The Star Map route brought Darth Revan and Darth Malak to Lehon, home of surviving Rakatan communities. After their ship crashed, the Sith manipulated conflict between the Black Rakata and Elders, entered the Temple of the Ancients, and gained access to the Star Forge, an automated shipbuilding complex powered through dark-side technology.
3960 BBY · Legends · Historical interpretation
THE STAR FORGE FOUND
Story evidence, dates and limitations
The Rakatan coordinates led Darth Revan and Darth Malak to Lehon, also known as Rakata Prime. The pair dealt with surviving Rakatan groups, including the Black Rakata and the Elders, and entered the Temple of the Ancients before reaching the orbital Star Forge. The factory could support massive production of ships and equipment. According to the later Revan novel's chronology, the pair had escaped the Emperor's direct control by the time they took possession of the complex and reshaped their imperial ambitions.
Social history and consequences
The confrontation illustrates appropriation of a former empire's technologies and interference in local power structures. The Rakata were not simply obstacles arranged for the convenience of offworld rulers; factions carried their own history after the Infinite Empire's fall. Control of the Star Forge transformed informational advantage into material military production. This is an example of how unequal control over infrastructure can convert scattered followers into a large armed state.
Research trail: Knights of the Old Republic (2003); The Old Republic: Revan, Rakata Prime sequence. Read chronological source references →. Original edition page citations remain to be checked. The event banner is original symbolic IDS art and is not an authentic screenshot.
A new empire appropriates the machinery of an ancient empire
Revan did not build the Star Forge.
His coming Sith state depended on capturing a manufacturing system created by the Rakatan Infinite Empire.
Local Rakatan politics are instrumentalized
The visitors treated surviving communities as means to gain temple access.
A local conflict became entangled with a galaxy-scale military project.
Anthropological assessment
Rakata Prime is a case of imperial succession through appropriation.
Later powers often inherit infrastructure from earlier empires while ignoring the communities still living among the ruins.
The Old Republic / connected history
An ancient factory becomes the heart of a new empire
After reconstructing enough navigational information from the Star Maps, Darth Revan and Darth Malak reached Lehon, also known as Rakata Prime. The world had once belonged to the Rakatan Infinite Empire and retained the Temple of the Ancients, structures associated with a civilization that had exercised rule over much of the galaxy. The visitors had to gain access to ancient systems that guarded the approach to the Star Forge. Their success changed the strategic possibilities of the new Sith project, but it did not mean they had designed or built the immense station themselves.
The Star Forge represented the material inheritance of a defeated earlier imperial order. Using that technology allowed Revan and Malak to build naval strength without depending solely on ordinary Republic shipyards. Local Rakatan groups, meanwhile, lived among ruins that external visitors regarded as keys to galactic power. Their own political divisions and histories were treated as instruments for outsiders' goals. This episode is an important predecessor to the 3956 BBY return to Lehon, when Revan confronted the same inherited machinery with a different allegiance and memory.
Industrial capacity changes the political map
A war-making state requires the ability to produce, supply and replace military assets. By acquiring the Star Forge, Revan's Sith regime could transform access to an ancient machine into the material foundation of rapid expansion. The story shows why capturing production infrastructure can matter as much as winning a battle.
The people living among ruins are not ruins
Rakata Prime was inhabited by descendants and communities with their own histories. Outsiders searching for a legendary factory could disregard those inhabitants and treat the landscape only as a pathway to power. A site-specific history asks how the old empire's remains affected those living there now.
Did Darth Revan personally invent the Star Forge in 3960 BBY?
No. The Rakatan Infinite Empire created the Star Forge long before this episode. Darth Revan and Darth Malak gained access to it and turned it to new political ends.
Sources and dating: Knights of the Old Republic game; The Old Republic: Revan. Legends; variable player choices are not treated as universal chronology. Interpretive statements are distinguished from original published events.
Source judgment · 3960 BBY
Test your historical interpretation
Choose your answers. The assessment shows corrections, a source-based explanation and a score.
Legends · Early Jedi Civil War source audit
Lehon: conquering a factory by exploiting local political divisions
What the sources document
The reconstructed Rakatan route took Darth Revan and Darth Malak to Lehon, the world also called Rakata Prime, where the Star Forge orbited. They confronted a planetary disruptor field, encountered separate Rakatan communities and used rivalries between the Black Rakata and the Elders while seeking access to the Temple of the Ancients. Their eventual control of the Star Forge supplied an extraordinary shipbuilding system powered by energy from the local star and by dark-side technology. This allowed the later Sith state to build military capacity far beyond the ordinary resources of its starting fleet.
Anthropological and political assessment
The Rakata were descendants of a long-collapsed imperial society, not merely guardians placed around an object for the visiting Sith. Their factions had their own histories and interests after the Infinite Empire's decline. Revan and Malak's interference demonstrates how outside powers can exploit divisions among surviving communities to seize technologies they did not invent. A factory is also an institution of labor, extraction and distribution, even if automation dominates its production. Its significance lies in the ability to equip an army at scale, not in a literal guarantee of infinite ships or inexhaustible energy.
Source limitations
Do not claim that the original Infinite Empire was still ruling Lehon in 3960 BBY. The 3956 BBY Republic attack on the Star Forge is a separate battle from Revan and Malak's initial acquisition of it.
Check your historical judgment: Did gaining the Star Forge mean the Rakatan Infinite Empire itself had been revived?
Correction and insight: No. Revan and Malak repurposed a surviving Rakatan installation for a new Sith state, while Lehon's communities had their own post-imperial history.
Sources: Knights of the Old Republic (2003), Lehon and Star Forge; The Old Republic: Revan. Reference bibliography ↗. Original print/game scene citations remain under verification.
Sources and further reading
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
- The Old Republic: Revan.