Atris

Atris was a female Human Jedi Master and Jedi historian who sat on the Jedi High Council during both the Mandalorian Wars and Jedi Civil War. To the point of fanaticism, she viewed the Order as a symbol of light, justice, and perfection. All this changed, however, when the Jedi Exile defied the council and participated in the Mandalorian Wars alongside Revan and Malak. Having one whom she cared about defy everything she believed in shook Atris to her very core.

During the First Jedi Purge, Atris arranged a Jedi conclave on Katarr in the hope of drawing out the Sith. The plan failed, and many Jedi died. She went into seclusion, surrounding herself with those who could not feel the Force. Influenced by Sith holocrons she had been collecting, Atris gradually fell to the dark side. She was eventually confronted by the Jedi Exile, and after a heated lightsaber duel, Atris was defeated. The Exile spared her life, and started her down the path to redemption.

The Mandalorian Wars
"We all have our heroes. And when we watch them fall, we die inside. She made a choice once... and I did not."

- Atris

By the time of the Mandalorian Wars, Atris had achieved the rank of Jedi Master and become a member of the Jedi High Council. When the Mandalorian Wars erupted, the Republic came to the Jedi for aid. However, Atris resisted the call to protect the innocents on the Outer Rim, instead staunchly defending the council's decision to meditate and reflect before taking action.



Many Jedi did not understand how the council could sit idly while innocents died, and the order was split when two young Jedi Knights, Revan and Malak, chose to leave the order and go to war. Many followed them, including a Jedi who would later come to be known as the Jedi Exile. Atris had held strong feelings for the Exile, viewing her as something of a hero. When she left the order to join the war, rejecting everything that Atris believed in, Atris felt personally betrayed.

After the wars ended, only one of the Jedi who had followed Revan to war returned to face the council: the Jedi Exile. She stood before them as an echo in the Force, having cut herself off from it after the final battle at Malachor V. The Exile was so defiant, so certain of the rightness of her actions that she caused Atris to doubt herself. Atris wanted to punish the Exile for this, and became convinced that the Exile had fallen to the dark side along with all of the others who had followed Revan. She felt that exile was a lenient punishment for the Jedi Exile's betrayal, and believed that the Exile would only join Revan again if she was free. The other masters warned her to be mindful of her feelings, but Atris insisted that the Exile ought to have died at Malachor V.

Atris kept the Exile's lightsaber after the trial, carrying it with her always. Even many years later, she insisted that the council was right to be cautious. But deep down, she continued to question the actions of the council, the Exile, and herself.

First Jedi Purge


After the Jedi Civil War, the Jedi order's numbers continued to diminish. Atris rallied a secret Jedi convocation on Katarr, a colony world of the Miraluka, where the threat could be assessed and the future of the order discussed. The conclave was not truly secret, however, as Atris herself had leaked information in hopes of drawing out the Sith so they could be fought. Unfortunately, she greatly underestimated their strength. The Sith did arrive, in the form of Darth Nihilus, who proved to be too powerful for the Jedi. Through the Force, he devoured all life on the planet, including the Jedi and Miraluka (with the single exception of Visas Marr). Atris, having not attended the conclave, survived, along with a handful of other masters who went into hiding.

Atris took refuge under a polar ice cap on the planet Telos IV, where she began to build a secret Jedi academy in an old irrigation system. Here she hid most of the Jedi's most valuable artifacts and resources, including many Sith holocrons.

She sought to remedy what she saw as a fundamental flaw of the Jedi Order: the lack of any mechanism to prevent Jedi from falling to the dark side, and repeatedly wreaking havoc on the Galaxy. To that end, she trained a group of half-sisters, specially equipped and trained to resist Force powers and if necessary, use their Echani combat skills to subdue wayward Jedi. Atris planned to eventually rebuild the Jedi Order, but she (like Ulic Qel-Droma) greatly overestimated her own ability to resist the dark side, becoming corrupted by her own arrogance and by delving into the forbidden knowledge of her collection of Sith holocrons.

Reunion with the Jedi Exile
In 3,951 BBY, the Jedi Exile and her companions landed on Telos IV, having narrowly escaped the destruction of the Peragus Mining Facility at Peragus II. Upon hearing that the Telos Security Force held the Exile and her party under house arrest for their suspected involvement in the explosion of the mining facility, Atris desired to uncover the cause of the explosion, knowing that the consequences of its loss would be tremendous. Therefore, she sent one of her handmaidens, by the name of Brianna, to steal their ship, the Ebon Hawk, as well as T3-M4 who, fortunately for her, was on board. The ship and droid were dissected, for information, though little of value was actually found.

The Exile, meanwhile, upon discovering the loss of her ship, managed to trace the Ebon Hawk to the polar plateau where Atris's academy was hidden. Once she found her way inside, Atris had the Exile's companions placed in Force cages while the handmaidens brought the Exile before her to be questioned. Not long before this, Atris had discovered the Exile's identity, and was surprised at the revelation&mdash;she had not believed she would ever see her again.

At first she hoped that the Exile had returned to admit that the council had been right and to face up to her crimes, but that was not the case. The Exile's presence stirred unpleasant feelings which Atris had all but forgotten, and hoped lost. These feelings showed themselves when she accused the Exile of walking the dark path, when Atris's words were the ones filled with bitterness and resentment.



Even through her hypocrisy, however, Atris knew that the Exile spoke truly of her encounter with the Sith at Peregus. She reluctantly accepted the Exile's offer of help in defeating them, and instructed her to gather other Jedi on Dantooine so that action could be taken and a council could be had.

After departing Telos IV, the Exile discovered that T3-M4 had downloaded Atris's archives. It seems that Atris had kept a holo record of the Exile's trial, as well as a list of the remaining Jedi Masters&mdash;despite her claim that she was the "last of the Jedi." As T3 had been able to slice into the historian's files and copy them, locating the Jedi Masters for Atris's proposed meeting proved easier.

As Atris privately sought desperately to understand the Exile's motives, which was part of the reason for her keeping of the holocrons, she clung even more desperately to her perfect view of the Jedi. However, in light of the Exile's choices, she knew that either she or the Council was wrong. Though she placed the Exile in the wrong, it only made her more unsettled, as, inwardly, she respected the Exile's choice. Slowly, the reason why Atris hid on Telos, so she could more easily maintain her perfect world in isolation away from reality, came to the forefront. As Kreia had said, Atris finally realized that she had no one to blame but herself. No one forced her into the choices she made, not the Jedi, not Traya, and certainly not the Exile. It built up a pressure that finally exploded when Kreia coerced Atris into ceasing her self-denials and accepting her new dark persona.

Kreia realized that Atris was walking down the path to the dark side, and, knowing this, she informed her former student, Darth Nihilus, of the Jedi academy on Telos. Darth Nihilus subsequently attacked Telos, believing that he could feed on the Force-users there. Kreia concluded that since he would find only Atris on the planet, he would destroy her and then die of starvation. Kreia was especially proud of this plan because it would eliminate two major threats to the Galaxy in one stroke. However, things did not go as planned.

When the Exile returned, following Kreia, Atris clashed with the Exile in a lightsaber duel, and was defeated. The Exile, however, spared her life, and sealed her in a cell to await the judgment of the Council. This action led her down the path of redemption, something Atris believed the Exile would never have done. As the remaining members of the Council were killed by Kreia, it is unknown what the historian's fate was.

Personality and traits


Atris was extremely dedicated to the Jedi Order, and believed in their righteousness to the point of arrogance. She was impatient with dissenters, and took accusations against the Jedi very personally. When many Jedi left the order to follow Revan to war, Atris was eager to write them all off as traitors and Sith, even the Jedi Exile after she returned to face the council.

During the First Jedi Purge, Atris became reclusive, and obsessed with preserving what she could of the Jedi legacy, including the Sith relics which would ultimately lead her down the path to the dark side. She was bitter and untrusting, surrounding herself with Echani warriors trained to resist the Force. Though she claimed to be building a Jedi Academy, she made no efforts to bring Force-sensitives to train. In fact, despite knowing the locations of the remaining Jedi Masters, she made no attempt to contact them and none of them knew that she was still alive.

Atris wore an all-white variation of the traditional robes of a Jedi historian.

Powers and abilities
As a Jedi Master, Atris was a powerful Force user, and was proficient in lightsaber combat. She was particularly talented with the Force Breach and Droid Disable powers. After her fall to the dark side, she proved to be proficient in many dark side Force techniques as well, including Force Choke, Drain Life, Force Horror, Force Lightning, and Force Plague.

Behind the scenes



 * Atris is voiced by Elizabeth Rider.


 * "Atris" is an anagram of "Taris", a planet from the first KOTOR game. However, the name is more likely to be derived from Trias, a character in Planescape: Torment, Chris Avellone's earlier RPG project.


 * In the Champions of the Force (Star Wars Miniatures) miniature set, the Jedi Guardian figure resembles Atris, though Atris is never identified as a Guardian at any time. In fact, she is classified as a Jedi Consular in the game files.


 * In promotional material for KotOR II, Atris is represented as the personification of the light side of the Force; an analogue to Darth Nihilus, although the two never interact within the game (this is ironic, as Atris is at various levels of dark side corruption throughout the narrative).


 * There is some argument that Atris could be a second Darth Traya. Though the ending where Atris completely becomes Darth Traya was cut (see below), the TSL Strategy Guide still has Atris as Darth Traya, even though it follows the final version of the game plot with Kreia as the final opponent. Additionally, Kreia says this to Atris: "But there must always be a Darth Traya, one that holds the knowledge of betrayal. Who has been betrayed in their heart, and will betray in turn." This can be taken as Kreia giving the title of Darth Traya to Atris, who betrays the Handmaidens, the Exile, and the Republic, after having been betrayed by the Exile when she left to join the Mandalorian Wars.


 * It is unknown if Atris was actually redeemed and rejoined the Order, or simply exiled herself. There is also a possibility that her own holocrons might have killed her, due to her failure. Otherwise, she would be the only one of the council members present for the Exile's trial to survive the First Jedi Purge.



Appearance

 * It is presumed by many fans that judging by her physical appearance, Atris is a member of the Echani like her handmaidens.


 * Atris's Jedi historian robes are very similar in design to Jocasta Nu's, another Jedi librarian, the difference being that Atris wears white, while Jocasta wears yellow and black.


 * The face "skin" used for Atris is nearly equal to the one used for the PHFC06 female Exile ("blonde platinum girl with the bun").

Alternate choices

 * In the game, if the main character (the Jedi Exile) is set as a male, some discussion with the Last Handmaiden (Brianna) reveals that Atris may have harbored feelings for the Exile, and the Exile's decision to leave the Jedi for the Mandalorian Wars was in fact the trigger for her eventual fall to the dark side. This further justifies the bitterness of her attitude when she first meets the Exile earlier in the game.


 * In addition to redeeming Atris after their battle, the player has an opportunity to kill Atris, or to leave her at the mercy of the Sith holocrons.

Cut content

 * There is some indication that Atris was originally planned to be the player's party member at some point, most probably after Kreia's departure for Malachor V. For example, the name of her appearance set is "Party_NPC_Atris". An unused party member portrait for Atris is also present in the game files. Furthermore, she is the most prominent figure in promotional material for the game, comparable to Bastila Shan in the first game. Bastila was a party member and played a major role in the plot, whereas Atris's role is relatively small.


 * Cut content from her dialog with Kreia indicates that Atris's fall involved Kreia making references to Telos, and how twice the choices of the Jedi had marked the planet for destruction, first by Revan as Telos was to host the Jedi and their lore in the avenue of a sudden attack, then by Darth Nihilus because Atris chose to hide there. Interestingly the destruction of Telos was ordered by Darth Malak according to the first game, but whether this was the reason for this content to be discarded is unknown.


 * Originally, the light side and dark side endings differed from each other more significantly than in the final game. One possible ending featured Kreia's redemption and Atris's total shift to the dark side, which culminated in the scene where Atris attacked the player wearing a black robe and claimed that she, not Kreia, was Darth Traya. Her dark side model remained in the PC version of the game and can appear in the main menu if the CurSithLord option is set to 1 in swkotor2.ini. An Action Replay mod is needed to view it on the Xbox.


 * Later on, the dark side model of Atris (see above) was planned to be put in the final game for the confrontation with Atris, but it was removed a few weeks before the game was released, with the reason that the presence of the dark side model was confusing the game testers.

Errors

 * There is an error in the TSL Strategy Guide, which shows a picture of the Atris boss fight with Atris in the black robe pictured above.


 * In a misprint on the Star Wars: The Ultimate Visual Guide on page 27 (Ascension of the Dark Lords) it says the Handmaiden Brianna; the picture above is Atris and not Brianna.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 9: Flashpoint Interlude: Homecoming
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords