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 Jedi Master during the time before the Mandalorian Wars, and later a Sith Lord under the alias Darth Traya. As the guardian and keeper of the Jedi Archives, Kreia was an ardent observer, a patient scholar and a wise master. Later in life, after she turned to the dark side, the traits that she had exhibited in her former profession suited her new role as master schemer and Sith Lord. A woman who felt the bitter sting of betrayal from both the Jedi and the Sith, she dreamt of revenge not toward both or either group but toward the one that had destined her for such an end: the Force itself. Her story reached its climax when she found the Jedi Exile, a unique being who had the potential of bringing her dream of revenge a step closer to fruition.

Early life
Much of Kreia's early life is shrouded in mystery. It is known that she worked her way to the rank of Jedi Master and that she trained many students, the most famous of whom was Revan. It is very possible she fought during the Great Sith War and was the guardian of the Jedi Archives before Atris.

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

- Atton Rand

Upon the close of the Mandalorian Wars and after Revan's disappearance, the Jedi who participated in the wars were called to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant so that they might answer for their transgressions. Only one returned, and he was exiled as punishment. The Jedi Council blamed Kreia for the war after several of her apprentices were so easily seduced by the call of battle, most notably Revan. For this, she too was exiled by the Order. Consumed by her guilt and stung by the bitter actions of the Jedi, she questioned the validity of her beliefs in the Grey Philosophy and wondered if this was the reason why Revan had fallen. She followed Revan's footsteps in history, traveling from planet to planet, searching for an answer that he alone could provide. In her travels, she encountered many of Revan's acquaintances and found fragments of a man far from the dreaded image history would eventually paint of him. Her crusade ended on the dark world of Malachor V. As she descended to the lowest levels of the world, the extreme caress of dark side energies encompassed the frail Grey Jedi. From the descent of Jedi Master Kreia into the abyss arose the Sith Lord Darth Traya.

On the surface of Malachor V, she had found her own answers. At the center of Revan's former stronghold was the Trayus Academy, an ancient dark side Praxeum that contained the deepest and most intimate secrets of the Sith. From this mausoleum of ancient Sith knowledge she learned of what her apprentice had discovered: the existence of a more powerful, more dangerous empire far beyond the known borders of Galactic Republic space, where the true Sith Empire was waiting.

The august boy whom she had taught; the brave knight who defended the weak when his fellows would not; and the fragments of the dark yet noble figure in history was one man trying to carry the weight of the galaxy and its future on his shoulders. There she found Revan's true intentions. From that moment on, she firmly believed that Revan had never "fallen," that instead a greater cause had come that called for certain actions to be done.

Continuing the legacy of her greatest student, Darth Traya reestablished the Trayus Academy to train, convert, and create the new generation of Sith: men and women who would act as a gadfly to the Republic. After some time, she found similar Sith Lords who were interested in rebuilding the deteriorating Sith Order. Darth Nihilus, the Lord of Hunger, and Darth Sion, the Lord of Pain, joined her in the creation of the first Sith Triumvirate. As time passed and the Jedi ran to hide, the Sith Lords' ideals became divergent. Traya and Revan's legacy fell far from Darth Nihilus' hunger and Sion's crusade against the Jedi. A violent argument eventually arose among the three, and as Traya was the odd one out, she was cast aside, beaten and broken. Once again she had been betrayed.

Lost and disheveled, Traya blamed neither side and instead dreamt of revenge on a far greater scale, revenge against a higher power which had destined her to be betrayed by those whom she had loyally served. She knew now that this conflict between light and dark was never going to end, and that the galaxy was doomed to chaos forever. Firm in her belief, she engineered a master plan to eliminate the Force, once and for all. Kreia had come to regard the Force as an uncaring, insidious god. She noted the tremendous loss of life throughout history -- and far into the future -- during the many battles between the Jedi and the Sith. For this, Kreia blamed neither the Jedi nor the Sith, but rather the Force itself. Stopping the Force from controlling the lives of men and women throughout the galaxy became her crusade.

Kreia and the Jedi Exile
"It does not matter where we go. It is not the destination that matters. It is the journey."

- Kreia

Banished, disbanded or in hiding, the Jedi Order was nearly gone from the galaxy. The Republic, plagued by instability, found false hope in the rumors of the Order's resurrection. One such story is that of the Last Jedi, the one who walked the path of most men and wandered the galaxy. Beneath layers of hearsay and unconfirmed reports, Kreia had found a means to destroy the Force. Bound by hands of death, Kreia intruded upon the company of the wounded Jedi Exile. They subconsciously reached out to each other, both strengthening each other in the knowledge that they had survived the void that had befallen them. From that bond was formed a connection so powerful that the death echoes of either member would be enough kill the other.

Shortly after, as Kreia and the Exile attempted to escape the Peragus II asteroid mining facility, Kreia encountered her former protégé, Darth Sion. Master and student fought, and Kreia, hardly at her full power, lost her left hand to Sion's lightsaber. The Exile felt the pain of losing the limb as she had done, and the two confirmed that their deep link could well have proven to be fatal.

While slowly regaining her connection to the Force, Kreia began to shape the Exile as a new pupil. Her new student sought answers to the questions of his identity, and Kreia was all too willing to search for them, curious to see if the answers would lead to the end she was planning. She taught the Exile to carefully choose his actions, asking him to view the ethical implications of his quests, and showed that the galaxy and its inhabitants' morales are a lot more complicated than the basic tenets of the light and dark sides of the Force.

As the Exile grew in power, Kreia watched as he unknowingly strengthened the struggled Republic through his search. During these adventures many people found the company of the Exile, most of them sensitive to the Force; and although many of them were wary of Kreia, she was able to manipulate most of them do her bidding. Through the ease of which the Exile had "called" upon his companions, the old master had seen the Exile's ability to transmit extreme echoes to those he was bound with. Using the Exile's power and with the knowledge of Darth Nihilus' condition, Kreia intended to bring her plans into finality.

By the end of her adventures with the Exile, Traya had devised a method to kill the Force with what she called "echoes": tragedies that left persistent wounds in the universe, which made the Force difficult and sometimes impossible to hear and to be used. Her discovery of these "echoes" and her avenue of attack on the Force was made possible entirely by the Exile; he provided the first "echo" that she could study through his actions on the planet of Malachor V, and he turned the echoes of his survival from a mere curiosity into being a viable mechanism for destroying the Force. By Kreia's reasoning, people who died of these echoes when they could not bear to voluntarily sever themselves from the Force (as the Exile did to save his life) were not strong enough to deserve to live in the first place. Her hatred of the Force was the overriding goal, for in her mind, if she did not kill it, even more lives would be lost in the future.

Kreia traveled with the Exile on his search for the Jedi Masters, manipulating him toward the truth of his existence and his bizarre abilities. When the truth was revealed -- that the Exile was indeed a wound in the Force -- Kreia confronted him and left him unconscious in the ruins of Dantooine. Journeying to Telos IV, the reborn Darth Traya turned Jedi Master Atris to the dark side of the Force. She became the second Darth Traya, and believed herself to be the heir to Kreia's power, but her duel with the Exile in the Telos academy proved otherwise. In reality, Traya had used Atris as a pawn to lure the Exile to her, so she could break him and use him to end the Force, once and for all.

After the Battle of Telos IV in which the Exile destroyed Darth Nihilus, the Exile journeyed to Malachor V, where Traya and Sion were hidden in the depths of the Trayus Academy. The Exile confronted the Sith Lords, and eroded Sion's will, releasing him from all his pain in the process. By giving up the pain, and therefore the Force, Sion was finally able to die -- but not before warning the Exile that Traya would try to do to him what she had done to Sion himself.

The Exile found Traya in the core of the academy and bested her. As her final act, she drew upon the Force that radiated from Malachor V in order to give the Exile one last gift: a prediction of the future of the galaxy and that of his friends. She died from the wounds dealt to her by the Exile, leaving her apprentice to follow Revan to the true Sith Empire. Before her death, she confessed that she truly loved the Exile, as he had finally proven her ideals were correct.

Abilities
Kreia had the unique ability to wield three or more lightsabers in combat, holding each of them aloft with the Force, and having them fight with a will of their own.

Her eyes appeared damaged, but in reality, they were simply atrophied from disuse. She had the ability to repair her eyesight with the Force, yet she refused to do so, as she had a superior ability to "see" through the Force and regarded her natural sight as a distraction.

Kreia could easily Force Cloak herself and knew the ability of Breath Control, which she later taught to the Exile. She could go into a Hibernation Trance that would make her appear perfectly dead. As Darth Traya, she was a master of Force Drain, which she used to kill Jedi Masters Vrook Lamar, Kavar, Zez-Kai Ell and, later, dozens of Sith Assassins instantaneously and simultaneously.

Kreia had once been a historian of the Jedi, but realized early on that the Jedi Code did not answer all the questions she posed. She was also a master manipulator, having used this skill to maneuver herself into a position of power at the Trayus Academy and, later, trick the Jedi and Sith into revealing themselves, allowing her and or others to destroy them.

Traya was also able to glimpse far into the future, predicting isolated events with incredible accuracy. Traya was able to predict the death of Jango Fett at the hands of Mace Windu nearly 4,000 years later, in a prophecy relating to the fate of the Mandalorians:

"They will die a death that will last millennia, until all that remains is their code, their history, and, in the end, the shell of their armor upon the shell of a man, all too easily slain by Jedi."

Behind the scenes

 * Like Darth Sidious and Darth Vader, Darth Traya's Sith name suggests another word: betrayal.
 * Darth Traya is the first known Darth to use a Sith alias instead of her real name. Her predecessors, Darth Revan and Darth Malak, both added the Darth title to their actual names.
 * Kreia 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. The New Essential Chronology introduced even more confusion, as it mistakenly referred to "Darth Kreia" and "Darth Traya" as two separate characters. This error was later addressed by Dan Wallace, but it was too late, as the book was already out.
 * Elements such as Atris' dark side ending and Kreia's comments near the climax of the game may indicate that the Darth Traya role has a quasi-religious significance within the Sith Order; Count Dooku himself notably remarked that "treachery is the way of the Sith." As such, Sion's and Nihilus' respective titles as Lord of Pain and Lord of Hunger may betray further arcane Sith teaching delved from the Malacor ruins and the Trayus Academy.
 * Kreia was voiced by Sara Kestelman.
 * GameSpy declared Kreia the best video game character of 2005.

A mysterious past
The Chronicles of the Old Republic located on the official Knights of the Old Republic II website are the only sources that provide the information on the whens and hows of Kreia's turn to the Dark Side. Unfortunately, the Chronicles often conflict with the dialogue in the games, so there is no clear-cut "history," aside from what only can be extrapolated from the various sources. It could therefore be speculated that she acted as the guardian of Malachor V during the Jedi Civil War at Revan's command. Or it could be suggested that she did not find Malachor until well after Revan's departure; otherwise she likely would have accompanied him in his search for the "True" Sith.

Mistaken identity
There is an ongoing dispute as to whether the Jedi Arren Kae and Kreia are the same person. Evidence in the game indicates that both Kae and Kreia were both Revan's first and last master. Additionally, Kae was also exiled from the Order. Furthermore, their names bear a distinct similarity. Kreia's name is pronounced as if it were an amalgam of the names "Kae" and "Traya." This is possibly in keeping with the character's personality. Given that she turned her back on both the Jedi Council and the Sith, instead embracing the Gray Philosophy, it is possible she combined her names to create a new one, much in the same way she combined both Light and Dark Side knowledges of the Force. The name similarities could, on the other hand, be striking coincidences.

Beyond etymology, however, there is also the confusion surrounding the events of Kae's death (no body was discovered) that help to fuel this argument, as well as a statement made to Kreia by Master Kavar "I thought you died in the Mandalorian Wars" towards the end of the game, when she is recognized by the assembled council. While this argument is ongoing, no one can conclusively prove their case, so it remains in the realm of speculation at this time.

Appearances

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