| abstract | - Revan, renowned as "the Revanchist" and dreaded as Darth Revan, was an eminent Jedi Knight turned conquering Dark Lord of the Sith until, stripped of his true persona, he returned to the crumbling Jedi Order and helped defeat Darth Malak. However, Revan fell back to the Dark Side and took Bastila Shan as his Sith apprentice. A human of unknown origins, Revan was trained as a Padawan by Kreia and a number of other Jedi Masters, both on Coruscant and at the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. Acknowledged as a very gifted pupil, by 3,964 BBY he was a Jedi Knight respected enough to amass a notable following that argued for Jedi intervention in the Mandalorian Wars. Though opposed in this by the Jedi Council itself, Revan could not be dissuaded. Revealing the horror of the Mandalorians' genocide of the Cathar, Revan bolstered his support base and then quickly circumvented the Council, exploiting a technicality that forced it to begrudgingly "sanction" the intervention he desired. With the Council sidelined, the charismatic young Jedi and his closest friend, Alek, were able to recruit and lead a faction of Jedi Order to war without fear of reprisal. A talented military tactician and strategist, Revan directed the Galactic Republic to victory after assuming command of its forces in 3,961 BBY, finally ending the conflict the following year with the defeat and execution of Mandalore the Ultimate, the destruction of Malachor V and the disarmament of the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders. Yet in the wake of this triumph, Revan, his loyal Jedi followers, and the third of the Republic fleet that remained under his direct control ventured into the Unknown Regions and ceased all communications with the known galaxy. Having embraced the seductive Sith teachings he encountered at the Trayus Academy on Malachor V, Revan tracked down ancient Rakatan Star Maps in pursuit of the Star Forge, a superweapon of the Infinite Empire. Succeeding in this, he returned to the civilization he had left behind openly as Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith. Commanding the continued obedience of many veterans of the Mandalorian Wars, and alongside the man who was now his Sith apprentice, Darth Malak, Revan betrayed the Jedi, turned against the Republic, and plunged the known galaxy into the Jedi Civil War. Utilizing the Star Forge to spawn an immense armada, Revan cut a carefully calculated path of conquest through the Outer Rim, establishing a powerful Sith Empire to which new converts regularly flocked. Though the Republic staved off total defeat for two years, thanks to the extraordinary battle meditation of the gifted Jedi Bastila Shan, Revan's ultimate triumph seemed inevitable until he and Malak were ensnared by a Jedi trap. As a Republic fleet engaged that of the two ruling Sith, a strike team led by Shan boarded Revan's flagship and battled its way to the Dark Lord. Moments before the Jedi engaged Revan in combat, however, Malak—sensing an opportunity to be rid of both the Jedi and the Master whose power he coveted—had his own vessel open fire on the distracted Sith Lord's bridge. Caught by surprise, Revan was incapacitated by Malak's attack and then captured by the strike team while his traitorous apprentice, believing his Master destroyed, seized control of the Sith Empire. His mind shattered, his memories scattered, and soon thought dead by the galaxy–at–large, Revan's life was preserved by none other than Shan, an act that forged a Force bond between them. Either unable or unwilling to restore their prisoner's true self, but requiring the knowledge buried within his mind, the Jedi Council used the Force to rebuild Revan with a new identity loyal to the Republic. Almost one year later, after Revan, still oblivious to his true past, rescued the captive Shan alongside Commander Carth Onasi and an eclectic band of allies on Taris, the Jedi Council on Dantooine opted to retrain him. Reawakening to his former skills and charged with unearthing the source of Malak's colossal fleet, Revan and his loyal comrades thwarted all obstacles and adversaries as he and Shan were guided by shared "visions"—in truth Revan's own memories—to the Star Maps on Tatooine, Kashyyyk, Manaan, and Korriban. In the midst of this odyssey, the group was ensnared by Admiral Saul Karath, commander of the Sith fleet, and imprisoned aboard the Leviathan. Though Revan and his friends escaped, killing Karath along the way, Darth Malak confronted his former Master, revealed his true identity and ultimately recaptured Shan, the woman Revan had come to love. Continuing in the face of this loss, Revan and his allies successfully discovered the final Star Map and the location of the Star Forge. There, in the Rakata System, the Froce bond between Revan and Shan took its toll. Shan had fallen to the Dark Side and Revan had fallen with her. Though Shan was willing to kill Revan initially, Revan defeated her and she surrendered, allowing Revan to make her his apprentice. The pair then returned to their companions and, after purging any dissent, went to the Star Forge, where Revan killed Malak and regained control of the Sith Empire and its forces. Deciding to continue the war, Revan struck at the Core worlds, eventually capturing Coruscant and marshalling his forces for war with the "true" Sith Empire. During the new war, Revan led his forces with the same ability and charisma with which he had always led. However, factions of the Sith under Revan began to doubt him. They formed a plan to assassinate Revan and replace him with Darth Nihilus. The plan was carried out successfully and Revan was killed.
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