Arca Jeth

"Age is indeed a curious thing. As I grow older I see less clearly in the dark, but I see the dark more clearly."

- Arca Jeth

Jedi Master Arca Jeth was an Arkanian male with Sephi blood who served the Galactic Republic as Watchman of the Onderon system on behalf of the Jedi Order. From his excellence with the lightsaber to his mastery of the Force, Jeth was revered as one of the wisest and most powerful Jedi of his day, and was hailed by his kinsmen as a champion of the Arkanian race. Jeth primarily resided on his homeworld of Arkania, where he instructed many of the era's most prominent Jedi in the ways of the Force.

In 4,030 BBY, Arca Jeth was part of the Jedi/Republic task force that was sent to the Hapes Cluster to eliminate the threat of the Lorell Raiders, pirates who had preyed on Republic shipping lanes for decades. Jeth was then chosen to lead two dozen Jedi Knights to combat the Nelori Marauders, whose quest of terror and piracy spanned throughout the Hyabb-Twith Corridor. The Marauders were defeated through Jeth's use of Jedi battle meditation, a rarely-seen Force ability that simultaneously invigorated his allies and demoralized his enemies. The Arkanian Master proved himself again in fifteen years later, when he demonstrated a droid-disabling Force technique to end the Great Droid Revolution on Coruscant. Jeth harassed the slaving rings of the space-city Ereesus shortly afterward, and liberated the Twi'lek Doneeta family, whose young son Tott was identified as strong in the Force and taken as Jeth's apprentice. The Jedi Master returned to his his praxeum on Arkania, where he trained Doneeta alongside many others, including brothers Cay and Ulic Qel-Droma, the latter of whom Jeth regarded as his most gifted student.

The Arkanian Jedi sent Doneeta and the brothers Qel-Droma in 4,000 BBY to settle a civil dispute on the planet Onderon between the citizens of the capital city of Iziz, and the exiled Beast Riders of the planet's wilderness. His charges failed utterly in their mission and, as the final battle of the Beast Wars erupted, Jeth arrived on Onderon to defeat the armies of Queen Amanoa, and banish the power of the dark side from Iziz. He and his students remained on the Inner Rim world for the next two years, during which time Amanoa's husband, the sorcerer-King Ommin, staged an uprising in the name of his Sith forefather, Freedon Nadd. Jeth was captured and tortured by the king and the spirit of Nadd, but was ultimately rescued by a team of Jedi Knights, led by Ulic Qel-Droma, and the prodigious young Nomi Sunrider. Although the dark side was permanently driven from Onderon through the efforts of the Jedi, the oppression of the Sith survived in the form of the Krath cult of the Empress Teta system. Master Jeth assumed Watchman duties over the besieged Tetan worlds, and sent Qel-Droma and Sunrider to join the Republic Navy in battle against the Sith. The Jedi were soundly defeated by the sorcery of the Krath, and the Jedi High Council organized a mass-gathering on the planet Deneba in response, to discuss the rising dark side threat. Jeth was present for the Jedi conclave and advocated for swift and decisive action against the new Sith, and spoke sternly against the infiltration mission proposed by Ulic Qel-Droma. It was during the convocation's recess that the Jedi were beset by an army of Krath war droids, and Master Jeth joined his fellows in battle against them. However, he suffered a fatal posterior blaster wound, and became one with the Force in the arms of his greatest student.

Trouble in Hapes
One of the earliest known missions of Arca Jeth's involved the Lorell Raiders who were a group of pirates that colonized the Hapes Cluster some time before 4,000 BBY. The Raiders eventually learned a number of safe routes through the Transitory Mists from which they could attack Republic shipping lanes, and in which they could also hide during lulls in their pirate raids. In the year 4,030 BBY a large number of the raiders were killed when they were caught outside of the Mists by a Republic task force led by Arca. The losses inflicted on the Lorell Raiders by Arca Jeth and the Republic forces spelled their end; the women of the Hapes Cluster, who were now freed from the servitude of the Raiders, instituted a female dominated society and placed all power in a single monarch, the Queen Mother.

Rise of the Nelori Marauders
"I assure you, I can sense it. And actually, I'm surprised that you cannot."

- Arca Jeth, while fighting the Nelori Marauders

Arca Jeth first earned his reputation as an expert lightsaber master during the Hyabb-Twith Campaign, which constituted a series of skirmishes between the Jedi Knights and the Nelori Marauders of the planet Dachat. The confrontations took place along a disputed hyperspace route known as the Hyabb-Twith Corridor, which was an area that had seen constant conflict for centuries. With the Nelori Marauders striking from their base in the safety of the Hyabb-Twith Corridor, Republic shipping lanes in that area were no longer safe. The Marauders grew bolder with every successful attack, and began striking Republic member worlds deeper and deeper into the Core. Jeth, along with a number of other Jedi, began to take notice of the Nelori Marauders' aggressive activities, and as the number of dead Republic citizens began to climb, the Jedi called a meeting at the library world of Ossus. The Jedi decided that it was time to stop the aggression of the Marauders, and thus dispatched a task force to deal with the problem.

Immediately, two dozen Jedi were sent from Ossus and they managed to encounter, and pursue, several Nelori starships back through the Hyabb-Twith Corridor. The Jedi tracked the Nelori back to their main base on the planet Voon, and coordinated an attack on the headquarters. The Jedi managed to severely damage a large majority of the Marauders base, and kill most of the Marauders stationed there. However, the besieged Nelori managed to send out a distress call to other Marauder bases in the vicinity, and before long reinforcements arrived and launched a vicious counter-assault against the Jedi. Of the original twenty-four Jedi dispatched to the Hyabb-Twith Corridor, only five managed to survive the counter-attack and call for their own reinforcements. Within the next forty-eight hours a further thirty Jedi, including Arca Jeth, arrived in the Hyabb-Twith Corridor to join the remaining Jedi already there. Since the initial attack, the Marauders had gathered their remaining forces from throughout the Corridor and established a stronghold on Voon. Together, the Jedi launched an all-out attack against the gathered might of the Nelori Marauders.

However, upon arriving at the Nelori stronghold the Jedi stormed in and began searching&mdash;only to find it deserted. There were no Marauders, no shared living spaces, no half-eaten plates of food&mdash;nothing. The Jedi wondered among themselves where the enemy was and how they could have escaped the planet without the Jedi knowing. At that moment, however, Arca Jeth gained a moment of insight into the situation. He stretched out his Force awareness and felt below the Nelori stronghold, deep into the subterranean caverns that pocketed Voon's crust. There, Arca felt&mdash;something&mdash;a mass of life that was so tangled and entwined that he realized that he had never felt anything like it in the Force before. Arca warned his fellow Jedi and together they cautiously began moving downward, below Voon's surface.

The Jedi followed Arca down through the stronghold and into its lower-levels, eventually coming to a crudely cut, sloped corridor which led to a cavernous antechamber. Arca led the other Jedi warily down through the passageway and into the awaiting chamber. Once there, Arca again reached out with the Force and sensed a dark coldness permeating the Jedi's surroundings. Suddenly, the antechamber exploded into a hailstorm of blaster fire as more than two hundred Nelori Marauders attacked the enclosed Jedi, killing four immediately. Arca responded instantly and leaped forward to stem the onrush of the Nelori; the other Jedi were not far behind him, and together they formed a defensive perimeter around their fallen comrades. The Nelori Marauders attacked the Jedi perimeter with such ferocity that the Jedi's numbers slowly dwindled. Meanwhile, Arca began to realize that his own attacks were becoming more and more fierce; he noticed that he was relying on his own emotions instead of the Force to counter the enemies attack. Arca continued to counter the Nelori's attacks, but he changed his focus, instead concentrating on an image of victory and giving it over to the Force. What followed was an unexpected change of events, with the tide of the battle soon changing; the remaining Jedi felt a strengthening surge, while the Marauders were suddenly in a state of upheaval. The Jedi Knights managed to quickly end the fight and force the remaining Nelori to retreat, thus erasing their threat from the Hyabb-Twith Corridor and ultimately the Core.

Revolt on Coruscant
"&hellip;a gentle tug of the Force can short-circuit their internal mechanisms!"

- Arca Jeth

In 4,015 BBY, Arca Jeth was brought to the forefront of events on Coruscant with his participation in the Great Droid Revolution, during which the assassin droid HK-01, led the droids of Coruscant in a violent uprising against their sentient masters. The Republic's greatest challenge during the revolt was while in combat with their own security droids and Juggernaut war droids&mdash;a fight which required the Jedi Order's greatest Masters to destroy the threats. It was during the Jedi's intervention that Jeth demonstrated his ability to disable the automatons through the Force, a power with which he ended the majority of the droid crisis on Coruscant. The threat eventually came to an end when the Jedi destroyed the leader of the droid rebellion, HK-01.

In the years following the Great Droid Revolution, Arca Jeth continued to serve the Jedi Order and the Republic. When the Masters of the Order began to suspect the return of the fabled Dark Lords of the Sith, Jedi were sent to various sites throughout the galaxy that were once focal points of the dark side. Jeth returned to his homeworld of Arkania, a planet that had once been an ancient repository of Sith knowledge. He established a Jedi praxeum in the wilderness, far from the diamond mines that pocketed the planet, where he trained up to as many as twenty students at any given time. Jeth's students learned meditation, lightsaber combat, and the lightning strikes of the Arkanian dragon. During that time, Jeth and other Masters gathered in his praxeum to bestow the rank of Jedi Knight upon Barrison Draay and Krynda Hulis, daughter of the Jedi Master Noab Hulis. Jeth was confronted during the Knighting ceremony by Haazen, another young trainee whom the gathered Masters had decided was ineligible. Despite having trained alongside Draay and Hulis, Jeth and the other Masters decided that Haazen had failed as a Jedi. In his anger, Haazen chose to argue with Jeth in front of all those present, but the Jedi Master held steadfast to his decision. Haazen's dejection eventually led to his fall to the dark side of the Force.

While his students trained, Jeth continued to survey the planet and searched for any presence, no matter how small, of the dark side. On one particular offworld mission, he intercepted a vessel en route to the slave markets on the space city of Ereesus. He defeated the slave drivers and freed the captives, among them the Twi'lek Doneeta family. Awed by the Master's power, their Force-sensitive son Tott wished to be trained as a Jedi, and Jeth obliged. They returned to Arkania and Jeth trained him alongside many students, including two with whom the Twi'lek became close friends, brothers Ulic and Cay Qel-Droma. Not long afterward, Master Jeth was caught in a fire and scarred heavily. Many of his injuries were healed and deformities repaired by doctors under the employ of Adasca BioMechanical Corporation of Arkania, but Jeth's pointed ears&mdash;a trait prominent among those of Sephi heritage&mdash;were not restored. Because he was regarded as a Jedi champion among the Arkanian people, Adascorp sought to mute any trace of Jeth's hybrid lineage by cosmetically reconstructing his appearance to be more in line with individuals of pure Arkanian blood.

Watchman of Onderon
"In keeping with our pledge to the Republic, the Jedi Masters assign one of their number to become the Watchman of each new system&hellip;today I've accepted charge of the Onderon worlds."

- Arca Jeth

In 4,000 BBY, Arca Jeth was assigned as Watchman of the Onderon system upon request of assistance with a civil war from the eponymous planet's Queen Amanoa, who agreed to join the Republic if the Jedi liaison settled the dispute. During a training session with Doneeta and the Qel-Droma brothers, Jeth related the history of Onderon and its two separate and very distinct societies: the monarchy of the fortress city of Iziz; and the Beast Rider outcasts, who had refused to embrace the dark side of the Force, and learned to survive in the planet's wilderness. Although Watchman duties were given to Jeth, he instead sent his three apprentices on his behalf, in what would be a test of their Knighthood.

The three apprentices arrived at the walled city of Iziz, and discovered that its citizens were under the influence of the dark side spirit of the ancient Sith Lord Freedon Nadd. The Jedi found themselves suddenly in the midst of a conflict when Amanoa declared war on the Beast Riders. The Queen wrought havoc upon her enemies with Sith magic learned from Nadd's ghost, and victory was nigh at hand. However, Arca Jeth arrived on Onderon in his personal ship, the SunGem, and defeated her forces through his mastery of Jedi battle meditation. Although the battle had been won, Jeth was compelled to also break the pall of Freedon Nadd's spirit over Iziz, a blight suffered by the Onderonian monarchy for centuries. With the help of Amanoa's daughter, Princess Galia, Jeth located the Queen in the tomb of Freedon Nadd, and cast the Dark Lord's power from the city, killing Amanoa in the process.

The Naddist Revolt
"The dark side of the Force&hellip;the city is still permeated with it&hellip;"

- Arca Jeth

Even though Arca had managed to break Freedon Nadd's hold over Queen Amanoa, Nadd's remains were still causing a dark shadow to imbue the city. To quell this feeling, Arca and his apprentices planned to transport the sarcophagus of the Sith Lord away from Onderon to its primary moon Dxun, where an enormous tomb would hold the remains.



During a procession for the remains of Nadd and Amanoa, a Dark Jedi by the name of Warb Null led a Naddist attack against Jeth and the other Jedi. While Cay Qel-Droma and Oss Wilum defended against Null, Arca was suddenly attacked by an invisible dark force, which effectively neutralized him. The Naddists managed to steal the sarcophagi of Freedon Nadd and Queen Amanoa in the midst of the commotion, and then retreated back to their underground dwellings.

After Warb Null and his forces retreated from the skirmish, Ulic and the other Jedi rushed to Arca Jeth`s aid. The attack, mixed with the dark side strike, proved what the Arkanian Jedi had thought all along; that Sith magic was still active on Onderon. Upon hearing this, Queen Galia told Master Arca about her father, King Ommin, who she said knew of the dark side even more then her late mother, Amanoa, had. Galia led Arca and Ulic Qel-Droma to where her father, a seemingly decrepit and sickly old man, was being cared for. However, when they arrived, Ommin revealed that he was not as helpless as he seemed; while the spirit of Freedon Nadd appeared, Ommin lashed out at Master Arca and disabled him with a surge of dark side energy. Galia, who was surprised and horrified at her father's transformation, stayed with Ulic while he tried to fight his way through Ommin's guards to rescue his fallen Master. Warb Null appeared at that moment to delay Ulic while Ommin escaped with the unconscious body of Arca Jeth. Ulic managed to defeat Null, killing him the process, but was unable to reach Arca in time to rescue him.

With the capture of Arca Jeth, Ommin planned to torture Arca to the brink of death, where Ommin believed that Arca would be forced to call upon the dark side of the Force to save himself. At that point, Ommin planned to destroy Master Arca's body and raise the fallen Jedi as a dark side spirit. To this end, Freedon Nadd assisted Ommin in tormenting Arca Jeth.

Meanwhile, Ulic sent a request to Ossus for further Jedi support in helping to rescue Master Arca and to the Republic Senate to help defeat Ommin. A strike team was sent which included Nomi Sunrider, Dace Diath, Shoaneb Culu, Kith Kark, and Qrrrl Toq. The Jedi reinforcements arrived on Onderon and immediately fought their way to where Ulic and his remaining Jedi were. Together, they stormed the stronghold where Arca Jeth was being held and managed to fight through Ommin's guards. The combined might of the Jedi forced Freedon Nadd to withdraw his spirit's support from Ommin, and Ulic was able to charge forward and kill the old man and rescue Jeth.

Following the defeat of King Ommin during the final battle, Arca Jeth supervised the internment of Freedon Nadd's remains in a tomb on Dxun. He also recorded the events of and surrounding the Freedon Nadd Uprising within the recesses of the Great Jedi holocron.

Conclave of Deneba
"Vodo's in great torment these days&hellip;one of his students left him to seek forbidden knowledge. No good will come of it, I'm sure."

- Arca Jeth speaking to Master Thon in regards to Exar Kun

In the wake of the Freedon Nadd Uprising, a pair of aristocrats from the Empress Teta system seized power in a bloody coup and named themselves the Krath, after a fearsome childhood legend. These two usurpers were Satal Keto and his cousin Aleema, and both were proficient in the use of Sith sorcery taught to them by the late King Ommin of Onderon and the spirit of Freedon Nadd.

Due to his firsthand experiences fighting the Sith, Master Arca was the Jedi Order's choice to lead an attack against the Krath. Having received his assignment, Arca traveled back to Onderon to inform Ulic and the other Jedi of the new developments. After dispatching the young Jedi on several different tasks, Master Arca traveled back to Deneba to address the Jedi assembly there. During the assembly, Ulic proposed his plan to defeat the Krath by infiltrating their society and operating from within. Arca, along with the unanimous support of the gathered Jedi, strongly opposed the plan and the dangers that it posed. However, before he could speak, the Krath launched an army of war droids against the assembly. The Jedi fought bravely, pushing back the droids, and Master Arca once again demonstrated his mastery of Droid Disable against the invading horde.

The Jedi defended each other furiously, but the battle had a tragic end&mdash;Master Arca was struck down by a Krath war droid even as he saved Ulic Qel-Droma's life and died in the arms of his student.

Legacy
As the Jedi Order solidified itself following the defeat of the Sith, the Coruscant Jedi Temple began to take shape as the headquarters of the Order. Along the Processional Way as of 3,956 BBY, a giant bronzium statue of Jeth was erected alongside the likenesses of fellow Masters Ooroo and Odan-Urr.

Fallen students
Arca Jeth was considered a hero by his Arkanian people, to such a degree that a university on Arkania was renamed in his honor. He also created his own holocron at some point in his career as a Jedi which eventually became buried on Arkania. It would later be rediscovered and given to the Jedi Master Tionne on behalf of the New Jedi Order.

Following Master Arca's death on Deneba, Ulic Qel-Droma was overcome with grief and blamed himself for the death of his master. As a result, Ulic went ahead with his plan to infiltrate the Krath believing that his desire to avenge Arca's death justified the action&mdash;Ulic would eventually fulfill his destiny of becoming a Dark Lord of the Sith. Qel-Droma was subsequently defeated and stripped of his ability to use the Force: Ulic had led a titanic war against the Republic; become a Dark Lord of the Sith; and eventually killed his own brother, Cay Qel-Droma.

These incidents, combined with Nomi Sunrider's stripping him of the Force, led Ulic into a self-imposed exile on the tundra planet of Rhen Var. While there, Ulic entered a state of depression where he constantly reflected on the life he lived, the love he lost, and the mistakes he had made. It was during one of these moments of reflection that he began to contemplate his own death and he wandered out into the snowy wastes of Rhen Var. It was then that he experienced a vision of his long-dead master, Arca Jeth. Ulic argued with Arca about what he had left to live for since he could no longer feel the Force. Arca, after asking if Ulic was a coward, reminded Ulic that he was still in possession of what he had always had&mdash;his inner strength, and natural lightsaber skill. Upon hearing this Ulic reflected on the fact that he owed Master Arca so much, and for that Ulic vowed he would live.

Another of Arca's apprentices would also fall to the dark side of the Force: the failed Padawan Haazen. Using a secret Jedi Covenant to create a rift in the Jedi Order, Haazen would amass a trove of deadly Sith artifacts in a plot to elevate his own power over not only the Jedi, but the Republic as well.

Offspring
"Soon, there were a lot of kids&mdash;all physically talented at a young age. All related, in a sense, to Arca Jeth"

- Rolhan Dyre

In addition to the spiritual legacy personified by Qel-Droma, Haazen, and all his other apprentices trained over the years, Master Jeth left a genetic legacy that the galaxy discovered only during the Mandalorian Wars. Indeed shortly after the Great Sith War, Antos Wyrick, a Zeltron scientist who had obtained a sample of Arca Jeth's DNA, began experiments on fetuses in trying to mix the cells of the Jedi Master with those of these children. What he finally managed to accomplish with the support of the Mandalorians who hoped to create Mandalorian Knights and take their revenge on the Jedi Order. Among these "descendants" of Arca Jeth was the Arkanian Offshoot Jarael, and Wyrick's white-haired daughter, Chantique.

Personality and traits
"The enemy has found me, Ulic, but the enemy knows only darkness. I know what the enemy does not&hellip;I know the light."

- Arca Jeth's final words

Arca Jeth was known as one of the wisest and most insightful of the Jedi Masters of the Old Republic. During the Freedon Nadd uprising, he demonstrated his wisdom in helping end the conflict. Likewise, during the Conclave of Deneba Arca Jeth showed his wisdom by speaking out against Ulic Qel-Droma's mission proposal which would bring him awfully close to the dark side. Ulic, however, did not heed his master's wisdom and eventually fell to the dark side, becoming a Sith Lord.

He was called upon by the Jedi Order for his mediating abilities and his ability to resolve conflicts without force. However, when the situation required it, it was then that Arca would wield his lightsaber.

Powers and abilities
"Ah, Jedi battle meditation. Thon is good at that. Arca was even better. Arca could raise the will of a defeated army and make them victorious."

- Odan Urr

Arca was an expert swordsman who earned his legendary status while fighting in the Hyabb-Twith Campaign. It was also during this campaign that Arca first used the Force power of battle meditation; although he was not the first of the Jedi to use it, he was but one of a handful of Jedi to ever truly master the ability. With his use of battle meditation, Arca Jeth was able to influence the outcome of several conflicts, mainly that of the Hyabb-Twith Campaign and the Beast Wars of Onderon.

Master Arca was also known to have had an incredibly strong connection with the light side of the Force. Like most users who touched the light, Arca drew heavily upon it for its calming characteristics and used its calming abilities on creatures, people, and also with his battle meditation.

Behind the scenes
Interestingly, Arca's surname was never mentioned in the Tales of the Jedi comic-book series, and was only provided the last name of Jeth with the release of the Tales of the Jedi Companion from West End Games.

On page nineteen of the Tales of the Jedi Companion it is stated that "two dozen Jedi warriors" were initially dispatched to deal with the Nelori threat. However, at the end of the same paragraph it is written that "Only five of the twelve Jedi survived the encounter". It should have stated that only five of the original twenty-four Jedi managed to survive.

In the comic issue Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 33: Vindication, Part 2 Arca Jeth's first name is incorrectly spelled as "Arka" in one caption. The misspelling is present in the Vindication trade paper back as well.

Appearances

 * Tales of the Jedi: Knights of the Old Republic
 * Tales of the Jedi audio drama
 * Tales of the Jedi: The Freedon Nadd Uprising
 * Tales of the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith
 * Tales of the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith audio drama
 * Tales of the Jedi: The Sith War
 * Tales of the Jedi: Redemption
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 17: Nights of Anger, Part 2
 * Adascorp Fiscal Period Financial Report and Outlook: Field Report: Project Black Harvest
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 33: Vindication, Part 2
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 48: Demon, Part 2
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 50: Demon, Part 4
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
 * Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived
 * Coruscant Nights I: Jedi Twilight
 * Star Wars: Rebellion
 * Empire's End
 * Empire's End audio drama