Castellan restraints

"Summary: The Castellan restraints are designed for limited behavior modification in a high-risk subject. In effect, the subject is programmed to react to a keyword with total obedience. Long-term commands can be implanted, but with lowered effectiveness. Once programming is activated, the subject will be aware of his inability to control his actions but unable to revolt."

- Classified report, Imperial Intelligence Archives, Dromund Kaas

The Castellan restraints were a brainwashing technique employed by the Sith Empire's Intelligence Service during the Cold War and Second Great Galactic War. A candidate for Castellan conditioning is primed using IX serum, distilled from the chemical dimalium-6 found on Quesh and specifically formulated for its subject. It takes anywhere from three to thirty days to circulate through the subject, altering their brain chemistry to make them more suseptible; after the serum is fully absorbed, the subject is imprinted with a code word that opens the affected mind and forces them to obey the subsequent commands. The process was believed to be irreversable; Imperial Intelligence's archives indicated that the imprinting process could be used again to reset the programming, but repeated use of the IX serum would prove "inhibiting".

After the Eradicator crisis, the Dark Council forced Keeper, who would shortly after be appointed Minister of Intelligence, to order the Castellan restraints for his rising-star agent, code-named Cipher Nine. While Nine's defeat of the renegade Dark Councillor Darth Jadus was commended, the Dark Council found the act of an Imperial Agent opposing a Sith Lord to be unacceptable; the alternative was to order the Agent's execution. With no choice but to obey, Keeper ordered Cipher Nine to undergo Castellan conditioning. The code word was revealed to Ardun Kothe, an ex-Jedi and spymaster for the Galactic Republic's Strategic Information Service, for use in Cipher Nine's undercover mission to infiltrate the SIS.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: The Old Republic - Chapter 2 of the Imperial Agent storyline