The Golden Age of the Sith #0
"Conquest and Unification"

Place in timeline - 5,000 years before A New Hope

Published: July 1996
Story: Kevin J. Anderson
Penciller: Chris Gossett
Inkers: Stan Woch

Five millennia before Luke Skywalker was born -- and 1,000 years before two young Jedi reawakened a long-dormant evil -- the dark power of The Sith held unquestioning rule over the galaxy. For those black-souled, corrupt Jedi, it was a golden age. For the rest of the galaxy, it was a nightmare.

The Golden Age of the Sith #1 (of 5)
"Into the Unknown"

Place in timeline - 5,000 years before A New Hope

Published: October 1996
Writer: Kevin J. Anderson
Penciller: Dario Carrasco, Jr.,
Inkers: Mark G. Heike, Bill Black & David Jacob Beckett
Letterer: Willie Schubert
Color Artist: Perry McNamee
Cover Artist: Russell Walks

For centuries, in a protected vault in the great library of Ossus, the captured Sith Holocron closely guarded its legends and histories. Until now . . .

Five millennia before the birth of Luke Skywalker and fall of Palpatine's Empire, a thousand years before Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma joined forces in a sweeping conflagration know as the Sith War, the Old Republic was riding high and expanding. It was a time the great Jedi Knights had tamed a mere portion of the galaxy, a time of rugged frontiers -- colony worlds were being established, while vast portions of space remained unexplored. Long-distance travel was often treacherous and uncertain.

Each year, new hyperspace paths were mapped by intrepid, hyperspace explorers, who sought useful roadways through an incomprehensible dimension. These intrepid risk-takers (some called them crazy) relied on blind luck as much as skill, gambling everything in a high-stakes game to map a valuable new route across the star lanes, hoping to find their fortunes . . . instead of their deaths.

The Golden Age of the Sith #2 (of 5)
"Funeral for a Dark Lord"

Place in timeline - 5,000 years before A New Hope

Published: November 1996
Writer: Kevin J. Anderson
Penciller: Dario Carrasco, Jr.,
Inkers: Mark G. Heike, Bill Black & David Jacob Beckett
Letterer: Willie Schubert
Color Artist: Perry McNamee
Cover Artist: Russell Walks

Five millennia before the birth of Luke Skywalker, at the height of the Republic, daring hyperspace explorers plunge through uncharted space, hoping to discover valuable commercial routes. Yong Gav and Jori Daragon, brother and sister, attempt to make their fortune. Their supply-runner parents killed in Empress Teta's final unification wars, Gav and Jori have little left of a meager inheritance.

When their ship Starbreaker 12 is damaged on a mapping run, Aarrba the Hutt offers his repair dock on Cinnagar, but he refuses to release the ship until Gav and Jori pay him. Though Aarrba is kind-hearted (for a Hutt), he has already trusted them one time too many. Adding to their misfortunes, the merchant lord Ssk Kahorr suffers financial ruin when he uses one of the brother and sister's mapped routes -- and he takes out a contract for their lives . . .

Meanwhile, the Jedi scholar Odan-Urr is assigned to the Koros system to assist Empress Teta. The unification wars are over, and the seven worlds of her system are poised for prosperity. Odan-Urr becomes a close confidant of another Jedi, Memit Nadill, a personal adviser to the Empress.

The two Jedi rescue Gav and Jori from Ssk Kohorr's assassination attempt. The brother and sister know they are doomed if they star in Cinnagar. They have only one chance -- to steal the Starbreaker 12 in one desperate plunge through hyperspace, hoping to discover a valuable new route no one else has dared to explore. Breaching Aarrba's defenses, they roar off in their ship, dodging Cinnagar security. Punching random numbers into their navicomputer, they vanish into the unknown . . .

The Golden Age of the Sith #3 (of 5)
"The Fabric of an Empire"

Place in timeline - 5,000 years before A New Hope

Published: December 1996
Writer: Kevin J. Anderson
Penciller: Dario Carrasco, Jr.,
Inkers: Mark G. Heike, Bill Black & David Jacob Beckett
Color Artist: Perry McNamee
Letterer: Willie Schubert
Cover Artist: Russell Walks

A thousand years before the Great Sith War and the defeat of Exar Kun, two impetuous young hyperspace explorers, the brother and sister team of Gav and Jori Daragon, launch themselves into the unknown. Fleeing from a chain of bad decisions in the Republic worlds controlled by Empress Teta, they set a distant course  at random -- and land in the middle of the fabled Sith Empire!

Their ship, Starbreaker 12, appears over the mausoleum world of Koran, where a funeral procession of Sith Lords has come to inter their ruler, the Dark Lord Marka Ragnos. On the steps of a monumental tomb, glimpses of an underlying power struggle appear; two of the most powerful Sith Lords vie for the new title of Dark Lord and control of an empire.

Ludo Kressh wishes to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, to keep the Sith Empire stable and prosperous, not to overextend their resources but to maintain a tight grip on the Sith people, whom they have dominated for a millennia. His rival Naga Sadow feels the ancient empire is growing stagnant and needs to extend its boundaries, to conquer new worlds and bring new blood into their grasp. Only moments after the dead Dark Lord is entombed, Sadow and Kressh engage in a vicious duel -- but their battle is halted by the spectral image of Marka Ragnos rising from the crypt to warn them that the fate of the empire is in their hands.

Just then, Gav and Jori land among them, innocent explorers hoping to make their fortune by establishing trade. But the gathered Sith Lords see the strangers' arrival as clear evidence of Ragnos' warning. Gav and Jori are captured, about to become pawns in  a power struggle that will span two empires...

The Golden Age of the Sith #4 (of 5)
"Pawns of a Sith Lord"

Place in timeline - 5,000 years before A New Hope

Published: January 1997
Writer: Kevin J. Anderson
Penciller: Dario Carrasco, Jr.,
Inkers: Mark G. Heike, Bill Black & David Jacob Beckett
Color Artist: Perry McNamee
Letterer: Willie Schubert
Cover Artist: Russell Walks

When Gav and Jori Daragon were first captured by the evil Sith, they feared for their lives. Now, Jori fears for her brother's spirit, as would-be Dark Lord Naga Sadow begins to initiate him into the ways of the dark side of the Force. Naga Sadow is playing a deadly game of chess, and the Daragon siblings are his pawns.

The Golden Age of the Sith #5 (of 5)
"The Flight of Starbreaker 12"

Place in timeline - 5,000 years before A New Hope

Published: February 1997
Writer: Kevin J. Anderson
Penciller: Dario Carrasco, Jr.,
Inkers: Mark G. Heike, Bill Black & David Jacob Beckett
Color Artist: Perry McNamee
Letterer: Willie Schubert
Cover Artist: Russell Walks

In the midst of a bitter struggle in the magnificent Sith Empire Naga Sadow stages a violent charade -- freeing innocent captives Gav and Jori Daragon and secretly whisking then and their ship, Starbreaker 12, off to his private fortress. He then plants evidence to imply the the rescue strike was the precursor to a full-scale invasion from the Republic.

Sadow uses the turmoil to seize control of the Empire, proclaiming himself Dark Lord of the Sith. His arch rival, Ludo Kressh, vows never to follow him and storms off, taking his supporters with him.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the galaxy, the scholarly Jedi Odan-Urr travels to Coruscant with the Empress Teta and her advisor Memit Nadill. There, they speak of Odan-Urr's visions about the threat of long forgotten Sith forces, but -- despite the silent concern of the other Jedi Knights in attendance -- they are laughed out of the council chambers...

Naga Sadow has deeper plans for Gav and Jori. Separating them, he keeps Gav in his main stronghold on the moon Khar Shian while Jori remains in a "decoy" fortress on the main planet Khar Delba. He begins to train Gav as his protege, teaching him rudimentary Sith magic while Jori broods, anxious to return home with Starbreaker 12. Only the navicomputer of their ship holds the convoluted information on how to find the great Republic.

Ludo kressh, however, discovers sadow's trickery and mounts an armed rebellion against the evil Dark Lord, vowing to fight to save the sith Empire from sadow's reckless plans. As sadow visits joori in his decoy fortress, kressh's warships come in, intent on the total destruction of the Dark Lord of the sith...

The Golden Age of the Sith TPB

Published: August 1997

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Marka Ragnos ruled the galaxy with an iron fist. He was the Dark Lord of the Sith -- the most powerful of the most powerful. But now he is dead. And two innocent hyperspace explorers, Gav and Jori Daragon, may follow suit if they get caught between the factions fighting to fill the Dark Lord void.