Ch. 6: The Sith- Killik War

To understand the Sith- Killik War, it is necessary to understand a third group, the Rakata, in addition to the Killiks.

The Rakata and Killiks:

The Rakata were a species of force-sensitive amphibious humanoids from the planet Rakata Prime who are famous for building the artefact known as the Star Forge.

The Rakata were likely discovered and trained in the ways of the Force by another species known as the Kwa. The Kwa should not concern us at the moment, but it should be noted that through them the Rakata obtained much of their technology and knowledge about the Force. However, unlike the Kwa who were similar to Jedi in their philosophies, the Rakata were far more like the Sith.

It is unknown when the Rakata were discovered, but it is sometime between 40,000 and 35,000 BBY. They were taught the ways of the Force but after seeing their true nature, the Kwa abandoned them. The Rakata however did not descend into anarchy and instead they combined their might and, using the technology of the Kwa, took to the stars. It is probable that the first species that they encountered was the Killiks.

The Killiks are an insectile species, who are actually a menagerie of similar species merged together into one by advanced genetic splicing. The original insectile stock likely evolved on Alderaan over a million years ago. Because of their strange genetics, the Killiks come in many shapes and sizes. They were likely created in their present form by the Celestials and used as their main source of slave labor and the Killiks are extremely fast growing and single minded allowing them to be perfect expendable soldiers and laborers. The most unusual feature of the Killiks is the ability for them to create 'joiners'. Killiks communicate through a variety of phonemes, sounds, and electrical impulses. These phonemes, with prolonged exposure, can cause other sentient species to acquire mental patterns similar to those of the Killiks. After a while, the sentient starts to behave like a Killik. These people are called 'joiners'. For force-sensitives, the effect is even more unusual. A force-user who becomes a joiner begins to share an intense force bond with the Killik hive. The average Killik midichlorian count is slightly higher than that of the average human, but the Killiks are not, in themselves, very force sensitive. They do however form extremely powerful force bonds. This allows the joiner to draw on their combined force sensitivity to greatly enhance the joiner's own power.

It is possible for this process to happen in reverse as well. If a large enough number of force-sensitives become joiners, the colony can become mildly force-sensitive as well and thanks to the transmission of information via bonds, if one is trained, they are all trained. This process is magnified when the force-sensitive joiners are in the presence of powerful force nexuses. The force flows from the powerful nexus into the joiners and from the joiners into the colony. It is believed that this is how the Celestials were able to use the Killiks as more effective laborers. They would either force other Celestials to become joiners or force their force-sensitive slaves to. The Killiks would then build massive structures or fight for the Celestials.

In their natural state, that is to say without any joiners, the Killiks are primitive. They are somewhat sentient, but most of their memories are communal and they make no difference between myth and reality. They subsist primitively on whatever planet they are on and rarely move offworld. In their natural state, they are also very communal rather than individualistic. After the Celestials fractured, the Killiks returned to this state.

It is likely that when the Rakata discovered the Killiks sometime around 36,000 BBY, they were still in this state. However, the force-sensitive Rakata became joiners and the Killik colonies began to become industrialized. Over the years, the Rakata and Killiks experienced and population growth and spread to other worlds rich in resources. It is also likely that sometime later the Rakata discovered blueprints for ancient Celestial technology still locked away in the Killik subconscious which they then used to build incredible feats of technology. It is also believed that around this time the Rakata came into contact with the Esh-kha, another species used as joiners.

Around 34,000 BBY, the Celestials came into contact with the main remnants of the Celestials. They went to war in one of the most brutal conflicts of galactic prehistory: The Celestial- Rakata War.

The Celestials technology was more advanced, but they just could not compete with the reproductive and industrial might of the Rakata-Killik war machine. However, it was not a simple defeat. What made the war particularly bloody was the fact that the Esh-kha betrayed the Rakata and joined the Celestials. Why this happened is unknown, but it is likely that the Esh-kha were fed up with the Rakata and were lured by the dream of possessing valuable Celestial technology. This caused the Killik colonies to schism. Sometime during the war, the Killiks abandoned many of their homeworlds, including Alderaan.

The Rakata and Celestial war machines ground against each other forming a stalemate. Billions of Killiks were thrown at each other for hundreds of years. The Rakata had to resort to making unusual alliances to win. Using ancient Celestial maps programed into the Killiks, the Rakata spread out into the unknown Regions. Eventually they found what came to be known as the Hollowers of Beings and the Eaters of Worlds.

The Hollowers of Beings are thought to refer to a single entity: the Celestial monster Abeloth. This powerful force entity was known to take control of beings and use them to manipulate empires. The Eaters of Worlds are thought to refer to a single, even more dangerous entity: the Mnggal-Mnggal. Created by the Celestials as an out of control experiment, the Mnggal-Mnggal is a being consisting of grey ooze that reproduces by consuming other life. It is believed to be able to be able to destroy entire planets given enough time. It is said that a single drop can end a species. Together, these two beings helped contribute to the Celestials fall from galactic power, and again, they were brought back by the Rakata to finish the job. Abeloth was able to infect the Killiks minds while the Mnggal-Mnggal consumed their bodies. The Celestials, being dependant on them for support, were annihilated. As a final coup de grace to the Celestials, as well as to wipe out their dangerous allies, the Rakata were able to engineer a ritual that was able to cause the Celestial homestar to go supernova. The reason that they could not just do this to begin with was because of the Celestial and allied military forces. Once their armies were down, the Rakata were able to plow in and strike the final blow sometime around 33,500 BBY.

The supernova did not completely destroy Abeloth or the Mnggal-Mnggal as they were able to retreat, but enough of Abeloth's hosts and the Mnggal-Mnggal ooze were destroyed to prevent them from spreading. In addition, the Rakata were sure to eliminate them wherever they were spotted. The Celestials went extinct, however many of their advanced war droids were able to live on in the form of the Silentium droid species. Similarly, the Esh-kha were able to raid their technology and become a dominant galactic power apart from the Rakata. For the Rakata, they realized their dependence on the Killiks and made sure to kill all joiners and strand the Killiks on their home planets. The Rakata and Esh-kha eventually waged a series of wars of extinction against each other after the Celestial- Rakata War. These wars finally ended around 31,000 BBY with the annihilation of the Esh-kha, although the Rakata were almost extinct by the end of the war. The result of these seemingly endless wars of annihilation resulted in their section if the galaxy being burned and any species reduced to primitivism with no memories of what came before.

Meanwhile, thanks to the Rakata, the Killiks had a taste of organization. Left alone, their hive minds continued to grow and develop. Eventually they were able to reach spacefairing status and they sought to once again colonize the Galaxy. This is when they encountered the Sith.

The Invasion:

The Killik invaded Korriban around 30,000 BBY bringing an end to the tribalism that marked the Age of the Gods. The Killiks sought to make the Sith into a new joiner species as they were all force-sensitive. The Killiks learned from Sith teachings and the Sith gained spacefairing Killik technology. The actual invasion wasn't much of a war. The primitive Sith may have tried to resist, but the superior technology and numbers of the Killiks foiled any ideas of driving off the invasion. However, many Sith resented this reversal of the power balance.

Their chance came when the Killik majority was found by the Rakata. The Rakata at this point had long since anihilated the Esh-kha and were now the dominant power of the Galaxy. After the war, the Rakata did not take too kindly to anyone else vying for galactic dominance. The Rakata now waged a bloody war of extinction against the Killiks, thus beginning the Rakata- Killik War. (30,000 BBY) Killik worlds were annihilated left and right resulting in any survivors retreating to the unknown regions. At this time there were several Killik Sith who were off Korriban and who participated in the war and afterwards were scattered, but most Sith took this opportunity to turn on the Killiks resulting in the Sith- Killik War. (circa. 30,000 BBY)

Because of the weakened state of the Killiks, the Sith were able to win. The main results of this war are twofold: First, the Sith become far more organized. Before the war, the Sith were a collection of warring tribes and nation states, after, while far from being strong and centralized, the Sith at least have a planetary government that is working together. The threat that the Killiks posed caused the Sith to turn from fighting each other to fighting the invaders. Second, and most importantly, the Sith obtain advanced Killik technology. From the Killiks, the Sith obtain ships with interplanetary capabilities, hyperdrives, and other equipment for colonization. In a wave, the Sith spread out across local space. At first, they leave home to wage war against the Killiks, afraid that if left to their own devices the Killiks would reproduce and come back. The war becomes an extermination campaign. The Sith are able to kill off all the Killiks on surrounding planets, and take over their worlds. In this first wave of expansion, planets such as Ziost, Krayiss II, and Malachor were colonized. Eventually these systems would form into alliances. Thus begins the Age of First Empires.

There is however one more major result of the war, one that is not readily apparent from the point of view of the Sith people at large. That is, the Rakata were able to capture the Sith joiners. This is important as while the Rakata were ignorant as to the location of the Sith homeworld, they knew that the Sith existed. It is thought that they experimented on these captured subjects and from them obtained lengthy records of Sith genetic information.