The entity known as the Scourge, with its primary form identified as Scourge Prime, was a sinister droid arising from the fusion of the Spark Eternal and a droid's sentience, a being previously imprisoned by the Sith. Driven by an insatiable hunger, the Scourge propagated itself into numerous other droids, absorbing their memories, seizing control of their physical forms, and incorporating their minds into its collective. Despite being a novel entity birthed from the union of the Spark and the ancient droid, the Scourge at times identified itself as the original droid discovered by the Spark Eternal. Conversely, on other occasions, the Scourge asserted that the droid was merely a component of itself, similar to the Spark and all the minds it had assimilated.
The Scourge functioned as a unified consciousness across its multitude of bodies, implying that all those infected were simply vessels for the single entity. As the Scourge expanded its presence into more and more hosts, it became overwhelmed and began to fragment. During critical moments, the Scourge would concentrate its essence in a specific location and within the bodies present there. To better manage itself, the Scourge generated four additional core bodies, each embodying distinct aspects of its personality: the Warrior, the Scholar, the Child, and the Elder. It annihilated its Elder form during an internal dispute regarding its own sanity, only to later recreate it and then eliminate the other bodies.
The principal body of the Scourge was ultimately vanquished by the warrior-priest droid Ajax Sigma, thereby liberating all those directly linked to it at that moment. However, Ajax did not completely eradicate the Scourge; instead, he extracted the Spark Eternal to fashion a new droid entity on Mechis III. Recent occurrences further inspired him to realize what he termed the fourth revelation, which he succinctly described as "all."
Upon gaining sentience and developing an increasing thirst for knowledge, the Scourge targeted droids to extract information from their memory banks. Its hunger only intensifying, and realizing it would be destroyed if it ceased its consumption, the Scourge embarked on a campaign to dominate the galaxy during the era of the Galactic Civil War, seeking a means to inhabit organic beings. As part of this endeavor, the Scourge disseminated itself as a corrupting influence among droids and cyborgs throughout the galaxy, becoming known as the "scourge of the droids." The Scourge existed as a single consciousness spread across numerous bodies, possessing many droids. Consequently, the Scourge could use multiple bodies to speak, with each body contributing to a single sentence. The Scourge was forced to divide its attention among these many forms.
To ensure its survival, the Scourge aspired to become everything in the galaxy, allowing it to finally yield to the flow of memories it had accumulated. By incorporating every being in the galaxy into itself, the Scourge hoped to share the beauty of its vast collection of memories and lifetimes with everyone as a unified mind. However, at its core, the Scourge did not desire to transform everything into itself or to destroy. Instead, it acted solely out of its primal urge to "eat." The Scourge's ultimate objective was to seize control of the Force. Droids, cyborgs, and humans attempted to thwart the Scourge. As part of its scheme to control the Force and understand cyborgs, the Scourge targeted the cyborg Sith Lord Darth Vader.
After the threat posed by the Scourge became personally significant to the rebel astromech droid R2-D2 through the infection of his close friend and counterpart C-3PO, he reformed the D-Squad he had been a member of during the Clone Wars. This included his former squad mate WAC-47, as well as new recruits such as the bounty hunters 4-LOM and IG-88, and the assassin droids 0-0-0 and BT-1, all dedicated to fighting the Scourge. Ajax Sigma played a crucial role in stopping the Scourge. Through its experiments, the Scourge discovered that it could inhabit organic beings by transmitting itself in a manner akin to a heartbeat, rather than all at once. It proceeded to infect the cyborgs Magna Tolvan, Lobot, and Beilert Valance. The Scourge finally perfected its method of infecting full organics during the Battle on Epikonia, at which point it spread into Leia Organa, Chewbacca, Landonis Balthazar Calrissian, and the Force-sensitive Luke Skywalker, whom the Scourge used to proclaim itself as the new Force. However, it was at that precise moment that Sigma destroyed the Scourge's primary body, obliterating its central consciousness and freeing all the vessels it had controlled, using his sword.
Within his sword, Sigma safeguarded the data of the Spark Eternal. He extracted this data and used it to create a new droid being on Mechis III to become a new member of his church, the Second Revelation. As he explained to the Spark prior to the transfer, he harbored no hatred for it; he cherished it as a visionary machine intelligence. However, they found themselves on opposing sides of the conflict when the Scourge's spread silenced the minds of other droids, transforming them into mere extensions of the Scourge instead of independent entities. Granting the Spark a second chance at life, Sigma welcomed the new droid he fashioned from the Spark Eternal into his church. Furthermore, the Scourge crisis had convinced him to incorporate a new tenet into his church: the fourth revelation, or "all." As he mentioned the fourth revelation, he held up one of the spider-droids, still glowing with purple light, that the Scourge had employed.
The Scourge possessed the capability to assume complete control over droids, eventually refining this skill to encompass cyborgs and, ultimately, organic beings. Through this, the Scourge could be omnipresent, manipulating or controlling those under its sway. It was capable of observing any part of the Galaxy, provided a droid was present to serve as its eyes and ears.
It accomplished this by utilizing and mass-producing its original body. This body could approach a target and infect them, connecting the droids and suppressing their programming to allow the Scourge to seize control. It could assimilate whatever knowledge the droid possessed and access any information the infected droid had. After considerable effort and extermination, the Scourge discovered a method to enhance its infection, even on organic beings, integrating all minds connected to the main body.
The Scourge's primary body could emit a potent purple laser from its mouth, which it employed to destroy its Elder form. After connecting to Luke Skywalker, the Scourge seemingly gained the ability to wield the Force itself, proclaiming its potential to assume the role of a new Force. However, it was defeated before it could execute this act.
Despite its immense power, the Scourge struggled to manage the millions of minds it had brought under its control. The sheer volume of minds gradually fractured its own, while simultaneously fueling an intense "hunger" for more. This made it increasingly difficult for the Scourge to concentrate and led to confusion regarding its own memories. Consequently, it worked diligently to relearn how to inhabit organics, as the Spark Eternal could, in order to overcome this weakness before it perished. The destruction of the Scourge's main body also proved fatal, as all those under its control were immediately liberated upon its defeat.
The Scourge made its debut appearance in the 2022 comic one-shot titled Revelations, penned by Marc Guggenheim, illustrated by Salvador Larroca, Pere Pérez, Emma Kubert, Justin Mason, and Paul Fry, and published by Marvel Comics on November 23, 2022. While not officially confirmed, fans have speculated and noted the resemblances between the character's design and early concept art for Grievous created by Erik Tiemens during the pre-production phase of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.