Darth Cognus

Lived: c. 1000 BBY

Master: Darth Zannah

Apprentice: Darth Millennial

Appeared: Star Wars Insider #88, 2006

Behind the Scenes:

Darth Cognus was created by Abel G. Peña, and was first mentioned—albeit unnamed—as the Sith Master of Darth Millennial in the fifth part of The Dark Forces Saga, titled Two Peas in a Pod. Peña later named her in Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties, an online supplement written for the eighty-eighth issue of Star Wars Insider. Darth Andeddu was originally considered as a candidate for the Master of Darth Millennial, but Peña had to abandon that idea because the conception of Millennial's Master being female had already been presented to Lucasfilm Ltd. for approval. He felt that the names of Cognus and Millennial properly described their interaction with one another and compared their relationship to that of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, with Cognus representing the latter.

Although Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties failed to specify Cognus' gender, Peña himself considered the character to be female, a fact that was later canonized in Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force. Peña had specific ideas for the appearance of Darth Cognus and worked very closely with artist Chris Trevas with regard to the character's visual design. He felt that Darth Millennial considered Cognus something of a succubus and wanted her visual depiction to reflect that. Among the ideas Peña had were lips with a "fat Jolie quality," a "vampiresque" snarl, and Sith tattoos similar to those of the Miraluka Dark Jedi Jerec. Trevas went on to illustrate a female Darth Cognus for The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia based on Peña's ideas. Despite this, Darth Cognus' entry in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia erroneously identified her as male. Darth Cognus was later given full treatment in the third novel of the Darth Bane trilogy, titled Dynasty of Evil, where several elements of her backstory were explored in greater detail. Lucasfilm official Leland Chee stated in his blog that Cognus' name is based on the word "cognizance," which means "awareness, knowledge, and perception."