CHIEF ARCHIVISTS OF THE JEDI ORDER
The Chief Archivist is the primary Jedi Lore Keeper who oversees the collection of Force-related knowledge and maintains the Archives of the Jedi Temple. The position was created following the fall of the Great Jedi Library on Ossus in order to recollect the information that was lost and to ensure its future safety. While some prospective Jedi may view such as position to be “boring” or mundane, it is nonetheless a valuable position within the ranks of the Order and those who hold it are greatly respected for their duty.
Atris (-3951 BBY)
Atris served as both Chief Librarian and a member of the Jedi Council during the Mandalorian Wars and the Second Sith War that followed. An icy human woman, Atris was a conservative Jedi and a strong advocate for restrictive policies — such as forbidding romantic attachments and limiting the number of apprentices a Master could take at one time — in the hopes of preventing the rise of another Sith Lord. For all of her arrogance however, the Sith eventually did return in the form of Darth Revan and Darth Malak.
Although Revan was eventually redeemed and Malak defeated, the Sith remained a threat to the Republic. Four years after the Second Sith War, Jedi were being hunted down and killed by a mysterious force. In the hopes of drawing out this unseen evil, Atris called for a convocation of Jedi on the planet Katarr and secretly leaked the location of the meeting. It was Atris’ belief that the sheer number of Jedi present at Katarr would be enough to vanquish whatever dark force was hunting the Jedi. Unfortunately, that force turned out to be Darth Nihilus, who proceeded to overwhelm the Jedi and ravage the planet of Katarr, killing all of the Jedi who were present.
As one of the few remaining Jedi survivors, Atris went into hiding on the planet Telos Four, starting a secret Jedi academy and training a group of Echani half-sisters in the hopes of one day rebuilding the Jedi Order. A year after the disaster at Katarr, the Jedi Exile Meetra Surik came to Telos in search of the lost Jedi. Atris, who had once been close friends with Surik before the latter had joined the Revanchists in the Mandalorian Wars, had a bitter reunion with the Exile but eventually agreed to help her in her quest. Conflicted with self-doubt over her past decisions, Atris was manipulated by Kreia — in fact the Sith Lord Darth Traya — into embracing the fact that she had betrayed the Jedi and in turn had been betrayed by herself. Taking on the name “Darth Traya” for herself, Atris later clashed with Surik when the latter returned to Telos but was eventually defeated by the Jedi Exile. Seeing the error of her ways, Atris elected to exile herself from the Jedi Order and remained in the custody of her own sanctum until she could be judged by the reformed Jedi Council, just as Surik had been judged by her many years ago.
Mical (after 3951 BBY)
Born on a colony world in the Mid Rim, Mical was brought to the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine to be trained in the ways of the Force. During his time there, he was tutored by Meetra Surik, whom he greatly admired and hoped would one day take him on as her apprentice. However, by the time Mical was ready to be fully trained, Surik had gone off to fight against the Mandalorians. With no Master available to train him, Mical ended up serving in the Galactic Republic as an intelligence operative.
After the Second Sith War and the Jedi Purge that followed, Mical took it upon himself to preserve the knowledge of the Jedi in the hopes their Order could one day be rebuilt. He eventually crossed paths with his old mentor Meetra Surik and joined her in her mission to defeat the Sith Triumvirate. In the aftermath of the Dark Wars, Mical and the rest of Surik’s companions helped see to the rebuilding of the Jedi Order, even after Surik herself departed to find Revan. In time, Mical became Chief Archivist of the rebuilt Jedi Archives and would eventually take a seat on the new Jedi Council.
Irma Yorr (fl. 3699-3681 BBY)
Gnost-Dural (fl. 3653 BBY)
A Kel Dor from the planet Dorin, Gnost-Dural was trained in the ways of the Force by Jedi Knight Zane Carran. By the time Gnost-Dural was knighted, the Sith Empire had reemerged from hiding and commenced its invasion on the Republic. In the early years of the Great Galactic War, Gnost-Dural led the Republic on the front-lines against the Sith, although he would often petition the Jedi Council to let him return to Coruscant and conduct research on the Sith at the Archives in the hopes of determining who was behind the resurgent Sith Empire and how the Jedi would be able to stop him.
Eventually, the Council heeded his wishes and Gnost-Dural went straight to the work, tracing the Sith’s history from the fall of the Sith Triumvirate all the way to the Hundred Year Darkness. He eventually reached the conclusion that the Sith Emperor behind the invading Sith force was the ancient Dark Lord Naga Sadow, back from the dead, though this theory would later be debunked when further knowledge on the Sith Emperor’s nature was discovered decades later.
Following the Sacking of Coruscant, Gnost-Dural migrated to Tython with the rest of the Jedi Order and was eventually named Chief Librarian and Lore Keeper of the new Jedi Archives, continuing his studies and research. At some point he took on the Falleen woman Kana Terrid as his apprentice, though she would later fall to the dark side while infiltrating the ranks of the Sith Empire and becoming the Sith Lord Darth Karrid. In 3640 BBY, Gnost-Dural was forced to confront his former Padawan while aiding Republic agent Theron Shan on a mission to stop Darth Karrid’s superweapon, the Ascendant Spear.
When the Eternal Empire emerged from the Unknown Regions and attacked both the Republic and the Empire, the Jedi Order’s numbers were left thinned. Gnost-Dural, one of the few surviving members of the Jedi Council, established a secret colony on Ossus along with Jedi Master Tau Idair. In 3628 BBY, he and the colony accepted the help of Eternal Alliance commander Larisa in fending off the Sith Empire’s invasion on Ossus.
Tolada Boorr (3542-3439 BBY)
A female Ithorian, Tolada Boorr was one of the oldest sitting members of the Jedi Council by the time of the Desolation War, having served as Chief Librarian for a century. Master Boorr was infamous among Jedi learners for her droning voice and tendency to go into great detail about historic events, earning her the nickname “Master Bore” among younglings and Padawans. Regardless of how Jedi youths perceived her, Boorr was a respected and valued member of the Jedi Order, with many on the Council looking to her for wisdom.
When Jedi Master Dion Sazon came to Master Boorr in search of forbidden knowledge, Boorr refused to indulge him, knowing full well the dangers contained within those teachings and unwilling to allow history to repeat itself. She informed the Council of Sazon’s endeavors and the Pau’an was eventually banished from the Jedi Order. Ten years later, he resurfaced as the Sith Lord Darth Desolous and waged war against the Republic.
In 3439 BBY, Master Boorr and the rest of the Jedi Council set up a trap for Darth Desolous at Yaga Minor. Due to her advanced age, Boorr did not believe she would be a capable enough fighter against the Dark Lord of the Sith but nonetheless joined her fellow Jedi in the fight against Desolous. During the ensuing battle, Boorr was one of the first to fall as Desolous unleashed his personal rage against her in a volley of Force lightning.
Barra-Rona-Ban (-990 BBY)
Barra-Rona-Ban was a Cerean male Jedi Master who served as Chief Librarian during the final years of the New Sith Wars.
Restelly Quist (990 BBY-)
Restelly Quist succeeded Barra-Rona-Ban as Chief Librarian following the Cerean’s retirement. As head of the Council of First Knowledge, Master Quist recognized the need for wisdom among her fellow Jedi and believed that students did not focus enough on their studies due to the turmoil the Sith Wars had brought. Confident that the Sith had been vanquished for good, Quist brought swift reform the Jedi Archives and helped pen the book The Jedi Path, which detailed the steps one must take in order to become a Jedi Knight.
Jocasta Nu (52-19 BBY)
Raised at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, Jocasta Nu was a firebrand Jedi known for her strength and determination. Having served as Chief Librarian since her mid-thirties, Jocasta was greatly confident of the information contained by the Archives and strongly believed that anything that could not be found in the Archives’ files simply did not exist.
During her tenure as Chief Librarian, Jocasta served on the Jedi Council for ten years before stepping down so as to focus on her duties at the Archives. Shortly before the outbreak of the Clone Wars, she provided assistance for the Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi in his search for the planet Kamino, which had secretly been deleted from the archives from the former Jedi (and Jocasta’s former peer) Count Dooku. At the end of the Clone Wars, she was killed by fallen Jedi Anakin Skywalker as he led the attack on the Jedi Temple at the onset of the Great Jedi Purge.
Appa Nakil (10-26 ABY)
Born nearly a century before the rise of the Empire, Appa Nakil’s Force-sensitivity was hidden from the Jedi Order out of resentment for the Order keeping Oppo Rancisis away from his birthright at the Blood Monarch of Thisspias. Following the Jedi Purge, Nakil underwent a personal mission to recover Jedi artifacts and preserve the Order’s history as much as he could. This eventually led him to cross paths with Luke Skywalker following the Battle of Endor and, under Skywalker’s tutelage, Nakil went on the become a founding member of the New Jedi Order as well as the first Chief Librarian of the restored Jedi Archives.
After the Imperial Sith War, Nakil stepped down from his position and retired to Thisspias. For reasons unknown, he ended up joining the Sith Order of Darth Sedriss, taking on the name Lord Serpriss, though he was notably less attuned to the dark side than his fellow Sith Lords. In 41 ABY, he accompanied fellow ex-Jedi Viron to warn the Jedi Council of Varon Krul’s plot, only to be confronted and killed by his former apprentice Odan Murk, secretly one of Varon’s followers.
Tionne (26 ABY-)
Born on the planet Rindao, Tionne grew up listening to stories of the Jedi, imparted onto her by her grandmother. When the Empire executed her grandmother for spreading knowledge of the Jedi, Tionne escaped and spend the next several years traveling in search of more knowledge on the Jedi. Around 11 ABY, she received a tip on the location of Exis Station, which once housed a Jedi concave thousands of years ago, and asked her informant to seek out Luke Skywalker for reimbursement. In return, Luke sought out Tionne himself and offered to train her at the new Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4. Tionne agreed and, together with her master Appa Nakil, reconstructed the Jedi Archives from the combined lore the two of them had collected since the Jedi Purge.
After Master Nakil stepped down, Tionne was elevated to the position of Chief Librarian and granted her former master’s seat on the Jedi Council, continuing to expand the Archives and educate students on Jedi lore, ensuring that the legacy of the Jedi would be remembered for generations to come.
NOTES
Atris was introduced in the 2004 video game Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, as was her successor Mical.
Gnost-Dural was created for the MMORPG The Old Republic. His master, Zane Carran, is an original character made for a Gnost-Dural-centered story that I never finished.
Tolada Boorr is an original character created to flesh out the backstory of Darth Desolous.
Barra-Rona-Ban first appeared in the second Darth Bane novel, Rule of Two.
Restelly Quist originates from the guidebook The Jedi Path.
Jocasta Nu debuted in Episode II Attack of the Clones.
Appa Nakil is an original character designed for the New Jedi Order’s alternate history in the Destiny Universe.
Tionne is from the Jedi Academy Trilogy of books and is the first known Chief Librarian of the Jedi Archives.
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