Early life and training Maul, the Dathomirian Zabrak male who would become the feared Darth Maul, was born on Iridonia[3] to Kycina, a human Nightsister of Mother Talzin's coven and a Zabrakfather who, by tradition, was murdered after Maul's conception.[1] By birth, Maul was aNightbrother;[1] a clan of male Dathomirians who served as warriors and slaves of the dominant Nightsisters.[4] Like the rest of his kin, Maul was subjected, shortly after birth, to an initiation ritual during which he was immersed in a "magic" oily bath, and covered head to toe in black and red tattoos.[1] A blood brother to Feral and Savage Opress,[4] Kycina wanted at least one of her sons to live free of Talzin's control. Less than a year after Maul's birth, his mother encountered Darth Sidious, the young Sith apprentice of Darth Plagueis, and implored him to save Maul from the life of a Nightbrother. Though somewhat reluctant, Sidious was persuaded to take Maul, especially given the infant's strong connection to the Force.[1] Maul spent the first few years of his life in the care of droids in a secret location onMustafar. A year after he was given over to the Sith, Sidious was granted permission from his own Master to train Maul as an apprentice. But in order to avoid breaking the Rule of Two, Sidious was only allowed to train the young Dathomirian as a weapon; he was never trained to be a true Sith Lord in the same way as Plagueis and Sidious.[1]During his training, any show of fear was severely punished, and any hint of mercy rewarded with cruelty. By the time Maul was an adolescent, his Master had already forged him into a weapon of pure hatred. He had a sense of honor, however, respecting those he deemed worthy opponents and granting them quick deaths. Despite a traumatic childhood, Maul had filial feelings toward his master, and never once contemplated killing him—until his final test.[11] Facing Siolo'urmankaOne of Maul’s earliest missions was the assassination of Siolo'urmanka. One of the greatest living Jedi warriors, Manka had since gone into seclusion, renouncing the lightsaber to concentrate on what he felt was a "purer" technique. He now lived on a jungle world in the Jentares system. Maul arrived on the world and cautiously approached the Jedi Master, brandishing his lightsaber. Thinking that he could easily kill the meditating Manka, Maul was caught off guard by the Jedi Master’s sudden attack.[12][13] Wielding a wooden staff, Manka displayed incredible speed, batting Maul across the face with his simple weapon. Maul quickly countered with a quick overhand slash, but Manka managed to dodge. As the Jedi Master pivoted to face him, Maul extended his lightsaber out. However, Maul’s stance only opened himself up, and Manka batted his lightsaber out of his hand. Disarmed and injured, Maul was at Manka’s mercy. Manka allowed Maul to flee.[12] Rather than accept death, the punishment for failure, Maul resolved to best Manka. Knowing that Manka was much faster than himself, Maul determined to outsmart the Jedi Master, get in close and attack. He proceeded to create a new lightsaber, based upon Sith schematics which he had received from Darth Sidious and inspired by the Zhaboka, a traditional weapon of his species. Fabricating two lightsabers, Maul welded them together, pommel to pommel, creating a double-bladed lightsaber.[12] Confronting Manka again, Maul kept his second blade hidden. Evading the Jedi Master’s opening attack, Maul countered, with exactly the same attack he used before. Allowing himself to be disarmed, Maul caught his weapon with his other hand. However, before he could regain his composure, Manka rushed inside Maul’s guard, with his staff to the Sith Lord’s throat and the "pommel" of Maul’s lightsaber pinned against his own back. Maul triggered the second blade of his lightsaber and ignited it through Manka’s back.[12] Ultimate testThe ultimate test came when Maul was abandoned by his master on an isolated Outer Rim Territories world, forced to survive alone while being hunted by hordes of Assassin droids. After a month's time, Sidious returned and challenged his apprentice to a lightsaber duel, one which the weak and famished Maul quickly lost. Sidious then tossed Maul's lightsaber aside and told Maul that he had failed, and revealed that he had been secretly training another apprentice to replace Maul the entire time. Rage and hatred overwhelmed Maul and, in one final act of defiance, he lunged forward and sunk his teeth into his master's hand. As he spat the blood back into his master's face in contempt, Maul realized he was no match for the Dark Lord of the Sith, and when Maul's emotions were finally spent, he prepared himself for death. Sidious struck his lightsaber down on Maul, but without killing him since it had only been a training lightsaber. Sidious then laughed. By wanting to kill his own master, Maul had in fact passed the final test. There had been no other apprentice. Sidious proclaimed him Darth Maul, a Dark Lord of the Sith, and took him to a new home on Coruscant.