“Only two there are, Master, and apprentice” ~ Yoda and Darth Bane: the Path of Destruction is where it begins. While he first appears in the Jedi VS Sith comics, this story fills out his backstory up until the ending where he is set to establish the Rule of Two.
War rages between Sith and Jedi, Empire and Republic. Those on the Outer Rim aren’t so keen on the Republic as it fails to address the imbalance of power of the locals, miners, and unjust practices. Into this comes a miner named Des, whose skirmish with sore loser Republic crews leads him first to the Imperial army and then, to the Sith Academy. And so Darth Bane is born. I find this twist interesting, as we see even in the prequels that the Republic’s laws do not reach to the outer rim, which is run by the likes of the Hutts.
The characters are well fleshed out. Bane’s harsh upbringing explains much, but in spite of this, he still does have a conscience. Yet fate will have him choose to gradually burn that away for power, power over his own life. And that in turn will be the death of many others, and a legacy that leads through until Sidious and Vader. In a way this is the opposite of the heroes journey. It is the villains journey, where a man out for survival gradually is deconstructed to the embodiment of evil.
The power of this story is that realization that Darth Bane’s legacy continued until Darth Sidious and Darth Vader, although their were lesser acolytes.
Darth Bane Lore and Continuity
There are two books that follow this, Darth Bane and the Rule of Two, followed by Darth Bane Dynasty of Evil
This crosses over with Jedi VS Sith comic arc. That arc covers the same war, and the same period, focusing more on the POV of 3 force sensitive children, who were to join the Jedi. Bug, Tomcat and Rain had their flight interrupted and were separated. The book ignores all but Rain, who the comic hints from pretty early on, will become Bane’s apprentice.
Ghitany is a bit inconsistent from the comics, in that she directly did interact with Tomcat and this is ignored, even to the point where she should be with him escaping Kaan’s thought bomb. The comic shows her escaping the tunnels completely, losing Tomcat just inside, before the event overtakes her. The novel suggests she didn’t escape at all. The relationship with Darth Bane is at least suggested in the book.
Also, Darth Bane, Path of Destructions suggests only 100 Jedi went in, while the rest – including Farfalla, escape. The comic seems to show him sucked in, though it could’ve been another Jedi of his kind.
Lehon in Darth Bane, Path of Destruction, s consistent in description with what we see in KOTOR and SWTOR. I do wonder a bit that Revan left the holocron there after he returned to the light, but then, I don’t know every single detail of his memory returned. He didn’t seem to remember every detail of his discovery of the Sith Empire, or he’d have warned about them rather than go in pursuit
Dark Forces: Jedi Knight audio drama does refer to this on Ruusan, and it’s mentioned Luke Skywalker heard the story from Yoda. Also, both Rahn and Jerec were searching for the Valley, even if they didn’t know what planet it was on. So this does suggest some Jedi probably escaped to tell the story so it could be passed on through the years.
