Telos IV

"Now we're off that dejarik board of a planet, I say we burn sky until we see lines."

- Atton Rand

Telos IV, often called simply Telos, was an Outer Rim planet located on the Hydian Way.

Jedi Civil War
Prior to the Jedi Civil War, Telos IV was a prosperous planet. It served as an important military base for the Old Republic and Jedi forces during the Mandalorian Wars, as well as housing a meditational retreat and farming enclave for those serving the world via the Republic Agricultural Corps. During this time it was governed by the Telosian Council and safeguarded by the Telosian Security Force.

After the treachery of former Jedi Knights Revan and Malak was revealed in 3,959 BBY, the now-Darth Malak ordered Admiral Saul Karath to bombard Telos' surface as a final test of his loyalty to the new Sith. The Sith fleet specifically targeted the Jedi/Republic control centers, with nearly every single Jedi believed lost, and no survivors known to exist up through the end of the war.

During and after the main bombardment, some refugees were able to escape the conflagration via what few in-system shuttles were available for evacuation. These shuttles floated in space for weeks before they were picked up by Republic capital ships sent in response to the planetary holocaust. It was later discovered that the Sith in fact allowed the refugee shuttles to survive, desiring witnesses of the attack to spread word far and wide concerning Telos's fate. Many more of these survivors ended up drifting from planet to planet, with several being forced to settle down in the refugee slums of Nar Shaddaa, and not permitted to leave afterward.

The home planet of Carth Onasi, the Republic hero lost nearly all his friends and family in the attack. His son, Dustil Onasi, was able to survive the assault, and would later serve the Sith. Adding further insult to Carth's injury was the fact that the perpetrator of the attack, Saul Karath, was an ex-Republic hero and former mentor to Carth.

Telos once possessed an enormous planet-wide polar irrigation system, one that rivaled Coruscant's own. However, after the Second Sith War, the system was almost completely annihilated, and the planetary population abandoned it. Yet, the primary northern facility in the polar ice cap went almost entirely untouched by the Sith bombardment, and became a Jedi training academy prior to Malak's final defeat.



Restoration
After the end of the Jedi Civil War, the Republic launched a program of rejuvenating worlds rendered desolate by both the Mandalorian Wars and the Jedi Civil War. Telos, having once been an important Republic location, was chosen as a template for the project. The restoration efforts on Telos would determine if the project was successful enough to be expanded on other worlds.

The Ithorians, being well known across the galaxy as ecologists and agricultural engineers, were asked by the Telosian government to spearhead the Republic's planetary restoration initiative; in particular, those belonging to the herd of one Chodo Habat, a chieftain renowned for his communal benevolence.

In orbit around Telos, the immense Citadel Station was built to manage the project. Sections of the surface were closed off with shields, allowing weather stabilization processes to remove the acidic properties of the planet's devastated atmosphere and allow it to once more support life. Under the management of the Ithorians, life was then introduced into the new zones, with many of the creatures being imported from Dxun, due to their hardiness and ability to survive.

At the outset, matters proceeded smoothly for the project, thanks to generous legislative funding by the Republic, which hoped that Telos would in time become a model for other planets in need of rehabilitation following the last Sith War. The funding levels allowed Telos to purchase flora and fauna from Onderon; over the last several years, numerous upgrades to Citadel Station's shield network permitted the Ithorians to reseed and revivify a small portion of the planetary surface.

However, around the year 3,951 BBY, the troubles started. The Republic's diplomatic relations with Onderon began to rapidly deteriorate, which served to massively increase the already-gigantic purchase and transportation costs of the Onderonian biological materials. Coupled with these problems, over the last six or seven years beforehand, Citadel Station itself grew to such enormous proportions that the ethnic Telosian security patrols were now no longer large enough to police the entire station.



Five years after the end of the Jedi Civil War, the Czerka Corporation approached the Republic government and offered them generously small bid-estimates for resupply and security contracts. Delighted, the Republic accepted, and ultimately two-thirds of Citadel Station ended up being policed by CzerkaCorp thugs.

This situation wreaked havoc with the Telos restoration project -- Czerka had burrowed their way so deeply into the Telosian political system and planetary economy that they began dictating marching orders to the Ithorians originally placed in charge by the Republic. In fact, the company began pressuring the government to rescind the Ithorians' planet-rejuvenation contracts altogether.

Through a combination of legal loopholes, purchased political favors, strong-arm tactics and sabotage, CzerkaCorp managed to seize control over the Telos Restoration Zones; with the zones expected to have begun deteriorating within a matter of weeks thereafter. According to the Ithorians, if the Czerka eco-rape were allowed to have continue unchecked, the entire restoration project would have been killed due to the Republic Senate's unwillingness to continue sinking massive sums of money into the venture. A classic "Catch-22."

It was hypothesized by many on the Ithorian side that Czerka &mdash; one of the largest weapons manufacturers in the entire galaxy &mdash; sought these ecological-control contracts simply out of desire for unrestricted access to Telos's forbidden zones. During this period, not even the Ithorians were allowed by the Telosian authorities to land their ships outside of specially-designated sites. The Ithorians -- being a passive, agrarian-minded people -- were utterly unprepared to stand toe-to-toe against such a mighty corporate beast. And many more Telosians were of the opinion that Czerka's mercenaries were rapidly getting out of control, and that Republic troops should have been called in to restore order.



The Ithorians eventually sought the help of the Jedi Exile as he arrived on the planet, five years after the Jedi Civil War. In return, the chief Ithorian, Chodo Habat, offered to 'heal' the Exile of his Force-wound.

The Exile eventually traveled to the planet's surface in search of the stolen Ebon Hawk. There he met Bao-Dur, one of the shield technicians, who had been attempting to interfere with Czerka's operations. The Exile's group traveled through an old military academy, eventually finding their way to the planet's north pole, where some shield energy was being diverted. There they discovered that a surviving Jedi Master, Atris, had constructed a Jedi Academy on an old water plant. Atris had moved many records and artifacts to Telos from the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine prior to the Enclave's demise.

The Exile later returned to Telos as it fell under attack by the Sith forces under Darth Nihilus. He co-operated with the Telos Security Force and the united Mandalorian clans to take the fight to Ravager, Nihilus's flagship. Admiral Carth Onasi arrived with an assault fleet, claiming that he would not lose Telos to the Sith again. After the battle was won, Carth thanked the Exile and questioned the Jedi concerning Revan's whereabouts. Carth asked the Exile to merely tell Revan that he was doing what Revan had asked of him.

Last century of the Republic
After the apparent success of the Telos project, the planet became a popular tourist destination towards the end of the Republic. Sadly, after 3,900 years its prosperity came to an end. The planet suffered from famine in 94 BBY and from civil war in 49 BBY. In the Civil War, Qui-Gon Jinn was forced to kill Crion, the tyrannical father of Jinn's second Padawan, Xanatos. Xanatos had joined his father and turned to the dark side. He never forgave Jinn for killing Crion.

Xanatos, turned the planet upside down in his pursuit for personal power, controlling the world through the company Offworld. Only the intervention of Qui-Gon Jinn and his new Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, in 44 BBY thwarted Xanatos' plans and helped return the planet to its rightful government.

However, after the defeat of Offworld, other industries moved in and took over Telos, polluting the once pristine world. Many Telosians tried to escape their ruined planet aboard the experimental ship BioCruiser in 39 BBY.

Imperial era
During the Galactic Civil War, the planet was one of the planets in Kwymar Sector that allied itself with the Rebel Alliance. The Empire responded in a series of brutal assaults on the Sector known as the Kwymar Suppressions, including a devastating attack on Telos.

During the Suppressions, Stormtrooper Sergeant Major Beilert Valance was severely injured on neighboring Doniphon. Valance's life was saved at the Anglebay Station hospital, which orbited Telos. It was here that Valance was changed to a cyborg.

Valance suffered discrimination and prejudice as a cyborg to the point he was maddened and lusting for revenge. He became Valance the Hunter, a ruthless bounty hunter, and returned to Anglebay Station with a crew of killers. They slew every living being on the station, including patient Don-Wan Kihotay, first interrogated by Valance for information about the lightsaber-wielding destroyer of the Death Star I. Someone whom Valance wished to kill: he hated all droids, and even more so droid-lovers. Kihotay described Jimm Doshun, whom Valance confused with Luke Skywalker.

Behind the scenes

 * "Telos" is an ancient Greek word meaning "purpose". In modern greek it means "end".
 * The name "Telos IV", actually spelled "Telos-4" in Marvel Star Wars, did not appear in other sources (where it was called simply "Telos"), nor was it implied in the Jedi Apprentice and Knights of the Old Republic series that it is the same planet as in Marvel Star Wars. The two planets were later retconned by Wizards of the Coast to be indeed the same planet.
 * This planet's name is possibly a reference to the planet Telos that appears in the Doctor Who serial "The Tomb of the Cybermen," or Talos IV, which appears in the Star Trek: TOS episode "The Cage."

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Dark Rival
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Day of Reckoning
 * Jedi Apprentice Special Edition 1: Deceptions
 * Marvel Star Wars 16: The Hunter