Zayne Carrick

"You're Zayne Carrick, right? Your Master sent me to look for you. He said to follow the trail of debris."

- Squint

Zayne Carrick was a young Padawan learner in the Jedi Order during the Mandalorian Wars. He wielded a yellow lightsaber.

Early life


He was brought to the Jedi Order when he was several years old, coming from a family where he had four siblings. Although Jedi Master Vandar Tokare described Zayne's ability in the Force as "marginal," Zayne was accepted to the Jedi Training Academy on Dantooine. It was hoped that Zayne's ability to quickly form kinships would blossom with Jedi training.

On Dantooine, Zayne was trained by Master Vandar, along with Shad Jelavan, Kamlin, Oojoh, and Gharn. However, his Jedi abilities did not advance as far as might be hoped while at the Academy.

Padawan on Taris
By 3,964 BBY, Zayne was being instructed by Jedi Master Lucien Draay at the Jedi Temple on the city-world of Taris. Here Zayne's ability to form friendships was demonstrated by his emotional attraction to Shel Jelavan, the sister of his best friend Shad. Yet Zayne struggled to keep up with his fellow Padawans on Taris; his clumsiness with the Force was often evidenced in his ongoing pursuit of the black-marketeer Marn Hierogryph, or Gryph.

Zayne was interested in the rapidly spreading Mandalorian Wars and other issues affecting the Jedi Order, but he felt isolated on Taris and doubted his ability to become a Jedi Knight. However, he received encouragement from the Padawan Squint. While passing through Taris with his Master on their way to the Outer Rim frontlines, Squint told Zayne that he was to become a bigger player than he thought.

However, Squint's advice to Zayne that "sometimes you have to enter the darkness to save the light" boded ill for the future. Jedi Master Q'anilia sensed a dark change in the Force just after Squint spoke to Zayne. Indeed, the Jedi Masters on Taris were apparently worried that one of their Padawans would turn to the dark side.

Soon after Zayne's encounter with Squint, the Padawans on Taris faced a challenge on Taris' rogue moon. Zayne and the other Padawans had to find their way back to their Masters admidst the moon's perpetual meteor bombardment, blinded by their visor's blast shields. As he was the last to complete the task, Zayne felt that he might not become a Jedi Knight along with his friends. The Masters' fears about their Padawans led them to desperate measures; for as Zayne noted, they hated the Sith&mdash;but hatred was an emotion forbidden to the Jedi. After observing their apprentices' completion of the Rogue moon challenge, they retreated into cloister at the Temple. When they emerged, they announced that a knighting ceremony would soon take place. The ceremony was only a ruse, however, for in consultation with a female associate on Coruscant, the Jedi Masters instead carried out the Padawan Massacres of Taris, slaying all of the Padawans but Zayne, who was running late. Zayne discovered his masters in the midst of their crime and managed to escape.

Jedi on the run
On the run from the Jedi Masters he once served, Zayne had no choice but to flee into the seedy Lower City of Taris with Gryph, whom he had finally succeeded in capturing. Meanwhile, the Jedi Masters successfully framed Zayne and Gryph for the massacre. Zayne decided that he must return to every place where he had been trained in order to decipher why the Masters had betrayed him. After hitching a ride with some Wookiee garbage collectors and a closer encounter with some Black Vulkars, Gryph led Zayne to Junk Junction, where they encountered the aging mechanic Camper and his friend Jarael. Jarael was suspicious of the fugitive duo and attacked Zayne, upstaging the young Jedi with her electrostaff skills, even in the face of Zayne's lightsaber. Initially both Jarael and Camper refused to help Zayne (Jarael because of Zayne's indirect role in convincing Lhosan Industries to leave Taris, and Camper because of Gryph's failure to pay him for their last transaction). However, when a force led by Constable Sowrs and Master Draay arrived on the scene, Jarael and Camper allowed Zayne and Gryph to escape with them on their ship Last Resort.

Unfortunately, the Last Resort had not flown in years, and soon stalled in the asteroid field in orbit around Taris. While the other passengers slept, Zayne sent a transmission to Master Vandar Tokare, who did not believe Zayne's story. Instead, Master Vandar speculated that Zayne did murder his friends, but did not remember the incident correctly. He advised Zayne to contact one of the Jedi Consulars on Taris. Zayne was interrupted in the middle of his discussion with Vandar by Jarael, who knocked him out with her electrostaff.

After his transmission to Dantooine, Zayne quickly realized that it was odd that four were stationed at Taris (Q'anilia, Feln, Raana Tey, and Xamar). He descended with Jarael to the Rogue Moon. While there, the duo uncovered the destroyed droid T1-LB ("Elbee") that might have had information as to why the Masters murdered their Padawans. Elbee had been present for the Jedi Trials but had foolishly fallen off the edge of a cliff. Yet before they could locate Elbee's information, Lucien Draay and the forces of the Republic descended to the moon's surface to apprehend Zayne.

Dark prophecy
In the Rogue Moon, Zayne and the Arkanian Jarael recovered the of T1-LB ("Elbee") from the cliff. Zayne and Jarael were almost out with the droids memory bank when the forces of the Republic, commanded by Zayne's master Lucien Draay, stopped them. But thanks to the rapid skills of Camper and Gryph, both Zayne and Jarael could get away without harm and with the ("Elbee") memory bank in their hands.



Camper tried his best to transfer ("Elbee") memory bank to another droid body and he gave him a vocabulator and holo projector. Zayne called for the lst moments of ("Elbee's") recording in the Rogue Moon. What he saw was a dark secret kept by his own masters in that fatefull moment. While Zayne and the other padawans were taking their training in the hard asteroid surface, their masters meditated in the Force. Each one had a dark prophecy of the future outcome of the Galaxy. Raana Tey envisioned the destruction of the Taris Academy and the occupation of Taris by Mandalorians and the Sith.Feln envisioned himself on Odryn and saw the holocaust of his people. Xamar envisioned himself in the Republic Navy at the final victory against the Mandalorians, only to see the Republic fleet turn on itself. Q'anilia saw the Coruscant Jedi Temple in ruins, with dead Jedi everywhere, including their female associate. In all cases, the Masters saw a Sith Lord encased in red armor and armed with a red lightsaber responsible for their own deaths. Feln was the first to make the assumption that the red figure symbolized one of their Padawans, each of whom was wearing a red environmental suit on the moon at that moment. Tey suggested that they had to kill off the Padawans to stave off the events of the vision. Feln and Draay readily agreed, and Q'anilia passively gave her consent. Only Xamar opposed the plan, wishing to contact the Covenant on Coruscant. Once the Covenant was contacted by Draay, and gave their assent, Xamar apparently was ameliorated.



Zayne felt that their masters were doing this because they hated the Sith and that was the only solution to save the galaxy from total darkness. In that moment the Last Resort was attacked and captured inside the tractor beam of the Oroko, a bounty hunter spacecraft. According to Gryph, the bounty hunter Valius Ying would let three of them go free, but Zayne's freedom was non-negotiable. The bounty on Zayne's head was too good to let him go. Gryph and Zayne had an alternate plan: he would go and then distract the guard and take the Last Resort for his escape. He didn't count that Jarael was waiting there to talk him out. She told Zayne: "Everyone has predators Zayne. There's nothing wrong running. But to endanger others to save yourself". Zayne didn't want to die but he didn't want to lose more friends. He came with the only decision that a true Jedi would make: "I'm going to stop the prophecy from happening". Zayne will give up himself to the bounty hunters. So he did.

Eventually, Valius the bounty hunter found Zayne, alone, within an escape pod in the Taris asteroid belt. He brought Zayne to Taris and dragged him to through the Upper City, now filled with an exultant crowd impatient to see the "murderer" punished — including Shel Jelavan, who was led to believe that Zayne killed her brother — to the Jedi Temple.

The young Padawan's fate was, at last, in the hands of the five Masters.

Behind the scenes
Many fans have speculated about Zayne's future. If the Jedi Masters' fears turn out to be accurate, there is a possibility that Zayne could become one of the characters from the Knights of the Old Republic games. In particular, many fans predicted that Zayne may become the Jedi Exile. Others theorize that Zayne may be Darth Nihilus, judging by the "destroyer of worlds" prophecy. Darth Sion is a more remote possibility.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 0: Crossroads
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic: Commencement
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic: Flashpoint