War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.
—General Angusis of the Eternal Order of the Vipera
The Kal'Shabbol Civil War was a conflict on Kal'Shabbol between the Order of the Jedi Bendu of the Ophuchi and the Eternal Order of the Vipera, as well as the colonists of Ashla Prime and Vattica who sided with the Jedi Bendu. The conflict traced it’s origins to the aftermath of the Exodus from Had Abaddon which saw the collapse of the monarchy of Had Abaddon. The Eternal Order of the Vipera, which had been residing on Had Abaddon, was under the protection of the monarchy to avoid persecution for their darker yet quiet arts, and when the new monarchy rose to power following the First Had Abaddon Civil War they were forced to flee from persecution to Kal'Shabbol where they hoped to begin a new and peaceful life. However, because the Jedi Bendu had been responsible for the overthrowing of the monarchy, they became a taboo culture to the other colonists and the cultists developed an anti-social culture within a valley.
During one poor season, a famine overtook Kal'Shabbol and the Valley People believed that the Jedi Bendu were stealing their food. This led them to attack the Jedi Bendu, officially beginning combat operations. However, when the Valley People discovered the existence of the Force of Others, which they believed was a treasure, they demanded that it be given to them. They were angered when the Jedi Bendu offered to share it with them and continued the war. The war stretched on for nearly one year, forcing the colonists to eventually become involved, until the Valley People were finally able to discover the location of their supposed treasure. When they found it, they realized it was nothing more than the peace and love of Yahweh, the creator and God of the Universe.
The Valley People returned to their valley, ashamed of their actions during the war. Within weeks, cultist General Anguigena led most of his army in a ritualistic suicide, as the customs of the people dictated that it was the only way to atone for their crimes. The High Shaman Nazzereal was arrested and charged with crimes against sentience, and many of the other valley townspeople either assimilated into the colonies of Kal'Shabbol or moved to other worlds in the Ashlan Expanse. The aftermath of the war saw the Jedi Bendu fulfilling their mandate of establishing the Order of the Whills, and the legacy of the conflict was eventually one of the reasons that Fillorean, a Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic eighty-five thousand years after the war, caused the schism that saw the creation of the Jedi Order and the Bendu Order.
History[]
Origins[]
Twenty years after the formation of the Order of the Jedi Bendu of the Ophuchi following the Exodus from Had Abaddon, numerous settlers began making their way from the worlds of the Ashlan Expanse to find a new home on Kal'Shabbol. These people had heard the stories of the exodus and the riches that the Jedi Bendu had found on the planet, so hundreds of them decided to settle across the planet and began setting up colonies, mostly on the northern continent as it was the most habitable of all of them, though they were all habitable. They found that the northern continent provided an adequate means to begin new lives.
Many of the settlers decided it was wise to set up a colony around the Jedi Bendu monastery that had been constructed on the planet, as they felt a sense of security while in their presence. The colony was named Ashla Prime, while another colony on the continent a few hundred kilometers away became known as Vattica. The colonies began to flourish and they began forming municipal governments that quickly began working hand in hand with one another for the betterment of their people. This alliance of colonies allowed for the development of a diverse population, as it contained Humans from the Jedi Bendu and Had Abaddon as well as Ondosians and Aquilaens.
However, not every settler that arrived on the planet welcomed the idea of creating a diverse culture, nor did they welcome the idea of settling near the Jedi Bendu. These disgruntled settlers had made their way from Had Abaddon and had been members of a cult called the Eternal Order of the Vipera. The cult had been under the protection of the former monarchy of the adopted family of The Skywalker, but when the monarchy fell they were no longer protected and began being persecuted by the government that rose in its place. The cultists worshiped a serpentine god called Vipera and because they saw serpents are predators they too felt that they were predators.
When the colonists heard about the cultists settling in a large valley on the southernmost portion of the northern continent, they simply ignored them and let them go about their business. This created an anti-social culture and society within the valley, and because the cultists once again felt persecuted they harbored a strong sense of ill-will towards the other colonists and, specifically, the Jedi Bendu. The negative feelings towards the Jedi Bendu stemmed mostly from the fact that they were responsible for the destruction of the government that had protected them. Because of this, as well as the taboo cultural practices of those that became known as the Valley People, the Jedi Bendu forbid its members from entering into the valley and strongly discouraged settlers from doing so as well.
Shortly after the death of The Skywalker, many events began to happen that would result in additional negative feelings between the two cultures. The most serious of these was a famine that began making its way over the land, killing thousands of crops in the process. Although the entire continent felt the impact of the famine, it was the more agricultural and less-advanced Valley People that felt most of it. The Jedi Bendu and the other colonists recovered from it fairly swiftly with little lasting repercussions to their society. Although they knew about the famine hitting the Valley People hard, they did not attempt to intervene out of fear for their safety.
As the Valley People began to run out of food reserves and starve, they blamed the Jedi Bendu for the loss of their crops and fertility of their land. They claimed that their food had been stolen and that the Jedi Bendu had conjured up a curse against the valley lands, and they justified this by saying that the fact that the Jedi Bendu were not nearly as affected by the famine proved their guilt. This anger eventually turned into outrage and the Valley People saw it as the last straw on the top of other injustices, so the warlike people began to prepare and stew.
The tension finally broke when a group of Valley People decided to take matters into their own hand and attempt to somehow harm the Jedi Bendu. To do this, they traveled to Ashla Prime and monitored the Jedi Bendu monastery for well over a day. Eventually, they saw a teenage boy walking down the steps of the building, and they recognized that this was the son of Matthew of Skywalker, one of the metaphorical sons of The Skywalker. Using a sacred ceremonial bow and arrow, the group shot the son of Matthew. Two days later, the boy died of his injuries. Matthew attempted to locate the killers, but they had already safely made it back to the valley. A court case was even made of the matter with the government of Ashla Prime, but because the culprit was not found it left the grieving family without any retribution.
Seeing this lack of retribution, and what they viewed to be a pathetic grasp for it, as a sign of complete weakness, the Valley People became bolder and launched a sneak attack on a small, outlying Jedi Bendu military post. The goal was not to kill anyone, which they succeeded in doing, but rather to capture them all and ceremoniously brand their chests with a hot iron with the mark of Vipera. This was used as a fear and humiliation tactic as the men of the small troop were let free to live when the Valley People left the fort. However, these Jedi Bendu were rendered unconscious for several days, and it was only after Ashla Prime sent out a garrison to look for them did the Jedi Bendu find out what had happened to their men.
When the Jedi Bendu Council of Masters discovered what had taken place, they became outraged as they saw it as a deliberate attempt to try to desecrate the men and blaspheme Yahweh. They also sent a courier to warn the Valley People that the act could be taken as an act of war. However, the last thing that the Jedi Bendu wanted was war, so to show their benevolence they offered a helping hand in the famine and sent a caravan of food towards the Valley. Upon seeing it, however, scouts from the valley claimed to their superiors that the caravan was taking food away from the valley rather than giving it. A small squad of equestrian archers fell upon the caravan and murdered all involved in it, taking what they believed had been stolen from them.
Now having been given their supposed proof, the Valley People threatened the Jedi Bendu both with words and with a surprise attack on a small Jedi Bendu enclave in the mountains near Ashla Prime, slaughtering many of the unprepared Jedi Bendu that were on the outside an attempting to burn down the building. Matthew, who was at the monastery, led the defense forces and his life was spared when the Jedi Bendu sent reinforcements with which to drive the attack force away, though they were already preparing to fall back and regroup when the force arrived anyway.
At the end of the attack, the Valley People were seen as a true threat to the lives of the Jedi Bendu and the peaceful group of religious people was pushed to declare war. Even the colonists of Ashla Prime and Vattica began seeing the Valley People as a threat, though for some time they maintained neutrality to avoid being caught up in the war. During that same time, spies from the valley were sent to observe the strategies of the Jedi Bendu, and while they spied upon them the Valley People became aware of the Force of Others, something that they deemed very valuable. They were instructed to find out more information on it once they reported it back to their superiors.
Outbreak[]
Shortly after the threat of the Valley People was realized, both sides began making war plans. While the Jedi Bendu were preparing defenses, the Valley People were planning an attack. It was not very long until the Valley People carried out an attack on an outlying fort, using their specially designed Gemere helmets. After the gate to the fort was rammed open, the Valley People flooded the fort with troops, unaware that the upper floors provided balconies from which Jedi Bendu archers were able to fire off many good shots against the invaders. This nearly gave the Jedi Bendu a victory as they caught the incoming force by surprise with a rain of arrows until they were knocked from their perches by the continuous ramming Gemere, causing the entire walls of the structure to break and leave only a pile of rubble in its place.
After the small conflict, the first major battle of the civil war was fought near the base of Mount Cephas, located near the northern sea. When the battle was joined, the Jedi Bendu strengthened their infantry and relatively small cavalry in the center of the line and charged the Valley People’s lines weak center. The mostly mounted cultists, however, had anticipated such a move and began a slower charge, shooting arrows from behind the front ranks the entire time. As the two lines met, the center lines of the Valley People began to give somewhat. The flanks of the lines closed in a pincer formation on the Jedi Bendu troops, surrounding them with their quick mounted warriors. Completely enclosed and fighting from all directions, the Jedi Bendu army was massacred, with only a few high-ranking prisoners captured and tortured to be used as fear propaganda.
Soon after the battle, the spring months came once again and the famine as over. Strengthened with more supplies, the people of the valley continued to fight. However, their lust for revenge for the exodus and the famine was supplemented by a want for the fabled Force of Others, which they referred to as a valuable treasure as the Jedi Bendu had described it. Greedy to find and claim this treasure as their own, the cultists offered to end the war at its conception in return for the Force of Others. To do this, they sent a courier to the Jedi Enclave on Mount Cephas, as they did not wish to enter the heavily populated Ashla Prime, to formerly demand the Force of Others.
When the message was received, the Jedi Bendu were more than willing to share their knowledge of the Force of Others with the cultists. Although many Jedi Bendu had already been killed by their hands, the Jedi Bendu did not believe in the suppression of the great mystery so they told them that they would share it. However, because they gave information in increments so they did not overwhelm the people of the valley, the Valley People believed the Jedi Bendu were holding back on them and continued the war with a new level of fervor, insult and disgust.
The Jedi Bendu were well aware that their attempts at a peaceful solution in regards to the Force of Others had failed, so they began moving their troops into a better position from which they could attack the cultists. While they were doing so, a group of valley equestrian riders began making hit and run maneuvers, galloping up and down the lines of men while firing arrows before disappearing. This took out a number of troops before they ever encountered the main force of valley warriors, though the wagons used by the main force and the reinforcements were drawn together to create a half-ring around the camp while their backs were to the steep walls of the Vattican Mountains. When the equestrian riders came as the forerunners of the main body of valley troops, they were blocked from attacking while the Jedi Bendu could shoot from between the carts.
As a result of this, the Valley People began using arrows set on fire to hit the carts to burn them, spooking the Jedi Bendu cavalry settled near where they had strategically begun to shoot. When the equestrian riders tried to penetrate the laager, the Jedi Bendu sent the carts set afire with their panicked equestrian pulling them, driving them wildly around as the Jedi Bendu guided them to run in and among the valley riders. This spooked the valley steeds and dismounted several. By then, the main force of the Valley People arrived, though their Gemere reinforcements were not able to arrive. The Jedi Bendu army was eventually able to surround the Valley People and decimate them, giving them their first needed victory.
Despite the victory that the Jedi Bendu had achieved, the war was looking very grim for them as the victory did not inflict as much damage to the Valley People as the Valley People had done to them. Desperate for aid, the commanders of the army turned to Matthew of Skywalker, who was still grieving over the loss of his son, and asked him to lead the army. He was somewhat hesitant at first, as were his eleven brothers, as they had not considered using the Force of Others for combat. Although Matthew accepted, the other Sons of The Skywalker requested more time to implore Yahweh for understanding concerning the matter of war.
Their hesitation proved costly, as the temple they met to pray in was immediately targeted by the Valley People for attack due to the strategic importance. The cultists quickly fitted their ranks and sent many of their flying mounts to attack the temple. The creatures were armored lightly on their underbelly, though their wings were venerable to arrows which made them unable to use a direct assault. Instead, the Valley People made the mounts grasp the heaviest boulders they could and, from a range beyond arrows, drop it on the temple. As there were many that kept on returning to a nearby mountain to reload, this provided damaging, especially when they began dropping cages of dozens of aggressive, poisonous snakes on the building which broke open and freed the snakes upon hitting the ground.
The short attack, lasting only a few minutes so as not to allow time for the sons to escape, was greatly aided by the use of the accursed serpents, as the angered snaes eagerly sought after a vent to carry out their aggression through the holes the boulders had made. Their poison eventually slowly and painfully killed three of the eleven Sons of The Skywalker that had met there, those sons being Andrew, Benjamin and Luke. When Matthew was told of the attack, his resolved was strengthened even further and he knew that something had to be done about the threat posed by the cultists.
The Tide Turns[]
Moved by their loss and spurned by their reluctance to use the Force of Others for war, the other Sons of The Skywalker readily joined Matthew for the war effort, using their powers to aid them. At first, so the sons stayed together so they could work off of one another, which helped them in predicting what the enemy could possibly do, though this ended up proving to be a likely way to become attacked or have assassins sent into the camp. Though they kept the fact in mind for later, the sons separated and each commanded a different section of the Jedi Bendu army, though Matthew was in charge of the overall war effort.
Once more, the two armies met and came at one another from a distance, with the cultist equestrian riders once more taking the lead to wear away the front lines, though the archers set behind the front of the Jedi Bendu line did manage to take down several of the riders and their mounts. As the main force approached, the Jedi Bendu conducted a rehearsed retreat up the mountain they had their back to, a tactic that Matthew came up with, thus gaining an advantage over their enemy. Unable to reach the army with their riders and other mounts, the Valley People were forced to advance on foot, though the Jedi Bendu rained arrows and spears down upon them. This caused heavy casualties in the cultist lines which forced them to retreat. The Jedi Bendu sent several legions down to give chase and help finish them off, but the Valley People set up archers hidden along the mountain walls and shot at the legion. Matthew realized this almost instantaneously and ordered his men to pull back before the archers could do any significant damage, and in the process routed most of the archers. Although the Jedi Bendu had won a battle earlier, this became their first major victory and a source of higher morale in their ranks.
Angered by the outcome of the battle, a group of Valley People under the command of General Angusis began burning and attacking outlying colonial villages, taking all of the unmarried women as companions of the soldiers. This incensed the Jedi Bendu as they saw it to be blatantly criminal, but it also began making the colonists of Ashla Prime, Vattica and other colonies began rethinking what had been a neutral yet-secretively supportive of the Jedi Bendu stance they had taken throughout the entire war. They immediately began deliberations as to whether they should join the war, but the Jedi Bendu knew that they could not wait for them to make a decision before proceeding again, as the Valley People were quickly becoming bolder and more reckless.
Once more, the competing armies met near the shores of the Vattican Sea. The Valley People had appeared to make a fatal move, as the force was not large enough to pose a serious threat to the Jedi Bendu. As usual for such infantry and cavalry battles, the stronger Jedi Bendu forces were pressed towards the front while the war weary soldiers were moved to the back through the gaps in the Jedi Bendu line. However, the Valley People knew this so while the forces were concentrated several hours into the battle, cultist soldiers riding Oshtri emerged from the waves as their mounts breached, shooting them at the back of the Jedi Bendu lines. Hundreds of soldiers appeared this way, forcing the Jedi Bendu to fight on both sides. The Jedi Bendu were crushed between the two armies, and though they managed to retreat to the right flank, the losses were heavy.
With the recent loss, the Sons of The Skywalker began to pray heavily for guidance in the costly war until, finally, Yahweh gave wisdom to David who in turn imparted it to Matthew. During that same time, the colonies decided to officially send their armies into combat. Although thousands of their people had already joined with the Jedi Bendu, they were not the core members of the militaries. This gave the Jedi Bendu a clear advantage, because they were able to refresh their army while the Valley People were not. Matthew realized that with these soldiers, he would possibly be able to use the tactic given to David by Yahweh in a proper manner and be able to come up with additional tactics for the continuation of the war that he was likely to see.
The tactic was put to the test when the two forces met once again at the Vattican Sea, with the Valley People charging with their equestrian archers and swordsmen. As a defense against the heavily cavalry-oriented valley army, the Jedi Bendu formed a double-triangle, which created a star shape of two lines, with the first line kneeling. All had bows with double-barreled arrows and an added string bridge to the bow, which allowed for increased penetration against their armored foes. They were all to shoot at the riders only when they were fairly near, ensuring a good shot, which was generally around thirty meters. Any closer could have sent a wounded equestria flying into the line when shot, and any further would decrease accuracy. As the distance was standard and the lines firm, around the lines rows of dead equestria built up, blocking the approach of more riders. Being such an unbroken and steady line, the Valley People could not break it and were forced into heavy losses before they retreated.
In several battles afterwards, this technique of forming the star, referred to as the Sea Crescent due to where it was first used and sometimes the Star of David, proved to be crucial and won the Jedi Bendu numerous victories. However, in a later battle, the Valley People were determined to break through the star and were able to do so by sending in gemere, made by their riders to stampede, which trampled the Jedi Bendu line and provided a gap to penetrate it and, as the Valley People said, wash the star with blood. The gemere heads were armored, something that became standard for the war beasts thereafter, to protect them from the Jedi Bendu’s strong arrows.
Around the same time, another military head within the Eternal Order came to light, that being General Anguigena. Anguigena had a far more rigid military code of honor and conscience, and his prisoners were known for being treated better than most. If the prisoner was a married man, Anguigena would cut off the man’s right hand and brand his chest with the mark of Vipera before letting him free so he could return to his family to earn a living for them, even though it took away his ability to fight. He did not imprison married women as he felt that they were to be under the charge of their husbands, though unmarried women were branded with the mark of Vipera on their arm before they were set free.
Under Anguigena’s command, the cultists began attacking Jedi Bendu transport vessels on the water with their Oshtri, ramming them and biting parts of the ships off. Generally the rudders were bitten off, which ended up rendering the vessels disabled for some time and thus diminishing the Jedi Bendu’s supply. It also caused them to limit their transportation efforts. After numerous attacks, it got to the point where it was not safe for the Jedi Bendu or the colonists to traverse the rivers and seas near the shores.
Final Battles[]
Shortly after the rivers and seas became too dangerous to travel upon, the two armies met once more. Many equestria were shot from behind the front lines with a somewhat modified version of the Star of David, though these were always broken by the gemere that the Valley People had during the battle. Although in the end the Jedi Bendu managed to kill it, the creature fell and killed some soldiers on the left flank. The right flank of the cultists, which was facing the weakened left side of the Jedi Bendu and the colonists, was immediately bolstered by the mobility of the cavalry and concentrated the archers to fire a rain of arrows at their opposition as they charged that side to plough through and catch the Jedi Bendu in a pincer maneuver. This forced the Jedi Bendu to retreat with heavy losses.
Upon seeing David’s star fail for the final time, Matthew and David brought the other Sons of The Skywalker together alone to implore Yahweh for an answer. Once more, being together, they became an immediate target and they were faced with the same attack as before. This time, however, the sons continued to pray fervently, keeping at peace despite the ruin and danger around them. Strangely, no snake came near them and no rubble fell upon them, as Yahweh formed a hedge of protection around them. At last, they were given the answer as the Valley People held off the attack, an attack that had killed and injured no one. Yahweh told them that He had allowed them to be hurt so they would trust Him more, so they had done this time, and He gave them a much better tactic with which to fight the enemy.
Groups of Jedi Bendu and colonial soldiers were told to form a tight circle, with each soldier given a spear and trained to turn their body and spear in perfect precession together in response to the situation that would be thrown at them. The group was surrounded by a line of men bearing shields with which to protect the circle. Therefore, when they were attacked by equestrian riders, the horses were impaled by the spears, which could turn very quickly in any direction to stop them. When gemeres were sent against the formation, their leg and foot was pierced which caused the creatures to panic and drop their riders. This tactic swiftly began giving the Jedi Bendu the upper hand in the war, as the only viable defense was to shoot them from afar with arrows, aiming upwards to go above the shielded line or by dropping snakes on them from above, which was difficult.
The Valley People were outraged by the loss and the use of the new tactic against them. Attempting to gain an upper hand again, General Angusis alerted his followers that there were many neutral medical facilities spread throughout the countryside which treated both Jedi Bendu and Valley People. After that, he requested counsel with the leader of the Valley People, the High Shaman Nazzereal, and told her about them. She decided that Angusis would be allowed to attack them and kill all male Jedi Bendu within them, and within days the general did just that. Along with that, Nazzereal knew that she would need additional information, so she began focusing more on espionage as direct assaults were beginning to fail with the new method of war, lowering them to guerilla warfare. Becoming lucky, the cultists were eventually able to capture Adam of Skywalker, Somus of Skywalker and a Vattican Colonel named Ezra in one attack.
While the two sons were sent off to be tortured, the colonel was sentenced to be questioned which was a fate just as bad as the sons. It took many days of interrogation, but the officers will eventually broke and he told them where they could find what they desired about the Force of Others, that being in a secret Jedi Bendu Mountain Temple high within the Ashlan Mountains. He also alerted them to the limited number of weak military posts that were defending him. Once the Valley People were satisfied, the colonel was executed. After Adam and Somus had been through a thorough system of pain, they were strapped to a device called the Mouth of Vipera, which was two execution devices on either side of the entrance to the Temple of the Serpent, and were killed by the device. When they were dead, the bodies were sent back to the Jedi Bendu to instill fear and lower morale.
As it became more of a nuisance to keep prisoners, the Valley People decided to rid themselves of the captured Jedi Bendu and soldiers and strapped them all to the ground in a narrow passage of the valley before letting loose a stampede of equestria to trample them. Any prisoners still alive after this were shot with arrows until they were dead, and their bodies were dumped into a sacred canyon within the valley which was filled with poisonous snakes that the Valley People had been breeding there since they had arrived on the planet.
Finally, with their knowledge of the location of the treasure that was the Force of Others, the few hundred Valley People that remained were gathered by General Anguigena. He focused all of their power into destroying the military stations in their way, as the stations were not heavily armored. They stormed their way up the Ashlan Mountains, slaughtering the limited number of Jedi Bendu that were stationed there, until they arrived at the temple. Once there, they found a great memorial dedicated to Yahweh, The Skywalker and the Force of Others which, the memorial said, was the power of Yahweh’s everlasting love, peace and justice.
