Mission to Haariden

The Inner Rim world of Haariden was embroiled in a civil war beginning in 27 BBY. The conflict was about land disputes and future mining rights, stemming from the discovery of potential titanite mines. It was later learned that the mineral, when synthesized, could be a vital component in bacta. However, titanite was extremely rare and difficult to mine, often buried so deeply that extracting it was more expensive than its worth.

The political situation on Haariden was unstable during this conflict, and outsiders were not welcomed. Each side of the civil war believed the Senate was helping the other, making all visitors vulnerable to attacks. Constant danger came from roaming militant patrols. The warring troops knew that the new defensive arrivals protecting the scientists were Jedi, but they were still out for revenge.

Kenobi was later shocked by the militants' boldness, wondering how the galaxy had changed so much that a world like Haariden would attack a rescue mission, when previously they would have respected the Jedi or at least feared the Senate.

As the Jedi team escorted the scientists from their Tenuuri safe location across Haariden's dangerous, war-torn landscape, they were violently attacked by Haariden squads, and Thel-Tanis was wounded in the leg by a chemically enhanced blaster bolt.

From the moment they arrived, the Jedi felt a dark, oppressive presence that seemed to weaken the power of the Force. Kenobi noticed that this feeling affected 15-year-old Skywalker more, as his Padawan was sensitive to the dark side, feeling it more quickly and deeply than Obi-Wan had at the same age. Kenobi also sensed a disturbance in the Living Force within the wounded, unconscious Thel-Tanis, which worried him and Darra's Master. It was later discovered that this dark feeling came not only from unnatural death on a war-ridden planet but also from Force Blank Granta Omega, who was disguised as one of the rescued scientists, "Tic Verdun." Omega had somehow hidden himself in the Force, even in the presence of the Jedi. He had done this before on the planet Ragoon VI in 27 BBY.

While Thel-Tanis recovered in a local village shelter, the Jedi team contacted the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The High Council promised to pressure the Haaridens for a cease-fire, but this would take time as no one knew who was in charge on either side of the conflict. The Temple also promised to send a medic for Darra, which would take a few days.

As Kenobi and Antana prepared for a preemptive nighttime strike against the Haariden patrols camped near the village, "Tic Verdun" approached Skywalker, who was guarding Thel-Tanis. He posed as a "scientist" curious about the nature of the Force, since Omega was a Force Blank, not Force-sensitive. Anakin expressed his gratitude for the Force's "support," but also his "frustration" with its vastness and complexity, which made him feel "lonely." Verdun picked up on this, saying, "And you will never truly understand it ... yet you will spend your life trying. And sometimes you ask yourself, is it worth it? Is it foolish of you to devote yourself to trying to know the unknowable?" Anakin responded with a Jedi saying: "Wisdom is not what we seek ... Wisdom can only be found." Verdun smiled, saying, "We are lucky to have you with us." Anakin felt that "Tic" was both younger and wiser than he had initially thought, and he felt better after their conversation, which he hadn't thought possible. Anakin felt responsible for Darra's injury because of his overconfidence and lack of trust in others, and he also felt responsible for her losing her lightsaber.

Kenobi and Antana disarmed the Haariden troops without bloodshed and learned that they had been paid by "an outlander" to attack the Jedi. When they asked what this wealthy stranger looked like, the troops strangely couldn't remember anything about his appearance, which Kenobi recognized as a sign of a Force Blank. However, the troop captain, Noq Welflet, knew the outlander's name and revealed it: Granta Omega. Kenobi, feeling a shiver, had suspected this, but he couldn't understand why Omega kept hunting him and his Padawan. He knew Omega wasn't a Sith or Force-sensitive. However, Omega collected Sith artifacts and knew how to expertly hide his presence in the Force. His ability to become so neutral in the Living Force that people forgot his appearance was a testament to his power. It was clear that he was cunning and despised the Jedi, but his exact reasons were unknown.

After leaving the soldiers, who were tired of fighting but would return to their unit, the Jedi went back to the village, regrouped with their Padawans and scientists, and safely boarded their transport, relieved. If it weren't for Darra and the scientists, Kenobi would have stayed on Haariden with Skywalker to hunt down Omega for attempting to murder Jedi and bring him to justice. But, once again, justice would have to wait.

Arriving back on Coruscant, Kenobi remained steadfast in his resolve to unravel the enigma surrounding Omega. Aided by Jocasta Nu, the Jedi Temple's archivist, he learned that Omega's commercial interests, much like his residences, spanned the galaxy; he possessed numerous acquaintances but lacked genuine friendships. The man was concealed by a self-imposed veil of obscurity, rendering him virtually undetectable. His modus operandi involved identifying rare minerals, acquiring their sources, engineering scarcities, and inflating their prices, all while maintaining his vast fortune diversified and concealed within a multitude of clandestine accounts. Despite all of this information, Omega remained a puzzle, making his capture exceedingly challenging.

Simultaneously, under the guidance of Master Yoda, Anakin commenced personalized lightsaber instruction with Soara Antana, a renowned master of the discipline. Soara, a demanding instructor with a rigorous and straightforward approach, garnered Anakin's respect. Her objective was to diminish his inflated ego, which she recognized as a weakness that endangered others. Through Antana's rigorous training and unparalleled mentorship, Anakin began to perceive a future where his connection to the Force and his lightsaber skills would harmonize to such an extent that he would attain his full potential. However, Anakin faltered in the final trial presented by Soara. In a surprise assault within the Room of a Thousand Fountains following an exhausting day of training, as Anakin was preparing for a meal, she pitted him against his Temple rival, Padawan Ferus Olin, in a duel fueled by Skywalker's rage. Although Anakin emerged victorious and demonstrated unprecedented skill, Antana cautioned him that he had ultimately failed, as he had not grasped the paramount lesson: to overcome his emotions through detachment.

In his continuing investigation of Omega, Kenobi came to a realization that should have been evident from the outset: Omega could not have been specifically targeting Kenobi and his apprentice on Haariden. Instead, he was already present on the planet, engrossed in another matter, unaware of the Jedi's presence, and lacking the time to orchestrate an attack. Omega's primary focus at that time was the mineral titanite, from which a substance crucial to bacta production could be synthesized. Furthermore, Omega owned extensive land on Thyferra (the sole location where the alazhi plant, the source of alazhi lotion—bacta's key ingredient—grew), positioning him to dominate the galactic bacta market. Indeed, the Republic scientific expedition aimed to chart the mineral deposits to gain a comprehensive understanding of their locations, facilitating an agreement between the planet's warring factions.

However, Omega was originally from Nierport Seven (a small moon orbiting Eeropha in the Colonies, located less than a day's journey from Coruscant) and an exceptional student whose scientific foundation was unparalleled. Having graduated in 33 BBY from the All Science Research Academy on [Yerphonia](/article/yerphonia], he immediately embarked on his planned ventures and rarely employed a large staff. He no longer required a scientific team, nor did he want the Republic's science team to submit its report to the Senate (that report would remain unfinished and inconclusive as long as the fighting on Haariden continued, and so prevented the scientists from completing their tests).

Skywalker, returning to the Temple after an intense early-morning training session with Antana, noticed a man dressed in deep blue veda cloth seated by the Senate fountain. The man greeted him, and Anakin was surprised to recognize Tic Verdun, one of the scientists from Haariden. However, he appeared drastically different from the weary and disheveled scientist he remembered. Expressing his regret over the warring tribes of Haariden, Tic suggested that their conflict might have been resolved had his expedition team been able to complete their tests and submit their report to the Senate, enabling an equitable distribution of the titanite deposits. Tic then informed Skywalker about "another scientist" conducting independent tests on the planet. He suggested that contacting this individual might offer a path to resolving the crisis, identifying him as Granta Omega.

Taken aback by Verdun's knowledge of Omega, Anakin revealed the Jedi's desire to contact him. Tic offered to pursue any leads he might uncover at a small Coruscant gathering with friends and scientific and business associates, promising to share his findings by inviting Anakin to join them. As he bid Tic farewell and proceeded to the Temple, the boy remained enthusiastic, resolving to keep his investigation secret from his Master, anticipating the possibility of being the one to locate Omega.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, embarking alone on his investigation of Omega, arrived at the frigid, barren satellite of his youth. Entering the "Food and Drink" café, situated alongside the settlement's refueling station, Kenobi extended a round of their local Claing juice to the patrons he approached. While he encountered many who remembered Granta Omega from his youth, none possessed extensive knowledge of him. Nor had any ever encountered a Jedi Knight on their moon. Nevertheless, Kenobi learned that Omega had left Nierport to attend school, abandoning his mother, Tura, who worked at the refueling station and passed away shortly thereafter. He never returned during his formative years, not even for his mother's funeral.

One of the café patrons offered to show Obi-Wan the small, rounded-wall house where Omega had lived. It was now the property of a space pilot. From the bleak, single-room structure with only a stove and a bedroll there was nothing to detect or learn—just like Omega himself, a blank. But the patrons did disclose that it was the boy's own brilliance that got him offworld, certainly not by the financial means of his mother, for she had no means, although she did find him a Eeropha sponsor—the Senator Sano Sauro, who sent Omega to "the scientific institute". At the hearing of that name Kenobi, unsurprisingly, felt a chill, for Sauro was the ambitious prosecutor who had grilled him mercilessly a decade earlier in the man's investigation of Padawan Bruck Chun's death. Though at peace now about the tragic incident, Kenobi wasn't looking forward to meeting Sauro again.

Compensating the café patron for his assistance, Obi-Wan departed the desolate landscape, understanding a boy's desire to escape such a place and the potential impact of poverty. However, he still lacked insight into Omega's motive for harming the Jedi. Convinced that solving this mystery would lead him to the man, he pressed on.

Upon his return to Coruscant, Kenobi immediately sought out Senator Sauro at the Galactic Senate building. Sauro, a man who had previously attacked the Jedi and ridiculed the Force, whose cold, sneering, and dismissive demeanor had unnerved him as a young Padawan. But Kenobi was a Master Jedi Knight now, not easily intimidated—a disciplined composure that now proved quite useful, for he found that Sauro had not changed at all: he still loathed the Jedi and, unlike his fellow Senators, utterly refused to help them.

However, he gleaned from Sauro's assistant that the Senator had led the committee overseeing Haariden's mapping expedition. Rushing to the Senate archives, Obi-Wan meticulously examined the minutes of the Senatorial committee meetings that finalized the expedition's details, including its long-debated funding, but also the names and qualifications of the appointed team of scientists. Kenobi discovered that the final name, Tick Verdun, had been added at the last minute at the suggestion of Senator Sauro himself. Kenobi remembered that "Verdun" had been the group's scout, able to break away from the rest of the scientists for hours at a time; moreover, as the Senate records revealed, he had graduated from the same scientific institute in the same year as Granta Omega.

Upon returning to the Temple, Obi-Wan received confirmation from Jocasta Nu that the scientist and the Force Blank were one and the same. Indeed, the only bit of information that the Temple archivist could find was that "Tic Verdun" recently served on a Senatorial expedition to Haariden; the name was clearly an alias. Seeking out his Padawan to tell him the news, he learned from Master Antana that Anakin had left that morning after their last training session together for an appointment with one of the scientists they'd protected on Haariden: Tic Verdun.

Skywalker, during his meeting with Verdun and his associates, acquired several clues that he believed would enable him to solve the Granta Omega puzzle and surprise his Master. Particularly informative was the detailed account of Omega provided by a young scientist named Mellora Falon (only a couple of years older than Anakin), who had recently graduated from an elite scientific institution. She'd met Omega on an expedition to the planet Uriek. Beyond his weakness for pastries, especially sweesonberry rolls, and his ability to cite the Core Worlds' best pastry makers, Omega's favorite seaside vacation house, Anakin learned, was surrounded by sweesonberry bushes. Sipping Mellora's superbly brewed tea, Anakin suddenly was aware of a disturbance in the Force, which he realized had been there for some time. But among friends, he wondered. He must be confused: for after Saora's reprimand that morning, he was now questioning his connection to the Force and doubting many other Jedi sensitivities and abilities he'd thought he was beginning to master. His mind began to cloud, his vision blurred, and he struggled to stay awake as a grogginess overtook him. Tic Verdun was suddenly standing above him, telling Anakin that all they'd just revealed to him about Omega had been a lie—including, moreover, any information they'd disclosed about Tic's friends, who now confessed themselves to be "simply a group of ordinary beings interested in the extraordinary. We have a common interest in the Force." In fact, Falon and Verdun were the only true scientists there.

Collectively, they appeared to Anakin as a Sith cult, a suspicion confirmed when Mellora produced a Sith artifact from her white robes: a small pyramidal cube. Revealing that Omega had given it to her, Skywalker recognized it as the source of the disturbance he had sensed. Nausea welled up in his throat as he realized his naiveté and foolishness, understanding that he was not merely tired but drugged. Reassuring him that they intended no harm, they explained their desire to study him. But why Tick Verdun, a respected scientist, Anakin wondered. But then he realized that he really didn't know a thing about Verdun, except that he'd liked him, that his courage and warmth and intellect and understanding had been appealing to him. And now he knew why: he'd been utterly deceived and was at that moment in the presence of Granta Omega himself.

Omega proceeded to engage in a one-sided discourse with the drugged and captured Jedi Padawan, expounding on his perception of the proper uses and true value of the Force. However, the Force surged anew through Anakin's near-comatose body when he noticed Darra's lightsaber in Mellora's hand, the weapon she had lost when wounded on Haariden and which Anakin had vowed to retrieve for her. Activating his own lightsaber and leaping to his feet, he called upon the Force to swiftly disarm the foolish girl who had dared to challenge him. While he admirably defended himself against the attackers, he felt his strength waning and knew he could not endure much longer.

Suddenly, a blue blur materialized as the door was torn open: Anakin's Master had arrived to rescue him. Amidst Obi-Wan's deflection of blaster fire, Omega released five seeker-droids from a concealed console, instructing his fellow cultists to escape through a window. Falon and Omega (who had reclaimed Darra's lightsaber) then returned to Haariden, where Omega continued his titanite tests, global resource mapping, and implementation of his ambitious plans for the lucrative mineral.

After returning Anakin to the Temple for medical attention, Kenobi appeared before the Jedi High Council to report on the events and his findings. Presenting a portable scanner retrieved from Omega's quarters, he informed the Council of an impending, massive eruption of Haariden's active volcano, Kaachtari, which would reshape the planet's coastline, release titanite hidden within its core, and trigger a colossal tidal wave. Omega intended to exploit this event by mining the titanite from the sea, thereby controlling the galactic bacta market. Kenobi insisted that Omega must be stopped, convinced that he could and would succeed, resulting in suffering for millions.

Obi-Wan further disclosed that Omega had confessed his desire to amass even greater power and wealth to attract the attention of the hidden Sith Lord. This ambition motivated Omega's attacks on the Jedi, seeking to draw the Sith's attention to his activities in a bid for power. Only by bringing Omega back to Coruscant for questioning by the Senate could the Jedi thwart his plans. However, Mace Windu, a member of the High Council, urged caution, suggesting that the Council might allow the attraction to proceed, enabling them to track the Sith Lord and expose him before he was ready: for untold "More millions suffer in our visions of the future," Windu countered._ _"We see much pain." While the High Council room then erupted in a flurry of private discussions among its members, it was the quiet, measured voice of Council member Yaddle that brought balance to the debate and confirmed for the Council the right course of action: "Suffering we cannot allow in order to prevent what we fear. Stop it we must when we can."

Consequently, the Jedi High Council authorized Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Padawan to continue their pursuit of Granta Omega, citing his Senatorial deception and his two criminal attempts to harm the Jedi (having once hired bounty hunters to do so). The pursuit demanded immediate action, becoming a race against the impending volcanic eruption. The Jedi duo departed for Haariden by sunrise.

As Kenobi and Skywalker journeyed back to Haariden in a Galan starfighter, Anakin struggled to comprehend Granta Omega's malevolence, which had not manifested as overt brutality but rather as a highly appealing and seductive charm. The young man was disturbed by the genuine connection he had felt with "Tic Verdun," a sense of kinship, friendship, and understanding that had made him feel "less alone." The boy struggled to reconcile his feelings about Omega with the knowledge that he was now tracking down a man whose one desire was "to worship at the heart of evil"—the same evil that had murdered Qui-Gon Jinn: the one being who had saved Anakin from a life of slavery. As their ship traveled through hyperspace, Obi-Wan took a quiet moment to help his sensitive, open-hearted Padawan begin to understand that charisma, which might strike one as being an appealing and a virtuous thing, could, in fact, be one of evil's "many faces." As they emerged from hyperspace near the planet, Anakin at last felt ready to again face their old nemesis.

However, upon entering Haariden's atmosphere, approximately an hour before the predicted volcanic eruption, Skywalker again felt the ominous darkness emanating from the planet. It was a world ravaged by war, where destruction and death were pervasive. They landed their craft in the foothills, near an outcropping of trees, a good distance from the eruption zone. Traveling on swoop bikes, they sped toward the distant mountains, one of which rose high above the rest—thrust seemingly from the planet's core—its snow-capped peak lost in the clouds: Kaachtari.

As they traversed the war-torn terrain, columns of hot steam rose from great fizzures in the rumbling ground, and as they ascended to the higher altitudes, scalding geysers shot up, one of which Anakin narrowly missed; the situation was palpably perilous. Soon they spotted what appeared to be a line of soldiers descending the mountain, but it occurred to Kenobi that all should have heeded by now the evacuation order. They swooped swiftly down to give them warning, and saw that it was Captain Welflet leading his troops. Kenobi told Welflet about Omega's treachery in giving him and his troops payment in weapons for land that would be useless to them once the lava and waves of the sea covered it; enraged that the Jedi's truth of Omega's lust for titanite countered Omega's land-use need that he'd expressed to them (his need to create a "fish farm"), the captain awarded the Jedi with Omega's current coordinates: along with Falon, and dressed in white thermal gear, he was still conducting his mysterious tests high above them on a snowy ridge.

The groundquakes were intensifying; they had no time to lose. Racing for the ridge, they spotted Omega packing up his gear, just as he looked up and spotted them. Dashing with Falon to their SoruSuub at the foot of the volcano, they managed to activate the landing ramp as they flew inside. In hot pursuit, Obi-Wan and Anakin angled their swoops and also slid inside, just as the ramp door closed. But they immediately discovered that the pair had flown back out the cargo door as they'd flown in through the landing portal, and that Omega had placed all doors and engines in lockdown. The cockpit controls were non-functional.

As the Master-Padawan team stood utterly helpless before the ship's windscreen, they watched the ominous scene unfold before them. A huge groundquake rocked the ship as the once mighty peak suddenly disintegrated before their view, and a massive landslide of rock and dirt and burning lava came barreling down the steep mountainside at frightening speed. Attempting frantically to cut the ship's durasteel away with their lightsabers, they found the walls of the hull were unnaturally thick. Within moments, the molten avalache smashed violently against the ship, throwing the Jedi across the cockpit and slamming them into its walls, as it jostled them in its flow towards the sea and a great opposing wave. Suddenly Kenobi was hit with a flash of insight—they were riding a ship within a ship. That's why the walls were so thick (he'd thought of Omega's boyhood home on Nierport, with walls thicker than other houses, but not so thick that they didn't blend in). In moments they'd felt their way to a patch of thin durasteel and peeled it away to discover another cockpit—the real cockpit, with fully functional controls. Strapping in, Anakin gunned the engines and they'd soon shot through the hot lava and pummeling rock into the clear sky above.

Guessing that Omega and Falon would be watching from a safe distance on the coastline, but out of the wave's range, they entered the estimated coordinates. Glancing down, they saw commander Welflet and company trapped on the plain below with the volcanic landslide rumbling towards them. Anakin shot downward through the raining lava in a futile attempt to rescue, when the soldiers were suddenly swept away to their deaths. "I wish I hadn't seen that," the shaken Padawan muttered. Looking up from a moment of respectful silence, his Master responded, "Such is the life of a Jedi."

The ship's power cells hit, Kenobi and Skywalker were forced to quickly land on a patch of smooth sand near the seacoast. The duo slid out with their swoops into an atmosphere thick with ash and the strong smell of burning metals and molten rock from the planet's core. Piloting their swoops away from the ship, they soon approached a high plateau overlooking the sea. Omega had seen them coming: lifting to his shoulder a missile launcher, he released projectile after projectile towards a single target—Obi-Wan Kenobi. Anakin shot past the oncoming missiles to confront Omega on the ground. That's when Omega voiced to Anakin his long-held belief that to be personally responsible for the death of a Jedi Master would truly help him to make his mark with the hidden Sith Lord and capture his attention. In the same breath, he declared to the boy his conviction that Anakin Skywalker would one day make a great Jedi Knight—but that he would be even greater if he listened to Omega.

Anakin then boldly stepped forward and declared to Omega that he and his Master requested his return to Coruscant with them for questioning by the authorities. Omega declined graciously the "kind invitation," saying that, regrettably, he was busy. At that moment, Anakin shot out, feet first, to kick Omega's swoop over the edge of the plateau. As Omega's eyes went wide with shock and disbelief, he fumbled to withdraw a thermal detonator from his tunic as Mellora suddenly came from behind with her swoop. Omega tossed the detonator at Skywalker as he clumsily leaped aboard Falon's swoop, simultaneously releasing by remote control ten black seeker-droids to attack Kenobi, who was just finishing his evasive moves against Omega's final launched missile. The droids came at Kenobi "like a flock of deadly attack birds." Skywalker, meanwhile, had caught the detonator and tossed it as far as he could, its explosion sending shock waves through the air. He leaped to his swoop to now help his Master.

Together, Obi-Wan and Anakin battled the seeker-droids as they pursued the fleeing Granta and Mellora. Kenobi, whose swoop had been hit by shrapnel and was smoking from overheating, gracefully balanced on his seat and leaped aboard Anakin's swoop while still fending off attack droids. Far out at sea they could see the great wave approaching, as tall as a Coruscant skyscraper and coming at them at more than a hundred kilometers an hour. Omega and Falon were trapped between the Jedi and the wave. Kenobi verbally issued to Omega, once again, the summons of the Senate. When suddenly, Omega tore away from Falon the hovering swoop's controls and shot towards the oncoming wave, it's rumbling sound at once awesome and eerie. Skywalker followed in pursuit, but doubted that any of them would clear the wave.

Suddenly Anakin saw Mellora fall—pushed by Omega's foot after she'd attempted desperately to draw Darra's lightsaber to force a surrender. Skywalker swooped down to catch both her and the lightsaber: if he made it through this, his friend's weapon would be at last reclaimed. Obi-Wan caught Mellora as Anakin snatched the saber from the air. As the water curled majestically, fearsomely now over their heads, Anakin took a deep breath and plunged into the top of the wave. Calling upon the Force, he willed the swoop engine to obey him. It broke through the water into the air, the lot of them coughing seawater and gasping, in relief and surprise, while in the distance they could see the speck that was Omega. The Jedi had lost him again. But Falon knew where they could find him—for it was the place to which Omega had always retreated after failure or loss. Before she'd said a word, Kenobi guessed it: Nierport Seven.

Obi-Wan harbored strong hopes of capturing Granta Omega, as they were in close pursuit. Leaving Falon with the authorities on Haariden until the Senate could send a ship for her seemed good, but it was obvious she was prepared to lie her way free. Haariden, at least, enjoyed temporary peace, for hostilities had ceased with the eruption.

Arriving at Nierport Seven at dusk, they immediately went to Omega's boyhood hut, but found it empty: the stove and even the bedroll were gone. They suspected Omega knew that Mellora would tell the Jedi what she knew. But during the flight Kenobi had considered Omega's thick-walled ship and how its inspiration had clearly been this satellite home: Obi-Wan recalled his first visit here and how he'd thought the exterior proportions to be slightly off from what could be seen inside. Feeling along the walls now, as he'd done in the ship, he located an area of thinness in the stone and cut through, to find it bound to durasteel walls—a hidden room within the walls. Climbing through the hole, he and his Padawan found the space was filled with datascreens.

They thought they now had him, that all his secrets were at last theirs. The holofiles they accessed were coded, but Kenobi was sure that the Jedi could crack them once they returned to the Temple. It was all there: Omega's companies, aliases, text docs, homes, bases of operations, perhaps a fleet of starships in the Outer Rim. But as they read the files ... they suddenly, horrifically disappeared into fragments of light and particles: Omega had initiated a data wipe from wherever he was. And now, it was as if Omega had never existed, had no past, and was truly a void—as a result, he'd become more dangerous than ever, for he now had nothing to lose.

But what troubled Obi-Wan the most was how Anakin reacted to what suddenly had become an anti-closure of events. The emotion that flit across his Padawan's face did not escape him—both confusion and wonderment were there. Granta Omega had tapped into something that Kenobi could only guess at. Perhaps it was everything that the two seemed to share: similar origins, desolate childhood haunts, abandonment of their pasts, mothers who sacrificed all. But, more probably, it was simply this: Anakin had seen evil coupled with charisma for the first time and was struggling to understand it. It wasn't the cleverness of Granta Omega, nor his desire to impress a Sith Lord, but the strange pull he had for his Padawan that worried Obi-Wan Kenobi. And it was this that made Omega perhaps "the most dangerous enemy they would ever have to face."