The Fermata Cage represented an ancient weapon drawing power from the dark side of the Force, predating even the Imperial Era. Crafted by the Sith Lord known as Darth Momin, its function was to utilize the dark side, effectively halting moments in time, thus suspending individuals and locations. These individuals or places could then be brought back to the present, experiencing no passage of time.
This pre-Ascendant artifact, the Fermata Cage, was the creation of the Sith Lord Darth Momin. It was considered a relic of the distant past by the Imperial Era. Its design was reminiscent of an hourglass. The internal mechanism housed minuscule black holes, secured within a dark-side matrix that enveloped the glass exterior of its cylindrical form. This unique construction allowed it to manipulate and ensnare time, freezing specific individuals and locations within its confines. By channeling concentrated dark-side energy directly into the device, these trapped entities could be returned to the present moment, untouched by the flow of time. Activating the Cage demanded a significant surge of dark-side energy, either provided directly by a potent Force user or, in the absence of such a user, harvested from the life force of nearby organic beings.
Long before the rise of the Empire, the dark-side devotee Darth Momin conceived and constructed the Fermata Cage. Its use was reserved for extreme circumstances. It served as a prison for a disc-shaped droid being. Eventually, the Cage found its resting place within a temple situated in a dark side hellscape known to Momin, effectively removing it from the greater galaxy.
Sometime between 3 ABY and 4 ABY, Lady Qi'ra, the leader of Crimson Dawn, devised a plot to eliminate the Sith Lords Darth Sidious and Darth Vader by trapping them within the Fermata Cage. To realize this scheme, she arranged for "the Archivist" and the Knights of Ren to retrieve the Cage and to steal the Screaming Key from Fortress Vader. Qi'ra fabricated a story about a Sith Lord being imprisoned within the Cage to draw Vader and Sidious into a confrontation, hoping to trap them.
The Archivist was subsequently tasked with unlocking the Cage. This task proved exceptionally challenging, prompting the Archivist to enlist the aid of Kho Phon Farrus, an archaeologist well-versed in the teachings of the Ascendant sect. Together, they explored various methods to unlock the Cage, but their efforts were fruitless. Their experiments culminated in the creation of a complex apparatus that incorporated at least four dissected humanoids, a cyborg, and two GNK-series power droids as integral components, with the Fermata Cage positioned at its core.
During a battle against Crimson Dawn, Qi'ra informed Sidious of the fabricated rumor regarding a Sith Lord trapped within the Fermata Cage, expressing her intention to unleash it upon him and his apprentice Vader. Qi'ra instructed Farrus and the Archivist to activate their machine, which they achieved by binding the Knights of Ren to it and compelling them to exert their dark-side powers to their maximum capacity. As the machine reached its peak output, the Knights were suspended in the air by their necks, and the Cage's containment unit shattered, generating a powerful disturbance in the Force that reverberated across the galaxy, reaching as far as the Imperial Palace on Coruscant and Fortress Vader on Mustafar. The intensity of the disturbance startled Palpatine, causing him to leap from his throne and demand to know Qi'ra's secret. However, the disturbance was short-lived, and with the destruction of the Archivist and Farrus' machine, the Cage reverted to its inert state.
Despite the success in identifying the Cage's dormant potential, the Knights of Ren deserted the Dawn, frustrated by the Archivist and Farrus' use of them as test subjects and fearful of the ripple in the Force the test had set out. Despite the setback in losing their Force-sensitive test subjects, the duo confirmed that Farrus' Ascendant tech replicated the Knights' Force power and acted as a viable replacement to prime the Cage. Following the Knights' departure, while setting up a new test, Farrus took a break to contact Detta Yao after their frustrations and fears about the project and Palpatine's inevitable response began to boil over. Contacting Yao, Kho revealed their theory that the Cage was the key to unlocking the Ascendant's artificial intelligence known as the Spark Eternal before returning to work.
As Palpatine pinpointed where they had conducted their experiment, they packed their gear and left for another location, where they built yet another machine with the Cage at its center. This one was designed to collect dark-side energy from its surroundings, as it, like the light side, existed in abundance in a natural state, and then focus it on the Cage like a lens. After installing it, Farrus activated it, but they, like the Knights, were swapped in the Vortex, their life powers sucked in by the Cage through the device. At the same time, Yoda, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and Palpatine sensed the disturbance caused by the priming from different sides of the galaxy, with Palpatine also pinpointing Farrus and the Archivist through the dark-side energy unleashed there.
Farrus and the Archivist were forced to disable the machine before it could collect enough energy to unlock the Cage, as they later reported to a distressed Qi'ra, who prompted them to try again. Just as the Archivist objected, warning Qi'ra of the danger the Cage posed, Vader arrived in orbit aboard his flagship, the Star Dreadnought Executor. Upon reaching the surface aboard a shuttle, Vader found the exhausted Archivist hiding with Farrus underneath parts of their device, having barely had any time to even disconnect the Cage from it. However, Chanath Cha's Orphans intervened, engaging Vader and buying the Archivist and Farrus the time they needed to escape with the Cage, perishing in the process.
With yet another test failed, the Archivist, abandoned by a terrified Farrus, decided that the best course of action would be to take the Cage to a place that would be both full of dark side energy and rich in life. She concluded that the Amaxine space station would be the best candidate, being rich in Drengir plants that could channel the dark side and would make for the perfect "nourishment" for the cage. After she arrived and set up her equipment, she activated the matrix, resulting in the cage immediately consuming most of the plants in its vicinity and beginning to open. Galactic Emperor Sidious immediately sensed it and arrived to crush her once and for all aboard the Executor along with Darth Vader. This time, however, they were met with Qi'ra's full Crimson fleet who disabled their long range turbolasers, forcing them to land to the planet themselves accompanied by royal guards and death troopers, slaughtering the Dawn fighters and making their way towards the Cage.
Farrus feared Qi'ra's latest plan would end in disaster. Aboard the space station, Qi'ra met with the Spark Eternal–possessed Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra near the Cage before she rejoined her fleet. After Vader defeated the Spark and removed it from Aphra's body through a Force push, with Farrus leading Aphra's allies to the station to free her from the Spark's attempts to bond with her once more, Vader and Sidious faced down the Cage as the Archivist remotely opened it. The small disc-like droid fell from the Cage, marking it as finally being released. Unaware of its true nature, the disc only confirmed to Sidious Qi'ra had been lying about the supposed Sith Lord since he felt no connection between the object and the Force. With both Sith in its range, Qi'ra ordered the Archivist to seal the Sith within the Cage so they could throw them into a sun.
However, the Fermata Cage was destroyed, which resulted in a Force Wave being sent out across the galaxy, when the Knights of Ren arrived in the battle and fired on it. Believing Sidious would escape whatever became of him and hoping that, by saving the Sith, they would save themselves from their wrath, the Knights' intervention spared both Sith Lords from being trapped in the Cage, leaving Crimson Dawn's efforts to crumble around them as the Empire overwhelmed their fleet. Vader collected the destroyed but still intact Cage and departed with Sidious, who tortured the Knights with Force lightning but promised they would be put to use. The Spark Eternal, meanwhile, fled into the disc-droid dropped by the Cage and merged with it, becoming the Scourge.
The Fermata Cage received its first indirect mention in Crimson Reign 4. Its initial appearance occurred in Crimson Reign 5, with its formal identification taking place in Hidden Empire 1.
In reality, the term "fermata" denotes a musical instruction to prolong a note beyond its standard duration, while a "Faraday cage" serves as an enclosure designed to protect objects from electromagnetic fields.