SITH: APOCALYPSE

 

FADE IN:

 

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....

 

STAR WARS

 

A vast sea of stars serves as the backdrop for the main title, which zooms away from us.  War drums echo through the heavens as a roll-up slowly crawls into infinity.

 

...It is a time of great change.  The organized study of the elusive power known as, "The Force", has produced the Jedi and the Sith.  The Jedi, dedicate themselves to peace and the service of others.  The Sith, view their power as proof of their superiority over the myriad galactic races...

 

...Sith ambition has brought about their undoing.  The Sith Lords, striving to dominate one another, have weakened their collective power.  After a millennium of fighting, few remain.  The Sith Order is all but eradicated...

 

...Two remain, Lord Bane and Lord Venge.  Bane's disciples have been defeated, but he has disappeared.  Lord Venge, believing himself to be the last of the Sith, and heir to their empire, arrives at the Jedi retreat at Imdelzaa, on the planet Kirosh.  There he plans to recruit new Sith apprentices and perpetuate his line....

 

EXT. OUTER SPACE -- CONTINUOUS -- FX

 

A Sith Infiltrator ship shoots past us and into deeper space.  As we follow it we see that it is heading towards a looming planet.

 

EXT. FOREST -- MOMENTS LATER -- DAY -- FX

 

The Sith spaceship rockets over the tree tops and stops on a dime.  It hovers for a moment then lowers itself soundlessly, landing on the forest planet of Kirosh.

 

EXT. FOREST -- CONTINUOUS -- FX

 

A gangplank lowers itself out of a large cloud of steam.  A dark cloaked figure, LORD VENGE, descends and surveys the terrain.  He takes a life-signs sensor from his belt chooses a heading and strides into the forest along one of the many paths.

 

EXT. IMDELZAA JEDI RETREAT -- UNDER WISDOM TREE -- DAY -- FX

 

A remote training droid HISSES and spins as it dodges around MYRNIA JAX, a deadly female bounty hunter.  She faces off against it, her blue lightsaber warding off the droid's attacks.

 

Other Jedi and Padawan watch in interest under the shade of the monstrous WISDOM TREE, a gigantic oak.

 

The droid fires five stinging blasts.  MYRNIA neatly blocks the first two, but the other three miss her blade and instead hit her in the side.  She cries out more in disgust than in pain.  She turns off the lightsaber.  The droid hovers on standby.

 

MYRNIA JAX

What's the point?

 

RHIKKID STOR, a Jedi master, scholar, and the most trained of the Jedi present, rises to her aid.

 

RHIKKID STOR

You musn't get frustrated so easily.  Let go your conscious self and let the Force guide your actions.

 

MYRNIA JAX

I know how to use the force, I just don't see the point of using this archaic weapon.

 

RHIKKID STOR

(tired)

Because it helps us learn to focus our abilities and hone the discipline required of them.  Keep in mind, you've been using the Force most of your life, your training with the lightsaber has already been delayed far too long.

 

MYRNIA JAX

That's because I've never needed it.

 

RHIKKID STOR

But someday you may.  Now try again.  And this time relax, let your instincts dictate your actions.

 

MYRNIA takes a ready position in front of the remote, which immediately begin to maneuver again.  She ignites her lightsaber.

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE, another Jedi master, moves closer to Rhikkid Stor.  They speak as they watch the action. 

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

She is very hasty for being so old.  One would think that the training would have purged her of such impulses.

 

The droid feints and attacks.  Myrnia parries the shot.

 

RHIKKID STOR

She is self-taught.  She could become dangerous if we left her to her own study.  She must learn the discipline to control the skills she commands.

 

At that moment, the remote launches a ferocious attack, showering MYRNIA with laser blasts, she blocks several, then moves the lightsaber to a one-handed grip, turns it off,  and dodges several other shots.  She moves inhumanly quickly, narrowly dodging between the laser fire.  She spins around and in one deft movement draws the BLASTER at her side and shoots the remote out of the air.

 

The Jedi and Padawan react with gasps of surprise and amusement.

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

Interesting.

 

MYRNIA JAX

Never underestimate the value of a good blaster at your side.

 

She admires the weapon then holsters it.

 

MYRNIA JAX (CONT'D)

That's brought me through more scrapes than you'd know.

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

Against the living, a move like that probably won't work.

 

RHIKKID STOR picks up the broken remote droid, charred wires dangle from its surface.

 

RHIKKID STOR

Still...she went with her instincts.  It's a beginning.  The next time we'll make sure you're...not...wearing...that.

(he trails off)

 

RHIKKID STOR and LENNARK ANGRATINE tense.  The Jedi and Padawan start to fidget nervously.  Some finger their lightsabers.

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

You feel it?

 

RHIKKID STOR

A disturbance in the Force.

 

The Jedi wait nervously and the malicious figure of Lord Venge strides into view.

 

LENNARK and RHIKKID ready their sabers but do not ignite them.  The other Jedi follow suit.  MYRNIA's hand hovers over her blaster. 

 

On their movement, LORD VENGE pulls his cloak open, he is clad in black from head to toe.  His hand hovers near his saber.  The situation looks like an "old west" standoff.

 

LORD VENGE

So Master Rhikkid Stor.  This is how you greet guests to your retreat?

 

PADAWAN #1

It's a Jedi retreat.  Not for Sith.

 

LORD VENGE

(amused)

Why you're smarter than an astromech droid.

(beat)

Yet, she is no Jedi, or I'm mistaken.

 

RHIKKID STOR

You are correct.  She is not a Jedi yet.  And this retreat is open to all beings with Force ability who would follow the Jedi code.  If you would amend your ways you are more than welcome to remain.

 

LORD VENGE

I submit a counter-proposal.  A truce to parley.  I have a side in this to tell as well which has gone unheard.  And who knows, you might win me over.

 

RHIKKID STOR

You have us at a disadvantage.

 

LORD VENGE relaxes and apparently lowers his guard and removes his hood.

 

LORD VENGE

Of course, how rude of me.  Lord Venge, at your service, the last Lord of the Sith.

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

There is another.

 

LORD VENGE

And you are?  Though you seem familiar, I doubt we've met or you wouldn't be here to challenge my statement.

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

Lennark Angratine, at your service.  I've lost too many friends to the Sith Order.  If we are to clash sabers then...

 

VENGE brushes him off.

 

LORD VENGE

...You speak of Lord Bane?  Please.  It's been centons since he was last heard from.  The poor fool took to calling himself 'Darth' in his last days.  Nonsensical word. 

(beat)

No.  It just goes to prove how feeble he had become at the end.  Going off into hiding and letting all his disciples be murdered.  Bane was a weakling, he had survived only as long as he had because no one regarded him as a threat.  I assure you, I am the last of the Sith Order.  One lone warrior against so many Jedi.  What possible harm could I do?

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

Irreparable harm!  I've dealt with Sith before.  I implore you, Master Stor do not let him speak, even his voice is a weapon, and every word a lie.

 

LORD VENGE

Now is that a fact?  What if I were to say that every word you spoke was the truth...of course, your statement would mean I was lying eh?  Who to trust, who to believe?

(to Rhikkid Stor)

Master Stor, would it not benefit your students to hear of the so-called Dark Side by one who has walked its many roads?  If you spend your lives retreating from the people and things you have discarded as belonging to the Dark Side, how will you recognize them when circumstances force you out of your ivory tower?

 

RHIKKID STOR

A parley then...  But what do you gain?

 

LORD VENGE

My knowledge will have passed on in some form.  After I have passed, and with vengeful fiends like Master Angratine about, I will surely pass.

(beat)

Revenge...though...is that not supposedly a dark side trait?

 

LENNARK seethes.  If he had his way he would cut down LORD VENGE right now.

 

LORD VENGE

Nevermind.  As I was saying, after I have passed, much of Sith knowledge will be lost.  The holocrons have been scattered and lost.  The Massassi, last keepers of our lore, are nearly extinct.  But you could gain from my wisdom...my errors.

 

RHIKKID STOR

The future is veiled before me, yet as in all things what is happening in the future is then the cause of what is happening now; and, at the same time, what occurred in the past is also the cause of what is happening now.  Everything all the time is causing everything else.  It is the way of the Force.

(beat)

I will allow a truce to parley.  Yield your weapon as a sign of good faith.

 

LORD VENGE hesitates a second, then relaxes and casually hands his saber to RHIKKID STOR.

 

LORD VENGE

The weapon does not a warrior make.  But as a sign of truce...I am now at your mercy.  Where should I begin?

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

This is a grave error.  The council would not condone this.

 

LORD VENGE

Ah yes, the Council.  Supposedly,  the most enlightened humanoids in the galaxy.  Yet they sit within that enormously gaudy tower, keeping themselves physically and philosophically removed from the simpler beings of the Galaxy.  Who are they to be my judges?  Don't they let organized slavery exist within the Republic's borders?  The Jedi and the Sith are not as different as the council would like to believe.  Implicit inaction is just as bad, and just as guilty, as explicit action.

 

RHIKKID STOR

The Council acts accordingly with the Will of the Force.

 

LORD VENGE

Really?  Is it the Will of the Force that beings should suffer needlessly?

 

RHIKKID STOR

It is the Will of the Force that beings should endure their fate.  Whatever the fate of that being, that is what they need.  It may look like misfortune but if seen as a challenge and countered with love and temperance -- not discouragement, then the being will find strength there.  Any disaster you can survive is an improvement to your character, your stature, and your life.

 

LORD VENGE

And yet others should be plucked from their fate simply because they are deemed as special?  Let me ask you this, why does the council want Padawans plucked from their families at such a young age?

 

PADAWAN #2

In order to master the Force, one must study a lifetime to gain the discipline...

 

LORD VENGE

...Yes, yes.  Spoken like a true recorder.  And it is utter nonsense.  The Sith do not have the luxury of kidnapping youths from their homes to become slaves of the Jedi, and yet we are...forgive me...were, every bit as formidable.  Most of the Sith began their training at adolescence, and some older.

(beat)

No, Jedi are chosen at a young age in order to sever the ties of blood and class that bind ordinary beings.  Young minds are easier to mold to the cause of blind devotion having not yet learned the habit of objective thought.  Anyone who may have developed a mind of their own is simply too old to begin the training.  Is that not right?

 

MYRNIA JAX

It's not!  I was rejected when I was younger.  Yet Master Stor trains me now.

 

LORD VENGE

Does he?  Then you must show tremendous ability indeed.  But ask yourself this, is he really training you, really pushing your abilities to their limits, or is he just wasting your time with pointless exercises designed to keep you from reaching your full potential as the Council has ordered him?

 

MYRNIA's confidence is shaken.  VENGE can see he has struck  a cord, he presses her.

 

LORD VENGE (CONT'D)

If you were to join me I could teach you in days what the Jedi promise in years!  I can sense the power in you.

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

(to the Jedi)

I warned you against this!  Do not listen.  He poisons us with his words!

 

LORD VENGE

(shouting over Lennark)

That goes for all of you.  Waste not your time in philosophy, pointless conjecture and exercise.  Together we could have the galaxy eating from our hands.

 

EXT. IMDELZAA JEDI RETREAT -- UNDER WISDOM TREE -- CONTINUOUS -- FX

 

Lennark ignites his lightsaber.

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

Strike him down now!  We can end the Sith threat once and for all.

 

RHIKKID STOR

Lennark!  Control your rage!  Once you begin to walk the paths of the dark side it will forever control your destiny.

 

LORD VENGE

Yes!  Strike me down!  I can feel your hatred and anger.  Why avoid it!  Why shun it!  Grasp it!  Cherish it!  Nurture it!  Come with me!  Resurrect the Sith Order.

 

Several Jedi move to hold Lennark back.  He regains control and turns his lightsaber off.

 

EXT. IMDELZAA JEDI RETREAT -- UNDER WISDOM TREE -- CONTINUOUS

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

No...the Sith Order will perish.  But not by my hand.

 

RHIKKID STOR

I warn you Venge.  Any more such talk and our truce will be at an end.  It may very well be the will of the Force that your Order end here.  If indeed you are the last of the Sith, do not let your knowledge pass so foolishly.

 

LORD VENGE

I forget myself.  But what is the one thing that can defeat an adversary that can read your every move in battle?  Anger and hatred!  These are my allies!  Another ally is fear!  The greatest of training can falter when your opponent fears you.  Use these together they make a mediocre warrior great, and the great warrior invincible!  Why is it, I ask you, that in the heat of battle I should suppress my hatred, my rage, my aggression?  Battle, anger, hatred, aggression, these are all brothers that must not be kept apart.  How many times must I hear some fool tell me to ignite sabers and duel to the death without being aggressive?  That is poison!

 

RHIKKID STOR

Fear, anger, and hatred are all tools of the Dark Side.  They can only lead to chaos, suffering, and death.  You only have to look as far as the Sith Order to see that.  So much infighting amongst them that now you are the only one left.  The Sith Order has no future.

 

LORD VENGE

On the contrary.  We are at a new beginning!  Only after disaster can we be resurrected, it is only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything!  We are but different sides of the same chance cube!  Any organization without opposition inevitably slides into decadence, tyranny, or both.  What will you do without me?  When I am gone, you will have never been.  What is 'good' or 'evil' but in the eye of the beholder?  You Jedi amaze me!  Our abilities to master the Force inherently make us better than the other beings of the Galaxy.  You spend your days serving them when you should be ruling them.

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

I grow weary of this talk.  Listening is a blight on my spirit.  It is senseless.  The Universe, viewed in the most macro of scales, is just a power struggle.  Order versus entropy, light versus dark, good versus evil.  The two sides pushing the balance back and forth endlessly on a scale too large to see which side might have edged past the other.  In the struggle between good and evil there can be no victor, they are equals.

 

LORD VENGE

Fool!  They are not equals at all!  'Good' by default is crippled by its need to be good, to be pure, to have order and laws!  There are things forbidden to the world of 'good'.  Why moments ago you wanted to be at my throat, perhaps I deserve it, yet your philosophy prevents you from taking advantage of the situation and defeating a tactically disadvantaged enemy.  What is forbidden to 'evil'?  Nothing!  If it serves 'evil' to be 'good' than it can be good.  If it serves 'evil' to maim and destroy its own, it can.  The scale of the struggle may make it impossible to finger a victor but such a comparison is not needed when one comprehends that universe gravitates towards entropy.  Order needs constant energy to continue.  Left to itself, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart.

I too grow weary of this idle banter.  I have come to present you with a singular opportunity.  You Jedi here will be the the seeds of a new Sith Order, a thousand times more powerful than the last!  You have but to take my hand.

 

EXT. IMDELZAA JEDI RETREAT -- UNDER WISDOM TREE -- CONTINUOUS -- FX

 

A female PADAWAN #3 ignites her saber and defies LORD VENGE.

 

PADAWAN #3

And what if we refuse!

 

LORD VENGE

Then, as with all things that obey the will of the Force, you will meet your destiny.

 

LORD VENGE uses Force choke and kills her.  She is falling to her knees as MYRNIA already has her blaster drawn and shooting.  But the Sith Lord is too quick.  His robe comes off in one swift action and he dodges nimbly aside throwing Padawan learners in her way.

 

Too late RHIKKID STOR realizes his error.  The other Padawan and Jedi ignite lightsabers and attack.

 

RHIKKID STOR

Stop!  This is what he wants!

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

I warned you!  I warned you!

 

LENNARK wades onward into the fray.  The Sith Lord is using the Jedis' numbers against them.  They are stumbling over one another and MYRNIA can't shoot unless she risks hitting of her own.

 

The Sith Lord lightly dodges the attacks.  He uses punches and kicks to subdue the other Jedi and Padawan.  LENNARK has reached him and his attacks come too fast.  The Sith Lord cleanly dodges another Jedi's strike and disarms him.  He uses the stolen lightsaber to parry LENNARK's attacks.  He shoots a bolt of lightning from his hand into LENNARK's chest, throwing him backwards. 

 

LENNARK falls to ground stunned.

 

The Sith Lord uses the Force to pull his own lightsaber to him.  It arrives in the nick of time, just as MYRNIA gets a clean shot and lets off a flurry of blaster bolts.  LORD VENGE uses the two lightsabers to parry all the shots.  He sends some back at MYRNIA and she dodges her own bolts.

 

A Padawan attacks the Sith Lord and he dodges aside and uses the two lightsabers to dice a Padawan to pieces.  Several more blaster bolts nearly hit him.  Last second parries save him.

 

LORD VENGE

Enough is enough!

 

He uses the Force to pull the blaster from her hand and chops it in half as it flies through the air.

 

He backs off and the Jedi and Padawan form a cautious half-circle.  RHIKKID STOR has run over to LENNARK and is helping him to his feet.

 

LENNARK and RHIKKID have gotten to their feet and regrouped.  They ignite their lightsabers and advance on the Sith.

 

LORD VENGE (CONT'D)

See?  This is battle!  With aggression, without hatred...shun such tools and you will fall short of greatness!  Join me or come die at my feet!

 

Lord Venge, tosses away the stolen lightsaber with disdain then moves his own lightsaber like the hand of clock in front of him and vanishes.

 

The other Jedi look on, perplexed.  They turn off their lightsabers.

 

LENNARK ANGRATINE

Split up!  Stay in groups and call for help.  He must be found.  He must not escape.

 

RHIKKID STOR

Wait.  This is not the sensible thing...

(trails off)

 

He realizes no one is listening to him.  They are already running into the woods in separate directions.  He arms his ARM SHIELD generator and follows one group.

 

A group of Padawans and Jedi are wandering near a bridge, they feel a disturbance in the force.  Standing on the bridge is another dark cloaked figure, the SITH's APPRENTICE.  He gives no time to ready a defense but attacks them in the ferocious flurry of a double-bladed lightsaber.

 

SITH APPRENTICE

(taunting)

You have to know, not fear, that you are going to die, until you know that you are useless.  Lay down your arms and join us, do not squander your lives over ideals.

 

The Jedi counter-attack and begin to call for help. They call for help as each of them is cut down.  The fight ranges into a plain surrounded by large strange rocks.  And LENNARK finally catches up to the Jedi that are left.  LENNARK and the SITH APPRENTICE begin a massive battle.

 

The other Jedi and RHIKKID STOR, drawn by the sounds of battle, enter the clearing.  MYRNIA is now armed with a Force Pike.<