Bultar Swan

Bultar Swan, a Human female, came into the world on the planet Kuat during the closing decades of the Galactic Republic. Exhibiting a significant degree of Force sensitivity from a young age, she was identified by the Jedi Order. The Jedi removed her from her family and transported her to the galactic capital of Coruscant to commence training within their organization. Following several years of study at the Jedi Temple, Swan was assigned to Jedi Master Micah Giiett as his Padawan. Under Giiett's tutelage, Swan demonstrated skill in various combat forms, including Teräs Käsi and the Verdanaian "sliding hands". The Twi'lek Jedi Master Anoon Bondara assisted Giiett in teaching Swan to integrate the two unarmed combat styles.

Giiett was killed by Yinchorri extremists during the Yinchorri Uprising in 33 BBY, and Swan continued her training under Jedi Master Plo Koon, a longtime associate of Giiett's. Koon placed a greater emphasis on lightsaber combat practice than Giiett had, and helped Swan learn to utilize the weapon to complement her martial arts skills. He brought her to Yinchorr to visit the site of Giiett's death, and informed her that her former Master had sacrificed his life to save several other Jedi. Although she still deeply felt his loss, Swan sensed that Giiett had been at peace at the time of his death and believed that he would have been proud of her training accomplishments.

Swan was elevated to the rank of Knight within the next eleven years, and began active service as a Jedi Knight in a galaxy that was becoming increasingly perilous. Shortly before 22 BBY, Swan's jurisdiction as a Knight encompassed the Fondor system, and she was tasked with mediating a dispute between Senator Rodd of the planet Fondor and Margravine Quenelle of the world's moon, Nallastia. A Fondorian patrol ship and a Nallastian freighter had both vanished after encountering what appeared to be the Sun Runner, a starship that had been missing for four thousand years. Both Rodd and Quenelle were asserting salvage rights to the ship, and Swan spent a few days aboard the orbital Fondor Spaceport contacting her sources on Fondor and Nallastia in an attempt to gather more information about the situation.

She succeeded in persuading Rodd and Quenelle to permit further Jedi mediation instead of deploying armed vessels to the location of the derelict Sun Runner, and Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Padawan Anakin Skywalker were dispatched to assist her. They arrived at Fondor Spaceport in the Republic cruiser Unitive and transported Swan to the site of the derelict Sun Runner. She briefed them on the situation during their journey through hyperspace, and upon the Unitive's arrival at the deep-space rendezvous point, Rodd's salvage hauler and Quenelle's rescue runner were awaiting them. The Senator and the Margravine both boarded the Unitive and joined the Jedi in the cruiser's salon pod. Swan sat with them at a round table as they argued over the salvage rights, but when both refused to yield, she appealed to Kenobi for assistance. His decisive judgement, which he was about to deliver, was interrupted when the cruiser's lights went out and a ship-wide power surge fried every onboard system.

Captain Pietrangelo located the group and explained that the surge had been caused when the Sun Runner's engines activated, and Swan terminated the negotiations in order to halt the ancient ship and rescue any potential innocents trapped aboard. Senator Rodd led the Jedi through a docking tube to his ship, where a CloakShape fighter and Z-95 Headhunter awaited them. None of the pressure suits were an appropriate size for Swan, which led her to remain behind and watch over the bickering diplomats while Kenobi and Skywalker infiltrated the Sun Runner. After several of the Unitive's systems were brought back online, Swan received a message from Fondor Space Patrol: The missing freighter and patrol ship had recently returned and docked at Fondor Spaceport. Accompanied by the diplomats' ships, the Unitive jumped to lightspeed.

The three vessels docked at the spaceport simultaneously with Kenobi's Headhunter. He revealed that the vessel had in fact been a false Sun Runner, and that he and Skywalker had destroyed it with a hypermatter reactor-planted proton grenade after discovering that it had been on a crash course with Fondor. Skywalker's CloakShape fighter had plummeted toward Nallastia during the melee, and Kenobi had only come to the spaceport to refuel before pursuing him. Quenelle offered the two Jedi a ride to the surface aboard her shuttle, and while she prepared the ship, Rodd took the opportunity to accuse Kenobi of having destroyed the real Sun Runner in a desperate attempt to prevent a Fondorian civil war.

Swan and Kenobi sensed that Rodd was concealing something—unbeknownst to them, he was colluding with Groodo the Hutt, a shipbuilding magnate who had created the false Sun Runner with the intention of crashing it into the Fondor Shipyards and eliminating his competition. Kenobi followed his instincts and contacted the Jedi Council to request reinforcements. Aboard the Margravine's shuttle, Swan and Kenobi homed in on the remains of Skywalker's crashed CloakShape fighter, which they found abandoned on Nallastia's surface. Following two sets of footprints, they flew to the fortress of Nallastia's Skull Queen, where they found Skywalker holding the moon's Princess Calvaria at lightsaberpoint.

Swan and the others disembarked from the Margravine's shuttle, and Quenelle informed everyone present that she was the Skull Queen and Calvaria her daughter. Amidst the tense situation, Skywalker explained that Calvaria had imprisoned Hondu and Tattyra Firewell, the zoologist parents of a young boy named Klay, whom she had mistaken for malicious poachers. Quenelle berated her and explained to the Jedi that the two were trapped between Nallastia's ancient Trinity Stones, which would cause a magnetic field to crush them to death in ninety minutes unless the fabled Lost Stars of Nallastia could be found and used to counteract their power. Swan, Kenobi, Skywalker, and Klay Firewell hurriedly joined Quenelle in her shuttle, which Skywalker piloted to the Cavern of Screaming Skulls.

When the group disembarked in front of the cavern, a giant spider appeared and fired silky filaments at the party. Swan dove in front of Firewell to protect him, but they both ended up ensnared in the web. A jolt of electricity fired through the filaments rendered them both unconscious, and Skywalker ferried them back to the fortress after Quenelle killed the spider with a vibroblade. Kenobi and Quenelle were able to recover the Lost Stars and save the zoologists, but Swan, after waking up, yet sensed that something was amiss in the Fondor system. After the Firewells departed for their homeworld of Corulag, Kenobi and a recovered Swan joined Quenelle and Calvaria at a celebratory feast while Skywalker rested. During the dinner, mother and daughter both declared their intentions to marry a confused Kenobi.

The Princess and the Margravine quarrelled, and the latter pointed out that her daughter was already reluctantly betrothed to Prince Alto of Nallastia's Raptor Clan. Kenobi insisted that his life was one dedicated to the Jedi, and Swan came to his rescue by explaining that only one recent Jedi, Ki-Adi-Mundi, had been permitted to marry due to a low birth rate on his homeworld. Neither Calvaria nor Quenelle were swayed, and they agreed to a duel in one hour before both storming out of the dining room. A befuddled Kenobi sent Swan to wake up his Padawan while he went to the fortress's landing field—their reinforcements had arrived.

An anxious Skywalker bombarded Swan with questions about dreams, eventually breaking through her insistence that he seek wisdom from his Master instead and prompting her to describe what she saw whenever she meditated. They then joined Kenobi at the landing field, where Masters Mace Windu and Kit Fisto disembarked from their Republic cruiser and revealed that they too had sensed darkness in the Fondor system. Windu appealed to Quenelle to let go of her desire to marry Kenobi, but their discussion was interrupted by the discovery of a letter from Calvaria: she did not love Kenobi and had only hoped to distract her mother, allowing her to run away and marry the Fondorian mechanic Rench, her true love.

