Deep Unknown Regions – Orbit of Rakata Prime
The darkness of space thickened beyond the Outer Rim, past charts long forgotten by the Republic. Here, shrouded in anomaly storms and gravitational maelstroms, a structure slept a colossus forged by a dead civilization.
The Star Forge.
Born of Rakatan ingenuity and the Dark Side, the ancient construct was not simply a factory. It was a living machine, a nexus of technology and Sith alchemy. Feeding on the Force itself especially its darker aspects it consumed raw material and energy, twisting them into warships, droids, and weapons with terrifying efficiency. It had once nearly consumed the galaxy under Darth Revan's command.
Now, it stirred again.
A dagger-shaped vessel emerged from hyperspace. The Emperor's personal shuttle cloaked in shadow, unannounced, surrounded by nothing but silence.
Inside, Darth Sidious stood alone.
There were no royal guards. No aides. No grand proclamations. For this task, none could witness.
Clad in layered robes, Sidious approached the viewport as the station loomed its bronze-red metal glowing faintly, curved arms spiraling like claws toward the planet Rakata Prime below. Lightning arced around its perimeter, not from weather, but from the Dark Side.
He smiled.
"The Force is strong here," he whispered, eyes gleaming yellow. "This forge… it is mine to command."
Descent into the Machine
The shuttle docked in the massive lower bay, half-collapsed and lined with ancient war droids long deactivated. As Sidious stepped out, the air changed. It was heavy, thick with memories of blood, war, and wrath.
He reached out.
The forge responded.
Doors groaned open, lights flared crimson, and power surged through rusted arteries. Deep within, it remembered Revan. It remembered Malak. It remembered betrayal and rebirth.
But it had never known a Sith like this.
Sidious descended into the heart of the station. Panels reassembled before him. Energy pathways opened. His presence a nexus of corruption awakened the Star Forge like a long-lost master returning.
He entered the central command chamber, where a pulsating core spiraled endlessly into the void. From here, fleets could be willed into existence. Worlds could be fed into the machine's hunger and spat out as armadas.
The Emperor stretched out his arms. "I do not need armies of clones alone. I do not need factories of the Republic. I have… this."
He closed his eyes.
And the Forge obeyed.
Echoes of the Past
But he was not alone.
The temperature dropped. A presence no, several manifested in the gloom. Blue flickers of light twisted into shapes. Hooded figures. Eyes glowing.
Force ghosts.
The first stepped forward tall, armored, his mask cracked down the middle. Darth Revan.
"Do you even understand what you're doing?" the ghost asked, voice echoing with both Light and Dark. "This station doesn't obey... It consumes. It perverts."
Sidious tilted his head. "You sought to use it for conquest. I seek the same. But you lacked vision."
Another ghost joined him Darth Malak, his jaw forever scorched by Revan's wrath. "It turned on me. It turned on us all. The Forge doesn't serve it binds."
"The weak are bound," Sidious said coldly. "I am not weak."
Others appeared. Darth Nihilus, Darth Bane, even spirits from Sith long erased from history. They surrounded him, watching, whispering.
"You will fall," Bane growled. "As we did."
Sidious turned slowly. "You fell because your vision was too small. A single empire. A single war. But I will forge eternity."
His voice became thunder. "I have ended the Jedi. I have twisted the Chosen One to my will. The galaxy burns, and I hold the match."
He raised his hands.
And the Star Forge roared to life.
The True Power
Streams of energy surged around him. Material from nearby moons was pulled into orbit, melted down, and transformed in seconds. In moments, the outline of a new vessel took shape sleek, black, like the dagger of the Sith himself.
He had done it.
The Star Forge now answered to Darth Sidious.
He walked to the center of the platform, standing within the Force-conduit itself. His power grew. The ancient machine fed him, and he fed it in return a closed loop of domination and hunger.
The Force ghosts recoiled.
"You desecrate the Force," Revan snarled.
Sidious turned. "I redefine it."
He summoned his full strength. The ghosts flickered, distorted by the wave of pure Dark Side energy surging through the chamber.
"You cannot stop me," he said softly. "No one can. Not Yoda. Not Kenobi. Not even the Chosen One."
He turned to the control console.
A fleet would be born here. Secret. Infinite. Fuelled by a factory that never slept, never tired, never questioned.
With this, he would not just rule the galaxy.
He would rule forever.