The conflict known as the Battle of Vanahame transpired during the era of the New Sith Wars. It unfolded on the world of Vanahame in the year 1032 BBY. Prior to this confrontation, the Sith Lord named Odion had secured the Helm of Ieldis, an ancient Sith artifact originating from the planet Skarpos. This Helm possessed the ability to transform negative emotions, such as sorrow and anxiety, into dark side energy. This energy could incite sentient beings into a state of violent frenzy, even across the vast distances of hyperspace. After a successful test demonstration of the Helm's capabilities on Skarpos, Odion journeyed back to the cloister—a massive, planet-sized orphanage—on Vanahame. His intention was to exploit the emotions of the countless orphans residing there, unleashing its power upon the entire Grumani sector.
Odion's pursuit of galactic dominance, fueled by nihilistic ideals, was met with resistance from fellow Sith Lords within the Calimondra family, who mobilized a combined fleet to thwart his ambitions. Ultimately, Odion's schemes were disrupted when Jedi Knight Kerra Holt, held captive by Odion, successfully appealed to the conscience of his General, Beld Yulan, reminding him of the value of life. Although Odion managed to unleash the Helm's power on his Sith "family" and designated targets within the Grumani sector, Yulan reactivated the lights and freed the children from their bubble prisons. This action immediately quelled the homicidal frenzy induced by the Helm, causing it to overload and resulting in Odion's demise. With Odion's death, his Sith family, including his estranged brother Daiman, swiftly invaded the Odionate, dividing up his territories among themselves. Meanwhile, Kerra and Yulan liberated the orphans on Vanahame. Yulan then transported the orphans from Vanahame to the safety of Republic space, while Kerra pledged to free their parents from the control of the remaining Sith Lords.
After his successful display of the Helm of Ieldis's power on Skarpos, Odion piloted his warship, the Gravedigger, to Vanahame. Vanahame served as both a transit hub within the Odionate and a planet-sized orphanage, referred to as a cloister. Due to Odion's heightened sensitivity to the Force and his traumatic childhood, he had confined all the children within his domain to a series of cloisters. Here, they were indoctrinated to become obedient workers and soldiers for his nihilistic cause. However, Odion now had a new scheme for his captives. Having observed how the Helm transformed the grief of his adversary, Jedi Knight Kerra Holt, into dark side energy, inciting three entire armies on Skarpos to commit acts of violence, Odion now intended to harness the negative emotions of his child captives and unleash them upon the entire Grumani sector.
In Odion's view, he was nearing his objective of galactic dominion, envisioning himself as the sole sentient being in the universe. Odion's Sith family—the influential Calimondra family—governed a collection of fiefdoms within the sector. His estranged younger brother, Daiman, also a Sith Lord, had witnessed the devastating consequences of the Helm on Skarpos and had cautioned the family matriarch, Vilia Calimondra. In a rare instance of shared purpose, the rival Sith Lords gathered their warships and embarked on a hyperspace journey to Vanahame, aiming to prevent Odion from fully utilizing the Helm's power. Despite their usual animosity, these Sith Lords recognized the potential danger the Helm posed to the galaxy. Vilia attempted to reason with her grandson via intercom, but Odion ignored her. According to his distorted, nihilistic perspective, Odion had no family or friends, only enemies who needed to be eliminated to end the suffering of existence.
Odion's Novitiates had established a network of subspace links, providing live feeds of the Helm's effects on various locations within Odion's target range. His Claimer, Beld Yulan, asserted that Odion and his followers should witness the Helm's influence throughout his realm. Odion also held Kerra captive, bound to a frame, forcing her to witness the carnage and bloodshed caused by the Helm being broadcast live. Odion attempted to provoke Kerra by offering to play her parents' final words on the holorecorder, but she refused, stating that she would rather see his enemies come for him.
Upon receiving a signal, Odion commanded the staff overseeing the Cloister to extinguish all the lights within the Cloister for the first time ever. The child captives endured a highly structured and austere existence within their bubble prisons inside the cloister. Their entire lives operated according to a daily rhythm dictated by artificial light frequencies. The inmates had no interaction with each other, communicating only through the tops of their bubble capsules. At that precise moment, the children had just awakened from their daily sleep cycle and were consuming breakfast, anticipating their morning holo-tutorial sessions. Among these children was Jeeree Kayl, a Duros, who had found solace in the monotonous daily routine.
Since the lights had never been turned off before, the sudden plunge into complete darkness threw all the children into a state of panic and fear. Many of them began to cry, generating the necessary surge of negative emotions, such as anguish and fear, required to power the Helm. While Odion and most of his Novitiates reveled in the children's suffering, Kerra and his traditionally loyal second-in-command, General Beld Yulan, expressed unease and disgust. Yulan remarked to Kerra that frightening the children was the most heinous form of torture conceived by an adult mind.
Odion mocked Kerra, claiming she was missing out on "joy" by rejecting the Sith path. He also asserted that if she had known what was coming, she would have succumbed to the dark side of the Force and embraced his nihilistic religion. However, as a lightsider, Kerra could only watch in captivity. Meanwhile, Kerra attempted to persuade Yulan of the errors of serving the Sith and implored him to destroy the facility. When Yulan questioned if she was willing to die to save people she did not even know, Kerra responded that she wanted to live and save the kids. Kerra successfully reasoned with Yulan, arguing that the only distinction between droids and people was that people could achieve something even in death. She managed to convince him to save the children in the cloister to prevent a repeat of the tragedy that killed his beloved children.
As Odion's Novitiates prepared for an apocalyptic end to the galaxy, Yulan managed to leave the chamber by pretending that he wanted to go down to the cloister to add his misery to the children. Yulan deceived Odion into believing that he wanted to die downstairs with the children so that he could add more energy to the Helm's powers. Odion had also planned to shut down the life support after harnessing the life energies of the people down there. Odion granted this request to reward Yulan for his devotion to his nihilistic ideology.
With the Helm of Ieldis fully charged by the energies of Odion's child captives, Odion unleashed its powers during a ceremony. He began with a passionate declaration of his beliefs before urging his Novitiates to "end the pain" by killing each other in a murderous frenzy. Simultaneously, Odion used the Helm to unleash a wave of homicidal killings throughout the Grumani sector, resulting in countless sentient beings being killed or wounded in the ensuing chaos. The Helm also affected his Sith family's invasion fleet in hyperspace. Several warships began firing upon each other, and Daiman was forced to fend off several crazed crew members on his flagship using Force lightning.
Kerra managed to break free from her restraints and seized a red lightsaber, intending to assassinate Odion while he was seated on his throne. However, she was attacked by Wayman, who had previously befriended her when she infiltrated the Odionate while feigning enthusiasm as a Sith devotee. After she refused to yield to Odion, Wayman punched Kerra, causing her to drop her lightsaber. Odion expressed his sadistic enjoyment of the ongoing killings within the wider Grumani sector and his throne room on Vanahame.
Meanwhile, Yulan entered the control room responsible for managing all the lights within the Cloister. The two men operating the lights were caught off guard, preoccupied with the screams emanating from the frightened children and the commotion occurring upstairs. When one of the operators attempted to order Yulan to leave, Yulan shot him in the head with a blaster pistol. He then confronted the remaining operator, a Human man named Murl, and ordered him to step away from the controls at gunpoint. Yulan swiftly reactivated the lights, immediately ending the state of fear and panic among the cloister children.
Yulan's actions in restoring the lights in the cloister had an immediate impact on the Helm. Odion was on the verge of unleashing all the powers in the Helm on the entire galaxy which would bring the deaths of trillions of sentients, allowing him to reach his nihilistic goal of being the sole being existing in the universe. However, the Helm's powers suddenly ceased as the emotions within the cloister shifted from despair to relief, ending the Force-induced murderous frenzy within seconds. Wayman was caught off guard by his master's sudden shock, and Kerra seized the opportunity to impale him with her lightsaber, killing the Novitiate.
By the time Odion realized what had transpired in the cloister, Yulan had activated the other switch, releasing all the children from their bubble prisons. Instantly, the emotions within the Cloister transformed from fear and misery to joy as the child captives celebrated their newfound freedom. This sudden surge in positive emotions caused the Helm of Ieldis to overload, creating a firestorm that breached a hole in the sealed throne room and setting Odion ablaze. This Force-induced fire was generated by an overwhelming surge of life and happiness, which Odion could not withstand.
As Odion burned in flames, he pleaded with Kerra to save his life by removing the Helm and taking him to Jubalene where his burns could be treated. He feared the arrival of his enemies and the collapse of the Odionate at the hands of his Sith rivals. Kerra, however, remained unmoved by his pleas, as he had attempted to destroy everything in existence. She also stated that her parents' death meant something to her and added that his death would have also have a meaning for her. Desperate, Odion attempted to save his life by mentioning that he could help her find her younger sibling if she only agreed to spare him.
However, Kerra had come to believe that all the children in the cloisters throughout the Odionate were her brothers and sisters. Due to the lack of available records, it was difficult to locate lost family members who had been processed into the cloister system. The sibling would have grown up not knowing the identity of its parents and his or her relationship to Kerra. Instead, Kerra refused to bargain with Odion and allowed him to burn to death.
Following Odion's death, Kerra was immediately rejoined in the throne room by Yulan, who had completely renounced his Sith ways. He was now surrounded by several small children who had come to adopt him as their de-facto father. Meanwhile, Odion's Sith relatives capitalized on the power vacuum within the Odionate to annex as much territory as possible. Due to the centralized nature of governance within the Odionate, the death of its titular leader meant that there was no successor who could fill this vacuum. Odion's estranged younger brother took the largest stake within the former Odionate, seeing an opportunity to expand his own empire.
Following the events on Vanahame, Kerra and Yulan rescued as many orphans as they could from the cloisters they could reach. However, they were unable to reach all twelve of the planet-sized orphanages since the other Sith Lords had already annexed other parts of the former Odionate. Kerra and Yulan subsequently landed on an unknown terrestrial planet with green fields and hills where they had organized an airlift operation to evacuate the children to safety. While Kerra and Yulan were unable to reunite all the children with their parents, Yulan agreed to ferry the liberated children to the Galactic Republic. Meanwhile, Kerra agreed to free their parents and bring them to the Republic where they could be reunited.