The Jedi Knights
Because of the close relationship the Jedi have with the Force not everyone can
|
|
become a Jedi. To display Jedi potential candidates must have a high level of midi-chlorians in their blood. Those that do begin their training as infants, leaving all family ties behind them.
At the age of 13 successful candidates are paired with a Jedi Knight or Master, becoming their Padawan learner or apprentice. A Jedi can only have one Padawan at a time, and instructs them for many years until they are ready to face the trials. Those apprentices that successfully complete the trials attain the rank of Jedi Knight, and can tutor their own Padawan learners.
The highest rank of Jedi is that of Master, and to attain this a Jedi must have demonstrated exceptional dedication to the Order and all that is represents. The Jedi Council is chosen only from the ranks of Jedi Masters.
The Jedi dress in simple brown and white robes, and use the elegant and devastating lightsaber as a weapon. A Jedi Knight or Master is at one with the Force, and can use it for many purposes, from moving heavy objects to manipulating the behaviour of others; the famous Jedi mind trick.
Such is level of commitment required to become a Jedi Knight that only twenty Jedi have ever renounced the Order voluntarily, and all Jedi mourn these ‘Lost Twenty'.
Throughout a Jedi's life the threat of the dark side of the Force is ever present. The antithesis of the Jedi are the Sith, Jedi who have been seduced by the dark side and who work ceaselessly to destroy the Jedi Order.
The Sith were a menace long thought extinct, until an encounter by Jedi Master Qui-Gonn Jinn with the Sith Lord Darth Maul on the desert planet Tatooine. Maul was eventually killed by Qui-Gonn's Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi, but the Jedi Council were well aware that Sith lore dictated that the Dark Lords always came in pairs; master and apprentice.
For many years no further evidence of the Sith appeared, but the Jedi Council became increasingly alarmed that the influence of the dark side was growing. A Separatist movement spread violent dissent throughout the Republic, and the Jedi found their ability to use the Force to prevent such uprisings weakening.
The Jedi ranks were spread thin by the time the Clone Wars began on the planet Geonosis, and the few remaining Jedi Knights and Masters could not prevent the fall of the Old Republic and the rise of the Empire.
One of the first acts of Emperor Palpatine, himself a Sith Lord, was to order his apprentice Darth Vader to exterminate the remaining Jedi. Few survived Vader's purge, Master Yoda going into hiding on the swamp planet Dagobah, and Obi-Wan Kenobi becoming a hermit on Tatooine.
The resurgence of the Jedi Order began when Obi-Wan and Yoda trained the young Luke Skywalker in the ways of the Force. Luke would eventually be instrumental in the fall of the Empire and rise of the New Republic, finally bringing to an end the Sith's reign of terror in the Galaxy.
The Jedi Code
There is no emotion; there is peace.
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
There is no passion; there is serenity.
There is no death; there is the Force
The Jedi Ranking System
Jedi Youngling (Initiate)
Jedi Padawan (Apprentice)
Jedi Knight
Jedi Master
Jedi Council Member
Jedi Grand Master