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Darth Cain, the Reluctant Sith Lord

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Darth Cain, the Reluctant Sith Lord (Fanfic)
The Lord of Terror

Darth Cain, the Reluctant Sith Lord (also on AO3 and FFNet) is a Ciaphas Cain/Star Wars crossover fanfic by Zahariel.

Some time between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, a hyperdrive malfunction results in the return of a long-lost ship from the ancient Sith Empire, carrying the dreaded Darth Cain, whose reputation in the Old Republic was matched only by his imposter syndrome.

Needless to say, this throws a wrench into the plans of Darth Sidious …


Enough Tropes to be Terrified of Here:

  • Academy of Evil: The Sith Academy on Korriban, as Amberly explains to the Jedi Council, was designed to systematically traumatize its students into Sith. In addition to being pitted against each other in fights to the death, they were required to perform torture and execution of prisoners and sometimes random civilians grabbed off the street; refuse to do so, or just not be enthusiastic enough, and you would be tortured right alongside them.
  • Adaptational Species Change: While the Sith Empire is decidedly xenophobic, they're far, far more accepting of aliens in their ranks than the Imperium of Man. As such, multiple 40k characters are now non-humans.
    • Malden in 40k was a human Inquisitor who got a quote in the novels. Here, he's a Chiss and part of Imperial Intelligence.
    • Iskandar was a Chaos Space Marine, but here he's a pureblood Sith.
    • Nefertari was a Dark Eldar Scourge, here, she's a black-skinned Twi'lek.
    • Emeli was a normal human and now a pureblood Sith.
    • Konrad Curze was a Primarch and is instead described as being an unspecified near-Human with pitch black eyes.
    • Nux is one of the gray-skinned Rattataki and one of the many students at the Academy to have been broken mentally, only for his insanity to manifest as a laser-focus on finding the most glorious combat death possible.
  • Adaptational Sympathy: Konrad Curze and Emeli Duboir, who were Darth Cain's fellow apprentices to Darth Erebus. In 40K canon, Konrad Curze was a deranged and sadistic Primarch who was broken by his hellish childhood on Nostramo while Emeli Duboir was a Chaos cultist who ultimately ascended to daemonhood, and both of them were unquestionably villains. Here, however, they, alongside Cain, are treated first and foremost as victims of Darth Erebus' extreme cruelty, and they ultimately decide to work together alongside Cain to try and assassinate Darth Erebus to end his atrocities, making them an arguable case of Adaptational Heroism and certainly giving them more noble ends than their 40K canon selves.
  • And I Must Scream: Darth Erebus' Gallery of Silent Screams is filled with dozens of victims who are frozen in carbonite... except done in such a manner that instead of going into suspended animation like people frozen in carbonite normally do, they're fully aware of their situation.
  • Asshole Victim:
    • Vaylin choking Jabba to death with his own slaver chains on live holonet may have been brutal, but no one can say it wasn't earned or satisfying.
    • No one in the galaxy mourned Darth Erebus when he died. Even thousands of years later, worlds he depopulated remain so, and are drenched in the Dark Side by his rituals.
  • Axe-Crazy: Nefertari, one of Cain's Sith followers, is every bit the bloodthirsty warrior with a lightsaber one would expect. Fortunately for everyone she has the relatively sane Iskandar as a Morality Chain. Relatively.
  • Awakening the Sleeping Giant: The Hutts, despite their image as lazy decadent and physically incapable. There is a reason no one has managed to conquer Hutt space or wrest control away from the Syndicates, and now Cain has gone to war with them.
  • Bad Powers, Good People: Cain is a full Sith Lord drawing on the power of fear who spends most of his time rationalizing to himself how doing the good, moral, even heroic thing is simply pragmatism and a healthy dose of cowardice. It helps he draws mostly on his own fear rather than revel in others.
  • Berserk Button: Threatening children is this for Cain, due to the fact that it reminds him of his own abduction and abuse at the hands of Erebus. The one time we've seen Cain genuinely enraged has been in response to a Hutt commander kidnapping children to use as leverage, which angered Cain so much that he killed the Hutt with the Force over an enormous distance.
  • The Caper: The chapter Vault is mostly told from the perspective of some mercenaries attempting to breach Cain's titular Vault. They ignore the multiple warnings, and manage to make it through the layers of Ancient Deathtraps and Impossible Architecture to get to the Vault proper. Then, Aura Sing is possessed by the very first artifact they come across.
  • Challenge Seeker: Both Darth Sidious and Marlo the Hutt are intrigued to see someone who will finally give them a challenge after their long chains of success.
  • The Confidant: By this point in their relationship, Cain knows that Amberly knows his true nature, which means she's the one person he feels that he can be completely honest with.
  • Compelling Voice: Captain Varan, who is an Outer Rim pirate lord and secret Dark Side acolyte, is able to bend the thoughts and wills of weaker minds to his own. He uses this to keep control of the essential personnel of his ship's crew and as a tool against his enemies. Vaylin, Cain's apprentice, shrugs it off and flies into a rage. Shortly after, while being interrogated by Darth Cain, the same power is used on him to force him to answer Darth Cain's questions.
  • Cosmic Plaything: Possibly. Cain certainly believes the Force has it in for him, due to his incredible string of bad luck. Ironically enough, it's explicitly stated that the Dark Side itself considers Cain one of its greatest champions, as Palpatine could hear the Dark Side "howling with delight" with Cain's return.
  • Cowardly Lion: Cain's abilities with the Dark Side are fueled by terror... specifically, his own, as he is terrified of everything. It just makes him a better fighter.
  • Crazy-Prepared:
    • Captain Varan did have his Vibroblade reinforced with a Cortosis weave specifically to protect against lightsabers. Not that it helped him much.
    • Cain is also paranoid as always, if not more due to living in the nest of vipers that was the Sith Empire. When Perlia's regent promises to welcome him in a way "worthy of his station", he immediately starts to worry that someone will pull an Exact Words and try to assassinate him.
  • Dark Is Evil: While the Dark Side tends to be this by default, as are its followers, the most standout and extreme examples are Darth Erebus and the Sith Emperor Vitiate. Thankfully, both of these two are long dead by the present day.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Cain, despite being a Sith Lord who is strong in the Dark Side of the Force, is not a malevolent person whatsoever and has roughly the same characterization as his canon heroic counterpart from 40K. His underlings, while fervent believers in the Sith Empire and leaning more towards Dark Is Evil, are kept from descending into full depravity by their master's influence.
  • Dating Catwoman: While in Canon, Cain and Amberly Vail were both on the same side (if in wildly different roles), here he's a Sith Lord and she's a Jedi Knight, making their romance this trope. According to her, they both made some attempts to convince the other to switch sides, which didn't work, but still somehow settled into their current, secret relationship.
  • Demonic Possession: Aurra Sing ends up possessed by the spirit of Samus, the Beast of Whisperhead Mountains, during Cad Bane's attempted heist on Darth Cain's vault, resulting in the deaths of everyone save Bane, who managed to escape right up until Iskandar Khayon and Nefertari capture him.
  • Didn't See That Coming: Darth Erebus' prophetic gifts warned him that his three apprentices would team up and try to kill him, he even knew exactly when and where they would do it. What he failed to foresee was Cain being able to channel the Dark Side of the Force through raw fear without needing said fear to transform into anger first.
  • Dies Differently in Adaptation: Cad Bane is killed by Count Dooku via nanobots hidden in the food Bane and his crew had on their shuttle to prevent him from exposing his involvement in the botched heist.
  • Dramatically Missing the Point: Anakin — fourteen at the time of this fic — is under the impression that real Jedi don't have emotions and tries unsuccessfully to repress his. This is the kind of repression that would lead to his explosive outbursts in canon. This is also, in fact, a critical misunderstanding of Jedi philosophy.
  • Eldritch Location: As a Sith Temple, Cain's palace feels foreboding even to non-Force-Sensitives, and the surrounding jungle's animals and plants keep an instinctive distance. The upper levels appear (relatively) normal, but the deeper areas are full of Alien Geometries and Supernatural Cold. The deepest area is a gauntlet of Durable Deathtraps guarding the countless Ancient Evil Artifacts locked away down there.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Count Dooku, even after becoming Darth Tyrannus, is still pissed at Sidious for what Maul did to his former Padawan and surrogate son Qui-Gon; he has every intention of getting revenge on his current master for that, once he no longer needs Sidious.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Darth Erebus and his countless atrocities are viewed with complete disgust by multiple parties who themselves have questionable morals at best, whether they be the remnants of the Sith Empire under Cain's leadership or the Hutts. The fact that the Hutts (who are ruthless and cruel crime lords and slavers in their own right) can view Darth Erebus with utter contempt WITHOUT appearing like massive hypocrites speaks volumes about how much of a monster Darth Erebus truly was.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
    • Multiple levels on Palpatine's part. First he assumes that Cain's apprentice declaring war on the Hutts must have been what Cain wanted rather than her misunderstanding his orders. Secondly, he assumes that every Sith must want to conquer the entire galaxy as opposed to Cain's far more humble goal of just staying alive. And finally, he assumes that Vaylin's sincerity in liberating slaves is only tolerated because Cain is using it to manipulate her, when in fact Cain has always disliked slavery and even considered it a large part of the reason the Empire was doomed to self-destruct.
    • Mother Talzin falls into the exact same trap, believing that since he's a Sith, Darth Cain would inevitably seek out her and her fellow Nightsisters and force them to either obey him or be destroyed. At this point in time, Cain has absolutely no idea who and what the Nightsisters are nor has any plans to force anyone into his service.
  • Evil Is Deathly Cold: When Cain calls on the Dark Side, the room becomes cold enough to instantly frost.
  • Experienced Protagonist: Cain is already well into his career as a Sith Lord and had been offered a spot on the Dark Council itself before this story begins.
  • Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon:
    • Palpatine, as usual. His seething hatred of the Jedi and disdain for everyone beyond himself is carefully concealed underneath a facade of genteel serenity, and it has been so for decades.
    • Nefertari is a Twi'lek, the stereotypical Beautiful Slave Girl species in Star Wars. She's actually based on a Drukhari character in Warhammer 40k though, so she's actually the most bloodthirsty of Cain's Acolytes.
  • A Father to His Men: Cain, as usual. Though of course he rationalizes it as self-interest and keeping those thousands of troops with heavy weapons pointed at the enemy rather than him. He knows the exact number of soldiers under his command, works hard to use strategies that preserve their lives, and ordered the Invincible's fighter craft redesigned to make them more survivable for the pilots.
  • For the Evulz: Darth Erebus, Cain's Sith master. When delivering a report on Cain to the Jedi Council, Jocasta Nu mentions that Erebus was infamous for countless atrocities he committed during the wars between the Sith Empire and the Old Republic, slaughtering entire planets to fuel his rituals and reveling in the suffering he caused.
  • Friendly Enemy: Cain's relationship with Amberley Veil, who is a Jedi Knight in this continuity. On paper, the two of them are technically enemies by virtue of one being a Sith Lord and the other being a Jedi Knight. In practice, however, any enmity between the two is basically nonexistent, and the two of them are close confidants to the point that Veil is the only person in the entire Galaxy who knows Cain's true personality and Cain trusts her enough to confide secrets in her that he shares with nobody else.
  • Fusion Fic: This fic takes several 40K characters and reimagines them in the context of Star Wars, specifically during The Old Republic era with Ciaphas Cain and Erebus as Sith Lords, Jurgen as a Sith combat droid, Regina Kasteen as a Sith Navy commodore, and Amberley Vail as a Jedi Knight.
  • Hated by All: Darth Erebus, to absolutely no one's surprise. Everyone who brings him up, be it Cain, Cain's followers, the Jedi, or even the Hutts promptly take a moment to metaphorically spit on his grave.
  • I Just Want to Be Free: Vaylin's interpretation of the Sith Code remains focused on the final goal - "Through Victory my chains are broken. The Force will set me free." Which is why, given an excuse, she liberates Tatooine and declares open war on the Hutts.
