In 7003 BBY, a group of Jedi who practiced forbidden dark-side arts broke from the Jedi Order in the Second Great Schism. Their experiments included using the Force and alchemy to transform living beings into engineered war creatures. Three years later, the conflict expanded into the century-long war remembered as the Hundred-Year Darkness.
A dispute becomes institutional rupture
The dissenters rejected restrictions imposed by the Jedi Council on dark-side experimentation.
Their declaration of independence transformed internal doctrinal disagreement into open political separation.
Alchemy and the transformation of life
Dark Jedi learned to manipulate living organisms through the Force, creating mutant warriors, mounts, and creatures such as Leviathans.
Their practices challenged Jedi norms about the proper limits of Force use.
Three years before the Hundred-Year Darkness
The schism itself occurred in 7003 BBY.
By 7000 BBY, violence had escalated into a galaxy-spanning war between the Jedi/Republic and Dark Jedi dissidents.
Anthropological assessment
The Second Great Schism shows how institutions define orthodoxy by policing acceptable knowledge and practice. The conflict was not simply over power; it was also over what kinds of experimentation could be considered legitimate Jedi activity.
Once dissidents created an independent community, doctrinal difference became a political and military boundary.
7003 BBY · Legends · Source and continuity dossier
Second Great Schism · three years before open war
Documented account
The Second Great Schism concerns a break within the Jedi Order associated with forbidden Force-alchemy experiments. Legends chronology places that organizational rupture in 7003 BBY. This date describes an initial dissident movement, not the full hundred-year open conflict. Some accounts treat its teachings as dangerous because they changed living beings and challenged the Order's boundaries for lawful instruction.
Anthropological interpretation
The distinction between dissent, expulsion, and war matters. A community can debate doctrine before members organize armed resistance. Jedi Councils possessed the authority to define acceptable training. The dissidents challenged those limits and later used creatures made by alchemy as instruments of warfare. The threat was therefore institutional as well as military.
Dates, continuity and historical caution
The Hundred-Year Darkness begins in 7000 BBY, after the 7003 BBY schism. Readers should not move the Battle of Corbos or the Exiles' conquest of Korriban into this earlier event. There is no surviving source for every meeting, named delegate or private motive of the original dissidents.
Test the evidence: Did the Battle of Corbos follow immediately in 7003 BBY?
Correction and insight: No. Legends places the Hundred-Year Darkness in 7000–6900 BBY and Corbos at its end.
Publication trail: Star Wars Insider 88, Heritage of the Sith; Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force. Public reference: Check this Legends source history →. Original publications may require independent print issue or page verification.
Sources and further reading
- “Heritage of the Sith,” Star Wars Insider 88.
- Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force.
- Second Great Schism, Wookieepedia