Jaska (Mandalorian Knight)

Jaska was a female Falleen Jedi Knight who eschewed Jedi teachings for Mandalorian culture during the Mandalorian Wars. Believing that the Galactic Republic was corrupt, she became a member of Jedi Master Dorjander Kace's Mandalorian Knights, a rogue faction of the Jedi Order that sought to help the Mandalorians win the war and become better rulers of the galaxy with the guidance of the Jedi. Joining the Revanchist movement, an organization of Jedi who aided the Republic war effort, Jaska and the Mandalorian Knights participated in a battle on the planet Essien in 3962 BBY. During the engagement, she and her fellow Knights were able to use deception to lead the Phaeda Militia, the unit under their command, into Mandalorian captivity and seize the Republic command ship, the Axehead frigate Reciprocity.
After successful attacks on the planet Halthor and the space station Phaedacomm, Jaska followed Kace in the final step of his campaign—the capture of Jedi trainees on the planet Dantooine, with the purpose of converting them into future Mandalorian Knights. Jaska and the Mandalorian soldiers attacked the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. However, Kace's plans were foiled by the Phaeda Militia, and particularly by former Jedi Padawan Zayne Carrick. Jaska and the Mandalorian Knights were captured and faced public trial for their treason against the Republic.
==Biography==
===A new purpose===
Jaska was a Falleen female who was trained as a Jedi during the reign of the Galactic Republic. After passing the Jedi Trials and becoming a Jedi Knight, she served the Jedi Order and the Republic during the Mandalorian Wars, a galaxy-wide conflict between the Republic and the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders. By 3962 BBY, Jaska had become disillusioned with the Republic, however, believing it to be overly corrupt. Coincidentally, she was not the only Jedi to have come to such a conclusion during that period of time. Former Jedi Council member, Jedi Master Dorjander Kace—who had spent much time in Mandalorian captivity during the recent Great Sith War—had come to believe that, sooner or later, the Republic would inevitably lose the Mandalorian Wars. However, Kace, having embraced Mandalorian culture during his time as a captive, thought that the Mandalorian rule over the galaxy would be a better alternative for the Republic, provided the Jedi Order was there to guide the victors. Jaska and several other Jedi were approached by Kace and accepted his teachings, forming the clandestine Mandalorian Knights group. Never officially leaving the ranks of the Jedi Order, Jaska and the Mandalorian Knights pledged their allegiance to Mandalore the Ultimate, the leader of the Neo-Crusaders,Knights of the Old Republic: War 3 who, in turn, provided the turncoat Jedi with a detachment of Mandalorian troops who were strictly instructed to follow Kace's commands.
To bring about his dream of a Jedi Order–supported Mandalorian rule of the galaxy sooner, Kace then developed a plan to kidnap Jedi Younglings from the Jedi Enclave on the planet Dantooine. He planned to raise them in Mandalorian traditions inside a prospective training center on the planet Ordo, thus expanding the ranks of the Mandalorian Knights. Jaska, Kace, and the rest of Kace's disciples then volunteered to join the Revanchists, a faction of Jedi who fought on behalf of the Galactic Republic in the war. The Mandalorian Knights were dispatched to the planet Essien, alongside a Republic military unit called the Phaeda Militia, consisting of natives of the planet Phaeda and commanded by Captain Dallan Morvis. Once there, Jaska took a speeder bike and followed Kace in an attack on the Mandalorian defenses along the beach line of an island, on top of which was located a mountain called Mount Savage. The mountain served as the location of the Mandalorian bastion.
When Jaska and the Mandalorian Knights returned to Morvis's position, Kace claimed that the Mandalorians had retreated into the forests surrounding Mount Savage. He asked Morvis to help his Knights root out the enemy from the forest, a task which Morvis planned to accomplish by burning the forest with a substance known as Tibanna-six. Kace specifically asked the Captain to bring every man from his command ship, the Axehead frigate Reciprocity, claiming that there were prize vessels to claim at the Mandalorian shipyards. Jaska and the Mandalorian Knights then left Morvis and rendezvoused with the Mandalorian forces. With the Reciprocity left without guard, the Mandalorians secured it. They then ambushed the Phaeda Militia while Morvis's men were trekking through the forest. Kace's followers and Mandalorian soldiers surrounded Morvis and his troops and forcibly conscripted them to join their cause.
===Abducting the children===
Kace next employed the Phaeda Militia in a successful conquest of a signal station on the planet Halthor. Jaska was present at a motivating speech that Kace gave to the Mandalorian warriors after the battle,Knights of the Old Republic: War 2 and then embarked on another mission alongside Kace and the Mandalorian Knights. In his effort to sever all communications between Dantooine and the Core Worlds, Kace had originally targeted Phaeda itself. However, Zayne Carrick, a former Jedi Padawan and a member of the Phaeda Militia, was hoping to save his homeworld. Therefore, he proposed a plan to infiltrate Phaedacomm, a Bith-operated space station located within the Phaeda system. Phaedacomm handled all signal traffic for Phaeda and connected the planet to the rest of the galaxy; therefore, holding the station for a few days would satisfy Kace's plan. Following Carrick's idea, the Mandalorian Knights and warriors took the Reciprocity to Phaeda. On the approach to the planet, they were intercepted by the Phaeda Planetary Defense Force cruiser Derapha. The Derapha refused to let the Reciprocity approach Phaeda without speaking to Captain Morvis, since they had received no word from him since the battle on Essien. However, Carrick answered to the cruiser's hails and lied that he was the only crew member left standing, after Morvis and the rest of the militia had been exposed to an unknown bioweapon used by the Mandalorians on Essien and were currently in sick bay. Kace stated that his Jedi were unaffected but that Carrick required immediate medical help. The crew of the Derapha were hesitant to let the Reciprocity land on Phaeda and potentially spread the unknown disease there, so the cruiser instead directed the Republic ship to Phaedacomm, which possessed a medical station with a quarantine area.