  • Insistent Terminology: Vaylin has to constantly remind herself that Cain is her teacher, not her Master or anything like it. Cain promised her she'd never have a "Master" again after what her father did to her.
  • Joke and Receive: Darth Cain jokingly addresses a politician as "my fellow Dark Side user." The politician in question is Count Dooku, who does not realize it was a joke and asks how he figured it out.
  • Karmic Death: Darth Erebus died at the hands of Cain, one of the apprentices he abused, after Cain pulls off a trick he didn't expect.
  • Klingon Scientists Get No Respect: Sulla, despite being the leader of the Mandalorians under Cain, frequently feels awkward and inferior because she's really good at logistics.
  • Long-Lived:
    • The Hutts, as in canon, who have a lifespan of a thousand years. Crucially this means that to them Cain and the Sith Empire is relatively recent history, and they have a good idea of what they're dealing with.
    • Durge was alive during the last war against the Sith and is looking forward to testing himself against another.
  • Love Redeems: Here, the Wrath of the Empire made his Heel–Face Turn thanks to his relationship with Vette, whom he picked up when she was enslaved and protected with his life even after they became an actual couple.
  • Mile-Long Ship: Cain arrives in a warship whose main gun is larger than the entirety of any opposing random pirate ship and boasts a crew of nearly a hundred thousand.
  • Mistaken for Romance: The reason that Iskandar (a Pureblood Sith skilled in Ritual Magic) was completely taken by surprise by the Korriban Academy falling into a chaotic civil war? Everyone apparently assumed that he and his "rival" Nefertari already had their own thing going on, so nobody bothered to invite him to their faction.
    • Ironically, despite not being involved at the time, surviving the civil war together forced the rivals through an enemies to lovers arc.
  • Mook Horror Show: As a Terror Hero, Cain and his forces' combat exploits are often written from the viewpoint of a deserving victim.
  • Mythology Gag: Cain mentions how his friend Darth Imperius once went on a drunken rant about how slavery is Stupid Evil in a setting with tireless droids. This is a real dialogue option for Sith Inquisitors in Star Wars: The Old Republic.
  • Noble Demon: The Wrath and Darth Imperious were both examples of Light Side Sith high in the ranks of the Empire. The former found redemption through love, while the later was a combination of too eccentric and too perceptive of the self defeating nature of evil to embrace Dark Side dogma.
  • Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Downplayed example: While Darth Cain is more powerful than most Force users, he was still a step below heavy hitters like the Hero of Tython and Darth Vitiate. In flashback a confrontation between The Wrath and Vaylin leaves a trail of destruction visible from orbit, which is something Cain simply can't match. In the current, demilitarized galaxy however he is among the most powerful force users alive and commands the largest official military force.
    • This becomes more striking when The Wrath, who still easily outpowers Cain, returns from cryosleep.
  • No-Sell: Captain Varan, Dark Side Acolyte, tries to mind control Vaylin out of desperation. It's not only completely ineffective, but the attempt also sends her into a rage.
  • Offered the Crown: Darth Cain, in his heyday, was offered a seat on the Dark Council. He refused, hoping to retire in anonymity.
  • Oh, No... Not Again!: A succinct summation of Cain's reaction to Anakin. As a Sith Lord he's already crossed paths with a handful of extremely powerful force users and is not pleased to encounter another one.
  • One Woman Army: In Vaylin's liberation of Tatooine she is the distraction for the larger revolt. Which is to say she singlehandedly assaults Jabba's palace, cutting a direct line to the throne room and slaughtering anyone who tries to stop her. Humorously, she came up with this plan by asking herself what Cain would do.
  • Only Sane Man: Darth Cain realized that the Sith Empire was doomed to self-destruction and set himself up in Perlia hoping to avoid war crimes and be offered a quiet house arrest on the Republic's eventual victory. Fate, unfortunately for him, had other plans.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: Cain is convinced that he is engaging in this, as are his more morally dubious followers. Amberly is not convinced and thinks he's a Pragmatic Hero instead.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure:
    • Darth Cain, both in general and specifically compared to other Sith Lords. He specifically notes to himself how wasteful and counterproductive it is to Shoot the Messenger.
    • The Jedi Council as well, whose response to Cain is to immediately dig into the archives. Once they establish that he was reasonable enough that Jedi of the day would do business with him, that he kept his word, and that he avoided civilian casualties and war crimes, they are willing to send a diplomatic delegation rather than assume the worst.
  • The Remnant: Darth Cain and his crew are, technically speaking, the last loyal remnant of the Sith Empire. Cain is of course absolutely terrified by this, since he doesn't actually give a fig for the Empire, but his crew does.
    • It gets worse when in turns out the most sensible members of the Dark Council saw the end coming and preserved a secret force of Sith in Carbonite.
  • Rhyme Theme Naming: There are now two Sith Orders active in the galaxy: Sidious' Banite Sith, and Cain's Cainite Sith.
  • Rightful King Returns: To the citizens of Perlia, Cain is their legendary greatest ruler, returned after three thousand years. The Regent's first act on seeing Cain is to immediately abdicate- in fact, that's why the title of planetary ruler is called "Regent": according to the laws of Perilia, they're just holding the position until Cain returns.
  • Rousing Speech: Cain gives a speech proclaiming his empire's dedication to the cause of Slave Liberation in the Outer Rim after Perlia officially secedes from the Republic.
    Darth Cain: A long time ago, on a world not too distant from this one, a good friend of mine told me that slavery was an aberration. That the Empire had become dependent on it, and that because of it, we could never win our war against the Republic, no matter how many battles we won. It took me longer than I care to admit to understand his meaning, but I did eventually. He was right then, and his words are still true today. Slavery is weakness. It requires that the slaver constantly puts his slaves down to avoid being overthrown, dedicating his every waking moment to lowering others instead of elevating himself, to the eventual detriment of all. It encourages laziness and stagnation, because those in power see no reason to aim for anything beyond maintaining the status quo. In the days of the Sith Empire, when my entire civilization had been shaped from the ground up by madmen such as Vitiate and Erebus, there was precious little that could be done to change things. We Sith all dwelled in the realm they had made with all its glories and all its flaws. But those monsters are gone, and the war that consumed the Empire for so much of my life, and was used as justification for so many things, is over. Now, at last, I am free to pursue my old friend's dream. With Perlia's secession from the Republic, the last of our restraints, symbolic as they might have been, have been cast off. The war that began on Tatooine at my Apprentice's hands, and that my soldiers and I continued on Savareen, shall not end until every sentient laboring in Hutt chains has been freed. And I know we shall not be alone in this. Already many systems have pledged their support for this great crusade of ours, while individuals have sailed the stars to join their strength to ours, bringing us knowledge of the worlds that suffer in the grasp of our adversaries. To the liberation networks who operate deep within Hutt territory, risking their lives every day to free just one more soul from bondage, know that You Are Not Alone. You have fought long and hard, and now, at last, help is on the way. To the warriors of the galaxy, who wander the stars and seek a worthy cause to fight for, join us. To those who labor in chains and collars, denied the most basic of rights: hold on. We are coming. And finally, to the Cartels and the slavemasters who revel in their petty kingdoms: know that I am coming for you. The hollow power you believe your wealth grants you shall not protect you from me and mine. Only by surrendering yourselves for judgement and freeing the slaves in your custody shall you be spared from our wrath. I am Darth Cain! Lord of Terror! Sovereign of Perlia! And here, I declare that together, we shall burn out this lingering rot from the Outer Rim, that all sentients may pursue the realization of their full potential, unfettered by the chains of slavery! The Force shall set us free!
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Cain's infamous Vault has many powerful artifacts that he never uses. His Acolytes refer to them as his "trophies", but it's clear that he's actually terrified of them, and just wants to make absolutely sure that none make it out into the galaxy to become a problem again. One of those, Samus, the Beast of Whisperhead Mountains, possesses Aurra Sing when she tries to help Cad Bane rob the Vault, and it's implied that there are horrors far worse in the Vault.
  • Secret Test of Character: Vaylin interpreted Cain sending her to Tatooine with an overwhelming force to the task at hand - rescuing the Perlian citizens grabbed by slavers - as this. So, she decided to follow the spirit of the request rather than the letter and liberate the planet. Cain, of course, meant nothing of the sort- he just wanted to get all the most violently unstable soldiers and Sith away from his capital so he could figure out what to do in this new galaxy.
  • Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Since any records of her existence are lost to time, and she came back in the company of Sith, Jedi Knight Amberly Vail and the current Jedi Council are mutually suspicious of each other. After witnessing Cain's Tragic Backstory via a Force Vision, Yoda put these suspicions to rest.
    Compassion. Somehow, out of all the ways in which she'd thought the Grand Master of the Jedi Order might react to learning more about Darth Cain's past, she hadn't considered this one – and she really should have.
  • Shrouded in Myth: Much of Tatooine's mythology revolves around the adventures of Ekkreth, their cunning freedom fighter spirit. This Spirit's origin story is actually an improbably accurate retelling of how a young Ciaphas killed Darth Erebus by using his own fear to blind the Sith Lord. Considering that nobody should know the details of this confrontation aside from Cain, it may be a case of the Force working In Mysterious Ways.
  • Slave Liberation: Vaylin, having been through traumatic enslavement and torture at the hands of her father, has strong opinions about what to do to slavers. Over the course of several weeks, she infiltrates Tatooine, organizes a large-scale and coordinated slave revolt, and then executes Jabba the Hutt on live holocam. In order not to make things any worse for his image in front of his followers, Cain officially declares war on all the Hutt Cartels in the name of slave liberation.
  • Space Age Stasis: The Invincible is over 3,500 years old (chronologically speaking) and could still match a modern ship of its size. If there were modern ships of its size...
  • Spanner in the Works: Oh, so much.
    • The Invincible traveling 3500 years into the future from its original starting point during one of the Great Galactic Wars and into the pirate raid of Perlia throws off Varan's plan to plunder Perlia's planetary capital. This also derails Palpatine's attempt to get Varan to steal Sith artifacts from Cain's vault.
    • Vaylin's killing of Jabba the Hutt derail's Cain's plan to quietly adapt to the new galaxy, forcing him to improvise a war plan to keep his subordinates busy and to save face.
    • The Sith Acolytes who accompanied Vaylin killed a bunch of Tusken Raiders who would have killed Shmi Skywalker. They also allow her to accompany them back to Perlia so as to reunite Shmi with Anakin. This enrages Palpatine to no end, as his plan to turn Anakin to the Dark Side involved traumatizing Anakin with his mother's death.
    • Darth Cain's raid on Savareen goes sideways when it turns out that Marlo the Hutt was using the planet's orbital space as a staging ground for a punishment force intended to recapture Tatooine. On the other hand, Cain's presence messes up the Hutt's plans simply because the punishment force wasn't ready to depart for Tatooine.
    • Nobody expected Anakin to try and rebuild the Invincible's hyperdrive. This results in Grice the Hutt and 80% of his pirate fleet getting captured. This also results in Palpatine's new plan to sway Anakin to the Dark Side getting derailed.
    • Ky Narec's plan to stay hide aboard Invincible and not let the Jedi Order know that he survived Rattatak is totally busted by the fact that the Jedi observers (Obi Wan, Plo Koon, and Anakin) are also aboard. To be fair, Amberley warned him that he'd run into the other Jedi sooner or later.
  • Spared by the Adaptation:
    • In canon, Vaylin is killed on Odessen by the Outlander during the events of Knights of the Eternal Throne to prevent her from destroying the Eternal Alliance's base after she is bested in battle by the Outlander, Senya, and Arcann. Here, she apparently survived all the way up to seeing the last remnants of the Sith Emperor destroyed during the Echoes of Vengeance update.
    • Darth Cain's arrival in the galaxy causes Narec to decide to leave Rattatak with Ventress, presumably preventing his canonical death.
  • Supernatural Fear Inducer: One of Darth Cain's most famous qualities was a constant aura of terror he was projecting, capable of acting as almost a Brown Note - when he uses it against Captain Varan, it terrifies him far more than the woman with a lightsaber or squad of soldiers that had just stormed his bridge. And when they are actually fighting, he's actually unable to focus on anything but Cain, dropping into terrified tunnel vision. Afterwards he's able to recognize there are many things that should be scaring him, but he just doesn't have the energy to be terrified of anything else. Of course, this is actually Cain's own constant fear he purposely projects around. Said fear comes in handy when Cain's small flotilla is surrounded by Hutt-aligned criminal ships in Chapter 7. All it takes is getting within a certain distance of Cain's Aura of Terror to traumatize starship crews into insanity. And when Cain interrogates Cad Bane, the latter is immediately forced to fess up details simply from getting a full dose of the former's aura.
  • Thanatos Gambit: Darth Erebus had a last minute one when he realizes that he's about to die, summoning up the energy to tell Cain "You … will be … magnificent," with the intent of making Cain constantly second guess himself and worry that whatever he does is actually serving Erebus in some way.
    • It's implied that Konrad willingly went to his death knowing that Cain would be able to defeat Erebus if he did.
  • There Are No Therapists: Downplayed; Mace Windu, after learning what the Korriban Academy did to its students to make them into Sith Acolytes, says that if he had his way all of the Acolytes that came with Cain would be brought to the Jedi Temple for psychological help. That, however, is too impractical to pursue so it's a moot point.
  • Time Travel: Darth Cain's ship, the Invincible, suffers a hyperdrive malfunction that takes him, the ship's crew, and his subordinates on board 3,500 years into the future, from the time of the Old Republic to the modern Galactic Republic.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Cad Bane and his associates arrogantly assume that Cain's vault is filled with valuable treasures despite the dire warnings written on its doors and walls bluntly stating that what's inside should not be touched or removed from its premises. To say that they pay for their hubris would be an understatement, as Aurra Sing ends up possessed by an evil spirit contained in the vault and immediately kills the rest of the heist team, leaving Bane as the Sole Survivor who gets captured by Iskandar and Nefertari after he escapes the vault, and what's more, it's all but implied that what Bane's crew faced was merely the weakest of all the horrors stored in Cain's vault.
  • Trauma Button: Fulcher triggers Cain's memories of his captivity under Darth Erebus after bringing up how he and the Hutt Cartel have children as hostages.
  • Trauma Conga Line:
    • Vaylin, Cain's apprentice, was the daughter of a Sith Emperor, and was raised through brainwashing, mind control, and torture. It's considered astounding that she holds together as well as she does, considering her previous reputation.
    • Cain's master, Darth Erebus, was a monster even by Sith standards and his entire apprenticeship was a long stream of torments, with Cain and his other apprentices rising against him for it, which only Cain survived, Erebus making a Thanatos Gambit with his Last Words that causes Cain to always second-guess himself and worry that he's playing into his old master's plans somehow. After Erebus' death, Cain received the title of Darth and was thrust into the Decadent Court of the Sith Empire in the middle of a Galactic War. Cain's constant self-depreciation and inability to recognize others' trust and loyalty are the consequences of that.
  • Unholy Matrimony: Two Sith Acolytes in Cain's service, Iskandar and Nefertari, are very much in something with each other. They were rivals at the Korriban Academy, and underwent an Enemies To Lovers arc culminating when they were forced to cooperate to survive the outbreak of civil war among the students and faculty.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Amberly is fully convinced that Cain is a good man traumatized by his time in the absolute snake pit that was the Sith Empire, finding whatever excuses he can to do what he really wants - be a hero. She also finds it very frustrating that he has absolutely no faith in himself.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Once Darth Cain has confirmed that Captain Varan knows nothing of Darth Sidious other than that he exists he beheads the man on the spot.
    • One Hutt notes that he can't do this at the moment, or at least not carelessly, due to the conflict with Cain.

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