00 | Darth Traya

Pronouns She/her Hair color: White Eye color: Black Skin color: white Affiliation(s) Jedi Order Galactic Republic Sith Sith Triumvirate Apprentices Revan (Jedi Padawan) Darth Sion (Sith apprentice) Darth Nihilus (Sith apprentice) Meetra Surik Kreia (pronounced /ˈkreɪə/) was an unconventional and highly controversial Force-sensitive who took upon herself to build a new Jedi Order of her vision in freeing the galaxy's sentient beings from being enslaved to the Force. A Human female Jedi Master and historian, Kreia wished to gain a full understanding of the Force, but her unconventional and novel approaches—including her training of the Jedi Knight Revan, who turned against the Jedi and founded a new Sith Empire—prompted a perturbed Jedi Council to exile her from the Jedi Order. Kreia's quest indeed led her astray; she sought contrast with the Jedi ways by opening herself up to the dark side of the Force, but she was overwhelmed by the darkness on the Sith world of Malachor V, where the Mandalorian Wars that Revan waged culminated in the deadly activation of the Mass Shadow Generator superweapon. The echoes of the Malachor tragedy proved overbearing, transforming Kreia into the bitter Sith Lord Darth Traya (pronounced /ˈtreɪə/).

While Revan had reclaimed his Jedi identity, helping to dismantle the Sith Empire of his own creation in the Jedi Civil War before setting for the Unknown Regions in search of the True Sith, Darth Traya consolidated a Sith Order of her own. And yet, she was betrayed once more by her own Sith apprentices, Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion—both ever-slavishly hungry for power and eager to spread death and suffering (respectively, to a certain degree) across the universe. Watching powerlessly as the two Sith Lords then led the First Jedi Purge, thereby reducing the entirety of The Jedi Order to all but a handful of individuals scattered throughout the known galaxy, Traya soon came to believe that neither the Jedi nor the Sith deserved to win their seemingly-endless war, as both groups stripped their members of all individuality and reduced them to mere dependents of the Force who then ceaselessly wrought war and devastation across the galaxy. But most of all, her experiences caused her to develop a deep-seated hatred for The Force itself and all that it represented on a philosophical level and yearn for its destruction, as she felt this would emancipate the universe from the sort of existential enslavement she believed the Force subjected it, and all its inhabitants, to. Thus, Darth Traya renounced her Sith title and persona and reverted once more to her previous identity of "Kreia"—now neither Sith nor Jedi nor anything in between, but rather something altogether outside that simplistic dichotomy.

She then found "the Jedi Exile," a Human woman named Meetra Surik, whom Kreia saw was the opposite of Revan and his mighty power in the Force. Surik the Exile was instead a void of sorts, a wound in the Force itself, having unconsciously severed her connection to it in the climax of the Battle of Malachor V, carrying with her the countless deaths and unmitigated suffering she undeniably helped wreak in its wake. As the Jedi Council, believing to have seen the "death of the Force" within Surik, cast her out of the Order, Kreia decided to seize upon this serendipitous opportunity and take her on as a student. Through the Exile, Kreia intended to rid the universe of the Force and its will, beginning with the extermination of Darths Nihilus and Sion as well as the three Jedi Council members who survived the purge. As Kreia and Surik the Exile grew acquainted with each other, the latter—who easily formed powerful bonds in the Force with others—grew increasingly attached to her new mentor, to the extent that the two became symbionts; so bonded to one another through the Force that they felt each other's pain and their lives became permanently intertwined. Aboard the light freighter Ebon Hawk, Kreia also manipulated those who would soon find themselves traveling alongside Surik and herself as part of her plans for Surik.

Kreia would aid Surik in locating Jedi Masters Vrook Lamar, Kavar, and Zez-Kai Ell—who had been the ones to originally exile Surik after refusing to fight both the Mandalorians and the Sith, partly out of fear and partly out of a zealous devotion to the prevailing Jedi dogma of their era. Surik convinced the Masters to convene within the ruins of The Dantooine Jedi Enclave, although they would deny that Surik, in letting go of the Force, had become master of her own destiny and was thus able to make her own choices independent of the Force and its seemingly inevitable Will; and declare that Surik's ability to so effortlessly bond with others meant that others grew far too easily attached to her, and would likewise carry all the pain and suffering and death of Malachor V, thereby becoming susceptible to becoming imbalanced themselves, sharing their fates with the fate of Surik herself. Frustrated at what she percieved to be the Masters' blindness, Kreia revealed her identity as the Jedi Outcast Kreia and former-Sith Lord Darth Traya and passed her judgment on the Jedi Masters, severing their own bonds to the Force. However, as they were themselves far too attached to the Force to survive without it, the Jedi died, passing on from the Living Force to the Cosmic Force. Shortly after, Kreia traveled to the secret Jedi Academy on Telos IV and exposed Jedi Master Atris' fall to the dark side, who was then confronted by Surik. After Surik persuaded Atris to let go of her dark side teachings and leave to find her human self once more, she confronted and destroyed Darth Nihilus over Telos. With the last echoes of her past laid to rest, Surik journeyed to Malachor V to confront Kreia and face her final test.

On Malachor V, Kreia once more assumed the role of Darth Traya. Asserting her dominance over Darth Sion, Traya made preparations for Surik's final test—the death of the past itself. After Surik made her way through the numerous Sith minions on Malachor V, she found Traya within the Trayus Core. Traya explained her overall goal to free the universe from the Force and its influence, as well as her hatred for it and its control over every single being's destiny. Traya told Surik that she must let go of everything other than herself to achieve her full potential: to be a truly freed individual—to live and be herself in the most pure form possible. Traya then delivered unto Surik an ultimatum: either kill her, or Traya would kill Surik. Thus, Surik was forced to betray her now-former master as her now-former master did her, thus severing their ties and letting go of each other. Ultimately, Surik would defeat Traya in the depths of the Trayus Academy, granting her death per the mentor's will. But before Traya died, she imparted a final gift—seeing through the fabrics of the Force, she told Surik of her visions of her, her companions', and indeed the entire galaxy's future.

Surik then proceeded to destroy the Trayus Academy, bringing an end to its call of darkness before leaving to the Unknown Regions in seach of Kreia's former student, Revan. Together, they would face the True Sith Emperor, Vitiate. Although they would be killed by the Sith's enforcers, Surik and Revan clung on as spirits before eventually choosing to let go of themselves for the fate of the galaxy. As Force ghosts, they passed on their legacies to the Commander of the Eternal Alliance, an individual whose organization became independent of the Force-based dogma of the Jedi and Sith Orders, uniting people of differing allegiances to forge a new galaxy free of authorities such as Emperors and wars such as the war against Zakuul. However, this apparent progress would be undone by the Third Galactic War and the New Sith Wars, as well as the era of the Sith Rule of Two. Thus, despite Kreia's ambition, the galaxy would inevitably find itself embroiled in a series of highly destructive conflicts between the light and dark sides of the Force once more. Biography: Jedi historian "I was a historian once, gathering the relics of the Jedi, learning the ancient mysteries. Always, there were more questions." ―Kreia. A female Human, Kreia (pronounced /ˈkreɪə/) was a Jedi historian and Consular who achieved the rank of Jedi Master. During her time as a member of the Jedi Order, Kreia attempted to uncover the galaxy's mysteries through meditation. Although this atrophied her easily repairable eyesight, Kreia let go of her eyesight as the historian decided that she no longer had use for it. For decades, Kreia trained many students, constantly challenging their minds with questions regarding the concept of power. Her fellow Jedi, who called her teachings "Kreia's conundrums," viewed them as quaint, whilst Kreia's students were mystified.

After Revan left Kreia's tutelage, he sought out other Jedi Masters to continue his education, apprenticing himself to Jedi Masters Zhar Lestin and Dorak. Around this time, in 3964 BBY, Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders, a group of the Mandalorian warrior culture that originated on the Outer Rim world of Mandalore, attacked the Galactic Republic. As what became known as the Mandalorian Wars waged on, Revan, who by then had attained the position of Jedi Knight, came back to Kreia as he found the Jedi teachings lacking, and sought her guidance regarding the Jedi Council, leading other rogue Jedi, including Meetra Surik, to battle the invading Mandalorians. Revan eventually took up the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith, building a new Sith Empire of his own to counter the Jedi and the Republic. Kreia believed that Revan had never "fallen" to the dark side, and that he had become the new Sith Lord—the face of the dark side as Darth Revan—and started the Jedi Civil War out of his own volition to prevent a greater evil; that as Revan was the "heart of the Force," a greater cause had come that called for certain actions to be done. As many of Kreia's students left the Jedi Order and joined the Mandalorian Wars, Kreia's teachings were believed to breed failures by the Jedi Council, including Jedi Master Atris. Because of her strong admiration for Surik and her adamant position in not entering the Mandalorian conflict, Atris felt personally betrayed by what she saw as the warring Jedi's rejection of her own beliefs. With the correlation of discovering that all of Kreia's pupils either fell to the dark side of the Force or abandoned their Jedi training, Atris led the Council in denouncing Kreia and condemning her "freethinking" teachings. By the Jedi Council's word, Kreia was exiled from the Jedi Order.

"One quickly learns that the Jedi Code does not give all the answers. If you are to truly understand, then you will need the contrast, not adherence to a single idea." ―Kreia. Silently withdrawing from the Jedi Order, Kreia began to question her own beliefs as she took those who followed her teachings with her away from the Jedi. 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 formerly 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 read indicated 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 obvious 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. She fell to the dark side of the Force and became Darth Traya, (pronounced /ˈtreɪə/) the Lord of Betrayal.

Traya also learned of a forgotten legacy of the Sith that had lurked in the Unknown Regions for 1000 years; she found that the "True Sith," a remnant of the Sith Empire, existed still in the far reaches of the galaxy. "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. Intent on continuing Revan's legacy, 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 Darth Revan's Sith Empire as his former Master, the remaining Sith troopers pledged their fealty to her as the Dark Lord of the Sith. 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' slavery to hunger and Sion's chaining to his intent on chanelling his pain on to others; his 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 whispers in his skull and teachings that he deemed to weaken the Sith, the apprentices plotted against her. Sion and Nihilus confronted her in the Trayus Core, stripped her of the Force, and exiled her. Once again, Traya had been betrayed.

"You are difficult to find, but coincidence is on our side." ―Kreia, to the exile. After casting Traya out of the Sith Triumvirate, Sion and Nihilus began an assassination campaign against the Jedi, unwittingly 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, masterminding a plot of revenge. Kreia sought Meetra Surik, also known as the Jedi Exile, her former Jedi student who served as a general under Revan during the Mandalorian Wars. Surik 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, Kreia 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 Surik'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, Surik was found by an HK-50 Jedi hunter and drugged into unconsciousness. Kreia 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 Surik 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.

Meetra Surik regained consciousness and attempted to escape the mining facility, discovering and recruiting Kreia and Atton Rand whilst doing so. The Republic warship Harbinger soon arrived, and Kreia provided her insight to Surik that it was under the control of an enemy, one who would not let them go without bloodshed. Kreia said that the assassins aboard were those who attacked the Ebon Hawk, and they arrived quicker than she expected. Together with Atton Rand, the exile deduced that the docked ship must possess the asteroid orbital drift charts to needed to plot a safe course through the Peragus asteroid field, and the trio boarded the Harbinger to take the codes, desperate to escape death. Once aboard the Harbinger, the trio took to its bridge per Rand's plan, though not before Kreia reprimanded the exile for being distracted at the airlock and thus not being mindful of the present, allowing their enemies to gather while they wasted time. Fighting their way to the warship's bridge through the occasional Sith assassins, they took the drift charts from the Harbinger's navicomputer left. However, the exile stopped by at the quarter she formerly inhabited. Telling Surik to move with haste, Kreia allowed the exile to salvage her possessions before moving on together. The exile and her companions stopped again at the ship's medical bay, finding a holorecording of a scarred man breaking out of a kolto tank there. "I sense you, my master—faint, weak." "Your senses betray you, as you betrayed me." "After all that has happened, still you live. You are difficult to kill." "For one as limited as you, perhaps. To have fallen so far and learnt nothing—that is your failing." "The failure is yours. No longer do your whispers crawl within my skull. No longer do I suffer beneath teachings that weaken us. And now you are in search of the Jedi—they are all dead, save one. And one broken Jedi cannot stop the darkness that is to come." "Perhaps… we shall see."

Proceeding to the engine deck, Atton Rand had a "bad feeling," and the trio were approached by the scarred man soon after. A Sith Lord, he said he had come to warn the exile that she knew not what path she would walk, and Kreia drew her weapon, telling the exile that this battle was hers alone, and that she was not defenseless. Before engaging the scarred man, Kreia stated that he could not kill what he could not see, and that power had blinded him long ago, and instructed the exile to run, telling her that she herself would join her shortly. A door sealed between Kreia and the exile, and the scarred man—Darth Sion—confronted his former master. To Kreia, Sion spoke of his sensing that she was faint in the Force, weak, although Kreia retorted that his senses betrayed him. She further told Sion that his failing was to have fallen so far and learnt nothing, yet the Sith Lord placed the failure on his former master. Sion told Kreia that her cause to seek the Jedi was a lost one, since they were mostly eliminated and whose hopes for survival lay in the exile, but Kreia remained staunch in her position. A duel ensued, and Kreia lost her left hand to Sion's blade. Because of her bond with Kreia, Surik felt the great pain of losing the limb herself while making her way to the Ebon Hawk alongside Atton Rand and later T3-M4. After joining the exile's party at the Ebon Hawk, Kreia said that either they trigger a chain reaction that would destroy the surrounding asteroid field and thereby escape the Sith forces, or die. As the Harbinger attempted to bring down the Ebon Hawk, it fired upon a nearby asteroid, bringing the field and the Peragus mining colony to flames. The exile's craft narrowly escaped a fiery doom and managed to jump into hyperspace, drawing past hours' series of dangers to a close.

"To stop them you will need weapons, allies, and… a teacher. In the end, I fear it may not be enough." ―Kreia, to the exile. In the safety of hyperspace, Kreia explained before the crew of the Ebon Hawk that the Republic warship that fired upon them moments ago was the Harbinger, which was originally set for Telos IV but was seized by Sith seeking to hunt down the exile, the last of the Jedi regardless of her status of being exiled; survivors of the Jedi Civil war were Jedi no longer, and they would not help Meetra Surik. Observing that many roads led to Telos, including theirs as a result of the limited range of the Peragus astrogation charts, and that a series of coincidences led to their meeting at Peragus despite the rarity of true coincidences as a result of the influence of the Force, Kreia then left to the crew quarters, and Atton Rand advised the exile to tend to Kreia, telling her that he sensed great pain rolling off Kreia, and speculating that the elder woman was too proud to show any weakness, especially to her. Furthermore, Rand told the exile his observation that what she thought mattered much to Kreia, and Kreia wanted herself to be respected by her student. On why she had felt her pain, Kreia replied to Surik that the bond between them could be fatal; if one of them died, the other would too. Bound by the hands of death, Kreia intruded upon the company of Surik, but remained vague on her ties to her former Padawan, Revan. Surik also had no way of knowing where the ship had come from, since Kreia had the only means of accessing the Ebon Hawk's navicomputer. "No game of dejarik can be won without pawns, and this may prove to be a very long game." ―Kreia.

