Force Using Orders of the Star Wars Galaxy
Force
Using Orders of the Star Wars Galaxy
The
Jedi Order
There is no emotion,
there is peace
There is no ignorance,
there is knowledge
There is no passion,
there is serenity
There is no chaos,
there is harmony
There is no death,
there is the force
Origionally known as the Je'daii this
order of force wielding galactic protectors was founded on the remote
world of Tython. On that planet the original Jedi learned to wield
the force and founded an order based on a code of ideals emphasizing
a rejection of material possessions and the rejection of powerful
emotions. The life of a Jedi is one of asceticism and self sacrifice.
Much of the early history of the Jedi has been lost for there came a
time when one of the Jedi Council rejected the ways of the rest of
the order, deeming it weak, short-sighted and inefficient. The
entirety of the renegade Master Rajivari's code has been lost to
history but a few of the rules are still known. Rajivari's second
principle is: “all life is a battle, even to the last breath.”
His seventh principle is: “to sacrifice strength is the act of a
fool.” Lastly his fifth principle states: “mercy creates a spiral
of destruction.” Each of these principles directly contradicts
elements of the Jedi code and shows the deep chasm forming between
various forms of thought within the early order. Master Rajivari,
despite being one of the founding members of the Jedi Council, tried
to assassinate his fellow Jedi Masters and reshape the order in his
image. He ultimately failed in that objective and thus his mission
fell to his loyal apprentices who waged a war of attrition against
the early Jedi Order from their fortress of Kaleth. In the end the
apprentices were slain, Kaleth was left a ruin populated only by the
still functioning remnants of the droid army that had fought to
defend it.
Rather than remain on Tython the early
Jedi decided to abandon their former home and the site of Rajivari's
great betrayal and embarked on a sojourn across the stars, settling
colonies on many worlds and building a number of new temples. In time
the Jedi Order came to become the ultimate peacekeepers of the
Galactic Republic and established the principal temple of the order
on Coruscant, the world-city and capitol of the Republic. From that
temple the Jedi Order grew and spread, dispatching Knights on
peacekeeping missions across the galaxy for centuries. Throughout its
history however the Jedi and the Republic have clashed with fallen
Jedi and the dark side using Sith on a number of occasions such as
the Great Hyperspace War and the Jedi Civil War. During such
conflicts it was not uncommon for various strongholds of the Order to
be attacked or destroyed. The great libraries of Ossus were
destroyed, the temple on Dantoine was bombarded from orbit by Darth
Malak and even the grand temple on Coruscant was sacked during the
Great Galactic War. In response to the destruction of the temple on
Coruscant the then Grand Master of the order, Satele Shan, led the
order back to the rediscovered world of Tython and re-established the
Jedi Temple there.
Eventually the Jedi Order returned to
Coruscant and rebuilt the temple there and continued to serve as the
guardians of the Republic until the horrific Great Jedi Purge at the
end of the Clone Wars. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine ordered the Grand
Army of the Republic to execute standing Order 66, an order which
declared all members of the Jedi Order as guilty of high treason
against the Republic and mandated their immediate summary execution.
Without hesitation the bulk of the Jedi serving with the GAR were
slaughtered by their own troops. The Jedi Temple itself was attacked
by the elite and battle-hardened 501st Legion and led by
the fallen Jedi Anakin Skywalker, who would later take the title of
Darth Vader. Only a handful of Jedi survived the purge, most of them
going into hiding far away from the core worlds of the republic. Many
would ultimately be hunted down and slaughtered or tortured and
turned into weapons for the Empire by various agents of the new
regime. This period of brutality and oppression would last for around
twenty years before a rebellion would successfully destroy the
Empire's most powerful super weapons and kill both Palpatine and
Vader. Though ultimately victorious the Jedi Order had been reduced
to a single active Jedi named Luke Skywalker upon whose shoulders
fell the task of rebuilding the Jedi.
To the Jedi their lightsabers are special and highly ritualized component of the Jedi way of life. Each Jedi builds their own lightsaber as part of their Padawan training and each blade is unique to the individual who builds it. The act of obtaining the focusing kyber crystal forms one of the most important and potentially dangerous stages of Jedi training as each Padawan must journey into the Crystal Caverns beneath the Illum temple to recover their crystal and do so before the entrance is covered in ice and the Padawan becomes trapped in the caves, doomed to starve to death for failing to return to the surface in time. Typically the crystal recovered will indicate the role the Padawan will fulfill within the Jedi Order. Blue lightsabers are typically wielded by Jedi Guardians, the warriors and battlefield commanders of the order, while green lightsabers are the weapons of the Jedi Consulars who make up the ranks of the diplomats, healers and scholars of the order. Yellow lightsabers are reserved for the Jedi Sentinels, those members of the order who dedicate themselves on seeking out injustice, solving problems and seeking mysteries far from the confines of the Jedi Temple. Towards the latter days of the Republic the number of Jedi Sentinels active in the galaxy had declined sharply to the extent that they were a rarely seen group within the halls of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, though ironically this meant that a greater proportion of Sentinels survived the Great Jedi Purge than any other class within the order.
The
Sixth Line
There is no
contemplation, there is only duty
During the interlude of the Great
Galactic War a group of militant minded Jedi under the command of
Master Surro formed together into a secret commando organization
known as the Sixth Line. Created in the image of the unsanctioned
sixth line to the Jedi Code developed by Master Surro during her time
fighting the Sith Empire on Balmorra the sixth line followed the
mantra: “there is no contemplation, there is only duty.” At some
point the Sixth Line and Master Surro began working with famed SIS
Agent Theron Shan taking on unsanctioned operations across the galaxy
to hinder the Empire. The Sixth Line would meet its end when tasked
with investigating the Imperial world of Ziost where the disembodied
spirit of the Emperor was believed to have returned. These rumors
were true, the Emperor used his vast power to possess both the
Imperial soldiers of Ziost and the Jedi of the Sixth Line and set
them to slaughtering the civilian population. When enough blood had
been shed the Emperor was able to release a terrible dark side ritual
that obliterated all life on the planet. Only a handful of the Sixth
Line Jedi potentially survived and there are no official records of
the organization reforming in the aftermath of the Ziost incident.
However a small number of Jedi wearing the armor of the Sixth Line
fought in the second Battle for Odessan and it is possible the
organization survived in service to Theron Shan and the Alliance
against the Eternal Empire.
Green
Jedi
Most Jedi are required to give up all
attachments to their former lives upon joining the Jedi Order, their
homes, their families and any previous loyalties are set aside in
service to the order. That is not entirely the case with the Green
Jedi of Corellia. Based in a fortified temple complex in the capitol
city of Corellia the Green Jedi are a sub-sect of the Jedi Order who
are loyal first and foremost to their homeworld. In honor of the
founding flag of Corellia the Green Jedi wear robes of forest green
and often bear lightsabers of the same color. Though the rest of the
Jedi Order tolerate the existence and tenets of the Green Jedi they
do so only grudgingly and typically consider the Green Jedi to be
unreliable and potentially suspect. Despite the opinions of the wider
Jedi Order the defenders of Corellia are an elite cadre of warriors
and one of Corellia's most formidable defenses against invasion. By the end of the Clone Wars the distinct sub-faction of the Green Jedi appears to have faded somewhat and it is unclear whether the enclave on Corellia remained in active use, yet it was still common for those Jedi recruited from Corellia to carry a ceremonial coin to mark their heritage and loyalty to their homeworld.
Gray
Jedi
The term Gray Jedi is more of a loose
categorization than it is any kind of formal order or code. Any Jedi
that strays from the hard and exacting rules of the Jedi Order and
chooses to walk their own path but who have not fallen to the Dark
Side may be considered a Gray Jedi. The term may also refer to any
force user, Jedi or otherwise, who chooses to walk the path between
the Light and Dark sides of the force without committing to either
extreme. Typically Jedi who fall into this category are those who
have grown estranged from the principles of the Jedi Order and no
longer view the galaxy as either black or white. Many Gray Jedi are
war veterans or individuals who have operated far from the privileged
spires of Coruscant and the Core Worlds and seen the galaxy at its
most turbulent and dirty. Gray Jedi tend to embrace nuance and
compromise, seeing situations from a more neutral perspective and
looking for solutions outside the normal extremes of virtue and
sacrifice or selfishness and brutality that define the typical Jedi
and Sith mentalities. Most Gray Jedi are loners, choosing a life of
self exile from the rest of the Jedi Order, often taking to traveling
distant planets or becoming hermits in some inhospitable environment,
somewhere they can find some peace and quiet from the constant strife
of the galaxy. Not all Gray Jedi were exiles from the Jedi Order,
some such as Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn remained members of the Jedi
Order though tended to act outside the typical rules of the Jedi Code
and often pushed the bounds of acceptable Jedi behavior without ever
directly contravening the authority of the Jedi Council.
The term Gray Jedi originated during
the Old Sith Wars when the Jedi Council sought to reform and
centralize the beliefs and strictures of the Jedi Order. It was
during that time that many changes were made to the Jedi Code
including the barring of familial attachments. Many members of the
order did not approve of these changes or believe the Council had the
authority to make them in the first place and strongly opposed the
new order. These Jedi became known as the Gray Jedi. Later the term
would be used by the New Jedi Order to encompass any force tradition
that did not conform to the typical Light and Dark side dichotomy.
Altisian
Jedi
Formed as an unorthodox splinter
faction of the Jedi Order a few decades before the Great Jedi Purge
the Altisian Jedi followed the teachings of Jedi Master Djinn Altis.
The teachings of Master Altis included the training of multiple
padawans by a single master and allowing Jedi to maintain families,
both precepts that set the Altisians at odds with the more orthodox
elements of the Jedi Order and caused the Altisian Jedi to depart the
temple on Coruscant. For a time the Altisians used the Jedi Enclave
on Bespin as a training grounds but their primary focus was to travel
the galaxy acting as aide workers on developing worlds. During the
Clone Wars the Altisians were eventually convinced to join the
flagging war effort against the separatist droid armies. Towards the
end of the war the Altisians became increasingly involved and started
taking missions directly from the Jedi Council. When the chancellor
executed Order 66 and launched the Great Jedi Purge the Altisians
survived and went into hiding. For some time members of the Altisian
order aided force sensitives and elements loyal to the Jedi Order
escape the empire and find refuge outside of Imperial space.
Revanchists
When the Mandalorians launched a brutal
campaign of galactic conquest the Jedi Council refused to take action
or commit the Jedi Order to the defense of the Republic. The council
sensed something dark and dangerous about the situation and requested
time to meditate on the issue and try to discover the threat before
taking action. Many young Jedi found the inaction of the council
inexcusable however and, led by the young and charismatic Jedi Knight
Revan and his friend Malak a group of Jedi chose to defy the council
and embark on a crusade against the Mandalorians. Known as the
Revanchists or Jedi Crusaders, these warriors set out for the
outer-rim to join the campaign against the Mandalorians. The influx
of scores of Jedi Knights into the campaign galvanized the failing
Republic forces and turned the tide of the war. The young Jedi
Knights were proud, capable and enthusiastic and brought much needed
strength and energy to the Republic forces who had spent years
suffering an unending string of disastrous and costly defeats at the
hands of an enemy that seemed unstoppable. In particular many of the
Revanchists chose to wield double-bladed lightsabers, the less common
sub-type finding much favor in the Jedi Crusaders who found the
enhanced lethality of the weapons a powerful asset in combat against
the Mandalorians. Revan himself proved a brilliant strategist,
inspiring leader and fearless warrior though his tactics and methods
grew ever more brutal and callous as the war progressed. Revan began
to sacrifice worlds that were not strategically vital and grew to
treat his warriors and fleets as disposable assets in the cause of
stopping the Mandalorians.
Revan's ultimate act of destruction
came when he purged disloyal elements of the Republic fleet and his
own Jedi followers in the Battle of Malachor V. Under the command of
one of his most trusted Lieutenants, the Jedi Knight Meetra Surik, a
fleet of Republic vessels lured the bulk of the surviving Mandalorian
forces into a brutal battle above the planet of Malachor V where, at
the height of the battle, Meetra ordered the deployment of an
experimental super-weapon known as the Mass Shadow Generator.
Effectively an extremely powerful and unstable mass gravity emitter
designed by the brilliant Iridonian Engineer Bao-Dur the Mass Shadow
Generator ripped apart both the Republic and Mandalorian fleets,
slaughtering nearly all of the combatants on both sides in one brutal
stroke. The Loss of life was so sudden and brutal that even those
Jedi not caught in the deadly gravity waves were overwhelmed by the
shock of such violence through the force and perished. Only Meetra
Surik survived, doing so only by cutting herself off from the force.
Shortly after the Battle of Malachor V the Mandalorians were defeated
and Revan cut down Mandalore himself, taking the ceremonial helmet of
Mandalore and hiding it from the Mandalorians, preventing the
surviving clans from choosing a new leader or reorganizing in the
wake of their defeat. The Republic's victory was short-lived however
for within a few years the fleets of the Revanchists returned from
campaign and set about attacking the Republic itself, destroying
worlds and capturing strategic assets, all in the name of the newly
appointed Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Revan. Only Meetra Surik
survived the Mandalorian wars and returned to Coruscant to face the
Jedi Council, all the rest of the Jedi Crusaders either died in the
war or joined Revan in fighting the Republic during the Jedi Civil
War that followed.
The legacy of the Revanchists is a
complicated one. On the one hand they did much good as they traversed
the galaxy, destroying pirate fleets, liberating slaves, fighting
corruption and evil wherever they went. Without the Revanchists the
Mandalorians would not likely have been defeated and the Republic
itself may have fallen. On the other hand the Revanchists would
ultimately fall to the dark side and launch a similarly brutal
campaign of conquest against the worlds they had just fought to
defend and through their actions bring the Republic and the Jedi
Order itself to their knees.
Jedi
Covenant
Established after the end of the Great
Sith War by the Jedi Master Krynda Draay the Jedi Covenant was a
secret sub-sect of the Jedi Order that tasked itself with trying to
prevent the rise of the next dark Jedi like Exar Kun. Master Krynda
Draay herself felt personally guilty for not detecting Exar Kun's
fall to the Dark Side and so chose to establish a group of Jedi
Consulars as Shadows within the Jedi Order who would use precognitive
visions to search for the next shatterpoint of causality that would
lead to the return of the Sith and prevent it by any and all means
necessary. The members of the Jedi Covenant hated the existence of
the Sith with a passion and felt justified in any act, no matter how
vile, so long as they believed it would prevent the resurrection of
their hated foe. These beliefs ultimately led the masters of the Jedi
Covenant to slaughter their own students in an event known as the
Padawan Massacre of Taris. The covenant had detected a future wherein
one of their students would fall to the dark side and rise to
threaten the galaxy and so they chose to cut down their students at
their own Knighting ceremony. One padawan was late to the ceremony
however and so missed the slaughter. Padawan Zayne Carrick stumbled
upon the scene of his masters standing over the murdered bodies of
his fellow students. Shocked and horrified Zayne fled and managed to
avoid meeting the same fate but was cast by his treacherous masters
as the villain and accused of murdering his fellow padawans. Zayne
was forced to go into hiding and worked to clear his name and expose
the crimes of the Taris masters to the rest of the order. Zayne was
eventually successful in stopping the deadly machinations of the Jedi
Covenant and exposed their existence, and crimes to the Jedi Council.
The existence of the Jedi Covenant and the nefarious nature with
which it operated further convinced the Jedi Council of the danger of
permitting sub-factions within the order and added to the Jedi
Council's opposition to the Revanchists as well. Despite the
dissolution of the Jedi Covenant after it was exposed to the Jedi
Council the secretive agents known as Jedi Shadows that were used by
the Covenant to hunt down Sith artifacts and conduct clandestine
operations were not abolished and instead the role of the Jedi Shadow
became one of the accepted specializations of study and combat focus
among the ranks of the Jedi Order in the centuries that followed. A
class of Jedi Knight capable of stealth, infiltration and subterfuge
was too powerful an asset to the Jedi Order to eliminate entirely, no
matter how distasteful the origin of the practice.
Order
of the Terrible Glare
The Order of the Terrible Glare was
formed by a splinter group of Jedi Knights during the Pius Dea
Crusades. When the Jedi Order chose to withdraw from galactic affairs
the decision did not sit well with every member of the order, some
knights chose to join the cause of Pius Dea and abandoned Ossus to
settle on the world of Garn. The Order of the Terrible Glare devolved
from the studious teachings of the Jedi Order and became a violent
and militaristic cult led by an order of shamans that eventually
wound up waging war against the Jedi Order before the cult was
destroyed at the end of the Pius Dea Crusades. A single suviving
member, High Shaman Rur, preserved his life by uploading his
consciousness into a computer and continued the orders campaign of
vengeance against the Jedi for centuries, luring lone Jedi Knights to
Garn and destroying them one by one until he was finally stopped by
the young Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. While it existed the Order of
the Terrible Glare focused its force powers on the mastery of
illusion and the perversion of nature culminating in the development
of horrific soul snare technology that allowed the Order of the
Terrible Glare to trap the force-spirits of their victims in crystal
prisms for eternity. The order was also able to develop technology to
detect the presence of lightsabers across vast interstellar
distances, technology that enabled the death-defying High Shaman Rur
to sense the presence of Jedi Knights and send false distress signals
to lure them to their deaths on Garn.
Iron Knights
Potentium
Origionally founded as a sub-sect of
philosophy within the Jedi Order the followers of the Potentium were
formally expelled from the Jedi Order roughly a century before the
Battle of Naboo. The followers of Potentium philosophy believed that
there was no light or dark aspect of the force but that the force
itself was a power of good and could only be twisted into evil
purpose by the evil intent of those who used it. Members of the
Potentium tended to refer to the force as the potentium and forsake
the general parlance of the rest of the Jedi Order. The Potentium's
masters argued that the ancient Je'daii word for the force Ashla came
to refer to the light side of the force and was an indication that
even the early Je'daii philosophy recognized the universal positive
nature of the force. Though never considered to be Dark Jedi the Jedi
Council came to treat the members of the Potentium as misguided,
similar to the Gray Jedi and chose to expel them from the order lest
their aberrant teachings undermine the rest of the order. The council
argued that it was the role of the Jedi to protect others, not to
study the fullest extents of the force or attempt to master the
darker or more dangerous powers and rituals for the sake of knowledge
alone. Some historians of the force have argued that Luke Skywalker's
New Jedi Order was founded on Potentium principles as the order
permitted the study and use of dark side powers so long as its
members used those powers for the purpose of good however others
argue that this approach more closely mirrored the Gray Jedi
Philosophy and this argument is supported by the expressed views of
Grand Master Skywalker himself. Even so Skywalkers order would later
adopt the more orthodox Jedi views of the Light and Dark side of the
force.
Teepo
Paladins
The Teepo Paladins were a small
sub-sect of the Jedi Order that existed around the same time as the
Army of Light was fighting to eliminate the Sith once and for all.
The Teepo Paladins believed that using blasters and other weapons was
just as acceptable as using lightsabers and trained in the use of a
wide variety of different armaments. The rest of the Jedi Order
frowned on this and ultimately censured the Teepo Paladins some time
before the Great Jedi Purge. A handful of the most radical Teepo
Paladins chose to split from the Jedi Order and form their own
faction known as the Gray Paladins.
Gray
Paladins
Spawned as an off-shoot of the Teepo
Paladins the Gray Paladins came to embrace a philosophy of
self-reliance and minimalist use of the force. The Gray Paladins
chose to eschew the more dramatic and flashy abilities of the Jedi
and rely on the force only to passively enhance their skills and
reflexes while working to build their martial prowess and physical
capabilities through rigorous training and conditioning rather than
using active force abilities to aid them. As a result of this martial
philosophy Gray Paladins could display feats of truly phenomenal
speed and marksmanship, even able to deflect blaster bolts and
projectiles with their own blasters and deliver close quarters
strikes of fearsome strength and power. Far more militaristic than
the Teepo Paladins from which they split the Gray Paladins chose to
rely primarily on blasters and other more conventional weapons
through they did not completely eschew the use of lightsabers though
the order generally viewed the weapons as far less dependable than
the Jedi Order believed them to be. Instead the order chose to train
in a wide variety of weapons, most particularly blasters of various
kinds, and even sought to master a number of esoteric and unusual
weapons such as Sallisian throwing whorls. The Jedi Order viewed the
Gray Paladins as misguided and their philosophy as somewhat
pointless, as the force connects all things the Jedi did not see any
scenario in which they would be required to act without the use of
the force and thus the preparation and conditioning of the Gray
Paladins was simply not necessary. Agents of Ossus
Founded in the seedy underbelly of Coruscant in the years after the Jedi Purge by Emperor Palpatine the Agents of Ossus were a force using tradition created by the Jedi Padawan and purge survivor Jin-Lo Rayce. Formerly the apprentice to Jedi Master Jocasta Nu, the master of the temple archives, the y oung Rayce possessed considerable knowledge about Jedi history and teachings but was significantly lacking in combat skills or experience. Having already lost his lightsaber in his escape from the temple Rayce never sought to instruct his students in lightsaber combat or techniques, rather he focused his teachings on using the force to aid the use of blasters and vibroblades. Rayce named his new order of force users after the ancient Jedi world of learning, Ossus, and spread his followers and his teachings across a number of heavily populated worlds throughout the galaxy.
Mandalorian
Knights
During the Mandalorian Wars a small
number of Jedi Masters under the leadership of Master Dorjander Kace
chose to side with the Mandalorians during the war. The Mandalorian
Knights believed that the Republic was irredeemably corrupt and could
not be saved and, though the Mandalorians often engaged in terrible
brutality they were far more open to change and actually had a core
set of beliefs that they actually held to. For a brief period Kace
and his followers acted as double agents, ostensibly working with the
Revanchists while actively undermining the Republic war effort. Upon
the discovery of their treachery Kace and his followers donned
Mandalorian Armor and took to the battlefield alongside their
Mandalorian allies. Relatively few in number the Mandalorian Knights
proved an effective weapon for the armies of Mandalore but were
ultimately captured and returned to Coruscant to face trial. While
Kace and his supporters service as Mandalorian Jedi was short lived
the code of the Mandalorians has proven alluring to other Jedi
throughout the centuries. As late as the Great Jedi Purge a small
number of Jedi had chosen to forsake the order and don the armor of
the Mandalorian advisors working with the Grand Army of the Republic
and it is likely other Jedi have made a similar choice from time to
time. Some Mandalorians have chosen to go the other way however, one
notable example being a Jedi of Mandalorian origin who forged a
unique lightsaber known as the Darksaber, a weapon with a curved
blade-shape, thin profile and black-colored blade. During one
conflict between the Mandalorians and Jedi the darksaber was stolen
from the Jedi temple and taken as a symbol of authority for
Mandalore, the ruler of the Mandalorians. As late as the Great Jedi
Purge the darksaber stood as the most recognizable symbol of office
for the leader of the Mandalorians and an object that was much fought
over between Mandalorians, Jedi and Sith alike.
Sith
Peace is a lie, there
is only passion
Through passion I gain
strength
Through strength I gain
power
Through power I gain
victory
Through victory my
chains are broken
The Force shall set me
free
The reality of the Sith is far more
complicated and twisted than most histories bother to delve into. For
most in the galaxy the term Sith is often used as a catch-all for any
errant lightsaber swinging force users who have fallen to the Dark
Side but this is not technically the case. The original Sith were a
race of red-skinned sentient humanoids native to the remote world of
Korriban. The force was strong in many Sith blood-lines and it did
not take long for the use of the force, and particularly the Dark
Side to become prominent in Sith culture. Powerful force users made
the Sith a dominant force in the region and they dominated many
worlds until their population ultimately declined rapidly due to
internal strife. Around this time the first fallen Jedi stumbled upon
Korriban and the Sith and found kindred spirits in the use of the
dark side of the force. The fallen Jedi who had fled Republic space
took the name Sith for themselves and established Korriban as their
new homeworld. For centuries the new Sith grew strong and populous,
only kept in check by their fear of Republic and Jedi retribution and
their struggles for power against each other. This internal conflict
would be brought to a sudden and unexpected end when a republic ship
attempting to chart new hyperspace routes stumbled on Korriban. The
Sith Lord Naga Sadow seized on the arrival of the explorers as a
golden opportunity to rise to power. Sadow allowed the hyperspace
explorers to escape and claimed they were spies sent by the Republic.
Capitalizing on the fear and anger of the Sith towards the Republic
the devious Sadow used the explorers escape to galvanize the Sith and
rally them to launch an invasion of Republic space. This act would
mark the start of the Great Hyperspace War where the Republic and the
Sith Empire would clash in one of the most brutal and destructive
conflicts the galaxy has ever seen.
By the outbreak of the Great Galactic
War centuries later a small number of pureblood Sith had been
rediscovered and returned to prominence among the ranks of the Sith
Empire. When the Sith returned to invade the Republic they did so
with many red-skinned Sith Lords leading the charge, though the bulk
of these were mix-breed offspring of true Sith and other species.
Nevertheless the Sith Empire heavily favored those who bore the
resemblance of the Sith, regardless of how pure the individual's
blood line and many found positions of great power and prominence in
the empire. This situation was not to last, ultimately the Sith
Empire would be defeated yet again and most of the surviving Sith
purebloods and their offspring would perish and the species would
become functionally extinct in time. Constantly struggling with
internal conflicts over power the Sith would see their strength wax
and wane many times over the centuries until the bulk of those sworn
to the Sith Code would be wiped out as the result of a dedicated Jedi
purge known as the Army of Light. Following this event the only two
Sith to survive the conflict established the Rule of Two, a system by
which only two Sith would ever be allowed to exist again, one master
and one apprentice. This system would succeed more-or-less for
several thousand years, the Sith growing in power and hoarding
technology and knowledge of the force hidden from the prying eyes of
the Jedi until at last the Dark Lord Sidious was able to enact his
plan and exterminate the Jedi Order at the end of the Clone Wars.
Though successful the Sith would not long enjoy their victory for a
mere twenty years later Sidious would be killed by his own apprentice
who turned back to the light side of the force thanks to the efforts
of his son and the sole remaining Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. Though
the long legacy of the Sith has technically come to an end there will
always be those drawn to the Dark Side of the force and countless
artifacts and secrets of the Sith remain scattered across the galaxy,
waiting to be found by those with the power to use them.
The Sith typically bear lightsabers with deep red blades. This is not just because the Sith prefer the sinister and intimidating color and its general contrast against the blue, green and yellow favored by the Jedi but rather it is a representation of the relationship between Sith and their chosen weapons. Most Sith do not invest any special importance on their lightsabers, though they often build their weapons themselves they are just weapons and not necessarily a unique reflection of the warrior who wields them. Red crystals are commonly used as they can be found in places steeped in the dark side of the force or produced industrially. In some eras the Sith have preferred to produce lightsabers en-masse as they would any other weapon, obtaining focusing crystals by industrial manufacture and producing lightsabers as an assembly-line war material. Other Sith in other eras have put more pride and investment into their own particular weapons.
Imperial
Inquisitorius
Founded in the days after the Great
Jedi Purge the Imperial Inquisitorium was formed to hunt down those
Jedi who had survived the execution of Order 66. Most of the members
of the Inquisitorium were known as Purge Troopers, specially trained
non-force users who were conditioned and equipped to hunt down and
slay rogue Jedi Knights. The Purge Troopers wore advanced Storm
Trooper armor painted a dark sinister red and were equipped primarily
with a variety of deadly close quarters weapons including
shock-batons and electrostaffs that were capable of sparring with
lightsabers though some Purge Troopers were also trained to use
blasters and shock grenades to engage their Jedi opponents. The elite
of the Inquisitorius were the Inquisitors themselves. Each and every
Inquisitor was a former Jedi who had been captured by the
Inquisitorius and taken to the Fortress Inquisitorius on the dark
side world of Nur. There the Jedi were broken through torture and
invasive experimentation to turn them into weapons for the Emperor.
Equipped with black armor and uniforms and armed with esoteric
double-bladed lightsabers that were capable of rotating freely around
the hilt and could even propel the wielder through the air for short
distances the Inquisitors made for supremely deadly and efficient
hunters. Most Jedi would have little experience fighting such unusual
weapons. Very few Jedi survivors faced Inquisitors and lived though
ultimately the ranks of the Inquisitorius declined in number and by
the Battle of Yavin IV it is unclear whether any Inquisitors remained
in active Imperial service. All previous identities were stripped
from the Inquisitors themselves and they were simply known by a
number and the term brother or sister, examples being the Fifth
Brother or Seventh Sister. The leader of the Inquisitorius who
reported to Darth Vader directly was known as the Grand Inquisitor
and had formerly been a member of the Temple Guard of the Jedi Temple
on Coruscant who had become disillusioned with the teachings of the
order prior to the Great Jedi Purge.
Emperor's Hand
In the wake of the Battle for the Meridian Complex, the new Emperor of the Sith, reformed the Emperor's Hand, creating a cadre of trusted agents, force-users and soldiers capable of operating outside the remit of the Dark Council. The Emperor's Hand would be able to take swift and decisive action without having to go through the beurocratic channels of the Empire's often bickering and conflicted leadership, answering to none by the Emperor. Many centuries later Emperor Palpatine, or Darth Sidious, would also form his own version of the Emperor's Hand. Palpatine's hand were a select cadre of force-sensitive agents and assassins able to carry out his will directly without having to utilize the overwhelming and destructive force of Darth Vader.
Dread Masters
In the centuries before the start of the Great Galactic War a group of six powerful Sith Lords were tasked by the immortal Emperor of the Sith, Vitiate, to research a collection of ancient and mysterious pieces of technology the Empire had discovered. Called the Phobis devices, these ancient artifacts had driven all but the most powerful of Sith who had examined them mad with fear. The Dread Masters however managed to form a symbiotic collective between themselves and learned to master and control the Phobis devices to instill crippling terror in their foes from leagues away. Whole fleets and armies would crumble at the approarch of the Dread Masters and their aura of terror and despair. During the Great Galactic War the armies of the Republic quickly grew to fear the Dread Masters and their terrible powers and went to great efforts to cut off and capture the Dread Masters and their army, imprisoning them in vaults deep beneath the surface of Belsavis. Shortly after the outbreak of the second Great Galactic War agents of the Empire managed to discover the location of the Republic prison world of Belsavis and enacted a daring rescue of captured Imperial prisoners being held there, including the Dread Masters. This rescue would ultimately prove disastrous even for the Empire as the masters quickly vanished from the Empire with their followers, pursuing unknown objectives and refusing to serve the interests of the Dark Council. After the death of the Emperor at the hands of a Jedi Knight strike team the Dread Masters began to enact a series of plans to subjert and corrupt the galaxy, forcing both the Republic and the Empire to dispatch elite strike teams to try and prevent the Dread Masters plans. Several desperate battles were fought against armies of treacherous Republic and Imperial soldiers, mercenaries and criminal operatives before the stronghold of the Dread Masters was finally uncovered on the remote world of Oricon and both the Republic and the Empire dispatched forces to try and end the threat of the Dread Masters once and for all. Unfortunately the Dread Masters were aware of their enemies arrival and burned the Republic fleet from orbit. The much smaller Imperial strike team attempted to approach by stealth but was similarly detected and all but destroyed on the surface. The Dread Masters had centuries ago built a massive and powerful fortress protected by advanced Imperial technology melded with ancient Rakata devices that proved all but impervious to direct assault. The Dread Fortress was further protected by a sizable army of zealous followers known as the Dread Host. Elite soldiers and Sith under the complete thrall of the Dread Masters and wholly dedicated to their mission of destroying the galaxy the Dread Host was a formidable and deadly asset that only the most powerful agents of the Republic and the Empire had a hope of resisting. Ultimately, at great cost, the Dread Masters were defeated, two of their number cut down individually and the final four confronted in the throne room of the Dread Palace and slain to the last, ending their threat to the galaxy once and for all. For a moment the galaxy, Republic and Empire alike, breathed a collective sigh of relief as news of the Dread Masters defeat spread, an enemy that had threatened to destroy both factions and everyone else if they had not been stopped. The ultimate fate of the Phobis devices and the technology recovered from the Dread Fortress remains unknown.
Krath
Jensaarai
The Jensaarai were founded during the
Clone Wars by a rogue Jedi Knight named Nikkos Tyris who formed the
philosophy after discovering manuscripts detailing the fall of the
first Jedi to the dark side. What Tyris did not realize was that the
manuscript was mostly true but contained a single sinister untruth,
the manuscript claimed that the Jedi Order took most of its teachings
and understanding of the Sith. Outraged by what he believed to be the
long-hidden truth of the Jedi Orders founding Tyris chose to lead a
cadre of followers to the world of Susevfi in the Suarbi system where
he established an order known as the Jensaarai, the Sith word for the
followers of the hidden truth. Tyris did not realize that the
teachings he was imparting on his students were not the true ancient
Jedi teachings but secrets of the Sith that were corrupting his
followers to the Dark Side. As the Clone Wars progressed the Jedi
Order was desperate to uncover any information they could about the
mysterious Lord of the Sith known as Darth Sidious and dispatched
Jedi investigators to track down any source of information or rumor
of dark side activity they could find. One such lead led a trio of
Jedi to Susevfi where they encountered Tyris and two of his acolytes.
A battle ensued in which the trio of Jensaarai were slain. As Tyris
fell the Jedi cast his body into his temple where the detonation of
raw dark side energy released upon his death destroyed the
foundations of the temple and caused the structure to collapse.
Believing their task accomplished and the rogue dark Jedi defeated
the surviving Jedi departed, not realizing that more Jensaarai yet
lived, trapped beneath the rubble of their collapsed temple. When the
surviving Jensaarai finally escaped the rubble of their temple the
Jedi had long since departed. Reorganizing under the leadership of
the wife of one of the slain apprentices who took the title
Saarai-kaar the order continued to train and prosper, hidden from the
prying eyes of the Jedi and Sith alike. Following the Great Jedi
Purge the Jensaarai believed themselves free from persecution and
actively sought to join forces with the Emperor. The Saarai-kaar sent
her son to aid Darth Vader in hunting down surviving Jedi and was
shocked to learn that Vader had cut down her son as soon as he
arrived. Having learned of the Jensaarai's existence the Emperor
dispatched Jedi hunters to Susevfi and slaughtered a number of
Jensaarai members. Unlike elsewhere however the hunters did not long
stay to ensure their job was completed and departed almost as quickly
as they arrived, perhaps believing their job done when in fact many
Jensaarai had survived in hiding. Over the next few years the
Jensaarai would launch frequent attacks on the Imperial garrison,
doing some damage and demoralizing the Imperials while losing
relatively few of their own in the process. Yet surprisingly the Jedi
hunters never returned, though why that is remains a mystery.
It would not be until the formation of
Luke Skywalker's New Jedi Order that the Jensaarai would come to
understand their misguided origins and the corrupt nature of Tyris'
teachings when they were confronted by Luke Skywalker and Corran
Horn. Though coming to an understanding was difficult Master
Skywalker did not persecute the Jensaarai but managed to convince
them of the truth and to ally themselves with his New Jedi Order. In
time the Jensaarai would send students to Luke's academy on Yavin IV
and would come to aid the New Jedi Order in battle on several
occasions. Despite their allegiance the Jensaarai would remain an
independent organization that was generally viewed by the New Jedi as
a Gray Order due to the proximity of their beliefs to the teachings
of the Sith and the dark side though the Jensaarai themselves firmly
disagreed with this view.
Thanks to their origins as a splinter
faction of Jedi the Jensaarai were able to provide the New Jedi order
with many details of the teachings and doctrines of the Old Jedi
Order and bore many similarities. The Jensaarai maintained the use of
lightsabers as their primary weapons though they did not place the
same importance on the individuality or significance of the
lightsaber as their Jedi counter-parts. Instead the construction of
lightsabers was an earlier part of a Jensaarai student's training and
much more importance and individual significance was placed on the
construction of the Sith battle-armor that each member of the
Jensaarai crafted for themselves and wore in combat. The forging of
armor acts as a Jensaarai student's final trial to become the
equivalent of a Knight and is a deeply personal and significant act.
The armor of each Jensaarai warrior is unique to the individual and
may contain any variety of various functions or design elements
including built in technological systems, retracting claws or other
useful devices. The teachings of the Jensaarai closely resembled
those of the Old Jedi Order placing an emphasis on protecting the
innocent and maintaining peace and order while from the Sith the
Jensaarai took an emphasis on the utility of aggression and learned
techniques for forging cortosis into body-armor. A unique force-power
developed by the Jensaarai is known as ballistakinesis whereby the
Jensaarai adept will use the force to propel small objects at lethal
velocity.
Revanites
Among the ranks of the Sith on Korriban
and Dromund Kaas a secretive sect came to exist that worshiped Darth
Revan as the epitome of force mastery. The Order of Revan, or
Revanites, believed that Revan, through his life and deeds, had
proven that it was possible to walk the paths of both light and dark
and become stronger for it, that to become trapped by one philosophy
or the other was a weakness. Founded by the Sith Lord Tari
Darkspanner the order initially sought to change the Sith Empire from
within, recruiting members from all levels of society and also
included many aliens within its ranks despite the general xenophobia
of the Empire. During the Great Galactic War the prison where the
Sith Emperor had held the Jedi Revan imprisoned for centuries was
breached by a strike team of Republic forces and Revan returned to
the galaxy once more. His return would be short lived however for not
long after Revan was assassinated by a team of elite Imperial
commandos while attempting to reactivate a second Star Forge. His
death did not quite take however and part of Revan's psyche refused
to die, returning yet again to take command of the Revanites and
forge them into a fanatical and heavily militarized cult made up of
both Imperial and Republic forces that sought to destroy the fleets
of both powers. Revan's ultimate goal appears to have been to defeat
the undying spirit of Emperor Vitiate, even though the Emperor's body
had been slain by the Battlemaster of the Jedi Order his spirit had
not become one with the force and remained a threat to the galaxy.
Though his plans were brilliant and his forces highly capable an
unlikely alliance between Jedi Grand Master Satele Shan and the
leader of the Dark Council Darth Marr managed to defeat Revan, but
they were not able to prevent the Emperor's spirit from manifesting
once more on the planet of Ziost and regaining strength by wiping out
all life on the formerly prosperous Imperial world. Though his
ultimate goal failed Revan's spirit was made whole again, the
disembodied light side and his aggressive dark side brought together
on Yavin IV. Whether this act allowed him to become one with the
force or if perhaps the force ghost of Revan is still active
somewhere in the galaxy remains a mystery, as is the fate of the
Revanites. Though defeated on Yavin IV it is possible that some
elements of the cult survived.
The
Witches of Dathomir
Outside select circles of Jedi and Sith
scholars the existence of the Witches of Dathomir, or Nightsisters,
is almost unknown across the wider galaxy. Dathomir itself is a
forbidden and dangerous planet steeped in the dark side of the force
and whose native flora and fauna are almost universally dangerous to
invaders. The planet is home to a group of female Rattataki, the
Nightsisters themselves, and tribes of male Zabrak warriors who serve
the witches and are known as the Nightbrothers. The witches of
Dathomir practice a form of force use that is almost unrecognizable
to that of the Jedi and Sith, focusing their abilities primarily on
sorcerous incantations, dark side rituals and the brewing of potions
and poisons. The witches utilize a variety of specialized tools and
implements in the practicing of their dark side sorcery and their
primary weapon is an energy bow with which the witches hunt the local
predators and drive off any potential invaders. Some Nightsisters
have been trained in more conventional uses of the force and
occasionally the witches will offer up one of their Zabrak servants
for training as a Sith warrior. Notable examples of such warriors
were Asajj Ventress, Darth Maul and Savage Opress. Unfortunately the
studied neutrality and isolation of the Witches of Dathomir could not
protect them from General Grievous who led his droid armies in a
purge of Dathomir in the later years of the Clone Wars. Only a single
Nightsister is known to have survived the purge. Nevertheless
Dathomir remains a planet powerful in the dark side of the force and
home to many ancient ruins and artifacts waiting to be found.
Order of Shasa
Founded in the aftermath of the Jedi Civil War by a young force sensitive Selkath named Shasa the Order of Shasa is dedicated to the preservation of Selkath society and the defense of the Selkath homeworld of Manaan. During the Jedi Civil War the Sith Empire under Darth Malgus attempted to subvert the Selkath authorities by secretly recruiting a number of young force sensitive Selkath and training them in the ways of the Dark Side within the Sith Embassy in Ahto City. The redeemed Jedi Knight Revan and his team of companions ultimately discovered the subterfuge and rescued the Selkath. Clearly despite having learned of the nefarious Sith plans the young Shasa nevertheless decided to continue pursuit of her training in the force and founded an order of Selkath force users that would continue to exist up through the Great Jedi Puge and the rise of the Galactic Empire. Though technically neither a light or dark order the Order of Shasa nevertheless utilized techniques largely derived from the Sith training Shasa and her fellow Selkath youths had received during their time in the academy within the Sith Embassy. The Order of Shasa also developed a small number of their own distinct force techniques including an ability called the Progenitor's Call that could disrupt their enemies actions. Other areas of focus for the Order of Shasa included a high priority on perceiving deception through the force and manifesting powerful telekinetic abilities. The acolytes of the Order of Shasa are among those force sensitive organizations in the galaxy who do not rely on lightsabers but instead construct their own individually crafted vibro-blades known as the Fira. Each Fira is constructed from raw materials salvaged from the ruins of the Hrakert Rift research station destroyed during Revan's search for the Star Forge. The raw metals are then shaped through the force into deadly weapons and the forging of a Fira often serves as one of the last elements of an acolyte's training as a member of the Order of Shasa. During the Great Galactic War the Order of Shasa worked with members of the Order of Revan to protect an underwater research laboratory studying the transpantation of Rakata self-repairing technology into test subjects to create nearly immortal cyborg super-soldiers. The Order would also play a role in the defense of Manaan during the rise of the Galactic Empire and would fight to protect Ahto City from the forces of the Empire but would ultimately be manipulated and fall under the sway of Darth Vader.
Believers
Tribes of Zakuul
Knight of Zakuul
In the later years of the Great
Galactic War both the Republic and the Sith Empire found their worlds
and armies beset by the sudden appearance of a third and completely
unknown force. Led by a pair of deadly and powerful force using
warriors named Thexan and Arcann the warriors of the Eternal Empire
laid waste to several worlds of the Republic and Sith Empire,
slaughtered many Jedi and Sith, and inflicted untold damage before
suddenly disappearing back into wild space from whence they had come.
Shocked by this sudden and unexpected turn of events elements of the
cross-faction Alliance that had fought the Revanites set out into
wild space to discover the source of this assault. What they stumbled
upon was more dangerous than they could have expected, the Eternal
Fleet of Zakuul. The alliance forces were slaughtered, or captured,
and the immortal Emperor Valkorion was assassinated thanks to the
efforts of his renegade son Arcann. Blaming the outlander for
Valkorion's death Arcann assumed the Eternal Throne and unleashed his
forces upon the galaxy. Within a few years the Republic and Sith
Empire had been brought to their knees, the majority of the Dark
Council had been slain and the Jedi Order had been all but broken and
left leaderless after Grand Master Satele vanished without a trace.
At the head of the Eternal Empire's assaults were the Knights of
Zakuul, an elite cadre of force users whose training and abilities
were nothing like the Jedi or Sith were used to dealing with. Unlike
their enemies the Knights of Zakuul did not recognize a light or dark
aspect to the force but trained to use the force as a tool to express
their absolute devotion to the Eternal Throne and the Emperor of
Zakuul. Every aspect of a Knight of Zakuul's life is dedicated to
serving the Emperor and their power in the force grows in relation to
their devotion. In peace time the Knights of Zakuul act as
peacekeepers of the Eternal Empire, though their role is more truly
one of enforcers for the will of the Emperor. Where Zakuul acquired
so many force sensitives or the nature of the Knights training remain
mysteries to the wider galaxy but the numbers and capabilities of the
Knights proved all but unstoppable to the forces of the Republic and
the Sith Empire. Zakuulan Knights typically all wielded blue-bladed
lightsabers of various designs, though the most common by far was the
lightsaber-pike, a pole-arm with a shortened lightsaber blade at the
end. This weapon would often be paired with a powerful energy-field
protected tower shield that made a line of advancing Knights all but
impossible to stop. Select individuals among the Knights might
sometimes bear standard lightsabers wielded singly or doubly and a
very few bore weapons with less common colors though such symbols of
status were usually reserved for high-ranking individuals like the
Archons commanding Zakuul's battle stations. 
During the reign of Arcann the Knights
unity and service was fractured more than once. Arcann's purge of the
Scions split the loyalty of the Knights and caused a good number to
split away from the Eternal Throne. Without Emperor Valkorion to keep
his children in line the Knights suffered terribly at the brutal
hands of Arcann and Vaylin. Arcann himself ordered half the Knights
killed to purge the ranks while Vaylin's violent tempers led to
countless Knights being slaughtered simply for being in her
proximity. Some renegade Knights attempted to join with Senya, the
former consort to Emperor Valkorion and mother to Arcann, Thexan and
Vaylin, but were slaughtered by Vaylin herself on Ord Mantell. During
Vaylin's rule the former bodyguard units were disbanded and Vaylin
formed a new elite enforcer cadre known as the Horizon Guard, each
one hand-picked by Vaylin herself. Though service in the Horizon
Guard was considered an honor, even the guards themselves recognized
the high probability of meeting their own deaths in some temper
tantrum of Vaylin's before long leading them to joke that they served
for life but not for long. Unlike their lesser knight brethren the
Horizon Guard typically bore lightsabers with red blades. Under
Arcann's rule a small number of Knights were hand-picked for service
as Archons, the commanders of the Eternal Empire's battle-stations
that were placed in orbit over conquered worlds to maintain
compliance. The Archons were given chemical and cybernetic
enhancements and unique conditioning that made them far stronger and
more powerful than their peers but their numbers were never great.
Zakuulan
Scions
Under the rule of Emperor Valkorion the
Scions of Zakuul were the second of paired knightly orders serving
the Eternal Throne. The Knights of Zakuul focused on martial combat
while the Scions focused their efforts and training towards mastering
the force, specifically visions of the future. The precognitive
abilities of the Scions were quite powerful and provided significant
advantages on the battlefield often leading them to be paired with
Zakuulan Knights to form deadly and efficient teams of complementary
force users. Unfortunately Arcann despised the Scions, viewing their
dogmatic adherence to the concept of fate to be a fatal weakness and
shortly after assuming the Eternal Throne he ordered the greater bulk
of the order of Scions exterminated. Only a handful escaped the purge
and went into hiding. Ultimately the scions would throw their support
behind the outlander and the alliance against the Eternal Throne,
seeking to unseat Arcann and end his reign of terror and bloodshed.
Nathema
Zealots
After the Sith Emperor Vitiate consumed
all life on his homeworld of Medriaas the planet was left as a
veritable wound in the force. Merely walking the surface of the world
was painful to force sensitives who felt their connection to the
force weakened significantly simply by being near the planet. Vitiate
purged all record of the name Medriaas and the world came to be known
as Nathema. For centuries the world remained almost completely
lifeless until Vitiate would turn his sight to the planet again while
wearing the identity of Emperor Valkorion. The Emperor would
establish a small temple and laboratory on Nathema where he trained a
group of powerful force users known as the Nathema Zealots. Valkorion
sought to create an unstoppable army of supremely powerful force
users trained to master their abilities even amid the hollow and
lifeless world of Nathema. This project was successful, to a point,
the Nathema Zealots proved powerful and deadly force users but their
regimen of deep meditation and ritual stripped them of their free
will and made them dependent on the force void of Nathema. When
removed from the surface of the world the Zealots would fall into a
comatose state, rendering them completely worthless as the army
Valkorion had envisioned. Rather than let the project go completely
to waste Valkorion tasked the Zealots to serve as wardens of a prison
for force sensitives he established on Nathema, a role they conducted
quite successfully for a number of years. Only one prisoner ever left
Nathema alive, the Emperor's own daughter Vaylin, whom Valkorion had
sent to Nathema to undergo invasive and mind-shattering
indoctrination experiments to shackle her uncontrollable force powers
and ensure she would not become a threat to Valkorion's own power. Perhaps because of their close association to Valkorion the Nathema Zealots all wielded lightsabers with yellow-blades, similar to the weapons wielded by Valkorion's children and quite different from the predominant blue of the Knights of Zakuul or the magenta of the Scions. Ultimately Valkorion would be overthrown by his own son Arcann who
was in turn defeated by the Outlander allowing his sister Vaylin to
take the throne. Vaylin would return to Nathema to undo her
conditioning, a process which was successful but led to the complete
destruction of the prison complex and everyone in it, including any
surviving Zealots.
Despite the destruction of their
home and their abandonment by the Eternal Empire the history of the
Nathema Zealots was not quite over. Shortly after Vaylin's
destruction of the sanitarium on Nathema the Eternal Emperor
Valkorion was finally defeated. His death apparently released the
stolen force essence that he had absorbed over the centuries and
restored the force to Nathema. In a very short span of time life
began to bloom all across the surface of the dead world with new
flora and fauna appearing and spreading very rapidly. The return of
life to Nathema allowed the Nathema Zealots who had survived the
destruction of the sanitarium to survive on the surface where
otherwise they would have starved to death in relative short order.
Though all of the zealots felt the death of Valkorion none of them
were willing to believe the Eternal Emperor had actually been killed
and various factions emerged among the Zealots formed around various
different radical ideas about how the Emperor could still have
survived or what he wanted them to do. These factions fell into
infighting and began waging bloody conflicts against each other by
the time the Outlander returned to Nathema to stop the Order of
Zildrog from waking the ancient super-weapon hidden on the surface by
Valkorion. Whether the Zealots long survived after this period or
their eventual fate remains uncertain.
Heralds
of Zildrog
The Heralds of Zildrog were a radical
cult of force users native to the planet of Zakuul who worshiped the
ancient dragon deity Zildrog and believed his second coming was
impending and that Zildrog would destroy and remake the world. Little
more than a street gang with force powers and red-bladed lightsabers
the Heralds of Zildrog effective acted as the dominant power of the
underworld of Zakuul, known as the Old World. The lower levels of the
world city had long since been effectively abandoned by the elite of
Zakuul and were populated by criminals and exiles and has become all
but lawless. During the reign of Emperor Arcann the Heralds of
Zildrog and the Emperor struck a bargain whereby the Heralds would be
given free reign to rule over the Old World as they saw fit so long
as they did not interfere with Arcann. The prominence of the Heralds
was somewhat broken by a series of violent encounters with the Lady
of Sorrows and the Commander of the Alliance against the Eternal
Empire that saw the leader of the Heralds killed and the survivors
rendered subservient to the Lady of Sorrows. Despite losing their power struggle
with the Lady of Sorrows the Heralds of Zildrog remain one of the
most unique and curious criminal organizations in the galaxy as they
are one of the only, if not the only such organization to have
existed that regularly fielded lightsaber wielding force users as a
core part of the organization's ranks. Where the Heralds of Zildrog
obtained so many force sensitives, or the necessary training and
materials to equip themselves with lightsabers is unknown.
Order
of Zildrog
Founded after the fall of the Eternal
Empire the Order of Zildrog was established by a former Knight of
Zakuul named Vinn Atrius. The Order of Zildrog was a highly militant
faction of disparate groups brought together by their unifying hatred
of the Eternal Alliance. Vinn Atrius had discovered that Zildrog was
in fact an ancient super-weapon built on Iokath and sought to recover
the weapon and use it to destroy the Eternal Alliance. Though Atrius
and his followers were defeated in the end the victory of the Eternal
Alliance came at considerable cost as the battle destroyed the
Eternal Fleet and the Gravestone, eliminating the most potent
military assets of the Eternal Alliance in one disastrous conflict.
Unlike most of the orders of force users found throughout galactic
history the Order of Zildrog possessed no real unifying philosophy or
set of doctrines save a hatred for and desire to destroy the Eternal
Alliance that had brought an end to the centuries of prosperity of
the Eternal Empire of Zakuul. Vinn Atrius had been one of Empress
Vaylin's hand-picked Horizon Guard before her death and Atrius blamed
the terrible damage and many deaths that the Eternal Fleet had caused
to Zakuul on the Alliance and its commander. The Order of Zildrog was composed of
the renegade GEMINI 16 droid intelligence, a cadre of rogue Knights
and Scions of Zakuul, members of the Heralds of Zildrog, several Sith
Lords including the First Servant of the Emperor and a number of
other core-world natives united in their hatred of the Alliance.
Despite a relatively large number of force sensitives serving with
the Order of Zildrog the martial capability of the Order of Zildrog
was not particularly notable, had the order not managed to locate the
ancient super-weapon it would not have posed all that great a threat
to the Alliance or any other galactic power. Nor did the force
wielders serving the Order of Zildrog adopt any unifying philosophy
or techniques as they were drawn together only by their shared
antipathy towards the Eternal Alliance and the Outlander who
commanded it.
Eternal
Alliance
Originally founded by the Sith Lord
Lana Beniko and the Republic Secret Intelligence Service agent Theron
Shan to combat the emerging threat of the Revanites towards the end
of the Great Galactic War the Alliance would evolve repeatedly over
the following years. The outcome of the Battle of Rishi would compel
Darth Marr, the leader of the Sith Empire's Dark Council, and Jedi
Grand Master Satele Shan to join the Alliance against the Revanites.
After Revan's defeat on Yavin the Alliance continued to operate and
under the direction of Darth Marr elements of the Alliance journeyed
into Wild Space to track down the origin of the mysterious army that
had laid waste to a number of Republic and Imperial worlds. Marr and
the hero known as the Outlander would be captured and Marr would
perish fighting the Sith Empire reborn as Valkorion, the Immortal
Emperor of Zakuul. With the aid of Valkorion's son Arcann the
Outlander killed Valkorion and was subsequently imprisoned by Arcann,
who immediately assumed his father's throne and used the Outlander's
actions as an excuse to launch an all out invasion of the Republic
and the Sith Empire. The Outlander was imprisoned in carbonite and
kept in decaying stasis for five years until he was rescued by Lana
Beniko and a small group of Alliance compatriots. The Outlander then
became the Alliance Commander and would gather forces and weapons to
fight the Eternal Empire, first managing to defeat and depose Arcann
and later killing Empress Vaylin who had assumed the throne after her
brother fell. Upon finally defeating the spirit of Valkorion the
Outlander would take control of the Eternal Throne and the droid
fleet it controlled and the Alliance would become the Eternal
Alliance. Throughout all of these tumultuous events the Alliance
would rely heavily on the involvement of a variety of force
sensitives from varied backgrounds. The initial members of the
Alliance were drawn primarily from the Republic and the Sith Empire
and its force users were a mix of Jedi and Sith. As the Alliance
evolved to oppose the Eternal Empire it would come to include Voss
Mystics, former Knights of Zakuul, and a variety of other gray force
users. The Voss Mystic Sana-Rae would come to lead the Force Enclave
of the alliance on the planet of Odessen, guiding the efforts to
merge the disparate backgrounds and training of the force sensitive
members of the Alliance into an effective and unified fighting force
and provide valuable foresight against coming threats through the
employment of her mystic visions.
Baran
Do Sages
Thousands of years before their contact
with the Galactic Republic the Kel Dor race developed their own order
of force users known as the Baran Do Sages. Initially these sages
used the force to amplify their senses, allowing them to detect
weather patterns in advance of storms and warn their fellows of
impending natural disasters that were common on the planet Dorin.
Later the Baran Do Sages learned to study the force more deeply and
receive visions of the future through meditation. These precognitive
abilities helped the Sages avoid war and prevent disasters and led to
the sages taking greater positions of prominence within society. This
changed with the discovery of Dorin by the Republic and the arrival
of the Jedi Order. In compliance with their standard policy the Jedi
began to take young force sensitive Kel Dor and train them to use the
force as Jedi Knights whose abilities and understanding of the force
far eclipsed that of the Kel Dor Sages. Over time the sages fell from
prominence until they disappeared from Kel Dor society almost
entirely. Forgotten and all but extinct the sages survived only
through obscurity, continuing to take in and train small numbers of
recruits sent to them by deeply traditionalist Kel Dor families. In a
deep twist of irony it was the very obscurity of the Sages that
allowed them to survive the Great Jedi Purge at the end of the Clone
Wars. Imperial operatives never discovered the existence of surviving
sages or even tried to look for them, believing as most of the Kel
Dor did that the sages were nothing more than a long dead myth. In
the wake of the Emperor's defeat over Endor a small number of sages
contacted Luke Skywalker and sought to work with his new Jedi Order.
Zeison
Sha
The origins of the Zeison Sha lie in
war and tragedy. During the New Sith Wars the friends and family of
many Jedi took refuge on the remote and inhospitable world of Yanibar
to hide from attacks by the Sith. The colonists believed that the
Jedi would return before long to collect them once the fighting with
the Sith was finished. The colonists did not realize that every Jedi
who knew about the colony died during the fighting, leaving the
survivors stranded on an unknown world with no-one alive to come for
them. The hostile conditions on Yanibar led to many of the colonists
perishing in the first few years but some, thanks in large part to
the force abilities of a select few colonists, managed to survive and
eventually to thrive. In time the force sensitives among the Yanibar
colonists became known as the Zeison Sha and developed their
connection of the force to enable powerful telekinetic abilities.
With no formal Jedi training among them or knowledge of how to
construct lightsabers the Zeison Sha relied on using their
telekinesis to hurl razor sharp discblades at incredible velocity.
When the Zeison Sha eventually regained contact with the Jedi Order
they were shocked to discover that the Jedi took children away from
their families for training and forbid attachments. Those Zeison Sha
who had met the Jedi returned home with stories of the order
kidnapping children and this knowledge bred a deep animosity among
the Zeison Sha towards the Jedi Order, a conflict with would never be
resolved despite multiple attempts by the Jedi Order to reconcile
with the Zeison Sha and reunite their orders.
The Zeison Sha philosophy focuses on
independence and survival skills. The Zeison Sha prefer to be
self-reliant and do not make use of rigid organizational structures
or a set hierarchy. Only rough designations such as initiate and
warrior can be found among the Zeison Sha. The force adepts of
Yanibar are also strictly opposed to separating children from their
family and training is either done in home informally by the parents
or with the assistance of a more experienced force adept. The Zeison
Sha maintain a temple known as Sha Kalan but students there still
live with their parents and are loyal ultimately most closely to
their individual family units. The isolationist and self-reliant
nature of the Zeison Sha saw the order survive the Great Jedi Purge
and prevented the Empire from ever gaining a foothold on Yanibar but
otherwise refused to take any significant action against the rise of
the Sith.
Jal
Shey
One of the oldest and most influential
orders of force users in the galaxy the Jal Shey focused on studying
the force as a purely intellectual pursuit. This philosophy made the
Jal Shey some of the most effective diplomats and advisors in the
galaxy, well respected for their wisdom and insight into complex
matters. Adepts of the Jal Shey philosophy lacked the physical
prowess or abilities of other force using orders and so typically
rely on armor and physically augmenting gear to provide protection
from harm in hostile environments. Following the Great Sith War the
Jal Shey became a more militaristic order and their teachings
eventually spawned the Mabari warrior knight order on the planet
Zolan. The Jal Shey continued to operate throughout the galaxy,
traveling as nomadic bands of teachers and students right through the
Great Jedi Purge and the formation of the Galactic Empire. Unlike
some other force using orders operating apart from the Jedi Order
many adherents of the Jal Shey order chose to train in basic
lightsaber techniques and would carry the weapons for their own
defense. However physical defense was never a major tenet of the Jal
Shey teachings and most adherents to the philosophy chose to focus on
intellectual solutions to problems over physical ones.
Korunnai
Killian Rangers
The
Voss Mystics
The planet of Voss was not widely
discovered by the powers of the galaxy until sometime late in the
Great Galactic War. Heavily isolationist the Voss managed to repel an
initial invasion attempt by the Sith Empire but afterwards refused to
take sides in the galactic conflict and maintained a studied
neutrality for some time. The power of the Voss came from their use
of a highly specialized cadre of force users known as Mystics. The
Voth Mystics focused their abilities on receiving visions of the
future. These visions would then be interpreted by a number of highly
trained specialists who would collectively agree on the meaning of
the visions. The agreed upon interpretation would then inform the
leadership of the Voss about how to proceed in matters of war,
economics, law and order and nearly every other aspect of life. To
the Voss a Mystic's vision was never wrong, the interpretation could
be incorrect, but the visions themselves were always utterly
infallible. Given the success of the Voss visions in turning aside
disaster and soundly defeating the Empire in open conflict many in
the Republic and Sith Empire found it hard to disagree with the Voss
on the matter and many attempts were made to obtain the services of
the Voss in the galactic war. Despite the Republic's desire to
recruit the Voss the Jedi Council refused to dispatch Jedi diplomats
to assist in the negotiations, seeing the Voss Mystics as an
unreliable order of gray force users. Ultimately none of the efforts
to recruit the Voss proved successful until the Barsen'thor of the
Jedi Order managed to recruit a young Mystic aspirant named Gaden-Ko,
by helping him complete his journey to become a Mystic. The
Barsen'thor's successful recruitment marked the first time a Mystic
had departed the Voss homeworld and the participation of Gaden-Ko in
the Rift Alliance headed by the Barsen'thor proved highly effective
in turning the tide of the war in the Republic's favor. Eventually
the Empire managed to obtain the services of their own Voss
delegations for a time during Darth Malgus' short reign as Emperor of
the Sith and another Mystic named Sana-Rae would serve in the
alliance against the Eternal Empire. The Voss neutrality would
finally be shattered by the Eternal Empire's invasion of Voss-Ka,
which was only turned back by the rapid intervention of the alliance.Bando Gora
Order
of Dai Bendu
Originating on the world of Thape the
Order of Dai Bendu was one of the earliest orders of force users in
the galaxy and was one of a variety of small sects and orders to find
its way to Tython and participate in the founding of the Je'daii
order. Unlike most of the other groups that founded the Je'daii the
Dai Bendu never ceased to exist as their own separate order and
continued to operate in small numbers even up to the waning days of
the Republic before the Great Jedi Purge and the formation of the
Galactic Empire. Little is known of the philosophy or teachings of
the Dai Bendu outside of the order. Darth Plagueis was one of the few
force adepts outside the Dai Bendu to possess texts related to the
ancient order. Before the Great Jedi Purge there were some Republic
historians who believed the Dai Bendu were actually an early
incarnation of the Jedi Order but had little evidence to support that
belief. After the rise of the Galactic Empire and its defeat by the
Rebellion efforts to restore the knowledge lost in the Great Jedi
Purge failed to acknowledge the Dai Bendu at all, historians
believing the origins of the Jedi Order at that point lost to time.
Despite this general lack of knowledge about the order the Dai Bendu
maintained a temple in the Andobi Mountains of Ando Prime right up to
the end of the Republic and maintained regular contact with various
modern settlements nearby, even going so far as to permit the hosting
of various pod-races through the mountains.
The Miraluka are one of a number of
sentient species in the galaxy that are all force sensitive. Born
blind members of the Miraluka race perceive the world around them
through the force. This trait has made the Miraluka among the most
accomplished and prized seers in the galaxy with many members of
their kind joining orders such as the Jedi and the Sith throughout
the ages. Even standing apart however the Miraluka maintain their own
traditions of the force, training themselves to enhance their
perception of the force and see what others cannot see. In the
aftermath of the Jedi Civil War a colony of Miraluka on the world of
Katarr was wiped out by the Sith Lord Darth Nihilus as he sought to
hunt down and drain the life force from every surviving Jedi in the
galaxy. Katarr had become a target when a group of Jedi who had
survived the Jedi Civil War traveled to Katarr and sought the aid of
the Miraluka colony there in attempting to perceive the mysterious
threat that was continuing to kill Jedi even years after the war was
supposed to have been over. Only a single young Miraluka woman named
Visas Marr survived the annihilation of all life on the world and was
taken by Darth Nihilus as his apprentice and assassin. Marr would
later attempt to take the life of the Jedi Exile Meetra Surik but
would fail and chose instead to join the exile in her mission to stop
the Sith.
Young Miraluka who demonstrate particular aptitude with sense-based applications of the force are often encouraged to join the Luka Sene, a formal organization among the Miraluka that specializes in sense-based force powers. Outsiders typically view the Luka Sene more as an academy for the education of force users than as a particularly mystic or ritualistic tradition in the same way as the Jedi, Sith or a variety of other force using traditions across the galaxy. A small number of Luka Sene adepts leave their homeworld to join the Jedi Order but most remain among the Miraluka society and serve primarily as a watch against young Miraluka force users from falling prey to the dark side of the force. Should a young adept among the Miraluka be discovered to have strayed from the light a team of Luka Sene known as Sene Seekers will seek out the youth and attempt to divert their path towards darkness and back to the light. Should that prove impossible they will take the youth into custody and ensure they can do no further harm to Miraluka society. Luka Sene adepts are typically recruited and trained on the Miraluka homeworld of Alpheridies, but wandering masters of the order might search out and train force-sensitive Miraluka youths living elsewhere in the galaxy should they discover them.
Founded a thousand years before the battle of yavin when a vessel fleeing the New Sith Wars crash-landed onto the remote world of Kro Var. The survivors banded into a variety of competing clans that struggled to scratch out a harsh existence on the inhospitable worlds. Force sensitives rose to become leaders and champions among the clans and would fight among each other over resources. The survivors underwent social and technological regressions. Eventually the Jedi Order made contact with the Shapers and despite initial hostility was able to make peace with the scattered clans. Though some shapers took the opportunity to travel off world most remained on Kro Var and their isolation and relatively small numbers kept them beneath the notice of the Galactic Empire. Quite curiously the Shapers of Kro Var focused their force talents into bombastic expressions of war and conflict. The Shapers distrust expressions of the force that are invisible to the eye, telepathy, telekinises and sense abilities are eschewed by the shapers in favor of the raw manipulation of the elements of nature. Earth, air, wind and fire are the primary focus of the Shapers who use the force to bend these elements to their purposes and crush their enemies. Young force-sensitives on Kro Var undergo a series of rigorous test by elders known as the Shaper cabal to determine which of the elements their abilities are most compatible with before they are then dispatched to the temple corresponding to their favored element.
Precious little is known of this
secretive order of killers native to the shadow world of Umbara and
from the time of the rebellion against the Eternal Empire to the rise
of Darth Bane and the Sith Rule of Two. Particulars about the Shadow
Assassins organization, training or abilities remain a mystery.
During the Great Galactic War the majority of Umbaran Shadow
Assassins wielded force pikes and were able to cloak themselves in
the force, appearing and disappearing at will to confound and ambush
their prey at will. The most elite Shadow Assassins wielded
double-bladed lightsabers emitting an unstable purple-colored blade.
During the New Sith Wars the Shadow Assassins were in part or perhaps
wholly incorporated into the Sith and trained in the Umbarran Sith
Academy. Though some Shadow Asssassins survived the thought bomb
detonated during the Battle of Ruusan the survivors were all killed
when their master, the dark-side force user Hetton, clashed with
Darth Bane. Whether any force-sensitives were ever trained on Umbara in the traditions of the Shadow Assassins in centuries since the New Sith Wars or existed during the Clone Wars or the Great Jedi Purge remains a mystery.
During the Third Galactic War the Eternal Alliance came into contact with members of a small and esoteric discipline of unaligned force users known as the Messengers of the Cold Moon. The messengers focused on giving guidance and protection to force users who had been rejected by the Jedi and would have perished in the brutal training of the Sith Academies. With nowhere else to turn to and no-one to guide them in the use of their abilities these unaligned force users could be a danger to themselves or those around them and could fall prey to the predations of the Sith. The Messengers believed that the force was a guiding influence that moved all individuals towards the right path for them to follow. Upon completing their training many members of the order left the Cold Moon where they had trained and undertook a pilgrimage, a journey to discover the path the force had laid out for them. One such messenger, known only as Amity, came into the service of the Eternal Alliance and would fight alongside the Alliance Commander throughout the rest of the war as he followed visions the force had granted him and sought to untangle their meaning. The Messengers did not strictly adhere to the light side of the force but nor did they embrace the dark side, most of their members remaining relatively firmly in the light and pursuing paths of peace and non-violence whenever possible.
Originating on the Draethos homeworld of Thosa the Keetael is a mysterious but not secret order of force users. When a force sensitive Draethos is discovered they are trained extensively by one or more Keetael masters who travel from settlement to settlement seeking students. For training the young initiates are taken on highly dangerous and rigorous hunts known as Ube-tel. These hunts can last for weeks or months and have no set schedule or regimen. The initiates are taught as the masters decide and in a manner of their choosing. Early hunts focus on drawing out and mastering the basic function of force abilities while later hunts may lean towards mastering those abilities under stress or distraction. Once a Keetael initiate reaches adulthood they may go months or years between hunts depending on the whims of the master organizing them. Once an initiate has mastered their training they will receive a small silver disc, on one side will be inscribed the symbol of the order: complex series of interconnected circles, and on the other will be inscribed the personal icons of the masters and initiates that were invovled in that individual's training. Although a symbol of membership the coin is not required to be carried or displayed by members. Some Keetael may wear distinct clothing or icons to mark their status but many choose not to do so, they are not isolated or marked out in Draethos society but live and hunt alongside their community. Of particular note is that the Keetael tradition does not focus on the light or dark side of the force but believes both extremes to be deficient. Light-side leaning Keetael often leave Thosa and seek to join the Jedi Order for their more pacifist leanings are unwelcome in the violent hunter society of the Draethos. Similarly those Keetael who fall to the Dark Side are often hunted down and slain by their comrades who recognize them as a threat to the Draethos society. Some small numbers of dark-side leaning Keetael may occasionally band together to form mercenary or criminal organizations but this is relatively rare. The Keetael number in the few hundreds, only as many force sensitives as the Draethos population produces, but with life-spans in the centuries any given Keetael master may train hundreds or even thousands of initiates over their lifetime. Similar to their social conventions the Keetael do not wield any particular weapon such as the Jedi lightsaber but prefer to use whatever hunting weapons are common among the wider Draethos population.
The native inhabitants of the jungel world of Felucia live in a state of technological barbarism, yet despite their complete lack of any complex tools or science these native tribes possess a considerable link to the force. The strongest of them, known as Shamans, are able to channel the force to strengthen the resolve, protect and guide efforts of their fellows. Even some of the least powerful of the Felucians however are able to project a small bubble of force energy to shield themselves from attack and even deflect incoming blaster fire and lightsaber strikes. It was during the Clone Wars that Jedi Master Shaak Tii learned of the capabilities of the Felucians and during the dark times of the Empire the rogue Jedi Master journeyed to Felucia with another Jedi Survivor, the former Padawan Maris Brood, and together they lived and trained among the Felucians. During that time Shaak Tii shared her knowledge of the force with the jungle world natives. Unfortunately Shaak Tii's death at the hands of Darth Vader's assassin left the Felucians under the guidance of Maris Brood who quickly succumbed to her fear and anger in the absence of Shaak Tii and she fell to the dark side, taking many of the Felucians down that sinister path with her.
A rarely encounted and mysterious species about which little is widely known, the Aing-Tii inhabit a region of space in and around the Kathol Rift and are known to possess many force sensitives among their race. The Aing-Tii rarely wander the galaxy in any numbers and practice force traditions considerably divergent from those of the Jedi Order, the Aing-Tii do not believe that the force has a light or dark but rather a spectrum of different shades and aspects. Reclusive and generally hostile to outsiders only the force-sensitive members of their species travel beyond the Kathol Rift and travel in large, organic starships sporting powerful and advanced weaponry. The Aing-Tii are not necessarily an aggressive race but will use violence ot dissuade outsiders from probing into their territory or affairs and their ships are more than capable of fending off most invaders. Of particular note is the Aing-Tii affinity with the rare and powerful force ability to fold space, creating small, short-lived worm holes in space that allow a ship, a person or an object to be moved from one place to another instantaneously without having to enter hyperspace. This journey can be a few hundred feet, several miles or could bridge from one star system to another, depending on the capabilities and desires of the force user attempting the technique. Interestingly the Aing-Tii claim that non-force sensitives are still able to tap into the force and claim to be able to teach their Fold Space technique to non-force users. Other than to power their bio ships and navigate space the Aing-Tii rarely user the force to any significant extent, believing that the flow of the force should not be unnecessarily used or influenced. Despite this general attitude there are some Aing-Tii force users who are able to flow walk, a technique that allows skilled practicioners of the force to leave their emotional selves behind and submerge their consciousness with the force, transcending time itself. During a flow walk the force user can observe events of the past or future so long as the force adept knows the location of the events they wish to observe and they may even minutely influence these events, though only to a small degree as the force generally acts against any disruption to events. One of the few motivations for the Aing-Tii to leave their reclusive home is to attack and destroy slavers operating in the viscinity, the Aing-Tii believe that slavery is a great evil and cannot be tolerated in any way and will go out of their way to hunt down and destroy slavers whenever they have the chance. It was only shortly before the Clone Wars that the Jedi would learn of the Aing-Tii's existence and take steps to learn more about them but little was done before the order was destroyed and it would not be until decades later that members of the New Jedi Order would seek the monks out again. In appearance the Aing-Tii are bipedal humanoids with no teeth and are covered head to toe in a white/gray exoskeleton. The Aing-Tii have three digits on each hand and reverse-jointed legs with a prehensile tail capable of carrying but not effectively operating small objects. Each Aing-Tii would decorate themselves with intricate markings in different colors that would cover their whole bodies, though whether these designs carry any particular meaning is unknown to outsiders.
Tens of thousands of years before the
rise of the Galactic Republic the Infinite Empire of the Rakata
established itself as the first known galactic empire. The Rakatan
Empire dominated countless systems and species under the iron-rule of
powerful dark-side force users. The Rakatan Empire built advanced
super-weapons and developed incredible technology that still has yet
to be matched, let alone surpassed even today. Micro-replicating
forges, force-fueled super-factories, planetary-scaled agricultural
enhancement, teleportation, highly-sophisticated genetic manipulation
and advanced artificial intelligence were just some of the technology
created by the Infinite Empire. Many species common across the galaxy
were kept as slaves by the Rakatan Empire. Ancient legends of the
Tusken Raiders on Tatooine indicate that the desert planet was once a
lush paradise and may have actually been the original homeworld of
the human race. It was the Rakata who came to the world and lifted
away all of the cities and people and shipped them off to distant
worlds to serve as servants and slaves for their new Rakatan masters.
When those few left on their homeworld rebelled the Rakata burned the
world and left it as the desolate wasteland of sand and sun that it
is today. Whether these legends are true or not remains to be
confirmed but it is known that the Rakata distributed many species
across the galaxy and the ancient remains of the Rakatan empire can
be found scattered across the galaxy on a number of worlds such as
Dantooine, Manaan, Tatooine, Kashyyyk, Korriban, Belsavis and others.
The exact circumstances that led to the fall of the Rakatan Infinite
Empire remain unknown, though it was likely the result of a number of
factors. First and foremost the Rakata species itself appears to have
been slowly losing its force sensitivity. Given that much of the
Infinite Empire's technology was fueled or controlled by the Force
the gradual decrease in force sensitivity among the Rakata themselves
was a disaster. Efforts were spent to genetically engineer a solution
but these attempts failed to reverse the degradation. Second some
kind of plague swept the Infinite Empire, a disease that exclusively
targeted the Rakata themselves and was likely a bio-weapon of some
kind. If these two catastrophes were not enough conflict and
rebellion also plagued the worlds of the Infinite Empire. Within a
relatively short span the empire collapsed and all traces of the
Rakata vanished from the galaxy. Small numbers of Rakata continued to
exist on the species homeworld of Rakata Prime as primitive tribes
and a select few ancient Rakata preserved themselves in various
installations such as the planetary prison of Belsavis. Nevertheless
the strength of the Infinite Empire was broken and the galaxy moved
on, the tyrannical rule of the dark-side oppressors of the past
quickly forgotten and erased.
During the reign of the Rakatan
Infinite Empire a warmongering species of destroyers scourged the
ancient galaxy. Known as the Esh-kha this race of conquerors had set
it upon themselves to cleanse the galaxy of all other species whom
the Esh-kha believed were abominations that had to be purged.
Culturally the Esh-kha act as something of a synchronous hive-mind
though made up of individuals with free will these individuals
operate according to the rigid needs and casts of Esh-kha society
with little room for disagreement or individual agency. Precisely why
the ancient Esh-kha desired to wipe out other sentient species is a
subject of much speculation but it is possible the Esh-kha were
simply not able to tolerate or co-exist with species that did not
conform to the rigid Esh-kha collective culture. The ancient Rakatan
Infinite Empire chose to imprison the entire Esh-kha race in stasis
vaults deep beneath the surface of the remote world of Belsavis.
Within the ranks of the Esh-kha were a dedicated sub-species known as
Savants. Smaller and slimmer than their more common brethren, with
flatter heads and without the distinctive ears of the regular Esh-kha
the Savants were most special because of their force-sensitivity. The
particular training, doctrines or notable abilities of the Esh-kha
Savants have yet to be catalogued. Though most of the Esh-kha
imprisoned on Belsavis proved hostile a small number were open to
allying with the Republic and fighting for peace instead of
destruction. These Esh-kha joined the Barsen'thor of the Jedi Order
and the Rift Alliance, a collection of Republic worlds and allies
working together under the guidance of a hero of the Jedi Order. The
Rift Alliance deployed their Esh-kha allies to a number of warzones
including Corellia during the Great Galactic War though what happened
to the allied Esh-kha or their force using Savant cadre in the
aftermath of Corellia remain unknown.
The Zeffo were an ancient species who
mysteriously disappeared long ago. The Zeffo culture was centered
around the powers and leadership of those members of the species who
were force sensitive. These force sensitives were known as Sages, the
most powerful of which acted as the rulers of the Zeffo. The Sages
were these powerful force users referred to the force as the Life
Wind and built a variety of technologies and artifacts to harness or
direct the force, the most notable of which was the Zeffo Vault built
on the remote world of Bogano that was controlled by rare and
valuable force devices called Astriums. As well as their homeworld of
Zeffo, the Zeffonians had contact with or inhabited the worlds of
Bogano, Ontotho, Dathomir and Kashyyyk. Apparently very long lived
the entire history of the Zeffo from their rise to power to their
ultimate demise is represented by the reign of three Sages. The Sage
Eilram was a wise and powerful ruler who established contact with the
world of Kashyyyk and developed a deep love for the forests of that
planet. Eilram chose to be buried within the halls of a great
training academy for Sages on the species homeworld of Zeffo, his
tomb sculpted with stone renderings of the wroshyr trees of Kashyyyk.
Eilram was succeeded by the Sage Miktrull whose reign appears to have
been characterized by wealth, arrogance and power. Under Miktrull's
control the Zeffo achieved their height of power, reigning over
multiple worlds and clearly benefiting from a golden age of culture
and wealth. The Zeffo Culture would collapse under the reign of
Miktrull's successor, the Sage Kujet. Cruel and desperate for power
Kujet clearly had fallen to the dark side of the force and his reign
was one of brutality and oppression. Kujet moved his power base to
Dathomir, building his own palace compound high in the mountains. To
protect his power Kujet and his followers destroyed most of the Zeffo
Astriums and desecrated the tombs of Eilram and Miktrull to do so.
Worship of the Life Wind became a twisted and vile thing culminating
in Kujet luring many of his followers to his palace and then burning
them to ash. When Kujet eventually fell his body was interred within
his temple-compound on Dathomir, his mummified hands still clutching
one of the last surviving Astriums. Following Kujet's demise the
Zeffo were a broken and depleted race, their culture in ruins and
their power gone. The last few Zeffo chose to abandon their world and
journey out into uncharted space in the hopes of finding peace at
last before their extinction.
Miraluka
Seers
The Miraluka are one of a number of
sentient species in the galaxy that are all force sensitive. Born
blind members of the Miraluka race perceive the world around them
through the force. This trait has made the Miraluka among the most
accomplished and prized seers in the galaxy with many members of
their kind joining orders such as the Jedi and the Sith throughout
the ages. Even standing apart however the Miraluka maintain their own
traditions of the force, training themselves to enhance their
perception of the force and see what others cannot see. In the
aftermath of the Jedi Civil War a colony of Miraluka on the world of
Katarr was wiped out by the Sith Lord Darth Nihilus as he sought to
hunt down and drain the life force from every surviving Jedi in the
galaxy. Katarr had become a target when a group of Jedi who had
survived the Jedi Civil War traveled to Katarr and sought the aid of
the Miraluka colony there in attempting to perceive the mysterious
threat that was continuing to kill Jedi even years after the war was
supposed to have been over. Only a single young Miraluka woman named
Visas Marr survived the annihilation of all life on the world and was
taken by Darth Nihilus as his apprentice and assassin. Marr would
later attempt to take the life of the Jedi Exile Meetra Surik but
would fail and chose instead to join the exile in her mission to stop
the Sith.Luka Sene
Shapers of Kro Var
Umbaran
Shadow Assassins
Precious little is known of this
secretive order of killers native to the shadow world of Umbara and
from the time of the rebellion against the Eternal Empire to the rise
of Darth Bane and the Sith Rule of Two. Particulars about the Shadow
Assassins organization, training or abilities remain a mystery.
During the Great Galactic War the majority of Umbaran Shadow
Assassins wielded force pikes and were able to cloak themselves in
the force, appearing and disappearing at will to confound and ambush
their prey at will. The most elite Shadow Assassins wielded
double-bladed lightsabers emitting an unstable purple-colored blade.
During the New Sith Wars the Shadow Assassins were in part or perhaps
wholly incorporated into the Sith and trained in the Umbarran Sith
Academy. Though some Shadow Asssassins survived the thought bomb
detonated during the Battle of Ruusan the survivors were all killed
when their master, the dark-side force user Hetton, clashed with
Darth Bane. Whether any force-sensitives were ever trained on Umbara in the traditions of the Shadow Assassins in centuries since the New Sith Wars or existed during the Clone Wars or the Great Jedi Purge remains a mystery. Messengers of the Cold Moon
Keetael
Felucian Shamans
Aing-Tii Monks
Rakatan
Infinite Empire
Tens of thousands of years before the
rise of the Galactic Republic the Infinite Empire of the Rakata
established itself as the first known galactic empire. The Rakatan
Empire dominated countless systems and species under the iron-rule of
powerful dark-side force users. The Rakatan Empire built advanced
super-weapons and developed incredible technology that still has yet
to be matched, let alone surpassed even today. Micro-replicating
forges, force-fueled super-factories, planetary-scaled agricultural
enhancement, teleportation, highly-sophisticated genetic manipulation
and advanced artificial intelligence were just some of the technology
created by the Infinite Empire. Many species common across the galaxy
were kept as slaves by the Rakatan Empire. Ancient legends of the
Tusken Raiders on Tatooine indicate that the desert planet was once a
lush paradise and may have actually been the original homeworld of
the human race. It was the Rakata who came to the world and lifted
away all of the cities and people and shipped them off to distant
worlds to serve as servants and slaves for their new Rakatan masters.
When those few left on their homeworld rebelled the Rakata burned the
world and left it as the desolate wasteland of sand and sun that it
is today. Whether these legends are true or not remains to be
confirmed but it is known that the Rakata distributed many species
across the galaxy and the ancient remains of the Rakatan empire can
be found scattered across the galaxy on a number of worlds such as
Dantooine, Manaan, Tatooine, Kashyyyk, Korriban, Belsavis and others.
The exact circumstances that led to the fall of the Rakatan Infinite
Empire remain unknown, though it was likely the result of a number of
factors. First and foremost the Rakata species itself appears to have
been slowly losing its force sensitivity. Given that much of the
Infinite Empire's technology was fueled or controlled by the Force
the gradual decrease in force sensitivity among the Rakata themselves
was a disaster. Efforts were spent to genetically engineer a solution
but these attempts failed to reverse the degradation. Second some
kind of plague swept the Infinite Empire, a disease that exclusively
targeted the Rakata themselves and was likely a bio-weapon of some
kind. If these two catastrophes were not enough conflict and
rebellion also plagued the worlds of the Infinite Empire. Within a
relatively short span the empire collapsed and all traces of the
Rakata vanished from the galaxy. Small numbers of Rakata continued to
exist on the species homeworld of Rakata Prime as primitive tribes
and a select few ancient Rakata preserved themselves in various
installations such as the planetary prison of Belsavis. Nevertheless
the strength of the Infinite Empire was broken and the galaxy moved
on, the tyrannical rule of the dark-side oppressors of the past
quickly forgotten and erased.
Esh-kha
Savants
During the reign of the Rakatan
Infinite Empire a warmongering species of destroyers scourged the
ancient galaxy. Known as the Esh-kha this race of conquerors had set
it upon themselves to cleanse the galaxy of all other species whom
the Esh-kha believed were abominations that had to be purged.
Culturally the Esh-kha act as something of a synchronous hive-mind
though made up of individuals with free will these individuals
operate according to the rigid needs and casts of Esh-kha society
with little room for disagreement or individual agency. Precisely why
the ancient Esh-kha desired to wipe out other sentient species is a
subject of much speculation but it is possible the Esh-kha were
simply not able to tolerate or co-exist with species that did not
conform to the rigid Esh-kha collective culture. The ancient Rakatan
Infinite Empire chose to imprison the entire Esh-kha race in stasis
vaults deep beneath the surface of the remote world of Belsavis.
Within the ranks of the Esh-kha were a dedicated sub-species known as
Savants. Smaller and slimmer than their more common brethren, with
flatter heads and without the distinctive ears of the regular Esh-kha
the Savants were most special because of their force-sensitivity. The
particular training, doctrines or notable abilities of the Esh-kha
Savants have yet to be catalogued. Though most of the Esh-kha
imprisoned on Belsavis proved hostile a small number were open to
allying with the Republic and fighting for peace instead of
destruction. These Esh-kha joined the Barsen'thor of the Jedi Order
and the Rift Alliance, a collection of Republic worlds and allies
working together under the guidance of a hero of the Jedi Order. The
Rift Alliance deployed their Esh-kha allies to a number of warzones
including Corellia during the Great Galactic War though what happened
to the allied Esh-kha or their force using Savant cadre in the
aftermath of Corellia remain unknown.
Zeffo
Sages
The Zeffo were an ancient species who
mysteriously disappeared long ago. The Zeffo culture was centered
around the powers and leadership of those members of the species who
were force sensitive. These force sensitives were known as Sages, the
most powerful of which acted as the rulers of the Zeffo. The Sages
were these powerful force users referred to the force as the Life
Wind and built a variety of technologies and artifacts to harness or
direct the force, the most notable of which was the Zeffo Vault built
on the remote world of Bogano that was controlled by rare and
valuable force devices called Astriums. As well as their homeworld of
Zeffo, the Zeffonians had contact with or inhabited the worlds of
Bogano, Ontotho, Dathomir and Kashyyyk. Apparently very long lived
the entire history of the Zeffo from their rise to power to their
ultimate demise is represented by the reign of three Sages. The Sage
Eilram was a wise and powerful ruler who established contact with the
world of Kashyyyk and developed a deep love for the forests of that
planet. Eilram chose to be buried within the halls of a great
training academy for Sages on the species homeworld of Zeffo, his
tomb sculpted with stone renderings of the wroshyr trees of Kashyyyk.
Eilram was succeeded by the Sage Miktrull whose reign appears to have
been characterized by wealth, arrogance and power. Under Miktrull's
control the Zeffo achieved their height of power, reigning over
multiple worlds and clearly benefiting from a golden age of culture
and wealth. The Zeffo Culture would collapse under the reign of
Miktrull's successor, the Sage Kujet. Cruel and desperate for power
Kujet clearly had fallen to the dark side of the force and his reign
was one of brutality and oppression. Kujet moved his power base to
Dathomir, building his own palace compound high in the mountains. To
protect his power Kujet and his followers destroyed most of the Zeffo
Astriums and desecrated the tombs of Eilram and Miktrull to do so.
Worship of the Life Wind became a twisted and vile thing culminating
in Kujet luring many of his followers to his palace and then burning
them to ash. When Kujet eventually fell his body was interred within
his temple-compound on Dathomir, his mummified hands still clutching
one of the last surviving Astriums. Following Kujet's demise the
Zeffo were a broken and depleted race, their culture in ruins and
their power gone. The last few Zeffo chose to abandon their world and
journey out into uncharted space in the hopes of finding peace at
last before their extinction.
A few years before the Great Jedi Purge
the Jedi Master Eno Cordova became fascinated by the Zeffo after
discovering the Zeffo Vault on Bogano. Cordova established a base on
the remote world and set about finding a way to access the vault and
learn about the Zeffo and their understanding of the force. Cordova
tried and failed to locate an Astrium on Dathomir but managed to
discover another on Kashyyyk with the help of the native Wookiees.
Equipped with the necessary tool to access and control the vault
Cordova was able to experience a vision of the future and thus was
forewarned of the fall of the Jedi Order. Eno Cordova rushed back to
Coruscant to reveal his discovery only to be rebuffed by the Jedi
Council. Only his old friend Jocasta Nu believed him and entrusted
Cordova with a secret copy of her list of force sensitive children.
Cordova, sensing that his life was nearing its end, chose to hide
Jocasta Nu's holocron within the Zeffo Vault on Bobano and entrust
the information necessary to unlock it in his personal exploration
droid BD-1. The loyal and trustworthy little droid chose to
voluntarily allow his memory to be erased and locked behind a series
of triggers that would only be activated after BD-1 found and
recruited a suitable Jedi companion to undertake the task of
retrieving the holocron from the vault. With BD-1 set on that task
Cordova shed his mortal coil and became one with the force, leaving
his camp on Bogano abandoned save for a few surviving personal
effects and the lone droid BD-1. A few years later Cordova's former
apprentice, the Jedi Knight and former Seeker Cere Junda, discovered
Cordova's camp and learned of the existence of the list of force
sensitives hidden in the Vault. However her experiences at the hands
of the Empire's Inquisitors had left Cere unable to use the force and
the task of opening the vault was beyond her capability so Cere
recruited a pilot named Greez Dritus and his ship and set about
locating a surviving Jedi to recruit into their mission. If they
could recover the list they could recruit and set about training a
new generation of Jedi, but to do so would require retracing the rise
and fall of the Zeffo and acquiring another Astrium.
Imperial
Knights
One of the stranger orders of force
users active in the galaxy the order of the Imperial Knights was
founded to serve as the bodyguards to the Fel Dynasty of the Galactic
Empire. In the years following the defeat of Emperor Palpatine over
Endor the Imperial Remnant fell into chaos and disorder, going
through a number of leaders and splitting into various sub-factions
and partially reforming repeatedly. The chaos was ultimately ended
when a hero of the Imperial Remnant, Jagged Fel, was declared the
Head of State by the Moff Council after the Second Galactic Civil War
and became the first Emperor of the revived Empire. Jagged Fel
married the renowned Jedi Knight Jaina Solo, making their children
and the future heirs of the Fel Dynasty powerful force users and
direct descendants of Anakin Skywalker. In time the members of the
Fel Dynasty would almost always serve as members of and eventually
commanders of the Imperial Knights and enforce peace and justice in
the Empire similar to the Jedi Knights of the New Republic. The
Imperial Knights themselves are a sect of Gray force users who do not
walk the path of either the dark or the light side though their
teachings and philosophy more closely reflect that of the Jedi Order
than the Sith from which the force users of the Empire have
traditionally taken their doctrines. The Imperial Knights are
effectively an amalgamation of the doctrines of the Jedi Order and
Emperor Palpatine's Royal Guard. The knights of the Fel Dynasty wear
red combat armor reminiscent of the body-armor of Darth Vader crossed
with that of the Royal Guard and often woven with cortosis,
particularly in the gauntlets, to protect against lightsabers. Black
bodysuits and capes complete the uniform of the Imperial Knights and
their weapons are lightsabers with silver-colored blades. The
Imperial Knights do not place any particular importance on the
individuality or personal significance of their weapons or armor nor
do they typically make these items themselves but are issued them as
part of their role in service to the Fel Dynasty. The Imperial
Knights would eventually wind up fighting to defend the Emperor in
Exile after the return of the Sith under the rule of Darth Krayt who
attempted to seize control of the Empire more than a century after
the Battle for Yavin IV. During this time-period the Imperial Knights
and the scattered remnants of the Jedi Order would work together on a
number of occasions despite doctrinal differences between the two
orders. Given that the Jedi Order at the time was still being led by
members of the Skywalker family while the Imperial Knights were
commanded by descendants of Luke Skywalker's sister, Leia Organa
Solo, it is perhaps little surprise that the two force using orders
led by distant relatives would be willing to set aside their
differences and work together to defeat the Sith.
Conclusion
Within the vast classic legends canon of Star Wars there exist many different orders of force users. Some light, some dark, some in between. Some martial, some philosophical, some who swing around lightsabers and some who do not. I am sure this is not an entirely exhaustive list and there are a few I have missed but as I hope any reader can see there is much more depth to the universe than just Jedi and Sith, just light or dark. So much to consider, so many various interpretations of similar core ideas and all of them fun to explore and share.
To add:
Fallanassi
Seyugi Dervishes
Tyia
Wardens of the Sky
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