Star Wars (Legends):The Eternal Conflict. Book:2

Prologue (Force of Nature)

Location:
Darth Mekhis's Sun Razor facility inside the Sith Empire. Over 3500 years BBY.... In The distant past...

Space was many things. It was cold and unforgiving. But it could also be described as graceful; peaceful even.
The great void was every bit as mysterious and unfathomable as the force itself. Though they would never admit it, even the most experienced of spacers felt the faintest of shivers peering into the black cold nothing.

Space was to be feared because space was always there, all around. It was a more subtle force of nature, to be sure, but it's deadliness could not be denied. It spread off into infinity and would outlast eternity.

These things meant nothing to the dark grey ship, that cut through the void, like a blaster bolt to the heart.

The silhouette of the Fury class interceptor, conjured to mind images of mythical winged creatures who fed off the blood of their victim.
Reality wasn't to far off the mark. This ship may have been one of thousands under the command of the Sith empire, but at its controls sat a man, that was no man at all. Darth Malgus was a force of nature: A volcano.

Sith were thought of by the Jedi and the Republic as being power hungry, malevolent, and cowardly. But wholly Sith, Malgus was not. He had his own vision of the galaxy. He saw the bigger picture; the will of the cosmic force. According to him, The conflict between, light and dark was eternal. It was not right or wrong, good or evil.
No one could rightly call a Volcano evil, just as one could not bestow the label upon a black hole, or a supernova. Death and destruction they may cause, but new life and new resources they create.
He loathed the Sith for their short sightedness. They saw this Great War as a means to an end: Conquest! Control!
The pitiable Jedi saw the winning of the war as a hated yet necessary step to peace.
PEACE IS A LIE!
CONTROL IS A LIE!
War was the ends not the means!
Just as his ominous star-fighter cut through the cold dark void, He would be used by the force to cut through the cosmos. It would not be cold when he through....
He would set the galaxy ablaze.

Looking out the viewport of the Sun Razor's command centre, Darth Mekhis felt her danger senses tingle as the small dark starfighter hurtled toward the station.
Her station!
Anytime another Sith Lord would approach her sanctuary, she would be on extra high alert. On a basic level they could all be trusted to be predictable. You could count on any Sith to hate the republic, loathe the Jedi, obey the emperor, and to always look out for themselves.
It was that last one that could be... predictably unpredictable.

Given the right circumstances any Sith lord would easily kill another if it meant guaranteed advancement.
But since  Malgus was there at the Emperor's request, she should not be in Mortal danger....
Should.

While the Majority of Sith believed victory was a product of 3 things and only 3 things: Superior use of the Force, Superior marshal skill, and Superior tactics; She, Long ago, had noticed a fourth element severely lacking:Superior Technology.
Force based technology.
After all, wasn't the lightsaber an eloquent example of force based technology?

The lightsaber had remained virtually unchanged for untold millennia, yet the weapon still had no rival. Inspired by this technology that so many took for granted, she began her pursuit of the ultimate Sith weapon.
And had been rewarded for her efforts.
From star fighter improvements to tougher/lighter trooper armour, she gave the Sith something they had never had: A technological edge against the republic. Her efforts had not gone unnoticed.

She was on a republic short list for assassination, and therefore always had to be on guard against Jedi spies and saboteurs. But then again, not all the attention she garnered was negative.

The emperor had seen the validity of her crusade and had recognized her contributions; making her head of the technology sphere. He had approved the creation of this very station with the goal of creating new "Super Weapons" like the star forge of old.
But "Super" didn't always mean dramatic. Her latest project involved the development of a capital ship that could be controlled through the force. Such a ship would essentially use the brain of a Sith Lord as its computer core. Once plugged into the interface, a Sith Lord could feel the battle. The engines would be his feet, and the ship's hull would be his skin. The speed of action and reaction would render traditional Ships obsolete. One such ship could could rip a path of destruction mayhem straight to Coruscant. A fleet of such ships? The war would be over.

But none of this involved Malgus's visit.
While experimenting with different techniques to develop a suitable Sith/Ship interface she had stumbled upon a method that could enhance another ancient bit of Sith Technology: Holocrons!

While the art of creating a Holocron was old and reliable, it was limited in that it could only serve as a source of knowledge: A fancy interactive encyclopedia.

A traditional Holocron contained a rudimentary simulation of the devices maker: A gatekeeper!
In a force guided ritual, a Sith could create a gatekeeper that looked and acted like himself. Although all holocrons used the force to a lesser or greater degree, the device could not be described as alive or even sentient like a droid.
This was about to change.
She had discovered that the neural interface that would one day connect a Dark Lord directly to a battle ship, could be used to "map out"  the brain of said Dark Lord, essentially making a virtual clone of his mind. The impact on Holocron technology?
She could create a fully sentient gatekeeper that retained all the memories, attitudes, and beliefs of being that made it.

After receiving a report about this particular breakthrough, the emperor had ordered Darth Mekhis, create 24 of these new holocrons based on the empires most cunning and fierce warriors. These holograms would be used to train young sith apprentices and even protect them from danger. Even if the Jedi Order and the republic where able to do the unthinkable and destroy the Sith, these "guardians of Sith knowledge" could survive and train the next generation.

While seeing the value of such a decision, only to herself would she admit hesitancy. There would, of course, be a baseline control put on the gatekeeper to ensure their obedience and cooperation to anyone strong in the darkside. Besides that, however, this would be a sentient duplicate of the original. In the case of Darth Malgus, she didn't know if this was wise.

As the door to the command centre slid open, Darth Mekhis saw the unmistakable hulking form of Malgus striding toward her, filling the air with menace and power. His wounds from his defeat on Alderaan a year earlier, did not diminish him in the least. If anything, his scarred face and cybernetic life-support apparatus, somehow made him appear even colder and deadlier.... Like the void itself.

She could not show the slightest hint of fear or apprehension in his presence. Accurate or not, she got the impression that a Sith like Malgus could be sent into frenzy by the scent of blood in the water.

"Mekhis! What is the meaning of this! You better have a good.... No!... A SUPERB reason for dragging me..."

She cut him off: "You saw the Emperor's seal attached to my transmission!" Not asking but telling him.
"Is that not... SUPERB... enough for even you?"
Her voice dripping with condescension.

He just stood there, staring daggers in her direction.
She got the impression, however, that those daggers were not meant for her.... For who then? The Emperors Orders? The Emperor?

"Oh how delicious is his ambition and arrogance"
She silently thought.

Out loud she said: "You only have have one gear! Don't you? Full speed forward! An admirable Trait to be sure... However, sometimes in order to go two steps forward, one must take one step back. Patience Darth Malgus." She soothed, she then walked up to his massive frame and put one of her boney fingers against the side of his respirator (not in a seductive manner but in maternal one) and said:
"Give me this one day, and I..." she began to cackle in horrid laughter. "... I will give you an eternity."

Determined to get this mandated task over with so he could return to the battlefront in haste, he followed her into her dark technologically perverted laboratory. He would endure the hours of arcane rituals, cranial interfaces and even the ramblings of that "shrivelled hag", in order get back to the fight.
His only wish was to bathe in the conflict, and to allow it to soak into his being.
The idea of his hologram teaching generation after generation of young apprentices... sat well with him, surprisingly. He had seen the upper echelon of the Sith ranks become more and more  diluted with weak and filthy stereotypes:
The Bureaucrat
The Diplomat
The Political Schemer.

Before long this... heresy (for that's what it was), would infect the next generation and the next and the next until, before long, they became the very thing they fought against: Weakness

So yes, he would indulge Darth Mekhis and the Emperor, and he would let his virtual doppelgänger loose on the universe. After all...
There was no such thing as too much conflict