Q'Anilia

Q'Anilia was born an orphan on the planet of Alpheridies, and was a member of the Force-sensitive Miraluka species. Like all Miraluka, Q'Anilia was born without eyes and instead used Force sight to perceive the world. However, Q'Anilia was identified at a young age as having exceptional precognitive abilities, displaying a unique talent for seeing the future through the Force, unlike most Miraluka. In 3993 BBY, when Q'Anilia was still a child, the recently opened Culu Memorial Center on Alpheridies suggested that she be sent to Jedi Master Krynda Draay on Coruscant. Draay, who was herself half-Miraluka, was a renowned Jedi Seer who had isolated herself from Jedi affairs for several years due to her grief over the death of her husband, Barrison Draay, during the Great Sith War in 3996 BBY.

Upon Q'Anilia's arrival at the grand Draay Estate on Coruscant, she was greeted by Haazen, the family's servant. Using her precognitive abilities, Q'Anilia predicted that Draay would request to see her. Haazen went to inform Draay, who was still mourning her husband's death, and initially tried to dismiss Q'Anilia. However, sensing something extraordinary in her, she asked Haazen to bring her up. When Haazen informed her that Q'Anilia was already present, knowing Draay would send for her, the Jedi Master realized she had found someone special. Q'Anilia became Draay's first and most promising student, studying alongside an increasing number of young seers.

Q'Anilia's group eventually included Raana Tey, a Togruta from Shili, Xamar, a Khil, and Feln, a Feeorin warlord. By 3983 BBY, Draay began to believe that this group was the one she had foreseen, capable of preventing the impending return of the Sith. Together, Q'Anilia and her peers formed the First WatchCircle of the Jedi Covenant, a secret organization within the Jedi Order led by Draay, dedicated to watching for the Sith. They were also assigned a Hand, a Jedi who was not a Seer and was responsible for providing practical support and protection. This role was filled by Lucien Draay, Krynda's often-overlooked son. Q'Anilia soon developed a close bond with Lucien, who once took her to a party hosted by Arkoh Adasca, a family friend.

As newly appointed Jedi Masters, Q'Anilia and her circle embarked on their missions, utilizing the Draays' influence and resources to stay united across various assignments. The five Masters of the First WatchCircle eventually found themselves stationed at the Jedi Tower on Taris, an Outer Rim world, where each of them mentored Padawan learners. Q'Anilia chose Shad Jelavan, a Tarisian native with exceptional talent, as her apprentice, and she grew very fond of him.

By 3964 BBY, the First WatchCircle's Padawans were nearing the end of their training, while the Mandalorian Wars between the Republic and the Mandalorian warrior clans were erupting across the Outer Rim. While the Jedi Order officially remained neutral, a group of Jedi advocated for joining the war and visited Taris to recruit members on their way to the front lines. Shortly after meeting with these crusaders, Q'Anilia experienced a disturbing premonition. Although she couldn't discern the specifics, she sensed that boundaries had been crossed nearby and that something terrible was imminent.

Soon after, the Masters took their apprentices off-world for their final Padawan trials: a blind crossing of Taris' rogue moon, an unusual planetoid that orbited in reverse compared to the other debris in the Taris system and was constantly bombarded by meteorites. As they waited for their Padawans to reach their cliffside location, the First WatchCircle meditated under the protection of deflector shields. Suddenly, the seers were struck by a traumatic shared vision: a premonition of their deaths amidst the destruction of the Republic and the Jedi Order.

Q'Anilia envisioned herself on Coruscant, running through the Draay Estate among numerous dead Jedi, trying to protect Lady Krynda, only to find her already deceased. While the specific details of each vision varied, they all shared one common element: a menacing figure in a red enviro-suit, similar to those worn by the Padawans during the rogue moon trial. Q'Anilia immediately concluded that the vision signified the return of the Sith, and several of the other Masters wanted to quickly eliminate their Padawans to prevent the prophecy from coming true. However, Xamar intervened, refusing to act without approval from the Covenant leadership on Coruscant.

Unable to act without full support, Draay conceded, and the group returned to Taris as if nothing had happened. Following their nightmare on the rogue moon, Q'Anilia and the other Masters secluded themselves in the Jedi Tower for days, during which they devised a cover story for the impending murders: the Covenant would claim that Jelavan was not Knighted due to his rebellious nature and killed the other students before being stopped. In the meantime, Draay contacted Coruscant and later informed the WatchCircle that he had received permission to kill their apprentices. When they emerged from their chambers, they announced their decision regarding who would become a Jedi and organized a banquet and Knighting ceremony as the setting for a massacre.

However, at the banquet, a seemingly insignificant chain of events disrupted the Covenant's plans. Zayne Carrick, Lucien's clumsy Human Padawan, was on his way to the Tower when he unsuccessfully chased Marn Hierogryph, a small-time Snivvian criminal. He ultimately arrived at the banquet by crashing through a window and landing on a caterer's table. Carrick was instructed to compensate the caterer for the damage, and while negotiating with the Besalisk, he spotted Hierogryph in the courtyard below. Carrick pursued and eventually caught the Snivvian, but in doing so, he arrived late for the ceremony.

The Masters had anticipated Carrick's usual tardiness, but while they waited, Shad Jelavan noticed something was wrong. Lucien Draay was carrying his lightsaber, suggesting that Carrick would be Knighted. Although initially thrilled that his friend was receiving the honor, Jelavan became doubtful, as Carrick had consistently performed the worst in every test and trial. When Jelavan's questions were met with insincere lies, he directly challenged the Masters, forcing their hand.

The First WatchCircle attacked ahead of schedule, with Q'Anilia killing her apprentice Jelavan. When Carrick arrived, he discovered his friends dead at the feet of their Masters. The First WatchCircle pursued Carrick as he attempted to escape, leading to a speeder chase through the Tarisian skies, although Q'Anilia remained at the Tower. Carrick and Hierogryph, who was still cuffed in Carrick's speeder, escaped to the Lower City through a restaurant's trash chute, and Q'Anilia coordinated with Constable Noana Sowrs to initiate a planet-wide manhunt for Carrick.

That night, the First WatchCircle secluded themselves in their chambers to meditate and try to foresee Carrick's path. Together, they glimpsed that he was heading towards the desolate, rakghoul-infested wasteland known as the Undercity, and they prepared to move. However, Q'Anilia and her companions were deceived by one of Hierogryph's tricks. The Snivvian left a trail leading to the entrance of the Undercity and then disappeared elsewhere, leading the Jedi Masters into the depths of Taris. Q'Anilia, Draay, and Tey had to fight their way through numerous rakghouls and Gamorrean slavers, but found no sign of their target. Along the way, however, Q'Anilia divined one thing: Hierogryph would abandon Carrick to them.

With that hope in mind, they returned to the Lower City after Xamar received reports of new sightings near refugee camps outside the Machineville neighborhood. Working with Constable Sowrs, the WatchCircle tracked the fugitives to the desolate dump known as Junk Junction, and Q'Anilia, Feln, and Tey descended to pursue and apprehend them. However, with the help of two Arkanian Offshoots, Jarael and Gorman "Camper" Vandrayk, Carrick and Hierogryph managed to escape again in a hidden junk-hauler called The Last Resort.

After several twists and close calls, Carrick surprisingly surrendered himself to Valius Ying, a bounty hunter, after hiding in the Taris system's asteroid belt for days. Ying delivered Carrick to the Jedi Tower, where Q'Anilia quickly realized that Hierogryph and his companions were still alive, but as she had foreseen, the Snivvian had seemingly abandoned him. Draay murdered Ying, who had seen too much, and the rest of the WatchCircle prepared to kill Carrick as well. However, at the last moment, the Tower shook. Carrick's friends had returned to rescue him, firing blasters from The Last Resort while Jarael, wielding Carrick's lightsaber, burst onto the scene and spirited him away.

With the Jedi publicly humiliated by Carrick's escape, Taris descended into anarchy in the following weeks. As riots began to spread as far as the Middle City, word came that the Taris Jedi Masters were being recalled to Coruscant. As the First WatchCircle prepared to raise stakes, they received a holo-message from Carrick, who was by then one of the Republic's most wanted men. Carrick vowed to hunt down the Masters one by one, promising that the one who cleared his name would be allowed to live.

