Reborn



"Strange. He looked like a Jedi and fought like a Jedi, but his power felt so warped."

- Kyle Katarn

An accomplishment of the dream of artificial infusion of the Force into individuals, the Reborn were a deadly force of Dark Jedi. The Reborn warriors were the instrument of the Empire Reborn faction, to bring back the ideals of Emperor Palpatine, the ways of the Sith and the Galactic Empire itself.

Desann's Reborn
Desann, a former student at Luke Skywalker's Jedi Praxeum and a Dark Jedi allied to one of the Imperial Remnant's many warlords, Admiral Galak Fyyar, was key to the creation of the Reborn &mdash; an army of warriors artificially imbued with the Force.



Hethrir had entrusted Desann with training a number of his Empire Youths. The Dark Jedi used the Force nexus on the Valley of the Jedi, whose location Desann had tricked Kyle Katarn into revealing, quadrupling their powers with the residue of the ancient Jedi and Sith spirits. Wielding their own lightsabers, and wearing cloaked uniforms, they were a military organization that would support Hethrir's Empire Reborn and posed a serious threat to both the New Republic and Skywalker's newly established Jedi Order.

Agents of Desann and the Empire Reborn, the Reborn were dispatched on various missions to different locations in the galaxy along with regular Imperial army units. One such place was the Cloud City on Bespin, which they briefly occupied, until defeated by the local militia which was assisted by Kyle Katarn, who was now struggling to reconnect with the Force.

Desann, teeming with hatred towards Luke Skywalker, planned for the ultimate purpose of the Reborn to be the destruction of him and his Jedi Academy, as Desann and Fyyar planned on unleashing their army of Reborn, the superior Shadowtroopers (equipped with cortosis armor and cloaking device), and ordinary Imperial forces at Skywalker's academy on Yavin 4. The invasion army was to be unleashed from the Imperial transport ship Doomgiver, under the command of Imperial Admiral Galak Fyyar.

However, Kyle Katarn, who had rediscovered his connection with the Force, managed to infiltrate the Doomgiver and transmit its coordinates to Rogue Squadron, who launched an attack, destroying the ship in orbit above Yavin 4 before the entire invasion army had reached the surface of the moon. Those forces that had already landed were defeated by New Republic forces and Skywalker's Jedi. Many Reborn and Shadowtroopers fell victim to Kyle Katarn, who eventually killed Desann inside the Jedi Academy.

Tavion's New Reborn


After Desann's defeat, those Reborn who had survived rallied under Tavion Axmis, Desann's apprentice whose life Katarn had spared on Bespin. Tavion, with the support of the Imperial Remnant, had established a Sith cult called the Disciples of Ragnos, whose aim was to resurrect the ancient Sith Lord Marka Ragnos and take over the galaxy. Fighting alongside Tavion's own Sith Cultists, the New Reborn, as they were now called, became core to Tavion's as they were more skilled and powerful than her newly recruited Cultists, who, like the Reborn, were artificially embued with the Force&mdash;this time with the aid of the Scepter of Ragnos.

As with Desann, Tavion dispatched her Cultists and New Reborn on various missions to locations all over the galaxy, where they faced several Jedi Knights from Skywalker's academy, among others Kyle Katarn, who was now a Jedi Master, and his highly talented apprentice, Jaden Korr. Korr, most of all proved to be a nemesis of the Cultists and New Reborn, as many of them met their end at the blade of Korr's lightsaber.

The New Reborn met their ultimate end on the planet Korriban, as an army of Jedi from Skywalker's academy&mdash;including Masters Katarn and Skywalker himself&mdash;defeated them in an epic battle that took place among the ancient Sith temples and tombs in the Valley of the Dark Lords. The last of the New Reborn had fortified themselves inside in the tomb of Marka Ragnos, where most of them were slain by Jaden Korr. When Ragnos' Scepter was destroyed by Korr, the remaining New Reborn lost all their Force powers and were quickly rounded up by New Republic troops and Jedi.

Ranks
Under Desann, the Reborn were more of an organized military force than a massive war band of Dark Jedi. They had different colors for each rank and were organized and trained into different groups specialized for different tasks.


 * Reborn: The weakest division. Reborn had minimal strength in the Force; they carried a simple red lightsaber and their cloaks were orange. They were proficient in the use of their weapons but were not skilled enough to defeat a Jedi one on one.
 * Acrobats: They wore blue, and specialized in using the Force to jump and be mobile.
 * Force Users: They wore red over their cream colored vests. Their specialization was in pure Force abilities rather than saber skills or unarmed combat skills, much like the Force based Sith Cultists of Tavion's forces.
 * Fencers: Skilled and trained specially with their red sabers; they also had reasonable skill with the Force. Their color was green. The average Jedi could defeat a Reborn Fencer, but not without difficulty.
 * Bosses: Wore black and red robes. They were a combination of all the different Reborn divisions. They were the second highest level, an elite of the organization. They were capable of using the Force strongly, and countering a Jedi's blade skills. They were Desann's best men along with Galak's Shadowtroopers.
 * Masters: The absolute elite, they wore grey suits and carried lightsabers identical in style to those of their dead lord, Desann. More than a match for any Jedi, it would take someone with special Force talent or saber skills to defeat them.

Under Tavion the Reborn were less organized and wore different uniforms; mostly grey and red, but some had blue. Two prominent New Reborn were the Kothos Twins, Vil and Dasariah Kothos. They did not use lightsabers but were more powerful in the Force than other Reborn, using acrobatics and other abilities. They wore orange and were powerful adversaries.

Reborn and Jedi
While able to use the Force and skilled in lightsaber combat, the Reborn, New Reborn, and Tavion's Sith Cultists lacked the training that Skywalker's Jedi had gone through as well as their discipline. Skywalker himself pointed this out to Katarn after they had dueled and defeated a group of Reborn during the crisis of the Empire Reborn. Being artificially embued with the Force, many Reborn developed an arrogance and exaggerated self-confidence that trained Jedi would not have. In combat, the Reborn would often taunt their opponent with utterances such as "Do you fear me?", "Come get me, Jedi" and "I thought Jedi were powerful", but in the end the Jedi proved to be superior. Nevertheless, in a two on one situation, the two Reborns could defeat a Jedi.

Whilst searching for Jan Ors, Kyle Katarn who had not even regained his full connection with the Force had several run-ins with Desann's Reborn and Shadowtroopers, defeating them all nevertheless. During the crisis of the Disciples of Ragnos there were many cases of one single Jedi taking on several Sith Cultists and New Reborn simultaneously, still ending up victourious. The sheer number of Reborn, New Reborn, and Sith Cultists dying by the hands of Kyle Katarn and Jaden Korr should be an indicator of the superiority of the Jedi over the Reborn.

Reborn and the "stormtrooper effect"/"inverse ninja law"
There is doubtlessly a mismatch between the number of Reborn and New Reborn killed singlehandedly by Kyle Katarn and Jaden Korr and the threat that they are made out to be, especially in cutscenes of the two video games they appear in.

It has often been argued that the source of this digetically serious mismatch phenomenon is the application of the inverse ninja law, which is best described as a subtype of the stormtrooper effect, to the two recent Jedi Knight games.

It essentially states that the skill and ability of each ninja, within any given group is inversely proportional to the number of ninjas, in the said group. While a single enemy ninja is often portrayed as a significant threat to the protagonists, a large group of ninja is significantly less of a threat, and as such is easily defeated; that is, the more enemy ninjas there are, the weaker each individual ninja is (unless the lone ninja is left in a near dead state to fight a larger battle at a later date). This is sometimes applied to other close combat–oriented minions as well, such as the Reborn, New Reborn, and Sith Cultists of the two recent Jedi Knight games. For instance, the first Reborn encountered in Jedi Outcast serves a considerable chellenge to the novice player, which also applies to the first Sith Cultist encountered in Jedi Academy, but later on, as the player has improved, larger numbers of the same type of opponent appear to pose less of a challenge individually.

Thus, the weakness of the Reborn and the superiority of the Jedi in the two recent Jedi Knight games are merely a reflection of the inverse ninja law, which is applied to the games for the sake of the gameplay. While it presents a digetic mismatch, it does then, nevertheless, serve the purpose of giving the player a positive experience of the gameplay. It should be mentioned that, just like the stormtrooper effect does not apply completely in any of the Jedi Knight games, the inverse ninja law is also violated in that the strength of the Reborn are not weakened in relation to their number, but appears to remain constant. It is more correct to argue that they are generally kept weak in relation to the player, even though more powerful Reborn are introduced in the course of the game, to match the improvements of the player character, so as to not make the game impossible to complete.

In fact, a digetic explanation is proposed, which has been more or less accepted as the in-universe cause of the Reborns' relative weakness compared to the Jedi. In a cutscene of Jedi Outcast, Luke Skywalker tells Kyle Katarn that the Reborn lack the training and discipline of the New Jedi Order, which he characterizes as the ultimate weakness of the Reborn. Indeed, as we see in the final levels of both Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy, a relatively small number of Jedi Knights are capable of holding their own against a significantly larger number of Reborn.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
 * Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy