Taris Resistance

Based out of a run-down factory in the Lower City of the planet Taris, the Taris Resistance was the most powerful, organized and well-equipped faction fighting against the Mandalorian invaders during the Taris Siege of 3963 BBY. Led by Haydel Goravvus, Taris' Republic Senator, the Taris Resistance was a motley assortment of armed locals and surviving law enforcement pushed into the Lower City by the Mandalorian attack. Despite Tarisian society's reputation for Humanocentrism, these desperate times produced a fighting force that featured many non-Humans, led by Goravvus, who himself was part-Hamadryas. Although the Resistance was heavily non-Human, its basis in the planet's law enforcement and the leadership role given to Constable Noana Sowrs alienated many other Tarisians fighting for their lives—although Taris was on the brink of subjugation, Sowrs still had every intention of enforcing the law against local criminals.

Despite this, the Resistance found its numbers bolstered by the swoop gang known as the Hidden Beks, which provided it with fighting skill and a number of swoop bikes and speeders. The Beks made up a large part of the Resistance's force during their partnership, as the Resistance was heavily outnumbered and technologically outpaced, for instance lacking the ability to overcome Mandalorian communication jamming. Members of the Taris Resistance generally used blasters, with one notable exception: the Togruta Jedi Master Raana Tey, who fought with the Resistance using her green lightsaber. Much of the Resistance's equipment, especially explosives, was salvaged from the Mandalorians during periodic raids on the invaders' territory. Although the Resistance was relatively well-armed, it was relatively poorly outfitted when it came to vehicles—the Resistance had access to common swoops and speeders but had almost nothing in the way of interstellar craft, save for a stealth-outfitted shuttle belonging to Raana Tey.

In 3964 BBY, the Mandalorian Wars, fought between the Galactic Republic and Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders, began in earnest. After months of stalemated fighting along the Jebble-Vanquo-Tarnith line—a Republic Navy security cordon meant to protect the critical Outer Rim ecumenopolis of Taris, a full member of the Republic— civil order broke down on Taris after the high-profile massacre of the graduating class of Jedi Padawans at the planet's Jedi Tower. supposedly by the one surviving apprentice, Zayne Carrick. The Tower's five Jedi Masters were recalled from the planet after the deaths, an occurrence the Mandalorian chief, Mandalore the Ultimate, took as a signal to attack. The Mandalore launched a three-pronged assault aimed at taking Taris, and after the nomadic warriors had little trouble conquering nearby worlds such as Vanquo, the stage was set for the attempt on Taris itself. Led by master strategist Cassus Fett, the Mandalorian forces first appeared in orbit over Taris, and after a number of days of siege, the warriors descended onto the planet itself, facing only token resistance from swoop gangs and assorted looters in seizing the planet's Upper City.

With no Republic forces in sight, Tarisian Senator Haydel Goravvus disappeared from public view, retreating to the Lower City to organize a resistance in the planet's depths. Establishing a base in a dilapidated Lower City factory, Goravvus managed to pull together a considerable force out of surviving law enforcement and armed Tarisian citizens, including one of Taris' top law enforcement officers, Constable Noana Sowrs, and Jedi Master Raana Tey, who had been ordered back to Taris by Republic Supreme Chancellor Tol Cressa. Tey's arrival was crucial for the Resistance's survival, as she provided them a much-needed healer. Although the stealth-outfitted shuttle she arrived in could have provided Goravvus with a way off the planet, he elected to stay and fight, and continued to use the shuttle in operations against the Mandalorians. As the Mandalorians descended deeper into the planetwide cityscape, Goravvus' band quickly earned a reputation as the best-equipped and most well-organized faction fighting against the invaders. Other groups, separated from the main resistance by the Mandalorian invaders, continued to wage their own separate battles—chief among these was the swoop gang known as the Hidden Beks, led by a man named Gadon Thek.

Thek, as leader of one of the most powerful and well-organized gangs on Taris, believed that Taris only had a fighting chance if he could join forces with Goravvus' resistance, but was wary of the fact that his group would still be seen as lesser criminals. With violence increasing, a dialogue commenced between the resistance and the Beks, although Constable Sowrs put the kibosh on the talks as she blamed the gangs for the disappearance of her two young children. Things changed in 3963 BBY, when Thek discovered that one of his number, Brejik, had indeed kidnapped Sowrs' children against his orders—although Thek was furious, he recognized that he had been delivered the perfect bargaining chip with the Resistance. With Sowrs' son Nahk and daughter Tallie in hand, Thek and his gang fought their way through Mandalorian forces to the Resistance's base. Once Thek arrived and reunited the Sowrs family, Goravvus struck a deal with the Hidden Beks, although there was nearly violence upon their arrival, as accused Padawan killer Zayne Carrick was part of the Bek party and his death was demanded by both Tey and Resistance agent Shel Jelavan, younger sister of slain Padawan Shad Jelavan. Goravvus personally stayed their hands, as neither side could afford bloodshed—Goravvus needed the numbers and skills the Beks could provide, and the Beks desperately needed medical treatment for their wounded. With that, the two factions joined forces.

At the time, the Resistance was in a dire situation, with its territory reduced to only a few city blocks and its attempts to communicate to the outside constantly jammed by the Mandalorians. The arrival of the Hidden Beks was a much-needed break, as was the presence of one of Thek's acquaintances: Carrick's Snivvian accomplice, Marn Hierogryph, who carried with him a transmitter which could beat the Mandalorian jamming. Although Hierogryph's presence was only part of a plot by Lhosan Industries chairman Jervo Thalien to eliminate Goravvus—and the transmitter contained a powerful bomb—the explosive's failure to detonate allowed Goravvus to blackmail Thalien into sending aid to the front and to the Resistance. Emboldened by this development and the arrival of the Beks, Goravvus set his sights at doing major damage to the Mandalorian war effort. The Resistance learned that Cassus Fett, one of Mandalore the Ultimate's chief lieutenants, had set up shop at the former Jedi Tower to personally oversee planetary operations. With that in mind, Goravvus, Sowrs and Thek planned to eliminate Fett and throw the Mandalorian siege effort into chaos—while they lacked the numbers to directly assault the Tower, they had salvaged demolition charges in a recent raid on Mandalorian territory, and Hierogryph's transmitter-cum-bomb contained a detonator that Hierogryph's acquaintance Del Moomo was able to get working again. Although it seemed like a simple task to simply destroy the Jedi Tower with the newfound munitions, Carrick argued that a same-day reconnaissance mission on the Tower was needed, in order to ensure that Fett was still at the Tower and wasn't holding captives. As the three people present with the most experience in the Jedi Tower, Carrick, Jelavan and Master Tey were dispatched to the Tower, although Tey and Jelavan secretly plotted to eliminate Carrick once there.

Disguised as a Mandalorian warrior and a captured saboteur, Carrick and Jelavan gained entrance to the Jedi Tower as Thek, Moomo, Brejik and Hierogryph set up the charges down below. Jelavan, who was having doubts about Carrick's guilt, hesitated when the time came to strike him down and allowed him to go on ahead, and Carrick reached the top only to find that Fett had pulled out an hour before—he had determined where in the Lower City the Resistance had holed up, and had gone to carry out a decisive strike. The Mandalorian ambush was devastating, scattering the Resistance survivors, many of whom attempted to fall back to the Hidden Bek hideout known as the Pit. While Brejik and Del Moomo veered off to join the fight in the Lower City, Thek and Hierogryph made a daring run through Mandalorian fire to the top of the Jedi Tower in an attempt to save Carrick and Jelavan. The two Resistance agents managed to grab hold of Thek's speeder's tow cable—but after Hierogryph saw a wounded Tey ignite her lightsaber in an apparent attempt to attack Carrick, he detonated the charges anyway and destroyed the Jedi Tower.

