Singularity Base was a top-secret Republic military base established on the Outer Rim world of Malachor V during the Mandalorian Wars. Constructed under orders of Jedi Supreme Commander Revan, its purpose was to house the Mass Shadow Generator, a gravity-based superweapon which would be used in the final battle of the war.
Layout and characteristics[]
Most of the facility's space was dedicated to the Mass Shadow Generator itself. An artificial, funnel-shaped crater several kilometers across housed massive pylons and projectors which directed gravity-altering energies into Malachor's orbit. Beneath the crater, the superweapon's machinery extended kilometers underground. Power to the superweapon and the facility itself was provided by the repurposed reactor cores of four Republic battlecruisers.
Singularity Base proper was divided into two rings surrounding the crater. The inner ring, called MSG Control, was nine levels deep, serving as a hybrid control center and laboratory crewed by teams of scientists and operators. At its innermost part, past a network of catwalks, elevators, and platforms, a twenty meter-high transparisteel window afforded a view of the artificial crater. Outside the catwalks, five wide corridors spaced evenly about the ring divided blocks of rooms housing work stations. Many of these stations controlled advanced sensor systems which monitored any phenomena which could affect the superweapon's operation; aside from the Malachor system's peculiar gravitational anomalies, this included solar activity, cosmic rays, meteorological activity, and atmospheric disturbances. Other stations monitored and controlled the facility's power distribution, and still others hosted sophisticated computer labs which ran simulations of the Mass Shadow Generator's operation.
The base's outer ring housed a garrison of soldiers commanded by a major. Aside from living quarters and other such facilities, there were also several hangars housing a collection of transports and shuttlecraft. Internal passive defenses were provided by various blast doors and force fields. Corresponding to the five main hallways in MSG Control, there were five checkpoints providing entrance from the outer ring, designated Security Zones A through E. At each one, personnel had to be checked through a series of scanning aisles and, finally, a five inch-thick duramentium blast door.
Aside from heavily armored walls, the exterior defenses of the base included a handful of laser cannon turrets, a theater shield generator, and a jamming device. Despite this, the base's main protection was its secrecy, and it was never designed to withstand a major assault, whether orbital or ground-based.
At some point during the Jedi Civil War, the Sith installed a subterranean hovertram that linked Singularity Base's understructure to the lowest levels of Trayus Academy, which was three kilometers to the east.
History[]
The single most important designer of both the Mass Shadow Generator and Singularity Base was Bao-Dur, a Zabrak technician of the 12th Engineering Division.
In the final battle of the Mandalorian Wars, the forces of Mandalore the Ultimate were baited into a decisive and brutal confrontation over Malachor V. Jedi General Meetra Surik was commanding the Republic fleet, and after successfully pressing the enemy back toward the planet, she ordered the Mass Shadow Generator to be activated. Moments later, the weapon created a massive gravity vortex which destroyed the majority of both fleets in an instant, as well as fracturing Malachor V to its core. Combined with the death of their leader in personal combat with Revan, this event marked the defeat of the Mandalorians.
The catastrophic end of the battle killed virtually all life on Malachor V, leaving the world itself as a shattered, barren planetoid surrounded by a debris field. However, Singularity Base itself remained intact. After returning to Malachor as Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Revan had the facility re-crewed. The Mass Shadow Generator was calibrated to artificially augment the planetoid's vastly reduced gravity field, stabilizing it at a standard level in order to keep an artificial atmosphere in place. Subsequently, Revan's Sith were able to occupy Trayus Academy.
For over a decade, Singularity Base remained under guard by Sith troopers. After discovering the Sith presence on Malachor in 21,103 AR, Bao-Dur covertly sent his Remote droid to infiltrate the base and reprogram the Mass Shadow Generator to destroy the planet yet again. However, the Remote was intercepted and disabled by G0-T0.
Malachor V remained undisturbed until 21,108, when it was finally attacked by Republic forces commanded by Admiral Sargo Opelle. During the battle, Republic battle droids and soldiers accompanied by the Force-sensitive Atton Rand and his companions infiltrated Singularity Base, killing the majority of its garrison. Bao-Dur's Remote was again present for this mission, and while Rand was battling the final Sith defenders inside MSG Control, the droid reached one of several master control consoles and activated the Mass Shadow Generator. As Rand and his companions escaped, the superweapon engaged for the last time, and Malachor V was crushed into oblivion.
Behind the scenes[]
Singularity Base was devised as a sort of fanon retcon meant to compensate for a number of ambiguities concerning the nature of the Mass Shadow Generator in Knights of the Old Republic II - such as the fact that the superweapon does not seem to be located anywhere in particular.
The visual description of the artificial crater in Chapter 27 of Torchbearer was partly inspired by the Great Pit of Carkoon from Return of the Jedi. The re-imagining of the sarlacc as a technological monster led to details such as the tooth-shaped energy pylons and the pit leading to its "guts" in the center of the crater.
The LucasArts adventure game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis influenced the facility's shape and layout. Like Singularity Base, the mythical city is divided into a series of concentric rings centered around a doomsday device.