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"Revan was power. It was like staring into the heart of the Force. Even then, you could see the Jedi he would slay etched on his soul."
Jedi Master Kreia, in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
In the Star Wars universe, Darth Revan is a fallen Jedi and Dark Lord of the Sith. Darth Revan is featured in the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which is set 40 years after the Great Sith War and the fall of Exar Kun, or 3,956 years BBY.
NB: In the game, Revan may be either male or female, but for the purposes of this entry we shall assume, as is canonical, that he was male.
Before the wars
When Revan was first being trained, he was found to be very strong in the Force, as was his close friend Malak, though Revan was undeniably as the stronger. Revan's first Jedi Master was Kreia, though he learned from several others, including Masters Zhar, Dorak, and Kae. After the Jedi Civil War, Kreia was overcome with guilt and confusion about Revan and journeyed to Malachor V, where she was corrupted and became Darth Traya.
The Mandalorian Wars
Nearly 4,000 years before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope, a group of mercenaries known as the Mandalorians began raiding worlds on the edge of the galaxy. The Jedi Order insisted on staying out of the war, but Revan, followed by his best friend, fellow Jedi Malak, left with a force of Jedi Knights to defend the galaxy with the Republic fleet. After a series of battles, Revan and Malak crushed the Mandalorians and won the war, with Revan especially earning the awe and respect of the militaristic Mandalorians, who had served Ulic Qel-Droma, the apprentice of previous Dark Lord Exar Kun, in the Great Sith War. At the final battle of the war, Revan discovered the Trayus Academy on Malachor V, where it is believed he was corrupted by the teachings of the 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 and becoming the new Dark Lord of the Sith. It is there he also discovered secrets that enabled him to turn many Jedi to his Sith cause.
The Star Forge
After his corruption, Revan took ships beyond the known galaxy in search of an ancient artifact known as the Star Forge. For several years prior to the war, Revan and Malak had been researching artifacts in reference to this powerful Star Forge. They discovered that it was a massive space station with the ability to produce an almost limitless number of ships by siphoning power from a nearby star and feeding on the dark side energies imbued in it by its builders. Revan and Malak, now beholden to the dark side, created a massive fleet to destroy the Republic and the Jedi, taking the reins of Exar Kun's decrepit Brotherhood of the Sith and reforming it into a militaristic empire.
The reinvigorated Sith won battle after battle, until a young Jedi named Bastila Shan began using 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. Even with this power, however, the Republic forces knew that they could not hold out forever against the 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 one of the most powerful Sith Lords of all time, 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. In the chaos, Revan, nearly dead, his mind damaged beyond total recovery, was captured by the Jedi. Revan's 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 Star Forge and destroy it.
Revan was enlisted as a soldier in the Republic army and was put on the same ship that Bastila was on. This ship was attacked by the Sith. Revan, Carth and Bastila escaped. Darth Bandon, Malak's apprentice, was one of the sith that boarded the vessel.
Revan found himself on Taris. The Sith blockaded the planet to prevent Bastila from escaping (Malak was unaware that Revan was on the planet, still believing his former master to be dead). Revan and Carth eventually rescued Bastila, befriending Mission, a Twi'lek and Zalbaar, a Wookie, along the way. The Sith decided to destroy the planet's one massive city and presumably glass it to prevent Bastila from escaping. Revan stole the Ebon Hawk ('The fastest ship in the Outer Rim') from Davik Kang, a local crimelord and escaped even as the Sith began attacking the planet from space. In the process of escaping he was seen by Calo Nord, a bounty hunter who later reported what he saw to the Sith and was enlisted by them to kill Revan.
Revan went to Dantooine and was retrained by the Jedi there. He descovered an artifact called a Star Map there. The Star Maps were maps of the ancient Rakata 'infinite empire'. When the Rakata empire fell, they sabotaged the Star Maps to prevent retaliation by the slave races. Ultimately, the Rakatas' work was undone by their own technological genius. All their technology had a self-repairing technology, and in the millenia since the fall of their empire the maps had partially rebuilt themselves. No one map was complete, but by combining the information gained from maps on various worlds formerly in the Rakata empire the location of the Star Forge could be acertained.
The map on Dantooine pointed Revan and his companions to Kashyyk, Tatooine, Manaan and Korriban. They began to visit these worlds. In every case, the powerful darkside aura of the star map had created perilous conditions that made acess to the Star Maps difficult.
In the ensuing quest to locate Star Forge, Revan and his allies were captured by the Sith. During their escape, Revan was confronted by Malak. At the end of their battle, Malak captured Bastila while unlocking the memory of Revan's true history as the former Dark Lord of the Sith. Revan was forced to deal with this revelation as the quest for the Star Forge was stepped up, until at last it was found in the home system of an ancient race, the Rakata, who had once ruled the galaxy with an iron fist.
After gaining the support of this race, Revan was forced to confront a fallen Bastila. Following weeks of torture at Malak's hands, Bastila had at last given in to her hate, fallen to the dark side, and become Malak's new apprentice (his original apprentice, a former Jedi named Darth Bandon, had previously met his demise at Revan's hands). 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 Revan's decision changed the fate of the galaxy.
Dark ending
Accepting her offer, Revan and Bastila struck down the Jedi Jolee Bindo and Juhani, the stain of their blood on the temple stone symbolizing Revan's return to power.
Returning to his starship, the Ebon Hawk, Revan explained the absence of Jolee and Juhani to his stunned party. Shocked by his return to the dark side, Carth Onasi fled, leaving Mission Vao to be mercilessly struck down by Revan. (Alternatively, Revan uses Dominate Mind to force Zaalbar to kill Mission)
Flying to the Star Forge, Bastila used her Battle Meditation to thwart the Republic fleet, allowing Revan to penetrate the depths of the Star Forge to fight with Darth Malak, his old apprentice, for the rulership of the galaxy. Striking Malak down ruthlessly, Revan regained his rightful place as Dark Lord of the Sith.
Using the resources he now commanded as Master of the Star Forge, Revan created an infinite fleet that rolled forth to crush the Republic. Surprisingly, however, Revan soon halted his offensive. It was noted as odd that Revan deliberately avoided striking the Republic's manufacturing facilities in his previous war, and again that he seemingly ended the Star Forge's production of vessels early. Bastila Shan, in a holocron discovered on Korriban, reported that Revan mysteriously vanished one day and told her to wait for her. Without its strong leader, the Forge atrophied and was destroyed. It is assumed that Darth Revan visited all his former strongholds searching for something that is not yet readily apparent. It is known, however, that he headed for the Unknown Regions with the intent of stopping something menacingly powerful, something that was apparently responsible for initially coercing the Mandalorians to invade. Revan's former master, Kreia, suggests that Revan was searching for the original Sith Empire.
Light ending
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.
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 lifeforce from 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 discovered as the Dark Lord, and now sought to correct. 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, and said goodbye to Bastila. "It would have been better," Kreia 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 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.
NB: In the sequel to Knights of the Old Republic, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, both endings are left open as possibilities, the course of events after Malak's death being nearly the same regardless of Revan's choice. Despite this, Lucasfilm has stated that the true, historically canonical ending is the light side choice.
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