Upon returning to Coruscant, Q'Anilia and her companions first went to the Draay Estate to seek guidance from Lady Krynda. However, they found the estate's doors locked, as Krynda was not receiving visitors. Their next destination was the Jedi Temple, where they had been summoned before the Jedi Council. There, they were given shocking news: they were being reassigned to separate postings. In that moment, Q'Anilia foresaw only more hardship ahead.

Her feeling was accurate, as the search for Zayne Carrick continued amidst the escalation of the Mandalorian Wars. Mandalore the Ultimate, the Mandalorian war chief, interpreted the massacre and the subsequent departure of the Jedi as his signal to launch a full-scale invasion of the Republic, with Taris as his initial target. His onslaught devastated numerous Outer Rim worlds, including his nuclear annihilation of Serroco, an act so destructive that Q'Anilia felt it through the Force during a mission to a distant ice planet. To Q'Anilia, the feeling was akin to a vision coming true.

Soon, the hunt for Carrick began to claim Covenant lives. Raana Tey was the first to die, caught in the destruction of the Jedi Tower during the Mandalorian siege of Taris. Q'Anilia sensed her death while in a private moment with Lucien, but was less disturbed by Tey's end than by something else she had seen: during his confrontation with Tey, Carrick had learned Krynda Draay's name. Q'Anilia continued to catch glimpses of Carrick's travels throughout the galaxy. During Tey's memorial at the Draay Estate, Q'Anilia and the remaining members of the First WatchCircle had another shared vision, this time of a rakghoul apocalypse led by the Sith Lord Karness Muur.

Carrick was present in the vision, along with several figures whom Q'Anilia had never encountered before. Q'Anilia recognized the vision as being related to the Muur Talisman, an ancient Sith artifact that the Covenant had long sought. They had reason to believe the Talisman was on Taris, where Carrick was last seen. Fearing that Carrick might find and misuse the Talisman, the Covenant dispatched Celeste Morne, one of its covert agents, to locate the artifact.

Morne found the Talisman and Carrick, but the meeting only resulted in more destruction. They inadvertently became involved in the destruction of a massive Mandalorian army on Jebble. Morne disappeared during the incident, leading the Covenant to incorrectly assume that Carrick had murdered her on Jebble. Carrick's travels then took him to Odryn, Feln's home planet, where he discovered evidence of the Jedi Covenant's secret storeroom of Sith artifacts. Feln encountered him there, and the ensuing clash between Carrick and Feln led to Feln's own people turning against and killing him.

With the First WatchCircle now halved, Q'Anilia was despondent over the deaths and had become dependent on sedatives. She also had not seen Krynda in months. No one had heard directly from the Covenant's leader since before the massacre, and Q'Anilia was desperate to see the woman she admired. However, Lucien, more concerned that Carrick would present evidence of the Covenant's deception to the Jedi Council, responded to her coldly. Instead, he instructed Xamar to collaborate with the Republic Navy to prepare for Carrick's arrival on Coruscant, which made Q'Anilia uneasy. She knew that Xamar had foreseen his own death with the Republic Navy during the rogue moon vision and begged him not to go, but he refused, stating that he would find another way.

That alternative, it turned out, involved Xamar confessing everything to the Jedi Council in exchange for full immunity for Krynda and a role in extracting Lady Draay from her mysterious seclusion in the Draay Estate. Q'Anilia was not involved in Xamar's plan, and when Xamar arrived at the Draay Estate with Carrick, who was pretending to be under the dark influence of the Muur Talisman, and Marn Hierogryph in tow, Q'Anilia felt justified in participating in the massacre. Xamar intended to lure Krynda out by demanding to see Carrick, but his plan failed when Haazen, the Draay family retainer, refused to allow the meeting. When Haazen revealed Carrick's Muur Talisman as a fake, all hell broke loose.

Xamar slipped away from the hall and signaled a massive Jedi raid on the Draay Estate, abandoning his plan to extract Krynda first. Meanwhile, Haazen launched his counterattack, revealing that he had been preparing for this moment for years. Haazen initiated a contingency plan known as Vindication, which was essentially a full-scale insurrection within the Jedi Order, aimed at the Covenant seizing control with Haazen at the helm. He also revealed that he had taken control of the Republic fleet orbiting overhead and triggered a barrage that decimated the raiding Jedi force, including Xamar, who died in the explosions. Q'Anilia was briefly knocked unconscious by falling debris and awoke to find a heated conflict between Lucien, Carrick, and Haazen. Amidst the chaos, Q'Anilia got up and rushed to find and protect Krynda, striking down several of Haazen's men guarding the Jedi Master. However, when she reached Krynda's chambers, she found her seemingly lifeless, locked inside a glass casket.

Q'Anilia discovered that Krynda had suffered a stroke months before, and the Miraluka could no longer sense Lady Draay's mind. Devastated by the loss of her mother figure, Q'Anilia resolved to be with Krynda once again and drank a cup of poison. Soon after, Marn Hierogryph, who had followed the Jedi Master upstairs, joined Q'Anilia in Krynda's bedchamber. Although Q'Anilia blamed Carrick for the chaos, Hierogryph revealed his belief that he might have been the dark figure in the prophecy, as he had been involved in the deaths of all the other members of the First WatchCircle and had once briefly worn the infamous red enviro-suit seen in the vision. Hierogryph also revealed another shocking truth to Q'Anilia: Carrick's "he who confesses, lives" prophecy was actually created by Hierogryph as a diversion to keep the Covenant off their trail. Her worldview shattered by Hierogryph's revelations, Q'Anilia lay down on Lady Draay's bed and died.

A woman of contemplation and logic, Q'Anilia's devotion to the Jedi Covenant's mission was absolute; she refused to let personal attachments cloud her judgment in difficult situations. For example, despite her deep affection for her apprentice, Shad Jelavan, she ruthlessly murdered him when she deemed it necessary for the mission's success. Yet, Q'Anilia was not devoid of emotion, as evidenced by her conspicuous weeping at the banquet preceding the massacre. Q'Anilia held a strong allegiance to Krynda Draay, and her counsel to Lucien often mirrored the opinions she believed Krynda would endorse, which Lucien frequently resented. This friction occasionally complicated the intense, almost romantic bond between Q'Anilia and Lucien, which persisted until her demise.

Q'Anilia was Krynda's initial student, and she always felt that she held a special place in Krynda's heart, even above Krynda's own son, Lucien. From a young age, Q'Anilia possessed an unwavering belief in her ability to foresee the future, a quality that initially captivated Krynda. In the months following the Padawan Massacre, Q'Anilia experienced a significant decline in her mental and emotional well-being as the foundations of her life began to crumble. Overwhelmed by the loss of her friends and Krynda's mysterious withdrawal, the Miraluka became reliant on tranquilizers.

Xamar attributed Q'Anilia's breakdown, in part, to Lucien's detachment, with the Khil asserting that he had "destroyed" her. Simultaneously, her faith in the Covenant wavered as she questioned her role in the Padawan Massacre. The final blow came during Haazen's rebellion, when Q'Anilia discovered Krynda seemingly dead. Unable to continue without her maternal figure and idol, and having lost nearly everyone and everything she cherished, Q'Anilia could not bear it any longer and took her own life.

Endowed with the Force sight inherent to her Miraluka heritage, Q'Anilia possessed extraordinary precognitive abilities that were recognized early in her life. Q'Anilia's precognitions manifested in various forms: sometimes she experienced immersive, complete visions, while at other times they were confined to fleeting glimpses of emotions, thoughts, or spoken words. As always, these premonitions required interpretation, and Q'Anilia often struggled to accurately discern their meaning.

Q'Anilia's precognitions would strike her unexpectedly and could be debilitating, often necessitating physical support. Despite her lack of physical sight, Q'Anilia was a skilled lightsaber combatant—though not a match for Lucien Draay—and wielded a green lightsaber. She also possessed the ability to pilot a speeder, relying solely on her Force sight—indeed, her colleagues in the First WatchCircle frequently requested her driving skills.

The character of Q'Anilia made her debut in Knights of the Old Republic 1, the inaugural issue of the Knights of the Old Republic comic book series, penned by John Jackson Miller and published in 2006. Despite Q'Anilia's portrayal as a member of the eyeless Miraluka, Miller included a scene in one issue depicting her driving a speeder as a humorous touch. During her tenure in Knights of the Old Republic, Q'Anilia was illustrated by five different artists: Brian Ching, Travel Foreman, Dustin Weaver, Scott Hepburn and Bong Dazo.