As on Coruscant, Force-sensitive children are taken to Dantooine as well, though it is done rarely, and only with those they believe are destined to become Jedi Knights—it is the secret nature of the place. If you are not chosen by a master when you have come of age, however… then the path of the Jedi is denied you.
—Mical Herath
The Enclave on Dantooine was one of the Jedi Order's most important academies in the wake of the Great Sith War, housing many of the Order's most promising students and serving as a redoubt for the Jedi High Council. Housing the Order's secret academy in the wake of so much war and conflict in the galaxy, the High Council maintained half of their membership here, while the other half remained on Coruscant to avoid mass assassination attempts. Remaining securely hidden for decades, the academy finally fell during the Jedi Civil War when Darth Malak attacked Dantooine and destroyed the structure. Following the Clone Wars several millennia later, the Order rebuilt the enclave and converted it into a research facility for the Jedi Agricultural Corps.
History[]
Founding[]
Seeking a suitable place to establish a training center for his students, Jedi Master Vodo-Siosk Baas settled on the Khoonda Plains of Dantooine with the permission of the Galactic Senate. While the Republic oversaw colonization efforts on the world, Master Baas agreed to serve as the Watchman for the system to alleviate the Republic's military obligations. Establishing a small enclave with above-ground facilities as well as an extensive below-ground academy, Baas began taking on students who were selected for their deep connection to the Force and advanced abilities. Strategically placed near the opening of an extensive cave systems filled with naturally occurring crystals essential to the construction of lightsabers, the Enclave was not the first time Jedi had been present on the world. Indeed, in the centuries before the Jedi had established their seat of power on Ossus, members of the Order had erected a temple on the grassy world after their expedition away from Tython.
Fully equipped to run independently of the main academy on Ossus, Baas administered the Enclave and oversaw the training of young Exar Kun and several of his peers. As a Jedi Shadow, Baas saw that the Enclave was fully stocked with weapons, armor and other tools used in the pursuit of Sith artifacts and dark side practitioners. Baas' small classes would meet out in the Ancient Grove just southeast of the Enclave and engage in lightsaber practice amid the grassy plains. Alongside Kun, the Cathar Padawans Crado and Sylvar were considered to have the most potential among their peers and thus received the greatest amount of attention from Master Baas. Despite Baas' attentiveness, he failed to detect the darkness growing inside Kun. Attacking his master and disarming, he left Dantooine and later declared himself Dark Lord of the Sith. As war broke out between Kun's armies and the Republic, Baas departed Dantooine never to return as he was cut down on Coruscant by his former student.
Redoubt of the Council[]
Even the Sith would think twice before attacking Dantooine. There are many Jedi here, including several of the most powerful Masters of the Order. There is great strength within this place.
—Bastila Shan.
In the wake of Master Baas' slaying and the destruction of Ossus, an administrative council was convened to oversee the curriculum on Dantooine as part of the High Council's effort to maintain a greater control over their satellite facilities. To ensure that the High Council was protected from a massive attack on their new headquarters on Coruscant, the Dantooine Council was to be comprised of a rotation of four members of the High Council, with an occasional presence of other instructors. One of the highest priorities of the Dantooine Council was oversee the eradication of dark side teachings in the galaxy and to prevent more Jedi to follow down the path of Exar Kun. In conjunction with this mission, the Council commenced with a plan to hunt down Kun's beasts which still roamed the galaxy. Known as terentateks, these beasts plagued many Republic worlds, devouring those who crossed their path. Announcing a Great Hunt, the Council assigned large hunting parties to track down the monstrosities and purge them from the galaxy. As the Hunt's success was widely reported, the Council declared an end to the Hunt but secretly dispatched Knights Duron Qel-Droma, Shaela Nuur, and Guun Han Saresh to wipe out the last remnants of the beasts that remained on Korriban. Despite the Council's belief that more Jedi were needed for the task, they dispatched only three Knights in order to respect the High Council's decision to keep as many Jedi off of the Sith homeworld as possible. Eventually word was received that all three Knights were killed on Korriban, failing their mission and leaving the terentatek alive and in hiding.
As the decades passed the Enclave prospered under the Council's care, coming to house nearly a hundred senior Initiates selected for their accelerated abilities. When five of the Enclave's brightest students were selected to travel to Taris to train under the Masters of the Council there, the Council was pleased to see five masterless students swept up at once but were reluctant to send off Initiate Zayne Carrick. Carrick, despite the praise shared with the Taris Masters, was not destined for greatness in the eyes of many on the Dantooine Council; this made certain Masters on the Council wary of letting him go off to train under untested Masters they did not know well. The Council's fears were realized when the Taris Council reported back to the High Council that Carrick had murdered his colleagues in cold-blood on the night of their knighting ceremony. Devastated at the loss of five potential Knights, the Dantooine Council traveled to Coruscant to reassign the Taris Masters and close their academy. Inadvertently, Carrick's adventures helped lead to a Mandalorian conflict throughout the Ojoster sector. Eventually the Council learned that Carrick was framed by his wayward Masters, and the entire Carrick family was welcomed to take refuge on Dantooine and serve in the Enclave's civilian workforce.
As the Mandalorian conflict erupted across the Outer Rim, the High Council on Coruscant refused to engage and caused a splintering among some high-ranking Jedi Knights. Life went on as usual at the Enclave, despite the departure of some Jedi to follow the Revanchist group into war. When the Mandalorians were beaten Jedi Knights Revan and Alec disappeared suddenly, allowing a brief return to normalcy at the Enclave. Becoming more active with the local community, citizens set up shops near to the Enclave and would seek shelter from the Jedi when raiders and kath hounds harried them. Aside from training advanced Initiates and Padawans, the Jedi at the Enclave served as local peacekeepers and were often tasked with investigating the crimes of raiders who took refuge on Dantooine after the war. In particular, the Jedi specialized in solving kidnappings, murders, and family disputes. Despite this, the Dantooine Council remained willing to overlook the Mandalorian presence, only acting when an actual crime was reported. This complacency disturbed some of the locals; they looked to the Jedi for support but were faced with a lack of action until they were victimized. When the Jedi heroes Revan and Malak returned from their mysterious sojourn, they returned as Dark Lords of the Sith. The Enclave's host of Jedi Knights rushed back to the front lines to defend the Republic as many of Revan's old allies mutinied against their generals and proclaimed themselves for the Sith. More shockingly, Jedi from the Enclave abandoned their teachings and joined Darth Revan, proclaiming themselves acolytes of the Sith Order.
Under the leadership of Grand Master Vrook Lamar, the Enclave Council captured Revan at the height of the civil war and reprogrammed his mind. Once back on Dantooine, Revan underwent reconditioning at the Enclave's academy where he relearned the Jedi ways without any knowledge of his previous identity and legacy. During his training, Revan ventured out into the nearby Ancient Grove where he met with the failed Padawan Juhani. The Cathar woman had given into her anger and hatred and was a menace to nearby farmers; Revan returned her to the Order and when he left Dantooine, he took her with him. It was not long after Revan left that the Enclave began to receive an onslaught of Force-sensitives, including former Jedi who had fallen to the dark side, seeking retraining. The Enclave welcomed former Sith acolytes, and even a Sith Master, to their training headquarters and began the long, arduous process of rehabilitating such dark individuals. Not only were Force-sensitives instructed by Revan to seek out help on Dantooine; Revan met with non-Forceful beings in his travels and encouraged them to embark on a pilgrimage to the agrarian world and start a new life in the shadow of the Enclave.
Destruction and abandonment[]
In the final days of the Enclave, the building itself came to house many artifacts in its vast subterranean storehouse. Unbeknownst to the rest of the High Council, Master Atris had begun stealing holocrons and artifacts from the Enclave during her rotations on Dantooine. Smuggling them offworld, Atris began hoarding these stolen relics within a secret academy on Telos IV that she was building in case Dantooine was ever compromised. Along with the many Jedi trainees and fully trained Knights, half of the Council continued to use the Enclave as a secondary base. While Revan continued his search for a weapon to defeat Darth Malak and the Sith, Darth Malak launched an assault on Dantooine and ordered an orbital bombardment of the Khoonda region. While most of the Council had escaped the Enclave and Atris had smuggled the most valuable artifacts offworld, many Jedi trainees and Knights perished in the attack of 3,921 BrS. With the ground level buildings left in ruins, some Jedi and staff were trapped within the sublevels where they died of starvation or succumbed to their wounds. With any survivors fleeing offworld in hiding elsewhere on the world, scavengers and raiders swept into the ruins and began looting the Enclave's ruins, trying to sell off anything of value. Sith warriors descended on the stone heap as well, securing holocrons which detailed the locations of other academies as well.
With only the sublevels intact, the Jedi Order abandoned the Enclave for the short-term, as the ruins still echoed with the deaths of so many students. Meanwhile, Revan successfully killed Darth Malak and sent his forces fleeing into the Unknown Regions. With the Sith driven into hiding, Dantooine was once more free of the oppressive rule of the Sith. Despite their liberation, the locals held great disdain for the Jedi, blaming their plight on the Enclave's leaders. Forming their own government, the leaders of the newly formed city of Khoonda used the Enclave ruins as a leveraging tool in order to take control of the region. Allowing scavengers access to the Enclave and letting settlers establish a small settlement in the east courtyard of the Enclave complex, the city government controlled the salvage industry through the levying of taxes and fees. Helping to create a stable economy in their fledgling society, the upper levels were quickly raided and business dried up as the only salvage remaining was located in the laigrek-infested sublevels. Aside profiteers, others sought the ruins of the Enclave during its abandonment. Master Atris, wishing to gain more of the enclave's treasures, dispatched the Echani Handmaiden Brianna Voddher to search for a variety of valuable relics and take them back to Telos. Additionally Mical Herath, a diplomat of the Galactic Senate, was sent to find traces of surviving Jedi Masters in the wake of the devastation on Katarr. While searching through the Enclave's Archives and fighting off looters, Herath was discovered by Jedi Meetra Surik who asked him to join her quest to seek out and find the surviving members of the High Council. Before leaving the Archives, Herath concluded that the extensive thieving in the library had been done by Jedi try to protect their ancient knowledge; indeed, Handmaiden Voddher had succeeded in retrieving some of the most valuable Archives relics.
Return of the Jedi[]
Do you actually believe a Jedi would return here? After all they've done to us… they wouldn't dare.
—A bitter settler on Dantooine, discusses the shame of the Jedi.
With most of the Order in hiding, Grand Master Vrook Lamar sought out the Enclave's ruins to hide his presence from the Sith Triumvirate actively hunting Jedi since the end of the Order's civil war with Revan. Despite his presence in the Force being blocked by the dark side that permeated the ruins, Jedi Surik sought him out. During her search, the locals were not afraid to express their bitterness with the Jedi. Despite this, the locals were quick to support Surik after she drove a vicious band of mercenaries offworld, and in thanks, partially rebuilt the Enclave. Returning sometime later, Surik was able to enter the Enclave where the remains of the High Council had gathered. Confronting Grand Master Lamar, Zez-Kai Ell and Amus Kavar, Surik had brought the Jedi Masters together in order to call them to task and demand they join her in destroying the Sith Triumvirs. The High Council had other plans: passing judgment on her for her long ago connection with Revan and her involvement in the Mandalorian Wars, the Masters attempted to severe Surik's connection to the Force in the cavernous ruins of the old lecture hall beneath the Council chambers. Surik had not come alone however; Jedi Master Kreia had actually manipulated Surik into gathering the Jedi Master, as she was the alter ego of Chief Triumvir Darth Traya. Intervening before Surik's connection to the Force was severed, Darth Traya let Surik slip into unconsciousness before reflecting the Masters' attack back on themselves, cutting them off from the Force. Unable to live without their Force-sensitivity, the three Masters died in anguish. As Atris' Handmaiden's stormed the Enclave in search of Traya, the Sith Master fled, allowing them to capture Surik and effectively lead her back to Atris' secret academy on Telos IV.
In the wake of Darth Traya's further desecration of the Enclave site, Jedi chronicler Deesra Luur Jada returned to the Enclave to pay homage to those who had perished there. Finding the rotting corpses of Masters Kavar, Ell and Grand Master Lamar, Jada deemed the Enclave unfit for occupation and abandoned it to history. While the Jedi Order would in fact return to the Enclave at times, they never fully rebuilt the structure or reoccupied it. Its existence remained something of local legend, used to scare younglings during the night by local farmers and exploration of the site became a sort of rite of passage for daring youths. In the wake of the Great Galactic War and the ensuing Cold War between the Galactic Republic and the resurgent Sith Empire, some Jedi were not satisfied with the Order and the Republic's leadership. Mere weeks after the signing of the infamous Treaty of Coruscant by a reluctant Republic, rogue Jedi Knight Fortis Gall called for Republic Lieutenant Harron Tavus to participate in a clandestine meeting within the Enclave ruins. There, Gall confessed to Tavus that he was involved in treasonous plots against the Republic, hoping to unravel the treaty in its early days and reignite the war before the public became complacent with a galaxy shared with the Sith. Joined by co-conspirators Jedi Master Jias Dar'Nala and the mercenary Dalborra, the rogue Jedi convinced Tavus to oversee a meeting between them and a delegation of Sith representatives in the abandoned crystal caves near to the Enclave. It was during the meeting in the caves that Dar'Nala was killed and the rogue Jedi group greatly diminished, allowing for the treaty to stand uninterrupted.
Reconstruction[]
The Enclave would remain abandoned for the next several millennia as the Order concentrated their academy on Coruscant and infrequently used satellite facilities. It wasn't until the conclusion of the horrific and costly Clone Wars that the Order began to expand to new worlds and retake old strongholds. Among these ancient facilities to be resurrected from countless years of disuse was the Enclave on Dantooine. Consulting with the locals, who had taken to calling the Enclave "The Place of Fallen Rocks," the Order began the process of rebuilding the Enclave and had it prepared for use by Year 30 after the recently elected Supreme Chancellor Gideon Danu allocated more funds to the Order's already substantial purse. As local construction crews began clearing away debris and salvaging what they could of the original structure, the Council of Site Preservation and Construction began planning what purpose the facility would play. Inevitably the Enclave would host a Ranger Academy in compliance with the High Council's long-term plan of having Rangers in each system, but the Enclave was also large enough to support a secondary purpose more in line with its location on a large agrarian planet. Hosting an outpost and laboratories for the AgriCorps, the Enclave specialized in the genetic manipulation of flowering plants in order to produce fruits and root vegetables.
Layout[]
A unique building among the Khoonda Plains, the Enclave was located along a fertile river basin and was tucked between several small streams and low hills. Fashioned from local stone and masonry, the facility consisted of five above ground buildings and a sprawling subterranean complex. Distinctive to the Enclave's buildings were towering fin-like structures which erupted from the ground or crowned the building themselves; in actuality they were part of the complex's ventilation system, allowing the cool breeze from the surrounding plains to filter down into the sublevels.
The Enclave's main entrance was located on the southwest side of the complex, a four-story building with two wings. The glass atrium at its center served as a reception area at the terminus of the simple, tree-lined promenade running up from the small riverside landing pad. Each wing of the building contained extensive laboratories and research facilities used in growing and studying new and more exotic plants and grasses. Deep in the sublevels beneath this main structure, the ancient Jedi of Master Baas' time had maintained a clandestine cloning facility. Kept secret from even the High Council on Coruscant, the cloning facilities were a pet project undertaken by Padawan Exar Kun with the reticent permission of his master. Within the cloning chambers, Kun had begun experimentation with the science of cloning with the help of his fellow Padawan Crado. The cloning cylinders were extremely advanced, created with a great understanding of the Force and could rapidly produce mature clones. Despite the sophistication of Kun's technology, the clones suffered a mild psychosis which originated at the time of implantation of memories into the cloned brains. Kun eventually loss access to the chambers following his descent to the dark side of the Force, but the cloning facility would maintain in the care of its droid technicians over the millennia after having been sealed by consequent directors of the Enclave's facilities. By the time of the Enclave reoccupation, the Order refrained from using the cloning facility for a time, before moving the ancient technology to a newer cloning academy on Kamino.
The northeast building of the Enclave was home to the Garden Annex and was the most identifiable building of the entire facility. A squat, barrel shaped building with four of the fin-like ventilation towers spaced evenly around its circumference, the center of the building was open to the Dantooinian sky and contained a small courtyard with a large tree at its center. Sprouting from this central hub like spokes on a wheel were four wings which contained two levels of gardens and fountain rooms; the top level also being open-air. Vines and greenery from these top-level gardens were draped over the outer walls and hung down into the courtyards which filled the space between each wing. Below the central hub of the annex, on the uppermost floor of the sublevels, was a large domed chamber which housed various flowering plants in large bronzium urns which towered over an average-sized being. Hallways branched out from this hub deeper into the sublevels, connecting the Garden Annex with the nearby Ranger Command Center. A square building with sloping, rounded walls, the Command Center contained seven levels of communications rooms, training facilities, gymnasiums, classrooms and common areas necessary to the operations of the Jedi Rangers stationed there. Within the sublevels directly below this building was the Enclave's Archive room, containing two levels of holobooks dedicated to the histories and cultures of the planet and neighboring worlds. The room was dominated by an open floor plan used for group study sessions beneath a large chandelier crafted from local glass by Khoondan artisans. Off of the main hall of the Archives was a armory housing rare artifacts such as breastplates and helmets used by ancient Jedi. Within glass showcases, the Order displayed weaponry used by Jedi for millennia. Down the hall from the Archives chamber, the Enclave's mainframe computer was housed and maintained alongside a cluster of power conductors.
Just east of the Command Center was the Council rotunda, the smallest of the five buildings and home to the meeting chambers of the Academy's Council. The main floor of the rotunda consisted of the private chambers of the Council, used for group meditation and dining. Directly above this room was the formal Council chamber; a ring of seven chairs were spaced around the circular chamber while natural light flowed in through the large transparisteel windows. Beneath the rotunda was a larger gathering chamber used for full meetings of the AgriCorp Council, used biannually or in times of crisis. This circular room was ringed by high-back chairs while the center of the room was left clear for speakers or additional seating. Massive trees grew in niches in the room's curving walls, and a low ceiling gave the room strong acoustics, allowing a soft-spoken member's voice to be heard across the room.
The grounds of the Enclave were cris-crossed by winding paths and small fountains which gave the entire complex a serene vibration in the Force. Just over the gently sloping hills, the ancient Rakatan Ruins were visible as well as the entrance to the valuable crystal caves and the Ancient Grove. Set apart from the main facilities was a long, oval-shaped building which sat low to the ground and was hugged by the sloping hills of the region. This building served as the complex's landing facility and housed all of the Enclave's air and ground vehicles. Open-air in order to accommodate larger spaceships, many garages were nestled into the hills and housed speeder bikes and speeders. A winding corridor connected the landing complex with the rest of the Enclave through the sublevels.