The Conclave on Exis Station, or the Exis Convocations, was held by the members of the Jedi Order in 3986 BBY on Exis Station, an ion mining station in the Teedio system. The convocation was the first major meeting of the Jedi since the Conclave at Deneba held during the Krath Holy Crusade of ten years earlier. Following the events of the Great Sith War, in which the Galactic Republic had fallen into turmoil and a large number of the Jedi were killed—including a majority of the Order's most influential Masters—the galaxy had experienced marked recovery, but the Jedi sought direction. Nomi Sunrider, the head of the Jedi at the time, called as many of her comrades as could attend to Exis Station, where a meeting would be held discussing the future of the Order.
Sunrider held forth before the Jedi, speaking of the great cost of the war, the period of healing the galaxy had gone through, and the future of the Jedi Knights. The conclave was interrupted, however, when Vima Sunrider, Nomi's daughter, stole an ion mining vessel and was very nearly killed. Following her rescue by Tott Doneeta, the meeting continued. Sylvar spoke next, condemning the fallen Jedi Ulic Qel-Droma for his actions in the war, and calling the Jedi to seek justice against him. Following the Conclave on Exis Station, the Jedi experienced a period of relative peace; the convocation would be remembered thousands of years later as a pivotal point in Jedi history.
The Great Sith War, which occurred in 3996 BBY, was a galaxy-spanning conflict between the forces of the Galactic Republic, which included the Jedi Order, and the followers of the Sith and their allies. In an attempt to wrest control over a large portion of the galaxy from the Republic, which had reigned for over twenty millennia, the spirit of the long-dead Dark Lord of the Sith Freedon Nadd subverted several Force-sensitives into furthering his ambitions from beyond the grave. Among these were Exar Kun, a Jedi apprentice who had grown disenchanted with the current state of the Order and had left on his own quest for knowledge—including that of the Sith. Also under the influence of Freedon Nadd were Satal and Aleema Keto, members of the Tetan elite who were themselves dabbling in dark-side magic, and had formed a secret society and dark-side cult known as the Krath.
Exis Station during the conclave
The Sith, having been reestablished by the followers of Freedon Nadd, waged war on the Republic and the Jedi, causing bedlam on the galactic scale. But in due time, the ambitions of Nadd's converts outweighed his influence over them. Another spectral Dark Lord named Marka Ragnos branded Exar Kun—along with fellow fallen Jedi Ulic Qel-Droma—the inheritor to the Sith traditions. Kun also extinguished Nadd's spirit, brought the Krath into his own dominion, and took full control of the Sith War. Together Kun and Qel-Droma drove the war to even more cataclysmic proportions, but the Jedi Order fought the Sith at each turn. Notable Jedi Masters and Knights such as Nomi Sunrider, Sylvar, and Thon of Ambria led Republic forces against the followers of Kun and Qel-Droma as the war came to the point where a decisive victory, or a false move, could spell triumph or defeat for either side.
Ultimately, the Republic and the Jedi were victorious, but at great cost. Many of the most influential Jedi Masters, including Qel-Droma's and Kun's mentors, Arca Jeth and Vodo-Siosk Baas, respectively, were killed in the course of the war. The Sith launched a suicide attack—killing its unwitting perpetrators, Aleema Keto and the Cathar Crado—in which they triggered a supernova in the Cron Cluster using Sith magic, devastating the Jedi library world of Ossus. Ulic Qel-Droma, having killed his brother, the still-loyal Jedi Knight Cay Qel-Droma, in a fit of rage, was cornered by Nomi Sunrider, who then removed his ability to use the Force. Qel-Droma then led the Jedi armada to Exar Kun's base on Yavin 4, where Kun managed to transcend his physical body, only to have his spirit contained on the moon by the Jedi.
Following the devastation of the war, the Sith were all but destroyed, and Qel-Droma wandered the galaxy in a self-imposed exile. The Jedi Order rebuilt, naming Sunrider as their leader. Many new Jedi were trained to replace those who had fallen in the war. In 3986 BBY, the Sith War had been over for more than a decade, and the Republic—and the Jedi alongside it—had begun to recover. The Jedi Order had not met in great numbers in the late stages of the war or in the years following it, their last great convocation having taken place at Mount Meru on Deneba in 3997 BBY during the Krath conflict. And so the Jedi were called to meet at Exis Station, an ion mining station in the Teedio system, in order to discuss the future of their order.
The space around Exis Station swarmed with spacecraft as the Jedi gathered there for the conclave. Nomi Sunrider brought her teenage daughter, Vima, to the station for the conference, and there Vima was reunited with the Tchuukthai Jedi Master Thon, who had been Nomi's master and had cared for and protected Vima for a good portion of her life. Also arriving on the station, with two of her fellow Cathar flanking her, was Sylvar, now a revered figure on her homeworld. But the three had little time to catch up, as the Conclave on Exis Station began with a speech by the head of the Order.
Jedi meeting aboard Exis Station
After welcoming the numerous Jedi Masters and Knights to the convocation, Sunrider spoke of the Sith War, and of the time of healing since its end. Her words were ones of hope, as she asked the Jedi to think of the future, and to place their trust—trust that had been shaken in the terrible war—in the Force. As Nomi spoke, Thon noted that the gathered Jedi looked up to his former apprentice, and followed her; he was proud.
Vima Sunrider, however, was bored with the conference already, merely complicating the frustration she already felt at her mother's neglect of her Jedi training. The girl slipped away, looking for something adventurous to do, and found just what she was looking for. One of Exis Station's ion mining crews was heading to their ships for a shift. Vima, finding one ship both prepped and unguarded, climbed into the cockpit and took off with the rest of the formation. But the teenager was ill-prepared for such a flight, and soon found herself caught in a magnetic loop from one of the local star's chromospheric storm cells.
As Nomi Sunrider was laying out plans to form a new Jedi Council, she brought the conclave to a halt when she sensed her daughter's imminent danger; Thon and Sylvar also felt Vima's predicament in the Force. With the stolen ion mining ship careening towards the star, Vima punched out in the escape pod. As it fell, the mining crew's foreman refused to risk his crew on her rescue, and Vima's situation seemed dire. Yet at the last moment, the escape pod was snagged by a grapnel from the ship of a newcomer—the Twi'lek Jedi Tott Doneeta, arriving at the station late after having been caught in a heat storm on his homeworld of Ryloth. He returned with Vima to Exis Station, where they were received by Masters Thon and a very relieved Nomi. The conclave began once more.
Sylvar soon took the podium, as there was much she wanted to address at the convocation. Ulic Qel-Droma, one of the leaders of the Sith during the war, had been left to his own designs following the end of the conflict, and Sylvar sought justice. She was bitter about the cost of the war, including the death of her mate, Crado, and placed all blame on the last remaining member of the Sith regime. Demanding that Ulic be hunted down and brought to justice, Sylvar caused Nomi to reflect on her memories of him. Vima did also, although as she had been a young child, hers were not as bitter as the others'.
Nomi Sunrider after the conclave
The conclave came to its conclusion shortly thereafter. The myriad Jedi began to go their separate ways, and the station slowly emptied. Tott Doneeta, sensing that Sylvar still had much turmoil in her, invited the Cathar to join him in his work on Ryloth. Vima Sunrider decided to run away once again, this time in search of Ulic Qel-Droma; the young girl stowed away aboard the ship of the spacer known as Hoggon, who had come to the convocation to observe the great Jedi of the war. She convinced Hoggon, who had taken Ulic to the ice planet Rhen Var, to bring her there as well. After discovering where her daughter had gone, Nomi Sunrider also traveled to Rhen Var, in order to confront Qel-Droma and take Vima home; Sylvar also arrived on the planet, but with her own intentions. After a long duel between he and the Cathar, Ulic refused to defend himself against Sylvar any longer, and it was this action that reminded Sylvar what it meant to be a Jedi. She gave up her quest for vengeance, but Qel-Droma was shot and killed by Hoggon soon after—the spacer sought glory and his own place in history.
The Conclave on Exis Station would become known as a pivotal point in the history of the Jedi. Several thousand years after the conference, the Jedi Knight Tionne, of the New Jedi Order, would discover Exis Station's location, as well as the text of Nomi Sunrider's speeches. Eleven years thereafter, the dark side Mage known as Orloc would set up his base on Exis Station.
Nomi Sunrider was head of the Jedi Order at the time of the Conclave on Exis Station. The wife of the late Jedi Andur Sunrider, Nomi chose to follow the path of her husband's training when he was killed by pirates. Arriving on Ambria, Sunrider was trained as a Jedi by the Tchuukthai Jedi Master known as Thon. Possessing a strong natural ability in battle meditation, Sunrider became a respected Jedi Knight, and was sent on many missions as the Great Sith War developed. Along the way she came to know—and to love—Ulic Qel-Droma, another prominent young Jedi Knight. When Ulic was seduced by the dark side, joining the Krath, Nomi found herself fighting a war against the man she loved, but never faltered in her resolve to uphold the Jedi way of life. By the end of the war, Nomi had become established as a leader among the Jedi. Nomi was the mother, by her late husband, of Vima Sunrider. Throughout her mother's training, and often during the course of the Sith War, Vima accompanied Nomi. After the war, Nomi took Vima as her Jedi apprentice, and brought her to Exis Station for the conclave. Nomi Sunrider would live on as a legend among the Jedi, still famous after thousands of years.
Sylvar, a Cathar Jedi Knight from the planet Cathar, was well-known throughout the galaxy and famous among her own people by the time of the conclave. Having chosen Crado as her mate, Sylvar and her lover went on to train in the Jedi arts under Vodo-Siosk Baas on Dantooine. Their fellow apprentice, Exar Kun, grew tired of the Jedi way, and shunned his path in search of new—and forbidden—knowledge. Kun went on to become the Dark Lord of the Sith, and Crado followed, abandoning the Jedi and Sylvar. As the events of the Sith War unfolded, Sylvar found herself by the side of Nomi Sunrider often, after having saved young Vima from Krath war droids. As the war progressed, Sylvar lost first her master to the Sith, as Exar Kun murdered him, and then her mate, whom Ulic Qel-Droma sent on a suicide mission. Following the events of the war, Sylvar blamed Qel-Droma, the only surviving member of the Sith, for the tragedies, and sought justice.
The Conclave on Exis Station begins in the comic Tales of the Jedi – Redemption 1 from the Tales of the Jedi comic series, and is concluded in Tales of the Jedi – Redemption 2. Events surrounding the conclave continue throughout the rest of the Redemption story arc, which was written by Star Wars author Kevin J. Anderson. The conclave is briefly mentioned in the short story Firestorm, also by Anderson, as well as in the junior novel Junior Jedi Knights: Kenobi's Blade by Rebecca Moesta.
- The Essential Chronology
- The New Essential Guide to Characters
- Power of the Jedi Sourcebook
- The New Essential Chronology
- Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, Vol. II