maglor with a lightsaber

featuring yet another branch of the revan tcw au, in which Revan (not out as revan in this au) starts winning the war, Palpatine panics and triggers o66 two years ahead of schedule, and, well.

much to Palpatine's dismay, Revan's presence in the order offers a sort of dark-ish middle ground (not grey jedi, but more like… purple jedi? still a jedi but liable to Fall at the slightest push), where they're also republic aligned but willing to bend some laws if needed. so a lot of jedi who would have left/Fallen stick around with Revan instead

of course, this effect is only magnified by Revan's natural charisma, and they end up becoming something of a dark jedi magnet.

so, of course, when o66 hits, Revan being Revan immediately goes around collecting their dark jedi buddies like pokemon. because hey, it worked before, and it's not like anyone else has a better idea. half of the would-be inquisitors join up with Revan instead, as do the jedi who were supposed to be Dooku's dark acolytes.

the temple guard who would have become the grand inquisitor, now nicknamed Grey for his eye markings, is one of the first out of the temple. on the way, he runs across a little green initiate, and takes Grogu with him.

Krell is brutally effective but stays with the republic (though he only really listens to Revans orders) - because he foresees the end of the order and figures Revan is most likely to survive. when the order hits, he's not really surprised, and he's one of the first to meet up with Revan.

Rahm Kota doesn't even know about the order until Revan calls to check in. he joins up and brings his army and fleet with him.

Quinlan's fine, mostly. he doesn't want to risk leaving his family again, so he stays strictly to part-time remote work for Revan's rebellion, but it works out pretty well. when Revan finds jedi who don't want to or aren't fit to join their cause, they send those jedi over to the fledgling Kashyyk Enclave for a round of therapy, courtesy of Tholme and T'ra the Professional Quinlan Redeemers.

Marrok and Crow don't respond to the call until a little later- turns out, they ran across an injured knight named Baylan Skoll, and the three of them are hiding out in an asteroid field. they're all happy to join the cause.

Maul's life continues as normal up until the finale, except that Trilla and Lyn are the inquisitor pair hunting him instead of Marrok and Crow. when he does need an extraction, it's Revan who reaches out first, and it's one of Rahm's militia ships that comes to pick him up.

A'sharad is one of the few survivors who doesn't initially join up. his story goes as normal until Revan gets a vision and warns him to stay away from the Lars homestead.

so instead, he continues along his way, reclaiming territory until his warband encounters a krayt cave. a few of the young warriors, H'oar (his apprentice) included, make their first krayt kill. in the back of the cave, he finds none other than a Star Map buried under all the sand. and of course, because rakatan artifacts invite further Force nonsense, a dark side cult set up shop there at some point centuries ago. they're gone now, but a few artifacts survived: including a Sith talisman containing XoXaan's spirit, attached to a golden vambrace. he takes it.

eventually, his growing warband comes into conflict with Hutt territory. Jabba, who remembers the Hetts from the first war around, reports A'sharad to the ISB to get rid of him.

Vader himself shows up, kills half the warband, and chops H'oar's arm. A'sharad fights him and narrowly avoids getting minced in the Vader-rampage- instead, he draws upon the power in the talisman as a last resort, and XoXaan emerges to possess him (like Muur with Celeste). She puppets him around long enough for Sora to show up- Sora gets his right eye and leg taken out fighting Vader, but between him and XoXaan they manage to force Vader to retreat. once XoXaan returns to the talisman, the guilt of having brought the Empire and Vader down on them gets to A'sharad, and he goes into exile (and H'oar (now with a cybernetic arm and therefore outcast from the few survivors of the warband) comes with him), taking the name Krayt and learning from XoXaan's spirit for his eventual revenge.

a year and a half later, he contacts Revan again.

they eventually name their little operation Knightrise, as the counterpart to Operation Knightfall (the crew is fifteen of the edgiest jedi in the order. what did you expect)

by now, Revan's suspecting they probably won't count as jedi for much longer, so they have all the survivors record a holocron with their own teachings and interpretations of the order. they also all contribute to an alignment-locked masterlist of the locations of jedi temples, enclaves, artifacts, and libraries.

(obi wan and yoda also receive anonymous messages going "hey you'll need to rebuild the jedi order after we all turn sith. i'll try not to kill you though. good luck :)"

they evade detection by hiding out in rakata space past the hyperspace anomaly barrier, navigating via a combination of visions and memorized coordinates from their previous exploration/adventurism/escapades of that nature. Palpatine is fuming because he can clearly sense there are like twenty jedi-ish lurking in the unknown regions, but he has no way of reaching them.

Revan proceeds to spend a few years out in rakata space collecting parts of the Infinite Engine/Foundry/various rakatan tech. they also happen across a mystery planet with a strange marooned blue guy! Thrawn, upon learning about Revan's massive starforge-army-project plus their actual plans, decides that Revan is probably the more valuable ally for the Grysk war, and therefore he changes his plans to join Knightrise instead of the Empire. Revan learns about the Grysks, and decides that the Chiss wil probably be a good ally, what with how battered the main galaxy will be by the end of this war. they both roll with it.

(there's no language issues either, given that Knightrise has the bonus advantage of Revan Who Speaks Every Language In Existence. Thrawn is immediately delighted by this, plus Revan's general interest in anthropology, and of course they bond immediately. as a side effect of using rakatan tech in the war, those two end up co-authoring the galaxy's most comprehensive analysis of ancient rakatan art and culture.)

