Rakata

"Long ago the Rakata ruled all the known galaxy; all species bowed down to us."

- Keeper Orsaa

The Rakata (also known as the Builders) were a humanoid species with distinctive amphibian features. They were a scientifically advanced race that developed early in galactic history, even developing some early hyperdrive technology. Long term use of the dark side of the Force corrupted their society and turned them into a race of merciless warriors. The Rakata used their potent Force-powered technologies to conquer and enslave every other species they came across throughout their known galaxy. During the reign of their Infinite Empire, they were characterized by their cruelty, savagery, and arrogance. They were known to strip entire planets of their resources, terraform worlds to fit their own shifting needs, kill entire slave workforces, and to eat and defile the bodies of slain enemies.

The Infinite Empire
Five thousand years before the formation of the Galactic Republic, Rakatan civilization was at its peak after the decline of the Celestials. Through the use of dark side fueled technologies such as Force-powered hyperdrive, the Builders had formed the Infinite Empire which dominated known space for thousands of years. However, their hyperdrives could only visit worlds possessing strong force signatures, making their empire have few worlds and much space between each. This allowed for numerous other civilizations to flourish.Many of the most prominent worlds of the Empire were included in this empire, such as, Corellia, Honoghr, Generis, Hijarna, Xo, and Dantooine falling under their dominion. This haphazard nature of their empire meant that loose confederacies of other civilizations managed to develop in the spaces between Rakatan worlds through use of dangerous as well as unpredictable hyperdrive technology.

Their campaign of conquest led to the enslavement of numerous developing species including the Duros, and Selkath, but not humans, as said by the Spider Droid on Dantooine, inside the Ancient Ruins. By transporting these slave species to new worlds, the Rakata were believed to have inadvertently seeded swaths of the galaxy with sentient life. During their expansions, the Rakata came into conflict with two other advanced as well as powerful civilizations; the inhabitants of the Gree Enclave and the extragalactic Kwa. The Infinite Empire managed to force the Gree to their native cluster and nearly exterminated the Kwa. With their victory, the Rakata took Dathomir under their rule and even transported the native Rancors to their homeworld of Lehon as curiosities.

At its height, the Empire governed 500 worlds and its population numbered ten billion Rakatan warriors and one trillion slaves. Among its conquests were the Selkath of Manaan, Wookiees of Kashyyyk, Kumumgah of Tatooine, Noghri of Honoghr, and the natives of the Corellian Sector. The powerful, Force-wielding Rakata may have even displaced the most advanced species of that time period, including the Killiks of Alderaan and the Sharu of the Rafa system, during their meteoric rise to power.

During their period of expansion, the Rakata encountered the Sith species of Korriban. At first, the Rakata were wary and they pretended to ally themselves with the warlord Adas, going so far as to show him how to construct the pyramidal Sith holocron. In time, however, Adas learned that the invaders were bent on conquest. When the two species went to war, he managed to lead the Sith to victory and drive the Rakata from Korriban, but at the expense of his life.

After generations of galactic supremacy, the Infinite Empire began to fracture. Constant tensions between internal factions suddenly erupted into a devastating civil war caused by the Star Forge's corrupting influence. Already weakened by warfare, the Builders were suddenly struck by a deadly plague that spread rapidly through their ranks. Later, it would be theorized that the disease was created by a slave species because it only infected the Builders themselves. The virulent plague nearly exterminated the Rakata and brought the Infinite Empire to its knees, yet the worst was yet to come.

The Rakata suddenly and inexplicably began to lose their connection to the Force. Worse, they were unable to uncover the source of their failing sensitivity. Rakatan scientists came up with numerous speculative hypotheses to explain their worsening condition, but in the end, all of their theories proved incorrect. In time, it would be revealed that a mysterious mutation in the plague had caused it to strip the Builders of their powers.

As the Force users were culled from the overall population at an ever increasing rate, the Rakata lost their ability to manipulate their own technology. Soon, they were forced to rely on inferior devices that were not dependent on the Force. Sensing weakness, slave species rebelled in large-scale insurrections on many member worlds and stemmed the total collapse of the Infinite Empire in 25,200 BBY. The nearly decimated Rakata could do nothing but abandon their conquests and retreat to the safety of their homeworld of Lehon. Some Rakata castoffs survived the fall of the Infinite Empire in the Tion Cluster as late as 25,100 BBY, allowing Tion Humans access to their Force-sensitive technology.

The Lehon system was protected by a disruptor field that could disable any incoming ship's communications and navigational systems. The field, operated from the summit of a Temple on the surface of Lehon, was originally constructed to protect the Star Forge, but it was now used to protect the Rakata themselves.

On their homeworld, Rakatan civilization rapidly faded into obscurity and barbarism. Warlords devastated the surface of the planet with weapons of mass destruction and the majority of the Rakata were forced to flee underground. Years later, when the Rakatans resurfaced, they called themselves Black Rakata, such as The One and his people. Only the descendants of the Priest Caste, the Elders tribe, remained on the surface protected by their ancient temples and enclaves. They were called Red Rakata by the other Rakata tribes. They alone would retain full knowledge of the potent technology and turbulent history of their species. In the following centuries, the Builders were purposely erased from the records of their slave subjects and the Infinite Empire slipped from the pages of galactic history.

Jedi Civil War
More than 20,000 years after the fall of the Infinite Empire, most Rakata had only just begun to reemerge onto the surface, yet the Elders Tribe still thrived within their secluded compound. After long millennia of solitude and contemplation, the Elders desired to destroy their great factory so that they could finally put their bloody past behind them, but there was a problem. They could no longer enter their own Temple of the Ancients, the nexus of their collected knowledge and the key to accessing the Star Forge, because the Force was lost to them.

Darth Revan and Darth Malak's timely arrival in the system gave the Elders a perfect opportunity. Promising to destroy the Star Forge, Revan entered the temple, but he betrayed the Elders' trust and took the space station for himself. Around 3,959 BBY, he harnessed the full power of the Star Forge and began a massive military invasion of the Galactic Republic that would culminate in the Jedi Civil War. Meanwhile, the Rakata were forced to watch their species' actions repeat themselves through the person of Revan, powerless to stop it. Their Temple and Star Forge became the dwellings of dark side users once more.

Yet Revan would return, unlooked-for, three years later and redress that betrayal. A redeemed Revan ended the Sith occupation of the Rakatan temple and deactivated the planet's disruptor field so that the Star Forge could be destroyed by a Republic fleet. He also aided the Rakata's efforts to regain their lost Force sensitivity which they believed would eventually allow them to rejoin the galactic community.

Post-Civil War
After the Jedi Civil War the Republic maintained an outpost in the Lehon system, but did not bother to admit the Rakatans into the Republic. Because all records of the Infinite Empire were lost to time, some were skeptical of the notion that the seemingly primitive beings had once ruled hundreds of worlds and dominated the galaxy. A number of the Rakata took to the stars and left their brethren behind on Lehon, who died out within a few generations due to the limited gene pool remaining on their remote and isolated homeworld. By the time Darth Bane arrived on Lehon in search of Darth Revan's holocron (c.1,000 BBY), the planet was completely devoid of sentient life. The few Rakata that remained in the galaxy kept to the Unknown Regions, in a place known as the Rakatan Archipelago. There, on a scattering of planets, the Rakata tribes continued their ancient struggles. While most tribes were primitive and were restricted to a single planet, some had managed to rediscover the secrets of space flight; two tribes had even begun construction on small orbital factories similar in function to the Star Forge.

Technology
The Rakata's rise to power was fueled by a range of advanced devices that married the Force to high technology. The Builders were rumored to have been one of the first species to develop energy shields and were credited with the invention of the earliest form of the interstellar hyperdrive. The Rakatan drive, however, was a severely limited device due to the fact that it relied on the Force itself to function. It was only capable of perceiving and traveling to worlds with a significant Force signature (i.e. a high degree of native life). As such, the number of worlds under the Rakata's thumb was limited, though diverse and far flung.

Star maps were placed on conquered worlds as a lasting monument to the power and scope of the Infinite Empire. Like many Rakatan technologies, the Star maps were self-sustaining and capable of regeneration. Terraforming machines were also frequently used to modify a conquered world's climate, geology, flora, and fauna to meet the Builder's needs. In so doing, the Rakata transformed entire worlds and greatly influenced the development of native species. One of the Rakata's most interesting inventions was a "mind prison", a peculiar box that trapped the mind of its victim. The only way for a prisoner to escape (a flaw discovered by a Rakata imprisoned for an exceptionally long time) was to take over the body of the next being to foolishly open the box. Revan very nearly suffered this fate after playing with one such device, but after winning a game of riddles with the Rakatan captive, he was released. Unfortunately, he could not figure out how to save the prisoner from bondage without imprisoning a replacement.

A virtually endless stream of supplies was needed to expedite the expansion of the Rakatan empire. To this end, the Rakata created the Star Forge in 30,000 BBY. The Star Forge was the centerpiece of the Rakatan empire and the most advanced of their technological innovations. It was a massive space station fueled by the Rakata system's star and built for the mass production of war hardware. It alone was capable of meeting the entire Empire's demand for starships and war droid construction, yet such efficiency came at a terrible price. The Star Forge was, in part, powered by the dark side of the Force and was, therefore, highly corruptive. Rakatan scientists and engineers allowed the Star Forge to have access to a near-limitless supplies of energy because they believed that they could control it, but they were wrong. As a semi-living entity, the Star Forge gorged on dark side energies and with time, it began to feed itself by manipulating its own creators. Later historians grew to believe that the Rakata had not invented the hyperdrive, but had taken it from the technology of the Celestials who had predated their Empire by several millennia.

Behind the scenes
Rakata is the name of a volcano on the island of Krakatau. After the destruction of Krakatau, it's now the name of the island that was once part of Krakatau.

'Hyperspace aliens' is a fanon nickname of the otherwise unnamed aliens who according to Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, gave the Hyperspace technology to Humans. According to The New Essential Chronology, the Rakata were the original creators of the hyperdrive. The Corellians, Duros, and various other civilizations adopted and modified it for their own needs after the fall of the Infinite Empire. However, it is notable that the book refers to the mysterious Celestials separately from the Rakata.

In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, the player can find a Rakatan Band which has a description that reads:"'This simple device improves the wearer's ability to perceive the reality of their surroundings. The origin behind the item's name is unknown, but rumor has it that these bands were constructed as a defense against an ancient species of alien deceivers, who made absurd claims of dominance concerning their role in the galaxy. It is said this species of lying primitives went so far as to take credit for almost every major event in galactic history since the discovery of the hyperdrive.'" The statement above obviously implies that the Rakata made some contact with the greater galaxy between the Battle of Rakata Prime in the year 3,956 BBY and the Jedi Exile's involvement in the Dark Wars circa 3,951 BBY.

The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia disagrees with most sources and claims that the Rakata and their culture were completely wiped out by the Galactic Republic.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi
 * Shadows and Light
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
 * Timeline 8: The Jedi Civil War
 * Star Wars: The Old Republic
 * Darth Bane: Path of Destruction
 * Star Wars: Republic 68: Armor
 * Star Wars Dark Times 15: Blue Harvest, Part 3
 * Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption
 * Riptide
 * Millennium Falcon