After docking with Phaedacomm, Jaska and the Knights delivered Carrick and the Mandalorian strike team inside the medical facility, using sealed biohazard-containment bags and lying to the Bith station operators that the bags carried the infected members of the Phaeda militia. Before the bags could be delivered inside the quarantine area, Carrick, who was wearing makeup applied to make him look infected, broke out of his bag and started calling for help. By doing so, Carrick had hoped to leave the Bith with no choice but to quarantine the entire station or risk the disease breaking out. However, the Bith wanted to evacuate from the facility instead. Kace tried to use a mind trick to convince them to stay, but at that point, the Mandalorians emerged from the containment bags, tired of waiting and acting covertly. The crusaders attacked the Bith, so Jaska and the Mandalorian Knights were forced to join the fight as well. The Bith were quickly killed, and Kace established his control of Phaedacomm.
Shortly afterward, the former Jedi Master rallied Jaska and the rest of his Knights aboard the Reciprocity for the final attack on Dantooine. The Mandalorian Knights and an advance force of Neo-Crusaders used the Republic vessel to reach Dantooine, while a trio of Kandosii-type dreadnaughts provided by Mandalore were supposed to arrive later. When hailed by the Dantooine Enclave, Kace claimed that the Reciprocity had been dispatched by the Republic to reinforce the Jedi Enclave's security until the communications problem was fixed. The bluff worked, and Jaska and the Mandalorian Knights were allowed to land on Dantooine.Knights of the Old Republic: War 4 Once there, Kace's forces rounded up the Enclave's staff and trainees. Jaska herself spotted and captured a pair of Younglings who were trying to slip away unnoticed during the hassle. The invaders then locked Jedi Master Zhar Lestin and the rest of the staff inside the local Jedi Council's convocation chamber. Meanwhile, Kace explained to the Younglings that they were going to be joining the Mandalorians. At that moment, a Shaadlar-type troopship landed near the Enclave to bring the trainees to the dreadnaught waiting above the surface of the planet. Kace, Jaska, and the Mandalorians escorted the Jedi children to the troopship, where they met a squad of Mandalorians led by a Field Marshal, who introduced himself as Glomkettle, the commander of the dreadnaught Parjai in orbit.
The Field Marshal claimed that the other two dreadnaughts had been delayed and assured Kace that the Parjai was ready to take aboard all of the Younglings. However, Kace quickly deduced that Glomkettle and his men were, in fact, Carrick and the members of Phaeda militia in disguise. Kace exposed them and ordered Jaska and the others to cut them off from their troopship. However, Carrick created a distraction by activating the troopship's self-destruct mechanism. A firefight broke out, in the midst of which the Phaeda militia evacuated the children aboard the Reciprocity. Kace and Carrick clashed in a fight that culminated with a lightsaber duel inside the Jedi Enclave. Meanwhile, the Mandalorian forces on Dantooine received news that Mandalore had broken the deal he had with Kace—providing him with soldiers in return for future Mandalorian Knights raised on Ordo—and recalled the two remaining dreadnaughts following Carrick's capture of the Parjai. Already viewing Kace's motives of capturing children as not fitting the Mandalorian code of honor, the Neo-Crusaders started to leave the planet. Eventually, Kace stood down as well, and Jaska and the rest of the Mandalorian Knights were taken into custody and faced public trial on the galactic capital world of Coruscant.
==Personality and traits==
Jaska had green skin, brown eyes, and black hair, styled in a dreadlocked ponytail. By the height of the Mandalorian Wars, Jaska started to believe that the Galactic Republic had become too corrupt and that being a Jedi ultimately equaled merely protecting the Republic's wealth, something she did not agree with. Therefore, she readily accepted Dorjander Kace's offer to join the ranks of the Mandalorian Knights. Alongside other Knights, she believed that they had been wasting their lives on small tasks for the Order until Kace gave them purpose. Jaska held high respect for her mentor, calling him "Master Kace," even though he asked her countless times to call him by his first name, trying to teach Jaska that they were all equal among the Mandalorians.
==Powers and abilities==
Trained as a Jedi Knight, Jaska was skilled at using her lightsaber in battle, which she demonstrated while fighting on Phaedacomm and Dantooine. As a Mandalorian Knight, Jaska wore a suit of gray Mandalorian armor, donned with green markings and equipped with a jetpack, and wielded the same bronze-colored lightsaber as the other members of Kace's faction. On Dantooine, Jaska also demonstrated her affinity with the Force, using telekinesis to stop two Younglings from escaping the Mandalorian attack. Additionally, Jaska was able to pilot a speeder bike.
==Behind the scenes==
Jaska was created as a minor character in the 2012 five-issue comic book miniseries Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: War. Initially unnamed, Jaska was identified by her name only in the final issue of the story arc. Published from January 11th to May 9th, the series was written by John Jackson Miller and penciled by Andrea Mutti.
==Appearances==
*Knights of the Old Republic: War 1 
*Knights of the Old Republic: War 2
*Knights of the Old Republic: War 3
*Knights of the Old Republic: War 4
*Knights of the Old Republic: War 5 
==Notes and references==
Category:Falleen
Category:Females
Category:Former Jedi
Category:Mandalorian Knights
Category:Pilots
Category:Pre-Ruusan Jedi Knights
Category:Revanchists