A beacon on the shuttle Calvaria had stolen homed in on Fondor Spaceport. When Quenelle contacted her daughter there, she learned that the spaceport had been taken over by a group called the Droid Control Army, who would issue demands in one hour. Swan, Windu, Fisto, and Quenelle decided to try to thwart them before that hour had passed, while Kenobi and Skywalker remained behind in case the takeover was a ruse. Swan and Fisto prepared the Republic cruiser while Windu and Quenelle retrieved the Lost Stars of Nallastia; with the artifacts in their possession, the group departed. The Stars' power allowed them to break through the spaceport's deflector shields; after they landed in a hangar, Windu destroyed a modified GNK power droid, whose upper casing contained a repeating blaster.

Due to the spaceport's sheer size, the group split up in an effort to find Calvaria and any other potential hostages. Swan made her way through the complex, eventually riding a turbolift into a hangar and finding both Fisto and Windu, as well as Rench and Calvaria, the latter of whom was clutched in the limbs of a modified FX-series medical assistant droid. Windu ordered Swan and Fisto to lower their weapons, but when the droid dragged Calvaria out of the hangar, Windu followed and rescued her. The Jedi remained unaware that the army had belonged to Groodo, who had actually planned to send the spaceport crashing down into important factories on Fondor's surface after the hour had passed. However, the presence of the Jedi and the destruction of his army had sent the Hutt fleeing. The Jedi returned Calvaria and Rench—who was in fact Prince Alto himself—to Nallastia and took a much-needed rest.

Throughout the mission to Fondor, Swan learned much from Kenobi and Skywalker. Her experience made her an obvious choice for other peace missions, and in 22 BBY, she and fellow Knights Empatojayos Brand and Chellemi Chuovvick set out on one to the Sepan system. Their task was to negotiate the cessation of hostilities between the residents of two neighboring planets, Dimok and Ripoblus, after decades of conflict between the two enemies. The three Jedi were able to bring the civil war to a month-long standstill, but upon their return to Coruscant, the fighting flared up again.

In 22 BBY, the Separatist Crisis brought the Republic to its knees. Several thousand star systems seceded from the Republic, many of them joining the Confederacy of Independent Systems, led by the former Jedi Master Count Dooku. When Obi-Wan Kenobi discovered that the Confederacy was building a battle droid army on Geonosis, he was taken captive along with Skywalker and Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was granted emergency powers by the Galactic Senate, and he commissioned a Grand Army of the Republic. As Jedi Master Yoda journeyed to Kamino to enlist an army of clone troopers that Kenobi had earlier discovered the Kaminoans had been secretly building for the Republic, Master Windu brought a Jedi strike team to Geonosis, Swan among them. As Kenobi, Skywalker, and Amidala stood in Geonosis's Petranaki arena surrounded by Separatist battle droids, the Jedi strike team infiltrated the arena and came to their aid, igniting their lightsabers and rushing at the droids.

Swan, who had largely rejected unarmed combat by this point, charged into battle with her lightsaber drawn. All of her combat training came into play as she struggled to resist the barrage of battle droid laserfire. Many Jedi fell to the overwhelming force of rapidly-firing droids, and Swan joined a survivor's circle in the center of the arena as the droids ceased firing and Count Dooku, observing the melee from above, called on the Jedi to surrender. Windu refused, and as the Jedi again raised their lightsabers, the clone army arrived, landing in and outside of the arena in LAAT gunships. The surviving Jedi boarded the ships, and a battle ensued between Republic and Separatist forces, initiating the Clone Wars. Swan and the other survivors joined the clones in sending Separatist forces fleeing from the planet.

Like many other Jedi, Swan rose to the rank of general within the Republic's military forces, commanding clone troopers in combat operations against the Separatist armies. Half a year after the Battle of Geonosis, she spearheaded Republic troops against Separatist battle droids on the planet Amaltanna, where they faced the Separatist commander Baron Edi Wedd. Tragically, all clones under Swan's leadership perished, yet every battle droid was destroyed simultaneously. As the battle's only survivor, Swan infiltrated Wedd's fortress in pursuit of the Baron. Wedd, monitoring Swan's every step via comlinks and holocameras, repeatedly mocked her, asserting that she could never reach his command center. During her search, Swan came across the remains of Amaltannan natives who had previously tried to reach Wedd.

Wedd deployed small spider droids and a pair of B2 super battle droids with the intent of stopping Swan, but the Jedi Knight swiftly eliminated them. She also took down the fortress' communications array before reaching the Baron's command center. Amidst continued taunts from Wedd, Swan used her lightsaber to pierce the control panel of the chamber door, causing the opening mechanism to short-circuit. Subsequently, Swan left the fortress, leaving Wedd to his fate within the inescapable structure. Before the year concluded, Swan was leading a group of clone troopers located on a snowy planet. As they departed from their barracks and boarded an LAAT to engage Separatist droids, Swan urged the remaining soldiers to board, with Sergeant Banks reassuring her that he was where he needed to be.

During the year 21 BBY, Swan and Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi spearheaded Republic forces in a confrontation against the Confederacy on Aargonar. Swan lost communication with Skywalker, Jedi General A'Sharad Hett, and Hett's Padawan Bhat Jul after they were cut off behind enemy lines, which led to Hett's troops beginning to retreat. As the Republic base was being overwhelmed by battle droids, Mundi instructed Swan to defend their position until the clone troopers under his command were able to gather at the nearby Vondar Canyon. They were unable to leave the planet because of an emerging sandstorm, and they decided to launch a counterattack from the canyon once the storm subsided. To prevent the Separatists from capturing Republic resources, Mundi further instructed Swan to disable anything they could not carry with them. The two Generals activated their lightsabers and joined their clone troopers in a defensive stand at the base.

After a brief defense of the base, their forces retreated to the canyon, where Swan discovered that the ion-charged sandstorm had disrupted the tracking, targeting, and communication systems of their equipment. Both Jedi boarded LAAT gunships and took to the skies to gain a clearer perspective on the ongoing battle. The intense assault from battle droids and IG-227 Hailfire-class droid tanks prompted Swan to order her troops to retreat, but her command was interrupted by the arrival of Skywalker and Hett in a Gunship Bomber being pursued by a Gouka dragon. Their arrival changed the course of the battle, with the Confederate troops' broken lines falling to the Republic forces' focused attacks.

In 19 BBY, following three years of constant conflict, the Separatists initiated an attack on Coruscant. General Grievous, the Supreme Commander of the Confederacy's Droid Armies, brought the Confederate Navy into the system and began deploying warships against both military and civilian targets. His vulture droids and tri-fighters crashed into the planet's defenses and disrupted traffic patterns; Swan, along with Jedi Masters Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, and other Jedi, piloted Jedi interceptors to combat the attacking Separatist ships. During the battle, Grievous abducted Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and transported the Republic's leader to his flagship, the Invisible Hand. Kenobi and Skywalker, now holding the ranks of Jedi Master and Jedi Knight respectively, infiltrated the warship, rescued Palpatine, eliminated Count Dooku, and forced Grievous and his fleet to retreat. In the days that followed, Swan departed Coruscant and was transferred to a Republic medstation.

While Swan was at the medstation providing care to wounded soldiers, Chancellor Palpatine revealed himself to Skywalker as Darth Sidious, a Dark Lord of the Sith, and transformed the Republic into a Galactic Empire with Skywalker, now known as Darth Vader, serving as his Sith apprentice. Sidious, who had been manipulating both factions throughout the war, instructed Skywalker to murder every member of the Separatist Council and deactivate all Separatist battle droids, while he himself ordered the clone troopers to assassinate their Jedi generals. Jedi across the galaxy were shot and killed, but Swan was able to avoid execution due to warnings from fellow healers at the medcenter about the clones' orders. With the war concluded, the surviving Jedi were scattered and without leadership. However, Swan was contacted a month later by Jedi Master Shadday Potkin, who sought to unite as many Jedi as possible to oppose the Sith. Potkin invited Swan to discuss their strategy on Kessel, but Swan first traveled to Eriadu to meet with Jedi Master Tsui Choi. She located him while he was eliminating clone troopers who were hunting him, and informed him of Potkin's invitation. Together, they proceeded to Kessel.

