Reclamation Service Tatooine expedition

In 3643 BBY, the Sith Empire discovered a damaged shuttle drifting through deep space that originated from a Czerka Corporation research base on the Outer Rim desert world of Tatooine. Czerka claimed mysterious Tatooinian artifacts in their possession were "the find of the millennium" with energy throughputs of a sun. The base disappeared a month after the shuttle launch and Czerka never returned. Subsequently, Sith Lord Darth Silthar and Imperial Reclamation Service Captain Barden Golah led an expedition to Tatooine to discover the base and the mysterious artifacts contained within.

The Imperial military occupied the Tatooinian settlement of Mos Ila, wresting control of the city from the Exchange criminal syndicate, and established a garrison there to use the city as the expedition's base of operations. When four Imperial heroes arrived on the planet, they were directed to the service's research center in Mos Ila and joined the archaeological expedition. The expedition learned that a Sons of Palawa settlement near the city possessed experimental battle droids believed to be of Czerka origin which could be examined to help discover the location of the lost Czerka base. The Imperial heroes were dispatched to the settlement to obtain the droids' verbobrains for analysis. While in the Sons' scrapyard, they defeated around sixteen of the tribal members and their droids that opposed them.

Though the Empire drove the Exchange out of Mos Ila upon its arrival, the gang persisted in its criminal activities in the city. While embarking on this mission for the Reclamation Service, the heroes attempted to discern the Exchange's plans. They began by obtaining communications codes on the bodies of Exchange infiltrators. This allowed them to access encrypted communicator pads around the city, leading them to a communications station from which they lured out the local Exchange leader whom they defeated and obtained the Exchange's attack plans for retaking the city, which they delivered to Imperial authorities.

Upon returning to the service research center, the verbobrains were analyzed by Reclamation Service Lieutenant Keighlah who found they'd undergone memory wipes but discovered the Sons purchased the droids from Jawas. Darth Silthar relayed to the heroes that he'd seen a band of Jawas near the city in his dreams and they departed to show the verbobrains to the Jawas and inquire about their origin.

Upon arriving at the Jawa trading compound of Camp Can'ali, the heroes learned from Jawa Trade Master Thint that the Jawas salvaged the droids from an old transport module wreck in the desert which had since become lost to sandstorms. The Jawas gave the heroes a lockbox obtained at the wreckage alongside the droids which they were unable to open or discern the use of.

Delivering the lockbox to the Reclamation Service center in Mos Ila, Cpt. Golah identified it as a Czerka stasis crate used to transport samples. A preliminary analysis revealed the crate contained a roughly spherical alien device over 10,000 years old and contained in an energy field. While Darth Silthar departed on a pilgrimage following up on his vision regarding the native Sand People, the expedition deployed to their forward research outpost and studied the crate's device further.

When the Imperial heroes arrived at Outpost Varath, Cpt. Golah updated them on Darth Silthar's status, saying the expedition lost his speeder's tracking signal after Silthar summoned a lightning storm in the Dune Sea. Golah directed the heroes to obtain a compass in the possession of the Sand People's spirit guides to locate Silthar.

Since the Sand People were becoming a major obstacle to Imperial operations in the region, while searching for Darth Silthar, the heroes struck a blow to the their tribes in the Shattered Basin by defeating at least sixty members of their forces, poisoning several of their water supplies, and slaying their hero, Kortawa the Hunt Master, recovering his prized hunting trophy from his body and delivering it as proof of his death to Imperial authorities.

The heroes obtained a compass from one of the Sand People guides and used it to locate a wounded and dying Darth Silthar in the nearby Joroshe Spirit Cave. Silthar relayed to the heroes that the Force called him to the desert where he sensed Czerka's discovery and had a vision of a white room. He murdered Sand People tribals, stealing their thoughts to locate the cave where he discovered Sand People paintings depicting the location of the Czerka base in the natives' forbidden lands. The heroes recorded the paintings before departing the cave where they left Silthar's deceased body and reported to Cpt. Golah at the Reclamation Service forward outpost.

As the heroes reported the details of Silthar's death and the discovery of the paintings, several Reclamation Service archaeologists became transformed when the dampeners on the lockbox obtained from the Jawas were disabled. A transformed Lt. Keighlah made references to a figure called "the Imprisoned One" in a white room before attacking the expedition.

The heroes defeated several of the transformed archaeologists but one, Perrin, escaped the outpost and headed for a nearby Sons of Palawa settlement. Anticipating a potential outbreak, Cpt. Golah directed the heroes to the village to defeat Perrin before he could infect the villagers. In accordance with Reclamation Service contamination site protocols, the heroes departed for the village, located in a nearby cave, with baradium explosives to contain the potential outbreak.

In the tribal settlement cave, the heroes found the village infested with infected Palawa warriors. The heroes defeated numerous infected and non-infected tribal warriors as well as Perrin while placing the explosives at key points in the cave. Departing the cave, the heroes detonated the explosives which successfully contained the infestation.

Afterward, Cpt. Golah deployed a squad to assess the condition of the village. Squad member Private Tannrel reported that the explosives atomized all matter in the village and that the squad avoided engaging a small band of Palawa scouts returning to the village. Tannrel assessed that the Palawa might seek revenge on the Empire at a later date, and notified local Imperial authorities accordingly.

At the Reclamation Service outpost, the surviving expedition members brought the Czerka lockbox's stasis field back online to prevent the artifact from powering up again and inciting another incident. The heroes returned and presented the recording of the mural from the Sand People cave which revealed the general location of Czerka's base. Cpt. Golah outfitted a probe droid to scan for signs of the base and dispatched the heroes to the Dune Sea to discover evidence of Czerka's presence.

Deploying the droid in the Dune Sea, it locked onto an underground power signature presumably at the Czerka base. The heroes ran additional scans at five Czerka relay towers, unlocking recorded messages revealing the fate of the Czerka base until finally pinpointing its location.

The Reclamation Service Tatooine expedition appeared as the Tatooine planetary story arc for all four Imperial player character classes in the BioWare-LucasArts video game Star Wars: The Old Republic in 2011. The arc culminated in the discovery of a Rakatan mind prison housing the intelligence of the Imprisoned One, an ancient Rakatan. This outcome conflicted with the conclusion of the Republic planetary story arc for Tatooine, which centered on a Republic Strategic Information Service investigation into Czerka activities on the planet and similarly concluded in the discovery of the Imprisoned One in the abandoned Czerka base.

The Imprisoned One and his mind prison previously appeared in the BioWare-produced video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in 2003.

After player characters retrieve the Czerka droid verbobrains in the Sons of Palawa settlement outside Mos Ila, they have the light side option to depart peacefully without attacking the remaining Sons.

When meeting with the Jawas outside Mos Ila to determine the origin of the Czerka droids, players have the light side option to accept Trade Master Thint's offer of a trade of information in exchange for clearing a path for the Jawas' sandcrawler.

As Darth Silthar lies dying in the Sand People's cave, players have the light side option to console him while he passes away, rather than to murder him.

When Imperial player characters arrive in the main Sons of Palawa settlement to contain the outbreak caused by the Czerka artifact, they may accept the light side option of allying and working with the uninfected Sons to purge the settlement rather than kill them.

After discovering the Imprisoned One and defeating his minions at the conclusion of the story arc, players may select the dark side option of bringing the Imprisoned One's mind prison to Empire intact to learn from him or the light side option of destroying the mind prison to contain the threat he poses. If the dark side option is chosen, players receive an in-game message from Cpt. Golah after concluding the story arc where Golah lauds the contribution of the player character to the expedition's mission and details progress made by the Imperial Science Bureau in examining the Imprisoned One's mind prison. If the light side option was chosen, Golah sends a different message explaining the expedition team's wrap-up of an examination and lockdown of the Czerka base and the dissolution of the team to assignments on the planets Hoth and Ziost.

• Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia