What started the war?

[RowanThursday]

Just a few random thoughts; reviewing the vanilla cinematics, it appears that the last war; the one in which Malgus, Ven Zallow, Satele Shan, Nico Okarr etc were the heroes, got kicked off by the Sith deciding "Bugger it, we want Korriban back," and storming the planet, but failing to stop the heroes escaping, hence shattering the secrecy of the Sith Empire that had existed since the Great Hyperspace War, and endured through nobody ever managing to figure out where Revan had gone and surviving investigating.

 

So, what, I wonder, led the Sith to do that. They clearly weren't ready - since they got to the very eve of victory on their momentum but then had to accept a negotiated treaty nobody wanted. The Emperor appears to have been largely disinterested at this point, and is mostly irritated by Baras later re-igniting the conflict.

 

Was it the Star Cabal, angling to just try and get a lot of Jedi and Sith out of the way? Revan's efforts to delay the Emperor weakening? The only Sith we meet in game with an overpowering interest in Korriban is Zash, and, at only the rank of Lord by the start of the game, it's highly unlikely she was in any position to stir up the Sith to invade Korriban all that time ago. Or was it simply all a terrible mistake based on something some Darth thought was a good idea at the time?

[FlameYOL]

It was the Emperor.

[Erevan_Kindelar]

From my perspective, I also think it was the Emperor behind it, making use of the Sith Empire to put the Republic in a state of turmoil and force them into a rebuilding stage where the Jedi are severely short-handed and the Republic military are just about able to halt and then push back the Empire.

He used the strength of the Sith Empire to decimate the Jedi, and timed the attack for a point where the Empire was not quite strong enough to push through with their initial momentum to completely defeat the Republic, then signing the Treaty of Coruscant at the point where both sides were badly depleted and neither was guaranteed a final victory if the fighting had continued, but where the Sith Empire had the upper hand/momentum.

 

As I see his strategy, it was to use both factions to keep each other in check, and make use of the fact that the Sith within the Empire would unite in the face of a strong opponent that could potentially defeat them (The Republic), but which would weaken from within as the Republic weakened and the individual Sith started to scheme against each other as the power and threat of the Republic reduced after the Battle of Coruscant.

 

If the Emperor had allowed the war to continue after Coruscant, either the Sith Empire would have succeeded in bringing down the Republic, or the Sith infighting would have worsenned as the Republic was apparently nearing defeat, allowing the Republic to rally and push the Imperial Army and the handful of Sith staying loyal to the Imperial goals back into the uncharter regions. Both of those scenarios leave a single "united" power in the central Galaxy, able to focus solely on the new threat that arises in KoTFE. Yes, the two sides eventually sort of come together, but in the initial stages both the Republic and Sith had their attention divided between the old enemy and the new threat, which is much better for the new player on the block who is not facing a united front from day 1.