History of the Jedi Order

"For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times&mdash;before the Empire. A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine before he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force"

- Obi-Wan Kenobi

The original Jedi Order was a group of individuals who had the ability to touch and use the Force. The order began thousands of years before the rise of the Galactic Empire.

Founding of the Order and early Jedi
It is generally accepted that Jedi Order was formally founded at the same time as the initial incarnation of the Galactic Republic circa 25,000 BBY. Many of the specifics are still shrouded in mystery, though.

Many ancient and semi-legendary organizations have been proposed to be the forerunners of the Jedi Order, including the Order of Dai Bendu, the Followers of Palawa, and the Chatos Academy. No conclusive links have ever been demonstrated, though. Likewise, the birth planet of the order is unknown. Several worlds have been put forth as candidates, including such known worlds as Coruscant, Ossus, Utapau, Corellia, and mythic, lost planets such as Had Abbadon and Ondos.

According to a commonly accepted version, the dawn world of the Jedi was Tython. The Galaxy's best philosophers, priests, scientists, and warriors came together here long ago to discuss their discoveries involving the enigmatic and mystical Ashla.

In the event historians now know as the First Great Schism, dissidents who used the Bogan eventually arose, sparking the Force Wars of Tython. The Dark Jedi General Xendor and his followers allied with the master of Teräs Käsi Arden Lyn and her Followers of Palawa from Bunduki. In a climactic battle, Xendor was slain, Jedi Master Awdrysta Pina stopped Arden's heart with morichro, and Lyn killed Pina with a Kashi Mer talisman. After the war, the rest of these dissidents&mdash;known as the Legions of Lettow&mdash;were defeated.

From the ashes of these wars arose the early Jedi, and their Jedi Forge initiation ceremony led to the invention of lightsabers after they faced threats from beyond Tython. Through the use of advanced offworld technology, the Jedi were able to "freeze" a laser beam, resulting in the birth of the lightsaber. A proactive group left Tython to liberate other worlds, becoming the Jedi Knights. They founded a philosophical school on Ossus, defining the light side and dark side of the Force (equivalent, respectively, to the ancient Ashla and Bogan) as well as the Living Force and Unifying Force.

In 25,000 BBY, the Galactic Republic formed. The Republic mapped the Perlemian Trade Route, which linked Coruscant with Ossus. The early Jedi learned morality from the Caamasi.

The Second Great Schism, the first Dark Jedi and the Hundred Year Darkness
The Republic and Jedi fortified Ossus, Falang Minor, and Haashimut to protect the Perlemian from the Tionese and Hutts.

In 10,000 BBY, the Jedi created what would later be called the Lost City of the Jedi on Yavin 4. They used the City to terraform Yavin 4 into a rain forest world. Within the next 3,000 years, the Jedi abandoned Yavin 4.

In 7,000 BBY the Jedi suffered the Second Great Schism, resulting in the Hundred-Year Darkness. This conflict ended with the Battle of Corbos 6,900 BBY. The surviving Dark Jedi fled to Ziost and founded the Sith Empire.

The Jedi, believing that they had dealt with their dark-sided brethren, turned inward, and over the next twenty centuries they forgot about their exiled members.

The Great Hyperspace War
In 5,000 BBY, the Republic discovered the Sith and the Great Hyperspace War began. Though it ended with Dark Lord of the Sith Naga Sadow in suspended animation on Yavin 4 and his great war fleets destroyed, the Sith Empire survived.

The Sith Empire was believed to have collapsed shortly afterwards due to infighting and attacks by the Republic, but the Sith Empire had retreated into the Unknown Regions where the Lords of the Sith waited patiently for over a millennium for the right moment to return.

The paranoia created by this conflict led to the Jedi and Republic's attempted genocide of the Sith and Stenness Shifters.

The reign of Freedon Nadd
Peace was not easily attained as once again members of the Order began delving into the dark side of the Force. In 4,400 BBY, Jedi Freedon Nadd discovered and was corrupted by the spirit of the ancient Sith Lord Naga Sadow on the world of Yavin 4. Nadd would later go on to the planet of Onderon with hopes of rebuilding a stronger Sith Empire.

The Third Great Schism
In 4,250 BBY the Jedi underwent a civil war on Coruscant which became known as the Third Great Schism. Following their defeat, the Dark Jedi went to Vultar, where they were responsible for the Vultar Cataclysm.

The Freedon Nadd Uprising
The world of Onderon suffered through the legacy of Freedon Nadd as a cult devoted to his memory, known as the Naddists, wreaked havoc on the people of the planet until the cult was put down by the Jedi.

The Great Sith War
Only 400 years later, in 3,996 BBY, the talented Exar Kun would be corrupted by the spirit of Nadd on Dxun, causing him to give into the dark side. Kun would cause the Cron Cluster explosion that would destroy the former Jedi Archives on Ossus after he and another skilled knight, Ulic Qel-Droma, were denied the ancient Sith holocrons stored there.

The Mandalorian Wars
To prevent the return of the Sith, a mysterious Jedi, known only as the Jedi associate, dedicated herself to training Jedi seers who would be able to foresee any possible Sith threat and nip it in the bud. These seers formed the Covenant, a shadowy organization devoted to spotting and dealing with any shatterpoints that could cause the Sith to emerge again.

Forty years would go by before the Mandalorian Wars would start the downfall of the Order. They coincided with a vision by four Jedi Masters, members of the Covenant on Taris, who saw visions of chaos in the Jedi Order and the Republic and signs that the responsible could be one of their Padawans. The Masters decided to strike, but only succeeded in bringing the death of four Padawans who neared knighting, causing massive civil disorders on Taris that later made the planet easy prey for the Mandalorians, and alienating Padawan Zayne Carrick from the Order.

Another and greater rift in the Order was caused when some of their most exceptional Jedi left to aid the Republic in the fight. The most notable were Revan, Malak, and the Jedi Exile. The Jedi master Arren Kae would be exiled ten years before this but she would go on to help with aid from her lover Yusanis of the Echani. Jedi Master Kreia would also be exiled as the Jedi Council felt her 'gray' stance on the Force had lead her students (most notably, Revan) down the path of the dark side.

The Jedi Civil War
At the close of the Mandalorian Wars, the Jedi Revan and Malak mysteriously disappeared into the Unknown Regions, supposedly pursuing the last remnants of the Mandalorian fleet. When the two Jedi and their armies returned, they had changed dramatically. At some point during the journey, Revan encountered the teachings of the Sith, and subsequently turned to the dark side to help the galaxy from what was to come. Together with Malak, Revan assumed the title of Dark Lord of the Sith, and Malak became his Sith apprentice.

Returning to the Republic, Darth Revan and Darth Malak began waging a second war, preying on a Republic already weakened by the Mandalorians and taking full advantage of the immense number of Jedi who were still willing to serve them. This Jedi Civil War pitted masters against students, fathers against sons, and friends against best friends, making it one of the most emotionally powerful wars in all galactic history. While the early stages of the war were indecisive, it soon became apparent that Revan's Sith armada was growing at a steady rate, and in a short time the Republic was overwhelmed with the seemingly limitless forces of the enemy. World after world fell to Revan's vast fleets and masterful strategies, so determined not to make the same mistakes they had in the Mandalorian Wars, the Jedi Council devised a plan to eliminate the enemy at its source: Revan.

During one fateful battle, a small Jedi strike team led by Bastila Shan, a young Jedi Padawan with the remarkable gift of battle meditation, infiltrated Darth Revan's command ship to capture the Dark Lord. During the confrontation, Darth Malak, who was stationed aboard a different ship, realized that his master was in danger, and so in traditional Sith practice fired upon his own master's vessel in the hope of killing both Revan and the Jedi fighting him. The Jedi managed to escape with Revan's body, but Malak had achieved a crucial victory, for he was now the Dark Lord of the Sith and commander of the entire Sith armada.

Malak continued to wage war against the Republic, relying exclusively on brute force as opposed to subtle strategies. As the situation for the Republic and the Jedi became more desperate, they began to rely more and more on the battle meditation of Bastila Shan to gain an advantage over the ever-growing Sith Empire. Consequently, Darth Malak began to target Bastila specifically, hoping to crush the Republic's last chance of standing against his armies. During one battle in orbit above the world of Taris, Bastila's vessel, the Endar Spire, was crippled beyond recovery, and the young Jedi was forced to evacuate to the planet below. As fate would have it, two other important survivors eventually caught up with Bastila on Taris: Carth Onasi, a decorated soldier and war hero of the Republic, and another lowly officer who Bastila had recently had transferred to her command. The key to the rest of the war, however, lied in the identity of this single, insignificant foot soldier.

Carth and Bastila continued to gain more companions and managed to escape the destruction of Taris and fled to Dantooine, where in addition to learning that their third companion was Force sensitive discovered the existence of the Star Forge. The Jedi Council then commissioned their small band to seek out Star Maps from various planets in order to discover the location of the Star Forge, which they believed was the key to Malak's power. During their quest, the group was captured by one of the Sith fleet's command ships, where after a frantic escape attempt, Carth, Bastila, and the new Jedi Padawan encountered Darth Malak himself. This confrontation revealed a startling truth: that Darth Revan had not been killed, but had instead been rendered amnesiac by Malak's attack and saved by the Jedi, specifically Bastila. The Jedi Council had inserted over his destroyed mind a new identity, that of a lowly officer who was now a Jedi Padawan. Darth Revan had been traveling with Carth and Bastila the entire time.

Upon escaping Malak, Revan was determined to complete his mission and destroy his old apprentice. Eventually, he and his companions discovered the location of the Star Forge and launched an attack with the Republic against it. Revan managed to infiltrate the giant factory, which was the source of the Sith's limitless armada, and defeat his old apprentice Malak once and for all. However, even with Malak's death, Revan soon disappeared for reasons unknown, and new Sith Lords rose to take his place. Thus, the Sith continued to annihilate the Jedi and Republic, even without Revan or Malak.

First Jedi Purge and Aftermath
The Jedi Civil War and other dramatic events to follow it, such as the Jedi Conclave of Katarr, would see the near destruction and death of the order. About a hundred individuals survived throughout the Galaxy. The Jedi Council was disbanded, with the remaining Jedi Masters going in hiding across planets, hoping that this would allow them to discover the true origins of the new Sith threat without endangering everyone around them. The Jedi Temple on Coruscant was completely abandoned, and the badly damaged Jedi Enclave on Dantooine was nothing but a hollow shell.

Eventually, the Jedi Exile trained a new generation of Force users, the Lost Jedi, who, as Darth Traya prophesied, would come together to re-establish another Jedi Order. Apart from them, who were yet to become true Jedi, there were only four known Jedi left in the Republic space by the end of the Battle of Telos IV—Bastila Shan, Jolee Bindo, Juhani, and Atris.

The New Sith Wars
The horrors of the Old Sith Wars and the near extinction of the Jedi Order that had resulted from the conflict were remembered in the Republic for generations. Few could have guessed, however, that a much larger conflict would soon engulf the galaxy.

Phanius was one of the order's brightest stars, a Jedi Master no less. He became entranced with the forbidden knowledge of the Sith and, defying the council, absconded into deep space with a Sith holocron stolen from the Jedi Archives.

Like Exar Kun and Darth Revan before him, Phanius was seduced by the Dark Side. He took up the long vacant title of Dark Lord of the Sith as well as a new name and identity: Darth Ruin.

In the ensuing years, Ruin gathered together a large number of dark side followers, who he dubbed the Brotherhood of Darkness. With this army Ruin planned to bring the Republic, and the Jedi who served it, to their knees.

The Brotherhood attacked the Republic, and conquered vast swathes of the galaxy from a crumbling Republic; however, when total victory was in their grasp, they fell amongst themselves.

Treachery is the way of the Sith. The Brotherhood splintered, and various high-ranking Sith Lords claimed the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith and began to prosecute vast and cruel campaigns against each other, giving the beleaguered Republic and its Jedi protectors time to recover.

The Jedi regrouped and formed a vast army to oppose the Brotherhood&mdash;the Army of Light. Ably led by Lord Hoth, the Jedi took the fight to the Brotherhood's central systems in the Cloak of the Sith. As the decades ground on, the Jedi slowly gained the initiative over their foes&mdash;but the Sith would not give in.

Eventually the surviving Sith, after several long and bitter campaigns, regrouped on the world of Ruusan under the leadership of Kaan.

Hoth followed the Sith there, and the Army of Light and Brotherhood of Darkness engaged in seven fierce battles. At the conclusion of the Seventh Battle of Ruusan, Kaan&mdash;near defeat and driven insane by the power of the dark side&mdash;unleashed the thought bomb and killed every single Force user on the world.

The New Sith Wars were over. The Jedi Order had survived once again, and the Sith were presumed wiped out to the last individual.

One, however, had survived: Darth Bane. He and his successors would hide from the Republic and the Jedi, planning revenge. This revenge would take a thousand years to come to fruition, but the new Sith had patience.

Post-Ruusan Reformation
With the Sith thought extinct, the Jedi believed that they had at last forged a long-lasting peace in the galaxy. With the Ruusan Reformation, both the Jedi and the Republic renounced militarism, disbanding their vast armies and navies. From that point on, the Galaxy would rely on smaller Judicial forces to help the Jedi keep the peace.

The Jedi were determined that the Sith would not be reborn. Mindful of their own history, the Jedi set about enforcing strict guidelines that the Council hoped would avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. They would renounce all ties to the outside world&mdash;to wealth, material possessions and even family. Training would now be undertaken on a strict one-to-one basis and centralized on Coruscant. With the far-flung academies of the past, the temptation of delving into forbidden knowledge was just too great for members of the order.

The Revenge of the Sith


In 32 BBY, the presence of the Sith once again became known to the Jedi. The Sith Lord, Darth Sidious had secretly contacted members of the Trade Federation, including Nute Gunray and Daultay Dofine, and saw to it that Gunray was made Viceroy of the Trade Federation by using a special battle droid to kill the members of the Federation Ruling Council. He then suggested that Gunray show the Republic that they could not bully him with trade embargos by blockading the remote planet of Naboo. The Supreme Chancellor dispatched Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, to negotiate a Trade Federation withdrawal. However, the Neimoidians attempted to murder the Jedi, and they were forced to hide on an invasion craft which carried them down to the planet. There Qui-Gon met, and rescued a Gungan called Jar Jar Binks. Jar Jar led them to the Gungan city of Otoh Gunga. The Gungan High Council, while rather difficult at first, at last allowed them to take a Bongo to the Naboo capital city, Theed. There the Jedi rescued the Queen, Padmé Amidala from a droid escort. They then fled to Tatooine, where they repaired their ship, and then to Coruscant. When Amidala realized that the Senate could not solve her problem, she returned to Naboo. There, with the help of the Gungan Grand Army, and a young boy named Anakin Skywalker, they defeated the Federation's Droid Army; however, in a climactic lightsaber duel between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Sidious' apprentice, Darth Maul, Qui-Gon was killed. Stung by his master's death, Obi-Wan leapt at the Sith, and cut him cleanly in half. After Darth Maul was killed, the Jedi knew that there was still one member of the Sith active, but they were unaware of the identity of Sidious.

The Clone Wars
During the next ten years, former Jedi Count Dooku left the Jedi Order. The reason, unknown to the Jedi, was that Dooku had been found by Darth Sidious and had become his apprentice, Darth Tyranus. Tyranus and Sidious arranged the Clone Wars as a way of consolidating Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's (who also held the identity of Darth Sidious) hold on the galaxy. In actuality, Sidious secretly governed both sides of the Clone Wars, effectively assuring his rise to power.

Last stand of the Jedi Order
After the Second Battle of Coruscant, the Jedi learned from Anakin Skywalker that Palpatine was Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith, and had been responsible for the war to begin with. Mace Windu lead a group of Jedi Masters to arrest Sidious, but Sidious managed to kill all four with the help of Anakin Skywalker, who fell to the dark side and became Darth Vader. This was later propagandized by Palpatine as an attempted coup by the Jedi and provided the reason for the start of the Great Jedi Purge in which most of the Jedi were killed. Jedi Masters Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi, two of the most notable survivors of Order 66, went on a desperate attempt to destroy the Sith and save the Jedi Order. Obi-Wan went to fight Anakin while Yoda went after Darth Sidious. Anakin undeniably came off worse as he lost about half of his power after suffering grievous injuries necessitating the majority of Anakin's body being kept in a mobile life support system to keep him alive. Yoda and Sidious however ended in a stalemate, but with clone troopers on the way Yoda was forced to flee and the Sith had risen again.

The Great Jedi Purge


At the onset of the Great Jedi Purge, the Jedi were almost completely wiped out by the clone troopers they had been commanding in the Clone Wars on the side of the Republic. This order had been issued by the newly risen Emperor Palpatine (AKA Darth Sidious). Darth Vader (formerly Anakin Skywalker) then carried out the Purge hunting down and killing the remaining Jedi with help from other Imperial agents. Obi-Wan Kenobi (Anakin's own teacher), and Yoda were among the few survivors. Other survivors of the initial Purge include Empatojayos Brand, Ferus Olin, the Dark Woman, Echuu Shen-Jon, and Vima-Da-Boda. A limited number of Jedi other than Skywalker were turned to the Dark Side and became servants of the Emperor (such as Jerec and the Inquisitors Tremayne and Malorum).

This Purge had two initial parts. One, Order 66, was a subliminal message sent to clone troopers across the galaxy, first by Chancellor-turned-Emperor Palpatine, and then by clone commanders, that told the clone troopers to betray their Jedi leaders and kill them. The other part was Operation: Knight Fall, carried out by Darth Vader and the 501st Legion, was a surprise attack on the Jedi Temple. Gatemaster Jurokk was the first to fall, as the clones stormed the Jedi Temple and killed all that they found. The Holocaust was explained by saying that the Jedi pursued their vendetta against the Republic and kill all Senate members, and Mace Windu disfigured Palpatine's face. Windu did disfigure his face, but there was no vendetta until after the order.

After that, Vader recruited Inquisitors and Executors, Dark Jedi hunters, from former Jedi, the Agricultural Corps, Dark Jedi, and random people strong in the Force. They hunted down and killed all the Jedi they could find. Bounty hunters played a part, and crimelords such as Jabba the Hutt even ordered some Jedi dead.

The Empire
The Galactic Empire took steps to eradicate the Jedi and any family members. Corran Horn's grandfather was a Corellian Jedi named Nejaa Halcyon who had died in the Clone Wars. Halcyon's friend Rostek Horn married Halcyon's wife, adopted Corran's father Valin "Hal" Horn, and altered the records concerning the Halcyon family. He did this to protect Hal and his mother from the Empire's Jedi hunters. Hal kept the knowledge of Corran's true grandfather from him because revealing that knowledge would have made Corran a target as well. As a result, Corran only learned of his true heritage when Luke Skywalker discovered his past and shared that discovery with Corran.

The Emperor also trained a number of "Emperor's Hands": those who had the potential to use the Force as his personal agents. Through the Force, he was able to relay orders to his agents. Mara Jade was one such agent. She had been discovered to be Force sensitive at a young age, and she was trained by the Emperor. Several of the Hands were eventually redeemed by Luke Skywalker and became part of the new generation of Jedi.

Obi-Wan had the order to watch Luke Skywalker, Anakin's son, as he grew and teach him about the Force in order to keep the tradition alive and, perhaps, to restore the Order. Luke would become Yoda's last student, and he would come to play a pivotal role in the history of the Order.

The Return of the Jedi
After the Galactic Civil War, in which Luke Skywalker with his newly discovered Jedi abilities helped the Rebellion overthrow the Galactic Empire, Luke set out to reestablish the Jedi order by training a new generation of Jedi Knights. Because the Emperor wished to completely destroy the order, almost all of the information on the Jedi was destroyed. Only a few histories remained, and they were propaganda pieces used to paint the Jedi in an unfavorable light. Almost all of the material on instructing Jedi was eliminated except for a few documents on how to turn potential Jedi to the dark side of the force.

Four years after the death of the Emperor at Endor, Luke discovered the wreck of the Chu'unthor on the planet Dathomir. The Chu'unthor was a starship that had served as a mobile Jedi academy that had crashed on Dathomir. Dathomir was the home of Force sensitive "Witches" who were the descendants of a fallen Jedi banished to that world. Master Yoda had left the instruction materials from the ship behind with the rest of the ship. 400 years later, after defeating Witches that had fallen to the Dark Side, one of the natives gave Luke the instruction materials that she had kept safely since the time of the crash.



Due to Luke's lack of knowledge with the old ways of the Jedi Order, the new generation of Jedi was very unorthodox. He established an academy for teaching many students the way of the Jedi that was very different from the "one student, one master" way used by the old order. The Praxeum was established in the old temples on Yavin 4 that the Rebels once used as a base until the Battle of Yavin. He allowed his students to have personal possessions and had no rule against a Jedi having emotional attachments to friends and family, which the old order had forbade. Students were also taken in at a much older age than previously. Most members were already well in to adulthood before they began training.

Luke was unaware that Yavin 4 had been a base for the Sith Lord Exar Kun during the Great Sith War and that Kun's spirit had been trapped in the temples all that time. Kun was able to influence one of Luke's students, Kyp Durron, who eventually fell to the dark side for a time. Durron destroyed several star systems with the Sun Crusher. The students at the academy were able to finally destroy Kun's spirit. Freed of Kun's influence, Durron surrendered. He returned to the Light Side of the force and became one of the first new Jedi.

Luke eventually turned the academy into a center that would provide basic training for potential Jedi. He began pairing Jedi who had gone through that training with a more experienced Jedi, much like the master-apprentice system used in the old order.

A new generation
This new order grew slowly but steadily. Some Jedi from the first class Luke taught&mdash;such as Kyp Durron&mdash;became Jedi Masters. The Order eventually become large enough that Luke Skywalker considered reinstating the Jedi Council. During this period, the Solo children along with several other Force-sensitive individuals including Tahiri Veila, Uldir Lochett, Lowbacca, Tenel Ka, Raynar Thul and Zekk would join the Praxeum, thus enlarging the Order.

On one occasion, Anakin Solo (one of the Solo children) and his friend Tahiri Veila discovered the ancient Kushiban Jedi Master Ikrit and helped free the trapped Massassi souls in Exar Kun's Golden Globe. On another occasion, Tionne Solusar, Anakin Solo, Tahiri Veila, Ikrit and Uldir Lochett discovered Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber and an ancient Holocron. These companions would also defeat the "Mage" Orloc, a charlatan who claimed to have Force powers though he actually used advanced technology to deceive others with demonstrations of Force power.

Later, Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker would travel to the Unknown Regions to find the remains of the ill-fated Republic/Jedi Outbound Flight Project which lay on a planetoid within the Redoubt. They would be joined by Aristocra Formbi, the Empire of the Hand commander Chak Fel, New Republic envoy Dean Jinzler and several Geroons along with their spherical refugee transport. These Geroons wished to pay tribute to the Outbound Flight Jedi who liberated them from their cruel Vagaari masters. However, arriving at the Redoubt, they discovered that the survivors of the Outbound Flight had formed a colony within the wreckage and that the Geroons were actually the Vagaari themselves. During the battle, the combined Jedi/New Republic/Chiss/Imperial forces defeated the Vagaari.

The Jedi Order would also encounter threats from the Shadow Academy, a Dark Jedi academy established by a former Jedi named Brakiss. The Shadow Academy had aligned itself with a neo-Imperial insurgency group known as the Second Imperium which sought to restore the Galactic Empire. However, their attempts would be foiled by the combined efforts of the Jedi Order including the Solo twins Jacen and Jaina Solo, Tenel Ka, Lowbacca and Zekk. These Young Jedi Knights also defeated the fanatically anti-Human Diversity Alliance and a Black Sun insurgency.

Yuuzhan Vong War
Suddenly, in 25 ABY, an extragalactic Force-absent alien species, the Yuuzhan Vong, declared war on the galaxy. Many Jedi died fighting this new threat, but the order did survive the war and continued to grow in strength. One of the Jedi casualties of this war was Anakin Solo, the youngest son of Han Solo and Leia Organa-Solo. Before his death, many felt that Anakin would eventually become one of the greatest Jedi of his generation and that he would eventually take Luke's place. Since Anakin's death, Luke Skywalker's son, Ben Skywalker, has been presumed to have the most force potential of any living being.

After the war with the Yuuzhan Vong was over, Luke realized that the order would have to further adapt in order to survive. His experiences had led him to believe that the Force was not rigidly divided into a light and a dark side. Strong emotions, including anger, were not intrinsically evil; instead, the intentions of the Force user mattered most. Luke came to believe that nearly everyone, regardless of their heritage, had some ability to touch and use the Force. He also felt that individual Jedi (and other Force users) would need to discover their own paths: some could be called to contemplative life while others would feel a need to take a more active role in galactic affairs. Because the Jedi had no single goal, he felt the Jedi order as a whole should remain carefully aloof in its allegiance to the Galactic Alliance or any succeeding government. In 29 ABY, a new Jedi Praxeum was established on Ossus by Luke Skywalker and Kam Solusar. This Praxeum gave the Jedi a place to meet away from the influence of the Galactic Alliance government on Coruscant.

The Dark Nest threat
In 35 ABY, a mysterious race of insectoid aliens known as the Killiks appeared on the borders of the known galaxy. The Killiks had long been thought to be extinct since they were driven away from Alderaan and Alsakan in 30,000 BBY by the Celestials (possibly to save them from the Rakata, who were reaching the height of their empire). The Killiks were a hive minded species and one aspect of the Killiks which other species sometimes found frightening was that extended contact with them resulted in an individual becoming a Joiner&mdash;someone who was influenced and was subject to the control of the Killik Will by pheromones that actually "change the make up of the brain."

Though they had been sequestered in the Unknown Regions for millennia because of their peaceful nature, in 27 ABY a starship called the Tachyon Flier&mdash;carrying three Force-sensitive Humans including Raynar Thul&mdash;crashed on Yoggoy, a Killik colony. Raynar Thul dragged Lomi Plo and Welk, the two remaining survivors and Dark Jedi, from the burning wreck, though they were all badly burned and mutilated. The Killiks there rescued them and began to heal the survivors.

Eventually, all three were absorbed into the Killik hive mind. Raynar Thul took on the persona UnuThul while Lomi and Welk became the leaders of the Dark Nest or Gorog, a secretive Killik hive. Since Raynar had been absorbed into the Killik hive mind, his values became their values, especially the value on individual life. When Raynar emerged, he was in control of the Yoggoy nest and began changing it to better help the Killiks. In time, the Yoggoy hive spread about local space to provide for itself and share the "gift" of Raynar among the Kind.

The process was not an easy one. While Killiks were peaceful, like most hive based species, they had no value on individual life. At lest one rival nest attacked the Yoggoy hive, but the hive survived, either defeating or absorbing the attacking nest. Then, the cyclical food shortages, which had never faced the Killiks before, forced them to begin trading with other planets and species. They also began absorbing more non-Killiks into their hive mind. Accordingly, in 35 ABY, when the Killiks were rediscovered by the Galactic Alliance, they were still barely surviving. At the same time, the Colony had expanded to 375 nests, though it is unknown how much of the total population of Killiks this represents. The existence of the Dark Nest was unknown to most Killiks, though. Under the manipulation of the Dark Nest, the Killiks began expanding into the borders of the Chiss Ascendancy, starting a dispute that the Galactic Alliance was forced to mediate. Under the terms of the Qoribu Truce, the Killiks of the Colony agreed to settle Woteba and 13 other planets in the Utegetu Nebula rather than continuing expansion into Chiss space. Woteba was settled by the artistic Saras hive.

Unfortunately for the Killiks, Woteba and all of the other planets in the nebula had an ancient environmental defense system. Whenever the planet was hit by the nova that formed the Utegetu Nebula, all animal life was wiped out, and plant life was restored within two years by the defense system. At first, Woteba seemed a paradise for Killik colonization, but the planet attacked them anytime they interfered with the ecosystem, destroying both structures and living beings with a corrosive substance known as Fizz. As a result, the Killiks believed the Jedi had purposefully sent them to the planet to fall victim to the Fizz, but this was not true, merely a lie of the Dark Nest.

In 36 ABY, the Killiks abandoned the Nebula for fourteen nest ships built in the Tusken's Eye, alongside the nest ship of the Dark Nest. This fleet captured the Galactic Alliance Victory-class Star Destroyer Admiral Ackbar in preparation for their invasion of the Chiss Ascendancy, starting the Swarm War.

Legacy of the Jedi
40 years after the Battle of Yavin, Jacen and his cousin Ben Skywalker were sent on a mission to uncover an illegal missile factory on the planet Adumar. The mission ended in a violent ambush, from which both Jedi narrowly escaped with their lives. The incident sparked political unrest that threatened to ignite into total rebellion that could shatter the young Galactic Alliance. In a desperate attempt to avoid such a fate, the Alliance readied a preemptive display of military might in a bid to bring the rogue worlds to heel. In a display of poor decision-making, Corellia, the Solo home planet, was chosen as target of this exercise.

Torn between his two families, the Jedi and his genetic one, Jacen chose to stand with his uncle, Luke Skywalker, on the side of the Galactic Alliance. But when the Corellians launched a counterstrike, armed conflict was ignited. With a dark shadow looming over everything and the Alliance starting to resemble the Empire in the eyes of galactic denizens, Jacen decided to find the light at the end of this dark tunnel and followed a trail of cryptic clues to a dark rendezvous with the most shocking of revelations.

Solo was led to Lumiya, who convinced him to join the ranks of the Sith Order. After coldly and rationally killing Jedi Knight Nelani Dinn, Jacen Solo returned to Alliance space in a search for an apprentice.

The New Empire
At some point following the Second Corellian Insurrection, divisions began to appear within the New Jedi Order. Some Jedi left the order and became Imperial Knights&mdash;offshoots from the order loyal to the Emperor of the Galactic Empire. The Jedi Order saw them as Gray Jedi, as they swore loyalty to the Emperor above all else, including their devotion to the will of the Force.

By around 130 ABY, the Sith Order had returned to prominence. As a result of Darth Krayt's manipulation, the Sith-Imperial War began, and the Galactic Alliance fell apart, only surviving through the Galactic Alliance Core Forces. While widespread and numerous, the Jedi fell to Sith attacks on the Jedi Academy at Ossus and the central Temple on Coruscant. As of 137 ABY, Krayt's campaign had caused the Jedi Order to fall into disarray, with bounty hunters and Sith pursuing the remnants of the order.