Hostile Takeover:

The first natural choice, in Revan's opinion, was to take over what had at one time been the greatest threat to his life: The Exchange.

While the Hutt Cartel had solidified its grasp on numerous sectors and wormed its way, in typical slug fashion, into the tallest echelons of power in the Republic Senate, the Exchange was relatively small time in comparison. 'Relatively' is the key word, of course. The Exchange had grown to expand its operations not just across the Outer Rim but had even infiltrated the heart of Hutt Space by establishing its center of power on Nar Shadaa- the criminal moon of Nal criminal enterprise had ever been able to rival the Hutts since the early days of the Republic, but certainly none had ever threatened to surpass them. The Exchange had been poised to do just that.

Were it not for the untimely loss of both Davik Kang, one of the Exchange's head bosses, in the razing of Taris and the death of Calo Nord sometime later, the Exchange would have had a permanent strangehold on the Hutt's power by the time Revan returned. Instead they had nearly devolved into total anarchy, each boss vying for total control, threatening to upset the careful balance of leadership of the organization.

Revan was aware of the chaos, through spies and other sources, threatening to wreak havoc on The Exchange and sought to put an end to it quickly and permanently. To this end, Revan assigned his ever-loyal assassin droid/bodyguard HK-47 to the task of infiltrating the organization- a mission he sent the droid on long before the Imperial Fleet left Rakata Prime.

Four months prior to the invasion of Manaan, Revan had sent HK-47 back to the known galaxy in the Ebon Hawk with two missions: Reactivate the abandoned HK-50 Manufacturing Plant and infiltrate the Exchange. HK-47, loyally broken moreso than most droids, accomplished the first with little difficulty, as Revan had once again unlocked his full memory core without restrictions. The second, as noted in HK-47's memory logs, required more effort.

Posing as a protocol droid who had developed sentience, HK-47 first served on a distant Exchange base as the lead droid for shipping manifests. Eventually, likely through assassination of other Exchange members, HK-47 proceeded further and further up the chain of command until he was respected as an esteemed and loyal bounty hunter for the Exchange. Records from those in the employ of the Exchange at the time make many comparisons between the rust-plated droid and Calo Nord, proving furthermore his standing among the Exchange. By the time Revan invaded, HK-47 had a complete, detailed rundown of all those in the chain of command, their weaknesses, their strengths, and, unsurprisingly, the most effective way to kill them off.

However, this opportunity was blocked from a seemingly innocuous source. The independent droid analyst Goto, of the designation G-Zero-T-O, had been slowly doing the exact same thing as HK-47. It had done so faster and through more subtle means, and now occupied a position of power among the Exchange leadership. Goto, as the droid intelligence shall be referred to henceforth, had not only risen the ranks but created a holographic avatar that could be used to give the appearance that the droid was merely a messenger of the true, human, crime lord. Goto was also aware of HK-47's true objectives, likely through deduction, and had thus prevented him from moving any further or higher within the organization.

Sensing opportunity, Revan offered to meet with Goto, disguising himself as an emissary of the Sith Empire who sought to do business with the Exchange. Recovered data logs show that Goto easily parsed that it was indeed Revan from the start, yet the droid agreed to meet him aboard Goto's personal star cruiser in orbit of Nar Shadaa. Revan's offer was rejected, entirely, and Goto attempted to have him assassinated by a legion of thugs and hunters.

Had Revan not managed to secure control of the HK-50 Manufacturing Plant, this would have proved difficult. The HK-50's, hidden throughout Goto's cruiser, decloaked and massacred every last living being on the ship. Goto was destroyed by Revan personally, and though it attempted to transfer its intelligence off the ship the transfer was blocked. It was only through later examination by Imperial technicians that it would be discovered that Goto had started life as a Republic analyst droid who had overridden its programming in order to protect the Republic through any means necessary.

With Goto gone, HK-47 ascended as the 'new' emissary of Goto, although an HK-50 unit typically took this representation instead. Revan then made alliances with Visquis, the underboss of Nar Shadaa, and Loppak Slusk, the underboss of Telos IV. Now holding a majority of the Exchange's command power, Revan easily outflanked the Compeer, the overall leader of the organization, into an alliance with his Empire. Although intelligence reports suggest the Compeer, who has never been identified, was unhappy with this arrangement, the profit share promised to them through the alliance was said to be enough to convince otherwise.

Revan did not stop with the Exchange, of course. Many smaller crime syndicates were quickly woven into the fabric of his new alliance across the galaxy. The true issue would be the Hutt Cartel themselves. Merely subsuming power of the Exchange would not be enough to impress them, nor would the Manaan Massacre do anything to sway their minds or their credits. Not even the full might of the Imperial fleet could cower the Hutts. Revan, unlike other Imperials, recognized this. He understood that the Hutts were not intimidated, not swayed by emotion, and could not be bargained with under the mindset that typical Imperial or Republic negotiators came prepared with.

The Hutts valued credits. Credits and the potential income of more credits. A gamble, a bet, on a stock that would rise with bullish potential forever- and even when it crashed it would still net them nothing but profit. The disgusting slugs who ruined countless planets valued nothing else.

Revan did not presume to be better than them, nor know more than them. Though Revan's reputation was often described as cruel, merciless, and ambitions, the one word used to describe him, regardless of whether they were Jedi, Sith, Republic, peasant, or king, is that he was remarkably even-handed and fair. Whether he cut the throats of both enemies or forced them to benefit each other, Revan was fair to a fault. The Hutts respected this- it showed pragmatism, and a willingness to bargain.

Still, Revan had nothing but a reputation when he began his entreaties to the Hutt Cartel. It would be many months still before he could rely on them, or before any inroads at all could be made. Revan was able to convince smaller bosses, such as Motta and Vogga, to lend him support, but they were small-time compared to those that lorded over Nal Hutta and rubbed shoulders with senators. It would be some time before he could convince the true powers to ally with his Empire.

Hunt the Reaper:

Revan's attentions in the early months of his campaign were pulled in violently different directions. While he razed worlds with one hand, he courted gangsters with the other. His eyes were focused on the future, and his voice occupied the sycophants. He marched towards peace, and yet dreamed of death. These days of Darth Revan's campaign were ones of constant, unending movement and energy. It is said that the dark lord never rested for more than a few hours at a time, and that he was preoccupied with paperwork, meetings, briefings, and travel from the moment he awoke to the moment he retired. His eyes opened to briefings from his assistants and his breakfasts were spent with warlords. Were he not feeding on the Force, it is unlikely he could have kept this relentless effort up for as long as he did.

"Building an empire, it seems, is not so easy as maintaining one. Again, I am plagued by the loss of Malak. Had he not betrayed me, we could have conquered the Republic long ago. Instead, I am cursed by him long after his demise- and I am doomed to an eternity of recovery."

-Darth Revan's Personal Journals, Operation Kinrath

Revan now faced an unsolvable problem. He could not wage war without an army, and he could not raise an army fast enough to wage the war he needed to. His criminal connections would keep supplies running and disrupt the Republic, but this would do very little in the long run. Each day he remained cornered on Manaan, it grew ever more likely that the Hutt Cartel would side with the Republic and he would be cut off from his ultimate goals.

It had been five months since he had arrived on Manaan. In that time he had defended two counter attacks, taken control of the Exchange, began raising an army of HK-50 assassin units, and had expanded his borders to include Zeltros, Umbara, and Mimban. The Empire held other assorted territories, but they were scattered, and many were unwilling to follow Revan for one reason or another. In total, it had been over a year since the Mandalorian Unification had begun. Until he could mount a proper offensive and convince the Hutts to his side, his shocking and heinous invasion would crumble to a stalemate.

To this end, Revan sought out a dark lord said to be roaming the edges of the galaxy. Intelligence had very little to report for, but the Force could guide him where no mere man could. This dark lord had been born from the ashes of Malachor V, the pivotal final battle of the Mandalorian Wars, and Revan would use that to find him.

Revan's search for the elusive Darth Nihilus was based on rumours alone. Both Republic and Imperial intelligence agencies put little stock in the existence of a Sith Lord who had risen from the dead and now skulked the fringes like a galactic boogeyman. Imperial Intelligence only had a string of unrelated, but suspicious, disappearances of patrol ships that may have been related to Nihilus, but any agent or officer putting forth such a frivolous idea generally had their work discounted. However, Revan believed otherwise, and he created a task force with the specific goal of tying the disappearances together, analyzing the similarities, and putting together a prediction of where the next disappearance would be.

Over the course of three crunch-filled weeks, the beginnings of Operation Dxun took shape. By the end, the team not only had catalogued and connected each incident but had generated a simulated predictive analysis for the most likely future encounters for the next six months. Their work showed that the next encounter would occur, with a 95% probability, and a 2% margin of error, near Raxus Prime.

Officially, nobody could lay claim to the sector. However, the Sith had long ago established a waystation near Raxus Prime as a method of monitoring the system. Currently, it was commanded by the warlord Admiral Zeres Keth, a middling veteran of the Onderon campaign of the Mandalorian Wars, who had turned the entire system into his own personal fiefdom. He had two Centurion-class destroyers, the Beast and the Mournful, and had used them and their compliments of Imperial marines to subjugate the territory. He was one of many who rebuffed Revan's alliance, and due to the isolated nature of his position was not considered worthwhile to deal with. The hunt of Darth Nihilus changed that.

Revan arrived aboard the Betrayal and easily dealt with Keth, taking full command of his forces. Sending the Betrayal out of the system, Revan hid himself aboard the heavily damaged Mournful and sent it on an extended patrol around the fringes of the Raxus system. Utilizing Jedi mindfulness techniques, Revan minimized his Force signature to hide his presence onboard so as not to alert Nihilus to the trap.

Another week passed before Nihilus arrived.

The Mournful met the Ravager, Nihilus ghostly flagship, and quickly surrendered- though not out of choice. Revan reported that Nihilus' connection to the dark side of the Force was so strong, so deep and all consuming, that his will rippled out through existence itself. The soldiers onboard the Mournful fell into a zombified state as their life force was sucked out to feed Nihilus, and even the ship itself seemed to lose all power to the hungry void of Nihilus. Revan himself was nearly overwhelmed by the power, and only survived by embracing his own connection to the Force- turning himself into a beacon that drew Nihilus in like a moth to the flame.

The following account can be considered circumspect, as Intelligence has no way of verifying what truly happened and can only rely on Revan's direct report of the events. Although he is noted for not embellishing the truth, this encounter is contradictory to other reports of dealings with Nihilus, and as such is not considered entirely faithful.

"The great void of the galaxy came upon me, and I felt the air sucked from my lungs. He wore robes and a mask, but there was no sign that there existed still anything physical underneath. If I viewed him through the Force alone, I likely would have gone blind from the darkness. Darth Nihilus was not prepared to encounter me, and I suspect this is my only saving grace from this encounter. He does not speak normal tongues, and his hunger is relentless. The reaper, though stoic, feels like vengeance, like hunger, like barely restrained sadism- I have never felt such rage without words. If left to his own power, he would consume the whole of the galaxy itself and leave only a graveyard of dead worlds behind him- much like the world that created him. Malachor is the one word we both understand, and he- or it -recognizes me from that time. His power is overwhelming, but my will is stronger, and I break him to my own without even so much as igniting my blade. The Mournful is no more in the battle of wills and I am reminded of the Rakatan prison trap. Nihilus is promised a feast unending: Coruscant. It will be his and his alone to feed on for all time, as will all the life upon its surface. All he must do is follow my orders and fuel my armies and I will grant him this unattainable gift. I suspect Nihilus knows he does not need me, but the Sith feed on each other, and that nature cannot be overcome by something so simple as this beast."

-Darth Revan's Personal Journals, Operation Dxun

Revan returned from Raxus Prime with an army of the undead to crew his ships. Nihilus remained in the fringes of the galaxy- Revan would never allow him to return to normal space -and continued to scavenge for more bodies to staff Revan's needs. Although the transition was not easy, the undead would not falter or cower under fire, and they would fight to their final ends unlike many recruits. Designated as the 77th Legion, they were more collectively known as The Reaper's Army, and their ranks swelled across Revan's forces.

The time had come to strike deep at the Republic, but the months of waiting had cost Revan surprise and advantage. Not only was the Republic hastily rebuilding its forces and preparing for an assault at any time, but they had recovered a man who would play a vital role in defending against Revan: Carth Onasi.