38 Talk

Rugess Nome

Redirected from Darth Tenebrous

Sorry about the mess.

This article or section needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of article quality.

Please follow the guidelines in the Manual of Style and complete this article to the highest level of quality before continuing on smaller articles. Remove this message when finished.

Rugess Nome

Biographical information
Died	67 BBY, Bal'demnic^[1]
Physical description
Species	Bith^[1]
Gender	Male^[1]
Eye color	Black; Yellow light (dark side)^[1]
Cybernetics	Respiration system
Chronological and political information
Era(s)	Rise of the Empire era^[1]
Affiliation	Order of the Sith Lords^[1]
Known masters	Darth Tenebrous's master^[2]
Known apprentices	Darth Plagueis^[1] Darth Venamis^[1]

[Source]

"To we who dwell in the Force, normal life is little more than pretense. Our only actions of significance are those we undertake in service to the dark side."

―Rugess Nome to Darth Plagueis, on his views of the Force^[src]

Rugess Nome—known only to his apprentice as Darth Tenebrous—was a Dark Lord of the Sith of the lineage of Darth Bane. A Bith male possessed of a calculating intellect, Nome was a legendary starship designer known across the galaxy and, as a Sith Lord, was obsessed with shaping the future. As Darth Tenebrous, he was the Sith Master of Darth Plagueis.^[1] In the style of many Sith Lords throughout history, Nome's Sith name included the Darth title.^[3]

1 Biography
2 Behind the scenes
3 Appearances
4 Sources
5 Notes and references
6 External links
- 6.1 In other languages

BiographyEdit

"For the last time I call you apprentice and I applaud your skillful use of surprise and misdirection. Perhaps I was wrong to think you had no stomach for it."

―Rugess Nome to his Sith apprentice, Darth Plagueis^[src]

Rugess Nome was widely known for legendary starship design throughout the galaxy. However, he was secretly a Sith Lord seeking an apprentice.

In searching for a new Sith apprentice, Nome manipulated a middle ranking InterGalactic Bank agent named Caar Damask into meeting his future wife, knowing that if they had a child, their offspring would be strong in the Force.

When the expected child, Hego Damask, turned five, Nome traveled to Mygeeto and convinced his parents to hand him over. Nome took the child as his apprentice, naming him Darth Plagueis.

At some point, Rugess Nome and his Sith apprentice, Darth Plagueis, traveled to the planet Bal'demnic. There, Plagueis set in motion his plan to kill his Master. When he realized that his apprentice's desire to kill him had seriously endangered the continuation of the Sith, Nome expressed disappointment in his pupil and ended up stranding the Muun where he required an enviro-suit to survive. Plagueis, angered by this, broke the Bith's neck. As the unconscious Nome slowly died, Plagueis utilized the Force to study microscopic changes in the Bith's body, observing the slow death of his neurons and midi-chlorians.^[1]

However, this was not the end of the Dark Lord of the Sith. He ensured the survival of his own consciousness into altered midi-chlorians—which he labeled maxi-chlorians. Those maxi-chlorians would then migrate not into the Force but into Plagueis, the "diseased one". Not possessing a Bith's precision, Plagueis would never suspect Nome's consciousness was inside his body. Infecting cells with maxi-chlorians would cut off the host of its Force-sensitivity. In order to fulfill his goals, Nome sacrificed his ability to sense the motion of the future, something he no longer required since he already knew his future.^[2]

As his body died, Nome entered his apprentice's body and slipped into his cells. As the retrovirus propagated, Nome gained access to Plagueis' powers of foresight. At that moment, he discovered and felt Plagueis' own death at the hands of his apprentice, only visible as a smear of darkness. That vision horrified him. Plagueis would die too soon, and Nome would not fulfill his ultimate goal: seizing and becoming the Chosen One when he would appear.^[2]

Seeking an answer to understand Plagueis' complacent behavior, Nome threw again his mind at the future but couldn't see anything as the retrovirus infected Plagueis' every cell. His apprentice was now robbed of his foresight power. Wholly giving himself to panic, Nome escaped Plagueis' body to think about a way out, only to discover his mummified remains. Time had passed, but the Sith Lord was unaware of it. He then wondered if his foresight, instead of being eliminated, had been twisted in upon itself forcing him to endlessly relive his death. At that moment of realization, the Dark Lord wished he still had a mouth with which to scream.^[2]

Behind the scenesEdit

Rugess Nome's Sith name, Darth Tenebrous, was included in a 2006 blog entry by Leland Chee, the keeper of the Holocron continuity database, marking the character's first mention in Star Wars canon. Chee stated that Tenebrous's name may have been derived from the word "tenebrous,"^[3] a word meaning dark, gloomy, or obscure.^[4] In 2008, author James Luceno indicated that if he were able to, he would choose "Darth Tenebrous" as the name of the first Sith to ever use the Darth title.^[5] Tenebrous appeared in Luceno's 2012 novel, Star Wars: Darth Plagueis, as the Master of Darth Plagueis.^[6]

When deciding Nome's species, Luceno was seeking an existing intelligent and "brainy" species in Star Wars canon. The Bith species fit the bill, but Luceno found that he associated Bith with harmless jizz-playing bands rather than menacing Sith Lords. However, cognizant of the fact that many different personality types could be found in a single species, he ultimately said "what the heck."^[7]