Atris
From the Encyclopedia of Speculative Fiction - http://encyclopedia.wizards.pro
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| Atris | |
| Gender | Female |
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- "It is such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it."
- — Kreia — Image:Gnome-speakernotes.pngListen
Before the Mandalorian Wars, Atris was a Jedi historian who saw the Jedi Order as the symbol of light, justice and perfection. All that changed when the Jedi Exile defied the Jedi Order to participate in the Mandalorian Wars with Revan and Malak. Having one whom she cared about defy everything she believed in shook her to her very core.
Biography
As a member of the Jedi Council, Atris feared being ostracized by the Council if she followed the Exile to war. Part of Atris wanted to punish the Exile for bringing her perfect view on the Jedi to an end, while part of her wanted to understand why the Exile defied the Council yet felt justified in doing so. In the beginning, Atris naively pronounced death for the Exile posthumously after the trial.
After the Jedi Civil War, Atris rallied a secret Jedi Council on Katarr, a colony world of the Miraluka. However, only the Jedi themselves believed in the secrecy of this council, as Atris spread information about its location, hoping to draw the attention of the Sith and make them reveal themselves. However, the Sith threat, in the form of Darth Nihilus, surpassed all expectations of the Jedi, including Atris herself. Nihilus proved to be too powerful for the Jedi, who found their deaths on Katarr. Atris, however, survived the invasion.
She took refuge under a polar ice cap on the planet Telos, where she had hidden most of the Jedi's valuable artifacts and resources, such as Sith holocrons. She sought to remedy what she saw as a fundamental flaw of the Jedi Order: the lack of any mechanism to prevent Jedi from falling to the dark side, and repeatedly wreaking havoc on the galaxy. To that end, she trained a group of half-sisters, specially equipped and trained to resist Force powers and if necessary use their Echani combat skills to subdue wayward Jedi. Atris planned to eventually rebuild the Jedi Order, but she became corrupted by her own arrogance and by delving into the forbidden knowledge of her collection of Sith holocrons.
As she privately sought to understand the Exile's motivations (part of the reason for her keeping of the holocrons), she clung even more desperately to her perfect view of the Jedi to the point of fanaticism. It built up a pressure that finally exploded when Kreia coerced Atris into ceasing her self-denials -- and accept her new dark persona. Part of the reason why Atris hid on Telos is that she believed she could more easily maintain her perfect world in isolation. As Kreia once said, Atris had no one to blame but herself. No one forced her into the choices she made -- not the Jedi, not Traya, and certainly not the Exile.
Kreia realized that Atris was walking down the path to the dark side. As such she informed her former student, Darth Nihilus, that there was a Jedi academy on Telos. Darth Nihilus attacked Telos believing that he could feed on the Force-users there. Since he would find only Atris, he would destroy her and then die of starvation. Kreia was especially proud of this plan because it would eliminate two major threats to the galaxy in one stroke.
Atris would eventually clash with the Exile, and be defeated. The Exile, however, spared her life, allowing her to see what mockery of herself she had become. She decided to break her ties to the Jedi Order, learn from her mistakes and find her true place in the world. Her Sith Holocrons, however, did not tolerate failure, it's possible that they may have been her death.
Behind the scenes
- In the game, if the main character (the Exile) is set as a male, some discussion with the last Handmaiden (Brianna) reveals that Atris may have harbored feelings for the Exile, and the Exile's decision to leave the Order for the Mandalorian Wars was in fact the trigger for her eventual fall to the dark side. This further justifies the bitterness of her attitude when she first meets the Exile earlier in the game.
- In addition to the ending mentioned above, the player has an opportunity to kill Atris during the final battle with her and gain dark side points.
- Originally, the light side and dark side endings differed from each other more significantly than in the final game. One possible ending featured Kreia's redemption and Atris' total shift to the dark side, which culminated in the scene where Atris attacked the player wearing a black robe and claimed that she, not Kreia, was Darth Traya. Her dark side model remained in the game and can appear in the main menu if the CurSithLord option is set to 1 in swkotor2.ini.
- There is some indication that Atris was originally planned to be the player's party member at some point, most probably after Kreia's departure to Malachor V. For example, the name of her appearance set is "Party_NPC_Atris". Howeverm it might have remained from a prior version, which had Mira join the party on Peragus, rather then Nar Shaddaa.