Achlis Scandiwa was a female Rutian Twi'lek of the Sith Empire who served in Imperial Intelligence and its successor organization during the Galactic War and the war against the Eternal Empire. She was noted for her internal investigations of various Sith lords and their underlings over the course of her career as a result of the Grathan incident. Her expertise in internal affairs, especially involving Sith, made her a valuable asset to Sith Intelligence and their investigation of Darth Vitiate.
Biography[]
Early years[]
Achlis was born on Ryloth, but was orphaned as a child in the aftermath of the Sith offensives in the Outer Rim during the Great Galactic War. She stowed away on a freighter out of fear of being taken into slavery like many others and inadvertently found herself on Dromund Kaas. Achlis managed to survive for a week on the planet before being captured by the Kaas City security forces. Fortunately for her, Achlis' talents and activities had taken the notice of Imperial Intelligence. She was taken into the organization as an asset on request from Keeper, rather than given away to a Sith lord or slaver as property.
Service in Imperial Intelligence[]
Achlis and Darth Marr discuss the progress of her work.
Growing up in the Cold War, Achlis faced discrimination from both outsiders and within the intelligence community. Her combination of species and gender made her a frequent target because of the popularity of Twi'lek slaves. Her early jobs acting as a servant undercover only exacerbated her standing among her peers. Despite this, Achlis remained loyal to the service out of respect to Keeper's acceptance of her as a person.
As a low-ranked asset, Achlis was typically placed among delegations as a servant. She often pretended to be an oppressed slave in order to draw out sympathizers that would be further investigated for potential connections to the Republic or other causes that the Empire opposed. This work lasted for about a year, until Achlis proved herself to be more useful than just an informant when she voluntarily sneaked into a suspected Republic agent's room and retrieved a copy of the agent's communications records, rather than the intelligence service bringing in one of their own field agents. Her success, although criticized for the level of independence at which Achlis operated, resulted in the Twi'lek being trusted with more varied assignments.
Achlis played vital roles in acquiring the information and identifying needed equipment and tasks for agents to utilize across the galaxy. Her most proactive role was in the Empire's bid to manipulate the military forces of House Ulgo into attacking House Teral on Alderaan, the latter being a staunch ally of the Organa family but vulnerable to prolonged combat against the larger houses. Achlis' success earned her a promotion to field agent, where she was transferred to Dromund Kaas for counter-intelligence operations.
In response to the Grathan incident, Achlis was placed in charge of investigating various Sith lords, effectively in cooperation with the personnel under Darth Marr's Sphere of Defense of the Empire. By Marr's command, Lord Oneiron was assigned to accompany Achlis in her investigations to ensure that she did not get killed on the assignment.
Oneiron initially thought poorly of Achlis: his xenophobia made Achlis believe that he was as unreliable as the other individuals that she dealt with before. Despite being threatened against potentially embarrassing Oneiron, Achlis avoided angering the Sith lord and remained professional.
Their investigation led to the possibility that a member of the Dark Council was planning something monumental, but it was not clear which dark lord was involved. The announcement that Darth Jadus was killed when his ship exploded in orbit over Dromund Kaas brought credibility to Achlis' investigations. However, Achlis did not realize that Jadus staged his death in order to make final preparations for Eradication Day. Once it became clear that Jadus was behind the terrorist attacks on the Empire, she was ordered to cease her investigations on the subject.
Post-Dissolution of Imperial Intelligence[]
When the manipulations of the Star Cabal caused Imperial Intelligence to be disbanded, Achlis was placed under the command of Darth Marr at the Sith lord's own request. Her experience working with Marr's Sphere of Influence was believed to cause her unusual transfer compared to other ex-Intelligence personnel.
Achlis was among the contacts that assisted the former Minister of Intelligence in locating Shara Jenn. Because of her feelings towards the former Minister, Achlis had a lapse of depression that lasted for several days after his final transmission.
After the Revanite plot to sabotage Darth Marr's fleet during the Battle of Rishi was discovered, Achlis was blamed for her oversight and was imprisoned for collaborating with the Revanites. Because of her previous exemplary record, Achlis was spared from immediate execution like the other Revanite saboteurs.
Achlis voiced her innocence, but was not able to be taken seriously until Satele Shan intervened on Yavin IV. The Jedi master sensed Achlis' predicament and was able to clear the Twi'lek of any wrongdoing. Achlis would later participate in the coalition forces' assault on Revan's base.
Following Beniko's appointment to the position of Minister of Sith Intelligence, one of her first acts was to recruit Achlis into the organization. Still reeling from her near execution, Achlis was not eager to return to intelligence duties. However, Beniko was able to convince her to join Sith Intelligence.
Investigation of Darth Vitiate[]
Achlis continued her work in internal security, being placed on a team dedicated to investigating Darth Vitiate and his plan to destroy all life in the galaxy. While others looked into Vitiate's history, calling upon the Imperial Reclamation Service for assistance on Yavin IV, Achlis was given the task of looking into Vitiate's more recent connections.
The focus of her investigation was to track down the Children of the Emperor and their activities. Achlis infiltrated the planet Tython in order to meet with Syo Bakarn, a former member of the Jedi Council. Bakarn was identified as the First Son from holo-records that were salvaged from the Battle of Corellia and was believed to be able to shed light on what the Children were and how to find them.
Their initial meeting was tense. Bakarn was able to sense Achlis' presence, but his guards were incapacitated by Achlis' sleep darts. Bakarn realized that Achlis could have easily killed them and voiced his appreciation that she spared them instead. The two came to an understanding of Vitiate's threat and Bakarn shared what knowledge he had about the Children. The two parted ways without incident.
Through analysis of her meeting with Bakarn, Achlis identified a potential Child of the Emperor hiding on Coruscant named Rennac, a Republic SIS operative gone missing. She infiltrated the planet and located Rennac in the Works, who was struggling to overcome the effects of the incongruent commands sent by Vitiate in the aftermath of Vitiate's defeat by the Hero of Tython. She crossed paths with an SIS investigation team led by Theron Shan. Recognizing that she was not in a position to simply extract Rennac for Sith Intelligence, Achlis struck a deal with Theron to return Rennac in exchange for all of the information that Rennac had on Vitiate and guaranteed safe passage off the planet. She appealed to Theron's shared desire to see Vitiate defeated in order to convince him to let her go, to which he agreed to.
While on Ziost in order to debrief Lana Beniko of her operations on Tython and Coruscant, Achlis was caught in the Invasion of Ziost, where the agent fell victim to Vitiate's mass possession. Lana was able to locate and subdue her in New Adasta using Force Lightning and handed the unconscious Twi'lek over to the planetary evacuation droids to be taken off the planet. Achlis regained consciousness on the Ziost orbital station and witnessed the death of the planet.
The experience shook her perception of the Sith, although Achlis remained an agent of the Empire. Darth Marr entrusted Achlis to continue her mission to investigate Vitiate's connections prior to Marr's incursion into Wild Space, to which Achlis readily agreed. Valkorion's death
Revolt against the Eternal Empire[]
Achlis played a minor role during the Eternal Empire's conquest of the galaxy, being among the individuals trapped when Dromund Kaas fell under siege. By this time, Achlis was promoted to Director of Internal Affairs by Empress Acina, responsible for day-to-day activities on Dromund Kaas. This included ensuring that the Eternal Empire was unaware of the Empire's secret military build-up in violation of the peace treaty.
Personality and traits[]
Achlis briefing her lord.
We can always kill him later.
—Achlis Scandiwa
Unlike many of her compatriots, Achlis acted in accordance to what was logically sound. She was not afraid of inflicting pain on her victims if there was a purpose to doing so, but otherwise did not see the reasoning behind wanton slaughter. That was not to say that Achlis is compassionate towards her victims: she only ensured enough was done in order to advance her own objectives.
Achlis did not see herself as being enslaved or forced to work for the Sith during her tenure in Imperial Intelligence. Being in the organization afforded her a degree of immunity from Sith wrath and total immunity from other officers.
Achlis had an innate understanding that she will never be able to match the power of a Sith lord and was extremely careful about how she spoke to a dark lord. Because of this, initial impressions of her were commonly described as stiff and inflexible, but Achlis' speech relaxed when addressing fellow officers.
Behind the scenes[]
The name Achlis Scandiwa is derived from the Achlis, an elk-like creature of Roman mythology, and its supposed place of origin in Scandinavia. The similarity to the spelling of the Greek deity Achlys, the personification of misery and sadness as well as the loss of vision during death, is also an intentional allusion to the character's traits.
Many events of Achlis' biography are directly inspired by the video game Star Wars: The Old Republic.