[11] Assignment on DorvallaOne of Maul's more notable missions was to unite Lommite Limited and InterGalactic Ore, two companies operating on Dorvalla, a planet in the Outer Rim, in order for the Trade Federation to move in and control all shipping of the ore. Lommite ore was an important component of transparisteel, a durable metal alloy used in many construction projects. Wilhuff Tarkin issued a challenge to the two companies for a major contract and both companies looked to the Toom clan to sabotage the other. This led to the loss of the majority of each company's ore transportation ships, and because of this the two companies made a joint effort to destroy the Toom clan. Maul followed the small army to the battlefield and, once they destroyed the Toom clan, killed the survivors, including high-ranking members of Lommite Limited such as Patch Bruit and the Falleen Caba'Zan, who was the leader of the InterGalactic Ore portion of the army. The mission was a success since the two companies' leaders came together and the Trade Federation received its prize. The Yinchorri Uprising
Takedown of Black Sun
Maul originally went on countless missions of terror for his master, killing politicians, crime bosses, merchants, and warlords. Maul's very appearance had been carefully conceived to inject fear into the heart of the Sith's enemies and even their unwitting allies. Despite his untold successes, Maul longed for victory over Jedi. Victims of his included the Black Sun leader Alexi Garyn and his Nightsister guard Mighella, and all of the Black Sun vigos of 33 BBY, including Darnada and Morn. In addition, he killed the assassinSinya.[14] Silus
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Shadow Hunter Another notable mission was to kill Hath Monchar, the Neimoidian Deputy Viceroy of the Trade Federation, and anyone he may have talked to about the trade embargo of Naboo, Sidious's own homeworld. Maul learned that Monchar intended to sell a holocron that contained details of the embargo to Lorn Pavan, a Corellian information broker on Coruscant. Maul had to face both Jedi Padawan Darsha Assant and her Master Anoon Bondara. He dueled Bondara in a lightsaber fight on top of a building and nearly lost his life in the ensuing explosion when Bondara destroyed Maul's speeder bike. Darsha and Pavan escaped into the sewer system where they encountered and killed subterranean lifeforms. They made it to a cavern where they fought and escaped from a taozin, a beast invisible to the force. Later Darsha Assant blew up the warehouse that they were fighting in, in an attempt to prevail where her Master had failed, claiming her life in the process. Maul escaped the inferno and continued to hunt for Pavan. Pavan followed Maul into space, and had a chance to kill Maul when he was hibernating on board a space station. However, Pavan's blaster only had enough power for a single kill shot or three stun shots, and he was worried about missing. He planned to hit Maul in the back with a stun bolt, and then try to steal his lightsaber and kill him. Maul was seemingly unaffected by the shot, woke up, and sliced the Corellian's right hand off. He then pursued Pavan through the station and Pavan escaped. The mission ended when Maul ambushed Pavan outside of his room in a hotel on Coruscant and gave him a quick death for his surviving skill.[15] Some time before the Invasion of Naboo, Maul imprisoned the Umbaran Sly Moore in a tomb somewhere in theCron Drift after he captured her. Later Moore was rescued by Sidious.[source?] The Invasion of Naboo (32 BBY)
Duel on Tatooine
At the time of the Invasion of Naboo, Maul was dispatched to eliminate the Jedi who had been sent by the Republic to settle the conflict. After tracking them to the planet Tatooine, he was ambushed by Togorian pirates upon exiting hyperspace. Maul killed them all, surviving the ordeal with only a wounded leg, and proceeded to land on Tatooine, outside the most densely populated towns of the planet.[3][16] He immediately deployed his DRK-1 Dark Eye probe droids to find the Jedi and Queen Amidala's ship.[8] One of the Queen's protectors, the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, encountered one of the probes, and destroyed it with his lightsaber. Darth Maul followed the trail to the smuggling vessel Dusty Duck, where he found Pa'lowick smuggler Aneesa Dym instead of the Queen—the Sith Lord promptly cut the innocent woman down.[17] Afterwards, a single droid reported that it had located the Naboo royal starship in the Dune Sea. The Dark Lord immediately took the Bloodfin and headed toward the location the probe had revealed; upon reaching the ship, he leapt from his speeder and—wielding his lightsaber in its single-bladed configuration—engaged Master Qui-Gon Jinn.[8] This was the first time Maul had faced a Jedi Master in combat, and had prepared for it for years; indeed, he considered it to be the next step in his training as a Sith.[3][16] Following a brief, but intense duel, Jinn escaped, but with the fear of what would become the eventual revenge of the Sith. Maul, despite having failed in his task to prevent the Queen and the Chosen Onefrom reaching Coruscant, was eager to exact revenge on the Jedi.[8] Duel on Naboo
