Malachor V, or simply Malachor, was an Outer Rim planet located in the Malachor system. Prior to the final battle of the Mandalorian Wars, the planet was fertile and hospitable. After the cataclysm caused by the Mass Shadow Generator, it became a cracked and twisted wasteland covered with jagged cliffs and plagued by constant lightning storms. It was inhabited by monstrous storm beasts. The gravity of the planet was unstable, which made it dangerous for starships to stay there for very long.
Malachor V before the Cataclysm.
At some point after 27,700 BBY but before the fall of the Infinite Empire, the Sith Empire colonized Malachor V.
"Thousands of years" before the Mandalorian Wars, a Sith Empire built the Trayus Academy on Malachor V.
At some point, Dakar Sol led a rebellion against the Sith Empire on Malachor V.
By the time of the Mandalorian Wars, Malachor V was abandoned.
The barren, harsh landscape of Malachor V
Centuries later, Malachor became the site of the final battle of the Mandalorian Wars, during which the most terrible atrocity of the war was committed. Malachor was restricted to Mandalorians, a taboo in Mandalorian culture, something that the Jedi General Revan used against them in order to win the war. Revan amassed an enormous fleet at the planet, providing the Mandalorians with a target that was too good to pass up. At the head of this force Revan placed one of their top generals: Meetra Surik, who was later known as the Jedi Exile.
During the Battle of Malachor V, Revan single-handedly slew Mandalore the Ultimate aboard the warlord's flagship. As Republic and Mandalorian forces outsystem from the planet itself continued to clash, Surik ordered the activation of the Mass Shadow Generator superweapon with a single, wordless nod towards its inventor, Bao-Dur, in order to prevent the Mandalorian forces they faced from overwhelming them and moving on to attack Revan's forces from behind. In an instant, Malachor's gravity crushed every combatant in and around its atmosphere—Mandalorian, Republic, and Jedi alike. Malachor's surface was transformed into a barren, shattered and lifeless wasteland—all of Revan's enemies were eliminated in a single stroke. The planet was left scarred from the battle as the surface had been obliterated. Long afterward, there was still evidence of crashed Republic cruisers buried deep within the surface.
Following their victory, Revan journeyed into the Unknown Regions with Malak in search of Mandalore's mysterious masters, which the pair learned to be Sith on the ice world of Rekkiad. However, they were ultimately turned to the dark side by the Sith Emperor, who sent them back to the Republic to wage war. But the Emperor underestimated the pair's resolve, as they broke free of his commands not long after and decided to conquer the Republic for themselves and adopted the title of Dark Lord of the Sith. During the Jedi Civil War, circa 3959–3956 BBY, he used the Trayus Academy, located on the planet's surface as one of several secret Sith bases dedicated to the conversion of captured Jedi Knights. Throughout the war, Jedi were captured by his Sith Assassins and other specially trained forces, and brought to the Academy. The corruptive nature of the location weakened their wills so that Revan and their loyal servants could easily lure them to the dark side. In such places, he converted hosts of Jedi into fanatical Dark Jedi and Sith Assassins for his Sith Empire.
Several years after the war had ended, Revan's old Master Kreia traveled to Malachor V in search of what had corrupted her apprentice. Like Revan, she was corrupted by the dark side energy resonating throughout the planet; in secret, she then took the moniker of Darth Traya and began training new students of the dark side at the Trayus Academy, which had remained unscathed despite the devastation wrought by the Mass Shadow Generator. Among her first two students were Darth Sion and Darth Nihilus, who soon became powerful enough to overthrow her. The three Sith Lords formed an uneasy alliance against the Jedi, but the two apprentices eventually broke the alliance, and Darth Traya was cast down, stripped of her power, and exiled from Malachor.
In 3951 BBY, Kreia located Meetra Surik, the only Jedi who had fought at Malachor V and not been killed or corrupted. Plotting revenge against her apprentices, Kreia began orchestrating events to set up a final confrontation between herself and Surik at the Trayus Academy. After slaying Darth Nihilus, Surik arrived at the Academy and defeated the Sith there, including Darth Sion and Darth Traya, thus silencing the echoes of the atrocity that, until then, Malachor had still sent through the force.
While Surik fought in the Academy, Bao-Dur, the technician who had originally designed the Mass Shadow Generator, ordered his remote to reactivate the superweapon in an effort to destroy the tainted world of Malachor V once and for all. Despite G0-T0's attempts to thwart it, the remote succeeded in its task. As Surik departed Malachor in the Ebon Hawk, the dead planet crumbled under the pressure of the mass shadow's gravity, leaving behind only asteroids and the wreckage of many hundreds of blasted warships, a grim memorial to the Battle of Malachor V.
By 3640 BBY, surveys showed small pockets of biological life were still active in Malachor V's remains. It was also the site of an excavation for remaining artifacts and treasures.
The planet's infamy led to its name becoming a curse word, synonymous with "Hell." By the Clone Wars, Republic Colonel Meebur Gascon used it in anger.
The planet, alongside its infamous use of the mass shadow generator and its destruction, was later used as an example of ancient superweapons by Bevel Lemelisk of the Imperial Department of Military Research in the Imperial Handbook: A Commander's Guide, the official field manual for the Imperial Military. Upon finding this reference to the weapon and Malachor V, Luke Skywalker pondered whether he should investigate the planet for possible artifacts belonging to either the Jedi or the Sith.
If the player chooses to take the path of the dark side in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, The Exile throws Darth Traya's body into the abyss and takes the title of Dark Lord of the Sith while the planet survives.
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: Prima Official Game Guide
- The New Essential Chronology
- The New Essential Guide to Droids
- Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force
- Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
- Jedi Academy Training Manual
- The Essential Atlas
- Book of Sith: Secrets from the Dark Side
- "10 Great Military Leaders" — Star Wars Insider Special Edition 2013
- Star Wars: The Card Game — Edge of Darkness
- Star Wars: Imperial Handbook: A Commander's Guide