Seeing what the treasure truly was, Anguigena was astonished and, in the end, ashamed of the actions of his people. He realized that they had killed thousands of people thinking that they would be able to steal a treasure valuable to the Jedi Bendu, but in the end it was simply the idea of peace within the Force of Others. Although many of his men did not understand this and wanted to continue in the battle to destroy the temple, Anguigena ordered a retreat and the Valley People returned to the valley, where he would have the difficult task of informing the High Shaman about the truth of their efforts.
Aftermath[]
In the days following the Valley People’s return to the valley, Anguigena began to face mounting pressure over his retreat order. Angusis especially criticized his actions, saying that had he been in charge rather than Anguigena then the retreat would not have happened. Angusis attempted to kill Anguigena while Anguigena slept, but the general was alerted to Angusis’s actions and was able to slay him before he himself was killed. This solidified his belief that the actions his people took were wrong, as he had spent a great deal of time considering the fact that the treasure was simply a message of peace and compassion.
Anguigena shame began to take over the rest of the Valley People, many of them wishing that they had not started the war. This shame was furthered after Anguigena ordered spies to be sent to Ashla Prime to collect information about the build up to war. When the spies returned, they informed Anguigena that the Jedi Bendu had not stolen the food from the valley during the famine nearly one year earlier. Anguigena presented this information to the High Shaman, but she refused to believe it and instead believed that the Jedi Bendu were preparing to destroy their order.
In the weeks that followed, the Jedi Bendu made daily attempts to communicate with the Valley People, but the cultists were not comfortable with trying to make official peace and hold discussion with the people they had attacked and killed for the better part of one year. The Jedi Bendu, however, were not aware of this and began becoming suspicious of what the Valley People were preparing. They sent a group of their own spies to the valley, but they found a relative calmness over the cultist villages and settlements. Hoping that the conflict was resolved, the Jedi Bendu decided to wait one week to contact the Eternal Order of the Vipera again in the hopes that it would give them the time the cultists needed to come to a decision about the future of relations between the two peoples.
By the end of the week, the Jedi Bendu were preparing to contact the Valley People once more, but before they could Anguigena had been able to convince many of his people that the only way to atone for what they had done was to take their own lives. It was a sacred ritual that had never been used, but it was an un-established tradition within the Eternal Order to take their lives should they commit an atrocity of such magnitude. The ritualistic suicide was carried out under Anguigena’s command, and it effectively destroyed the cult. Many of the cultist citizens remained alive, as it was merely the military that had committed suicide. The High Shaman herself did not take part in the ritual.
Within days, the Jedi Bendu again became suspicious of the lack of communication from the Valley People, having not known about the ritualistic suicide the cultists committed. Matthew himself took a group of his men to the valley to fully ascertain what the cultists were doing, and when they found the bodies strewn throughout the valley they immediately returned to Ashla Prime in an attempt to figure out how to proceed further. It was decided that as a show of good faith, many Jedi Bendu and colonists would proceed to the valley unarmed and help them bury the dead, as they knew after praying for guidance what the Valley People had done and why they had done it. They would also, however, arrest the High Shaman and charge her for her crimes against sentience.
When the Jedi Bendu and the colonists finally arrived in the valley, they did not meet any resistance from the unarmed and the untrained townspeople. The High Shaman, however, attempted to carry out a ritual that would conjure up the spirit of the Vipera, as she feared that the Jedi Bendu would kill her or perhaps even use some of their magic, as she did not believe that the Force of Others was what Anguigena said it was, against her. Colonists from Vattica, however, were able to stop her before she was able to carry out the ritual. While they were in the valley and burying the bodies, the Jedi Bendu could feel a dark taint within the land, something that they had not felt before, and Matthew remarked that the valley contained the shadow of death. When the Jedi Bendu returned to Ashla Prime, they officially named the area the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
In the days and weeks following the burial, many of the townspeople within the valley began reconsidering whether or not they wanted to live in a place filled with such powerful memories for them. Many of them decided to move off world onto other planets in the Ashlan Expanse, and some left the Ashlan Expanse altogether. The Jedi Bendu also extended an invitation to live in the colonies and the cities without judgment or persecution, and many were inclined to accept the offer. Within seven months of the end of the war, the Valley of the Shadow of Death became deserted, discounting the numerous animal species such as the gemere that continued to live and roam there.
One year after her arrest, the High Shaman Nazzareal was put on trial but arbiters in Ashla Prime. The Jedi Bendu had considered carrying out the trial themselves, but they felt that it would be wiser to step aside considering they were one of the two main fighting forces in the war and they wanted to avoid bias, although they found it difficult to find anyone on the planet without bias. By the end of the trial, Nazzareal was convicted of crimes against sentience and sentenced to life imprisonment. Three days after she was placed into prison, the High Shaman took her own life. Following the precedent of what they had done one year earlier, the Jedi Bendu gave the High Shaman a proper burial within the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
On the one year anniversary of the suicide, the remaining Sons of The Skywalker led a candle-light vigil at the temple in Ashla Prime in memory of the fallen cultist warriors. Some citizens of Kal’Shabbol felt that the vigil was strange as they were holding a memorial service for the very same people that they had fought a war against, though the Jedi Bendu were comfortable with the fact that Valley People had seen the Jedi Bendu point of view and continued with their memorial service. They held this service every year for many years, though it eventually fell out of practice once all of the Sons of The Skywalker had passed away of natural causes.
Legacy[]
The Kal’Shabbol Civil War was remembered as the first conflict that the Order of the Jedi Bendu of the Ophuchi had took part in. This led to some confusion among many people, as they stated that the Exodus from Had Abaddon was the first. However, the Order of the Jedi Bendu of the Ophuchi had not been formed until after the exodus, and it was the Ophuchi Tribes that had carried out the plagues against the monarchy of Had Abaddon. It was also remembered as an event that brought other events full circle, meaning that it was directly related to what the Ophuchi, later the Jedi Bendu, had done during the exodus. It allowed the Jedi Bendu to carefully and meticulously judge all actions that they took in order to try and foresee all possible outcomes.
The Eternal Order of the Vipera officially disbanded a few years after the war was over, as the military was destroyed and the people of the cult wanted to move on with their lives. Many of them continued living in the cities and settlements on Kal’Shabbol where they became citizens of the planet. While there were some instances of violence against the former Valley People, the municipalities were able to keep it to a bare minimum and allow the people to live in peace, which was what they wanted. Other former cultists moved off world to worlds such as Ondos, Aquilae and Decarte, though they did their best to avoid Had Abaddon based on the fact that it was where they had originally faced persecution. On the other worlds, they were successfully able to assimilate into their cultures.
In the years after the war, the Jedi Bendu recognized the fact that they would need to strengthen themselves to meet the challenges of their continued existence. They felt that because they had faced a war only a few decades after their foundation, they would undoubtedly face additional threats in the future. One of the ways they felt they would be able to strengthen themselves was if they were to carry out the mandate given to them by The Skywalker to locate the Whills and bring them to Ashlan Four. After locating both Ashlan Four and the Whill homeworld, they carried out the mandate and Matthew and David helped to form the Order of the Whills. Matthew himself also helped to put together the Journal of the Whills, and the first two conflicts cited in the journal were the Exodus from Had Abaddon and the Kal’Shabbol Civil War.
The legacy of the Kal’Shabbol Civil War and the actions carried out in it came full circle nearly eighty-five thousand years later. In the Galactic Republic, a politician named Fillorean was elected Supreme Chancellor. He disapproved of many of the beliefs of the Order of the Jedi Bendu of the Ophuchi, which had become the official guardians of the Galactic Republic nearly ten thousand years earlier, and he was also ashamed of the actions taken in the Kal’Shabbol Civil War, as well as other conflicts such as the First Ashlan Civil War and the incidents with Xendor Taral. He was able to use his political clout and corruption to reorganize the Jedi Bendu into the Jedi Order. Those loyal to the old ways returned to Kal’Shabbol, as the Jedi Bendu had left thousands of years earlier, to form the Bendu Order where the legacy of the Kal’Shabbol Civil War was remembered. Zios Malachor, the first Bendu High Priest, remarked about how ironic it was that the first planet to bear life in the region was the first planet where the Jedi Bendu were forced to take the life of another sentient.
Behind the scenes[]
Development[]
The idea of the Kal’Shabbol Civil War dates back to Winter 2006 when author Brandon Rhea was first formulating ideas for The Skywalker, the Alternative Star Wars Saga, and what was then simply called the Jedi Bendu Order. During that same time, he heard a song titled One Tin Soldier which was, ironically, an anti-war song from the 1960s. That song spoke about two peoples, one that lived in the kingdom on a mountain and another in a valley far below it. On the mountain, there was a treasure buried beneath the stone and the valley people swore that they would have it for themselves.
Wanting the treasure, the people of the valley sent a message to the kingdom and asked for the buried treasure, described as “tons of gold for which they’d kill”. The kingdom answered by saying, “with our brothers we will share all the secrets of our mountain, all the riches buried there”. The valley people cried with anger and shouted, “Mount your horses! Draw your sword!” They led a charge up the mountain and killed the mountain people. When they stood beside the treasure on the mountain that had been darkened red with blood, they turned the stone and looked beneath it. When they did, they found that the treasure simply said “Peace on Earth”.
Deciding to go with that idea, Rhea found a way to tie it into The Skywalker, who in the end feared that some people would pervert the Force of Others. Therefore, the story progressed when Rhea had a group that lived deep within a valley at the bottom of the mountains, an area that the Jedi Bendu were forbidden to enter called the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The people that lived in the valley were introduced to what was then still referred to as the Force and they became fascinated by it, but that turned to greed. The valley medicine man gathered his people and said that they would have such a treasure as their own.
The people of the valley sent a message up the mountain, asking for the buried treasure. Days went by and the Jedi Bendu received the message from a local courier. The Jedi Bendu sent a small group into the valley to answer the message personally. Upon arrival, they gathered the people of the Valley around them and said they would share the treasure. This outraged the leaders of the valley people, and so the Medicine Man drew his staff. It was then that the first Jedi Bendu to be murdered fell, vaporizing by the power of the Medicine Man’s staff. The valley cried with anger and the Medicine Man decreed that there would be war. The Valley people rode up the mountain, overpowering the limited number of Jedi Bendu on the mountain. They killed the Jedi Bendu and unearthed the ‘treasure’ that was buried within the stone. When they found it, it simply said “Peace in the Force”.
The valley people dropped their swords, mortified by what they had done. They believed that the Jedi Bendu had stolen treasure from their lands, but in reality it was a treasure for all living beings to learn from. In deep regret, the people of the Valley took their own lives and, because of the forgiving nature of the Ashla, dwelled within the Force for eternity. The Jedi Bendu on Ashlan Four discovered this, thus adopting the principle that no one was beyond redemption. However, with this, Rhea established that with every victory of the light the darkness could still prevail. When the Jedi Bendu of Kal'Shabbol were murdered, the Bogan was awakened. Even when the Ashla redeemed the people of the Valley, the Bogan still stirred and it’s shadow began to slowly claw it's way back into existence. This would have been what brought the Force out of balance to begin with, thus rendering the story of Anakin Skywalker as the Chosen One absolutely necessary in the Alternative Saga.
Cultural undertones[]
Although he had the initial idea of what the Kal’Shabbol Civil War would be about, that being the misinterpretation of the Force of Others as a treasure and the eventual suicide of the Valley People, Rhea felt that he needed help in creating it into a war. He requested the assistance of Solus, whom he worked with in creating the Kal’Shabbol planet article. Solus immediately began studying Roman, Greek, medieval, Renaissance, Oriental and some old American West strategies on Wikipedia. She spent many hours looking over tactics and other things relating to combat while copying down what applied. She kept them in mind when she came up with events of the war, along with any necessary images, and she deleted tactics that he had already used so he would not be redundant. For the Jedi Bendu, Solus chose more dignified Roman, Renaissance and old American West combat techniques.
While coming up with strategies for the Valley People, Solus decided to use more mount-based combat, which was inspired by Rohan in The Lord of the Rings, which she then expanded with the use of more and larger cavalry. Mostly Oriental fighting styles came into play for this. The idea for the Valley People to worship snakes likely came from images she saw when providing Rhea images for Kal’Shabbol. Regardless, using that, she decided to come up with more culture so he browsed through Google Images. While looking for something interesting, she would save ones that she liked and wrote a history to go with it. She feels that the Mouth of Vipera was the best thing that she came up with doing that.
Building on the idea of snakes and serpents, Solus extrapolated that the Valley People might have raised snakes or brought them from Had Abaddon, therefore having a large number of them. She utilized this when she came up with the Valley People dropping boxes of snakes on the Jedi Bendu, and the ceremonial canyon filled with them. Also wanting to make the Valley People look less like treasure hunters and more like tragic figures, Solus decided that Rhea’s original idea of starting the war solely out of the want for the Force of Others would not suffice so Solus created the idea of the famine that would eventually lead to a desire for what they believed was the treasure. Many of the other things in the war were put in because Solus felt it would make it a bit more tragic.
In terms of religious undertones, the parts about the Sons of The Skywalker praying and panicking the first time whereas they continued the second time was more symbolic than anything else, and Solus felt that it was the most preachy that she got during his part of the story. The idea of the Star of David did come close, though Solus simply wanted a cameo. Also, because it had already been established that there was a son named David, she could not resist. The original ‘Star of David’ tactic was based on the Infantry square, as a small homage. There was also the subtle anti-pacifist idea in the story. One of the more obvious religious undertones was in fact created by Rhea, and that was the name of the Valley of the Shadow of Death which is found in Psalm 23.
Appearances[]
- Star Wars: Chronicles of the Great War - Splinter of the Mind's Eye (Mentioned only)
- Star Wars: Episode I - The Chosen One (First mentioned)