Chapter 50: Tython

Summary:Exploring the ancient home of the Jedi...wait, why is there some much Dark Side here?

Warning! Chapters 48-51 were all published back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any of the new chapters!

Chapter 50: Tython

"We miiighhht have a tiny problem?"

Aayla and Izuku, who had been patiently waiting for Mei to direct them, stiffened. Izuku was the one to bite the bullet and ask.

"What sort of…problem, exactly?"

Mei shifted, tapping away at the sensor console with a nearly visible air of frustration.

"The hangar isn't here. Or, well…there's something where the hangar should have been. But it's little more than drifting debris. Best guess? The Star Chamber, where we are right now, might be intact…but someone or something destroyed the Star Temple here that grants access to it. There was no way to tell that from the network. The Infinity Gate itself was online, so…"

Aayla and Izuku both frowned, though it was Aayla that spoke up this time.

"Does that mean we have to go back? Or can you trigger that energy string thing that got the Wandering Fate into the pocket dimension on Felucia?"

Mei bit her lip, worrying at is as she considered.

"I can't. Remote access requires the Force, from what I read. But one of you probably can? It would blindly put us somewhere randomly on Tython, though, even assuming the system is working. And I'm not sure we'd be able to get back in? Not if the Star Temple is as fucked as I think it probably is, if even the Hangar was destroyed…"

Aayla and Izuku made eye contact with each other, and Izuku groaned at the look Aayla had in her eyes.

"This is on me, isn't it? Since it's my vision/spiritual quest thing?"

Aayla's smirk was mischievous as she nodded.

"Yep! The Force wouldn't have sent us this far if there wasn't a way forward! And this place might as well be one massive amplifier for your connection to the Unifying Force! If you can't figure it out here, you can't figure it out anywhere!"

Huffing an irritated sigh, Izuku nodded acknowledgment and closed his eyes to meditate. He'd clamped down, hard, on his shields after getting the travel pod 'docked' into the Fate's cargo hold. The fact that they might as well be physically swimming in the Unifying Force itself meant that the info he got with his shields even slightly cracked was overwhelming. Master Fay had helped him sort out ways to filter the information. But he'd been slack about building on those ways once he got the information flow under control.

Somehow, he suspected the Force was not-so-subtly prodding him about how little he'd done to develop this aspect of his Force abilities. He'd thrown himself into developing his combat abilities with the Force. Those were something he understood. He had a strong base to build on from his time working with his Quirk before coming to this reality. Years of training with telepathy and telekinesis, with all sorts of combat-focused additions and tricks created under Miruko and during the war, meant he'd been comfortable with the more martial aspects of the Force. It was easy to just treat abilities like battle precognition as another aspect of his Quirk, to train with it just like he'd always done. Even his limited training with Battle Meditation had really felt like just a new, more powerful way to stretch his telepathy. Spanning multiple minds together not just for communication, but for coordination as well.

The same could not be said for the more…mystical aspects of the Force.

Yes, he'd practiced things like psychometry a little bit. Not as much as some might have pushed him too. But he'd recognized the massive advantages of being able to see snippets of the past. But beyond that? He hadn't done the whole 'ask the Force for guidance' thing much at all. Not outside combat. In truth, his experience with the Oasis Nexus on Tatooine was the closest brush he'd had with the more 'mystical' side of the Force. The idea of an all-pervasive energy field that shifted the winds of destiny as it willed, guiding the entire galaxy and beyond? That idea just wasn't a comfortable fit at all.

Apparently, the Force was done letting him stick his fingers in his ears and do the minimum amount of that sort of thing. It wanted him to participate, likely for the very reasons it had shown him in that vision at the Tatooine Nexus. It wanted him to prevent horrible fates from happening, and ignoring what amounted to really good advice from an energy field that had all the inside information was sort of a dumbass thing to do.

He could acknowledge that.

That didn't necessarily mean he had to like it.

Honestly, what he hated the most might be how easy it was. All he had to do was…let go and ask for help. To ask the Force itself to filter the flood of information, to show him the bit it wanted or needed him to see. With deep, even breaths, he did just that, forcing himself not to wince or flinch as his shields came down and information rushed in. He only managed what he was trying to do for a few moments before having to slam his shields down again…but those moments were more than enough. Izuku's eyes snapped open and a hand raised. A tether of energy shot out from the Infinity Gate, wrapping around the Wandering Fate. Then, between one eyeblink and the next…they were somewhere else. Somewhere that looked suspiciously like a landing pad. Albeit one in quite the state of decay.

"Well. That went well! Let's check and find out just where you've dropped us, Izu!"

Izuku glowered at Aayla's cheerful declaration, just knowing that this trip was going to farther complicate his already overly complicated life…

... ...

An unease had settled over both Aayla and Izuku quickly after their relocation, and it hadn't taken long to realize why. The Dark Side of the Force was present wherever they had ended up, though it felt as if whatever had caused its presence was long faded, worn away by a great many years passing since whatever had occurred here caused the infusion of the Dark Side. Aayla and Izuku had both felt the need to armor up again, and they'd been mildly reluctant to take Mei with them. Only the fact that they were just as reluctant to leave her, with the unknowns of the situation, had her armored up with them and following in their wake as they exited the ship.

What they found upon exiting were ruins. A lot of them. What had obviously once been a sprawling temple had been destroyed rather thoroughly. Though the destruction looked…haphazard. Like it hadn't happened all at once, but been the focus of random acts of violence over a far greater period of time. Many different types of damage were present, from blaster fire to simple large boulders that had been heaved at the structures. As they both took it in, Aayla was the first to speak.

"Huh. I think I actually know where we are. There might not be much left, but what little is standing…it matches the Grand Temple that was constructed here after the Sacking of Coruscant. It's the only Tython Temple there is actual imagery of available in the archives. It was supposed to have been intact when it was abandoned, though. Someone or multiple someone's has clearly been here since then."

Izuku frowned at that. Obviously, whoever had been here hadn't exactly been a fan of the Jedi Order.

"When was that, exactly?"

Aayla made a so-so motion with her hand.

"That's kinda hard to say? It was somewhere between 3,600 years ago, when the Sacking happened…and several hundred years after that. Information from that period is horrifically fragmented, as there was a series of wars around that time best described as a galactic clusterfuck. Jedi, Sith, some third threat from beyond the Outer Rim that was supposedly bad enough that the Jedi and Sith actually allied for the only time in recorded history to deal with it. Frankly, so much information has been lost that we don't know exactly how, when, or why this Temple was abandoned."

Izuku shook his head slowly, once again trying and failing to fully process the age of the Republic and the scope of its history. The Roman Empire had been the longest lasting single power on Earth, if he remembered correctly. Even if you were very generous with your consideration of how long it lasted, it had barely made it 1,400 years. The Galactic Republic was so much older that it couldn't even manage to hold onto knowledge of its own history very well. Somehow clinging to life through multiple dark ages and dozens of galaxy-spanning wars.

"Well, I don't think we're going to find anything here. I suppose…"

Izuku grimaced at the feel of the Force here. He wasn't going to reach out into that foul soup. Considering for a moment, he lifted his hand and summoned Force Light. The instant it sprang into existence, the clinging darkness practically hissed and fled from the manifestation of the Light Side of the Force. Aayla, feeling how the darkness fled from even a single light, quickly added her own copy of the technique. For the moment, at least, the darkness lifted, and Izuku let his shields crack open again, doing his best to let the Force and his purpose here guide his 'filters.'

Splitting his concentration to both seeking guidance and maintaining Force Light was quickly draining. Thankfully, he didn't have to hold it for long, managing to snap into the right mindset for a few moments and grasping a bit of guidance. Releasing both the meditation and his Force Light, Izuku took a deep breath.

"Well, I got a general direction, and an impression of a much more intact building. We need to head northwest of here, to a ridge that overlooks the valley."

Before Aayla could reply, a snarling howl was heard from just south of them. More responded, and they sounded like they were getting closer. Aayla's lightsabers were drawn by instinct, even as both of them recognized the feel of dozens of points of darkness moving toward them.

"Ah. Izuku? I think we might have attracted some attention with the light show."

Izuku snorted, drawing and igniting his own saber, still the loaner that Ood Bnar had given him from his stash of ancient blades.

"You don't say. Mei! Get up top of the ship! Shoot down into whatever is coming if you can, but don't stick around if they can get to you. If they can, just retreat inside from the topside docking link!"

Mei didn't hesitate to obey. Her armor, more bulky and outfitted with far more gadgets than theirs, proved Izuku's suspicions about one possibly capability it might have as Mei lept. A set of jump jets ignited along her legs, carrying her the rest of the way to the top of the Wandering Fate. He smiled wryly at having guessed right. Mei always had been a sucker for jetpacks or jump gear of any kind.

With Mei out of immediate danger, both of them moved away from the ship a bit, sabers ignited, and waited for whatever was coming for them. Running wasn't the right choice here. Not only because it would leave their ship vulnerable, but because they could just as easily run right into another sort of trouble. Better to figure out what they were dealing with head on. They caught sight of the first of their enemies only a minute later and couldn't help but stare as it locked onto them and picked up its pace.

"What the kirffing hells is that?!"

While not the most eloquent question, Izuku had to agree with the sentiment. The bulky bipedal humanoid looked like it might have started life already looking ugly as sin. Eight small slits lined its upper lip and two stumpy eye stalks protruded from the sides of a box-shaped head, with a wide maw filled with razor sharp teeth below. That, unfortunately, had been before something horrific happened to it. Now, it was less than half flesh and bone. A glowing metal eye replaced one stalk, one arm was a saw, and its entire body appeared to be infected with metal bits, for lack of a better description.

"Yeah. I'm absolutely not letting that touch me."

The…thing…had covered nearly half the distance to them as they stared at it, so Izuku quickly put action to words. He frowned as it only staggered when he tried to telekinetically lift it. It felt oily and slick to his mental grasp, infused with the Dark Side. His next attempt was far more successful, as he picked up a large piece of wrecked wall with his mental grip and slammed it down on the creature. It snarled and hissed, not dead despite half a ton of weight being on its chest. Aayla darted forward and stabbed its head, then had to dart back quickly as it breathed some sort of cloud at her with its dying breath.

"Some sort of bioweapon!"

Abruptly taking the threat of these things far more seriously as four more of them came in from the valley to the south, Izuku picked up smaller pieces of wreckage and this time accelerated them at high speeds. The new tactic was far more effective than simply crushing the first one, as all of them staggered and two of them went down with disjointed limbs. Mei acted for the first time, firing something at the downed pair that burst into a semi-contained sphere of plasma around the bodies when it hit. Aayla, meanwhile, threw both of her sabers forward in spins. Guiding them with the Force, she easily sent the whirling blades through the remaining pair, separating heads from bodies, which thankfully seemed to do the trick. There was a moment of silence…then eight more of them entered the area from multiple angles.

"Well, fuck. This might take a while. I really hope whatever the fuck they are releasing can't get through our armor's scrubbers…"

... ...

The techno-virus could get through their armor. Which sucked. It also was vulnerable to being eradicated by sufficient Force power, however, particularly if they used small bursts of Force Light. Which made it suck somewhat less. They'd had to repel enough of the technobeasts, as they'd taken to calling them, that their armor systems had gotten fucked up in the process, however. They'd also stopped using Force Light in anything but the smallest, most controlled bursts, as no matter how many of the beasts they killed, Force Light attracted more of them if they used it too liberally.

They had, at least, finally made it to their destination.

What they found was a multi-story structure built in a very similar pattern to the now-destroyed former Jedi Temple. Located on the edge of a small and rocky mountain, the thankfully still-intact building was suspended over a lake, providing a peaceful view. A peaceful view that, a bit surprisingly, extended into the Force. Whatever this place had been, it had enough lingering Light Side energies to counter the dark miasma lingering elsewhere, at least in a small bubble around it.

Scans by Mei, whose armor was the only one that still contained functional sensors at this point, had pronounced it still more than stable enough to enter. Doing so, putting walls between themselves and whatever other horrors might still be lurking on Tython, was something of a relief. Though the initial lower levels they entered were unglamorous, consisting of small airspeeder landing pads and a number of basic offices.

"Well, it would have been a bit nice to know there were landing pads here. We could have taken the speeder bikes and skipped the tech-virus laden Dark Side abominations."

Aayla snorted at Izuku's deadpan tone, but was also quick to point out that it hadn't been entirely a waste.

"We could have skipped them, yes. That would have meant learning little about them, though. It's clear they were created at some unknown point. Which might well mean there is an active threat here, or that there was, at least. The Order is still looking for clues about the Sith, and the fact Tython is overrun with those things might be a clue…or something to clean up regardless of if it's a clue or not. They are unquestionably of the Dark Side, after all."

Izuku grimaced but nodded to concede the point. Personally, he figured whatever had created them was long gone. They still hadn't seen any evidence that there was anyone active on the planet, after all. He was no expert, but from what signs he did know to look for, all the larger scale destruction they'd seen seemed to have happened centuries ago. Long enough for weather to wear away jagged edges of broken stone and so forth.

Pushing away those thoughts and the related thoughts of possible complications if they had to get other people to Tython, Izuku led them to a set of stairs that took them upward. At the top, they entered into a much more divided floor. The presence of an open-layout lounge, with a series of doors all around the lounge perimeter, led to the quick conclusion that this had been some sort of dormitory or private retreat. A few of the doors were open, showing largely barren personal rooms or meditation chambers, along with a basic kitchen setup behind one. Others were closed, and Izuku frowned as he wondered just what he was supposed to be looking for here. Seeming to sense his thoughts, Aayla laid a hand on his back.

"Trust the Force, Izu! It's cleared up in here, no nasty oily darkness to get in the way."

Sighing, Izuku nevertheless cracked open his shields again. Reaching the state of mind needed to let the Force itself craft the filters on the information he was getting was easier the third time. Which, he supposed, was probably another pointed hint that he needed to do this more often so the ability came more easily. Sending a mental frown at the Force for being pushy, he nevertheless accepted the information it provided. Information which came in the form of an overlay of a vision on reality.

A fair skinned woman with stern features and brown-grey hair moved with the sort of flowing, deadly grace Izuku had only seen matched by Celeste. Even that comparison felt a bit shallow, as something about the woman he was seeing move to the security pad of one room said she was more dangerous than even the out-of-time Jedi Shadow. Almost unconsciously, he followed her movements, observing the code she input on the keypad…and quickly replicating it when he realized that somehow, this specific pad still had power. An oddity, given that nothing else in the building did and the only light was coming in from dusty skylights and an attachment on Mei's armor.

The door jerked and stuttered, but it did open, even if the security pad's power died when the door was only most of the way clear. A quick tug of the Force was enough to push the door the rest of the way into its recess, and Izuku stepped into the private room beyond just in time to see the ghostly visage of the past pressing a hand against a seemingly innocuous part of the wall. The vision of the woman faded away after a few more seconds, leaving Izuku to stride over and examine the wall in question.

It wasn't until he ignited his borrowed lightsaber for some additional light that he could, just barely, make out a single tiny symbol under where the woman's palm had lain. The tiny etching resembled the Jedi Order's symbol…sort of. Instead of a blade, there was a tower and a star, though it was still framed by the flared wings of the modern crest. An older version of the Order's symbol? Most likely. Or else a personal crest for the woman, he supposed.

Placing his hand on the wall, palm over the symbol, did nothing. But Izuku hadn't really thought it would. It wouldn't be a very good security measure if someone merely accidentally placing their hand on the wall would reveal whatever was here. Instead, Izuku thought like a Jedi, and pushed a bit of Force into the wall. Immediately, he knew he was on the right track…though there was resistance and an impression. Blinking, he matched the impression as best he could, letting Force Light spill from his palm in a carefully shaped mimicry of the star that had been part of the crest. Clever. No Dark Sider would be able to generate Force Light to make the panel work.

It took a bit of fiddling, as he'd never tried to shape Force Light like that before. But after a minute or two of fumbling, he apparently got it right. There was a click, the sound of a purely mechanical lock disengaging, and the entire wall shifted slightly. Blinking, having expected a small nook instead of a door, he nevertheless pressed slighting inward, then pulled to the side as the door proved to be on a purely mechanical track. The combined action pushed the wall panel in, then slid it into the rest of the wall, revealing an entire room, albeit a small one, hidden away. The room must have had its own power supply, as a few fitful lights flickered on. Less than half of those he could see still worked, but it was enough to reveal the room. A reveal that got a sharp gasp from behind him.

"Izuku! On the pedestals! Those are holocrons."

Izuku nodded, knowing they were important…but feeling the pull of something else. This close, he could feel the resonance in the Force of the lightsaber crystal he'd previously felt the presence of on Naboo. It practically sang to him, and he stepped into the room in a half-trance. He passed most of the holocrons, before coming to a single pedestal. As he reached for not the holocron, but the pedestal itself, a security field sprung into place…and the holocron flickered to life. A middle-aged woman with a stern face, one that resembled but did not match that of the woman whose past self he'd followed into this room, lit up over the holocron.

"And what, exactly, do you think you are doing?"

Izuku made to speak, but a startled voice from behind him got a word in first.

"Bastila?"

The regal-looking woman blinked, her eyes shifting to Aayla.

"Well, at least you know who I am. Yet that still doesn't necessarily entitle you to be here. Let alone to what you are trying to retrieve. Hmmm…the internal clock of my holocron says I haven't been accessed in millennia, too. So I'm a bit curious how you even know who I am."

Aayla hesitated, not really having intended to interrupt Izuku's moment. But she shrugged a moment later, accepting that she'd already done so.

"I met your Force Ghost in a vision on Tatooine. In a Force Nexus there. You looked younger, but it was still unmistakably you."

The holocron's eyebrows rose at the admission.

"Odd. I traveled to Tatooine on more than one occasion. But I didn't have any particular connection to it, really. What did this Force Ghost of mine supposedly say to you?"

Aayla shifted uncomfortably.

"It…you…told me that I was in a similar situation to your husband. I asked her if I was then doomed to repeat his mistake. She laughed at me and asked me why on earth I thought Revan had made a mistake."

The holocron image blinked, then smirked, a bit of humor lightening her stern visage.

"Revan made a great many mistakes, but I imagine if the Force says you're in his situation, the most likely one for you to view that way wasn't anything of the sort. Still, it doesn't explain what this one is doing here."

She waved Izuku's way, and he took the chance to finally get a word in.

"I sought guidance from the Force regarding a lightsaber crystal matched for me, as I've been using a borrowed blade. The trail of breadcrumbs left for me eventually led me here, and I can feel the crystal in question inside the pedestal you are on. Though, given the security field, I assume you were set to guard it?"

Bastila's visage eyed him sharply. After a long few moments of seeming to look through him, it nodded slowly.

"I was. The crystal is one of a pair. My husband vanished into the unknown regions with the other, while this one remained in my possession until I died. It never felt right to pass it on, despite there being several other Jedi in my lineage. Something told me to hide it, until the other crystal surfaced again. So, unless you…"

Aayla interrupted again…this time by igniting her primary lightsaber blade. Its deep golden glow and distinct presence in the Force instantly quieted the holocron.

"That other crystal wouldn't be the Heart of the Guardian, would it?"

Bastila's image had gone ramrod straight.

