- "These are the moments we strive for, when the hope of victory becomes real. When we can see peace on the horizon."
- ―Satele Shan
Satele Shan was a Human female who served as the Jedi Order's Grand Master during the Cold War and the Galactic War between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. The daughter of Jedi Knight Tasiele Shan, who was herself a descendant of the legendary Jedi Knights Revan and Bastila Shan, Satele was born on the planet Brentaal IV in the year 3699 BBY. Inheriting her family's Force-sensitivity, she was inducted into the Jedi Order and became the Padawan of Jedi Master Ngani Zho, though she later traveled to the Sith homeworld of Korriban to study under the Zabrak Battlemaster Kao Cen Darach. It was there that she witnessed the recapture of the planet by the Sith Empire in 3681 BBY, and she escaped to warn the Republic with the help of the smuggler Nico Okarr and a Republic trooper named Jace Malcom at the cost of Darach's life.
Achieving the rank of Jedi Knight under the tutelage of Master Dar'Nala, Shan led her fellow Jedi and the forces of the Republic Military into battle in the Great Galactic War, becoming a well-known hero to the Republic. Shan also grew close with Malcom despite the Jedi Order's restrictions on attachments, and their bond drove her to rescue Malcom and his small band of Special Forces troopers on the Core World of Alderaan when the Empire invaded the world in 3667 BBY. Her arrival turned the tide of the Battle of Alderaan in the Republic's favor. After defeating the Sith Lord Darth Malgus in combat with the help of Malcom, she and Malcom began an affair that lasted for six months before Shan broke it off in fear of the darkness in the soldier's heart. However, she was pregnant with Malcom's child, and Shan eventually gave birth to her son, Theron, in secret with the help of Master Zho before giving the child up to the Jedi Order and returning to the battlefield.
In 3653 BBY, Shan was selected to be part of the delegation that was to attend peace talks with the Sith Empire on Alderaan. However, the Empire used the conference as a distraction while it attacked the Republic's capital of Coruscant, holding the world hostage to force the Republic to accept the terms of the Treaty of Coruscant. As the galaxy settled into an uneasy Cold War, Shan foiled a conspiracy to sabotage the new peace perpetrated by Dar'Nala herself and afterward embarked on an odyssey inspired by the call of the Force across the galaxy. The journey led her to the Jedi Order's long-lost homeworld of Tython in the Deep Core, and for her rediscovery of the planet, Shan was appointed to the position of Grand Master and given leadership of the entire Order. In her new role, Shan guided the Order through a number of crises that arose during the Cold War also and trained her Kiffar Padawan, Shigar Konshi, to Knighthood.
As the fragile calm of the Cold War began to collapse, Shan worked with the Republic Emergency Response Corps to protect the unsteady peace and the innocents of the galaxy, and she was alerted to a dangerous threat from the Sith Emperor by his former servant Lord Scourge when a daring mission that she had authorized to capture the Emperor ended in disaster. Learning that the Emperor intended to extinguish all life in the galaxy, Shan helped the Jedi Knight known as the Hero of Tython foil the Emperor's plans and personally led an invasion fleet in an assault on the Imperial capital of Dromund Kaas while the Knight confronted and defeated the Emperor. As the renewed war continued to spread across the galaxy, Shan worked with her former flame, Malcom, in his capacity as Supreme Commander of the Republic Military, and the two achieved victory over the prototype Imperial warship Ascendant Spear at Duro thanks to the efforts of their son, Theron. Shan also forged a temporary truce with the Empire's Darth Marr in order to combat the threat of the Order of Revan, and the two led their combined forces in defeating the returned Revan on the moon Yavin 4. After the Eternal Empire conquered the Republic and Sith Empire, Shan was disheartened by the casualties the Jedi Order suffered under her command and renounced her title, going into a meditative exile with the spirit of the Sith Darth Marr.
- "He was my first Master—he always made me proud, even when he was speaking nonsense."
- ―Satele Shan, on her apprenticeship to Ngani Zho
Satele Shan was born in the year 3699 BBY to the Human Jedi Knight Tasiele Shan, who was the descendant of the legendary Jedi Revan and Bastila Shan. Born on Brentaal IV, Shan was recruited into the Jedi Order like her mother, though Tasiele was the subject of a political controversy not long after her daughter's birth—Shan's controversial belief that one could draw strength from attachment alarmed the Galactic Republic, which feared that she would fall to the dark side of the Force like her famous ancestor Revan. The Republic pressured the Order into exiling Tasiele to an uninhabited planet in the Outer Rim Territories. When the political controversy eventually died down, the Order attempted to retrieve the Jedi Knight, but Tasiele was nowhere to be found—the only thing the Order could locate in Tasiele's abandoned dwelling was a series of journals written to Satele, which it delivered to the missing Jedi's daughter. Apprenticed to Jedi Master Ngani Zho, Shan studied the ways of the Force as a Padawan until 3681 BBY, when she traveled to the Republic's space station in orbit of the Sith homeworld of Korriban to study under the Order's Battlemaster, Kao Cen Darach. Under Darach's tutelage, Shan learned how to wield and fight with the blue double-bladed lightsaber that she constructed for herself. He also guided the Padawan through some of the Jedi Trials, though her ascension to Knighthood was not completed by the end of that year. The reconstituted Sith Empire soon began attacking the edges of the Republic, instigating the Great Galactic War.
Not long into Shan's stay, she and her Master were alerted to the landing of an unidentified freighter on the surface of Korriban by the space station's crew. Shan and Darach traveled to the surface along with Corporal Jace Malcom of the Republic Special Forces Division and were able to capture a smuggler captain named Nico Okarr, though they failed to capture Farel Wickes, the infamous grave robber from whom Okarr was attempting to purchase Sith artifacts. Impounding Okarr's ship, an XS stock light freighter named Redshifter, the three brought the smuggler back up to the space station and were in the process of escorting Okarr to his cell along with another trooper when Shan was overcome with an intense feeling of pain and dread in the Force. Outside the station's viewport, an armada of over thirty Harrower-class dreadnoughts jumped out of hyperspace into the Horuset system. Darach immediately recognized that their attackers were Sith and that the outpost would not withstand the attack, so he quickly decided that their priority had to be warning the Republic of the Sith Empire's attack. When Malcom warned Darach that they would be unable to outrun the Sith's starfighters, Okarr surprised the Jedi and the soldiers by reminding them of his ship's speed. Darach, Shan, Okarr, Malcom, and the other trooper immediately made their way to the hangar where the Redshifter was docked, fighting off attacks by Imperial boarding parties in the process.
Shan and Darach dealt with the Imperials who had entered the hangar while Okarr, Malcom, and the other trooper defeated their pursuers, though the soldier was killed in the fighting. As the remaining four prepared to take the Redshifter, an Imperial interceptor landed in the hangar, and Darach ordered the smuggler to ready his ship. While Malcom and Okarr prepared the ship, Shan and her Master engaged the two Sith arrivals—a masked Sith Inquisitor named Vindican and his Human apprentice, Malgus. The two apprentices battled each other as their Masters fought, but when Malgus ultimately knocked Shan to the floor, Darach stopped Malgus from killing Shan with a toss of his lightsaber, giving her time to recover. Summoning her lightsaber back to her hands, Shan tried to jump to her Master's aid, but Vindican stopped her with a blast of lightning. Darach threw his opponent across the hangar with the Force and rushed to his apprentice's side, and the Redshifter's attempt to lift off caused Vindican to blast the ship with lightning as well.
At Darach's urging, Shan left her Master behind and boarded the Redshifter so that she could warn the Republic of the Empire's return, and she gave the Battlemaster her lightsaber as a parting gift before leaping aboard the smuggler's vessel with Malcom's help. Okarr urged both Malcom and Shan to man the Redshifter's guns, and the Padawan took the lower emplacement as the smuggler began to weave through the Ashes of Korr asteroid belt to escape the pursuing Mark VI Supremacy-class starfighters. However, as they were leaving the belt, Shan felt the death of her Master at the hands of Malgus. Shan was able to push aside her grief as Okarr strafed the superstructure of a Harrower-class dreadnought, continuing to fire on the pursuing fighters until the Redshifter jumped to hyperspace.
The Great Galactic War
Fighting the Empire
- "This was the power of democracy at work, the validation of the principles we fight for, and the proof that, when cornered, the Republic can come together to make a courageous stand."
