The Sith in Star Wars have a legacy of creating absurd super-weapons capable of eradicating everything in their path. Be it the Clone Army, the Death Star, Starkiller Base, or the Star Destroyers of the Final Order, the Sith have some pretty intense super-weapons they kept tucked away for a rainy day. However, even a millennium before the events of the prequels kicked off, one Sith, Darth Bane, had some a pretty powerful weapon tucked away: the Thought Bomb.

With little mention of it in modern Star Wars canon, let's breakdown what the Thought Bomb is, and why it's so rare and difficult to manifest for Dark Side users.

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THE THOUGHT BOMB

The Thought Bomb is a device, crafted through the concentrated focus of multiple Siths coalescing their power. The bomb, when detonated, obliterates all beings connected to the Force within its range, even if they aren't Force-sensitive, and rips their being apart, be they organic or inorganic. The bomb can be small enough to destroy a starship or large enough to obliterate an entire star system.

While the ability to create a Thought Bomb originated with the original ancient Sith tribes and their exploration of the dark side, the Thought Bomb was first used by the Sith Lord Vitiate. Vitiate utilized the eldritch Ritual of Nathema and created a Thought Bomb on the Planet of Nathema. He assimilated the vast Force power of the planet and everything on it into his being, becoming an immortal Emperor of the Sith. Vitiate would then orchestrate the Mandalorian Wars, radically manipulating the history of the Old Republic.

The secret methods to create a Thought Bomb remained with Darth Revan, who kept the Holocron in his secret repository in a secret Sith temple on the planet Lehorn until Darth Bane found it. He kept the technique a secret, eventually giving it to Lord Kaan. Skere Kaan was the creator of the Brotherhood of Darkness, who gathered the fragmented leaders of the Sith Empire to decimate the Jedi Order in one last battle. In one final battle on the planet Ruusan, Darth Bane suggested to the desperate Kaan to use the Thought Bomb. Desperate after multiple failed attempts to decimate the Jedi, Kaan agreed. The bomb went off, however, before the Brotherhood of Darkness could escape, and they, along with the hundreds of Jedi, were demolished in the blast, leaving Bane situated to recreate the Sith according to his Rule of Two in the year 1000 BBY.

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WHAT HAPPENED TO THE THOUGHT BOMB?

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The Thought Bomb primarily was featured in the Old Republic era, which as of now in the new Disney canon no longer exists. Even the story of the Brotherhood of Darkness has been retconned and altered. While the modern canon acknowledges that Darth Revan does exist, the remainder of information surrounding the ancient Sith before Darth Bane's restructuring of the order differs drastically from what was said above. In short, the Thought Bomb no longer exists in modern canon.

However, even ignoring that, why then in Legends Canon did the Thought Bomb never re-emerge? Simply put, the Thought Bomb explosion that eradicated the Brotherhood of Darkness destroyed the sole means to create the bomb. Even if it hadn't, without multiple Sith -- as in way more than just two -- the Bomb would be impossible to create. With Darth Bane's Rule of Two, only two Sith could exist at any time, remaining a secret order that would one day rise to power. This meant that the Thought Bomb, while powerful, was less useful to Bane than infiltrating the highest echelons of society. So regardless of what canon you prefer, Darth Sidious would never have been able to wield such a powerful weapon alone.

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