In a second, vicious duel on Naboo—this time against both Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi—Maul showed his true mastery of the lightsaber arts.[8] A long and intense battle ensued, with Maul seemingly on the defensive, but in actuality, steering the battle to a location of his choice. Drawing the Jedi out of the hangar and into the Palace reactor room, he engaged them on the high catwalks. Kicking Kenobi off the platform onto one of the lower catwalks, he turned to Jinn, only to be knocked down himself. As Jinn leaped down to deliver the killing blow, Maul kicked him in the face and quickly righted himself.[8] However, the Jedi Master delivered a flurry of attacks and drove Maul along the catwalk into the laser-walled security hallway protecting one of the exhaust shafts. Suddenly, the walls activated, separating Jinn and Maul, but also Kenobi from his master. With the battle momentarily halted, the three took a moment to recover, with Maul pacing like a caged animal.[8] When the wall deactivated, Jinn immediately attacked, driving Maul to the edge of the shaft. However, Maul managed to regain the offensive. In the confined space around the shaft, Jinn was unable to adequately counter-attack, and Maul eventually hit the Jedi Master in the face with his weapon's long hilt, stunning Jinn; once this act was finished, Maul quickly impaled him in the stomach.[8] Turning to Kenobi, Maul again awaited the laser-wall's deactivation. As soon as it did, the Jedi Padawan viciously attacked, momentarily catching Maul off guard, even managing to sever Maul's weapon in two. Discarding the nonfunctional lesser half of his weapon, Maul unleashed a flurry of his own attacks, driving Kenobi back. Eventually, Maul pushed Obi-Wan into the reactor shaft. As Kenobi grasped hold of an input nozzle, Maul kicked the Jedi Padawan's lightsaber into the reactor pit.[8] Defeat
As Maul struck the edge of the pit repeatedly with his lightsaber, Kenobi managed to calm himself. Although Maul had disposed of his lightsaber, the Padawan remembered that Jinn's weapon still lay by his fallen master's side. Using the Force, Kenobi leaped out of the shaft and summoned the lightsaber to his hand. The Jedi Padawan landed after a mid-air turn, executing a blindingly fast horizontal slash thatbisected Maul,[8] and then Force-pushed the Sith Lord away.[18]Flinching in shock and pain, Maul fell backwards into the shaft in silence, his two halves separating.[8] Maul's defeat was a setback for Darth Sidious—souring his triumph over his own master—but not a disaster. Within a year, Maul would be replaced with the former Master of the late Jinn, Darth Tyranus, who was not only a trained warrior and duelist, but also a political idealist, exactly the traits Palpatine needed to instigate the Clone Wars. However, Maul managed to survive his defeat at the hands of Kenobi. Through his hate and will to live, as well as his hatred against Kenobi, he reached out with the Force and grabbed an air vent. He escaped to Lotho Minor in order to escape Sidious' anger for his failure. Maul acquired a six-legged arachnid-like cybernetic apparatus to replace his lost lower body, and stayed in the caves of the planet. For over ten years, Maul's memories were lost and he was in state of near-madness, eating only the little animals that came to the cave, aided in obtaining shelter and sustenance only by a sly and mysterious Anacondan, but the only thing he remembered was Obi-Wan Kenobi and how he took his legs.[3] An apparition of Maul later appeared to Kenobi's Padawan Anakin Skywalker in a crystal cave on Ilum, only a few years after the duel on Naboo. When Anakin went into a trance-like state, Darth Maul appeared and Anakin immediately attacked him. After a furious lightsaber duel in which Maul taunted Anakin about Qui-Gon's death and about the boy's training lightsaber, Anakin won, but as real as he might have looked, this time Maul was merely a creation of the dark side.[19][20] |
Return (c. 21 BBY) Reunited with Opress
Mother Talzin, the leader of the Nightsisters, was the only one who knew that Darth Maul was alive and in exile somewhere in the Outer Rim. Around 21 BBY, over ten years after Maul's defeat, she gave aspecial necklace to his brother, Savage Opress, to find him again. Opress left, promising Talzin that he would return.[4] Opress found Maul on Lotho Minor with the help of Nightsister talisman that contained Maul's blood, and by a creature that considered Maul his master. When Opress was betrayed by the creature and dumped into the recesses of Maul's cave, Maul attacked Opress. A shocked Opress introduced himself as Maul's brother, but as Maul had not been aware of his kinship to Opress prior to losing his memories, he thus did not recognize his long-lost brother.[21] Opress presented Maul with the talisman from Talzin, and subsequently reclaimed fragments of his lost memories, and the former Sith Lord was brought back to Dathomir to be treated by Mother Talzin.[22] After Savage brought Darth Maul to be treated, Mother Talzin used her magic to remove his psychosis and reconstitute his spider-like cybernetic legs into a more humanoid form from the destroyed bodies of super battle droids. She disappeared after finishing her work, and before Maul regained full consciousness. Darth Maul ran, testing his new legs, and yelled out with rage. When Opress asked what was wrong, Darth Maul told him his story, and how much he wanted revenge on Obi-Wan Kenobi. Opress gave his brother a severed half of Maul's old Sith lightsaber, and the two vicious warriors set out to find the Jedi Master.[22] Vengeance
Opress and Maul went to Raydonia to slaughter victims in order to get Obi-Wan's attention. Maul sent a transmission to the Jedi Council of himself executing hostages and demanding that Kenobi come to him. Kenobi went alone, with the ambivalent blessing ofYoda and Mace Windu to face the mysterious murderer.[22] After a short fight with Maul and Opress, Kenobi was knocked unconscious and abducted by the brothers. Maul and Opress did not kill Kenobi immediately, as Maul desired to exact revenge by torturing him. Kenobi's circumstances improved considerably with the unexpected arrival of former Separatist lieutenant Asajj Ventress, who had come to collect the bounty on Opress' head. She distracted the pair long enough to rouse Kenobi so that the unlikely pair could stand together against the dark brothers.[22] The two of them were then found by Maul and Opress, and another lightsaber duel ensued. Kenobi and Ventress made it off of the ship alive, and Darth Maul stated that he waited many years for his revenge, and he could wait a little longer. Opress told him that the Jedi would be coming after them, and Maul responded by saying he was counting on it.[22] Influence of MaulThe Program remains
Though no longer his apprentice, Maul still proved to be valuable to Sidious. The Emperor had recorded many of Maul's training sessions over the years. Using this data, a training program mimicking his fighting style was developed. Darth Vader placed this fighting program, along with many others, into PROXY, Galen Marek's droid. Proxy used Darth Maul's holographic visage in his final attempt to complete his primary programming: to kill his own master. He failed once again, and after a short but furious battle on Raxus Prime, Starkiller cut the double-bladed lightsaber in half and impaled Proxy with the two pieces. Doppelgänger on Kalakar VI
Shortly before the Battle of Yavin, a dark side splinter group called theProphets of the Dark Side managed to create a doppelgänger of Darth Maul. It is unknown whether this Maul was created through cloning techniques, or through other means. The Prophets themselves stated that "there are techniques to mold a being in every way." As an example to the lesser vassals of Sidious's Galactic Empire and to put an end to the tainted Sith apprentice, Darth Vader, was chosen as the first target for the dark warrior. These dark side worshipers believed Vader to be too much of a Jedi to be a worthy Sith Lord. So they agreed that with Vader out of the way, Maul would once again become Sidious's apprentice and, with the Empire intact, together rule the galaxy.[9] On the shadowy volcanic moon Kalakar Six, Vader thought he would intercept a Rebel courier with the stolen plans to the first Death Star. Instead, he was met by a reborn Darth Maul and the observing dark acolytes. After dealing with Vader's stormtrooper guards, Maul then dueled the armored Sith Lord. The two appeared to be evenly matched until Vader cut Maul's saber in two. Unlike on Naboo, this time both ends of the weapon continued to function, allowing Maul to switch to the Jar'Kai style. Due to his size and armor, Vader had a difficult time countering this style, and Maul gained the advantage. Yet, in the final moments of the battle, Vader surprised Maul by stabbing his lightsaber through his own body (and, through proximity, Maul as well), damaging his own life-support circuits and almost losing his own life in the process. With Maul defeated, the observing acolytes were executed by the newly-arrived Darth Sidious himself for their "treacherous" act towards his rule.[9] Holographic resurrection
Later, during the reign of the New Republic, a mad Iridonian scientist named Drell Kahmf managed to retrieve and resuscitate Darth Maul's brain from where he was killed. This mad Iridonian scientist believed Maul to be a paragon of the Iridonian people.[10] Stories would later spread of this happening.[13] To the end of giving Maul new life he placed his brain in a chemical vat, wired up to a device which utilized technology he called a "solid-state holographic projection" which could manifest anywhere in Iridonia's capital. As a hologram, this wraith-like version of Maul had the ability to strike, but could not be struck back.[10] When Jedi Master Luke Skywalker arrived on Iridonia in an ambassadorial capacity, he was attacked by the Jedi-hating holographic Maul. Not easily fooled by the dark warrior's ghostly appearance, Luke searched for the anomalous presence of Maul through the Force and stumbled upon Kahmf's hideout. Luke declared that "artificially keeping him alive was causing an unnatural disturbance in the Force" and scared Kahmf away before switching off the life-support system sustaining Maul's disembodied brain. Finally, Maul was brought to an end.[10] |
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Famous Quote "Fear. Fear attracts the fearful… the strong… the weak… the innocent… the corrupt. Fear. Fear is my ally." |
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