- ―Satele Shan, on the Republic's revitalization following successes in the Minos Cluster
Returning to the Republic, the trio brought word of the Sith attack, though by the time the Jedi Council learned the news, the Empire had already launched an invasion in the Minos Cluster, an attack on Sluis Van, and blockaded the Rimma Trade Route. The Council requested several debriefings of Shan, and the Padawan was even permitted to sit in on one of the Council's strategic discussions. She was present at the Jedi Temple when a contingent of Jedi, including the Kel Dor Gnost-Dural, departed the capital planet of Coruscant for the occupied Minos Cluster, and she witnessed the riots that broke out across Coruscant as a result. Shan then spent the next part of the war partnered with various Jedi Masters before she was apprenticed to the Togruta Jedi Master Dar'Nala, who helped her become a full-fledged Jedi Knight. A diplomat and political strategist, Dar'Nala helped to temper her student's aggression and impatience, and Shan became one of the Republic's most famous champions in the years to come. In 3671 BBY, Shan and Dar'Nala were stationed at the Temple when news arrived of the Republic's victory at the first Battle of Bothawui, and her meditation was interrupted by intense cheering that echoed across the planet from the Senate Plaza.
In 3667 BBY, Shan traveled to the Core World of Alderaan to investigate rumors that one of the planet's royal houses was harboring Imperial spies. However, the Empire invaded Alderaan while she was there, and Shan raced to the royal palace in order to protect Queen Silara Panteer, though the structure was in ruins by the time she got there. It was then that Shan had a vision showing her that Jace Malcom—whose unit, Havoc Squad, was training injured troopers on Alderaan at the time—would need reinforcements. Shan and Malcom had worked together on previous missions, and the soldier had tried to pursue a relationship with her, though she refrained from doing so because of the Order's restrictions on attachments. Sending word to the Jedi Council, Shan rushed to the Juran Mountains to aid them in their guerrilla war against the Imperial forces marching on Castle Organa. The Imperials were led by Darth Malgus, the Sith whom Shan had fought on Korriban fourteen years earlier, and by the time she arrived, the members of Havoc Squad were fighting a losing battle against a disorganized but far larger Imperial force.
Just as Malcom was about to be executed by three Sith warriors, Shan leaped into the valley and landed behind the two holding Malcom. Unleashing a powerful telekinetic blast into the ground before killing the three disoriented Sith, Shan located Malgus nearby and drew her lightsaber as a challenge to her opponent. The Jedi then vaulted across the battlefield, destroying an Imperial war droid and eliminating four Sith in the process before engaging Malgus in a fierce duel. After a series of blows, Shan was forced to her knees as she tried to hold back Malgus's blade, though she reached out with the Force and brought down a nearby tree to grant herself a reprieve. The two then continued their duel atop the fallen tree branch before Malgus threw her against another tree trunk with the Force, and Shan was barely able to somersault over the Sith Lord's head before Malgus buried his lightsaber in the tree where she had been moments earlier. However, Malgus quickly spun and sliced her double-bladed saber in two before she could spin it and attack, and he immediately followed up with a stab directly at her chest. The energy of the lightsaber used by Malgus was which absorbed by Shan, who blocked the attack with her bare hands.
Malgus's attack was interrupted when Malcom charged the Sith Lord with a ferocious yell, catching him about the waist and engaging in a short fistfight before revealing the primed thermal detonator in his hand. The explosion threw the commando backward out of the clearing, though a scarred Malgus was able to withstand most of the explosion with the Force. Yet before the Sith Lord could pursue either Shan or Malcom, Shan gathered the Force (likely from the energy previously absorbed through tutaminis) and unleashed a powerful blast that sent Malgus flying into a nearby cliff side. The Sith Lord continued to fight against her power as she pinned him against the cliff, and Shan gathered her strength into a second and more powerful blast that tore the entire cliff to pieces. With her enemy buried under tons of rubble, Shan joined an injured Malcom in surveying the battlefield, and the commando sent up a flare to signal victory, one of many that began to light the surface of Alderaan as the reinforcements Shan had requested arrived in the system.
