- "Knowledge is its own purpose. And knowledge is power."
- ―Darth Maestus
Eve Sariis was a Human female Jedi Master thousands of years before the rise of the Galactic Empire. Eve served as a Jedi historian, seeking out and recovering Sith artifacts for the Council of First Knowledge. Her obsession with tales of the first Sith Empire, and the even more ancient Celestials, led her to fall to the dark side and take a new name, Darth Maestus. Her fascination with the planet Lehon was to be the death of her, her quest meeting its end in the halls of the first Star Chamber—where she was struck down in a battle of wills with the shade of Okemi, who had been driven mad by the those he'd sacrificed to prolong his life.
Following her death, Maestus's spirit lived on in her holocron, corrupting Xanos Zorrixor millennia later in 25 ABY, twisting him into Darth Vexatus. She played a pivotal role in provoking Vexatus and Trevarus Caerick's betrayal of the Brotherhood in 29 ABY, which culminated in the Battle of Lehon that left both Master and apprentice dead. However, Vexatus's death had been her intent all along, for she merely sought the key to unlocking what she saw as the path to omniscience.
Biography
Life as a Jedi
- "If the dark side is not stronger, there must be a reason why so many Jedi have fallen. Looking at the craft involved in their construction, and the harm they do to the wearer, I would hardly call these artifacts a 'quick and easy path', would you?"
- ―Eve Sariis, Jedi Master
The fragment of the Star of Ombus.Eve Sariis was always obsessed with ancient history, some of her earliest memories being the stories her father told her of the Celestials and Killiks who once lived on Alderaan, long, long ago. Even as a young Padawan, she spent most of her time immersed in the Archives—and later the holocrons stored in Holocron Chamber after she became a Jedi Master. When she was not buried under ancient scrolls written in archaic tongues, she was off recovering Sith artifacts to be safely locked away in the Jedi Temple where they could do no harm. Her obsession with the history of the first Sith Empire slowly led her to covet the artifacts she brought back, wishing that she could examine them, sure they were not all as dangerous as the Council would have her believe. Her moral relativism and solipsism led her to regularly challenge her masters, but none sensed anything in her beyond a healthy inquisitiveness, and some even praised her willingness to question why the Order had lost so many to the dark side over the years—and in turn how to avoid it.
Obsessions
The song of the void
- "The song . . . can't you hear it? The voices, so many voices . . . it's beautiful."
- ―Eve Sariis, Jedi Master
Eve's fall to the dark side began when she discovered a fragment of the Star of Ombus on Kalakar 6 in the Dromund system. She'd read accounts of similar shards but never expected to find one herself. The song of the Ombi ghosts imprisoned inside proved too much to resist; she had to touch it, hear the immortalised elegy of the souls longing to be freed. Upon brushing the crystal's surface, she felt a rush of understanding and realized the power of the dark side was not a lie and that the Jedi were wrong to pretend otherwise. After returning the stone to the Jedi Temple, she took to studying it, paying no consideration to her master's warnings. They had not experienced what she had. She knew if that much dark side energy could be trapped in a small fragment, then it was imperative they locate the original source. That much power was too much to leave unchecked for others who would abuse its power, as whoever had died on Kalakar 6 evidently had.
The Archives accounts of similar fragments turned up little that Eve's own examinations on the stone revealed. The fragments were by all accounts completely indestructible, with no known means by which to unmake them. They all spoke of the same song; although reactions varied from the same divine majesty she heard, to a horrifying cacophony, angry at the outside world. There were records of some of the order's earlier historians losing their lives when a stone spontaneously caught fire, bursting with violet flames instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with Sith sorcery. Eve was not the first to speculate that the stones were somehow linked. And like her, none knew where the stones originated from. Her obsession started to take its toll. Her masters grew increasingly worried at the long hours she spent buried in the Archives, sometimes going entire days without food, nights without sleep. She had all but ceased going out to recover other artifacts. But she was adamant her work was too important. Knowledge was power, and she claimed the knowledge of the dead was not for the misguided tomb robbers who plundered Sith ruins.
From Foerost to Ord Radama, Eve's search for answers led her from the Deep Core to the edges of Wild Space. The fragment never left her side, and she fashioned it into a necklace that she kept on her at all times. With her search proving in vain, she decided to journey to the world of Pelgrin, access to which had been restricted to members of the Jedi Order after the discovery of the Oracle, an ancient device which was said to offer glimpses of the future. In the central chamber of the Oracle, Eve saw a a white temple on a tropical world inhabited by a species of hammer-headed aliens—and another temple of similar design on a desolate planet wracked with storms. Upon her return to Coruscant, she discussed the visions with the masters on the Circle of First Knowledge, but they professed to know nothing of the alien species and so she was forced to continue her quest in vain, much to the Council's growing concern.
Karax 4
- "We see from beyond the stars... through the glittering of a million eyes... in a sea of glass..."
- ―The song of the nameless ones
The ruined fortress on Karax 4.After many years of searching, on the edges of the Unknown Regions, Eve finally tracked down the second planet in her visions, the haunted world of Karax 4. The planet had long been devastated by ancient rituals and sorceries, however it still carried the stain, the planet's surface wracked with never-ending storms and volcanic eruptions as if the entire core was ready to crack open and shatter into a thousand of pieces, much like the original stone itself once had. There, in a cave completely in a layer of black ice, she found a sword frozen solid, its blade shimmering with the same darkly violet light that burned within her locket. The sword cried out with the same choir of voices, only where the fragment contained maybe hundreds, this contained untold millions. And it was not a sorrowful elegy, it was the harrowed cry of the dead, clawing at the walls of their cage, demanding to be set loose. The markings on the sword—as well as, judging by the blood, apparently scratched into the ice—were written in no language she recognized, though the skeletons that lined the chamber, seemingly starved of life, resembled species she was intimately familiar with; Twi'leks, Wookiees, Iktotchi, and more; innumerate tomb robbers who had paid the price for their greed.
After several weeks trying, Eve was eventually forced to concede that she would never budge the sword from its frozen cell. Like the stone that had started her quest all those years earlier, the ice was not of this world but an embodiment of the dark side itself, as if it had poured forth from the sword's final resting place and over the years slowly encased the rest of the caverns. Eve had no choice but to return empty handed, no closer to the answer she sought to the fragment's origins—however she now knew the sword was part of it. She returned to the Archives, once more burying herself in the ancient texts and Sith scrolls, searching for anything that might shed light on her discovery—though she kept her discover to herself, unwilling to reveal the sword's existence for fear some misguided Jedi would entertain going after it and thus join the other corpses that lined its underground labyrinth. Through her study, eventually she found what she was searching for: the Rakata. Theirs was the language engraved on the blade. She translated the runes to learn of the planet Lehon, which she discovered had been deliberately erased from Republic star-charts by order of the Jedi Council to prevent anyone from finding it again and following in the paths of the Revanchist and Alek Squinquargesimus.
Expulsion from the Jedi Order
- "It was not knowledge that led Revan to the dark side: it was the High Council's apathy. The same apathy that blinds this Council now."
- ―Eve Sariis, Jedi Master, chastising the Council of First Knowledge for refusing her access to the Holocron Vault
The holocron that Eve stole from the Jedi Temple's vault.Eve brought what she had learnt before the Council of First Knowledge and asked she be allowed access to the most restricted holocrons stored in the Holocron Vault—those which would still contain the deleted star-charts mapping the old Sith Empires. Her petition was denied, however, and she was told to leave Lehon be for some things were best forgotten. Furthermore, they took the fragment of the Star of Ombus she wore and placed it in the vault, stating that it was time she moved on and abandoned her futile quest for she had grown too attached to the artifact. But Eve had come too far to turn back now, not now she knew the secrets of one of the ancient civilisations that pre-dated the Republic were somehow linked to the same corruption that continued to turn countless Jedi to the dark side. The childhood stories her father had told her of the Celestials came back and she realized there was only one option: if the Council would not part with the information willingly, then she would just have to take it. Eve broke into the Holocron Vault and stole one of the holocrons which had once belonged to Darth Malak, and which she was convinced would house the key to retracing the path Malak and his master had followed millennia before.
Having taken the holocron, Eve fled Coruscant, knowing the Council would never understand and instead dispatch Jedi Shadows to come after her. Forced to stay ahead of her hunters, Eve studied what she could of the holocron, finding that Malak had not been the first to possess it and, thus, it only contained a partial account of his knowledge. She learnt more of Lehon, but either the holocron was reluctant to disclose its location to anyone but a Sith Lord, or else it did not know. Instead, the avatar merely spoke of the Star Maps the Rakata had left littered throughout the galaxy which when reconstructed could show to way to their lost homeworld. The Shadows finally caught up with her on Bakkah where she was captured and the holocron lost.
Eve was taken back to the Jedi Temple where the Council of Reconciliation passed judgment on her. Though the Council did not believe Eve had yet fallen to the dark side, they had learnt from the mistakes of the decisions of the Old Sith Wars, and hence why the Sith had not been seen in over a thousand years. Recognizing she knew too much for one so brash and impulsive by knowing the locations of countless buried artifacts, they took the only action they deemed appropriate: they severed her connection to the Force, expelling her from the Jedi Order with the choice to either redeem herself in the Exploration Corps or else return to a normal life. Eve was infuriated. She accused the Council of the same ignorant dismissal as their predecessors when they hadn't heeded the Revanchist's warnings and allowed the Sith Emperor to build up his armies in secret—resulting in the Great War. Refusing to accept her sentence, Eve called on the power of the fragment still locked in the vault, appealing to the souls trapped within to help her. As if summoned, the amulet flew into her grasp and she leapt from the Tower of Reconciliation and fled the galactic capital, never to return.
Embracing the Sith Code
Eve Sariis after falling to the dark side and becoming Darth Maestus.To be completed.
Death
To be completed.
The circle of history
Maestus's ghost after being released from her holocron.To be finished.
Trivia