When it's a double-bladed Jengardin Millennial vibroblade, of course.

Continue onto "I am Zannah," or: A Darth By Any Other Name, Part 3


BLOG INDEX

MYSPACE PROFILE