The four survivors returned to the Lower City to find the Resistance in chaos. Although Tey's stealth-equipped shuttle might have provided an escape for Senator Goravvus, he refused to abandon Taris—instead, Shel Jelavan took the ship off the planet with Constable Sowrs' children. Meanwhile, the Mandalorians relentlessly pushed on, driving the Resistance down even further, into the rakghoul-infested wasteland known as the Undercity. The diseased beasts spelled death for many of the scattered Resistance survivors, including Constable Sowrs. Although the Resistance was effectively crushed, some managed to outlast the Mandalorian assault: Carrick and Hierogryph escaped certain death at the hands of the rakghouls and make it off the planet with the help of Jedi Shadow Celeste Morne, while Gadon Thek and Brejik survived to keep the Hidden Beks going through the siege and in the years after.

The Taris Resistance was headed by Haydel Goravvus, the half-Human, half-Hamadryas politician who represented Taris in the Galactic Senate at the time of the Mandalorian invasion. Although Goravvus attained his seat through a corrupt partnership with Jervo Thalien and Lhosan Industries, he realized once in office that he was more interested in the people than the profits and, against all odds, grew into a selfless public servant. When the Mandalorians attacked and social order broke down on Taris, Goravvus retreated out of the public eye and into the Lower City, where he formed the Taris Resistance out of survivors and law enforcement willing to fight for their homeworld. Although Goravvus had several chances to escape the planet during the Mandalorian siege, the Senator refused to leave his people behind, even after Cassus Fett's surprise attack effectively crushed his rebel group. Goravvus was eventually forced to leave Taris as the Mandalorians further consolidated control of the planet, and survived in exile to become a popular activist for refugees and people living on occupied worlds.

Goravvus' resistance drew much of its military force from the remnants of Taris' law enforcement, which was helmed by Sector Constable Noana Sowrs. Although Sowrs complicated Goravvus' attempt to parley with local swoop gangs with her intractable desire to continue enforcing the law during the Mandalorian siege, she loyally served Goravvus as one of his top lieutenants throughout the Taris Siege. The fate of Sowrs' two children, Nahk and Tallie, became crucial to the Taris Resistance's eventual partnership with the Hidden Beks gang, despite Sowrs' hostility to whom she saw as underworld criminals. Sowrs' children had been in fact kidnapped by Hidden Beks member Brejik against the order of gang leader Gadon Thek—once Thek discovered that his protege had done this, he grudgingly realized that he had been handed the perfect bargaining chip with the Resistance, and returning the Sowrs children helped ensure a partnership would be struck. Sowrs' reunion with her children was, however, brief. Cassus Fett's ambush forced Sowrs to send her children offworld, and the Constable was killed soon after by Undercity rakghouls.

Joining Constable Sowrs at Goravvus' side was the unstable Togruta Jedi Master named Raana Tey, who had in fact been one of the five Jedi Masters originally stationed at the Taris Jedi Tower before the Padawan Massacre. Unbeknownst to the greater galaxy, Tey and the Jedi Tower Masters were part of a secret Jedi cabal known as the Jedi Covenant that was dedicated to foreseeing the return of the Sith. Shortly before the Mandalorian attack, a misinterpreted vision led Tey and her compatriots to murder their Jedi Padawans and pin the massacre on the lone survivor, Zayne Carrick. The Jedi were pulled offworld after the attack, but Tey was ordered back to Taris alone by Supreme Chancellor Tol Cressa after the siege began. Tey linked up with Goravvus' Resistance and served a vital role as a healer, but lacking the support system she needed due to her uncontrolled Force visions, she descended into insanity during the battle. Tey befriended Resistance agent Shel Jelavan—whose brother Shad was one of the murdered Padawans—and Tey plotted to use Jelavan to murder Carrick once she re-encountered the fugitive former Padawan on Taris. However, Jelavan turned on Tey when she realized the truth, and Tey was killed in the explosion of the Jedi Tower.

The Taris Resistance first appeared in Knights of the Old Republic 22, an issue of the comic book series Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, written by John Jackson Miller and released in 2007. The Resistance, which originally mentioned in the series' previous issue, played a central part in the Knights of Suffering story arc and would later be mentioned in several more issues of Knights of the Old Republic.

• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Handbook
• Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide