Bastila Shan

"Bastila was strong, but she was always impatient and headstrong. Malak preyed upon her weaknesses."

- Jolee Bindo

Bastila Shan was a gifted Jedi that became one of the key figures involved in the Jedi Civil War and she was also one of the few Jedi to survive the purge that followed it.

Biography
Bastila was born on Talravin as the only child of Helena Shan and a hunter whose name was not preserved by history. Like all Jedi of the time period, she was separated from her parents at a young age to begin her training, but Bastila quickly proved to be exceptional. She was gifted with a natural Force ability that would gain her considerable renown later in life: Battle Meditation. It was a rare skill that increased the morale of her allies in battle and reduced her enemy's will to fight. It alone would make Bastila an irreplaceable asset in the Galactic Republic's plans to defeat the Sith during the Jedi Civil War.

As a young knight, Bastila refused to join Revan and Malak's rebellion against the Jedi Council in the early days of the Mandalorian Wars and she warned her fellow Jedi against doing so. Later, when those same Jedi returned as Sith during the Jedi Civil War, she was part of a strike team that was sent to capture Darth Revan, the Dark Lord of the Sith. Her team had just managed to corner Revan on the bridge of his flagship when Darth Malak, Revan's apprentice, unexpectedly betrayed his master and fired on the vessel. Revan's mind was damaged in the attack, but Bastila managed to save his life, thereby forging a powerful Force bond between the two. The Jedi brought Revan to the Jedi Council and they opted to reprogram him with a new identity that was loyal to the Republic in the hopes that, with time, his submerged memories would cast some light on the many mysteries concering the Sith invaders.



After the apparent death of Revan, Darth Malak had crowned himself the new Dark Lord of the Sith. He knew that the Republic armadas had been saved from certain destruction, multiple times, purely because of Bastila's skills in Battle Meditation. One of his primary objective quickly became the assassination or capture of Bastila Shan. He almost got his wish when his fleet overwhelmed and boarded her flagship Endar Spire during a Sith ambush over the world of Taris. A recovered Revan, assumed by everyone&mdash;including himself&mdash;to be a simple Republic soldier, had been assigned to the vessel where Bastila could keep an eye on him. Bastila, Revan, and Carth Onasi were forced to evacuate the ship in escape pods just before it was destroyed. Crashing into the lower levels of Taris, Bastila was apprehended by a Taris swoop gang known as the Black Vulkars. She later revealed that she was easily captured by them because her lightsaber had been misplaced during the crash, much to the amusement of her comrades.

After a fruitless quarantine and search of the planet, Darth Malak ordered Admiral Karath to destroy it in the hopes of riding himself of Bastila once and for all. The urban centers of Taris were utterly obliterated in a hail of indiscriminate turbolaser fire, but Bastila and her party managed to escape and flee to the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine aboard a smuggler vessel named Ebon Hawk which they had "borrowed" from a local crime lord named Davik Kang. There, Bastila convinced the Jedi Masters to retrain Revan in the ways of the Jedi.

Soon after, her party discovered a partial Rakatan Star Map in a collection of nearby ruins. It was an artifact that had been discovered by Revan and Malak five years earlier. Its data, when combined with that from four other such Maps, could reveal the location of the Star Forge&mdash;an ancient factory of immense power that was being used by Malak to build the seemingly infinite Sith fleet. The Dantooine enclave council sent Revan on a mission to find the Star Forge and stop Malak, with Bastila guiding him along the way.

During their many adventures, Bastila was again captured, but this time by Darth Malak. After subjecting her to torture, Malak eventually succeeded in forcing Bastila to give in to her hate and fall to the dark side. She became the dark lord's apprentice, replacing the slain Darth Bandon. In time, she would reunite with Revan atop the Temple of the Ancients on the world of Rakata Prime, but their meeting was far from happy. Bastila attempted to persuade him to reclaim his former title of Dark Lord of the Sith, but Revan would not be swayed.



Revan made the choice of a Jedi and rejected Bastila's pleas. After an intense lightsaber duel, Bastila retreated to the Star Forge, where she and Revan eventually faced off a second time. Even though her powers were continually renewed by the Star Forge, Bastila found herself unable to defeat Revan. Beaten at last, she begged the former Dark Lord to take her life, but he refused. Instead he persuaded Bastila to denounce the dark side and return to the light by drawing on the bond of love that they shared. Redeemed, Bastila used her Battle Meditation to turn the tide of the battle in the Republic's favor, allowing the Star Forge to be destroyed after Revan had slain his old friend Malak in single combat.

After the battle, Bastila and Revan, along with their companions Carth Onasi, Mission Vao, Zaalbar, T3-M4, Canderous Ordo, Juhani, HK-47, and Jolee Bindo, were honored as the saviors of the galaxy.

Despite this seemingly happy ending, Revan and Bastila were not destined to remain together. A year after the Star Forge's destruction, Revan recalled a great threat to the galaxy that he had discovered as the Dark Lord and he set out alone into the Unknown Regions. He left all those whom he had loved behind for he knew that to take them to the places he had to go would bring destruction to them all. Kreia, Revan's former master, would later comment on his abandonment of Bastila, saying that "It would have been better if he had made her understand. But she was always strong-willed, that one, and did not understand war as Revan did."

Bastila remained behind with the rest of the Ebon Hawk's former crew, keeping the Republic safe as Revan had asked them to and waiting for the day when he would return. In the aftermath of the war, as Darth Nihilus, Darth Sion, and G0-T0, among others, hunted the few remaining Jedi, she was one of the few to escape their notice. When the Jedi Exile—the new owner of the Ebon Hawk—left known space to search for Revan at Carth Onasi's request, Bastila was the only known surviving member of the Jedi Order, with the possible exceptions of Atris, Juhani, and Jolee Bindo.

Personality and traits


Bastila possessed all the qualities that separate those special few destined to leave their mark on history, but her very youth and determination were always threatening to become that which eventually consumed her.

Brash, impulsive, and somewhat overconfident (thanks in no small part to the rare gift that was her Battle Meditation), Bastila seemed to walk invincible through her world, though that was hardly the case. Bastila was well aware of the responsibility that pressed down on her shoulders. Her Jedi Masters urged her to be cautious, but Bastila turned every fiber of her being towards defeating the Sith menace and proving herself to the Jedi.

Bastila's relations with the Jedi Council and the Jedi Code were complicated. During the Mandalorian Wars, she trusted the Council's wisdom, neglecting Malak's proposal of joining the fight—and years later, when the Jedi Civil War was at its culmination, still believed it was the right decision. Nevertheless, she thought the Jedi Masters were self-absorbed and stodgy—not to forget edgy, critical and overly secretive. Bastila thought the Council intended to use the quest for the Star Forge to test her abilities and determine if she was worthy of the rank of Jedi Master—only to discover that she was, in the end, not ready.

Bastila tried to follow the Jedi Code as strictly as possible, to the point of expressing even more radical views than some Jedi Masters—she believed that nobody deserved death without a chance of redemption, a belief that would later result in Revan's return to the light side. However, she was not always able to suppress her emotions, and sometimes disregarded the very idea that love should be outlawed among the Jedi. Seeing Revan climbing up the path of the light apparently without any trouble or internal struggles made her question her own devotion to the Jedi Code, even though she and Revan agreed to prevent each other from diverging from that course—and the development of this self-inconfidence later played no small part in her eventual downfall to what she feared most: the dark side.

Powers and abilities


Despite her youth, Bastila was skilled in the rare art of Battle Meditation&mdash;through sheer force of will she could influence the course of a battle. Through this power, one side was given courage and strength while the other was sapped of their will.

Bastila Shan had a very strong Force Sense and could sense disturbances in the Force such as Darth Malak's presence and the destruction of the Jedi Enclave, although this might have been merely telepathy or an extension of her Force bond with Revan. She could also Force Stun most opponents easily. She was also capable of using Mind trick temporarily on Hutts, such as Motta.

During her short time as a Sith Apprentice, she was capable of using Force powers such as Force Horror, Force Wave and Force Stasis. From her point of view, she was more powerful than all but a few Jedi Masters.

Behind the scenes
Bastila was voiced by Jennifer Hale.



Alternate ending
If Revan is female, the player can still turn Bastila back to the light side, drawing on the Jedi Code. However, this solution is harder than the romance option available for the male Revan. Revan can also chose to kill Bastila to stop her from using Battle Meditation.

Two endings are available in Knights of the Old Republic in which Bastila appears. The LucasArts established canon is the light side way outlined above—the dark side ending is as follows:

Revan gave in to the dark side. He and Bastila killed Jolee Bindo and Juhani. When returning to the Ebon Hawk, Revan persuaded the rest of the team to join the dark side. The droids HK-47 and T3-M4 were already programmed to do so, and Canderous Ordo pledged his loyalty to the man he believed would bring him battles in which he could find honor, as he had in the Mandalorian Wars. Carth Onasi refused and ran away. Mission Vao refused to believe that Revan had returned to the dark side and did not run away. Zaalbar initially agreed to join the dark side as he owed Revan a "life-debt" and even agreed to kill Mission to prove his loyalty.

(Actually, the player can fail to persuade Zaalbar to attack Mission; in this case, the player must do it, with an option to kill Zaalbar as well. There is no way to save Mission.)

Before approaching the Star Forge, Bastila persuaded the Republic to attack the Sith fleet there as a measure to defeat the Republic. The Republic believed that she would use her Battle Meditation against the Sith, but she turned it against the Republic just before Revan faced Malak. Master Vandar realized all this, but could not do anything.

After Revan defeated Malak, he re-assumed the title of Dark Lord of the Sith and made Bastila his apprentice. Together, they set out to conquer the galaxy.

However, Revan soon left the known galaxy for the Unknown Regions. Bastila, left behind, seeing disorder among the Sith—and seeing none left with the power to control the Star Forge, devouring those too weak to harness its power—realized that Revan never intended to keep the Forge operational. She recorded her concerns in a Sith holocron placed in the Sith Academy on Korriban—shortly before the Sith Empire, along with most of the Order, completely collapsed. At the end of the holocron, Bastila states that she is leaving for the unknown regions, to find and bring him back. It has not yet been proven if she left before Korriban fell into ruin, or died there before leaving.

Original character development
The character that was to become Bastila was originally going to be Vima Sunrider; she was presumably changed to make room for the backstory involving Bastila's parents. The character was then renamed Sareth Dorn, and then finally Bastila Shan (the name originally given to Juhani).

Appearances

 * Shadows and Light (vision to Duron Qel-Droma)
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords