Jedi Civil War

Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith during the Jedi Civil War

The Jedi Civil War is a conflict that took place in 3,959–3,956 BBY. 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, and was quite possibly the most destructive conflict of that entire era.

Origins

The birthplace of Darth Revan and the cause of the war

Nearly 4,000 years before the Galactic Civil War, a warrior race known as the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders began raiding worlds on the edge of the galaxy. The Old Republic failed to respond at first, feeling that the destruction of a few remote territories was nothing compared to the war that would ensue should they get involved. Nevertheless, when the Mandalorian raided Republic space through three invasion corridors, the Republic was forced to act, and the Mandalorian Wars began. The Jedi Order insisted on staying out of the war, sensing that the force that had motivated the Mandalorians was something sinister. However, a Jedi Knight named Revan, followed by his best friend and fellow Jedi Malak, left with a force of rebellious Jedi Knights to defend the galaxy. After a series of battles, Revan and Malak crushed the Mandalorians and won the war, ending with a bloody battle at the planet of Malachor V. Revan truly earned the awe and respect of the militaristic Mandalorians, who had served Ulic Qel-Droma, the apprentice of the previous Dark Lord of the Sith, Exar Kun, in the Great Sith War. Either during or sometime before the final battle of the war, Revan discovered the Trayus Academy on Malachor V, where he was corrupted by the teachings of the ancient Sith. Malachor V was an ancient storehouse of the Sith that was steeped in a darkness so great that it almost destroyed Revan, but he survived and overpowered it: but only by giving in to the dark side of the Force and becoming the new Dark Lord of the Sith. Some, such as Kreia, would later postulate that Revan did not ‘fall’ to the dark side, rather embraced it in the hope of saving the galaxy from the ancient Sith Empire. There he also discovered secrets that enabled him to turn many Jedi to his Sith cause. Shortly after winning the war, Revan, Malak, and the Jedi and Republic forces who followed them disappeared from Known Space.

The Jedi Council was surprised at Revan and Malak's rebellious actions, for they had suspicions that sinister forces were behind the Mandalorians' sudden offensives. Though they did not know it, the ancient Sith Empire, believed dead for almost a thousand years, was in fact hiding in the Unknown Regions, waiting for the right moment to return. When the Jedi Civil War began, the council blamed it on Revan and Malak, and their transformation into Sith. But for those who went to battle, the origins of the war lay in the unyielding teachings of the Jedi Order, the same teachings that drove the Jedi Council to remain on Coruscant and do nothing while the Republic fought alone.

Prelude to war

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The Star Forge, superweapon of the Infinite Empire and the Sith Empire

After their apparent disappearance, Revan and Malak returned to Dantooine, where Revan, using secrets he had learned on Malachor V, unlocked a structure of primeval Rakatan 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, and Revan and Malak, their Jedi ideologies warped by the dark powers they had uncovered on Malachor V and Korriban, became the new Lords of the Sith. Taking the names Darth Revan and Darth Malak, the two friends took the role of master and apprentice, with Malak assuming the lesser role in grudging acknowledgement of Revan’s strength. Revan and Malak, now beholden to the dark side, created a massive fleet to destroy the Republic and the Jedi, reforming the Republic forces who followed them into a militaristic empire and using 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.

The war begins

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The banner of the Sith Empire

Thus began the Second Sith War, a conflict that proved even more devastating than Exar Kun's war, as still more Jedi fell to the dark side, were killed in battle, or were murdered by specially-trained Sith Assassins than in the entire previous conflict. Revan was the greatest military genius the Jedi had ever seen, and it had been through his cunning alone that the Mandalorian Wars had been won, as the Republic soon discovered.

Coming to his side were numerous high-ranking Republic traitors, including Admiral Saul Karath, Mon Halan, and General Derred, each bringing significant military material, naval vessels, and troops fanatically loyal to Revan. 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. His reinvigorated Sith won battle after battle, until a young Jedi Knight 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.

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Darth Malak, the new Dark Lord

Even with this power, however, the Republic forces knew that they could not hold out forever against the seemingly infinite 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 a powerful Sith Lord, 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, and still following her orders to capture rather than kill Revan, Bastila used the Force to save Revan's life, thus forming a powerful Force 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 apparently endless resources and destroy it.

A Star Map

Revan returns to the war

The reprogrammed Revan was enlisted as a soldier in the Republic army and placed under Bastila's command on the Republic warship Endar Spire. Malak, thinking his master dead, devoted all his forces to the hunt for Bastila. In orbit over the world of Taris, the Endar Spire was intercepted by a Sith fleet and destroyed. 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 Enclave council to retrain Revan in the ways of the Jedi. After completing his formal training in mere weeks, Revan went with 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,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 Star Map, 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 this 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.

The redemption of 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.

The end of the war

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 life-force from captive 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.

Repercussions of the Jedi Civil War

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One of the possible faces of the Exile, hero of the post-war

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 for the Sith Empire, hoping to find a way 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 triumverate 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. A Jedi Exile, however, was about to return to prevent this...

Battles

• Battle of Foerost
• Bombing of Telos IV
• Various battles
• Battle resulting in the capture of Darth Revan
• Battle of Taris
• Devastation of Taris
• Attack on Dantooine
• Battle of Rakata Prime

The following battles were fought after the war, in 3,951 BBY, during local post-Jedi Civil War conflicts:

• First Battle of Dantooine
• First Battle of Onderon
• Second Battle of Onderon
• Battle of Telos IV
• Destruction of Malachor V

Notable figures

Galactic Republic

• Jolee Bindo
• Forn Dodonna
• Dvakvar Grahrk
• HK-47
• Juhani
• Vrook Lamar
• Lelin-Dor
• Zhar Lestin
• Carth Onasi
• Canderous Ordo
• Revan
• Bastila Shan
• Sunry
• T3-M4
• Vandar Tokare
• Mission Vao
• Trask Ulgo
• Yusanis
• Zaalbar

Sith Empire

• Azkul
• Yuthura Ban
• Darth Bandon
• Derred
• Gann
• Mon Halan
• HK-47
• Elassa Huros
• Saul Karath
• Lashowe
• Darth Malak
• Atton Rand
• Darth Revan
• Bastila Shan
• Varko
• Dak Vesser
• Uthar Wynn

Appearances

• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Sources

• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (First identified as Jedi Civil War)
• The New Essential Chronology