Upon arriving at an abandoned mine located on the rocky planet, they encountered Potkin, who introduced them to five other Jedi who had been invited to the meeting: Koffi Arana, Roblio Darté, Jastus Farr, Ma'kis'shaalas, and Sia-Lan Wezz. A discussion ensued regarding the current state of the galaxy and their responsibilities as Jedi; while some present advocated for hunting down and killing the Sith, Swan expressed the view that revenge was not the Jedi way. With no consensus reached, Potkin, anticipating this outcome, revealed that she had lured Darth Vader to the meeting, hoping he would be defeated by the assembled Jedi. Vader then entered the room, acting on false information suggesting Kenobi would be present, and was attacked by everyone except Swan and Choi, who remained on the sidelines.

Vader killed Wezz, Ma'kis'shaalas, and Potkin, and used Potkin's own cortosis blade to disable the lightsabers of Arana, Farr, and Darté. As he prepared to finish them off, Swan and Choi emerged from their hiding places, with Swan slashing the Sith Lord's leg and Choi amputating his sword arm. Vader surrendered to the Jedi, but Arana, suspecting a trap, ordered Swan to kill him. Swan refused to strike an unarmed opponent, leading Arana to seize her weapon, stab her with it, and attack Vader. Swan died, and Arana was quickly killed when Vader telekinetically impaled him with the cortosis blade. Vader then took Swan's lightsaber to continue the fight, and killed the remaining three Jedi with the assistance of the newly arrived 501st Legion of Imperial stormtroopers. The details of Swan's death were documented in a report by Clone Commander Bow. The official records, which were modified by Imperial Advisor Sate Pestage from a compilation of various reports created by Moff Marcellin Wessel, stated that Swan was killed by her fellow Jedi in a power struggle.

Before the Clone Wars, Bultar Swan garnered respect within the Jedi Order for never having killed an opponent, a fact she viewed as a mere statistic rather than a source of pride. She hoped to avoid killing anyone, but if forced to, her aim was to ensure a swift and painless death. Despite Plo Koon's prediction that she would one day sit on the Jedi Council, Swan felt unprepared. She believed she was unfit to judge other Jedi until she understood how she would react to taking a life. Swan felt that her deceased Master, Micah Giiett, would have been proud of her achievements. During the Clone Wars, Swan adopted a pragmatic approach to the realities of war, even leaving the Separatist commander Edi Wedd to perish in his sealed fortress.

Swan showed respect for other Jedi, often seeking advice from higher-ranking members while on the battlefield. She felt honored to have trained under esteemed Jedi Masters. Displaying tact, she allowed Obi-Wan Kenobi to share the details of their mission to Fondor with his Padawan at his discretion, but insisted that he share every detail with Masters Windu and Fisto. Swan was stern with Padawan Skywalker when he questioned Kenobi's judgment, and she was reluctant to address the 18-year-old Padawan's personal issues, suggesting he seek guidance from his own Master. She viewed Skywalker as a complex enigma and a potential threat. Not always serious, Swan found Margravine Quenelle's and Princess Calvaria's desires to marry Kenobi amusing, openly joking about it when alone with Kenobi.

Swan believed that prolonged discussions were unproductive when action was required. She was prepared to fight for her beliefs, and she believed that revenge and anger were not the Jedi way. During the Great Jedi Purge, she refused to kill an unarmed opponent. In the Fondor system, Swan prioritized averting a civil war and protecting innocent civilians, even enduring the brunt of an electrically charged spider attack to protect Klay Firewell, an innocent boy.

Despite being born on Kuat, Swan considered Coruscant's Jedi Temple her home. When sleeping or meditating, Swan envisioned vast open spaces and fields of color, and when dark clouds appeared, she imagined a wind to dispel them. This practice brought her calm and helped her resist the dark side of the Force. Swan stood at 1.68 meters tall, with black hair, brown eyes, and light skin.

Swan was a graceful, athletic, and acrobatic Jedi Knight whose aptitude for the Force was recognized early in life. She developed an interest in unarmed combat techniques early in her Jedi training, and under the guidance of Micah Giiett and Anoon Bondara soon excelled in a unique fighting style that blended Teräs Käsi and the Verdanaian "Sliding Hands" method. Her style required her to maintain physical contact with her foes in order to anticipate their next move, and her mastery of the two disciplines allowed her to defeat opponents with ease without having to kill them. Before the Clone Wars, Swan had never taken a life despite having been involved in a dozen combat encounters.

When facing an opponent, Swan would remain still, inviting her foe to attack. She would then strike with incredible speed, blurring her complex sequence of moves into a whirlwind of motion. After Giiett's death, Swan's training continued under Plo Koon, the Kel Dor Jedi Master, who taught her to integrate her style with a strong lightsaber defense. Under Koon's guidance, Swan developed a fluid and acrobatic combat style. In combat, she would use her lightsaber to block attacks while seeking an opportunity to disarm her foe. She would then unleash a barrage of punches and kicks on her unarmed opponent until they surrendered. Her methods in lightsaber combat were heavily influenced by her deep interest in martial arts.

With the onset of the Clone Wars, Swan abandoned unarmed combat in favor of her lightsaber. The war saw her finally take lives, abandoning her respected record of never having killed. Swan was also proficient in various uses of the Force, such as deflecting blaster fire with her bare hands. After visiting the site of Micah Giiett's death, she was able to sense that he had been at peace at the moment of his passing, and during her mission to Fondor, she could sense when both Senator Rodd and Margravine Quenelle were concealing information from her. Swan also possessed some piloting abilities.

Bultar Swan wore robes with a synthetic leather surcoat and a utility belt. When fighting against Edi Wedd on Amaltanna, she wore white armor in addition to her robes. When she met Tsui Choi on Eriadu, Swan wore brown pants, a belt, a white shirt, and chest armor. She wielded a green-bladed lightsaber with a silver hilt.

Bultar Swan was created for George Lucas's 2002 film Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones. Concept art was developed for the character, and the role was given to actress Mimi Daraphet, who was cast by extra casting director Ros Breden. Approximately four months before the film's release, an image of Swan was released on StarWars.com, with the caption "Bultar Swan, heroic Jedi." Bultar Swan's outfit shares a similar design to the leather-accented ensemble worn by Anakin Skywalker in the same film. Her initial appearance was in the fourth issue of Episode II's comic adaptation, which was released one week before the film. A set diary for Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, available to members of the Hyperspace fan club on StarWars.com, reported that Daraphet underwent makeup and wardrobe tests for the 2005 film. However, Swan's name was absent from the script, and she did not appear in the film's final cut.

John Ostrander and Jan Duursema, the creators of the Star Wars: Jedi series of one-shot comics published from 2003 to 2004, considered dedicating an entire issue of the series to Swan. In 2003, during a discussion about the comic series in issue 67 of Star Wars Insider, author Daniel Wallace stated that this decision would have pleased Swan's "burgeoning Internet cult."[24] In the 2005 comic Star Wars: Purge, Swan was killed during the Great Jedi Purge following the events of Revenge of the Sith.[2] Star Wars: Purge places its events one month after Revenge of the Sith, which was established as occurring midway through 19 BBY in 2005's The New Essential Chronology. However, in 2006, Leland Chee, the Keeper of the Holocron continuity database, stated in a blog post that Swan was killed in 18 BBY. Given that several other character death dates in the blog post are inaccurate, this article considers the 19 BBY date as canonical.