Thrawn ends up an admiral in the Knightrise fleet working closely with Revan and Rahm (aka the strategically minded ones). Thrawn and Revan both absolutely love being able to give a quick summary of their plans and then trust the other one execute it flawlessly- Revan especially appreciates that Thrawn has not unnecessarily nuked any planets at all. Thrawn appreciates that somebody is genuinely interested in his art history infodumps, and actually understands what he's talking about when he starts discussing the strategic implications of Palpatine's office decor.

(Thrawn is also convinced that, based on their method of navigation, Revan must be some kind of sky-walker. technically hes not wrong i guess?)

by the time Palpatine has a reasonable lead, Revan's already assembled an ikea starforge (star forge fragments + infinite engine pieces) and an accompanying droid-and-outer-rim-recruit army, led by their Dark Jedi Generals who- thanks to Palpatine and tcw- happen to have plenty of applicable combat/command experience. which, of course, Palpatine learns about only when Revan declares war on the Empire.

so he sends Vader and the remaining inquisitors. forget Ahsoka and Maul for now, Revan is the ISB's enemy no. 1- except they predicted that, and they've already set up a full on anti-Vader task force, headed by none other than Sora Bulq- who, with reinforcement plus the extra boost from Vaapad, actually has a reasonable chance of surviving a Vader encounter.

now that they're making inroads in the main galaxy, Palpatine has an oh kriff moment when he realizes Revan is poaching all his inquisitors/officers by positioning Knightrise as Sith Empire But With A Nicer Boss. they're offering full protection from the Empire and a guaranteed job to any Imperial who joins them, and quite a lot of officers take them up on their offer (especially those who just messed up and are probably about to get killed by Vader).

sure, Revan's not exactly gentle, but they did learn from the Malak thing and certainly don't make a habit of torturing their employees for fun. so now Palpatine is genuinely panicking that he has to offer all the inquisitors an actual salary plus healthcare and 30 days annual leave, because now they have the option of leaving to work for The Competitor.

he is not used to having Sith Competition. sure, there's occasionally the odd one like maul, but a full on independent coalition of 20 dark jedi? unthinkable under the rule of two

between Revan, Rahm, Krell, and Krayt leading the fleet and army, they're ridiculously aggressive. ultimately it works for Thrawn- Krayt and Rahm are a bit more openly/initially aggressive than he would prefer, but he's perfectly happy w Revan's style of revenge, so he goes along with it. just sometimes he has to be the one to tell them maybe let's not abandon those systems even if it's slower.

this particular Revan went through the entirety of kotor and tcw as pretty consistently LS. none of the others know it, but Revan's gradual shift from "obsessively attempting to protect every single person in the galaxy" to "sacrifice a few planets for the Greater Good" is the exact same thing that happened to them over the course of the Mandalorian War, and the first clear marker of their DS shift.

none of them can deny that their strategy is *working*, though, and that's the thing. they have infinite ship production and infinite droids (and can therefore afford to keep all the sentients in command or support positions, plus not having to feed the droid army). they're vicious and aggressive and brutal and *fast* and Palpatine wasn't prepared for any of this. everyone involved is perfectly willing to sacrifice a few planets' worth of civilians if it means they can strike while the Imperial Navy is still putting on its metaphorical pants. Palpatine already implemented all his budget cuts- he wasn't expecting another full scale war!

Palpatine has another oh kriff moment when he realizes that he has *no leverage on them*. he was relying on creating conditions that would make the jedi fall- either they would Fall and serve him, or they'd be conflicted and therefore easy to kill.

except Knightrise Fell, but they Fell off the other direction, right into Revan's Sith Order 2.0. he can't tempt them with the dark side because they're already there. he can't promise anything Revan can't also- at this rate, he can't even promise ruling the galaxy. he's lost control over every jedi who falls in Revan's direction and he hates it

and of course, Revan has had plenty of opportunities to learn from their first attempt at Sith Empire-ing. they're The Knight, the symbol of Knightrise and the only one keeping all twenty some dark jedi together, and they and Palpatine both know that killing them would dismantle the movement. so this time, they don't let themself be lured out. they stay firmly in their base on Rakata Prime, or on their flagship in rakatan space, or anywhere solidly out of Palpatine's reach. if there's a fleet issue to tend to, they send Thrawn or Rahm; if there's an army issue, Rahm or Krayt. palpatine is fuming. for once, *he's* the one looking for the Secret Sith Orchestrating This War, and he does not like it at all.

the rest of the Rebellion is looking on in morbid fascination/mild horror as Knightrise carves a bloody path to the heart of the Empire.

Revan has a few projects running: Project Infinite - the rakatan tech stuff; Project Null - the Force-null assassins they're training as inquisitor-hunters; Nova Program - the superweapon stuff; Malachor Initiative - establishing staging grounds on sith planets to lure in rogue dark jedi and/or inquisitors; the Shadow Ops - which makes excellent use of the disproportionate amount of ex-Shadows and ex-inquisitors on their roster; and the Vader Advance Warning System, which everybody argued about the name of but nobody could think of something better.

Sabine gets recruited by the Nova Program instead of working for the empire. she once again creates the Duchess, which is immediately given to Krell, aka warcrimes georg, for the purpose of mass-killing stormtroopers and clearing imperial bases. they're all careful to keep it top secret, focusing on eliminating massive but isolated facilities, and combining it with orbital ion cannons to shut down comms.

they also pick up baby Kanan pretty early on! Sora sort of raises him out of obligation to Mace and Depa, though eventually Kanan leaves & takes Sabine with him - even after living with Revan and Sora for like 8 yrs, he's still too strongly light side to be comfortable with the Knightrise dark jedi crew.

the Nova program also monitors a few other superweapons. Tanis' temple on Malachor II is basically a starkiller base type thing- fires from the planet and hits pretty much anything up to the core - however it requires dark side energy to feed it in the form of force sacrifices (Nathema style). it petrifies everything it hits - mass-scale Sith stone ritual - but specifically keeps them conscious and doesnt kill them as a form of eternal torment. Revan puts that one in the same box as the Maelstrom sith torture prison, designated "use only as the absolute last resort". even as a sith they aren't that keen on torture

Sora runs the Vader warning system and Project Null, handling recon, intel, and inquisitor-hunters. the inquisitorius soon finds itself being stalked by anzati and morgukai assassins, and Vader can't go anywhere without either Sora's acolytes or Quinlan's spies reporting his every move. every time he arrives with his dramatic entrance, everyone has already cleared out, and it's driving him even more mad than usual

Prosset defected from the empire pretty early on (bc of his visions) and joined the crew. Lyn left after the whole thing with Barriss, and Trilla took the opportunity to come along as well.

at one point, Trilla's replacement for grand inquisitor ambushes and nearly kills Grey, and Grogu force-chokes the inquisitor long enough for Grey to recover and finish them off. this behavior is, of course, encouraged, and it doesn't take long before tiny baby Grogu discovers a natural talent for certain dark side powers.

they collect a few more dark jedi, including some they didn't know about before.

Kadrian is a little too unstable to be one of the core Knightrise leaders, but she's friends with Revan and works with Sora on the Vader warning system and shadow ops.

Baylan picks up a stray force sensitive kid on a mission. Revan's one rule is that underage padawans don't intentionally join battles (Grogu only saw combat bc he and Grey got ambushed), so she stays at the base for training most of the time.

Zule Xiss (revan rescued her on jabiim in the original au branch) resurfaces from wherever she was hiding a few years into Knightrise, and brings her padawan Petro along with her. she's one of the few dark jedi who doesn't have a lightsaber- she has a history of trying to ignore traumatic events, and using a blaster instead of lightsaber brings back less memories.

someone stumbles across Taron Malicos while checking on dathomir for maul-related reasons. he promptly gets shipped off to quinlan's kashyyyk enclave for therapy

Dark Woman makes herself known by teleporting into one of Krayt's bases. despite the name, she's a good deal closer to the light side than pretty much everyone in Knightrise. while she doesn't exactly approve of everything they're doing, she agrees to keep an eye on Vader/imperial activities for Quin's shadow network.

Galen Marek is the highest-risk imperial extraction they ever staged. he manages to get a message out to Revan while out on a mission, and they immediately realize how valuable he is (and also how dangerous it would be if he remained Vader's apprentice). Sora himself leads a Project Null strike team to grab Galen, and they actually succeed in getting him out alive. Rahm offers to train him

Krayt with his experience as war leader is one of the top generals & is Revan's second. Rahm and Krell are the other top generals, and Sora is the resident Vader Handler- his job is holding Vader back long enough for the army to get either a bunch more duelists or a few orbital lasers out. Marrok, Crow, Grey, and Trilla are special operatives; Kadrian, Zule, and Baylan are the comparatively regular dark jedi. Lyn and Prosset lead the more humanitarian missions with aid & outer rim liberation.

another of the dark jedi they find happens to be Celeste Morne & Muur, removed from the box by Vader.

now, this wasn't exactly in anybody's plans, but it's not too hard to adapt. after all, they've already got XoXaan tagging along, what's one more evil Sith ghost on the team? so Revan sets about convincing Muur to play nicely.

they agree that if he stays in his lane, he can join them in conquering the galaxy together, and they can use his rakghoul army (bc well. those rakghouls are pretty useful, and Revan's not one to turn down an extra army even if the sound of a rakghoul transformation still makes them flinch). and if he doesn't, well, Revan happens to know where one could find another unoccupied sith stasis pod. it's an obvious deal for Muur, and he's actually quite happy chatting with Revan and Krayt and his old buddy XoXaan.

the rakghoul army is only used in very specific circumstances in order to prevent a breakout (Revan still secretly gets everyone vaccinated against the rakghoul plague. just in case. and also stockpiles rakghoul vaccine boosters.) still, it's incredibly helpful for turning stormtroopers into disposable meatshields for the army, and it keeps Muur happy. they also assign Celeste (bc she is in fact a jedi shadow) and Muur to figure out what is going on with Project Necromancer, bc after the whole Vitiate torture + shadow revan situation, Revan won't touch sith alchemy with a ten foot pole.

in exchange for getting to come along and rakghoul every stormtrooper he sees, Muur agrees to help out with his dark transfer/regeneration. combined with XoXaan's dark healing, they manage to regrow Maul's legs, H'oar's arm, and Krayt's eye (Sora and Krell don't trust him and opt out of the limb regeneration session). Maul still has chronic/phantom pain from the nerve issues & needs a crutch when not actively raging, but function wise they're fully functional and much easier to heal in a pinch

(on the other hand, Muur joining the crew does introduce another problem- if Muur alone was chatty when hanging out with Celeste and Krayt, XoXaan + Muur is the galaxys worst 'mom ran into a friend from college at the grocery store and theyve been catching up for an hour and a half'. Tanis' (DS exile) ghost is also following Revan around, so whenever Revan is in the same room as Krayt and Celeste they all have to deal with three ghosts bickering nonstop. Talzin's ghost is also there via Maul, but she only comes out when strictly necessary. and they did accidentally wake up Exar Kun on Yavin, but he stays put so its fine)

they also stumble upon Exegol and set up a backup base there. Revan accidentally starts a Sith Eternal civil war when they show up, figure out whats going on, and immediately install the Revan cultists and kill the Sidious loyalists. one of the Revanites is still fake-reporting back to Palpatine & feeding false intel, and the Knights of Ren are properly trained as acolytes by Sora & are now assassins/shadows working w Quin. at this point they've picked up five separate sith cults (various Revanite branches, Sith Eternal, Acolytes of the Beyond, etc)

just three years into the war, and nine years into the empire, (10 bby) they're ready to invade Coruscant and kill Palpatine.

by that point, their full roster includes:

Revan

Rahm Kota

Sora Bulq

A'sharad Hett (Krayt) & XoXaan

H'oar (Krayt's padawan)

Kadrian Sey

Quinlan Vos (part time)

Pong Krell

Grey

Grogu (Grey's padawan)

Marrok

Crow

Baylan Skoll

Shin Hati (Baylan's padawan)

Zule Xiss

Petro (Zule's padawan)

Lyn

Trilla Suduri

Prosset Dibs

Taron Malicos (sent to kashyyk for therapy)

Galen Marek (Rahm's padawan)

An'ya Kuro (Dark Woman) (part time)

Maul (alliance) (legs regrown)

Celeste Morne & Muur (alliance)

they also have an entire assassin/shadow network, Sora's acolytes, several Revanite cults, and the now-properly-trained Knights of Ren. Rahm, Quinlan, and Galen are probably the most light side of the Knightrise crew; meanwhile Revan and Krayt are solidly in the dark side mastery bonus zone.

they take a two pronged approach to drive Palps into a trap- Thrawn leads the fleet in main offensive, and Rahm leads the ground invasion of Coruscant. Grey & the ex inquisitors storm the Temple, and H'oar leads Krayt's portion of the army as decoy bc Palps is a racist old man who can't tell tuskens apart. Palpatine thinks all the generals are invading Coruscant - between Rahm (real) and Krayt (H'oar), plus Thrawn with the fleet, it looks like they're all down there looking for him, so he flees to a secret safehouse/sith base on Naboo.

which is when the actual strike team jumps him. Krell, Sora, Marrok, and Crow break down the door, then while he's busy fighting them, Revan, Krayt, and Maul drop down through the ceiling to ambush him.

(Krell dual wields saberstaffs (maul is vaguely impressed, but he'll never say so) and Crow uses a saberpike. Revan and Krayt are both dual wielders and Maul is Maul. Palpatine is also dual wielding bc there's a lot of lightsabers to block. there's an average of 2 blades per person (16 total) in that room)

once they get to the actual fight, the spare 4 (Krell, Sora, Marrok, and Crow) run interference. XoXaan heals the Revan + Krayt + Maul ace team, and though Talzin's ghost can't do much alone, she can in fact possess the dead guys' bodies to keep them in the fight.

Krell and Crow are the defenders in charge of keeping the ace team from getting hit. Marrok and Sora are interference to force Palps to focus on fighting them/split his attention from the ace team. Revan, Krayt, and Maul are there to kill him- tbh, they all agree that Revan and XoXaan-possessed Krayt are probably the only ones with a solid shot at it, but Maul knows Palps and is the only one who has fought him before (and survived)

outside, Kadrian, Baylan, Zule, and Petro are in charge of locking down the compound & blocking imperial reinforcements. Quinlan is their emergency backup watching from the vents - if Palps force storms everyone to death/if Revan goes down and theyre obviously all going to die, his job is to set off a metric tonne of explosives he planted around the compound. nobody's really expecting to survive this, but they're reasonably confident that Palpatine's going to get killed at some point.

(listen, after the disastrous Vitiate fight, Revan refuses to be underprepared for the Palpatine fight. they're invading Coruscant as a distraction and bringing twelve dark jedi worth of backup and eight tons of tibanna explosives. their contingencies have contingencies and they are Not letting Palps get out of here alive)

Crow goes down first. Talzin possesses him and puts him back up shortly after, then once he gets diced again she switches to the next dead guy in line (basically using them as meatshield puppets). Marrok goes down next, and Sora lasts a little while with Vaapad and gets a limb graze in. Krell launches himself at Palps to hit him with cortosis gauntlets & short out his lightsabers (then gets killed immediately after); between Sora's hit and the cortosis, Palpatine gets actually worried and goes full Dark Empire force mode.

at that point, Revan does The Reveal for dramatic effect, and Palpatine immediately goes through a bit of a crisis as he realizes that the guy he's been waging war against is Darth Strategic Genius who is famous for Winning Wars

they finally kill Palpatine, and immediately set about extinguishing anything that could facilitate his return. they spent their previous life fighting Vitiate and they are not risking another immortal Sith situation.

so, since Palps died on Naboo and presumably left sith spirit echoes all over the place, they have to deal with that first. the death storm over Naboo that Palpatine created during the battle turned it into a dark side nexus, aka an impressively convenient thoughtbomb target.

Galen volunteers to help destroy Palps' spirit, since he's one of the few people with enough raw force power to jumpstart the process. (Revan didn't exactly tell him all the details of the plan, but he knows he's sacrificing himself to destroy Palpatine's ghost, and that's enough for him). Baylan also volunteers, and the two of them take about four and a half cults' worth of Revan worshippers to the surface of Naboo. meanwhile, Revan stays on their ship just above orbit, containing the backlash from the death storm so it doesn't grow out of control before they start the ritual.

the ritual is like a combination of the Nathema force stripping and the thoughtbomb- everything on the surface is obliterated, everything remotely Force-connected is dead, and Naboo turns into a force-drained wasteland with a cracked/charred red surface and acidic black oceans. Palpatine, having already been weakened and disembodied by the first killing, gets hit with the full force of the thoughtbomb and is finally 100% permadead.

(Revan then sends a team down to scour the planet in case of any stray wounds in the force. they do not want another Vitiate and they also do not want another Nihilus)

next their Shadows start hunting down the Operation Cinder remnants, and everyone in the Project Necromancer secret compound is very violently introduced to the powers of the Muur Talisman. Krayt & Celeste (+ XoXaan + Muur + rakghouls) work together. Muur has temporarily put off his plans to nab vader as a host (and is eyeing Krayt instead); Krayt fully intends to hunt Vader down after he deals with the active threat (imperial remnant trying to kill him). both Krayt and Celeste are immortal now (they don't really realize it, but Muur and XoXaan are pretty invested in their respective hosts). H'oar is just along for the ride & is third wheeling the ancient sith roadtrip.

now that they've achieved the Palpatine-killing part of their plan, they still need to figure out the reinstating-the-Order/Republic part.

Bail Organa (still alive bc Palps wasnt paying much attention to the non-Revan-related rebellion) becomes Chancellor and the Order begins to re-emerge. both are backed by Knightrise, and Revan starts working on de-imperializing the galaxy (enforced via the Knightrise army). the Imperial Remnant is dismantled pretty quickly, and the focus moves to rebuilding and raiding Palps' bank account.

the Infinite Engine also allows the newly formed Imperial Republic transition government to stop outer rim resource extraction and rely on the rakatan tech to keep production up while planet populations recover. this does, however, make the galaxy even more dependent on Knightrise/Revan

Vader retreats to Mustafar and goes into exile. eventually, Luke takes on rebuilding the Order, while Leia handles what's left of the Republic (Yoda trained Leia and then died; Obi wan trained Luke and then retired). at this point, Revan's mostly retired from politics and is more involved in the military/chiss diplomacy side of things. (also a good half of their dark jedi crew died in the Palpatine-killing process)

then, of course, the Grysk invade.

the war goes notably better than the NJO's Vong war, ft. Revan, Thrawn, and Pellaeon of the Imperial Republic vs the Grysks. with two competent admirals (and Rahm retired from field missions), Revan picks up more of the field command while Thrawn and Pellaeon handle the fleet.

Revan's very careful to ensure they won't pull another darth revan- their obsessive micromanagement of the Imperial Republic starts to get worryingly oppressive post-grysk war, esp with them actively maintaining their small army of dark jedi. it's obvious that they're solidly in the sith zone of the force by now, and their enforcement-of-peace-via-force and sith empire tyranny is starting to leak back into their role in the Imperial Republic (which is finally transitioning back into the New Republic post-grysk war)

Krayt and Celeste (+ ghosts + H'oar) disappear towards the end of the war, and return afterwards to kill Vader. they find him on Mustafar, but instead of Darth Vader they meet a somewhat-recovering-Vaderkin who's just watching his kids from afar. Vaderkin apologizes to Krayt and H'oar (and has no idea who the other three people are). Muur tries to possess him; Celeste realizes they can't keep dragging the Sith ghosts around, and she and Krayt agree to kill each other and have H'oar destroy the talismans.

afterwards, H'oar talks to Vader, and though neither is willing to outright forgive each other, they part ways mostly-peacefully and both leave for their redemption/self discovery journeys. Vader realizes his whole life was orchestrated by Palps, and he's actually improving now that Palpatine is finally gone.

a few years later, Revan destroys their own army of dark jedi in order to prevent another sith resurgence like the post-kotor explosion of sith warlords, and leaves to the Unknown Regions (again).

some little details about them (bc i ran out of tag space lol)

i made an approximate light-to-dark ranking list in the notes of this au for the purpose of determining who gets Sith Eyes

the more strongly dark side aligned ones also get a red gradient at the base of their lightsabers

revan and maul are the only ones with true red lightsabers (bled crystals)

krayt has a red lightsaber but it's not because he's a sith (he is also a sith lord but the crystal is natural). his red lightsaber is actually a dark pink-orange gradient

kadrian sey has an orange lightsaber with a darker reddish end but also not a true red lightsaber

baylan and shin are the only ones with a yellow lightsaber core instead of white

all the ex-inquisitors (lyn, prosset, trilla) have purified white blades

zule xiss, h'oar, and grogu are the non-ghost non-lightsaber wielders

all the dual/multi wielders averages it out to 30 blades for 22 living people, or 30 for 26 if you count the ghosts (27 counting bonus meetra). either way, there are significantly more lightsabers than people, even with all the non-wielders

quinlan's robe jacket thing is the clan vos magenta

quinlan is one of the more light side aligned out of all of them, and only works part time with knightrise bc of disagreements with revan. mostly he's busy running the Path. tholme and t'ra are with him too

lyn kept her inquisitor armor (cuirass and spaulders) but the rest of her outfit is jedi-style

grey (knightrise au name for the grand inquisitor) is wearing temple armor painted black (same as revan's armor) and his lightsaber is the temple guard saberstaff

grey also has a slight bit of red eyeliner instead of the full red sith tattoos

grogu is even tinier

grogu is grey's padawan

the difference between jedi master prosset and tenth brother prosset's outfits is so funny. he fell and immediately started exploring sith fashion

crow's saber is an orange dual bladed saberpike with a phrik coated haft. when doubling up with marrok he seems to fight more defensively

his mask is styled slightly differently. the red star is the same as the gold one on revan's mask (the knightrise symbol)

i've decided he's a kaleesh with cybernetic hands/forearms btw

marrok seems accustomed to fighting with a single blade so he gets a classic blue lightsaber. still has the armor though.

i picture him as kage

trilla favors makashi and her post-inquisitorius lightsaber has a curved hilt. she's one of the more jedi-favoring ex-inquisitors, since she was tortured into it (versus prosset who seemingly joined willingly), and her outfit is mostly light colors

by now you may have noticed that the lyn-to-trilla section is the Canon Inquistors Zone (plus grogu)

maul got his legs regrown via muur and xoxaan's dark healing

his saberstaff hilt is the version from shadow lord

talzin's ghost is modeled after her appearance in son of dathomir

rescuing galen was by far the highest-profile imperial extraction they've coordinated. sora was personally in charge of that mission

galen is rahm's padawan

rahm's outfit is somewhat less ragged than canon. revan the sith fashion icon made sure of it (upgraded his outfit with armorweave fabric and an armor mesh underlay)

revan is doing their signature double lightsaber twirl

both hilts are spiky this time! the red one used to be gold before they bled the crystal

their armor is blackened temple guard armor. their color palette this time around is black/purple/gold

tanis is, as far as current canon, essentially canon DS exile. her face is the dark side version of the 2nd most popular kotor 2 exile face based on this

meetra's design is a merged version of all the various conflicting descriptions (brunette novel!meetra, knockoff-atris swtor!meetra, the blond-with-dark-roots kotor 2 face, and the one recurring purple shirt jedi from the comics). her face is based off the kotor 2 face, her hair is brown with white streaks as a midway point between the novel-swtor depictions, and her outfit is the unnamed purple shirt jedi

celeste's outfit is not my fault. does she not even have a vest between that armor and her skin??

her pose is kind of based off of that one vector cover

muur is lurking ominously in the background, as always. he apparently wears the same weird ring belt as revan. unclear if that was on purpose

krayt is a proper ancient-style sith, all the way down to the wacky outfit

his mask is based on the red leather looking one from the 1998 comic, and conveniently happens to match the rest of his armor. his right vambrace is the gold one xoxaan wears (which i've made her talisman, similar to muur but with 100% less rakghouls), and his left vambrace is a dark fabric wrapping with some kind of fangs attached to mimic the gold one

krayt is actively training with xoxaan

h'oar's leather armor pieces and base layer are darker

h'oar is krayt's apprentice

xoxaan's outfit is based off her holocron appearance. what is up with her fingernails

all the ancient sith ghosts are lined up together. xoxaan and muur are having a little reunion

sora lost his right eye and leg to vader, and chose not to have muur regrow it

kadrian's hair is styled slightly differently and she's got an extra blaster

krell's gloved right arm is cybernetic

krell's vambraces have pure cortosis ridges. his outfit in general is styled a lot more towards the bounty hunter side of the scale than most of the others here

baylan's leaning fully into the old republic sith style. his outfit is essentially his canon outfit but with red armor

shin is 12 yrs old and bites

shin is baylan's padawan

petro was a bounty hunter for a while. he was zule's padawan and has since been knighted by revan

revan rescued zule on jabiim and she was knighted later in the war. she worked as a mercenary before joining knightrise and doesn't use lightsabers

background wise, this Revan is soldier/guardian DS male(ish, he/they), married to DS Bastila with 2 kids (more on that later). they were captured for 4 years by Vitiate but eventually killed him with the help of Bastila, Tanis, and Canderous (Tanis died in order to kill Vitiate permanently via wound in the force weirdness), but their empire did a lot more damage in the process as compared to canon. after the True Sith were eradicated, they turned their focus towards the Vong.

Vitiate had them captured for 4 years before they escaped (thanks to Tanis and Canderous mostly). once they launched the proper invasion of the True Sith, they realized they'd need a much stronger fleet, and (inspired by Vitiate's setup), they voluntarily did the force battery thing to themself with the Star Forge. star forge production skyrocketed and their super boosted army plus battle meditation = a pretty much unstoppable army.

back to the kids, they have 2 sons, Vaner and Alek. neither is force sensitive, and they trained Vaner to govern the empire from their capital on Korriban, and Alek as an assassin. the kids started something of an internal rebellion against the empire (possibly with the help of yuthura ban?) and Vaner ran away at age 15; Alek (then 13) helped but wasn't able to escape himself, and Vaner promised to return for Alek once in a position to do so. unfortunately, Revan found out shortly after and killed Alek for betraying them/the empire. Vaner managed to reach the republic and crash-landed an escape pod into a Coruscant apartment building- specifically into the living room window of "Mr. and Mrs. Camper".

Vaner was fostered by the "Campers" (and worked as a dishwasher/waiter at Little Bivoli) for a year while he figured things out, and eventually decided to join the Republic army under the name "Ren Camper". he managed to survive four years of deployment, moved to Alderaan and studied poli sci, and eventually was elected Alderaan's junior Senator (mentored by senior Senator Ulgo). at some point Ulgo died and Vaner became the senior Alderaanian senator, and he was elected chancellor after Tol Cressa's retirement.

after becoming chancellor, he wanted to stop running from his past and changed his name to Vaner Camper Shan (still goes by Ren casually). however he did not think this entirely through, and of course Revan immediately put everything together and realized that their son was 1) the Chancellor of the Republic 2) fostered by *Zayne and Jarael* of all people and 3) mentored by Trask's dad. which. well.

Revan, who at that point had just defeated the True Sith and was currently steamrolling the Republic for dealing-with-Vong-reasons, immediately launched the fleet for Coruscant with the help of Bastila's battle meditation, meaning that Vaner's very first year as Chancellor consisted of a war against his parents (poor guy).

eventually, when Revan was 73 (to give a sense of how long the revan empire 2.0 lasted), they had to stop the Star Forge battery thing after a while bc it was draining them unexpectedly fast - they were halfway to being a ghost and their visions intensified to the point they couldn't differentiate between reality and visions; they were basically living halfway in their visions while also losing control of the Star Forge. shortly afterwards, while weakened from what was essentially Star Forge withdrawal, Vaner managed to capture and stasis them.

Bastila took over the empire for the remainder of the war; after the final Republic victory, Vaner led the reconstruction effort (aka rebuilding all the planets Revan spent about 40 years of their life leading various armies across).

the swtor Vitiate stuff never happened, since Revan did actually kill him this time, though the Mandalorians were probably a lot more antagonistic to the Republic by virtue of Canderous upholding the Mandalorian-Sith alliance w revan's empire. either way, this means that nobody had a reason to unfreeze Revan, and they stayed in stasis for 4000 years.

some years pre-prequels, Palpatine finds their stasis box and unfreezes them.

they both agree it's in both of their best interests to not reveal Revan's identity, but Revan of course insists on getting Involved in everything (whether or not that conflicts with palps plans). so Palpatine has 2 options: 1) leave Revan to their own devices and hope they don't break the Sith plan, or 2) take Revan to work with him

he of course elects to bring Revan along. but now he has to explain why this random old guy is following him around all day, which is how they end up passing Revan off as Palpatine's Elderly Grandfather (Revan finds it hilarious. Palpatine does not want to admit it but he also finds it hilarious)

mostly Revan just hangs out Meddling and Scheming and also being a good role model (as far as sith lords go) for Palpatine. and ok they're actually a good influence (sith-wise). they give good advice and have a lot of experience with this whole manipulation/war/jedi extermination/sith empire thing!

(meanwhile the rest of the Senate has to deal with the Chancellor's Uncannily Perceptive Elderly Grandfather. both Revan and Palpatine are *very* good at the whole false identity thing, and nobody really registers the Chancellor's grandpa as a threat, which means Revan pretty much spends their time spying around the Senate)

crucially, pre-kotor Darth Revan had been a sith for like. 2 years max. by the point of the prequels, this Revan has been a sith emperor for nearly 50 years, and is remembered by modern sith as the grandfather of the Baneite Sith. they're probably the only living person Palpatine actually respects, and their advice really does help, and also he really is lonely and eventually he's kind of dependent on emotional support from his favorite Sith Grandpa

Revan, of course, is Plotting. they start planting visions of the Vong for Palpatine, encouraging him to attack (because they still have not forgotten their whole "exterminate any possible threat to the galaxy" crusade). obviously, Palpatine checks that the visions aren't artificial like the ones he's currently implanting in Anakin's dreams. they aren't, so he figures they really are his own visions, when in truth they're Revan's Plus One Visions shared via the galaxy's most heavily shielded force bond. (Revan just naturally attaches to every force sensitive in a mile radius, even as a sith)

weirdly enough, Palpatine secretly craves Sith Grandpa validation - he's never had anyone who genuinely cared about him, even including his birth family, and for a sith lord Revan is an unusually gentle master. so now Palpatine has a Sith Grandpa who gives him actually useful advice and keeps him company and listens to him complain about his day and calls him sonny. and maybe it's foolish of him, but Revan just seems like someone he can trust. and he's never felt that so sincerely from a sith (it's the Revan Charisma).

so he starts to confide in them, and they talk him through his visions of the void consuming all (that they planted) , and offer to help troubleshoot parts of the Sith Plan he's stressing over, and reassure him when Panaka doesn't answer his texts for a week. and sometimes when a particular senator is being particularly aggravating, he'll arrive at his office and find an email about that senator's tragic death. it's always officially a heart attack or sudden aneurysm or spice overdose or misadventure turned freak accident, and Revan doesn't say anything to acknowledge it, but it does make his day just a bit easier. and he doesn't even have to worry about them demanding something in exchange later down the line, because the day after he gets the death notice, Revan will turn up and quietly ask that he support a certain bill around outer rim politics or something of the sort, and it's always something that works in favor of the Plan, so why not?

technically they're competition, and maybe he's supposed to kill them. but he doesn't care much for the rule of two in the first place, and Darth Bane wasn't accounting for *miraculously alive Darth Revan* anyways. besides, Palpatine's never had a mentor who claps him on the shoulder and says "well kiddo, it's not perfect but you sure made a solid attempt. don't worry, i'm sure we can fix it" when he screws up (Revan is not quite as calm internally as they show. but all prior evidence suggests that stabbing apprentices for mistakes just motivates them to kill you so gentle parenting it is). nobody prepared Palps for "Darth Revan is lounging on my couch stalking senators on spacebook and giving life advice", and in absence of any specific Revan-related instructions from Bane, he's decided to essentially keep them around unless they openly attack him

and Palps actually really likes hanging out w Sith Grandpa Revan. he doesn't have to mask around them (in either sense), they both know they're manipulating each other and someone will eventually betray the other, and it's just such a refreshingly direct relationship for Palps (in contrast to him having to construct the chancellor persona literally everywhere else). also at one point Revan tells him "i'm proud of you, son" after he successfully maneuvers the Trade Federation blockade into catalyzing the eventual war, and Palpatine almost cries. he's getting a good grade in being a sith, which is definitely something normal to want and possible to achieve

now, Revan is very VERY good at manipulating people. and the thing is, Palps is also good at manipulating. he recognizes what they're doing. he *knows* he's being manipulated.

except he can't really bring himself to care? like sure, Revan clearly wants something out of him, except it seems to be basically what he was going to do anyways with the whole Sith Plan, they're just kind of lurking nearby and supervising, so does it really matter? and anyways they're nicer to him than anyone's ever been, and he's not actually lying when he tells Anakin that he's lonely, and Revan doesn't even make it weird or anything. he likes having them around! so what if they're pushing him in a direction he was already going? and yeah maybe they're using him and are planning on killing him later, but he can deal with that when the time comes. he really does like them as a person and also as a sith, and well they've been assumed dead like four times in history, so who knows if Palps could even kill them properly? best to just let them hang around so he can keep an eye on them. any Sith Grandpa bonding time he gets out of it is entirely incidental. yeah sure, they're manipulating him but it doesn't affect anything, they're just pushing him where he was already going, it's just faster this way. and okay, maybe the whole Vong war wasn't part of the Sith Plan, but he does secretly like the idea of inflicting an external threat on the galaxy so that he goes down in history as the savior of his newfound empire, and it'll make him look so good, really, and anyways he should probably deal with the Vong so they don't attack him, and wow his cards all lined up perfectly!

so Palps convinces himself that it's totally fine, he didn't really care about the rule of two anyways, and besides Revan predates it so they're literally grandfathered into the rule of two, it's fine, he can totally deal with it if they ever become a problem, they're manipulating him but it's secretly the same thing he was going to do anyways so really he's just gaming the system here!

(meanwhile Revan is in the corner silently laughing as Palps falls for it. Revan is good at many things, but what they truly excel at is making people believe so wholeheartedly in their ideas that it seems like the objectively best, and only, option)

at this point, it's around the point between TPM and AOTC, so Palps gets back from a long day of manipulating Anakin via the grandfatherly mentor act to get reassurance from Sith Grandpa Revan.

Revan's a lot calmer than their initial sith phase. they rely on cold anger/detachment rather than the typical sith rage, and though they still have all the violent sith emotions they keep those pretty well locked down. externally they act pretty much like the archetypal Wise Old Jedi Master (though dispensing sith wisdom instead of jedi), if a bit more dramatic than is typical (until provoked)

they recovered a bit from the Star Forge situation while in stasis, and are actively recovering now. still, they appear a tad bit senile (and therefore not an active threat to palpatine) on occasion bc of the visions and the whole almost-exar-kun'ed-themself thing = getting disoriented more often than they'd like. sometimes they catch themself trying to walk down a senate hallway that hasn't been built yet, or trying to call people who haven't even been born yet. their Plot Visions are also taking the opportunity to catch them up on the past 4000 years worth of plot so they have a lot of those too, and about 80% of the reason they're doing this whole thing with Palps instead of just taking the Republic wheel themself is because they're still secretly recovering from Traumatic Force Injury #4 (self inflicted this time, yay for variety) and don't want to get too actively involved yet

meanwhile, Palps feels Some Kind of Way about this whole thing. he doesn't love them, exactly, but he's certainly attached- it's so rare for him to meet someone who validates him unprompted where their validation actually means something, let alone someone who actually likes his cartoonishly evil sith self and not just the kindly old chancellor persona. he's not letting go of them until either they backstab him or they become an active threat that he needs to eliminate him. either way he's not letting anyone else touch them either because That's His Sith Grandpa