[IC] Holo-Diary - Gorbargh of Lorrad

[Andnoa]

>> STATUS: INTEGRITY 100%
>> SOURCE: PERSONAL DEVICE // Andnoa
>> OPENING FILE...ENTRY 328: The Inevitable Death of Lord Teius Horuset

Sitting in a chair by his fireplace, Sith Andnoa would speak to a holorecording device. His face would be marked with lines of black, as the echoes of the power he had conjured mere hours ago would wrack him and he would be naked from the waist up, revealing various tattoos etched onto his form. Not Sith in origin, they would speak to a life prior to this, a low level gangster on the Industrial Hellscape in which he was raised.

"It is the middle of the thirty first year since the Sacking of Coruscant. Two days prior to today, Lord Teius Horuset lost his life. He was slain by a rather excellent bit of Trakata from the now Lord Kelsa at the culmination of a duel by all rights he should have won."

Andnoa would pause for a long moment, contemplating.

"Inevitable, however that he would lose it. I have spoken to several other Sith and Lord since then who seemed confused at the result. Teius Horuset was by all rights a powerful Sith Lord, Uncle to the Dark Lord and had served the Empire for over half a century. He procreated and his children now serve too, those who still live at any rate. He did everything the Traditionalist elements of the Sith would expect one of noble blood to do. He mastered a lightsaber form, lead wars, opposed the infiltration of "alien filth" and yet... He lost to one such an alien. To the Pureblood mind, this is unthinkable, yet to the mind of one such as I, I knew he would die the moment I saw him arrive."

"I present my thesis: The Traditionalist Mind does not understand the Alien Mind and thus is doomed."

A short barking laugh.

"Ha! Now that is heresy worth purging, for those who believe that heresy exists. Luvane would string me up for that. But it is exactly because he would that the thesis is true. Let us look to our first example: Xulia Horuset, daughter of Teius and fierce traditionalist. While those words are true they mask a failing. Xulia Horuset is utterly incapable of supplication. She is inflexible to the point where when asked to perform a task to earn the right to new Sorcery, she refused to do so and still expected a reward! For it was her birth right to learn Sorcery. No little half-breed whelp could deny her that. She was of the Golden Sun! So the little half-breed whelp denied her Sorcery and now she claims she never wanted it in the first place, a pathetic lie to salve her wounded Ego."

Andnoa would shake his head.

"If she were capable of humility, she would be on her way to Sorcery now. I was considering her as an Apprentice, to re-ignite the fires of the Dark Side in House Horuset, yet even with all the advantages she had, she could not see past herself. And now I have Safiyya Tanamart, an Apprentice who is utterly without ego. In fact, let us make her example number two. Safiyya may have a drop of the black blood of Korriban in her, but she does not act like it. She is calm and quiet, even as the fire burns brightly within her. When ordered to perform a task she performs it. She is willing to do anything to grow and deepen her relationship with the dark side. Why is this? Humility. She knows she is an Apprentice and she has seen what I am capable of. She has seen hardship on her home-world and she knows that to learn from me is the quickest path to power and as such she has taken to her place with gusto. I am not so blinded by myself as to not see the irony. If it were not for Xulia, I would not have Safiyya. The Dark Side has turned a weak Red Sith away from the path to power and a human towards it. This is Teius' fault. He only saw an Alien reaching above his station. He did not see the true horror of what Kelsa is until it was too late."

Andnoa punctuate his words by slamming his fist into his armrest.

"Now to another of his children, Krassus Horuset. When dearest daddy was slain, Krassus decided to rush at Kelsa, drawing his weapon to strike. He now sits in the medical bay with his chest caved in and lightning burns, the latter from me, the former from Kelsa. This was a poor move, rushed into without thought out of sentiment... Ah sentiment, the second of Teius' faults. But, I hear you say, Teius was beyond sentiment. He proved that when he interrupted his own son's wedding. Ah, I respond, no he was not. What is traditionalism but affection for the past? The Sith of the past failed. Learn their lessons and move on. To go back and try again everything they did is a sure-fire method to another great failure that the Empire can not afford."

