Forum:KB:When the Padawan's Master dies suddenly

I was thinking about the career of Etain Tur-Mukan (a major character in the "Republic Commando" novels) and I found myself wondering: What happens if a Padawan's Master drops dead when the Padawan's personalized training is far from complete?

I took the time to look through our friendly neighborhood Padawan article on Wookiepedia, and I didn't spot any clear answer to that exact question.

As I understand it, you're supposed to complete a long term as "Padawan" before you are even eligible to take (and probably pass) the Jedi Trials. Passing the Trials is what makes you a full-fledged Jedi Knight in your own right, eligible to be sent far away on dangerous missions (you lucky dog!), with the option of selecting and training Padawans of your own (one at a time) when you feel the urge, and so on and so forth.

In Etain's case, she seems to have become a full Jedi Knight during the gap between the first and second volumes of the "Republic Commando" books. In other words, shortly after returning to the Temple from the mission on Qiilura which had resulted in the death of her Master (Kast Fulier). Presumably she was ready to face the Trials at that point, and voluntarily did so (and obviously succeeded), and the fact that her Master was already dead was not viewed as an obstacle to testing and promoting her, since he'd (presumably) already given her all the training he could, over the last decade or so.

But what if Fulier had died, say, five years earlier, when Etain had already been his Padawan for a few years, but she (and everyone else) knew darn well that she was nowhere near ready to face the Trials? What happens to the half-trained Padawan's "career prospects" in the Jedi Order at that point?

I don't immediately recall any canonical precedent which describes that exact situation happening to some other Padawan, but that doesn't mean much -- there are dozens of novels I haven't read yet!

Can anyone enlighten me on what the rules were (in the days of the Old Republic) concerning the subsequent training of an "orphaned" Padawan whose mentor died long before the apprentice was ready to face the Trials and become a full-fledged Jedi Knight?

P.S. After I'd typed all that, I went back and checked the article on Etain herself. It simply says: "After finishing her mission on Qiilura, Etain completed her Jedi Trials under Arligan Zey and became a full Jedi Knight." Should I take that to mean that, as a courtesy, Zey made her "my new Padawan" for a few days so that he could "officially endorse" her request to face the Trials? (The article doesn't say that in so many words, and I'm not remembering any time in the books where Etain says, "Yeah, I used to be General Zey's Padawan -- so briefly that if you blinked, you would have missed it!")

But even if that's what happened, it still leaves the question of what would have happened to Etain if she had not already been on the verge of taking the Trials, and if Zey had not been willing to take her under his wing as a courtesy. If Fulier had died when there were still several years of work left to be done in training Etain properly, she might not have found it so easy to find another qualified Master who a) didn't already have a Padawan to keep him busy (only one at a time was allowed in that era), and b) was perfectly willing to fit her into his life for years to come. Lorendiac 19:55, January 9, 2012 (UTC)