Room of a Thousand Fountains/Legends

"The Jedi Academy on Dantooine is nothing more than a crater that echoes with the ghosts of dead Jedi. And the Jedi Temple on Coruscant lies empty. The waters in the Room of a Thousand Fountains have fallen still, in reverence to the fallen Jedi... and those now lost."

- Kreia on the destruction of the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine and the Jedi abandoning the Jedi Temple on Coruscant during the First Jedi Purge

The Room of a Thousand Fountains was a large greenhouse located at the base of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Containing waterfalls and huge amounts of flora, meditative areas, pottery, and stone walkways, the chamber served as a meditative retreat for the members of the Jedi Order while staying in the Temple. Though it was destroyed in 19 BBY, the chamber was rebuilt in the new Jedi Temple circa 35 ABY.

History
"Troubled you are, if the garden you seek."

- Yoda to Qui-Gon Jinn

Having lost the Great Jedi Library of Ossus, the Jedi Order relocated to the city planet Coruscant where the Four Masters had begun to build a Temple that would expand, be destroyed and then rebuilt over the millennia. In all its incarnations it remained largely the same, serving the Order as a retreat from the cityscape of Coruscant and a place to be close to nature.

While the Jedi High Council stayed neutral during the Mandalorian Wars, the Order could not help but defend themselves during the Jedi Civil War. With many casualties, the Jedi could not hold the Temple as the Sith Triumvirate began the Jedi Purge of 3,954 BBY. With many of the members of the Order in hiding, the fountains all fell silent in reverence to the fallen and hunted Jedi. Though reoccupied shortly after the Purge's end, the Temple would fall three centuries later to the resurgent Sith Empire during the Sacking of Coruscant. The Fountain Room was most likely destroyed during the bombing of the complex.

Eventually having been rebuilt, the Fountain Room remained in use during the Golden Age of the Republic. In 44 BBY, the Room of a Thousand Fountains was the location of several incidents. Unbeknownst to the former Jedi Padawan Xanatos, now dubbed a Dark Jedi, had infiltrated the Temple. Having committed a series of robberies at the Temple with the help of Padawan Bruck Chun, Xanatos began to escalate his attacks. In the early morning, as Grand Master Yoda was crossing a bridge in the room, Xanatos detonated a bomb meant to kill the ancient Master. Surviving the attack, Yoda informed the High Council and the Temple went on high alert.

While the Jedi were attempting to discover the intruder, Padawan Chun kidnapped fellow student Bant Eerin, and chained her to the floor of the waterfall pool. Having discovered Chun's treachery, Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi located Eerin and rescued her from drowning. Revealing himself, Chun attacked Kenobi and forced him to the top of the waterfall. While defending himself, Kenobi managed to throw Chun off balance, sending the fallen Padawan over the edge to plummet to his death. While Xanatos fled, the debacle in the Temple ended with only one casualty.

Over the next few decades, the Fountain Room was host to many a discussion by the High Council. During the tragedy that was the Clone Wars, Master Yoda met here with Maks Leem to discuss how the Order had strayed from its path, reflecting on the beauty of the room and how the Temple should have been built on a jungle planet.

During the final days of the Clone Wars, the High Council discovered that the Dark Lord of the Sith they had been hunting was in fact Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Moving to arrest him a group of Masters led by Mace Windu left the Temple, leaving Master Shaak Ti and Gatemaster Jurokk in charge of the Temple's defenses. While preparing for a potential fight, Jedi battlemaster Cin Drallig took a group of Padawans to the room and began running trough lightsaber combat exercises. With Windu having failed to kill the Sith, Operation: Knightfall was issued to the Grand Army of the Republic. Led by Darth Vader, the 501st Legion marched into the Temple and began to slaughter all the Jedi there. As troopers poured into the Room of a Thousand Fountains, Drallig and his students, ranging from ages four to seventeen, began to deflect their shots. As hard as Drallig and the older students tried, they could not block all the shots and the younger students began to fall. Instructing the students to flee, Drallig and his loyal students charged the line of troopers and were able to push them back. Their victory was short lived as Darth Vader entered the fight and quickly slew Padawans Whie Malreaux and Bene. As more and more Knights and Padawans fell, Drallig entered into a duel with Vader, fighting until a lightsaber strike to the shoulder defeated him.



In the days following the Temple's capture by the Galactic Empire, Masters Yoda and Kenobi broke in and began searching for answers. Making their way to the Room of a Thousand Fountains, the two crept through the burnt shrubbery and foggy air to find Drallig and his apprentices slain on the stone and dirt floor. In the distance, clone troopers were also sifting through the dead, recording the names of the dead, and then burning their bodies on the steps of the Temple's public entrance. Over the next few months, Ferus Olin would also break into the Temple in search of a rumored Jedi prison. While fleeing pursuing troopers, Olin ran through the Fountain room, noting the dried river beds amongst the dead plants. Leaping around the inactive waterfall and through fetid water, Olin escaped the chamber through the ruined ceiling's catwalk system.

While the Temple managed to largely survive the Galactic Civil War, even at one point being lightly reoccupied, the complex was completely ruined during the Yuuzhan Vong War. It would be several years until the Chief of State of the newly founded Galactic Federation of Free Alliances would order the rebuilding of the Temple. Erected by the Reconstruction Authority, the Room of a Thousand Fountains was rebuilt in accordance to a specific request by Grand Master Luke Skywalker, the founder of the new Jedi Order. This request came after having seen mention of the room in documents found in the recovered Jedi Archives. The new Temple would eventually be finished and re-inhabited, the Fountain Room once again housing exotic planets and flowing waters.

In 40 ABY, the Fountain room would play host to the disguised Lumiya, Dark Lady of the Sith. Led into the Temple by Knight Jacen Solo, the Sith was able to convince Solo of her level-headedness and her ability to train him to become a Sith himself without letting her hate of the Jedi get the better of her. Earlier that same year, Solo had flow-walked back in time to the Fountain room as it had stood in the old Temple. Through the eye of time Solo witnessed his grandfather, Darth Vader, slay Drallig and his students. Through this, he saw the faulty thinking of Vader and pledged to be a better Sith Lord.

As the Jedi were blamed for failure to prevent the Second Galactic Civil War, the Interim Grand Master Kenth Hamner met with Knight Leia Organa Solo in this chamber. Organa Solo had become increasingly disobedient following the exile of her brother, Grand Master Skywalker, and required a reprimand by Hamner.

Layout
Located at the base of the Jedi Temple's northwestern side, this seven story tall green house was one of the Temple's major focal points. The main entrance to the chamber consisted a short passage behind huge wooden doors, emptying onto a platform from which several stone and dirt paths diverged. The winding paths cut through potted plants and large displays of exotic foliage from across the galaxy. Little bridges crossed streams that flowed from unseen sources. Benches lined the paths, encouraging meditation and reflection. Fountains could be heard trickling from anywhere in the chamber, along with the roar of the waterfall at the room's center. Some fountains were concealed by the shrubbery, but others were brilliantly displayed in the center of stone walkways.

Along with its uses for meditation some Jedi came here for lightsaber practice; the Jedi Councils sometimes met in the chamber due to its peacefulness and serenity. The room served not only as a place of beauty, but also a display room for the tokens of thanks and appreciation given to the Temple by planetary governments over the history of the Republic. Gifts in the form of foreign flora were often sent to the Order and placed in the chamber. Among the collection was a stand of hylaian marsh bamboo, assari trees, and a bhansgrek bush grove.

Beside the beauty of the gardens, the chamber also was home to a technological wonder. In the rafters of the room was a large collection of lighting banks that disguised the ceiling as an outdoor sky. The combination of light and canvas completed the illusion that gave the room its feel of a completely separate environment from that of Coruscant. Beyond the canvas was a system of catwalks and ramps which allowed the Temple Caretakers and servicemen to move about unseen amongst the lighting and atmospheric control banks. After Operation: Knightfall, the fabric was left hanging in tatters, with the catwalks broken free and hanging precariously down into the open area above the destroyed waterfalls.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Rising Force
 * ''Jedi Apprentice: The Uncertain Path
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Captive Temple
 * Jedi Apprentice: The Deadly Hunter
 * Jedi Apprentice Special Edition: Deceptions
 * Jedi Quest: The Trail of the Jedi
 * Jedi Quest: The Master of Disguise
 * Jedi Quest: The Shadow Trap
 * Jedi Quest: The Final Showdown
 * Legacy of the Jedi
 * Secrets of the Jedi
 * Jedi Trial
 * Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith novelization
 * The Last of the Jedi: Underworld
 * Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen
 * Bloodlines
 * Omen
 * Allies