Kol Skywalker

A descendant of the legendary Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and Grand Master Luke Skywalker respectively, Kol was raised as a Jedi and trained to wield the Force. Along with his older brother Nat, he served as a Jedi Knight. When the Jedi Council of Seers saw Skywalker's importance to a mission with Imperial Intelligence agent Morrigan Corde, he was assigned to it. Serving with her, he fell in love. Though he knew that Corde's loyalties ultimately lay with the Empire, he understood and loved her nevertheless. They had a relationship for as long as two years, marrying secretly, before Corde gave birth to a son named Cade.

Skywalker took Cade to the Jedi Academy on Ossus, where Cade was introduced to other Jedi, including Nat Skywalker, but Corde's identity was kept largely secret. Skywalker, a family-minded man, wished Corde to remain on Ossus where they could live together as a family. Corde, unprepared to be a mother and soon summoned back into service, departed despite Skywalker's pleas to stay with him and their son. Skywalker, brokenhearted, was left to raise Cade alone. When he had business on Coruscant, he frequently left Cade with Nat, but as Cade grew older Skywalker took the boy to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant with him. Corde went on to become the Director of Imperial Intelligence and a member of the Council of Moffs under the name Nyna Calixte. As Calixte, she was involved with naval officer Rulf Yage, bearing him a daughter, and then Grand Admiral and High Moff Morlish Veed.

A talented Jedi and natural leader skilled in the Force, Skywalker became a member of the Jedi Council and soon ascended to the status of its leader. Though he accepted this role, Skywalker disliked politics and formality; as time went on he preferred to spend most of his time as a trainer on Ossus, where he provided tactical training to the Jedi students from his own considerable expertise.

Skywalker had an apprentice, Wolf Sazen. He trained the Zabrak Padawan to Knighthood; Sazen eventually achieved Mastery himself and took Skywalker's son Cade as his own apprentice. Afterward, Skywalker took the Twi'lek Shado Vao, a friend of Cade's, as his Padawan learner, training Vao to a mastery of the lightsaber. With Sazen now his peer, the two became close friends as well as master and student.

In the year 123 ABY, Kol Skywalker reflected on his journals about Darth Sidious' master plan to eradicate the Jedi Order, from the Clone Wars to Order 66, summarizing the lengths Sidious took, to achieve such goal.

During his time on the Council, Skywalker conceived of and championed the Ossus Project, in which Yuuzhan Vong shapers used their biological techniques to terraform a barren patch of Ossus. Skywalker wished to help integrate the Yuuzhan Vong, long stigmatized due to the war they had brought to the galaxy, into society and rehabilitate their reputation by proving that they could use their knowledge to heal the worlds they had devastated in the past. He worked closely with Master Shaper Nei Rin to bring it to fruition, developing a friendship with her. With that project successful, the Galactic Alliance was persuaded to allow the shapers to restore life to worlds devastated by the Yuuzhan Vong War.

In 126 ABY, he and Nei Rin, with whom he had become extremely close, selected the devastated world of Wayland to revive after Skywalker saw the world restored in a vision. They successfully established new life on the planet, ridding it of Chom-Vrone bioweapons and making it habitable for the Myneyrshi survivors. However, after six months, the project turned from dream to nightmare in one day of sudden transformation. As soon followed on the other Vongformed worlds, secretly sabotaged by the Sith, the Ossus Project went awry, with individuals becoming malformed and plant life dying as brutal forms of Yuuzhan Vong life and surge coral implants took over. On the planet with Rin, Sazen, Vao, and his son Cade, Skywalker had to battle vicious wildlife and infected Myneyrshi to reach their ship. The Myneyrshi cried for justice, believing Rin had acted to destroy them, but Skywalker insisted there had been sabotage from without and promised to return and undo the devastation as soon as he could. They fled, but their ship was too damaged to make orbit. Skywalker had Sazen send a distress signal as he worked to repair the ship, and they were quickly picked up and rescued by an Imperial Star Destroyer with Nyna Calixte aboard. Skywalker immediately sensed that she was Corde and asked her to explain her surprising double life, but she avoided the question and refused his request that she speak with Cade. Disappointed, he insisted that she would have to tell her son the truth about herself in time.

Many in the galaxy were outraged by the developments, among them the Galactic Empire's Moff Council. Skywalker and the Jedi were accused of complicity with Yuuzhan Vong sabotage. Skywalker met with Galactic Emperor Roan Fel over the matter, and Fel promised to restrain the Moffs while Skywalker investigated the project for the sabotage he believed must be the cause of its failure. Skywalker and the Jedi worked with Rin to discover the cause, but public blame fell firmly on the Yuuzhan Vong. Before Skywalker could gather any proof, the Moff Council overruled Fel and, in 127 ABY, invoked the Treaty of Anaxes and declared war. Skywalker and the Jedi were able to convince the Galactic Alliance to back them and protect the Yuuzhan Vong in the war. Skywalker, seeing the need for a fallback if the war should go unfavorably, commissioned the construction of a highly secret redoubt. Skywalker worked with his brother to construct the Hidden Temple out of scrapped starships in a rift Nat had discovered on Taivas where the Force could not be sensed from afar. Skywalker used Yuuzhan Vong terraforming techniques to increase Taivas's atmosphere to breathable levels, creating a safe and well-hidden refuge on a world no one expected to be habitable.

The order of One Sith, until then hidden—and secretly responsible for the sabotage of the Ossus Project—emerged on the Empire's side and helped turn the tide of the war against the Jedi and Galactic Alliance. After three years of battle, Skywalker was called to speak his mind to the Galactic Alliance Triumvirate about the possibility of a strike at Caamas to capture Emperor Fel. He spoke against it, having sensed it was a trap, but Rear Admiral Piers Petan and Triumvir Nu Toreena, a detractor of the Jedi who also blamed them for the war, pushed the plan forward anyway, resulting in the defeat of the Alliance Defense Fleet while the Jedi held off a Sith strike on Coruscant, undefended due to Petan's battle plan. Without the Galactic Alliance Core Fleet, however, they could not hold off the Sith on their own. With that, the Galactic Alliance surrendered. Roan Fel called upon the Jedi to surrender as well, but Skywalker withdrew the Jedi to Ossus with Fel's guarantee of safe passage.

The forces of Darth Krayt, Dark Lord of the Sith, followed the Jedi withdrawal from Coruscant to Ossus. They claimed to seek a diplomatic meeting, but instead attacked during the night. Led by Darth Nihl and supported by Imperial troops commanded by Rulf Yage, the Sith assaulted the academy. Skywalker organized a defense while evacuating the young students. He and Sazen made a stand at the landing platform on which the evacuation shuttle stood, holding off waves of stormtroopers while Vao and Cade Skywalker, among the older apprentices present, shepherded the younger Jedi students into the shuttle. Skywalker and Sazen could sense the Sith oncoming and ordered Cade and Vao to take off when all the others were aboard, prepared to give their lives to save the younglings. Cade refused to follow instructions, however, joining the battle with his father. Skywalker ordered his son to follow his master's instructions and leave with the children.

As Cade departed for the shuttle, Nihl approached at the head of a column of Sith warriors. Skywalker and Sazen engaged them, but Sazen quickly received grievous injuries. Skywalker drove Nihl back and stood over his former student's body, summoning Sazen's lightsaber and warning the Sith back. He stood alone against an army of Sith but successfully held them back despite being surrounded; however, upon seeing Sazen fall, Cade once more left the shuttle and went to his father's aid. Skywalker admonished his son for placing his emotions above his duties, and commanded him to take Sazen, not yet dead, from the field and evacuate. Tearfully, Cade complied. Skywalker continued battling, holding back the Sith and standing upon a heap of the dead. Nihl, however, was able to strike Skywalker with Force lightning, killing him as Cade watched from inside the shuttle. Skywalker sent a final message through the Force to Vao, ordering him to launch the shuttle.

The transport escaped, though Cade launched in a fighter to defend it and was disabled. He was picked up by pirates, who did not know that he was a Skywalker. They brought him back to the surface to help them loot the academy, where Cade found his father's body lying as it had fallen on the landing platform. Upon returning from a mission into the Ossus wilderness to find samples, Rin found Skywalker's body lying exposed and gave it a proper funeral. During the cremation, Skywalker's body disincorporated, becoming one with the Force. To honor Skywalker and the Jedi legacy, the Yuuzhan Vong with Rin gathered all the Jedi artifacts remaining and kept them safe in the bowels of the academy.

Cade became a bounty hunter and turned to death sticks, rejecting the Force. Luke Skywalker's Force ghost appeared to him at times, urging him to take up his family legacy, but Cade wished only to be left alone, free from the burden of saving the galaxy. Cade continued to hear his father's words in his mind as well, but was never able to sense his presence, driving even farther into bitterness and depression. Kol Skywalker was unable to appear to his son, as Cade's anger blocked him from communicating.

Cade eventually returned to Ossus in 137 ABY and began training under Sazen, Vao, and K'Kruhk before departing for Coruscant to rescue Hosk Trey'lis, a Jedi he had turned over to the Sith as a bounty hunter. Rin gave him Kol Skywalker's lightsaber, which she had recovered and repaired with a lambent crystal after the original crystal had suffered battle damage. Cade took it to Coruscant, where he was captured by Darth Krayt and the lightsaber was taken from him and encased by Krayt to honor a foe even he respected. Cade, meanwhile, joined the Sith while Calixte, again using her Corde identity, devised a plan to free him. When Cade confronted Krayt, Kol Skywalker appeared to his son for the first time as a Force ghost, suggesting he use his healing powers in reverse to break the transparisteel and free his lightsaber. Cade did so, taking up his father's lightsaber and attacking the Sith before escaping.

Kol and Luke Skywalker both appeared to Cade after his escape, when the young man was seeking to take death sticks at the home of Nat Skywalker, who had renamed himself Bantha Rawk and gone into hiding. Kol Skywalker warned his son against the use of dark side techniques and of death sticks, while Luke also criticized his death stick use and warned that Cade would soon have great challenges to face. Cade ultimately blocked the two spirits from appearing by taking the death sticks, which dulled his connection to the Force.

After Corde's double identity was revealed to Veed, he poisoned her, forcing her to escape from Coruscant and go to Cade on the Wheel space station, hoping that Cade would heal her with his unique powers. Cade was reluctant to help her, however, fearing that doing so would bring him closer to the dark side. Kol then appeared to his son, asking him to heal Corde if not for her then for him. Convinced, Cade tried to use his powers, but was too angered by the memories of his mother abandoning him. Kol then told his son to let go of his anger and forgive Corde. The spirit of Kol himself leaned over to Corde's side, telling her that he still loved her and that he forgave her; in her near-death experience, Corde seemingly heard Kol's words. Cade then finally managed to let go of his anger and healed his mother.

Kol was a man of honor and driven to serve justice. Though a natural leader, he had little love for politics and preferred the more relaxed atmosphere of Ossus to the stuffier Jedi Temple on Coruscant. He firmly believed in the Living Force, a trait he passed on to his apprentice Sazen. Kol valued family and was proud of his Skywalker heritage, and he wanted himself and his son to live up to their ancestors' names. He was disappointed that Calixte would not speak with Cade after she abandoned the family, but he still loved her and protected her secret identity. Even after his death, the spirit of Kol still loved Corde and did not blame her for leaving him. Kol asked his son to forgive her as well, telling him that forgiveness was one of the greatest lessons of the light. Although Cade believed that his father always asked too much of him, Kol felt that he had never asked more of Cade than his son could handle.

Kol had a significant talent for tactics, leading him to teach the discipline to his fellow Jedi. He believed that a mastery of the skills of warfare made the Jedi better suited to keep the galaxy peaceful. Focused on serving and protecting others instead of himself, he was willing to, and ultimately did, give his life to save another.

Kol was a talented Jedi, demonstrating skill with and understanding in the Force that made him a standout among the Jedi. He was skilled in battle, having an aptitude for tactics as well as personal combat; Nei Rin considered him the Jedi's greatest warrior. Kol was skilled enough in the use of the lightsaber to train Shado Vao to an extremely high degree of competency and would use the two-lightsaber Jar'Kai style with proficiency when confronted by multiple foes. In the Massacre at Ossus, he killed at least seven Sith and numerous stormtroopers, holding off even more, before being overcome and dying on a pile of those he had slain. In his final battle, Kol demonstrated skill in telekinesis but found himself unable to stop Darth Nihl's Force lightning while defending from the lightning of another Sith and striking down a third.

Though his body lingered after death, it disappeared while being cremated. Kol indeed became one with the Force while retaining his identity. Afterward, he was able to appear as a Force ghost, and in this state taught his son to use the Shatterpoint technique.

Kol's lightsaber consists of a very simple-looking hilt that resembles to Anakin Skywalker's second lightsaber, with a similar beveled blade emitter and possesses a similar handgrip at the bottom near the pommel. The other thing is that the pommel possesses a ring, capable of placing the weapon on a belt when not in use. Initially, the lightsaber's blade was blue, however after the crystal inside was badly burned prior, a Yuuzhan Vong lambent crystal was placed inside, changing the blade to green.

The character of Kol Skywalker was created for Star Wars: Legacy by writer John Ostrander and artist Jan Duursema; in the introductory Broken arc, Skywalker dies defending the Jedi academy in events that push his son Cade, Legacys main character, onto his eventual path. Skywalker was actually debuted in the informational preview Star Wars: Legacy (2006) 0 along with most of the rest of the cast of Legacy. Skywalker's only actual physical appearance was in Legacy (2006) 1, not counting a brief time-collapse sequence showing the events of that issue in Legacy (2006) 8; however, frequent flashbacks and mentions on the parts of various characters have revealed more information about Skywalker in several more Legacy issues. Skywalker first reappeared in Force ghost form in the Claws of the Dragon arc and did so again in Loyalties.

• Star Wars: Legacy (2006) 0
• "Legacies of Future Orders" — Star Wars Insider 88
• "The Art of War" — Star Wars Insider 89
• Star Wars: Panel to Panel Volume 2: Expanding the Universe
• Star Wars: The Ultimate Visual Guide: Special Edition
• Star Wars: Legacy (2006) 0½
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• Legacy Era Campaign Guide
• Jedi Academy Training Manual
• The Essential Atlas
• Galaxy of Intrigue
• "Blaster" — Star Wars Insider 121
• The Essential Guide to Warfare
• Star Wars: The Ultimate Visual Guide: Updated and Expanded