The Ansion Academy Council was a satellite administrative body subservient to the Council of First Knowledge and charged with the upkeep of the Jedi Order's Command Center on Ansion. A seven member body, the Academy Council oversaw the curriculum taught to the Jedi Knights and Masters studying within the ancient academy. Focusing on the technology and skills needed to recreate the mighty machines known as zords, a small group of Jedi Rangers were stationed at the Command Center and answered to this body.
Organization[]
As the New Sith Empire began to sweep across the Outer Rim, the noble Jedi Lord Elriza Zordon convened the Council within his fortified Command Center on the Mid Rim world of Ansion. A respected Master and the protector of his homeworld of Eltar, Lord Zordon summoned to him several other Jedi Lords and Ladies to serve as a regional watch group against encroachment by the Sith Empire. Pooling their resources, the Council used the Command Center to monitor systems that were threatened by the Sith Empire's growing reach. Underneath the academy, the Council constructed massive war machines known as zords. Many were used for deep space missions and were notably attuned to the pilot's Force-abilities and could be piloted from a distance, additionally capable of using superior weapons then even the Republic had access to.
Following the Clone Wars, the Council of First Knowledge saw to the reopening of the Ansion facility after High Council member Djinn Altis championed the academy's reconstruction. Focusing on reinvigorating the Order's technological branch, the Council convened to rediscover the art of creating zords and begin manufacturing them. Hosting a Ranger academy as well, the Council directed the Rangers' activity in the surrounding systems maintaining peace. Meeting within the dark, mist-filled chambers near to the main Command Center, the seven member Academy Council consisted of a Headmaster, Chief Ranger and five members of the academy staff.
The leader of the Council was the Headmaster, who served as the chief administrator of the academy facility and the steward of all of its students. The Headmaster was the executor of academy business and interacted with local governments and maintained the academy's supplies. While a master of zord technologies, their time was split between study, teaching and administrating. The Watchman of Ansion, the Headmaster worked closely with the Chief Ranger to ensure that the security of the system and the planet itself were secured. The Chief Ranger sat on this Council and was responsible for the training of the Jedi Rangers operating in the Ansion system. Overseeing their assignments and their education, the Watchman worked to ensure that the relationships between the world's many tribes maintained a steady equilibrium. As the zords being developed by the academy were of top priority, the Master Technologist on the Council was tasked with tending to the development of the zords and ensuring that they met top manufacturing standards.
Like all academies a Master of Lightsabers was appointed to ensure all students and teachers maintained a certain level of physical activity and lightsaber skill. The most martial of the academy's staff, they not only oversaw daily training and sparring bouts, but whoever held this title was responsible for the facility's defense and security. Temple Security answered to the the Master of Lightsabers, who was appointed by the Order's battlemaster, who served at the Grand Academy on Ossus. Likewise, the Master of Visions was the academy's most respected, and typically only, Seer. The Master of Visions probed the Force to ensure that the academy's mission was fulfilling the Order's mandate to maintain Balance, and that the activities conducted by its students and teachers did not tip the scales in anyway. The Master of Wisdom was tasked with organizing and updating the Academy Archives. Compiling annual reports on all relevant information, the Master of Wisdom would transmit this report to the Librarians' Assembly so that it might be reviewed and added to the larger Archives on Ossus. The Master of Medicine was a member of the Circle of Healers and served as the primary healer and physician for all of the academy's students and staff. Maintaining a medical facility in the sublevels of the academy, it contained an operating suite and several bacta tanks for by Rangers returning from dangerous missions.
History[]
Assembled by the Jedi Order on the Mid Rim during the tumultuous period known as the New Sith Wars, the Council of Ten Masters was to serve as a beacon of light in a darkening galaxy. Meeting within the halls of the Command Center of Ansion, the Council was comprised of Jedi Masters with the strongest academies across the galactic Rim. Feeling that the High Council on Coruscant was growing increasingly short-sighted and ill-prepared to combat the Sith threat, Master Elriza Zordon convened this Council of Jedi Lords and Ladies on Ansion to discuss how best to control the armies of Sith which were swiftly conquering Republic-aligned worlds. Together the Jedi Masters began training elite Jedi Knights they dubbed Rangers, in the spirit of the ancient tradition of Je'daii Order; these Rangers would patrol the systems surrounding their Masters' academies and ensure no Sith influences crossed their borders.
As the fighting on the Outer Rim intensified, Councilor Rita Bandora stopped attending meetings and secreted herself away within her private chambers in her academy near Taris for long hours. While Masters on the Council believed that she was simply taking time to fortify her academy, Bandora had fallen to the dark side along with six other members of the Council and was in the practice of opening up a rift in the Force. Together with her fallen Councilors, Bandora was able to create a Shadow realm; a place where cursed souls could be sent and placed in a state of limbo until summoned forth with the Force. Harnessing the dark side and the mysterious properties of the clay she had mined from beneath her academy, Bandora was able to use dark side alchemy to craft the clay into living flesh. The Jedi stationed at her academy joined their headmaster in her fall to the dark side and allowed their souls to be cursed with the promise of immortality. Sending her minions into battle, each one who fell found their souls imprisoned within the Shadow realm, only to return to the land of the living as Bandora's servants crafted stronger, monstrous bodies for them from the Force clays of the moon. Revealing her seemingly unbeatable army to the remaining Councilors on Ansion, Bandora led a campaign of destruction across the Outer Rim, waging war on several fronts and conquering all she encountered. Wedding fellow Councilor Impori Zedd, their dark side union proved far too strong for the reduced number of Jedi on the Outer Rim and their reign seemed all but unstoppable.
Shocked and haunted by Bandora and the others' betrayal, Zordon and the remaining Councilors prepared to defend themselves from Bandora's army of reincarnating soldiers. Zordon's Rangers were largely successful at defeating the fiercest of the Dark Masters' warriors but the ability for the Sith to recreate each fallen soldier quickly dwindled the number of Rangers in the field. For a millennium Bandora waged war against Ansion until launching a full-scale assault on the world in 1,031 BrS where Bandora infiltrated the Command Center when she feigned a desire to treat with Zordon. Within the Command Center, Bandora tore open a rift in time and cast Zordon into it and left him disconnected from the rest of the galaxy. Leaving the Command Center, Bandora was caught off guard by the remaining Rangers and was imprisoned along with several of her chief generals and alchemists and set adrift in space. Returning to the Command Center to find Zordon gone, the Rangers disbanded and set off to do good where they could, leaving the Command Center under the command of a small contingent of droids. These droids slowly began the process of searching for Zordon, for they knew he was not dead and simply missing. Locating him within a different dimension of the Force, the droids undertook the painstaking task of assembling a plasma tube that was calibrated to interact with Zordon. Once completed, Zordon's disembodied head appeared within the plasma tube, slaved to the universe by the energy flowing through the small energy field. Meanwhile, the remaining Dark Masters were hunted down and imprisoned, if not destroyed, and their reign of terror was brought to an end.