Jedi Temple

The first signs of trouble for the Jedi Order came a decade before the Clone Wars, when Qui-Gon Jinn returned to the Jedi Temple with a troubling report from Tatooine. On that forlorn desert planet, Qui-Gon had battled a tattooed warrior skilled in the Jedi arts. The Jedi thought the Sith had been destroyed centuries ago, but Qui-Gon’s encounter suggested they had survived – and might even now be plotting against the Order in secret.

Qui-Gon also had an extraordinary request: He wished to train Anakin Skywalker, a slave boy he’d freed on Tatooine. Qui-Gon believed Anakin was the Chosen One of ancient Jedi prophecy, who would one day bring balance to the Force. The Jedi Council tested Anakin in the Temple, and determined he was indeed strong with the Force. But they refused Qui-Gon’s request. Yoda explained that Anakin was too old to escape emotional attachments during his training, but Obi-Wan Kenobi understood the real reason: The masters sensed something dangerous about the boy.

The Council reluctantly agreed to Qui-Gon’s dying wish, and allowed Obi-Wan to train Anakin. A decade later, an assassination with a mysterious weapon led Obi-Wan to the Jedi Archives in search of information about the planet Kamino. To his surprise, the archives showed no planet at Kamino’s coordinates – someone had erased it from the records.

On Kamino, Obi-Wan discovered an astonishing secret: The planet’s cloners had spent a decade growing and training a clone army – one they said had been requested and paid for by the Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas. This was a surprise to the Jedi Council: No such order had been placed, and Sifo-Dyas was long dead. The Jedi told Obi-Wan to apprehend Jango Fett, the source of the clones, for questioning on Coruscant.

Events elsewhere in the galaxy had reverberations in the Jedi Temple. On Tatooine, Anakin Skywalker gave into his rage and pain, slaughtering the Tusken Raiders that had kidnapped and tormented his mother. Anakin’s emotions sent shock waves through the Force, which Yoda felt in his quarters within the temple.

During the Clone Wars, the daring bounty hunter Cad Bane infiltrated the Jedi Temple’s Holocron Vault, off-limits to all Jedi except Council members because it contained some of the Order’s oldest secrets. Bane escaped with a Holocron, which he had stolen for the Sith Lord Darth Sidious.

A bombing at the Jedi Temple forced the Jedi to confront the growing paranoia of citizens who blamed the Order for the war. But an investigation by Anakin and Ahsoka Tano suggested something even more disturbing: A Jedi might have been involved with the plot.

The evidence pointed to Ahsoka, who was tried by a Jedi tribunal and expelled from the Order. But the real culprit was Barriss Offee. Believing the Jedi had lost their way, Barriss sought to force the Jedi to confront their role in the Clone Wars – and framed Ahsoka as the mastermind of the bombing.

With Barriss’s role revealed, Ahsoka was reinstated and welcomed back to the Jedi ranks. But she refused to return, leaving the Temple and seeking a new path – one that would have fateful consequences for the galaxy decades later.

In the final days of the Clone Wars, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine appointed Anakin as his representative to the Jedi Council. Suspicious of Palpatine, the Jedi Masters accepted the appointment but refused to grant Anakin status as Master. That angered the volatile young Jedi, pushing him into a closer relationship with the Supreme Chancellor.

In the Temple’s war room, the Jedi received word that Obi-Wan had cornered the Separatist warlord General Grievous on Utapau. The masters agreed that if Palpatine didn’t surrender his emergency powers after Grievous’s death or capture, the Jedi Order would have to remove him from office and take over the Senate. Galactic affairs had reached a crisis point.

Anakin discovered that Palpatine was in fact Darth Sidious, the hidden Sith Lord behind the Clone Wars. Mace Windu and a party of Jedi tried to arrest the Chancellor, but Anakin interfered, terrified that Sidious’s death would leave him unable to save Padmé Amidala from the fate he’d foreseen. Anakin pledged himself to the Sith, becoming Darth Vader, and led a force of clone troopers to the Jedi Temple.

Inside the Temple, Anakin and the troops slaughtered all the Jedi they found. Not even the younglings who’d sought refuge in the Council chamber escaped the terrible massacre. Elsewhere in the galaxy, clone troopers obeying Order 66 murdered the Jedi Generals they’d served.

The attack left the Temple in flames and the Order in ruins. A message was sent out from the Temple ordering all Jedi to return – but those who did found themselves captives.

As Palpatine declared that the Republic had been reborn as the Empire, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda fought their way past the clone troopers guarding the Temple. They disarmed the signal luring Jedi back to the Temple and discovered evidence that Anakin had led the assault. Both Obi-Wan and Yoda would become exiles, working in secret to resurrect the Order they’d served.

The Jedi Council met in one of the Temple’s soaring spires, with the body’s twelve masters looking out over the massive buildings and endless traffic of Coruscant. Here, the Council debated the will of the Force and sought to navigate increasingly treacherous choices for the Jedi Order.

Visitors arriving on foot at the Jedi Temple approached from a long processional staircase, passing between massive pillars and sculptures of the Temple’s ancient founders before entering the Great Hall within. At the end of the Clone Wars, Anakin Skywalker and a legion of clone troops took this route to assault the Temple.

The Temple’s many graceful corridors and mezzanines were places for Jedi to reflect on the will of the Force or catch up with colleagues returning from missions across the galaxy.

The Temple’s situation rooms were the site of meetings with Jedi called to other star systems on the Order’s business. As the Clone Wars raged, these chambers were often used by the Jedi to discuss the status of the conflict with the Separatists and prepare for new missions.

Powerful transmitters inside the Temple’s central security station allowed the Jedi to contact all members of the Order across the galaxy in the event of an emergency. After the assault on the Temple, Palpatine’s agents broadcast a recall order meant to ensnare any Jedi not already caught by Order 66. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda infiltrated the Temple to alter the transmission so it warned surviving Jedi away instead.

The Temple was home to more than Jedi – doctors, technicians, maintenance crews and researchers worked in the massive structure’s numerous labs and facilities. The Parwan known as Doctor Gubacher ran one of the Temple’s technological research-and-development labs.

Visitors to the Temple arriving from the air landed on platforms extending from the Temple walls. Arriving dignitaries such as Senator Bail Organa normally enjoyed a dignified reception – but that changed after the attack on the Temple, with clone troopers warning the curious away or treating them as enemies.

Jedi used the Temple’s landing platforms to depart on missions, with younglings eagerly awaiting the day they would be called to board a training ship to construct their first lightsabers.

Hangars inside the Temple housed airspeeders and shuttles used by the Order. During the Clone Wars, these spaces increasingly were filled with starfighters and gunships – a sign of the Order’s transformation during wartime.

A carbon-freezing chamber near the hangars was used to prepare goods for transport across the galaxy. Before the mission to the Separatist prison known as the Citadel, it was pressed into service to freeze Jedi and clone troopers in carbonite.

The Jedi Archives contained the accumulated knowledge of the Order, with its librarians confidently saying that if something wasn’t recorded in the Archives, it didn’t exist. That was an overstatement, but not by much.

One of the most secure parts of the Archives was the Holocron Vault, which housed secrets of the ancient Jedi and Sith. Because this information was so sensitive, access to the vault was limited to members of the Jedi Council – and the occasional enterprising bounty hunter who found a way inside.

Analysis labs within the Jedi Temple allowed Jedi to get help identifying objects recovered during missions for the Order, with analysis droids assisting with the research.

The Temple’s medical center was equipped to handle not just physical and mental maladies – its doctors trained to help Jedi who had lost their connection to the Force.

Jedi quarters were typically simple and sparsely furnished. Jedi such as Master Yoda retreated to their quarters to rest and meditate on the will of the Force.

Some Jedi quarters offered more clues to their occupants’ pasts and personalities. Anakin Skywalker’s quarters, for example, were decorated with old Podracing posters and full of machinery that he tinkered with during his off-hours.

The Temple was riddled with conduits, ducts, pipes and vents. The bounty hunter Cad Bane used the Temple’s ventilation system – secured by a laser grid – to gain access to the Holocron Vault.

One of the most important missions of the Jedi Order was the instruction of younglings, who in time would become Padawans and then full-fledged Jedi Knights. Such instruction took place in rooms throughout the Temple, with the lessons and the rooms themselves tailored to help younglings strengthen their connection with the Force.

Lessons taught in such rooms ranged from quiet meditation exercises to practice with training lightsabers. No member of the Order was too important for such duties – Master Yoda, for one, greatly enjoyed his time teaching the Temple’s younglings.

Courtyards and gardens in the Temple provided serene spaces for Jedi to meditate and discuss the ways of the Force with their fellow members of the Order.

Jedi who violated the fundamental rules of the Order had their cases heard by high-ranking Jedi Masters in the Chamber of Judgment, with the Jedi Temple Guard present in case of trouble.

Some Jedi who perished serving the Order were laid to rest in the Temple, with beams of light lit to mark their passage into the Force.