The Sith could still return after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The unexpected resurrection of Emperor Palpatine recast the entire Skywalker saga as the battle to destroy Darth Sidious, marking the culmination of the Sith line. In the official Star Wars: The Last Jedi Visual Dictionary, Lucasfilm's Pablo Hidalgo confirmed the prophecy of the Chosen One, which foretold a being born of the Force who would restore ultimate balance, was all about the destruction of the Sith.

Of course, the Sith attempted to cheat the prophecy, with Palpatine's spirit summoned to possess a clone body at the ancient Sith redoubt of Exegol. This is a world steeped in the dark side of the Force, where the veil between life and death is unusually thin; Exegol was the only place Palpatine could be resurrected. It's tempting to assume the line of the Sith has been brought to a conclusion, but if there's one thing the Jedi should have learned by now, it is that darkness can never be defeated forever.

Related: Star Wars: Did Rise of Skywalker's Ending Make Rey The Chosen One?

So how could the Sith return after Palpatine's final defeat, and the destruction of the Sith Eternal cult at Exegol? Even despite the hopeful ending to The Rise of Skywalker, there are quite a few possibilities.

The Sith Can Be Reborn Through Holocrons

Ezra Bridger Sith Holocron Star Wars Rebels Dark Side

The Sith may have been destroyed, but they left an indelible mark on the galaxy. Fortunately, it's reasonable to assume many of the most dangerous artifacts were taken out of circulation by the Jedi Order, and have actually been destroyed. In the decades before the prequel trilogy, several Jedi scoured the galaxy looking for artifacts steeped in the dark side of the Force, and they collected them in a sealed vault in the Jedi Temple known as the Bogan Collection. Naturally, Palpatine coveted the Bogan Collection, and after the fall of the Jedi in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith he raided it and added its treasures to his own store. He scattered these across the galaxy in secret storehouses; after his death, Imperial loyalists targeted these storehouses for destruction in Operation: Cinder, a brutal scorched-earth strategy that, amongst other things, helped ensure clues to Palpatine's inevitable return were erased. Thus it's likely most of the Sith Holocrons were lost.

But Star Wars Rebels made it clear there were other Holocrons out there, hidden and never recovered by Palpatine. It's likely there are still Holocrons concealed on ancient Sith worlds like Malachor or Korriban, just waiting for an unwary Force-user to stumble upon them and unlock their secrets. Thus the Sith may have been destroyed, but they can be reborn through use of these Holocrons.

Sith Spirits Can Possess The Living

Star Wars Mask of Lord Momin

Charles Soule's Darth Vader run introduced readers to Darth Momin, an ancient Sith Lord who had successfully preserved his spirit inside his mask. The Emperor discovered Darth Momin's mask, and no doubt he was fascinated by this method of cheating death, which used the long-forgotten power of Essence Transfer. There is no reason to assume Darth Momin was the only Sith Lord to have ever transferred his spirit into an object, and thus other Sith could have avoided death in a similar way, their corrupted souls still acting in the shadow.

Related: Star Wars: Who The First Sith To Be Called "Darth" Was

To wear Darth Momin's mask was to fall under his control, to allow his spirit to possess you and turn your body into a puppet. If there are other Sith masks like Momin's out there, then ancient Sith could return to threaten the galaxy. Indeed, Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy introduced an esoteric Force cult called the Acolytes of the Beyond, who treasured Sith masks and wore them before going into battle. Many of these masks appeared to have a transformative effect upon their wearers, increasing their aggression and bloodlust, perhaps hinting the spirits of the ancient Sith were reaching out to the land of the living through them.

There May Be Other Sith Worlds In The Unknown Regions

Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker Exegol

The Unknown Regions were once the seat of a vast Sith Emperor, one that was ultimately brought down in battle with the Jedi. This vast area of space is almost impossible to navigate, because it was ravaged by a series of chained supernova explosions that sent huge masses tumbling at speed between the stars. As Timothy Zahn noted in his book Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising, "The movement of all these masses, coupled with regions of heavy electromagnetic flux, resulted in the constantly changing hyperlanes that made any voyage longer than a couple of star systems difficult and dangerous." It's unknown whether this cataclysm was a natural event, or whether it was caused by the Sith, as part of their interminable civil war or in order to drive the Jedi back. This is why Exegol had been lost to the galaxy; because it was hidden in the depths of the Unknown Regions, a so-called "box system" with only one way in or out - and that only navigable through use of the Force.

But Rae Carson's novelization of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hints there are other ancient Sith and Jedi worlds concealed in the chaos of the Unknown Regions. "A few planets had been discovered," it reveals, "but their populations re­mained small, and their trade with the rest of the galaxy had been throttled by the navigational risk. The Sith and the Jedi had found paths through to even more dangerous, more hidden worlds — or so legends said — and the specific, carefully stepped coordinate jumps required to safely navigate the anomalies were among their most closely guarded secrets." Even Palpatine himself may not have known all the ancient secrets of these Sith colonies, which existed in isolation, no longer overseen by the Dark Lords of the Sith. They wouldn't have been as important as Exegol; that world was unique, a vergence in the Force where the dead could be raised to life. But they would be steeped in the dark side nonetheless, and they could therefore be key to bringing the Sith back.

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The interesting question is whether or not the return of the Sith would invalidate the Chosen One prophecy. That probably isn't the case, simply because it's reasonable to assume Palpatine's ability to transcend death was the reason he brought such a great imbalance to the Force. The dark side is natural, and therefore there will likely always be Sith; but the Emperor, as the culmination of the line of Darth Bane and the one who could potentially become an eternal Sith Emperor, was decidedly unnatural. So long as Palpatine never comes back again, there is no reason to consider the Chosen One prophecy as invalidated in some way by the Sith's return.

More: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's Ending Explained (& What Happens Next)