did the Rule of Two hurt the Sith?

I've been thinking about it over and over, did Bane set the Sith up for failure? It seems to me that trying to limit the amount of Sith to two at a time is a very foolish idea. Sure those two Sith will both be immensely powerful, but they will still only be just two.

if you take the who Banite plan into account, was it worth it? That's assuming he devised it and not Plagious or Sidius. But even if it was them that came up with the idea of the "Galactic Empire" through the way Sidius did it, what did he accomplish? The Empire wasn't around very long. So all that planning for what? A 20 some odd year Empire. Seems foolish to me. With more Sith, such as Vitiates Empire, they might have stood a better chance I think. Higher risk of tearing itself apart sure. But that happened anyway in the end. So those are my thoughts, you guys got any?

It was fine... until SWTOR, which screwed things up.

Well with Rule of Two you have more chances of surviving but you will suffer with the fact. that your Order will never rule the Galaxy.

Its true that Old Sith were dying in battle, in academy just everywher, but they had real power.

Its too hard to decide which system was better.

It seems to me that for all Sidious's power, it didn't help him keep his Empire together. So what good did only having two Sith do him?

The only real reason Sidious' Empire failed was because of Luke getting to his father, that's really it. RoT had really nothing to do with the Empire falling, even then he did have dark adapts, so it's not like the Empire didn't have users of the dark side. They just weren't so powerful, that you had massive infighting and thus a weakened Empire.

Palps' GE was stable for the most part, you didn't have a bunch of power hungry Sith Lords scheming and killing one another to get to the top. Sure you may have had Imperial Officers that wanted to be higher in the chain of command...but that wasn't really a big deal by comparison and sure you had Vader wanting to kill Sidious, but he never had the chance.

The only other possible way for Sidious' Empire to have failed, was if the Imperial Army turned against him. Which...wasn't gonna happen with the Stormtroopers, Imperial Royal Guards and Vader backing him.

@wolfrazer: It wasnt the only problem. If you have just two people, then its two lifes that can be lost. Sidious was not really immortal and if he would die then Sith Order would lost his strongest member ever.

However, when Sith Lord from regular Order die he can be replaced by dozens of strong beings.

@penderor: Right but considering Force Users can live a ridiculously long time, Sidious dying isn't that big a problem...at least by natural ways. Even if he somehow died, Vader could then take control and have his own apprentice and thus the cycle would continue on.

@wolfrazer: And they could happily destroy entire fleets and feed on the planets like their ancestor did right?

@penderor: I wouldn't go that far..

@wolfrazer: I am just thinking about the future. Banite system was alive for thousand of years until he was ruined in several dozens of years.

@penderor: Right because both Sith died, doesn't mean the system was ineffective. It only died out because of Luke's involvement with the whole thing.

@wolfrazer: Well s**t happens you know?

@penderor: Of course.

@wolfrazer: If Luke wouldnt come, then Leia would come and if she didnt, then after few years another guy would come you understand?

It only died out because of Luke's involvement with the whole thing.

Well Hitler only lost because there was Russia involved you know?

@penderor: Right but Luke was key in that he turned Vader, to kill Sidious and thus kill the two of them. If it had been just some random Jedi, that wouldn't have happened. Also someone else coming along would be very slim, considering that Yoda and Obi-Wan would be dead and no one would be around to teach anyone the ways of the Jedi.

Wouldn't say ineffective but damn right stupid, much prefer One Sith. So much more interesting IMO.

Sith would always fight against each other.

The less Sith the less chances people will notice and the less problems they get.

In my experience, yes.

Rule of Two wasnt as entertaining as having a giant sith Order

@wolfrazer: If Luke wasnt involved, Vader or his future apprentice would kill Sidious anyway.

@penderor: Vader isn't killing Palps, that wasn't just possible and why he wanted Luke to join him. As for a future apprentice killing Sidious?....Eh...perhaps, but still the Empire collapsed because a number of things, it wasn't just because Sidious died. If Sidious did die, that doesn't mean the Empire would just completely collapse, Vader would take over.

As it turns out, that didn't happen considering both of them died.

With tend to be more powerful than Jedi so if they and a lot they could have taken over a while ago. Plus they would have killed Luke.

@wolfrazer: Sooner or later Jedi would rise again.

@penderor: Ehh....perhaps, but that was rather slim considering all the propaganda about the Jedi, the Inquisitors hunting down remaining Jedi/killing suspected Jedi, Vader hunting them down, so on. Could a Jedi have popped up if the Rebellion utterly failed, Luke n co dead?.....Maybe, but that would be really slim.

@wolfrazer: The Force wouldnt alow complete power of the Dark Side upon the Galaxy. Thats why after every Jedi or Sith destruction they rised again and again.

not entirely sure on the history, since I've only seen the movies, but limiting your number to 2 doesn't seem the greatest, can keep you stealth, but makes it so in one occurrence the sith could get wiped out, it all depends on them both surviving, having different sects might be better, but i dont know

@penderor: True, but still it would be slim and even if a Jedi did raise, it wouldn't exactly be a cakewalk to try and topple the Empire and 2 of the most powerful Sith in the galaxy, along with whatever they have.

It may not have been the best choice, but it was certainly a movement in the right direction. Look at all the history of the Sith, and there is little more than infighting, internal conflicts and self-destruction. The Great Hyperspace War, the Great Galactic War, the Cold War, the Jedi Civil War, and ESPECIALLY the New Sith Wars - all major wars involving the Sith have been marred by the Sith fighting with one another. In some cases, it's been made known that the Sith would have won, were it not for their constant infighting.

The root problem is Sith philosophy and the psychological effects that the Dark Side has on individuals after extended use. As brought out by the first "Sith", in the modern sense, Ajunta Pall, even the earliest Sith Lords slaughtered each other because they went paranoid, craving each other's powers and secrets. In truth, it's a freakin miracle that the One Sith, the latest incarnation of the Sith Order, was as stable as it was for so long. The Rule of Two might not be the best solution, but it was certainly better than what the Sith had been in times past.

Some Sith Empires thrive though with a huge amount of Sith. Look at Adas, he ruled his Sith Empire for 200 years. That was with infighting. It can be done.

to a degree yes it has

The short answer - it doesn't really hurt the Sith. It gave rise to the most powerful Sith Lords of history towards the end of the line. There are no strategies that actually work, since the Sith will never have complete domination of the galaxy.

For the long answer - if we track the records of all the other Sith Empires and measure their success, then we can tell that, by far, the Rule of Two was the most successful Sith doctrine and the Order of the Sith Lords was the most successful Sith Order.

Vitiate's Empire never gained full control of the galaxy, and they only won the Great Galactic War because they had several free surprise attacks, and the Republic never won a victory until ten years later. The Empire hardly even won in the end (the Empire was also badly damaged), and they didn't manage to obtain full or near-full control of the galaxy. The Republic remained an opposing organization for the following decades, and presumably Vitiate's Empire was vanquished at some stage. And this is all despite over a thousand years of rebuilding and planning, and the fact that Vitiate never had to show his face in public.

The New Sith Wars were a thousand years of battling and they all died except for Bane. The Old Sith Wars were equally unfortunate for the Sith. Exar Kun lost Ulic Qel-Droma, and then he was beaten back to Yavin IV where his spirit was trapped. The Jedi Civil War was also not a success. Revan ended up being betrayed, then redeemed, and then he destroyed his own Empire. The fragments came together to form the Sith Triumvirate, only for its head (Traya) to be betrayed. She then raised a pupil to finish off the Triumvirate. If you come back to the Great Hyperspace War, the Sith failed once again because they were betrayed.

Krayt also didn't have much more success. He managed to establish himself as Emperor, but with even more resistance than Palpatine had to deal with coming up even more quickly, it was hard for him to rule and he never even managed to properly establish galactic-dominion or near-galactic dominion. He was quickly assassinated later by Cade, and his Empire was something that he planned for about a century.

Palpatine didn't need to plan for a century. He just continued the tradition set down by Bane, until he became the most powerful figure of the dark side, then he terminated both his master and the Rule of Two at once, took over the galaxy, and became the Emperor for about 23 years. Sure, it didn't last forever, since the Sith aren't intended to rule the galaxy forever as they plan. But Palpatine's Galactic Empire is the most successful Sith-driven empire in history, beyond Vitiate's or Krayt's. Some people like to argue that the Rakatan Empire was better but I recall some sourcebook claiming that the Galactic Empire was the greatest.

In any case, it is still the most successful Sith-driven empire, since the Rakatans aren't Sith. Empires filled with other Sith will eventually fall to each other because of individual Sith's greed and ambition. Vitiate's empire was endlessly filled with backstabbers, traitors and conspirators. As soon as Vitiate faded from public image, there were Sith that immediately tried to become the Head of the Empire or start a new Empire.

Palpatine's Empire might not have been filled with Sith, but it was filled with immense numbers of mindlessly loyal troops. Treachery was slightly more limited, but the most important thing is that it was almost never a real threat to the Emperor, simply because the traitor just isn't powerful enough. The only other Sith in the Empire was Vader, who could never threaten Palpatine after he was maimed on Mustafar. That's why he was successful - apart from the fact that he was only one who tore down the Republic to minimize resistance.