"How…do you know what happened to…"

There was obvious pain in her voice, the source of which was easy to determine. Aayla's voice was full of understanding as she spoke.

"To Revan? Not from how we found the crystal. But your ghostly self knew what had happened to him. I assume because she has become one with the Force as he did. She only told me a little, but she said that he was critical to the final defeat of a resurgent Sith Empire that invaded a few generations after your own death. I'm afraid I don't know the whole story, only that he apparently truly was needed to fight a great evil."

The Bastila in the holocron closed her eyes for a long moment, taking that in. There was a bit of pain in her voice when they opened and she spoke again.

"I still wish he had stayed. But it is good to hear that his actions truly were important, at least."

Aayla and Izuku nodded, letting the conversation lapse for a few moments. Then, to only a little surprise, the security field around the pedestal vanished. Holocron Bastila spoke again right after it did.

"Well, since you have brought the Heart of the Guardian here, then I believe it is time for its partner to return to the galaxy at large as well. As I had foreseen before my death. You'll find that the pedestal opens in the same manner that the door to this place did. Indeed, young Satele spent quite some time copying my work, with my help, in order to make the hidden door for this room."

Aayla jerked in surprise, even as Izuku knelt to find a familiar crest on the side of the pedestal. He only half listened to Aayla and Bastila as he focused on opening the secret compartment.

"Wait. Satele? As in Grandmaster Satele Shan?"

Aayla's tone was surprised, and Bastila's was warm yet amused when she replied.

"Yes. My several times Great Granddaughter. I found it quite humorous that they ended up raising her to be the Grandmaster of the Order, when they'd all but exiled me for my 'heresy.' She might have given bare lip service to keep the peace, but quite a few of them had to be aware she herself had a son, and didn't regret that fact even slightly. Not to mention being from a direct blood lineage that had produced a number of other 'heretical' Jedi."

Aayla's giggle as the deadpan delivery of that statement only cut off when Izuku finally made contact with the crystal in the hidden compartment. There was a flash of connection in the Force, and he drew the brilliantly glittering cyan colored crystal out in the palm of his hand. Holocron Bastila spoke up again, identifying it for them.

"The Mantle of the Force. Where the Heart of the Guardian enhances all physical uses of the Force, the Mantle of the Force instead does the same with non-physical usages. I never could bring myself to use it in my lightsaber, as I still had a connection to my original crystal. But I did attune it and often used it to amplify my Battle Meditation in the later years of my life. So much so that very few ever realized that I continued to use that skill even in my exile, as a means to influence battles without being seen to participate. Or even being seen at all, for that matter."

Izuku groaned, causing both women to look at him. He blushed at their curious expressions, but explained despite his embarrassment.

"This entire little quest, the Force has been pounding into my skull that I need to learn to use the more esoteric aspects of the Force, since I'm naturally more inclined towards them. I've just…not wanted to, as I'm less comfortable with them than I am with combat. Battle Meditation is alright, but the more mystical stuff about guidance and visions is a little bit out there for me."

Bastila looked curious.

"That is an odd sentiment for a Jedi."

Izuku huffed, but it was Aayla that explained.

"Izuku isn't actually a Jedi. I am. I was raised by the Jedi and trained in the main temple on Coruscant and was Knighted several months ago. But Izuku's background is more unusual in that he was born outside the Republic entirely. He'd learned among his own people how to use telepathy and telekinesis to an incredibly high level but knew effectively nothing about the more esoteric uses of the force. Even things like basic precognition were unknown to him, until he first met me."

Holocron Bastila blinked, then smirked as she looked between them.

"Ah, and then the tale as old as time occurred, and you've been infecting him with your Jediness."

Aayla giggled and nodded, even as Izuku gave the holocron a flat stare. Despite being only an imprint of the real woman, there was a spark of humor dancing in the holocron gatekeeper's eyes. Still, it let up with its next sentence, bringing the topic in a more serious direction.

"Well, it's certainly a tale my family is familiar with. Which makes me think that my request might not be such a bad one."

Holocron Bastila waved around the hidden room, gesturing at everything inside.

"Collected here are all the holocrons made by the Shan lineage, up until Satele. At least, all the ones we know about. In addition, there are some collected works from Revan that were recovered, and a fair number of other artifacts of minor importance. Given that I went so long inactive, I have to assume that Tython has been once again lost or abandoned?"

Aayla nodded, sensing where this was going.

"Yes. The hyperlane collapsed again at some point. Though the Order had been scattered by another war before that time. It was the Republic that helped them reorganize after that war, so it made sense to move the new Grand Temple closer to the Republic's Core Worlds. Then the hyperlanes to Tython collapsed again and, so far as I know, that was the last time the Jedi were here. Though there's some strong evidence a dark sider has been here far more recently."

The holocron projection scrunched her nose at that, an adorable expression that looked odd on the regal, middle-aged but beautiful, Jedi.

"That just makes my request all the more important then. Please take at least the holocrons here with you, if you can. The artifacts too, if you have the means. While the holocrons were hidden away, that was mostly because Satele didn't need reminders of the Shan family being rogue heretics, as it were. They were never meant to be sealed indefinitely and contain quite a bit of knowledge. Including quite a lot on Battle Meditation, which I believe Mr. Not-a-Jedi has stated he can use."

Aayla and Izuku both nodded instantly to the request, though as the Jedi between the two of them, Aayla was the one to answer.

"We can absolutely take the holocrons off Tython. It might not be the best time to return them to the Order proper just yet, but the Library of Ossus is currently in the process of being restored, and the caretaker there would likely be pleased to have additional holocrons. There are a number of Jedi working out of there that would benefit as well, many of whom come from non-traditional backgrounds that would likely benefit more from your guidance than the main Jedi Order anyway."

The holocron's gatekeeper nodded, then pointedly stared at both of them.

"Well, then, the only thing left to do is…for you two to properly introduce yourselves! You already know who I am, but you rather skipped the introductions."

Both of them blushed as the went back over the conversation mentally and realized Bastila was correct…

... ... ... ... ...

A/N 1: Before anything else, let me just say that the lore on Tython is a MESS. There are a lot of places where things just don't line up right, or at all, and a lot of unknowns too. Like the fact that 'some disaster' bombarded the planet with dark side energy at one point. But the disaster is never explained anywhere, nor is a timeline for that given. I spent WAY too much time trying to piece together something cohesive for Tython. Ugh.

A/N 2: So, I didn't realize it at the time I wrote the Dathomir section, but the Kwa apparently destroyed the Infinity Gate on Tython? The problem with that is that detail is contradicted elsewhere that listed it as their biggest gate and that it had been buried/sealed. I decided to split the difference to try and line the bits up by saying they destroyed the Star Temple complex to deny the gate to the Rakata. But that they hadn't been able/willing to destroy the pocket dimension with the actual Infinity Gate itself in it.

A/N 3: The technobeasts are Legends EU, a Sith built a fortress on Tython during the New Sith Wars and created them. A techno virus mixed with Sithspawn. Darth Bane and Darth Zannah visited at once point after the fortress was defunct and wiped out a lot of them...but the virus replicates by infecting more organic hosts. So I figured if they missed even one, they've likely repopulated given the better part of a thousand years in which to do so. For the curious, the hosts they are infecting are mostly Flesh Raiders, seen on Tython in The Old Republic MMO.

A/N 4: Likewise, the location they found the holocrons at was The Masters Retreat. Basically where the Jedi Masters that taught at the Temple lived during that same time period. Satele Shan was the Grandmaster during most of The Old Republic MMO as well. Frankly, I used what I remember or could find videos of from that MMO as the guide for much of Tython...

A/N 5: The Mantle of the Force is from KoTOR, though. It can be found at the same location as the Heart of the Guardian. Someone over on ScribbleHub actually called it showing up at some point after I first included Heart of the Guardian :-p.