and/or it could be that during Kotor 1, they waited for the Sith Lord-wannabe pretensious fallen Jedi, i.e. Malak, to destroy the Republic with the Star Forge; only then to eliminate him and conquer the galaxy more easily, now that the Republic and the Jedi were out of the way. Now this idea sort of works with both endings for Kotor: If LS, then they saw that they had to deal with an even stronger Republic -with Revan at their side- by themselves, and wreaked havoc on the Jedi during those mysterious '5 years'; if DS, then they either challenged Revan and killed him, or, used whatever it was that initiated his fall in the first place, to render him inert, sending him into exile, whatever. Maybe they joined forces with Revan and Bastila.
Remember that there was no mentioning whether Malak and Revan ever faced a powerful Sith as they 'rose to power'; and the only one Malak ever challenged was Revan, and that was an act of envy rather than their master-apprentice er.. 'tradition'. I think they were *definitely* around during Kotor 1; with the second episode we'll start seeing this greater picture.
-but, it could also be that the Sith Lords of TSL were in hiding during Kotor 1, not because they waited for their conspiracies to unfold, but because they actually feared Malak. Then they would have appeared to fill the vacuum created by the death of Malak and the exile of Revan. As far as I can imagine, this makes a weak connection between the two games -it's as if the idea of new and powerful Sith Lords just popped up because there needed to be a sequel. I doubt that. Some way or another, we'll start learning more about the state of the SW galaxy in that time period, during TSL; and that will necessarily include more information about the original conflict, in Kotor 1 -including the 'mysterious fall' of Revan and Malak.
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