Jedi Civil War
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The Jedi Civil War is a conflict in the fictional Star Wars galaxy that took place 3,956 years before the Battle of Yavin, as seen in Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope. It is also known as the Second Sith War and the War of the Star Forge, and is grouped together with other conflicts of close temporal proximity under the name of the Old Sith Wars. It also is the event the video game "Knights of the Old Republic" is based on.
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[edit] Origins
Nearly 4,000 years BBY a Mandalorian warrior race known as the Neo-Crusaders began assaulting worlds on the edge of the galaxy. The Jedi Order insisted on staying out of the war, but Revan, followed by his best friend and fellow Jedi Malak, left with a force of rebellious Jedi Knights to defend the galaxy. Following various battles, Revan and Malak won the war in the bloody battle of Malachor V. From then on the Mandalorians revered the victorious Revan as a master strategist. During the last battle, Revan discovered the Trayus Academy on Malachor V, an ancient Sith archive and allegedly the "gateway world" of the original Sith Empire. It was a place so corrupted by the Dark Side it almost killed Revan. By submitting to the dark side of the Force, he became the new Sith Lord, serving the darkness of the academy. Shortly after winning the war, Revan, Malak, and the Jedi and Republic forces who followed them disappeared.
[edit] Prelude to War
Shortly before their disappearance, Revan and Malak had gone to Dantooine, where Revan used secrets he had learned on Malachor V to unlock a structure of primeval Jedi ruins, revealing an ancient Star Map. This Star Map led them to others on Tatooine, Kashyyyk, Manaan, and Korriban. It was on this last world that their fall became complete. Taking the names Darth Revan and Darth Malak, Revan took the title of Dark Lord of the Sith, being the stronger of the two, and disappeared from known space. Revan and Malak, now beholden to the dark side, gathered a massive fleet to destroy the Republic and the Jedi, transforming the remaining Republic forces who followed them into a militaristic empire and used the ancient Rakatan Star Forge factory, a relic from the pre-Republic Infinite Empire they had located using the Star Maps, to build up a massive war fleet. A year after their disappearance, Revan and Malak reappeared in known Space, and the galaxy trembled at their return.
[edit] The Second Sith War Begins
Thus began the second Sith War, a conflict that proved even more devastating than Exar Kun's war as even more Jedi fell to the dark side, were killed in battle, or were murdered by specially-trained Sith Assassins. Revan was the greatest military genius the Jedi had ever seen, and the Republic soon discovered it had been through his cunning alone that the Mandalorian Wars had been won. Aware of the threat posed by the forgotten ancient Sith Empire in the Unknown Regions, Revan was careful to preserve the Republic's shipyards for use after he and his apprentice had conquered the galaxy.
Revan's reinvigorated Sith won battle after battle, until a young Jedi Padawan named Bastila Shan came into the fold with her Battle Meditation, a rare and powerful ability of the Force that increased the combat effectiveness of the Republic's forces and attacked the will of enemy combatants, after which point the war became a conflict of attrition. Even with this power, however, the Republic forces knew that they could not hold out forever against the Sith. In a desperate attempt to end the war, the Republic set a trap for Revan and Malak, during which Bastila and a team of Jedi boarded Revan's flagship and managed to corner the Dark Lord on the bridge. As one of the most powerful Sith Lords of all time, it is likely that Revan would have defeated Bastila and the remnants of her Jedi strike force, but Malak chose that moment to attack his master's flagship, attempting to kill both Revan and Bastila at once, and so seize the mantle of Dark Lord and eliminate the greatest threat to the Sith Empire in a single stroke. He fired upon the flagship from a nearby battle cruiser, but was successful in killing neither his master nor Bastila, though the former was all but dead.
Knowing that a Jedi reveres all life, even that of a Sith, Bastila used the Force to save Revan's life, thus forming a powerful bond between the two. In the chaos, Revan, still nearly dead, his mind damaged beyond recovery, was captured by the Jedi. His broken mind was reprogrammed by the Jedi Council to hide the Dark Lord's old identity, while enabling the Jedi to use Revan's subconscious memories to locate the source of the Sith's seemingly endless resources and destroy it.
[edit] Revan Returns to the War
Revan was placed under Bastila's command on the Republic warship Endar Spire. Bastila Shan was a key player in the apparent death of Darth Revan. In fear of her Battle Meditation, Darth Malak's forces managed to pinpoint Bastila's location, where they staged an assault on the Republic forces in orbit of Taris. The Sith quickly occupied the Endar Spire and were able to kill most of the Republic soldiers on-board. One of the survivors, the amnesia-stricken Revan, woke up to the sound of laser-fire and explosions as Trask Ulgo arrived and joined him. The two were able to fight their way through most of the Sith soldiers within the ship, until they passed the bridge, where Trask distracted a Dark Jedi, Darth Bandon, while Revan escaped. Bastila managed to escape to the planet's surface, followed soon after by Revan and fellow Republic soldier Carth Onasi.
