Obi-Wan and Darth Vader fight in Star Wars

The Star Wars series features some of the most original and scariest weapons in the history of sci-fi. This list is all about showing exactly what a deviously creative bunch the Sith are. Everyone knows how cool the Death Star and lightsabers are, so now it is time to dig a little deeper, and find some of the craziest weapons ever developed in the history of Star Wars.

Some of the weapons on this list are already known from the movies, but there are also many others only shown in the then expanded universe, now known as Star Wars Legends. Fans of the original trilogy may think Luke, Han. and Leia were facing the biggest weapons ever developed by the dark side, but this list is likely to change their minds as it shows that, if anything, the Sith only got nicer as time went by. Here are The Dark Side's 15 Deadliest Weapons.

15. The Executor

Darth Vador's Executor flies through the galaxy in Star Wars

The Executor-class Star Dreadnought, known as the Executor, was Darth Vader's very own personal flagship. It was one of the largest and most powerful Imperial vessels in the history of the Star Wars universe. Following the battle of Yavin, the Executor led the assault on the Rebel Alliance's Echo Base under Vader's direct command.

The Executor was 19,000 meters long, which means that it was almost twenty times as long as the regular Star Destroyers. It was also equipped with more than 5,000 turbo lasers and ion cannons. Destroying an entire enemy fleet or even a city wouldn't be much of a challenge for the Executor.

Luckily for the rebels, the Executor's defenses weren't perfect. It ended up being destroyed when a rebel A-wing starfighter piloted by Arvel Crynid crashed into its control bridge, thus causing it to completely lose control and forcing it to crash into the second Death Star.

14. Kylo Ren's lightsaber

Star Wars Kylo Ren

Kylo Ren’s lightsaber is unlike any other. It features three blades instead of the regular single blade, and so is called a crossguard lightsaber. The saber was assembled based on an old design dating back to the times of Knights of the Old Republic.

The really cool part about it being an old school lightsaber is that it uses a single cracked Kyber crystal. This crystal makes Kylo’s saber so powerful that it needs to vent some of its energy to the sides of his hilt. It does so through the lateral guards, thus preventing it from straight up exploding.

The saber looks extremely cool, but Kylo wasn’t interested in getting a cool looking saber. He was interested in getting the most powerful saber. The reason why his blade looks much more unstable and dangerous than the ones fans are used to? Because it really is. As for the side blades, they may have not been intended from the start but they sure are useful.

13. The Darkstaff

Darkstaff from Star Wars

The Darkstaff was an incredibly powerful sentient Sith artifact, often considered one of the most dangerous objects in the entire galaxy. It was created by the Sith Order many thousands of years before the time of the Clone Wars, and eventually came back to the hands of the Sith during the time of the Sith Empire. The artifact was placed into storage aboard the Arcanum space station respository.

The Darkstaff was later stolen by Dark Lord Tagriss, a renegade Sith belonging to a group called the Dread Masters.

The staff was capable of generating enormous amounts of energy, which made power-hungry lords want it to power their weapons. Little did they know that the Darkstaff itself had a mind of its own, and was actually the one in control of the person holding it. The Darkstaff draws many parallels with the Ring from Lord of the Rings, so it may very well have been inspired by the works of Tolkien.

12. Imperial Bioweapons Project i71A

Zombie Virus from Star Wars

Also known as the Sickness, the Imperial bioweapons Project l71A was an infectious virus created by the Sith to attack the biological tissue and transform its victims into zombies. That’s right, this virus came out during that time when zombies were so popular that not even Star Wars could avoid jumping on the bandwagon.

In classic zombie fashion, the virus was supposed to grant eternal life. It was created by Lord Darth Drear, who again in classic zombie fashion, found out that the virus wasn’t what he wanted it to be when he got infected by it. A thousand years later, proving that the Sith never learn, Darth Sabrous tried to recreate the virus in the hope of becoming immortal. This time the results were even worse, as instead of just getting himself infected, Lord Sabrous got the entire planet infected. Thousands of Sith masters died and were reborn as human flesh-craving monsters.

11. The Dark Reaper

Darkreaper from Star Wars

The Dark Reaper was a Sith superweapon created thousands of years prior to the events of the A New Hope. It was one of many superweapons that were later rediscovered by the Dark Lord Exar Kun, who used it again to rain death upon the galaxy. The Dark Reaper worked by harvesting the Force itself through an aptly-called Force Harvester, a device that destroyed anything within range. It completely drained its target’s Force energy, turning it into energy beams that would then kill all organic lifeforms and then destroy all inorganic material in its vicinity.

If this weren’t bad enough already, the Dark Reaper was also equipped with turbolasers powered by the Dark Side of the Force. The person who finally managed to destroy the Dark Reaper was an ancient fallen Jedi Knight named Ulic Qel-Droma, who somehow found a way to withstand the Dark Reaper’s deadly effects. The successful destruction of the Reaper made for the best redemption he could have hoped for.

10. The Star Forge

Star Forge from Star Wars

Just like the name suggests, the Star Forge was a gigantic space factory. It was designed to create the most powerful fleet of all time. It was built by the Rakatan Infinite Empire during the events of Knights of the Old Republic, five thousand years before the events of A New Hope.

The Star Forge turned energy into matter, meaning that as long as it had energy, it could keep on producing ships and weapons. The Star Forge drew its energy from a star, which allowed for the creation of an endless supply of ships. The Star Forge was so powerful that it corrupted the entire Rakatan people and was responsible for their demise. It was abandoned after the fall of the Rakatan Empire and later found by Darth Revan, who then got it to work again. The Star Forge was taken by Darth Malak after he betrayed Revan, leaving him to die.

9. The Silencer

Silencer from Star Wars

The Silencer was a superweapon that was basically a megalaser that could recharge itself extremely fast. It was primarily meant to mounted on capital ships. The Silencer was called a “fleet killer”, because instead of being able to destroy entire planets like the Death Star and the Starkiller Base, it could destroy many capital ships in a very short amount of time. This was one of the most powerful and practical superweapons of the Sith Empire.

The Silencer was built by the Sun Razer, a space station designed to speed up the development of all sorts of superweapons. This allowed for the creation of the Silencer to take years instead of decades.

Most Silencers were lost in the war against the Eternal Empire, led by Emperor Valkorion. Most of the Silencer-equipped vessels also disappeared in the outer rim and are believed to have been destroyed by the Eternal fleet, Valkorion’s droid commanded fleet.

8. The Leviathan

Leviathan from Star Wars

The Leviathan was Darth Malak’s flagship. It was originally owned by the Republic Navy, but later ended up in the hands of the Sith, who then obviously used it for the most nefarious of deeds. The Leviathan seems to be an ancestor to the famous Star Destroyers. The Leviathan is one of many ships that was used during the Mandalorian wars by the Republic, and it was the only one to survive it. The Leviathan was brought to the Sith by Saul Karath, a former admiral of the Republic, who turned his back on his people and soldiers.

The Leviathan is a 600 meter long Interdictor class cruiser. What makes it so special? It has the ability to pull ships straight out of hyperspace and it has canons so powerful that it can erase entire cities from the surface of a planet. Such was the fate of Taris, the Jedi Academy in Dantooine, and many others.

The Leviathan was destroyed during the battle of Rakata Prime

7. The Thought Bomb

Thought bomb from Star Wars

The Thought Bomb is the result of an ancient Sith ritual that put the entire power of the dark side to use. The detonation of a Thought Bomb was able to not only annihilate any Force sensitive being, but also to absorb its soul into a vortex of perpetual torment. The Thought Bomb was first used by the Dark Lord Vitiate, who used it to consume an entire world.

This ancient story was rediscovered during the events of the Jedi civil war by Darth Revan, who recorded everything about it in his Sith holocron. Revan then hid the holocron in a forgotten temple in the planet Lehon. It was only discovered thousands of years later by Darth Bane, who then passed it on to Lord Kaan, leader of The Brotherhood of Darkness.

In a desperate attempt to destroy the Jedi, Lord Kaan created and detonated a Thought Bomb that destroyed nearly all the Force-sensitive life on the planet Ruusan. The spirits of all the trapped Jedi inside the resulting vortex were only liberated by Kyle Katarn more than a thousand years later.

6. The Second Death Star

The second Death Star from Star WarsThe second Death Star from Star Wars

The original Death Star may be the most famous dark side weapon in the history of the saga, but its bigger sister is the one that deserves to be on this list. Why? It actually had shields, it didn’t have terrible defense flaws, and it was so much bigger and more powerful that it had to be destroyed even before it was completed. Unlike the original Death Star, the second one had a laser beam that could hit many targets at once, and it only had a three minute recharge time. Its only weakness was that it was dependant on a shield generated from the outside.

Luckily the second Death Star never even had a chance to fire, but it didn’t even need to do that to show how imposingly powerful it really was. It was so big that simply by having its repulsorlift field created by Endor’s shield generator, the Second Death Star caused earthquakes, tsunamis, and various other geological disturbances.

5. World Devastator

World Devastator from Star Wars

Also known as World Sweepers or Planet Smashers, the World Devastators were gigantic super weapons used by the Empire. They were just as deadly as the Death Star, and much more efficient. The Death Star was only good for the destruction of entire planets, whereas the World Devastator could destroy a planet just as easily, but also had the ability to gather the destroyed planet’s resources. The resources would then be put to use to create more nasty weapons for the Empire. The World Devastator worked by first landing on the surface of planets, and then by using its tractor beam to tear them apart. Despite being relatively large, their size wasn’t comparable to that of the Death Star, thus making the World Devastators a much less obvious threat.

The World Devastators were not controlled by sentient lifeforms but rather by a central droid intelligence. This was a much more cold and calculated way of dealing with matters, even when compared to the Sith.

4. Starkiller Base

Starkiller Base from Star Wars

The Starkiller Base was an entire ice planet turned into a gigantic battle station. It served as a stronghold of the first order thirty years after the destruction of the second Death Star. The operations inside the base were commanded by General Armitage Hux. The Starkiller Base’s main weapon was a superweapon so strong that it was capable of destroying entire star systems on the other side of the galaxy. Its massive weapon was powered by the energy of a nearby star that the Starkiller Base was capable of draining in its entirety

The design and workings of the Starkiller base are a clear evolution and tribute to the two previous Death Stars. Though bigger and more powerful than the previous Death Stars, the resistance still managed to have it destroyed in classic Star Wars fashion by infiltrating it first to lower its shields, and then by a full on X-wing attack. Just like Han Solo defiantly said: who cares if it is big?

3. The Corsair

Corsair Nagasadow from Star Wars

The Corsair was originally Dark Lord Naga Sadow’s flagship. It was a Derriphan class battleship and it played a major role in not one, but two galactic wars. The Corsair’s power was enhanced by force-enhancing Sith magic crystals that gave it enough power to tear out the core of a star.

The Corsair was initially one of many flagships belonging to Naga Sadow. Unfortunately for him, at some point it became his only ship, as the Sith ended up defeated in the war. Sadow still managed to escape because he was able to use The Corsair to get a star to explode and have its massive solar flares stopping his enemies from catching him. Before dying, Naga Sadow hid the Corsair in a tomb which was later discovered by Exar Kun, the legendary Dark Lord of the Sith. Kun later managed to once again use the ship to wage war against the Republic and the Jedi Order. The Corsair had such a successful run that even when it was destroyed, its destruction led Exar Kun to a great victory.

2. The Sun Crusher

Sun Crusher from Star Wars

The Sun Crusher was a secret project turned reality by using funds diverted from the original Death Star. It was built by Grand Moff Tarkin without the knowledge of Darth Sidious, and forgotten after Tarkin’s death during the battle of Yavin.

The Sun Crusher is the most devastating superweapon in Star Wars. It was a ship that was powerful enough to turn a sun into a supernova, leaving its entire solar system to be obliterated. Unlike other massive superweapons, like the Death Star or the Starkiller Base, the Sun Crusher was the size of a regular starfighter. To make matters worse, the Sun Crusher was nearly indestructible, due to its outside being layered by quantum-crystalline armor, a material that could repel even turbolasers. Yeah, it even sustained a blast from a Death Star and was used by Han Solo to ram into the bridge of a Star Destroyer and managed to come out completely undamaged.

1. Fear

Darth Vader Rogue One details

Though not a weapon per se, fear is the origin, the content, and the most pure product of the dark side. Fear is what feeds the Sith and what they prey upon. They know this, and so do their enemies.

What makes fear the most dangerous weapon in the galaxy? Everyone feels it, no matter how good or strong a Jedi is, there will always be a tiny seed of fear inside him waiting for the right Sith lord to grow in order to create a new enemy to the Jedi.

Even though fear is what the Sith use on its enemies, it is also what they want to avoid feeling the most, so it also works as their driving force. It is fear that has them becoming stronger, more agile, and more devious. The strongest Jedi in the galaxy may be able to get rid of all Sith along with all of their weapons, but he will never be able to rid the galaxy of fear, and thus he will never really make the Sith disappear forever. They may even come back directly through him.

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is out in theaters now.

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