Before I start this article I want to say that if you want to avoid spoilers that it is best if you stop reading now if you haven’t read Crosscurrent, Riptide, Fate of the Jedi, Crucible and the Legacy Comic series up to Legacy War. It would also help if you have ready New Jedi Order and Legacy of the Force but I’m assuming if you have read up to Crucible then you have read those as well. Still here? Good.
With the Expanded Universe being discontinued so abruptly there were a multitude of unresolved plot threads. Potential stories that were set up but never told. Today I wanted to talk about one of these and give some theories and speculations on how it was supposed to go down. If this is popular I may do others so let me know if you’d like more from myself or other contributors continue this series as I’m sure they have a few as well.
So, what is it I am talking about that was set up but never resolved off? Well at the end of Riptide to sum it up, the One Sith made a clone of Jaden Korr that was supposed to act as a sleeper agent that they would release back into Luke’s order to sabotage it from within. However, it doesn’t go exactly as planned and the real Jaden is killed and his conscious transferred to the clone. The clone was unaware that the actual Jaden died and the transfer happened and continued to act fairly normally during the ending of the novel but it is hinted that the clone’s sleeper programing had survived and was still dormant waiting to be activated. It is admittedly not clear whether or not he is a sleeper agent. But to me this is a clear Chekhov's gun scenario as why would you mention it if you weren’t planning on doing something with it.
However, in FOTJ and Crucible nothing really came of it. He served the Jedi order throughout the conflict even making some appearances in important events and never showed any signs that he was a sleeper agent. So, this means he wasn’t a sleeper agent after all right? Well not exactly. In the EU it is pretty common for things to take multiple series to come to fruition. I mean we had been hearing about the Empire of the Hand since Vision of the Future but it wasn’t until the end of FOTJ that we actually saw them in action. Raynar’s survival was set up half way through NJO but didn’t come to a head until the next trilogy and his redemption didn’t come to fruition until FOTJ. Daala, Lumiya, and even Krayt went entire eras without making an appearance waiting for the right time to strike. So, it isn’t uncommon for these things to take some time.
With all of that in mind here is where I think they were going with the sleeper agent subplot. To be clear this is just my personal theory when looking at what has been established to try and answer the question. I could be 100% wrong, but until we get an official continuation, speculating is all we really can do to answer these questions.
First some set up. At the end of FOTJ Luke knows Darth Krayt is out there. He doesn’t know much about his order or what his plan is but he knows he exists, is looking at taking control of the galaxy and that Jacen saw a vision of him sitting on the throne of balance. Krayt did say before leaving that the future wasn’t changed but merely delayed so Luke can infer that this man is a threat and needs to be stopped. However, Luke also has the Lost Tribe and Abeloth to finish off. The former requires a full scale war and the latter the Dagger Of Mortis. As these are more pressing threats it is easy to assume that Luke focused on them before going after Krayt, and got him somewhere down the line. But Krayt wasn’t stopped, in fact nearly 100 years after their meeting his order stunned the Galaxy by taking complete control and nearly wiping out the Jedi order. So why, if Luke knew about this threat, did he or his order not do anything for a century?
The answer in my mind is Jaden. Krayt knew about the Lost Tribe and Abeloth, he knew Luke would focus on them before coming after him, and he assumed that such campaigns would be lengthy endeavors that would weaken Luke’s order through wartime attrition. While his order would grow unimpeded. Furthermore, since in Crucible we learned he turned away Vestara Khai, I don’t think he was too keen on partnering with the lost tribe to take out Luke. More likely he saw them as a threat, as his order relied on complete loyalty and obedience to him and him alone. In Legacy you can see this as when he was betrayed by Darth Wyyrlok the third, revived himself and was in a severely weakened state, his inner circle still supported him over Wyyrlok and nursed him back to full strength and aided him in taking down Wyyrlok. This is simply unheard of within the history of the Sith as any other order would just eliminate the weakened leader and take power for themselves. Yes that is what Wyyrlok ended up doing but in this case he was the exception as the rest of the inner circle and the order at large still remained loyal to Krayt, even when they thought he was dead. While Wyyrlok was at the helm they harbored resentment against him and when Krayt came back they accepted him with open arms. For the one Sith Loyalty to Krayt and the grand plan of the order was paramount.
As other Sith orders who were not raised with this mentality, they could not be trusted to join the ranks and would undermine their own efforts in the pursuit of their own. So Krayt was content to sit back and let them destroy each other. The victor, most likely the Jedi, would emerge weakened and would be no match for his own order especially with a sleeper agent in their ranks. Once they were taken care of there was nothing to stop him from taking over the Galaxy. This is what I think his original plan was.
However, the plan backfired. As I’ve talked about before in my article Luke’s Order vs The Lost Tribe: An Unfair Fight, these were not equal combatants. The individuals of Luke’s order had much more actual experience fighting wars, battling other force users, and an understanding of the dark side that made them much more resistant to falling than previous orders. In FOTJ Luke’s order won every battle and suffered casualties so low you could count them on one hand, while the Lost Tribe lost several high Lords and most of their best fighters. The only thing that was stopping the Jedi from complete victory was the location of their home planet. Once that was known it would simply be a mopping up effort and the tribe would be history.
The war continues for a short time and ends with the complete destruction of the lost tribe and minimal losses for the Jedi. Abeloth would also be an easy victory as once they had the Dagger of Mortis that would be another simple fight. For Krayt this would be a serious setback as he could not hope to defeat Luke’s order at this stage, especially with the amount of experience they have in wars and against other force users. He would be forced to bide his time until generations of peace time dulled the combat effectiveness of the average Jedi. In fact, I would not be surprised if his agents worked to quell uprisings and ensure lasting peace so the Jedi would grow even more complacent in their combat abilities as they wouldn’t be needed. The current generation of battle hardened fighters would die off, and be replaced with softer generations that only knew peace not war.
The only problem with this plan is that Luke knows Krayt is out there and now with no other threats, he would come after his order before they were ready. The solution to this problem would be Jaden. He would be activated, but instead of being used to destroy the Jedi he would be used to stall and outright sabotage any efforts made to find out about the One Sith. Likely this would be done under the guise of him still being loyal to the order. Volunteering to head the project to find the dark man so he would be in control of all the information that got to Luke and feed him misinformation. In fact, I wouldn’t rule out them coordinating a fake but successful attack against a clone or body double of Krayt to further put the issue at rest for Luke. He would assume the job was done and the real Krayt would still be around to eventually put his master plan in action, that we wouldn’t see until Legacy.
But again, that is just my theory on what was going to happen with the sleeper agent subplot. Let me know your thoughts and if you would like to see more of these. So as always, until next time.
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