Sith Emperor ' s ritual During the time of the Great Hyperspace War , the Sith Lord Vitiate developed a ritual of Sith magic that granted him immortality and immense strength in the Force . Using the strength of eight thousand Sith Lords to power the Sith magic , Vitiate was able to strip the Force itself from the planet Nathema at the expense of every living thing on the world , and as the Sith Emperor of the reconstituted Sith Empire , he later developed an artificial version of the ritual by combining it with Sith alchemy and cybernetics . With the Sith magic , the Emperor was able to grant immortality to his favored servants , and he intended to use the ritual on a galactic scale in order to consume all life in the galaxy and thereby ensure that he would never be defeated . However , the Jedi Knight known as the Hero of Tython prevented the Emperor ' s agents from bringing about the sacrifice of thousands of lives that was necessary to start the ritual — but only for a time . With his plans exposed to the Empire , a now dethroned Vitiate turned on the Imperial world Ziost and used the strength of the entire world ' s population to carry out the ritual once more and consume all life on Ziost . Description . The ritual developed by the Sith Lord Vitiate was a complex piece of Sith magic that required an immense amount of strength and power in the dark side of the Force to complete . When he first orchestrated the rite on the planet Nathema , Vitiate drew upon the strength of eight thousand other Sith Lords , and it took ten days to complete in its entirety . The Sith Emperor , as Vitiate became known , was later able to perform the ritual on his own with his incredible strength in the Force , though he required a sacrifice — the simultaneous deaths of thousands — in order to begin the Sith magic . Upon the ritual ' s completion , the Sith magic expanded across the globe as a wave of energy and literally stripped the Force from the targeted planet in less than a minute , killing all living beings instantly and transferring their life force and power into Vitiate . Living matter , whether it was the bodies of people or plants , was turned to ash at the moment it was touched by the Sith magic , though some prone bodies retained their shape like ash sculptures of the ritual ' s victims . The trunks of trees were left standing as solid ash , and the Sith magic even destroyed a number of stone statues on Ziost . Only a handful of creatures were capable of surviving the ritual besides Vitiate — Sithspawn known as Monolith s , which had been created from dark side energy rather than by mutating a living creature like typical Sithspawn . The act also destroyed almost all technology on the planet , overloading the circuits of droids and wiping out their memory core s . The rite leeched color , sound , and heat from reality itself , leaving the targeted planet a brown , barren and lifeless planet upon which the absence of the Force could cause anything alive on its surface — especially Force - sensitives — to die if they stayed there long enough . The Emperor later developed an artificial form of the ritual by merging it with Sith alchemy and biomechanical enhancements , forgoing the need for a sacrifice . The artificial process involved the insertion of dozens of wires and IV tubes into the subject ' s body , which connected the individual to a series of generators and vats filled with bubbling green liquid . As the subject opened themselves to the dark side , the Emperor and his machines stripped away their mortality over the course of a few minutes , leaving the recipient in constant pain for the rest of their existence . Both the original and artificial versions of the Sith magic left the subjects unable to appreciate their physical senses to the degree that others did , as they sacrificed their ability to feel emotions in return for immortality . Applications . As a result of the ritual of Sith magic , Vitiate became immortal and gained immense strength in the Force . After centuries of further study into the dark side , the Sith Emperor developed the strength to repeat the ritual on his own , and he intended to magnify its effects on a galactic scale . If successful , the ritual would have consumed the life of every living thing in the galaxy , and the Emperor would have absorbed it to become like a god . The Emperor utilized the artificial ritual to grant immortality to a few select servants , including the twelve Servant s , or members , of the secretive organization known as the Emperor ' s Hand . Another who received immortality through the ritual was the Sith Lord Scourge , who was appointed the Emperor ' s Wrath — the Sith ruler ' s personal enforcer — for his loyalty . Users . The only known user of the immortality rite was the Sith Emperor , a Sith Lord originally known as Vitiate . In 4999 BBY , a year after the Sith Empire ' s defeat in the Great Hyperspace War against the Galactic Republic , Vitiate summoned the remaining Sith Lords of the Empire to his homeworld of Nathema . There , he dominated the minds of the eight thousand Sith who answered his call and forced them to participate in the Sith magic , conferring immense power and immortality upon himself at the expense of every living thing on the world . The newly - empowered Sith Emperor blamed the effects of the event — known to history as the Ritual of Nathema — on the Jedi who had destroyed the Empire in the Great Hyperspace War , and he gathered the survivors of the Empire before leading them on a twenty - year exodus from the Sith Worlds . Not long after he reconstituted the Empire on the world Dromund Kaas in 4980 BBY , the Emperor gathered twelve Sith purebloods and performed the artificial version of the rite upon them , granting them immortality and appointing them as the Servants of the Emperor ' s Hand , though during the ritual he bound their life forces to his own so that he could draw on their strength to sustain him . In 3950 BBY , almost a thousand years later , the Emperor decided to reward the Sith Lord Scourge with immortality after he betrayed the Jedi Masters Revan and Meetra Surik by killing Surik during the Jedi ' s attempt to slay the Emperor . The Emperor performed the artificial rite in the depths of the Imperial Citadel on Dromund Kaas , and made it clear to his new Wrath that the pain caused by the ritual would never pass . As a result of Revan and Surik ' s attack , the Emperor became determined to ensure his survival at the expense of the entire galaxy , and he made the necessary preparations for repeating the ritual on a galactic scale . Three centuries later , during the Galactic War between the Republic and his Empire , the Emperor ordered his agents to cause the necessary sacrifice of thousands of deaths , though their efforts were foiled by the Jedi Knight known as the Hero of Tython . The Sith Emperor was grievously wounded in battle with the Hero , and was forced into hibernation on the moon Yavin 4 until a now - mad Revan tried to restore the Emperor to strength in order to permanently destroy the Emperor . Revan ' s plans failed , but the Emperor fed off of the deaths caused by battle against Revan ' s followers , thus restoring his strength . Disowned by the Empire he once ruled , Vitiate — now a Force entity without a body — began exerting influence over the population of the planet Ziost . His reach soon extended across the world , allowing him to possess virtually the entire population . Despite attempts by the Galactic Republic and the Empire to break Vitiate ' s control over Ziost , he continued to consolidate his strength and created monstrous Sithspawn known as Monoliths . Using Sith magic as he did on Nathema , Vitiate unleashed a wave of death energy across the globe , turning all living beings to ash and warping reality — Ziost ' s tundra became a gray wasteland where colors seemed muted . Thousands of years later , the Sith Lord Darth Bane discovered a transcription about the ritual and its effects within the Sith Holocron of Revan , and used it to develop the technique known as the thought bomb . Behind the scenes . The Sith Emperor ' s ritual was first introduced in Drew Karpyshyn ' s 2011 novel " " , and it is a major plot point in Act III of the Jedi Knight class storyline in the video game " " . It received further mentions in the reference guides " The Journal of Master Gnost - Dural " , " The Essential Reader ' s Companion " , and " " . The storyline for the planet Ziost introduced in Game Update 3 . 2 concludes with Vitiate using the ritual to consume all life on Ziost , and represents the first visual depiction of the ritual and its aftermath .