While Surik was slowly reconnecting to the Force, Kreia began to shape the younger woman as her new pupil. She taught Surik to carefully choose between actions, asking the Jedi to view the ethical implications of all quests undertaken. Kreia 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 Surik grew in power, Kreia watched as the struggling Republic was unknowingly strengthened through the Jedi's search. During these adventures, many people came into the company of Surik, most of them sensitive to the Force. Although they were wary of Kreia, she was able to manipulate most of them to do her bidding. Because of the ease with which Surik had "called" upon these companions, the old Master had seen Surik's ability to transmit extreme echoes to those the Jedi was bound with. With Meetra Surik's power and with the knowledge of Darth Nihilus' damaged condition, Kreia intended to bring her plans into fruition. Early in her travels with the Jedi Exile, when the party was beginning to form in the secret Jedi Academy on the planet Telos IV, Kreia probed and invaded Atton Rand's mind, discovering his secrets. She blackmailed Rand, telling him that she would not reveal his secrets to Surik as long as he followed and served the Jedi. After Meetra Surik spoke with Jedi Master Atris at the Telosian Academy, she, Rand, Kreia, the Zabrak tech specialist Bao-Dur, and T3-M4 departed the Academy aboard the Ebon Hawk. T3-M4 showed Surik's crew information he downloaded from Atris's archives, in which they learned the locations of Masters Zez-Kai Ell, Vrook Lamar, Kavar, and Lonna Vash. Surik set a course for Nar Shaddaa, where Master Ell could be found. While on the moon of Nal Hutta, Kreia bound the Wookiee bounty hunter Hanharr to a life debt after his defeat at the hands of Mira, whom Kreia called "the huntress."

Kreia 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 Surik located Ell and convinced him to return to Dantooine, the Ebon Hawk's 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, Meetra Surik and her crew were forced to crash-land on Onderon's jungle moon Dxun. After they landed, Kreia reminded the crew that Dxun was where the Mandalorian Wars truly began. They ventured into the Dxun jungle in search for an alternative route to Onderon. Surik managed to enlist the assistance of Mandalore the Preserver and his Mandalorians. Before they left for Onderon, Kreia manipulated Mandalore into protecting Surik. She assisted Surik and Mandalore in defending the Mandalorian camp when a group of Sith assassins attacked the camp. Meetra Surik managed to locate Kavar on Iziz, the capital of Onderon. However, Kreia was unable to speak to him long, having been interrupted by Colonel Tobin, one of General Vaklu's commanders. After Surik made it back to Dxun, they departed the moon and went to Dantooine. The Jedi Exile successfully helped defend the Khoonda outpost against the mercenary Azkul, and spoke with Lamar. When the group was joined by the former Jedi Mical, whom Kreia referred to as "the Disciple," the Exile's teacher manipulated Mical's mind, playing tricks on his sight throughout their travels so that he was often unaware of her presence. Kreia 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, Kreia made it so that Mical would not remember her, or what he had discovered, until the time was right.

When the Ebon Hawk's crew made it back to Dxun, Kreia sensed a Sith outpost nearby, and Surik, in coordination with Mandalore's forces, dispatched three members of her party to deal with the Sith threat. Kreia, Meetra Surik, and one other party member traveled to Iziz aboard a Basilisk war droid. Kreia, along with Surik, then participated in the Onderon Civil War. After the Jedi Exile defeated General Vaklu and his forces in the royal palace, Kreia tried to convince the Exile to have Queen Talia execute her unarmed cousin, Kreia claiming that Vaklu was too dangerous to be left alive. Meetra Surik, while respecting her counsel, 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, Kreia realized that Surik would be a threat to her former Sith Triumvirate. She revived the deceased Tobin, who had been killed by a drexl larva when Tobin and his forces tried to breach the queen's throne room. Kreia 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 Meetra Surik spoke with Jedi Master Kavar, the Exile and Kreia returned to Dxun, where Surik was told by her teacher that they needed to go to Dantooine and meet the Jedi Masters at the Jedi Academy's ruins.