Cal Kestis

"You know I've been alone for... a while now. Without any...purpose. Just hiding. It's no way to live. Not for a Jedi. Or a droid. Maybe Cere was right. Maybe we're done hiding."

- Cal Kestis, to BD-1

Cal Kestis was a Force-sensitive human male Jedi Padawan (later Jedi Knight) who survived Order 66 during the Clone Wars, due to the sacrifice of his Master Jaro Tapal. He became a member of the Scrapper Guild on the planet Bracca, working there as a rigger during the reign of the Galactic Empire. Before the rise of Emperor Palpatine, Kestis was a Padawan who served the Jedi Order during the final days of the Galactic Republic. He served alongside his mentor and master Jedi General Tapal in the galaxy-wide Clone Wars.

Everything changed for the young Jedi-in-training on the day of Order 66, the purge that all but wiped out the Jedi Order. Betrayed by the clone troopers who served under their command, Tapal died protecting his apprentice from their former comrades. Having lost most of his fellow Jedi to the purge, Kestis went into hiding on Bracca but was ultimately discovered five years later by an Inquisitor, an Imperial group of Jedi hunters. Forced to reveal his secret connection to the Force, Kestis would reconnect with his Jedi roots as he sought to finish his training. To that end, he found a new mentor in the former Jedi Knight Cere Junda, who was on a secret mission of her own&mdash;to rebuild the fallen Jedi Order. The crew of The Mantis then jaunted through the galaxy to find a holocron with a list of Force-sensitive children hidden by Eno Cordova, who had placed it in a vault on Bogano.

During a quest on Dathomir, his lightsaber was damaged, resulting in the crew of the Mantis travelling to Ilum, where, following his chosen Kyber Crystal breaking apart in his hands, Kestis almost gave in to despair. But with a little help from the Force and BD-1, he built a new lightsaber, combining his master's and that of Cere. Following an encounter with two AT-ST’s, the Mantis journeyed to Fortress Inquisitorius. It was at this point that Cal Kestis obtained the rank of Jedi Knight following an induction from Cere. The pair of Kestis and Junda then ventured into the fortress, where, after some underwater navigation following an explosion which allowed water to enter the corridors of the fortress, Kestis faced Junda’s former Padawan Trilla, who had taken the holocron from Kestis on Bogano. After Trilla failed to defeat Kestis, Darth Vader arrived and promptly killed her for her failure, but not before Trilla turned back to the light side, and told Junda to “Avenge us” before being struck down. Following a tense escape aided by Nightsister Merrin, Junda and Kestis found themselves back aboard the ''Mantis. After some contemplation, K''estis elected to destroy the holocron to prevent the Empire from locating the Force sensitive children, instead leaving their fate up to the Force.

Early life
A human male, Cal Kestis was a young member of the Jedi Order during the last years of the Galactic Republic. During his training to become a Jedi, Kestis traveled with Grand Master Yoda to the ice planet Ilum and participated in The Gathering, a rite of passage where all Jedi younglings retrieved a kyber crystal to build their lightsaber. He would eventually be taken as a Padawan by Jedi Master Jaro Tapal. In a training session with his master, Cal was taught that with persistence and the Force as his ally, he would overcome any obstacle, and later in another he would be trained to use his Force power of telekinesis.

Clone Wars
During the Clone Wars that spanned the galaxy, Kestis served in the Grand Army of the Republic while training as a Padawan under Jedi General Tapal. Following their successful mission on the planet Bracca, Kestis and his Jedi Master were preparing to leave for Mygeeto when Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine initiated Order 66, declaring every Jedi an enemy of the state. Onboard their Venator-class Star Destroyer Albedo Brave, clone troopers of the 13th Battalion that served faithfully under the Jedi's command suddenly turned against their general, determined to kill them both.

Kestis was able to avoid most of the clones by sneaking through the maintenance passages while Tapal sabotaged their ship's reactor, ensuring the  Venator-class Star Destroyer's imminent destruction. Despite losing his original lightsaber, Kestis made it to the escape pods with his master, but both were attacked by clone troopers as they attempted to evacuate the Star Destroyer. Although they managed to enter one of the pods, Tapal sustained several wounds to the chest, fatally injuring him while Kestis received a minor cut to his jaw. Kestis was unable to save the life of his master, who died imploring his pupil to stay true to the Jedi way, await the Jedi High Council's signal, and trust only in the Force. Kestis, who kept Jaro Tapal's lightsaber, was traumatized by the ordeal.

Escape from Bracca
"We seek a dangerous fugitive. This is no common anarchist but a devotee of the treasonous Jedi Order. [&hellip;] Turn yourself in or everyone present shall face summary execution."

- The Second Sister, to Kestis and the scrappers

In the five years following the rise of the Galactic Empire, Kestis went into hiding to escape the purge that killed most of his fellow Jedi. He found work on Bracca by joining the Scrapper Guild as a rigger, while the Empire consolidated its reign over the galaxy. Despite his efforts to remain hidden, the Imperial Inquisitorius ultimately discovered his connection to the Force after the young Jedi used it to save his friend Prauf, compelling Kestis to flee for his life once more. Kestis was narrowly saved by two individuals, Cere Junda and Greez Dritus. With the Empire in pursuit, Kestis sought to reawaken his connection to the Force and complete his Jedi training. Junda revealed herself to be a former Jedi Knight intent on restoring the Jedi Order. She also revealed that to achieve this goal, they would need to travel to the planet Bogano to retrieve a Jedi holocron containing a list of Force-sensitive children scattered throughout the galaxy. It turns out this holocron was contained within a vault which only a Jedi could open.

The Vault
After reaching Bogano to enter the vault, Kestis stumbled on a friendly droid, BD-1, who helped Kestis complete his quest. After being trapped in a cave, Kestis was able to improve his connection to the Force, and by necessity, relearned the ability to wall-run in the process. Now able to escape the cave, he made his way towards the vault. Upon reaching it, BD-1 projected a message from Jedi Master Eno Cordova, who went over the details with the holocron and revealed that, to access it, Kestis had to find the tombs of three Zeffo Sages. With BD-1's aid, Kestis continued his journey to rebuild the Jedi Order. Following Cordova's directions, Kestis and crew traveled to Zeffo to search for the tombs.

The Tombs of Zeffo and Dathomir
"You better get moving. There's a lot to learn here."

- Cere Junda, to Cal Kestis after landing on Zeffo

On Zeffo, Kestis learned that the Empire occupied the planet to mine for ancient artifacts. The directive, code-named "Project Auger," was terminated after Zeffo's magnetic winds proved too difficult for the Empire to deal with. Kestis, guided by the Force, was able to pass through and enter the Tomb of Eilram to search for a message left by Cordova. Inside the tomb, Cal found another holo-recording left by Cordova telling them to travel to Kashyyyk to find the Wookiee Chieftain Tarfful. After landing on Dathomir, Cal and BD-1 faced off against a Nightsister who demanded they leave the planet immediately. When they refused, she commanded the Nightbrothers to attack them. Shortly after escaping that threat, Cal and BD-1 came upon a Wanderer, who claimed to be studying Zeffo ruins.

Assisting the Kashyyyk Resistance
After landing on Kashyyyk, the crew of the Mantis found themselves embroiled in a conflict between the Empire and an early group of rebels. Kestis hijacked an Imperial AT-AT and destroyed a large number of Imperial forces. The rebel insurgent Saw Gerrera took note of Kestis' actions and asked for his assistance in liberating the planet. Saw and his Partisans were in the middle of a campaign to liberate a nearby wroshyr sap refinery. With the possibility that Tarfful could be one of the Wookiees detained there, Kestis and BD-1 agreed to help him.

After freeing the imprisoned Wookiees and taking the refinery from the Empire, Cal still had no information on Tarfful's whereabouts. Luckily Choyyssyk, one of the Wookiees Kestis helped liberate, had fought alongside Tarfful in the past. He and Mari Kosan, a member of Saw's guerrilla fighters, agreed to find Tarfful for Cal. However, just as he received this news, Cere discovered an Imperial transmission revealing the Empire was close to unearthing another tomb on Zeffo.

Return to Zeffo
After Kestis rushed back to Zeffo to stop the Empire from progressing further into the Miktrull's tomb, he fell into a trap sprung by the Second Sister. She revealed herself to be Trilla Suduri, Cere's former Padawan. After a perilous battle, Suduri seemed to get the upper hand on Kestis, but before she could strike him down, BD-1 intervened, activating an unbreakable laser field between the two of them. As Kestis escaped into Miktrull's Tomb, he tried to call Cere but was interrupted by Trilla slicing his comm.

After exploring the tomb further, Kestis climbed onto a hanging sarcophagus. However, the Second Sister's forces had caught up with him, and the Inquisitor ordered her forces to shoot the sarcophagus down. Finding himself falling into certain death, Kestis again was able to improve his connection to the Force, and pulled himself towards his saber in the nick of time, landing safely on a ledge below. On their way out of the tomb, Kestis and BD-1 found another encrypted log from Cordova, explaining how the key to the Bogano Vault was a device called the Zeffo Astrium, which he would of course have to find. Before he was able to return to the Mantis, Kestis was captured by a Haxion Brood bounty hunter.

Waking up, Kestis found himself imprisoned and BD-1 missing. After escaping and finding BD-1, Kestis discovered he had been captured by the infamous Sorc Tormo and forced to fight in a brutal coliseum. Kestis defeated all opponents, in addition to the bounty hunter that had captured him and stolen BD-1 beforehand. At the climax of the show, the Mantis burst into the Haxion Brood's lair to rescue them. However, upon boarding, his crewmates were not met with immediate gratitude. Kestis learned the Brood found him because Greez lied about paying off his debts. Kestis also struggled with the revelation that Cere had given up Trilla under torture. Their argument was cut short as they received word from Mari Kosan&mdash;Tarfful had been found in the Shadowlands and had agreed to meet him.

Journey to the Origin Tree
On the way to Kashyyyk, Greez approached Kestis telling him to go easy on Cere. Landing on the forested planet, they found the remains of the resistance, which had been nearly wiped out by the Second Sister. Finding Mari, she told Kestis that Saw had since left the planet and split their forces. After fighting their way through the recaptured refinery, Kestis and BD-1 regrouped with Mari and Choyyssyk to meet Tarfful. Tarfful told Cal to climb the Origin Tree and Mari gave Kestis a breather to help him get there, and the two groups parted ways.

On the way up to the Origin Tree, Cal and BD-1 encountered the wounded Shyyyo bird. After healing it, they were granted safe passage to the top of the Origin Tree, where they discovered that Cordova had found a Zeffo Astrium there years beforehand and that the tomb on Dathomir may hold another. Just as they were leaving, the Ninth Sister attacked. After a fierce battle, Kestis emerged victorious by cutting off the Ninth Sister's hand and pushing her off the tree. The Shyyyo bird then carried Kestis and BD-1 down the tree, and Kestis returned to the Mantis to make a run back to Dathomir.

Trials on Dathomir
Returning to Dathomir, Cal and BD-1 nearly made it to the next tomb when they were ambushed by more Nightbrothers. While they did eventually overcome that, they were forced to wander through the dangerous Dathomirian swamps. They were once again found by the Nightsister Merrin who began raising undead Nightsisters to attack them as they proceeded on their way. Inside a dark cave, BD-1 found climbing claws on a Nightbrother corpse. Before Kestis could grab them they were attacked by the monstrous Gorgara. After warding the beast off one time, Gorgara soon returned to continue the fight. An intense aerial battle culminated in a devastating crash that killed Gorgara, and Kestis was able to get back on track.

After fighting through Merrin's brethren, Kestis and BD-1 finally made it into the tomb, where Kestis experienced a flashback in which he remembered Jaro's sacrifice to protect Kestis from the clone troopers during the Purge. Kestis was then attacked by Jaro's spirit, resulting in his lightsaber being destroyed. Defeated and disheartened, Kestis attempted to flee back to the Mantis wanderer from before, who revealed himself to be Taron Malicos, a former Jedi now studying the dark side of the Force. Malicos asked Kestis to join his quest for power but was cut off by Merrin. She raised the horde of undead to destroy him and Kestis, who narrowly escaped. After this experience, Cere advised Cal to build his own lightsaber.

The Jedi Temple on Ilum
Cere gifted Kestis her lightsaber hilt, though her kyber crystal had been sold long ago to pay for Greez's debts. Traveling to the planet Ilum, Kestis entered the caves and followed the call of his crystal through a crack in an ice wall. The ice beneath Kestis and BD-1 shattered, sending Kestis plummeting into the icy water. BD-1 saved Kestis just in time, and after finding his crystal, it split into two. Ready to give up, that triggered BD-1 to play a log from Cordova, revealing BD-1 had sacrificed his memories to store logs vital to Cal's quest. Cal combined Cere's and Jaro's hilts, creating a new, double-bladed lightsaber.

On their way out of the caves, Cal discovered a massive Imperial mining operation on Ilum to extract the planet's kyber crystals. As Kestis and BD-1 fought their way back to the Mantis, Cere blocked the Empire's comms to prevent them from calling reinforcements. The Empire eventually reversed the slice, but it gave Kestis and BD-1 enough time to get back to the Mantis, and the crew escaped back to Dathomir.

Retrieving the Astrium and the holocron
On Dathomir, Kestis returned to face the shade of his master. He realized the only way to defeat Tapal was to embrace his past and move forward. He knelt before Tapal's specter, causing the apparition to vanish. As Kestis and BD-1 moved into the Tomb of Kujet, they came upon Merrin. This time, however, she was willing to talk. Attempting to reason with her again, Cal insisted that Malicos had lied to her about the Jedi. Naturally, the Nightsister was skeptical, so Cal disavowed Malicos as a fallen Jedi and passed her his lightsaber as a show of trust, stating that possessing such a weapon doesn't make one a Jedi, explaining the Order's role as peacekeepers before they were betrayed and hunted to extinction. In turn, Cal learned that she might be the only survivor of the Nightsister massacre carried out by General Grievous during the Clone Wars. He then sympathized with her loss and stated that Malicos was wrong to use that against her.

Returning his lightsaber, Merrin allowed Kestis to pass, warning that Malicos was ahead. Malicos tried one last time to turn Kestis, but attacked when he refused. After Malicos began to gain the upper hand, Merrin intervened, blasting Malicos with magick. They worked together to defeat Malicos, and Merrin buried him alive. Kestis then revealed that he came to Dathomir for an Astrium, and Merrin agreed to help him. Desiring more knowledge of the galaxy and a future for her people, Merrin joined Cal's quest. After Kestis and Merrin found the all-important device, the crew stood ready to return to Bogano and retrieve the holocron.

Cal and BD-1 brought the Astrium to the Vault and opened the holocron. Kestis was swept into a vision of a potential future if he kept and used the holocron. It showed younglings training and calling him master, only to be ambushed by the Empire. Death and torture followed, and Kestis saw himself surrender before Trilla to spare his Padawans' lives, leading to his transformation into an Inquisitor. When he awoke, Trilla stood before him. After a drawn-out duel, Kestis pulled her lightsaber towards himself, thrusting him into a Force echo showing Cere and Trilla tortured and Cere giving in to to the dark side. When he returned, Trilla and the holocron were gone. Cal ran back to the ship and told Cere. She reached out to the Force, took up Trilla's lightsaber and knighted Cal.

Encounter with Darth Vader
"That doesn't look good." "It isn't. It's him."

- Cal Kestis and Cere Junda, on encountering Darth Vader

Chasing after Trilla, Cal ventured into the Fortress Inquisitorius on Nur to retrieve it back. After defeating her in combat, Cere Junda managed to convince her to turn away from the dark side. Upon doing so, Trilla sensed and heard Darth Vader lurking behind her. Realizing he had witnessed her shift away from the dark, Trilla could sense her final moments were near and quickly yelled "Avenge us!" to Cal and Cere before Vader struck her down. Cal and Cere activated their lightsabers in response to the danger Vader posed.

Cere leaped for Vader head-on with Trilla's lightsaber. This proved ineffective, as the Sith Lord was able to swat her away with a simple telekinetic gesture, sending her down towards the Fortress chasm. With Cal completely outmatched and alone, Vader told the young man that he would be wise to surrender to him. However, Cal could sense the danger Vader posed and, though he agreed with the Sith Lord's remark, he did not back down. Vader was able to effortlessly break Cal's Force barrier, pulling Cal towards him with the force. Before Vader could kill him, Cal attempted to escape the Sith Lord by pulling a piece of machinery down on top of him, however Vader effortlessly managed to stop the attack before throwing Cal out of the room and down the walkway. As Cal stumbled to his feet, Vader forced open the closing door and hurled parts of the floor at him. Cal was still able to get to his feet and just barely managed to make it to the turbolift on the other side of the room and reach the lower levels to escape.

When Cal opened the door to his escape, Vader was already there waiting for him. Vader was able to push him to the ground and stagger him, resulting in a blade lock. As Vader was slowly overpowering Cal, BD-1 shocked the Dark Lord, allowing Cal to stab him. Vader was able to stop the lightsaber from going completely in his stomach, and used the Force to push Kestis away. Cal tried to Force-pull his saber back to him, but Vader caught it in midair, activated it, and used it to stab Kestis in his rib. As Vader came in for the finishing blow, he sensed Cere coming in to attack, who had somehow managed to escape the chasm. This distracted Vader long enough to save Kestis, who then engaged in a fight with Cere against Vader. Vader quickly overpowered them, but Cere tapped into the dark side to slow him down. Vader, sensing the anger in her, tried to convince her to give in to the dark side. Cal, reminding Cere that she still had a choice, was able to prevent Cere from fully turning. As Vader struck with his lightsaber, Cere was able to put up a bubble to block his attack. Seeing how easily this could fail, Kestis used the Force to destroy the already damaged glass holding the water out, which forced Vader to avoid that instead of defeating Cal and Cere, who barely escaped in the chaos.

Once the holocron was safely on board the Mantis, Cal decided to destroy it, determining that their fates should be left to the Force before asking where they should go next.

Personality and traits
A human male, Cal Kestis served the Jedi Order as a Padawan before Order 66 ensued. After the fall of the Jedi, Kestis went to serve the Scrapper Guild as a rigger, a physically demanding and dangerous job. However, Cal was regarded for a focused work ethic and sense of humility he generally kept for himself, yet he was quiet and hard-working. Though he refused to speak on his past as he was quite haunted by it, feeling like he got his Master killed and could have done more, usually reacting with anger or dismissive of his past when it is brought up. Eventually Cal began to open up more about his past and when confronted by the dark side on Dathomir for the second time in the form of his master, Cal fully accepted his past and grew quite a lot from the experience, acting much more level headed and very wise, almost mentoring like towards others.

Lightsaber skills
As a Padawan, Cal originally had a single-bladed blue lightsaber until he lost it down a deep shaft while trying to deflect blaster shots from clones. In an escape pod, Jaro gave Cal his damaged lightsaber, and he kept it with him until the crystal broke on Dathomir five years later. Using its remains, Cere Junda's lightsaber and a newly split Ilum crystal on the planet, Cal built a double-bladed lightsaber that could separate into two separate lightsabers. Like all Jedi, Cal's training made him highly athletic beyond the limits of normal beings, which he used to traverse difficult terrain and overpower various enemies with ease.

As he progressed through his journey, Cal became significantly more competent in the use of his lightsaber, and displayed impressive skill in the use of single bladed, double bladed, and Jar'Kai dual-blade combat. His skill eventually reached a point where he was able to switch between these three forms while engaged in combat, utilizing strings of attacks in which he would constantly vary his weapon configuration in order to keep his opponents off balance. His skills allowed him to hold his own against Imperial Inquisitors and defeat their Purge Troopers. His first two encounters with the Second Sister ended in defeat, though he was able to escape her on both occasions. After partially healing his damaged connection to the Force, he proved able to defeat the Ninth Sister on Kashyyyk. However, his skills were insufficient to defeat the former Jedi Master Taron Malicos, and he required Merrin's assistance to win. A short time later, he faced the Second Sister a final time, and was able to defeat her by disarming her. Immediately afterwards, he encountered Darth Vader, against whom he was no match in terms of lightsaber skill.

Force abilities
After Cal's connection to the Force was damaged by the trauma he suffered during Order 66, he retained some basic use of the Force such as the enhanced physicality of a typical Jedi. However, he was only capable of using the Force Stasis ability in battle, having lost the ability to use even the most basic of telekinetic techniques. He also retained his ability to use the rare, naturally acquired gift of psychometry, a Force technique which allowed him to sense the history of objects and people through the Force if he touched them. By the time Kestis fully healed his connection to the Force, he was able to use telekinetic capabilities such as Force push, Force pull, and Force Repulse to great effect, even against groups of enemies or large beasts. His ability to use his Force Stasis power grew significantly as well, as he was able to hold multiple opponents in stasis at once, and even slow down multiple blaster bolts to a crawl simultaneously. He was also capable of both throwing his lightsaber with the Force, and utilizing limited telekinetic lightsaber combat in which he would fling his weapon in a circle around his body with the Force. During his duel with Taron Malicos, he proved unable to free himself from the former Jedi Master's Force Grip, though he and the Nightsister Merrin managed to defeat him. A short time later, he demonstrated the ability to fight on par with and defeat the Second Sister, matching both her Force abilities and lightsaber skills. However, he proved to be helpless against Darth Vader's use of the Force, and was neither able to affect Vader in any way or resist Vader's telekinetic attacks. Due to the growth he experienced during his journey, physical, mental and spiritual, Cere knighted Cal into a full-fledged Jedi Knight prior to infiltrating Fortress Inquisitorius on Nur.

Other abilities
A speaker of Galactic Basic, Kestis also understood the droid Binary language. Kestis was also a skilled mechanic and was able to repair and modify BD-1 as well as make repairs to his master's damaged lightsaber.

Behind the scenes
Cal Kestis is the protagonist of the Star Wars video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which was released on November 15, 2019. He is portrayed by Cameron Monaghan. Before settling on Kestis, the game developers thought about having either an alien or female protagonist, but Kestis was ultimately used because they didn't want to "alienate" the player nor have a female protagonist competing with Rey, the sequel trilogy's protagonist.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
 * Jedi Fallen Order - Dark Temple 5