Joruus C'baoth

"But I really don't think he's a Dark Jedi. He's erratic and moody, but he doesn't have the sort of evil aura about him that I could sense in Vader and the Emperor. I think it's more likely that Master C'baoth is insane."

- Luke Skywalker to R2-D2

Joruus C'baoth was the sole known surviving unstable clone of the Galactic Republic Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth. He was cloned by Palpatine, and used as the guardian of the Imperial storehouse at Mount Tantiss. During the Thrawn campaign, the mad clone's battle meditation powers were used by Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn as part of a renewed offensive against the New Republic. C'baoth also attempted to lure Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa Solo to the dark side of the Force, as part of a plan to seize the Empire for himself.

Biography


It is believed that a tissue sample was procured from Jorus C'baoth shortly before he departed aboard Outbound Flight (27 BBY). Supreme Chancellor Palpatine requested, through his representative Kinman Doriana, that all personnel aboard the expedition, including Jedi, submit to the extraction of analysis-grade blood and tissue samples as part of their medical examinations. Doriana cited the possibility of hive viruses or potential epidemics as justification, and it is presumed that Doriana brought these samples back with him to Coruscant after Outbound Flight was destroyed. During the Clone Wars, Palpatine took possession, again through Doriana, of several thousand Spaarti cloning cylinders from Cartao (20 BBY), and several clones were eventually grown from C'baoth's tissue sample using this method. Cloning techniques, especially techniques developed early in the war or techniques intended to rapidly grow clones, produced clones that were extremely mentally unstable&mdash;the Joruus C'baoth clones would prove to be no exception. (It should be noted that the clone troopers produced during the Clone Wars did not manifest these problems as they were grown slowly, over a number of years, and were cloned with different technology).

Only one of C'baoth's clones would have a command of the Force comparable to the original and be mentally stable enough that Palpatine could twist him into a Dark Jedi. C'baoth might also have been cloned so that he, being a powerful Jedi like his predecessor, could train a new order of Dark Jedi to serve the Galactic Empire, although no specific reason has been discovered. Some time during the Galactic Civil War, this clone became the ruler of Wayland and the Guardian of Mount Tantiss after killing the previous one. This was according to C'baoth himself as well as the inhabitants of Wayland, who remembered a duel between C'baoth and another Force-user. The original Guardian's body presumably lay in the crypt in C'baoth's palace.



In any case, several years after the Battle of Endor, Grand Admiral Thrawn finally tracked down the location of the Emperor's private storehouse on Wayland, intending to use the cloaking shield and the Spaarti cylinders there to pursue his war against the New Republic. He discovered that Joruus C'baoth had gone completely and utterly insane. Only the Grand Admiral's precautionary use of ysalamiri saved him from the death that had found all previous offworlders to visit the warehouse since the death of the Emperor. Thrawn managed to enlist the insane dark Jedi Master to his cause by promising him Luke Skywalker and his sister Leia Organa Solo, as well as her yet-unborn twins, to be his to mold however he desired.

Drawing deeply on the dark side and honing his skills at battle meditation, C'baoth greatly increased the efficiency of Thrawn's forces. He could use his mastery of the Force to penetrate cloaking shields, to communicate with cloaked ships and coordinate devastating precision-timed attacks. That same mastery of the Force alerted him when Luke and Mara Jade plotted the destruction of Mount Tantiss. He was there and ready for them. Thrawn had ordered him imprisoned in the Royal Chambers of Mount Tantiss due to his realization that the clone was too powerful, power-hungry, and unstable to be safely used any longer, but the clone had out-thought even Thrawn. En route to Wayland, he corrupted the minds of the reinforcements for the garrison. Those reinforcements planted explosives on the ysalamiri within Mt. Tantiss, the very ysalamiri that were making it possible to grow clones in a score of days rather than months, and incidentally, blocking C'baoth's powers. C'baoth had realized that if he could take over the minds of the clones' "parents," he could mentally command every clone created from them, allowing him to personally command a huge section of the Imperial forces.



When they distracted the garrison after their sabotage, C'baoth prophesied that Jade and Skywalker would infiltrate the warehouse and come to the throne room where he awaited them.

Detonating the explosives and restoring his dark power, C'baoth made a second attempt at turning Skywalker but, like his first attempt on the planet Jomark, this one failed. After a brutal and prolonged fight during which Mara Jade killed Luuke Skywalker, a clone that C'baoth had ordered grown from the hand that Luke had lost on Bespin, Joruus C'baoth was slain by a kneeling Mara Jade and detonated in an explosion of blue dark side energy.

Behind the scenes

 * According to author Timothy Zahn, Joruus C'baoth was originally supposed to be a mad clone of Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Zahn was forced to change the character's origin when Lucasfilm objected.
 * "Sabaoth" is a Hebrew word meaning "armies" which may have served as an inspiration for C'baoth's name, given his role as a coordinator of forces in the Thrawn trilogy.
 * Much like his prime clone, Joruus also believed himself to be a Jedi Master.
 * Although pictured with a lightsaber, the books never mentioned Joruus carrying or using one.

Appearances

 * Heir to the Empire
 * Dark Force Rising
 * The Last Command
 * Jedi Search




 * Darksaber
 * Vision of the Future
 * Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream