Celestial-Rakata War

"The grimoiries of the Gree Enclave say the work of the Ancient Masters — the Celestials — was undone by two curses unleashed by the Soul Hunters, whom we identify as the Rakata. The Gree name those curses the Gray Swallowing and the Faceless Mouths...the Rakata waged devastating war against the Kwa and the Gree. And the Killiks simply vanished. All three, we believe, were key client species of the Celestials. It looks as if the Rakata were determined to exterminate or drive out their rivals among the Celestial slave species. Once that had been accomplished, they found their own slave species and trained them to use Rakatan technologies."

- discusses the with and ,

The Celestial-Rakata War was an fought between the  and the   that lasted from  until. The war ended with the disappearance of the Celestials from and the establishment of the Infinite Empire as the uncontested galactic  for a period of five millennia until.

Though often considered a single millennia-long war, it was in reality a pair of separate conflicts fought in separate phases. The first phase was properly fought between the Rakata and the Celestials (along with their proxy client species) between 35,000 BBY and, after which the Celestials collectively disappeared from the galaxy under mysterious circumstances. The second was fought between the Rakata and the remaining Celestial client species holdouts in the and the  between 33,600 BBY and 30,000 BBY.

The conflict's conclusion in 30,000 BBY ushered in a period of stability for the Infinite Empire, during which time the Rakata expanded unabated throughout the galaxy and came to enjoy uncontested hegemony. This so-called Pax Rakata did not persist for long, however. At some point after 30,000 BBY, the Infinite Empire began to experience internal conflict as powerful  warlords strove among themselves for the  throne, a conflict known as the. This conflict, along with the slave revolts it inspired, ultimately resulted in the Empire's dissolution in 25,200 BBY.

Pre-war events
The origins of the Celestial-Rakata War could be traced back to the earliest days of the species of, a  located deep in the. The Rakata first came to the attention of the greater sometime prior to, when members of the  of  arrived on Lehon via their  technology. As they had done for many other species, the Kwa uplifted the Rakata from their primitive tribal lifestyle and taught them the ways of. Around the same time, the prevailing galactic hegemons and the Kwa's own beneficiaries, the s, incorporated the Rakata into their dominion as a client species.

However, in their attempts to teach balance and peace to their charges, the Kwa had underestimated the dark side taint that pervaded the entire Rakata species. Despite directly benefiting from their Kwa benefactors' unconditional patronage, the Rakata were filled with envy for the Kwa Infinity Gate technology and made war upon them in an attempt to seize the Lehon Infinity Gate for themselves. The between the species resulted in the deaths of all the Kwa present on Lehon and the destruction of the Lehon Infinity Gate.

The Rakata subsequently declared themselves independent of their Celestial masters and began an outward expansion into the worlds of the Tempered Wastes. After a thousand years of unchecked conquest in the greater, the Rakata formed the government for which they were remembered, the. Fueled by the dark side of the Force and empowered by the knowledge gifted to them by their Kwa patrons, the Rakata turned their eyes from the empty regions of the Unknown Regions to the wealthy worlds of the eastern galaxy, the domain of the Celestials.

First phase
The first phase of the Celestial-Rakata War, called the "Gray Swallowing" in accounts of the conflict found in the pages of ancient, began with the Celestials' construction of an artificial  that bisected the galaxy west of the. This barrier, composed of hyperspace anomalies travelling at speeds, divided the galaxy into halves, separating the Rakata-controlled western galaxy of the Unknown Regions from the Celestial worlds in the eastern galaxy. Though the wall was built to prevent the Rakata from pushing unmolested into the eastern galaxy, it was also constructed to funnel Rakata invasion forces to defensible bottlenecks of the Celestials' choosing at the north and south extremities of the galaxy.

This wall successfully contained the Rakata to the western galaxy for a time, partially due to the inherent limitations of the early Rakata. Unlike later derivatives, Rakata hyperdrives were powered by the Force, and worked by manually latching onto the Force signatures of particularly verdant worlds or naturally occurring. In the words of expert , "the Rakatan hyperdrive was of no use for traveling between arbitrary points in realspace... Rather, it honed in on the signature of worlds strong in the Force — ones brimming with life, in other words." The Celestial barrier limited the destination options available to the Rakata, forcing them to search for alternate routes into the eastern galaxy.

However, sometime prior to, the Rakata successfully penetrated or circumvented the hyperspace disturbance barrier and began ravishing the worlds of the eastern galaxy. Though the primary Celestial vassals, namely the, , and species, ensured such conquests were  for the Rakata, they were unable to answer to Rakata aggression and were pushed back to their respective enclaves and regions. Around the end of the first phase of the conflict, the Killik species inexplicably disappeared from the battlefields of the war and were relocated to the furthest reaches of the Unknown Regions, an act they attributed to Celestial anger at their devouring of their homeworld.

Second phase
The first phase of the conflict drew to a close with the inexplicable disappearance of the Celestials from the galaxy in for poorly understood, mysterious reasons. Their ultimate fate was unclear to later historians. Some, like the aforementioned Dr. Insmot Bowen, posited that in response to their impending defeat at the hands of the Infinite Empire, the Celestials cast off their remaining vestiges of physicality and transcended to a higher plane of existence, abandoning the galaxy and their remaining vassal holdouts to their inevitable fate.

Others, like the, believed in accordance with  and  legends that the Celestials had taken the war to the next level,  into the Force itself to order the course of the galactic events to their whims. It would naturally follow from such a theory that the transcended Celestials had secured their ultimate victory over the Rakata in the form of the Force plague that swept across the Infinite Empire in its last days and cut the Rakata off from the Force.

Regardless of the reasoning behind their sudden disappearance, the Celestials ceased to pose a threat to the expanding Infinite Empire by 33,600 BBY, bringing to an end the first phase of the war. The second phase, called the "Faceless Mouths" period by Gree grimoiries, saw the Rakata turn their attentions to the subjugation of the remaining Celestial vassal holdouts in the eastern galaxy, namely the and the. Though the Gree residents of the former did not suffer greatly under Rakata rule and persisted as a species even into the days of the and, the Kwa did not fare well under Rakata governance. As vengeful retribution for their refusal to provide the Rakata with their Infinite Gate technology millennia before, the Kwa were forcibly regressed by the Rakata into a, evolving to become the  lizard species of Dathomir.

Aftermath
By, the Rakata had successfully subjugated the remaining pockets of deep-seated Celestial sympathy in the galaxy. Their Infinite Empire stretched from the Tempered Wastes to the furthest reaches of the eastern galaxy, incorporating some five hundred Force-rich worlds and trillions of subjects and slaves. Though isolated conflicts continued for several centuries, the galaxy entered a period of stability under its Rakata overlords, a period of peace known as the Pax Rakata.

This period did not last for long, however. Sometime prior to, the Empire began to fracture as dark side s began to feud among each other for possession of the throne, leading to a protracted conflict known as the. This conflict intensified towards the last years of the Empire, assisted by countless slave uprisings and a Force plague that may or may not have been the work of the transcended Celestials. Regardless of the contributing factors, the Empire eventually fell in 25,200 BBY and was subsequently replaced as galactic hegemon by the burgeoning.

Legacy
By the time of the, the Celestial-Rakata War had largely been forgotten by the greater , its events solely the domain of pre-Republic era historians and researchers. Some, including the likes of, even doubted the historicity of the Rakata and Celestial species in general, going so far as to condemn the stories about them as little more than "arrant nonsense" fit only to be the subject of "holothrillers." However, some, like the aforementioned Dr. Insmot Bowen, believed in the stories of the species in question and the war in which they fought, going so far as to suggest that the Celestials might still be out in the universe and a potential threat to the stability of the.

Behind the scenes
The origin of this article can be trace to the frustration felt by the author when researching the  lore. The tangled, sparse, and oft-contradictory nature of the period prior to the rise of the necessitated the creation of an article capable of stringing together all the various bits related to the events of the. As such, none of the content in this article is technically "fanon." Instead, it is more of a comprehensive consolidation of the disparate pre-Republic events mentioned throughout Legends EU literature, the holes in the narrative tied together by educated guesses and extrapolations on the part the author. It has been marked accordingly with the  tag in the event that another user wishes to use it in EU-friendly fanon.