Eleven years after the Treaty of Coruscant was signed, Republic forces and Imperial troops had duked it out over the scarred, war-torn world of Taris following a renewal of hostilities. For the Republic and the Jedi Order, it was a chance to score a symbolic victory; that Taris could be brought back from the brink of total collapse. The Sith Empire, on the other hand, saw Taris as a way to break the Republic; to show that their Republic foes could never recover from a brutal onslaught.

It is during this war where an Imperial scouting party into the Sinking City found themselves ambushed by Republic soldiers assisted by a Jedi escort. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Imperials fought a losing battle against the Jedi and their men, to where the surviving stragglers decided it was in their best interest to surrender. Before any official questioning could begin, however, the city ground, true to its' name, began to give way beneath, opening a hole within the earth and swallowing them with it.

Unbeknownst to the soldiers and Jedi, they had fallen into hell—a Rakghoul-infested hell.