Scourge crisis

The Scourge crisis, also known as the droid plague or the "scourge of the droids," was a malevolent infection of droids and cyborgs that spread across the entire civilized galaxy during the Galactic Civil War in the wake of the Crimson Dawn syndicate's defeat. During the final battle of Crimson Dawn's war against the Sith, Lady Qi'ra opened the Fermata Cage in an effort to seal away the Sith Lords Darth Sidious and Darth Vader, rulers of the Galactic Empire. In opening the Cage, a small disc was dropped out that, unknown to the two Sith, was a piece of technology locked away by the Sith of old. After the Knights of Ren disrupted the Cage, freeing the two Sith from its grasp but unleashing the Force Wave in the process, Qi'ra's forces were destroyed by the Imperial fleet. One of her allies, the anti-Sith artificial intelligence known as the Spark Eternal, fled into the disc in the wake of the Dawn's destruction and bonded with the technology the ancient Sith had tried to ban, creating the "Scourge."

The newly created being grew hungry and spread itself as an infection of droids to learn what was in their memory banks. The Scourge infection brought chaos to the Empire and Alliance to Restore the Republic. Only growing more hungry as it corrupted more droids, the Scourge realized it would be destroyed if it stopped its spread and launched an effort to conquer the galaxy, with control over the Force its ultimate goal. The Scourge corrupted droids and cyborgs and hoped to find a way to conquer fully organic beings, thereby allowing it to become every being in the galaxy. Such would mean it would have no enemies to defend against. With that, the Scourge would be able to focus and lose itself in the memories and information it had acquired in its spread. The Scourge's ultimate target was Vader, who, as a cyborg, was susceptible to the corruption. The warrior-priest droid Ajax Sigma was vital to stopping the Scourge.

After his attempt to punish his Sith Master Darth Sidious during the thwarted Scourge of Coruscant ended in failure, Vader willingly bonded with the Scourge so as to finally become more powerful than his master. It was unclear if the Scourge was controlling Vader or if Vader had taken over the Scourge for his own uses. In truth, Vader quickly separated his armor from the Scourge at large and attempted to create his own version of the infection under his command. During the Battle on Epikonia, the Scourge finally mastered how to transfer itself into organics and took control of Luke Skywalker's body, with which the Scourge declared it would become the new Force. It was at that exact moment, however, that Sigma destroyed the Scourge's main body, thus freeing every organic, including cyborgs, and droid from its possession.

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