Sariss

Sariss was the daughter of Lord Cronal, one of the Prophets of the Dark Side who raised her in the dark ways of the Force on Dromund Kaas. Because Cronal held to a creed of violent nihilism, the mere existence of his daughter constituted a shocking offense, as it was tribute to creation instead of destruction. Consequently, Sariss was disavowed by her father in the most horrid way he could conspire; Cronal not only allowed his fellow Prophets to freely engage her in carnal relations against her will, but he also partook himself. In an early life of sadism and sadness, Sariss never knew which of her abusers was her true father. Eventually she met her future master, Jerec of the Inquisitorius in the Galactic Empire.

"Prophetess" was the alter ego assumed by Sariss on Tatooine, where, working in cooperation with local governor Tour Aryon, she posed as a local fortune teller as cover for her true job as a spy for the Secret Order of the Empire. As a fortune teller, she claimed that Wuher was the reincarnated soul of Cedo Partu. Wuher never allowed the Prophetess to enter Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina.

In the hours before the Battle of Yavin, as part of her espionage, she trailed Jabba Desilijic Tiure and his bodyguards to Docking Bay 94 in Mos Eisley. Shortly thereafter, Sariss had to quickly make way for a group of stormtroopers rushing to the docking bay in a vain attempt to prevent the escape of the droid R2-D2, holder of datatapes containing the stolen plans of the first Death Star.

In the years leading to the Battle of Endor, she was often sent to the Vengeance, Jerec's new flagship, in her capacity as part of a Secret Order entourage. She was enchanted by his charisma and ambitious visions of power and became personally loyal. She enjoyed the violent and sadistic lightsaber training under him.

Sariss was also the mentor of Merili.

With the death of Emperor Palpatine in 4 ABY, there was a rebellion on Tatooine during which Sariss found the oportunity to abandon her post for Jerec. She secretly fled the planet and joined the Inquisitor as one of his Dark Jedi.

As the Imperial Remnant suffered a lot after Endor, Sariss was sent to Panatha to seduce a wealthy Epicanthix mineral baron. She became engaged to the man in order to take over his holdings on behalf for her master. Sariss then seduced his pampered son, Yun, whom she taught her "faith" and even convinced to kill his own father.

She then gave the baron's wealth to her master, and also presented him with Yun, whom Jerec took as an apprentice. Yun was infatuated with her, but from her side, she likened him to a son. As she never experienced a real family, she treated him as the Prophets did to her, and manipulated him cruelly. Other than satisfying her sadism, she thought it was necessary to prepare him for facing the harsh reality of the galaxy. She led him to many killings and suppressed his regrets. In time, Yun would also come to regard Sariss as his master.

Sariss assisted Jerec in his efforts to rebuild the collapsing Empire and locate the Valley of the Jedi, a Force nexus formed in the final battle of the New Sith Wars more than a thousand years prior.

After learning that a surviving Jedi Master of the Old Republic, Qu Rahn, might know the location of the lost Valley, Jerec blockaded the planet Dorlo to intercept Rahn in the midst of a mission for the Rebel Alliance. Sariss's master then dispatched a landing party led by herself, her apprentice Yun, and her compeer Maw. Hunted down by Maw's ability to "smell" fear and anxiety, Rahn let Cee Norley to ambush the Imperials. Norley managed to destroy the landing party's troop-bearing skimmer before being executed by Sariss. Pondering on why a Rebel was left behind to be sacrificed, she realized that they wanted to buy time in order to fell aboard a ship. Indeed, Rahn's team made it to a CR90 corvette, and as the Dark Jedi trio pursued the Rebel craft, their own skimmer was caught in the corvette's slipstream and crashed. Sariss and the others aboard survived the impact, though their helmsman suffered a hit on his head. Sariss killed him to solve the problem.

Jerec was able to capture the Rebel corvette by deploying a tractor beam from his waiting Super Star Destroyer, the Vengeance. Sariss, Yun, and Maw regrouped with Jerec and their three cohorts on the Vengeances bridge, where their master interrogated Qu Rahn. Jerec called her by his side, asking if this inexperienced pilot, two scientists and a bedraggled old Jedi were the beings who really escape three of his apprentices, expressed his disappointment and asked her not to let it happen again.

The Jedi refused to respond even as his Rebel companions were murdered one by one, then sought to goad his captors into his own execution; but Jerec instead resorted to violating Rahn's mind. He discovered that although Qu Rahn did not know the location of the Valley, his friend Morgan Katarn—killed by Jerec several years earlier—had known, and hidden a map leading to it in his home on the planet Sulon. Qu Rahn made his last stand by Force pulling Yun's lightsaber from his belt and fought the assembled Dark Jedi; Sariss saw Boc attempting to stop the Jedi, and being injured, before she Sariss came next, but she was no match for Rahn, who blocked all her classical movements. It was Jerec who intervened and slew the Jedi Master.

Sariss was sent to Sulon with Boc and Yun to gather the pieces of the hidden map, which were discovered in the ceiling of the Katarn homestead. She teased Yun, when he expressed doubts that the Valley of the Jedi existed, and perhaps they loaded all those grav sleds on a shuttle for nothing. Sariss explained the next part of the plan, taking the map pieces to the droid information broker 8t88 in the city of Barons Hed to decipher it. Boc didn't seem to respond to her orders, and explained that he was sensing that they were being watched; Sariss dismissed his worries, saying they were the only activity in the region for some time, and they attracted attention. Boc insisted that the presence was strong in the Force, who wanted to destroy them, but Sariss considered it normal.

She returned to the Vengeance and reported on their progress. 8t88 soon reconstructed the tiles and transmitted the digitized map. The Dark Jedi were able to determine that the Valley lay on the planet Ruusan and Jerec ordered Sariss to prepare the ship for hyperspace. Yun destroyed the original on Jerec's order, foiling the efforts of another Jedi: Kyle Katarn, son of Morgan, who sought to beat Jerec to the Valley of the Jedi. Jerec mobilized his forces and established an excavation site on the world.

When the first phase of surveying was complete, Sariss reported on their findings to Jerec. Before that, Jerec treated her with one of his touchstones, forcing her wonder if the tidbit was a delicacy or a prank, like once before, not able to refuse his gift. Then she reported the presence of Fort Nowhere, a settlement of smugglers and dissidents, and her decision to attack it the next day. Jerec countermanded this, and order her to go to the planet with Boc and Yun to learn more about the Valley before this. Sariss felt even worse that Jerec not only countermanded her plans, but that his was more logical than hers.

Sariss with Boc and Yun took an assault shuttle and arrived to Fort Nowhere. The settlers initially being very hostile, Sariss nearly Force-choked a settler named Lasko to "soften up" the dwellers. The Mayor Byron Devo III showed up and Sariss accused the man for smuggling and tax evading, as well as harboring traitors; but, according to the "Imperial way", she was willing to listen to his explanations. In his office, Sariss interviewed him for relevant information, ruins, artifacts and relics, and gave false promises to leave the Fort alone. Confident that the settlers knew nothing about the Valley, and therefore were useless, the Seven Dark Jedi proceeded with the town's destruction, despite Devo's cooperation and Sariss's promises. They chose an enclosed valley for a staging area, where, for more than a day they set up a temporary maintenance facility where they buried fuel bladders. The three Dark Jedi participated actively in the massacre. A panicked Devo approached Sariss as she emerged from one of them, asking the meaning of all this. Sariss ironically greeted him and promptly said that she just lied; Devo made a few steps back before being decapitated by the Dark Jedi's lightsaber. After their victory, Sariss savored the moment, imagining the Brotherhood of Darkness slaughtering the Army of Light at those very plains a millennium ago.

Saris had her office on the administrative deck of the newly-constructed tower near the Valley of the Jedi. A few days after the massacre, it was near completion and her boxes were still stacked waiting to be unpacked. She heard that Yun had saved a worker's life using the Force and read the official report. She summoned Yun to congratulate him conveying Jerec's acknowledgment; in reality however Sariss sensed something different in him, which was actually a flicker of the Light side. Furthermore, Sariss began acknowledged the possibility that Yun gained some confidence and unlocked a talent that would rival hers and would become her rival. Hiding these thoughts, she gave him his next assignment: to discover the status of a lost patrol which was long overdue.

Sariss later accompanied Jerec when the Dark Jedi Warlord confronted young Katarn, furious at the Rebel Jedi's slaying of Maw on a landing pad near Jerec's personal cargo ship, the Sulon Star. Jerec sought to turn Katarn to the dark side by persuading him to kill his partner and love, Jan Ors, whom Jerec's men had captured earlier. Katarn managed to hold off his anger and keep to the light side of the Force, and Yun watched as Sariss pushed the Jedi into the Sulon Star then sent the doomed ship plummeting to the surface. Jerec ordered his servants to go down and destroy what remained of Katarn.

Indeed, Katarn managed to escape from the Sulon Star in his own ship, the Moldy Crow, though he crashed the vessel in the process. Sariss, Boc, and Yun pulled his unconscious body out to be executed. It was night when he regained his senses. Sariss let Boc taunt the Jedi and destroy his lightsaber hilt, before she told him to report to Jerec their find, and the Rebel's execution. She promptly raised her lightsaber to give a fatal blow to Katarn, when Yun, in an act of pure instinct, deflected his mentor's blow, wounding her arm. As a result, the deflected strike inflicted a mortal wound to the young Jedi whom Sariss considered her only friend. A panicked Sariss struggled to comprehend why Yun would turn against her, and in vain shouted for help. Yun explained that Kyle was a true Jedi, and deserved a fighting chance instead of an execution. Seeing the closest person to her die, she decided to inflict many painful wounds to Katarn before bringing his head back to Jerec. Turning her eyes, she saw him already armed with Yun's lightsaber.

She initially held the advantage, starting with a mental attack which however Kyle deflected successfully and responded. She didn't know that although self-taught, Kyle called upon the Force ghost of a Jedi Master who had died centuries ago near that place. As they locked blades, she came to realize the meaning of Yun's final words to her: that Kyle was a true Jedi of the light side. Sariss intended to wear him out with small painful wounds, forcing Katarn to put a quick end in this: countered her own use of a lightsaber technique by borrowing Tal's Flowing Water Cut and ran her through the chest with his blade. Sariss would die of the wound, seeing only darkness; and pain from Yun's final words who was seeing the light.

Kyle went on to rescue Jan and defeat the last of the Dark Jedi cadre, Boc Aseca and Jerec, once and for all.

By human standards, Sariss was a woman of medium height. Similar to Jerec she wore always black with a red collar; according to the fashion of many other human females, she also painted red her lips and . Her hair was groomed short, like that of many human males.

Jerec's Dark Jedi were all ruthless, and Sariss was especially lusty for power; this trait won Jerec's trust, being especially close among his Lieutenants. She was the only one who called Jerec "My lord". Sariss worked hard to gain and maintain Jerec's approval, which was very important to her. She felt upset whenever Jerec countermanded her plans, or she disagreed with his, and tried to hide it.

Sariss would sneak behind her peers while discussing and interrupt. When Yun was caught off-guard, she blamed him for his lack of sensing abilities.

Sariss was quiet and reserved, but a formidable opponent in combat and deemed the most skilled lightsaber fighter of the seven Dark Jedi, relying almost exclusively on her fencing skills instead of using additional Force powers.

She was also the only known practitioner of Deadly Sight, allowing her a measure of ranged attack as well.

Sariss was played by Valerie Wildman in Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. Sariss has also appeared in the graphic novella adaptations of the Dark Forces series, where her perspective is expanded. Audio dramas were produced based on the graphic novellas, including Rebel Agent and Jedi Knight. In all these instances, Sariss was voiced by .

In the non-canonical ending of Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, where Kyle chooses the dark side, he kills Yun instead of Sariss, and she later appears as Emperor Katarn's aide.

William C. Dietz and Dave Dorman, in their novella Dark Forces: Jedi Knight, add a further dimension to the relationship between Sariss and Yun. They reveal that she considered Yun a very good and talented student, and also that he was the closest thing to a friend she ever had. In the novella, Yun's block superficially injures her in the arm and she instinctively hits him on the shoulder; she is panicked seeing what she did, and redirects her rage to Katarn. In the audio version of Dark Forces: Jedi Knight, Sariss deliberately kills Yun when he tries to stop her and explains what sees wrong in their ways; Sariss just kills him to "help" him seeing him confused. She shows no remorse in Yun's death which enrages Kyle leading him to kill her. The Dark Forces Saga, Part 3 confirms that the hit was accidental.

The figure of the 'Prophetess' was initially only an uncredited extra appearing for a second in A New Hope. Afterwards, that figure's backstory as the "Prophetess" was created for the Star Wars Customizable Card Game. Abel G. Peña, in his The Dark Forces Saga articles, retconned the Prophetess and Sariss into the same character. An unidentified illustration for a Dark Side Adept in Threats of the Galaxy matched the appearance of a lightsaber-wielding Prophetess.