The Imperial I-class Star Destroyer named Chelator was captured by the Scourge circa 3 ABY, which initiated the spread of the scourge of the droids. The Chelator's entire human complement, comprising 46,785 individuals, faced massacre at the hands of droids influenced by the Scourge soon after the Star Destroyer left the Outer Rim Territories' Amaxine Space Station. Emperor Palpatine had instructed the Imperial forces to gather all materials at the station and transport them to Al'doleem, a moon situated within the Mid Rim Territories. Within the wreckage of the space station resided a spider-droid, an ancient intelligence fused with the Spark Eternal. This entity possessed the ability to corrupt other droids, transforming them into extensions of itself, starting with a KX-series security droid dispatched from the Chelator as part of the retrieval operation. Subsequently, the Scourge extended its reach from the security droid to encompass both astromech droids and protocol droids. These 2,518 droids were rapidly overtaken, taking the humans completely off-guard, and eliminated the organic crew in diverse ways while the Star Destroyer was in space. Petyr, an MSE-6 series repair droid operating covertly aboard the Chelator for the independent droid faction known as the Second Revelation, communicated news of the catastrophe to the Colony of the Second Revelation before succumbing to corruption by a Scourge spider-droid himself.
After seizing control of the Imperial starship, the Scourge rechristened it Scourge 01 and dispatched spider-droids housed within MSE-6 unit chassis, Petyr included, throughout the galaxy to propagate its consciousness. Over time, the Scourge 01 underwent a transformation into a grotesque vessel characterized by a black hue and adorned with numerous irregular spikes.