Lit Why did the Republic forget about the Rakata and their Infinite Empire?

I always have to to laugh when i replay the KOTR game that predates TSL where you have to find the Star Maps and use them to locate Lehon/Rakata Prime to locate the Star Forge, and Bastila Shan mentions how the Hutt's ruled the galaxy before the founding of the Old Galactic Republic but that they never had an empire like the one that was shown and heard about that the Rakata on the hologram was talking about, even the Jedi Council and the Republic have no clue who these aliens are and what their empire is.

It seems like the Jedi Order and the Republic deleted the Rakata and their Infinite Empire from all records to try and forget about them, then Revan and his companions find the first Star Map and bring up the forgotten past which all of the records on have been deleted, very weird, at least the Sith Empire in The Old Republic game seemed to have records on the Rakata and the Infinite Empire, they seemed to be aware of the distant past, but the Republic and Jedi seem to have either forgotten or have deleted the records, because they had no clue what the Infinite Empire was at all, no records of it on file, nothing.

Amazing how the New Republic and later governments actually kept accurate records on it and events before this but the Old Republic seemed to have deleted them, not wanting to remember the past, they probably had no knowledge of the Celestials, Killiks, Gree or Kwa either, or anything from that era up till the current time, so how did the records resurface again?

 

My general rule of thumb to live by when it comes to lost knowledge, tech, etc: Dark Ages did it.

 

I would say that it is a combination of the Rakatan Empire existing in the incredibly distant past- you should see how spotty our records are on the Roman Kingdom, and that was *only* 2753-2501 years ago, if we believe Livy (and Livy is suspect)- and concentrated efforts in the wake of the fall of the Rakatan Empire to erase them from memory. Many of the Rakatan worlds are no longer prominent centers of galactic culture, and some of those that are have been so continuously inhabited that any archaeological evidence of Rakatan occupation is buried under tens of thousands of years of construction.

 

We don’t have a clue what happened 21000 years ago either, so not that much of a problem, though Bastilla clearly failed Hutt history, as they had an Empire.

 

How does the Republic later know about the Celestials, Columi, Kwa, Gree, Killiks and Rakata at all then? They seem to have no clue in the game then later on in other sources they know a lot about the races that predated them that once ruled and explored the galaxy, was their some discovery or fossilized record that was left behind and meant to be found that they gained access to? Seems like eventually someone told them or they found out, maybe the Anzati or the Neti shared secrets with them, both being able to live for thousands of years and having old civilizations and cultures, it would be nice to see the ancient Anzati as being advanced and peaceful, then later devolving and becoming savages that cared about Soup, thanks to some misfortune that befell them.

 

why would that be nice?

Btw, there's an in-universe theory that the Anzati corrupted the Sith species sometime before the Jedi Exiles arrived.

 

Because they dumped lots of lots of money into research to prevent something like this happening again? Just ask Corellia Antilles how such stuff happens.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Henrietya_Antilles

 

Revan discovered actual living Rakata, as well as numerous artifacts during his lifetime. I'd assume he would've shared that knowledge with the Jedi and the Republic, as it's major Galactic history, which could've led to them revising said history and funding expeditions to learn more about the past.

As to why they didn't know in the first place that could be due to any number of events/ages that saw a significant loss of knowledge. As people have pointed out, its not as if we can trace the history of the universe that far back.

 

The chief cause is time...time and war...war and time.... The two causes are war and time...and computer viruses.... The three causes are war, time, and computer viruses...and the almost fanatical devotion of the Pius Dea.... The four...no... Amongst the causes.... Amongst the causes...are such elements as war, time.... I'll come in again.

 

That's a role for Revan I hadn't considered: the great archeologist. Considering how I spent half of KotOR archeologizing, I really should have considered it.

 

How many thriving civilisations were around that time? Did they have computers? Starships? Colonists on different planets?

 

They never forgot... how often does the Mongolian Empire come up in everyday conversation?

And the Hutt Empire was nothing like the Infinite Empire.

 

I was under the impression that they genuinly had no idea about the Infinite Empire in Kotor.

 

In KOTOR it really seems like they forgot. Nobody in your party recognizes Rakatan technology or the race themselves. I think it was just a really long time ago and everyone forgot or didn't care. We know on thing it's that characters in SW don't really know or care much about history. I mean, there have been 3 Jedi purges, countless Sith Wars and failed governments. They are almost intent on repeating histories mistakes.

 

Don't be surprised if DOTJ ends with the Rakata cursing the Jedi and Sith to keep fighting the same war over and over.

 

The Jedi Order must have the most inclusive database the galaxy. There should be something, just because i don't know next to nothing about the Parthian's does not mean there are no books about them.

 

You'd be surprised. Whenever I want an example of things going to $#!%, I mention the Mongolian Empire's invasions. Most people prefer to use Hitler, but Genghis Khan doesn't get enough credit for being the worst.

The most inclusive, and apparently the easiest to tamper with. *cough* Dooku *cough* Dooku.

Anyway, just because there is an entry for something in an encyclopedia doesn't mean we know it's true. We don't know if King Ogyges or Gilgamesh were real. They most likely were, but there's a chance they are completely mythical. Same with the Rakata. If there was no artifact that could be identified as being of Rakata origin until Revan's Star Map search, why would anyone believe the Rakata existed?

 

Hm wonder how many cover-ups there could have been. The hyperdrive itself was reverse-engineered from Rakata tech and many of the Core worlds were formerly ruled by the Rakata, but I just chalk it up to time and war. Although it could be interesting if the newly expanding powers (Coruscant, Corellia, Duros, etc.) didn't want to remember being ruled by another species either so it wasn't emphasized that much after a few thousand years. And the early Republic had other problems, such as the Hutts, the Tion, etc., as the Wafare guide covers quite a bit. Not to mention occasional clashes with the Sith. I thought even the formation of the Republic and fall of the Infinite Empire were at least several centuries apart? Definitely ancient history by KotOR's time.

What's kind of odd is that even in TOR the Infinite Empire is considered "fringe science". There's this sidequest on Tatooine where you find old holorecordings of a Czerka base there researching Rakata technology, with one scientist pushing for it to be from the Rakata technology, but the head scientist scoffs at that. Considering the Star Forge and the award ceremony on Lehon, the rakata can't be that big a secret by then. Well, the head scientist acknowledges records of similar tech in the Kashyyyk Shadowlands (probably the Star Map from KotOR), but still dismisses the Rakata theory. Though the game isn't quite consistent with itself anyway, such as when the Consular asks a few holocrons where they might find a new army, one the Sith Empire can't possibly have infiltrated already, and they suggest consulting a Rakata artifact on Hoth (which now has plenty more temples and such buried there too).

 

A couple of reasons why the Infinite Empire was largely forgotten:

1. Despite the name, and despite the power it wielded and the superweapons it crafted, the Infinite Empire was puny in size compared to the governments that followed. The KOTOR statistic is 500 worlds. The Galactic Empire is 69,000,000 worlds. So, the Rakata were present on 1 planet in every 138,000 the Empire came to contain. So there really simply wasn't a lot to recover of the Infinite Empire after it was gone, on a galaxy-wide scale anyway.

2. The Infinite Empire's technology was all Force-based. Non-Force using archeologists may have found the majority of it utterly impossible to interpret, and since it was all dark side oriented, the Jedi would have refrained from studying it. There's quite possibly a giant pile of Rakata artifacts in the Jedi Archives labeled 'forbidden' that went un-studied for tens of thousands of years.

3. Hyperdrive technology was lost in the immediate aftermath of the Infinite Empire's fall, and with it any reasonable means of interstellar communication. If the colonies dispatched via sleeper ship didn't bring any knowledge of the Rakata with them, and we know there was a deliberate effort to suppress that information, then it was gone for good until faster-than-light communication was re-established centuries or millennia later.

 

Could not resist.


Though as others have mentioned above there are various reasons for little being around. Also record keeping might really have gone into the simply mythical at times (Old Hutt History for example is known to be heavily rewritten by them themselves), whilst I can easily imaging other worlds have gone the way the old Chinese historical record keeping on some things (which happily mixed myth with real events), also all of the other great civilizations around from the time of the Infinity Empire all underwent drastic collapses. The Kwa lost their intellect, the Gree lost those parts of society that were the great thinkers and innovators, the Tionese fell upon each other after the Hutts nearly wiped them from the galaxy, whilst mystifying their glory days under Xim, the Hutts suffered a radical Cataclysm were they changed their whole society etc.

Stuff will just became near impossible to truly verify with time and basically forgotten, especially as societies move on and encounter new problems and challenges.

Lots of it is really bad PR, the Mongol Empire had some pretty nifty innovations, enabled an impressive exchange of ideas, safe and pretty much free trade, rule of law and religious freedom, also leading to the rise of many of the ancient eastern Empires (Ossman, founder of the Ottoman Empire claimed to be descended from him, as did Babur, founder of the Mogul Empire) . He is also still referred in Hungary and several other nations, just not that popular in Western Europe (thus by extend the USA, Canada etc.), because we are the descendants of his enemies.

 

Different people across the galaxy have access to different sources of information. The Jedi hold tight to the ancient information inside their holocrons. That they don't let people outside the Order know hasn't won them many friends.

Are you seriously bringing up the fact that he spawned more horrible warlords who set up large empires to exploit millions of people as a good thing?

That, in fact, even more than the fact that had more people slaughtered than any other tyrant in history, is his greatest legacy: he is patriarch to the family which spread throughout Asia in the bloodiest conquests of human history (the greatest crime of the Mongol conquests in my opinion was committed by his grandson, Hulagu: the sacking of Baghdad and the destruction of its great library). His descendants came to control almost all of Asia and parts of Europe. Sure, the conquests eventually resulted in some good things (the Taj Mahal sure looks pretty). Positive things can be said for everyone and everything. But when you slaughter millions, don't expect history to look kindly on you.

No, good old Genghis is up there with the bubonic plague as a contender for the worst thing that ever happened.

 

As if other people at the time were doing things differently, him and his "Spawns" setting up pretty well run and stable Empires properly saved more people in the long run, but as we don't know the alternative it is a mute point.

 

Others have set up empires before Genghis. None did it in such a genocidal manner, except maybe the killer duo of Moses and Joshua, if we are to accept the historicity of that narrative. We don't know the alternative, but we do know that the Mongol invasions were overwhelmingly destructive, more so than any other conquest in history.

They were in fact, worse than anything the very forgettable Rakata did (see, not off-topic).

 

As someone of mostly African decent how is the west any different than Khan?

the United States, Canada, the British empire, Spanish Empire, French Empire, Dutch empires, German Empires killed millions, destroyed regions and sowed political instability planet wide, they also did a few good things, but considering the oceans of blood and bodies they created over the pursuit of profit was it worth it?