The Fall of the Rakata Pt. 1
The Infinite Empire fell (circa. 25,200 BBY) due to a variety of reasons. The exact history of the Rakata and the events leading up to their fall could be the subject of another book entirely, but here I will give a brief explanation.
The main causes of the Empire's fall were threefold. First, after bringing every other galactic civilization to their knees, the Rakata turned on each other. This infighting spread across multiple levels of the Empire with the outer planets fighting the inner planets, and the inner planets locked in a series of civil wars. Second, capturing Rakata Prime, or Lehon, as the planet is often called, was the goal of nearly every powerful inner faction. The reason for this was to both control the center of government as well as to control the massive Star Forge. This goal led to a series of coups and multiple emperors further destabilizing Rakatan power. Finally, the primary reason that the Rakata vanished from memory is because they were infected with a mysterious virus that caused them to lose their sensitivity to the Force. Rakatan technology was dependant entirely upon its wielders ability to use the Force. Without the Force, the Rakata lost control of their own technology and reverted to primitivism.
As mentioned earlier, the Rakata were fragmented from a series of civil wars. The exact conflicts are too numerous to go into exact detail, so it would be more beneficial to just trace their effects. By about 25,000 BBY, the Infinite Empire had no stable government. Rakata Prime was engulfed in a perpetual civil war and the outer systems were for the most part autonomous. Around this time, Coruscant, which had always been a fringe planet in the Infinite Empire, began to expel the invaders from the Core. Additionally, revolts sprang up all across the galaxy, such as on Manaan, Eshan, and Seoul.
A note on Coruscant in relation to the Infinite Empire:
After being devastated by the Celestials during the War in Heaven (circa. 100,000 BBY), Coruscant was rendered an inhospitable waste. It likely would have remained that way and humanity would have died out had it not been for the intervention of the Gree, a former Celestial slave species, somewhere between 90,000 and 75,000 BBY. The Gree built massive structures upon Coruscant called 'Urban Monads' using their advanced technology. These Monads were large buildings which contained their own self-contained ecosystem. From the ones that still remain, archaeologists were able to discover a great deal of what life was like on early Coruscant.
The Urban Monads were built out of mostly permacrete and had molecularly bonded foundations. They were powered by long lasting fusion generators, some of which are believed to still run. These Monads were originally built to house the human species so that they would not go extinct. They were fully autonomous, containing massive underground plantations that filtered out chemicals from the noxious Coruscant atmosphere to turn into water and nutrients to be used in agriculture. These plants were grown using artificial lights powered by the fusion generator and tended to by small fleets of robots. The plants grown were high in nutrients and they fed humanity. However, for all the advanced technology left behind, the Gree did not leave any weapons or means to escape Coruscant. It's as if the Gree wanted to preserve humanity without giving them a head start in galactic expansion. Beyond preservation of the species, it is unknown why the Gree did this, as they disappeared soon after and seemed to take no interest in Coruscant after that. Could this be an act of benevolence in an attempt to heal a burned out galaxy? Perhaps the Gree felt a sense of responsibility and wanted to use the Celestials technology for good. Or perhaps they had their own ulterior motive. It is impossible to tell so long after the fact.
In these early years, humanity lived in the gardens in a state of peace. There were so many Monads and they were so large that any survivors who were lucky enough to find them would have enough resources to support many generations of extended family members. Early humans lived in and populated these Monads, and with a steady source of food, early humans were able to devote their resources to the arts and sciences.
However, this state of peace was not to last as the Monads were built to be a temporary home. At an unknown point, the atmosphere began to clear of noxious chemicals and so the automated agriculture of the Monads shut down. The following food shortages caused massive civil wars between clans as they sought to control their dwindling food sources. Eventually the Monads became dead, and humanity moved outward into the surrounding land. Farming was difficult as most of Coruscant's biosphere was still dead, but they managed to survive.
It is at this stage that humanity became nomadic and semi-nomadic. Scholars debate furiously as to what counts as a nomad and what counts as a semi-nomad, but the point is that they moved around a lot following animals and did some farming on the side. However, food was so scarce that the total population never rose to the point of supporting any serious levels of civilization.
It wasn't until circa 28,500 BBY that things changed when the Rakata invaded. At this point, humanity had begun to build a series of small, mostly independent nation states. The Rakata found humanity, but instead of wiping out the species, they made a covenant. The Rakata saw that these early humans had developed to the point of having complex societies which meant that it may be possible to use them as slaves. The Rakata said that they would give humanity the technology needed to travel the stars in exchange for handing over slaves every so often. Now, the Rakata could easily have taken slaves whenever they wanted, but they wanted to stimulate human organization and cultural evolution. By doing this and giving them steadily more advanced technology, the Rakata could grow a vassal state. However, the Rakata did not hand over the hyperdrive as the primitive humans could not operate it anyway, as humans were not naturally force sensitive, and more advanced forms of Rakatan technology required force sensitivity to operate.
This plan worked well. Humanity grew in power, but due to lack of the hyperdrive, they were unable to gain a foothold of galactic territory and threaten the Rakata. However, Coruscant was not much of a vassal state as the Rakata barely visited. By 26,000 BBY, the Rakata almost never appeared. Humanity had grown proud. By the time the Rakata returned, Coruscant declared rebelion. This rebellion was taken up on many other planets throughout the galaxy. The Rakata were too weakened by civil war to put up with these many rebellions, and the Rakatan Empire shrunk drastically.
Now back to the story:
Each faction fought the other and millions if not billions of rakatan warriors, civilians, and slaves perished. With the constant warfare, traditional strategies broke down as wars of attrition were only ended by sudden and violent civil upheaval or coups. The one artifact that could make a difference was the Star Forge.
A note on the Star Forge:
The Star Forge was a massive space station designed to harvest raw material from a nearby star to turn into weapons. The station itself was powered by fusion and hypermatter generators, and it used massive tractor beams to draw raw material up from the star into a type of processing plant. As the plasma was drawn from the star, it cooled to create huge arcs of raw material. This raw material would then be sorted and processed until it was ready to be molded into whatever designs were needed. These designs were stored on the station's computer and the station would then use multi dimensional printing technology to construct weapons atom by atom. The station could produce simple blaster weapons, droids, shields, and even ships.
But this is not the only feature of the Star Forge. The factory, was powered by the dark side, as all advanced Rakatan technology was. The entire construct was a nexus of darkness which slowly corrupted its users. Part of this darkness was built into it simply by virtue of it being constructed by the Rakata, but it was also said to be haunted by the souls of the thousands of slaves who were forced to build it.
Construction on the Star Forge was thought to have begun circa. 30,000 BBY, although this is a very rough estimate and it could be the case that it was built much, much later. The Forge was originally simply a massive shipyard. As the Rakata expanded outward from Rakata Prime, the surface itself was used for agriculture and living space while the ships were constructed in orbit. Eventually, these shipyards were clustered together into one, large orbiting complex. Technology used to harvest material from stars was developed much later. Originally this technology was used on small stations, but eventually a much larger one was constructed as a way to ferry material to the Forge.
This complex of structures was destroyed and rebuilt several times, but eventually it reached a point where instead of simply rebuilding it, the Rakata completely recreated it. This new version of the Forge was constructed using technology recovered from the ancient Kwa and Gree. It is thought that from the Kwa, the Rakata advanced the Forge's force-amplifying power, and from the Gree, the Rakata recovered the technology needed to create objects on an atomic level.
To create this new structure, all that remained of the old was organized and stacked on top of each other. A massive tractor beam was installed around the core. To construct the station on each level, armies of slaves were pressed into service. The Rakata literally worked them to death, and their dying life force was siphoned into the gears and circuits of the factory. The factory grew and grew. It seemed to amplify the feelings of aggression in its builders causing them to be even more brutal.
Upon its final completion sometime around 26,000 BBY, it was immediately put to use to produce vast armadas for the Rakata. It became a symbol of power, and the capital of the Empire was moved to its control center. However, it seemed to corrupt whoever owned it. Emperors would become more aggressive, thinking that they were invincible, only to find themselves stabbed in the back by a lieutenant. As the wars raged, every faction wanted the Forge. As a result, nobody dared to launch a direct attack on it for fear of destroying it. Instead they usually took it in more subtle or quick ways. When battles raged around it, each navy sought to conquer Rakata Prime for that a blockade could be installed around the station. The factory was like an animal. It fed upon the dark side of its owners until their deaths nourished it. Then it switched hands and it slowly drove the Rakatan kings that had conquered it insane until it was time to feed again.
Occasionally, the factory was damaged, but it was always built back even stronger than before. Through the many conflicts, its warships were produced, spreading its dark influence. This cycle continued until the Rakata were finally overthrown. Upon the death of their empire, the factory went dormant, waiting for the next warlord to start up its engines and wreak havoc upon the galaxy.
