Sith (disambiguous)

Right.

Lets talk about the many varied flavours of Sith.

The oldest Sith we have are the Sith Species. They since before the republic, and morphed with Darkside survivors of the Hundred Year Darkness into the Ancient Sith Empire. To differentiate them from the other darksiders, let's call these the Fleshcrafters.

These are the Sith that attacked in the Great Hyperspace War.

Notable names include:

* Ajunta Pall; originally a Fleshcrafter that later became Emperor of the SIth.
* Marka Ragnos; the Sith Emperor who's death sparked the Hundred Year Darkness
* Naga Sadow - Last Sith Emperor
* Ludo Kresh - his rival

With the fall of the Sith Empire, most of the SIth species was extinguished. These are the known exceptions:

* Naga Sadow on Yavin IV
* The Sith Loyalists on Thule; that would pledge themselves first to Exar Kun, then to the Brotherhood of Darkness and finally to the Banite Sith, aiding them during the Great Peace.
* Sith refugees on Ambria, though they died out.
* The Lost Tribe of the Sith on Kesh
* Vjun, a bastion of darkside knowledge that remained largely untouched until 29 BBY; when a midiclorian experiment drove the population insane.
* The Sorcerers of Tund, an isolatinist Dark Force sect.
* The Harbringer; A ship that jumped through time to the year 41 ABY.
* Tenebrae, who retreated into the Unknown regions and would later create the True Sith Empire and then the Eternal Empire.

Naga Sadow trained an apprentice in his exile on Yavin IV - the human ex-padawan Freedon Nadd. Freedon Nadd would start a sith cult on Onderon before his death; one that endured until Onderon joined the Republic 200 years later. His Ghost would lead Exar Kun and the Keto cousins to the dark side. This was the second wave of Sith.

While the Brotherhood of the Sith (Exar Kun) and the Krath (the Keto cousins) were crushed, their philosophies didn't die with them.

The Krath largely disbanded, with occasional pockets surviving in the outer rim. Still, it survived far into the future as Sebban Keto reestablished the Krath in the time of Darth Sidious.

Exar Kun is a whole other beast. For one thing, while the Krath simply took on SIth teachings as handed to them by Freedon Nadd, Exar Kun was a Darkside scholar. At the same time, he was declared the successor of Marka Ragnos, Emperor of the Sith.

While his Sith Empire did not last very long, it did exponentially more damage. (Though perhaps it would be more fair to credit his apprentice.) Like Freedon Nadd, Exar Kun managed to live beyond his death. His spirit remained trapped on Yavin IV, however and his empire was pushed into the edges of Sith space. Kun wouldn't make contact with any other humans until past the Fall of the Republic.

Besides Ulic Qel-Droma (who defected to the Jedi), Exar Kun had several apprentices. Here a list:

* Jorak Uln, Headmaster of a Sith academy on Korriban who would begin a line of apprentices
* Oss Wilum, who turned back to the light.
* Zona Luka, who died without passing anything on.

Of his Brotherhood of the Sith, several survived and would later join Dark Revan and Darth Malak.

On that note, the next Sith we have is Darth Revan and Darth Malak.

Revan was originally a Jedi that answered the call for help from the Republic against the Mandalorian Neo-crusaders that were slowly conquering large swathes of the northern galaxy. Revan and his fellow jedi Revanchists were successful, but in the aftermath learned of the existence of the now immortal Lord Vitiate.

Revan and Malak found Vitiate on Dromund Kaas, where the sith lord forced them to the dark side and turned them into extensions of his own will. Over time, that mindcontrol broke but the basic desire to see the republic burn didn't.

The Revanchist Sith Empire took what Jedi and Navy were loyal to Revan and the remnants of Exar Kun's empire to form a new empire, before collapsing itself after the destruction of the Star Forge. Later, it was restructured into the Sith Triumvirate.

So, Darth Revan trained Darth Malak, and Darth Malak trained Darth Bandon who himself never passed on the teachings. Of Darth Revan's Empire, Darth Traya, Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion remained.

Darth Traya trained no successor, and neither did Darth Sion but Darth Nihilus trained Visas Marr. Marr however returned to the light.

So far we have had a few flavours of sith. The Ancient Sith Empire that later becomes the True SIth Empire and the Krath; Exar Kun's philosophies, that survived on Korriban and influenced Revan. Revan and his followers, who were a mesh of Exar's beliefs, Jedi beliefs and what of the Ancient Sith Vitiate put into Revan and Malak's heads. (Interesting that Darth Revan and Darth Malak were named like Darth Maul, isn't it?) And then the Vitiate-centric Eternal Empire Sith.

The True SIth, or the reconstructed Sith Empire under Darth Vitiate can be considered in philosophy a continuation of the Ancient SIth Empire. It's teachings hung around until 2000 BBY, when Darth Ruin started a New Sith Empire with it's own variant on the Sith teachings.

The Eternal Empire while a SIth State, was designed around an eternal emperor Vitiate. It collapsed and eventually joined Darth Ruin.

Darth Ruin is a Dark Lord made purely by the study of Sith teachings, seeking out several sith cults and turning them into a new Empire of the Sith.

The Sith followers of Ruin would later be reorganized into the Brotherhood of Darkness which itself would be anihilated by Darth Bane; leaving the Banite Sith as the main SIth force in the Galaxy.