Darth Traya

"Know that there was once a Darth Traya. And that she cast aside that role, was exiled, and found a new purpose. But there must always be a Darth Traya, one that holds the knowledge of betrayal. Who has been betrayed in their heart, and will betray in turn."

- Darth Traya

Kreia was a Human female who had served as a Jedi Master during the years prior to the outbreak of the Mandalorian Wars, and as a Sith Lord, later in life, under the alias of Darth Traya, the Lord of Betrayal.

She was known to have been the former mentor of Revan, the Jedi who turned to the dark side and led a new Sith Empire against the Galactic Republic in the Jedi Civil War. After Kreia turned to the dark side herself, before Revan's eventual redemption, the traits that she had exhibited in her former profession suited her new role as master schemer and Sith Lord at the side of her new apprentices, Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion. Exiled by both the Jedi and the Sith, she held in growing abhorrence how they were used by the Force to its own ends, and harbored delusions of freeing the galaxy of its influence.

When Kreia found the Jedi Exile, a unique being who she saw as having had the potential to bring her purpose to fruition, she took it upon herself to "rescue" the Exile and retrain her in her own views. Even as she orchestrated the First Jedi Purge, she continued in her attempts to mold the Exile, and those she traveled with aboard the Ebon Hawk, into her own image. After the Battle of Telos IV, the Exile journeyed to Malachor V to finally confront Kreia, who had revealed herself as Darth Traya, dueling and ultimately killing her in the depths of the Trayus Academy.

Early life
"I was a historian once, gathering the relics of the Jedi, learning the ancient mysteries. Always, there were more questions."

- Kreia

Much of Kreia's early life is shrouded in mystery. However, it is known that she was a Jedi Historian and that she had worked her way to the rank of Jedi Master, training many students. Among her many Padawans was none other than Revan, a highly-gifted apprentice. Her teachings, however, were looked upon with concern by the Jedi Council. By the end of her time with the Jedi Order, Kreia's students were believed to be failures, because they followed Revan into the Mandalorian Wars, fell to the dark side, or abandoned their training.

Fall to the dark side
"All that talk of hatred, manipulation, and standing on your own two feet&mdash;sorry, you don't get any more Sith than that."

- Atton Rand

It is unknown when exactly Kreia was cast from the Jedi Order. Although, judging by certain comments made by Jedi Masters such as Kavar, it was most likely during, if not before, the Mandalorian Wars. According to Kreia, she had been exiled from the Order for her role in training Revan. The Jedi Council blamed Kreia for the war after several of her apprentices were easily seduced by the call of battle, most notably Revan. Consumed by her guilt, she questioned the validity of her beliefs in the philosophy and wondered if this was the reason why Revan had fallen.

She followed Revan's footsteps in history, traveling from planet to planet, searching for an answer that she alone could provide. In her travels, she encountered many of Revan's acquaintances and found fragments of a man far from the dreaded image history would eventually paint of him. Her journey ended on the world of Malachor V, a nexus of dark side energies and part of the ancient Sith Empire. On the surface, she found Revan's former stronghold, Trayus Academy, an ancient dark side Praxeum that contained the deepest and most intimate secrets of the Sith. There she learned of a forgotten legacy of the Sith that had lurked in the Unknown Regions for thousands of years. From that moment, she firmly believed that Revan had never "fallen" to the dark side, and that a greater cause had come that called for certain actions to be done. From the descent of Jedi Master Kreia into the darkness arose Darth Traya, Dark Lord of Betrayal.

Teaching on Malachor V
"In the end, [Revan] turned back to me. When he realized there was nothing more to be learned from the Jedi&mdash;except how one could leave them forever."

- Kreia



Continuing the legacy of her student, Revan, Darth Traya re-established Trayus Academy to train, convert, and create the new generation of Sith, who would act as a gadfly to the Republic. After some time, she found similar Sith Lords who were interested in rebuilding the deteriorating Sith Order. Darth Nihilus, the Lord of Hunger, and Darth Sion, the Lord of Pain, joined her in the creation of the Sith triumvirate. As time passed and the Jedi ran to hide, the Sith Lords' ideals became divergent. Traya and Revan's legacy fell far from Darth Nihilus' destructive hunger and Sion's bitter crusade against the Jedi. A violent argument eventually arose among the three, and as Traya was the odd one out, she was cast aside, beaten and broken. Nihilus afterwards became the Dark Lord of the Sith. Once again, Kreia had been betrayed.

Lost and disheveled, Kreia forsook her Sith identity. She came to regard the Force as an uncaring, insidious god who would control their people to achieve some measure of balance, at the cost of countless lives throughout history. She believed now that this conflict between light and dark would never end, and that the galaxy was doomed to chaos forever. Firm in her belief, she engineered a master plan to eliminate the Force, once and for all.

Kreia and the Jedi Exile
"There is no truth in the Force. But there is truth in you, Exile. And that is why I chose you."

- Kreia



Banished, disbanded or in hiding, the Jedi were nearly gone from the galaxy. Kreia had left Malachor with T3-M4 and made return to Republic space aboard the Ebon Hawk seeking the last known Jedi, the Jedi Exile, a General of the Mandalorian Wars who helped utterly defeat the Mandalorians at the Battle of Malachor V by questionable means, such as the use of the Mass Shadow Generator, which left a wound in the Force. Beneath layers of hearsay and unconfirmed reports, Kreia had found a means to deafen the galaxy to the Force. She sought to exploit the Exile's talent in Force bonding and to create another wound, greater than the one before, the echoes of which would travel forever, never reaching their destination.

Encounter with the Exile
"I am your rescuer, as you are mine."

- Kreia

At one point, Jedi Master Atris arranged for the Exile's return to the Republic, and exposed her presence in the coreward databases in the hopes of using her as bait for the Sith. On the Republic warship Harbinger, the Exile was found by an HK-50 Jedi Hunter and drugged into unconsciousness. Kreia found her and took her to the Ebon Hawk, barely escaping a Sith ambush in which Darth Sion nearly destroyed the freighter.

Both unconscious, Kreia and the Exile arrived safely on Peragus thanks to T3-M4, who was able to get the ship working well enough to get to the colony. They subconsciously reached out to each other, both strengthening each other in the knowledge that they had survived the void that had befallen them, and eventually formed a Force bond, which seemingly twined their lives. As they attempted to escape the mining facility along with Atton Rand, the Sith arrived aboard the Harbinger and Kreia encountered her former protégé, Sion. The master and student fought, and Kreia, hardly at her full power, lost her left hand to Sion's lightsaber. Because of her bond with Kreia, the Exile felt the pain of losing the limb herself. Kreia used the opportunity to convince the Exile that the bond between them could be fatal; if one of them died, the other would too. This forced the Exile to keep the old woman at her side, though the actual validity of such a claim was questionable. Bound by hands of death, Kreia intruded upon the company of the Exile, but remained vague on her ties to her former pupil, Revan, and Malachor V until the end. The Exile also had no way of knowing where the ship had come from, since Kreia had the only means of accessing the Ebon Hawk's navicomputer.

Finding the Lost Jedi
"No game of dejarik can be won without pawns, and this may prove to be a very long game."

- Kreia

While the Exile was slowly reconnecting to the Force, Kreia began to shape the Jedi as her new pupil. She taught the Exile to carefully choose between actions, asking the Jedi to view the ethical implications of all quests undertaken. Kreia seemed to show that the Galaxy and its inhabitants' morals were far more complicated than the basic tenets of the light and dark sides of the Force.

As the Exile grew in power, Kreia watched as the struggling Republic was unknowingly strengthened through the Jedi's search. During these adventures, many people came into the company of the Exile, most of them sensitive to the Force. Although many of them were wary of Kreia, she was able to manipulate most of them to do her bidding. Because of the ease with which the Exile had "called" upon these companions, the old master had seen the Exile's ability to transmit extreme echoes to those the Jedi was bound with. With the Exile's power and with the knowledge of Darth Nihilus's damaged condition, Kreia intended to bring her plans into finality.

Early in her travels with the Exile, when the party was only beginning to form on Telos, Kreia probed Atton Rand and invaded his mind, which she said had powerful shields indeed. She discovered his many secrets. She blackmailed him, telling him that she would not reveal his secrets to the Exile as long as he followed and served the Exile.

On Dxun, when the crew of the Ebon Hawk required the assistance of Mandalore the Preserver, she manipulated him into protecting the Exile. When Bao-Dur attempted to get her off the ship, Kreia reminded him of Malachor V, furthering the guilt in his mind. When the group was joined by Mical, also known as the Disciple on Dantooine, Kreia manipulated his mind. She played tricks on his sight throughout their travels so that he was often unaware of her presence. She finally revealed herself to him after he discovered the truth behind her motives and the darkness moving across the galaxy, consuming all life. However, Kreia made it so he would not remember her or what he discovered until the time was right.

While on Nar Shaddaa, Kreia bound the Wookiee bounty hunter Hanharr to a life-debt after his defeat at the hands of Mira, who Kreia called "the huntress." Kreia sent Hanharr to Malachor V where if he survived he would become stronger, promising to end the debt he owed her when he killed Mira, although as fate would turn out, Hanharr would be defeated by Mira again on Malachor V.

While on Onderon, during the Onderon Civil War, she tried to convince the Exile to kill General Vaklu, who was unarmed at the time, because he was "too dangerous to be left alive." The Exile refused, however, and convinced Queen Talia, Vaklu's cousin, to send him to the dungeon.

After the battle, Kreia revived Colonel Tobin and made him believe that the Onderon Civil War was still going on and that she served General Vaklu. She knew that Vaklu and Tobin served her former ally, Darth Nihilus, so she fed him false information about a Jedi Enclave on Telos (actually, Atris was the only Jedi on Telos) and she sent him to the Ravager. Tobin acted on this information, which resulted in Nihilus being killed over Telos.

By the end of her adventures with the Exile, Kreia had devised a method to kill the Force with what she called "echoes": tragedies that left persistent wounds in the universe, which made the Force difficult and sometimes impossible to hear and use. Her discovery of these "echoes" and her avenue of attack on the Force was made possible entirely by the Exile, who provided the first "echo" that she could study through her actions on the planet of Malachor V. By Kreia's reasoning, people who died of these echoes when they could not bear to voluntarily sever themselves from the Force (as the Exile did) were not strong enough to deserve to live in the first place. Her hatred of the Force was the overriding goal, for in her mind, if she did not kill it, even more lives would be lost in the future.

Endgame


Kreia traveled with the Exile, whom she helped search for the Jedi Masters. When the truth was revealed&mdash;that the Exile had unconsciously deafened herself to the Force in order to survive, as opposed to being cut off from it by the Jedi Council as the Exile previously believed&mdash;Kreia confronted the reassembled Jedi Council in the ruins of the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. As the Jedi Masters&mdash;Vrook Lamar, Kavar and Zez-Kai Ell&mdash;actually tried to strip the Force from the Exile, whom they believed to be a wound in the Force and a danger that could lure the Sith&mdash;Kreia drained their connection to the force, killing them, and once again assumed her Sith identity.

She was then led to Jedi Master Atris for judgment by Handmaidens while the Exile laid unconscious. Journeying to the Telos Academy, the reborn Darth Traya revealed that Atris had herself been corrupted and turned to the dark side by the Sith holocrons she gathered, but could not admit it even to herself. Atris embraced the dark side openly, but was soon confronted and defeated by the Exile.



Kreia returned to Malachor V where she intended to sacrifice herself to open up the larger wound in the force in order to destroy it. After their brief duel, Atris told the Exile that such an act would undoubtedly kill the Exile and destroy the Force but she couldn't fathom why Kreia would want to make such a move. However, Kreia would wait for the Exile to come to her for answers and final confrontation.

After the Battle of Telos IV, in which the Exile destroyed Darth Nihilus, the Exile journeyed to Malachor V, where Traya and Sion were hidden in the depths of the Trayus Academy. The Exile confronted the Sith Lords, and eroded Sion's will, releasing him from all his pain in the process. By giving up the pain, and therefore the Force, Sion was finally able to die&mdash;but not before warning the Exile that Traya would try to do to her what she had done to Sion himself.

"Save me? You already have – it is enough what you have done, from now into the future."

- The redeemed Kreia to the Exile

The Exile found Traya in the core of the academy and bested her, slicing her remaining hand off. Despite so many betrayals, so many deceptions, the Exile seemingly forgave Kreia for everything that had happened, and just wished her heart put to rest. She still tried to save Kreia, who then told her she already had, by being the best apprentice she could ever train. Before dying from the wounds dealt to her by the Exile, Kreia chose to honor her with one last gift; she drew upon the Force that radiated from Malachor V and cast a prediction of the future of the galaxy and that of the Exile's friends. She confessed that she truly loved the Exile&mdash;her greatest student, by her own words&mdash;as she believed that the Exile had finally proven her ideals were correct. She told the Exile that she must follow Revan to the Unknown Regions, and finally surrendered her life to what she once despised&mdash;the Force.

Her body was destroyed shortly afterwards along with Malachor V when the Mass Shadow Generator was activated for the last time by Bao-Dur's remote.

Personality and traits


"Then she must be royalty, because she's got to be Queen of the Galaxy to bark out orders like that. Or maybe she's senile."

- Atton Rand

As a person, Darth Traya was self-reliant, manipulative, and constantly wary of the intentions of others.

Traya often remonstrated the Exile for taking away the challenges of others. She argued that indiscriminate compassion weakened the benefactors by disallowing them the mental and physical enrichment that life's challenges inherently procure. Ultimately, she said, such compassion thus weakened the very people it was intended to help, cheapening their experience and leaving them more ill-prepared for dealing with things on their own. In other words, Traya had adopted an individualist and social Darwinist philosophy, and encouraged people to struggle in order to learn and to prosper.

After being betrayed by those closest to her, Traya expected the worst from the people around her. As the Exile's circle of companions grew, Traya came to see how these companions could be used for her own ends, and sometimes ensured their loyalty using methods of questionable morality. For example, she read the mind of Atton Rand, learned of his dark history, and used that to blackmail him into the Exile's service. She also tempted Canderous Ordo, alias Mandalore the Preserver, with knowledge of Revan's fate in order to ensure that he would not betray the Exile.

A master of manipulation, Traya also used betrayal and deception to achieve her goals. She lied to the Exile at the beginning of their quest, claiming that the Jedi Council had stripped the Force from the Jedi Exile. Traya knew this would lead the Exile to seek out the surviving members of the Jedi Council, in hopes that she, or the Exile, would prove them wrong on their teachings. On Onderon, Traya lied to Colonel Tobin about the existence of many Jedi in a Jedi Academy on Telos, knowing that Tobin would relay this to his true Master, Darth Nihilus, who would not be able to resist the chance to replenish himself and would recklessly assault Telos. This left Nihilus vulnerable to the assault of the Mandalorians and the Exile. Also, Traya would commend the Exile if she succeeds in manipulating others during her travels.

Despite these traits, Traya was not the cruel, cold-hearted manipulator that many had dismissed her as. She had a softer side to her personality that was more apparent when she was around the Jedi Exile. In fact, Traya once expressed that she would go so far as to let the entire galaxy die in order to ensure the life of the Exile, and lived up to her word&mdash;during her travels, the Exile was the only person she really cared about, viewing everyone else as expendable.

Though Traya was intelligent and quite powerful in her own right, she also realized that her philosophies would be regarded as fanatical by both the Jedi and the Sith. Because of this, she preferred to fly beneath the radar, often using her own power to shield her identity from other Force-sensitives who might have known her, and could have otherwise detected her. She was not outspoken about her convictions.

An odd trait of Kreia was her habit to rarely refer to any of the Exile's companions by name, calling them by titles. She would refer to Atton Rand as "the fool", Mical as a "tiny Jedi", Brianna as the "servant of Atris", Visas Marr as "the blinded one" or "the seer", Mira as "the huntress", T3-M4, HK-47, and G0-T0 all as "machines", Hanharr as "the beast", and Bao-Dur as "the alien".

Although Kreia was, in many ways, a very pragmatic woman, she was not without her own set of preferences and prejudices. For example, she admitted that although she regarded Atton as complete and utter fool, she did respect him, to a certain degree, because he was able to survive without the Force, whereas Jedi who had lost their connection to the Force would seem almost completely helpless without the powers which they relied on. This sort of irony amused Kreia, yet this was before she discovered that Atton was secretly Force Sensitive.

As for her prejudices, Kreia openly displayed emotions of contempt and hate for the Mandalorians. As she despised the arrogance of the Jedi High Council, she detested the Mandalorians, who she believed to be arrogant for once believing that they could stand up against those who command the Force. During the Exile's alliance with Canderous Ordo, Kreia took every opportunity to bring the warriors down a peg, stating how their "military tactics" are nothing compared to the Force, which is precisely why the Mandalorian Warriors could never defeat the Jedi, let alone Revan himself.

Kreia also seemed to hold droids and aliens at a low regard. In a conversation with the Exile regarding Revan, Kreia said that, despite the fact that she held her former pupil at the highest regard, she did not understand Revan's fascination with soulless machines and technology. She believed that Revan's interest in droids stemmed from his preference for followers who obeyed his orders without question, which explains why the Dark Lord created HK-47. Kreia also believed that Revan would have loved nothing more than to have organic, living soldiers all with the two traits of droids that Revan so preferred: total obedience and programmed to carry out any order without question. Almost 4,000 years later, Revan's successor, Darth Sidious, succeeded in creating such soldiers in the form of the clone troopers. Further evidence of Kreia's distaste in droids are shown in the way she treated T3-M4 with contempt and begrudging tolerance.

Aside from droids, Kreia displayed emotions of prejudice and contempt for non-human species, particularly towards Bao-Dur, whom she mockingly referred to as "the alien". During one of her conversations with Bao-Dur, she chastised and berated him for his part in the Mandalorian Wars, especially his personal involvement in the creation and activation of the Mass Shadow Generator. She asked the guilt-ridden and remorseful Iridonian mechanic as to what could possibly create such a terrible weapon of unimaginable and complete destruction - and then finished by stating "certainly nothing human". Ironically, Kreia would be proven wrong when, nearly four thousand years later, the human-ruled Galactic Empire used the first Death Star to destroy an entire planet.

Powers and abilities
"I use it as I would use a poison, and in the hopes of understanding it, I will learn the way to kill it. But perhaps these are the excuses of an old woman who has grown to rely on a thing she despises."

- Darth Traya on the Force

Kreia was a master of telekinetic lightsaber combat, which allowed her to wield three or more lightsabers in combat, holding each of them aloft with the Force, and having them fight with a will of their own. She was also a master manipulator, having used this skill to maneuver herself into a position of power at the Trayus Academy and, later, trick the Jedi and Sith into revealing themselves, allowing her and her accomplices to destroy them. She also had the Force Fear ability.

Jedi Historian "One quickly learns that the Jedi code does not give all the answers."

- Kreia

Kreia had once been a Jedi historian, and on her way through the path of knowledge the Jedi Code became unfit for her idea of teaching and learning the ways of the Force. She came to realize that the Force defies the simplistic tenets of the Order, that one who is to truly understand would need the contrast, not adherence to a single idea. During this time she would search and gather relics of the Force. On Korriban she indulged the Exile in a tour of the tombs and excavation sites in the Valley of the Dark Lords while showing her a profound knowledge of their history, a contempt for ignorance, and a care for truth that survived to her last days.

Healer "The ability to heal is also the ability to harm. And the inability to heal what is damaged can also bring about harm."

- Kreia

In her journey with the Exile, Kreia spoke of healing, during a lesson related to skills, as something about which she was knowledgeable. She claimed to be able to heal her own damaged eyes&mdash;which were really atrophied from use&mdash; yet she refused to do so, as she had the Force Sight ability and regarded her natural sight as a distraction. She could go into a Hibernation Trance that would slow down biological functions and make her appear perfectly dead. She used this ability on the Ebon Hawk when the Harbinger tractor beamed the freighter, and again when the Republic warship fired on it. She also used some variant of this ability on Atton Rand, when she learned of his former allegiance in the Telosian Jedi Academy. She further knew the ability of Breath Control, which made her immune to most poisons, and she taught it to the Exile as well, telepathically, when she was in danger of dying from the toxic fumes of the Jekk'Jekk Tarr, during a meeting with local Exchange boss Visquis on Nar Shaddaa. In the Jekk'Jekk Tarr she would also use her healing powers to revive Hanharr, after he was left for dead by Mira. On Onderon she revived Colonel Tobin after he was slammed by a Drexl larva.

Absence in the Force "She is difficult to see... she's like a shadow of the Exile."

- Jedi Master Zez-Kai Ell

Kreia was rather proficient at using Force Cloak to hide her presence from whomever she chose. Her skill with this ability was demonstrated on the Ebon Hawk as she whispered to Mical, making him believe he was hearing things, taunting at Jedi awareness that she thought would never cruise beyond what she allowed. She also used a variation of this ability that enabled her to be seen but remain entirely unnoticed, to cloud the memory of others so they would forget her presence or even her existence. When the Exile came to Kreia about why none of the Jedi Masters they encountered mentioned her, she lied, claiming they perhaps did not remember or care, but was not believed. She described her ability as making herself "very small", a talent she claimed not to use on the Exile, and that was even more effective on the worlds where they traveled, where sensing Force-users was difficult. On Dantooine Jedi Master Vrook would speak of the Sith threat and their ability to mask their presence, but he did not believe that mere Force-cloaking techniques alone would be sufficient to hide the one responsible for what had befallen the Jedi. Eventually the Exile would learn more about this, when Kreia was revealed as one of the Lords of the Sith, Atris explained that much of the reason she succeeded in hiding her dark persona lay actually in the fact that the Force had been stripped from her.

Dark Side

As Darth Traya, she was a master of Force Drain, which she used to kill dozens of Sith Assassins instantaneously and simultaneously. She obliterated the Jedi High Council in the persons of Jedi Masters Vrook Lamar, Kavar, and Zez-Kai Ell by showing them the Force "through the eyes of the Exile", supposedly consuming their connection to the Force in a way similar to that of Darth Nihilus, denying them even the means to become one with the Force. The Exile would later behold them as "worse than lifeless, like an absence in the Force". From the Trayus Core she was also able to glimpse far into the future, predicting isolated events with incredible accuracy.

"They will die a death that will last millennia, until all that remains is their code, their history, and, in the end, the shell of their armor upon the shell of a man, too easily slain by Jedi."

- Darth Traya

Traya was able to predict the death of Jango Fett at the hands of Mace Windu nearly 4,000 years later, in a prophecy relating to the fate of the Mandalorians.

Teachings
"Is this your new Master, exile? If so, then you follow Revan's path. Her teachings will cause you to fall as surely as he did."

- Vrook Lamar to the Jedi Exile

Among her allies were Darth Nihilus, and her students, Darth Sion, the Jedi Exile and Revan. Even when she was a Sith, Traya had some notion that neither the light nor dark side of the Force was truly superior to the other. Due to the fact her teachings incorporated light side concepts (she never believed in power or destruction for its own sake), Sion and Nihilus grew weary of her. They betrayed her, stripped her of power, and exiled her. She described her fall from power thus:

"There are dark places in the galaxy where few tread. Ancient centers of learning, of knowledge... But I did not walk alone. To be united by hatred is a... fragile alliance at best. But my will was not law. There were disagreements. Ambition. And hunger for power. There are techniques within the Force against which there is no defense. I was cast down. Stripped of my power. Exiled. I suffered... indignities. And fell into darkness."

- Kreia to the Jedi Exile

Darth Traya would refine her beliefs while wandering the galaxy, eventually coming to view the Force as being a sort of uncaring, insidious god that uses the lives of sentients as pawns in a pernicious game of balance. This, she thought, was evidenced by the widespread occurrences of destruction and death that had persistently transpired throughout the Galaxy to that point, many of which could be traced to a conflict between Force-sensitives. Yet, Traya blamed neither the Jedi nor the Sith, but rather, the very thing they had both come to draw and rely upon: the Force itself.

After being exiled from the Jedi Order when she was forced to shoulder the blame for Revan's corruption and again after she was exiled from Malachor V by her Sith students Nihilus and Sion, Darth Traya had experienced betrayals from, and saw the flaws of, both the light and dark sides of the Force. These unique experiences disillusioned her and forced her to refine her ways of thinking.

When she heard about the Jedi Exile, she saw proof that life could exist without the Force, which she saw as disproof of the traditional dogma of both the Sith and Jedi that the Force and life itself were inseparable by nature. This renewed Traya's confidence in her personal beliefs and fueled her desire to learn more of the Exile's personal motivations. By the end of her adventures with the Exile, during which time she went by the name of Kreia, Traya had discovered that certain tragedies can leave wounds in the Force, which sometimes made it difficult to hear and be used. These "echoes," as Traya called them, provided a possible avenue through which it was possible to attack the Force. Her discovery was due in no small part to the Exile, as her experience at Malachor V, where she cut herself off from the Force, created an echo large enough that Traya was able to connect the tragedy to the wound created in the Force. According to Traya, those who had chosen death (or the Jedi who chose the dark side) over a life devoid of the Force were not strong enough to deserve life. Her desire to prevent unnecessary death in the future was the overbearing motivation that cultivated her hatred for the Force.

Despite her loathing of the Force, she still used it; she explained it by comparing herself to one who studies poison. Just as such a person would strive to understand the lethality behind poison, so she strives to understand the particularities of the Force, thereby enabling her to destroy it, perhaps.

Darth Traya envisioned a galaxy that would choose not to acquiesce to the will of the Force. She thought she could achieve this by showing how one could willingly abnegate the Force and eventually become stronger for it, and it was the Exile who was a living testament to this. In her teachings with the Jedi Exile, she emphasized how dependent the Jedi and Sith were on the Force, and how they had become flawed for it. By making the Exile her protégé, she hoped her message would resonate with future Force-sensitives so they would choose to use the Force without necessarily bending to either extreme, and certainly not to the point where they would choose death over life without the Force. Ultimately, though, she dreamed of a galaxy lacking of the Force altogether, as it was her belief that the galaxy would be better off that way.

Behind the scenes


During the sequence in the Sith tomb, Kreia uses a blue lightsaber.

On Dxun, Kreia tells Mandalore: "The Future is always in motion." It mirrors what Yoda said in The Empire Strikes Back.

Portrayal and name
Kreia was voiced by Sara Kestelman.

GameSpy declared Kreia the best video game character of 2005.

The name Traya comes directly from the word "betrayal," which holds an obvious relation to the events of her life.

Alternate endings
If the Exile is dark-sided, there is an option to throw her into the Trayus Core. This scene mirrors Palpatine's first death.

If the player chooses more aggressive responses during the confrontation scene at Malachor V's core, Kreia also gives the Exile the option to go into another exile and not search for Revan. This does not change the ending movies.

Cut content
In an unused dialogue (and discarded plot events) Kreia revealed that she had been manipulating the mind of Atris for years, and through her orchestrated the Jedi Exile's trial and sentence.

A single alternative line in the "Kreia's Fall" scene from the game revealed that the catalyst for Sion and Nihilus's betrayal was that Kreia decreed that the Jedi Exile was not to be harmed.

The official player's guide to the game showed that Kreia had actual dark side transitions, and that her alignment would change depending on the Exile's alignment and level of influence with her, like the rest of the crew. The decision to remove them and set Kreia's alignment to "true neutral" permanently must have been made late in production.

After Kreia slew the three Jedi masters on Dantooine, if Brianna the handmaiden was not part of the Exile's party, Visas would take Kreia before Nihilus instead of Atris.

Kreia was not always intended to be the only Traya and final boss in the game. Before the content was cut out, the choices the Exile made could have her or Atris become Traya at the end. In that scenario, Kreia sacrifices her life to protect the Jedi Exile from her. The New Essential Chronology introduced even more confusion, as it mistakenly referred to "Darth Kreia" and "Darth Traya" as two separate characters. This error was later addressed by author Dan Wallace, but it was too late, as the book was already out. The error was again repeated in the Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force.

After Kreia lost her first hand in the beginning, there are a few errors in her actions and movements while lacking it throughout the rest of the game, such as putting fists on the waist, holding her lightsaber as if there were "two" holding it, and using her Force powers in battle. Also in one of Kreia's flashbacks she is shown without her hand, though she did not lose it until years later.

The screenshot that shows Kreia with her hood removed was taken with a modified game; while such a scene never takes place in the game, it was supposed to take place during the Rebuilt Enclave scene, when Kreia reveals herself to the three Jedi Masters; however, in the official release, Kreia stays hooded due to a scripting glitch. This has been fixed by The Sith Lords Restoration Project developers.

A mysterious past
There is an ongoing dispute as to the true identity of Kreia.

One theory holds that the Jedi Arren Kae and Kreia are the same person. While available material, cut or not, indicates that it may indeed have been Obsidian Entertainment's original intent, there is no conclusive evidence that could either prove or disprove this theory within Star Wars canon. The main source cited is that at one point in the game Mical the Disciple said that the first and also the last of the many trainers of Revan was Arren Kae, and at another point Kreia said she, Kreia, was the first and last trainer of Revan. When asked about the relationship between Kreia and Kae, Chris Avellone ambiguously responded "Can’t comment, but good catch. Sorry."

According to canon, Arren Kae is the mother of Brianna, Kreia only mentions her to male playing characters who choose to romance the Echani Handmaiden. While Brianna herself never knew Arren, Kreia seems to know much about her, but disapproves of speaking of this to Brianna, for the same reason Jedi separate children from their parents: because "family exerts a powerful influence on one's development." Brianna and Kreia share the same views on conflict and its effects, and while Brianna fought long to prove that she, unlike her parents, would not betray her oath, she eventually does when she asks the Jedi Exile to train her in the ways of the Force; Kreia was the Lord of Betrayal.

Others believe that Kreia is instead Krynda Draay, one of the prime antagonists in the recently published Knights of the Old Republic comic book series, which is set about a decade before the events of Knights of the Old Republic II. Commentators point to the numerous similarities between the two women: their amazing powers of prognostication, secluded lifestyles, distinctive appearance and profound belief in the virtues of Force Sight, both were Jedi Sage Masters who before the Mandalorian Wars taught numerous apprentices using unorthodox philosophies, and through their teachings both were held responsible for the crimes and failures of their Padawans. However, this is not conclusive evidence, and the theory has not yet been confirmed or denied by writer John Jackson Miller.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords