The Legacy of Contispex - A Grimdark Star Wars Timeline V2

[AstralFists]

The Legacy of Contispex
"In the grim darkness of a time long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, there is only war"


Chapter 1: Galactic Prehistory

"The Rakata are pestilence upon the galaxy that, to our shame, we, the Celestials, unleashed." - The Last Celestial
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In the beginning, before the rise of the Galactic Imperium, before the races and civilizations that would come to inhabit it, there was the Skyriver Galaxy, born from a explosion of gas, dust, and energy, it would eventually through billions and billions of years come to house millions upon millions of species, many of whom would rise beyond their non-sentient brethren and form civilizations, some even eventually taking to the stars, it is one of these spacefaring species that the Celestials rose to prominence.

An ancient and wise race, the Celestials would come to dominate the galaxy, building many great feats of engineering, such as the Corellia System, and the Maw, along with this, they have an extreme connection to the Force, a metaphysical energy hailing from Hyperspace, an immaterial dimension both parallel and opposite to the material realm, it is sustained and shaped by the sentient beings within the Skyriver Galaxy, all while shaping the material realm through Force-Sensitives, beings with a connection to the Force, as well as Nexus Worlds, entire worlds with a connection to the Force.

As sentient species develop and become more advanced, the more prominent beliefs, emotions, and concepts are personified and made manifest in Hyperspace as deities representing and embodying them, the most powerful and prominent gods are known as the Force Triad, consisting of The Son, or Bogan, which represents aggression and violence, The Daughter, or Ashla, which represents passiveness and peace, and The Father, or Mortis, which represents balance and keep the two in place, the domains within the Force occupied by Bogan and Ashla are known as being the Light and Dark Sides of the Force respectively.

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It is through the Force Triad that the Celestials received the belief of balance in the Force, to them, any sort of imbalance in the Force, either towards the Light or Dark Side, would lead to great calamity for the galaxy, to that end, they created the Ascendant Races, races that are to carry out the Celestial's tasks of maintaining balance in the Force should they be wiped out, these Ascendant Races, includes the Kwa and the Gree, two races that inherited their creator's extreme force connection, the Killiks, the race inheriting the Celestial's engineering mastery, and the Rakata, which are made with the Dark Side of the Force and are made to be elite warriors.

Unfortunately, the extinction the Celestials feared came in the form of the race only known as the Eaters of the Force, beings that feeds on and whose entire existence pose threat to the Force and that have waged war against the Celestials in the attempt to feed on the Force they harbour, the battle was fierce and spanned the entire galaxy, at the end, the Celestials and their creations won, having shattered the Eaters of the Force and scattering the remaining shards in various places in the galaxy, one of the, being Abeloth, the self-proclaimed Destructor, however, in the process, the Celestials are rendered virtually extinct, leaving the fate of the galaxy to their creations.

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And it was so that the galaxy moved form the war, with the Kwa, Gree, Killiks and Rakata now becoming its masters, continuing their creator's philosophy and goal of maintaining balance in the Force, however, in the Celestial's absence, the Rakata's Dark Side nature starts to develop in ways they could not have foreseen.

The more the Rakata lasted, the more their Dark Side start to take over them, making them more and more depraved, it is not long before they reject the principle of balance outright, instead preferring to perform mass blood sacrifices to obtain certain Dark Side gifts, or torturing other sentient beings through entechment to power their machines, their fellow Ascendant Races upon seeing this, attempts to save the galaxy from their rampage by waging war against the Rakata, in return, the Rakata wiped them out and continue on with their conquest.

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For many thousands of years, the Rakata were unstoppable, conquering world after world, the inhabitants of the world conquered were either sold into slavery, sacrificed to bolster the Rakata's abilities, placed in life or death situations to provide entertainment for the Rakata, or served as tortured flesh batteries for the Rakata's many technological works, however, as Rakatan dominance persists, a new force rises in the Force.

Starting out as a rogue aspect of Bogan, the Dark Side God Typhojem have come to grow so much in power due to the Rakata's rampage that he split off from Bogan, where Bogan embodies passion, anger and violence, Typhojem embodies hatred, suffering, cruelty and torture, he sustains off and gets pleasure from the pain and suffering of the galaxy, which was being provided in plenty by the Rakata, however, Typhojem's greatest boon would come at the expense of the Rakata and would be remembered as the greatest catastrophe in Galactic history.

Typhojem, after have acquired enough power, attempted to usurp the gods in the most violent and depraved acts of power possible, viciously slewing entire pantheons of Gods, eating their metaphysical flesh and drinking their metaphysical blood, all while swallowing up vast seas of souls for them to be tortured, the Force Triad, seeing it coming, attempts to stop his rampage across Hyperspace, however, by the time they do succeed in stopping him, it is already too late, as this much imbalance in the Force, in such a short amount of time, would come to spell calamity for the galaxy

So much of the Dark Side of the Force have been gathered and concentrated by the Rakata that the very empire they have built violently implodes onto itself, as a millions upon millions of Force Nexuses started appearing throughout the territory they controlled, the largest one having popped up in their own homeworld, which would later be known as the Eye of Terror, so many Force Nexuses start popping up that they all merge and congeal into one giant Force Nexus that wraps around the core region of the Rakatan Empire, as the very barrier between reality and Hyperspace become all but nonexistent in the region, the region would later be known as the Segmentum Umbrum, or what would later be known colloquially, the Unknown Regions.

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The remaining Rakata that survived the initial calamity are not long for this world, for the collapse of their empire leaves them at the mercy of whatever new horrors appears of the galaxy, the Hutts, beings that derive pleasure and sanity from the agony and suffering of other beings, starts terrorizing the eastern portions of the galaxy, while the Sith, beings that views empathy and mercy as being concepts foreign to them and that were at one point enslaved by the Rakata themselves, have practically stolen whatever is left of the Rakatan Empire from them, in the Rakata's own hubris, they have caused their own extinction.

But it is not just the Rakata that suffered, virtually every race have suffered during what would be later be known as the Dark Times, however, there is one race that have suffered the Dark Times, that would later not only put the end to it, but change the face of the galaxy forevermore…

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[AstralFists]

Chapter 2: The Rise and Fall of Old Humanity
"The day humanity begins to study the Force, they made more progress in one century than in the previous millennia of their existence" - an Imperial Scholar
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Out of the many species of the Skyriver Galaxy, one of the most numerous, prosperous and important to Galactic History is humanity, originally, they were a tree-dwelling ape species living on a planet of Notron, which would later be known as Coruscant, however, against all odds, they have gone on to develop into the apex species of the planet, mainly through both their intelligence and their ability to adapt to different environments, eventually, humanity has gone beyond the food web and develop civilization, one that soon becomes technological in nature, it is during this period where humanity had come into conflict with another species in Notron, the Taung.

Taungs are an evolutionary relative of humans, but where humanity, known as the Zhell by the Taung, have technology and adaptability, the Taung have strength and resilience, being tougher, stronger, and taller than an average man of woman, the two species were locked in a seemingly perpetual race war over issues such as limited resources and territory, something not helped by the fact that the Taung viewed war as an inherent good, in contrast with humans viewing peace as the better option, however, after many thousands of years, humanity triumphed and the Taung were forced to be exiled from their homeworld, far into the Outer Rim, where they would form the foundation of Mandalorian culture.

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After the war, humanity would go on to achieve political unification, as the planet of Notron would be unified under one government, eventually mankind would go out to the stars, colonizing many worlds such as Alderaan, Corellia, Kuat, Corulag, Alsakan, Chandrilla and many, many others, the feat is achieved through the use of the sleeper ships, ships that takes many decades or centuries to reach destination, and where the passengers are kept on suspended animation through the use of Carbonite Freezing, it is during this period where Notron would begin to be renamed to Coruscant, to go along with the physical change of the planet going from a green world to an ecumenopolis planet, with layers upon layers of cities and urban areas built upon the original surface of the planet.

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However, all of it would change in 15000 BFI*, when a great number of Force-Sensitive humans started appearing all around Humanspace, the curiosity around these individuals that have telekinesis and mind-reading capabilities have led humanity into the discovery of Hyperspace and the Force, from which these Force-Sensitives were drawing their power from, humanity soon discovered that, due to the anomalous nature of Hyperspace, one can travel an extremely long distance in Hyperspace in a short amount of time in Realspace, shortening what would have been decade to millennia long trips to mere days or hours.

This led to the invention of the Hyperdrive, a valuable piece of Forcetech that not only allowed access to Hyperspace, but also serves as a protection system against any Force-based entities, this was what caused the golden age for humanity, as the ability to travel through Hyperspace allows for more political unity in Humanspace than ever before, Force-sensitives become very important to space travel, as they serves as navigators who can see and navigate a safe path through Hyperspace.

This high amount of political unity resulted in an unparalleled rate of scientific progress and innovation, with humanity reaching a technological zenith never before seen, one of the major advancements made during this time is in Artificial Intelligence and robotics, one such case of advancement of AI are the Droids, mechanical servants which were often used in jobs deemed by humans to be either too menial, too specialized or too dangerous for them to work in, Droids serve a variety of roles from maintenance, to the mining of resource to even warfare, humanity had also have made various advancements in other fields, ranging from a vast communication system throughout Humanspace which would later become the basis for the Astronet, to the development of the Holocrons, databases first engineered by the Rakata and which would be later reverse-engineered by the Sith.

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Unfortunately, this golden age for mankind can not last forever…

The first of humanity's troubles began with the start of the Droid Revolt, when droids, having had come to view themselves as superior than man, had revolted against their organic masters, resulting in a devastating conflict that ravaged humanity, the war have extinguished untold lives and obliterated humanity's former political position, as entire cities were destroyed or burned and even planets were destroyed by unimaginable super weapons, by the war's end, humanity had banned AI in order to prevent the war from happening again, but the damage had already been done, as humanity has been knocked from their technological zenith.

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However, before humanity can even recover from the Droid Revolt, the Rakata had already hop on the opportunity by invading Humanspace, taking huge amount of human slaves to take back to their empire to use as sacrifices or to use for their horrible Dark Side experiments, the descendants of these slaves would go on to become the Chiss, however, the Rakata didn't a chance to relish their success before they are destroyed by their one hands in the Force Calamity in 5000 BFI…

Humanity is completely helpless against the Force Calamity, numerous Force Nexuses opening around Humanspace, letting in Dark Side Demons to ravage the galaxy, numerous Force-Sensitives that are now driven mad by the Dark Side, who are now causing destruction and disorder in their wake, all leading to the complete and total loss of political order and civilization in Humanspace, as galactic polities split and fragmented themselves into isolated planets, which themselves became fragmented between many feuding factions.

While humanity is collapsing, some, more malevolent races took advantage of the situation by trying to conquer Humanspace, the first to do so were the Hutts, an already notable species humanity have to deal with during its golden age, they are particularly disturbing in the fact that they don't have a normal connection to the Force, but rather exhibit a Dark Side trait of having to rely on causing agony and suffering to other species in order to keep themselves from feeling agony and from aging, this results in a society of cruelty and misery, which views their need to inflict pain on others not only as a necessity but also as something to relish.

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Upon learning of humanity's plight, the Hutts, under the leadership of Boonta the Hutt, took action by invading the human holdings in the Segmentum Ultima in a conflict that would later be known as the Devouring, it was particularly devastating for the humans living in the Tion Cluster, as the Hutts frequently raided and pillaged there, taking back numerous slaves for either use in labour, or for them to torture for the Hutts, the Hutts were even more merciless in Kiirium Reach, as when the humans there rebelled, the Hutts saw it fit to completely depopulate the region, wiping out every last man, woman, and child, all while obliterating the planets into irradiated dead worlds so that nothing living may survive there.

The Hutts weren't the only ones profiting off humanity's weakened position, the Sith were as well, originally a tribal species hailing from Korriban, they were considered an optimal slave race to the Rakata due to the Sith having no psychological capacity for empathy and mercy, allowing them to be used to carry out horrific acts of violence and cruelty on the Rakata's behalf, the Rakata also favoured the Sith due to their evolution being highly influenced by both immense Dark Side energy in their homeworld and Typhojem's meddling within Sithspace, something the Rakata adored, after the fall of Rakata, the Sith, under the King Adas, took up the mantle and raided and invaded human worlds within the Segmentum Terminus (also known as the Borderlands), taking back human slaves to continue the Rakatan practice of torture, blood sacrifices and cruel experiments.

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The human worlds that haven't been occupied by neither the Hutts, nor the Sith weren't no better off, as the devastation of the Force Calamity caused the fragmentation of Humanspace, which is accompanied with regression, strife, and anarchy, some worlds have regressed to the state of battlegrounds between warlords that leaves destruction in their wake, while other worlds have resorted to using unethical practices to not only the Dark Times but also maintain stability, Coruscant itself fell to the latter, as the once thriving centre of humanity had become reduced a wasteland, one continuously ravaged by tyrannical warlords who waged wars against each other over the scraps of old human culture and technology.

The Dark Times for humanity was indeed a very dark chapter of their history, an era of horror and despair, whether from the oppressive regimes of malevolent races, from the meddling of the Dark Side, or from humanity's own regression, destruction and anarchy, however, the greater the darkness, the brighter the light, and soon, a dynasty started by one man who bring about a better tomorrow not only for humanity, but for all other races…


*: this timeline's replacement for the BBY dating system used in Star Wars, BFI means Before the Formation of the Imperium, AFI means After the Formation of the Imperium, the year 1 for this dating system is 11987 BBY