Olaris Rhea was a Human female Sith Lady belonging to the Lost Tribe of Sith, who were isolated on the distant planet of Kesh. In the year 41 ABY, after Tyro Vestara Khai's encounter with the Sith Meditation Sphere known as Ship, Rhea was chosen to be her Master in the ways of the Sith. Both Rhea and her new apprentice were part of the Tribe's armada, serving on the captured warship called the Eternal Crusader. Two years later, after the Tribe sensed the presence of Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker through the Force, Rhea and Grand Lord Darish Vol selected a special strike team with the mission of defeating Skywalker and retrieving Ship, which had suddenly departed from Kesh. Because of Khai's unique link to Ship, the strike team, under Rhea's leadership, tracked the Meditation Sphere to a planet located in the Maw. There, they encountered Abeloth, a female entity with the power to manipulate the planet's dangerous flora, who promised to protect the Sith while they looked for Ship. In the meantime, Yuvar Xal, the strike team's executive officer, was secretly planning to overthrow Rhea and seize control of the team. However, before he could carry out his plot, the Meditation Sphere finally made its way back to the Sith.
Abeloth learned that Skywalker, along with his son, Ben Skywalker, was at Sinkhole Station, a small space station in the Maw, and Ship transported the remaining Sith to that location. Rhea spearheaded the strike team's ambush against the Skywalkers, during which Xal attempted his coup. However, Rhea had anticipated his betrayal, so his plan failed, and Khai killed him. The Skywalkers then captured Khai. She later managed to escape during the battle. As Ben prepared the Skywalkers' starship, the Jade Shadow, for departure, Rhea found Khai, along with the two remaining Sith. Luke quickly eliminated the other two, leaving only Rhea and her apprentice to duel him. The battle took place on the turbolift leading to the hangar. As the lift doors opened, Rhea and Khai witnessed Ben firing upon Ship from the Jade Shadow. Luke used their distraction to his advantage and swiftly killed Rhea, allowing Khai to escape.
Olaris Rhea was a Human female with Force-sensitive abilities, who was born on the isolated world of Kesh, situated in Wild Space. She underwent training in the ways of the dark side of the Force with the Lost Tribe of Sith. This group were the descendants of Sith survivors whose starship, the Omen, had crashed on Kesh in 5000 BBY while en route to deliver a shipment of Lignan crystals to Dark Lord of the Sith Naga Sadow during the Great Hyperspace War. Rhea successfully completed her training and became a highly respected member of the Tribe. By 41 ABY, she had risen to the rank of Lady within the Circle of Lords, the Tribe's governing body. As a Lady, she participated in council meetings held in the Circle Chambers of the capitol building in Tahv, the planet's capital city.
In 41 ABY, Ship, a Sith Meditation Sphere, arrived on Kesh, having refused to align with the One Sith, a Sith faction adhering to the Rule of One. Upon landing in the courtyard of the Temple in the Takara Mountains, it communicated through the Force with Sith Tyro Vestara Khai. The Circle of Lords determined that Ship's expressed intention to train Sith apprentices and its interest in Khai justified her promotion to apprentice status, and Rhea was selected as her Master. Ship then revealed to the Tribe that the Sith Empire had been almost entirely destroyed, with only a few Sith remaining in hiding. Shortly after, Ship informed the Tribe about a Damorian S18 light freighter traveling from the planet Eriadu. Ship requested that five Sith be part of a strike team to attack the vessel. Rhea and Khai were chosen, along with fellow Sith Sarasu Taalon, Ruku Myal, and Ivaar Workan. Ship transported them to the freighter, and the Meditation Sphere then attacked the vessel, forcing it to land. The Sith landed to pursue and eliminate the six surviving crew members, dividing into two groups: Rhea and Taalon in one, and Khai, Myal, and Workan in the other. Rhea and Taalon quickly cornered four of the crew members, while the other Sith killed the remaining two. After completing their mission, Taalon summoned the others back to the freighter to take inventory.
Following this operation, the Tribe began utilizing Ship to attack and seize more vessels, aiming to establish a new armada with the goal of conquering the galaxy for the Sith Empire. Rhea and her apprentice served aboard one of the first captured starships, the warship Eternal Crusader. Over the next two years, the armada grew to include more than two dozen ships.
In 43.5 ABY, Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker interacted with the Codex, an ancient Aing-Tii relic, which amplified his presence in the Force. As a result, his name reverberated through the Force, reaching the members of the Tribe. Ship revealed to the Sith that Skywalker was the Grand Master of the Jedi Order and posed a threat to their planned galactic conquest. An emergency meeting was convened in the Circle Chambers in Tahv, where Rhea and the Tribe's leader, Grand Lord Darish Vol, carefully selected a strike team to be led by Rhea, with the primary objective of hunting down Skywalker. However, during the meeting, Ship abruptly departed from Kesh, responding to a call through the Force. The strike team was then tasked with finding Ship, with the elimination of Skywalker becoming a secondary objective.
Rhea commanded the strike team aboard the Eternal Crusader, with Sith Master Yuvar Xal serving as the executive officer. They leveraged Khai's unique connection with Ship to track the Meditation Sphere. However, discontent arose within the strike team's ranks as Xal grew dissatisfied with Rhea's leadership, expressing his frustration at being forced to rely on her apprentice's word. Eventually, the team tracked Ship to a planet in the Maw. There, Rhea organized a search party to descend to the surface to retrieve Ship, while the Eternal Crusader remained in orbit. The search party included herself, Khai, Xal, his apprentice Ahri Raas, and several other Sith, leaving the ship under the command of Sith Saber Baad Walusari, whom Rhea trusted more than Xal.
Soon after, several Sith were killed by the planet's deadly plants. Rhea decreed that any team members killed should die quietly, with their families on Kesh being commended for honorable deaths, while dishonorable deaths would result in punishment for their families. Rhea and Khai remained in the rear of the search, sending Xal, Raas, and the others ahead. Eventually, they encountered a being who identified herself as Abeloth, who could control the planet's dangerous plant life and agreed to protect the Sith during their search for Ship. Abeloth also claimed to have been stranded on the world for thirty years and agreed to return to Kesh with the Sith. In reality, Abeloth was the voice that had summoned Ship and was preventing it from responding to Khai's calls to return. The strike team's search continued without success, and as the Eternal Crusader's supplies dwindled, Rhea decided to leave. Abeloth argued for them to stay, but Rhea believed that returning to Kesh with Abeloth would compensate for failing to recover Ship. Just then, Khai caught a glimpse of Ship, and Walusari commed Rhea to report that he had located Ship and was tracking it from the Eternal Crusader. The search party pursued the Meditation Sphere, and as they crossed a river, Rhea was pulled into a whirlpool by a siphon reed. Despite Abeloth's warning, Khai attempted to save her Master. Khai reached her deep beneath the waters and used her lightsaber to cut open the reed holding Rhea. Rhea then used the Force to pull them back to the surface, where Raas pulled them from the water.
As the fruitless hunt continued, more and more Sith arrived in shuttles from the Eternal Crusader to join the search party, until the warship had no crew left aboard. Ship remained hidden, and as support for Rhea waned, Xal prepared to initiate a coup to take control of the strike team. However, Abeloth, who had discovered that Skywalker, along with his son, Jedi Knight Ben Skywalker, was beyond shadows—a state of mind achieved by Force-sensitives when they separated their mind from their bodies—at Sinkhole Station, a small space station in the Maw, finally allowed Ship to return to the Sith. She insisted, however, that the Sith capture the Skywalkers and return with them to Kesh rather than kill them, suggesting that Xal would attain the rank of Lord, and that Rhea would become the High Lord of the Sith.
The strike team reached Sinkhole Station and prepared to ambush the Skywalkers, with Rhea deciding to revert their objective from capture back to kill. The Sith breached the station's control room, where they confronted the Skywalkers. After a brief skirmish, the Jedi fled towards the station's hangar to reach their starship, the Jade Shadow, covering their retreat from the control room with azetal gas and blasterfire, resulting in the deaths of three attackers. Meanwhile, Xal, Raas, Walusari, and Khai positioned themselves at a junction in the station. Rhea warned them that the Skywalkers were approaching, and as Khai and Walusari launched their grenades at the Jedi, Xal and Raas redirected the grenades back at them before throwing their own stun grenades at the Skywalkers. Rhea had anticipated this betrayal, however, and had provided Khai and Walusari with fake grenades to throw first. Khai then killed Xal, but Raas and Walusari were subsequently defeated by the Skywalkers, and Luke quickly captured Khai. As the Skywalkers were ambushed a third time, Khai escaped, but the Jedi defeated the remaining Sith and safely reached the hangar. Rhea reunited with Khai and the two surviving Sith while Ben prepared the Jade Shadow for flight, and Luke returned inside the Station on a turbolift.
Rhea, Khai, and the two remaining Sith awaited Skywalker at the turbolift entrance, where he quickly eliminated the two others. Rhea and Khai, however, jumped into the turbolift and engaged him in a duel. They inflicted several glancing blows on Skywalker, damaging his vac suit. The Sith pressed their advantage, but the Grand Master deflected one of Khai's blaster shots back at her foot, and he proceeded to duel with Rhea, using the Force to prevent Khai from maneuvering to attack him. Behind Luke, the exit panel on the lift opened to the hangar, and Ben, aboard the Jade Shadow, opened fire on Ship. The Sith were distracted by the sudden light, and the visors on their vac suits darkened, temporarily impairing their vision. Rhea and Khai dove to evade the attack, but Luke followed Rhea and swiftly cut off her leg and arm, before swiftly decapitating her. Khai, realizing she was severely outmatched, fled.
The Skywalkers tracked Khai to Dathomir, where Khai summoned members of her Tribe to retrieve her. A shuttle convoy led by Lord Viun Gaalan arrived and was confronted by the Skywalkers. Gaalan informed Luke that Rhea's family would greatly admire him for killing the Grand Master; however, in the ensuing duel, Gaalan was defeated and forced to flee, while Khai was captured. The Jedi were soon accosted by a Sith fleet under the command of High Lord Sarasu Taalon, who convinced them to form an alliance for a mission to defeat Abeloth. Khai's father, the Sith Saber Gavar, was permitted to board the Jade Shadow to speak privately with his daughter, and he confided in her that he, too, mourned Rhea's death. Vestara responded that Rhea had died well, adding that there was no dishonor in being killed by the Skywalkers.
Olaris Rhea was a tall woman with pale blonde hair and blue eyes. She possessed an authoritative demeanor and, as one of the Tribe's most powerful Sith, wielded significant influence within the Circle of Lords. Tall, slender, and graceful, she also exhibited a degree of arrogance, and the Tribe's lower-ranking members perceived her as rather imposing. Rhea was known for being a strict teacher; however, she harbored a fondness for her apprentice. On the planet where they tracked Ship in the Maw, Khai became frustrated with Rhea for failing to recognize the gravity of their situation, and Rhea remarked that apprentices rarely survived such disrespect. However, she listened to Khai and, realizing her apprentice was correct, spared her life. Rhea was also remarkably clever, anticipating Xal's attempt to stage a coup during the battle with the Skywalkers and providing both Khai and Walusari with fake grenades to throw to prevent them from being killed when Xal and his apprentice turned their grenades back on them.
Rhea was a Force-sensitive individual trained in the ways of the dark side of the Force. As a member of the Circle of Lords, Rhea was among the most powerful and respected Sith on Kesh. She was recognized as a strong leader, which led to her being placed in command of the Tribe's strike team. Rhea demonstrated proficiency in telekinetic techniques and was also a skilled lightsaber duelist, capable of holding her own, for a brief period, against the Jedi Grand Master, Luke Skywalker. Khai even managed to inflict injuries on him, although it was revealed that he allowed this to establish a Blood Trail.
Olaris Rhea was a character created by author Christie Golden for her first Star Wars novel, Fate of the Jedi: Omen, which was the second of nine novels in the Fate of the Jedi series. Rhea was not given a first name until the third novel in the series, Fate of the Jedi: Abyss, where she was named "Olaris." While her eyes were described as blue in Omen, they were noted as green in Abyss. Rhea later appeared in "First Blood," a short story also written by Golden.