A Great Jedi War (GJW) is a club-wide vendetta comprised usually of several smaller events that tie together into an overall storyline. Clans battle against clans for awards decided by the Dark Council. In Brotherhood history, there have been eleven Great Jedi Wars thus far.
The First Brotherhood Civil War marked the first outbreak of hostilities between the clans and houses of the Brotherhood. Under the reign of Justinian Khyron, Chancellor Morgoth brought the clans into direct conflict in 14 ABY, for reasons that have been lost to time, although it is suspected that it was due to the Star Chamber's initial intrusion into clan affairs. Clan Satal Keto narrowly emerged the victor, and was awarded the Orthanc for their valor.
The valuable crystal
Also known as Crystal Dreams, the Second Great Jedi War erupted in 15 ABY when a valuable crystal was stolen from the Brotherhood. Thinking of it was one of their own, the clans erupted into a civil war, during which time Lord Khyron returned and replaced Stryker as Dark Lord. Eventually, it was revealed that the theft was actually orchestrated by Auroran pirates, who were quickly eliminated. The war was won by the then Independent House Ektrosis.
When Thedek departed as Grand Master in 17 ABY, loyalty to the Dark Council and Star Chamber crumbled, and the clans broke out in the Second Brotherhood Civil War. When Archibald Zoraan assumed the throne, he allowed the infighting to continue long enough to weaken the clans so that they could not challenge his power, at which point he and his Shadow Hand put an end to the fighting. Clan Taldryan emerged as the victor.
Following the breakdown of the Star Chamber under Zoraan, Grand Master Chi-Long sent the clans on a quest in search of the Skin of Fire in 17 ABY, an artifact he claimed had immense power, and hoped it would restore the Chamber's power. During Hunt for the Skin of Fire or The Quest, as it is sometimes called, the Imperial Remnant attempted to seize control of the Dark Brotherhood, but were disposed of when the Skin of Fire was retrieved, although Chi-Long failed to revive the Star Chamber.
When a large group of pirates and bounty hunter, thought possibly to be connected to the Auroran pirates who stole the crystal, besieged many clan systems in 18 ABY, Shadow Hand Mairin Astoris brought the clans together and formed the Alliance of Seven. Together, the seven repelled the pirates, but in turn their growing power brought the attention of the Imperial Remnant, who attempted to court martial Mairin. She fled, an act that drove a wedge between the Seven and the Remnant that would continue until the Exodus.
Okemi
The first Brotherhood-wide conflict followed the Exodus, the War of the Star Chamber occurred in 21 ABY when the Sith Lord Okemi spread a plague throughout the Brotherhood that set brother against brother. The war actually goes back before the infection, however, to when the Brotherhood was solidifying its control of the Antei System. Conflicts against neighboring pirates, as well as construction on Antei, led to the awakening of Okemi, founder of the Star Chamber.
When his tomb was discovered, a Dark Jedi was sent to investigate, and thus began the spread of the infection. Sweeping through the Brotherhood, Okemi even managed to infect Jac Cotelin and Kem-Shu Maeda, who were its primary hosts. Eventually, those not infected led and attack on the infected, where Firefox destroyed Okemi's tomb, killing the infection at its source and restoring the Brotherhood back to its original state.
The Third Brotherhood Civil War occurred in 25 ABY when a clone of Grand Master Jac Cotelin, named Jaac Cotelin emerged and claimed control of the Brotherhood, already weakened due to collapsing internal relations. Clans chose sides as Red Jac battled against Blue Jac, red clans against blue clans. Eventually, the true Jac managed to slay the clone, and order was restored, although the even greatly weakened the Brotherhood, as well as created rifts between the clans that survive today. It is unknown where the clone originated, although some speculate he came from Rogue Brotherhood members.
A Yuuzhan Vong warrior
The Eighth Great Jedi War, also referred to as the Yuuzhan Vong Incursion, Fall of Antei, Battle of Antei, or simply, the Incursion, is a conflict that occurred over six days in 27 ABY between naval forces of the Yuuzhan Vong and the Dark Jedi Brotherhood. Immediately after the Second Darkness military exercise had concluded, the Yuuzhan Vong attacked a Brotherhood fleet of combined Clan warships on the edge of the astronomical object known as the Shroud.
The initial assault was a crushing defeat for the Brotherhood that splintered the fleet and forced the Clans to flee into the Shroud to fend for themselves. Following the bloodiest battle in the Dark Brotherhood's history, and the subsequent internecine struggle, the Dark Council was forced to abandon the Antei system with Grand Master Darth Sarin initiating the Braata Option and signaling a full retreat.
Battle of Hall of Immortals
The Ninth Great Jedi War, or Unification, was a conflict that took place in 30 ABY on the planet Antei between the forces of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood and an unidentified fundamentalist Jedi sect under the Jedi Master Omancor Crask. Initially the invasion was conceived to retake Antei from the Yuuzhan Vong. But the Six Great Clans, united under Grand Master Sarin and the Armed Forces of the Iron Throne, quickly learned that the Vong had been decimated by a biological weapon and Antei had been conquered and fortified by Crask and his army of droids.
However, the new threat to the Brotherhood would emerge to be greater than even that of the Yuuzhan Vong. Not only were Crask's Jedi and droids extremely well-trained and well-armed, but the old master himself was found to be far more powerful than any had imagined. So powerful, in fact, that before he was ultimately betrayed and defeated by his own lieutenant, Crask killed Sarin in a ranging duel that began above Antei on board the warship Exodus and ended on the surface of Antei amid the vessel's smoking ruin.
Though the united Dark Brotherhood achieved victory at Antei and had reclaimed its seat of power, tensions between Clans, the Dark Council, and the Grand Master continued to run high. The war of reclamation was an unpopular one and its aftermath set a challenging course for the rule of Darth Ashen.
The Tenth Great Jedi War took the form of the Invasion of New Tython. In 35 ABY, the Dark Council decreed that the Jedi house that had become an ally of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood, House Odan-Urr, no longer served a purpose and would be eradicated. To that end, fleets and armies descended upon the planet quickly, as if eager to recreate the Sith War of so many millennia ago. However, even as the forces of the Brotherhood descended against the Jedi, renegade Jedi Master Michael Halcyon called on allies to aid them - a full Mandalorian clan.
The arrival of the Mandalorians turned what would have been a simple scouring of the Jedi into a general war. Despite this, however, the Brotherhood was able to kill or rout those allies of the Jedi that had shown themselves, and decimated the ranks of Odan-Urr, though at a cost of several of the Brotherhood's own prominent members. Despite the cost, the war was a crushing victory, eliminating the immediate threat posed by the Jedi.
The Eleventh Great Jedi War followed the extended battles with the One Sith that came to be known as the Dark Crusade and Fading Light. With only Korriban left to conquer, the Dark Brotherhood fractured into hostilities after Lord Marshal Damon Nix uncovered that Muz Ashen planned to recreate the Rite of Obscuration. Jac Cotelin led Taldryan against the Iron Throne, while Arconan forces defended Ashen as he performed the first rite, devastating Antei. Taldyran's forces managed to escape with help from the One Sith-aligned Darth Esoteric, who demanded that Taldryan join him. The Brotherhood erupted into civil war, with Plagueis joining under the promise of Esoteric's New Order and the other units declaring either for the Loyalists under Ashen or the Rebels under Cotelin.
Scorecard
An at-a-glance look at the final standings during each Great Jedi War.
| War
|
1st
|
2nd
|
3rd
|
| I |
Satal Keto |
Scholae Palatinae |
Tarentum
|
| II |
House Ektrosis |
Arcona |
Tarentum
|
| III |
Taldryan |
Naga Sadow |
Arcona
|
| IV |
Taldryan |
Satal Keto |
Scholae Palatinae
|
| V
|
The Lost War
|
| VI |
Taldryan |
Tarentum |
Arcona
|
| VII |
Taldryan |
Naga Sadow |
Arcona
|
| VIII |
Taldryan |
Scholae Palatinae |
Naga Sadow
|
| IX |
Arcona |
Taldryan |
Scholae Palatinae
|
| X |
Arcona |
Taldryan |
Scholae Palatinae
|
| XI |
Arcona |
Taldryan |
Scholae Palatinae
|