Mission to Taris (Desolator crisis)

During the Cold War between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire, the Sith Lord Tarnis infiltrated the Republic superweapon initiative as a scientist, and in 3643 BBY he attempted to use the Planet Prison superweapon against the Republic's capital of Coruscant. Tarnis also sent information on the Republic's other superweapons to his father, the Sith Lord Darth Angral, before he was killed by a young Jedi Knight in a duel. Angral witnessed the duel via holotransmission, and in revenge for his son's death, he declared war on the Republic. Using his son's information, Angral dispatched his apprentices to take control of the Republic's superweapon projects; Angral also followed up on Tarnis's suspicions that Doctor Nasan Godera, a brilliant scientist who designed most of the Republic's superweapons, was hiding out on the planet Taris: he contacted Imperial Intelligence and ordered them to capture the scientist. The Empire's intelligence agency, which maintained an outpost on the planet, had already confirmed Godera's presence there, and they sent Watcher One—one of their highest-ranking operatives—to head the mission.

In the aftermath of the Coruscant debacle, General Var Suthra, the head of the superweapon initiative, sent the Jedi Knight who had slain Tarnis to the planet Ord Mantell in order to investigate an Imperial listening post there. The Knight, the Jedi's Padawan Kira Carsen, and the astromech droid T7-O1 discovered evidence of Angral's plans for a "Desolator" superweapon, and General Suthra then sent the trio to Taris—after finding mentions of Godera in Tarnis's files, Suthra suspected that the Empire intended to capture the scientist. Godera had abandoned the Republic after the government submitted to the Empire's terms in the Treaty of Coruscant that ended the Great Galactic War a decade earlier, and he had constructed a series of underground laboratories on the ruined planet of Taris amid the Republic's reconstruction efforts. The Republic had recently discovered a facility in the Republic Resettlement Zone staffed by Godera's droids, but the Republic had been unable to locate any other labs; Suthra sent the Knight to investigate the facility and meet up with the small monitoring team stationed there.

Watcher One had a contingent of Imperial operatives under his command, and upon learning of the Jedi Knight's mission and impending arrival, he ordered the soldiers to begin searching Godera's laboratories. Watcher One and a number of Imperial stealth operatives, droids, and Intelligence officers searched the Resettlement Zone lab, and the soldiers made quick work of both the monitoring team and Godera's droid assistants and defenses. One of Godera's droid assistants who was tasked with surveillance, RE-M0, remained hidden and witnessed Watcher One use the facility's tracking relays to trace Godera's biosignature to another facility in the Brell Sediment region. In order to prevent the Jedi from doing the same, the operative then destroyed the lab's central computer before he departed, leaving his men behind. However, the Jedi Knight and a companion arrived at the laboratory while the Imperial forces were securing the facility, and the duo fought their way through the soldiers and battle droids, killing all of them. As the pair explored the lower level of the facility, Watcher One activated a communications terminal and engaged the Knight in conversation. The Imperial operative was distracting the Jedi in order to allow his stealth operatives to get in place for an ambush—he revealed knowledge of the Jedi's exploits as a Padawan on the planet Tython to undermine the duo's confidence, and then terminated the communication after ordering his operatives to eliminate them.

The Knight and the Jedi's companion defeated the battle droids and stealth operatives in the battle that followed, and once the dust settled, RE-M0 emerged from behind the wreckage to speak with the Jedi. Identifying the Knight as a member of the Jedi Order, RE-M0 explained that he had remained hidden from both the Republic team and the Imperial operatives, as his programming prevented him from cooperating with lifeforms other than Godera or a Jedi. Relating his observations about Watcher One's actions, RE-M0 requested that the Knight reset the external tracking relays while he repaired the central computer, and the Knight and the Jedi's companion departed to locate the relays. Fighting through the pirates and scavengers in the Sinking City region, the duo reactivated the three relays, and after RE-M0 sent the Jedi Godera's location, the pair headed to the Brell Sediment facility. Meanwhile, Watcher One's forces had secured the Brell Sediment laboratory and captured the scientist, knocking him unconscious. Knowing that the Jedi was on the way, the operative developed an elaborate deception: he donned a holoprojector that disguised him as a Rodian, while a squad of Imperial Shadow Commandos equipped with stealth projectors were left in the main chamber. Their captain was disguised as Watcher One using a holoprojector, and a corpse disguised as Godera was left on the floor in an attempt to trick the Knight into believing the scientist dead.

When the Jedi arrived at the facility with a companion, the pair found "Kulaa" hiding near the entrance with an unconscious Godera, though "Kulaa" claimed that the two were Godera's assistants and that they had escaped the Imperial raid. Believing the Rodian's claims that Godera had barricaded himself in the main lab, the Jedi ordered them to get to safety and headed deeper into the facility. Watcher One quickly ferried his captive northeast to the Tularan Marsh region, where he took the scientist to the Imperial Intelligence Outpost in the ruins of Transport Station 5. However, at the same time, RE-M0 ran a second bioscan and realized that Godera was no longer in the Brell Sediment lab, and he rushed to the other facility to warn the Knight. The Jedi and the Knight's companion eliminated the Imperial soldiers guarding the facility and made their way into the main lab, where the duo was surprised to see Doctor Godera apparently lying dead at the feet of Watcher One. "Watcher One" requested that the Knight stand down and offered a cessation of hostilities, claiming that Godera had committed suicide, but their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of RE-M0. The droid warned the Jedi that Godera was not yet dead, and an irritated "Watcher One" shot RE-M0 before deactivating the holoprojector disguise. The fight that followed saw the Shadow Captain and all of the commandos, despite the commandos' advantages of surprise and numbers.

Watcher One witnessed the fight via holocomm at the Intelligence outpost, and when the Knight proved victorious, he contacted the Jedi and revealed his "Kulaa" deception. Before the Knight could depart, the operative proposed a deal: he had learned of a Sith assassin named Rora Seake who had arrived on Taris to destroy a Republic colony, and in exchange for time to interrogate Godera, Watcher One would give the Jedi the location of Seake's target. With the lives of civilians at stake, the Jedi begrudgingly agreed to Watcher One's deal, and the agent identified Seake's target as a colony on the shores of the nearby Lake Brell. The Jedi and a companion raced to the colony bunker to find the colonists hard at work under the leader Yelzrin, but the duo did not arrive in time to evacuate the colonists—Rora Seake arrived with her two pet jurgorans only minutes after the Jedi. Seake was angered to learn that her mission had been compromised, and set her pets upon the Jedi before attacking the Knight herself after their deaths. The Jedi and the Knight's companion emerged victorious in the duel, eliminating the threat to Yelzrin and the colonists, and then followed Watcher One's coordinates to the ruins of Transport Station 5.

Around that time, SIS agents under the leadership of Agent Fau-Kes arrived on Taris and set out to locate the Jedi on General Suthra's orders. However, the search party dispatched to Godera's Resettlement Zone lab found the aftermath of the battle with the Imperials, and Fau-Kes's team assumed the worst, though they continued their search from Olaris. In the Tularan Marsh, the Knight and the Jedi's companion fought through the rakghoul-infested tunnels of Transport Station 5 to reach the Intelligence outpost. After defeating the dozen Imperial soldiers who guarded the facility, the duo breached the outpost's main chamber to find that Watcher One had completed his interrogation and was reporting success to Darth Angral via holocomm. Angral was furious to learn that Watcher One had compromised with his son's killer, and ordered the agent to take the Knight alive and bring both the Jedi and Godera to the Imperial capital Dromund Kaas. Expressing his regret for breaking their deal, Watcher One nonetheless drew his blaster and attacked the Knight with two other Intelligence operatives. The Jedi and the Knight's companion ultimately emerged victorious in the fight, slaying the other operatives and injuring Watcher One.

Wounded, Watcher One questioned his opponent on what his fate was to be, and he was surprised when the Knight allowed the agent to leave—to make himself a new life in the Republic.

The Knight then freed Doctor Godera from his imprisonment, and convinced the doctor to return to Olaris and help the Republic once again. When the Knight, the Jedi's companion, and Godera arrived at Olaris's spaceport, they found Agent Fau-Kes waiting for them, and Fau-Kes took custody of Godera and escorted him back to Coruscant.

Doctor Godera was given the position of scientific advisor to General Suthra, and served as a consultant to the general and the Knight as the young Jedi continued the search for the stolen Republic superweapons. The Knight headed to the moon of Nar Shaddaa to locate the Power Guard supersoldier project, and then investigated the statuses of the Shock Drum and Death Mark laser projects on the planets Tatooine and Alderaan. The details of the mission to Taris were highly classified in the Republic; the planet's name and that of Godera's rescuer were both redacted from Godera's SIS personnel file, and the mission was described only as a "near-abduction by Imperial Intelligence."

The mission to Taris first appeared as the Jedi Knight class storyline on the planet Taris in Star Wars: The Old Republic, a video game released by BioWare in 2011. The Taris storyline is separated into four missions, but the third mission can be one of two missions depending on the player's alignment. If a player has a dark side alignment, Watcher One informs them of a deal between a Sith and a pirate captain for valuable Jedi relics. Light-side and neutral players receive the mission to save the colonists; regardless of their alignments, players can ignore Watcher One's offer and continue straight to "The Rescue." However, as the Jedi Knight is a Republic character and is assumed to take the light-side choices, this article assumes the Knight saved the colonists. Similarly, this article assumes that the player allowed Watcher One to live, rather than attempt to arrest him—an option that ends in his death—or kill him.

• Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia