Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (comics)

"It's all Star Wars, whenever it takes place."

- John Jackson Miller

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, also known as simply Knights of the Old Republic or KotOR, is a monthly comic book series published by Dark Horse Comics that ran for five years, beginning January 25, 2005 and ending with its fiftieth issue on February 17, 2010. Written by John Jackson Miller, Knights of the Old Republic saw a variety of different artists and cover artists draw various issues of the series, and KotOR serves as a sequel to the earlier Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi comic series and a prequel to the popular Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic video game. Set in 3,964 BBY and later 3,963 BBY, Knights of the Old Republic focuses on Zayne Carrick, a Padawan of the Jedi Order who is framed for the Padawan Massacre&mdash;the murder of Zayne's fellow Padawans&mdash;by the true perpetrators, Zayne's teachers, who are members of a mysterious Jedi Covenant. Banding together with the con man Hierogryph, the fiery Jarael, and the eccentric Camper, Carrick goes on the run and works to clear his name by exposing the existence of the Covenant. When he finally manages to clear his name, Carrick takes up work with Hierogryph and Jarael, but the trio and their friends soon tangle with the slaving organization known as the Crucible.

As the flagship series of Dark Horse Comics' 2005 relaunch of their Star Wars line in celebration of their 20th anniversary, Knights of the Old Republic soon became one of Dark Horse's best-selling titles. In 2008, Knights of the Old Republic hosted the first four issues of the Vector crossover, an event that crossed into all four of Dark Horse's ongoing Star Wars series at the time. Knights of the Old Republic featured numerous references to both Tales of the Jedi and the Knights of the Old Republic games, and the series expanded greatly on the Mandalorian Wars introduced in the video games. At the Baltimore Comic-Con in 2009, Dark Horse announced that the series would end with its fiftieth issue, Demon, Part 4, in February 2010. In 2012, the series received a sequel miniseries that was set one year after the original series, John Jackson Miller's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: War, and elements of Knights of the Old Republic have made their way into later Star Wars products such as the video game Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Commencement


"The one who confesses, lives. I don't care which of you does it. It doesn't matter where they send you. You have a death mark, same as me. Don't look for me, Lucien. Because I'll find you. And if I do end up collapsing the Jedi Order, just remember one thing. You started it."

- Zayne Carrick

In the year 3,964 BBY, on the city-planet Taris, the Jedi Padawan Zayne Carrick tries to capture the Snivvian criminal Marn Hierogryph for the eighth time, but Carrick's clumsiness allows Hierogryph to escape and send the Padawan flying off a building. Carrick is rescued by "Squint", a Jedi Knight who had been sent by Carrick's Jedi Master Lucien Draay to look for him, and Carrick learns that Squint is one of several Jedi visiting Taris's Jedi Tower in hopes of recruiting allies for their fight in the Mandalorian Wars between the Galactic Republic and the Mandalorian warrior culture. Squint takes Carrick back to the Jedi Tower, and he tells the Padawan how sometimes one has to enter the darkness to save the light&mdash;and as Squint and the others depart, Master Q'Anilia senses a disturbance in the Force that Lucien Draay and the other Masters decide to investigate.

Tipped off by Q'Anilia's premonition, the five Jedi Masters at the Jedi Tower on Taris&mdash;Lucien Draay, Feln, Q'Anilia, Raana Tey, and Xamar&mdash;take their Padawans&mdash;Zayne Carrick, Oojoh, Shad Jelavan, Kamlin, and Gharn &mdash;to the rogue moon of the Taris system for a final survival test. There, the Jedi Masters&mdash;all of whom are part of a secret Jedi Covenant dedicated to preventing the rise of the Sith&mdash;experience a Force vision that predicts their deaths at the hand of a red-armored figure. Believing the figure to be one of their Padawans, who are wearing red space suits identical to the foreseen Sith Lord, the Masters agree to execute their apprentices in a staged Knighting ceremony on Taris.

However, Zayne Carrick arrives late to the ceremony after he finally captures Hierogryph, and he finds the five Masters standing over their dead students: the Masters had killed them despite Carrick's absence, for the Padawans became suspicious of their intentions. Horrified, Carrick flees the Jedi Tower with Hierogryph and manages to escape to the Lower City of Taris, where the two realize that the Masters have placed bounties on their heads, as the "Padawan Massacre" has been blamed on Carrick. With Hierogryph's reluctant help, Carrick evades the Masters, tricking them into searching Taris's Undercity while the duo approach a refugee camp in the region known as Machineville. There, Hierogryph seeks out the aging Arkanian Offshoot engineer Camper and his fierce protector Jarael in hopes of acquiring a route offworld, but when the Jedi and Taris's police arrive, the group is forced to launch into space aboard the junk hauler Last Resort&mdash;which promptly loses power once in orbit.

When power is restored, the Last Resort hides among the asteroid belt in the Taris system, though Carrick attempts to contact Master Vandar Tokare and the Jedi Council at the Jedi Enclave on the planet Dantooine and seek help only to learn that Tokare does not believe his story. Realizing how unusual it is for four Jedi Consulars to be assigned to a single planet like Taris, Carrick decides to investigate the rogue moon in hopes of learning why the Masters killed the Padawans, and he and Jarael&mdash;who still resents Carrick for uprooting and exposing her and Camper&mdash;discover the Jedi's damaged droid T1-LB. Escaping Master Draay on the rogue moon, Carrick and the others examine T1-LB's memory: the droid witnessed the Jedi Masters experience their vision on the rogue moon, and Draay destroyed the droid to eliminate a witness, an action that severely damaged T1-LB's programming and brain.

When the Last Resort is captured by the bounty hunter and pirate Valius Ying, Hierogryph negotiates his own release and that of Camper and Jarael, but when Carrick tries to steal the Last Resort and escape, he is caught by Jarael. Realizing that he could not leave the others in danger to save himself, Carrick decides to surrender to the Masters. Ying's arrival on Taris with Carrick is greeted by mobs of celebrating citizens, as the public's loss of faith in the Jedi had led to rioting and mass panic in the face of the advancing Mandalorian threat from the Outer Rim Territories. When Carrick is delivered to the Jedi Tower, Draay and the Masters reveal that they did in fact kill the Padawans after the apprentices refused to believe that Carrick would be Knighted alongside them and became suspicious. Draay explains that the five of them are members of a Jedi Covenant sworn to prevent the return of the Sith, and he executes Ying to eliminate witnesses before preparing to kill Carrick.

However, Jarael, Camper, and Hierogryph have other plans: unwilling to let Carrick sacrifice himself to save them, the trio attack the Jedi Tower with the Last Resort. Jarael rescues Carrick in a red space suit, using the Masters' fear of the figure to buy them time to escape, and Carrick takes on a position as Hierogryph's "henchman" as the four of them escape Taris with Elbee in the Last Resort. Three weeks later, rioting has enveloped much of Taris, and the Masters are recalled to the Republic capital of Coruscant, as the public has lost faith in the Jedi's ability to protect and police them. Before they depart Taris, however, the five receive a message from Carrick in which he promises to seek justice for the other Padawans, and he tells them that he has "foreseen" that the first Master to confess will survive.

Flashpoint
"They ''left?" "Recalled&mdash;to Coruscant. Yesterday, we heard. That's when Mandalore gave all of us the signal to attack. Taris is the key to this entire sector. I don't know who that rogue Jedi is, but he's got a lot more to answer for than murder." [&hellip;] "''I'm going to make this right. I don't know how&hellip;"

- Rohlan Dyre and Zayne Carrick, on the Jedi and Taris

On the mining colony of Vanquo, Carrick, Hierogryph, Camper, and Jarael run a con on one of the mining stations, convincing the workers to evacuate under the belief that the planet is under attack by Mandalorians. However, as the crew of the Last Resort is loading the mining stations' supplies, they are presented with a surprise: the Mandalorians actually are invading Vanquo, which leads to Jarael's capture, as she was masquerading as a Jedi for the group's con. The remaining members of the crew flee through the forest back to the Last Resort, but the Mandalorian commander Rohlan Dyre, seeing an opportunity to escape, steals the Last Resort himself. With Elbee's help, Camper, Hierogryph, and Carrick barely manage to board the Last Resort as it takes off amid blaster fire from Dyre's own troops. Camper quickly attacks Dyre with Jarael's shockstaff, and with Elbee's help the group is able to subdue the Mandalorian and lock him in a storage compartment. Meanwhile, Jarael is imprisoned aboard a Mandalorian ship that enters the ongoing naval battle between the forces of Mandalore the Ultimate and Captain Saul Karath.

As the Last Resort pursues the ship that has Jarael, it is identified by Karath's Courageous, and Karath assumes that Carrick is a Mandalorian operative when the Last Resort is detected jumping towards Mandalorian space. Camper is tracking Jarael via a homing device in her bracelet, and Dyre convinces Hierogryph and Carrick to let him out so that he can help them rescue Jarael&mdash;for as he explains, he is known as Rohlan the Questioner, a Mandalorian who is determined to discover Mandalore's reasons for starting the war. Dyre explains that Jarael is being taken to the stellar research station Flashpoint, which was converted into a laboratory for the Mandalorian scientist Demagol's research into Jedi. Dyre also explains that the Mandalorians invaded Vanquo because of the Padawan Massacre, as Mandalore took the recall of the Jedi from Taris to be an opportunity for attack. However, upon learning that other Jedi are imprisoned on Flashpoint, Carrick becomes determined to rescue them, and he develops a plan to do so as they approach Flashpoint.

Meanwhile, Jarael is taken to Flashpoint and imprisoned with the other captives, many of whom had been captured on the planet Suurja three weeks earlier. Jarael encounters Squint, who realizes that Jarael is not a Jedi and offers himself in place of Jarael for Demagol's torture and experiments. On approach to Flashpoint, Dyre claims to have captured a Jedi and demands immediate clearance to land as Hierogryph and Camper hide in the Last Resort concealed storage compartment, and Dyre arrives just in time with a "captive" Carrick to rescue Jarael from Demagol's attentions. In Demagol's lab, Dyre and Carrick overpower Demagol and Carrick dons the scientist's armor, and the two head out to the surface, where Dyre distracts the sentries as Carrick uses the Force to plant Hierogryph's demolition charges on the various Mandalorian vessels nearby. Hierogryph then contacts Flashpoint as "Admiral Hierogryph" of the Republic vessel "Glomkettle" and triggers the charges, tricking the sentries into believing that the Republic had begun booby-trapping their equipment and ships to prevent the Mandalorians from using them.

Dyre and Carrick complete the con by convincing the other Mandalorians at Flashpoint to flee on one of the last remaining ship while Dyre stayed behind to evacuate Demagol. With the Mandalorians gone, the Jedi are able to escape Flashpoint, taking Demagol with them and seemingly accompanied by Rohlan Dyre. However, Dyre actually sneaks aboard the Last Resort, and unbeknownst to all, "Dyre" is actually Demagol: the scientist knocked out and drugged Dyre when the warrior came to get him, trading armor with Dyre and assuming his identity. The same day as Carrick and crew are on Flashpoint, Draay and the other members of the Covenant return to Coruscant, where Draay is refused entry to his family's house, the Draay Estate, and the five are split up by the Jedi High Council. Amid these events, Draay recalls his childhood and how his mother Krynda focused more on training the four seers than raising her own son, as she was obsessed with preventing the rise of another Sith like Exar Kun. The five Masters go their separate ways as ordered, but continue their efforts to locate Carrick despite the Council's refusal to allow them to be involved in the search for the missing Padawan. Draay tries again to visit his mother, the Covenant's leader, but his mother's retainer Haazen refuses him and reprimands Draay for killing the Padawans against Haazen's instructions.

Reunion
"Zayne?''" "Hi, Dad''. Ummm&hellip; how's it going?"

- Arvan and Zayne Carrick, as Arvan is kidnapped by the Moomo Brothers

Following the mission to Flashpoint, the crew of the Last Resort heads to the banking planet of Telerath, where Hierogryph has an account that was frozen due to his involvement in the Padawan Massacre. To gain access to the money, Camper and Jarael go undercover as "Baron Hyro Margryph" and his assistant "Chantique" and visit a banker named Arvan while Carrick and Hierogryph remain aboard the Last Resort. The two claim that the account actually belongs to Baron Margryph, who had been confused with Marn Hierogryph, and despite the fact that they left the account's access code aboard the Last Resort, Camper is able to recite the access code perfectly to the surprise of the rest of the crew. As Arvan leads Jarael and Camper to the banquet pavilions, they are watched by the Moomo Brothers&mdash;a pair of bounty hunters named Dob and Del who have been hired to keep watch on Arvan. The Moomo Brothers decide to kidnap the banker and then watch him, and Hierogryph and Carrick rush to rescue their banker&mdash;only for Zayne to be recognize the banker as his father, Arvan Carrick, just before the brothers escape.

Raana Tey is furious to learn that the brothers kidnapped Arvan, and she orders them to stand by while she consults with the rest of the Covenant. Dob and Del soon end up fighting, and the victorious Dob goes out for a drink as Zayne's friends realize that the Covenant hired the brothers to watch Arvan as a trap for Zayne. Hierogryph soon locates Dob at a nearby bar, and, plying him with quite a few drinks, convinces the Ithorian to trade Arvan for the far more valuable Zayne. Falling for Hierogryph's play, Dob gives the Snivvian the location of the Last Resort, and Carrick tails the drunken bounty hunter back to the brothers' ship, the Moomo Williwaw, where he overhears Raana Tey tell Del that she will arrive soon to kill Arvan. Freeing his father, Zayne learns that Arvan's bank had been purchased by the Draay Trust, and his father reassures Zayne that his family did not believe Zayne committed the Massacre. Using Hierogryph's arrival as a distraction, Zayne hits one of the brothers with a Force-propelled crate, sparking a fight between the two and allowing the Carricks to escape. Arvan accesses Hierogryph's account for the crew before Zayne sends him and the rest of his family to Dantooine, where Master Tokare takes Arvan on as the Enclave's banker.

Days of Fear
Not long after the Last Resort departs Telerath, the Duros Eejee Vamm&mdash;who is employed scanning holofeeds from across the galaxy&mdash;notices a recording of "Baron Hyrogryph" at Telerath and contacts Lord Adasca with news of his findings. On the planet Ralltiir, Camper, Jarael, and Elbee part ways with Hierogryph and Carrick, though not before Camper gives Zayne a set of phrikite vambraces that block lightsaber strikes&mdash;something that Jarael demonstrates in a sparring match between the two. Jarael wishes Carrick good luck before she departs with Camper to find a new place to hide, though Carrick is saddened that they are leaving. Hierogryph hires a Trandoshan ship thief named Slyssk to secure them a new ship, though Carrick is amused when the timid Slyssk attempts to force Hierogryph to pay more than their agreed price. Carrick and Hierogryph con Slyssk into swearing a life debt to Hierogryph, though Slyssk takes it more seriously than Hierogryph expects, and the three are forced to flee in the stolen ship&mdash;the Little Bivoli&mdash;when the ship's real crew arrives. However, Hierogryph and Carrick quickly realize that the Little Bivoli is a military mess ship, and the ship is forced to join Admiral Karath's fleet as it departs Ralltiir.

Aboard the Last Resort, Camper is subdued by a HK-24 series assassin droid that has slipped aboard, and the droid attacks Jarael when she investigates noises from the hold. Jarael fights the droid briefly before she is rescued by "Rohlan Dyre," who explains that he had been trying to leave the Last Resort for some time but had not yet found an opportunity to do so unnoticed. The Little Bivoli, meanwhile, sets up shop on the surface of Serroco, where Hierogryph has employed Slyssk as a cook as they cater to the crew of the Republic fleet stationed above the planet. Carrick meets a pilot by the name of Carth Onasi, and amid the two's discussion of the war, Carrick sees a Stereb who is foraging through the dumpster. He pays for the Stereb's meal at the Little Bivoli, and Onasi mentions how he used to call down fake emergency notices to the Stereb population. That night, Carrick becomes fed up with Hierogryph and storms outside to get some air&mdash;but he is overcome by a vision of an orbital bombardment that devastates the surface of Serroco. Realizing that the Mandalorians will bomb Serroco when they arrive the next day, Carrick becomes determined to warn Admiral Karath.

Despite Carrick's warning for the Little Bivoli to depart, Hierogryph decides to stay open a little while longer the next morning. Carrick, meanwhile, sneaks aboard the Deadweight, Onasi's ship, and identifies himself as a Jedi, explaining his vision of the Mandalorian attack. However, Karath recognizes Carrick as the purported Jedi-killer and accuses him of being a Mandalorian spy. Carrick's claims of helping "Squint" at Flashpoint are laughed down by Karath, though the admiral allows Onasi to try and contact "Squint" while Carrick remains on the bridge, and Mandalorian ships arrive in the system moments later. Hierogryph learns of their arrival, but a last-minute rush on the Little Bivoli leads him to forestall departure. Just as Carrick predicted, the Mandalorians launch dozens of nuclear warheads at the Republic fleet, and the missiles swerve around the ships to slam into the planet's surface&mdash;and as Onasi returns to the bridge, Carrick cries out as he feels the deaths of thousands. The sensation is felt by Jedi across the galaxy, including Squint, the Jedi known as the Revanchist, Q'Anilia, and Lucien Draay. Only eight ships managed to escape the bombardment, and the Little Bivoli was not one of them, and a despondent Carrick is imprisoned in the Courageous brig by a furious Karath. However, Onasi visits Carrick later that night and tells him that he managed to call emergencies down to seventeen of the twenty-seven Stereb cities that were hit by the bombardment, calls that led the Stereb to take shelter in underground bunkers.

Nights of Anger


"They're a plague.''" "Just so. And now, thanks to Gorman Vandrayk&hellip; the man you call Camper&hellip; this plague works for me''."

- Jarael and Arkoh Adasca, on the exogorths

On her way to Taris on a mission to protect Senator Haydel Goravvus for the Supreme Chancellor, Raana Tey is tormented by nightmares, particularly one where she relives the Padawan Massacre from Zayne Carrick's perspective&mdash;and where the Padawans are the ones who kill the Masters. To rid herself the night visions, Tey believes that she must kill Carrick. Jarael and Dyre are struggling to heal Camper, whose illness is growing steadily worse, and Jarael decides to visit the planet Arkania in hopes of acquiring medical aid. Jarael attempts to visit a medical center in Adascopolis, but she is forced by the guards onto a shuttle out to the mining camps because she is an Arkanian Offshoot, and aboard the shuttle, Jarael meets another Offshoot named Zadawi who takes Jarael to her house. From Zadawi and her grandmother, Jarael learns of how the Offshoots are discriminated against by the "pure" Arkanians, and Zadawi helps Jarael disguise herself as a pure Arkanian so she can sneak into the city. However, Jarael's visit to the medical center draws the attention of Arkanian guards, but Jarael's fight with them is ended by the arrival of Lord Arkoh Adasca, who calls off his guards and offers to help cure Camper. The Arkanian Legacy, Adasca's flagship and the mobile headquarters of Adascorp, brings the Last Resort aboard it, though Camper collapses in one of his spells when he learns that Jarael is working with Adasca.

Camper is rushed into quarantine by the Arkanian Legacy medical staff, and Jarael stops Adasca's guards from attacking Dyre when they see he is a Mandalorian. Lord Adasca proceeds to give Jarael a tour of the Legacy, during which he explains that Camper&mdash;whose real name is Gorman Vandrayk&mdash;used to work for Adascorp years ago before he was exposed to Balinquar's Virus, a pathogen that affected elderly Offshoots. Adasca offers Jarael free reign aboard the Legacy as Camper undergoes treatment. Meanwhile, the Republic defensive line at Serroco is failing rapidly, and as the Courageous is boarded, Admiral Karath, Onasi, and Captain Dallan Morvis are forced to retreat towards the brig. Karath reluctantly seeks help from Carrick, who, after Karath promises to take the Jedi with him, reveals that he has removed the screws from the bulkhead in his cell&mdash;exposing an access passage straight to the hangar and Onasi's Deadweight.

Unbeknownst to Jarael, Dyre has been imprisoned by Adasca, who makes a deal with the Mandalorian: in return for his help, Dyre is given access to the ship's foredeck and research facilities. Furthermore, Eedee Vamm contacts Jarael and informs her that Camper is in recovery for the next few days&mdash;a conversation that he uses to show a perfectly healthy Camper that Jarael is safe, for now. Vamm reveals that Camper's dementia and illness were caused by pollutants and spores in the Last Resort vents, and Camper is forced to resume the research he abandoned years earlier to ensure that Jarael is not harmed. Lucien Draay arrives on Telerath in order to pick up Carrick from Karath, but the news that the Courageous has fallen incites mass panic and ends Draay's hopes of acquiring Carrick, so he contacts Haazen. Haazen informs Draay that WatchCircle Vodo has foreseen a faceless evil rising in the future, and in order to investigate its source, Haazen dispatches Draay to meet with Arkoh Adasca, who has been contacting the leaders of various groups such as the Jedi Revanchists and the Republic Navy.

Aboard the Arkanian Legacy, Adasca continues his attempts to grow close with Jarael, inviting her to dinner, and he is pleased to learn that Camper's research has met with success. Adasca later approaches Dyre, who is engrossed in research, and makes a new deal with the Mandalorian: in exchange for contacting Mandalore the Ultimate and requesting that he attend a meeting with Adasca, Dyre will be allowed to go free with Jarael once Adasca's business is concluded. The Deadweight also receives an invitation from Adasca, asking Admiral Karath to rendezvous with the Arkanian Legacy. At dinner, Adasca surprises Jarael by discussing her unique genome, and he reveals what Camper has been working on&mdash;the weaponization of the space slugs known as exogorths&mdash;before he unveils the dozens of hibernating exogorths that they have located in the remote Omonoth system.

Daze of Hate
"You've gone to far, Adasca! You don't have standing to offer a truce!''" "Don't I? I told you, gentlemen, this changes everything. Adascorp was a major corporate player. Now it is a galactic player. We no longer seek contracts. But we may accept allies''."

- Admiral Karath and Lord Adasca

The Deadweight answers Adasca's message and rendezvouses with the Arkanian Legacy in the Omonoth system, aboard which Adasca has decided to keep Jarael as his companion for the time being&mdash;and when she overpowers his HK-24 droids and levels a blaster rifle at him, Adasca forces her submission by threatening Camper's life. Jarael is overjoyed to see Carrick among Admiral Karath's party, and she kisses him passionately in order to get close and explain the situation in a whisper. At Karath's request, Adasca imprisons Carrick, and the Arkanian adds a threat against Carrick's life to Jarael's motivations before he greets Squint, who has answered Adasca's summons for the Revanchist leader. Squint, or rather Alek, informs "Dyre" and Jarael that "Demagol" fell into a sedative-induced coma almost immediately after the Jedi departed Flashpoint, and Adasca is called away by Eejee Vamm to meet another visitor&mdash;one who Adasca is surprised to recognize as Lucien Draay. Draay and Adasca exchange pleasantries and wine, but Draay collapses after he drinks drugged wine, as Adasca did not want Draay involved in his upcoming meeting.

In the Arkanian Legacy observation dome, Adasca explains the exogorths and how they operate to Karath's party and Squint, and Karath is angered to learn that the Republic must purchase the exogorths&mdash;and Karath and Squint are both shocked when Adasca's third guest arrives: Mandalore the Ultimate. Adasca then reveals that he intends to use the exogorths as a bargaining chip to secure the allegiance of either the Mandalorians, the Republic, or the Jedi, and elsewhere on the ship, Draay awakens to find himself tied to Carrick and guarded by HK-24 droids. Squint attacks Mandalore when he enters the observation dome, and Karath levels a blaster at Mandalore when Squint is batted aside. Adasca ends the hostilities and orders a demonstration of the exogorths' potential, and Camper manages to slip away to the spacesuit storage chamber aboard the exogorth command platform. As they wait, Mandalore requests a moment with Dyre; Mandalore explains that he has turned the Questioner into a martyr that has Mandalore and his lieutenant Cassus Fett helped spread the Neo-Crusader philosophy and armor throughout the Mandalorian ranks, and in exchange for allowing him to depart safely with a new set of armor, Mandalore makes Dyre promise to remain "dead" for the cause.

Camper manages to contact Jarael through her her bracelet, and she manages to slip away as Dyre approaches Adasca and demands that he be allowed to leave with Jarael. She apologizes frantically to Camper and explains that Carrick and Squint are on the Legacy, and Camper refuses to risk Jarael's life by trying to sabotage the exogorths, revealing that Adascorp was responsible for the diseases that now afflicted the Offshoot population&mdash;something that is overheard by Adasca, who attacks Jarael. Squint levels his lightsaber at Adasca's throat when he strikes Jarael, preventing him from killing her, but Adasca threatens Camper through Jarael's bracelet and orders him to continue his work. Meanwhile, Draay and Carrick begin to argue about the Covenant's desire to kill him, but the two ally with each other in order to escape and overcome their captors; Draay promptly turns on Carrick once they are free, but Carrick's vambraces save his life and deactivate Draay's lightsaber, and the two resume their uneasy alliance in an effort to deal with Adasca. Onasi slips away as the exogorths become active, and Adasca begins to discuss terms with the interested parties. Karath offers a seat in the Galactic Senate, but Mandalore counters with immunity from Mandalorian attack and the promise to make Adascorp his armies' sole supplier of weapons. At the same time, Eejee Vamm and Adasca's scientists discover something about Jarael's blood, but Dyre executes them to "protect the truth."

However, Adasca quickly becomes power-hungry and demands the allegiance of both the Jedi Order and the Mandalorians, believing his control over the exogorths make him a galactic power. Onasi locates Draay and Carrick and the three discuss how to eliminate the threat of the exogorths, but when Draay suggests killing Jarael to remove Adasca's leverage, Dyre arrives and threatens Draay for suggesting it. The four develop a plan to set Adasca's "guests" against each other, and Carrick dons Dyre's Neo-Crusader armor in order to stage a fight between himself and Onasi in the observation dome. As chaos erupts, Carrick frees Jarael before joing the newly-arrived Draay in addressing Lord Adasca, claiming that Adasca had arranged the entire meeting as a Jedi trap for Mandalore. Full-scale battle ensues and Carrick manages to contact Camper with the news that Jarael is safe, leading Camper to remote start the Last Resort and have it fly to his location as he hotwires the exogorth control system into a portable platform. Camper takes control of the HK-24 guarding him and causes it to break through the station's bulkhead, allowing him to spacewalk to the Last Resort. Using the exogorth control box, Camper instructs the exogorths to attack Adasca's fighters and the Arkanian Legacy itself, killing Adasca as the Arkanian's guests escape the doomed ship.

Amid the chaos, Onasi lets Carrick "escape," but when Jarael and Dyre reach the hangar, they find only Elbee, despondent that the Last Resort has left him. As he leads the exogorths away in the Last Resort, Camper contacts Jarael and explains that he intends to lead the bioweapons into the unknown and remove their hyperdrives, and Carrick reaches the hangar just in time to see the Last Resort jump to hyperspace and Jarael burst into tears. Draay offers to rescue Squint, Carrick, and Carrick's friends in exchange for Carrick's surrender, but just as he agrees, the Moomo Williwaw crashes into the hangar&mdash;carrying Dob Moomo and Slyssk. Slyssk reveals that Hierogryph is alive on Taris, and he needs Carrick's help, but as Carrick's group escapes aboard the ship, Draay overhears their destination and escapes the doomed Legacy as well.

Knights of Suffering
"And in the time of tribulation to come, there will be five&hellip; One for the darkness&hellip; and one for the light. Another from the darkness stands in the light, while one from the light stands in the darkness. The last one stands apart from all. And between them&hellip; between them&hellip; all that has been built will fall."

- Krynda Draay's Prophecy of the Five, as overheard by Raana Tey as a child

The group heads to Taris, which is undergoing Mandalorian occupation, and Dyre pilots the Williwaw down towards the surface so that Carrick&mdash;wearing Dyre's discarded Neo-Crusader armor&mdash;can free-fall down into the Lower City. Carrick locates Hierogryph with the Hidden Beks swoop gang, and Hierogryph reports Carrick's arrival to his client on Coruscant before Gadon Thek is forced to pull the Hidden Beks back to their base known as the Pit. Thek explains to Carrick that he intends to join up with the Taris Resistance, and also tells him that he intends to take Carrick to the constable in order to join them. Speaking with Grpyh, Carrick learns that the Snivvian is on a "Republic-ish" mission for Jervo Thalien, the head of Lhosan Industries, to locate Taris's Senator Goravvus. The Twi'lek girl Mission Vao takes Carrick to show him a secret that her brother Griff is hiding, though the Hidden Bek Brejik attacks Carrick when he thinks that Carrick is escaping. Mission then shows Griff's "secret" to Hierogryph and Carrick: the constable's missing children, who Brejik and Griff had kidnapped and hidden weeks ago. Meanwhile, Raana Tey is on Taris, and she can sense Carrick's arrival&mdash;and she has joined forces with Shel Jelavan, Shad's sister and Carrick's romantic interest before the Massacre.

Gadon Thek turns the discovery into an opportunity, however, using the constable's children to secure a meeting with the resistance; but when they arrive at the resistance's base, Shel Jelavan shoots at Carrick in revenge for killing her brother. Jelavan's shot is absorbed by Hierogryph's heavy briefcase that Carrick is carrying, but Raana Tey encourages her to finish off the stunned Carrick and avenge her brother. Upon recognizing Del Moomo, Tey attacks the Ithorian in a fury, giving Hierogryph time to disarm Jelavan, and a standoff between Tey and the Hidden Beks develops that is ended by the arrival of Constable Noana Sowrs and Senator Goravvus. Goravvus forces Tey to stand down and allows the Hidden Beks to join the resistance, and Hierogryph informs the Senator that Thalien is looking for him. Hierogryph opens his case to display a holocommunicator to Thalien, but is surprised when Del Moomo seizes the Senator as a hostage&mdash;Thalien's actual intention was to eliminate Goravvus, who knew that Lhosan Industries had helped bribe Taris's way into the Republic. Fortunately for the Senator, Raana Tey frees him from Moomo, and Thalien's attempt to detonate a bomb in Hierogryph's case is rendered ineffective, as Shel Jelavan's blaster shot overloaded the circuits.

The Moomo Williwaw, meanwhile, remains in orbit among the massed Mandalorian ships, and Dyre convinces Jarael to spar with Alek in order to take her mind off of Camper and to hone her skills. To Jarael's surprise, Alek attempts to start a relationship with her, though Jarael refuses for the time being. Carrick finally corners Shel and tries to explain that he didn't kill Shad, but her revelation that she set a bounty on Carrick's head and the arrival of Raana Tey seemingly ends any hope of reconciliation. The resistance plans to infiltrate Cassus Fett's command post in the former Jedi Tower and destroy it with explosives, and Carrick volunteers to accompany Raana Tey on the mission to destroy the Tower, a mission that Jelavan lso volunteers for. After the meeting, Tey urges Jelavan to retrieve her brother's lightsaber when they are in the Tower and use it to kill Carrick. As the mission begins, Tey recalls a time in her childhood when she overheard Krynda Draay make a prophecy about five people: one for the darkness, one for the light, one from the darkness who stands in the light, one from the light who stands in darkness, and a fifth who stands apart from the others.

Donning his Neo-Crusader armor, Carrick escorts Jelavan as his prisoner to the Jedi Tower, though the two argue most of the way, and Jelavan kisses Carrick to maintain their cover when they are overheard by other Mandalorians&mdash;though she promptly knees him between the legs when they leave. Once in the Tower, Jelavan acquires her brother's lightsaber, though Carrick's clear sadness over Shad's death and his insistence that he is innocent leaves Shel confused as to whether she should try and kill him. Tey is furious to find Carrick still alive when Jelavan lets her into the Tower, and she pursues Carrick as he heads to the upper levels to complete the mission&mdash;only to discover that Cassues Fett has abandoned the building and has headed into the Lower City. Raana Tey attacks Carrick, realizing that her vision of Mandalorians and Sith on Taris is coming true, and in her madness, she refuses to listen to Carrick's warnings that Fett is going to attack the resistance. The Hidden Beks retreat to the Pit once they learn that the resistance has been attacked, and Hierogryph keeps hold of the detonator as they flee. Meanwhile, Carrick and Tey duel in the Tower, and she brings down the glass ceiling on Carrick when he tries to escape via jetpack.

The crazed Togruta explains about the Prophecy of the Five to Carrick before she prepares to execute him, but Carrick is saved by Jelavan, who stabs Tey with her brother's lightsaber after she hears the Jedi Master admit to the Massacre. Jelavan and Carrick escape the Tower thanks to Hierogryph and Gadon Thek's arrival on a swoop bike, but Raana Tey&mdash;still alive despite her fatal wound&mdash;leaps after Carrick in a desperate attempt to stop him. When she lands on the roof, Carrick is unable to leave her to die and offers her rescue. However, Tey's hand is stuck in the glass window, and when she raises her lightsaber to cut it off, Hierogryph thinks she is attacking Carrick and detonates the explosives. As the Jedi Tower begins to collapse, Tey asks Carrick to tell Krynda that she is sorry, and as Q'Anilia and Lucien&mdash;who have undertaken a romantic relationship&mdash;sense Tey's death, Carrick realizes that he now has a name for the Covenant's leader.

Vector
"I wilL complete my mission&mdash;beginning with dealing with the two of you!''" "Your mission, Celeste? Your mission is to protect the galaxy from Sith power! Well, look behind you! There's your threat. Millions of Mandalorians&mdash;all gone! An infinitely expanding army of the Sith&mdash;and created by you! Unimaginable damage, Celeste? You've just gotten started!''"

- Celeste Morne and Zayne Carrick

Not long afterwards, while having a memorial service for Raana Tey on Coruscant, Xamar, Q'Anilia, and Feln experience a horrifying vision: an apocalyptic future overrun by rakghouls led by an ancient Sith, and four individuals: Carrick, a dark-armored figure, and two sandy-haired Humans. Around the Sith's neck, the three Jedi recognize the Muur Talisman&mdash;an ancient Sith artifact that was believed to have been lost on Taris. Lucien Draay decides to send Celeste Morne, one of the Covenant's Shadow agents, to Taris to locate the artifact. On Taris, Morne rescues Constable Sowrs from a rakghoul attack, but she is forced to execute the constable when she is infected, and Morne encounters Hierogryph and Carrick fleeing from rakghouls. The pair follow Morne on her mission despite her dislike of them, but the floor collapsing underneath them due to explosions from Mandalorian excavations nearby. The three find themselves right next to the Mandalorian excavation, where Morne witnesses a Mandalorian named Pulsipher&mdash;Demagol's former assistant&mdash;discover the Muur Talisman. Morne pursues Pulsipher, with Carrick and Hierogryph tagging along, and the three sneak aboard Pulsipher's ship before it departs for the ice planet of Jebble.

As they approach Jebble, the Talisman electrocutes Pulsipher and "bites" one of the other Mandalorians, though when Carrick and Hierogryph depart Pulsipher's ship, they are pressed into service with a large group of forced Mandalorian conscripts who have been gathered for an attack on the Core World of Alderaan. Carrick slips away and finds Morne, who is trying to locate the talisman, and tries to get her help in warning the Republic. Hierogryph, meanwhile, is determined to gain access to the Jedi financial records that he overheard Pulsipher mention, and he uses his new Mandalorian armor as a disguise to get the three of them into the main citadel&mdash;but Hierogryph's clumsiness with weaponry causes his blaster rifle to bring down part of the fortress on him. Carrick and Morne are cut off from Hierogryph and pinned down by a group of Mandalorians, but the one that has been "bitten" by the Talisman suddenly mutates into a rakghoul and starts infecting the others. The plague begins to spread rapidly, and the two Jedi realize that the plague&mdash;which is evolving the rakghouls for some reason beyond the normal version&mdash;will infect the entire Mandalorian army stationed on Jebble. Carrick and Morne escape from the Citadel, and Carrick tells the Jedi the truth of the Massacre, unaware that Morne is an agent of the Covenant herself. The two quickly find a relay station so they can warn the galaxy, and at the same time, Hierogryph locates the Jedi records, only to find that they are records about the Muur Talisman and Covenant agents such as Morne.

Unbeknownst to Carrick, Morne contacts Lucien Draay and informs him of recent developments, though she questions Draay's order to kill Carrick and finds herself unable to do so when his back is turned. Carrick then uses the station to contact Cassus Fett, who he tries to warn about the rakghoul plague. To Morne's surprise, Carrick then makes his way back to the citadel in search of Hierogryph, though he is soon captured by rakghouls and brought before Pulsipher. The crazed Mandalorian interrogates Carrick as to how the Talisman works, and threatens him with imprisonment inside an oubliette built by the ancient Sith Remulus Dreypa, but the Talisman, sensing that Carrick is Force-sensitive, attempts to take him as its new host. When Pulsipher knocks it aside, the rakghouls turn on Pulsipher and kill him, and Morne arrives just in time to see the Talisman on top of Carrick. Hierogryph arrives as Morne is struggling to pull the Talisman away from Carrick, who is tempted by the artifact's power, and Morne offers herself to the Talisman to save Carrick. As the Talisman takes her as its host, Morne meets the spirit of its creator Karness Muur, and the rakghouls around them bow to their new master.

Struggling with Muur to maintain control over herself, Morne experiments with her newfound control over the rakghouls, and she explains to Carrick that the Talisman induces the rakghoul plague in order to carve out the minds of victims while leaving behind the skills they have learned, creating the perfect soldiers. However, when Hierogryph tells Carrick about Morne's connection to the Covenant, Carrick learns that Krynda is Lucien Draay's mother, and the two argue over the Covenant's goals and methods&mdash;an argument that sees Morne attack Carrick in a rage and prepare to execute him. Before she does, however, Carrick forces her to realize what the Talisman has created: an ever-expanding army that serves the Sith. Horrified, Morne begs Carrick to end her life, but he finds another way: Dreypa's Oubliette can keep her safe and contained. Thanking Carrick, Morne gives him her key to the Sanctum of the Exalted, the Covenant's storehouse of Sith artifacts on the planet Odryn, Without Morne's influence, the rakghouls begin to pursue Hierogryph and Carrick, but the pair are saved by the arrival of the Moomo Williwaw, and as they depart Jebble, the group witnesses Cassus Fett bombard Jebble's surface with nuclear warheads to wipe out the rakghoul plague. With the support of his friends, Carrick decides to go to Odryn and use the Covenant's storehouse to expose them.

Exalted
"What in the galaxy is this?''" "The break against the Covenant we've been looking for. Folks&mdash;we've just gone on offense.''"

- Jarael and Zayne Carrick, upon discovering the Sanctum repository

On Coruscant, Lucien Draay has been elevated to a seat on the Jedi High Council thanks to Haazen's manipulations, and he convinces the Council to order the recall and even possible detention of the Revanchists, particularly Alek for his role in the Adasca affair. Master Vrook Lamar is suspicious of Draay's recent ascent to power despite the Padawan Massacre, but Master Tokare reminds him that the two agreed to Draay's appointment so that they could uncover the truth behind the Massacre. Haazen contacts Draay and demands that he return to the Draay Estate immediately, as Celeste Morne had reported in with success. Meanwhile, the Moomo Williwaw arrives on Odryn, and Jarael&mdash;disguised as Morne&mdash;is taken to the Sanctum of the Exalted by the Feeorin Borjak, who Jarael forces to allow the Moomo Brothers to carry a large case supposedly containing an artifact into the Sanctum. Odryn is wracked by storms and strange phenomena of nature, all of which have occurred ever since Feln, as the Exalted, or leader of his tribe, allowed the Covenant to store artifacts in the Sanctum. Once inside the Sanctum, the Moomo Brothers release Carrick and Hierogryph from the case that they are carrying, and Carrick uses Morne's key to access the Sanctum, which contains hundreds of dormant Sith artifacts.

After the Moomo Brothers are warned not to take any of the artifacts, Carrick and Hierogryph set to work photographing the artifacts as evidence to use against the Covenant, and the two also discover that the Covenant's researchers are testing artifacts such as the Helm of Dathka Graush. The pair sneak out of the Sanctum, but they are captured by Borjak and the rest of the tribe. Borjak questions Carrick as to why he would try to sneak out of the Sanctum, and explains that Feln has broken the tribe's traditions such as the Rime Feeorin ever since he became a Jedi. However, Carrick's attempts to convince Borjak to stop following Feln end when the Feeorin Jedi Master himself arrives. Feln contacts Draay and informs him of Carrick's presence on Odryn, leading them to believe Carrick killed Morne and took her key, and Draay orders Feln to destroy the Sanctum in order to prevent Carrick from gaining access to the Sith artifacts&mdash;but Haazen countermands the order. Feln decides to kill Carrick himself, but Borjak reminds him that because Carrick has been in the Sanctum of the Exalted, he cannot be harmed by weapons, and Carrick quickly attacks Feln and catches him by surprise before he flees into the Feeorin village. However, Feln catches up to Carrick and pins him down, and when Borjak tells Feln that the Moomo Williwaw has returned to the star system, Feln detonates the explosives beneath the Sanctum to ensure that Carrick's group cannot raid it.

To Feln's horror, the Sith artifacts magnify the explosion as they are destroyed, devastating the village. Enraged, Feln reaches for his lightsaber to kill Carrick, but finds only a stick&mdash;just as he foresaw in the Rogue Moon Prophecy&mdash;just before Borjak stabs him in the back with a knife. The tribe attacks Feln for destroying the Sanctum and kills him, and Hierogryph reveals that he stole Feln's lightsaber. The rain helps put out the fires among the village, and fortunately for Carrick and his crew, the Moomo Brothers had filled their case full of Sith artifacts from the Sanctum before its destruction, giving the group the evidence they needed in place of the recordings that Feln destroyed. At the Draay Estate, Draay grows angry with Xamar for questioning him in the wake of Feln's death, and Q'Anilia sinks further into despair as Draay sends Xamar to meet with the Republic fleet: Draay has told Admiral Karath that Carrick is planning on raiding Coruscant for the Mandalorians, and Karath has established a blockade around the capital to ensure Carrick does not get by. Q'Anilia urges Xamar not to go, as the Rogue Moon Prophecy foretold his death with the Republic Navy, but Xamar goes anyway, though he begins to consider confessing to the Council.

Turnabout
"What&mdash;what will it take?''" "''One of their number must turn, Shel. Someone who's seen everything from the beginning. Someone must raise his voice."

- Shel Jelavan and Vandar Tokare

As he moves into his new quarters, Lucien reflects on the absence of his father Barrison, who was killed in the Sith War. Meanwhile, Masters Tokare and Lamar respond to a summons from a "Captain Malak" and visit a Coruscant cantina, where they meet Shel Jelavan and Alek, who has adopted the identity of Malak to avoid Draay's arrest warrant. Tokare has also received a recording of the events on Jebble, which Jelavan and Malak explain we're caused by an agent of the Covenant, and the two inform the Jedi Masters that Carrick wants to turn himself in and present further evidence. However, Admiral Karath has set up a blockade with the Swiftsure, utilizing a tactic known as the Vanjervalis Chain to link together the entire blockade. The Moomo Williwaw prepares to fight its way through, but Lieutenant Onasi and his Lancers squadron order him to turn back, and the Williwaw takes heavy fire from the linked weapons systems of the blockade.

On the Swiftsure, Xamar warns Karath that Carrick uses misdirection, not force, and despite his trepidation, Xamar takes Karath's advice and goes to the hangar to acquire a starfighter. Realizing that they cannot make it through, Carrick and Jarael come up with another idea: they crash the Williwaw into the Swiftsure hangar, allowing Hierogryph, Carrick, and Slyssk to steal the shuttle Deadweight and slip down to Coruscant's surface with their artifacts. However, Xamar foresaw their plan and stowed away aboard the Deadweight, and he captures Hierogryph and Carrick. Tokare and Lamar inform Jelavan and Malak that Carrick's evidence is not enough; for the Covenant to be truly exposed, one of their own must confess, and to their surprise, Xamar arrived offering to do just that.

Vindication
"This is Haazen, calling all Covenant acolytes&mdash;both Knights and Shadows. Command word&mdash;Vindication! I repeat&mdash;the Sith force predicted by our prophecy has been found&mdash;in the Jedi High Council, uncovered by Master Lucien's investigations! This is the worst case&mdash;but we are prepared! You, the true Jedi, are already in action!"

- Haazen instigates Vindication

Xamar agrees to expose the Covenant to the Council, but only after he receives promises from Tokare and Lamar that Krynda Draay will receive full immunity for her role in the Circle's wrongdoings. The Council organizes a raid on the Draay Estate, which is guarded by Covenant-loyal Jedi, and the Order sends in Xamar, Carrick, and Hierogryph prior to the attack so that Xamar can ferry Krynda to safety. Carrick dresses up as a Sith and conceals his lightsaber in a replica of the Muur Talisman, and Xamar ferries his "prisoners" into the Draay Estate&mdash;but when Xamar demands to see Krynda, Haazen refuses to grant him an audience and decides to inspect Carrick himself. Carrick stages a distraction and allows Xamar to slip away and deactivate the Estate's defenses so that the Order can attack, but Haazen exposes Carrick's deception, and when the alarm goes off, Haazen begins "Vindication"&mdash;a pre-planned insurrection by Covenant Jedi against the Order. At Haazen's directive, Covenant Jedi disable the Jedi Temple's communications, steal the Temple's store of Sith artifacts and take them to the Draay Estate, and rally to the defense of the compound against the Council's forces.

As Lucien watches in horror, Haazen gloats about how Draay's seat on the Council had allowed the Covenant the access they needed, and Haazen reveals that he has been manipulating Draay the entire time. Haazen also seizes control of the Swiftsure computer systems, taking control of the Vanjervalis Chain, and he directs the Republic fleet to fire on the bridge to the Draay Estate&mdash;killing Xamar and fulfilling the Khil Jedi Master's part of the Rogue Moon Prophecy. As fire rains down on the compound, Haazen casts aside his robes to reveal his ruined body and the numerous Sith artifacts that he has incorporated into his form, and he proclaims that the Prophecy of the Five has come to pass. Amid the destruction, Haazen recalls his past: how he, a servant of Barrison Draay, trained alongside Barrison and Krynda Hulis, and was heartbroken when Krynda fell in love with Barrison and married him. Haazen failed to become a Jedi Knight, and he was convinced by the Sith to betray Barrison during the Sith War, but in doing so Haazen was severely mutilated. The Sith rebuilt him, and he later helped Krynda Draay establish the Jedi Covenant, though he manipulated the organization from behind the scenes to pursue his own goals.

Lucien Draay attempts to attack Haazen, but his attacks are rendered useless by Haazen's possession of the Gauntlet of Kressh the Younger, which prevents anyone and anything from touching its wearer unless they allow it. Haazen explains his interpretation of the Prophecy of the Five: Q'Anilia is the one of the light in the darkness, Hierogryph is the one from the darkness who stands in the light, Carrick is the one for the light, and while Haazen is the one who stands apart from all, Draay is the one for the darkness. With Carrick and Draay as his subordinates, Haazen intends to command parallel armies of Jedi and Sith. Q'Anilia rushes off to protect Krynda and Hierogryph follows her, but Lucien uses the red-bladed lightsaber given to him by Haazen to block Carrick from following, and an enraged Lucien begins to pursue Carrick through the compound. When he finally reaches Krynda's chambers, he finds Q'Anilia despondent over her teacher's apparent death, and the Miraluka has drank poisoned wine to commit suicide, just as she foresaw. In her final moments, Q'Anilia is astonished to learn that Hierogryph was in fact that one foretold by the Rogue Moon Prophecy: he killed Raana Tey and stole Feln's lightsaber, and he has worn the red space suit from the vision. Just as Q'Anilia dies, Hierogryph realizes that Krynda is not in fact dead&mdash;she is encased in an oubliette, just like the one Morne was placed in on Jebble.

Lucien and Carrick's fight is interrupted when Hierogryph arrives with the dying Krynda, who he released from the oubliette; Krynda is horrified that her son killed the Padawans. She foresaw the Massacre almost immediately after Lucien reported the Rogue Moon Prophecy, but she suffered a stroke and Haazen locked her in the oubliette, where she was forced to relive her vision of the massacre over and over. Lucien tries to justify his actions by explaining that he was trying to protect her, but as she dies, Krynda acknowledges that her teachings were wrong and begs her son to face the future with humility. Enraged by his mother's death, Draay embraces the dark side and charges after Hierogryph, who he blames for Krynda's death. Carrick holds off Draay as Hierogryph flees, but as they battle, Carrick begs his former teacher to break free of Haazen's influence&mdash;and he is able to get through to the distraught Jedi Master, who finally decides to help Carrick. Meanwhile, Haazen kills the Covenant Jedi who bring him the Temple's Sith artifacts, and he witnesses Hierogryph enter the courtyard pursued by a furious Draay. Draay and Carrick battle once more over Hierogryph, but Carrick seemingly kills Draay after the Jedi Master is pinned under a falling statue of Barrison Draay.

To Hierogryph's disbelief, Carrick bows before Haazen and promises his loyalty in return his halting the bombardment of Coruscant. However, Carrick suddenly grabs Haazen's arm and proclaims that he is having a vision of the future&mdash;and as Haazen pauses in interest, Carrick slices off Haazen's prosthetic arm that bears the Gauntlet of Kressh the Younger. Haazen blasts Carrick with Force lightning and throws him toward Hierogryph, but to Haazen's surprise, both Carrick and the Snivvian go flying into the sky away from the compound. Draay emerges from the rubble and reveals that the fight had been a ploy to get close to Haazen, and using Haazen's arm&mdash;which also has the controls for the Republic fleet&mdash;Draay causes the fleet to fire upon the Draay Estate and destroys the entire compound, killing the now unprotected Haazen. Carrick and Hierogryph, meanwhile, land safely in a vat of sludge far away from the Draay Estate. In the days that follow, the Republic and the Jedi Order cover up Vindication by describing it as a terror plot by the Mandalorians, and only the families of the slain Padawans are told the truth of what happened. The Order pays off the bounties on Carrick and Hierogryph, officially clearing their names, and Malak is sent back to the Revanchists with a warning that the Council will not tolerate further involvement in the war.

Hierogryph decides to leave Coruscant with Slyssk after her gives Jarael Carrick's Padawan braid, as he assumes that Carrick is being Knighted, but Carrick surprises his friend by refusing the Order's offer: he intends to go into business with Hierogryph and Jarael a partnership that the Snivvian terms Cargryph Capital Management. Unbeknownst to the Republic and the Jedi, Draay survives the destruction of the Draay Estate thanks to the Gauntlet of Kressh, and he retreats to a moon that he had purchased some time ago as a private sanctum. Draay is greatly shaken by his brush with the dark side, and though the Gauntlet kept him alive, he was blinded in the compound's destruction. On the moon of Draay 2, Draay decides to merge the philosophies of his parents and forms a true Covenant of Jedi, a covenant that will dedicate itself to surviving the prophesied doom rather than trying to stop it.

Prophet Motive


"You're late, partner.''" "''And you're in over your head again. Looks like vacation's over!"

- Hierogryph and Carrick

Carrick goes on a brief vacation, and Hierogryph sends Slyssk to Coruscant to buy a ship, but the Trandoshan was scammed into buying the gem miner Hot Prospect. A month after Vindication, Hierogryph, Jarael, and Dyre proceed to run a scam on the trading hub of Metellos 3, which hots an auction where interested parties can buy the rights to entire planets. Hierogryph poses as "Professor Gryphomarn" and arrives at the auction, which Jarael and Dyre&mdash;disguised as an armored alien that uses a lightsaber-like weapon&mdash;proceed to crash. The group convinces the buyers at the auction that Dyre is from the planet Italbos, which was recently sold at the auction, and Hierogryph helps con the auction guests into bidding on Italbos again, as they claim that the planet is even richer in mineral deposits than previously believed. However, when the Chev auctioneer Cipiter reports to his Chevin master Nunk Plaarvin, Plaarvin deduces Hierogryph's identity and calls for the security team. Jarael and Dyre hold their own against the Chev guards sent to capture them for a time, but they are ultimately defeated; Hierogryph flees the scene and is pursued by security droids, but the arrival of Carrick saves the Snivvian from death.

Plaarvin is a crime lord in the Raff Syndicate, and he imprisons Jarael and Dyre in the old solar observatory of the lunar station that his auction now occupies on Metellos 3. The observatory lens will burn the two to a crisp when the sun rises, and they are chained together and hung from the filter so they cannot escape. Meanwhile, Hierogryph and Carrick return to the Hot Prospect, where they come up with a plan to rescue their friends by having Slyssk pose as an enforcer of the Raff Syndicate. In the observatory, Dyre pressures Jarael to use the Force, as he believes she is Force-sensitive, and the chain holding them breaks mere moments before they are incinerated by the sun. With Hierogryph and Carrick as his enforcers, Slyssk convinces Plaarvin that Hierogryph's con was a Raff Syndicate operation, and the Chevin falls for their ploy and departs Metellos 3 to visit with the organization's leaders on Jebble. With Plaarvin out of the way, Carrick and the group leaves the auction in the hands of Cipiter and the rest of Plaarvin's Chev slaves, and Dyre orders Carrick to begin teaching Jarael about the Force.

Faithful Execution
"You are a sentimental fool.''" "''I'm like that. I pick up everything from catatonic droids to surplus Mandalorians."

- Dyre and Carrick

Carrick attempts to reach out to Elbee, who has remained silent and unmoving for weeks, but his efforts are met with no response. The Hot Prospect discovers the passenger liner Chancellor Fillorean adrift in space with all systems offline, and when they board the ship, the group is shocked to discover that every passenger has been apparently asphyxiated. The only survivors are the droid K-OB7 and his master, a Bimm Toki Tollivar. Tollivar explains that passengers had begun to show up dead while the Fillorean was in hyperspace, and he and K-OB7 had remained in their cabin as instructed until they emerged days later and found everyone dead. The crew begins to explore the ship, and Carrick is shocked to discover that K-OB7 has convinced Elbee to help move the bodies; Dyre examines the corpses to discover that they have all been strangled, and the discovery is immediately followed by another: Slyssk has been attacked in the galley.

Dyre manages to save the Trandoshan's life, and when suspicion falls upon K-OB7, Dyre and Carrick leave Jarael behind with Tollivar and Slyssk while they pursue the droid. However, Elbee defends his fellow droid, and K-OB7 finally reveals that he is not the one responsible for the passengers' deaths&mdash;his master, Tollivar, is. Tollivar is a former Sith adept from the Sith War, and he has been using his Force powers to kill the Republic one citizen at a time. Carrick and Dyre reach Jarael just in time to stop him from choking the life out of her, and in the fight that follows, K-OB7 attacks his master and electrocutes him to stop him from harming anyone else. Dyre shoots both of them to end the threat that Tollivar poses, and he warns Carrick that if he cannot protect Jarael, then he is of no use to the Mandalorian. A little while later, Carrick continues to reach out to Elbee, and informs the droid that he will be Elbee's friend if he wants.

Dueling Ambitions
"I never knew what your tattoos meant. Jarael&mdash;before Camper found you&mdash;were you a slave?''" "No, Zayne&hellip; I was a slaver''."

- Carrick and Jarael

The Gotal Goethar Kleej wins the solo championships in the swoopdueling arena for the fourth consecutive time, but when he tries to expose the Franchise entertainment firm's dealings with the slaving organization known as the Crucible, his speech is overwritten and he is brutally beaten by the underlings of the event's coordinator, the Krish Bardron. Bardron makes a deal with Kleej: if Goethar and his young son Aubin survived the upcoming Tandem Open, they will be allowed to retire from swoopdueling. Not long afterwards, Carrick and his group arrive on the space station Jervo's World, where Carrick is ecstatic to be finally able to to visit the swoopdueling arenas. Hierogryph, meanwhile, has spent the last few weeks setting up a con that will allow him to steal from the Franchise, but his plans are interrupted when Carrick decides to enter the swoopdueling league in order to win a rare swoop bike. Carrick does well in the trials, but Jarael and Hierogryph are forced to invent a new persona for Dyre when he is accosted by security forces on account of his Mandalorian armor. Dyre is reinvented as the swoopduelist "Spikes," and Carrick is surprised when Goethar Kleej threatens and coerces him into protecting his son Aubin in the Tandem Open.

Goethar Kleej and "Spikes" are the two finalists for their round, but Carrick is barely able to survive with Aubin as a partner, as Aubin can barely function&mdash;the young Gotal has never been trained how to deal with the overwhelming sensory input from his horns like most members of his species are. Jarael, meanwhile, is tormented by the secrets that she has been keeping from Carrick, but she manages to steal the real recording of Kleej's speech; Carrick confronts Kleej over the speech, and though Goethar is unable to fight back against the Franchise, Carrick helps Aubin deal with his horns thanks to his Jedi training. Lhosan Industries' Jervo Thalien, owner of Jervo's World, is enraged to learn that Carrick and Hierogryph are aboard his station, and he decides to eliminate Kleej in order to preserve his relationship with the Crucible&mdash;though unbeknownst to Thalien, Hierogryph overhears his plans. He enlists Elbee and Jarael's help in foiling Thalien's plans, while Carrick, Dyre, and the Kleejs compete in the final of the Tandem Open. However, Spikes is soon taken out of the fight by one of their competitors' use of enervation coils, revealing that the match has been rigged, and the Kleejs' accelerator has been jammed, causing them to crash.

After rescuing his son from another competitor, Kleej agrees to work with Carrick, and the three break out of the arena as the recording of Goethar Kleej's speech about the crucible is played for everyone to hear, thanks to the efforts of Hierogryph and Jarael. Ami the chaos, "Spikes" emerges victorious in what's left of the swoopdueling final, and the group is able to smuggle the Kleejs off Jervo's World to freedom. However, Goethar Kleej recognizes Jarael's tattoos as those used by the Crucible, and he storms off in anger, believing that Carrick is working with the Crucible. Confused, Carrick manages to pry the truth out of Jarael: she used to be part of the Crucible before she met Camper. On Jervo's World, Thalien is executed by the Crucible's Magister Impressor Chantique for his failure to contain the Kleej incident, and she is intrigued to learn that Jarael was part of the group who sabotaged the Franchise's operations.

Masks
"I remembered something. You helped me run. But you also gave me time&mdash;and helped me face the music when I was ready. Back there was the only way I could see to send Malak away. It's just a delay&mdash;but it's time. He won't forget you, Jarael. He'll be back. And I don't know if you really want to be with him or not. But&hellip; wouldn't you like to be free to make the choice?"

- Zayne Carrick

Her secret exposed, Jarael grows distant from Carrick as they stop to rest on Wor Tandell, though she does tell him that she was kidnapped as a child, and that she managed to defeat her overseer and take her place; the position allowed Jarael to try and make the lives of other slaves less harsh. Carrick tries to get her to open up to her friends, offering to help her take down the Crucible, but Jarael flatly refuses. To her surprise, when she returns to the Hot Prospect, Jarael encounters Malak, and Carrick is surprised to encounter the Cathar Jedi Ferroh&mdash;one of the prisoners from Flashpoint&mdash;along with a Republic Navy vessel in the nearby capital of Gantra Lea. Ferroh reveals that the Revanchists have been allowed to join the Mandalorian Wars and that he is working with Captain Telettoh of the Testament; when Carrick questions him as to why the Council changed their minds, Ferroh explains the story to Carrick at the same time that Malak retells it to Hierogryph, Jarael, and Slyssk. Ferroh returned to his homeworld of Cathar several years earlier to find that his species had entirely vanished, and the Revanchist leader, believing it to be the work of the Mandalorians, began investigating with the rest of the Revanchists. They were confronted by the Jedi Council, who demanded that the Revanchists stand down, but the Revanchist leader discovered a Mandalorian mask underfoot that induced a shared vision of the past among all of the Jedi present.

The vision showed how the Mandalorians, led by Cassus Fett, had herded the Cathar into the sea and executed them all; the one Mandalorian who spoke up against the atrocity was killed along with them, and it was her mask that the Revanchist had found. Taking on the name Revan, the Revanchist leader donned the Mandalorian mask and swore not to remove it until the Mandalorians had been defeated. In light of the Cathar atrocity, the Council agreed to allow the Revanchists to join the war. His story concluded, Malak reveals that he has come for Jarael, who he wants to join the Revanchists and begin a relationship with&mdash;but an enraged Dyre attacks Malak and swears that the Jedi will never have her. Their fight is ended by Telettoh and Ferroh, and to the surprise of both Malak and Jarael, Carrick kisses her in front of Malak. Carrick claims that he and Jarael are in a relationship, and tells Jarael that he will go wherever she wants to. After Malak departs, Jarael thanks Carrick for saving her from him, and she decides to ask Carrick for help in breaking the Crucible.

The Reaping
"I never wanted to think of the Crucible again&mdash;but now, I can't stop thinking. I saw Master Wyrick's school burned. Adults killed, trying to save us. Then the rest of us, ground up in their pointless "training." Zayne's right. I have to do something&mdash;before another family is destroyed. Like mine was."

- Jarael

In the Koornacht Cluster, the crew of the Hot Prospect make their first strike at the Crucible's operations by attempting to sabotage the Sungrazer cooperative, an asteroid mining operation there that purchases slaves from the Crucible. Posing as Crucible agents, Carrick and Jarael claim that they have arrived to take a larger share of the cooperative's profits, though the rest of the Hot Prospect crew is unaware that the two intend to liberate the slaves from the cooperative&mdash;but they underestimated the number of slaves. Instead of eight, there are eighty working for the cooperative. When Jarael and Carrick's covers are exposed, Carrick comes up with a new plan: they join the slaves in dustdiving, the process of mining minerals while on the surface of comets. Carrick then summons the Hot Prospect and uses the Force to push all of the slaves onto the gem miner's hull, where Hierogryph reluctantly allows them entry into the ship despite his anger at being conned. However, the slaves are soon attacked by skyreaper drones, droids used by the Crucible, and the far larger Crucible ship Gladiator forces the Hot Prospect to surrender.

Jarael recognizes the ship as that of Captain Dace Golliard, the Crucible agent who brought her into the Crucible, and Dyre rescues Carrick and Jarael from the skyreapers, though the Hot Prospect is unable to move because it is engaged in mining crystals from the comet. The Hot Prospect disengages and uses its harpoon drill against the Gladiator before releasing tanks of xenoboric acid from its hull, and despite Hierogryph's protests, Carrick uses the ship's mining centrifuge to spin the Hot Prospect and free it from the clutches of the Gladiator. After the Hot Prospect lets the slaves out at a transit hub, Jarael explains her past to the others, and Hierogryph reluctantly agrees to help her and Carrick in their efforts against the Crucible. Meanwhile, Chantique tortures Golliard for his failure and prepares to execute him, but the Magister Protector of the Crucible, Bar'injar, stops her from doing so. On Coruscant, Demogal finally awakes from his month-long coma, and the Defense Ministry is immediately contacted.

Destroyer
"Oh and about the name the slaves I tended gave me&mdash;and these marks I keep. You're right, I guess I should get rid of them. If I don't, it's only because in the Crucible's language, "Jarael" means&hellip; protector."

- Jarael

As she oversees the fighting pits on the planet Volgax, Chantique recalls how her own father gave her to the Crucible as part of a bargain with the organization. Zayne Carrick, meanwhile, has gone undercover: he allows himself to be captured by the Crucible in a Navy fighter as "Carth Kamlin," and he is delivered to Volgax and placed in the pits. Despite his unwillingness to do so, Carrick is forced to fight other slaves in order to survive, including the Caamasi Snout, and Chantique takes a particular interest in him. Carrick tries to reach out to Snout, who he learns has inherited the memnii, or collective memories, of many other Caamasi who have been in the Crucible. Identifying Carrick as a Jedi, Snout later shares his memnii with Carrick, forcing the young man to relive lifetimes of pain and suffering as he explains that the Crucible was created by the ancient Sith Ieldis as a way to produce armies. Despite Ieldis's death centuries ago, the Crucible has continued their operations, and a shell-shocked Carrick is taken to Chantique's private chambers. The Zeltron woman manipulates Carrick through the Force, trying to turn him against Jarael by claiming that she enjoyed her position in the Crucible and that Jarael's name meant "Destroyer."

On the Hot Prospect, Jarael is worried that they have not recieved any communications from Carrick or the tracking beacon he carries, and she decides to talk with Elbee, as she overheard Carrick talking to the droid earlier. However, Elbee reveals that Carrick was in fact speaking through Elbee's holoprojector, and he connects Jarael to who he was talking to: Shel Jelavan. On Volgax, Chantique tells Carrick about how Jarael literally stabbed her in the back and took her position as overseer, and how she sought out the Crucible after she escaped from slavery and became the organization's leader; however Carrick realizes that Chantique is manipulating him through the Force. Carrick is thrown back in the pits, where he is pitted agianst Snout in a death match. To Carrick's horror, Snout kills himself by purposefully falling on Carrick's knife, and a delighted Chantique orders the Crucible to depart Volgax. The Hot Prospect arrives not long afterwards, but Jarael finds Carrick sitting out in the rain and he confronts her with Chantique's stories. Carrick asks to be given time to deal with what he has learned, but Jarael&mdash;furious that he believed Chantique's lies&mdash;storms off after revealing that the name "Jarael" actually means "Protector."

Crew of the Last Resort, the Moomo Williwaw, and the Hot Prospect
The Jedi Padawan Zayne Carrick and the criminal Marn Hierogryph are accused of the Padawan Massacre on Taris, and in their efforts to clear their name, the two gain a number of allies from all walks of life. Hierogryph, Carrick, the warrior Jarael, the mechanic Camper, and the loading droid T1-LB make up the crew of the junk-hauler Last Resort, and the group has a number of adventures together. In the process, they gain allies in the Trandoshan ship thief and cook Slyssk, who steals Carrick and Hierogryp the mess ship Little Bivoli, the Jedi Knight Alek, the Mandalorian Rohlan Dyre, Carrick's friend Shel Jelavan, and the Ithorian bounty hunters Dob and Del Moomo. Camper takes the Last Resort off into space along with the exogorths, and the group uses the Moomo Brothers' ship, the Moomo Williwaw, as their base for a time. After Carrick and Hierogryphs' names are cleared following Vindication, the crew acquires the Calipsan 560 mining ship Hot Prospect, which served as the headquarters of Carrick and Hierogryph's joint venture Cargryph Capital Management.

Camper


Gorman Vandrayk, better known as Camper, is an eccentric and elderly Arkanian Offshoot who is a technological genius on the run from his former employers at Adascorp. Together with the young Offshoot Jarael, Camper settled in the Lower City of Taris on the junk hauler Last Resort, but Camper's mind slowly slipped away over the years. Camper and Jarael's life of seclusion ends when they are caught up in the wanted fugitives Marn Hierogryph and Zayne Carrick's attempt to get offworld; Hierogryph comes to Camper for help, and the four are forced to take off in the Last Resort when the authorities locate the two fugitives. Camper and Jarael remains fiercely protective of each other, with Jarael calling Camper "Perero," or "honored elder," and Camper helps the group in their efforts to gain access to Hierogryph's account on Telerath &mdash;but by doing so, Camper exposes himself to Adascorp. Camper continues to suffer from dizzy spells and a mysterious illness until Jarael takes him to Adascorp, which soon heals him of the problem: spores and other particles in the vents of the Last Resort. With Jarael's life in the balance, Camper is pressed into service by Lord Arkoh Adasca to complete his work weaponizing exogorths, but when Carrick and his friends manage to rescue Jarael, Camper promptly turns the tables on Adasca. Seizing control of the exogorths, he kills Adasca by destroying the Arkanian Legacy, and despite Jarael's protests, he departs for unknown space aboard the Last Resort with the exogorths following him, as he intends to remove their hyperdrives and then ensure they will not be found again.

Rohlan Dyre


Rohlan Dyre, also known as Rohlan the Questioner, is a Mandalorian Crusader who fought in the early skirmishes of the Mandalorian Wars. A skilled warrior and leader, Dyre gro suspicious of Mandalore the Ultimate's motives in instigating the Mandalorian Wars, and when his questions went unanswered, Dyre refused to fight. He was placed on the front lines repeatedly, and each of the five times he tried to escape, he was captured and sent back into battle. On Vanquo, "the Questioner" successfully manages to escape with the Last Resort, and after being captured by the ship's crew, he offers himself as a guide and allies with Carrick and the others in their efforts to rescue Jarael from Flashpoint. Dyre proves essential in her rescue, but unbeknownst to the others, Dyre is later overpowered and drugged by the Mandalorian scientist Demagol, who exchanges armors with Dyre and takes his place. Still in a drug-induced coma, Dyre is taken to Coruscant, where he finally stands trial once he awakens several months later. "Demagol" is rescued from his trial by Carrick and Hierogryph, who recruit Dyre in their efforts to once again rescue Jarael&mdash;this time from Demagol. After Demagol's death on Osadia, Dyre later vanishes, leading his friends to believe that the Mandalorian has returned to his quests for answers.

Squint


Alek, known by his friends as Squint, is a headstrong young Jedi who one of the Revanchists, a group of Jedi who seek to involve the Order in the Mandalorian Wars. Squint's best friend is the Jedi known as the Revanchists, the leader of their movement, and Squint first meets Zayne Carrick when he saves Carrick's life on Taris shortly before the Massacre. Carrick does not learn Squint's real name, and Squint is captured on the planet Suurja not long afterwards, leading to Squint's imprisonment on Flashpoint. Squint and the other Jedi are rescued by Carrick and his friends when they come to rescue Jarael, and Alek returns to Coruscant with who he believes is Demagol. Because Carrick does not know Alek's real name, his attempts to use Squint as a reference when accused of being a spy by Admiral Karath are laughed down. Alek is sent as the Revanchists' representative to Arkoh Adasca's auction, and he proves essential in rescuing Jarael from Adasca's clutches, though Alek has begun to stray from Jedi teachings&mdash;he attempts to pursue a relationship with Jarael, and is fascinated by the power of the Muur Talisman.

Moomo Brothers


The Moomo Brothers are a pair of Ithorian bounty hunters, Dob and Del Moomo, who are known for their stupidity and violent natures. The brothers were hired by Raana Tey to keep watch on Arvan Carrick, Zayne's father, but the brothers decided to kidnap the banker and keep him in their ship so they could watch him. When he locates their ship, Zayne sets the Moomo Brothers against each other, and he escapes with his father while the two Ithorians are fighting each other. The Moomo Brothers team up with Hierogryph and Slyssk after the Battle of Serroco, and Dob and Slyssk rescue Carrick and his friends from the Arkanian Legacy in the Moomo Williwaw. The Moomo Brothers remain largely loyal to Hierogryph and Carrick's gang, though Del does try to claim a bounty on Senator Goravvus, and the Moomo Williwaw serves as the group's base for a time, with the brothers and the rest of the group using the ship to rescue Hierogryph and Carrick from Jebble.
 * Exalted
 * KOTOR 31

Feln


Feln is a Feeorin Jedi Master, one of the few members of his species to become a Jedi at the time, and he is a Jedi Consular and seer like Xamar, Raana Tey, and Q'Anilia. On his homeworld of Odryn, Feln held the rank of Exalted, or leader and elder, of his tribe; he retained his position even after the Jedi Order visited Odryn and recognized Feln's "magic" as Force-sensitivity. As a member of the Jedi Covenant, Feln flouts his people's sacred code, the Rime Feeorin, by allowing the Covenant to store Sith artifacts in the sacred building known as the Sanctum of the Exalted. Feln foresees his death on Odryn holding a stick instead of his lightsaber during the Rogue Moon Prophecy, and he kills his apprentice Oojoh as part of the Massacre. Feln heads to Odryn to meet with Celeste Morne, but instead finds Carrick and Hierogryph captured by his tribe, and Draay urges Feln to destroy the Sanctum in order to prevent Carrick from acquiring the artifacts. Feln is forced to fight Carrick in unarmed combat due to the Rime Feeorin, but when he learns of the return of Carrick's friends, he detonates the explosives under the Sanctum&mdash;only to watch in horror as the Sith artifacts magnify the explosion, wiping out his village. Feln finds only a stick in place of his lightsaber when he tries to kill Carrick, and Feln's tribe turns on their Exalted and kill him for destroying their village.

Raana Tey


Raana Tey is a Togruta Jedi Master who is a member of the Jedi Covenant's First WatchCircle, having been recruited as a child when she began experiencing terrifying Force visions while sleeping. Tey had a reputation for being particularly intense and wild in combat, but despite this, she is fiercely loyal to the Covenant and felt a tremendous amount of guilt over the murder of her apprentice Kamlin. In the weeks that follow the Massacre, Tey's nightmares grow steadily worse and push her to the brink of insanity; she becomes determined to kill Carrick in the belief that it will end her visions. Tey hires the Moomo Brothers to keep watch on Zayne's father Arvan Carrick, though the two foul up the mission, and she is sent by the Supreme Chancellor to protect Senator Goravvus while Taris is under occupation by the Mandalorians. Tey's part of the Rogue Moon Prophecy foresaw her death in the Jedi Tower at the hands of Mandalorians and Sith &mdash;and despite her efforts to manipulate Shel Jelavan into killing Carrick, the Togruta is unable to eliminate the failed Padawan when she attacks him in the Tower. Carrick's offer to save her rouses Tey from her madness, but when she tries to slice off her hand that is trapped in the Tower's glass roof and thus escape with Carrick, Hierogryph thinks she is attacking Carrick and detonates the explosives set on the building. With her last words, Tey gives Carrick the name of the Covenant's leader, Krynda.

Krynda Draay


The daughter of a Human woman and the Miraluka Jedi Master Noab Hulis, the Jedi seer Krynda Draay was born Krynda Hulis, and she studied under Master Arca Jeth in the years before the Great Sith War alongside Barrison Draay and Haazen. Krynda did not reciprocate Haazen's feelings for her, instead pursuing a relationship with Barrison, who she later married. Krynda was later Knighted and studied under Master Vodo-Siosk Baas, but when Baas and her husband were both killed in the Great Sith War, she fell into depression that saw her neglect her son Lucien. Draay later founded the Covenant after she foretells the Prophecy of Five and discovers four Jedi seers: Q'Anilia, Raana Tey, Xamar, and Feln. She reluctantly allowed her son Lucien to join the four as the fifth member of the First WatchCircle at the advice of her attendant Haazen. However, when Draay foresees the Padawan Massacre, she suffered a stroke before she could contact her son, and Haazen locks her in a Sith oubliette as he took control of the Covenant. Draay is released from the oubliette by Hierogryph during Vindication, and when she dies shortly afterwards, her death enrages her son Lucien.

Celeste Morne


Celeste Morne is a Jedi Shadow of the Covenant, one of the Covenant's elite secret operatives who is tasked with the retrieval of Sith artifacts across the galaxy. When the First WatchCircle has a vision of the Muur Talisman, Lucien Draay dispatches the talented Morne to Taris, where she encounters Zayne Carrick and Marn Hierogryph. The two become caught up in Morne's mission to retrieve the Muur Talisman, a mission that takes them to the planet Jebble, where Carrick tries to enlist Morne's aid in warning the Republic about a planned Mandalorian attack on Alderaan. When the rakghoul plague begins to spread, the two escape from the Jebble citadel and Morne learns Carrick's side of the story about the Padawan Massacre. The Jedi Shadow comes to doubt whether Carrick is truly capable of doing what the Covenant accuses him of, and she finds herself unable to carry out Draay's orders to kill Carrick when she witnesses him contact Cassus Fett in an effort to save Mandalorian lives and also risk his own to rescue his friend Hierogryph. Morne saves Carrick from the Muur Talisman by sacrificing herself to become its host, but the spirit of Karness Muur overwhelms her and she becomes intoxicated with the power of the artifact. When Carrick brings her to her senses, she begs him to kill her, but Carrick opts to seal her in Dreypa's Oubliette to save her life and contain the power of the talisman. Morne gives him her key to the Sanctum of the Exalted, and he hopes to take the oubliette to the Covenant's researchers on Odryn to free her, but Cassus Fett's bombardment of Jebble sees the oubliette lost beneath the surface of Jebble's oceans. Jarael later masquerades as Morne in order to gain entry to the Sanctum for Carrick and the rest of their group, though Morne and the oubliette remain undiscovered for almost four thousand years.

Saul Karath


Captain Saul Karath of the Republic Navy is ne of the ranking officers of the Republic fleet at Vanquo, and upon identifying the fleeing Last Resort as the ship of Zayne Carrick, Karath wrongfully assumes that Carrick is a Mandalorian spy when the Last Resort heads into Mandalorian space. Promoted to admiral, Karath later ignores Carrick's warnings about the Mandalorian attack on Serroco, arresting him as a Mandalorian spy, and when Carrick's warning proves true, Karath is unable to prevent the bombardment of the planet. The furious admiral locks Carrick in the brig anyway and contacts Lucien Draay to arrange a transfer, but the Mandalorian attack on Karath's flagship Courageous sees Karath forced to accept Carrick's help in escaping the doomed ship.

Carth Onasi



 * KOTOR 14
 * KOTOR 15

Mandalore the Ultimate


The supreme leader of the Mandalorian clans, Mandalore the Ultimate is a Taung warrior who rose to power after the death of Mandalore the Indomitable in the Great Sith War. Mandalore the Ultimate instigates the Mandalorian Wars, though his reasons for doing so are unclear and suspicious to some Mandalorians like Rohlan Dyre, and he is present at the Battle of Vanquo in 3,964 BBY. When he observes how the Republic fleet at Serroco has set up bases next to occupied cities, he is disgusted by their use of a "defense without honor," and he orders a nuclear bombardment of the planet's surface. When Mandalore learns of Rohlan Dyre's apparent death at Flashpoint, he turns the fallen warrior's death into propaganda, encouraging adoption of the Neo-Crusader armor among the Mandalorians. Dyre later contacted Mandalore at Arkoh Adasca's request and summoned him to a meeting in the Omonoth system to bid on the weaponized exogorths, and Mandalore expressed great interest in them&mdash;going so far as to offer Adascorp immunity and the chance to be the Mandalorians' sole weapons manufacturer. Mandalore also gives Dyre a new set of armor in exchange for his agreement that the name of the Questioner would stay dead, allowing Mandalore to continue to use Dyre's name in his propaganda. However, Adasca rebuffs Mandalore's offer, believing himself in a position to barter for Mandalore's loyalty and the effective leadership of the Mandalorians. The meeting dissolves into chaos when the Jedi Lucien Draay and Zayne Carrick arrive, and Mandalore retreats to his ship, falling for the Jedi's claims that the entire meeting was a ruse to capture Mandalore; he is later satisfied to learn that the exogorths are destroyed, as they are no longer under anyone's control.

Conception
"When we initially talked about doing the series, Dark Horse's Randy Stradley and later, my editor on the series, Jeremy Barlow, and I pored over the parts of the Star Wars movies that we really wanted to recapture in print. Boiling it down to the basic elements, as it were. And one of the things I kept coming back to was right there in the very first prose Star Wars novel, ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster. There's a brief introductory history of the Old Republic that closes with a quote from Leia Organa: "They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally, they became heroes.""

- John Jackson Miller

Dark Horse Comics's involvement in the Old Republic era began with the Tales of the Jedi series of the 1990's, the first trade paperback of which was published as Tales of the Jedi: Knights of the Old Republic. In 2003, BioWare released the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game, which was set thirty years after Tales of the Jedi: Redemption, the last Tales of the Jedi story arc. From 1999 onward, Dark Horse did not produce any Old Republic era stories until the anthologies Star Wars Tales 23 and Star Wars Tales 24, which featured two stories&mdash;Shadows and Light and Unseen, Unheard&mdash;that tied into Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel The Sith Lords. By 2005, Dark Horse was eager to return to the Old Republic era. In early 2005, John Jackson Miller was just finishing a story arc of Star Wars: Empire with artist Brian Ching when Miller was approached by Dark Horse editors Randy Stradley and Jeremy Barlow, who were looking at the upcoming 20th anniversary of Dark Horse Comics in 2006.

Miller and Randy Stradley began discussing some of the elements they liked seeing in Star Wars comics, such as drama, camaraderie, and humanity, and Miller started putting together thoughts on a series that would be launched during Dark Horse's 20th anniversary in 2006. Miller, Barlow, and Stradley studied the parts of the original Star Wars movies that they wished to recapture in print, and one of the main things that Miller found himself centering on was a quote by Princess Leia Organa in the Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope novel: "They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally, they became heroes." Miller reversed the theme of an apprentice betraying a master and considered what might make a Jedi Master betray a student, and that idea gave rise to the series' first arc, Commencement&mdash;an arc that was originally titled Renegade. The Jedi Covenant arose from the idea of how a Jedi would respond to history's habit of repeating itself, and Miller made a pledge to himself that he would not introduce any mysteries in the series that he didn't know the answers to. Miller's pitch for the series received great feedback from both the developers for Knights of the Old Republic and LucasFilm. Miller changed little from the original pitch other than Hierogryph, who was originally an Ortolan&mdash;a race known for their clever criminals. After the story was approved, Miller and artist Brian Ching began work on the series with colorist Michael Atiyeh. Michael Heisler was the series' only letterer, handling all fifty issues of Knights of the Old Republic.

For the character of Zayne Carrick, Miller took inspiration from the scene where Han Solo invites Luke Skywalker to become a smuggler. However, Ching soon realized that it would be hard to convey expressions on an Ortolan's mouthless face, so Miller quickly suggested a Snivvian instead. Atiyeh and Ching developed detailed visuals for each of the series's characters, and by August 2005 at Comic-Con International in San Diego, most of the first issue was done, and Miller had scripted several issues onward. The series was officially announced in July 2005 at Comic-Con 2005 as part of Dark Horse's 20th anniversary celebration, and the series was set eight years before the events of the first Knights of the Old Republic game. Around November 2005, an ad for the series mistakenly claimed that the series was set eight thousand years before the Battle of Yavin, though Miller refuted the error and reaffirmed the date of 3,964 BBY.

Commencement, Flashpoint, and Reunion
"In the beginning, I was going, "Hey, wait a minute. I'm going to have to make up a bunch of new characters!" Then I went, "Hey! I'm going to get to make up a bunch of new characters!" And I think that we've done a pretty good job of creating characters whose roles will be understandable to people who are familiar with Star Wars—yet which are not just shake-and-bake versions of the originals,"

- John Jackson Miller

Miller made a conscious effort to make every detail in the series matter, and he developed broad plans on how the series would fit into overall Star Wars continuity. The first issue was released on January 25, 2006, 363 days after Miller and Stradley had had their initial conversation about the series. Miller deleted Ching's preliminary drawing of the double-page scene in Commencement, Part 1 from his hard drive to prevent himself from accidentally emailing it to fans, as he wanted to keep it secret until the issue's release. Ching and Miller also worked especially hard to create Carrick's and Lucien Draay's expressions for the final page of the issue. Miller chose to forgo an omniscient narrator and thought balloons that describe the action in the issues. The inside cover to issue #2 incorrectly credited Brian Ching with the cover art instead of Travis Charest, and the dialogue balloons in that issue's garbage can scene were accidentally reversed.

As Miller progressed with the development of Commencement, he realized that he had material for a prologue story that would help fans gain their bearings in the new era. Miller suggested the possibility of doing a prologue as a promotional comic for Free Comic Book Day, but editor Jeremy Barlow came up with the idea of a 25-cent special earlier in the year. Late in the process, Miller suggested the Taris Holofeed, basing the idea and format off of Star Wars Insider. The production team paused in the development of Commencement, Part 3 to create the Knights of the Old Republic/Rebellion Special, lengthening the third issue's production time somewhat, and Knights of the Old Republic/Rebellion #0&mdash;which contained Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 0: Crossroads&mdash;was released on March 1, 2006, only a week after Commencement, Part 2.

Miller considered the heart of Commencement, Part 4 to be the conversation between Zayne Carrick and Master Tokare, and he particularly enjoyed using the conversation to introduce the possibility that he was actually responsible for the murders of his fellow students. For Taris's Rogue Moon, Miller provided Ching with his own visual reference of the moon that he created by piecing together fragments of an image of a planet's surface. Miller also dedicated several pages to establish the working relationships between the crew of the Last Resort, as he felt that it was important to introduce their dynamics. Issue #5 saw guest artist Travel Foreman fill in for Brian Ching in order to keep the series on schedule, as the development of Crossroads had necessitated Foreman to fill for Ching. Travel Foreman took Miller's advice on the sequence depicting the Rogue Moon Prophecy, using a style reminiscent of the Doctor Strange artist Steve Ditko to create a vision experienced by several minds at the same time. Miller debated whether to depict Elbee's point of view during the vision, but he ultimately left it out.

In his production notes for issue #6, Miller admitted that the chapters of Commencement that follow the Padawan Massacre mirror the five stages of grief: denial in #2, anger in #3, bargaining in #4, depression in #5, and acceptance in the last pages of #5 and in issue #6. Miller devoted a lot of attention to finding the tone for the scenes in Commencement, Part 6, particularly Carrick's final speech to the Masters. For Valius Ying, Miller suggested to Travel Foreman and Brian Ching that he be based on an alien Tony Soprano&mdash;a gang leader who is full of himself and later realizes he's out of his depth. For Commencement, Part 6, Miller and Ching originally had Jarael plummeting towards the Jedi Tower's skylight in a background shot before she crashed into the Tower, but they ultimately removed her from the scene to preserve the mechanics of the scene. The Commencement arc was later collected along with Crossroads in ''Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Volume 1: Commencement', which was released on November 15, 2006.

Dustin Weaver joined the creative team for the series with issue #7 as a joint artist for the series, alternating story arcs with Brian Ching. Flashpoint, Part 1 shifts gears to focus on the Mandalorian Wars, showcasing the influx of new recruits of many different species among the Mandalorians and hinting at the conflict between their culture's typically loose command structure and their status as an invading force. Miller was pleased to give more time devoted to Elbee, who he had hoped to develop further in Commencement before he decided to focus more on the Master's vision. In the production notes for the issue, Miller revealed that Elbee's name was derived from the character Bartleby the Scrivener in a story by Herman Melville. Because the series begins before the Knights of the Old Republic game, Miller was able to delve into the early stages of the Mandalorian Wars, and he compared the conflict depicted in the Flashpoint arc to the kind of military action in remote theaters that preceded all-out war. The Courageous, the flagship of Admiral Saul Karath, earned its name through an obscure connection to Karath's flagship Leviathan in the video game: the Leviathan was a reference to the real-life British Royal Navy class of the same name, and the real-world class was based on the design for the French vessel Courageaux. Rohlan Dyre's first name was partially inspired by the name of Roland, a paladin of Charlemagne.

The ninth issue of the series, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 9: Flashpoint Interlude: Homecoming, was developed as a stand-alone tenth issue that focused on Lucien Draay. Miller had wanted to do a single issue focusing on the Covenant in the first year of the series, modeling it after stories such as the Marvel comic Star Wars 29: Dark Encounter and Neil Gaiman's Hob Gadling story. However, Miller lost half of the script for the issue due to a hard drive problem, and both the file and its back-up became corrupted after a power failure. Miller ultimately gave up trying to recover the script and rewrote it instead, but another problem came up with art scheduling. Dustin Weaver was originally scheduled to work on issues #7-9, the Flashpoint arc, while Brian Ching was to work ahead on #10, but when Ching finished his work first, the standalone issue was published prior to the unfinished final issue of Flashpoint. The events of the two issues took place simultaneously, and marked the transition from the year 3,964 BBY to 3,963 BBY, seven years before the Knights of the Old Republic game. The cover art for Flashpoint and Homecoming was handled by Brian Ching and Michael Atiyeh. While working on Flashpoint, Miller collaborated with Star Wars writer Karen Traviss for information about the Mandalorian culture and their language, Mando'a.

For the issues following Commencement, the next six issues were originally planned to be broken up into three smaller stories: a three-part story, a standalone, and a two-part arc. Doing so would allow Dustin Weaver to join in as the series' second artist, but the scheduling issues saw a third artist&mdash;Harvey Tolibao&mdash;take over for the sixth issue, Knights of the Old Republic 12: Reunion, Part 2, which was also colored by guest colorist Jay David Ramos. The two-part Reunion arc was intended as a comical departure from the heavier tone of the preceding arcs and the storylines to come in 2007. The storyline, which was originally titled Target of Opportunity until Miller suggested renaming it to fit with the titles of Commencement and Homecoming, was intended to showcase the working relationship between Hierogryph and Carrick. Reunion title was also a hint to the identity of Arvan Carrick, and Miller described the bank on the planet Telerath as having a central tower with spidery veins spreading across a beautiful countryside; Ching expanded on the design, adding a sea, islands, and airships. The illustrator HOON drew the cover art for the two Reunion issues. Having different artists for the two issues presented some art problems: the Moomo Brothers are identifiable by the colors of their scarves, though issue #12 reversed the colors of the scarves and created confusion as to which was which. Flashpoint, Homecoming, and Reunion were all collected in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Volume 2: Flashpoint, which was released on May 16, 2007. Volume 2 restored the order of Flashpoint, moving Homecoming to after the end of Flashpoint, but the creative team chose not to remedy the Moomo Brothers' scarf issue, opting instead to use one of the brothers' scars as the differentiating factor. The creative team also took time to go back into issue #11 and added sound effects and dialogue for the chase scene that had been excluded in the original release due to the scheduling rush.

Days of Fear, Nights of Anger
"The arcs for 2007, not coincidentally, refer to a downward spiral of events spoken of in the movies by Yoda. And here, following the Mandalorian onslaught, things are beginning to go from bad to worse for the Republic. It's like 1940 in Europe, with one country falling after another."

- John Jackson Miller

As Knights of the Old Republic became successful in early 2006, Miller began looking forward at 2007, and he developed an expansive storyline which would bring in multiple characters but could be broken down into smaller chunks so that the series' artists could alternate. This plan led to the development of four interlocking arcs: Days of Fear, Nights of Anger, Daze of Hate, and Knights of Suffering&mdash;the names of which stem from Jedi Master Yoda's warning from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace: "Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering." While planning out the plots of the arcs, Miller was at one point forced to put every character's story path on a dry-erase board so that he could keep track of them all. Taking inspiration from Roy Thomas's decision to split up the main characters of the Marvel Star Wars comics in Star Wars 7: New Planets, New Perils!, Miller decided to break up the crew of the Last Resort in the opening pages of Knights of the Old Republic 13: Days of Fear, Part 1. The four arc titles came to be referred to collectively as Days/Knights first unofficially by Miller himself and later officially, as part of the publisher's summary for issue #23. Miller later confirmed that the look that Carrick gives the "camera" in a scene in Weaver's Days of Fear, Part 1 was inspired by the look that Jim, a character from the US version of the television show The Office, often gives the camera.

Also in issue #13, the creative team introduced Zayne Carrick's phrikite vambraces, the character's first unique piece of equipment and an element that had been a part of Brian Ching's design for the character since his inception. Dustin Weaver handled artwork duties for issues #13 and #15, while Brian Ching drew issue #14, the second part of Days of Fear. Days of Fear also saw the return of the backup news organs, with The Admiral's List: Jimas Veltraa Memorial Edition, The Adjudicator Special Report: The Outer Rim, and The Taris Holofeed: Siege Edition accompanying the three issues of the arc respectively. The character of Slyssk was partially inspired by Miller's childhood action figure of the Trandoshan bounty hunter Bossk, which had wider eyes than in The Empire Strikes Back, and the name of the Little Bivoli &mdash;a ship designed by Dustin Weaver&mdash;is a reference to a foodstuff in the MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies. The Reliance name comes from the same source as that of the Courageous: a ship in the British Navy of the Napoleonic era of the same class as the Courageaux.

Days of Fear, Part 2 introduces the character of Carth Onasi, a companion character in the original Knights of the Old Reppublic game, and the creative team worked hard to ensure that he was consistent with his game portrayal and yet also present surprises. Looking back at the issue, Miller acknowledged the fact that he unknowingly staged the dialogue similar to that of the game, in that Carrick&mdash;like the player character&mdash;receives long expositions from Onasi in response to single-line observations and questions. Miller and Ching plotted out a vision of Serroco's destruction that was relatively similar to how the actual event would appear, and in the production notes for the issue, Miller acknowledged the questions of fans as to whether a bearded crewmember on the Courageous from issue #8 was Onasi. Miller had intended Onasi to be present at Vanquo on the Courageous, but he did not specifically direct Dustin Weaver to draw the character, and Miller himself assumed that Weaver had drawn Onasi&mdash;only to later learn from Weaver that the crewmember was actually a rendition of Miller himself. Zayne Carrick's reaction to the death of the Sterebs in Days of Fear, Part 3 was inspired Miller's personal reaction to the events of September 11, 2001. Ching and Atiyeh drew the cover artwork for Days of Fear,   and the cover for Part 3 was directly suggested by Miller: he noted to Brian Ching how he liked one of Frank Miller's covers for Daredevil that featured Daredevil cowering on a white background. Ching took one of Carrick's postures in the previous issue and added Mandalore's mask and the flames. An earlier promotional image featured a redder mask,, though the mask was ultimately changed to a brighter gold by the time of the release. Issue #15 was delayed for two weeks from its original scheduled release date of March 28, and was instead published on April 11.

In Knights of the Old Republic 16: Nights of Anger, Part 1, Miller was particularly pleased with Ching's ability to recreate the panel layout from issues #1 and #2&mdash;the depiction of Carrick's discovery of the Padawan Massacre. The sequence also allowed Miller to return to Raana Tey and give insight into her motivations, something that he had wanted to do for a while. Nights of Anger, Part 1 saw the appearance of Arkania from Tales of the Jedi, and the fact that Brian Ching's designs for Camper and Jarael were divergent from that of typical Arkanians allowed Miller to deal with the subject of segregation. The broad strokes of Arkanian society stemmed from Miller's experience with student protesters against companies that did business with apartheid-era South Africa, and he brought in elements of the Russian communes from the 19th century. Colin Wilson handled the cover art for Nights of Anger, and his addition of word balloons on the covers of the issues was the idea of editor Jeremy Barlow: Barlow looked at the year's military storylines and saw an opportunity to pay tribute to the war comics covers by Joe Kubert. For the character of Zadawi, Miller asked Brian Ching to create a character who would hold a mirror up to Jarael, a way to show what Jarael's life would have been like if she had grown up on Arkania. The Tremendous battle group is also another reference to the British Royal Navy, as the Tremendous was a ship of the same class as the Courageaux.

Starting with Knights of the Old Republic 17: Nights of Anger, Part 2, Miller began a storyline that was inspired by Archie Goodwin's work on the Marvel Star Wars comics that involved the Wheel space station: a high-stakes political game set in a visually interesting location. Miller also used the issue to involve the corporate life of the Republic and its relationship with military and political issues, as Goodwin did with the Empire and the House of Tagge, by linking Lord Adasca and the Arkanian Legacy to Camper's past. Miller also found an opportunity to shed lighton Jarael's past, and he used the character of Eejee Vamm to further the themes of class and racial division that appeared in issue #16. Harvey Tolibao drew issues #17 and #18, and Miller was pleased with how Harvey's art was reminiscent of Jim Starlin's work on the comic series Dreadstar, one of Miller's inspirations for writing Knights of the Old Republic. Miller originally had Vamm's first line addressing an "Emergency Station," which he intended to mean a hospital receiving room aboard the Legacy, but Tolibao took the dialogue to mean an actual space station and drew the Legacy docked at a large space station. Rather than alter the artwork, the creative team chose to alter the dialogue: Vamm's comment was changed "receiving room," and a dialogue box was added that referred to the station as a refueling station.

Adasca's mention of "the Offshoot question" was intended by Miller to be reminiscent of real-world "questions" involving ethnic groups, and Carrick's escape passage through the back of his cell is a reference to the writer's favorite scene in the movie Shawshwank Redemption. In his production notes for the issue, Miller noted that he had not seen any correct predictions on what was afflicting Camper, though he pointed out that the mechanic had not had a "spell" before the Last Resort launched in issue #4. The writer was also particularly pleased with issue #17's backup, the Adascorp Fiscal Period Financial Report and Outlook: Message from the Chief Executive, as he was able to mimic the style of real-life quarterly reports and adapt it to the Star Wars galaxy. The Taris Holofeed edition that accompanied issue #18 was inspired by Edward R. Murrow's "This is London" broadcasts from Britain during the blitz in World War II, and the reporter's sense of betrayal in regards to the Republic was also inspired by the real-life resentment of the Allies when they failed to protect places in World War II. Issue #16 was also accompanied by a news organ; The Admiral's List: Remember Serroco! Edition. Days of Fear and Nights of Anger were collected in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Volume 3: Days of Fear, Nights of Anger, which was released on January 16, 2008. The Knights of Suffering and Daze of Hate arcs were collected in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Volume 4: Daze of Hate, Knights of Suffering, which was released on August 27, and Miller was pleased that the paperbacks were able to include the names of their component arcs in the titles.

Even in his initial 2005 pitch for the series, Miller planned for the centerpiece of the series' second year to be the revelation of what Camper was hiding, and he outlined the basic design for what Camper had created as something biological, spaceborne, and enormous, a departure from a typical superweapon. However, as he approached the Nights of Anger arc, Miller grew wary of introducing anything drastically new to the Star Wars universe such as the living starship from Michael Golden's Star Wars 38: Riders in the Void. It was not until he watched a repeat of The Empire Strikes Back that Miller though of the exogorths, and he found that very little had been established about the creatures in the Expanded Universe, though what had been written fit with Miller's plans. He was still hesitant when he pitched the idea to Dark Horse, though his editors loved the idea, and the only challenge&mdash;how to depict them&mdash;was solved by Brian Ching at the same time that he designed the Arkanian Legacy. Harvey Tolibao took Ching's initial design and expanded on it to create the nest of stellar sea serpent-esque creatures that appear in issue #18. The issue also focused on Adasca and Jarael, using Jarael's presence to expand on Adasca's personality and motivations. The tour of the Arkanian Legacy was also partially inspired by Goodwin's stories about the Wheel and Lando Calrissian's greeting Han Solo on Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back&mdash;a kind of double game that saw Miller forced to work in order to keep the issue's script at a manageable size.

Daze of Hate, Knights of Suffering
"This issue concluded "Days/Knights," a trip that certainly took us to a variety of places. It allowed me to try some new things while accomplishing a number of things I was intending to do with the existing characters. It also presented a couple of opportunities to bring video game characters on stage in roles where they had something to contribute. In all, 2007 looked very little like 2006 might have led readers to expect—and I can say that 2008 will look different yet. That's as it should be."

- John Jackson Miller, on issue #19 on the Days/Nights cycle

Knights of the Old Republic 19: Daze of Hate, Part 1 saw Miller bring together the various characters that he had been following over the last year, and the writer worked with galactic maps to ensure that all of the characters were in logical proximity to Adasca's auction; he also worked out timelines for almost a dozen of the characters in order to keep track of where they were and what they knew of each others' agendas. Miller originally spelled the name of the space slugs as "exorgoth," but it was spelled "exogorth" during the lettering stage of the issue's production, and it was too late to change when it was noticed; the creative team decided to go with the spelling "exogorth" from that point on. Miller originally intended for Adasca to make a derogatory comment about Camper's human-like hands when he ordered them to be removed, but the comment was ultimately removed due to space constraints. The Daze of Hate arc was drawn by Bong Dazo, an artist from Glass House Graphics, and the cover art was drawn by Chris Warner with two different colorists: Michael Atiyeh for issues #19 and #21, and Kelsey Shannon for issue #20.

When originally developing the Arkanian Legacy sequence, Miller did not include Lucien Draay at all: Carrick's prison break would have happened differently, and Draay would have simply missed Carrick on Telerath when the Courageous was destroyed. However, he decided to include Draay when he realized that the character had not appeared in almost a year, and he came up with the idea of the two working together to escape like the chained-together convicts in the movie The Defiant Ones. The addition proved logistically difficult, though Miller was ultimately able to fit in Draay's involvement and thereby remind readers of Carrick's status as a fugitive wanted by the Covenant. Miller chose to keep the design of Mandalore the Ultimate's axeblade consistent with that of Mandalore the Indomitable's mythosaur axe from the Tales of the Jedi, and he used the Daze of Hate arc to further illustrate the Mandalorians' transition from the chaotically individualistic armors of Tales of the Jedi to the color-coded uniformity of the Neo-Crusaders that appear in the Knights of the Old Republic video game. The food tray that splits a HK-24 droid's head in Carrick and Draay's escape was intended as a callback to the Bullseye comics by Frank Miller, the protagonist of which made use of a variety of mundane items as projectiles, though the panel evolved from Miller's original idea of just a debilitating strike to the eyes.

In Daze of Hate, Part 3, Miller worked to combine the various introductions between characters into as few scenes as possible, and when the creative team was discussing how to allow Draay and Carrick to view what was going on in the Observatory, they hit upon Eejee Vamm's "crow's nest" as a better setting than that of the towers on the hull of the Legacy, as Vamm had been killed in issue #20. While working on Cassus Fett's speech, Miller found inspiration for Fett's tone in the American Southwest: while Miller was traveling in the region, he was directed by a guide to the presidio, or fortified base, in Las Vegas. At the presidio in 1846, General Kearny claimed New Mexico for the United States, and the starkness of Kearny's speech served as the model for the tone of Fett's. Each of the Daze of Hate issues were accompanied by a news organ: Adascorp Fiscal Period Financial Report and Outlook: Field Report: Project Black Harvest&mdash;a reference to the "Blue Harvest" production codename for Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi &mdash;The Adjudicator Special Report: Tools of the Trade, and The Taris Holofeed Special Proclamation.

The Knights of Suffering arc saw Miller return to another major element that he had planned from the series' inception: a return to Taris while it is under siege. Miller used the arc to pick up the few threads that he had left on Taris in Commencement&mdash;Shel Jelavan, Senator Goravvus, and the disappearance of Constable Sowrs' children&mdash;and also to introduce the Hidden Beks, a swoop gang from the video game. Miller brought in a number of characters from the game, such as Gadon Thek, Brejik, and the Vao siblings, though his personal goal was to avoid cameos just for their own sake and bring in characters that would do something important. The four arcs of the Days/Knights cycle was originally planned to be alternated between artists, but several issues caused that plan to fall through early on; despite this, Dustin Weaver was able to draw Knights of Suffering at the same time Bong Dazo was drawing Daze of Hate, and Dan Parsons provided inks for Weaver's work on the arc. Miller had planned since the beginning to bring back Hierogryph in Knights of Suffering and also planned out how he and Slyssk escaped from Serroco, but found that the story did not fit well into the pacing of the current story, and he decided to save the segment for a later issue. The news organ The Admiral's List: Karath Home Safely accompanied issue #22, showing the repercussions of Daze of Hate, and Colin Wilson's cover artwork for issue #23 was included in the letters section for issue #22 due to the fact that issue #23 was already completed by that time. Miller initially considered naming Constable Noana Sowrs' children after his own children, but as he began working on Vector and realized that Sowrs would be turned into a rakghoul, he discarded the notion.

Miller suggested the idea of a comic-sized handbook for the series in late 2006, believing that there would be enough information for one by the time it was released. Miller found the process of writing the handbook similar to writing the text page for a comic that he would typically send to an artist. The Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Handbook was released on November 7, 2007, the same day as Knights of Suffering, Part 1, and covered the events of the series up until that issue while also including a significant amount of new information such as backstory on the Moomo Brothers and Hierogryph, The Handbook's entries were crafted with the forthcoming Vector crossover in mind, and the Handbook included original character and ship designs by Brian Chin, while Miller also suggested including Dustin Weaver's "just for fun" cross-sections of the Last Resort and the Moomo Williwaw. A miscommunication resulted in some confusion over the "The Onslaught": some entries in the Handbook refer to the Onslaught as involving Serroco, though that battle occurred several weeks later.

While working on Knights of the Old Republic 23: Knights of Suffering, Part 2, Miller encountered issues with the pacing of the arc, and was forced to cut down on certain plot elements such as Carrick's encounter with Shel Jelavan&mdash;an element that was one of Miller's favorites in the issue. Carrick's interaction with Raana Tey was one of Miller's favorite panels in the entire series, though the writer was wary of the Resistance's mission to destroy the Jedi Tower: Miller felt that the destruction of a skyscraper was similar to the events of September 11, 2001, and Carrick's concern for the innocents in the neighborhood around the tower was something that Miller felt was an appropriate reaction to the situation. Miller made use of Karen Traviss's dictionary of Mando'a in order to name the Mandalorian ships mentioned by Cassus Fett, and he decided to make the Moomo Brothers more humorous characters by introducing their passion for explosives. The issue's news organ, The Adjudicator Special Report: The Colonies, reflects the events of the issue in relation to Lhosan Industries and Hierogryph, and also includes additional charges for Carrick that are the result of Admiral Karath's testimony on Carrick.

Dustin Weaver especially enjoyed drawing the duel sequence between Raana Tey and Carrick in Knights of the Old Republic 24: Knights of Suffering, Part 3, the first time Carrick has dueled another lightsaber-wielder in the series. Before Miller turned in the final version of the issue, he learned that his editor Jeremy Barlow was moving to Dark Horse's Indiana Jones office, and Barlow was succeeded by Randy Stradley, who Miller had worked with in developing the original pitch for the series. Knights of Suffering, Part 3 was the final issue whose cover was drawn by Chris Wilson, ending the appearance of word balloons on the series' covers. The issue did not continue The Taris Holofeed, instead concluding with Galactic Republic Defense Ministry Daily Brief KD0092, which was intended to read like a real-wold governmental "daily brief." Miller had been thinking about the Republic's inner workings in preparation for the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide, and the page takes inspiration from a variety of different organizations in different governments. The Volume 4 paperback, which collects the Daze of Hate and Knights of Suffering arcs breaks the Arkanian Legacy events in half; when the arc was in development, it was not originally planned that Nights of Anger and Daze of Hate arcs would be so intricately related with each other. Volume 4 also corrected a visual continuity error in #20 which had Rohlan Dyre given a gold set of Mandalorian armor, when the armor was in fact originally intended to be red like how it appears in Knights of Suffering.

2008: Vector and beyond
The 2008 run of KotOR began with the first part of Star Wars: Vector, a multi-era crossover between all four of Dark Horse's ongoing series: KotOR, Rebellion, Dark Times, and Legacy. In creating his part of it, John Jackson Miller had to collaborate closely with other members of the creative team. For instance, Mick Harrison, writer of Star Wars: Dark Times provided the title for the series and Jan Duursema, penciller and co-writer of Star Wars: Legacy worked on the designs for Celeste Morne and Karness Muur, the characters which played essential parts in the story of Vector.

This year also saw the release of Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide, a supplement to the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars Roleplaying Game, co-written by John Jackson Miller, which provided additional info about characters, vessels, and organizations, originating in the series.

Continuity
The comic series is set in the years 3,964 BBY and 3,963 BBY, at a midpoint between the Tales of the Jedi comics and the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic video game.

References to the video games and Tales of the Jedi
The planet Taris and the Mandalorian Wars, which the series heavily revolves around, were first described in the first Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic video game. Much of the game's backstory was revealed by two participants in the war from both sides: the Republic officer Carth Onasi and the Mandalorian warrior Canderous Ordo. Carth, along with his superior and mentor Saul Karath, were characters originally introduced in the game, who later went on to play a significant role in the Days/Knights meta-arc.

In the second video game, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Canderous appears as the new Mandalore of the Mandalorians, having inherited the helmet of the previous Mandalore, introduced in Tales of the Jedi: The Sith War and mentioned in the first game. According to the game backstory, Mandalore the Ultimate led his people during the Mandalorian Wars, and he later appeared in the KotOR comics in that role, starting with the Flashpoint arc. However, the helmet Canderous wears in the game is different from the version seen in TotJ and the KotOR comics. However, this issue was cleared up in the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide released in 2008, where it is stated that the old mask was incorporated into Canderous' helmet. Overall, the Mandalorian aesthetics presented in the ongoing series (including armor designs) are in a transitional state between TotJ and the games and more diverse than in either.

Other references to Tales of the Jedi include mentions of such characters as Jedi Master Vodo-Siosk Baas, his former student and later Dark Lord of the Sith Exar Kun, and Jedi Master Arca Jeth. In addition, Alek references the Great Sith War in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 0: Crossroads. In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 33: Vindication, Part 2, the Great Sith War and Arca Jeth appear in a flashback telling Haazen's backstory.

The design of the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine and the composition of the Dantooine Jedi Council and the Jedi High Council on Coruscant are taken directly from the games, with one exception: Master Dorak is not yet a member of the Dantooine Council, and his place is occupied by Bala Nisi. This character debuted as a Dantooine Council member in the comic story Shadows and Light from Star Wars Tales 23, which also featured the Jedi Enclave and served as a backstory to a certain quest featured in the first KotOR game.

Both Alek and the Revanchist are revealed in Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force and later in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 31: Turnabout and the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide to be one and the same with future Dark Lords Darth Malak and Darth Revan; more about their fate will be revealed in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 42: Masks.

According to Freddye Lins, there are no plans for characters from Tales of the Jedi or The Sith Lords to appear in the comic.

Continuity errors and peculiarities
Until issue #10 was released, it had been presumed by some fans that the depiction of Arkanians Camper and Jarael with five-fingered hands and evident eye pupils was a continuity error or a deliberate attempt to retcon the look of the species. However, this later turned out to be a plot point as Mandalorian scientist Demagol clarified Jarael's status as an Arkanian Offshoot, and when pure Arkanians were featured on their home planet in issue #16.

One actual continuity error that was left unaccounted for, even in the Commencement trade paperback, was the mention of bacta before it was invented, in an era where bacta's niche was occupied by kolto. Miller acknowledges this and suggests "a number of remedies," including the idea that the name "bacta" coincidentally referred to as "something Mama Hierogryph used to make." Presumably this is not canon. It has since been retconned in The Essential Atlas that bacta has been available in the galaxy since at least 4,100 BBY.

Reception
"As a fan of Star Wars I was not disappointed by this book. Without giving much away, it really captured the feel of Star Wars for me with high action, comedy, some drama, and the occasional serious overtones. It both entertained me and made me think a little. It has some interesting plot points which make you think and creates a mystery type feel to the book."

- Review of Commencement by "Thomas Lorraine" on Amazon.com

Reviews of the pilot issue have been mixed. ComicCritique gave KotOR #1 a 2/5 rating, citing it as containing "a lot of stereotypical fiction and dialogue that will work for most fans of the series, but not for comic book readers looking for their money's worth." IGN gave it a "Check It" rating and said that "for a first issue, this isn't a bad start," despite adding that "KOTOR is a pale shadow to the original Tales of the Jedi, which remain among the best Star Wars comics of all time." User reviews on the Jedi Council Forums have been consistently positive.

Comments about trade paperbacks, on the other hand, have been largely positive. Grovel rated the Commencement TPB as 4/5 overall, with 3/5 for the story and 4/5 for the artwork. As of December 15, 2007, Amazon.com lists a 4/5 rating for the Commencement TPB, with 7 customer reviews, and a 4.5/5 rating for the Flashpoint TPB, with 6 customer reviews.

The sales figure estimates for the series are based on John Jackson Miller's calculations performed for Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest comic book distributor in North America. These estimates place the KotOR sales consistently between 21,000 and 25,000 copies for each individual issue, with the position in the overall comic sales chart for the particular month varying between 80 and 120, but generally staying in the 90s. According to these figures, Knights of the Old Republic is Dark Horse's third-best selling title, after Star Wars: Legacy (roughly 33,000 copies on average) and Conan (roughly 26,000 copies), with high consistency.

John Jackson Miller interviews

 * EU Cantina.net
 * Newsarama
 * The Lightsabre
 * Dark Horse Comics
 * Silver Bullet Comics
 * Broken Frontier
 * Comic News I
 * TwitchGuru