Darth Traya

"Know that there was once a Darth Traya. And that she cast aside that role, was exiled, and found a new purpose. But there must always be a Darth Traya, one that holds the knowledge of betrayal. Who has been betrayed in their heart, and will betray in turn."

- Darth Traya

Kreia was a blind Human female Jedi Master and a historian prior to the outbreak of the Mandalorian Wars. She was exiled by the Jedi Council because her former students followed the Jedi Knight Revan, who was her former Padawan, into battle against the invading Mandalorians. After she withdrew from the Jedi Order, she retraced Revan's footsteps to the ancient Sith world of Malachor V, being drawn to its Force echoes. She discovered the Trayus Academy on the planet, and turned to the dark side, becoming the Sith Lord Darth Traya, the Lord of Betrayal.

During the Dark Wars, Traya searched for other Force-wounds, and discovered Darths Sion and Nihilus. She formed a triumvirate with them, intent on wiping out the Jedi. Eventually, Sion and Nihilus overthrew Traya and stripped her of her connection to the Force. After having been exiled by both the Jedi and Sith, she held an abhorrence of how both Orders were used by the Force to its own ends, harboring delusions of freeing the galaxy of its influence. Going under the guise of "Kreia" once more, Traya located a former Jedi General in the Mandalorian Wars, a human female known as the Jedi Exile. Traya saw the Exile as having the potential to bring her purpose to fruition, and took it upon herself to "rescue" the Exile and retrain her in her own views. Even as Traya orchestrated the First Jedi Purge, she continued in her attempts to mold the Exile, and those she traveled with aboard the light freighter Ebon Hawk, into her own image.

The Exile eventually located Jedi Masters Zez-Kai Ell, Vrook Lamar and Kavar, convincing them to reconvene at the ruins of the Dantooine Jedi Enclave. Traya betrayed the Exile by openly revealing her true identity as a Sith Lord, and murdered the Masters in the Enclave's remains. Traya then traveled to the Jedi Academy on Telos IV, and convinced Jedi Master Atris to turn to the dark side. After the Exile participated in the battle above Telos&mdash;in which she redeemed Atris and vanquished Darth Nihilus&mdash;the Exile journeyed to Malachor V to confront Darth Traya, dueling and ultimately killing the Sith Lord in the depths of the Trayus Academy.

Early life
"I was a historian once, gathering the relics of the Jedi, learning the ancient mysteries. Always, there were more questions."

- Kreia

The majority of the early life of the Human female Kreia is shrouded in mystery. However, it is known that she was a Jedi Historian, and that she had worked her way to the rank of Jedi Master, training many students. Kreia's eyesight went unused as she depended on meditations, attempting to penetrate the galaxy's mysteries. For decades, she challenged her students with difficult questions, such as whether a lightsaber was still a lightsaber if it lost its power, or if a Jedi was still a Jedi if she lost her Force powers. Her fellow Jedi, who called her teachings "Kreia's conundrums", viewed them as quaint, but Kreia's students were mystified.

One of Kreia's Padawans was a highly gifted Jedi who eventually became known as "Revan". Her teachings, however, were looked upon with concern by the Jedi Council. After Revan left Kreia's tutelage, he sought out other Masters to round out his education, apprenticing himself to Masters Zhar Lestin and Dorak, but eventually Revan came back to her to seek her guidance regarding the Jedi Council's stance of inaction against the Mandalorians. Revan then made up his mind to openly defy the Council. By the end of her time with the Jedi Order, Kreia's students were believed to be failures by Jedi Master Atris and the Council, because they followed Revan into the Galactic Republic's war against the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders, and either fell to the dark side or abandoned their training. The Council denounced both Kreia and her teachings.

Fall to the dark side
"All that talk of hatred, manipulation, and standing on your own two feet – sorry, you don't get any more Sith than that."

- Atton Rand

After Kreia was exiled by the Jedi for her role in training Revan, she began to question her beliefs, and silently withdrew from the Order. Some believed that she had followed Revan and his Jedi to war, but she instead traced her former Padawan's footsteps, searching for an answer that she alone could provide. Kreia was eventually drawn to the Force echoes of the Sith world Malachor V, a nexus of dark side energies and part of the ancient Sith Empire. On the surface, Kreia found Darth Revan's former stronghold, the Trayus Academy, an ancient dark side praxeum that contained the deepest and most intimate secrets of the Sith. She encountered Sith assassins left by Revan, but rather than attack the Jedi Master, they presented Kreia with Sith hermetica. The Sith manuscripts that Kreia used the Force to read through intimated that the truths of the cosmos were not intended for the sane. Kreia believed that the manuscripts' authors were pureblooded descendants of the ancient Sith species.

The Sith sorcerers claimed that they had privileged insight into secret realities, arguing that even though the contradictory and aimless nature of existence appeared oblivious to all intelligent beings, awareness of the Force exposed this obvious "fact" as a lie, further stating that the Force betrayed Force-sensitives, making them live in a compromised, chaotic universe–to live the lie. As much as she wanted to denounce them and their arguments, she fell under their seductive spell, and became Darth Traya, the Lord of Betrayal. Traya also learned of a forgotten legacy of the Sith that had lurked in the Unknown Regions for thousands of years. From that moment, she firmly believed that Revan had never "fallen" to the dark side, and that a greater cause had come that called for certain actions to be done.

Teaching on Malachor V
"What do you wish to hear? That I once believed in the code of the Jedi? That I felt the call of the Sith, that perhaps, once, I held the galaxy by its throat? That for every good work that I did, I brought equal harm upon the galaxy? That perhaps what the greatest of the Sith Lords knew of evil, they learned from me?"

- Kreia

Continuing her former Padawan Revan's legacy, Darth Traya re-established the Trayus Academy to train, convert, and create a generation of Sith who would act as a gadfly to the Republic. Because she came to the remnants of Revan's Sith Empire as his former Master, the remaining Sith troopers pledged their loyalty to her. She began to hunt for Force-wounds, eventually discovering Darths Sion and Nihilus, who were interested in rebuilding the deteriorating Sith Order. Nihilus, the Lord of Hunger, and Sion, the Lord of Pain, joined her in the creation of the Sith Triumvirate, intending on eliminating Traya's Jedi betrayers. However, as time passed by, the Sith Lords' ideals became divergent. Traya and Revan's legacy fell far from Darth Nihilus' hunger and Sion's crusade against the Jedi. Traya underestimated her pupils' depravity. After she taught Nihilus the ability to devour entire worlds, and after Sion started to grow weary of her teachings, the apprenctices plotted against her. Sion and Nihilus confronted her in the Trayus Core, stripped her of the Force, and exiled her. Afterwards, Darth Nihilus became the Dark Lord of the Sith, and once again, Traya had been betrayed.

Kreia and the Jedi Exile
"There is no truth in the Force. But there is truth in you, exile. And that is why I chose you."

- Kreia

After casting Traya out of the Sith Order, Sion and Nihilus began an assassination campaign against the Jedi, unaware that they were aiding their former Sith Master. Because of this the Jedi, who were either killed by the Sith or in hiding, were nearly gone from the galaxy. Traya, who assumed her former identity of Kreia, had left Malachor V and returned to Republic space, seeking the human female Jedi Exile, known only as the Jedi Exile, a former Jedi student of Traya's who served as a general under Revan during the Mandalorian Wars. The Exile helped defeat the Mandalorians during the final battle at Malachor V by ordering the activation of the Mass Shadow Generator, a devastating weapon which left a wound in the Force. Beneath numerous rumors and unconfirmed reports, Traya had found a means to deafen the galaxy to the Force. She sought to exploit her former student's talent in Force bonding in order to create another wound, greater than the one before. This wound's echoes would travel forever, never reaching their destination.

The Jedi Master Atris arranged for the Exile's return to the Republic, and exposed her presence in the coreward databases in the hopes of using her as bait for the Sith. On the Republic warship Harbinger, the Exile was found by an HK-50 Jedi hunter and drugged into unconsciousness. Traya found her and took her to the Ebon Hawk, barely escaping a Sith ambush in which Darth Sion nearly destroyed the freighter. Both unconscious, Kreia and the Exile arrived safely on Peragus II thanks to T3-M4, who was able to get the ship working well enough to get to the colony. They subconsciously reached out to each other, both strengthening each other in the knowledge that they had survived the void that had befallen them, and eventually formed a Force bond, which seemingly intertwined their lives. As they attempted to escape the mining facility along with Atton Rand, the Sith arrived aboard the Harbinger and Traya encountered her former apprentice, Sion. The Master and student fought, and Traya, hardly at her full power, lost her left hand to Sion's lightsaber.

Because of her bond with Traya, the Exile felt the pain of losing the limb herself. After they escaped, the Exile asked Traya why she had felt her pain. Traya used the opportunity to convince the Exile that the bond between them could be fatal; if one of them died, the other would too. This forced the Exile to keep the old woman at her side. Bound by the hands of death, Traya intruded upon the company of the Exile, but remained vague on her ties to her former Padawan, Revan, and Malachor V until the end. The Exile also had no way of knowing where the ship had come from, since Traya had the only means of accessing the Ebon Hawk navicomputer.

Finding the Lost Jedi
"No game of dejarik can be won without pawns, and this may prove to be a very long game."

- Kreia

While the Exile was slowly reconnecting to the Force, Traya began to shape the Jedi as her new pupil. She taught the Exile to carefully choose between actions, asking the Jedi to view the ethical implications of all quests undertaken. Traya seemed to show that the galaxy and its inhabitants' morals were far more complicated than the basic tenets of the light and dark sides of the Force. As the Exile grew in power, Traya watched as the struggling Republic was unknowingly strengthened through the Jedi's search. During these adventures, many people came into the company of the Exile, most of them sensitive to the Force. Although many of them were wary of Traya, she was able to manipulate most of them to do her bidding. Because of the ease with which the Exile had "called" upon these companions, the old Master had seen the Exile's ability to transmit extreme echoes to those the Jedi was bound with. With the Exile's power and with the knowledge of Darth Nihilus's damaged condition, Traya intended to bring her plans into finality.

Early in her travels with the Exile, when the party was beginning to form in the secret Jedi Academy on the planet Telos IV, Traya probed and invaded Atton Rand's mind, discovering his secrets. She blackmailed Rand, telling him that she would not reveal his secrets to the Exile as long as he followed and served the Jedi. After the Exile spoke with Jedi Master Atris at the Telosian Academy, she, Rand, Traya, the Zabrak tech specialist Bao-Dur, and T3-M4 departed the Academy aboard the Ebon Hawk. T3-M4 showed the Exile's crew information he downloaded from Atris' archives, in which they learned the locations of Masters Zez-Kai Ell, Vrook Lamar, Kavar, and Lonna Vash. The Exile set a course for Nar Shaddaa, where Master Ell could be found. While on the moon of Nal Hutta, Traya bound the Wookiee bounty hunter Hanharr to a life-debt after his defeat at the hands of Mira, whom Traya called "the huntress." Traya sent Hanharr to Malachor V, where if he survived he would become stronger, and promised to end the debt the Wookiee owed the Sith Lord when he killed Mira. After the Exile located Ell and convinced him to return to Dantooine, the Ebon Hawk crew departed Nar Shaddaa, and set a course for the planet Onderon.

When the Ebon Hawk made it to Onderon, they encountered a blockade of the planet. After fending off a group of Onderonian starfighters sent by Colonel Tobin to intercept the Ebon Hawk, the Exile and her crew were forced to crash-land on Onderon's jungle moon Dxun. After they landed, Traya reminded the crew that Dxun was where the Mandalorian Wars truly began. They ventured into the Dxun jungle, in search for an alterntive route to Onderon. The Exile managed to enlist the assistance of Mandalore the Preserver and his Mandalorians. Before they left for Onderon, Traya manipulated Mandalore into protecting the Exile. She assisted the Exile and Mandalore in defending the Mandalorian camp when a group of Sith assassins attacked the camp. The Exile managed to locate Kavar on Iziz, the capital of Onderon, but was unable to speak to him long, having been interrupted by Colonel Tobin, one of General Vaklu's commanders. After the Exile made it back to Dxun, they departed the moon and went to Dantooine. The Exile successfully helped defend the Khoonda outpost against the mercenary Azkul, and spoke with Master Lamar. When the group was joined by the former Jedi Mical, known as the Disciple, Traya manipulated his mind, playing tricks on his sight throughout their travels so that he was often unaware of her presence. She finally revealed her true nature to him after he discovered the truth behind her motives and the darkness moving across the galaxy, consuming all life. However, Traya made it so that Mical would not remember her, or what he had discovered, until the time was right.



When the Ebon Hawk crew made it back to Dxun, Traya sensed a Sith outpost nearby, and the Exile, in coordination with Mandalore's forces, dispatched three members of her party to deal with the Sith threat. Traya, the Exile, and one other party member traveled to Iziz aboard a Basilisk war droid. Traya, along with the Exile, then participated in the Onderon Civil War. After the Exile defeated General Vaklu and his forces in the royal palace, Traya tried to convince the Exile to have Queen Talia execute her cousin, who was unarmed at the time. Traya claimed that Vaklu was too dangerous to be left alive. The Exile, while respecting her council, said that the decision was the queen's to make, not hers. Talia ordered her troops to execute Vaklu, ending the war. After the battle, Traya realized that the Exile would be a threat to her and the Sith Triumvirate. She revived the deceased Colonel Tobin, who had been killed by a drexl larva when Tobin and his forces tried to breach the queen's throne room. Traya convinced Tobin that the Onderon Civil War was still being fought, and that she served Vaklu. She knew that Vaklu and Tobin served her former Sith apprentice Darth Nihilus, so she fed Tobin false information about many Jedi on Telos, when if fact there was only one Jedi on Telos. Tobin went to the Nihilus' flagship, the Ravager, to inform the Dark Lord of this. After the Exile spoke with Jedi Master Kavar, the Exile and Traya returned to Dxun, where Traya told the Exile that they needed to go to Dantooine, and meet the Jedi Masters at the Jedi Academy's ruins.

Downfall
When the truth was revealed&mdash;that the Exile had unconsciously deafened herself to the Force in order to survive, as opposed to being cut off from it by the Jedi Council as the Exile previously believed&mdash;Traya confronted the reassembled Jedi Council in the ruins of the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. As Masters Lamar, Kavar and Ell tried to strip the Force from the Exile, whom they believed to be a wound in the Force and a danger that could lure the Sith, Traya stormed in and used to Force to drain their connection to it, killing them. She then openly assumed her Sith identity of Darth Traya. While the Exile laid unconscious, Traya was led to Jedi Master Atris for judgment by one of the Exile's companions, the Echani Handmaiden Brianna. Journeying to the Telosian Jedi Academy, Traya revealed that Atris had herself been corrupted and turned to the dark side by the Sith holocrons she gathered, but could not admit it even to herself. Atris then embraced the dark side openly, but was soon confronted and defeated by the Exile.



Traya then returned to Malachor V, where she intended to sacrifice herself to open up the larger wound in the Force in order to destroy it. After their brief duel, Atris told the Exile that such an act would undoubtedly kill the Exile and destroy the Force, but that she could not fathom why Traya would want to make such a move. However, Traya would wait for the Exile to come to her for answers and final confrontation. After the Exile vanquished Darth Nihilus during the ensuing battle above Telos, she journeyed to Malachor V, where Traya and Sion were hidden in the depths of the Trayus Academy. The Exile confronted Sion first, eroding his will and striking him down, releasing him from all his pain in the process. By giving up the pain, and therefore the Force, Sion was finally able to die&mdash;but not before warning the Exile that Traya would try to do to her what she had done to Sion himself. The Exile found Traya in the core of the Academy. After trying to reason with her, the Exile and Traya engaged in a duel, which ended with the Exile slicing her remaining hand off. Traya tried to convince the Exile to kill her, but she refused. Angered, Traya then used the Force to control three lightsabers against the Exile, but the Jedi bested the lightsabers.

Despite Traya's many betrayals and deceptions, the Exile forgave the Sith Lord for everything that had happened. She still tried to save Traya, who then told her she already had, and that by killing her, the Exile had awarded Traya, more than she could possibly know. She confessed that she truly loved the Exile, not only because she was by Traya's own words, "her greatest student", but because she was not a Jedi, not truly. Before dying from the wounds dealt to her by the Exile, Traya chose to honor her with one last gift; drawing upon the Force that radiated from Malachor V and casting a prediction of the future of the galaxy and its inhabitants, and that of the Exile's friends. Traya told the Exile that she hoped that she follow Revan's path, but said that the Exile and Revan were different. Traya said that the Exile could follow Revan to the Unknown Regions, or take one of the ships in Malachor's orbit and depart the planet, or remain on Malachor to wait for the "others", those who were touched by the Force, who would come in time. Traya also said that the Jedi could also return to her exile, where her presence could no longer affect the actions of others, and said that there was no dishonor in any of those choices, asking the Exile that she make her choice without any regret. After the Exile told her that she would follow Revan as she a decade before, Traya finally surrendered her life to what she once despised&mdash;the Force. Her body was destroyed shortly afterwards along with Malachor V when the Mass Shadow Generator was activated for the last time by Bao-Dur's remote.

Personality and traits
"If you seek to aid everyone that suffers in the galaxy, you will only weaken yourself&hellip; and weaken them. It is the internal struggles, when fought and won on their own, that yield the strongest rewards. You stole that struggle from them, cheapened it. If you care for others, then dispense with pity and sacrifice and recognize the value in letting them fight their own battles. And when they triumph, they will be even stronger for the victory."

- Kreia to the Jedi Exile

Kreia was a human female who had grey hair. Because she preferred to not use her natural sight, her eyes had atrophied from disuse. When she was corrupted by the dark side, her eyes turned a dark black color. When Kreia was a Jedi, and when she was hiding her true identity of Darth Traya, her eyes were a white color. As a Jedi, Kreia wore a simple set of Jedi robes. During her adventures with the Exile, she used a self built double-bladed lightsaber, which contained a green crystal. When the Exile encountered Traya's apparition in the ancient Sith Lord Ludo Kressh's tomb, she used a blue lightsaber. After she revealed her true identity as Darth Traya, she exchanged her Jedi robes for a pair of Sith robes, and used a lightsaber containing a red crystal. She also kept three lightsabers containing violet crystals at hand; in her duel with the Exile, she used the Force to control these lightsabers.

Traya was self-reliant, manipulative, and wary of the intentions of others. She used her skills at manipulation to maneuver herself into a position of power at the Trayus Academy, and later used these skills to trick the Jedi and Sith into revealing themselves, allowing her and her accomplices to destroy them. She often remonstrated the Exile for taking away the challenges of others, arguing that compassion weakened the benefactors by disallowing them the mental and physical enrichment that life's challenges procure. She said such compassion weakened the very people it was intended to help, cheapening their experiences and leaving them more ill-prepared for dealing with things on their own. As the Exile's circle of companions grew, Traya came to see how these companions could be used for her own ends, and sometimes ensured their loyalty using methods of questionable morality; for example, she read Atton Rand's mind and learned of his dark history, using that to blackmail him into the Exile's service. She also tempted Mandalore the Preserver with knowledge of Revan's fate in order to ensure that he would not betray the Exile. Traya was skilled at manipulation, and used betrayal and deception to achieve her goals. She lied to the Exile at the beginning of their quest, claiming that the Jedi Council had stripped her of the Force. Traya knew this would lead the Exile to seek out the surviving members of the Jedi Council, in hopes that she, or the Exile, would prove them wrong on their teachings. On Onderon, Traya lied to Tobin about the existence of many Jedi in the Jedi academy on Telos, knowing that Tobin would relay this to his true Master, Darth Nihilus, who would not be able to resist the chance to replenish himself and would assault Telos. This left Nihilus vulnerable to the assault of the Mandalorians and the Exile. Also, Traya would commend the Exile if she succeeded in manipulating others during her travels.

Despite these traits, Traya was not the cruel, cold-hearted manipulator that people dismissed her as. She had a softer side to her personality that was more apparent when she was around the Jedi Exile. After the Exile defeated Traya, she told the Exile that she would have gone so far as to let the entire galaxy die in order to ensure the Exile's life, and lived up to her word; during her travels, the Exile was the only person she cared about, viewing everyone else as expendable. Though Traya was intelligent and powerful in her own right, she realized that her philosophies would be regarded as fanatical by both the Jedi and the Sith. Because of this, she preferred to fly beneath the radar, often using her own power to shield her identity from other Force-sensitives who might have known her, and could have otherwise detected her. She was not outspoken about her convictions. An odd trait that Traya possessed was her habit to rarely refer to any of the Exile's companions by name, calling them by titles. She would refer to Atton Rand as "the fool", Mical as a "tiny Jedi", Brianna the Handmaiden as the "servant of Atris", Visas Marr as "the blinded one" or "the seer", Mira as "the huntress", and Bao-Dur as "the alien". Traya also referred to the droids who travelled with the Exile&mdash;T3-M4, HK-47, and G0-T0&mdash;as "machines". She admitted to Rand that while she regarded him as a complete fool, she did respect him to a certain degree, because he was able to survive without the Force, whereas Jedi who had lost their connection to the Force would seem almost completely helpless without the powers which they relied on. This sort of irony amused Traya, yet this was before she discovered that Rand was Force-sensitive. As for her prejudices, Traya openly displayed emotions of contempt for the Mandalorians. As she despised the arrogance of the Jedi Council, she detested the Mandalorians, who she believed to be arrogant for once believing that they could stand up against those who command the Force. During the Exile's alliance with Mandalore the Preserver, Traya took every opportunity to demean the Mandalorians, stating how their "military tactics" were nothing compared to the Force, which was why in her opinion the Mandalorians could have never defeated the Jedi, let alone Revan.

Traya also seemed to hold droids at a low regard. In a conversation with the Exile regarding T3-M4, Traya said that she did not understand Revan's fascination with machines and technology, going so far as to say that his passion for things dead to the Force defied her. She believed that her former Padawan's interest in droids stemmed from his preference for followers who obeyed his orders without question. Kreia also told the Exile that Revan would have loved nothing more than to have a "human droid" such as the Exile, one that was dead to the Force, a shell that would carry out his orders without question. Further evidence of Kreia's distaste in droids are shown in the way she treated T3-M4 with contempt and begrudging tolerance. Almost 4,000 years later, her eventual successor, Darth Sidious, succeeded in creating such soldiers in the form of clone troopers. Later, when the Exile threatened to destroy the Trayus Academy, Traya mentioned that it was more talk of machines and threats. Aside from droids, Traya displayed contempt for non-human species. She referred to both the Exchange criminal syndicate boss Visquis and Bao-Dur as "the alien". She also held the Twi'lek Jedi Master Zhar Lestin at a low regard, in a conversation with the Exile regarding Revan, she referred to Lestin as "that fool". Kreia strongly believed that a person that did much evil and had fallen far into the dark side did not deserve redemption. She shared this view with the Exile on Korriban in front of the ancient Sith Lord Ajunta Pall's tomb, while she was telepathically guiding the Jedi through the Valley of the Dark Lords. Traya disapproved of Revan's redemption of Pall, saying that, in a way, such a turning from one's nature was cowardly, a betrayal of the self. When the Exile told her that no one was beyond redemption, Traya further explained her beliefs, saying that redemption was a form of spiritual collapse, a fall that few recovered from.

Powers and abilities
"I use it as I would use a poison, and in the hopes of understanding it, I will learn the way to kill it. But perhaps these are the excuses of an old woman who has grown to rely on a thing she despises."

- Darth Traya on the Force

As a Jedi Consular, Kreia used a wide variety of Force powers, including Force horror, Force speed, Force cloak, Energy Resistance, Force Scream, Force lightning, Force wound and the mind trick. She also was capable of using the Force to control beasts, a power that she would teach the Exile during her travels on Dxun. She was known to have used an advanced Force technique known as Force Channel. Traya was also a master of Dark Healing, which she used to kill dozens of Sith Assassins instantaneously and simultaneously on Malachor V. She obliterated the last three members of the reconvened Jedi Council, by showing them the Force "through the eyes of the Exile", consuming their connection to the Force in a way similar to that of Darth Nihilus, denying them the means to become one with the Force. The Exile would later behold them as "worse than lifeless, like an absence in the Force". Before her death at the Trayus Core, she was also able to glimpse far into the future, predicting isolated events accurately. Through the Force, Traya was able to predict the death of Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett at the hands of Jedi Master Mace Windu approximately 4,000 years later, in a prophecy relating to the fate of the Mandalorians.

Kreia also possessed the rare ability to perceive shatterpoints which she described as "fractures". She was the only known user of this power before Mace Windu's time.

Traya knew the ability of Breath Control, which made her immune to most poisons. She taught it to the Exile when she was in danger of dying from the toxic fumes of the Jekk'Jekk Tarr cantina during a meeting with local Exchange boss Visquis on Nar Shaddaa. Traya would also use her healing powers to revive the Wookiee Hanharr, after he was left for dead by Mira. On Onderon she revived Colonel Tobin after he was killed by a drexl larva. Traya was rather proficient at using the Force to hide her presence from whomever she chose. Her skill with this ability was demonstrated on the Ebon Hawk as she whispered to Mical, making him believe he was hearing things. Traya also used a variation of this ability that enabled her to be seen but remain entirely unnoticed, to cloud the memory of others so they would forget her presence or even her existence. When the Exile asked Traya why none of the Jedi Masters they encountered mentioned her, she lied to the Exile, claiming that they perhaps did not remember or care. She described her ability as making herself "very small", a talent she claimed not to use on the Exile, and that was even more effective on the worlds where they traveled, where sensing Force-users was difficult. On Dantooine, Jedi Master Vrook Lamar told the Exile about the Sith threat, and told her of their ability to mask their presence, but he did not believe that mere Force-cloaking techniques alone would be sufficient to hide the one responsible for what had befallen the Jedi. Eventually, the Exile would learn more about this; when Traya was revealed as one of the Lords of the Sith, Atris explained that much of the reason she succeeded in hiding her dark persona lay actually in the fact that the Force had been stripped from her.

Traya was skilled at telekinetic lightsaber combat, which allowed her to wield at least three lightsabers in combat, holding each of them aloft with the Force and having them fight with a will of their own. She was also skilled at physically weilding a lightsaber, using the combat forms Shii-Cho, Makashi, and Soresu. She was also known to have used a rare lightsaber technique known as Tràkata. When the Exile would ask Traya about each different form of lightsaber combat, the Dark Lord knew enough about each form to give the Exile an accurate description. Traya had once been a Jedi historian, and on her way through the path of knowledge the Jedi Code became unfit for her idea of teaching and learning the ways of the Force. She came to realize that the Force defied the tenets of the Order, that one who was to truly understand would need the contrast, not adherence to a single idea. During this time she would search and gather relics of the Force. On Korriban, Traya indulged the Exile in a tour of the tombs and excavation sites in the Valley of the Dark Lords while showing her a profound knowledge of their history, a contempt for ignorance, and a care for truth that survived to her last days. In her journey with the Exile, Traya spoke of healing during a lesson related to skills as something about which she was knowledgeable. When asked about her eyes, she claimed to be able to heal her own damaged eyes&mdash;which were atrophied from disuse&mdash;yet she refused to do so, as she had the ability to see through the Force, and regarded her natural sight as a distraction. She could use the Force enter a hibernation trance that would slow down her biological functions and make her appear dead. She used this ability on the Ebon Hawk when the Harbinger tractor beamed the freighter, and again when the Republic warship fired on it.

Teachings
"If a lightsaber loses its power, is it still a lightsaber? And if a Jedi loses her powers, is she still a Jedi?"

- Kreia

Among Traya's allies were her Sith apprentices Darths Sion and Nihilus, and her final apprentice, the Jedi Exile. Traya believed that neither the light or dark sides of the Force were truly superior to the other. When Sion and Nihilus grew weary of Traya's teachings, they betrayed her, stripped her of powers, and exiled her. Darth Traya would refine her beliefs while wandering the galaxy, eventually coming to view the Force as being a sort of uncaring, insidious god that used the lives of sentients as pawns in a pernicious game of balance. This, she thought, was evidenced by the widespread occurrences of destruction and death that had persistently transpired throughout the galaxy to that point, many of which could be traced to a conflict between Force-sensitives. Yet, Traya blamed neither the Jedi nor the Sith, but rather, the very thing they had both come to draw and rely upon: the Force itself.

After being exiled from the Jedi Order when she was forced to shoulder the blame for Revan's corruption and again after she was exiled from Malachor V by Sion and Nihilus, Darth Traya had experienced betrayals from, and saw the flaws of, both the light and dark sides of the Force. These unique experiences disillusioned her, forcing her to refine her ways of thinking. When she heard about the Jedi Exile, she saw proof that life could exist without the Force, which she saw as disproof of the traditional dogma of both the Sith and Jedi that the Force and life itself were inseparable by nature. This renewed Traya's confidence in her personal beliefs, and fueled her desire to learn more of the Exile's personal motivations. By the end of her adventures with the Exile, during which time she went by the name of Kreia, Traya had discovered that certain tragedies could leave wounds in the Force, which sometimes made it difficult to hear and be used. These "echoes," as Traya called them, provided an avenue through which it was possible to attack the Force. Her discovery was due in no small part to the Exile, as her experience at Malachor V, where she cut herself off from the Force, created an echo large enough that Traya was able to connect the tragedy to the wound created in the Force. According to Traya, those who had chosen death, or the Jedi who chose the dark side, over a life devoid of the Force were not strong enough to deserve life. Her desire to prevent death in the future was the motivation that cultivated her hatred for the Force.

Despite her loathing of the Force, she still used it; she explained it by comparing herself to one who uses poison. Just as such a person would strive to understand the lethality behind poison, so she strived to understand the particularities of the Force, thereby enabling her to destroy it. Traya envisioned a galaxy that would choose not to acquiesce to the will of the Force. She thought she could achieve this by showing how one could willingly abnegate the Force and eventually become stronger for it, and it was the Exile who was a living testament to this. In her teachings with the Jedi Exile, she emphasized how dependent the Jedi and Sith were on the Force, and how they had become flawed for it. By making the Exile her protégé, she hoped her message would resonate with future Force-sensitives so they would choose to use the Force without necessarily bending to either extreme, and certainly not to the point where they would choose death over life without the Force. Ultimately, though, she dreamed of a galaxy lacking of the Force altogether, as it was her belief that the galaxy would be better off that way.

Behind the scenes
Darth Traya was a character created by Obsidian Entertainment for the 2005 Xbox and PC video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. She was voiced by the actress Sara Kestelman. GameSpy declared Kreia to be the best video-game character of 2005. Kreia's Sith name, Traya, was derived from the word "betrayer". A miniature of Kreia was featured in the Knights of the Old Republic set of Star Wars Miniatures, released on August 19, 2008.

On Dxun, Kreia tells Mandalore the Preserver, "The future is always in motion, it is a difficult thing to see." This statement mirrors what Jedi Master Yoda said to Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back. If the Exile is dark-sided, there is an option to throw the deceased Traya into the Trayus Core.

In both The New Essential Chronology and Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force Darth Traya was mistakenly referred to as being a separate person from one "Darth Kreia". In the section on Jedi Temples and Academies in the guide Jedi Academy Training Manual, it incorrectly states that the Dantooine Jedi Enclave was in use a few decades after the end of the Jedi Civil War. It also states abandoned by the Jedi after Darth Traya obliterated the entire Jedi Council. While Traya did kill the last three Council members&mdash;Kavar, Lamar, and Ell&mdash;the Jedi did not rebuild the Enclave until after 3,951 BBY, five years after the Jedi Civil War's end. After Kreia lost her left hand on Peragus, there are a few errors in her actions and movements while lacking it throughout the rest of the game, such as putting her left fist on her waist, holding her lightsaber in a two-handed grip, and using her Force powers in battle. Also, in the cutscene depicting Kreia's betrayal at the hands of Darths Sion and Nihilus, she is shown without her hand, though she did not lose it until years later.

Cut content
In unused dialogue and discarded plot events, Traya revealed that she had been manipulating the mind of Atris for years, and through her orchestrated the Jedi Exile's trial and sentence. A single alternative line in the "Kreia's Fall" scene from the game revealed that the catalyst for Sion and Nihilus's betrayal was that Traya decreed that the Jedi Exile was not to be harmed. After Traya slew the three Jedi Masters on Dantooine, Visas Marr would take Traya before Nihilus instead of Atris if Brianna the Handmaiden was not part of the Exile's party. The screenshot that shows Traya with her hood removed was taken with a modified game; while such a scene never takes place in the game, it was supposed to take place during the Rebuilt Enclave scene, Traya reveals herself to the three Jedi Masters; however, in the official release, Traya stays hooded due to a scripting glitch. This has been fixed by The Sith Lords Restoration Project developers. The official player's guide to the game showed that Traya had actual dark side transitions, and that her alignment would change depending on the Exile's alignment and level of influence with her, like the rest of the crew. The decision to remove them and set Traya's alignment to "true neutral" permanently must have been made late in production.



Traya was not always intended to be the only Traya and final boss in the game. Before the content was cut out, the choices the Exile made could have her or Atris become Traya at the end. Screenshots of Atris as Darth Traya in the official strategy guide seem to support this notion. In that scenario, Traya sacrifices her life to protect the Jedi Exile from her. However, those plot twists were cut out of the final release. The New Essential Chronology introduced more confusion, as it mistakenly referred to "Darth Kreia" and "Darth Traya" as two separate characters. This error was later addressed by author Dan Wallace, but it was too late, as the book was already released. The error was repeated once more in the book Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force.

A mysterious past
There was an ongoing dispute concerning the true identity of Kreia. One theory holds that the Jedi Arren Kae and Kreia are the same person. While available material, cut or not, indicates that it may indeed have been Obsidian Entertainment's original intent, there is no conclusive evidence that could either prove or disprove this theory within Star Wars canon. The main source cited is that at one point in the game Mical the Disciple said that Arren Kae was the first and also the last of Revan's many trainers, and at another point Kreia said she was the first and last trainer of Revan. When asked about the relationship between Kreia and Kae, Chris Avellone ambiguously responded "Can’t comment, but good catch. Sorry."

According to the game, Arren Kae is the mother of the Echani Handmaiden Brianna. Traya only mentions her to the male Exile who chooses to romance Brianna. While Brianna herself never knew Kae, Traya seemed to know much about her, but disapproved of speaking of this to Brianna, for the same reason Jedi separate children from their parents: because "family exerts a powerful influence on one's development." Brianna and Traya share the same views on conflict and its effects, and while Brianna fought long to prove that she, unlike her parents, would not betray her oath, she eventually did when she asked the Jedi Exile to train her in the Jedi ways.

Others fans believed that Traya was instead Krynda Draay, one of the prime antagonists in the recently published Knights of the Old Republic comic book series, which is set twelve years before the events of The Sith Lords. Commentators pointed to the numerous similarities between the two women: their amazing powers of prognostication, secluded lifestyles, distinctive appearance and profound belief in the virtues of Force Sight. Both were Jedi Sage Masters who before the Mandalorian Wars taught numerous apprentices using unorthodox philosophies, and through their teachings both were held responsible for the crimes and failures of their Padawans. However, this was not conclusive evidence, and the theory was never confirmed or denied by lead writer John Jackson Miller. The theory is now impossible, due to Draay's death in the 34th issue of the series. The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide established that Kreia was her true identity.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

Notes and references
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