The Jedi Tower, alternatively known as the Taris Academy, functioned as a Jedi outpost and a satellite academy dedicated to Jedi training. It was constructed in Highport on the Outer Rim planet of Taris. The Jedi Order utilized it both before and during the Mandalorian Wars, a major conflict pitting the Galactic Republic against the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders. A skybridge provided the only access to the Tower, setting it apart from neighboring buildings. This tall, gradually narrowing structure culminated in the Council chamber at its highest point. A smaller, adjacent tower housed a turbolift, enabling access to different Tower levels via connecting walkways. A landing area at the Tower's base was serviced by labor droids.
In 3964 BBY, the First WatchCircle of the Jedi Covenant controlled the Tower. They were responsible for the deaths of their students in the Padawan Massacre on Taris. However, one Padawan, a Human named Zayne Carrick, managed to evade the Masters' trap. He was then forced to escape offworld with the Snivvian Marn Hierogryph after they were both falsely accused of perpetrating the Massacre. When their attempts to locate Carrick proved unsuccessful, the Masters were summoned back to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Carrick even contacted them, vowing to hunt down and eliminate each Master until his name was cleared.
Later, the Mandalorians, under the leadership of Cassus Fett, invaded Taris and seized the Tower for their own purposes. Carrick returned to Taris to assist Hierogryph and the Taris Resistance in their plan to assassinate Fett by destroying the Tower with the Mandalorian inside. Raana Tey, a Togrutan member of the First WatchCircle who still sought Carrick's death, tentatively agreed to cooperate with Carrick and Shel Jelavan in their mission to infiltrate the Tower and verify Fett's presence before the detonation. However, Tey, driven by paranoia, also intended to kill Carrick before he could carry out his threat against her. As the plan was executed, Carrick discovered that the Mandalorian leader was absent from the Tower and was confronted by Tey. They engaged in a duel until Jelavan intervened, injuring Tey with her brother's lightsaber. Gadon Thek, a swoop gang leader who was aiding the Resistance, and Hierogryph arrived to evacuate them on Thek's swoop bike. However, Tey became trapped and used her lightsaber to free herself. Misinterpreting this action as a threat, Hierogryph prematurely detonated the explosives, resulting in Tey's death and the destruction of the Tower.
The Jedi Tower stood tall within Highport on the Outer Rim world of Taris. Its foundation was integrated into a defunct atmosphere control complex, which had once been responsible for purifying the heavily polluted air of Taris's lower levels. A ventilation shaft extended vertically from the Tower's storage level down into the foundations, connecting to other shafts that opened to the outside and the Lower City. The atmosphere control complex was deliberately situated away from nearby residential areas and other buildings, necessitating the construction of a skybridge for access. This skybridge, which bridged the gap between a plaza in Highport and the Tower's base, was sufficiently wide to later accommodate a Mandalorian artillery cannon and was adorned with a colonnade of six columns. Those using the skybridge arrived at an entrance to the Tower that led beneath the landing area above.
The landing area, located on the floor above the skybridge entrance, served as a platform for shuttlebuses and airspeeders. Labor droids were stationed on the apron to assist with the loading and unloading of cargo. At night, the landing area was illuminated by red, conical lights. A garden plaza was also situated on the same level. Several bays for housing vessels were arranged below the Tower, with one of these leading to a doorway into the storage area within the Tower's base.
The storage area, typically staffed by LB-series bulk-loading droids coordinating supplies for the hangars below, featured three open shafts leading down to the landing area. Jedi Padawans often engaged in hiding games within the room, which was filled with crates of various sizes. An access hatch to the ventilation shaft from the foundations was set into the floor of the storage room and remained locked. At the rear of the room was a turbolift that ascended through a slender, vertical tower connected to the main tower by five walkways. A spire was placed atop the turbolift tower, emitting a red beacon from its tip at night.
A room used for briefing students on their assignments, equipped with a holoprojector, was located within the main tower. A meditation room, used by the seers of the First WatchCircle, was accessible from one of the walkways extending from the turbolift tower.
The Council chamber occupied the very top of the main tower. Its layout resembled its counterpart on Dantooine, although it lacked windows and contained only five chairs. The walls featured a gray-and-red design, and the chairs were similarly adorned with the same color scheme. The ceiling was constructed of transparisteel, allowing natural light to enter during the day. Lightsabers were generally prohibited within the Council chambers, except during special occasions such as Knighting ceremonies. A pair of racks for storing lightsabers were positioned to the side of the room.
Following the Council's departure from Taris, the Mandalorians established their base of operations for their takeover of the planet within the Council chamber. Tactical holograms were projected onto the floor, and the Council's seats were occupied by the nomads' equipment.
Before the Mandalorian Wars, a conflict between the Galactic Republic and the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders, the size of the classes at the Jedi Tower varied. Shortly before the war began, the Tower's Masters included Feln, a Feeorin; Q'Anilia, a Miraluka; Raana Tey, a Togrutan; Xamar, a Khil; and the head of the Academy, the Human Lucien Draay. These individuals were also members of the First WatchCircle, a branch of the secret Jedi Covenant, and they used the Tower as their operational base while monitoring for the rise of the Sith to prevent its resurgence. Draay's role as a teacher at the Jedi academy served as a front for his involvement in the WatchCircle. He was also the only one of the five Masters stationed at the Tower who was not a Jedi Consular, unlike the others. The concentration of so many seers in one academy was unusual due to the scarcity of suitable candidates, a fact that aroused suspicion in Masters Vandar Tokare and Vrook Lamar.
In the years leading up to the Mandalorian Wars, each of the five Masters at the Tower had their own student. Shad Jelavan, a Human native to Taris, was apprenticed to Q'Anilia; Gharn, a Nagai, was Xamar's Padawan; the Ho'Din Oojoh was the Padawan of Feln; Tey's apprentice was Kamlin, a Falleen; and Draay was the Master of Zayne Carrick, a Human. Besides the Jedi, the Tower was populated by numerous loading droids who facilitated the management of the Tower's logistics.
The Jedi Tower served as a Jedi outpost that was constructed prior to the Mandalorian Wars in Highport on Taris, which was then an unaffiliated planet located in the Outer Rim Territories of the galaxy. Before the outbreak of the war, the Jedi Order acquired the Tower to establish a Jedi academy, selecting the building because of its isolated location away from residential areas.
Beginning in 3964 BBY, the students assisted the local law enforcement with routine policing duties. Although only a small number of Jedi were present on the planet, their presence was appreciated by the Tarisian populace. Successful assignments carried out by some of the Padawans included the dismantling of the Leverby smuggling ring by Oojoh and the capture of P'den Robalt by Kamlin. Carrick attempted—unsuccessfully—to capture the Snivvian black marketeer, Marn Hierogryph, on seven separate occasions.
Over a week later, Carrick was once again pursuing Hierogryph and managed to apprehend the criminal on his second attempt. The Padawan brought him back to the Jedi Tower and, because Carrick was running late for his Knighting ceremony, he took the turbolift up to the Council chambers after securing Hierogryph to his speeder.
In the Council chambers above, the other Padawans were debating with the Masters about the possibility of Carrick being Knighted, not because they were unhappy for him. The Padawans found this sudden shift in the Masters' opinion of Carrick to be highly suspicious. After failing to convince the students of their reasons, the Masters acted upon a vision they had received earlier and killed them. It was at this moment that Carrick entered the room. Upon seeing his friends dead, he turned and fled back to the turbolift with the Masters in pursuit. Carrick used his lightsaber to cut through a pair of doors in the turbolift shaft and emerged on the Tower's storage level before jumping down another chute that led him to the hangar level. The fleeing Padawan started his speeder, with Hierogryph still attached, and retraced his path back up the turbolift shaft, crashing through a window in the walkway to the Council chambers to escape.
Despite pursuing them on airspeeders, the Masters failed to locate the two fugitives and returned to the Tower, where coroner droids were removing the bodies of the dead Padawans from the Council chamber. Meanwhile, Hierogryph and Carrick escaped off-world with the assistance of an Arkanian mechanic, Gorman Vandrayk. Despite avoiding an attempt by Draay to detain them on the Rogue moon, they were captured by the bounty hunter Valius Ying. Carrick agreed to surrender himself to the Jedi in exchange for the freedom of his companions.
Ying brought the Padawan back to Taris and presented him to the Council in the Jedi Tower. Master Draay recounted the events leading up to the Massacre and explained that they were members of the Jedi Covenant. Draay then killed Ying to prevent the bounty hunter from revealing what he had heard and prepared to attack his former Padawan. At that moment, the entire room shook, and the power failed as the Tower came under attack from above. Vandrayk's companion, Jarael, crashed through the skylight and escaped with Carrick through the broken opening, landing on the top of the uppermost walkway. They climbed to the end of the walkway, where they escaped aboard the waiting Last Resort.
Three weeks later, the Dantooine Council ordered the Tower Council to return to Coruscant, deeming their failure to capture Carrick as detrimental to public respect for the Jedi's authority. At this time, Carrick sent a message to the Masters, stating that he had foreseen one of the Masters confessing to their actions. He vowed to track down those who did not confess and ensure their demise.
After the Jedi abandoned Taris, the Republic forces protecting the planet were redeployed to defend Vanquo against the approaching Mandalorian forces. This left Taris vulnerable to attack, and in 3963 BBY, Mandalorian Field Marshal Cassus Fett led the invasion of the planet. Fett seized the vacant Jedi Tower as his command center, setting up tactical holograms in the now-candlelit Council chambers to manage the flow of the invasion force. A Neo-Crusader banner was flown from the mast atop the turbolift tower, and a Mandalorian artillery cannon was positioned on the skybridge.
Meanwhile, in the Lower City of the ecumenopolis, the Taris Resistance plotted to destroy the Jedi Tower and end the Mandalorian occupation. They launched a raid into the Tower's foundations and successfully planted demolition charges, but refrained from detonating them. While planning to strike decisively against the tower and destroy it with a MM-40 Thermal Charge, the Resistance intended to evacuate the surrounding areas to prevent civilian casualties. To ensure that Fett would still be in the Tower when they were ready to destroy it, Resistance leader Senator Haydel Goravvus suggested that a reconnaissance team investigate the Jedi Tower beforehand. Another member of the team would also have to access a hatch within the Tower in order to allow explosives to be planted at the base of the structure. Zayne Carrick, who was assisting the Resistance, volunteered for the job, as well as Shel Jelavan, the sister of the slain Padawan Shad. Accompanying them was Jedi Master Raana Tey, who maintained the pretense that Carrick had killed Shad and the other Padawans.
The day after their planning, the Resistance enacted their plan. Unbeknownst to them, Fett and his command staff had already evacuated the building, leaving only the tactical equipment to be packed up. The task was assigned to the Mandalorian Gormer. Within an hour, Tey infiltrated the Tower through a ventilation shaft, and Carrick and Jelavan were able to sneak in via the skybridge, disguised as a Mandalorian and a prisoner, respectively. Carrick made his way to the former Council chambers, discovering that only Gormer remained. Tey rushed in and killed the Mandalorian. Intent on killing Carrick, Tey lunged at him, initiating a lightsaber duel. Meanwhile, the Resistance members in the foundation of the Tower received news that Fett had attacked their base and that they were to retreat to a safe haven. Assisting Gadon Thek—the leader of a swoop gang that had joined forces with the Resistance—at the foundation, Hierogryph insisted that Jelavan and Carrick would need extraction from the Tower, and Thek reluctantly agreed, taking the Snivvian on his swoop bike.
By the time Hierogryph and Thek arrived, Jelavan had stabbed Tey in the stomach, intervening between the Jedi Master and Carrick after realizing that the young man had not, in fact, killed her brother. Hierogryph and Thek retrieved Carrick and Jelavan through the skylight, which had been shattered during the duel, but Tey recovered and leaped toward her opponent. As she was caught on a pane of transparisteel, Carrick offered to help her. However, as Tey drew her lightsaber to cut her hand free from the pane, Hierogryph misinterpreted the move as a hostile one and immediately activated the detonator, triggering the explosives placed within the Tower's foundation. Tey was killed as the Jedi Tower collapsed, and the other Resistance members escaped, largely unharmed.
Following the destruction of Taris after Darth Malak ordered the surface destroyed via bombardment from orbit, the ruins of the Tower were buried under the debris of the city. Located in a region known as the Sinking City, the tower's remains were discovered by members of the Jedi Order during reclamation efforts initiated by the Republic. The Order stationed several Jedi at the site to excavate the ruins and recover any lost relics or artifacts that could be salvaged and transported to the Order's new home on Tython.
The Jedi Tower made its debut in Knights of the Old Republic 1, the inaugural issue of the Knights of the Old Republic comic book series authored by John Jackson Miller. The Tower served as the setting for the commencement of the series' main plot, and Brian Ching, the penciler for Commencement, Part 1, even managed to incorporate it into the very first panel.
The number of walkways connecting the main tower and the smaller, vertical tower varies between the appearances in the Commencement story arc, penciled by Ching, and the Knights of Suffering story arc, penciled by Dustin Weaver. The former clearly depicts only four walkways, whereas the latter shows the Tower with five.
While writing Commencement, Miller provided Ching with rough schematics of the Tower, as every detail of the Tower had to be carefully considered in relation to the action scenes in the story arc. Miller adopted a cautious approach to writing Knights of Suffering, Part 2 regarding the Tower's destruction, stating on his website that "after September 11, 2001, [he] felt the proposed destruction of a skyscraper — even a fictional one during wartime — was not something [he] should approach lightly." He believed that Carrick's concern for civilians in the Tower's vicinity was a fitting reaction for a Jedi.