"But Krassus' foolishness did not begin there. In the weeks before Kelsa's ascension, it came to my attention that he was spreading rumours about Kelsa, no doubt on the orders of His Master, the Dark Lord. A test or a genuine attempt to foil Kelsa? I can not say. But the presence of Teius is no accident. Call me a conspiracy theorist but I believe the Dark Lord has been pushing behind the scenes against Kelsa. Not with her full might of course, but more than she would against any pureblood rising the ranks. Two aliens on the Pentarchy? Unthinkable to her antiquated mind. The next alien will be the most difficult to push up there, for a majority of aliens would have her Dear Father rising from his grave. But then a Pentarchy itself would, to my understanding. To share power? Impossible!"

"But of course, necessary. For we now rise to the next problem that Teius did not see, the rot that is the fault of the Dark Lord. She still believes a majority of her powerbase is traditionalist, rather than just going through the motions. She can not see the truth because her only eyes are the likes of Krassus, who is blind and she can not learn this for herself because she is so absent as to be a non-factor. What would I ascribe this to? Lack of humility and abundance of sentiment are taken so lets call this complacency on her part. The assumption that because she has power today that she will tomorrow without lifting a finger or maintaining that power for herself. Teius believed an alien rising above him could be swatted away like a gnat, for his power could not be approached by aliens. Both niece and uncle were mistaken."

Andnoa would go to turn off the camera again before stopping and thinking for some minutes. He would finally speak in a softer voice.

"There is another example, one closer to home that has not been adequately analysed, but serves as a predictive warning of what was to come and what might yet be. And that is Zarchas and Tarimra. Tarimra had a great many of the same faults as his father and siblings. Egoism, Traditionalism and a false sense of indestructability. Zarchas, for his flaws, shattered that view. A former slave yet a younger and superior sorcerer to the Golden Child of the Golden Sun. And ultimately despite the wound he left to Lord Saltaeon, Zarchas was the better Sith for that reason. I predict more death to come. Not only the names I have named, but other red skinned Sith are vulnerable in precisely the same way. Rhysand springs to mind, Tutki... They do not understand the Sith any more. They only understand the Sith a thousand years ago."

"Let us now explore that weakness. Why do the Red Sith have such overwhelming self-belief to the point of self destruction? Because it is drilled into them at every point of their lives. This is why the aliens are so quickly rising. They are told all their lives they are worthless scum and overcome this weakness to become Sith. They have long since abandoned dignity in the service of power. They will do anything to survive, abandon honour or decency, abandon old teachings, anything if it lets them see another day. Desperation is power in and of itself and those who can not comprehend the depths of despair are doomed to failure."

"The very structure of Sith training and of House Horuset itself are killing the Sith Purebloods. Thus Teius died because he could not see the change had happened and even if he could have, he would not react to it."

A laugh once again.

"Goodness me, that is funny. If they want to rectify it then, they must do the unthinkable: Treat the Red Sith like the Aliens are treated. No more special privileges, no more secret meetings or family bonds to weaken them. Force every Sith to abandon their family name and dignity upon entry to the Academy. True Sith are born in the depths hardship so this false comfort has made the Pure weaker. Vayek learned that when we clashed as acolytes."

The screen cuts to black.

[VISUAL END – static flood]

[AUDIO TERMINATED – no further signal detected]
>> END FRAGMENT.
>> FILE STATUS: LOCKED

[Andnoa]

>> STATUS: INTEGRITY 100%
>> SOURCE: PERSONAL DEVICE // Andnoa
>> OPENING FILE...ENTRY 421: A Private Obituary

A Private Obituary

Darth Ahandra Yaira Horuset died as she lived, arrogantly believing in the righteousness of her cause to the point of personal undoing. In an attempt to summon a spirit of the ancient Sith Eroi, a first generation descendant of the Jin’Jidai, she made the assumption that such a being would surely see her as a worthy successor and would flock to her obviously correct ideology. No thought was given to the possibility that she was wrong, that her views would not match those of the ancient Sith. For she was a champion of the old ways, of conservatism. This ignores the fundamental fact that the Jin’Jidai were not conservative. They were radical reformers and conquerors of society. Such a creature would look upon the Dark Lord’s desire to return to their times with disdain. In three and a half thousand years have no new ideas come to pass? Is this slave to tradition truly incapable of innovation of her own?

Yes, as it turns out. The Dark Lord was a woman out of time, more content to act as priest to gods she did not believe in to manipulate the chattel beneath her. Yet stripped away, that was perhaps her only lever of significant control. When spoken to on a personal level she was not silver tongued and manipulative, not passionately persuasive. Perhaps in her heyday she had been but by the end of her life all she had were sardonic put downs and threats. Such is insufficient to retain power in the long run, except for the fact that so many beneath her were incapable of seeing past them.

She possessed vast power yet her usage of her gifts was painfully mundane at times, a sledgehammer of telekinetics or lightning applied without subtlety or grace, or anything beyond the low cunning of a soldier with a flamethrower who believed the world was made of paper. A believer in power, but not in the ways of the Sith. A Sith is not a blunt weapon, incapable of change or adaptation. She, it seems, was such in all things.

She leaves her family less than she found it, her esteemed father dead at her hand, the second greatest of her blood not close to ascending to her title and a husband of convenience taking her throne. But why? I have a suspicion it was a rot found so often in those beneath her, learned from her: a fundamental inability to teach and raise an Apprentice as a Sith not as a tool. Look at those she has raised up, are any of them not-self taught at best or incapable at worst, or even transfers from other masters she claimed when someone else had done the hard work? Decades of this attitude has raised Sith into the upper echelons who have vast limitations and yet are too baked into these to correct. They should have been corrected as Apprentices yet her attitude failed to do so. Atas shares her view of power, a runaway train of a Sith Lord unable and unwilling to change direction. Zevasa, Arvanis and Natsiji, narrow minded puritans. Temekel a Sith more at home in a tea room gossiping than in taking control of her underlings. Yutal, a traitor to both Empire and matrimony.

Her influence can be seen down the generations into Sith like Tarimra, Zarchas, Kalkoran and more. To the credit of Lord Sarias, her brood seem to have largely escaped this curse with several competent Sith passing through her. Yet the rot persists in the alien lines as well. It is no accident Krevas has had to kill so many she has claimed for heresy. I look through the powerbase directory and so many lists of Apprentices contain 2/3rds or more “Neophyted”, "Transferred", “Killed” and yet so few "Succeeded". Some Apprentices fail, true but a master should have the capability to select and raise competent students well. She did not.

The rot persists in her unimpressive children and within the Horuset bloodline as a whole. Korriz, Xulia, Valeus and more seek to emulate her without the power behind her words and thus exposing the hollowness of her method. A fault with Sith dynasties is that the less impressive ride on the cape-tails of the skilled. Horuset is no exception to this.

A Sith must be more than just power. Power alone does not achieve without direction and it is this failure of direction that is her deepest Sin. As one who refused to consider modulation yet viewed any deviation from her tried and true methods to be Sin. No, that is innovation. That is what has fuelled the wider Sith Order for millennia. There is irony in her path taking her closer to a dark reflection of the Jedi, refusing to adapt, refusing to change unless forced to by circumstance and even then craving the comfort of stasis.

Darth Horuset III illustrated the failings of the world view that the galaxy must adapt to her, rather than her to it. She squandered resources on the denial of aliens that could have been used in the denial of the Republic. She wasted what knowledge she had by not passing it on before her death. She could be easily lied to and manipulated for of course her will was supreme and she was capable of detecting any lie. She failed to teach or to argue for her ideology, instead content to threaten those who disagree.

In her death, those previously bound to her by obligation shall feel no compulsion to follow her will. In imposing stasis without understanding consensus, she has allowed for half a dozen other ideologies to build in secret beneath her with nothing binding them together, yet each untested and un-argued. I expect many months of coalition building as new factions form, merge, split and rebuild in her wake.

She is survived by her husband, Trakaton Kalkoran (Now Darth Horuset IV) who lacked the will to oppose her in life and two children of no note.

[VISUAL END – static flood]

[AUDIO TERMINATED – no further signal detected]
>> END FRAGMENT.
>> FILE STATUS: LOCKED