Summary
InStar Wars, theJediare a respected group of heroes who fight and protect the galaxy with grace and skill unrivaled by all, save for their mortal enemies, the Sith. Yet in the Old Republic,the Jedi once utilized secret “Shadow” agents to carry out clandestine missions that the Jedi Order couldn’t, dispatched by a covert Jedi sect that uses their hate in ways that make them far closer to the Sith than expected.
Making their first appearance thousands of years beforecurrentStar Warstales, Jedi Shadows were essentially Jedi assassins and Sith hunters who used their finely-tuned Force skills to track down Sith artifacts and help prevent the dark side from flourishing across the galaxy.
Featured in a handful ofStar WarsLegends stories from the mid-2000s, one particular arc,Star Wars: Vector, confirms exactly what these Shadows are and what their shady Jedi overlords — the secretive Covenant organization — did to ensure their classified naturewhile pushing their Shadows closer and closer to the dark side with each new assignment.
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The Covenant’s Jedi Shadows Secretly Hunted Sith and Retrieved Ancient Artifacts
Star Wars: Vector- 2008 (written by John Ostrander and John Jackson Miller)
Starting in the Old Republic and ending inStar Wars: Legacy’s 100-year time skip,Star Wars: Vectorfollows Celeste Morne, a Shadow tasked with finding a Sith artifact containing an ancient evil with the ability to infect others and turn them into vicious monsters known as the Rakghouls. Explaining in this issue thatShadows like Celeste were Jedi who had their information removed from official records or had falsified their deaths to become black ops agents within the Covenant, it’s the obsessive drive to keep the Sith at bay that makes these Shadows tick, for better or worse.
Eventually found out, shut down, and then arrested by the Jedi Order proper, only a handful of people ever knew about the Covenant, their Shadow agents, or the covert and morally grey missions they often partook in, as anything related to these special Jedi were deliberately kept a secret, both individually and as an idea. It’s shown inVectorthatthe Covenant’s purpose comes from hatred towards the Sith and the more questionable and callous ways Shadows operated in their single-mindedness, resulting in the Covenant and their Shadows consistentlybreaking the rules of the Jedi Orderwhile technically serving its interests.
The Covenant and Their Shadows’ Hate for the Sith Made Them Just Like Their Enemies
Although this tale is now part of thenon-canon stories that make upStar WarsLegends,these “Shadows” can always be brought back into mainstreamStar Warscontinuity, especially considering these Jedi were so off-the-grid that it wouldn’t take much to explain why they haven’t been seen or even hinted at before. Regardless of whether the Covenant or some version of it will ever debut in officialStar Warslore, this super-secret group ofJedifighting with questionable morality is a fun world-building detail that begs to be adapted into the current canon of a galaxy far, far away.
Star Wars
Star Wars is a multimedia franchise that started in 1977 by creator George Lucas. After the release of Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope (originally just titled Star Wars), the franchise quickly exploded, spawning multiple sequels, prequels, TV shows, video games, comics, and much more. After Disney acquired the rights to the franchise, they quickly expanded the universe on Disney+, starting with The Mandalorian.
