Do you guys know how intertwined the story of Jedi Knight is to the whole Star Wars saga? I was thinking about it, and storyline of Jedi Knight is interconnected with how the Sith went into hiding for 2000 years with only two at a time.

According to the comic books that take place 2000 years before TPM, a huge battle of Sith versus Jedi took place around the galaxy. Of course before that there had been conflicts with the Sith (such as Exar Kun and The Hyperspace War) before that, but this was the battle to end all battles. Do you remember the planet Ruusan in Jedi Knight, the canyon planet? The Battle of Ruusan was located at that planet where the last remaining forces of Jedi and Sith battled in a gigantic clash of powers 2000 years before TPM.

The Sith were constantly having power struggles, but the different factions and groups came into agreement to create a force bomb, which was a seething cauldron of force energy to extinguish the Jedi inside of the ruins of Ruusan. When the Jedi clashed with the Sith deep down inside of Ruusan, the force bomb was detonated, creating a vacuum that sucked every living being in its blast radius and keeping their lifeforce captive. Remember what Jerec was trying to tap into at the end of Jedi Knight? He was trying to acquire all of the force energies of all of those thousands of Sith and Jedi.

Here's where it gets cool. After the force bomb was detonated, only one person escaped alive: Darth Bane. Due to some lucky circumstances, he was the only being to flee Ruusan alive. As he was the only Sith left in the galaxy, he decreed that because of the power struggles that resulted in the inability to lead the users of the dark side, there would be only two Sith at one time; a master and an apprentice. When the time would be right for the Sith to take power, they would catch the Jedi off guard and take over the galaxy the way they always planned.

I think George Lucas picked a great part in the Star Wars timeline to make these movies. It deals with the Sith finally destroying the Jedi after 25,000 years, and the coming of the Chosen One, which was prophesized before the formation of the Republic. Also, did anyone think the story told by Palpatine to Anakin in ROTS was fascinating? The story about Darth Plague (sp?), how he was Sidious' master, and how he was so powerful he could create life really made sense on Palpatine's idea that the time was right to seize power and destroy the Jedi. He learned from the most powerful Sith ever to have lived, and killed him in his sleep so there would be no power struggles.

Anyway, I think it's cool how important the storyline of Jedi Knight is to the overall saga of Star Wars. Did anybody else know this?

Well, I wouldn't give Lucas too much credit for this. His licensing department did a very good job of ensuring continuity and there was a general rule for a long time that the Jedi tales all had to be ancient so as not to have any real effect on the movie time frame.

also, in the book right before RotS, it mentions how this one person's existance was to bring the jedi down

I think the story that palpatine tells Anakin is pretty interesting when you look back at hearing that anakin was apparently conceived from the force.

Interesting point.

I wouldn't really trust any tie-in that RotS had from any EU stuff to have been done completely on purpose. Somethigns were, but not a lot.

Well, that makes the whole Vally of the Jedi thing a bit cooler.