Jenna Zan Arbor

"You are a subject of a scientific experimentation. You will not be hurt, only studied."

- Jenna Zan Arbor to Qui-Gon Jinn

Jenna Zan Arbor was a deranged scientist from the planet Ventrux who had numerous confrontations with the Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Anakin Skywalker. During the Clone Wars, she was a leading scientist working for the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

Early career
At the beginning of her career, Jenna Zan Arbor was a famed scientist and the head of Arbor Industries. She was known for saving a planet from a pandemic after creating a vaccine for a deadly virus. Zan Arbor was also known to help planets with little technology such as Melasaton overcome their burdens. However, nobody knew that she actually started the problems in the first place, to gain credits and improve her reputation.

Force experiments
Zan Arbor became interested in how the Force worked and began conducting experiments. She had connections to the Senator of Belasco, Uta S'orn who kept her dark deeds quiet in the Galactic Senate. Unbeknownst to Senator S'orn, her son Ren, who was Force-sensitive (though was forbidden to train with the Jedi) was being studied by Zan Arbor. These experiments lead to Ren's death. Zan Arbor felt she needed a subject stronger in the Force, so she captured Qui-Gon Jinn from Didi's Cafe and took him to her research facility on Simpla-12. She tortured him to the point of near death. However Qui-Gon was rescued by Obi-Wan, along with Cholly, Weez and Tup. Yet she warned the Jedi that she had another in custody, a former Jedi named Noor R'aya and threatened to inject him with poison should Qui-Gon leave the building. She killed her assistant, Nil, as he was a liability. Zan Arbor then made plans to leave the planet, contacting Cholly, Weez and Tup, who were droid dealers to arrange shipment of battle droids. But the trio were helping Obi-Wan, Siri Tachi and Adi Gallia get into her lab.

Belasco
With the droids all destroyed, Zan Arbor escaped the planet with Noor. Zan Arbor fled to Belasco, where she engineered a virus from natural waterborne organisms on the planet. She planned to infect the populace through their water supply, designing the bacteria to proliferate if threatened. With S'orn's help, she was able to infiltrate the containment facilities to introduce the bacteria. The Jedi caught up to her, with the data to cure Belasco. As Qui-Gon trapped her under a tapestry, she deeply regretted that she didn't kill him when she had the chance. Both Zan Arbor and Uta S'orn were sent to a penal colony for life. The solution for the bacteria Zan Arbor introduced was found on her datapad and the water was fixed.

Galactic criminal
Around 25 BBY, Zan Arbor somehow escaped the penal colony. She settled on the planet Vanqor and began perfecting a drug known as the Zone of Self-Containment. With this drug, she was able to capture Anakin Skywalker and many other innocent people; however, she was forced to flee Vanqor when Obi-Wan Kenobi, Siri Tachi and Ferus Olin came to rescue Anakin. Fleeing Vanqor, Zan Arbor teamed up with Granta Omega who agreed to fund her next project. She went into hiding on Romin, under the protection of Roy Teda and her Phlog bodyguard Hue. When Teda was overthrown, the Jedi came to capture them, but they escaped yet again.

In 24 BBY, Zan Arbor then constructed the Blackwater Systems facility on Falleen to create machines that would be used to spread the Zone of Self-Containment. The Jedi once again foiled her plot and she was forced to destroy the facility. The Jedi chased her to Coruscant, where she and Granta Omega orchestrated a failed attempt to poison the Galactic Senate, and finally to Korriban, where she and Omega were cornered by the Jedi. When the Jedi killed Omega, Zan Arbor fled. She went into hiding and went unnoticed by both the Jedi and the Republic. That same year, when Count Dooku publicly declared the formation of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, Zan Arbor was hired to be one of their leading scientists.

The Clone Wars
Now a scientist for the Separatists, Zan Arbor created devastating agents of biological warfare. A few months before the Battle of Geonosis, she worked with Arkanian genetic researchers to create the stone mites, insects that could devour entire buildings in mere hours. These stone mites were unleashed on a number of worlds.

Two months into the Clone Wars, Zan Arbor successfully perfected a deadly gas poison that was used to wipe out the entire Gungan colony on the Naboo moon of Ohma-D'un. A form of this same gas was incorporated into the defense mechanism of Viceroy Nute Gunray's mechno-chair.

Early Empire
One year after Order 66 was carried out, Zan Arbor was spotted on Korriban by Ferus Olin and Trever Flume followed by a high-ranking Imperial Officer. She commanded the officer to bring her to the Valley of the Dark Lords.

Later, on Bellassa, Olin discovered evidence possibly linking her to a secret Imperial project. Zan Arbor was working with scientists who had been forcibly taken from their homeworlds, to create a memory serum that would completely remove specific unpleasant memories. Scientist Linna Naltree was with her when Darth Vader came to call for the serum, seeking to eliminate his memory of Padmé Amidala. After Vader left, Zan Arbor and her assistant ran into fugitives Trever Flume and Ry-Gaul. As the two attacked the scientist, Linna administered the serum via syringe to Zan Arbor, wiping her memory slowly. As she screamed over her fading formulas and fifty years of work, Trevor Flume destroyed her personal datapad, eliminating the threat of Jenna Zan Arbor once and for all. Now a empty shell of her former self, Arbor was left with no identity and a vague sense that she had once been a brilliant genius.

Later when Vader visited her after she failed to respond to any of his messages, he found out what happened to her and killed her in a flash of anger.

Appearances

 * Jedi Apprentice: The Deadly Hunter
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Evil Experiment
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Dangerous Rescue
 * Jedi Quest: The Moment of Truth
 * Jedi Quest: The Changing of the Guard
 * Jedi Quest: The False Peace
 * Jedi Quest: The Final Showdown
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * The Last of the Jedi: Secret Weapon
 * The Last of the Jedi: Against the Empire
 * The Last of the Jedi: Master of Deception
 * The Last of the Jedi: Reckoning
 * The Last of the Jedi: Reckoning

Notes and references
Jenna Zan Arbor