This course is designed as an overview of the Covenant. It will expand from the information regarding member conduct provided in the Fundamentals department to the other sections of the Covenant – including member rights, leadership, organization and judicial process – without being a deep dive into specific sections. The course will make a member familiar with the history, purpose, benefits, and structure of the Covenant.
The Covenant is the constitution of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood. It is the foundation upon which the club’s organization stands and in which the “pillars” of the Brotherhood, the powers duties and limits of its leaders, and the rights of its members are codified. The Covenant exists to ensure that the Brotherhood is governed in a fair and consistent manner, with stable leadership and smooth transitions of power. It also informs members of the conduct expected of them and others, and establishes a means for the redress of grievances.
The Brotherhood has not always had a robust Covenant to guide it. Originally, the rules that governed the club were informal and often unclear or poorly understood. They were sometimes arbitrary and not uniformly enforced. The experience of these early years taught the drafters of the Covenant the importance of clear, consistently applied rules.
From its establishment in 1996 until April 2003, the Dark Jedi Brotherhood was a sister organization to another club known as the Emperor’s Hammer.
Though the Brotherhood enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with the Emperor’s Hammer for many years, leaders of the organization began to abuse and overreach their power to an extent that the friendly, enjoyable environment of a Star Wars club was replaced with a culture of fear and intimidation. The leaders of the Emperor’s Hammer exercised a rule that was absolute and had little to no regard for the rights of members or the traditional chain of command, even sometimes disregarding the established rules of the club to expel members without process of any kind. Attempts to rectify the situation early on were met with hostility, and abuses were allowed to continue until the Brotherhood issued the Emperor’s Hammer a formal Petition for the Redress of Grievances, a document that outlined the specific abuses and called for a remedy or separation.
Due to the unacceptable response of the Emperor’s Hammer’s leaders, the Dark Brotherhood broke off in search of a structure that would both ensure the rights of its members and protect those members from harm. This event came to be known as the Exodus and spurred the creation and adoption of the first iteration of the Covenant as an effort to detail the structure of this organization, to protect members’ rights, and to ensure that this Club remains the respectable, enjoyable organization that it has been for so many years.
"Many current and former Leaders of the Brotherhood have united to defy the tyranny of the Executive Officer, and to see that the Brotherhood recovers from his abuses, even in the face of old differences, we have united. The Brotherhood will continue to function as it always has, concentrating on its internal needs, free from the abuses of the Executive Officer. The Leadership of the Brotherhood will answer to none but the Members." – Petition for the Redress of Grievances
On May 16, 2003, the first version of the Covenant appeared, though it bore little resemblance to its modern iteration and only contained a short list of prohibited conduct:
When Grand Master Firefox stepped down from his position, he made soon-to-be Grand Master Jac Cotelin promise to set up a process for the removal and appointment of Grand Masters. This was the beginning of the Dark Covenant project – which slowly grew until it encompassed every aspect of the Brotherhood, as our constitution.
The original text was developed by Jac Cotelin and Trevarus Caerick. It took more than a year to develop, with many members contributing to the numerous drafts that circulated during the two major revisions and countless minor ones. The debates which took place were a clear demonstration of our members eagerness to ensure the future success of this club.
On December 16, 2005, the Dark Covenant was officially and unanimously ratified by the Dark Council. It served as the guiding document of our Brotherhood, and showed its flexibility through numerous amendments, although it was not without faults.
On February 26, 2015, Grand Master Darth Pravus appointed Jac Cotelin Justicar. A primary goal of Cotelin as the Justicar was to revise, modernize, and update the Dark Covenant. He recognized that, although the Dark Covenant had been very successful in serving as the backbone of the Brotherhood for a decade, it had in many respects become out-dated, clunky, and hard to understand. Moreover, it did not incorporate the modern judicial process of the Chamber of Justice that had been refined through multiple Justicars and over 50 Chamber of Justice cases. Cotelin set out to recreate the Dark Covenant in a new-and-improved manner with a primary goal of readability and usability.
The process to create the "new" Covenant (the “Dark” was dropped) took nearly two years. Cotelin and his Hands of Justice created the initial drafts of the Covenant and circulated it for revisions and comments to multiple groups of members with different focuses and influence, including the Star Chamber, the former Justicars, the current and former Grand Masters, 25 influential members, the Dark Council, Consuls, and finally to all of the members at large. Hundreds of comments were received and addressed by Cotelin during the process, which resulted in a greatly improved Covenant.
On November 21, 2016, the Electorate unanimously approved the new Covenant. The Covenant went live effective January 1, 2017.
The Covenant includes a detailed process for proposing, discussing, and approving (or disapproving) amendments. The guidelines are set forth in Section 1.02.
As of its latest iteration in 2017, there have been only two amendments to the Covenant. The first was made to bring the Brotherhood in compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in 2018 and included changes to the Brotherhood’s minimum membership age and parental consent guidelines. As such, all members are now required to be at least 16 years of age or provide written parental consent.
In 2021, Covenant section 1.05(d), Vote Tallies and Abstentions, was amended to cause abstentions to reduce the total size of the electorate by one for each abstention. Previously, abstention did not reduce the size of the electorate and thus made abstentions effectively count as “no” votes. The amendment also added a provision allowing eligible Proconsuls to vote in lieu of their Consuls in the event of their Consul abstaining.
The Covenant is structured around seven primary Articles that help to outline the basic structure of the Dark Brotherhood, the powers and limits of its leaders and the rights of its members:
Article 1: The Covenant
This article outlines the purpose and usage of the Covenant, the rules related to its amendment, Brotherhood policies, interpretation and voting procedures.
Article 2: The Members
This article outlines the rights of the Brotherhood’s membership and details the procedures related to the deletion of member dossiers.
Article 3: The Star Chamber
This article outlines the role and function of the Star Chamber, the executive board of the Brotherhood.
Article 4: The Grand Master
This article outlines the rules related to the authority, appointment, and term limits of the Grand Master, as well as the policy for their removal.
Article 5: The Justicar
This article outlines the rules related to the authority, appointment and removal of the Justicar.
Article 6: Pillars of the Brotherhood
This article defines the pillars of the Brotherhood – the Dark Council, independent Units, Societies and Tribunes – and outlines elements including their function, authority, creation and leadership.
Article 7: Justice
This article defines the purpose, makeup and function of the Chamber of Justice and outlines the judicial process for Brotherhood proceedings.
Because this course is meant as an introduction to the Covenant, we will not be covering the contents of each Article and Section in detail, though we will look at some of the overarching concepts within the Articles.
As discussed in the Fundamentals course on member conduct, while the Covenant provides a basic guideline for all structures within the Brotherhood, the details of the process for the day-to-day operations are established and maintained by the club’s leadership via policies related to their respective office.
While not a part of the Covenant itself, Dark Brotherhood policies are regulated by Section 1.03 of the Covenant with specific guidelines regarding their creation, publication and application.
An example of policies with which all members should become familiar include the Chat Policies and the Rites of Combat. Other policies may be found in the Policies category of the DJB Wiki.
Voting and elections are not commonplace in the Brotherhood, but they may be required by the Covenant in the following instances:
Voting bodies within the Brotherhood generally include the Star Chamber and/or the Electorate, which is generally defined as (1) the sitting Grand Master; (2) the Justicar; (3) the full-time Dark Council members; and (4) the leader of each independent unit of the Brotherhood.
While specific guidelines relating to the procedures noted above are covered in their respective sections of the Covenant, general voting rules (excluding Chamber of Justice proceedings) and helpful definitions are established in Section 1.05.
The most important aspect of the Brotherhood, as well as its most valuable resource, is its membership. The first goal of the Brotherhood’s leadership is to protect and serve the members, followed closely by a drive to meet the membership’s needs and wants as much as possible while keeping at the forefront of every action the overall goal of the Brotherhood which is to bring the Star Wars fan experience to life.
-- Section 2.01(a), Rights of the Members, Covenant of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood
Article 2 of the Covenant may well be considered its cornerstone. It establishes the rights of members in various aspects of the club, including: the right to membership, the right to termination of that membership, fair and impartial justice, fair and impartial awards, free speech, free unit choice, and protection from retaliation.
Within these rights, members are also asked to limit any behavior that would impede the rights of other members to ensure the Brotherhood remains a safe and enjoyable club for all.
A key purpose of the modern Covenant is to formally enshrine and define core organizational features of the club, and to clearly articulate duties and lines of authority. The Covenant declares that the ultimate executive authority in the club is held by the current Grand Master, but it also limits the scope of the Grand Master’s power by delineating specific authority that exists outside the Grand Master’s direct day-to-day control. In this way, the Covenant creates a system of checks and balances that serves to protect the long-term interests of the Brotherhood by ensuring that the respective duties, authorities, and limits of key positions are clearly understood. In the Dark Jedi Brotherhood, no one is above the law -- or in our case, the Covenant.
Specifically, Covenant Sections 4.01 and 5.01 explicitly separate the Justicar’s authority in the execution of judicial processes and punishments pursuant to the Covenant from the executive authority of the Grand Master. The Covenant requires the Justicar to consult with the Grand Master on all investigations and establishes a procedure for removing a Justicar from office, but it does not permit the Grand Master to directly interfere in an investigation or in the rendering of a sentence.
Likewise, the modern Covenant formally established the Star Chamber, which comprises all former Grand Masters in good standing plus two temporary voting members who are not Grand Masters. The Star Chamber’s principal purpose is to ensure the long-term health and survival of the Brotherhood. To that end, the Star Chamber acts as both an advisor and an evaluator of the currently serving Grand Master. The Star Chamber is uniquely empowered by Covenant Sections 4.04 and 5.03 to remove the Grand Master and Justicar by majority vote.
The Pillars of the Brotherhood are those primary organizational units that comprise the club and ensure the smooth operation of its various functions. Article 6 helps to define those roles and the guidelines that govern their function.
Dark Council
The Dark Council assists the Grand Master in the administration of various functions of the Brotherhood. It is currently composed of the Deputy Grand Master, Master at Arms, Headmaster, Herald, Regent, Seneschal, Fist and Voice. Note that while the Justicar is generally included in the deliberations and actions of the Dark Council, they are not considered a member of the Dark Council for the purposes of the Covenant.
Independent Units
The independent units are the lifeblood of the Dark Brotherhood. They are the venue by which most of the Brotherhood’s membership (with the exception of rogue members and non-unit leadership) engages with the club’s various activities and finds community. Independent units are typically Clans, with Houses and Battleteams organized beneath them as sub-units. Units have their own rights, rules and guidelines for establishment.
Societies
Societies are special organizations within the Brotherhood typically centered around advancement through a specific type of member activity. They may be led by Society Leaders who are not part of the Dark Council. At present, the Brotherhood has four societies: the Grand Master’s Royal Guard (gaming); the Inquisitorius (fiction); the Shroud Syndicate (graphics); and the Shadow Academy Society (courses). None of the existing societies, however, have a formal “Society Leader” and are instead overseen by members of the Dark Council. The Combat Master is the only official Society Leader in the modern Dark Brotherhood and is responsible for overseeing the Antei Combat Center.
Tribunes
Tribunes help to lead important aspects of the Brotherhood that are not functions of the Dark Council, including both the DJB Wiki (Wiki Tribune) and the Brotherhood’s social media venues (Social Media Tribune).
Finally, the Chamber of Justice exists to interpret, protect, and enforce the Covenant. It consists of the Justicar, the Right Hand of Justice, the Left Hand of Justice, and the Appeals Panel. The Right Hand of Justice is the primary investigator and prosecutor for the Chamber, while the Left Hand of Justice serves as an advocate of the accused. The Appeals Panel serves in the event that a member believes an error has been made in the administration of justice.
Article 7 provides for how the Chamber of Justice carries out its duties to the membership, but that will be covered at length in another course!
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