Rakghoul pandemic

The pandemic began after the Republic cruiser known as the Stardream crashed on the Outer Rim world of Tatooine. The cruiser carried with it an animal infected with the plague, which ultimately spread to the other passengers and crew. The ship was disabled over the desert planet and crashed into the Dune Sea, from whence the survivors spread across the planet, infecting tribes of Tusken Raiders and native fauna. The deadly disease also spread into highly populated areas, including Mos Ila and Anchorhead, prompting officials from both the Republic and Sith Empire to initiate a quarantine of the planet and implement travel restrictions across the galaxy. Despite these efforts, tenacious adventurers traveled to and from Tatooine, working to stem the spread of the virus but simultaneously carrying it further from the source. This prompted quarantine teams to intercept infected individuals boarding both Republic and Imperial space stations.

The Tatooine crisis was notable in the creation of THORN, as the children of its founder Addalar Hyland lost their lives during the incident, motivating the wealthy CEO to invest in battling the disease.

Some time later, an outbreak of the Rakghoul plague was reported on Alderaan. Initially reported on HoloNet News as unexplained animal attacks, the build up of G.S.I. armaments, THORN operatives and several meetings between Addalar Hyland and Alderaanian officials on the planet indicated otherwise. THORN issued an official level-2 emergency alert and quarantines was put in place to restrict traffic of the plague off-world.

In the context of the Alderaan Civil War, House Organa cited the outbreak's epicenter near King's Pass as an evidence that House Thul and the Sith Empire conspired to use the plague as a bioweapon, while House Thul claimed House Organa implemented the plague to blame them. Nevertheless, House Ulgo was also suspected in releasing the plague, so as to raise tension between those Houses and weaken them for Ulgo's eventual conquest. Given the conflict's nature, the true source of the spread of the disease may never come to light. Despite this, THORN recruited qualified volunteer emergency responders to travel to affected areas to combat the spread of the plague in the newly discovered rakghoul tunnels.

THORN officials Doctor Aleea Ressel and Tralie Masoon were dispatched to organize Republic and Imperial volunteers in Thul Palace and Castle Organa. The volunteers were first tasked to battle through , who were maddened by the infection and attacked anyone in sight. Getting through the mind-addled citizens, the volunteers then vaccinated infected people still in the early stages of the disease. After which the volunteers were sent into the aforementioned underground tunnels in King's Pass, descending with the help the Spike. In order to reduce tensions between Imperial and Republic forces, the volunteers were either assigned to for Imperials or for the Republic. The volunteers would then be given various tasks, namely, capturing rakghouls born within the tunnels rather than through infection called raklings, investigating artifacts of rakghoul culture, collecting mutagenic samples from recently infected Killiks and Joiners, reconnecting navigational markers sent out by the Spike to map the tunnels, acquiring tissue samples from newly discovered fungal rakghouls and the primary goal of culling the rakghoul population. After gaining the trust and prestige of THORN, groups of volunteers were recruited to hunt down massive rakghouls called the Eyeless in their lairs.

Additional tunnels were found on Tatooine, around the crash of the Stardream, and in the Labor Valley on Corellia.

The outbreak of the Rakghoul pandemic was an event in the video game Star Wars: The Old Republic, which began on April 15, 2012. The Alderaan Rakghoul Resurgence Event then started on January 21 until January 28, 2014.