Q'Anilia

Q'Anilia was a female Miraluka Jedi Master who served the secret cabal known as the Jedi Covenant as a seer during the era of the Mandalorian Wars. Q'Anilia learned under the revered seer Krynda Draay, and became a founding member of the Covenant, which vowed to keep watch from the shadows for the return of the Sith—a mission Q'Anilia became wholly devoted to. Assigned to the Covenant's First WatchCircle, by 3964 BBY Q'Anilia was stationed on the Outer Rim world of Taris, where she trained a Padawan named Shad Jelavan.
That year, she and her fellows misinterpreted a vision to mean that one of their apprentices would bring about the destruction of the Jedi, and in a pre-emptive strike, massacred their Padawans. One apprentice, Zayne Carrick, escaped, and Q'Anilia became embroiled in a massive manhunt for Carrick, who was publicly blamed for the crime. Carrick's quest to clear his name ultimately claimed the lives of several of Q'Anilia's partners, and the Miraluka's mental state took a severe downturn during the war. After further violence broke out at the Draay Estate on Coruscant in 3963 BBY, Q'Anilia ultimately committed suicide after being led to believe that her mentor and mother figure, Krynda, had died.
==Biography==
===Jedi prodigy===
An orphan, Q'Anilia was born on the planet Alpheridies as a member of the Force-sensitive Miraluka species. Like all Miraluka, Q'Anilia was born without eyes and used Force sight as a substitute for physical sight. However, unlike most Miraluka, Q'Anilia was identified from an early age as having considerable precognitive abilities, showing a rare gift for seeing the future through the Force. In 3993 BBY, when Q'Anilia was just a girl, the newly opened Culu Memorial Center on Alpheridies recommended that she be sent to Jedi Master Krynda Draay on Coruscant. Half-Miraluka herself, Draay was a legendary Jedi Seer who had withdrawn herself from Jedi affairs for several years in her grief at the death of her husband, Barrison Draay, in the Great Sith War in 3996 BBY.
When Q'Anilia arrived at the palatial Draay Estate on Coruscant, she was met by the family's retainer, Haazen. Using her precognitive powers, Q'Anilia foresaw that Draay would ask to see her. Haazen went upstairs to announce Q'Anilia's presence to Draay—still brooding on her husband's death, Draay attempted to send her away. However, she sensed something special in Q'Anilia, and asked Haazen to send her up. When Haazen told her that Q'Anilia was already there, having known Draay would send for her, the Jedi Master knew she had something special on her hands. Q'Anilia became Draay's first and star pupil, learning alongside an ever-growing group of young seers.
Q'Anilia's circle came to include Raana Tey, a Togruta from the planet Shili, the Khil Xamar, and the Feeorin warlord Feln. By 3983 BBY, Draay had begun to believe that this group was one that she had foreseen, ones who could avert the coming return of the Sith. Together, Q'Anilia and her peers would form the First WatchCircle of the Jedi Covenant, a secret society within the Jedi Order, led by Draay, which was dedicated to keeping watch for the Sith. They were also assigned a Hand, a non-Seer Jedi tasked with providing practical support and protection: this role was held by Lucien Draay, Krynda's oft-forgotten son. Q'Anilia soon began to forge her own close relationship with Lucien, who once brought her to a party hosted by a family friend, Arkoh Adasca.Knights of the Old Republic 19
===The rogue moon prophecy===
Together, Q'Anilia and her circle set out into the world as newly minted Jedi Masters, using the pull and resources of the Draays to stick together through multiple postings. The five Masters of the First WatchCircle eventually wound up posted to the Jedi Tower on the Outer Rim world of Taris, where they each mentored Padawan learners.Knights of the Old Republic 0 For her apprentice, Q'Anilia took on the native Tarisian Shad Jelavan, an exemplary young talent whom Q'Anilia became very fond of.
By 3964 BBY, the First WatchCircle's Padawans were nearing the end of their training, while the Outer Rim was alight with the outbreak of war between the Republic and the Mandalorian warrior clans. While the Jedi Order officially took a neutral stance, one group of Jedi advocated going to war, and visited Taris on a recruiting effort on their way to the front. Shortly after a meeting with the crusaders, Q'Anilia was hit with a premonition that disturbed her—although she did not get a concrete sense of what it was, she sensed that lines had crossed nearby, and something bad was on its way.
Shortly afterward, the Masters took their apprentices offworld for their final tests as Padawans: a blind traverse of Taris' rogue moon, an anomalous planetoid that traveled a reverse orbit from the rest of the debris in the Taris system and was perpetually bombarded by meteorites. As they waited for their Padawans to reach their cliffside perch, the First WatchCircle meditated under cover of deflector shields. Suddenly, the seers were struck by a traumatic shared vision: a premonition of their deaths amidst the destruction of the Republic and the Jedi Order.
