Arden Lyn

"I shall be triumphant!"

- Arden Lyn

Arden Lyn was a female Human and master of Teräs Käsi who belonged to the Followers of Palawa. Along with her fellow Palawans, she joined the Legions of Lettow upon the advent of the First Great Schism between Force users, and became the lover of Xendor, head of the Legions. When Xendor was killed during the conflict, Lyn ascended to leadership of the Legions, although she was confronted by Jedi Master Awdrysta Pina. Lyn defeated Pina with a powerful Kashi Mer talisman, but the Jedi Master was able to stop Lyn's heart before being destroyed, sending the martial artist into a Force trance.

25,000 years later, during the Great Jedi Purge, Lyn was reawakened in the Unknown Regions by scouts, before being confronted by three of Emperor Palpatine's Inquisitors: Antinnis Tremayne, Ameesa Darys, and Grand Inquisitor Laddinare Torbin. After fighting off Tremayne and killing Darys, Lyn was maimed by Torbin, who spared her life so that she could serve Palpatine as an Emperor's Hand. Lyn did so for a while, spurred on by the Emperor's promise that he would resurrect Xendor from the dead. When she finally came to accept that Palpatine had been lying, she turned rogue, and aided Grand Admiral Demetrius Zaarin in his attempt to abduct the Emperor. The endeavor failed, and Lyn was forced to flee. She was eventually hunted down and killed by a vengeful Palpatine.

First Great Schism
A Follower of Palawa born during the early days of the Galactic Republic, the female Human Arden Lyn was a master of the Teräs Käsi martial art. The Followers of Palawa were noted for being able to master a technique for falling into a deep Force trance, allowing them to sleep for decades without aging. Along with the other Followers of Palawa, Lyn fell in with the Legions of Lettow, a group of Force users who had embraced the dark side of the Force and opted to turn against the teachings of the Jedi Order. Lyn became the lover of that faction's leader, Xendor, a Kashi Mer exile. Together, the two of them wreaked havoc and destruction during the First Great Schism as they actively waged war against the Jedi Order. Following Xendor's death on Columus, Lyn ascended to the leadership of the Legions of Lettow. Subsequently, she was tracked down by Jedi Master Awdrysta Pina. While Lyn used a powerful Kashi Mer talisman to destroy her opponent, Pina was able to use the technique of morichro to stop Lyn's heart before he died.

Reawakening
Due to her possession of the Kashi Mer talisman, Lyn survived Pina's attack by falling into a Force trance, possibly due to her study of Palawan techniques. Her decomposed body was located approximately 25,000 years later at the end of the Great Jedi Purge in the Unknown Regions by scouts. They located the Kashi Mer talisman near her body, and as they brought the artifact into Lyn's proximity she was reawakened, her body rejuvenated. Lyn believed the scouts to be the ones who had killed Xendor many years prior, and so she attacked them. Soon enough, she attracted the attention of Emperor Palpatine's Jedi hunters, the Inquisitors. Imperial Inquisitors Antinnis Tremayne, Ameesa Darys, and Grand Inquisitor Laddinare Torbin located Lyn, and she attacked them with vigor. She was able to severely injure Tremayne and kill Darys before Torbin cleaved off her right arm. Defeated, Lyn was at the Inquisitors' mercy, but although Tremayne wanted her killed, Torbin believed that the Emperor might find some use for her rare martial arts skills. He was also impressed by her use of the dark side of the Force, and so he spared Lyn's life.

Palpatine did indeed have great use for her, and promised to bring Xendor's spirit back from the netherworld of Chaos if she chose to serve him. She agreed, and Palpatine had her severed arm replaced with that of a ancient pre-Old Sith Wars era Juggernaut war droid. For several years, Lyn served as the Emperor's Hand, believing that she was the only one to hold such a title. In reality, although Lyn was one of the first to be given the title, Palpatine employed many other dark side adepts as "Hands." Lyn also operated under the authority of Lord Darth Vader, and acted as his right-hand woman in matters pertaining to Teräs Käsi. Meanwhile, Lyn served the Empire by training Palpatine's Byss Mages and Sovereign Protectors, and at some stage began working as Grand Admiral Demetrius Zaarin's agent on Imperial Center. Eventually, she came to realize that the Emperor had no intention of coming through on his promise to resurrect Xendor. As a result, following the destruction of the Death Star at Yavin, when Palpatine tasked her with tracking down and destroying key figureheads in the Alliance to Restore the Republic, Lyn used her new freedom to turn rogue.

The Zaarin insurrection
Lyn began enlisting students to her cause, training them with the intent of eventually turning them against Palpatine. One of her students was the notorious gaderffii wielding Hoar, a Tusken Raider from Tatooine who was acclaimed as the greatest fighter of his people. She instructed him in the arts of Teräs Käsi, and he in turn fought to defeat her enemies, hoping to gain her favor. Also amongst her recruits were the Gamorrean Thok, whose competitive nature was appealed to when faced with the prospect of battling members of the Alliance. Among Lyn's targets was the Jedi-in-training Luke Skywalker, who was at that time struggling against the temptations of the dark side. Lyn sought to capitalize on Skywalker's inner conflict while planning to destroy him. When the Followers of Palawa, still in existence during the Imperial Period, were attacked on Bunduki by an Imperial detachment led by the Dark Jedi Yun, Lyn entered the fray, attacking both the Palawan monks, with whom she had some old scores to settle, and the Imperial forces.

She was then contacted by Grand Admiral Zaarin, who hoped that the master of Teräs Käsi would be able to catch the Emperor off-guard during his planned coup of the Empire. Over Imperial Center, Zaarin's forces were able to disable the Emperor's Imperial-class Star Destroyer Majestic, which was then boarded. Lyn was able to use her powers to abduct the Emperor, although the conspirators' gambit was eventually foiled due to the arrival of Imperial forces, amongst them Inquisitor Tremayne. With the arrival of Vice Admiral Thrawn and his flagship, the Vanguard, Zaarin's forces were forced to turn tail and run from Imperial Center. As Lyn fled in the wake of the botched coup, she was pursued by Tremayne, who was still resentful over his loss to her years prior. She began focusing on finding the Kashi Mer talisman that had afforded her earlier success, and had allowed her to cheat death. Palpatine died during the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, but was later resurrected through the use of clones. The resurrected Palpatine took revenge on Lyn, killing her conclusively in 10 ABY.

Personality and traits
A destructive individual, Lyn and her lover Xendor wreaked havoc and tumult throughout the galaxy during the First Great Schism. After her reawakening by the Inquisitors, Lyn's mind was highly unstable, and she had been driven insane. When Palpatine recruited her to his cause, he appealed to her love for the long-dead Xendor, promising to bring him back to life. Although initially swayed by Palpatine's words, Lyn eventually came to the realization that the Emperor had tricked her, and at the first opportunity, turned on him. Lyn was also adept at recruiting students to her cause, as she demonstrated after turning rogue. When faced with a specific opponent to hunt down and confront, Lyn looked for weaknesses to exploit.

Powers and abilities
"You are a pitiful fighter."

- Arden Lyn

As a master of Teräs Käsi, Lyn wielded the powers of the Force with malevolence. Her powers were heightened through the use of a Kashi Mer talisman, which allowed her to destroy a Jedi Master. Her skills served her well when faced with Force-adept opponents, such as the Inquisitors, as she was able to fight off three of them at once, even killing Inquisitor Darys in the process. In addition to her Teräs Käsi skills, Lyn was able to harness sound energy, conjuring powerful sonic shockwaves. Lyn often used her Force powers and martial arts skills in conjunction with her prosthetic droid arm, which she could use to shoot bolts of energy. She was also powerful enough to abduct the Sith Lord Emperor Palpatine.

Other powers that Lyn could perform included Battlemind, Force valor, Force grip and push, as well as Force healing. Lyn could also speak, read, and write Bunduki, as well as Old Galactic Standard. She could also repair items and disable various devices. It was suggested by Jedi Master Tionne Solusar, when writing about Lyn during the Second Galactic Civil War, that Lyn's study of Palawan trance techniques allowed her to survive Master Pina's morichro attack at the end of the First Great Schism.

Behind the scenes
"With this game, aside from Leia there was definitely a drive to get another strong female character. That was part of getting Arden Lyn off the ground."

- Camela Boswell, LucasArts employee, on the creation of Arden Lyn for Masters of Teräs Käsi

Arden Lyn first appeared in the 1997 video game, Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi. Of the playable combatants in the game, she was one of the two original characters introduced, alongside Hoar. The character of Lyn came about when the game developers felt that there was a need to introduce a strong female character in Masters of Teräs Käsi. She was voiced in-game by Edie Mirman. Some of Arden Lyn's story was introduced in Masters of Teräs Käsi: Prima's Official Hints and Tips, and then this was in turn expounded upon in The Emperor's Pawns, written by Abel G. Peña and Juan Schwartz with Pablo Hidalgo. Although the statements in the strategy guide had been vague, Peña decided to establish that Lyn originated in the early years of the Jedi, and placed the character's early life 25,000 years before the events of the Star Wars films. In deepening her character, Peña looked to her name, and believed that it resembled the words "harden" and "ardor." Combining the two, he decided to make Lyn a "passionate woman with a hard heart." The article also tied Lyn's story into that of the computer game Star Wars: TIE Fighter, by linking her to Admiral Zaarin's coup attempt. Furthermore, Peña touched on the content of Masters of Teräs Käsi itself, which features iconic Star Wars characters, and Lyn, seemingly facing off in a fighting tournament across disparate worlds. This was explained as being part of Lyn's mission to hunt down Alliance figureheads during the war.

In the manuscript for the original version of Peña and Daniel Wallace's Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals, entitled Dirty Dozen: Imperial Grand Admirals, it is stated that Lyn was aided in her abduction of Palpatine by her pupils, and that Zaarin's overall plan included killing the Emperor, which the conspirators were close to doing before being stopped. These references were cut from the final article, although Lyn was still mentioned.

An inaccuracy in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia states that Lyn was at first confronted by Tremayne, and then later hunted down by Torbin, which clashes with the events described and detailed in The Emperor's Pawns. Masters of Teräs Käsi also contains a non-canon ending for Lyn, in which she is able to defeat Darth Vader, standing triumphantly over his body.

Appearances

 * The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural
 * Star Wars: The Old Republic
 * Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi