Jedi Order

"For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire."

- Obi-Wan Kenobi

The Jedi Order was an ancient monastic peacekeeping organization unified by its belief in and observance of the Force, specifically the light side. The Jedi were guardians of peace and justice in the Galactic Republic for thousands of years before the Clone Wars. Led by the Jedi Council, the Order grew over the millennia, during which time it faced wars against their mortal enemy, the Sith, as well as the Mandalorians and the Zygerrians.

The Jedi Order was founded at least a thousand generations before the Battle of Yavin, and was strictly a peacekeeping organization throughout most of its history. During the Battle of Geonosis, however, the Jedi took control of the Republic army, and became military leaders to fight the Confederacy of Independent Systems in the Clone Wars. Unbeknownst to them, the conflict had been engineered in order to destroy them by Supreme Chancellor Darth Sidious, who was secretly the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. By the war's end, Palpatine transformed the Republic into the Galactic Empire and executed Order 66, a command given to all clone troopers to kill the Jedi as traitors. The Jedi Order collapsed, with only a few survivors escaping the Sith plot. At the end of the Galactic Civil War, only one Jedi, Luke Skywalker, was known to be alive in the galaxy.

Ancient times
The Jedi Order was created thousands of years before the Battle of Yavin, when early Force sensitives decided to form an alliance together to preserve peace and justice throughout the galaxy, developing the Jedi Code along the way.

Although most Jedi accepted their mission as the guardians of the galaxy, some came to reject this belief and came to believe that, as Force-sensitives, power was theirs to conquer, not to submit to. These Jedi broke away from the Order and became known as the Sith, an order dedicated to the acquisition of power through use of the dark side of the Force. The Jedi remained dedicated to the light side of the Force.

At the dawn of the Jedi Order, the Jedi Order came into possession of the world Ilum, an ice world which possessed caves littered with kyber crystals, the heart of the Jedi lightsaber. Considered the most sacred world to the Jedi Order, its ancient temple would eventually become the place of a ritual known as the Gathering that would continue up to the end of the Clone Wars.

Ancient enmities
The Jedi and the Sith fought one another for generations to control the galaxy. Their wars brought destruction to many worlds of the galaxy, such as the Sith homeworld of Moraband, which the Sith were eventually forced to abandon. These wars also saw the construction of ancient superweapons powered by giant kyber crystals which possessed the power to destroy entire worlds. These weapons, along with the crystals, were destroyed and believed by many Jedi to be merely legends. Eventually, the Jedi emerged victorious from their wars with the Sith, who had fallen due to infighting and, a thousand years before the Clone Wars, the Sith were believed to be extinct. At some point however, the Jedi discovered that a single Dark Lord of the Sith had survived: Darth Bane. Before defeating Bane (whose remains were buried on Moraband), the Jedi discovered that he had given a new guiding principle for the Sith called the Rule of Two, a principle which declared that there could be no more than two Sith in existence: a Master and an apprentice, to prevent the infighting of the past from ever destroying the Sith again. Despite these discoveries, the Jedi believed that, with Darth Bane dead, the Sith were finally gone from the galaxy.

The Jedi's mission as peacekeepers also brought them into conflict with other enemies across the galaxy, notably the Zygerrian slavers and the Mandalorian warriors. The Zygerrians had built up an important slave empire centuries before the Clone Wars begun and enslaved beings from all corners of the galaxy before selling them at auctions. The Jedi declared war on the Zygerrians and put an end to their practices, destroying their empire and exiling them on their homeworld of Zygerria. The Zygerrians developed a fierce hatred for the Jedi as a result.

The Old Republic
The inhabitants of the world of Mandalore rapidly developed into a warlike culture in which strength was valued above all else. As these beliefs went contrary to the Jedi's mission of protecting the weak, they quickly mobilized to stop the destructive Mandalorians from expanding in the galaxy. The wars between the Jedi and the Mandalorians lasted centuries, second only to the great wars with the Sith. During the fall of the Old Republic, Mandalorian warriors sacked the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, during which time Pre Vizsla's ancestors stole the Darksaber. Eventually, the Jedi defeated the Mandalorians just as they had defeated the Sith and the Zygerrians and forced them back to their own world where they remained for the next thousand years.

At some point during the days of the Old Republic, the Jedi Order would acquire a vessel called the Crucible, that would ferry students from Coruscant to the sacred world of Ilum, so that they could perform the Gathering. It would become the base of the architect droid, Professor Huyang, for a thousand years.

Under the Galactic Republic
As the Galactic Republic expanded throughout the galaxy, the Jedi took up the mantle of protectors and advisors of the new government. Due to the Republic's demilitarization, the Republic often used the Jedi, in conjunction with the Judicials, to maintain peace and order, namely by mediating conflicts and bringing about peaceful solutions between various rival factions and planets comprising the Republic.

For generations, Grand Master Yoda was the undisputed leader of the Jedi Order, right until its collapse alongside the end of the Republic and the rise of the Empire.

Return of the Sith
"At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge."

- Darth Maul

Prior to the Invasion of Naboo, tensions arose between Jedi Councilor Sifo-Dyas and the rest of the Jedi Council. Foreseeing an upcoming full-scale conflict, he started advocating for the creation of an army for the Republic. The rest of the High Council deemed his ideas too extreme, and Sifo-Dyas was removed from his position. Even though the other Jedi had rejected his project, he found a way to carry it out without their consent. Sifo-Dyas contacted the Kaminoans, who were reputed for their clone hatcheries, and secretly commissioned them to grow a clone army for the Republic, which he pretended was a request of the Galactic Senate. For his part, Darth Sidious plotted a conspiracy with the Prime Minister of Kamino, Lama Su, to implant an inhibitor chip on all clones so that they would turn against the Jedi and bring about the destruction of the Jedi Order when the time was right.

To silence Sifo-Dyas, fallen Jedi Master Count Dooku (under the name of Tyranus) paid the Pyke Syndicate to kill Sifo-Dyas on his mission to Oba Diah as assigned by the current Supreme Chancellor, Finis Valorum. However, as Sifo-Dyas was assigned to a mission on Felucia and his negotiations with the Pykes were postponed, his and Silman's shuttle was shot down over the moon, Silman was captured by the Pykes as leverage, and Dooku brought Sifo-Dyas' body to Felucia, where the tribal inhabitants cremated his dead body. The Jedi Council was left in the dark, being led to believe Sifo-Dyas had been killed by the Felucians, thus closing the case.

Invasion of Naboo
"I do not believe the Sith could have returned without us knowing." "Ah, hard to see, the dark side is."

- Mace Windu and Yoda

Thirty-two years before the Battle of Yavin, Chancellor Valorum dispatched Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, to negotiate with the Trade Federation to lift their blockade around Naboo. However, on Darth Sidious' insistence, they continued the siege as he deployed his apprentice, Darth Maul, to dispatch the Jedi who protected Queen Padmé Amidala.

While stranded on Tatooine, where the two Jedi discovered a young slave named Anakin Skywalker whom Jinn believed to be the Chosen One, Jinn was attacked by Maul before their escape to Coruscant. Back on the Jedi Temple, the Council refused to accept Skywalker for being too old according to the Code, and sent Jinn and Kenobi to keep protecting Queen Amidala on her return to Theed. At the same time, Amidala called for a a Vote of No Confidence in Chancellor Valorum, which would eventually end in the election of Sheev Palpatine to the chancellorship. Jinn and Kenobi then assisted Amidala and her forces during the ensuing battle against the Trade Federation, when Maul killed Jinn in combat, only for the Dathomirian to be defeated by Kenobi. Given the status of Jedi Knight afterwards, Kenobi took Skywalker as his apprentice, despite Yoda's reluctance, and the Jedi Order was left in the dark as to what the Sith's actions were for ten years.

Secessionist Movement
"I will not let this republic that has stood for a thousand years be split in two. My negotiations will not fail." "If they do, you must realize that there aren't enough Jedi to protect the Republic. We're keepers of the peace, not soldiers."

- Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and Mace Windu

Having broken all ties to the Jedi Order, secretly replacing Maul as Sidious' apprentice, Dooku was believed to be a mere "political idealist" by his peers at the Jedi Order. For eight years, Dooku was scarcely heard about until he staged a theatrical return to public life by commandeering a HoloNet station in the Raxus system and delivering a rousing speech that condemned the Republic and essentially set the stage for the Separatist movement. At the same time, he fomented political turmoil in many worlds, including Ryloth, Kashyyyk, Sullust, and Onderon, or tried to convince their leaders to leave the Republic, as in Eriadu's case. Soon enough, Dooku became the face of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, convincing several thousand systems to leave the Republic.

As the Jedi Order was overwhelmed, whose limited numbers made it difficult for them to maintain peace and order in the galaxy, the Republic's Senate debated a Military Creation Act to form a standing army for the Republic's protection against the Separatist threat. As the vote to decide the Republic became imminent, an assassination attempts on Senator Padmé Amidala―who opposed the army's creation―soon led Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi to trace bounty hunter Jango Fett to Kamino, where he discovered the clone army's creation at the request of Sifo-Dyas, and reported it to the Jedi Council. After a small confrontation, Kenobi followed Fett to Geonosis, where his capture and intel on a Separatist droid army prompted the Senate (with the High Council's approval) to give Chancellor Palpatine emergency powers, so as to raise the Grand Army of the Republic. Soon enough, a Jedi taskforce and contigent of clones troopers led by Mace Windu and Yoda, repectively, to participate in the Battle of Geonosis against the Confederacy's army, marking the beginning of a galaxy-wide conflict known as the Clone Wars.

