Ferren Barr

During the waning years of the Galactic Republic, Ferren Barr commenced his training as a Padawan within the Jedi Order, learning the ways of the Force. He engaged in lightsaber combat sparring matches with Anakin Skywalker on at least one occasion during his time as a padawan. Like other Jedi, he actively participated in the Clone Wars as a member of the Grand Army of the Republic alongside the Republic's clone troopers until Order 66 was initiated, which commanded the execution of all Jedi as enemies of the state. Barr managed to survive the immediate slaughter, while thousands of his brothers and sisters in the Force were exterminated by their own soldiers both at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and across the galaxy. Consequently, he sought exile as the Sith, the Jedi Order's ancient adversaries, regained power through the rise of the Galactic Empire.

Barr, intrigued by the Sith's rapid annihilation of the Jedi Order, embarked on a quest to uncover the truth behind the conspiracy that allowed the Jedi's enemies to seize control of the galaxy. Eventually, he discovered Order 66 and the roles played by Count Dooku and the clones. He also learned that Anakin Skywalker—a Jedi Knight and the Force's Chosen One—had succumbed to the dark side of the Force. With the assistance of a slicer, Barr infiltrated a Coruscant Security Force holocam and uncovered footage of Skywalker leading the 501st Legion in the siege of the Jedi Temple. Knowing that Skywalker was actually Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine's apprentice and enforcer, Barr was aware that other Jedi had fallen from the light side of the Force and transformed into an elite group of Jedi hunters known as the Inquisitorius. His findings were stored in the R1-series astromech droid Endee for safekeeping.

In addition to his investigation, Barr enlisted several acolytes to support his cause. Nipaltoo, whose sister was among the younglings in the Jedi Order, was devastated by Palpatine's speech regarding the Republic army's military response to an alleged Jedi rebellion. Orvek was one of many civilians forcibly displaced from their homes by the clone shock troopers of the Coruscant Guard. Daren felt indebted to the Jedi, particularly Anakin Skywalker, for saving his life during the Clone Wars. Rebb and Stell opposed the Empire and everything it represented. Although Barr's acolytes sympathized with the Jedi Order and resented the Empire, he used his Force powers to ensure their loyalty.

After recruiting Verla as his sixth acolyte, Barr and his followers traveled to the oceanic planet of Mon Cala. Serving as a Jedi advisor to King Lee-Char, Barr urged the Mon Calamari monarchy to inspire hope throughout the galaxy by openly defying the Empire. The Empire dispatched Ambassador Telvar to Mon Cala to resolve the situation diplomatically, although the Emperor had already decided to make an example of the Mon Calamari for the rest of the galaxy. To ensure that nothing would impede the inevitable war against the Empire, Barr sabotaged Telvar's shuttle, resulting in the fiery death of the Imperial diplomat. The king denied any involvement in Telvar's assassination; nevertheless, the Empire now had a pretext to invade Mon Cala. Simultaneously, the Emperor ordered Vader, aided by the Inquisitors, to locate and eliminate Lee-Char's Jedi advisor. Shortly after Vader's arrival, the king contacted his ally, hoping to warn Barr that the Emperor's Jedi hunters had arrived, led by a black-armored warrior. Based on the king's description of Vader, Barr recognized him as his former brother in the Force—Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker.

Using his astromech droid's archival footage of Skywalker's exploits as a Jedi, as well as his actions during the execution of Order 66 in the Jedi Temple, Barr recounted the story of Skywalker's rise and fall to his acolytes. He explained how Skywalker had become one of the greatest Jedi Knights of his generation before betraying the Order on the first night of the Purge. His followers wanted to confront Vader and avenge the Jedi Order by killing the traitor, but Barr forbade it, stating that the former Jedi was a formidable opponent. However, he was confident that his plan offered another path—one that would ultimately avenge the Jedi, destroy the Sith, and liberate the galaxy from the Empire's rule.

To guarantee the success of his plan, Barr used his influence with the king to prevent the Mon Calamari from cooperating with the Empire's investigation. With his Force-enhanced insight into future events, Barr revealed that the attack on Mon Cala was only the beginning of the erosion of freedom across every planet in every star system under the Empire's control. However, he also foresaw that the Mon Calamari would be at the forefront of a rebellious movement that would herald the galaxy's liberation day. Inspired by Barr's visions, King Lee-Char instructed his officers, Gial Ackbar and Raddus to oversee the military's defense of the Mon Calamari homeworld.

During the Imperial assault on Dac City, the king informed his Jedi advisor that he had revealed the location of Barr's [refuge](/article/ferren_barr%27s_cave_refuge] to the Inquisitors while under torture. Having achieved his objective of initiating a war on Mon Cala between its inhabitants and the Empire, Barr intended to replicate this on as many worlds as possible until the Rebellion was formed. As the group evacuated the chamber, they were pursued by an Imperial submarine carrying Vader and the Inquisitors.

