Abeloth

"She is ancient, and powerful, and dangerous. Very dangerous. But you're on to her now. She is never what she appears. Remember that."

- Mara Jade Skywalker

Abeloth was an ancient, powerful, parasitic dark side being, known to be at least 25,000 years old, that fed on fear and wielded the power of illusion. At some point in time, she was imprisoned on a planet in the Maw through the use of Sinkhole Station, also in the Maw. The destruction of Centerpoint Station in the Correllian System in 40 ABY caused a sort of feedback that damaged Sinkhole Station's systems, opening a gap in her prison from which Abeloth was able to use her powers to call out to Force-sensitives in the Maw, instilling in them a psychosis that caused violent paranoia and called for them to come to Sinkhole Station. There, the Force-sensitives became Mind Walkers, their bodies lapsing into dis-use while their consciousnesses traveled in a realm of the Force called Beyond Shadows where Abeloth fed off of their life energies. At some point, one of these victims was Jedi Callista Ming, whom Abeloth consumed/absorbed into herself.

Over time, Sinkhole Station began to deteriorate, allowing Abeloth to grow stronger. In 43 ABY, several Jedi Knights who had spent time in the Maw during the Yuuzhan Vong War began to feel the effects of her influence. Meanwhile, Abeloth also exerted control over the Sith Meditation Sphere Ship, which was pursued by a Sith strike team. The team tracked Ship to Abeloth's planet, and she pretended to help them look for Ship, but actually continually forced the vessel to remain hidden from the Sith, simultaneously using her control over the world's carnivorous plants to kill many of the Sith. Meanwhile, Grand Master Luke Skywalker and his son, Ben, had found the Mind Walkers and learned how to travel beyond shadows. Abeloth then finally let Ship return to the Sith, so that the strike team could leave the planet and continue on to their second objective&mdash;killing the Skywalkers. Their attack failed, however, leaving just one Sith survivor, Vestara Khai.

Abeloth continued to grow in power and destroyed Sinkhole Station, killing the Mind Walkers there and freeing herself from its confinement. However, a group of allied Sith and Jedi found her on her planet, although she attempted to convince Luke that she was actually Callista. He saw through her pretense, and in the ensuing battle defeated her. However, she escaped through trickery, and fled to the moon Pydyr, where she hid among the pacifistic Fallanassi, taking over the body of their leader, Akanah Norand Goss Pell. The Jedi and Sith tracked her to Pydyr and battled her once more. Although Luke was able to destroy Akanah's body, Abeloth once again assumed the form of Callista and defeated the Jedi. She then conversed with the Sith High Lord Sarasu Taalon, who had begunt to transform into the same kind of being that she was. However, Khai killed Taalon in order to prevent him from becoming another Abeloth, and the Jedi forced her to retreat. Abeloth fled Pydyr, with the Jedi and Khai in pursuit.

Gathering power
"Once you were with me, here in the Maw. Once you were all with me. Now you are apart, but one by one, you are all awakening. And once awake, you can hear my call, and come to me."

- Abeloth

Abeloth was a being extremely powerful in the dark side of the Force. She inhabited a planet in the Maw, and also existed beyond shadows&mdash;a realm that Force-sensitives entered when separating their minds from their bodies; although the locations within this realm existed in reality on Abeloth's planet. She was confined by the space station Sinkhole Station, which was inhabited by Mind Walkers, Force-sensitive beings whom she influenced with her powers, causing in them a paranoia and a desire to return to her; one which was only satisfied when they found her at Sinkhole Station, or on her homeworld. Abeloth fed off of the life energies of the Mind Walkers, giving her more strength. Sometime prior to 44 ABY, Callista Ming came across Abeloth, who consumed and killed her.

In 43.5 ABY, several Jedi Knights who had spent time at Shelter in the Maw during the Yuuzhan Vong War began to feel the affects of her influence, causing them to believe that everyone except for other such psychotic beings had been replaced by an impostor. This caused a rift between the Jedi Order and the Galactic Alliance government, as the two factions disagreed on how to deal with the issue. Abeloth also sent out a call through the Force, forcing Ship, a Sith Meditation Sphere, to travel to her planet in the Maw. Ship, however, had spent the past two years forming a Sith armada for the Lost Tribe of Sith on Kesh. The Tribe sent out a strike team to track down Ship and kill Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker&mdash;whose presence they had felt in the Force after he came into contact with the Codex. Meanwhile, Skywalker and his son, Jedi Knight Ben Skywalker, were attempting to retrace the steps that Jedi Knight-turned-Sith Lord Jacen Solo had taken on his five-year journey after the Yuuzhan Vong War. The Skywalkers found the Mind Walkers, who taught them how to go beyond shadows, where Skywalker saw Abeloth in the Mists of Forgetfulness across the Lake of Apparitions. Referred to by the Mind Walkers as the "Lady in the mists," Abeloth beckoned Skywalker to try to talk to her, but he refused.

Ship, who was under complete control by Abeloth, led the strike team to the planet which Abeloth inhabited. Abeloth took the form of a humanoid female of indeterminate species and befriended the Sith strike team, claiming to be a refugee who had been stranded on the planet for the last thirty years, but all the while secretly sabotaging the Sith's efforts to escape. Abeloth had complete control over all of the planet's native flora, and used them to attack the Sith, including the team's leader, Lady Olaris Rhea, who survived with the help of her apprentice, Vestara Khai. After the attack on Rhea, Khai came to see Abeloth in her true form, just as the Skywalkers saw her beyond shadows&mdash;a woman with an overly large mouth, stubby arms, and hands with long, writhing tentacles instead of fingers. The rest of the strike team, however, still saw Abeloth as a normal humanoid female.

Battling Jedi and Sith
"Abeloth. Abeloth, I'm here.''" "''So am I."

- Luke Skywalker and Abeloth

After Abeloth encountered Skywalker beyond shadows, she finally allowed Ship to return to the Sith and transport them to Sinkhole Station to ambush the Skywalkers. Abeloth ordered the Sith to capture them rather than kill them, but Rhea later changed the mission's objective back to kill. The mission, however, proved to be a failure, and Khai was the only Sith survivor. Later, the Skywalkers speculated that Abeloth was the one causing the mysterious illness which afflicted Force-sensitives who had spent an extended amount of time in the Maw, causing them to develop a paranoia as well as to instill in them a belief that everyone they knew who was not affected by the psychosis was an impostor. Abeloth indeed did so, in the hopes of luring these victims back to the Maw so that she could consume their life energy. Around this time, Ben also suggested that the Celestials might have built the Maw and Centerpoint Station to contain Abeloth and her power, but once Centerpoint was destroyed, Abeloth was freed.

A short time later, Abeloth managed to free herself from the containment of Sinkhole Station, destroying the station and killing the Mind Walkers. The Skywalkers, meanwhile, allied with a group of Sith from the Lost Tribe and ventured into the Maw to eliminate Abeloth. After finding Sinkhole Station destroyed, they traveled to Abeloth's planet. There, the Skywalkers' Force-sensitive friend Dyon Stadd, who had fallen prey to Abeloth's influence, was set free by Khai to find Abeloth. Stadd found her in her cave on the side of a volcano, and Abeloth entranced him before touching him and beginning to consume his life energy. However, she suddenly sensed the approach of the Jedi and Sith allies&mdash;who were tracking Stadd via a homing beacon placed on him by Khai&mdash;and left Stadd for dead, fleeing deeper into the cave. When her foes found her in a courtyard at the end of the cave, Abeloth took on Ming's appearance in an attempt to make Skywalker believe that she was, in fact, Ming. Skywalker eventually saw through her charade, however, realizing that she had actually consumed and killed Ming; and attacked her.

In the ensuing battle, the Sith betrayed the Jedi and created a control web, a trick they had learned from the Nightsisters, in an attempt to capture Abeloth and force her to serve them, but she broke free after repulsing all of her assailants with a massive Force wave. She fled back up the cave and consumed and killed the Sith who had been left to stand guard with a recovered Stadd, before turning to Stadd to finish consuming his energy. However, her enemies had recovered from her attack and pursued her back up the cave, and Skywalker suddenly arrived on the scene. She took on the appearance of Stadd while projecting an image of Ming in an attempt to trick Skywalker, but he saw through it and stabbed his lightsaber into what appeared to be Stadd's chest. She morphed back into her true form, then, and prepared to unleash a large wave of dark side energy, but appeared to die halfway through. All of the beings who had been affected by her influence were instantly freed. The Skywalkers and three Sith&mdash;Khai, Khai's father, Gavar, and High Lord Sarasu Taalon&mdash;remained behind to investigate more into Abeloth, but they soon discovered that she had somehow switched bodies with Stadd, and was thus not dead.

On the run
They returned to the Jade Shadow to find that Abeloth had escaped, and then continued searching the surrounding jungle for her to no avail. Abeloth, meanwhile, had summoned Ship to return to the world, although the three Sith claimed to the Jedi that they were the ones to have called Ship back. Ship then convinced the Sith that they could find Abeloth by using the Pool of Knowledge, and took the five allies to find it. Abeloth, meanwhile, returned to the Jade Shadow and fled the planet. After seeing a vision in the Pool of a Jedi queen who he believed could stop the Sith invasion, Taalon jumped into the Pool and a duel broke out between the Jedi and Sith. The Jedi escaped, and, folowing his immersion in the Pool, Taalon began to slowly transfer into the same entity as Abeloth.

Abeloth, meanwhile, traveled to the pacifist Force-sensitive Fallanassi on the moon Pydyr and took over the body of the Fallanassi Akanah Norand Goss Pell. The Jedi, who were accompanied by Vestara Khai&mdash;who they knew was working as a spy for her tribe, but decided to allow her to accompany them anyway&mdash;tracked Abeloth to Pydyr. Khai sent out a message to the Sith fleet, and the Sith sent a shuttles of reinforcements, including Taalon and Gavar Khai, and they decided to work once more with the Jedi. Luke Skywalker led the tenuous allies to the Fallanassi village where Abeloth was hiding, and sh came to meet them in the form of Pell. Taalon began to interrogate her about Abeloth, and she revealed that Abeloth had come to Pydyr because she was a Fallanassi. However, when she refused to answer Luke Skywalker's question of whether that meant she had always been Fallanassi, or whether she had only recently joined, Taalon ordered Gavar to kill one of the Fallanassi. In response, Abeloth used the White Current to induce visions that drove all of the Sith&mdash;save Khai and Taalon&mdash;insane, giving up her cover. She then took Taalon into a gathering hall in the Fallanassi village to speak with him, but the Jedi and Vestara followed.

Luke Skywalker engaged Abeloth in battle once more, and he again defeated her, killing Pell's body. However, Abeloth deserted that form, and Pell apologized to the Jedi. Abeloth returned soon after in the form of Callista Ming and incapacitated Skywalker, while Taalon&mdash;who desired to learn from Abeloth what exactly he was becoming&mdash;captured Ben in a Force net. As Taalon and Abeloth conversed, Abeloth revealed that she knew he could not eat mortal food, and then began to feed him dark energy from her tentacles. However, Luke returned to consciousness and brought the ceiling of the hall they were in down upon them, distracting Abeloth while Vestara Khai stepped forward and killed Taalon to prevent him from becoming another being like Abeloth. In the ensuing fight, the Jedi again severely injured Abeloth, and she fled in Ship, escaping the system. The Skywalkers, now with Khai as their ally, were reinforced by a flight of Jedi in StealthXs sent from Coruscant, who helped them fight off the remaining Sith so that they could continue to hunt Abeloth.

Personality and traits
"Silly Jedi. No one can explain Abeloth."

- Akanah

Abeloth had the ability to change her appearance at will, often taking on the appearance of Callista Ming, whom she had consumed. However, Abeloth's true form was that of a humanoid and barely-female being with deeply-sunken black eye sockets and tiny silver eyes reminiscent of lights at the bottom of two deep wells. She had a long cascade of straw-like, honey-blond hair that reached to the ground and a large, full-lipped mouth that stretched from ear-to-ear and contained needle-like teeth. Her arms were stubby, protruding no more than ten centimeters from her shoulders, with hands that had long, writhing tentacles for fingers with suction cup tips. Her body was rigid and straight, and when she walked or ran, her legs rippled forward more than they swung.

Powers and abilities
"I am programmed to obey a strong will. The girl is strong. You are stronger, Sword of the Jedi. But neither of you can break the hold she has on me. She is older, and more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

- Ship, to Jaina Solo

While Abeloth appeared as a humanoid female of indeterminate species to most, Luke Skywalker saw her true form beyond shadows and Vestara Khai was able to see her true appearance after Khai discovered Abeloth's treachery against the Sith. Abeloth could command the native flora of her planet to do her bidding and also had the ability to influence the minds of Force-sensitive beings who had spent an extended period of time in the Maw, causing in them a psychosis which made them believe that everyone&mdash;except for other such psychotic beings&mdash;had been replaced by impostors and instilling in them a desire to find her. Once the influenced being found her, she consumed their life energy, killing them and making herself stronger. The strength of her influence was formidable&mdash;even when the Jedi learned what symptoms to look for, upon the onset of the psychosis they still believed that everyone they knew was an impostor. She was also able to control the Meditation Sphere Ship which was programmed to obey the strongest will; her powers overwhelming those of the Sith's and of the Jedi's attempts to control the Sphere. Abeloth's strength in the Force was a dozen times that of Luke Skywalker, who was widely recognized as the most powerful Force user in the galaxy. However, Skywalker was able to defeat her despite this.

Abeloth wielded exceptional telekinetic powers, using the Force to blast everyone away from her during her battle with the Sith and Jedi. She was able to resist the powers of a control web, and was also able to teleport herself from one place to another, a power which she also used during her battle with the Sith and Jedi. Abeloth was able to take on the physical appearances of beings that she had consumed, including Callista Ming and Dyon Stadd, and she was also able to project images of other beings, as she did when projecting an image of Callista while she herself took on the form of Stadd in an attempt to trick Luke Skywalker.

Abeloth was also able to switch bodies&mdash;before Skywalker could kill her, she switched bodies with Stadd and took on Stadd's appearance, tricking the Jedi and Sith for several days into believing that she was dead. Later, she took over the body of the Fallanassi Akanah Norand Goss Pell, although Pell fought back. When she was again defeated by Skywalker, she left Pell's body and returned in the form of Callista soon after, and told Skywalker that she had more bodies than he could destroy.

Behind the scenes
Abeloth was introduced in the nine-part Fate of the Jedi series, which began in 2009. She was first identified in Abyss, the third novel of the series.

Appearances

 * Outcast
 * Abyss
 * Allies
 * Vortex
 * Conviction

Notes and references
Abeloth