The Clone Wars
"Victory? Victory, you say? Master Obi-Wan, not victory. The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun, the Clone War has."

- Grand Master Yoda after the Battle of Geonosis

With the Republic now at war with the Separatists for control over the galaxy, the Jedi Masters and Knights were dispatched as Generals, and their Padawans as Commanders, leading the armies from the front. During the Clone Wars, the Jedi were victorious in battlefields such as Christophsis, Ryloth, Umbara, and Geonosis.

By the last year of the war, many Jedi had been killed, and several few had turned to the dark side, such as Pong Krell and Barriss Offee, who had arranged a bombing at the Jedi Temple, believing the Jedi had deviated from their course as peacekeepers, and framed fellow Padawan Ahsoka Tano, who left the Jedi Order unable to trust the Council after turning its back on her during her trial. Eventually, the Jedi High Council became aware of Dooku's hand in the creation of the clone army, and of the lies and mistrust that surrounded them, both inside the Temple and the Senate. Grand Master Yoda even foresaw that the Jedi would not win the Clone Wars, just as public support for the Jedi weakened due to their management of the conflict.

The war would come to an end after the three years, following the rescue of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and the death of Count Dooku onboard the Invisible Hand in the Battle of Coruscant and the death of General Grievous in the Battle of Utapau, as carried by the Jedi Generals Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. However, Skywalker's turmoil clouded his judgement. Though he informed Windu of his discovery of Palpatine's identity as Darth Sidious, allowing Windu to assemble a team composed of himself, Kit Fisto, Agen Kolar, and Saesee Tiin, to arrest Palpatine; the young Jedi Knight intervened in their duel against the Dark Lord of the Sith―Skywalker chose to save Sidious, leading to Windu's death, and became his apprentice as "Darth Vader" to save Amidala.

Order 66
"The time has come. Execute Order 66."

- Darth Sidious

Branding Windu's actions as "treason", Palpatine declared the Jedi as enemies of the Republic and sent Vader to kill the ones who still were in the Jedi Temple, including the younglings, and later eliminate the Separatist Council on the Mustafar system. Palpatine soon personally contacted clone commanders and told them to execute Order 66, causing them to turned on their Jedi Generals and execute them on the spot. Throughout the Galaxy, thousands of Jedi are killed by the obedient clones within minutes, including Ki-Adi-Mundi on Mygeeto, Plo Koon on Cato Neimoidia, Aayla Secura on Felucia, and Depa Billaba.

Of an estimated number of ten-thousand Jedi, barely a few survived to see the Proclamation of the New Order, marking the inception of the Galactic Empire and the rise of Palpatine as its Emperor. Survivors included Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Celab Dume, Ahsoka Tano and, at least initially, Uvell and Luminara Unduli. During their self-imposed exile, Kenobi and Yoda, along with Senator Bail Organa hid Vader's children, the Force-sensitive twins Luke and Leia, from the Sith, hoping that in time they would become the key to the Jedi's future.

In the matter of short five years since the Order had been eradicated, with the Empire's policy of silence about the Jedi, the extensive hunt that followed Order 66, and the generalized destruction of their temples, the Jedi already seemed a distant memory.

Legacy
"A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights... Now the Jedi are all but extinct."

- Obi-Wan Kenobi, to Luke Skywalker

Over nearly twenty years, the Empire was able to expand without opposition of a disbanded Jedi Order. A few of its former members, however, stayed true to their code of honor and continued to fight the Empire's injustice, albeit in different ways. Though former Padawan Ahsoka Tano had become disillusioned by the Council's actions, and no longer identified as a Jedi, she came into contact with Bail Organa from Alderaan, with whom she worked to coordinate the efforts of a rebellion under the codename "Fulcrum," fifteen years after the fall of the Republic. Under her advise, Hera Syndulla and former Padawan Kanan Jarrus operated in Lothal, where Jarrus met the Force-sensitive Ezra Bridger, whom he mentored to pass along the teachings of the Jedi Order. During a mission, they inspired not only the people of Lothal to fight the Empire, but also the Organa-Tano network to finally organize an operation to bring several Rebel cells together, paving the way for the Alliance to Restore the Republic.

Nineteen years after the inception of the Empire, Obi-Wan Kenobi emerged from his exile on Tatooine, not only to help deliver the plans of the Death Star to the Rebel Alliance as requested by Rebel leader Princess Leia Organa, but to begin training Luke Skywalker to become a Jedi Knight, in the hopes that Skywalker would be able to defeat Vader and the Emperor. Through Skywalker, with Kenobi's guidance, the Rebel Alliance achieved a significant victory in the Battle of Yavin, which meant a turning point for the Alliance in the Galactic Civil War. Three years later, Skywalker received training from Yoda on Dagobah, allowing him to defeat and redeem his father, Darth Vader, and bring about the death of Emperor Palpatine during the Battle of Endor. Hailed as "the last of the Jedi," Skywalker was told by Yoda to pass on what he had learned, so that the legacy of the Jedi Order could go on.

Leadership
During the waning years of the Galactic Republic, the Jedi were led by a central political entity called the Jedi Council, composed of twelve Jedi Masters, one of which bore the title of Grand Master.

While membership was usually restricted to Jedi Masters, exemptions were sometimes made; allowing a Knight to sit on the Council should certain insight be needed or if they are in the transitional stage before formal elevation. A notable example was Anakin Skywalker, who was appointed by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine during the Clone Wars. While the Council accepted the appointment, they refused to make him a Master.

The decisions of the Council, at times, shaped the progress of the Republic as well as the Order. During the Clone Wars, the twilight years of the Galactic Republic, the Jedi acted as generals, soldiers and military advisers in the conflict before being decimated by the newly resurgent Sith menace.

Jedi ranks
As the Jedi were instructed in the ways of the Order and of the Force, each member progressed through several different ranks. All members of the Jedi Order, from Jedi Masters to Padawans, were encouraged to follow a set of guidelines, including self-discipline, responsibility, and public service―a set of rules known as the Jedi Code. Most, if not all Jedi, were equipped with a lightsaber, a distinctive and elegant weapon attuned to them that symbolized their connection to the Force through their kyber crystals.


 * Youngling – The youngest members of the Order, these Force-sensitive children were recruited from worlds throughout the galaxy, only to be removed from their families at a very young age so that they would not have attachments.
 * Jedi Padawan – After being selected for individual tutelage under a single Jedi Knight or Jedi Master, younglings were given the title of Padawan; they were typically taken at adolescence. Per tradition, Padawans would wear a braid to distinguish them as such.  A Jedi Knight or Jedi Master could have only one apprentice at a time, and a Padawan had to be promoted to the rank of Jedi Knight before another apprentice could be chosen.
 * Jedi Knight – Following a period of nearly a decade of one-on-one training with a master, a disciplined Padawan was eligible to attempt the Jedi Trials . Upon successfully completing all tests put forth, a Padawan's braid was severed by the High Council and their life as a Knight began. No longer attached to a master, Knights were free to accept missions from the Council, or take their own Padawan.
 * Jedi Master – A Knight who showed great understanding of the Force and managed to instruct a Padawan and train them successfully to the level of a Jedi Knight was elevated to the rank of Master by the High Council. Amongst the Order's Masters, only a select few were appointed to become a member of the Jedi Council.

Locations
From a historical context, the Coruscant Jedi Temple was the Order's last great headquarters, serving as its governmental center and home to the largest active Jedi academy in the galaxy and the great Jedi Archives. A symbol of the Order, the luxurious temple on the surface signified the Order's status on the planet, and while access to the Temple was not restricted to just the Jedi, Coruscanti to wished to serve the Jedi in the Temple had to go through great lengths and pass necessary entry tests to gain access to the complex, often dedicating their whole life to the Order's service. Although the Jedi Temple was almost completely destroyed following the fall of the Republic, the corpse of its five skyscraping spires remained after the Temple was refitted into the Imperial Palace.

In addition to its headquarters on Coruscant, the Jedi Order had small outposts, temples spread throughout the stars. Some of these outposts would allow Masters to test their Padawans and see if they were ready to be Jedi, such as the Jedi Temple on Lothal. Access to these temples was only possibles if both the Master-Padawan was present. If a Padawan was successfull in his task, then both Master and apprentice could leave the Temple; if not, both would remain trapped in the Temple and die. The antechambers of the temples were often filled with the skeletons of Masters whose Padawans had not returned from their tasks.

Other important enclaves of the Jedi Order included the Temple of Eedit on Devaron, and the Jedi Temple on the crystal world of Ilum, considered to be the most sacred world to the Jedi Order. There, the Gathering―an ancient rite through which younglings obtained a kyber crystal to construct their lightsabers―took place.