User:Ifindyourlackoffaithdisturbing/Workbench

"Now what's going on here?" "An intervention. For the galaxy."

- Shad Jelavan and Q'Anilia

Dark prophecy
By 3,969 BBY, the five Jedi Masters had been posted to the Jedi Tower, a small satellite academy on the planet Taris. That year, five Padawans were transferred to Taris, and each was assigned to one of the Masters&mdash;Draay to Human Zayne Carrick, Q'Anilia to native Tarisian Shad Jelavan, Feln to the Ho'Din Oojoh, Xamar to Gharn, a rare Nagai Jedi prospect, and Tey to Kamlin, a Falleen. After five years of learning, by 3,964 BBY the Taris class was close to the end of their training. For their final test, they had to traverse the rogue moon, a planetoid in the Taris asteroid belt constantly bombarded by thousands of meteors an hour, blind. However, the Covenant had ulterior motives for being on the moon. The WatchCircle had felt a storm coming, and felt that on the rogue moon, where the Force flowed more freely, they would be able to see what lie ahead more clearly. While they waited for their Padawans to make it to their encampment on a high promontory, the seers gathered to meditate&mdash;and were greeted by a series of vivid visions wherein each seer saw not only their violent deaths, but the seeming destruction of the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic.

Although each seer's vision was unique, there was one common thread: each saw themselves being killed by a figure, assumed to be a Sith, wearing a red environment suit such as the ones the Padawans were wearing on the rogue moon. Taking that to mean that one of their Padawans was going to bring about the return of the Sith, Draay suggested that they kill the trainees right then and there. However, Xamar refused to act unless their superiors were counseled first. Reluctantly assenting, Draay forestalled the execution. Draay destroyed a droid, T1-LB, who had observed the whole thing, and soon afterward the first of the successful Padawans arrived. After all five of the learners had completed the test, they all returned to Taris and the Jedi Tower, where the Masters cloistered themselves for days. While the Padawans assumed their Masters were determining which of them would become Jedi Knights, they were actually getting the go-ahead to kill, and deciding on a cover story. The Covenant would tell the public that they had rejected Shad Jelavan for his headstrong attitude, and in a rage Jelavan slew his four classmates before the Masters were forced to kill him. When everything was settled, the Masters emerged from solitude, proclaiming that they had decided who would be Knighted, and set up a banquet and Knighting ceremony at the Jedi Tower.

The massacre
At the banquet, a seemingly innocuous and inadvertent event forced the Covenant to switch gears and changed everything that was to come. Zayne Carrick, considered to be the least of the Jedi class, arrived by crashing through a window and through a caterer's table&mdash;embroiled in a chase of local Snivvian hood Marn Hierogryph, Carrick had momentarily forgotten about the banquet. Draay ordered him to pay for the broken table, and while Carrick haggled with the Besalisk caterer, he noticed Hierogryph in the courtyard below. Carrick leapt out of the window and apprehended Hierogryph, leaving the captured Snivvian at the Temple hangar cuffed in the Padawan's speeder. In the process, Carrick had made himself late for the ceremony. Although the Masters had prepared for Carrick's customary tardiness, while they waited for him to arrive Shad Jelavan noticed something amiss. Lucien Draay had his lightsaber, implying that Carrick would be Knighted. Although initially overjoyed that his friend would be made a Jedi Knight, Jelavan began to doubt whether Carrick, who finished last in every test and trial, would actually be Knighted. The other three Padawans present followed his lead. Spurred on by their halfhearted lies, Jelavan directly challenged the Masters. Their hand forced, the Covenant struck, cutting down the four Padawans before they could react. A moment later, Carrick arrived to see his friends lying dead on the chamber floor.

Stunned, Carrick ignored the Masters' directions to stand down and fled. With the Covenant in pursuit, Carrick made for his speeder, taking off with a confused Hierogryph still cuffed in a sidecar. A wild chase through Taris' Upper City ensued&mdash;Carrick and Hierogryph escaped by hiding in an eatery's trash chute, from which they were deposited in the Lower City. There, they discovered that they were already wanted men. Carrick had been charged with the murders of his classmates, and Hierogryph was listed as an "accessory".

Aftermath
The deaths of the "Taris Four" became an object of intense media interest, and also had a far-reaching economic impact&mdash;soon after the massacre, Lhosan Industries announced that they were moving their operations offworld to somewhere safer, leaving many Lower City residents out of work. Needing a "show of justice", the Taris Jedi Masters teamed with Constable Sowrs and all of Taris Security to track down the fugitives Carrick and Hierogryph. Carrick and Hierogryph were finally cornered at Junk Junction, a desolate junkyard in the Lower City, at the home of Arkanian Offshoots Jarael and Gorman "Camper" Vandrayk. Luckily, the Offshoots' home doubled as a junk hauler, the Last Resort, and the four were able to escape into the Taris asteroid belt. In an attempt to figure out why the massacre occurred, Carrick decided to retrace his steps and went to the rogue moon, recovering the wreckage of T1-LB and narrowly avoiding Jedi pursuit. Camper rebuilt T1-LB and from the droid's holographic memory Carrick learned of the Covenant's dark visions. Soon afterward, the Last Resort was captured by Valius Ying, a pirate who was attempting to claim the sizable bounty on his and Hierogryph's heads. Hierogryph negotiated for his and the Offshoots' freedom, and Carrick decided to go without a fight.

Ying delivered Carrick to the Masters in the same chamber, since cleaned, where the massacre occurred. There, Draay revealed to his former Padawan the events prior to the massacre that Carrick was not privy to, and the existence and purpose of the Jedi Covenant. Draay killed an unsuspecting Ying and was preparing to kill Carrick when Jarael, returning to save her friend, burst through the window wielding Carrick's lightsaber and carried him away. Public order on Taris significantly declined in the next few weeks. As the Middle City descended into riots, the Masters at the Jedi Tower received word that they had been reassigned to separate postings&mdash;the Dantooine Jedi Council felt that the public escape of a Jedi neophyte from their inner sanctum had undermined respect for their authority on Taris. The Masters of the Jedi Tower also received an ominous message from Carrick: he would hunt each of them down until one of them confessed and cleared his name.

The massacre also had a profound effect on the war with the Mandalorian warrior clans, which was still in its nascent stages. When the Jedi were pulled off of Taris, Mandalore the Ultimate took that as an opportunity to claim the sector, and launched a major offensive aimed at taking Taris.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1: Commencement, Part 1
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: Commencement, Part 2
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3: Commencement, Part 3
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 4: Commencement, Part 4
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 5: Commencement, Part 5
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 6: Commencement, Part 6
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Flashpoint
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 9: Flashpoint Interlude: Homecoming
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Reunion
 * The Adjudicator Special Report: The Outer Rim
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 13: Days of Fear, Part 1
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 15: Days of Fear, Part 3
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 16: Nights of Anger, Part 1
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 17: Nights of Anger, Part 2
 * The Taris Holofeed: Invasion Edition
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Daze of Hate
 * The Adjudicator Special Report: Tools of the Trade
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Knights of Suffering
 * Galactic Republic Defense Ministry Daily Brief KD0092
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Vector
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Exalted
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 31: Turnabout
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Vindication
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 39: Dueling Ambitions, Part 1
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 48: Demon, Part 2 (not mentioned but still has stuff for aftermath)