DARTH MALAK

'Darth Malak' is a fictional character from the ''Star Wars'' universe. He was introduced as the main antagonist in the video game '' (2003) for the Xbox and PC platforms. The events of ''Knights of the Old Republic'' take place 3,956 years prior to the Battle of Yavin, depicted in the first film of the ''Star Wars'' series, ''.''
Darth Malak was a bald, pale-skinned human. His head was adorned with a large durasteel plate that covered his face from below the nose on down. The prosthetic was made necessary by a ghastly injury that completely severed his lower jaw. (The Star Wars official databank states that he lost it in a lightsaber duel. A recently released toy action figure says that it was Revan who sliced it off). Darth Malak is a 6 ft 6.75 in (2 meters) tall Sith Lord. Malak, near the end of the Jedi civil war, injured his master, Revan, and usurped the title of "Dark Lord of the Sith" from him.
Darth Malak was a master swordsman, and an adept Force-user, excelling particularly in such dark side skills as Force lightning, Life Drain, and Force choking. He also excelled in Lightsaber Throw and Stasis. Darth Malak used an improved lightsaber that produced a longer blade, if compared to the standard sabers. The hilt was identical to that of shorter lightsabers. This item can be obtained in-game through the use of the Kotor Savegame Editor, a program used to modify game variables.

Contents

Early career

Dark Lord of the Sith

The Final Battle

See also

External links

Early career

Malak and his best friend, Revan, were Jedi that were connected with the Order's enclave on Dantooine. While they were there, they discovered a Star Map that had been left on the planet by the Rakata, a species that had ruled the galaxy in the distant past.
When the Mandalorian Wars began and Outer Rim planets began to fall, Revan defied the Jedi Council and insisted on defending the galaxy alongside the Old Republic starfleet. The first to follow him was Malak, against the wishes of his own master. Together they rallied many young Jedi and began destroying the Mandalorians in battle after battle, finally defeating the mercenary leader, Mandalore the Ultimate, above Malachor V. The duo took their fleet, however, and passed beyond known space, insisting that they had to destroy the remnants of the Mandalorian armada. While beyond the Rim, they found the Star Forge, an ancient marvel of Rakatan engineering. Corrupted by the dark side energies present in and the power by the Star Maps and Star forge, Revan and Malak fell to the dark side and founded a new Sith Empire out of the Jedi and Republic forces who still followed them. However, it is hinted in the sequel that Revan was not, in fact, corrupted, but chose the dark side merely to conquer, and ultimately strengthen the Republic against some unknown threat.
Darth Malak appears breafly in the hidden tomb on Korriban in the Shyrack cave as a vision of the Jedi Exile's past when Malak was recuriting for the Mandalorian Wars. Depending on the choice you make you fight Malak

Dark Lord of the Sith

The moment came when a Republic strike team, led by Jedi Sentinel Bastila Shan, staged an assault on Revan's flagship. In an attempt to slay the powerful Jedi and his master at the same time, Malak ordered his ship's guns to fire on Revan's ship. Malak believed that Revan was dead and assumed the command of the Sith Empire, at last taking the mantle of Dark Lord for his own.
While the war against the Republic was going very well, he feared Bastila's gift of Battle Meditation, a rare Force power that enabled her to strengthen the Republic forces' resolve and coordinate their fighting effort while sapping the will of their enemies, making her a threat to the entire Sith war effort. Malak expended tremendous resources in an attempt to locate her.
Malak nearly succeeded once when he blockaded the planet Taris. Although he had the planet destroyed to prevent Bastila's escape, she nonetheless was able to return unharmed to Dantooine accompanied by her rescuers. Among these heroes were two citizens of Taris, Mission Vao and Zaalbar; Republic pilot Carth Onasi; the utility droid T3-M4; Canderous Ordo; and Revan himself, his mind reprogrammed as a crewmember from the Republic cruiser ''Endar Spire''.
Bastila and her companions left Dantooine in search of the source of Malak's power. While on their search, Bastila was captured by Malak. Malak corrupted Bastila to the dark side of the Force and made her his apprentice. (Malak's previous apprentice, Darth Bandon, had recently been killed in action by Revan.)
It is not surprising that Malak's fate would be connected with Bastila's. The two were very much alike -- courageous, arrogant, and heedless of the warnings of their Jedi instructors to beware the call of the dark side. But the true reason Malak chose Bastila for his apprentice was the unimaginable advantages the Sith Empire could gain from her Battle Meditation. Among the Sith, there is no such thing as camaraderie.

The Final Battle

The source of this power was the subject of the Star Map that Malak and Revan had discovered on Dantooine long ago: the Star Forge. The Star Forge was an enormous space station and battle dreadnought constructed by the Infinite Empire of the Rakata. The Rakata were a technologically advanced but savage species who extended their power throughout the galaxy by means of conquest. The Star Forge was constructed above one of the poles of their home star. There, the Star Forge fed on the star's energetic hydrogen and the dark side of the Force to produce an unending supply of starfighters, capital ships, and war droids for the Rakata prior to their collapse, and now for the Sith.
The heroes on the quest for the Star Forge called in the Republic fleet to attack the Sith. For a while, it looked as if Malak would be able to destroy his foes in a single, glorious day. Fate – or the Force – handed Malak a stunning defeat, however, and it would be he who would die when his former master; and old friend, Revan, returned. During the battle, his old master boarded the giant machine in the ''Ebon Hawk'', defeated an attack force of Forge droids, slew nearly the entire pool of Malak's Dark Jedi and Sith apprentices, redeemed Bastila (depending on how the game was played; he could also kill her if he wished), and finally killed his old friend in single combat.
Malak tried to blame Revan for his fate, but then admitted that, in the end, the only person he had to blame was himself. Humbled by that knowledge, still bested by Revan despite all his clever plans and conquests, Malak, realizing that nothing he had ever done or could ever do could compare to the things done by his former master, at last acknowledged his inferiority, and his final words were the truest he had ever spoken: "And in the end, as the darkness takes me, I am nothing." Then Malak dies and Revan saves the Republic (or unites the Sith, depending on how the game was played).

See also

★ Knights of the Old Republic II

External links

★ Darth Malak at the ''Star Wars'' Databank

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