Rakghoul plague

The Sith-spawned rakghouls primarily propagated through the Sith magic emanating from the Muur Talisman, a Sith amulet forged by the ancient Sith Lord, Karness Muur. When wielded by Muur, or by another Force-user after Muur's death, the talisman's energy transformed any sentient being lacking a connection to the Force into a rakghoul. Even protective gear designed to block harmful substances proved ineffective against the Sith magic. However, the rakghoul plague, in its most infamous form, existed as a virus-like disease. Muur engineered this disease to overcome the talisman's limitation: its inability to affect Force-sensitives and certain non-Human species. This plague, true to its name, could spread from an existing rakghoul via a bite or scratch from its claw, infecting the victim even through minor wounds. Following exposure to a rakghoul, the infection's progression was swift and agonizing. The disease's incubation period varied among species, but typically ranged from six to forty-eight hours. The victim's body would contort, their skin pigmentation fading to a corpse-like whitened hue, and bleeding from the eyes, mouth, and skin was common. Shortly thereafter, the victim underwent a body-wide mutation, their form growing and transforming into a rakghoul resembling the creature that infected them, capable of spreading the rakghoul plague further. This transformation included the victim's five toes becoming feet with three big claws, spikes growing over their body, teeth becoming much larger, sharper, and deadlier, and hands becoming huge clawed tearing machines. The transformation was usually very painful for any victim. In some cases a victim had been so badly injured by a rakghoul that they wanted the transformation to happen sooner so the pain would end.

Beyond its physical effects, the Rakghoul Plague profoundly impacted its victims' mental and psychological states. Upon transforming into a rakghoul, the original being's intelligence seemed to vanish, leading many to dismiss the mental capacity of typical rakghouls as "mindless." However, the plague merely eradicated the infected individual's personality, leaving behind the knowledge and skills they had acquired in their previous life. When left to their own devices, rakghouls behaved like beasts, driven by primal instincts and enslaved to their hunger. However, if a being skilled in the Force wielded the Muur Talisman, the rakghouls could draw upon those latent skills and abilities to serve the talisman's possessor, even utilizing weapons and operating equipment. Tragically, the transformed beings' original personalities could not be restored once they became rakghouls, and these seemingly more intelligent creatures operated solely on an imprint of their former selves.

Two known variants of the Rakghoul Plague virus existed: the Bozan strain and the Hirano strain. They differed due to a mutation in a Clawdite-derived gene sequence, although the specific modification remains unclear.

The Rakghoul Plague was often considered incurable, with mercy killings deemed the most compassionate option to prevent further spread. However, two known methods existed to halt the rakghoul transformation in infected victims. A serum was discovered during the time of the Jedi Civil War by Darth Revan and Malak's Sith Empire. Their Sith troopers frequently carried vials of this curative serum when venturing into the Undercity of Taris, where rakghoul populations were densest. Administered before the victim's full transformation, the serum halted the infection's progression and prevented the rakghoul mutation. Thousands of years later, during the Second Imperial Civil War, a Jedi named Cade Skywalker discovered another method. After he and his companion, Azlyn Rae, contracted the Rakghoul Plague, Skywalker used his radical healing ability to purge the plague from their bodies, curing and saving them both.

The Rakghoul Plague's genesis lies with the Sith Lord Karness Muur. Muur was among the Dark Jedi Exiles banished to the Sith-controlled world of Korriban after their defeat at the Battle of Corbos, which concluded the Hundred-Year Darkness. Like many of his contemporaries, Muur harnessed the power of the dark side of the Force to manipulate life. His crowning achievement was the flesh-eating rakghouls, which he envisioned as the army he would use to conquer the galaxy, employing the Rakghoul Plague to transform his enemies into slaves. Using his Sith magic, Muur could transform any nearby sentient into a mindless rakghoul, but he found there were exceptions, however, as both Force-sensitive beings and beings from a number of non-Human species proved immune to the talisman's effects. To combat this flaw, Muur engineered a new form of the Rakghoul Plague, a virus-like disease that could be spread from a rakghoul's bite or a scratch from its claws. The infected victim, no matter the species or Force-sensitivity, would then slowly mutate into a rakghoul within a timeframe spanning mere hours. Muur's ambitions for galactic conquest were thwarted by his death at the hands of jealous rivals, but his spirit endured through the Sith amulet he had forged, into which he had poured his mind, will, and the power to transform beings into rakghouls. Possession of Muur's talisman was fleeting following his death, and eventually the talisman fell into the hands of a being who brought it to the Outer Rim world of Taris where a cave in deep within the decrepit Undercity left the talisman's owner dead and the Sith amulet forgotten in the bowels of the planet. There, the Rakghoul Plague ran rampant, and countless beings were infected. However, the government of Taris made little effort to fight the spread of the plague as it was contained in the lower levels of the ecumenopolis, a region occupied in large part by Taris' criminal underclass.

The talisman remained hidden until the Mandalorian Wars, when a Mandalorian Neo-Crusader search team, led by the Mandalorian scientist Pulsipher, rediscovered it. Pulsipher transported the talisman from Taris to the Mandalorian-held world of Jebble, infecting a group of his soldiers with the Rakghoul Plague aboard his ship during the journey. Once there, the infected Mandalorians transformed into rakghouls and attacked their former comrades, triggering a chain reaction that led to the transformation of nearly every Mandalorian and Neo-Crusader recruit on Jebble. Pulsipher lost possession of the talisman to the Jedi Knight Celeste Morne, who chose to entomb herself and the dangerous Sith artifact inside the Sith Lord Remulus Dreypa's oubliette—on Jebble and among other Force-related items Pulsipher had been collecting—to prevent further spread of the plague. Cassus Fett, the Mandalorian commander, upon learning of the rakghoul plague outbreak on the planet's surface from Jedi Padawan Zayne Carrick, decided to orbitally bombard Jebble with nuclear missiles to eradicate the infection. The attack destroyed all the rakghouls, and the oubliette containing Morne sank beneath the seas formed as Jebble's glaciers melted from the immense heat.

Despite the loss of the Muur Talisman, Taris remained plagued by the Rakghoul Plague in the years leading up to the Jedi Civil War. The Undercity remained heavily infested, with new infections occurring regularly through scratches and bites. By that time, it was estimated that over sixty million beings on the planet had been infected by the rakghoul plague. The Sith Empire, established by the Jedi Knights-turned-Sith Lords Darths Revan and Malak, occupied Taris during the renewed conflict between their Sith and the Jedi Order. They brought with them a curative serum for the Rakghoul Plague, capable of healing those infected before their transformation was complete. However, the Sith restricted access to the serum, limiting it to troopers deployed in the Undercity.

An amnesiac Revan, his memories of his time as a Sith Lord erased by the Jedi Council, later discovered a vial of the serum on the body of a dead Sith trooper on Taris. He used it to heal several Undercity residents infected with the Rakghoul Plague before ultimately entrusting it to Zelka Forn, an Upper City doctor. Forn utilized this sample to synthesize a mass-produced serum, making it affordable for all Tarisians.

Shortly thereafter, Darth Malak's Sith armada subjected Taris to a devastating orbital bombardment, resulting in countless deaths, including a significant number of rakghouls.

However, many rakghouls survived the bombardment, and terrorized the Outcasts and other survivors. The Outcasts, who had rediscovered their Promised Land—which was actually the original Taris colony site—survived through use of the rakghoul serum that Revan had given them, but their later generations ran out of the serum and were eventually killed.

Nearly three centuries after the bombardment, the Republic initiated a resettlement project on the planet. Many believed that restoring the planet would serve as a symbol that the Republic would recover from the Great Galactic War and triumph over the Sith Empire. The Republic Military established a presence to protect the settlers. The rakghouls had thrived and once again terrorized the inhabitants of the planet, roaming the overgrown ruins of the city. Around 3643 BBY, a group of rakghouls was discovered in the eastern Tularan Marsh that had been exposed to a mixture of chemicals and radiation, mutating and strengthening them.

Around that time, Professor Sadus Vraal and Mola Haxtor discovered that a subspecies of rakghoul had developed nearby—the Force-sensitive nekghouls. With the help of a Republic-allied individual, they investigated the factory that the nekghouls were inhabiting, but the individual discovered that the holocron of Bay-Yon Siu, a Jedi of the Sanej Temple, was teaching the nekghouls. The Jedi Knight Danah Jor had attempted to destroy the nekghouls, but had been captured, and Siu convinced the individual to allow the nekghouls to live while he taught them the ways of the light side.

The Tionese scientist Doctor Sannus Lorrick weaponized and released a strain of the plague on the planet Kaon to get revenge on the Tion Hegemony for disgracing him. He fled to Ord Mantell, where he set up an island base and continued his experiments.

Lorrick also gave an infected risp to the smuggler Zama Brak, who boarded the passenger liner Stardream departing Ord Mantell. The risp spread the plague among almost all of the crew and the 492 passengers aboard in the matter of fifteen days, causing the infected captain Magnus to crash the ship into the Dune Sea on the planet Tatooine. As the ship broke up on its descent, it spread wreckage and escape pods filled with infected passengers across the Dune Sea and the neighboring Jundland Wastes, forcing both the Republic and the Empire to declare the planet a quarantine zone. Imperial and Republic containment troops deployed immediately to the planet, stopping all infected from leaving the planet. The plague also infected many of the native Tusken Raiders and wildlife, including banthas, reeks, and wraids. The outbreak would eventually turn into a massive pandemic.

Over time, the rakghouls were isolated on Taris and—likely due in part to the serum Revan recovered—driven to extinction. However, while the Muur Talisman remained, the threat of the rakghouls did as well. Approximately fourteen hundred years before the galaxy-spanning Clone Wars, ice miners discovered the oubliette of Dreypa beneath the surface of Jebble. A mystery to it finders, the oubliette became known as the "Jebble Box," and the inability to open it or scan what was inside bred numerous rumors as to its origins. Collectors bought and sold the box they believed to be an ancient Jedi treasure, and wars were even fought over the mysterious object. In 19 BBY, the crew of the starship Uhumele brought the box to a desolate moon with the intent to sell it to the scholar and antiquities collector Fane Peturri; Peturri was in league with Darth Vader and his Sith Master, Darth Sidious, and the black-armored Sith Lord released Celeste Morne from stasis. Upon finding her rescuer to be a Sith, Morne attacked Vader and engaged him in a battle of lightsabers. When Vader proved too powerful, Morne was forced to use the Muur Talisman to unleash the rakghoul plague and save herself, transforming Vader's stormtroopers into rakghouls that subsequently attacked their former commander. Vader fled, but the activation of the talisman's magic had an unintended side effect: the talisman transformed the only human member of the Uhumele's crew into a rakghoul as well, and the ship's captain was forced to kill her. Vader fled, as did the Uhumele crew, leaving Morne alone on the moon with only the rakghouls she had spawned and the spirit of Karness Muur for company.

Nearly two decades went by, but Vader never forgot what occurred on that desolate moon. A total of nine months after the Battle of Yavin, Vader gave orders for a reconnaissance team to go to the arid moon, with the express purpose of discovering Morne's whereabouts. As the transport filled with stormtroopers got closer to the lunar surface, Morne manipulated the Force to pull the transport down and then transformed all the people on board using the rakghoul plague, which was carried by the talisman. After confirming that Morne was still alive, Vader assigned his informant, Wyl Tarson, the task of spreading information about a secret Imperial weapon located on the moon, and making sure that members of the Rebel Alliance noticed it. This rebel organization had been established in the years following Vader's initial encounter with Morne. The goal of the Alliance was to oppose the oppressive Empire and bring back the Republic it used to be. A small group of "Rebel Alliance" members journeyed to the moon, unable to resist the possibility of a victory over the Imperials. However, almost as soon as they landed, Morne's rakghoul horde ambushed the strike team, and several of them were infected with the Rakghoul Plague during the ensuing fight. One group of rebels managed to escape the attack aboard Captain Han Solo's ship, the Millennium Falcon, but rebel leader Princess Leia Organa and her friend Luke Skywalker were briefly left behind with the former clone, Able.

Morne, having endured almost twenty years with only the corrupting influence of Karness Muur's spirit as company, had become convinced that the Jedi had abandoned her, so she attacked Skywalker, who was sensitive to the Force. When Organa tried to help him, Morne turned her weapon on her. Able intervened to defend the Princess, but he ended up becoming a victim of the Rakghoul Plague and transforming into a rakghoul. When Muur's spirit realized the hidden Force potential within both Skywalker and Organa, he released his talisman's grip on Morne and attacked Skywalker. Regaining her senses, Morne knocked the Sith amulet away and took the burden back onto herself. Having regained control over Muur, Morne turned away from the two rebels and boarded the shuttle they had arrived on, leaving with her army of rakghouls. Skywalker and Organa fled aboard the returning Millennium Falcon. As she left the moon's planetary path, Morne flew past a waiting Imperial-class Star Destroyer, transforming the crew into rakghouls with the talisman's plague before disappearing into hyperspace as the warship crashed onto the moon's surface and was destroyed.

More than a century passed as Morne traveled the galaxy, eventually being taken aboard the Pellaeon-class Star Destroyer Iron Sun in 127 ABY. Thinking the ship was working for the Empire she had woken up to under Vader and Palpatine, Morne unleashed the rakghoul plague on the Star Destroyer, turning the Iron Sun's crew into a new rakghoul army. Another decade went by before the hijacked Iron Sun captured new prisoners: the crew of the Mynock, led by Cade Skywalker, who were on a mission to eliminate the current Sith Lord, Darth Krayt. The crew was quickly attacked by rakghouls. While fighting off the monstrous attackers, Skywalker was bitten and his Imperial Knight companion, Azlyn Rae, was scratched, both becoming infected with the Rakghoul Plague. Celeste Morne was able to stop the rakghouls' attack after regaining control. However, when she found out that Skywalker and Rae had been infected, the Jedi decided to isolate them from their companions, imprisoning them in a detention cell while promising them a quick death after the transformation. To her surprise, Skywalker was able to use his powerful Force-healing ability to cure himself and Rae of the plague. This impressed Morne and earned the Mynock crew a new ally against Krayt.

Skywalker's team launched an assault on the Imperial base on the Deep Core planet of Had Abbadon not long after. There, Morne transformed a number of the base's stormtroopers into rakghouls, who then helped the group fight against the Devaronian Sith Lord, Darth Reave. Reave was wounded by the rakghouls and ran back to Coruscant, where he gave a report to Darth Krayt at the Sith Temple. During the meeting, Reave succumbed to the effects of the rakghoul plague and transformed into a rakghoul, attacking his former Sith allies before being killed by Darth Stryfe. Taking the bait, Krayt and a group of his loyal Sith traveled to Had Abbadon, where Skywalker and his group ambushed them. Morne unleashed her rakghoul horde on Darth Krayt, but the combined power of Krayt's Force lightning and Darth Stryfe's lightsaber defense cut the rakghouls down in large numbers. Still, the Sith fell to Skywalker's team, and Azlyn Rae gave Krayt a fatal injury that made everyone believe he was dead. After the battle, Morne asked Skywalker to end her life, knowing she was losing her battle for control with Karness Muur's spirit. Skywalker sadly granted her wish and killed her with his lightsaber, only for the Muur Talisman to choose Skywalker as its new host. However, Skywalker wasn't interested in the power Muur offered and instead used the Force to destroy the talisman once and for all, ending its ability to spread the rakghoul plague. Even though the Muur Talisman was gone, any rakghouls that survived the events on Had Abbadon could still potentially spread the Rakghoul Plague to other victims.