Finding Bastila a prisoner of the Black Vulkar swoop gang, Revan staged a bold and harrowing rescue, then quickly escaped from the planet aboard the Ebon Hawk, along with Bastila, Carth, and the crew they had gathered on the planet. Even as they escaped Taris, Malak's fleet began a planetary bombardment, desperate to kill Bastila by any means. The Ebon Hawk fled to the Jedi stronghold of Dantooine, where Bastila convinced the Jedi academy council to retrain Revan in the ways of the Jedi. After completing his formal training, Revan took Bastila and, while investigating a structure of ancient ruins, uncovered the same Star Map he and his apprentice had unlocked years before. Though the Map was incomplete, it pointed the way to its fellows. Only with the combined information of all five Maps, Revan discovered, could the location of a mysterious Rakatan artifact called the "Star Forge" be found. This would be the key to ending a war in which the Republic could hold out no longer.
Revan, Bastila, and their companions journeyed to these worlds, tracing the steps Darth Revan had taken years before. On each planet, the powerful dark side aura of the Star Maps had created perilous conditions that made access to the Maps difficult. Additionally, the crew of the Ebon Hawk found themselves hunted by Sith and bounty hunters, and confronted with the problems of the local populace at every turn.
After discovering the fourth of five Star Maps, Revan and his allies were captured by the Sith. They managed to escape from their holding cells, but, as they fled toward the Ebon Hawk, Revan was confronted by Malak, who revealed to him his former life as the Dark Lord of the Sith. A vicious lightsaber duel ensued, culminating with Bastila's capture by Malak. Revan was forced to deal with Malak's revelation and his loss of Bastila as the quest for the Star Forge was stepped up, until at last it was found in the home system of the ancient Rakata.
After gaining the support of this race, Revan was forced to confront a fallen Bastila. Following weeks of torture at Malak's hand, Bastila had at last given in to her hate, fallen to the dark side, and become the Dark Lord's new apprentice (his original apprentice, a former Jedi named Darth Bandon, had previously been slain by Revan during the search for the Star Maps). Atop an ancient Rakatan temple, Bastila attempted to entice Revan to reclaim his former title of Dark Lord of the Sith. This was the climax of the quest for the Star Forge, and it ended with Revan, once again, making a choice that would change the fate of the galaxy.
[edit] The Redemption of Darth Revan
Revan made the choice of a Jedi, rejecting Bastila's temptation. Enraged, Bastila retreated back to the Star Forge, but Revan and the crew of the Ebon Hawk pursued her as a Republic fleet commenced an assault of its own.
Aboard the Star Forge, Revan faced off against Bastila once again. After defeating her, he attempted to convince her to return to the light side by drawing on the powerful bond of love that had formed between the two during the course of their quest. Finally, Revan again confronted his old friend and apprentice Malak in an epic lightsaber duel as the assault on the Star Forge continued, the Republic fleet now no longer hindered by Bastila's Battle Meditation. During their duel, Malak continually sucked the lifeforce from Jedi held in stasis to replenish his energies, but even this was not enough to defeat Revan. At last, Malak was slain, his life ending in darkness and regret, and the Star Forge was destroyed.
A year after the defeat of Malak and the collapse of the Sith Empire, Revan left the Republic, having remembered the remnants of the ancient Sith Empire he had rediscovered as the Dark Lord and hoping to put an end to the threat it posed before it could attack the weakened Republic. Before he left, Revan bade farewell to the nine comrades who had accompanied him on his quest, knowing that, in the places he had to walk, none whom he loved could accompany him. He entrusted Carth Onasi with the Republic's safety, left the fearlessly loyal Mandalorian Canderous Ordo on the Outer Rim, and said goodbye to Bastila, his one true love.
"It would have been better," Kreia, Revan's former Jedi Master, would later remark, "if he had made her understand. But she was always strong-willed, that one, and did not understand war as Revan did." Then Revan disappeared, leaving the Ebon Hawk with the droids T3-M4 and HK-47 on the edge of Known Space, for he knew he would not need them where he was going. If Revan ever completed his self-appointed mission and returned to the Republic and his waiting friends is unknown.
[edit] Repercussions of the War of the Star Forge
The Jedi Civil War devastated the Republic and rendered it vulnerable to another attack. Revan had believed this would come from the ancient Sith and left to prevent it. In his absence, the next threat to galactic security revealed itself. It struck not from the Unknown Regions, however, but from the shadows. In the heart of the Trayus Academy, the Trayus Core, on the ancient Sith world of Malachor V, an unholy alliance had been forged between Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion, former apprentices of the Sith Lord Darth Traya.
Their new Sith possessed the ability to feed on the Force itself, something Nihilus had learned at the apocalyptic Battle of Malachor. Striking from the shadows, the new Sith killed with only one goal in mind: the complete and utter destruction of the Jedi. They twisted events and planetary situations, causing local conflicts on key Republic planets. These worlds, if left to fall, would mean a quick, destructive end to the Republic. The Jedi Exile, however, was about to return to prevent this by first waking up in a Republic mining facility.
