Kealen Gar'dai

Kealen Gar'dai is the Third Barsen'thor of the Jedi Order, and the current Jedi Grandmaster of Order after Satele Shan stepped down in a self-imposed Exile. Kealen is the only known Jedi Master who can shield a Diseased Personality through the Force. He Is revered as the Jedi Master who Revealed the Emperor's "Children". Before The Eternal Empire's Conquest, Master Gar'dai Served As The Order's Resident Sage and Seer, and Was Good Friends With Msters Bestros and Gnost-Dural.
Gar'dai was Known As The Hero of Balmorra, For His Heroics In Freeing Balmorra, and Has Been Revered As A Keeper of Ancient Knowledge for Centuries After His Death. His Force Ghost Remained Active For Centuries, Tending To His Library and Overseeing The Safety of His Homeworld's Life Force.
== Background ==
=== Early Training ===
A Force-sensitive male Human was born at some point during the period of galactic history marked by the resurgence of the Sith Empire, the resulting Great Galactic War between the Empire and the Galactic Republic, and the Cold War that followed the conflict. A child prodigy, whose Force powers manifested at a very early age, he was discovered by the Jedi Order on his Homeworld of Chandrila and trained as a Jedi under a number of Jedi instructors during the Cold War. The young Jedi Initiate was considered extremely wise for such a young age and displayed a remarkably Strong connection with the Force, something unheard of in decades. In 3643 BBY. the young Jedi was sent to the ancestral Jedi world of Tython to learn from an official mentor, so that he could complete the Jedi Trials and further develop his unique connection with the Force, following the path of a Jedi Consular. Kealen was assigned as a Padawan to a respected Jedi Master and scholar called Yuon Par, who specialized in Archaeology. Arriving via a shuttle down to the planet's surface, the young Jedi landed at a remote meditation temple known as the Masters' Retreat. There, he was greeted by a famed Jedi High Council Member and his former Instructor, Master Syo Bakarn, while Master Par was delayed on her archaeological inquiries. When Par finally arrived, she informed her new apprentice of an urgent matter. A team of Jedi researchers had recently uncovered several teaching holograms—priceless holorecordings made by the founders of the Jedi Order—in the region known as the Tythonian Gnarls. However, the native Flesh Raiders, known for their tendency to destroy such invaluable findings, had started rampaging through the region. As a first official training task, Par's Padawan was assigned to go to the Gnarls and retrieve the hologram's projectors so that they could be preserved.
Armed only with a training lightsaber, the Padawan successfully defeated the attacking Flesh Raiders and retrieved three of the four devices, containing the recordings made by Masters Cala Brin, Garon Jard, andTers Sendon. However, he found out that the fourth holo-projector had been stolen. Using a personal holocomm device, he reported the discovery to Master Par, who was surprised by the news. The Flesh Raiders were not known for stealing artifacts; they usually destroyed them outright. Par promised to look into the matter and instructed the student to meet her at the Tython's main Jedi Temple. Arriving at the Temple, the Padawan was greeted by a fellow young trainee, the Zabrak Hallen, who instructed him to speak with Master Wettle in order to receive some training in martial arts from him. After following Hallen's advice and meeting with Wettle, the Padawan reported to Par, finding her engaged in a conversation with a Trandoshan male. The Jedi Master introduced the latter as Qyzen Fess, an old friend of hers who was on Tython on a hunting expedition. Par also told the apprentice the information she had managed to discover about the missing holorecording. The recording belonged to Master Rajivari, the fourth of the founding members of the Order, who had fallen to the dark side of the Force and had betrayed his fellow Masters. Par suspected that the thief was likely someone from the Kalikori village, an illegal settlement of Twi'lek Pilgrims, driven from their homeworld of Ryloth by religious prosecution. As the Pilgrims lived in a state of poverty, Par believed that the thief was most likely intending to sell the ancient device for credits.
Afraid that the holo-projector could hold the most powerful and darkest secrets of Rajivari, Par tasked Kealan to travel to the Kalikori village and speak with the captain of the village guard, Bashenn, in hopes of discovering the thief's identity. However, he was instructed to be delicate in that task, as the Jedi Order was officially forbidden from helping the Pilgrims, due to them being on Tython in violation of Republic law. Once at the Kalikori village, the Padawan spoke to Bashenn as instructed and discovered that Nalen Raloch, the village's dueling champion and the person responsible for defending his people against Flesh Raider attacks, had taken the holoprojector and had ventured deep into Flesh Raider territory. The Padawan followed Raloch's path and found the holoprojector in Raloch's camp established inside a cave. Raloch soon arrived himself, explaining to the would-be Consular that the reason he had stolen the holoprojector was to find a way to defeat the Flesh Raiders once and for all, thus protecting the people of the Kalikori village from them. Raloch was, in fact, sensitive to the Force and had gained some knowledge on how to manipulate it from Rajivari's hologram. Demonstrating what he had learned, Raloch used the Force to collapse the cave in an attempt to attract the Raiders there and have them killed. After doing so, the Twi'lek left the scene. Kealen took Rajivari's holoprojector and, fighting through the Flesh Raiders attracted by the groundquake, managed to escape from the cave as well. Bringing the projector to Par, he activated it, hoping to learn what Raloch had been after. However, the holographic image of Rajivari merely spoke enigmatically of some sort of "true wisdom," which he had hidden at a location which the "first blade at the sanctuary of the Order" pointed at.
=== Fount of Rajivari ===
Master Par realized that the "true wisdom" Rajivari spoke of was the Fount of Rajivari, a rumored collection of the fallen Master's teachings. The Fount was considered a hoax by the Jedi after numerous unsuccessful attempts to locate it, but the holorecording provided definite proof of its existence. Master Par also deduced that "the sanctuary of the Order" referred to Kaleth, an ancient fortress of the Je'daii Order, an organization that had preceded the Jedi Order and which Rajivari had helped reform into the latter. The fortress's name was a Je'daii word meaning "sanctum." To that end, Par sent her Padawan to travel to the ruins of Kaleth and retrieve the mysterious "first blade" in order to locate the Fount before Raloch, who she believed would also be looking for it. Among the ruins of Kaleth, Kealen found a grave containing the remains of the Weapon Master, an ancient Je'daii Master and the creator of the First Blade, the weapon that had served as the foundation of all modern lightsabers. The hilt of the First Blade had been hidden among the remains of the Weapon Master and had been guarded all those millennia by ancient Tythonian War Droids. In order to be allowed access to the hilt, one of those droids instructed Kealen to undertake the challenges the Weapon Master had devised for his students to prove their combat prowess. The Padawan defeated a number oftraining droids near Kaleth and was granted access to the hilt, which appeared heavily modified and contained data encrypted in it by Rajivari. As he reported that discovery to Master Par, the latter started to believe that the Force itself had intervened in the training of her Padawan and was now guiding the training process, an opinion which—as Kealen later discovered in a meeting with Masters Syo Bakarn and Jaric Kaedan—was not shared by the Jedi Council.
Kealen delivered the hilt of the First Blade to Par, who informed her apprentice that after further analysis of Rajivari's hologram, she had found out that the hilt needed to be taken into a cave in the nearby mountains, which had once served as the meeting place for the very first Jedi Council. Once brought inside the cave, the hilt would then supposedly point to the location of the Fount. Fess, who was once again present during the conversation, stated that he would assist Par and the Padawan in their search and departed from the Jedi Temple to the cave with a head start. After making way to the cave, the young Jedi fought through some Flesh Raiders inside and reached the cave's end, locating a number of ceremonial carvings and a pile of bones. He also met Fess there, who agreed to share "Jagannath points" with the Jedi for their "hunt." Kealen did not understand what the Trandoshan was talking about, so Fess explained to him that Jagganath points were a concept of the Trandoshan religion that he adhered to. A Trandoshan was granted Jagganath points for each kill by the goddess known as the Scorekeeper. Removing the pile of bones, Kealen discovered an ancient pedestal, which contained an alcove the same shape as the First Blade.
However, a trio of Twi'lek Pilgrims from the Kalikori village, led by a female called Allia, entered the cave. The Pilgrims, who were working for Raloch, demanded that the Consular handed the hilt to them, but he was able to convince them that Raloch had been corrupted by his thirst for power, and the Twi'leks left peacefully. Inserting the hilt inside the pedestal, the Consular was presented with another recording of Rajivari, discovering that the Jedi Master and the three fellow founders of the Jedi Order had become members of the very first Jedi Council. However, Rajivari had had disagreements with the rest of the Jedi Council regarding which direction the fledgling Order should have been taken. Therefore, he had assembled an army of followers and had planned to assassinate his fellow Councilors in an attempt to rebuild the Order with his own set of principles. The image of Rajivari also provided Kealen with a map showing the way to the Fount, but the Padawan was unable to decipher the map's directions. Therefore, he and Fess returned to Master Par, who showed her apprentice a holographic recording she had received from Raloch. The Twi'lek had been set back in his search for the Fount after his fellow Pilgrims had failed to bring him the hilt, but he claimed to have knowledge of other ways to find Rajivari's archive, and he threatened to kill Kealen should the latter try to stop him.
The Padawan, his Master and Fess analyzed a set of three coordinates shown in Rajivari's map. They were able to decipher two of them, but the third one, which looked like a rock formation, was unfamiliar to both Par and the young Jedi. However, Fess stated that during his hunting trips, he had seen similar markings around a nearby cave located behind awaterfall. The Trandoshan told the two that he would investigate the area in an attempt to find something that could help their search. The map's code, however, also contained a warning that the path to the Fount of Rajivari was filled with numerous traps that only those who had knowledge of Rajivari's philosophies and who followed his steps could pass. Kaleth was known to have served as the fortress of Rajivari and his followers, and several computer terminals had been found earlier among the ruins. Believing that the terminals could be accessed using the hilt of the First Blade, the Consular traveled to Kaleth in hopes of finding some records of Rajivari's teachings in those terminals. The terminals indeed contained recordings made by Rajivari's apprentices. The Padawan discovered that Rajivari'sattempts to kill the Jedi Council had failed, and the Jedi Order had besieged Kaleth in retaliation. Rajivari's followers had held the line to the end, but had been ultimately all killed, while their Master had abandoned them and had escaped. The young Jedi learned several of Rajivari's principles, which dictated that mercy was a foolish act and held strength in great esteem. Returning to Par, he discovered that Fess had not returned from his mission yet.
The Jedi traveled to the waterfall cave in search of the Trandoshan, encountering a band of hostile Twi'leks loyal to Raloch inside. Defeating them, he found Fess and freed him from a cage, learning that he had deciphered the last coordinate. The Trandoshan explained that Raloch had tracked him, had captured him and had questioned him on the location of the Fount. After he had refused to tell anything to Raloch, he had been visited by Master Par, who had asked for the final coordinate and had behaved very strangely. Confused, Fess had nevertheless told Par what he had discovered. However, the Consular realized that since the real Par had been at the Jedi Temple all that time, the image Fess had seen must have a been a Force trick employed by Raloch. With the knowledge of the final coordinate gained from Fess, he was able to triangulate the location of the Fount, which turned out to be an ancient acropolis inside the ruins of an ancient city. Distraught at being captured alive, which was considered the greatest of humiliations in his religion and had resulted in him losing all of his Jagganath points, Fess decided to accompany the Consular in the search for Raloch, hoping to reclaim some of the honor he had lost. After defeating a large number of Flesh Raiders inside the acropolis, the Padawan and Fess faced the traps the map had mentioned. A series of visions manifested before the aspiring Jedi, presenting challenges associated with Rajivari's philosophies. The Jedi and Fess were able to pass all the challenges and finally reached the Fount of Rajivari. To the pair's surprise, they discovered that the spirit of Rajivari himself inhabited the Fount. Rajivari's stubbornness had allowed him to cheat death and to remain as a ghost inside his laboratory, where he had been waiting for a new apprentice who would bring his vision of the Jedi Order to life.
Rajivari informed the Padawan that Raloch had already visited the Fount and had left after learning from him. According to Rajivari, Raloch was greatly changed by the power he had discovered within the Fount, however, and was seeking to destroy the Jedi Order completely, starting with the Forge, an ancient machine used to make lightsabers. Rajivari realized the mistake he had made by teaching Raloch, explaining that the destruction of the Order was never his goal—he merely intended to rebuild it. The spirit of the Jedi Master asked the Consular to stop Raloch. In order to do so, Rajivari advised the Padawan to find a lightsaber crystal inside the caves leading to the Forge and then use that crystal to power the hilt of the First Blade, allowing him to create a fully-functional lightsaber at the Forge. Rajivari then became one with the Force, while the Consular and Fess departed toward the Forge. Passing through the caves leading to the ancient machine, the two found a crystal formation. However, when the Padawan tried to extract one of the crystals, he was attacked by a Dark Beast that guarded the caves. Having defeated the beast and gathered a green lightsaber crystal, the Padawan and his Trandoshan companion reached the Forge ahead of Raloch. While Fess stood guard, the Consular deeply concentrated and used the machine to create a working lightsaber.
Upon creating the lightsaber, he barely had time to test it when Raloch appeared, escorted by Allia and another Twi'lek named Keth. Raloch's companions hesitated to follow their leader's plan of destroying the Forge, although Raloch tried to convince them that what he was doing was right. Ultimately, Allia and Keth decided to stay out of the fight as Raloch attacked the Consular. The Jedi defeated the fallen Twi'lek but spared his life, instead instructing him to go to the Jedi Temple, where his fate would be decided. After Allia and Keth took the wounded Raloch away, Fess approached the Consular. The Trandoshan was impressed by the his bravery and proclaimed that he would follow the Jedi everywhere he would go, as Fess now considered him to be the "Herald of the Scorekeeper." The Padawan and Fess returned to the Jedi Temple to report on the mission's progress to the Jedi Council and Master Par. There, the Grand Master of the Order, Satele Shan, informed the two that Raloch had been undergoing koltotreatment after their battle. Believing the Consular ready to become a fully-fledged Jedi, Master Shan asked him to decide Raloch's fate as a final test. Believing in the possibility of the man's redemption, the Padawan instructed Raloch to be trained as a Jedi so that he could learn to control his burgeoning Force abilities. Following that decision, Par proclaimed her apprentice a full Jedi. However, in the midst of theceremony, she suddenly fell ill. When Par was taken for treatment, Fess revealed that the woman had been suffering from her illness for a long time, but she had chosen to keep it in secret that only the Trandoshan had known about. It was decided to send Master Par to the galactic capital of Coruscant, in hopes that Jedi researchers—who were working on excavating the old Jedi Temple that had been ravaged during theSacking of Coruscant—might find something to cure her. In the meantime, the Jedi on Tython would study the discoveries the Consular had made pertaining to the Fount of Rajivari. The newly appointed Jedi was then instructed to travel to Coruscant as well, in order to oversee Par's treatment.
== The Threat of the Dark Plague ==
Embarking on the journey, the Consular and Fess first took a shuttle that brought them to Carrick Station, the main staging area of the Republic fleet.[21] There, the pair were greeted by Kel Dor Jedi Master Ostar-Gal, the Keeper of the Jedi Archives and a close friend of Par's. Ostar-Gal advised the Jedi to seek out Master Dynaroth for the next phase of his continuing training. Master Dynaroth, in turn, helped him choose the path to follow, either that of a Jedi Sage or a Jedi Shadow.[22] After arriving on Coruscant, following the instructions the Consular and Fess had been provided on Tython, they traveled to the Senate Building and met with Attros Finn, a Mirialan Jedi researcher who was tending to Par. The Jedi found Par in an unstable condition, seemingly talking nonsense about someone named Parkanas as well as a mysterious "Dark Man." Finn believed that the key to discovering the cure to Par's illness could be found within the Jedi Archives, but accessing the information was a problem, since the Temple currently laid in ruins. However, the Temple's artificers had created a set of three special holocrons, called the Noetikons, to sort through all the information contained within the Archives, with the personalities of the Order's greatest Masters imprinted in those holocrons. The Noetikons had been stolen from the Temple after it had been ransacked by the Sith, but Finn had a lead on one of the devices. Coruscant security had witnessed Gand scavengersfrom the Migrant Merchants' Guild, a shady refugee consortium, carrying a Noetikon. One of the Gand had been detained, but he refused to talk. The Consular and Fess then departed to the Old Galactic Market to speak with Republic officer Alec Efran, who had the Gand in custody, while Finn began working on finding a lead to the second artifact.
The Jedi confronted the Gand scavenger, persuading him to talk about the location of the Noetikon. The Gand revealed that a man named Lars Baddeg had given it to the leader of the Gand scavengers, Aulus G'luun, and had instructed him to keep the relic out of Jedi hands. To that end, G'luun had developed a system of special signals, which he issued from a signal station in the Old Galactic Market on occasion, passing the Noetikon from one Gand to another for safekeeping. The Consular and Fess managed to crack the Gands' code and summoned G'luun himself to a meeting place, convincing him to hand over the Noetikon, which turned out to be the Noetikon of Science. Its gatekeepers, Masters Tharis Orne, Arca Jeth and Vandar Tokare, scoured their vast library of scientific knowledge but were unable to find any clues regarding Par's sickness. Ruling out any medical sickness as a possible answer, they instead suggested to the Jedi to seek out theNoetikon of Light and ask its gatekeepers if they knew of any mystical illness that could fit the description. The Consular and Fess returned to Finn, who had in the meantime found a lead on the second Noetikon. His assistant, Pharen, had a sister who was working at the Silent Sun cantina in the Black Sun territory. Black Sun, a local criminal gang, had turned the cantina's back rooms into some sort of secret warehouse. Pharen's sister had seen the Noetikon among one of the shipments going inside the cantina.
The Jedi and Fess traveled through the dangerous Black Sun territory and reached the Silent Sun cantina, wherein they met a Human Doctor called Maer. The Doctor explained to them that Black Sun had been smuggling contraband offworld inside people's bodies. According to one of the patients, Curt Willham, not long ago the Justicars' Brigade, a local Coruscant vigilante organization, had started paying large sums of credits to the Black Sun for their smuggling services. Baddeg, mentioned previously by the Gand, was one of the Justicars, paying the Black Sun to take Jedi artifacts—and the Noetikon in particular—offworld. However, the smugglers carrying the artifacts had started hurting badly from the contraband implanted inside of them and some of them were even dying. To make matters worse, they could not get the necessary paperwork to travel from Coruscant, so many smugglers were still inside the cantina, with Doctor Maer desperately trying to save their lives. The Doctor had discovered a magnetic ID tag printed on one of the artifacts that he had extracted, so he realized that the Black Sun had a special scanner with which they were able to identify the smugglers carrying the relics. The Consular found one of the scanners inside the cantina and used it to identify the man carrying the Noetikon inside of him. He helped the man by undoing the surgery using Maer's medical equipment and extracted the Noetikon from his body. The Jedi then activated the Noetikon of Light, consulting Masters Noab Hulis, Wole Vahn, and Nomi Da'Boda, but they had no information on the cure as well. As a final desperate measure, the gatekeepers directed him and the Trandoshan to the last Noetikon, the Noetikon of Secrets, warning the pair about the dark secrets that the third Noetikon possessed.
The Jedi was then contacted by Finn, who informed him that Par's condition had deteriorated and she had even attacked Pharen. Finn had her restrained, but he asked the Consular and Fess to return to the Senate Building and hopefully calm her down. The duo found the ill Jedi Master agitated, willing to hurt someone. Clearly not having control of herself, Par activated her lightsaber and attacked her former student. The latter was able to defeat the Jedi Master and knocked her unconscious. Realizing that Par's condition worsened with every minute, the Consular and Fess traveled to the Justicar territory in search of the final Noetikon. There, they located Baddeg, who revealed that he was working for someone else, after that person had promised to give him rule over the entire Justicar territory if he managed to smuggle the Noetikons to the contractor. Seemingly giving up on his cause when confronted, Baddeg told the Consular to simply take the final Noetikon. However, when the latter activated it, the Jedi and the his Trandoshan companion appeared in a room filled with white light. An entity calling herself the Master of Questionsexplained that the Noetikon was a fake and that something had gone wrong when it was activated, resulting in the Jedi's consciousness being transported to that place of nothingness. The Master of Questions agreed to let the Jedi go, provided he answered three questions correctly. However, should the individual answer wrong, the Jedi would be trapped inside forever.
The Consular answered the questions correctly and was able to escape from Baddeg's trap, witnessing him talking to a a Sith, certain that he had dealt with his unwanted visitors. From their conversation, the Jedi and Fess learned that the Sith was merely a servant of another Master. However, once the Sith saw the Consular and Fess unscathed, he instructed Baddeg to kill them. The Justicar tried to follow the command, but the pair defeated him and retrieved the real Noetikon of Secrets. Its gatekeepers were named Jesper Altax, Bastila Shan and Chamma; all of them had once turned to the dark side but had been able to return to the light. Their knowledge of dark side secrets helped the Jedi and the Trandoshan to finally learn more about Par's illness. It had been encountered by the Jedi Order before only once. A Sith Lord named Terrak Morrhage had created an illness called the Dark Plague that afflicted the minds of Jedi. Morrhage had used the plague to control the minds of his victims and turn them to the dark side by the hundreds, using the afflicted Jedi to fight the Order. Morrhage had been only stopped when a Jedi healer had developed ashielding technique, which could be used to break Morrhage's control on his victims. The healer had used the technique to sever the affected Jedi from Morrhage, one by one. However, each time he had used the technique, it had taken away some of his own strength, to the point that it had eventually cost the healer his life when he was done. The Consular realized that the only way to save Master Par was to learn the technique. In order to do so, according to the Noetikon of Secrets, the Jedi and Fess had to go to the Jedi Archives inside the ravaged Jedi Temple and use the combined knowledge of all three Noetikons there.
The Consular and Fess went through the Works, the industrial sector of Coruscant, and reached the Jedi Temple.[28] Fighting their way through Imperial forces that had been searching the Temple for a valuable Republic navigation computer,[29] the duo reached the Jedi Archives. Upon activating the three Noetikons using a special terminal, all nine holographic Jedi Masters appeared before the pair, and, after deep meditation on the Consular's part, they taught him the shielding technique. Right afterward, however, the Sith that Baddeg had spoken to earlier entered the Jedi Archives, intent on stopping the Jedi, before he could use the newly acquired skill to cure the afflicted Jedi Master. Upon entering, the Sith used Force lightning to destroy the terminal, effectively preventing future Jedi from ever learning the ritual. He then intended to kill the Consular, ensuring that the secret of the shielding technique would have been lost forever, thus allowing his master, the Sith behind the plague, to destroy the Jedi Order completely. The Jedi and Fess were then attacked by the Sith, who was accompanied by two Sith Acolytes, but managed to defeat them. The two were then contacted by Master Syo Bakarn, who had been overseeing the Consular's progress and who instructed him to hurry back to Master Par, as she was fading away with every minute. Returning to the Senate Building with Fess, the Jedi used the technique to shield Par from the plaguemaster's influence. Although she regained consciousness and felt considerably better, she was still not fully cured until the plaguemaster was defeated.
== Curing the Afflicted Master's ==
The Jedi Council, gathered on Coruscant, summoned the Consular and Fess and informed them that Master Par's was not an isolated case, as other Masters had begun falling out of contact, supposedly falling victim to the plague. In order to stop the disease from spreading, the Sith controlling it had to be defeated, but the Jedi Order had no clue to his identity and no other plan but to shield the afflicted Masters and try to gather any clues from them. As such, the Jedi was asked by the Council to travel around the galaxy and use the newly acquired technique on the Masters. In order to do so, he was provided with apersonal starship, a Defender-class light corvette, as well as a personal onboard droid, C2-N2, a non-combat C2-N2 unit that served as a medic and ship's steward. After saying goodbye to Par, the Consular and Fess departed Coruscant on the newly acquired starship. The Consular was also contacted by Flight Commander Judin of the Republic Navy, who recruited him into the elite fighter squadron known as theCoruscant Aegis. The Coruscant Aegis was a brand new initiative created by Fleet Admiral Numinn that was intended to quickly deal with Imperial offensives around the galaxy. The Consular was given the call sign "Guardian," and he would fly a number of missions for the Coruscant Aegis over the course of the following years.
=== Into the Wilds of Taris ===
The Jedi's first assignment was to travel to the desolate world of Taris to locate the Kaleesh Master Cin Tykan. Once a great ecumenopolis, Taris had been ravaged by the Sith Lord Darth Malak during theJedi Civil War more than three hundred years ago, reducing the planet to a devastated swampland populated by rakghoul mutants. A renowned scout, survival expert, and pathfinder, Tykan had been assisting the Republic efforts in the restoration of the planet, but he had recently gone silent and had stopped sending reports to the Jedi Council, leading them to believe that Tykan could have been affected by the plague. After landing on Taris, the Jedi and Fess were instructed by Master Bakarn to go to the Republic reclamation base at the city of Olaris and meet Tykan's Padawan Aris Vauranelle and Captain Nelex of the Republic Expeditionary Forces—whom Tykan had been working with—at the Expeditionary Forces' headquarters. Both of them were surprised to hear of Tykan's possible illness, explaining that the Jedi Master had recently left with a research expedition on a mission to take pollution readings and had displayed no signs of the plague. The expedition was not due to return in days but Vauranelle contacted it just in case. The expedition's Republic guardsman, Sergeant Valoy, answered to the hails, claiming that the rest of the expedition was gone and requesting backup, before the transmission was cut off. Assuming that something had gone wrong but unable to assemble a rescue team in time, Nelex gave the Consular the expedition's last known coordinates.
Arriving at the marked location in the Republic Resettlement Zone, however, the Jedi and Fess found only a lone utility droid, before being attacked by a group of assassins from the Death's Claw pirateorganization. After defeating them, the Jedi spoke to T8-C3, the expedition's survey droid that was in the area, which informed him and the Trandoshan that the expedition had gone offtrack and had been attackedby the Death's Claw. Most of the expedition had been killed with the exception of Tykan himself and a small survey team, who had left before the attack, carrying with them the expedition's findings, consisting of several medical holocrons and valuable relics. T8-C3 provided the pair with the survey team's coordinates and then went back to the Republic base. Arriving at the survey team's location in the Sinking City region, the Consular and Fess found the place in ruin, with two expedition members trapped under a large piece of debris. The Jedi used the Force to lift the object and freed the men, only to discover two more members, Laria Taphoni and Tal, clinging to their lives among the debris engulfed in fire. He used the Force to levitate Tal back to safety and then proceeded to perform the same trick with Taphoni. By choosing to save the woman, however, the Jedi had to sacrifice the holocrons that had also been caught on fire, much to the dismay of the final surviving member of the expedition, Doctor Gatten Edaine, who had insisted on saving the relics instead of Taphoni.
Edaine, Taphoni and Tal explained to the Consular and Fess that after they had found the holocrons during their expedition, Tykan had decided to take them to the base as fast as possible, leaving the rest of the expedition behind at the ambush site. However, he had instead lured the survey team into a trap, had ignited the pollution and had left them to die, stating that he had been punishing them for letting Taris be ravaged three hundred years ago and that soon they would be joined by everyone at the Junction, an old purification facility retrofitted by the Republic to process poisonous gases. The Consular and Fess were then contacted by Nelex, who wanted Tykan brought to justice, while Padawan Vauranelle begged the Jedi not to hurt her Master.[30] Traveling to the Junction, the duo met the factory's security chief and the clearly plague-affected Tykan. Like Par, the Master also spoke of a man named Parkanas, as well as the planetMalachor. He then proceeded to sabotage the main gas line and opened the factory's vents, letting swarms of rakghouls inside. That forced the Consular to choose to either repair the Junction—which was crucial in cleansing the planet—or saving the factory's workers from the rakghoul attack. The Jedi chose the both, and he successfully evacuated a maintenance crew that had been trapped behind a blast door by using the Force to tear the door open, while Qyzen saved the Junction.
After the rest of the staff were evacuated from the areas filled with gas, the security chief thanked the Jedi and Fess and gave them some old Taris infrastructure charts that Tykan had been studying before he fell victim to the plague. The data was encrypted, so the chief instructed the Jedi to bring it to Captain Nelex back at the base, who could decipher it. Nelex himself contacted the Consular at the very same moment, stating that the Republic base was under attack, before the transmission was cut off. Trekking back to the base, the Jedi and Fess found it swarming with rakghouls, which, as Nelex explained, had been released when Tykan had uncovered the rakghoul tunnels beneath the base. The plague-affected Master had also taken his Padawan away. The Jedi and the Trandoshan first attempted to save the base by sealing the tunnels. The Jedi used the Force to collapse rocks in order to seal two secondary tunnels and then defeated a large rakghoul dubbed the "Ripclaw," before picking up a binary loadlifter with the Force and using it to collapse the cavern behind the main tunnel. With the base secure, Nelex was then able to decrypt the data provided by the Junction security chief. From those files, they discovered that Tykan had copied all files pertaining to one of Taris's still functional super-reactors. Sabotaging the reactor could potentially send it into meltdown and trigger a chemical detonation that could destroy the entire Republic reclamation area.
The Jedi and Fess went to the reactor's coordinates beneath Transport Station 5 and confronted Tykan and Vauranelle there. In his delirium, Tykan spoke of a Lord Vivicar, finally revealing the plaguemaster's name. Vauranelle, due to her affection and loyalty for her Master, had come to believe his mad ramblings about the necessity of sabotaging the Republic's reclamation efforts in order to stop their attempts to "destroy the natural beauty" of Taris, but the Consular convinced her to change her mind. The Jedi and Fess were then attacked by the angered Tykan but were able to defeat the Jedi Master. The Consular then used the shielding technique on him, freeing him from Vivicar's influence. Tykan was horrified by the atrocities he had committed and left for Tython to report to the Jedi Council and then to willingly turn himself in to the Republic authorities. After reporting back to Nelex for the last time, the Jedi contacted Bakarn, informing him of the "Lord Vivicar" Tykan had mentioned, and the Jedi Master promised to start looking into that name. The Consular and Fess then left Taris, on the journey to save one more Jedi Master.
=== The Guiding Hand of Nar Shaddaa ===
The Jedi's next stop was Nar Shaddaa, a lawless moon ruled by the Hutt Cartel, which had recently found itself clashing with an emerging criminal organization called the Guiding Hand. The Guiding Hand's members were fanatically loyal to their leader, who the Jedi Council suspected to be Master Duras Fain, another one of the affected Masters, one who possessed great skill of influencing others with the Force. Fain was known to hate illegal spice trade, so the Guiding Hand's repeated attacks on the Hutts' spice shipments, using tactics that the Jedi Master was known for, provided almost definite proof of Fain's involvement with the gang. The Hutt Cartel was an immensely powerful organization, which had so far been providing its assistance to the Republic, despite officially staying neutral and even allowing Imperial presence on Nar Shaddaa. Therefore, the Jedi Council placed utmost priority on stopping Fain, afraid that the Cartel might discover that a Jedi was involved in the attacks on their property and stop their support. Bakarn instructed the Consular to visit his contact on Nar Shaddaa, an exo-technologist and friend of both Bakarn and Fain named Tharan Cedrax. When the Consular and Fess arrived at Cedrax's office at the Promenade, however, the Jedi found that the man was not there. Instead, the pair were greeted by Holiday, Cedrax's female holographic assistant. Holiday informed the two that Cedrax had ventured into the Nikto Sector to deliver a weapon prototype he had been contracted to develop to Nikto gangsters.
Following Holiday's directions to the meeting place at Sawtooth Salvage, the Jedi and Fess found Cedrax arguing with several Nikto gang members. Having discovered that the Nikto were planning to use the weapon against the Hutt Cartel, Cedrax tried to call the deal off, afraid of the Hutts' vengeance should they discover who had invented the weapon. The Nikto turned out to be members of the Guiding Hand and attacked the Jedi and the Trandoshan. After defeating them, the Jedi spoke to Cedrax, telling him about the Council's suspicions of Fain's involvement with the Guiding Hand. Cedrax and the Consular decided that their best course of action was attempting to infiltrate the Guiding Hand. Cedrax then informed the Consular and Fess of the Red Light Lancers, an organization of tech specialists, who were rumored to be a part of the Guiding Hand. The Lancers had been trying to contract Cedrax to do a special job, so he decided to pretend to be interested in it in order to set up a meeting for the Consular. He also provided the Jedi with the weapon prototype in order to prove his expertise to the Lancers, as well as an earpiece so that they could communicate privately. Cedrax, in the meantime, started working on finding a way to prevent Fain from using his mind control abilities on them when they would finally meet him.
The Lancers were delighted when Cedrax agreed to meet them, so the Consular and Fess soon went to theLancers' safehouse in the Red Light Sector to meet with their Zabrak leader, Klage, telling him that Cedrax could not come and had sent them instead. The Zabrak gang leader was reluctant to hire the Consular for the job, since his orders were to get Cedrax specifically. However, after the Jedi gave him the weapon prototype and answered Klage's tech-related questions—using advice given by Cedrax through the earpiece—he was deemed expert enough and was accepted into the Red Light Lancers. Klage informed the Consular that the job he was hired for was to destroy spice factories shared by the Hutts and the Empire in the Lower Industrial Sector. The Jedi and Fess were instructed to go to the defense network control room there and disrupt the protocols on the primary control node, triggering the factories' automated defenses and killing everybody inside. Returning to Cedrax's office, the pair were informed by the scientist that there was a way to do the Lancers' job, using a Sith overseer's ID that Cedrax had recently obtained. Unwilling to kill innocent factory workers, however, the Consular demanded Cedrax to come up with an alternative approach. The exo-technologist decided to use a resonator key, a device that, when attached to the primary control node, would fake the network failure. Klage, who would be monitoring the network remotely, would then assume that automated defenses would have been activated as planned.
Using the Sith overseer's ID, the Consular and Fess were able to fool the factory security at the Lower Industrial Sector and reached the primary control node at the Defense Network Control Center. Attaching the resonator key was enough to fake the destruction of the factories to Klage, and the duo were contacted by the Lancers' leader. The two were informed by Klage that the Guiding Hand's Master was willing to meet with the new recruit inside the tech gang's quarters in the Red Light Sector.[38] Arriving at the provided destination, the Consular and Fess discovered that the Guiding Hand was indeed led by Fain, who appeared via a hologram and ordered several Nikto Morgukai cultists present at the scene to kill the two. After the Morgukai were defeated, the Jedi was contacted by Cedrax, who directed the Consular to examine theholotransmitter Fain had used to contact them. Using slicing subroutines programmed into her by Cedrax, Holiday was able to trace Fain's signal to Shadow Town, an Imperial prison facility located on Nar Shaddaa. When the Consular and Fess returned to Cedrax's office to develop a plan to infiltrate Shadow Town, the two found a Hutt Cartel enforcer confronting Cedrax. Rumors of a Jedi's involvement with the Guiding Hand had reached the Hutt Cartel, and as Cedrax had been spotted working with the Consular, the Cartel suspected that the latter could be the Jedi they were looking for. The Jedi was able to persuade the enforcer otherwise and resolved the conflict peacefully.
After the thug left, promising to keep watching the two's actions, the Consular and Cedrax discussed their next move. The scientist presented the Jedi with an exo-tech device that he had developed in conjunction with Bakarn. The device was designed to block Fain's mind control powers by paralyzing the part of the forebrain that became active when a Jedi tried to exert his influence upon his target. The Jedi and Cedrax then departed for Shadow Town, fighting through Imperial soldiers. Infiltrating the Imperial guard tower, Cedrax used his expertise to disable security camerasthroughout the sector, while the Jedi distracted the guards. The duo then infiltrated Security Checkpoint 14, where Cedrax cut the power to Fain's hideout. The two were spotted by an Imperial guard, but the Jedi once again was able to resolve the matter in a non-violent way. When they finally confronted Fain after battling a number of his gang members, the Jedi Master told the Consular about an expedition to Malachor III that he and the other affected Jedi had participated in in their youth. Fain claimed that the Jedi had been affected by the dark side aura of the planet, with him and Par having a romantic affair there. During that mission, one of their fellow Jedi, a man named Parkanas Tark had been left behind when the other Jedi had tried to evacuate from the planet. Fain then tried to exercise his mind control powers on the Consular and Cedrax, but that failed thanks to Cedrax's device. The plague-affected Fain attacked the two, but the Jedi defeated Fain and his guards. Before he could shield Fain, however, a Hutt Cartel enforcer, Vorlo Stragen, arrived, demanding to have Fain handed to the Hutts. The Jedi was able to negotiate with the Cartel to let the Jedi have Fain and then used the shielding technique, freeing Fain from Vivicar's influence. After Fain promised to return to Tython, the Consular and Cedrax parted ways.
=== Answering Laranna Fain's Distress Call ===
However, as the Jedi and Fess were returning to their ship to report to Master Bakarn, the two found Cedrax and his holographic assistant waiting for the Jedi in the hangar. Finding all of his current contracts boring and spurred by the encounter with Fain, Cedrax wanted to travel the galaxy and seek adventure, so he decided to join the Consular's crew. Having welcomed Cedrax aboard, the Consular contacted Bakarn, who congratulated him on the expert handling of the conflict between the Hutt Cartel and the Guiding Hand. However, a new urgent matter had arisen. The Jedi Council had received a distress signal from the Republic Ajuur-class heavy cruiser Carida, related to the plague. The ship was carrying a Jedi Knight namedLaranna Fain, Duras Fain's daughter, aboard. Reports by the Republic forces aboard the Carida stated that the young Fain had gone insane and had killed several people.[40] Docking with the Carida, the Consular and one of his companions met with the few remaining Republic soldiers led by Lieutenant Bela Whinn. She explained that the ship had been caught in an Imperial ambush. Laranna had fought off the attackers, but had been wounded in the process. When the Republic soldiers had put up a call for medical assistance, a mysterious man had arrived to the Carida, claiming to be a Jedi Master. He had healed Laranna and had left, but the girl had changed after their encounter. She had become violent, killing several people and reprogramming the droids aboard the Carida to attack everyone else in sight. Whinn and the remaining soldiers had managed to lock her down in the ship's aft section, but Laranna had started slicing into the ship's computer system, planning to shut down life support and kill everyone aboard.
The Consular and his companion fought through Laranna's droids and confronted the young woman, who revealed that the man who had healed her was indeed Lord Vivicar, just as the Consular had suspected. The pair had to fight Fain, but defeating her was not enough. The girl Force-pushed the Jedi away and locked herself inside an airlock, threatening to open the outer door and commit suicide. However, the Consular was able to convince Laranna to leave the airlock and used the shielding technique on her. Laranna, no longer influenced by the plague, but still not trusting herself, locked herself down in the brig until the Carida would reach the nearest port. Meanwhile, a holographic message came to the Carida from Lord Vivicar himself. The Sith tried to contact Laranna, but seeing the Consular, he realized that his plan had failed. From the conversation with Vivicar, the Jedi learned that the Sith was once a member of the Jedi Order himself, before embracing the teachings of Morrhage, and that—as the Jedi Council already suspected—his control of the plague was limited. Vivicar could only control those he had had personal contact with throughout his lifetime. Leaving Whinn to take control of the Caridaand to bring Fain to Coruscant, the Jedi and his companion returned to their own ship and reported to Master Bakarn, who had more unfortunate news. Two more Jedi Masters had gone silent, both mentioning in their last reports that the "darkness was coming," something the other plague-affected Masters had kept repeating as well. Also the encounter with Laranna would create an unexpected and immensley strong Bond between her and Kealen.
=== Vossan's Warriors ===
The Jedi's next assignment took him and his companions to the desert planet of Tatooine, where MasterEriz Vossan, one of the Order's best cultural explorers, had dropped out of contact with the Council. The Consular was told by Bakarn to contact Rowan Delk, the man who had served as Master Vossan's guide through the desert and who was now recovering from the Sand Rot, an illness caused by prolonged desert exposure, at the Dreviad Outpost. Master Vossan's research on the various cultures of the galaxy was considered vital to the Order, so the Consular and one of his companions embarked on the search for the Jedi Master immediately. Conversing with Delk inside the Dreviad Medcenter, the pair were assured by the man that Vossan had not displayed any signs of the plague and was last seen talking to the local Jawaspecies in one of their camps in the desert, impressed by their ability to survive in the harsh environment of the planet. Upon arriving at the Ut'ttailri Jawa Camp, the Jedi and his companion were attacked by war droids. After destroying them, the two spoke with one of the Jawas, Tteek Tlek. The diminutive creature said that Master Vossan—whom the Jawas had dubbed the "Warmaker"—had instructed the Jawas to dismantle their camp's sandcrawler and use its parts to build the war droids to conquer the settlement ofAnchorhead and to fight the Sand People—a nomadic Tatooine species—in order to take control of the desert. However, Vossan had then abandoned the Jawas, leaving only a message that they could not decipher and that was intended for Delk. Now, however, the Jawas had neither the sandcrawlers, nor the droids, as the latter had been destroyed by the Consular. As the sandcrawler was crucial to the Jawas' survival, since they used the vehicle to trade, the Jawas had tried to fix it by taking parts from other sandcrawlers, but those spare parts had been stolen by the Geonosian raiders who had spread around Tatooine. The Consular agreed to help Tlek fix the machines; he retrieved the spare parts from the Geonosians and was given the coded message in gratitude.
The Consular and the Jedi's companion returned to Delk's clinic, and the man was able to crack the holorecording's code. Master Vossan stated that he had been looking to find out the answer as to how the species of Tatooine were able to survive in such a hostile environment, in hopes of finding a way to live through the "great darkness." He also spoke of a cavewhere he loved to meditate. During one of such meditations, he had seen that he had been wrong to seek the answers from the Jawas and had instead gone to try to find luck with the "original species" of Tatooine, although he did not mention which species that was. Delk provided the Consular with the location of the cave Vossan had spoken about and some signal flares to light the way.[42]Inside the cave in the Jundland Chasm, the Consular lit several torches surrounding a Sand People carving. In the light of the torches, the carving revealed that the Sand People were the original people of Tatooine. Contacting Delk via a holocommunicator, the Consular explained the situation to the man, and the latter said that if Vossan had indeed gone to the Sand People, "the ultimate warriors," as he called them in his message, then it was worth looking into a group of Sand People who had become overly aggressive and attacked the nearby farming settlement of Malcolm's Dunes in the Dune Sea region.
There, the Consular and his companion met Delk and the leader of the settlement, Hale Malcolm. The settlers were initially very aggressive toward the outsiders, since Vossan, the last Jedi they had helped by providing him with the coordinates of the Sand People's camp, had turned on them and had started sending the warrior people to attack them. However, the Consular convinced the farmers to provide help and Malcolm drew a map of the route to the Sand People camp in the Banthan Drifts area.[44] The Jedi, his companion and Delk went to the camp to confront the ill Master, fighting through the Sand People, augmented and empowered by Vossan's influence. When the three finally found the Jedi Master himself, Vossan tried to convince the Consular that the Jedi Order should follow the Sand People's teachings—to abandon the weak and value strength only—before attacking them. The Consular and the companion fought the Jedi Master and emerged victorious, finding more details about the mission to Malachor Three, which was turning out to be clearly connected to Vivicar. The Jedi Masters who had been there had uncovered some terrible evil and had been affected by it. As they had tried to escape, Vossan had fallen behind, and Parkanas Tark had saved him, but he had become trapped in the process and had been left behind by the other Jedi. The Consular shielded the Jedi Master, but his research on the Sand People still remained. Vossan effectively possessed knowledge on how to create an unstoppable army, and he consulted the Consular on what the Jedi should do with it. Believing that the knowledge was too dangerous and was against everything the Republic stood for, he advised Vossan to destroy the records.
Around that time, Fess, still feeling shame over losing his Jagganath points, asked the Consular to pay tribute to his father's remains, thinking that doing so would please the Scorekeeper. Fess's father, a great hunter, had died years ago at the Dune Sea. Once the pair arrived at the resting place, the two were confronted by a young Trandoshan hunter, Lek Svaal. Svaal had been hunting a creature called the Dusk Shadow on Tatooine. He had laid a scent trail to the remains of Fess's father and had planted a trap rigged with explosives, an act dishonorable of a hunter in Fess's opinion. However, the Dusk Shadow attacked at that moment, making Svaal run away in horror. The Jedi and Fess killed the beast, and Fess completed his ritual at his father's grave. With the Trandoshan feeling much more at peace, the pair left Tatooine.
=== The Peace Summit on Alderaan ===
The Jedi and his crew proceeded to fly to Alderaan, a former member world of the Republic now embroiled in a civil war after both Queen Silara Panteer and crown prince Gaul Panteer had died, and a noble named Bouris Ulgo had usurped the throne. Master Sidonie Garen had been working on Alderaan to organize a peace treaty between the noble houses of Alderaan, in an attempt to stop the war. However, she had raised the Jedi Council's suspicions by dropping out of contact for some time, so the Consular was assigned to contact her. The Jedi and a companion started the mission on Alderaan by talking to Hallam Organa, the head of House Organa's diplomatic corps, who had been working closely with Garen. Organa contacted Garen, who was already at the peace summit's location, which was to be held at a secret meeting place, but she declined to let the Consular come speak to her, stating that only representatives of Alderaan's noble Houses were allowed to come to the meeting. The Organa delegate was already at the summit, but Hallem Organa and his brother Lew advised the Jedi to become representative of one of the lesser Houses, like House Teral, which was desperate to find a delegate after theirs had been murdered. In addition to that, the Teral had been torn between the attacks by House Ulgo and the native Killiks.
The Consular and his companion traveled to the Teral residence, and, after helping Captain Theress and the rest of House Teral's security force fend off an Ulgo attack, which even included some Ulgo-controlled Killiks, the two were granted audience with the leader of the House, Lord Teral. The Jedi asked to be made the House's delegate, but there were complications to that. In its current state, House Teral was extremely weak and unable to fend off Ulgo attacks. They planned to form an alliance with the Organa through amarriage between Lord Teral's daughter, Fasha Teral, and Lew Organa, but the Teral needed to prove to the Organa that they had the ability to defend themselves against their enemies first. To this end, Lord Teral asked the Jedi and his companion to go to the commander of Ulgo's forces that besieged House Teral,Astar Vox, a mercenary who was known for being relatively honorable for his profession; the Teral hoped to sway Vox to their side and break the siege. When the pair attempted to negotiate with Vox at his camp, the mercenary maintained that the Jedi had to prove himself in battle first. The Jedi and his companion successfully fought off all the enemies Vox sent to fight them and convinced the mercenary to work for House Teral. However, the pair were then informed that the very prospect of the marriage alliance was at stake, as Lew Organa had been kidnapped by House Rist, who were Ulgo's allies and a well-known organization of assassins.
The duo rescued Lew Organa from a House Rist Bunker in the Alsakan Lowlands, and the young man decided to check the Rist's holoterminal in order to find out who had hired the assassins to kidnap him. Lew had heard his kidnappers mentioning Master Garen, but he was not sure what she had to do with the kidnapping. The Jedi, his companion and Lew indeed found Master Garen's holofrequency inside the terminal and were able to contact her, indicating that she was responsible for the kidnapping, although she denied her involvement. Upon returning to the House Teral residence, the Consular was finally named the official representative of the House and was provided with a set of coordinates and a data spike that belonged to the murdered delegate. Lord Teral also asked him to demand the representatives at the summit to strip House Ulgo of their power, in retaliation for what they had done to the Teral. Traveling to the set of coordinates at the Silvan Hills, the new Teral delegate found a shuttle and a computer terminal there. After using the data spike at the terminal, he was taken to the summit's location at the Sendoth Ruins via the pre-programmed shuttle.
Even despite being House Teral's official delegate, the Consular and one of his crewmembers were detained by the summit's guards on the orders of Garen. After making way past them, the pair finally reached the summit, where the plague-affected Jedi Master had already proceeded with her plan. Her mind clouded, she believed that the only way to stop the coming darkness was to have war last on Alderaan for fifty years, so she brought incriminating evidence on each of the Houses to the summit, reminding them of old grudges and spurring escalation of the conflict. When the Consular managed to calm the delegates down, the enraged Garen attacked the Jedi and the Consular's ally, unleashing her Force powers, but the two bested her in combat. In her plague-affected state of mind, the defeated Garen revealed that she felt responsible for the loss of Tark on Malachor, since she was the one who had developed their failed plan of escape from the planet. After hearing that, the Jedi once again used the shielding technique, saving Garen. He then advised the delegates to declare truce and reconvene at a later time to discuss peace. Unwilling to break the fragile truce, the Consular did not ask to strip the Ulgo of their noble status, much to Lord Teral's disappointment, although the promise of peace made the latter hopeful that the Jedi was right in his decision. The Consular reported to Master Bakarn as usual, and was asked to come to Tython. Now that the last of the known plague-infected Masters had been shielded, the Council decided that it was time to direct all of their efforts into finding Vivicar himself.
Around that time, Fess—who had at the time been undergoing the shko-yagu, a ritual signifying his transition over the halfway point of his life—had received a message from Svaal, the hunter they had met on Tatooine, regarding a potential prosperous hunt on Alderaan, and he asked the Scorekeeper's Herald to accompany him. Inside the Pallista Spaceport, the pair met Svaal, accompanied by several Wookiees, led by the one named Gwarror. In revenge of the long history of enslavement of Wookiees by the Trandoshans, Gwarror had been hunting Trandoshans for years, killing those weakened by the shko-yagu. He had used Svaal to lure Fess to Alderaan, although Svaal had not told Gwarror that Fess would be accompanied by a Jedi. After dealing with the Wookiees, the Consular and Fess spoke to Svaal, who revealed that he had witnessed Gwarror receiving a list of targets to kill from a Trandoshan named Veneb. Infuriated that one of his own species was a traitor, Fess was determined to hunt down that Veneb. Soon after the Consular departed Alderaan, the wedding of Lew Organa and Fasha Teral took place. Although protocol prevented the couple from inviting the Jedi to their wedding, Fasha later sent him a letter, thanking the Jedi for his help.
=== Battle Against the Plaguemaster ===
Connecting the pieces of information from the afflicted Masters, the Jedi Consular realized that the common link between all the victims of the plague was that they had all participated in the mission to Malachor Three. In a clear act of revenge, Vivicar made them all relieve the horrors they had experienced there and had forced them to remember of Tark in their plague-induced madness, so the Consular believed that Vivicar was Tark. Reporting back to the Jedi Council on Tython, he informed the Masters of Vivicar's identity. Par then stepped out to finally reveal what she had been hiding all those years. Malachor III was not just a dark world, it was the resting place of Terrak Morrhage, the original creator of the plague, lending more proof to the Consular's theory regarding Vivicar's real persona. Par also developed a plan to locate Vivicar. Using her former Padawan's shielding ability, she hoped to invert the link between herself and the Sith Lord, in order to sense his location. The Consular and Par performed the ritual inside a meditation chamber, but in the process, Vivicar took full control of Par's actions and attacked the Jedi. Forced to duel his former Master, the Jedi defeated her. Weakened from the Sith influence, Par was still able to relay Vivicar's location—a ship drifting in deep space in the distant Outer Rim region, as well as the codes to get aboard. The Consular then shielded the woman once again, breaking the link.
Tracking Vivicar to his ship, a Harrower-class dreadnought, the Jedi and a companion fought through a number of brainwashed Republic soldiers, killing the leaders of the controlled Republic squads to weaken Vivicar's influence, and reached the Sith Lord on the ship'sbridge. Vivicar explained to the Consular that his plague not only allowed him to control the Jedi Masters through direct contact, it had also siphoned their power from them, even from far away. Through certain rituals, Vivicar could harness that energy, potentially becoming the most powerful Force-user in the galaxy. In fact, Vivicar was merely a vessel for the spirit of Morrhage, who had been controlling the Lord's actions since the ill-fated expedition to Malachor. The Consular and his companion fought Vivicar in a duel and won, but Vivicar revealed that hundreds of Jedi Masters were still falling victim to the plague with each passing moment. Should the Consular kill him, the plague would be stopped forever, but those Jedi, even those who had been shielded, would die as they were still bound to Vivicar. The Jedi chose another option, using the shielding technique on Vivicar himself, and freeing him from the spirit of Morrhage. The spirit of Morrhage was severely weakened without a physical body, and it disappeared, vowing to exact his revenge when he eventually regained his strength. Still, the Sith Lord's connection to the Jedi Masters was broken and the threat of the Dark Plague was dealt with, for that time. Without the influence of Morrhage, Vivicar regained his identity as Tark and promised to go into exile on Tython.
The Consular returned to Tython as well, where the he was recognized for all his effort in saving the Jedi Order and stopping Vivicar, and he was granted the title of Barsen'thor, a Cerean word meaning "Warden of the Order," a rare and distinguished title that only two Jedi had held in the millennia before. The Jedi Council informed the Consular that his assistance would soon be required in relation to a new threat, but for now he should take some rest. On the Jedi Council's advice, the Consular also recorded the information on the journey to stop Vivicar in a holoterminal in the Jedi Archives on Tython. With Vivicar no longer a threat, the Barsen'thor and his company took the following several months to rest and reflect on their past experiences. Around this time, the newly christened Barsen'thor received a message from Tark. True to his word, Tark had returned to Tython to spend the rest of his days in exile. Although the Jedi Council had sought him out, he refused to speak to them, wishing to be left alone. The redeemed Jedi advised the Barsen'thor not to repeat his mistakes: to not succumb to anger, but neither be completely blinded by the light side.
== Aiding the Rift Alliance ==
=== Attack on the Fortitude ===
Kealen and his companions' rest was cut short when Master Bakarn contacted them, requesting the Jedi's presence on Tython, where an emergency meeting was supposed to take place, with Republic's Supreme Chancellor Dorian Janarus present over the hololink. The Chancellor informed the Barsen'thor that the Republic was on the brink of collapse. Strained by the ongoing Cold War, many worlds threatened secession. A small league of dissidents had emerged, calling themselves the Rift Alliance. Members of the Rift Alliance represented planets whose infrastructure was crucial to the Republic's survival. Therefore, the Barsen'thor was assigned as the Chancellor's personal liaison to the Rift Alliance and was instructed to do anything possible to convince its members to stay with the Republic. However, as such an important task could not be delegated to someone less of a Jedi Master, the Barsen'thor was promoted to that rank in the Chancellor's presence. The newly elevated Jedi Master was then assigned a first mission: Several representatives of the Rift Alliance had been convinced by the Chancellor to be guests aboard a Republic flagship, the Valor-class cruiser Fortitude, and the Barsen'thor was asked to meet them there.
Upon arriving near the Fortitude, however, the Jedi Master was contacted by Nadia Grell, the daughter of Tobas Grell, the Senatorof the planet Sarkhai and one of the members of the Rift Alliance. Nadia told him that the ship had been captured by the Sith, who had killed the ship's crew and had taken the Alliance's representatives hostage. The Sith had sealed off the bridge, but Nadia gave directions to a console aboard the ship that could be used to override the command. The Consular and a companion boarded the cruiser and fought through the attackers, making their way to the console and unlocking the ship's bridge, discovering along the way that the Sith had sabotaged the ship to crash into the nearby planet of Deralia. Arriving at the bridge, the two eventually found the Sith boarding party's leader, Arrax, held at blasterpoint by Nadia, who was trying to protect her injured father. Arrax revealed that he was working for a Sith named Lord Kyrus and attacked the Jedi. The Jedi and his companion killed Arrax and saved the politicians, yet the Fortitude was still plunging toward Deralia, and there was seemingly no way to stop it. Tobas Grell suggested changing the course to Deralia's uninhabited moon of Aderalis, which would buy them some extra time to escape. However, Nadia was against the proposal, afraid that crushing the ship into the moon would affect Deralia's tides, which would have potentially catastrophic consequences for Deralia's population. Instead, she suggested using the Fortitude's manual controls to steer the ship into Deralia's orbit. The Barsen'thor went with Nadia's option, and he fought through the remaining Sith troops led by Arrax's minion Tasandra to the ship's control section, where the Jedi and the Rift Alliance representatives worked together to operate the ship's engines.
The plan worked, and the Fortitude successfully entered Deralia's orbit. The Rift Alliance members then transferred to the Consular's ship, which from that point on essentially became their base of operations. The group, in addition to the Grells, consisted of trade secretary Tai Cordan of Balmorra, Senator Alauni of Saleucami, representative Diab Duin of Aeten II, representative Shuuru of Manaan and representative Augin Blaesus of the Erigorm Bureaucracy. In order to have them prove that the Republic cared about the members of the Rift Alliance, the group asked the Barsen'thor to help Cordan's factory world of Balmorra be freed from Imperial control. Cordan assured the Consular that once the Empire was off his planet, Balmorra would join the Republic and bring its vast battle droid factories to assist its war effort. Cordan, Balmorra's former trade secretary—who now had governmental seniority after all the higher-ranking officials had been either killed or expelled from the planet, and the current president's whereabouts were unknown—planned to become the planet's president after its liberation. To proceed with his liberation plan, Cordan planned to contact a revolutionary code-named "Zenith," an influential member of the anti-Imperial Balmorran resistance.
==== Liberation of Balmora ====
Arriving on Balmorra and using a number of secret communication protocols around the Republic Farnel Outpost, the Barsen'thor and one of his companions contacted Zenith via a holocomm from the Republic settlement of Bugtown. The Twi'lek revolutionary was reluctant to help Republic representatives, believing that the Republic had failed to help his world before, and he asked the Barsen'thor to prove if he was truly determined to free the planet by locating the Imperial head of manufacture, Trabier, inside the Okara Droid Factory in the Markaran Plains region. Zenith was unable to apprehend the chief himself because the man was being protected by a powerful bodyguard named Lerek Serrus, a young Sith apprentice to Darth Lachris, the Sith-appointed Governor of the planet. Confronting Trabier and his bodyguard inside the factory, the Barsen'thor convinced Serrus to stand down and abandon the dark side by reminding the man of his family. Serrus left Trabier alone, allowing Zenith, who had secretly infiltrated the facility, to wound the chief with a shot from a sniper rifle. The revolutionary wanted the man dead, but the Barsen'thor insisted on keeping the Imperial alive, convincing Zenith to take the man prisoner. Now believing that the Jedi was indeed trying to help his planet, Zenith smuggled Cordan and his entourage into a safe house in Bugtown, from which the Balmorran resistance began planning their next strike. The first step of Cordan's and Zenith's plan to liberate their planet was to gain support of Balmorra's powerful corporations.Category:Jedi Master's
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