Joruus C'baoth

It was thought that a tissue sample was taken from Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth not long before he left for the Unknown Regions and beyond on the Outbound Flight in 27 BBY. Kinman Doriana, an advisor to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, gathered tissue samples and blood from all members of the Outbound Flight crew, including Jedi, claiming it was necessary due to potential viruses or epidemics that could arise during their space travel. Shortly after this, C'baoth and his companions departed on Outbound Flight, but the vessel was destroyed before completing its mission by a Chiss officer named Mitth'raw'nuruodo, whose core name was "Thrawn," from the Chiss Expansionary Fleet. During the Clone Wars, Palpatine, through Doriana, acquired thousands of Spaarti cloning cylinders from Cartao. These were used to create a clone from C'baoth's tissue sample. This rapid cloning method often resulted in mentally unstable clones, and Joruus was no different.

At one point, Emperor Palpatine sent a Guardian to the planet of Wayland to protect his secret storehouses and possessions at Mount Tantiss, which included stolen artwork, a cloning facility, and a cloaking device prototype. After the Battle of Endor and Palpatine's death, the Guardian was left behind and grew bored over the next five years. In 9 ABY, he left the mountain to unite the human, myneyrsh, and psadan native populations into a single settlement under his dictatorial control. Subsequently, Joruus C'baoth arrived on the planet and challenged the Guardian to a duel. C'baoth defeated and killed the Guardian, taking his place and using the Force to keep the population of Wayland under his rule.

Sometime before or after his duel with the Guardian, C'baoth received orders from the resurrected Emperor Palpatine, the same orders given to all of Palpatine's Dark Jedi. C'baoth was instructed to maintain a low profile and await the Emperor's return. However, due to his clone madness, he either disregarded or forgot these orders, and like Thrawn, he would serve as a diversion to mask the Emperor's growing power.

Later in 9 ABY, Grand Admiral Thrawn finally located the Emperor's secret storehouse on Wayland, intending to use the cloaking shield and Spaarti cylinders there to continue his war against the New Republic. He also suspected that Palpatine had placed a Dark Jedi Guardian there, knowing that such a being could be valuable to his campaign; he understood that a powerful Force-sensitive individual could use battle meditation to enhance the effectiveness of his forces. After the Imperials entered orbit around the planet, Thrawn, along with his second-in-command, Gilad Pellaeon, and his Noghri bodyguard, Rukh, landed on the surface and traveled to a village near Mount Tantiss. There, they encountered an old man—actually Joruus C'baoth—who informed the Imperials that he had killed the mountain's Guardian years ago and taken control of the planet. He led them to a crypt in the great palace where he claimed the previous Guardian's body lay, and then unleashed a lethal blast of Force lightning in an attempt to kill them. Only the Grand Admiral's cautious use of ysalamiri—creatures that could generate bubbles capable of "pushing back" the Force—saved him from death. C'baoth, surprised by his failure, revealed his identity. Thrawn persuaded the insane Dark Jedi to form an unstable alliance by promising him Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker and his sister, Leia Organa Solo, along with her yet-unborn twins, to mold as he wished. C'baoth planned to create a Dark Jedi army to conquer the galaxy, with Skywalker, his sister, and the Solo children as the first members. Pellaeon was uneasy about this arrangement, but Thrawn considered C'baoth a minor threat due to his insanity hindering his ability to maintain long-term control.

C'baoth assisted Thrawn in several battles, increasing the efficiency of the Imperial forces by 40%. He also achieved one of his primary objectives, the capture of Luke Skywalker, when the Jedi came to him on Jomark. During the First Battle of Nomad City earlier in the campaign, C'baoth had sensed Skywalker's presence and sent a message to the Jedi, predicting that Skywalker would come to him. Simultaneously, Imperial forces began spreading rumors about a Jedi being on Jomark. C'baoth traveled there and established himself in High Castle, quickly asserting his dominance over the local population. Although Skywalker was skeptical that a Jedi had survived the Great Jedi Purge and had not aided the Rebel Alliance or revealed himself after Palpatine's death, he eventually went to Jomark. There, he met C'baoth, who declared himself a Jedi Master. He began training Skywalker, teaching him concepts contrary to what Yoda, Skywalker's former teacher, had taught him. C'baoth taught Skywalker that Jedi were superior and should use their power to govern inferiors, though the insane clone also believed that stopping murders was important. He also taught him that Jedi should use force and pain as teachers to control non-Force sensitives. All of this contradicted the teachings of the Jedi for millennia before the fall of the Jedi Order. Skywalker recognized that C'baoth was insane and a practitioner of the dark side of the Force, and attempted to cure him and bring him back to the light. However, he found C'baoth's madness too great to overcome.

Later, C'baoth revealed to Skywalker that he had sensed another Force-skilled individual, someone Skywalker had met: the smuggler and former Emperor's Hand, Mara Jade. C'baoth believed she, like Skywalker, would become his apprentice—he had foreseen her kneeling before him in a vision. Several days later, Jade landed on Jomark, pleading for Skywalker's help to free her boss Talon Karrde, who had been imprisoned by the Empire. C'baoth attempted to kill her by using the Force to hurl boulders at her starship, but she managed to land anyway. The Dark Jedi confronted her, but Skywalker, using a ysalamir and with help from R2-D2, his astromech droid, saved Jade's life. C'baoth was wounded when R2, in Skywalker's X-wing, fired on him, though the droid did not kill him on Skywalker's orders. Sensing the dark side in C'baoth, Skywalker departed with Jade.

C'baoth later left Jomark in a rage, taking control of the minds of those aboard a Lancer-class frigate and ordering them to take him to the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Chimaera, Thrawn's flagship. Once there, he confronted Thrawn, demanding why he had not yet been given "his" Jedi. Thrawn responded by asking why Skywalker had been allowed to leave. The Dark Jedi began to believe he was the head of the Empire, a belief Thrawn knew had to be corrected soon. Thrawn then promised the Dark Jedi that he would soon have Leia Organa Solo and her newborn children, Jacen and Jaina, as he was already assembling a team to infiltrate the Imperial Palace and kidnap them. C'baoth relented, but remained unhappy. Later, he used his Force powers to control the mind of Gilad Pellaeon, directing him to place an order for a special clone and then forget the incident.

Although Thrawn was growing impatient with C'baoth's antics, he still relied on him, knowing his battle meditation ability was essential. The Dark Jedi was later used in the assault on Ukio, a crucial battle in the Thrawn campaign. Several Imperial cruisers, cloaked from view, slipped under the planetary shield and prepared to fire, while a group of Star Destroyers waited outside the shield. C'baoth was aboard one of these Star Destroyers. When Thrawn gave the order, C'baoth sent a mental command to the ships under the shield, prompting them to fire on the planet. As the people on the surface couldn't see the ships firing, they believed Thrawn had developed a weapon on a Star Destroyer capable of penetrating planetary shields. This rumor spread throughout the galaxy, instilling fear in many loyal to the New Republic.

C'baoth later learned that Thrawn's team had failed to capture Organa Solo and her children. Tired of what he saw as empty promises, he seized control of the minds of everyone aboard the Chimaera, except those within the ysalamir Force-bubble, and threatened to force them to take the ship to Coruscant. However, controlling the minds of thousands of individuals for several days was beyond his abilities, and he was forced to relinquish control. Unbeknownst to the Imperials, Mara Jade, upon learning of Thrawn's clone soldiers, revealed that he was likely using the facility on Wayland. She agreed to lead Skywalker, Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, and Chewbacca there. Around this time, C'baoth's madness became more apparent, as he frequently erupted in anger at Thrawn, often about "his" Jedi, only to quickly calm down.

Unbeknownst to the five heading to Wayland, Thrawn had imprisoned C'baoth in the royal chambers of Mount Tantiss, realizing that the clone was too powerful, ambitious, and unstable to be safely used any longer. However, C'baoth had anticipated Thrawn's move. He realized that by taking over the minds of the soldiers and crew members used as cloning templates, he could mentally command every clone created from them, allowing him to control a significant portion of the Imperial forces. As there were only about twenty templates, he believed he could easily shape their minds and, in turn, their clones.

He first attempted this mind control technique on the way to Wayland, where he was in a shuttle with Imperial General Freja Covell. C'baoth took control of Covell's mind, altering it to make him completely loyal to C'baoth and forget his previous orders from Thrawn. However, when the shuttle entered the Force-free zone created by the thousands of ysalamiri in the mountain, Covell was shaken by the loss of C'baoth's presence, severely damaging his mind. Without the Force, the Dark Jedi couldn't maintain control of Covell, and the General suffered critical brain damage. Covell was altered, even though C'baoth hadn't finished "shaping" his mind.

Having understood how to shape other's minds, C'baoth ordered Covell to have his troops place explosives on the thousands of ysalamiri in the fortress and incite the beings on Wayland to attack the base outside. Covell died shortly after placing C'baoth in charge of the facility. Grand Admiral Thrawn later discovered this by contacting C'baoth.

When Jade and Skywalker arrived in the throne room searching for a self-destruct switch, C'baoth revealed himself. He tried to turn them to the dark side, but when they refused, he activated the remote switch that triggered the explosives. The detonation killed the ysalamiri, restoring the Force to the mountain. He then revealed his secret weapon—the clone he had ordered Pellaeon to create weeks ago. It was a clone of Luke Skywalker, created from tissue from Skywalker's right hand, which had been severed by Darth Vader during the Duel on Cloud City and later recovered by Imperial forces. The clone, Luuke Skywalker, was armed with Skywalker's old lightsaber, also recovered on Cloud City. Skywalker and Jade fought C’baoth’s puppet, with Mara Jade ultimately killing him.

At this moment, Leia Organa Solo, Han Solo, and Talon Karrde entered the throne room. C'baoth unleashed a Force scream, stunning everyone. In a fit of rage, he began to collapse the ceiling on Mara Jade. However, Jade used Leia's lightsaber to cut holes in the floor, allowing the rocks to fall through and creating a clear path to C'baoth. C'baoth demanded Jade follow him to the cloning room, where he would create a clone of her.

Mara Jade refused and charged towards C'baoth, guided mentally by Organa Solo and aided by Luke distracting him with Karrde's pet Vornskrs. When she reached the insane Jedi, she stabbed him with the lightsaber. He exploded in a blast of dark side energy. In the cloning chambers, Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca set detonators to destroy the mountain after the victorious Rebels fled.

After liberating Wayland from C'baoth's control, the New Republic began investigating the planet's history. Through conversations with the Myneyrsh and Psadan populations, researchers heard tales of C'baoth's overthrow of the original Guardian. These accounts couldn't be independently verified and were doubted by the historical community to the point of being considered myths. An alternative theory suggested that C'baoth and the Guardian were the same person.

Ten years after C'baoth's death, his memory still evoked fear in those who had witnessed his madness. During the Caamas Document Crisis, while debating whether the "Grand Admiral Thrawn" who had confronted Lando Calrissian aboard the Star Destroyer Relentless might have been a clone of the original Thrawn, Shada D'ukal darkly suggested to Talon Karrde that if the Imperial Remnant had managed to grow one clone of Thrawn, it could just as easily have grown fifty, or even a hundred clones of C'baoth.

C’baoth’s use of Battle Mediation disturbed Luke Skywalker, such that the son of Anakin was suspicious of the ability for almost two decades afterwards.

Joruus C'baoth exhibited numerous characteristics mirroring those of the original Jorus C'baoth. The clone, much like the Jedi Master he was based on, possessed extreme arrogance, firmly believing that being a Jedi automatically elevated one above others. He operated under the conviction that his Force abilities bestowed upon him the right to govern and judge others, viewing non-Force sensitives as feeble and incapable of independent thought. C'baoth also displayed excessive confidence, assured of his capacity to accomplish nearly any feat through the power of the Force. However, the unstable cloning process utilizing Spaarti cylinders also rendered him insane. This madness manifested distinctly towards the conclusion of the Thrawn campaign, characterized by rapid shifts in personality, oscillating between intense fury directed at Thrawn and moments of quiet contrition. While remarkably stubborn, Thrawn skillfully manipulated him through logical arguments and promises of C'baoth eventually getting his way. C'baoth fundamentally disagreed with Thrawn's understanding of power, asserting that true power resided not in controlling worlds, but in dominating individuals, knowing them intimately, and wielding control over them. Furthermore, he insisted that only he possessed the authority to punish those he controlled, regardless of any offense or violence they might inflict upon others. In the final weeks of his existence, he underwent a shift in perspective, declaring himself the de jure ruler of the Empire while "allowing" (being unable to prevent) Thrawn to maintain practical leadership. He "condescended" to permit others to profess allegiance to Thrawn, finding the entire situation amusing. The Jedi duplicate considered it his absolute prerogative to dispatch fleets to capture Jedi, whom he intended to transform into his personal servants. His clone-induced insanity led to instances where, when discussing Leia, C'baoth would adopt a serene demeanor, calmly asserting that she desired to allow him to train her children and genuinely believing that the New Republic would execute her for her powers.

C'baoth's forceful nature caused him to disregard directives from Thrawn, a concern voiced by Gilad Pellaeon upon their initial encounter on Wayland. Thrawn was certain he could manage C'baoth using the ysalamiri and carefully considered his commands until he no longer needed him. However, Thrawn underestimated C'baoth, who later rebelled against him, attempting to seize control for himself. He was plagued by severe memory problems, frequently forgetting crucial information, battle events, his own origins and nature, and even his immediate actions. On one occasion, he even misinterpreted the killing of the Guardian of Tantis as an act of defiance against the Sith, portraying himself as a post-Order 66 Jedi. He harbored resentment towards the Ysalamiri for suppressing his Force abilities and despised what he perceived as insults from the Imperials who employed him, goading him into pushing himself harder to perform extraordinary feats, yet failing to acknowledge him as an all-wise leader. Consequently, when his ship sustained damage, he employed mind control to compel the crew to retaliate, despite orders to prioritize the broader battle. While this exertion caused him personal harm, he also derived considerable pleasure from it. He sometimes used the Force for trivial tasks, like getting dressed more quickly, though he found it very hard to focus enough to think long-term or to use the Force for complex tasks. C’Baoth’s mood swings, interruptions, and random changes of topic in his initial conversation with Luke, coupled with his abrasive demeanor and lack of Yoda-like decorum, made the young Skywalker uneasy. Despite his aloof and arrogant manner, he acknowledged the naturalness of death from old age and concurred with Luke on the necessity of Jedi preventing murders. Although insane, the clone occasionally exhibited glimpses of a desire to better lives and restore the Republic, albeit through the lens of Jedi dominance over the "primitives" he considered all non-Force users to be. His "recollections" of the Jedi's downfall particularly embittered him towards the rest of the galaxy, leading him to assume universal hatred for the Jedi. Furthermore, C’Baoth would preached against the dark side, oblivious to his own corruption. Luke found his ideology contradictory, asserting that the Jedi were both hated and the galaxy's teachers. Following Luke's capture, C’baoth's ambition escalated, declaring himself Thrawn's equal in authority and unilaterally announcing his intention to assume command of Mount Tantis to ensure his demands were met. Furthermore, he desired to restore the “rule” of the “Jedi” with himself as the galactic ruler.

When directing ships into battle, C'baoth often burned incense nearby. He frequently smoothed his beard while contemplating.

Given that the Great Jedi Purge had destroyed most records relating to the Jedi and the planet Wayland itself was a carefully hidden secret, few knew that Joruus C'baoth was a clone. In fact, Thrawn was only aware of this fact because he had been present at the destruction of Outbound Flight and the death of the real Jorus C'baoth. The irony of this concealed fact is that through years of isolation and deteriorating sanity, even Joruus C'baoth forgot his true origins and believed himself to be the original Jorus C'baoth.

The clone, much like Jorus C'baoth, possessed significant Force aptitude, demonstrating proficiency in numerous Force powers; Luke Skywalker regarded him as equally dangerous as Darth Vader. Skywalker also considered him significantly more powerful than during the Rebellion era. The dark Jedi assumed if both he and Skywalker joined forces they could archive great things. The clone killed one thousand people who came to his planet Wayland during his reign. C’baoth's power was such that he could eliminate his predecessor without significant exertion, a feat unmatched until his involvement in guiding Imperial fleets, although directly manipulating soldiers' minds proved even more demanding. He also argued that he could destroy a woman in a Ysalamir bubble and that maybe he was more wise than Darth Sidious. Despite this, he hesitated to engage Mara Jade without provocation while she was protected and when surprised by R2-D2, the dark Jedi was knocked unconscious by an X-wing shooting him. Following Jade's extraction of Luke, C’baoth informed Thrawn that his Force abilities had grown since their initial meeting and that the Force served him.

C'boath was adept at battle meditation, employing it to command Thrawn's forces and synchronize attacks, the very ability that led the Grand Admiral to seek him out. With his battle meditation, used to guide fleets across vast distances, he could enhance Thrawn's forces by approximately 40%. In one instance, the Jedi Master oversaw three fleets (including one hitting Bpfassh), his own and two others roughly four light-years distant. The clone admitted that he could not find out exactly what the New Republic units facing his allies were, but he was able to know enough from the Imperials’ minds that they were not endangered. This war coordination sometimes caused him to float. Within two months of joining Thrawn, he had refined his control, enabling him to direct ships and pinpoint their locations almost effortlessly, though focusing on the precise coordinates of ships did strain him. C’Baoth while he was doing this during the battle of Battle at Ukio was able to make the crews of two cloaked cruisers fire so that it looked like the Chimera could shoot through Ukio’s shields, horrifying the planet’s people into surrendering, then relocating the ships to where Thrawn said they would not crash when drop ships landed. Captain Gilad Pellaeon observed that this instantaneous reaction and command at Ukio might stem from the limited diversity of minds among the clone crews he commanded and/or because C’baoth himself was a clone. The clone threw his full focus and directed the fleet at Filve to abandon the battle and rush after Leia Organa Solo. Organa Solo herself sensed the potency of his battle meditation, recognizing that something beyond mere physical warfare was occurring, though she attempted to disregard it.

C'baoth possessed the ability to wield Force lightning, unleashing several bolts in an attempt to kill Thrawn and his followers upon their first meeting (an attack thwarted by the Ysalamir carried by the Imperial party) and frequently employing it to punish those who disobeyed him, such as the inhabitants of Jomark and Wayland. When Mara Jade arrived to retrieve Skywalker, the deranged clone directed lightning at both Jedi and smuggler, who resisted using a lightsaber and the Force-nullifying effect of the Ysalamir. He also could emit twisting white lightning from his hands in multiple directions, including behind himself.

The dark Jedi displayed proficiency in telekinesis, such as tearing a rock to parry a blaster bolt aimed at one of his minions, when Rukh tried to execute the man. On Jomark, he used the Force to pull his robe to himself. When Mara Jade flew down to extract Luke, the clone telekinetically flung four small stones that battered her Skipray into a gliding-crash. Jade assumed that he could have destroyed the ship with more mind-flung rocks if he had been less lazy. He disarmed Jade by throwing a rock at her gun-hand using the momentum of the stone to overcome the Force void, then began to fling more stones at Luke and Mara. He turned a comms system off with a handwave, once. The dark clone of a Jedi Master could do things like choking out his foes. In fits of rage, he also had the ability to use Force screams, a sonic attack that could crumble structures.

However, the C'baoth clone's preferred ability was that of bending the minds of others. By straining himself such that he had headaches after, he was able to take control over gunnery crews and make them shoot at a ship he found offensive. He even willed Luke Skywalker to walk away from him. The clone made a man freeze in mental trauma at fifteen minutes away from spaceship docking, disastrously forestalling Thrawn’s departure for the battle for the Katana fleet, while aboard a Lancer-class starship whose crew he had, Thrawn speculated mentally twisted to his service. Thrawn suggested that this implied that C’baoth could mind-control people who were light-years away. The clone mentally forced Captain Pellaeon to send an order to Mount Tantiss to create Luuke Skywalker, then took away the officer’s memory of the incident. He also had the power to take total control of other's minds, and literally reshape them in his own image, an extremely difficult feat. When he did this to General Covell, the Imperial died without the connection after they entered the Force null zone of Ysalamir on Wayland. Just before his return back to his homeworld, he once took total domination over the minds of the thirty-seven thousand beings serving on the Chimaera. Later, he used his abilities to control the Imperials left at Mount Tantiss to guard him.

C'baoth possessed a limited capacity for precognition, enabling him to glean battle information and anticipate dangers. Moreover, he foresaw a range of possible endings for the campaign he fought in. During his initial encounter with Thrawn, he perceived a vision of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa Solo, standing back-to-back with lightsabers drawn, within rising smoke from a brazier. However, he conceded his inability to foresee everything, such as when he objected to having to help Thrawn’s fleets often with his Battle Meditation on the grounds that Skywalker might show up on Jomark when he was not there. He also knew when Luke was coming to meet him when the young Jedi dropped out hyperspace over Jomark. He also could block out his own feelings from Skywalker’s effort to read his mind, such that the young Jedi was completely unable to get a sense of his thoughts. C’baoth in turn, however, imposed tiredness upon Skywalker’s body and mind, keeping him as tired as he had been after being tortured by Sidious, unable to focus or think as he should have been able to and so vulnerable to the dark Jedi’s teachings and manipulative behavior. He could also impose sleepiness on a target flying low over the town he was in. Another power he claimed to use, that he alleged to be a mark of his worthiness, was leaning on the Force for guidance. C’baoth also was able to look far into the sky when he felt that Mara Jade was flying to where he was keeping Skywalker, whereupon he tried to make her go to sleep.

C'baoth's mental prowess extended to various other abilities, including sensing his surroundings, such as how on Jomark he felt the flicker of the Force that was an Imperial Star Destroyer in orbit, then later awoke from sleep to perceive something and sending his mind questing down a mountain to detect a messenger then later empathically feeling and approving of the man's servile mental state, and also twice felt when a murder was about to happen, when he sensed the life story and level of power of Mara Jade (including whenever she disconnected and reconnected with her Force powers) and this was sometimes seen during his Jedi meditations, enhance his memory recall, detect life near him and even who it was, pick up others' thoughts--like how Luke Skywalker wondered (and indeed it was so) if the fallen clone Jedi Master was reading his mind during their first meeting on Jomark and when he read Mara Jade's mind when she was flying her ship towards him on Jomark, and Thrawn speculated maybe stole knowledge from a man from across a fifteen minute ship flight gap, much like how he took of Pellaeon elements of the Captain’s thoughts--and would telepathically send his own to others such as when he summoned Luke from across the stars, such as he did at the Battle of Nkllon. Thrawn noted that after Luke Skywalker escaped the clone, C’baoth showed that he could send telepathic messages to non-Force-sensitives from light years away. C’Baoth casually harassed Pellaeon with his mind, encouraging him to rush to talk to him and again using Force empathy to know the Captain’s personal feelings. The Jedi Master read the minds of his supposed minions with casual ease and stole their memories, but doing this did take an active effort and he could not read minds while distracted. By locking onto the minds of men, C’baoth could pick out cloaked spaceships in the same starsystem. Moments after the battle of Ukio, the Jedi clone felt that Leia Organa Solo was at Filve.

C'baoth possessed formidable Force barriers. When shot from behind by Luke Skywalker's X-wing, he managed (though being knocked out by the shockwave) to protect himself and survive without any singes on his person, a feat that impressed Mara Jade. During his final battle on Wayland, he conjured up a shield for protection from the debris he had caused to fall only moments earlier in his dueling sanctum. He also was able to use the Force to absorb energy.

The Dark Jedi was able use the Force to project his voice, but once Skywalker was not certain if that was just a trick of the room’s architecture. Later, on the Chimera’s bridge, the insane clone indeed applied the Force in this manner. At one point his eyes glowed as with flames. This phenomenon occurred again just before the battle of Ukio and again his eyes burned in anger while demanding that Thrawn attack the New Republic so as to capture/“save” Leia, in conjunction with more Force-augmented yelling. The dark Jedi also, while demanding that there be an assault on Coruscant, evoked blue light behind himself. C'baoth had a range of powers at his disposal to dull pain or injuries and heal faster, improve his senses and his body's capabilities, endure being stunned and remove poisons in himself, go into trances to hibernate, augment his skills as a swordsman, and empty his mind for better meditation. He was also a good archer.

The character of Joruus C'baoth was conceived for the 1991 novel Heir to the Empire, the inaugural installment of the Thrawn Trilogy. According to author Timothy Zahn, the original concept for Joruus C'baoth was a mad clone of Obi-Wan Kenobi who had survived the Clone Wars, but Lucasfilm objected, forcing Zahn to alter the character's origins. He subsequently created Jorus C'baoth and his clone. Jorus C'baoth's backstory, along with that of the Outbound Flight project, was later expanded on in the 2004 novel Survivor's Quest and the 2006 novel Outbound Flight, both penned by Zahn.

In sources expanding upon Wayland's history, doubt was cast in-universe on whether or not Joruus C'baoth actually killed any Guardian. The alternative theory posited by those sources was that the two were one and the same. This ambiguity persisted in materials released long after the original novels, appearing in C'baoth's Databank entry. It was not until 2008 and the release of The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia that it was objectively established that the Mount Tantiss settlement had been controlled by two, separate regimes. Because of this long-maintained uncertainty, it was not unreasonable to believe C'baoth when he told Thrawn that he had ruled Wayland for some time, but The Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook (1996) established that it took five years without Imperial contact for the original Guardian—written as C'baoth being the same man—to leave Mount Tantiss. This placed that event in the same year, 9 ABY, as the Thrawn campaign documented by the Thrawn Trilogy, meaning that C'baoth's term as leader after killing the original was actually quite short.