The Ones

"We are the ones who guard the power. We are the middle, the beginning, and the end."

―The Daughter^[6]

The Ones were a family of exceptionally powerful Force wielders who lived in the ethereal realm of Mortis during the Clone Wars. They moved to Mortis after exiling the dark side entity Abeloth—known to the Thuruht Killiks, client species of the Celestials, as the "Bringer of Chaos"—on their home planet. The Ones consisted of the Son and the Daughter, who were respectively embodiments of the dark and light sides of the Force, and the Father, Keeper of the Balance. According to Thuruht, the Ones were direct manifestations of the Celestials.

In the Nightsisters' religion, the Son and the Daughter were worshiped as the Twin Deities.^[7]

History[]

"It is only here that I can control them. A family in balance—the light and the dark. Day with night. Destruction replaced by creation."

―The Father^[6]

The beginning[]

Originally, more than a million years prior to the Clone Wars,^[4] the Celestials, mysterious beings who were thought to be capable of restructuring space on a massive scale, lived in the galaxy.^[8]^[9] According to Thuruht, the oldest of the Killik hives, "the Ones are what the Celestials become." Thuruht distinctly "remembers" the Ones coalescing out of a geyser on a tropical planet; there were three of them—the Father, the Son and the Daughter.^[4] They gained these memories from the Son and Daughter themselves, who joined the hive mind briefly to help coordinate the construction of Centerpoint Station. It should be noted that the collective memory of a Killik hive does not make distinctions between fact and fiction like the human mind—any individual memory joined to that of the collective, be it mythology, incontestable fact, or the plot of a holodrama, is history to the Killiks.^[4]

The Ones initially lived in peace and harmony in the home they made for themselves near the site of the geyser. The Father warned his children to never drink from the Font of Power, or bathe in the Pool of Knowledge; however, they eventually disobeyed his orders, with the Son drinking from the Font, giving him incomprehensible power through the dark side, while the Daughter bathed in the Pool, bestowing on her incomprehensible power using the light side. The siblings then claimed areas of the jungle for themselves and started to fight each other while the Father tried to keep the peace between them.^[4]

The coming of Abeloth[]

A young woman somehow came to their world. She initially became the Servant, serving and catering to the Ones' needs; however, she eventually became the Mother, doting on the Father and succeeding in mending the relationship between the Daughter and Son. She also managed to persuade the Son to use his destructive nature for a constructive purpose by using his Force lightning to carve new rooms in the walls of the gorge where they lived. However, she was still mortal and as a result she grew old, and was no longer able to keep the peace between the siblings. The ageless children started to resume their fighting, and neither the Mother nor the Father were able to prevent it.^[4]

One day, while the three were fighting in the courtyard of their home, the Mother snuck a drink from the Font like the Son did, and quickly bathed in the Pool like the Daughter. The Father pulled her out with the Force, but it was too late. Her mortal birth was utterly corrupted by the Font and the Pool's promises of power. She had become Abeloth, the Bringer of Chaos. Abeloth attacked both the Son and Daughter, forcing them to bow down to her. The Father then stepped in to save his children, afterwards taking them and leaving the planet, stranding Abeloth behind.^[4]

The Daughter and Son then obtained the help of the Killiks, such as the Thuruht hive, by joining with their hive mind and lending them their power in the Force. Sharing their knowledge with the hives, the siblings directed the creation of Centerpoint Station, Sinkhole Station, and other devices to help create and maintain the Maw, a cluster of black holes that imprisoned Abeloth.^[4]

TheOnesCreatureForm-Overlords — The Daughter and Son in their creature forms on Mortis.

Afterwards, the Father moved his family to the monolith-gated planet known as Mortis so that he might control them and keep the Force in balance. Thuruht stated that when the Current of the Force was altered and the flow of time changed (the Current forced "where it could not be taken"), Abeloth was able to escape. She would stir up conflict and destruction each time, sending the galaxy into chaos and disorder, thriving on fear, death, and havoc, until the Son and Daughter returned to the Killiks, and together they would re-imprison her. This cycle would repeat itself periodically for hundreds of thousands of years.

Xendor's visit[]

Approximately 24,500 BBY, the Darksider Xendor journeyed to Mortis and met the Ones. However, he believed their claims on the nature of the Force had no more or less legitimacy than the teachings of any other Force group.^[10]

The arrival of the Chosen One[]

"My children and I can manipulate the Force like no other. Therefore, it was necessary to withdraw from the temporal world and live here as anchorites."
"As a sanctuary?"
"And a prison. You cannot imagine what pain it is to have such love for your children… and realize that they could tear the very fabric of our universe."

―The Father and Anakin Skywalker^[6]

When the Father brought Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano so that he might verify if Skywalker was the Chosen One as prophecy foretold, the Son attempted to kill his father with the Dagger of Mortis and remove him as an obstacle to escape from Mortis. However, the Daughter sacrificed herself, taking the blade for her father and causing the balance of the Force to come undone.

FamilySquabble-AoM — The Daughter and Son battle one another.

The Son made another attempt to kill the Father shortly afterward, but was shocked when the Father suddenly stole the Dagger and stabbed himself with it, weakening the Son so that he could be killed by Skywalker. Moments after the Son's death, the Father himself died, disappearing into the Force. With this, the Ones were destroyed, and Mortis itself disappeared in a flash of light, leaving the Jedi returned to mere moments after they encountered the monolith, with no evidence that the planet or its inhabitants had ever existed.^[5]

Legacy[]

During the return of Abeloth in 44 ABY, Grand Master Luke Skywalker—the son of the Chosen One—read the mission report in the Jedi Archives about his father and his mentor's experiences on Mortis. Combined with the information gathered from the Thuruht hive, Luke realized that his father's refusal to become the new Keeper of the Balance had in fact set off a disastrous chain of events. With the death of the Ones, the galaxy began to slide into chaos; the number of conflicts in the last 65 years were evidence enough of that.^[4] When Jacen Solo fell to the dark side and became the Sith Lord Darth Caedus in an effort to change the course of the future, he inadvertently set in motion another chain of events which culminated in the destruction of Centerpoint Station and the release of Abeloth. With the Ones dead, Abeloth was free to continue her rampage of chaos and destruction.^[4]

After Abeloth's defeat at the hands of Luke and Darth Krayt, Luke Skywalker believed that the Jedi and the Sith must perform the function of the Ones: they must keep the balance themselves. He thought it imperative that the Jedi dedicate themselves completely to the light, act on their values, and listen to the will of the Force to counter the darkness that scourged the galaxy.^[4]

Behind the scenes[]

"It gives you an inside to the detail which he gets into this issues with the force and this concepts of the bigger spiritual aspect of star wars, he's very involved, and to be honest, the writers and I feel very strongly when we are bringing this types of episodes to screen that, I mean, George has to be more involved and more involved. Because we have to get this stuff right, and everything we do, you know, I mean, we have to get this stuff right because this is The Force, I mean this is the whole ballgame."

―Dave Filoni, during Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season Three: Ghosts Of Mortis Episode Featurette^[11]

In the release of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars The Complete Season Three" in DVD and Blu-ray, during the featurette of the episode: Ghost Of Mortis, Dave Filoni explains how Darth Revan, and Darth Bane almost get into the episode, since George Lucas was: "looking for two ancient Sith lords that, you know could bring some meaning, like a upper evil influence guiding The Son" ―Dave Filoni^[11] but that at the end, George Lucas retracted this decision due to how the Sith interact with the Force. Therefore, that scene with Revan, and Bane, wasn't possible. Dave Filoni also explained the importance of George Lucas' intensive involvement in this arc, due to the extensive relation with the different aspects of the Force that it has, and how important it was for him and the crew to get all of what was presented in the arc, right.