Q'Anilia saw herself on Coruscant, running through the Draay Estate among dozens of Jedi dead, hoping to protect the Lady Krynda—only to find her already dead. Although the exact content of each vision was different, they held one common thread: the appearance of a sinister figure in a red enviro-suit, much like those worn by the Padawans during the rogue moon trial. Q'Anilia immediately interpreted the vision to signify the return of the Sith, and several of the other Masters wished to make haste and strike their Padawans down to avert the prophecy. However, Xamar intervened, refusing to act until they received the go-ahead from Covenant leadership on Coruscant.
Unable to strike without full support, Draay acquiesced, and the group returned to Taris like nothing had changed. After their nightmare on the rogue moon, Q'Anilia and the other Masters cloistered in the Jedi Tower for days,Knights of the Old Republic 4 in which time they came up with a cover story for the coming murders: the Covenant would tell the word that after Jelavan was not Knighted due to his headstrong nature, he killed the rest of his classmates before being put down. In the meantime, Draay contacted Coruscant, and later told the WatchCircle that he had received approval to slay their apprentices. When they emerged from their chambers, they proclaimed that they had decided who was to be a Jedi, and set up a banquet and a Knighting ceremony that was to provide the setting for a massacre.
===Desperate measures===
At the banquet, however, a seemingly innocuous series of events threw the Covenant's plans into disarray. While en route to the Tower, Lucien's Padawan, the bumbling Human Zayne Carrick, gave a failed pursuit to small-time Snivvian criminal Marn Hierogryph, ultimately arriving at the banquet by crashing through a window and into a caterer's table. Carrick was ordered to repay the caterer for the damage, and while he haggled with the Besalisk, he noticed Hierogryph in the courtyard below. Carrick gave chase and ultimately managed to apprehend the Snivvian, but in the process made himself late for the ceremony.
The Masters had expected Carrick's customary lateness, but while they waited, Shad Jelavan noticed that something was amiss. Lucien Draay had his lightsaber, implying that Carrick would be Knighted. Although initially overjoyed that his friend was receiving the honor, Jelavan grew doubtful, as Carrick had finished last in every test and trial. When Jelavan's inquiries were met with halfhearted lies, he directly challenged the Masters—and forced their hand.
The First WatchCircle struck ahead of schedule, with Q'Anilia killing her apprentice Jelavan.Knights of the Old Republic 23When Carrick arrived, he found his friends dead at their Masters' feet. The First WatchCircle gave chase when Carrick attempted to flee, which eventually turned into a speeder pursuit through the Tarisian airways, although Q'Anilia stayed behind at the Tower. Carrick and Hierogryph, who was still cuffed in Carrick's speeder, escaped to the Lower City through a restaurant's trash chute, and Q'Anilia coordinated with Constable Noana Sowrs to turn the search for Carrick into a planetwide manhunt.Knights of the Old Republic 2
That night, the First WatchCircle cloistered in their chambers to meditate and attempt to see Carrick's path—together, they caught a glimpse that they were headed toward the desolate, rakghoul-infested wasteland known as the Undercity, and they prepared to move. However, Q'Anilia and her fellows fell for one of Hierogryph's ruses. The Snivvian left a trail all the way to the entrance to the Undercity and then took off elsewhere, leading the Jedi Masters down into the depths of Taris. Q'Anilia, Draay and Tey had to cut their way through dozens of rakghouls and Gamorrean slavers, and found no trace of their quarry. Along the way, however, Q'Anilia divined one thing: Hierogryph would abandon Carrick to them.
With that hope in mind, they returned to the Lower City, after Xamar received word of new sightings near refugee camps outside the Machineville neighborhood. Working with Constable Sowrs, the WatchCircle tracked the fugitives to the desolate dump known as Junk Junction, and Q'Anilia, Feln and Tey dropped in to pursue and apprehend. However, with the help of two Arkanian Offshoots, Jarael and Gorman "Camper" Vandrayk, Carrick and Hierogryph managed to slip away again in a hidden junk-hauler called The Last Resort.
After several twists and close calls, Carrick surprisingly turned himself in to bounty hunter Valius Ying after days hiding in the Taris system's asteroid belt. Ying delivered Carrick to the Jedi Tower, where Q'Anilia quickly gathered that Hierogryph and his companions still lived—but as she had foreseen, the Snivvian had seemingly abandoned him. Draay murdered Ying, who had seen too much, and the rest of the WatchCircle prepared to strike Carrick down as well. However, at the last moment, the Tower shook. Carrick's friends had returned to rescue him, laying down blaster fire from The Last Resort while Jarael, wielding Carrick's lightsaber, burst onto the scene and spirited him away.
With the Jedi publicly humiliated by Carrick's escape, Taris descended into anarchy in the coming weeks. With riots beginning to reach as far as the Middle City, word came down that the Taris Jedi Masters were being recalled to Coruscant. As the First WatchCircle prepared to raise stakes, they received a holo-message from Carrick, who was by then one of the most wanted men in the Republic. Carrick promised to hunt down the Masters one by one, promising that the one that cleared his name would be allowed to live.
===The Covenant crumbles===
When Q'Anilia and her companions returned to Coruscant, their first stop was at the Draay Estate, seeking counsel with Lady Krynda. However, they found the doors of the estate barred—Krynda was not seeing visitors. Their next stop was the Jedi Temple, where they had been called before the Jedi Council. There, they had a bombshell dropped on them: they were being reassigned, to separate postings. In that moment, Q'Anilia only saw more hardship on the horizon.
Her feeling was correct, as the search for Zayne Carrick continued amidst the escalation of the Mandalorian Wars. Mandalorian war chief Mandalore the Ultimate took the massacre, and the subsequent departure of the Jedi, as his signal to launch a full-scale invasion of the Republic, with his first thrust aimed at Taris.Knights of the Old Republic 8 His onslaught devastated many Outer Rim worlds, including his nuclear annihilation of Serroco—an act so destructive that Q'Anilia felt it through the Force during a mission to a far-flung ice planet. To Q'Anilia, the feeling was that of a vision beginning to come true.Knights of the Old Republic 15
Soon, the hunt for Carrick began to claim Covenant lives. Raana Tey was the first to fall, caught in the destruction of the Jedi Tower during the Mandalorian siege of Taris. Q'Anilia sensed her death while in a private moment with Lucien, but was less disturbed by Tey's end than something else she had seen—in the process of his clash with Tey, Carrick had learned Krynda Draay's name.Knights of the Old Republic 24 Q'Anilia continued to catch flashes of Carrick's travels throughout the galaxy. During Tey's memorial at the Draay Estate, Q'Anilia and the remaining members of the First WatchCircle had another shared vision, this time of an apocalypse of rakghouls led by the Sith Lord Karness Muur.Knights of the Old Republic 25
Carrick was present in the vision, along with several figures whom Q'Anilia had never seen before. Q'Anilia recognized the vision as being related to the Muur Talisman, an ancient Sith artifact that the Covenant had long pursued. They had cause to believe the Talisman was on Taris, where Carrick was last seen. Fearing that Carrick could find and use the Talisman to nefarious ends, the Covenant sent one of its covert agents, Celeste Morne, to seek out the artifact.
Morne found the Talisman, and Carrick, but the rendezvous only led to more destruction—they inadvertently ended up party to the destruction of a massive Mandalorian army on Jebble.Knights of the Old Republic 28 Morne disappeared during the incident, leading the Covenant to incorrectly believe Carrick murdered her on Jebble. Carrick's travels took him next to Odryn, Feln's home planet, where he uncovered evidence of the Jedi Covenant's secret storeroom of Sith artifacts. Feln met him there, and the ensuing clash between Carrick and Feln led to Feln's own people turning on and killing him.Knights of the Old Republic 30
The First WatchCircle now cut in half, Q'Anilia was despondent at the deaths, and by this time had become reliant on sedatives. She had also not seen Krynda in months—no one had heard directly from the leader of the Covenant since before the massacre, and Q'Anilia was desperate to see the woman she looked up to. However, Lucien, more focused on the possibility that Carrick would bring evidence of the Covenant's subterfuge to the Jedi Council, responded to her coldly. Instead, he directed Xamar to work with the Republic Navy to prepare for Carrick's arrival on Coruscant, which gave Q'Anilia pause. She knew that Xamar had seen his own death with the Republic Navy during the rogue moon vision, and begged the Khil not to go—however, he refused, saying that he would find another option.
===Final days===
That option, as it turned out, was Xamar confessing everything to the Jedi Council, in exchange for full immunity for Krynda and a role in the Lady Draay's extraction from her mysterious seclusion in the Draay Estate. Q'Anilia was not party to Xamar's plan, and when Xamar arrived at the Draay Estate with Carrick—who was faking being under the dark influence of the Muur Talisman—and Marn Hierogryph in tow, Q'Anilia felt justified in partaking in the massacre. Xamar intended to draw Krynda out by demanding she see Carrick, but his plan broke down when Haazen, the Draay family retainer, refused to allow the meeting to occur. When Haazen exposed Carrick's Muur Talisman as a fake, all hell broke loose.Knights of the Old Republic 32
Xamar slipped away from the hall and signaled a massive Jedi raid of the Draay Estate, abandoning his plan to get Krynda out first. Meanwhile, Haazen launched his counter, revealing that he had been preparing for this moment for years. Haazen called in a contingency plan known as Vindication, which amounted to no less than a full-out insurrection within the Jedi Order, aimed at the Covenant seizing control with Haazen at the helm. He also revealed that he had taken control of the Republic fleet orbiting overhead, and triggered a salvo that decimated the raiding Jedi force—including Xamar, who lost his life in the blasts. Q'Anilia was briefly knocked unconscious by falling rubble, and awoke to find a broiling conflict between Lucien, Carrick and Haazen. Amidst the chaos, Q'Anilia got up and dashed off to find and protect Krynda, striking down several of Haazen's men guarding the Jedi Master. However, when she got to Krynda's chambers, she found her seemingly lifeless, locked inside a glass casket.
Q'Anilia learned that Krynda had suffered a stroke months before, and the Miraluka could no longer sense the Lady Draay's mind. Destroyed by the loss of her mother figure, Q'Anilia resolved to be with Krynda once again, and drank a cup of poison. Q'Anilia was soon joined in Krynda's bedchamber by Marn Hierogryph, who had followed the Jedi Master upstairs. Although Q'Anilia blamed the chaos on Carrick, Hierogryph revealed his belief that he might have been the dark figure in the prophecy—he had been involved in the deaths of all the other members of the First WatchCircle, and had once briefly worn the infamous red enviro-suit seen in the vision. Hierogryph also dropped another bombshell on Q'Anilia: Carrick's "he who confesses, lives" prophecy was actually authored by Hierogryph, as a diversion to keep the Covenant off their backs. Her worldview shattered by Hierogryph's revelations, Q'Anilia lay down on the Lady Draay's bed and died.
==Personality and traits==
A contemplative and logical woman, Q'Anilia was devoted to the Jedi Covenant's mission above all else, and refused to allow personal ties to affect her ability to make hard decisions. For instance, while she was extremely fond of her student, Shad Jelavan, she did not hesitate to murder him when she believed the mission required it. However, Q'Anilia was not without emotion, and conspicuously wept at the banquet before the massacre was carried out. Q'Anilia was especially loyal to Krynda Draay, and her advice to Lucien generally consisted of opinions that she believed his mother would support, which Lucien did not always welcome. This conflict occasionally proved to be a complication to Q'Anilia and Lucien's extremely close, pseudo-romantic relationship that persisted until her death.
Q'Anilia was Krynda's first student, and Q'Anilia always believed that she was Krynda's favorite, even above her own son Lucien. Q'Anilia was always confident in her ability to see the future, even as a young girl, which was one of the qualities that impressed Krynda in the first place. In the months following the Padawan Massacre, Q'Anilia's mental and emotional state took a marked downturn as everything she loved and relied upon began to crumble around her. Despondent at the deaths of her friends and at Krynda's mysterious seclusion, the Miraluka became dependent on sedatives.
According to Xamar, Lucien's coldness was also partly responsible for Q'Anilia's breakdown, with the Khil stating that he had "ruined" her. Meanwhile, her conviction in the Covenant began to be shaken, as she questioned her involvement in the Padawan Massacre. The final straw came during Haazen's insurrection, when Q'Anilia found Krynda seemingly dead. Unable to go on without her mother figure and idol, and having lost almost everyone and everything she cared about, Q'Anilia could go on no longer and committed suicide.
==Powers and abilities==
Born with the Force sight of her native Miraluka, Q'Anilia possessed unusual precognitive abilities that were recognized at an early age. Q'Anilia's precognitions came in different forms: sometimes she would see full, vivid visions that immersed her completely, while other times they were limited to brief flashes of an emotion, thought or something someone said. As always, these notions required interpretation, and Q'Anilia proved on multiple occasions to not be particularly adept at accurately determining their meaning.
Q'Anilia's precognitions would come to her without warning and could be debilitating to her, often requiring her to obtain physical assistance. Despite not having physical sight, Q'Anilia was a capable lightsaber combatant— although she was no match for Lucien Draay— and wielded a green lightsaber. She also had the capability to drive a speeder, relying on Force sight alone—in fact, her fellows in the First WatchCircle often enlisted her to drive them.
==Behind the scenes==
The character of Q'Anilia first appeared in Knights of the Old Republic 1, the first issue of the Knights of the Old Republic comic book series, written by John Jackson Miller and released in 2006. Although Q'Anilia is depicted as a member of the eyeless Miraluka, Miller included a scene of her driving a speeder in one issue as a gag. During her run in Knights of the Old Republic, Q'Anilia was illustrated by five different artists: Brian Ching, Travel Foreman, Dustin Weaver, Scott Hepburn and Bong Dazo.
==Appearances==
==Sources==
*Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Handbook
*Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force
*The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
==Notes and references==
Category:Females
Category:Jedi Seers
Category:Members of the Jedi Covenant
Category:Miraluka
Category:Pre-Ruusan Jedi Masters