User:Havac/Workbench

This subpage is for Havac's use in writing articles while he's away over the summer, as his internet connection at home won't let him stay logged in. If you notice an anon editing this page with rewrites of articles on Havac's to-do list, then, yeah, it's him. Or me. This third person things is really screwing with me. Or him. Everything here will be transferred to the appropriate articles when Havac is logged in. Because he wants credit, dangit. Although having an article FAd by an anon would be pretty darn funny.

"Whatever Jacen has become, he was a hero once. Jacen Solo saved the galaxy."

- Leia Organa Solo, to Han Solo

The son of Han and Leia Organa Solo, Jacen Solo was a leading Jedi Knight who proved crucial in defeating the Yuuzhan Vong and protecting the galaxy during the Yuuzhan Vong War. The grandson of Darth Vader, Darth Caedus was a Sith Lord who turned against his family and friends, betraying his former principles and leading the Galactic Alliance he once championed into a reign of terror as he attempted to bring order and stability to a fractured galaxy. INSERT SOMETHING HERE ABOUT THE CHANGE.

Born in 9 ABY, Jacen Solo spent most of his early years as the target of various kidnapping plots and schemes against his famous parents. When he was thirteen, he and his sister traveled to the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4, where their uncle Luke Skywalker taught them the ways of the Force. There he made several friends, among them the Hapan princess Tenel Ka Djo, to whom he became strongly attracted. While training, he and his friends defeated numerous plots against the New Republic and, in 24 ABY, he and his younger brother Anakin were apprenticed to Skywalker. A philosopher who inclined toward pacifism, Solo entered a personal crisis in the outbreak of the Yuuzhan Vong War.

Darth Caedus, born Jacen Solo, was the eldest son of Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo, the younger twin of Jaina Solo and the older brother of Anakin Solo. Even before he and his sister were born, their uncle, Luke Skywalker, could sense their strong presence in the Force, for the twins shared an inseparable mental bond. Later in his life he became the mentor to his cousin, Ben Skywalker and fathered a baby girl, Allana, with Tenel Ka Djo.

Even as an infant, Jacen showed latent Force powers, such as when he helped his uncle and his uncle's students defeat the spirit of Exar Kun. He began his formal Jedi training years later at his uncle's Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4. He excelled as one of the best students, getting involved in many adventures with his friends, Lowbacca, Tenel Ka and his sister. Later, during the Yuuzhan Vong War, he often did not see eye to eye with the orthodox Jedi view of the Force, despite being one of the more powerful Knights of the New Jedi Order.

After being captured by the Yuuzhan Vong, he became associated with Vergere, who molded many of his ways of thinking. Jacen had always been an empathetic person, forming close bonds with Humans and animals alike; as a child he developed an affinity and sensitivity toward nature and the Living Force. However, this bond with living beings diminished severely following his travels amongst other Force users. By 40 ABY, Jacen's empathy to others had become largely nonexistent, a trait later evidenced by his remorseless torture and killing of suspected terrorists.

Earlier that year, Jacen had followed into his grandfather's footsteps and became the third and final Sith apprentice of Lumiya. After his aunt Mara Jade Skywalker's failed assassination attempt on his life and her subsequent death at Jacen's hands, Jacen declared himself Darth Caedus, Dark Lord of the Sith, bringing the Skywalker legacy full circle. He later replaced Ben Skywalker as his apprentice with Tahiri Veila following the Second Battle of Fondor and her murder of Gilad Pellaeon.

In 40 ABY, Caedus was killed by his twin sister after a ferocious duel. As his sister brought her lightsaber down he disengaged his, giving his life in order to warn Tenel Ka through the Force to take care of their daughter, Allana. After his death Jaina realized that her brother had succeeded; he had brought peace to the galaxy, sacrificing his own life to do so.

Target from birth
"I was just thinking about children. Trying to imagine what it's like to try to raise them. Wondering how much of their character a family can mold, and how much is innate in the children themselves. Wondering if the evil in a family's history can be erased, or whether it always passes itself on to each new generation."

- Leia Organa Solo, to the Maitrakh of Clan Khim'bar

Jacen Solo was a figure of galactic political significance before he was even born. The son of former smuggler, retired general, and Rebel icon Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa Solo of Alderaan, the New Republic Minister of State, Jacen Solo and his twin sister Jaina were immediately matters of public interest, and news of the pregnancy was spread throughout the New Republic. Taking a different sort of interest in the developing twins, Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo, the new leader of the Galactic Empire's military, promised Organa Solo's powerful Jedi children to Joruus C'baoth, the insane clone of Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth, as his to raise and make his apprentices in exchange for C'baoth's participation in the Grand Admiral's schemes. This resulted in several kidnapping attempts by Grand Admiral Thrawn's Noghri agents against Organa Solo during her pregnancy. Organa Solo evaded all of them and was able to appeal to the Noghri to change their allegiance to her, exposing Thrawn's manipulations of their people and playing on their reverence for Darth Vader, the man who had been Organa Solo's father.



As Jacen and Jaina Solo developed in their mother's womb, it was immediately apparent that they were Force-sensitive, and Organa Solo was able to make mental contact with their developing minds through the Force. She did so frequently to calm them when they were agitated. When Jacen Solo was born in 9 ABY in the medical ward of the Imperial Palace on Coruscant, Organa Solo did the same throughout the ten-hour labor, until Solo, born after his sister, had emerged from the womb.

The children were raised in the Solos' Imperial Palace suite, with Organa Solo's adoptive sister Winter serving as their nurse. Their uncle, Luke Skywalker, tested their Force potential and found it astonishing. Shortly after their birth, they were the targets of another kidnapping attempt by an Imperial Intelligence team. Trapped in their suite, they were nearly captured before Mara Jade intervened and saved the family. After that incident, when the Solos, the Wookiee Chewbacca&mdash;who owed the Solos a life debt&mdash;and Skywalker had to leave Coruscant on a mission that saw the defeat of Thrawn and C'baoth, they were left with Winter and a cadre of Noghri bodyguards, having sworn their lives to the defense of Vader's line.



Shortly after Thrawn's defeat, a new threat emerged: Emperor Palpatine reemerged from the Deep Core, conquering Coruscant. The twins were evacuated from the world and hidden away on the uncharted world of New Alderaan from the resurgent Empire and the growing threat of the dark side of the Force. Winter cared for them, and a cadre of Noghri warriors provided security. They only saw their parents twice in 10 ABY before Han and Leia Organa Solo arrived on the Millennium Falcon to stay in seclusion with the children for the birth of a third child, Anakin Solo. They were quickly followed by members of Palpatine's Dark Side Elite, seeking to kidnap the children for the Dark Lord of the Sith. Defended by the Jedi Kam Solusar, Empatojayos Brand, and Rayf Ysanna, the twins were still snatched by Kvag Gthull before Ysanna freed them and their mother killed Gthull, causing the rest of the Dark Jedi to flee. With the arrival of Imperial All Terrain Armored Transports, Organa Solo had to take the children and flee. Evacuated to Nespis VIII, the twins were present when their brother Anakin was born. They were once again forced to flee when Palpatine targeted Nespis VIII, the site of the New Republic's hidden headquarters, with the Galaxy Gun. Traveling to Onderon, they were followed by Palpatine, who managed to sneak into Organa Solo's room, seeking to transfer his spirit from his dying body to that of Anakin. Brand sacrificed himself to defeat Palpatine once and for all, and the Empire's resurgence was ended.

As Skywalker feared that the young Solo children could be permanently affected by any further exposure to the dark side, they were once taken into hiding, this time on the remote world of Anoth, the coordinates of which were known only to Winter, Skywalker, and Admiral Ackbar. Only the children and Winter lived on the inhospitable rock, into which had been built a home provided with advanced security systems. Visits from their parents took place every few months until, in 11 ABY, the twins returned to Coruscant to live with their family, having turned two years old and, in Skywalker's judgment, beyond the point of greatest vulnerability to the dark side.

Winter flew Solo and his sister back to Coruscant, where they were greeted by their mother. Having so little contact with her for so long, they were more attached to their nanny Winter. They were given a tour around the Imperial Palace and and their new home before being put to bed by C-3PO, whose attempts to tell a bedtime story Solo rebuffed. Later that week, Skywalker returned, and Solo got to know his uncle. When Winter left to return to Anoth to care for Anakin, Solo was extremely distressed by the separation from the woman who had raised him, and it required much adjustment to get him used to his new routine and caretakers.

Organa Solo was called away from the children to receive the Caridan ambassador, Furgan, the next day. Angered at having to spend time away from her children, she took them to the diplomatic reception held that night at the Skydome Botanical Gardens, with C-3PO shepherding them. Solo and his sister quickly slipped away from the protocol droid and into the botanical exhibits, where they slipped past the spines of a tentacle-cactus to rest safely against its center. When C-3PO attempted to recover them, they slipped away safely as the tentacle-cactus caught the droid.

Only a few days later, Han Solo returned from his diplomatic mission to Kessel, which had seen him captured first by Moruth Doole and then by Admiral Natasi Daala of the Empire; thus reunited, Solo could begin to reconnect with both his parents. Han took the children to Coruscant's polar region, where they could play in the snow with C-3PO, but their vacation was cut short by the need to return to the capital region to greet their mother, who had been involved in a tragic crash during a diplomatic mission to Vortex.

Organa Solo was safe, and Solo eventually settled into the new routine of dinners, baths, and bedtime stories. Yet another Solo family crisis intruded on their life when Organa Solo was stranded on Mon Calamari during the renegade Imperial admiral Daala's attack on it and Han Solo rushed off to save her; Jacen and Jaina Solo were left with C-3PO and Chewbacca. To occupy the twins, Chewbacca and C-3PO took them to the Holographic Zoo of Extinct Animals. There, the young Solos quickly became bored and evaded their guardians. Wishing to go home, they took a turbolift, thinking that, like the turbolifts in the Imperial Palace, it would take them home. Instead, after Solo hit the button for the first level, it took them to the long-abandoned surface of Coruscant. They wandered through the derelict and deadly undercity, attempting to use the lessons learned from their favorite bedtime story, "The Little Lost Bantha Cub", to reach their home. Eventually, they were captured in a trap set by one of the underdwellers to catch food. Rather than be eaten, they worked together to pull out the pins holding their cage together through use of the Force. Pursued by the creature's ferocious pet, they were forced to take shelter in a small crack. Moving through a small tunnel, they came upon a camp of undercity residents. Onibald Daykim, the king of the refugees from the Empire who had created the settlement, took an immediate liking to the children. He gave them food and then, using ventilation shafts and other utility systems, carried the twins up the many stories of Coruscant's worldwide city and safely back to their home, where they found their parents had returned.

When Skywalker was felled by his corrupted student, Kyp Durron, the Solos flew to his Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4 within the week. Skywalker lay in state, comatose, and no efforts had been able to revive him. At dinner with Skywalker's Jedi trainees, Solo and the rest of the Force-sensitives were struck by a wave of death felt in the Force, the result of Durron's destruction of Carida with the Sun Crusher superweapon. Han Solo set off to track down and talk down Durron, leaving Organa Solo and the twins on Yavin 4. Solo and his sister, exploring the ruined Massassi temples, encountered a pack of woolamanders; through the Force, Solo was able to "speak" to them, a fact which greatly intrigued him. That night, both Solo twins felt through the Force that Skywalker was in danger. Their cries woke their mother, who with the aid of several other students was able to rescue Skywalker from the trainee Streen, manipulated by the spirit of the Sith Lord Exar Kun.

The next morning, Organa Solo departed to save Anakin, having been informed by the traitor Terpfen that he had given the location of Anoth to the Imperial remnants on Carida. Solo and his sister were left in the care of Skywalker's students. Visiting Skywalker's bier, Solo was able to see and hear his uncle's spirit, standing in the room, as was his sister. They said so, but their caretaker Cilghal did not believe them. That night, Skywalker's spirit appeared to Solo, warning him that his body was in danger from another of Kun's efforts. Solo woke his sister, who began raising the others, while Solo rushed to the Grand Audience Chamber, where he immediately sensed the dark side aura of the three Sithspawn battle hydras Kun had sent to attack. Fearlessly, young Solo charged the creatures to drive them away. At Skywalker's urging, he took up the Jedi Master's lightsaber and, with Skywalker fighting through him, defeated all three creatures. In the aftermath, the rest of the students realized that the Solos could see Skywalker, and Jacen Solo relayed Skywalker's message that Kun was behind the attacks and needed to be stopped before Skywalker could return to his body.



The students arranged a trap for Kun, luring his spirit into the Grand Audience Chamber and surrounding him. The twins were part of the circle surrounding Kun, overwhelming his spirit with light side energy and, joined by the spirits of Skywalker and Kun's long-dead Master Vodo-Siosk Baas, eliminating the Sith Lord once and for all. Skywalker returned to his body and awoke, much to Solo's delight. Organa Solo succeeded in rescuing Anakin, and thereafter all the children stayed on Coruscant with their parents, tended by Winter.

Neither Coruscant nor his parents were absolute constants in Solo's developing life; 12 ABY saw the family travel to Ithor for the Time of Meeting, at which they were accosted by Drub McKumb. McKumb, insane, caused a commotion that sent the children to the nursery with Winter and Chewbacca for safety and sent Solo's parents off on a mission to Plett's Well. In the same year, the Darksaber crisis and the creation of the Imperial Remnant again sent the adult Solos and Chewbacca scrambling while Solo was left with Winter and C-3PO. Nevertheless, most time was spent with family. Skywalker began developing Solo's Force talents, training him in the use of basic powers. However, utilization of the Force was only allowed under Skywalker's supervision, to prevent misuse.

The Empire Reborn
"Your dear family is gone, my children. The Republic asked me to take you, to keep you, to protect you and teach you. I am so sorry&hellip;that your mama and papa are dead."

- Hethrir, to Jacen Solo, Jaina Solo, and Anakin Solo

In 14 ABY, the Solo children traveled with their mother and Chewbacca on a diplomatic tour which saw them visit Mon Calamairi, Gbu, and then Munto Codru. There, Solo spent time with Doctor Hyos, learning about medicine. As Munto Codtru had a long tradition of political abductions&mdash;kidnappings played out along a set of traditional rules&mdash;the children were kept very secure. Nevertheless, while playing outside with Chewbacca and the son of Chamberlain Iyon, they were kidnapped&mdash;not by local Codru-Ji but by agents of Hethrir's Empire Reborn. A pressure bomb knocked out Chewbacca while the children, and the ground on which they sat, were spirited away, unconscious.

When they woke on Hethrir's worldcraft, the Rebirth, they were frightened and alone. Their kidnapper came to them, presenting himself as their hold-father. Hethrir claimed that he had been coming to visit them when he witnessed an earthquake destroy the castle in which their mother&mdash;and, he said, their father and uncle&mdash;had been. He did not know the password which hold-parents were supposed to know, explaining that he had not yet met Organa Solo to learn it. However, he was now their guardian; Hethrir dismissed the fact that Winter was supposed to care for them if anything should happen to their family. Neither twin fully believed Hethrir's account, and so they mentioned that Jacen had been the firstborn of the twins. Hethrir, who had claimed to be present at the birth, agreed with the lie, exposing him as a charlatan. The twins went along, and young Anakin did not pick up on the subtext. When Hethrir attempted to separate the twins from Anakin, however, they resisted. Hethrir used his own command of the dark side to suppress their Force abilities and had his aide Tigris take the twins away and lock them into separate small bedrooms. Solo had been playing with a bat on Munto Codru, and it had been spirited away with him when he was kidnapped. He covertly kept the animal in his tunic, caring for it throughout the coming days.



The next morning, the Solo twins and several other captured children were roused and gathered in lines. Upset and disinclined to follow the orders of Tigris and Hethrir's Proctors, Solo refused to line up. He had to be forced into line, and even then he and his sister resisted, walking out of step and causing disturbances. Angered, Hethrir canceled breakfast for the children and sent them straight to study. They were provided with educational programming and expected to complete quizzes on it. Later in the day, the children were lined up and those who could not wield the Force, or who were not human, were weeded out of the group to be sold as slaves.

The next morning, at breakfast, Jaina used the Force to put sand in the Proctors' food, causing a disturbance with the cook. Solo capitalized on the altercation to use his Force-driven affinity for animals to convince the myrmin-like insects in the dining hall to crawl inside the Proctors' clothing. When the Proctors began to stamp on the creatures, he felt intense guilt for causing their death, and immediately swept them out the way with the Force. In doing so, he tapped into the Force strongly enough that Hethrir, constantly monitoring them through the Force, immediately suppressed Solo's abilities once again. The Proctors were sufficiently irritated by the insects' biting that they rushed from the room, leaving the children unattended after only minimal attempts to ensure order. The Solos, reunited for the first time since their capture, led the other students to the play yard on the surface of the worldcraft. There, they distracted the fearsome-looking but mostly harmless sand dragon which guarded the end of the canyon in which the yard resided with a spot of light focused by the lens of Jaina's multitool while he approached her and, reaching out with the Force, communicated with her. Before he could accomplish anything, however, the Head Proctor returned and sent all the children to their tiny rooms.

That night, Jaina used her multitool to open her door and let Solo out of his cell. When the Proctor on watch awoke, they decoyed him into Solo's room and, pushing him inside, latched the door to keep him in before freeing the rest of the children in the dormitory. Going out the play yard, Solo used the Force to move air molecules fast enough for them to glow with heat, creating a light in the evening to distract the dragon as he again approached her. Communing with the creature through the Force, Solo befriended her and convinced her to carry the escaping children on her back. As they rode away, he set his bat free. They eventually reached an artificial stream on the worldcraft's artificial surface, where they could drink and eat berries growing on bushes nearby.

However, the five-year-old twins lacked any sort of plan for the escape group which they found themselves leading. They settled on crawling along a path through the bushes, where they hoped the Proctors could not follow them. They were only barely ahead of the Proctors, and the trail ended at a large and impassable field of mud. The Solos again manipulated molecules, this time freezing the water in the mud to create a solid pathway to a tree on the far side, which was hollow. They were able to ascend it, where they were quickly found by Organa Solo in her ship Alderaan. With the children aboard, Solo summoned his bat so that he could take it back to its home as well. Organa Solo and Chewbacca rescued the Proctors, who had been stranded in the middle of the muddy marsh, and obtained from them the knowledge that Hethir had taken Anakin to Crseih Station. Organa Solo and Rillao, Hethrir's former lover and recently freed prisoner, took the worldcraft to Crseih after attending to the children and locking up the Proctors. Rillao was able to comfort the twins and ease their fear of Hethrir, convincing them that he could no longer smother their powers.

At Crseih, they were able to track down Hethrir and his entourage. Solo and his sister were left with Chewbacca while Organa Solo, Rillao, and Han Solo and Skywalker, on Crseih for another mission, rushed to save Anakin. However, the children and Chewbacca were unable to resist intervening when the sounds of a fight reached them. They arrived to see Anakin rescued, but Skywalker had been consumed by Hethrir's trans-dimensional ally Waru. Solo's parents leaped into Waru to recover him. The twins surrounded Waru, screaming for their parents and uncle. Their shouts reached the three and were able to cut through the haze of Waru's mental manipulations, allowing them to escape. Foiled in his attempt to acquire their power, Waru instead consumed Hethrir and vanished to his home dimension.

Family life
"Why do I have to be strong? Someday I'll be able to go anywhere I want, or get anything I want, just by thinking about it&mdash;like Uncle Luke."

- Jacen Solo, to Han Solo

Over the next two years, Solo's life remained relatively stable. Han remained at home to parent, and when Organa Solo returned from the office, the family would gather to relax and play in their vortex pool. Skywalker spent more time at his Praxeum, allowing Organa Solo to handle the children's instruction in the Force. The Solos moved to a larger estate outside the Palace which had a yard of its own. However, Solo spent little time in it; as of 16 ABY, he was more interested in mastering the Force than in physical play. He believed that the Force would provide for all his needs, avoiding the need for strenuous activity. This caused him to become somewhat pudgy, and he, like the rest of the Solo children, lacked friends due to their strict security measures; they had few other children of their age with whom to mix. Even more, Solo played less and less with his siblings, and Han became increasingly concerned with Solo's lack of interest in sport.



In 16 ABY, Chewbacca left to be present for his son's coming of age ceremony, and Han was forced to leave to supervise the New Republic Fifth Fleet temporarily, leading to Winter returning to take care of the children during the day. Solo was back after two months, but the crisis in the Koornacht Cluster, where the Fifth had been dispatched, quickly escalated. Organa Solo, suffering burnout, took the family on vacation to Rathalay, where Solo happily played on the beach, eager to see one of the carnivorous narkaa. After they returned to Coruscant, Han was again sent to command the fleet at Koornacht, but he was captured in transit by the Yevetha. Organa Solo kept the news quiet, but it eventually went public. Solo was terrified for his father, but eventually Han was freed by the intervention of Chewbacca. Han had to spend time in a bacta tank on returning to Coruscant, but the children visited him. Returning home after their visit, they were delighted to find Skywalker present. Rejecting his self-imposed hermitage, Skywalker was ready to take a larger hand in guiding the children's development.

The Solos soon moved back to the Imperial Palace, where the twins enjoyed exploring the vast building. They frequently used Anakin in their explorations, using his uncanny talent with machines to have him open locks, interfere with security equipment, repair equipment, and otherwise facilitate their adventures. Getting out more, Solo overcame his previous sedentary lifestyle and no longer attempted to depend on the Force for strength.

Later in 17 ABY, after helping Winter and C-3PO dismiss a nanny droid mischievously ordered by Anakin, Solo was stricken by a sensation of evil and death. Joining with his similarly affected siblings, he pushed back the feeling through the Force, but it was quickly followed by an explosion nearby that made the children worry their actions had caused it. However, the explosion was a terrorist bombing of the Senate Hall which injured Organa Solo. Skywalker hurried from Yavin 4 and was able to catch up with the children at their mother's bedside and assured them that the explosion had not been their fault.

With Organa Solo concerned about the children's safety, she had Winter take them to Anoth for the duration of the crisis. When another terrorist explosion struck Smuggler's Run, the children felt that as well, but were better able to deal with it. Ultimately, the ringleader of the plot, Kueller, was killed and the threat neutralized, freeing the children to return to Coruscant.

In 18 ABY, the Solo children joined together in an attempt to construct a droid secretly, which would serve them without any adults being able to take it away or place restrictions on it. Jacen Solo scavenged most of the parts from junk heaps while the mechanically-talented Jaina and Anakin assembled it. Around the same time, the Solos met Zekk on Coruscant. A street urchin and expert salvager slightly older than the twins, Zekk befriended the children, and the twins and Zekk often spent time exploring the less reputable lower levels of Coruscant and skirting trouble. When the droid was fully assembled, a bad actuator caused it to overload and shut down, ruining the droid and leaving burn marks in the room. As the twins attempted to figure out how to avoid blame, Skywalker entered the room, lectured them on responsibility, and made them clean up the mess. Solo was simply relieved that it had not been his parents who found out.

Caught up in revolt
A few days after the droid incident, Organa Solo was to attend a major trade conference on Corellia, Han Solo's homeworld. The whole family made an outing of it, traveling there ahead of the summit to see the world. The trip in the Millennium Falcon was long, but the time was filled with family activities and an explanation of the situation in the Corellian system from Solo's father. When they entered the system, however, the Millennium Falcon was the victim of a clumsy staged ambush attempt which was beaten off by a Corellian Space Defense Force squadron. After the momentary scare, Solo and his family were able to make landfall safely.

They were taken to the villa at which the family was staying, where Solo learned that he and his siblings were to have a tutor. On the next day, he was introduced to the Drall Ebrihim and his outspoken droid, Q9-X2. Ebrihim gave them lessons on the history of the Corellian system as they prepared for an expedition to an archaeological site near Coronet City the next day. Storms delayed the trip for a day, but the Solos, Chewbacca, and Ebrihim and his droid set out for the dig on the next day. Solo was bored by the tour, conducted by General Brimon Yarar of the Human League, the organization which was funding the dig. He was also suspicious, as he had read about archaeology and recognized that the Human League was not following proper procedures. Instead, they seemed to be looking for something. He and his siblings fell behind the group, and stopped when Anakin began to act strangely. Anakin had, with his Force-powered affinity for machinery, discovered a live power conduit beneath the floor. He ran off to follow it, and Solo and his sister went along. Anakin found and activated a hidden keypad, opening a likewise hidden door. Solo led the way into the revealed passage, onto a platform near the apex of a vast conical chamber. He was interrupted in his explorations by the arrival of Q9-X2, who had noticed their absence and tracked them down. Realizing they would be missed, Solo immediately took charge of the situation and insisted that they leave, knowing that they had found whatever Yarar was looking for&mdash;and that Yarar should not be allowed to find it. Leaving and making the others promise to keep the chamber a secret, they rejoined the group, with Solo using the Force to brush away their footprints so that they could not be tracked.



The Solos spent the next several days touring before they moved into a suite in Corona House, the governmental center in Coronet, where the trade summit was to be held. During that time, when Solo felt that they were secure, he and his siblings explained to their parents about the chamber they had found. When the summit started, the children took advantage of their parents' absence to stay up late in their bedroom playing board games. While doing so, Mara Jade entered the apartment. Realizing that their parents would be meeting her and discussing exciting adult business, they returned to bed, pretended to be asleep when their parents returned and checked on them, and once more sneaked onto the landing above the living room to spy on the discussion. Jade had been sent a message to deliver to the Solos and the Corellian governor-general, Micamberlecto. The message offered a list of stars and dates and was understood to threaten that, if the unspecified blackmailers' unspecified demands were not met, supernovas would be triggered in those stars, which harbored increasing populations as the list progressed. The first star, an uninhabited one, had already exploded.

Early in the morning, synchronized species riots erupted across the Corellian system, with the Human League foremost among the offenders on Corellia. As the children, Chewbacca, Ebrihim, and Q9-X2 watched the violence from their suite, a series of explosions shook Corona House. The Wookiee immediately gathered the children and took them to the Millennium Falcon, docked on the roof, for evacuation. Solo answered his father's comlink call, and learned that his parents would be staying behind to deal with the crisis. Han charged his son with taking care of the others and following Chewbacca's instructions.

As the Falcon attempted to escape the system, it was attacked by forces of the Corellian Space Defense Force, which had aligned itself with the treacherous elements. During the dogfighting, the hyperdrive was damaged. Restricted to subspace travel, Chewbacca and Ebrihim decided to take refuge on Drall with Ebrihim's relatives. Over the course of the long, slow journey, Solo had to deal with the tedium of the voyage and with the necessity of managing Anakin&mdash;a challenging task even for adults. On landing at the estate of Ebrihim's aunt, Duchess Marcha, they were able to find refuge.

The next morning, Ebrihim had the children describe the chamber they had found on Corellia to Marcha. Jaina also told Marcha about the secret message they had seen, against Solo's advice. Marcha and Ebrihim decided to take the children to a very similar archaeological site on Drall in hopes of piecing together the mystery of the chamber and its importance to the Human League, which had announced its control of the mysterious "starbuster" superweapon and the fact that its leader was Thrackan Sal-Solo, Han Solo's cousin. Approaching the dig in the dark, Chewbacca drilled an entrance into the tunnel system near where they suspected the entrance to the chamber to be, if the Drallish site corresponded to the Corellian one. They were able to find an identical copy of the Corellian chamber, and Anakin activated the protruding platform on which the group stood, and was able to open the top of the chamber to the surface. Observing it, Marcha came to the conclusion that the chamber was a colossal repulsor of a planetary scale, used to move Drall when the Corellian system was constructed, just as rumors had long suggested it had been. On Marcha's advice, they took their supplies and the Millennium Falcon and set up camp at the base of the repulsor itself, planning to study it.

The group spent quite some time living inside the repulsor, with Anakin constantly exploring its functions. One night, Anakin crept away from the camp and found and activated the main control panel for the repulsor, firing it off. Tremendous groundquakes woke Solo, who rushed aboard the Millennium Falcon with the others and there safely rode out the massive energy output of the repulsor's firing. After the incident was over, Solo tracked down his brother and convinced Anakin, frightened and guilty, to come back to the ship.

Before Chewbacca could repair the damage to the ship from the power surge, Sal-Solo and a squad of Human League troops arrived and took control of the repulsor. The Solo children, Chewbacca, and the Drall were captured and put inside a force-field stockade inside the camp the Human League set up at the base of the repulsor. Sal-Solo dropped the jamming that had kept the Corellian system isolated and broadcast a message demanding that Organa Solo and the New Republic accept his claims of sovereignty in exchange for the safe return of the hostages.

When night fell, Ebrihim summoned Q9-X2, who had been hidden inside the smuggling compartments of the Millennium Falcon, with a hidden comlink. The droid was able to reduce the intensity of the force field, but not to turn it off without the key to the controls. Anakin began to push his way through the force field, using the Force to strain and distort it. The twins joined him, and together they were able to escape the field. The technique could not effect the adults' escape, however. Ebrihim urged the children, the most valuable hostages, to escape in the Millennium Falcon with Q9-X2.

Chewbacca directed the final repair efforts by comlink; when completed, Solo took the pilot's seat. With his sister as copilot, he tentatively powered up the ship while Jaina shot apart the force field generator and attempted to cripple Sal-Solo's assault boat. Solo put the Millennium Falcon into motion, escaping the repulsor. Before Solo had fully mastered flight, the assault boat was in pursuit. Wildly dodging Sal-Solo's shots, Solo's amateur flying was able to put him on the assault boat's tail, allowing Jaina to disable it. The Millennium Falcon was immediately seized by a tractor beam from the Intruder, a Bakuran cruiser which had entered the system in a New Republic rescue attempt and had been planning on seizing the Drall repulsor. Old family friend Lando Calrissian was aboard and was able to reassure Solo and explain the situation while conveying his compliments on their escape. Sal-Solo was captured.

Aboard the Intruder, the children were joyously reunited with their parents, who quickly came from negotiations on Selonia. As the Bakuran fleet went into battle against the fleet of the Sacorrian Triad, the real masterminds of the starbuster plot, the children were sent back to the Drall repulsor to help the New Republic crew which was attempting to use it to deflect Centerpoint Station's next starbuster shot, targeting Bovo Yagen. The twins helped control Anakin, whom the control system had imprinted on, making him the only one who could control the repulsor. When Anakin got upset and stormed off before it was time to fire, Solo had to track him down and convince him to come back. When it turned out that the repulsor had been improperly aimed, Solo convinced Anakin to aim it by feel and the Force. Anakin made the shot that deflected Centerpoint's shot, saving Bovo Yagen. Meanwhile, the Triad fleet was defeated, ending the threat.

Student of the Force
"As I have told you many times, I don't believe the training of a true Jedi comes from listening to lectures. I want to teach you how to learn action, how to do things, not just think about them. 'There is no try,' as Yoda, one of my own Jedi Masters, taught me."

- Luke Skywalker, in lecture to Solo's class

In 19 ABY, Organa Solo took a leave from the New Republic's presidency, and the family traveled to Wayland, where the Noghri had settled. Before they could take a tour of the ruins of Mount Tantiss, Organa Solo was called away to deal with Lak Jit, a scavenger who had found a collection of datacards in the ruins. Impatient to begin the tour, Solo entered the dukha where his mother was negotiated and began harassing her to hurry. When Jit settled and departed, Solo was able to sense the distress of his siblings as Jit dropped a smoke grenade and escaped with one of the stolen datacards still in his possession. Smuggler and information broker Talon Karrde, working with his lieutenant Jade, was arriving on-planet at the same time and managed to capture Jit. When it turned out that the datacard held vital information implicating the Bothans in the long-ago attack on Caamas, a crisis seemed liable to erupt and Karrde quickly gave the Solos a ride back to Coruscant.

As the Caamas Document Crisis gained in intensity, threatening to pull the New Republic apart, the children traveled to Kashyyyk with Chewbacca, there to see the Wookiee's family and homeworld and remain safe during the turmoil. Once the political situation was brought to a peaceful conclusion, the children left Kashyyyk and attended the signing of the Pellaeon-Gavrisom Treaty, which brought peace between the New Republic and Imperial Remnant.



During the crisis, Skywalker had proposed to Jade. Solo attended a more private Jedi ceremony before the large, public-event wedding. When that event was threatened with disruption by angered ex-Imperials, the Rogue Squadron ushers were called away to secure the facility, and Solo and C-3PO filled in for them. Still, former Moff Derran Takkar was able to infiltrate the ceremony and threaten to release a virus into the New Republic's communications system. Skywalker was able to talk him down, and the wedding went forward peacefully.

In 22 ABY, the twins later spent a handful of months at Skywalker's Praxeum, training as Jedi. Solo enjoyed the outdoors, and familiarized himself with the wildlife of Yavin 4. When the twins returned to Coruscant, Anakin was sent off to begin his training. In the next year, Solo and his sister returned to the Praxeum, where they befriended Tenel Ka Djo. A serious young woman with whom Solo became rather infatuated, Djo rarely if ever laughed; therefore, Solo made it his mission to attempt to get a chuckle out of her with a daily barrage of jokes which consistently fell flat. Meanwhile, Solo worked to improve his quarters, where he kept an extensive menagerie of captured wildlife; he spent his free time acquiring even more specimens. The collection annoyed some fellow students, particularly Raynar Thul.

One morning, Solo noticed that his crystal snake had escaped. He recruited his sister to aid him in searching for it, and they found Thul in his room, passed out from the snake's soporific bite. He was able to retrieve it before Thul awoke, preventing the young noble from using the incident to argue against Solo's collection of pets. Later that morning, their lecture was interrupted by an alert at the Great Temple's landing pad. Skywalker left, and, eager to see what was happening, the Solos scaled the temple's exterior with Djo, a persistent outdoorswoman, to get there before the crowd of students. Outside, they found that a massive beast had emerged from the jungle, and was menacing the supply ship Lightning Rod. Solo watched in amazement as his uncle calmed the creature and sent it back into the jungle.

The next morning, the Solos eagerly awaited the arrival of their father, who was bringing a new Jedi trainee. The new student turned out to be Chewbacca's nephew Lowbacca. They gave Lowbacca a tour of the academy, and sat with him and Djo at lunch. The crystal snake had again escaped, and Solo noticed it as it prepared to bite Thul. He tried to knock Thul out of the way, an action which precipitated a food fight as the confused students reacted to what seemed a random action, as the crystal snake was nearly invisible. Eventually, Solo recovered it and was able to lock it away once again.



When Han Solo and Chewbacca departed, they left Lowbacca a gift: a disassembled T-23 skyhopper. The Solo twins aided their Wookiee friend in rebuilding the craft, and Lowbacca then took it out for a test flight. When he returned, he told the twins and Djo of a mysterious artificial object he had seen from a distance. They took the skyhopper out the next morning and found the wreckage of a TIE fighter, which Jaina decided the group should fix. They spent the next days traveling to the crash site, working to restore the wreck. While exploring around the crash site one day, Solo found a trail, which he followed to find the encampment of the TIE pilot, who had survived the crash after all. He rushed back to the others to alert them, but the pilot showed up just as he attempted to warn them, Armed, Qorl, the Imperial pilot, took the twins prisoner&mdash;Lowbacca and Djo were quick enough to escape.

Qorl took the pair back to his settlement, where he fed them. The next morning, he forced them to work on repairing the TIE fighter, demanding that they finish work on it immediately. They were able to finish the last repairs, and Qorl set off in the TIE, which included an added-on hyperdrive unit, abandoning the twins in the jungle. Qorl planned to attack the Jedi academy, but his weapons were non-functional, and Han Solo and Chewbacca, summoned from assisting Calrissian's new venture over Yavin Prime, chased the TIE off Yavin 4 before picking up the twins.

Temptation at the Shadow Academy
When a field trip to Calrissian's GemDiver Station was scheduled, Solo was extremely disappointed that Djo declined to attend. Calrissian took the Solos and Lowbacca on a tour of his Corusca gem-mining facility, and at their insistence allowed them to ride along on a mining expedition. Calrissian let them work the trolling controls in turn, promising any catch of the extremely rare jewels to the children. Solo was the only one of the three to succeed, snaring a very large and valuable stone. On returning to GemDiver Station, they found a fleet entering the system and bearing down on the station. They were boarded by stormtroopers, and it became clear that it was the Jedi children, not the Corusca gems, that they were after. Calrissian did all he could to protect the Jedi students, but he and the students were stunned and the children carried away.

The trio awoke in a cabin aboard a ship, and were soon visited by the woman who had commanded the stormtrooper assault&mdash;Nightsister Tamith Kai. Kai took them to the cockpit, where they found Qorl, having rejoined the Second Imperium, an Imperial splinter state in the Deep Core, and saw their destination&mdash;the Shadow Academy, where Kai intended to turn them to the dark side. On landing, they were introduced to the Shadow Academy's headmaster, Brakiss, who Solo knew to be a failed former student of Skywalker's. They were split up and put in small cells, but Solo was determined to remain defiant, mocking his captors and rejecting Brakiss and Kai's pronouncements. When all the Shadow Academy's students were gathered for Brakiss's lessons, which suggested that the power of the dark side must be added to that of the light, Solo rejected his arguments, but it was Jaina who voiced her objections, causing Brakiss to attack her with Force lightning. Lowbacca began attacking the stormtroopers in the room before Solo talked him down. Brakiss sent all three students away to their cells as a result of the disturbance.



Solo was later brought in for one-on-one training with Brakiss. The headmaster gave the boy a lightsaber, something which Solo had long wanted. Solo distrusted Brakiss, and refused the lightsaber, but Brakiss pressed the weapon on him and Solo gave in. The headmaster left the room, which began projecting a holographic simulation for Solo to fight&mdash;though, as an incentive to perform, he suggested that he might slip in genuine beasts as well. The training continued, until eventually Brakiss had Solo fight in a holographic disguise, calling it training for possible deployment in disguise. He battled the holographic specter of Darth Vader for some time, until Brakiss dropped the holographic shrouds and found that he had been fighting his sister, with both fighting as Darth Vader. They angrily ended the exercise.

The next day, the three Jedi students were brought together for an exercise. The Solos would be inside a chamber, blindfolded, and targeted with flying objects. Lowbacca would be in a control room operating drones which could protect them in addition to the sticks given to the twins. Standing back-to-back, they used the Force to sense the incoming projectiles, but as the onslaught intensified, he was increasingly battered. Once the systems began firing knives, Lowbacca was able to crash the computer controlling it and bring the test to an end.

Back in his room, Solo hit upon the idea of using his Corusca gem, still secreted in his boot, to cut his way out and escape. From within the room, he used the extremely hard gem to slice out the back of the control box which opened the door from outside, allowing him to hotwire the door open. Reaching out in the Force, he found Jaina and Lowbacca and freed them. Lowbacca sliced into the main computer system and locked down the station before the group fled to the docking bay. There, they found Skywalker and Djo, who had just arrived in a rescue attempt after tracking down the station's location, and escaped.

The threat of the Second Imperium
On returning to Yavin 4, Luke offered Solo his lightsaber, instructing him to show what he had learned. Solo refused it; he had realized that he was not yet ready to take up the weapon of the Jedi. Afterward, Han Solo took the children and their friends Djo and Lowbacca back to Coruscant for a break. On their approach to the planet, the twins played their customary game, competing to see who could shoot down more orbital debris with the Millennium Falcon's quad lasers. Reunited with his parents and little brother, Solo enjoyed visiting with his family. He offered his mother his Corusca gem as a present, but she insisted that Solo keep it. The youths spent the next day with Zekk, exploring the Coruscant undercity and assisting him in retrieving a hawk-bat egg. When the hawk-bat mother returned with Solo in the process of stealing the egg, he used the Force to calm the creature and allow the group to leave. On their way back, Zekk took them through the headquarters of the Lost Ones, a gang of malcontent youths. The Lost Ones emerged, seeking to rough up the explorers, but the Jedi fled with Zekk to the urchin's mid-level apartment, which he shared with Peckhum, the supply pilot for the Praxeum.

The next day, the Solo family took a private vacation to one of Coruscant's polar ice caps, where they rode tauntauns, turbo-skied, and played in the snow. They also convinced their mother to allow Zekk, Lowbacca, and Djo to attend the diplomatic banquet for the ambassador from Karnak Alpha that night. They attended, where Solo found that the egg Zekk had sold yesterday was presented to the ambassador as a gift for Karnak Alpha's collection of rare animals. Zekk was not fully prepared for the banquet, wearing an outdated suit and accidentally eating his bouquet, thinking it a salad. He stormed off, embarrassed, at the conclusion of the dinner.

The next day, the youths went to visit Zekk, but he was not in. When he still did not turn up at his apartment after an hour of waiting, they were convinced that something was wrong. They left a message for him, but when they came back the next day, there was still no sign of their friend. Solo led the search for Zekk, thinking the older boy was hiding out of embarrassment. The next day Peckhum arrived at the Imperial Palace, having returned from his tour of duty aboard an Orbital Solar Energy Transfer Satellite. Zekk had left no notes for him, and he was convinced the boy was not simply hiding; something had happened to him. Peckhum offered a list of suggestions as to where they might look for Zekk, and Solo took charge of the effort as his sister and Lowbacca went back with Peckhum to the OSETS in order to make badly-needed repairs. Using Anakin and C-3PO as well as Djo, he began systematically combing the areas the old pilot had suggested.

Paired with Djo, Solo searched the undercity, with Djo's quick thinking saving him from a crumbling bridge. They pressed on, and Solo was able to use the Force to sense Zekk. They found him speaking to the Lost Ones; he urged them to leave. When Kai emerged, it became clear that Zekk had been recruited by the Shadow Academy, a Force-sensitive whom the twins had never even suspected. Solo argued against the promises of the Second Imperium, trying to persuade Zekk that he was making a mistake. When Kai and her assistants made to intervene, Solo and Djo made to flee, but were stunned. The agents of the Second Imperium simply left them, and they only came to when Organa Solo arrived with Anakin, having tracked the students down. Solo alerted his sister aboard the orbital mirror, and she was able to realize that the Shadow Academy had been hiding, cloaked, in the Coruscant system. She exposed it to the New Republic fleet, but the mobile station fled into hyperspace before it could be disabled. Zekk left them a message pod before the station departed, promising that he held them no ill will, but was determined to make something of himself at the Shadow Academy.

Skywalker picked the students up from Coruscant, taking them back to the Praxeum. Skywalker grew increasingly worried about the threat that the Shadow Academy posed, expecting war to erupt with the growing power. He determined that it was necessary for the students to accelerate their training. For the four most experienced students&mdash;the Solos and their friends&mdash;it was time to craft their own lightsabers. Taking components from Jaina's store of spare parts, Solo spent a week meticulously assembling his weapon. The Corusca gem he had acquired became the focusing crystal of his lightsaber, creating a green blade.

Devastating accident
"I guess all I really need is for you to accept my apology." "Apology accepted. I&hellip;forgive you, if that is what you desire. Jacen, my friend."

- Jacen Solo and Tenel Ka Djo

The trainees spent weeks practicing, first with sticks against dueling droids, and then with their lightsabers against targets. When Skywalker deemed them ready, they used remotes for blaster-deflection practice, their eyes covered with a visor which filtered out the sight of the remotes so that they were obliged to trust in the Force. After that, they moved on to sparring with each other. Solo faced Djo, and attempted to keep her off-balance with constant banter while aiming to maneuver her onto bad footing. Djo would not be distracted or caught unaware. The pair ended up locking blades, each pushing to overpower the other. The clash took a tragic turn when Djo's lightsaber, hastily made with flawed crystals, failed. Meeting no resistance, Solo's blade swept through Djo's left arm, severing it above the elbow.

Solo was aghast, and was left wandering the halls in shock as Skywalker took Djo in to receive treatment. Skywalker maintained that the girl was not yet ready to see visitors, preventing Solo from apologizing. Unable to keep from dwelling on the incident, he finally fell asleep that night, only to be awakened by the feeling that Djo was in trouble. He rushed outside, where he saw a ship departing from the landing pad, with Skywalker watching. Djo had been picked up by her family; Solo never had a chance to say goodbye.

Tionne Solusar, one of the Praxeum's teachers, attempted to help guide the remaining friends through their lightsaber training. Now uncomfortable with their weapons and still horrified at what had happened to their friend, they were counseled by Soluar, but still did not overcome their grief. Deciding Djo could use a visit from her friends, Skywalker took the three to Hapes in the Shadow Chaser, the craft he had captured from the Second Imperium. When it became clear that they were visiting Hapes rather than Dathomir, the world Solo believed to be her homeworld, Skywalker finally explained that the girl Solo had known as Tenel Ka was in fact Tenel Ka Chume Ta' Djo, daughter of the Hapan Prince Isolder and Queen Mother Teneniel Djo, originally from Dathomir. She had kept her identity hidden to keep her friends from letting her standing as heir to the Hapan throne influence their view of her; she identified more with her Dathomiri heritage at any rate.

Solo joyously greeted the young princess on landing, and Skywalker, knowing Djo's ever-scheming grandmother Ta'a Chume was determined to prevent Djo from becoming a Jedi, arranged for the students to remain with Djo for a month. After settling in, Solo was visited by the princess, and each tried to take blame for the accident; finally, Solo attempted to defuse the tension with his trademark phrase, "Want to hear a joke?" That brought Djo to laughter for the first time since Solo had met her, glad to be reunited with her friend. They decided to contest blame no longer; Djo accepted Solo's apology and the pair hugged tearfully.

They spent the rest of the day in Djo's quarters with Jaina and Lowbacca. When it came time for dinner, Ta'a Chume summoned them to the dining hall. Djo refused, preferring to take her meal with her friends. Almost immediately, a bomb detonated in the dining hall. They were immediately evacuated to Reef Fortress Island, a royal stronghold. There, Djo picked out a special room for each of her friends; Solo's was lined with a vast aquarium, a fact he greatly appreciated. They relaxed for a few days, but eventually grew bored and restless on the small island. Their caretaker, Ambassador Yfra, offered to let them take a wavespeeder out for the day. Pre-programmed, it was to take them out in a loop, but when the craft traveled across a vast, foul-smelling expanse of seaweed, Jaina and Lowbacca disengaged the autopilot and attempted to turn around. However, Solo, touching the seaweed curiously, was ensnared by a tentacle that tried to pull him overboard. He was saved, but the carnivorous sea life lashed the wavespeeder with multiple tentacles. Solo lit his lightsaber and defended against the creature, from which the wavespeeder escaped. On examining the autopilot, Lowbacca found that it had been programmed to strand them in the middle of the dangerous stretch of sea.



They returned to Reef Fortress, where private investigation confirmed that the wavespeeder had been sabotaged. Djo suspected Yfra was making her own play for power. That night, Djo woke the other students; the power had been cut and Bartokk assassins were infiltrating the fortress. Ta'a Chume, who had arrived at the retreat that day, was the target. The Jedi rushed to defend her, and Solo made his first kills as he cut down assassins. As more Bartokks attempted to gain access to the Queen Mother's chambers, the group fled out the window and into a wavespeeder. Jaina and Lowbacca piloted the craft through the rock formation known as the Dragon's Teeth, and when that failed to wreck their pursuers, over the patch of carnivorous seaweed. There, Ta'a Chume was able to shoot down the pursuing craft, plunging the Bartokk to their deaths.

They returned to the mainland, where Yfra, who had attempted to assume power, was arrested. Djo declared her intention to return to the Praxeum, and the return of her parents to Hapes overruled any objection Ta'a Chume might have raised. Skywalker returned the youths to Yavin 4, where Djo built a new lightsaber. She insisted that Solo spar with her once more, a sign of trust and a way of moving beyond the accident; the duel went flawlessly.

The Second Imperium strikes
"This is Jacen Solo. Attention, New Republic. We have an emergency! This is Jacen Solo on Yavin 4, requesting immediate assistance. We are under attack by the Shadow Academy! Repeat. Imperial fighters attacking the Jedi academy&mdash;request assistance immediately. Our shields are down. We've got ground battles taking place and air strikes from TIE fighters. We desperately need immediate assistance."

- Jacen Solo

When Lowbacca became withdrawn, Solo noticed that something was wrong with his friend. Eventually, the Wookiee shared that he worried for his sister, Sirrakuk, who was approaching the age for her hrrtayyk ceremony and might act on her own, as Lowbacca had, and endanger herself in an attempt to prove her status. Moreover, Raabakyysh, Sirrakuk's friend and Lowbacca's romantic interest, had gone missing when she earlier attempted to duplicate Lowbacca's solo feat. Lowbacca was traveling to Kashyyyk to accompany Sirrakuk on her hrrtayyk, and the Solos and Djo promised to accompany him. Chewbacca took the group to Kashyyyk aboard the Shadow Chaser, and Solo attempted to fill the time in transit by explaining humor to Djo, a lecture which had no impact. In the Force, Solo sensed a creature aboard the ship; he found a rodent living in the ion shield generator circuits. Just as he retrieved it, the Shadow Chaser was pulled out of hyperspace by an ion storm. Without the protection of the shields, its navigational computer was disabled, but the two Wookiees were still able to lay in a course for Kashyyyk.



They arrived in Thikkiiana City, where they stayed with Lowbacca's family and toured the advanced electronics factory in the treetop city. After a few days spent on Kashyyyk, Solo, Djo, Lowbacca, and Sirrakuk received a distressed message from the factory suggesting the Wookiees' parents, who were employed there, had been injured. As they arrived, a squadron of TIE fighters began strafing the facility. The young Jedi rushed to the defensive turrets surrounding the station, where Solo shot down a TIE bomber before it could deliver its payload and brought down a few more fighters. When more Wookiees rushed to the scene, Solo abandoned his turret in favor of searching out the core of the problem; Lowbacca had pinpointed the traffic control tower as the site from which the automated defenses had been compromised and the attack was being directed. Rushing to the tower, they were intercepted by Zekk&mdash;the Second Imperium warrior commanding the strike&mdash;and the Nightsister Vonnda Ra. When stormtrooper reinforcements arrived, Solo decided the battle could not be won and ordered a retreat.

Hotly pursued, the Jedi descended to the lower levels of Kashyyyk's jungle with Sirrakuk. Solo and Djo followed the Wookiees through the darkness, hoping to evade the Imperials. However, they were forced to ignite their lightsabers and reveal their position when they were attacked by one of the myriad dangerous creatures of Kashyyyk's depths. Surrounded, they were forced to surrender. Solo was able to persuade a fierce slug to come to their aid, allowing them to flee once more. They were caught again, but Djo dispatched the stormtroopers while Sirrakuk and Vonnda Ra, struggling, fell into the maw of a syren plant. Working with the other Jedi, Solo helped free Sirrakuk by soothing the plant, but left Ra inside to be consumed. While inside, Sirrakuk seized the prized fibers from the plant which completed her hrrtayyk.



They tracked down Jaina, who had followed them with Chewbacca, hoping to arrange a rescue. A branch had given way and plunged Chewbacca lower, breaking his leg. She had been visited by Zekk, who warned her away from the academy, claiming it would be struck soon, before departing. They brought the injured Wookiee to the surface, where he was treated and repairs on the Shadow Chaser were completed before they rushed back to the defense of the Jedi Praxeum. They landed before any attack had been made and alerted Skywalker, who immediately began organizing a defense. He had Solo monitor communications in the system and admit Peckhum, making his regular supply run, under the newly installed shields. No sooner had Peckhum landed than the Second Imperium forces entered the system.

A saboteur was able to land and take the shields down, forcing Skywalker to consider evacuating the Praxeum. Solo rushed to his room to set his pets free so they would not be killed in any bombing before reporting to the Grand Audience Chamber with the rest of the Praxeum's occupants. There, Skywalker ordered the Jedi to evacuate into the jungle, where they could better fight the invaders. Solo and Peckhum took the latter's Lightning Rod into orbit to move outside the range of the Shadow Academy's jamming and broadcast a distress message to the New Republic. He managed to get an open-channel transmission past the jamming before the ship was beset by TIE fighters. One, piloted by the Lost Ones leader Norys, relentlessly pursued the Lightning Rod back into atmosphere&mdash;where Norys was shot down by Qorl, who was leading the TIE assault on the Praxeum, for insubordination and disobedience. The Lightning Rod went down, breaking Peckhum's arm in the crash. Solo was forced to pilot the badly damaged ship from its landing site to an emergency landing at the Great Temple. He put down at the very conclusion of the battle&mdash;after the Shadow Academy had been destroyed, Brakiss and Kai killed, the Dark Jedi routed, and the Second Imperium fleet defeated&mdash;as Jaina dueled Zekk and a saboteur's bomb caused damage in the Great Temple.

With the battle resolved and the Second Imperium thoroughly defeated, the students traveled to GemDiver Station to recover in Calrissian's bacta tanks. Rebuilding of the Great Temple began, and the students participated in the construction work. Meanwhile, Zekk went into a coma upon returning from GemDiver Station. Solo was at his side when the former darksider woke up four days later. Zekk still felt awkward and guilty over his time at the Shadow Academy, but he worked with the group of friends to repair the Lightning Rod and bonded. When it was repaired, Zekk departed aboard it, not ready to train with Skywalker.

The search for Bornan Thul


Soon thereafter, Djo was given a ship, the Rock Dragon, by her parents. This pleasant surprise was soon joined by the arrival of Anakin, with Han Solo and Chewbacca, at Yavin 4. Anakin believed that his puzzle-solving mind could be put to work in the rebuilding effort, and Organa Solo would be arriving in less than a week to spend her birthday with the rest of the family. Jaina suggested to Han that the twins and their friends travel to the Graveyard&mdash;the ruins of Alderaan&mdash;in Djo's ship and retrieve a piece of the rubble as a memento for their mother's gift. The elder Solo reluctantly agreed to allow it, and soon the party set off for the Graveyard. They entered it and found one asteroid almost entirely composed of pure metal, a former part of Alderaan's core. Landing, they donned spacesuits and cut out a section of pure metal.

As soon as they attempted to leave, the Rock Dragon came under attack, and the Jedi had to fake an explosion and take cover inside an asteroid in order to lose their pursuer. The students worked together to make what repairs they could, but as they attempted escape, the enemy ship showed up at the mouth of the cave and fired, collapsing the cave and burying the Rock Dragon. Lowbacca's translator droid M-TD, plugged into the ship's systems, detected that the ship's data banks were being accessed by remote slicer. The trainees left the ship to check on the cave-in, but their attacker soon blasted through the rubble and demanded information on Bornan Thul&mdash;Raynar Thul's father&mdash;who the youths knew had recently gone missing, with Han Solo searching for him. Their attacker identified herself as Boba Fett, but unknown to Solo or his companions, she was Ailyn Vel, Fett's daughter, in disguise. On being told that she had misinterpreted a transmission the Jedi had made to Raynar Thul&mdash;that they had not found Bornan Thul, only a birthday gift for Leia Organa Solo&mdash;Vel left, causing another cave-in to trap the friends once more and suggesting that she would use them as bait for Han Solo, who might know more.

Meanwhile, M-TD had tapped into the Slave IV ' s records with the Rock Dragon ' s own remote slicer, and files showed that Nolaa Tarkona, the Twi'lek politician whom the elder Thul had been on his way to meet, had issued the bounty on Thul which Vel hoped to collect. M-TD also detected a decoy distress message sent by Vel to Solo's father. Solo and Djo went back outside to clear a way out while Jaina and Lowbacca worked on repairs. When they were ready, they burst into the asteroid field, and Solo broadcast a warning and distress message. Vel disabled the Rock Dragon, but before she could destroy the ship, Zekk arrived in the Lightning Rod and drove off Vel. The Lightning Rod disappeared once more, and the youths were left to drift in space until the Millennium Falcon arrived and towed them to safety. Zekk returned from his pursuit of Vel and announced that he intended to become a bounty hunter himself and search for Thul.

They returned to Yavin 4, where the Solo family celebrated Organa Solo's birthday, at which she greatly appreciated the twins' gift. Solo made a conscious effort to be more friendly toward Raynar Thul, and when he learned that Thul was being sent to his mother, Aryn Dro Thul, during the stressful time for his family, Solo suggested that he and his friends go along to keep Thul company and work on his Jedi exercises.

Aboard the Thul flagship Tradewyn, they were warmly received and given a tour of the bridge. While on the bridge, they witnessed the next hyperspace jump of the Bornaryn Trading Fleet&mdash;in which the Tradwyn emerged alone, routed into a bounty hunter's trap. When Raynar and Aryn Dro Thul were ushered to safety in a secure cabin, Solo felt through the Force that something was amiss. He and Djo followed the guard assigned to them, Kusk, to the docking bay, where they found Kusk attempting to take the Thuls prisoner. Using the Force, the three Jedi captured Kusk, while the bounty hunter's ship was destroyed in battle.

On learning that Bornan Thul had last been seen on Kuar, Solo decided that the young Jedi ought to examine the world for leads. Raynar remained safe with his family while the other students set out in the Rock Dragon. On Kuar, they found a landmark which seemed to be the likeliest site for any meeting on the abandoned world. Landing, they searched and found a House of Thul sash; on it was written a message from Bornan Thul warning that there was great danger for the galaxy's Humans if he was captured. While further investigating, the group was attacked by a combat arachnid. They were saved by the intervention of Raabakyysh, the friend Lowbacca had thought dead. They fled attacks from more combat arachnids and made it back to their ship. Lowbacca spent time catching up with Raabakyysh, who seemed ill at ease around the other Jedi. The female Wookiee had been injured attempting her rite of passage, and had fled the planet in shame. The next morning, Solo suggested that he visit the other Wookiee on her ship, the Rising Star, with Lowbacca. From her, he learned that a trader named Fonterrat had been on Kuar recently, sent by Raabakyyshy's employer, Nolaa Tarkona's Diversity Alliance. Solo immediately surmised that it had been Fonterrat whom Thul met before departing Kuar. At that moment, Tyko Thul, Bornan's brother, arrived. After they had left the fleet, he had determined that he ought to aid them in their search. His disparaging comments about Tarkona caused Raabakyysh to leave the group, and they did not discover any new clues on Kuar.



That night, they were attacked by several ships, which deployed assassin droids led by IG-88A. They fled into the caves nearby, where they were corned between the assassin droids and more combat arachnids. Both the droids and the Jedi battled the arachnids, but when Thul was seized by one, IG-88A rescued Thul and left with him. The Jedi had to withdraw to their ship, repair the damage it had suffered in the droid attack, and return to the Praxeum.

There, Raabakyysh eventually visited, taking Lowbacca back to Kashyyyk with her so that they could announce her survival. Soon afterward, Lusa arrived at the academy, a Chironian who had been one of Hethrir's Force-sensitive captives when the Solo children were kidnapped and whom the twins knew. Lusa told the Solos and their friends that she had joined the Diversity Alliance, which taught hatred and resentment of Humans; she left after being assigned to what was effectively an assassination mission.

Raynar Thul returned from the Bornaryn fleet and decided that, with his uncle kidnapped, he would travel to Mechis III to watch over the droid assembly lines of the planet Tyko Thul administered. The Solos and Djo volunteered to take him there in the Rock Dragon. On landing, Tyko Thul's protocol droid, 3D-4X, insisted no visitors were allowed, but they entered the main office anyway. On attempting to use the equipment, they activated a security lockdown and had to eliminate automated security blasters before they could unlock the door and leave the office. Just outside the door, however, was IG-88A, and with him Tyko Thul. The elder Thul had faked his kidnapping, hoping to draw his brother out of hiding. They became Thul's guests, but while fitting M-TD with a repulsorlift enhancement, Zekk arrived. As a bounty hunter, he had been contracted by Bornan Thul&mdash;disguised but found out by Zekk&mdash;to rescue Tyko.

They were interrupted by a strafing run by Dengar, a bounty hunter who had followed Zekk. Convinced Bornan Thul was with them, Dengar was distracted by Zekk and Jaina in the Lightning Rod while Solo, Djo, and Raynar Thul attempted to flee in the Rock Dragon. Before they could get to the ship, though, Dengar landed and held them at gunpoint. Solo joined with the other students to distract Dengar by threatening to topple his ship over the edge of the rooftop. IG-88A arrived and disarmed Dengar, forcing the bounty hunter to retreat. With the threat over, Jaina and M-TD reprogrammed IG-88A so that the former bounty hunter droid would track down Bornan Thul and protect him.

The Diversity Alliance
"First we send a message. Then we blow up a weapons depot." "Hey, just another day's work for a bunch of Jedi trainees."

- Bornan Thul and Jacen Solo



While on Mechis III, the group received a message from Lowbacca's parents, stating that he, his sister Sirrakuk, and Raabakyysh had traveled to the Diversity Alliance's headquarters on Ryloth. Though the young Jedi returned to Yavin 4, they remained worried that their friend had fallen in with the dangerous anti-Human group. While camping, they decided to travel to Ryloth to get news of Lowbacca, who had been out of contact too long for their liking. When Thul was injured by a rakhmar attack, the arrival of Lusa, announcing that Ta'a Chume had arrived demanding to see Djo, allowed a way to get Thul back to the Great Temple. On their return, Solo accompanied Djo to see her grandmother. The Queen Mother had researched the Diversity Alliance, and her numerous sources had revealed that the organization was profiting from the sales of Ryloth's ryll spice and regularly hired bounty hunters to eliminate any defectors; its leadership appeared to be far more menacing than it let on to the public. Lusa confirmed the account and warned that Lowbacca would be in great danger if he attempted to leave the organization.

The Solos, Djo, and Thul took it upon themselves to leave for Ryloth, refusing to alert any adults lest it become a diplomatic matter or a New Republic crackdown put Lowbacca in danger. They sneaked onto the planet by clamping the Rock Dragon onto an automated freighter, then transferring to one of the ship's cargo pods. Undiscovered in the search of the Rock Dragon, they were able to skulk into the tunnel network of the Diversity Alliance's headquarters. While attempting to contact Lowbacca, they were found out by Hovrak, Tarkona's adjutant and head of security. Outnumbered, the students were captured and dragged before Tarkona. Raabakyysh exposed their identities as valuable hostages, but Solo attempted to attack Tarkona by telekinetically manipulating their captured lightsabers. His control was insufficient to do any damage, however, and he was again forced to surrender.

The young Jedi were sentenced to labor in the ryll mines. Solo and Djo were assigned to harvest stalactites of concentrated ryll from the ceiling of the caves. Eventually, Lowbacca discovered that his friends had been imprisoned and, posing as a guard, took them into his custody. Rearmed, they headed out of the cave network into the open air of Ryloth while Lowbacca retrieved Sirrakuk. Before they could escape fully, they encountered several guards. Jaina covered their escape by destroying a weapons cache, creating a cave-in that cut Solo and Djo off from Jaina and Thul. They ultimately emerged outside Ryloth's temperate zone, on the frigid night side of the planet. Solo and Djo forged through the bitter cold and rocky, hilly terrain toward the habitable zone, sharing warmth and emotion. When a heat storm entered the night side, they had to take shelter from the fierce, scalding heat. In the cave where they took refuge, they found Kur, a former Twi'lek clan leader who had been defeated and exiled by Tarkona. Briefly regaining their strength in Kur's cave, they set out again with the old Twi'lek in tow. They were rescued by Lowbacca and Sirrakuk in the Rock Dragon before they even reached habitable land. Meanwhile, Skywalker, Zekk, and Lusa arrived and picked up Jaina and Thul, allowing the group to depart Ryloth.

They recovered on Coruscant, where Organa Solo dedicated the resources of the New Republic to stopping the Diversity Alliance, which they now knew from Zekk's investigations and Hovrak's statements intended to release a plague across the galaxy, killing all Humans. After they healed, the Organa Solo had the young Jedi speak before the New Republic Senate about their encounter with the Diversity Alliance. Several nonhuman senators were critical of their testimony, as the youths had broken into the headquarters of another government. Cilghal, a Jedi Knight and senator, proposed a fact-finding mission to which the Senate agreed.

As Zekk had earlier planted a tracking beacon aboard Bornan Thul's vessel, he set out with Raynar Thul to bring the wanted man to safety. The Solos, Lowbacca, and Djo decided to back up their friends, arriving at the rendezvous in time to drive off Ailyn Vel, still posing as her father, and rescue the elder Thul. Before Thul had abandoned his ship and programmed it to self-destruct, he had noticed Vel slicing his computers, which gave her the location of the Emperor's Plague Storehouse, where the anti-Human virus Tarkona desired was stored. Deciding it was vital they set out for the storehouse before Tarkona could get there, they sent a message to Coruscant requesting reinforcements meet them there and headed for the secret former Imperial base.



Reaching the asteroid base after twelve hours of travel, they found that the main chamber contained multiple canisters of the deadly disease. They planned to use the munitions stored at the depot to destroy the asteroid and the plague with it, and split up to plant their explosives. Before they had finished, the Diversity Alliance arrived, and Solo, his sister, and Djo found themselves chased by Diversity Alliance agents. They fled to the Rock Dragon, setting up explosives to cover their launch and catch their pursuers. Once they launched, they were attacked by the Diversity Alliance fleet, but the swift arrival of a New Republic task force under General Solo saved them and put the Diversity Alliance's armada on the defensive. The Jedi returned to the asteroid to place and trigger the rest of their explosives. The New Republic fleet bombarded the asteroid as well, after Zekk, Lowbacca, and Raynar Thul had escaped; Bornan Thul had given his life attempting to destroy the plague and kill Tarkona. Tarkona escaped in a shuttle with Raabakyssh, but she had already been infected with another of the artificial diseases stored in the depot and was dying; Raabakyysh had chosen to flee and quarantine the pair rather than risk spreading the disease farther.

The Diversity Alliance was thoroughly defeated, and Solo and his friends became involved in the settlement of the situation on Coruscant, weeding out the ringleaders of the Diversity Alliance captives from those who had not known of the group's more extremist plans and helping the former members of the Diversity Alliance rejoin the New Republic.

Making peace
"We'll find a way to help your planet." "Right. A few pampered kids and one former smuggler will fix everything. I feel better already."

- Jacen Solo and Anja Gallandro

Lusa and Zekk both decided to begin Jedi training, which pleased the other Jedi trainees immensely. In the aftermath of the Diversity Alliance crisis, they enjoyed some downtime, reflecting on the gravity of the events which had occurred. When Solo expressed doubt that any events could shock them after the deeds they had already done, he was proved wrong, to his great delight, when Djo kissed him. After some time spent training, Han Solo arrived on Yavin 4 to take his children, including Anakin, to the 24 ABY Blockade Runners' Derby at Ord Mantell, for which he would serve as grand marshal. The Millennium Falcon served as the pace craft, taking a trial run through the course. During that flight, the ship narrowly avoided several mines. The race was put off to the next day, at which time the Solos were quite surprised to witness Zekk win the race with Lowbacca and Djo in the Rock Dragon.

After the intense media attention died down, the youths turned their attention to analyzing the debris of the mines which had nearly killed them, hoping to find out who wanted them dead. During a lunch break, an uneasy feeling in the Force led them to check the evidence, which was in the process of being stolen by camouflaged, color-changing creatures. Fighting the thieves, they were surprised by the arrival of a lightsaber-wielding woman. The thieves were able to get away with the evidence, but on one of those killed in the fight was a Black Sun tattoo. The woman introduced herself as Anja Gallandro, the daughter of an accomplished gunfighter Han Solo had once battled. The elder Solo tried to explain to her that he had not killed her father; when Gallandro drew his blaster to shoot a fellow treasure hunter, automated security systems in the area had killed Gallandro. However, the young woman would have none of it and left, castigating the Solos for never having aided her nearby war-torn homeworld, Anobis.



Solo found his mind turning to Gallandro's obvious pain and anger&mdash;and by his father's incomplete answer to her accusations, as Han Solo had not been able to explain the actual circumstances of her father's death before she left, saying only that the death was not his fault. Solo had sensed his father's sense of guilt over the matter, and discussed the matter with his siblings. When his father entered the room, Solo pressed him to explain, which he did; the elder Solo had avoided giving all the detail to Gallandro so as not to tar her image of her father. Still, Jacen Solo could not quite shake his doubts over the incident and his father's clear sense of guilt.

The next morning, the Solos set out for Anobis on a fact-finding mission with their Jedi friends. Before they left, Gallandro approached them, and Solo invited her along when she mentioned her intention to return to Anobis. She explained the nature of Anobis's civil war between Rebellion-aligned valley farmers and mountain miners dependent on Imperial trade, and Solo found himself sympathizing with her miner background. She also explained the lightsaber she used, telling them she had bought it, and was not a trained Force-user. On entering the Anobis system, they encountered the Rude Awakening, piloted by Lilmit. Suspecting it of gunrunning, Han Solo boarded the craft in his function as New Republic emissary, and with the Jedi students he found the hold full of illegal munitions. The New Republic representatives forced Lilmit to jettison and destroy his cargo before they landed in a farming village on Anobis. There they learned that the farmers' fields had been mined by the mountain villagers.

That evening, the village came under attack from a migrating herd of carnivorous knaars. The Jedi volunteered to stand and fight against the massive herd while as many villagers as possible were evacuated in the Millennium Falcon. Resistance proved impossible against the tremendous numbers, and instead the Jedi led the villagers though the treacherous minefields safely. As the villagers moved beyond the traditional territorial boundary of the knaars, Solo sensed the predators' unease and used the Force to convince them to give up their pursuit. In the aftermath, Han flew several leaders to a mountain village for refuge and to discuss peace, while the Jedi led the rest of the villagers through the dangerous forest and to the village. When they arrived, after avoiding most of the booby traps with which the forest had been seeded, they found themselves captured by hostile miners.

The villagers were imprisoned while the leader of the miners, Elis, attempted to persuade the New Republic emissaries that the farmers were the real villains of the civil war. Both sides inflicted vicious damage on the other, but each was tired of the endless destruction and wanted the war to end. When Elis's brother, Protas, was killed in an accident while placing burrowing detonators in the abandoned farming village, and the New Republicans revealed that Lilmit had been selling weapons to both sides, the diplomats were able to convince both sides to put aside their twenty-year feud and once more work together to clear their traps and make a life on Anobis. Using the Force, Solo and his friends were able to sense traps and remove them from a safe distance. In the aftermath, Solo suggested that Gallandro attend the Praxeum and explore her seeming Force powers.

Battling Black Sun
Gallandro spent weeks at the academy, during which both Solo and Zekk found themselves attracted to and spending time with Gallandro, who did not get along with the rest of the group. The two boys worked with her on lightsaber technique, and found themselves aggravated by the hot-tempered woman's aggressive, risky fighting. Solo nearly lost his own arm in practice with her, and Skywalker admitted to him that he felt no Force-sensitivity in Gallandro, only a darkness. Solo and Zekk's closeness with Gallandro drove a wedge between them and the rest of their friends, but a visit from Lando Calrissian offered an opportunity to bring the group together. Calrissian was planning to invest in an amusement center in Cloud City, SkyCenter Galleria, and wanted the Solos, Lowbacca, Djo, and Zekk to test the center and provide ideas. Solo suggested that Calrissian invite Gallandro along.



On arriving at Cloud City, however, they learned that Calrisian's business partner, Cojahn, had died in what was ruled a suicide. They toured the facility, but it was hard to enjoy the attractions after Cojahn's death. Calrissian was not convinced that it had been a suicide, and the Jedi suggested that they investigate. The next morning, before their investigation began, Calrissian told the students that he recognized Gallandro to be under the influence of andris. Solo found this hard to believe, but on questioning she admitted to using the spice. Upset, she vowed she was not addicted and stormed off.

When Calrissian learned that a band Cojahn had booked&mdash;Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes&mdash;had fled Cloud City for Clak'dor VII, he left to investigate the lead with Jaina and Zekk. Solo, Djo, and Lowbacca poked around SkyCenter Galleria looking for suspicious activity, but Gallandro was largely uninterested in their inquiry. When they noticed an Ugnaught who matched the description of the former construction foreman Cojahn had fired, the Jedi students followed him into the floating city's network of service tunnels and into Port Town. There, the Ugnaught led them into an ambush by seven armed Black Sun thugs. The Jedi ran, chased by the hit men, but the Ugnaught managed to drop them down a chute to Cloud City's exterior. Lowbacca and Djo were able to catch an antenna, but Solo plummeted into Bespin's atmosphere. He sent out a cry for help through the Force, causing a thranta rider named M'kim to direct his mount to catch the falling boy. M'kim refused to take him back immediately, suggesting that Solo should allow the assassins to believe him dead for the moment. Instead, M'kim took Solo to a floating mat of algae and told the Jedi that he had seen Cojahn fall to his death, pushed by Czethros&mdash;the old bounty hunter foe of Han Solo and supposed legitimate businessman Solo had met on Ord Mantell during the Blockade Runners' Derby.

M'kim then took Solo back to Cloud City, where he shared a happy reunion with his companions, who had thought him dead. Calrissian and the others returned, having learned from D'an that Black Sun had been attempting to muscle into Cloud City's entertainment sector and pressuring Cojahn. Calrissian demanded an investigation, and Solo, Djo, and Lowbacca were summoned for a debriefing on the assassination attempt. On reaching the supposed site of their report, however, it was deserted except for two of the Black Sun assassins and a pair of corrupt Wing Guard officers. The Jedi fled in a pair of cloud cars, with Solo shaking his pursuers by flying into a storm cell and using the Force to direct a pack of velkers to attack the following cloud car. He returned to Cloud City, and there, with the conspiracy uncovered, Calrissian began to break up Black Sun's influence over Cloud City. Czethros himself, however, slipped out of the grasp of the New Republic.

After the students returned to Yavin 4, Gallandro eventually ran out of andris, driving her to steal the Lightning Rod and take off in an attempt to secure a new supply of spice to feed her addiction. Skywalker assigned the Solos, Lowbacca, Djo, and Zekk to find her, recover the ship, and help their friend battle her addiction. The ship's course as it fled Yavin, and Gallandro's addiction, suggested that her destination was Kessel.

Solo felt that something was wrong with the mission, and on arriving on Kessel, the Jedi met with Nien Nunb, the Sullustan who administered the spice mines of Kessel for their owner Calrissian. Nunb offered his aid, but warned the students that he suspected some of his employees may be acting against him and the Jedi should be alert for betrayal. While the youths searched for any sign of the Lightning Rod, they noticed that the Rude Awakening, which they had earlier encountered running guns to Anobis under Lilmit, had docked in a secluded area, authorized by the former Second Administrator Torvon&mdash;who had died in the process of attempting to assassinate Nunb. The Jedi felt they should look into Lilmit's presence, and on confronting him were able to learn that Gallandro had visited and spoken with Lilmit before leaving for Mon Calamari. Additionally, the smuggler was desperate to leave Kessel quickly, suggesting that whatever conspiracy was acting against Nunb would soon come to a head.



The Jedi decided to divide their forces, with Solo, Zekk, and Djo pursuing Gallandro in the Rock Dragon while Jaina and Lowbacca remained behind to protect Nunb. Solo thought to signal Cilghal ahead of time, requesting assistance. When they arrived on Mon Calamari, Cilghal had already begun inquiries and arranged to meet the Jedi on Foamwander City. Cilghal was able to track the Lightning Rod to Crystal Reef, an elite arctic resort city. There, the resort's information systems were able to locate Gallandro, at that moment attempting to procure a submersible. Accompanied by Cilghal, the students approached Gallandro. They were able to convince her to explain herself, at which the young woman finally let down her guard and admitted her addiction. Additionally, she revealed that she had been working for Czethros, only to realize she had been manipulated and used by the Black Sun kingpin. Solo's friendship had helped convince her that she had been mistaken to hate the Solos, and she no longer wished to harm them. Instead, she was determined to destroy Czethros's cache of spice under the ice cap.

Taking a submersible, they were able to locate and destroy the cache. As they finished doing so, a gigantic and very rare Great Arctic Skra'akan began to harass the submersible. When it consumed some of the free-floating andris, its attacks became frenzied. They were able to escape by sealing their damaged submersible inside a fissure in the ice cap, but being thus trapped presented its own problems. As Gallandro became overcome by withdrawal in their cramped quarters, escape efforts came to a halt. Solo and his friends gathered around Gallandro to support her as Cilghal used her skills in healing to remove the toxins causing the woman's symptoms. With that complete, Djo suggested they use their lightsabers to clear the ice around the craft. Suiting up for the frigid waters, Solo helped carve away ice until the submersible could move freely.

They returned safely to Crystal Reef, where Zekk recovered the Lightning Rod, leaving only Solo and Djo to pilot the Rock Dragon back to Kessel. Solo and Djo enjoyed their time together, but were alarmed to learn that on Kessel, Jaina and Lowbacca had narrowly foiled a takeover attempt by Black Sun, capturing Czethros and presenting Black Sun from enacting a scheme to take over various major galactic institutions and locations.

Skywalker's apprentice
"Okay, the thing of it is that you were shaped as a weapon by Jedi Masters who were part of a tradition that had developed into peacekeepers. I get the feeling, though, that's not how the Jedi began. I think the Jedi philosophy started as something that strengthened people within. The powers we manifest&mdash;I think those are all outgrowths of the internal strengthening, but a lot of those teachings were lost along the way. I mean, I feel the need for something inside."

- Jacen Solo, to Luke Skywalker

The students made their way back to Yavin 4. There, Solo made a gift to Djo, with whom he was increasingly close, of a necklace of precious gort-egg shell. Skywalker took the students aside individually, and spoke with them about their futures as Jedi. It was decided that Solo and his younger brother would become their uncle's apprentices, traveling with him and being personally tutored in the ways of the Force. Jaina would be apprenticed to Mara Jade Skywalker.

A celebration was to be held to honor the students' progress and accomplishments, and the students' families were invited. Solo was able to apologize to his father for doubting his account of the elder Gallandro's death, and Anja Gallandro herself apologized before taking her leave of the Praxeum. Lacking ability in the Force, she instead took a job with Calrissian. At the ceremony, all the Solo children, Djo, Lowbacca, Zekk, Thul, Lusa, Gallandro, and even M-TD were honored for their roles in foiling the recent plots against the New Republic. After the ceremony, the Solos and Skywalkers took a vacation to Crystal Reef, where they had been invited to enjoy a trip by the local authorities when Solo and his friends had first arrived.



As Skywalker's apprentice, Solo found himself looking to rediscover more aspects of the ancient Jedi, aspects which involved more than battling to uphold the peace. Despite this, Solo disapproved of his Master's desire to reestablish the Jedi High Council, as he had come to believe that being a Jedi Knight was a deeply personal, spiritual matter and Knights should be internally, not externally, guided. A Jedi Council, he felt, would only lead to politicking and corruption. In the same vein, he felt that the Praxeum from which he had recently graduated was a poor idea, too formal and stifling of individual growth. In Solo's eyes, students should find their own way to the Jedi before being taken on individually by a Master to explore the Force. Solo's unorthodox, authority-challenging views led to several discussions with Skywalker, who had a more traditional view of the Jedi's role but valued Solo's opinions and insights nonetheless. Solo also argued fiercely with his brother, who saw the Jedi as bringers of peace and keepers of order whose martial skills were of vital importance. Solo rejected that view, seeing internal harmony and understanding of the Force as a Jedi's goal; the Force was not to be used as a tool to project individual interpretations of the good. Despite this view, Solo felt it his responsibility to lecture his younger brother until Anakin accepted this as truth.

In 25 ABY, after accompanying Skywalker to a meeting of new Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya's Advisory Council on the role of the Jedi, Solo again entered an argument with his brother, which escalated to a lightsaber duel when each insisted that his view of the Force led to a superior connection with it and greater lightsaber technique thereby. Jacen Solo won the sparring session, but his victory hardly settled the philosophical dispute between the two brothers.

Shortly thereafter, the Skywalker and Solo families took a trip to Dubrillion, where Lando Calrissian was running a new mining operation on Dubrillion's sister world Destrillion and the Lando's Folly asteroid belt. During a stopover on Reecee, Solo's Master asked his opinion of resurrecting the Jedi Council, and revealed that he shared the same concerns; however, he felt that the Jedi required oversight and did have duties to the New Republic. Skywalker also rebuked Solo for the pride that he evidenced in his philosophical arguments and his contempt for Fey'lya, warning him against excessive confidence in his views.

On Dubrillion, they toured Calrissian's facilities, and the Solo children eagerly took the chance to "run the belt" by flying a TIE Advanced x1, modified with strong repulsor shields, along the edge of Lando's Folly. Solo went first, surviving over five and a half minutes before he struck an asteroid and spun out of control. Kept safe by the collision shields, Solo was added to the record board. Anakin barely surpassed his time, but Jaina set the new single-pilot record in her run. The performance fueled the debate between Jacen and Anakin Solo of inner peace versus outer skill. Jedi Knight Kyp Durron, currently leading a squadron of fighter pilots against smugglers and a faction of Jedi who argued for an active, interventionist view of of the Jedi, was on Dubrillion and was drawn into the argument when he arrived to congratulate Jaina on her performance. Solo chastised Durron for his actions, regarding him as borrowing trouble and reducing the Jedi to simple galactic police. Durron, undisturbed by Solo's arguments, left with his squadron to investigate odd activity in the Helska system. After Han Solo and Chewbacca made a harrowing paired run of the belt in which their TIE Bomber lost its remotely projected shields, they departed with Anakin to make a delivery to Sernpidal for Calrissian, while the Skywalkers left to investigate a report of trouble at the ExGal Society facility on Belkadan.

The first losses; the first victories
"It's just like when you were younger, Jacen. You're prepared for the job, but you've not done it yet. You're off thinking about the next big thing, and the little thing in front of you might eat you up. The Yuuzhan Vong aren't one of the little adventures we've had in our lives. They are totally serious, and if you look past them, you won get past them."

- Jaina Solo, to Jacen Solo

On Sernpidal and Belkadan, signs a mysterious new threat emerged. On Belkadan, terraformed through unknown means, Mara Jade Skywalker battled a warrior using living weaponry and who could not be felt in the Force. Over Helska 4, strange yorik coral ships destroyed Durron's Dozen-and-Two Avengers. Only Durron escaped to report on the frighteningly capable craft. The most devastating news for Solo came from Sernpidal, where a strange creature caused the moon Dobido to collide with the planet. Separated from the Millennium Falcon, Chewbacca was able to throw Anakin to safety. When Chewbacca could not be retrieved in time, Anakin was forced to speed away in the Millennium Falcon in order to save it and the refugees aboard. The Solos' Wookiee "uncle" died in the planetary catastrophe, among the first victims of the Yuuzhan Vong, an extragalactic race dedicated to conquering the galaxy.

Han and Anakin shepherded the Sernpidal refugees to Dubrillion, where the Yuuzhan Vong invaders followed. On Anakin's return, Solo learned of Chewbacca's death, and told his younger brother that, despite Han's anger, he had had no other choice and Chewbacca would not have wanted the others to die hopelessly attempting to save him. With the news that the enemy fleet was slowly approaching Dubrillion, Solo and his siblings volunteered to fight in the coming battle. Overcoming their parents' objections, they were allowed to pilot three of Calrissian's remotely shielded TIEs, armed with a single laser and rack of torpedoes, only so long as they remained in the atmosphere and within range of the Belt-Runner I, powering their shields.



When the battle came, the Solos flew as an atmospheric patrol, intercepting enemy coralskipper fighters which slipped through the orbital defenses before they could come within range of the planetary turbolasers. When Belt-Runner I came under attack, it was no longer able to shield them, leaving their fighters vulnerable. With the shields no longer in play, Jaina insisted the warning to stay atmospheric had ceased to be valid, and led the others into the main orbital battle. There, their excellent teamwork attracted enemy attention. While the swarm of enemies led the rest of the defenders to call a retreat to the atmosphere, Anakin insisted the Solos run the belt. He called to the other two Jedi through the Force, suggesting they join minds in the Force. Giving themselves over to the Force and sharing perceptions, they were able to evade the asteroids and easily target the Yuuzhan Vong fighters. The strain of the intense bond slowly proved too much for Anakin to coordinate, ending the experiment and forcing the unshielded Jedi to abandon Lando's Folly. Anakin was forced to jump blindly to hyperspace, and a furious Han ordered the twins back to Dubrillion.

With the Yuuzhan Vong attack blunted by the diversion of much of the attack force into the asteroid belt, the twins were greeted as heroes when they landed. In the aftermath of the experience, Solo felt that the perfect teamwork he had experienced called into question his belief that the Force was to be used purely internally, considering its application in battle too powerful and practical to ignore. Meanwhile, the Millennium Falcon recovered Anakin and returned to Dubrillion, where Calrissian's men had captured one of the enemy fighters, its pilot dead. Skywalker intended to use the ooglith cloaker environment suit and gnullith breather, combined with an iceborer ship, to infiltrate the Yuuzhan Vong base of operations on Helska 4; however, Solo was convinced that the Skywalkers should not undertake the mission; Jade Solo, who would be piloting the carry ship Merry Miner to deliver and recover the iceborer, was suffering from a severe and mysterious disease. Instead, the twins became convinced that they ought to be the ones to carry out the mission.

Convinced no one else would see the merits of their plan, the Solos did not seek permission before they took off in the Merry Miner, leaving only a message with R2-D2. In the Helska system, the launch of the iceborer went smoothly, but before he reached the planet, Solo sensed a cry for help through the Force. He altered his course toward the signal, alerting the Yuuzhan Vong to his presence, before bringing the iceborer through the thick crust of ice coating Helska 4's waters. He left the iceborer and, disguised in his ooglith cloaker, was assumed to be a Yuuzhan Vong by a procession of warriors who ordered him into line. This proved fortuitous, as the warriors traveled to a cell holding Durron's apprentice Miko Reglia, shot down in the earlier battle, and the woman Danni Quee, whom Solo was surprised to recognize as the source of the Force call. The warriors finally realizing that something was amiss, Solo was forced to battle them. Quee handled one, and Reglia, broken by Yuuzhan Vong torture, gave his life to remove the ooglith cloakers of a pair and carry them into the freezing water. Solo killed the other three and pulled Quee to the iceborer. He broke back through the ice and launched to space, where a New Republic task force had engaged the Yuuzhan Vong and been defeated. Jaina caught his ship and, with the Millennium Falcon and Jade Sabre, returned to Dubrillion.

Due to the design of the craft, Solo was forced to remain in the intensely cramped one-man tube with Quee for the entirety of the trip as he attempted to comfort the traumatized captive. Quee, a scientist at the ExGal-4 station on Belkadan, was able to explain much of the extragalactic aliens' invasion, equipment, and methodology: they sought to conquer the galaxy, and they utilized a living, sentient war coordinator, a yammosk, to direct the coralskippers' efforts. When Anakin and Quee came up with the idea of turning the yammosk's tremendous energy output back on the planet to freeze the planet by intense evaporation, Calrissian was able to provide the shieldships to reflect the energy. A quick stopover on Dubrillion allowed them to marshal their forces, and then the New Republic fighters returned to Helska, this time with Solo in the ventral turret of the Millennium Falcon. Many coralskippers had left to harry Dubrillion, and the attack took the Yuuzhan Vong by surprise. Solo provided cover for the shieldships as they sapped heat from Helska 4. The yammosk was killed, and the ice world exploded under the strain of the energy wreaking havoc on it.

While the Yuuzhan Vong attack had been blunted, Quee and the Solos and Skywalkers believed they had defeated only the earliest segment of a much larger invasion force. The New Republic's leadership did not see things the same way, however, and did not wish to put itself on a crisis footing, panicking the populace, for what they believed to have been an isolated, defeated threat. To formulate a Jedi response to the threat, Skywalker called a convocation of the Jedi two months after the initial invasion, which Solo attended. Skywalker shared the confusing news that the Yuuzhan Vong could not be sensed in the Force; they seemed invisible to or outside it. When Durron confidently stated the Jedi's ability to handle the threat, Solo spoke up to criticize him for overconfidence. Skywalker cut short an argument, but supported Solo's point, stating that he would direct the Jedi to gather information and prepare for war rather than attempt to carry on a war themselves. Jedi Knight Corran Horn brought the Solo brothers to see Skywalker about their assignments afterward. Anakin was instructed to accompany their aunt to Dantooine, where she could work on recovering from her debilitating illness. Before Jacen Solo's assignment was revealed, he revealed to his Master that he felt he should have no assignment, as he was having second thoughts about being a Jedi. Solo felt that the Jedi Order had fallen away from its origins as a meditative order, and the current Jedi Order was not fulfilling his need for an internally-focused, contemplative relationship with the Force. Skywalker insisted that he could not abandon his Jedi duty to protect life in the galaxy, and Horn pointed out that there was much to be learned from action as well as meditation. Skywalker denied Solo's request, insisting that he needed Solo's assistance on a dangerous mission to return to Belkadan. If, afterward, Solo decided that he required time alone for introspection, he could take it.

On approaching Belkadan, the two Jedi detected that its atmosphere was nearly returned to its norm, unlike the noxious hothouse atmosphere the Skywalkers had earlier encountered. Solo landed their craft, the GAT-12 Skipray Blastboat Courage, covertly near the ExGal facility. There they found a warning display of smashed technology, but no life. They moved on to an area where, on landing, they had sensed life which felt unnatural and diseased. There they found an encampment growing Yuuzhan Vong biological technology and worked by captives, slaves implanted with coral "slave seeds" which allowed the Yuuzhan Vong to exert control over them. Solo was convinced they should free the slaves, but Skywalker resisted the idea, stating that they did not know enough about the situation to risk freeing the slaves, whose lives might be beyond saving. Unhappily, the younger Jedi assented.

After a week of scouting the area in which the Yuuzhan Vong were growing their weapons and equipment with slave labor, Solo experienced a vivid dream in which he freed the slaves he had found the first day. Accompanying it was a sense of urgency which convinced him it was a Force vision, a prompting from the Force to liberate the Yuuzhan Vong's captives. He accepted the mission, sneaking from the Jedi camp in the ExGal station in the middle of the night. As he proceeded to the slave quarters exactly as he had seen in his vision, his sense of certainty grew. Finding the slaves at work in a villip paddy, he boldly summoned them to follow him. Rather than fleeing with him, the slaves were alarmed and retreated. Their Yuuzhan Vong overseer engaged Solo in combat. The Yuuzhan Vong warrior was able to gain the upper hand, as his amphistaff and vonduun crab armor resisted Solo's lightsaber. Unable to use the Force to move the Yuuzhan Vong, Solo was held underwater until he passed out.

Awakening in the Embrace of Pain, a Yuuzhan Vong torture device, Solo questioned whether he had used a simple dream as an excuse to do what he had wanted from the beginning and resolved to listen to more experienced Jedi in the future. The Embrace of Pain caused him too much pain to concentrate on using the Force, and he was unable to defend himself when a Yuuzhan Vong creature arrived and planted a surge coral seed on Solo's cheekbone. Shocked when his lightsaber flew out the door, Solo was able to look up and see Skywalker, wielding two lightsabers, defeat three Yuuzhan Vong warriors. The Jedi Master cut Solo free and removed the slave seed. Reporting that the slaves no longer existed in the Force&mdash;dead or given over completely to the Yuuzhan Vong implants&mdash;Skywalker insisted that they had to leave immediately for Dantooine.

On the front lines
Skywalker had felt that his wife and nephew were in danger from Yuuzhan Vong pursuers on Dantooine. Landing on the wilderness planet, Solo and Skywalker followed the Force to find three attackers about to kill Anakin. Skywalker saved Anakin while Solo knocked out the other two Yuuzhan Vong. They returned to the Courage but did not leave Dantooine, as Solo's mother and sister had landed on another continent with a large band of refugees from Dubrillion, which had fallen to the invaders. At the refugee camp, Solo found that his twin had joined the elite Rogue Squadron and would be serving with the other fighter pilots in the camp's defense. Jacen and Anakin Solo, along with Skywalker, assisted the New Republic Army forces guarding the perimeter. Solo also spoke with Quee, who had been traveling with Jaina and Leia Organa Solo and working on the Force skills Solo had discovered in her. In his conversation, Quee helped him realize that he was comfortable, at least for the time, taking a path of action and defense rather than retreating to meditate&mdash;he had found that his place was, in fact, with the Jedi. Quee, five years older, also gently deflected Solo's questions about romance, saying she valued him as a friend and could not trust her feelings in a time of such upheaval.

When the Yuuzhan Vong attack arrived, a concentrated assault of ground troops dominated by Chazrach slave-soldiers, Solo and his brother were ordered to the southwest corner of the defenses. As the Chazrach pressed into the New Republic lines, the Jedi were forced into a desperate defense. Skywalker was able to use the Force to push one of the gravitic anomalies the Yuuzhan Vong assault craft used as shields back onto the vehicle itself, destroying the command center for the assault. Without central control over their surge coral implants, the Chazrach went mad. Many of them made it into the camp, but their rampage was halted before the next wave of Yuuzhan Vong arrived. Though previous supply difficulties had forced the refugees to stop on Dantooine, many had been killed in the fighting and their position was no longer defensible. The New Republic forces took advantage of the respite to evacuate the refugees. The arrival of a pair of capital ships under the command of Admiral Traest Kre'fey drove off the Yuuzhan Vong fleet and allowed the refugee convoy to escape. Though Solo had accepted it as his duty to defend the refugees, in the aftermath of the carnage battling the seemingly mindless Chazrach, he found himself questioning whether the fighting had truly been the duty of a Jedi. He felt that he was receiving conflicting signals as to whether action or contemplation was the right course for him. After discussing his feelings with Anakin, he decided to simply walk the paths the Force presented to him, and learn what he could from each.

All the Solos returned to Coruscant, where Han, still dealing with his grief over Chewbacca's death, had given himself over to drinking. When Skywalker called another Jedi convocation, Solo attended. Skywalker made a decision to limit the scope of Jedi activity to helping refugees and gathering information until they knew enough about the invaders to formulate successful battle plans. Meanwhile, the New Republic refused to support Jedi action, as they were seen as ineffective and meddlesome through the war so far. Corran Horn, though, had been reactivated by the military and charged with leading a covert mission to the conquered world of Garqi to contact the resistance and gain information. Horn was assigned six Noghri commandos and two civilian observers, selecting Solo Jedi Knight Ganner Rhysode.

Solo spent a week in briefing and training before shipping out aboard the Ralroost, on which Jaina was stationed with Rogue Squadron. Solo had a conversation with Jaina in which his twin criticized him for looking beyond the mission at hand to focus on philosophical issues and urged him to turn his attention to surviving the mission to Garqi and learning from Horn and Rhysode, as he could not afford to look beyond the Yuuzhan Vong. When it came time for the scouting team to be inserted to Garqi, they boarded the shuttle Best Chance, hidden inside Lost Hope. Only the mission team, Kre'fey, and the technicians working on the ship knew that Lost Hope was intended to explode, allowing Best Chance to land without suspicion. The plan went off smoothly, with a false engine failure providing the explosion and cover for their landing. Solo withdrew in the Force from his sister, piloting her X-wing in the battle, as she, like all the others, was not intended to know the reality of the situation until the battle was over so that the enemy could not possibly be tipped off by their reactions.

After landing, the team met up with the Garqi Resistance and traveled to the planetary capital of Pesktda. There, they found the Yuuzhan Vong building an army of slaves covered in surge coral armor. Horn proposed that when the Yuuzhan Vong carried out war games in the city to train their slave army, the strike team capture some of the slaves in the confusion and take them offworld for study, attempting to develop a counter to the process without the Yuuzhan Vong knowing their research had been compromised. The New Republic strike team waited in the utility conduits under the training area during the next exercise. When the combat reached their area, Solo and the others exited and engaged the Chazrach comprising the bulk of the Yuuzhan Vong forces. Rhysode, Horn, and Resistance snipers killed the three Yuuzhan Vong leading the war game, causing the rest of the troops to retreat. The team grabbed two downed slave soldiers, but a coralskipper soon arrived. Horn ordered Solo to retreat while he held off the fighter. Instead, Solo used the Force to grab a heavy hatch cover and hold it against the coralskipper's plasma emitter. The ship was destroyed in the plasma backwash, and Horn pulled Solo out of the way of its debris.

Hotly pursued by the Yuuzhan Vong and still two hours away from their extraction time, the New Republic team fled to the Pesktda Xenobotanical Gardens while two of the Noghri and the Garqi Resistance fighters sneaked away with the captives. Solo and Horn formed the rearguard, taking significant harassment from Yuuzhan Vong warriors. They holed up in the Ithorian section of the gardens, where they were challenged by Yuuzhan Vong commander Krag Val and six other warriors. Val killed a Noghri and wounded Rhysode with a slash across the face before Solo reached him and struck down Val. The other enemy warriors were killed by their own vonduun crab armor, which had an allergic reaction to the Ithorian bafforr tree pollen and swelled, suffocating the warriors. Horn, recognizing the value of this knowledge, ordered that the forest be burned to prevent the Yuuzhan Vong from realizing what had occurred. Solo objected to killing the semi-sentient bafforrs, but Horn insisted it was the best hope for the galaxy.



Instead of the suicidal last stand they had expected, the Jedi found that they had won a victory, and were able to make it to the Best Chance before extraction. Despite the arrival of an unexpected enemy fleet, Kre'fey's task force, with the surprise help of Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, leader of the Imperial Remnant, and a small force under his command, successfully recovered the Best Chance. Once they were safely away, Solo prepared the scouting team's report, while the combined New Republic and Imperial task forces proceeded to Ithor, intent on securing the bafforr population. They prepared for an invasion, expecting that the Yuuzhan Vong would soon realize the threat Ithor posed. In order for the Jedi to travel from the floading herdships to Ithor's surface, sacred to the Ithorians, they had to attend a purifying ceremony with High Priest Relal Tawron. Tawron required each Jedi to publicly state a part of himself which was holding him back, and which he renounced as part of the purification. Envious of the others' ease in finding their problems and desperate to realize what would allow him that same certainty and peace, Solo finally rejected his own need to know his future role, concentrating his focus on the present and leaving aside his urgency to know at that moment what he would become.

When a Yuuzhan Vong fleet arrived in the system, the Ithorian herdships were evacuated with the exception of Tafanda Bay, which the Jedi retained as an ambush ground for the Yuuzhan Vong. In order to extend the time the herdships had to evacuate, Horn proposed that he challenge Shedao Shai, the enemy commander, to a duel, which would allow the New Republic to keep Ithor or return to Shai the remains of an ancestor who had died scouting the galaxy, depending on who won. Before the duel there would be a truce to allow further evacuation. Solo was uncomfortable with the plan and attempted to talk Horn out of it, reasoning that Horn was seeking revenge for Shai's murder of Elegos A'Kla, a senator and friend of Horn's who had attempted to seek understanding of the invaders. Horn insisted that he was acting from impersonal motives, which Solo reluctantly accepted.

When the Yuuzhan Vong made their attack, Solo served on the surface of Ithor with Horn and Rhysode. While the Yuuzhan Vong landing force concentrated on attacking a droid-defended facility built over a large bomb as a trap, the Jedi took the landing craft serving as Shai's command center. Horn issued his challenge by villip to Shai, who accepted. A week later, Horn won the duel, but Shai's successor in command, Deign Lian, did not honor the agreement and instead bombarded Ithor with a bioengineered toxin which extinguished all life on the planet. Horn, reeling from negative press coverage which portrayed him and the Jedi as fools whose actions led to the destruction of Ithor and from his realization that he had in fact sought vengeance, left the Jedi Order, offering himself as a scapegoat. Solo objected, furious at the idea that the Jedi would bow to political pressure and public slurs, but Skywalker accepted Horn's reasoning and Horn urged Solo to stand behind Skywalker.

Six months after Chewbacca's death, Solo and his family attended a service on Kashyyyk for the fallen Wookiee. Han, still dealing with his grief, afterward departed with his old friend Roa to investigate the Peace Brigade, a group of mercenaries working for the Yuuzhan Vong. In the course of his travels, he encountered Elan and Vergere, a Yuuzhan Vong priestess and her familiar who claimed to wish to defect to the New Republic. The information was brought before Skywalker, who revealed to a gathering of Jedi which included Solo that the priestess insisted on meeting with the Jedi leadership, claiming to have information about Jade Skywalker's illness. Though the other Jedi expressed doubts, Skywalker intended to go through with the plan, though only he and his wife would meet with Elan and Vergere. Solo objected, insisting that the Skywalkers were the last people who should step into what was almost certainly a trap. He volunteered himself for the duty, and as others clamored to be included, Skywalker agreed to let a large group of Jedi attend and share the risk. The decision was rendered moot when Elan was revealed as a traitor prior to the meeting. Vergere, however, fled after giving Han Solo a vial of her tears&mdash;tears which had been manipulated to provide an antidote to Jade Skywalker's disease.

Approximately a month later, the New Republic, working on reactivating Centerpoint Station for use in an ambush of the Yuuzhan Vong, attempted to recruit Anakin to assist their efforts. Solo objected vigorously, insisting that as a superweapon, Centerpoint should be used only for defense, not aggression. The pair got into a heated argument at the Praxeum in front of several senior Jedi, which was settled when Skywalker arrived. Skywalker shared Solo's concerns over the possible uses of Centerpoint, but felt that the defensive potential of the station was too great to leave it dormant. Determined to see that caution was exercised in the superweapon's use, Solo determined to travel to Centerpoint with his brother and observe the reactivation.

Personality and traits
As a small child, Solo spent most of his first two years in the care of Winter, first on New Alderaan and then on Anoth. As a result, he developed an attachment to his nanny, and infrequent visits from his parents prevented him from connecting with them. When he returned to Coruscant in 11 ABY, it took time for him to accustom himself to his family and new routine. Solo settled into a comfortable family life, but eventually grew over-reliant on a belief that the Force would provide everything he needed, keeping him from seeking to stay in shape. Within two years, however, he had lost that belief and was once more in shape and willing to explore, though he remained unconvinced of the need to study non-Jedi combat techniques.

Solo had no fear of animals, eagerly interacting with and "befriending" them with his Force talents. He was always able to placate them, and consequently showed no fear of venomous or carnivorous animals so long as he had the opportunity to pacify them. He began collecting animals as pets. He also liked plants, and could similarly affect carnivorous plants through the Force.

Like his siblings, Solo was a tremendously mischievous youth. He saw rules as challenges and adults as spoilers of fun, to be evaded when at all possible. Constantly exploring&mdash;both the Imperial Palace around him and the boundaries of what he could get away with&mdash;he frequently got into trouble, especially as both his uncle and mother were always able to sense whether he was telling the truth, but reveled in his escapades and was uninspired to change his ways.

Solo's apprenticeship to Luke Skywalker led him to consider more philosophical issues, seeking to find a new role for the Jedi in an era not dominated by war&mdash;a role not simply as warriors, but as something more, connecting with the broader past of the Jedi before the Order had been overthrown. It was his conviction that as a member of the first generation of new Jedi to have experienced the Force since birth and been trained from childhood, he had different and valuable insights to offer on the Force and a Jedi's relationship with it. He came to see Jedi Knighthood as a deeply personal, spiritual matter of connection with the Force, with Jedi answering to their own conscience and governing themselves so long as they resisted the call of the dark side. He rejected Anakin Solo's arguments that the Jedi should be active keepers of the peace wielding the Force as a tool for justice. Instead, he insisted that the Force was to be used to gain internal harmony and understanding of truth, not projected outward. In his view, the Jedi should rectify injustice when they came upon it, but not seek out trouble by acting as simple "galactic police."

His experience of the meld during the First Battle of Dubrillion caused him to reevaluate his beliefs, judging that the coordinating use of the Force in combat was so powerful and useful that it suggested an external and martial application of the Force to be valid. Nevertheless, Solo came to the conclusion that the Jedi Order was not for him, as it failed to meet his need for a deep internal connection with the Force, a contemplative focus he felt had been the original purpose of the Jedi, long since fallen by the wayside. However, in the midst of the Yuuzhan Vong War, both the words of Skywalker and Solo's own experiences convinced him that he could not abandon the Jedi and the war effort and still maintain his Jedi ideals of respect for life and selflessness, though the Force might later present opportunities for meditation and self-exploration. In the wake of the battle's carnage, however, Solo felt torn between action and meditation, and was uncertain as to which the Force was suggesting for him; discussion with Anakin ultimately led him to accept whatever path the Force placed before him.

The Yuuzhan Vong inability to be detected in the Force troubled Solo, and suggested to him that something was wrong with mainstream Jedi teachings. He hoped that further meditation would open him to a wider spectrum of Force perception in which he could find the mysterious aliens.

During his time at the Jedi Praxeum, Solo became fond of Tenel Ka Djo. He constantly told jokes, some long-established and some of his own making, in an attempt to get the humorless girl to laugh. She never did, and Solo's jokes were rejected as poor by his other companions as well. His jokes soon became a mechanism to deal with awkward situations, though he was able to recognize that jokes were not always appropriate. Solo and Djo became more openly fond of each other during their time at the Praxeum, even though a brief infatuation with Anja Gallandro diverted Solo's attention, but did not move into a full relationship.

At the outbreak of the Yuuzhan Vong War, Solo rescued Danni Quee and began to develop feelings for the woman. Five years older than he was, she shot down his earliest roundabout inquiries into the possibility of a romance, citing their friendship and her own personal turmoil. Solo accepted that this was probably for the best, as he was most likely dealing with a passing attraction.

Powers and abilities
"You will be able to do anything you want, Jacen. You have the potential&mdash;as long as you have the discipline."

- Luke Skywalker, to Jacen Solo

Even as a developing fetus in the womb, Jacen Solo was contacted by his mother through the Force, though he only expressed rudimentary sensations and emotions. After birth, he was able to respond to these Force messages through the bond he had with his mother. He had a bond with Jaina as well, which was especially strong on account of their twin heritage and time together in the womb and afterward. From childhood, they were able to communicate with each other through the Force, rendering much conversation superfluous; they were also able to feel what the other felt. During the First Battle of Dubrillion, Solo was able to link himself mentally with his siblings, sharing perceptions and thoughts through the Force in order to fight with superior coordination. The meld went beyond the heightened bonding he had sometimes employed with Jaina in combat situations, to the point where their minds seemed to work as one.

Caedus had great Force potential, which his uncle was able to sense shortly after his birth. He and Jaina were able to manifest their powers very early on, using telekinesis as two-year-olds to retrieve items from high shelves and make other mischief. By the time he was five, he could use exceptionally tightly-focused telekinesis to move air molecules rapidly, heating them and creating a glow, and to slow water molecules enough to cause them to freeze. However, he had great difficulty with levitating objects in the air and sustaining their motion.

As a two-year-old, Jacen Solo was able to speak with animals through the Force, understanding their thoughts and making himself understood to them. By the time he was five, he could direct the behavior of insects, and "make friends" of creatures, convincing them to do his bidding. His empathy did not extend only to animals; Solo was skilled in detecting emotions and understanding what others were feeling.

By the time Solo was five, he had been trained by Skywalker to erect a Force shield and defend himself.

Solo was able to use the Force to dull pain.

Solo had the predictive ability common to Jedi, sensing danger before it happened.

He could use the Force to "see" for him.

Solo was considered one of the best duelists in the Praxeum shortly after getting his lightsaber.

Behind the scenes
Solo appears as a child in the Star Wars Tales comic The Other, an ambiguously canonical source. However, the timeline given in the comic does not match that established by the canonical works Dark Empire and Jedi Search.









"Be careful about sacrificing your gifts, to help others see the truth as you perceive it."

- Luke Skywalker

Jacen joined the effort against the Yuuzhan Vong, but he still held doubts about the Jedi's role in the war. After the disastrous Battle of Fondor, Jacen tried to give up using the Force altogether. That all changed at the Battle of Duro. Leia was captured by Tsavong Lah, the Warmaster of the Yuuzhan Vong, who intended to sacrifice her in a ceremony. Lah was unconcerned when Jacen appeared, for he considered Jacen a coward for being pacifistic. Jacen, however, attacked with unprecedented ferocity, and knocked Lah out a window, which crushed his foot. The act brought Jacen back to the front lines of the War&mdash;and prompted Tsavong Lah to call for the heads of the Jedi.

Mission to Myrkr
Jacen was part of the Myrkr strike team that attempted to destroy the Voxyn. Jacen's role in the mission was to coordinate the battle meld between all the strike team members and the use of his skills with animals. Jacen's brother Anakin led the strike team, and the tension between the two threatened to derail the mission before it even began. The mission was fraught with one disaster after another, and resulted in the deaths of half the team, including Anakin. After Anakin's death, Jacen became the leader of the remaining strike team members, and managed to kill the voxyn queen. However, the team was later forced to leave him behind as they escaped, and he was captured by the Fosh Jedi Vergere. When Vergere cut Jacen off from the Force, the rest of the strike team felt a surge through the Force, and believed as a result that Jacen had been killed. Only Leia was convinced her son was still alive.

Vergere
"I tell you this: though neither he nor they yet know it, he is the greatest of all the Jedi. Jacen Solo is the living Jedi dream. Even without the Force, he is more dangerous than you can possibly imagine."

- Vergere

Vergere, who had lived with the Yuuzhan Vong for over fifty years, proceeded to torture him by placing him within the Embrace of Pain, forcing Jacen to give into the pain and understand the strength gained from it when it is fully embraced. Vergere challenged Jacen's deepest beliefs about the Force, introducing him to the idea of the Potentium view of the Force.

Jacen was placed with a group of slaves taking orders from a dhuryam, a more advanced form of a yammosk. A set of 12 dhuryams was being tested and pit against each other to determine which would be the World Brain of Yuuzhan'tar, the Yuuzhan Vong name for Coruscant. Abiding by his Jedi teachings to help others, Jacen medically helped the slaves in his detail, which helped the dhuryam assigned to it. However, he soon became overwhelmed by slaves and their respective dhuryams wanting help for the injuries and maladies that plagued them. Vergere tested Jacen by comparing what he did to gardening; weeding out some so that others might survive. Indeed, many did die and Jacen felt a sense of regret. During his time in the Nursery, he did make progress, however. Thanks to the slave seed embedded in his chest and his Force abilities, he managed to seduce the local dhuryam and gain a bit of control over it and the rest of the Nursery. It could be said that he made a "friend," but the dhuryam had no comprehension of trust.

Shortly before seed-fall occurred, Jacen led a revolt in the Nursery. Standing in an amphistaff grove, Jacen used the Force and his skill with creatures to beckon the creatures to him, having them wrap around his body to form a suit of armor. After dispatching many guards, Jacen killed all the dhuryams except one after surrendering to a blood rage. Jacen then moved on to destroy the dhuryam he had befriended, but was stopped by a familiar voice; that of his dead brother, Anakin. Hearing that voice woke Jacen up out of the blood haze he had entered, but he suspected that it was Vergere that really stopped him.

Jacen soon learned that he could sense the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force, a result of the slave seed Vergere had implanted in him on the seedship to make him obey the Yuuzhan Vong. He used this Vongsense to escape onto Coruscant. Vergere foiled his plans at escaping the planet, and Jacen finally succumbed to the months of torture. Vergere led him to the site of the former Jedi Temple, where Jacen told her of his grandfather's fall to the dark side. During this speech, Jacen was confronted by a squad of Yuuzhan Vong, and felt a hot tidal surge of red billow through him as he blacked out. When he came to, Jacen's hands hurt. They were singed and smelled like they were burning. Vergere asked him how it felt to touch the Force once again. It was then Jacen recalled his actions; he had unleashed a wave of Force lightning at Vergere and the Yuuzhan Vong warriors, narrowly missing Nom Anor, who fled through a cave.

"I slipped. I fell, barely on the dark side of... of the balance point. Everything started to slide. Everything."

- Jacen after realizing what he had done

Jacen began to panic with the realization that he had tapped into the dreaded dark side of the Force. Vergere then told Jacen the one thing that would alter his outlook of the Force. "What you feel is the Force. This is the shameful secret of the Jedi: There is no dark side." She went on to support her assertion. Vergere then told him that the only dark side he need fear is the one in his own heart. Jacen then turned and fled.

He ran, believing to see the spirit of Anakin Solo, his dead brother. However, he sensed that the apparition had no presence in the Force. He was drawn in by a hallucination, and, as he would later discover, entered a cave beast. Inside the belly of the gargantuan animal, he heard a voice, crying for help. He tried to shut it out, believing it another hallucination. Then, to his horror, he realized that it had a presence in the Force. He tried to rescue the little girl crying for help, but to no avail. He raised hate inside himself and used the Dark side for strength, finally rescuing the child. This confused him and drew his mind back to Vergere's teachings; that the Dark side was simply the Force's unleashed potential.

He discovered more survivors, refugees of the conquest of Coruscant. He speculated that they too, were drawn in by illusions; false hopes. Through his confusion, he also found anger and then rage. The refugees had a rule: whoever arrived last in the beast would sent to feed its ravenous hunger. The girl arrived last, and she was undergoing an execution, Jacen found. The survivors accused him of being the last and then tried to send him on his way to the stomach. Enraged, he drew on the anger he felt and used the Force to make the animal believe that humans were poisonous, triggering it to forcibly eject all of them. Bereft of their shelter, the survivors would most likely die of Coruscant's many dangers. Lost and confused, he left them and went on.

Jacen arrived at the Solo's now ruined apartment and was saddened by how much things had changed, the home and his life now a perversion of its former self. Shortly after his arrival he was visited by what he thought was (and may have been) Anakin's ghost, his deceased younger brother. This also challenged his thoughts on the Force. The apparition of Anakin engaged in the playful banter they had once shared, and Jacen told him of the things he had done, and also his confusion. Jacen also asked Anakin whether he was real or an illusion. He countered asking Jacen if there was a difference saying that life, like the Force, was all one thing and that there was no difference, akin to Vergere's teachings. Jacen then thought that Anakin really was an illusion and tried to shut him out, falling into a deep depression. Vergere arrived and woke him, once again challenging Jacen's beliefs. They were soon joined by Nom Anor and his entourage of warriors, who confronted Jacen offering him Anakin's lightsaber if he would convert to the Yuuzhan Vong religion. Jacen agreed, although Nom Anor was unaware that he was lying.

Meanwhile, Ganner Rhysode, who was part of the team at Myrkr, had heard rumors that Jacen was alive. He tried to convince Jaina that her brother might still be alive, but she refused to believe him. Ganner decided to discover the truth on his own. He backtracked the information and found himself face to face with Jacen, but caught in a trap that had been set for Jaina. The trap having failed, Jacen sent word to Nom Anor that they should return home with the prisoner, where he will be sacrificed. Jacen pretended to plan to offer up Ganner as a gift to the True Gods, killing him within the Well of the World Brain. But Jacen had something else in mind entirely.

Jacen gave Ganner Anakin's lightsaber, giving him the choice of exactly how to use it. Once inside the Well of the World Brain, formerly the Senate's Grand Convocation chamber, Ganner raised Anakin's blade and defended the door, while Jacen confronted the World Brain. When the door opened and the Yuuzhan Vong found Ganner standing there, they were puzzled as the Jedi stated "None shall pass." Ganner fought an ongoing wave of warriors, taking them each down, building a fortress of corpses around him, becoming one with the Force as he fought on. Meanwhile, Jacen connected with the World Brain, acknowledging his betrayal, sharing everything he knew and all of his experiences and, in the end, made the World Brain realize that the two were one. While chaos erupted in the Well, Nom Anor and Vergere made their way towards his hidden escape craft. Upon arrival, Vergere used the Force to tie Nom Anor with hydraulic cables and revealed that she took Jacen's lightsaber so that she and Jacen could steal Nom Anor's ship.



Jacen finished with the World Brain and sensed the danger Ganner was in. He was just about to join the fight when he was stopped by Vergere who told Jacen that he could not save him, and would only die with him. She then returned Jacen's lightsaber to him. Meanwhile, in a last stand of defiance that would earn him near godlike status among the Shamed Ones, Ganner used the Force to rip apart the walkway he was on, plunging to his death along with his foes. Vergere and Jacen fled from Coruscant in Nom Anor's ship. During the flight, Vergere told Jacen of a vision she once had, of an invincible giant called "the Ganner" who guarded the Gate to the Lands of the Dead, with the words "None Shall Pass" engraved upon the gate. Jacen then revealed to Vergere that he had managed to convince the World Brain to join "our side", and that it would sabotage the Yuuzhan Vong's efforts to Vongform Yuuzhan'tar. When Vergere asked Jacen what he meant by "our" he said "Me and you, our side. Nothing will go quite right for the Yuuzhan Vong from now on".

Jacen and Vergere returned to Mon Calamari, where Jacen was reunited with his family. After a long earned vacation and a promotion to full Jedi Knight, Jacen joined Jaina in Admiral Traest Kre'fey's battle group. Jacen became Kre'fey's link to the Jedi pilots in his fleet, and Jacen was able to predict where new elements were needed when they were needed. At the Battle of Ebaq 9, Jacen rushed to Jaina's aid, but soon needed help himself. Vergere sacrificed herself to save Jacen and killed the Yuuzhan Vong warriors on the moon.

The war's end
"I'm more sure than ever that Jacen has a special destiny."

- Luke Skywalker



As the newly formed Galactic Alliance emerged, Jacen accompanied his uncle Luke Skywalker into the Unknown Regions to seek a solution to the Yuuzhan Vong menace. There he helped thwart a Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the Imperial Remnant, visited Csilla (homeworld of the Chiss Ascendancy), and discovered the living planet Zonama Sekot.

"Stand firm!"

- Anakin Skywalker's voice heard by Jacen

In last months of the war, Jacen helped recapture Coruscant. Jacen tried to attack Shimrra, but was knocked out with one hit from the mighty Vong, which forced Luke Skywalker to intervene, and kill Shimrra, saving Jacen's life, though getting wounded in the process. Meanwhile, Jacen engaged Onimi, Shimrra's "pet", in battle. Onimi had regained the usage of the Force as a result of extensive shaping and experimentation in Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology, and had manipulated Shimrra into planning the invasion of the galaxy. Onimi tried to poison Jacen by secreting poison from his fang, but Jacen reached a higher level of the Force than ever before, balancing the light and dark within him. The effect caused him to age physically, but it also killed Onimi by using Onimi's own poison against him. During this battle Jacen heard a voice strikingly similar to, yet deeper than, that of Luke Skywalker. Jacen knew deep in his heart the voice to be that of his grandfather's, Anakin Skywalker. After Onimi's death, Jacen prevented Nom Anor from poisoning his own family and healed Luke with a self-concocted antidote.



After the war, Jacen decided to travel the Galaxy and spend time among other Force-users in search of answers, including the Aing-Tii Monks, Fallanassi, Witches of Dathomir, Jensaarai, Theran Listeners and Baran Do Sages. During this time as well he met future Jedi Nelani Dinn, to whom he taught lightsaber techniques.

Dark Nest Crisis (35 ABY–36 ABY)
"You think you know him, and then he tries to start a war."

- Han Solo referring to Jacen starting Swarm War

Five years later, Jacen Solo, changed by his travels among other Force-users, along with his sister and a group of fellow Jedi who had survived the Myrkr mission, journeyed to the Unknown Regions after being called by the Force. There they discovered that Raynar Thul had survived, and had been joined to a Killik hive. The Killiks were having a border dispute with the Chiss, and there was no way the Killiks could defend themselves. Jacen convinced Tenel Ka to send a fleet to protect the Killiks. As a result, Tenel Ka and Jacen's relationship once again began to blossom, with Tenel Ka becoming pregnant. Jacen was not aware until he arrived on Hapes with Ben Skywalker and found Tenel Ka with a baby. She gave birth to their daughter Allana in 36 ABY, a year after Jacen's last visit to Hapes. Tenel Ka used the force to slow the pregnancy to conceal the the identity of her Father, for fear that Hapan nobles would try to assassinate her. The fear proved well founded when the Dark Nest immediately attempted to assassinate the child at the request of Ta'a Chume, Tenel Ka's grandmother. Tenel Ka and the baby were saved, and Jacen, to protect Tenel Ka and his daughter, caused a hemorrhage in Ta'a Chume's brain, rendering her comatose. Jacen went as far as to erase his own cousin Ben's memory to protect his daughter's existence. Jacen then had a vision of endless war, and concluded that there was only one way to preserve his new found family: wipe out the Killiks. In order to do this, Jacen tricked Lowie, Tesar Sebatyne, a still Joined Jaina and Zekk, into instigating a war between the Chiss and the Killiks. Jaina, upon realizing what Jacen had done, was furious with her twin, and vowed never to fly with him again.

When Luke called all of the Jedi to the Temple, Jacen went. He was asked by Han and Leia who was the father of Tenel Ka's baby, but Jacen wouldn't answer.

When Luke was told by Lowie and Tesar that Jacen had tampered with Ben's memory, Luke confronted his nephew. Jacen responded with a cover-up story, explaining that on Endor, a group of Ewoks had been captured by a Gorax and killed, and that Ben had felt their deaths in the Force. Jacen said he then erased the traumatic memory from Ben in order to prevent Ben from retreating further from the Force. He was lying, of course, to keep Tenel Ka and his secret.

Jacen had the chance to get to know his maternal grandparents when he was asked to stay and watch holo recordings that R2-D2 was trying to keep secret. He witnessed Anakin's attack on Padmé on Mustafar. Though he had reckoned from the holos he saw before that his grandfather was "only trying to protect his wife", he didn't understand how he came to Force Choke her.

During the final phases of the Killik expansion, Jacen joined his aunt and uncle on a mission to destroy the Dark Nest. In a saber duel with Lomi Plo, Jacen was stabbed in the stomach saving Mara, puncturing three organs and preventing him from aiding Luke in his showdown against Lomi Plo and Raynar Thul. While in the infirmary with Luke and Mara, Jacen explained to his uncle that the reason Lomi had been able to become invisible was because she had been exploiting Luke's doubts to hide behind them and create the illusion of her not being there. According to Jacen, the only way Luke could fight Lomi on equal ground was if he banished all doubt from his mind, so he urged him to watch the last hologram R2 was hiding: the one showing the death of Padmé Amidala and his own birth. After this, he insisted Luke had to accept his fears and anger and use them to defeat his enemies. While Luke agreed he had to accept those emotions, he still refused to use them. Luke fought both Lomi Plo and Raynar with the combined power of the colony behind them, successfully defeated and killed Lomi Plo and captured Raynar Thul alive. Afterwards, Jacen became the Jedi mentor to his cousin Ben.

Second Galactic Civil War (40 ABY)
"There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you’ve constructed an entire philosophy of evil."

- Luke Skywalker

Raid on Centerpoint Station
In 40 ABY, Jacen and his cousin Ben were sent on a mission to investigate a missile factory on the planet Adumar with the two Jedi discovering the factory selling unlawful amounts of armaments. After the successful mission, Luke informed Jacen of Corellia's plan to make Centerpoint Station into an operational weapon and the necessity of stopping it. Luke discussed using an Alliance fleet to distract the Corellians so Jacen would succeed in this task. While Jacen was skeptical of the reliability from data gathering, he agreed to neutralize the station together with Ben. After covertly entering the station through cargo compartments, Jacen met Thrackan Sal-Solo, his distant cousin who had recently become Minister of War. Jacen decided to distract Thrackan so Ben would succeed in crippling the station. After chasing Thrackan throughout the station and single-handedly defeating most of Thrackan's numerous security forces in the process, Jacen cornered Thrackan. During this time, Ben succeeded in his role and Jacen encountered a Force vision. He saw if Thrackan lived, a destructive war would consume the entire galaxy. Deciding to kill Thrackan, Jacen almost succeeded but Thrackan used a quick diversion to escape, forcing Jacen to leave Centerpoint behind.

Toryaz Station
Later, Jacen attended the galactic conference between Gilad Pellaeon and Aidel Saxan with his family. Jacen fought alongside his Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara after Corellian commandos stormed the station. Jacen discovered Aidel Saxan was killed in the attack and afterwards decided to investigate the mysterious threat.

Trailing the source
Using tassels found by his twin sister Jaina and Zekk as a guide, Jacen and Ben led an investigation ending at Lorrd to learn about tassels in hopes in finding out what they mean. There Jacen met Nelani Dinn, a former Jedi student of Jacen seven years prior. During a conversation, Nelani revealed to Jacen she had long harbored romantic feelings towards him and agreed to help translate the tassels. Along with help from cultural language expert Dr. Heilan Rotham, Jacen discovered Sith philosophy encoded in the tassels.

Disturbances
As Dr. Rotham translated the tassels, random public disturbances occurred throughout Lorrd within a space of weeks. As Jacen and Nelani defused each problem, Nelani questioned Jacen's aggressive methods in dealing with the problems as several perpetrators died in the process along with one innocent civilian. Later, Ben tracked the cause of the disturbances to a woman named Brisha Syo. After Brisha's capture, she refused to be cooperative unless Jacen took her to a remote asteroid field. Jacen agreed, much to Ben and Nelani's protests. Nelani and Ben decided to accompany Jacen to protect his life from any unseen hazards.

Lumiya


"You will be the man your grandfather couldn't."

- Lumiya to Jacen Solo

Along with Ben and Nelani, Jacen followed Brisha to the Home, an asteroid lair of Darth Vectivus. Brisha told the trio of the civilization which once inhabited the asteroid along with a narrative of Darth Vectivus's history and then separated Ben and Nelani from Jacen as they entered deeper into the caverns. Jacen sparred with a Force phantom of Luke, and saw an apparition of himself as a future Sith Lord, then Syo revealed to him that she was Shira Brie, also known as the Sith Lady Lumiya. Lumiya told Jacen about Vergere's true identity as a Sith student who attempted to end Palpatine's life decades ago and had sacrificed herself so Jacen could become the new Dark Lord of the Sith. Nelani, who overheard Lumiya's conversation, rejoined the two and was shocked by Jacen yielding to Lumiya's views. Overwhelmed by concern, Nelani then engaged in a duel which ended after Jacen intervened. As Nelani arrested Lumiya, Jacen saw a vision that confirmed what Lumiya told him: only by accepting her Sith teachings and embracing the dark side could he prevent the galaxy from sliding into chaos. After seeing himself kill Luke Skywalker in this vision, Jacen freed Lumiya and then reluctantly killed Nelani to prevent this occurrence. He left the asteroid with an unconscious Ben (upon whom he used a memory rub, making him forget this event) to make time for his Sith training.

Galactic Alliance Guard
As the Corellian dispute continued, Jacen neared complete mastery of the Force. Proficient in masking his presence in the Force completely, Jacen honed his dark powers under the tutelage of Lumiya and he began to take steps to ensure the safety of his family and the galaxy at large. After silently allying himself with Admiral Cha Niathal in her drive to one day replace Cal Omas as chief of state, Jacen manipulated his way into the rank of colonel in the Galactic Alliance military. He later supported a first strike against Corellia, and was given control of a "secret police" referred to as the Galactic Alliance Guard. Hearing and reveling in frequent comparisons to Darth Vader, Jacen flow-walked back to the Raid on the Jedi Temple and Order 66, helping to assure himself that he was not joining the Sith for selfish reasons by viewing the motivations of his grandfather or Emperor Palpatine. He was shocked to discover his grandfather Anakin Skywalker had been driven to the dark side by his own selfish love for Jacen's grandmother Padmé Amidala and observed in horror as Anakin Skywalker killed a group of Jedi younglings while the other Jedi spread across the galaxy were slaughtered by the Clone troopers. After Jacen escaped the vision, he decided his own reasons as a Sith were purer than his grandfather's and prepared to embark on the Sith path. Jacen repeatedly tested Lumiya in the presence of an unsuspecting Luke to ensure her loyalties were with him, and not to her precious vendetta on his uncle. He moved her to Coruscant, shielding her from detection by other Jedi as she assisted him in rationalizing his conflicting emotions via the Sith prophecy of the tassels.

After the neutralization of Centerpoint Station, Thrackan Sal-Solo eventually placed a bounty on the entire Solo family, which was taken up by Boba Fett's daughter, Ailyn Vel. Already in custody from a prior GAG raid, Vel was interrogated by Jacen about her employers, tortured, and finally died when Jacen attempted unsuccessfully to rip the information from her mind, instead causing a massive aneurysm that killed her. Ben was shocked by Jacen's actions causing Jacen to begin to fear what he was becoming and what he could do, doubting himself.

Shortly thereafter during a blockade of the Centerpoint Station, Jacen ordered Jaina to destroy a disarmed freighter that was retreating from the blockade. When she refused, he removed her from active duty for refusing to carry out orders, for which she was suspended indefinitely. The rift between Jacen and his family widened further as Luke decided to ask his son to separate from Jacen's dark influence and return to the academy on Ossus. Though not accepting his father's request, Ben began to have suspicions of his own regarding Jacen's character after witnessing the murder of Ailyn Vel. After discovering Jacen's crime, Han Solo in disgust swore that he no longer wanted to know his son and disowned him, something Lumiya would say later was a necessary sacrifice.

Fears
"I don't know who you are, but you aren't my son anymore. My Jacen would never do the kind of stuff you do. Get out. I don't want to know any more."

- Han to Jacen after seeing Ailyn Vel's body

Lumiya told Jacen that it would be necessary to make huge sacrifices in order to become a Sith Lord and restore order to the galaxy. Reflecting on the prophecy of the tassels, Jacen realized that the "ultimate test of selflessness" that Lumiya was speaking of would be to kill what he loves. Jacen quickly realized he might have to kill the love of his life, Tenel Ka Djo, and their daughter, Allana, in order to change into the Sith Lord that he was destined to become.

Although this thought caused him enormous emotional pain, Jacen realized that Lumiya's words were true. Sacrificing that which he loved most would remove his inhibitions and attachments, allowing him to succeed where his grandfather had failed in his quest to become a Sith Lord. Reluctantly, Jacen accepted the fact that he would have to make huge sacrifices, whatever they may be, for the sole purpose of obtaining galactic peace.

Events at Hapes
"Hunting bad men is my job."

- Jacen Solo

In helping him find more Corellian insurgents on Coruscant, Jacen used the World Brain. On one trip to the World Brain, Jacen was followed by Alema Rar, who was believed to have been killed in the Battle of Tenupe during the Swarm War. Alema sought revenge on the Solo family and attempted to kill him with a blow-dart. However, Lumiya was able to warn Jacen in time for him to dodge the dart, which then struck the World Brain.

Jacen wanted to go after Alema and eliminate her, but Lumiya convinced him that saving the World Brain was more important, and they let her go. As of then, Alema was the only living being aware of Jacen's apprenticeship to Lumiya.

While Luke attempted to find a trace of the dark side in Ben through a series of sparring matches, Jacen ordered Lumiya to have all members of the Bothan True Victory Party killed in order to prevent further attacks on the World Brain. During a meeting between Jacen and Lumiya, Tresina Lobi, a Jedi Master who was tracking Ben, learned about Jacen's relationship with Lumiya and attempted to contact Luke. Alema Rar, hiding nearby however, was waiting for Jacen to become a Sith to hurt Leia, and attempted to protect Jacen and Lumiya from the Jedi. Alema and Lumiya formed a hasty and tense partnership, working together to kill Master Lobi while Jacen and Ben made for the orbital General Crix Madine Military Reserve.

Jacen became the commander of the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer, Anakin Solo. During this time, Tenel Ka requested that Jacen lead an investigation into an assassination attempt on her life, and also entrusted him with the safety of their daughter, Allana. Jacen agreed, vowing in his own mind he would never sacrifice Allana for any reason. He decided on his parents as possible candidates instead, after learning of their suspicious involvement with the assassination attempt. Soon after, Aurra Sing arrived on board the Star Destroyer and engaged Jacen in a duel. As the battle wore on, Jacen found Sing challenging despite calling upon the dark side to enhance his strength. Jacen was about to kill Aurra Sing with Force Lightning but he saw Allana watching them. Eventually, the duel ended after Allana incapacitated Sing using a paralyzing agent and Sing was incarcerated.

During a later starship engagement with a rebel Hapan fleet, Jacen was confronted by Alema Rar, who began to sow seeds of doubt in his mind about his parents' involvement with the threat to Tenel Ka. Believing his own parents to be behind the plot to assassinate Tenel Ka and Allana, Jacen ordered his ship gunner to attack the Millennium Falcon with his mother, father, sister, and cousin aboard. Although the old freighter escaped, one of the Anakin's turbolaser shots dealt it severe damage, punching a hole through the Falcon's central core and killing Cakhmaim and Meewahl.

Testing Ben
"You're stalling. You don't know whether he will be fit to become a Sith apprentice. The time to learn that is now, not when you reveal yourself. You must test him."

- Lumiya tells Jacen to test Ben Skywalker

After coming to terms that his parents were to be his Sith sacrifices, Jacen experienced a vision in which he had met his end in a duel with his mother. Jacen later commanded the Anakin Solo in an attempt to round up members that were a part of a smuggling operation near Bespin. Jacen managed to capture smuggler Uran Lavint and her Hutt co-pilot, Blatta, after she sold them out to the Galactic Alliance to pay her debts. Just before releasing her, Jacen ordered his crewmen to disable her ship's hyperdrive. Kyp Durron also reported to Luke Skywalker saying that Cal Omas and Cha Niathal wanted Jacen to become a Jedi Master.

Jacen later met with Admiral Antilles aboard the Anakin to discuss the terms of agreement in which Corellia agreed to surrender itself to the Alliance. His conversation with Wedge also made Jacen realize that he wasn't the same nature loving and easy going adolescent he used to be. He would convince himself that it was a necessary change. At the request of Jacen, Lumiya organized a test for Ben in order to see if the boy was ready to become Jacen's Sith apprentice. Though Lumiya doubted that Ben would survive, Jacen had complete faith in Ben and believed that Ben was going to take up his mantle someday.

Ambush at Gilatter VIII
In an effort to gain information aboard the Errant Venture, Jacen once again crossed paths with Uran Lavint. Jacen decided to assign Lavint a job, which was to gain information on the conference held by the Confederation on Gilatter VIII. Shortly after, Jacen was confronted by Luke and Mara though he was forced to leave after he and the others were attacked by Alema. Under the disguises of Najack Ell and Silfinia Ell, Jacen and Lumiya were able to gain passage into the Gilatter System just in time for the G.A. military to carry out their surprise attack. The surprise attack failed after Jacen was recognized by Turr Phennir, the Supreme Commander of the Confederation.

The mission ended in a violent ambush, in which his parents along with his Aunt Mara and Uncle Luke went to his rescue. To keep from being seen with Lumiya, Jacen sneaked away to take part in the space-battle, and left his family behind, returning to the Anakin.

Sacrifice
In an attempt to sort out supply issues for troops at the front, Jacen found a way to manipulate the law so that he could, in effect, create laws. On receiving GAG surveillance of Cal Omas agreeing a ceasefire with Dur Gejjen - on the condition that Omas allowed both Jacen and Admiral Niathal to be assassinated - Jacen used his new administrative powers to have Omas removed from office and arrested for treason. Jacen was then appointed co-leader of the Galactic Alliance with Cha Niathal. Mara Jade Skywalker soon discovered Jacen's Sith affiliation and she attempted to intimidate him into renouncing the dark side. When Jacen refused, she resorted to force at Kavan. Mara was averse to engaging him in a direct duel, knowing he would win such a fight, so instead she escaped to narrow underground tunnels where a saber would be almost useless. After ambushing Jacen using one of his own techniques, the fight quickly devolved into a physical brawl. When Mara caused a cave to collapse upon him, Jacen sustained heavy wounds and was unable to concentrate on the Force. When Mara attempted a blaster shot, Jacen flung both the shot and the cave rocks off himself with a powerful Force Wave which left him even more exhausted. Badly wounded, and forced to fight on ground of Mara's choosing, Jacen lost the advantage. However, realizing that even during a fight to the death Mara's utmost thoughts were of her son, Jacen Force-projected Ben's face onto his own, making Mara hesitate for the fraction of a second needed for him to stab her with a poison dart, which slowly killed her.

Darth Caedus is born
"Caedus. My name is Darth Caedus."

- Darth Caedus

Following Mara's death, Jacen realized that she was the one he needed to sacrifice in order to become a Sith Lord, although he didn't understand why it had to be her. Jacen then dropped his name in favor of a Sith one, becoming a Dark Lord of the Sith and taking the title of Darth Caedus.



Hoping to keep up his alibi and set his plans into action, the newly-christened Darth Caedus attended Mara's funeral as Jacen. Despite protests from many other Jedi, including Saba, Luke allowed his nephew to stand with him and the family. Trying to arrest his parents, Caedus put his plans into motion. He hinted to Ben that Cal Omas was Mara's killer to keep suspicion away from him and attempted to tighten his control of the Galactic Alliance. Later, he personally led the Battle of Balmorra, which he had thought to be the decisive battle of the war. All was going as planned until Rear Admiral Darklighter changed battle tactics that allowed them to destroy the Commenorian fleet and the Hutt forces in space. Caedus showed his darkness when he commanded his forces to let the Balmorrians finish off the fighting on the ground. During the battle, he put Admiral Bwua'tu in command of the battle plan, which would only be a success with the support of the Jedi. Luke Skywalker refused to help Jacen in the conflict once he learned that Jacen had sent Ben to kill Cal Omas and left the battle.

Unhappy with this new development, Caedus deployed the GAG to Ossus and, like Darth Vader decades ago on Coruscant, attempted to kill all the Jedi residing there as an example of how intolerable dissent was to the GA. The war between Corellia and the GA had become yet another war between the Jedi and the Sith. After Kashyyyk refused to follow Caedus's rule, he attacked the planet and its Wookiee inhabitants by setting fire to their planet. He not only attacked Kashyyyk to punish the Wookiees, but also to draw Confederate forces away from Kuat. His plan worked and the Bothan, Corellian, and Commenorian fleets arrived to aid the Wookiees. Aboard the Anakin Solo Ben Skywalker attacked Caedus intending to kill him, but, because of a shadow bomb from Lowbacca that had hit the ship, they lost their balance and Ben's lightsaber only brushed Jacen's ribs. Seeing the potential of the dark side in the boy, Jacen held Ben captive on the Anakin Solo.

When Luke came to ambush and possibly destroy the Anakin Solo, Caedus was waiting in his StealthX. Caedus forced Jaina to fire on her uncle. Believing Luke dead, Caedus returned to his ship and tortured Ben Skywalker in the Embrace of Pain, the Yuuzhan Vong device Vergere had used which had partly caused Jacen to turn to the dark side. Like Vergere did to Jacen, Caedus temporarily severed Ben's connection to the Force. Luke was, however, not dead like Caedus believed, and infiltrated the ship, catching Jacen trying to turn Ben to the dark side. Shocked by the cruel and dangerous man his nephew had become, and not waiting for Caedus to notice his presence, Luke attacked his own nephew to save Ben. The ensuing lightsaber fight was brutal and both Caedus and Luke were badly injured, despite the fact that Luke possessed superior skill, power, and experience. Even though Caedus had managed to break Luke's nose, shoulder and leg, he suffered far greater injuries and only gained the advantage when Luke was distracted by Ben. He managed to entangle Luke with a Yuuzhan Vong vine, but Luke managed to break free and inflict further injuries on Caedus. Just as Caedus was getting the upperhand, he was stabbed in the back by Ben, who had escaped from the Embrace to kill Jacen. Ben summoned Jacen's fallen lightsaber and attempted to kill Jacen, remarking "This kill is mine." Jacen's life was spared only when Luke told Ben that Mara's killer was Alema Rar. Horrified by his son's dark actions and Jacen's wanton brutality, Luke limped away from the room with his son and escaped the Anakin Solo, sparing Caedus his life.

During the battle, Tenel Ka, also horrified after witnessing Caedus's destructive tactics, turned against Jacen despite her love for him. At first, Jacen thought his parents were threatening Allana and forced Tenel Ka to turn on him, but after he sensed her true feelings, he knew she had willingly turned on him. Tenel Ka assaulted his ship when he refused to surrender. However, Alema Rar intervened in the Sith ship and used Battle Meditation to weaken the will on the Bothan fleet, thus allowing Jacen to escape.

Dark Lord of the Sith
"We should have dropped that kid out the medcenter window the day he was born."

- Han Solo

Shortly after the Battle of Kashyyyk, Luke said that Jacen now commanded at least master-level abilities, but will never rise up to the rank of Jedi Master. Not only that, but when asked how to solve the problem that had become Caedus, Luke, not being able to come up with an answer, left it up to Kyp Durron on to decide how to deal with Caedus. The plan resulted in Caedus fighting a Jedi strike team consisting of, Master Kyle Katarn, Knights Valin Horn, Kolir Hu'lya, Thann Mithric and an apprentice whom Caedus had sponsored, Seha Dorvald. During the ensuing fight, Caedus severely wounded Katarn by impaling him in the chest, which brought a rash attack from Mithric who received a deflected blaster bolt in his chest from Caedus and followed it up by decapitating the Falleen Jedi. After the fight, Caedus was somewhat disappointed that he could not find the body of Katarn.

Caedus felt he was truly alone as nearly everyone in his family, and even Tenel Ka, had turned against him, and admitted he would kill anyone who stood between him and his daughter, including Tenel Ka. He then planned to get the Hapes Consortium back into the Galactic Alliance by taking Allana away from Tenel Ka. After he kidnapped her, he told Allana that he was her father. He also left Tenel Ka a holo-message saying that he would kill Allana if she didn't repledge military support to the Galactic Alliance. But the threat towards his daughter, however, was a lie.



Jacen, learning that Centerpoint Station was back on line, led an armada to capture it. It was during this battle that Master Skywalker, Master Sebatyne, Ben Skywalker, and the rest of a special strike team boarded the Anakin Solo. Before a fight broke out, Caedus noticed that there was no anger in Ben towards him, and realized that he could no longer try to turn him. While Luke, Saba, and Ben distracted Caedus on the bridge of the ship, Han and Leia were able to locate and rescue Allana. Sensing that Allana was being taken from him, Caedus abandoned the fight on the bridge and rushed to Allana's room to find her missing. He rushed to the hangar bay, but it was too late. The strike team retreated with Allana and Centerpoint Station was destroyed due to Jedi sabotage. Infuriated by the loss of his daughter, Caedus killed Patra Tebut (in a manner very similar to his grandfather's methods for punishing failed subordinates) for allowing the strike team to dock on the Anakin Solo, despite the fact that she had not known who was on the shuttle and that the shuttle had broadcasted all the correct codes.

Caedus built a new lightsaber using a traditional red Sith crystal, giving his blade a reddish glow, after losing his old lightsaber at the duel between he and Luke above Kashyyyk. His extended immersion in the dark side as a Sith Lord later appeared as sulfuric irises on his eyes and dark lines upon his face. After the Battle of Centerpoint Station, his eyes would normally turn yellow without his noticing. He now realized why his officers recently seemed much more frightened and terrified in his presence.

At one point he was asked by Niathal if he were Sith, to which he admitted it, slowly coming out of his hiding as a Dark Lord of the Sith. He knew the Moffs wanted territory and used their greed to garner their allegiance. Though he used his Flow-walking to lure Tahiri into his grasp, he disliked using her in such a way. While going through a preliminary fly through in his StealthX viewing the Fondorians defenses, he was confronted by Luke who hid himself in the Force and took apart his fighter piece by piece finally breaking one of Caedus' ribs with the Force and asking him to surrender himself to the Galactic Alliance and the Jedi Council to which he refused.



He would later take Tahiri Veila as his Sith apprentice during the Second Battle of Fondor after she killed Gilad Pellaeon. When rescuing Tahiri from Mandalorians led by Boba Fett, Caedus encountered Baltan Carid, who shot Caedus in the knee. He did not try to kill him because Boba Fett had given an order to all his men to save the Sith Lord for Jaina to fight. Caedus barely escaped from the ordeal alive with Tahiri who had been wounded by Jaina and Mirta. Four days later on Coruscant, Caedus told the whole truth about his killing of Mara and his Sith identity to Captain Lon Shevu. Shevu had been helping Ben uncover evidence of Mara's murder, and during his conversation with Caedus, he secretly recorded it. Shevu sent the recording to Ben on Endor, and Ben used it to prove to his family that Caedus had indeed killed Mara. Luke then became determined for Caedus to be removed as a threat.

Death
"At the end, there was a second when he just stopped fighting so he could warn Tenel Ka. I think he became Jacen again for a second before I...before I killed him."

- Jaina Solo

Caedus was wounded by his sister Jaina in a duel on Nickel One resulting in the loss of his arm. Jaina later faced Caedus again on the Anakin Solo. During their duel, Caedus said that he had to warn Tenel Ka of a nanovirus targeted at her and Allana. Jaina believed this to be a trap and they fought. Although Caedus had thought he was superior to his sister Jaina, he came to understand that he greatly underestimated his sibling as she held her ground against him, though only barely so due to Jaina's Mandalorian training. After a brutal fight (where Caedus lost the use of his leg) Caedus, sensing he was running out of time, disengaged his lightsaber, giving his life to warn Tenel Ka through the Force to protect Allana, their daughter. Jaina, still believing it to be a trap, brought her lightsaber down on him, slicing towards his heart. As she did so she felt Jacen reaching out to Tenel Ka. This sent a cold chill through her heart, but it was too late. Afterwards she believed that she felt Jacen, not Caedus, die through her twin bond and believed that he was himself for the last moments of his life.

Caedus's Sith apprentice, Tahiri Veila, engaged Ben Skywalker in a duel. Based on his dealings with Tahiri, Skywalker realized that it was still possible to bring Tahiri back to the light, and convinced her to leave the Sith Order and surrender to him.

Legacy
After his death, Jaina told her father that she believed her brother had been himself again during his final moments, as Caedus reached out to Tenel Ka. She thought that she had felt Jacen, not Caedus, through their twin bond. Afterwards, she realized that he had succeeded in his goal: by posing such a dangerous threat and unifying so many against him, he had brought peace to the galaxy, sacrificing his name and life to do so.

Luke Skywalker would later chart a new course for the Jedi―many of whom had once looked to Jacen for inspiration―while trying to understand what had caused his nephew's fall.

Little did Jacen know that there were other Sith on Korriban, and while they disapproved of him being a Sith Lord, they regarded him as a Sith lightning rod to distract the Jedi away from them, thus giving them time to grow in numbers and power. Alema Rar tried to warn him of this, but she was killed at the hands of Jagged Fel on The Home.

Personality
"Responsibility for others could blind me to my responsibility within the Force."

- Thoughts of Jacen Solo

When Jacen was born, he had a bond with his twin sister Jaina that allowed them to understand each other perfectly. As a young child, Jacen was often left by his parents under the care of other people including Winter, who bonded with Jacen and his siblings as much as his mother Leia Organa Solo did to safeguard Jacen's future. Despite this, Jacen admitted later he was very proud of his parents' accomplishments. Well into his teens, Jacen was described as a happy-go-lucky child who tried to make his friends laugh by telling them jokes. He also collected various animals as pets. Prior to the Yuuzhan Vong war, Jacen became more serious, often arguing with his brother Anakin upon the nature of the Force. At one point, he even outright refused to use the Force, but when his mother was attacked by Tsavong Lah on Duros, he unleashed a Force Whirlwind on the Warmaster to save her life. Prior to that Luke Skywalker had the impression that Jacen had to stand firm or fall utterly, at the point where Jacen was eschewing use of the Force. Plainly, Jacen did not stand firm, he used the Force to free his mother. This could have led to the chain of events that caused his fall to the Dark Side; that is, his Force use alerted Warmaster Tsavong Lah to his ability, who then made him a priority target, leading to his capture and influence by Vergere and ultimately Lumiya. Jacen also envied his uncle Luke Skywalker's connection to the Force and shared similar views to his own mother Leia.

After Jacen was captured by Vergere, tortured nearly to the brink of death and madness, emotionally broken and was influenced by her teachings, he no longer had a clear view of the 'light' and 'dark' sides of the Force. After achieving harmony with the Force during his battle with Onimi, he knew he could never reach that state again, but in an attempt to learn more about the Force, he decided to go on a quest to see the viewpoint of other Force using cultures such as the Witches of Dathomir, and the Fallanassi.



Five years after the end of the Yuuzhan Vong war, Jacen tortured Ta'a Chume using the Force, rendering her comatose, and tricked his sister and her squadron into attacking the Chiss, which instigated the Swarm War. His rationalization for his actions was that he was protecting Tenel Ka and the newborn Allana, and that the Swarm War needed to happen to make the galaxy safer for them and everyone else. Jacen also adopted the Potentium view of the Force and convinced the rest of the Jedi to do the same. Although Luke abandoned this view during the Swarm War, Jacen still continued to follow it, saying that a Jedi's job is to be effective and that the end more than justifies the means. It is speculated that continuing to follow this belief, had a large effect on his becoming a Sith Lord.

Jacen had also advocated that the Jedi assassinate his childhood friend Raynar Thul, and when viewing a hologram of his grandfather Force choking his pregnant wife Padmé Amidala, he failed to understand why Anakin did so.

During the Second Galactic Civil War, Jacen fell further when questioned on his views by Lumiya, the Dark Lady of the Sith. He willingly became her apprentice, and killed his former apprentice Nelani Dinn to preserve secrecy. After Jacen accidentally killed Ailyn Vel during interrogation, he was more annoyed than remorseful. Jacen also began to completely shun his uncle's guidance, instead relying upon Lumiya's and Admiral Niathal's. Jacen severed his bond with Jaina to prevent her from discovering Jacen's affiliations. Like Darth Revan many millennia before him, Jacen felt that he would gain stability and order by either strengthening the galactic government or rebuilding it. Indeed, Jacen shared Revan's view; the galaxy was ill prepared to deal with internal and external threats, which to him (Jacen) was the reason it needed Sith teachings to preserve a stable lasting order.

Because of his admiration for his grandfather's resolve to use his abilities for a good end before his flaws undid him, Jacen began mirroring a number of dominant traits his grandfather had as Darth Vader, including arrogant confidence in his own power, a tendency to be offended when his motives were questioned by others, complete intolerance to either outlaws or threats to galactic unity, a prideful need for respect, and severe dislike of being proven wrong. These traits became more persistent as he studied further under Lumiya's tutelage. Jacen felt he was about to surpass his uncle's Force abilities to become either the greatest Jedi or Sith of all time. He believed he could become a Sith without repeating the mistakes his grandfather made to preserve galactic order. A flaw Jacen was aware of in himself was a lack of patience, however, Jacen came to value the importance of patience after the fight with his aunt Mara.

Jacen was told by Lumiya in order to complete his Sith training, he must sacrifice someone he loved. Jacen was heartbroken at the prospect of sacrificing Tenel Ka and Allana, but to avoid killing his daughter and her mother, he decided to sacrifice his parents instead after Lumiya informed Jacen he had a free choice in the sacrifice. As a Sith, Jacen became increasingly distant towards most of his family members, displaying cold indifference to the point he abandoned his own parents on a damaged space station and showed no affection to his former nanny Winter to whom he was especially close to in his childhood. He retained his compassion and affection only towards Ben Skywalker, Tenel Ka, and Allana. Jacen willingly betrayed both his Uncle Luke and aunt Mara Jade Skywalker into a trap involving Lumiya to keep their suspicions off him, and later would even kill Mara Jade as his Sith sacrifice.

Shortly before the Battle of Hapes, Jacen issued an arrest warrant for his own parents, and during the battle he ordered the Anakin Solo to fire upon the Millennium Falcon, endangering his parents, twin sister Jaina, Ben Skywalker, and Zekk as well. The aftermath of this incident allowed Jacen to recognize the contrasts from his adolescence to adulthood, a difference both Jacen and Luke Skywalker attributed to the consequences of the Myrkr mission and Anakin Solo's death. Jacen also came to understand he no longer felt any guilt for his own actions. Wedge Antilles remarked how Jacen had lost his sense of humor and wondered whether that same boy who would help animals down from trees would return. Jacen reflected on that thought and felt that the Myrkr mission had changed him and that every animal he saw had the face of a Voxyn.

Jacen also allowed Lumiya to endanger Ben by letting her set up a deadly mission that would take Ben to Ziost to determine if he would make a suitable Sith apprentice. The mission created a rift driving Ben and Jacen apart from each other, a void widening larger after Ben discerned Jacen's Sith affiliation. Jacen named himself Darth Caedus after he became the Dark Lord of the Sith and would cringe whenever he was identified as Jacen. Although he had fully embraced the ways of the Sith, he still cared for his family and missed the days when he wasn't hated. After the Battle of Kashyyyk, Caedus would be abandoned by everyone that was once dear to him, including Tenel Ka. Filled with anger and hatred, Caedus could only see it as another 'sacrifice' to his ultimate destiny, and hoped one day to understand it. However, despite everyone turning their backs on him, Caedus continued to draw upon his love for his family and friends in addition to his anger to make him stronger in the dark side.

As time progressed, Caedus became more and more anger driven. He would even use the Force to choke Lieutenant Tebut to death for accidentally letting Jedi saboteurs onto the Anakin Solo, much like Darth Vader had shown a tendency to do decades earlier. Later, he admitted that killing her was a mistake during a brief loss of control and believed that the incident was a reminder from the Force. He was even willing to use Centerpoint Station to destroy the Confederation fleets. While he was able to keep his composure outside the field of battle, he often lost his composure in the field of battle. During the Second Battle of Fondor, Caedus refused to accept Fondor's surrender and ignored the cease-fire. He also directly disobeyed a direct order from Niathal to stand down. After refusing to recognize Niathal's authority, he rallied two-third of the GA forces and the Imperial Remnant to his cause.

Moments before his death Caedus's last thoughts were of his family; his sister Jaina believed that Jacen was himself for the last few seconds of his life.

Abilities
"It's time he became a Master. We all know what he can do."

- Kyp Durron

Jacen was well known to be naturally gifted with great Force abilities and lightsaber skill since the age of four. While guided by his uncle's spirit when Exar Kun ripped Luke's soul from his body, Jacen fought with the abilities of a master swordsman, which he seemingly had no recollection of afterwards. Later, witnesses would recall that it seemed like Luke's own fighting style, because Luke was doing the fighting using Jacen's body. Jacen demonstrated considerable telekinetic and telepathic abilities throughout his life eventually including Force wave, Force choke, and Force whirlwind, yet Jacen's greatest expertise was befriending or influencing animals. As Jacen grew older, he demonstrated piloting ability comparable to his twin sister. Yet Jacen's greatest talent was perhaps his natural ability as a leader, guiding others to victory, which proved instrumental in the Yuuzhan Vong War, a trait Gilad Pellaeon himself personally noted.

During the Yuuzhan Vong War, after Jacen was captured by the Yuuzhan Vong and began studying under Vergere's guidance, his Force connection deepened to the point that he could match the greatest members of the New Jedi Order. Jacen learned how to neutralize toxins by rearranging molecules with the Force and began learning to mask his Force presence. Jacen's molecular rearrangement technique would save his Uncle Luke from amphistaff venom after Shimrra's defeat. After being implanted by a slave seed by Vergere and later having it removed, Jacen learned to modify his existing empathic ability (which appeared to exist outside the Force) to sense and influence the previously Force invisible Yuuzhan Vong and their biological constructs. During the war, his ability to befriend animals and the development of a "Vongsense" proved useful in undermining the Yuuzhan Vong's organic creations against them. Jacen also used the ability of Force Meld, a Force power which allowed him to coordinate the minds of the Jedi participating in the battles of Ylesia and Ebaq 9. When fighting with the true Supreme Overlord Onimi, Jacen drew upon the Unifying Force to destroy him using the Force alone in order to save his sister Jaina by achieving perfect balance between the light and dark sides. The result was possibly the most powerful use of Force Light ever known, a manifestation that surpassed the usage even by the legendary Jedi Masters Nomi Sunrider and Thon. This caused Jacen to physically age by five years and made him realize this state could never again be attained.

After studying under the Aing-Tii, Theran Listeners, Fallanassi, Dathomiri witches, Jensaarai, and various other groups Force-sensitives, Jacen became even more powerful in the Force. He mastered the art of flow-walking, the ability to view both past and future, as well as leave an imprint of himself in either time frame. Through this power, Jacen was able to give Ta'a Chume a Force-induced hemorrhage. He also mind-wiped Ben's knowledge of the incident. Jacen could also channel the Force into other individuals to bolster their Force abilities. Also, Caedus seemed to be able to resist incredible amounts of pain, as demonstrated during his first duel with Jaina on Nickel One when she cut off his arm and he was still able to give orders, and their second duel on the Anakin Solo when Jaina stabbed him through with her lightsaber and he still almost killed her.

During Jacen's time with Lumiya, he gained greater proficiency, completely concealing his Force presence, thereby becoming undetectable to other Jedi. This was trained to the point where he did not even have to put forth effort and was only discovered if he chose to magnify his presence. His confidence in this ability was shaken when he discovered that Ben's Sith Meditation Sphere had found him by the presences of others around him. Jacen tortured and killed Ailyn Vel using the Force and Force-choked Major Moreem Espara for questioning his own orders. When Jacen's daughter Allana was being threatened by Aurra Sing, Jacen intervened and held his own ground against Sing, who was noted as an infamously deadly Jedi assassin.

During his Sith training, Lumiya promised that he would gain a much greater "insight" after taking up the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith. Jacen was highly skeptical of this claim, as he did not sense any greater understanding at the time. However, shortly after taking his place as the Master of the Sith, Lumiya's claim was proven to be true. While on the bridge of the Anakin Solo, Jacen suddenly displayed an amazing sense of battle coordination and insight into how the enemy would not only move their forces, but how to counter them. Jacen had just employed one of the Sith's greatest Force abilities, a precognitive battle awareness that allowed him to know exactly how his enemy would react. Caedus had just employed the Sith variant of the ancient Force technique called battle meditation. As Caedus further immersed himself in the Sith teachings, he became extremely proficient with Sith lightning, even being able to use it at full force despite having just lost his arm in a duel with his sister Jaina. His proficiency was such that he also instructed his Sith apprentice, Tahiri Veila in its use. Caedus had also mastered the shatterpoint technique, a Force ability made famous by the Jedi Master Mace Windu. Caedus used this ability during the second battle of Roche to destroy the beskar-forged armor of the Mandalorian Protector Roegr. By tapping the breastplate lightly with the hilt of his lightsaber, Caedus was able to completely shatter the armor.

Outside the Force, Caedus displayed the ability to manipulate and deceive people as powerful as Luke Skywalker, a feat done by Palpatine long before, and Luke Skywalker during his own trek. Being the eldest son of longtime politician Leia Organa Solo, Jacen had learned much of political machinations from his mother and used this knowledge to manipulate the Galactic Alliance into appointing himself as joint Chief of State.

Caedus engaged Luke Skywalker in what he described as the most "ferocious and terrible lightsaber duel of his life". Although both were heavily wounded, Caedus was amongst the few people to survive a duel against the Jedi Grand Master and wound him badly in the process. Luke admitted that Caedus had the same skill and ability level as a Jedi Master, although he would never achieve that rank.

Caedus considered himself the best lightsaber duelist of his time, second only to Luke Skywalker. Originally, Caedus considered himself superior to Luke both in saber skill and Force ability but dropped the assumption after facing Luke on Anakin Solo.

Tenel Ka
Jacen had known Tenel Ka since they were both students at the Jedi Praxeum. In a lightsaber practice session both Jacen and Tenel Ka used live lightsabers, a following accident led to the loss of one of Tenel Ka's arms, however Tenel Ka never held a grudge against Jacen for this. When they were younger, Jacen had always tried to make her laugh in an effort to get her to open up, which usually failed. Nonetheless, Jacen viewed Tenel Ka as a close friend, and even at one point wished he could be more to her. As they grew older, they spent less time together due to their differing duties.

When Jacen was captured by the Yuuzhan Vong and cut off from the Force by Vergere, Tenel Ka finally expressed her emotions regarding Jacen when she felt his "death". Long after Tenel Ka became Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium, Jacen finally admitted his love for her, and together they had a child, Allana. Although he loved Tenel Ka and Allana very much, he could not be with them due to the political climate on Hapes. As a result, he spent very little time with both Tenel Ka and their daughter, and could not openly acknowledge that Allana was his daughter for fear of the destabilization of Tenel Ka's throne by Hapan nobles.

Tenel Ka would support and defend Jacen during the first part of the Second Galactic Civil War. Despite Jacen's increasingly brutal acts during the war, Tenel Ka would excuse his actions out of her love for him. However, this changed as a result of the Battle of Kashyyyk, when Jacen used his Fifth Fleet to bombard the planet surface when the Wookiees refused to support him. Feeling betrayed and crushed, Tenel Ka used her Hapan Fleet to attack the remnants of Jacen's fleet with the intention of stopping him. Jacen could still sense love in Tenel Ka's heart, but as he described it, it was a sad love that results from one losing someone precious to them.

Danni Quee
Jacen met Danni Quee during the beginning of the Yuuzhan Vong War, when he rescued her from Helska 4. Although she was five years older than Jacen, she did admit to him that she felt an attraction to him.

After Jacen returned from his captivity, Jacen and Danni started to grow closer, but at the end of the war, they decided that they both had different paths to pursue: She was to remain on Zonama Sekot, and he was to travel across the galaxy to learn from other Force cultures.

Name
Timothy Zahn originally intended "Jacen" to be "Jasen", after his son, but his editor at Bantam Spectra, Betsy Mitchell, suggested changing the "s" to a "c" to make the name less Earth-based.

"Jacen" is an alternate spelling of the Greek name Jason (Iason), which means 'healer'.

Jacen Solo was accidentally referred to as Jacen Skywalker in the Wizards of the Coast web supplement "Behind the Threat: The Sith."

I don't know what I want to do with this ugly thing.

Appearance
When he created the cover artworks for the Young Jedi Knights book series, artist Dave Dorman used young Calvin Engel, son of cartoonist Jim Engel, as a model for Jacen's appearance. Dorman however didn't try for his exact likeness due to Calvin's hair color and other differences. An inconsistency between visual representations and textual descriptions in latter works affects Jacen. In The Joiner King it is mentioned that he has a thick beard. However, no visual depictions show him with facial hair, other than stubble.

Parallels
"I'm your daddy."

- Jacen Solo, to Allana

Jacen's actions during the Dark Nest trilogy had many fans drawing parallels between Jacen and his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, during the final days of the Clone Wars. The extreme measures Jacen took to protect Tenel Ka and Allana (such as his torture of Ta'a Chume and his insistence that Raynar Thul be killed) have drawn comparisons to Anakin's actions to protect Padmé and the unborn Skywalker twins.

These actions, coupled with Jacen's denial of the dark side of the Force, led some fans to predict that Jacen would fall to the dark side in the then upcoming Legacy of the Force series&mdash;predictions which came true. Ironically, Jacen believed that he could master the dark side without making the same mistakes as his grandfather, but he seemingly failed to realize that his desire to protect his family mirrored Anakin's own.

Lightsaber
Jacen had used four lightsabers in his life. After he was kidnapped by Brakiss, he was given a lightsaber with an indigo blade as a means of persuasion to join the Second Imperium. When he was rescued by his uncle, Jacen left the saber behind and learned a hard lesson about wielding one.

His first official lightsaber was built after his friend Zekk was taken in by the Shadow Academy. After taking great care to build it, he used his Corusca gem as his focusing crystal, which gave the blade an emerald green color. He used this saber for most of his life, even as a Sith Lord. This saber was lost during his duel with his uncle and taken by his cousin and former apprentice, Ben.

While constructing his Sith lightsaber, Jacen made use of another lightsaber of unknown color and origin (it is possible that he had intentionally built this lightsaber beforehand as a backup though it is equally possible that he simply took it from the abandoned Jedi Temple after his duel with Luke).

His fourth lightsaber would consist of a red synth crystal, which gave a crimson glow to the blade, representing his membership to the Sith. It is not stated what this lightsaber looks like, but on the front cover of Revelation, the lightsaber wielded by Caedus resembles that of Anakin Skywalker's saber as Darth Vader. Another possible look is that of the "Sith Jacen" that Lumiya had visioned in her habitat. The "Sith Jacen" is described as: Wearing black robes, with a golden and black lightsaber hanging from his belt.

Sith Name
As revealed at starwars.com, Jacen indeed became a Dark Lord of the Sith in Sacrifice. There was a contest through the site where registered members could choose Jacen's Sith name. Prior to this, many believed that he would become Darth Krayt. The finalist names were: Acheron (a river in Hell for those who deny justice), Caedus (a battle of darkness), Judicar (the final judge), Paxis (bringer of peace) and Taral (ancient Sith for "he who protects").

The winning name, which appeared at the end of Sacrifice, was "Darth Caedus." Caedus was originally thought to be an invention based on the Latin verb cædo, cædere (the noun form of which is cæsum, not cædus) which means "to cut" or "to kill"; however, Cædus is also a Latin noun, either of the second declension or the fourth, meaning "slaughter". It is a more obscure Latin root. Cædus would not necessarily be related to Cæsum. From both derivatives, the word's meanings accurately describe Jacen's increasingly violent tactics towards civilians and his murder of his own loved ones. This word is more obscure.

However, caed is also an early Welsh word which translates as battle. It is also reminiscent of the Spanish word "caido", which means "fallen". In Star Wars Legacy 18: Claws of the Dragon, Part 5, Darth Caedus's name is misspelled "Darth Cadeus". This was corrected in the trade paperback.



Appearances

 * Prophets of the Dark Side
 * Heir to the Empire
 * Heir to the Empire comic adaptation
 * Dark Force Rising
 * Dark Force Rising comic adaptation
 * The Last Command
 * The Last Command comic adaptation
 * Dark Empire
 * Dark Empire II
 * Empire's End
 * I, Jedi
 * Jedi Search
 * Dark Apprentice
 * Champions of the Force
 * The Other
 * Children of the Jedi
 * Darksaber
 * Planet of Twilight
 * The Crystal Star
 * Before the Storm
 * Shield of Lies
 * Tyrant's Test
 * The New Rebellion
 * Ambush at Corellia
 * Assault at Selonia
 * Showdown at Centerpoint
 * Specter of the Past
 * Vision of the Future
 * Star Wars: Union
 * Junior Jedi Knights: The Golden Globe
 * Junior Jedi Knights: Lyric's World
 * Junior Jedi Knights: Promises
 * Junior Jedi Knights: Anakin's Quest
 * Junior Jedi Knights: Vader's Fortress
 * Junior Jedi Knights: Kenobi's Blade
 * Young Jedi Knights: Heirs of the Force
 * Young Jedi Knights: Shadow Academy
 * Young Jedi Knights: The Lost Ones
 * Young Jedi Knights: Lightsabers
 * Young Jedi Knights: Darkest Knight
 * Young Jedi Knights: Jedi Under Siege
 * Young Jedi Knights: Shards of Alderaan
 * Young Jedi Knights: Diversity Alliance
 * Young Jedi Knights: Delusions of Grandeur
 * Young Jedi Knights: Jedi Bounty
 * Young Jedi Knights: The Emperor's Plague
 * Young Jedi Knights: Return to Ord Mantell
 * Young Jedi Knights: Trouble on Cloud City
 * Young Jedi Knights: Crisis at Crystal Reef
 * The Crystal
 * Vector Prime
 * Star Wars: Chewbacca
 * Dark Tide I: Onslaught
 * Dark Tide II: Ruin
 * Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial
 * Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse
 * Balance Point
 * Recovery
 * Edge of Victory I: Conquest
 * Edge of Victory II: Rebirth
 * Star by Star
 * Dark Journey
 * Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream
 * Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand
 * Traitor
 * Destiny's Way
 * Ylesia
 * Force Heretic I: Remnant
 * Force Heretic II: Refugee
 * Force Heretic III: Reunion
 * The Final Prophecy
 * The Unifying Force
 * Dark Nest I: The Joiner King
 * Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen
 * Dark Nest III: The Swarm War
 * Betrayal
 * Bloodlines
 * Tempest
 * Exile
 * Sacrifice
 * Inferno
 * Fury
 * Revelation
 * Invincible
 * Millennium Falcon
 * Star Wars Legacy: Claws of the Dragon