Yoda and the Rule of Two - am I missing something ?

[Adam Reynolds]

How does Yoda know about the Rule of Two? In the Darth Bane trilogy, it wasn't until after the Sith were thought destroyed that that the Rule of Two began to be put into effect. If the Jedi knew about the Rule of Two then why did they assume the Sith were destroyed?
Spoilers for Darth Plagueis: Spoiler

Also isn't Yoda wrong as Darth Maul wasn't really the true apprentice and Palpatine wasn't the master until roughly the same time that Maul died(Due to Plagueis still being around).

[Ted C]

KOTOR shows that the Sith had adopted a policy of working in master/apprentice pairs long before they were reduced to just having two Sith in the galaxy at a time.

[Eternal_Freedom]

^This. I think the assumption is more that "if we found one, there'll be at least one more somewhere.

[Lord Revan]

To add what Ted C said there's actually 2 versions off the rule of two, Revan's version and Bane's version.

Revan's version is kind of darkside version of the master/padawan relationship in that no master should train more then 1 apprentice at a time, or to give the wording Revan's sith holocron gave "only 2 there should be, one to possses strength and one to covet it", this doesn't how ever give any limits to the number of acolytes or minions the sith order can have. This would probably be the version the jedi are familiar with due various reasons.

Bane's version is an outgrowth of the other version that essentially removes all the acolytes and minions from the order, basically only the 2 sith lords could carry the name "sith" and any minions or spies were suppose to be ignorant of the order. Spoiler

how ever betrail isn't exactly unheard of within the Sith Order (in fact it's expected), Plagueis intended Maul to just another minion, but Sidious betrayed him such is the way of the dark side

as for why the Jedi thougth the Sith had gone exitinct after the battle of Ruusan is quite simple neither Sith Empire from SWTOR or the Brotherhood of Darkness followed Revan's rule (and even then the precident was for the Sith to show up with huge armies, not to go into hiding for a millenia only return in secret and work behind the scenes).

[Knife]

EU aside, I'm pretty sure Yoda was just expressing that someone had to have trained Maul.

[Havok]

No, Yoda was EXTREMELY explicit in that scene. Not just in what he said, but how he said it. He believed it, almost to the point that you would think he had absolute proof.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Either the Jedi learned of the Rule of Two at some point or this is another example of the EU's pathetic quality control.

[Bakustra]

Obviously in the movies, to go with the idea of populist masses of Jedi versus an elitist few of Sith, the Sith have always had this methodology of master-apprentice from the beginning of their existence, and the Jedi know this. Yoda is probably one of the last Jedi to have secondhand information on the Sith within the movie context, which is why he reminds everyone of this. The EU is thus ignored because it fundamentally misunderstood the nature of Jedi vs. Sith in favor of gigantic battles, even assuming that Lucas was cognizant of the existing "Early Republic" EU.

[Ire]

Wait didn't Lucas say there used to be more than two Sith at a time before the Rule of the two? It's hardly the EU's fault for simply expanding on it.

[Kreller1]

Wait didn't Lucas say there used to be more than two Sith at a time before the Rule of the two? It's hardly the EU's fault for simply expanding on it.

He did, I don't remember where or when he said it. All the fighting amongst themselves distracted from working against the Jedi, so they implemented the rule of two in order to stop all the fighting, backstabbing, etc.

[Napoleon the Clown]

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Ba ... er_origins

If Wookiepedia is to be believed, Darth Bane and the Rule of Two were conceived by George Lucas. This suggests pretty strongly that the Rule of Two did not always exist among the Sith.

[Adam Reynolds]

Ire wrote:
Wait didn't Lucas say there used to be more than two Sith at a time before the Rule of the two? It's hardly the EU's fault for simply expanding on it.

He did, I don't remember where or when he said it. All the fighting amongst themselves distracted from working against the Jedi, so they implemented the rule of two in order to stop all the fighting, backstabbing, etc.

I can't believe that I had forgotten this but the novelization of TPM goes into the history of the Sith in a fair bit of depth. I believe the author stated that this element was largely created with direct input from Lucas. Based on this chronology, the Sith were born from a Rouge Jedi 2000 years before TPM. Once the Sith order initially formed, intense conflict broke out among the followers who all conspired against their master and the Sith were thought destroyed. At this point Bane and his order went into hiding. What is odd about this version is that it doesn't address how Yoda knows about the Rule of Two as it describes Bane as having caused the order to be reborn after the death of the earlier Sith order in roughly the same fashion as the Darth Bane trilogy, leaving the same question.

No, Yoda was EXTREMELY explicit in that scene. Not just in what he said, but how he said it. He believed it, almost to the point that you would think he had absolute proof.

This is another example of the problem with earlier depictions of the Sith, that authors can't agree on exactly how things should play out. In ROTS both Paplatine and Mace Windu state that the Sith once ruled the galaxy, but none of the EU depictions ever show this, every time the Sith come close and are defeated. That would have been a good one for invalidating some EU.

[Ire]

This is another example of the problem with earlier depictions of the Sith, that authors can't agree on exactly how things should play out. In ROTS both Paplatine and Mace Windu state that the Sith once ruled the galaxy, but none of the EU depictions ever show this, every time the Sith come close and are defeated. That would have been a good one for invalidating some EU.

During Darth Ruin's time the Sith controlled most of the Galaxy. Nothing is invalidated

[Terralthra]

No, Yoda was EXTREMELY explicit in that scene. Not just in what he said, but how he said it. He believed it, almost to the point that you would think he had absolute proof.

The EU's answer is fallen Jedi Kibh Jeen, who lived ~200 years BBY.

Kibh Jeen was created by Andy Collins and Robert Wiese, and he was first mentioned in the Living Force Campaign Guide, a Wizards of the Coast sourcebook that provided background material for the Living Force roleplaying campaign. In 2006, Jeen was mentioned by Abel G. Peña in the StarWars.com Hyperspace article Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties, as a means of resolving a continuity conflict regarding the Rule of Two. While the movie Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace established that the Jedi Order knew about the Rule of Two, later material indicated that the tenet was created by the Sith Lord Darth Bane in secret, and Jeen's testimony shortly before his death provided an explanation for how the Jedi could know of the rule.

This was, in fact, a bit of a plothole for a while. If Darth Bane created the Rule of Two in secret, how can Yoda confidently quote "only two there are" in The Phantom Menace? And if the Jedi know about the Rule of Two, why do most of them seemingly dismiss it as unimportant?

In the article "Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties," Abel Pena came up with the explanation that a Sith cultist named Kibh Jeen (introduced in The Living Force Campaign Guide) had spilled the beans about the Sith, but was a raving lunatic whose testimony could be dismissed by any skeptical Jedi. Quinlan Vos references the Jeen testimony here.

[Havok]

It is fucking stupid that the the EU tries to make the movies make sense instead of conforming to the what the movies say and show.

[Aaron MkII]

Well lots of the EU seems to be authors telling their own story, within the SW universe, instead of a SW story. Know what I mean?

Traviss comes to mind with her CoD mando stuff.

[Ire]

It is fucking stupid that the the EU tries to make the movies make sense instead of conforming to the what the movies say and show.

What are you talking about?

Well lots of the EU seems to be authors telling their own story, within the SW universe, instead of a SW story. Know what I mean?

Traviss comes to mind with her CoD mando stuff.

Generalizing the entire EU because a few of bad writers isn't a good move, hell they just finally cleaned up her garbage about the Clones Production number

[Havok]

Which basically took George Lucas to do.

And what I am talking about is what has been said in this thread. "OMG How does Yoda know about the rule of two when this EU source says this!" Frankly, I don't care if GL is the one that came up with the rule or not, the job of the EU is to conform to what the movies say and show. If they can't do that, then write about something else in the SW Universe. It's a big place. Although you would think it is just Tattooine and Thrawn.

[The Romulan Republic]

Does anyone but Zahn write about Thrawn much? It seems every time I read about a new book with Thrawn in it, its written by Zahn. Surprising given how popular he seems to be with fans.

[Ire]

Which basically took George Lucas to do.

And what I am talking about is what has been said in this thread. "OMG How does Yoda know about the rule of two when this EU source says this!" Frankly, I don't care if GL is the one that came up with the rule or not, the job of the EU is to conform to what the movies say and show. If they can't do that, then write about something else in the SW Universe. It's a big place. Although you would think it is just Tattooine and Thrawn.

Except Lucas oversaw the book. And have you even read it?

Q: It’s interesting that you mention Palpatine’s manipulation, because I think that the way Sidious killed Plagueis in his sleep is a great metaphor for the way in which Palpatine, the consummate politician, operates to get what he wants.

JL: From the very beginning, that was something that I tried to write around, because I thought that there wasn’t going to be a powerful enough ending in that business about him being killed in his sleep. But again, this was one of the times that George, as well as Howard, kept saying, “No, that’s what happened, you are not allowed to change that.” There was not going to be any lightsaber duel at the end, none of that. Just that very fact forced me to think hard about what weapon Palpatine was using to bring down Plagueis. If it couldn’t be a lightsaber and a duel to the death, it had to be this sense we always get from Palpatine that he’s the master at manipulating beings. I guess, by extension, you could think that that’s what he does to the entire galaxy – he just lulls everybody into this false sense of security

http://star-wars.suvudu.com/2012/01/int ... gueis.html

Q:How closely did you work with Lucas Licensing on Darth Plagueis? How much did George get involved? What advice did he give you?

JL: George was involved in the early stages. When the book was first proposed, I wrote to him and asked whether there was any reason why Plagueis couldn't be a non-human, and he wrote back that Plagueis could be a Muun and sent me some artist renderings of the character. From that point on, everything was approved, as they're saying, “at the highest level.” I worked most closely with George's right-hand man at Lucas licensing, Howard Roffman. It was a strange way to go about the book, because I kind of had to bypass both Del Rey and the usual editorial staff at Lucasfilm and work directly with Howard over the course of what amounted to about a year of preparation.

I submitted many, many versions of the outline until we finally reached consensus on where we wanted to go with the book. The marketing text about “this is canon at the highest level” – I suppose that's true, that a lot of the stuff came from the very top levels of Lucasfilm. Everything was approved at that high level. I had to make the assumption that Howard was speaking directly with George about a lot of this stuff. I didn't have any meetings directly with George, but it seemed like a lot of the approval was coming through him to Howard. I was not privy to all of the things that happened behind the scenes

http://www.theforce.net/books/story/Int ... 142844.asp

[atg]

Except Lucas oversaw the book. And have you even read it?

I'm pretty sure he's not refering to the Darth Plaguis novel. The rule of two stuff was in the EU long before that.

[Bakustra]

Does anyone but Zahn write about Thrawn much? It seems every time I read about a new book with Thrawn in it, its written by Zahn. Surprising given how popular he seems to be with fans.

Even EU authors have a tiny sense of decency.

[Skywalker]

Darth Bane: Rule of Two explains this. Read the plot summary on Wikipedia.

[Arawn Fenn]

What the EU ( originally the TPM novel ) got wrong in its handling of the Rule of Two was to assume that the rule was created at the same time the Sith went into hiding. Thus it ended up stuck with a contradiction that it tried to fix with Kibh Jeen. However, this assumption on the EU's part was never established in TPM or any of the films. Based on the films alone, nothing prevents the Sith from having already been two before they went into hiding. In fact, there is a TPM-era quote from Lucas which refers to the rule having existed for thousands of years, thousands plural, which seems to support this idea.

[Lord Falcon]

The way in which Yoda said it is, I believe, a matter open to interpretation. Personally, I think what he said actually translated into him meaning: "There's probably another one out there somehwere, we just don't know where it is." Yet another example of how the prequels had great ideas, but were poorly executed...