Star Trek vs. Star Wars (and a collection of memes)

Correct, and it wasn't until after the cataclysmic Battle of Ruusan, where the Sith army destroyed itself with a Thought Bomb in its desperation to defeat the Jedi (and blatant disregard for its own side's troops), that Bane realised that the Sith Order needed to be reformed to stop the innate fractiousness of the selfish Sith from destroying their Order from within. Instead of large numbers of Sith all backstabbing each other randomly, he devised the Rule of Two to ensure that backstabbing would only occur when the Apprentice felt they had superseded the Master in power level and/or the Master had become weak. This would ensure an overall growth in power, as each individual Sith Lord would become more powerful than the one that preceded them (or die trying to overthrow their Master, in which case the power would be conserved in the surviving Master).

Of course he didn't reckon on Darth Tenebrous, Darth Sidious and Darth Tyranus all breaking this rule at some point in their tenure as Sith Lords (Darth Tenebrous took on multiple Apprentices in the aim of setting them against each other to find out which was most powerful, and Sidious and Tyranus both took on Apprentices while still under the tutelage of a Master), but this didn't contribute directly to their respective downfalls so one could argue that the Rule of Two could be amended to be a bit more flexible without risking the survival of the Order.

 

Well, yes, the backstories written above were authored by whoever wrote the Bane novels and the comics centred around the Sith, and the original developments of the concept for Episodes I-III (because Sith weren't a thing in the OT, at that time Vader was just a Dark Jedi and The Emperor was just some old guy who had got Force powers somehow) were likely due to George not wanting to juggle too many villains (even though we also get other villainous characters like the Neimoidians and Geonosians anyway). However, that cannot hide the fact that it's still a good way of differentiating the Sith from the Jedi and expanding upon the culture of the Jedi's archenemies.

 

Orks haven't managed to infest the Imperium because any that come close would be massacred by the full weight of the Emperor's personal armies and their bodies burned with as many flamers as possible to kill off all the spores.

Regarding Tyranids, Genestealer Cultists have allegedly reached Terra itself according to one 40K boxed game, but with so many delicious Imperial worlds to eat before they get there, it's unlikely the Tyranids will rush directly to that specific planet, given they are not likely to be aware of the significance of Holy Terra except as just another of the many buffets in this new galaxy they've appeared in.

I never thought of this... in effect the Chaos Gods make sure to screw over their mortal servants every so often in between their victories because they don't want said servants to eradicate all their sources of delicious souls.

 

The idea of the rule of two is to prevent multiple lesser apprentices from teaming up to take out a more powerful master and thus diluting the power of the Sith in the process.

Drew Karpyshyn

 

Well said.