Many Star Wars fans are familiar with the classic Sith Lords of the movies, like Darth Sidious, Darth Vader, Count Dooku and Darth Maul; however, beyond the movies lies a whole wealth of extended universe material, which contains its own assortment of Sith villains. One of those classic villains is Darth Vitiate, one of the villains from the Star Wars: The Old Republic, a Star Wars-themed online RPG still running today. Vitiate, like the rest of The Old Republic, is part of the "far far away" galaxy's distant past, set over three thousand years before the events of The Phantom Menace.
What makes Vitiate so different from other Sith is how he rose to power by consuming an entire planet. Originally the bastard son of a powerful Sith Lord, Vitiate, then named Tenebrae, drove his father insane before killing him; however, being the ruler of a single planet wasn't enough. The would-be emperor soon became immortal by performing an elaborate Sith ritual on the planet of Nathema, the farming world he had grown up on. This ritual simultaneously killed every living being on the surface of the planet by sucking the life out of them, thus fueling his ascension.
As the Jedi discover in the novel Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan by Drew Karpyshyn, Vitiate didn't just kill everything on the surface of Nathema. He drained the Force from them as well, leaving it unnaturally abhorrent and an "unbearable void of annihilation."
This great draining of energy reduced Nathema to a barren rock, devoid of the Force which permeates all other places in the galaxy. Such devastation likens Vitiate to a character from Marvel Comics, Galactus. While Galactus devours planets out of an insatiable hunger, Vitiate needed to drain one world to fuel his ascension to Emperor of the Sith. Galactus has no choice but to feed upon worlds, but Vitiate's ritual was performed in order to gain more power than any other Sith before him.
It's not only physical immortality Vitiate received from the ritual. While he possessed all the traditional powers of the Sith, including force lightning, mental manipulation and telekinesis, he also had stranger, more esoteric powers. He transformed the planet of Dromund Kaas, creating an eternal storm that raged throughout the planet's atmosphere. He was also able to dominate the minds of the Jedi Revan and Malek, transforming them into heralds for his attempt to conquer the Jedi.
Finally, Vitiate seemed to lack the need for a corporeal body. Even though his form was destroyed during a battle with a Jedi Knight during on Dromund Kaas, his essence fled and entered a deep slumber on Yavin-4, eventually consuming the planet of Ziost, reducing it to a barren and frozen wasteland. This is the second planet Vitiate consumed, and it seemed to fully restore him to his prior glory.
While Galactus is a more terrifying cosmic entity, Vitiate makes for a better villain. After all, having Galactus as a villain is like having a hurricane or earthquake as the antagonist of a story. It's certainly scary, but it's hardly personable. There's a reason so many Galactus stories feature the Silver Surfer as a face for the devastation he represents.
In contrast, Vitiate was a deft political manipulator, keeping up the facade of a mere scholar until he was able to develop the ritual that fuelled his ascent to power. His motivations might not be very complex, but he's capable of serving as an actual villain for the stories he inhabits. Even though Galactus is a far more well-known character, a forgotten figure like Vitiate deserves his own turn in the spotlight.