The pursuit resulted in the deaths of Nipaltoo and Orvek. Rebb and Stell chose to stay behind and ambush the Inquisitors, hoping to delay their advance while Verla and Barr sought a way off Mon Cala. However, Barr and his last remaining disciples were cornered in Bel City by the Inquisitors and a squad of Purge Troopers, with Daren being bisected by one of them. Realizing that the troopers were clones—the last generation activated before the complete shutdown of the cloning production line on Kamino—Barr informed them that the Inquisitors were still Jedi, despite their allegiance to the Empire. Persuaded by Barr's logic and Force influence, the clones' indoctrination compelled them to execute Order 66 against the Inquisitorius, as Barr had anticipated, knowing that the clones would follow their programming like droids. Barr and Verla used the distraction to escape deeper into the city, leaving the Inquisitors and their soldiers to kill each other.

Verla was attuned to the Force, unlike the other acolytes. As her Jedi Master, Barr began instructing her in the Jedi arts but suspected that he would not be able to complete her training. Therefore, he instructed her to leave him and seek out other survivors of the Purge, such as Grand Master Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or even Quinlan Vos. He hoped that Verla would find a new Master to become a full-fledged Jedi.

After parting ways with his apprentice, Barr moved to confront Vader in person. By the time he reached the Royal Command Bunker, Moff Wilhuff Tarkin's Imperial fleet of Star Destroyers had begun bombarding the planet from orbit, resulting in billions of casualties. During the lightsaber duel, Vader realized that Barr was responsible for Telvar's death, which Barr confirmed. In response to Barr's confession, Lee-Char ordered his forces to stand down and surrender to the Empire, but Tarkin proceeded with the bombardment of Mon Cala regardless. Barr assured the king that the sacrifice of billions would ultimately save trillions of lives, while inspiring hope and rebellion throughout the galaxy.

Although Barr intended to defeat Vader, he was ultimately slain in battle by the Dark Lord of the Sith. However, he died confident that his actions would eventually lead to the destruction of the Sith Lords and the restoration of freedom throughout the galaxy. In the aftermath of the battle, three Mon Calamari cruisers escaped into hyperspace, but Mon Cala was lost. The Empire placed the planet under military occupation, and Vader took Lee-Char prisoner.

Shortly after the Battle of Fortress Vader, Vader entered a portal created by Darth Momin to resurrect his wife Padmé Amidala. While traversing visions, he encountered Barr and many other Jedi with their lightsabers ready to fight him. However, Vader killed all the illusions, impaling Barr through the chest along with Eeth Koth as the words "Let the past die" echoed in his mind.

Barr's prophecies were fulfilled many years after his death. As Barr foresaw, the early rebellion against the Galactic Empire culminated in the rise of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. Although his plan led to Mon Cala's subjugation, his actions ensured that the Mon Calamari retaliated against the Empire by becoming a key species in the Rebel Alliance, as Barr had predicted. Determined to restore freedom to the galaxy, the Mon Calamari provided a powerful fleet of capital ships that formed the backbone of the Alliance Fleet. Equipped with turbolasers, ion cannons, tractor beam projectors, and deflector shield generators, Mon Calamari Star Cruisers possessed the firepower and defense capabilities the outnumbered Alliance needed to contend with the Imperial-class Star Destroyers.

Furthermore, the Alliance gained the knowledge and tactical expertise of Lee-Char's veteran commanders, admirals Raddus and Ackbar. Admiral Raddus, a strong advocate for openly defying the Empire with a powerful military force, led the Alliance forces against the Empire at the Battle of Scarif, where the Rebels secured vital schematics to the Death Star. Consequently, the Rebels exploited a flaw in the battle station's design, leading to its destruction at the Battle of Yavin. While the Empire was constructing a second Death Star, Admiral Ackbar masterminded the Rebel attack on the new superweapon at the Battle of Endor. By the end of the Galactic Civil War, the Sith Lords were dead, and the forces of the New Republic had defeated the Empire, as Barr had predicted.

Decades later, the First Order—a successor to the Empire in all but name—destroyed the Republic capital of Hosnian Prime, ending the era of renewed peace and democracy that the Rebel Alliance had fought to create. Yet, as Barr had foreseen, the Mon Calamari opposed the rise of the First Order by contributing their ships to the Resistance, a paramilitary organization led by General Leia Organa. The MC85 Star Cruiser Raddus served as Organa's flagship during the evacuation of D'Qar. Pursued through hyperspace by the First Order Navy, the Resistance fleet was decimated until only the Raddus remained. To save the survivors fleeing to the planet Crait, Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo rammed the Raddus into the Mega-class Star Dreadnought Supremacy at lightspeed, severely damaging the First Order flagship.

Ferren Barr, an Iktotchi male characterized by orange skin, brown eyes, and two large, curved horns extending downward from his head (the right horn damaged by the time of the Empire's formation), was deeply affected by the fall of the Jedi Order. As a Jedi Order member, Barr had faith in the Force and its power to shape the future according to its will. The loss of his Jedi brothers and sisters motivated Barr to seek the truth behind the conspiracy that led to the order's downfall.

A dedicated and resourceful investigator, Barr uncovered significant information regarding Emperor Palpatine's rise and Anakin Skywalker's transformation into Darth Vader. Barr viewed Vader and the Inquisitors as traitors to the Jedi Order. Because of their betrayal, he felt that the true threat to the order came not from outside the Jedi ranks, but from within. He did not differentiate between Skywalker and Vader; to Barr, they were the same person responsible for the deaths of many Jedi, including the youngest of the order. Like other Jedi of his time, such as Obi-Wan Kenobi, whom Barr held in high esteem, Barr believed in Skywalker's destiny as the Chosen One—the prophesied one who would restore balance in the Force by destroying the Sith. The revelation that Skywalker had betrayed the Jedi Order disillusioned Barr, causing him to deviate from the Jedi way in his pursuit of destroying the Sith.

Barr was willing to use the Force to influence his acolytes, ensuring their support for his quest to avenge the Jedi Order. His long-term strategy for defeating the Sith involved a plot to incite dissent and opposition against the Emperor by manipulating the Empire into committing genocide on Mon Cala. Although his plan required the loss of billions of lives, he believed it was a necessary sacrifice to inspire trillions of beings to rise up against the Empire.

In addition to his intellect and research skills, Barr was adept at improvisation and adapting to unforeseen setbacks. When the Inquisitorius cornered him in Bel City, Barr knew that he could exploit their own troopers by making them see the Inquisitors as targets of Order 66 due to their past affiliation with the Jedi Order. Although the Inquisitors had abandoned their former identities, believing the past to be irrelevant, Barr disagreed. From his perspective, the past, history, and truth still mattered. Therefore, he argued, a fallen Jedi was still, in fact, a Jedi. As for the clones, Barr came to view them as mere machines bound by programming to be as obedient as a droid.

Barr did not want the Jedi Order to end with himself or the few others who survived the initial execution of Order 66. Having found no evidence of the deaths of Yoda, Kenobi, or Quinlan Vos, he hoped that Verla would complete her training in the ways of the Force under a different Jedi Master, in case Barr did not survive his encounter with Vader. Although he knew that he could not defeat the Dark Lord in single combat, Barr still confronted his former brother in the Force—an act motivated by pride, as Vader sensed. The Dark Lord accused Barr of failing to follow the Jedi way, an assessment Barr agreed with. Nevertheless, the former Padawan had reconciled with his decisions and died believing that everything he had done was in service to the greater good of the galaxy.

Like all Jedi, Ferren Barr was gifted with Force-sensitivity, a trait that led to his selection for Jedi training. During the Clone Wars, he was a Padawan, but the fall of the Jedi Order interrupted his training. Consequently, he never underwent the Jedi Trials necessary to achieve the rank of Jedi Knight. In spite of his incomplete education, Barr demonstrated considerable aptitude in certain Force abilities, notably telekinesis and the mind trick, which he effectively employed on both his followers and the Purge Troopers. Furthermore, he had a natural talent for foreseeing events far into the future. This allowed him to recognize the crucial role of the Mon Calamari in the rebellion that would challenge and eventually defeat the Empire. However, while he could predict distant outcomes, his ability to foresee events closer to him was noticeably limited. Vader's arrival on Mon Cala caught Barr off guard, as he had anticipated that the Force would provide him with ample warning before his confrontation with the Sith Lord.

Barr also possessed considerable skill in persuasion, even without resorting to the mind trick. By leveraging his position as a Jedi and advisor to the king, Barr successfully convinced Lee-Char to openly defy the Empire, despite the potential repercussions of such defiance. He was also proficient in lightsaber combat, to the point where he was able to briefly hold his own against Darth Vader, one of the most accomplished duelists of that era. Ultimately, Barr's skills were no match for Vader's, who defeated and killed the former Padawan in a duel. Before his demise, Barr utilized his limited training to impart the ways of the Jedi to his apprentice, Verla.

Ferren Barr made his debut appearance in Darth Vader (2017) 13, a comic book from 2018. The comic was penned by Charles Soule, with illustrations by Giuseppe Camuncoli, and published under the banner of Marvel Comics. His identification as Barr was established in the subsequent issue, Darth Vader (2017) 14, while his given name, Ferren, was revealed in Darth Vader (2017) 16.