What Was The Battle Of Jedha?

Star Wars

Nov 28

The pivot point for Phase 2 of The High Republic, the Battle of Jedha was a devastating conflict that broke out in Jedha City, fueled by several different factors and factions.

Initially planned to be a smaller conflict by the chief instigators, the Mother of the Path of the Open Hand and her agent Tilson Graf, the betrayal of the Herald of the Path led to riots that turned the violence back onto the Path, while also increasing the chaos that allowed its agents to act at the Mother’s behest to locate a specific prize.

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At the end of the conflict, the city was left in ruins to slowly rebuild over the coming years, while many parties turned their attention to the Path of the Open Hand. Today, CultureSlate runs down the origins, events, and aftermath of the Battle of Jedha.

Inciting Incident

The plot to sow chaos in Jedha City began weeks before the events of the Battle. Elecia Zeveron, the Mother of the Path of the Open Hand, sent agents to begin stealing Force-related artifacts from across the city. This helped make her a profit by selling the artifacts and helped set the different religious groups against each other.

But the point where things began to go wrong in a more public way was the arrival of the peace summit for the worlds of Eiram and E’ronoh. Set to be moderated by Morton San Tekka, the first day of the summit had barely begun when a bomb contained within a droid was sent into the meeting space, killing Morton and causing a significant rise in tensions between the two sides. It was not the only bomb though, as several others exploded at different spots and times across the city in the coming days.

Jedi Master Creighton Sun and Jedi Knight Aida Forte, assisted by locals and the visiting Jedi Master Silandra Sho, started investigating. In the background, the Path of the Open Hand moved into Jedha. They opened an almshouse for the public and sent their members across the city to preach their message against using the Force. Silandra Sho later met with the Mother but found herself overwhelmed by an unknown sensation (likely the Great Leveler) and beat a hasty retreat.

Elsewhere, an investigation into the theft of artifacts was undertaken by Master Vildar Mac and Padawan Matthea Cathley, with an antagonistic relationship to the vigilante Tey Sirrek who was also seeking answers about the thefts. However, a key moment came when Tey snuck into the Temple of the Kyber and found a bomb.

He was unable to disarm it, so it caused significant damage as well as one death, Archivist Zumeg. This was one of the many bombs to explode across the city, and significantly injured Master Mac in the process. However, he was able to recover with the healing expertise of a member of the Convocation. This council of half a dozen Force-based religions was established to help promote unity between the different sects in the city but quickly became disliked.

They had planned the Festival of Balance, an event to celebrate harmony and the Force in Jedha City, where the peace summit between Eiram and E’ronoh would be concluded, though these efforts were spiralling out of control due to the aforementioned bombings. Meanwhile, Tey Sirrek was incarcerated by the Guardians of the Whills who guarded the Temple of the Kyber as it was believed he had set the bomb.

The Riots

In the wake of Morton San Tekka’s death, the Path of the Open Hand tried to intervene in the search for an impartial mediator between Eiram and E’ronoh. The suggestion of one of their Elders was rebuffed, and the Republic presence ultimately chose the recently arrived Tilson Graf who, unknown to any, had helped to organize the bombings and was in league with the Mother.

The wider Path was left offended by the rejection of their effort to help, and due to prior tension between the Mother and the Herald, Elecia unknowingly lost control of her “ally.” Sent to petition for the Path to join the Convocation, the Herald went rogue, antagonizing the group before he marched outside and performed a fiery speech denouncing the Convocation.

He brought the truth to the people, as the Convocation had attempted to lie that some of the recent explosions were mere accidents, but also laced it with Path ideology, rejecting the Jedi and Force users. The guards tried to arrest him, but seeing him so publically removed, the crowd began to riot.

This unrest became worse when the hidden Yana Ro unleashed the Great Leveler into the crowd. Anyone with a connection to the Force, from the Jedi to the Sorcerers of Tund to other, Force-sensitive citizens, began to go mad, their powers wildly fluctuating, causing the average citizens to fight against them. The Leveler also hunted, consuming several people, Silandra Sho briefly on its trail before losing it in the crowded city. The Herald escaped, but his goal had been accomplished: chaos would reign in Jedha City.

Immediate Consequences

As the riots spread, the delegates from the worlds of Eiram and E’ronoh were meeting to finally secure peace at the signing ceremony for the rocky conference. Further bombings that had attempted to kill each ambassador had everyone on edge, and just as the meeting began, the riots in the city suddenly overflowed into and around the conference hall.

The ceremony was disrupted, and the ambassador from E’ronoh turned away from signing the peace deal, only to suddenly be gunned down by blaster fire when a speeder broke into the room and delivered an assassin. Seeing that the person was wearing a uniform of Eiram’s military, the E’ronoh ambassador's guards immediately attacked the Eiram delegation, fully breaking the peace between the planets. Jedi Master Creighton Sun helped get the Eiram ambassador to safety, only to have her openly speak of deploying her forces into the city. Defeated, and desperate, Creighton and his fellow Jedi Aida Forte resolved to contact the Republic as the situation was now officially out of control. Meanwhile, Tilso Graf had suspiciously vanished.

Outside of the halls of power, the riotous crowd had begun to diverge. While portions of the population remain inspired by the Herald’s words and continue to act out against the Jedi and different Force-based religions, a number of people began to blame the Path of the Open Hand for what has been happening.

After all, the Herald was one of their leaders, and other suspicious events as well as the Path’s overt dislike of the Force faiths had turned them into a target. Elecia’s plan had only been for warfare to break out between Eiram and E’ronoh, so this direct attack on her people was completely unexpected and seriously stalled her escape attempt. The Path’s almshouse became a target, and just as Vildar Mac and Matthea Cathley arrived, a mortar strike caved in the almshouse roof, trapping Master Mac and other survivors under the rubble. The Battle of Jedha had officially begun.

The Battle of Jedha

Across the city, the forces of both Eiram and E’ronoh were unleashed against each other, and the city populace was trapped between them while the riots continued to tear through the streets and target Jedi, Path members, and others. Eiram benefited from recently acquiring a large unit of enforcer droids sold to them by Tilson Graf, while E’ronoh benefited from their larger war machinery designed for rugged terrain. Each planet’s fleet of ships also clashed in the skies above Jedha, strafing the surface or individual fighters crashing into the buildings far below. Through all of this chaos ran the Jedi, chasing down Tilson Graf and looking to disarm or disable the majority of the military threats that threatened the city.

First, there was Tilson Graf. Tracked back to a faith center for the Dark Side cult called the Brothers of the Ninth Door, Tilson ultimately escaped again, forcing Silandra Sho to face and kill the leader of the Brothers on Jedha. During this sequence, it was revealed that the Brothers can cast illusions on their faces, helping explain some of the mysteries of the bombings where witnesses all saw different suspicious people near the denotation sites. Their connection to Tilson Graf was confirmed, though Tilson met his end when he ran to the Mother seeking her protection. Aware that she had used him, he didn’t care, only wanting to survive, but she then shot him dead before quickly leaving the scene of the crime.

Next were the military forces at play on the ground. Aida Forte and Creighton Sun, with the assistance of the Guardians of the Whills who had been rallied to the defense of the city by Tey Sirrek (more on that shortly), spread out across the city to strike at both sides of the conflict. Multiple hordes of droids were defeated, while Aida effectively disarmed the massive E’ronoh artillery that would have devastated the city further. By the time Creighton and Aida regrouped, they were forced to rush to the city's central square, where the two warring sides were committed to a pitched battle.

They leapt in and implored both sides to stop, just as the Republic and many more Jedi from Coruscant finally arrived after communication failures had temporarily isolated Jedha, allowing so much chaos to happen. Despite the swell of peacekeeping forces and Jedi, the two sides resumed their fighting, so the Jedi used the Force to hold dozens of blaster bolts in place while Master Sun stepped out and again advocated for peace. Finally, the soldiers listened, and threw down their arms, beginning a slow de-escalation of hostilities on the ground.

Lastly was the conflict in the air. The resolution for this situation was highly unorthodox and came about when Jedi Padawan Sav Malagán piloted a Spiral-class Viz-Core Eviscerator through most of the Eiram and E’ronoh fleets, disabling countless engines without any casualties and causing many ships to crash into the desert surrounding Jedha City.

The Padawan’s arrival over Jedha had been fortuitous, as she had infiltrated a criminal gang who planned to help Tilson’s plots against the peace treaty, specifically by delivering multiple Eviscerators for use in the battle. Instead, they only delivered one, and it was used by Sav to unknowingly thwart the plans of the enemy. In the end, the conflict devastated the city, but the most important events were taking place both at the heart and at the fringe of the urban center.

The Hidden Vault

As the riots began, and the militaries of both warring worlds deployed to Jedha’s surface, agents of the Path of the Open Hand began their hunt. First, they targeted the Temple of the Kyber, protected by the Guardians of the Whills. Forcing their way inside, the imprisoned Tey Sirrek helped fight the intruders before they suddenly retreated, realizing their prize was not there.

While the captain of the guard was about to throw Tey back into the cells, an impassioned plea from Tey about protecting the city (the reason he’d left the Guardians some time ago) pushed the warriors into action, fanning out across the city to help the Jedi and citizens in their time of need. Tey himself traveled to the remains of the almshouse, helping save Vildar Mac and those others trapped, before escorting everyone to the tap bar called Enlightenment, which became a refuge in the crisis. But, just as everyone was getting settled, Vildar Mac received a desperate call from Jedi Knight Oliviah Zeveron at the edge of the city. She and Matty’s Master, Leebon, had rushed out to try and prevent the toppling of the Final Protector, the last of four giant statues of Jedi that had once sat around Jedha City. They had failed, rioters blowing charges to send the sculpture toppling into the sand.

But this exposed something the Jedi had kept hidden from everyone living on the Pilgrim Moon, even many of their own number: a Jedi vault dominated by a Bogan collection, made up of many Dark Side artifacts. It was this vault that the Path now broke into, seeking the Rod of Daybreak to unite with the Rod currently in the Path's possession. Tey Sirrek and Vildar Mac rushed out to the statue, helping an injured Oliviah before then diving into the vault.

They then witnessed the Great Leveler consume Master Leebon, before they were forced to fight. In the scuffle, the just-formed Rod of Power was broken in two once again by Tey Sirrek, while the artifact known as the Hand of Siberus also fell into his possession, which he used to force the Great Leveler to retreat from its near-consumption of Vildar. With Marda Ro suddenly calling her cousin Yana, the Evereni took off with half of the Rod and some of the other Path members, leaving the Herald to face Vildar alone. The Jedi almost gave in to the Dark Side while wearing the Hand of Siberus himself, before he defeated the Herald, discarded the Hand, and acquired the Rod.

Aftermath

The Path of the Open Hand fled from Jedha, ragged and mauled but not defeated. Quickly blamed as the instigators of the riots and as thieves of Force artifacts, the Mother pushed all the blame onto the Herald, paying a massive donation to the Convocation before setting a course back to Dalna. Yana Ro was forced to remain on Jedha to recover the half of the Rod that had fallen out of the Path’s possession, which she successfully did.

A traitor was among the ranks of the Guardians of the Whills, another archivist, who got Yana to the imprisoned Herald with the desired Rod, only for the Herald to stab this man, killing him, before being freed. The pair then fled back to Dalna. As for the city, with the Herald blamed and the populace coming to terms with the terrible events, Vildar Mac proposed the Festival of Balance take place regardless. But instead of light festivities, it would be focused on everyone helping everyone else, cleaning up, and rebuilding the devastated city. This suggestion was taken up by the citizenry, and a short time after, Tey Sirrek accepted Vildar’s offer of joining the Convocation as a representative for those without the Force.

Vildar himself would be taking Master Leebon’s old spot, and one of their first orders of business would be to investigate the Path of the Open Hand. Too much had happened to let the group simply leave and claim the Herald was responsible for everything that had happened. So, while Creighton Sun and Aida Forte left on a mission to learn more, Matthea Cathley and Oliviah Zeveron left on a similar mission though totally independent from each other.

Elsewhere, the heirs to Eiram and E’ronoh also chose to go seek out the Path, after a new plot by the Mother to help restart the Forever War back in Eiram-E’ronoh space was foiled. All of these missions, and others, converged on Dalna and would bring about the Night of Sorrow, another savage battle with long-lasting consequences for the era of the High Republic.

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