Malcom was given kolto treatments to deal with his injuries, the most prominent of which left him with a permanently scarred face. Shan visited him later while the Republic forces were celebrating their victory, and she informed Malcom of the vision that had brought her to his aid. In response to Malcom's questions about Malgus, Shan confided in him her belief that the Sith Lord had survived the battle. Malcom then reminded Shan of his feelings for her, and her attempts to remind the soldier of her vows as a Jedi were not enough to suppress the feelings she had for him in return. Succumbing to her emotions, she and Malcom entered into a secret relationship—one that led to her becoming pregnant around six months after the Battle of Alderaan, not long after Malcom had been promoted to the rank of general. In addition to working with Colonel Elin Garza to develop the Special Forces Division, Malcom was conducting a campaign near the city of Gell Mattar on a planet with Shan, and she decided to speak with him about his desire for vengeance against the Empire before informing him of her pregnancy. Their conversation revealed that Malcom's hatred of the Empire was his driving force, and Shan was forced to confront the possibility that she would turn to the dark side if the Empire caused Malcom's death. That fear, and the fear of the darkness within Malcom's spirit, drove Shan to break off their relationship and make plans to give up her child—as she understood that having them in her life put the Republic at risk.
For the next few months, Shan continued to serve on the front lines as one of the Republic's greatest heroes, inspiring the rank and file of the Republic Military to victory on battlefields across the galaxy. However, as her pregnancy advanced and her Jedi robes were no longer able to conceal the signs, Shan went to her first Master, Ngani Zho, and told him of her pregnancy—but not of the father's name. Zho did not question her story and immediately agreed to help, approaching the Jedi Council and the Republic Military's leaders with the story that he had sent her on a vital and clandestine mission. Shan bore her son with Zho's help on a planet far from the war, and Zho took her child to raise on his own as per their agreement—but not before she named her son Theron.
Hero of the Republic
- "And the last… Satele Shan, guardian of the Republic, whose words inspired armies. They had fought separately, on the Ash Plains of Lenico and in the asteroid-hives of Gelpog the Tyrant. They fought twenty thousand years of evil, incarnate in the Sith Emperor and his servants. They never faltered. Of them all, it was Satele who made me the most proud."
- ―Ngani Zho, on Shan and his other former students
A year later, in 3665 BBY, Shan was assigned to a Republic Navy contingent tasked with protecting a fleet of prototype warships that were being gathered for an attack on the Imperial capital of Dromund Kaas. However, the fleet was ambushed in the Outer Rim Territories by the Imperial Navy, sparking a week-long battle that crossed several star systems before reaching its peak in the Hoth system. Hundreds of vessels on both sides met their end during the conflict, and Shan was aboard one of the few Republic ships that managed to escape destruction. In 3661 BBY, Shan was recalled to Coruscant when the Mandalorians, a culture of warrior nomads, began a blockade of the Hydian Way trade route. Shan witnessed the riots that broke out across the capital in response to the supply shortage caused by the blockade, and she was dismayed to see the turmoil only worsen after the Jedi failed to break the blockade near Devaron.
As the war neared the end of its third decade, Shan joined Jaric Kaedan, Bela Kiwiiks, and Syo Bakarn—all former apprentices of Ngani Zho like herself—in leading the men of the 45th Battalion and other Republic troopers in a counterattack on the icy planet of Rhen Var. Between the four of them, the Jedi had fought previously on battlefields such as a conflict with Gelpog the Tyrant and a battle on the Ash Plains of Lenico IV, and the four led the Republic forces in a charge that brought them within reach of the fortress of Darth Mekhis, a member of the Empire's Dark Council. Breaking open the door to Mekhis's chamber with the Force, she asked the Sith Lord to surrender and offered protection in exchange. However, Mekhis refused, and the two began a fierce duel that resulted in Mekhis being grievously injured before she escaped.
Not long after the Battle of Rhen Var, the Empire approached the Republic with a surprising offer of peace in 3653 BBY. As a gesture of good faith, the Empire withdrew its forces from the Minos Cluster, and the Galactic Senate agreed to peace negotiations on Alderaan. A Republic delegation led by the Cerean Senator Paran Am-Ris traveled to Alderaan, accompanied by several Jedi: Shan, Dar'Nala, Syo Bakarn, and Aryn Leneer. Shan spent the first morning in meditation, though her efforts were not enough to conceal the tension she felt at the conference, and she confided in her former teacher that she believed there was something more to the meeting than the Council believed. At that moment, Shan's suspicions were being proven correct—an Imperial fleet under the command of Darth Angral was approaching Coruscant, and it began attacking the Republic capital the moment that Darth Malgus and his strike force brought down the planet's defense grid within the Jedi Temple. Supreme Chancellor Berooken contacted Am-Ris and attempted to warn him of the Sith's treachery, but the entire conference room was forced to watch as Angral stormed the Chancellor's office and executed the Mon Calamari.
Realizing that the Sith had resorted to treachery, Shan drew her saber and charged the Empire's emissary, Darth Baras. Baras blocked her strike with his own blade and cautioned her to restrain herself before explaining to Am-Ris that the peace talks would proceed as planned—only the Republic would have to agree to the Empire's terms while the Imperials held their capital hostage. At Dar'Nala's urging, Shan reluctantly disengaged and exited the room with the rest of the Republic delegation—only to find Leneer embroiled in a fight with the two Sith members of the Empire delegation who had been waiting outside. Dar'Nala's voice quickly brought the fight to a halt, but Shan was barely able to stop Am-Ris from attacking Baras when the Sith Lord goaded the Republic delegates with reminders that they were there to discuss peace.
After departing the hall, Dar'Nala took command of the group and ordered Shan to set up a secure link communication to Grand Master Zym. While waiting for the Grand Master to answer and wondering if he was still alive, the group discussed the unknown situation on Coruscant, and Leneer revealed that her empathic bond with her Master, Ven Zallow, had caused her to sense Zallow's death during the attack on the Temple. Later that night, Zym informed Dar'Nala and Am-Ris that the Republic had no choice but to accept Baras's terms until Coruscant was freed and also warned Dar'Nala that Shan had to apologize to Baras if the negotiations were to proceed. Despite Dar'Nala's feelings on the matter, she complied with the Grand Master's request, and Shan begrudgingly apologized to the Sith Lord the following day.
The Cold War
A tense treaty
- "One thing is sure—you will never defeat the Sith. You know that now."
"I might not defeat you, but in time, there will be others…"
- ―Darth Baras and Shan
In the days following the signing of the Treaty of Coruscant and the battle that became known as the Sacking of Coruscant, Republic forces were ordered to withdraw from every battlefield across the galaxy, and Zym sent both Shan and Dar'Nala to enforce the withdrawal on Dantooine. The two were aboard the Republic ship Envoy in the Kuat sector, conversing in their suite, when Dar'Nala detected an eavesdropper outside in the hall—the Imperial protocol droid SP-99, which had been assigned to the vessel in order to ensure the fulfillment of the Treaty's terms. The Togruta Jedi Master then departed for the bridge in anger as Shan settled down to sleep. Shan was still in her room when Dar'Nala arranged for the Envoy to attack a passing Imperial transport, as part of a plan to dismantle the Treaty and restart the war. Shan was alerted to the Imperials' returning fire by SP-99, and her attempt to investigate led her straight into a pair of Imperial commandos, who tried to kill her on sight. Quickly dispatching the attackers and ignoring SP-99's protests, the Jedi raced to find Dar'Nala, only to witness her capture by several Imperials. The Togruta ordered her former student to run and warn the Council, and Shan raced to an escape pod with SP-99 before the Imperials could capture her as well.
A Mandalorian raider vessel bound for the Geonosis slave markets eventually found the escape pod in the Barma sector, but a Rendaran-class assault shuttle piloted by Jedi Master Orgus Din and Lieutenant Harron Tavus located the pod's distress signal and destroyed the slavers before they could capture Shan. The Jedi Knight told them her story immediately upon being rescued, and Din decided that Zym needed to be alerted right away. Tavus laughed down Shan's argument that they should also rescue Dar'Nala, but Din agreed that they did need more information on the attack before they could make a judgment. They contacted the Grand Master from their ship, but Shan was dismayed to learn that an intercepted Imperial transmission had reported that Dar'Nala was dead. Saddened by the loss of her former Master, Shan accompanied the two on their original mission to enforce the ceasefire on the nearby planet Balmorra, where Din forced his former student Fortris Gall to withdraw from the battlefield. After completing their mission on Balmorra, they prepared to go to Dantooine, but Shan's request to lead the mission was turned down by Din, who was planning to remain on Balmorra while Gall and Tavus went to Dantooine with Shan.
As they were traveling through the Raioballo sector, Tavus approached Shan with the possibility of starting a romantic relationship, but Shan reminded the lieutenant of her vows as a Jedi. Their conversation was interrupted by SP-99, who reported their arrival at Dantooine, and Tavus informed Shan that the offer still stood if she changed her mind. Meeting with Major Dael at Base D-55 on Dantooine, the two were dismayed to learn from Am-Ris that Grand Master Zym had been killed—just as a bomb exploded in the Senate Building. With the Treaty of Coruscant crumbling under the strain of recent events, Am-Ris reiterated his order to withdraw to Dael and ended the holotransmission with the hope that Shan and Tavus would succeed in convincing the major to heed the orders. To Shan's surprise, Tavus did not object to Dael's refusal, and the lieutenant decided to return to their ship until Shan came to her senses and realized that the Treaty was not worth protecting. Despite Tavus's departure, Shan remained committed to the mission, and she stayed behind to speak with Dael.
A little while later, Din arrived on Dantooine with the bounty hunter Braden, whom he had captured on Nar Shaddaa. Upon learning Shan's name, Braden delivered the message that Dar'Nala had tasked him with before her death—Dar'Nala believed that the Treaty was being sabotaged by Darth Baras. This confused Shan, who had sensed that Baras was more committed to the Treaty than Dar'Nala had been on Alderaan, and she returned to the ship to find Tavus. To her surprise, Shan found only a heavily damaged SP-99, as Tavus had shot the droid after discovering it spying on him. The protocol droid was barely able to communicate before losing power that Tavus had gone to the ruins of the Jedi Enclave, and Din called Shan just then to report that Braden had escaped. Din ordered her to remain there until he arrived, but Shan decided to pursue Tavus herself and set off for the Enclave. Following the Force, Shan entered the Crystal Cave near the Enclave to find a fierce firefight in progress. Angral, Baras, and several Sith troopers were battling Tavus, Gall, a Wookiee bounty hunter named Dalborra, and—to Shan's astonishment—Dar'Nala. Surprised to see her former teacher alive, Shan nonetheless joined the Togruta in her fight against Baras.
Baras revealed that one of the Treaty's purposes was to show the Jedi their own hypocrisy and hatred of the Sith, and Dar'Nala proved his point by admitting that she had been behind both the attack on the Envoy and the Senate bombing. Baras then tried to convince Shan to join the Sith, claiming that she belonged on the other side of the war—but Shan broke away, realizing that the Sith were manipulating her and the others to continue the war. Calling out to Tavus, who had pinned an unarmed Angral to the ground and was preparing to execute him, she warned him to stop. An enraged Dar'Nala leaped at the soldier when he refused to kill the Sith, and she knocked aside Gall when the confused Jedi blocked her attack. The fallen Jedi Master ordered Dalborra, who was under her mental control, to kill Gall, but the Wookiee instead broke free of her thrall and slew Dar'Nala with a single blow to the head. Shan rushed to Dar'Nala's side as Dalborra fled the cave, and Angral took advantage of his opponents' distraction to summon his lightsaber back to his hand and throw Tavus across the cave with the Force. The Sith prepared to continue their battle, but Shan held back her allies and informed Angral that their fight was ended. Baras agreed with Shan and departed with his fellow Sith but not before warning the Jedi Knight that Sith was in her heritage—the dark side was the destiny of all the heirs of Revan. Returning to the surface, the trio explained what had transpired in the caves to Din, though none of the three mentioned many details or explained Dar'Nala's role in the recent events. Din was suspicious but satisfied, and he accepted their story on account of their promise that the Treaty would not be disrupted any further.
Grand Master of the Order
- "I am simply tired. Like you, I wish a speedy resolution to these times."
"But not through war."
"Not if it can be avoided, no."
- ―Shan and her Padawan
Not long after the events on Dantooine, Shan embarked on a journey across the galaxy, exploring new worlds and making new allies as she followed the call of the Force that she felt through deep meditation. During this period, she ended the Eberon–Kashyyyk War and had made an enemy of an individual named Thresh-ahantu Azuloz. Finally, in 3651 BBY, the Force revealed a previously lost hyperspace route that led Shan far into the Deep Core—where she discovered the Order's long-lost homeworld of Tython. For her achievement, Shan was granted the rank of Jedi Master and given a place on the Jedi Council, and it was not long after her appointment that the Order was informed that the Jedi Temple on Coruscant would not be rebuilt. In light of the news, the Council decided that the Order would move its headquarters to Tython. By 3645 BBY, the Council had appointed Shan as the Order's Grand Master, and she guided the Jedi throughout the Cold War as they rebuilt their ranks and recovered from the fighting. Sometime during that period of time, she took on a young Kiffar named Shigar Konshi as her Padawan.
Around 3643 BBY, Supreme Chancellor Dorian Janarus approached the Council with the request that Master Oteg assume a position as Fleet Admiral. After meditating on the matter, Shan decided that Oteg would play a pivotal role in the upcoming conflict, and she agreed to Janarus's request. Oteg's seat on the Jedi High Council was taken by Oric Traless, and sometime afterward, Shan and Konshi were on Coruscant to meet with General Elin Garza and the Republic's Supreme Commander when the Council deemed her Padawan unfit to take the Jedi Trials. Sensing her Padawan's disappointment and conflicted emotions, she told him to take a walk while she went to her meeting. However, Konshi soon found himself caught up in a firefight with an armored Mandalorian named Dao Stryver. Stryver escaped despite the efforts of Konshi and the Republic trooper Larin Moxla, but Moxla had learned that Stryver was seeking something called the Cinzia and a person named Lema Xandret. Konshi immediately reported these events to his Master, who relayed them to the Supreme Commander before contacting Tython regarding her earlier meeting. She later met with Konshi near the Galactic Justice Center, where she gave her apprentice all of the information that the Republic Strategic Information Service had gathered on the Cinzia and Xandret—the Cinzia was a ship that the Hutt Tassaa Bareesh was offering for auction, and Xandret was somehow involved in the ship's history. Sensing that Konshi had set something in motion, the Grand Master decided to send her apprentice and Moxla to Nal Hutta to investigate the auction.
Konshi's mission uncovered the existence of droids known as hexes, combat droids that the Cinzia had been carrying, and Bareesh's auction collapsed when the droids were released and began to wreak havoc. The Padawan and Moxla were able to escape Nal Hutta with the Republic envoy Ula Vii and the smuggler Jet Nebula aboard Nebula's ship, Auriga Fire, and Konshi contacted his Master to seek guidance on what to do next. Shan was troubled by two aspects of her apprentice's report: The droids were adaptable in combat, and a Sith apprentice named Eldon Ax had been present at Bareesh's palace during the fighting. As Konshi was planning to use his psychometry to track the source of the hexes, Shan gathered a Republic task force and traveled to a rendezvous at the planet Honoghr. Using his powers, Shan's apprentice tracked the hexes to a planet named Sebaddon, which was located near a black hole, well above the galactic disk. Shan soon followed them to the Sebaddon system aboard the Corellia, a cruiser among the Republic flotilla under the command of Colonel Gurin. Shan attempted to contact Xandret's Sebaddon colonists three times before receiving a response—a woman's voice, saying they did not recognize the Republic's authority and that they wanted only to be left alone. As the conversation continued, Sebaddon launched eight missiles at the Republic fleet, and the Republic was only able to destroy seven of them before they hit the Corellia.
To the Republic's dismay, the missiles were actually composed of thousands of hexes, and the "destroyed" projectiles quickly took control of several Republic vessels. The section of the Corellia in which Shan had been in was largely intact, and the Grand Master was able to seal herself within a pressurized section of the ship. She reached out to her Padawan to convey her situation, and Konshi used one of the Auriga Fire's enviro-suits to reach her. While waiting for Konshi to find her, the Grand Master encountered nine hexes, but she was able to influence a biological component in them to halt their aggression. However, she was unable to make the hexes leave, which forced her Padawan to walk carefully through the hexes to let the Grand Master out. Shan used a Force shield to keep the air around her while Konshi cut them a path out of the ship's wreckage. After Konshi rescued Shan, the Mandalorian Stryver contacted the Auriga Fire with instructions to meet him on a nearby moon.
Shan and Konshi met with Stryver on the First Blood, his personal ship, and they were surprised to encounter the Sith apprentice from Nal Hutta there as well. Stryver explained that the hexes' creator, Lema Xandret, had originally approached the Mandalorians with her droids in hopes of forming an alliance to bring down the Sith Empire. Xandret's droids had intrigued Mandalore the Vindicated, but the Mandalorians soon realized that the hexes were, in fact, a galactic plague—Xandret had lost control of her droids not long after she contacted the Mandalorians, and the droids' drive to consume and their incredible replication speed would allow them to destroy the entire galaxy within a matter of years. That was the reason that Stryver had called the Empire and the Republic to Sebaddon: Only together could the two galactic powers destroy the scourge of the hexes and ensure the galaxy's safety. Though both sides initially objected to such an alliance, they eventually agreed to a temporary cessation of hostilities in order to eliminate the hexes. As part of the joint assault, Shan led a strike team to destroy the hexes' coordinating intelligence while another team led by Moxla took out the main factory. Despite her apprehensions, Shan accepted the demands of Darth Chratis—the Sith Lord in command of the Imperial force—that she would take his apprentice with her while he took Konshi on his own mission.
As the battle began, Shan and the rest of the allied forces dropped onto Sebaddon's surface using jet-chutes, though she soon began to tail Eldon Ax in order to speak with Chratis's apprentice. Once the allied troopers found an entrance to the coordinating intelligence's complex, the Grand Master led the charge into the facility, destroying hundreds of hexes with both the Force and her lightsaber. Yet the joint task force soon realized that it was unable to penetrate the complex's main structure to reach its target, so Shan had her allies withdraw so that something else could do the work for them—a crippled transport was heading straight for the complex. The transport breached a subterranean mining complex beneath the facility, but an explosion of what seemed to be lava consumed both Shan and Ax before they could get out of the way. To their surprise, the two discovered that it was not lava; it was a lake of warm, reddish fluid that concealed an Imperial vessel far beneath its surface. Shan and Ax boarded the ship to find a massive glass tank containing the same red fluid in one of the vessel's compartments, and they soon realized that the fluid was some kind of organic material that gave the hexes a semblance of life—and that the tank contained a clone of Eldon Ax.
The clone explained to Shan that Eldon Ax was actually Xandret's daughter, a fact that the Sith apprentice had concealed, and that the fluid in which she was submerged was suppressing her Force powers. Further conversation with the clone revealed that Xandret had infused the droids with her own intelligence, but the remnant of Xandret within the fluid killed the clone when she tried to shut down the hex droids. With her dying words, the clone instructed Ax on how to take control of the hexes, and Shan and Ax returned to the surface to test whether it would work. Ax's control of the hexes allowed her to end the battle in a matter of minutes, and Shan retreated with the rest of the Republic forces as Ax used the hexes to kill her Master before destroying them and ending the threat they posed to the galaxy. In the aftermath of the conflict, which was labeled Independent Operation Sebaddon, Shan proudly stood by as her Padawan was deemed ready for the Jedi Trials and returned to Tython with her student so that he could become a Jedi Knight.
Mysteries of Tython
- "Taking a life affects the Living Force—and the one who does the killing. This is why Jedi enter battles calmly, with reason. Emotions like fear and anger lead to the dark side."
- ―Satele Shan, to the Padawan who defeated Callef
Sometime after returning to Tython, the Grand Master and the rest of the Council were involved in a recent conflict with the Twi'lek Pilgrims of Kalikori village. The village was technically an illegal settlement, and the Order was restricted from aiding the villagers in their fight against the savage Flesh Raider natives who regularly raided the village. However, Kalikori's resentment of the Jedi reached a peak when the villager Nalen Raloch was seduced to the dark side and driven insane by the Force ghost of Rajivari, one of the founders of the Jedi Order and the instigator of the Force Wars, which had ravaged Tython over 20,000 years earlier. Fortunately for the Order, the apprentice of Council member Yuon Par defeated Raloch before he could destroy the Forge, the ancient machine used by the Order's Padawans to construct lightsabers as part of their Trials, and the injured villager was brought to the Jedi Temple for healing. Shan oversaw the man's treatment herself, and she later attended a Council meeting with Par, Par's Padawan, Jaric Kaedan, and Syo Bakarn. Taking the Padawan's advice into account, Shan and the rest of the Council began making overtures to Kalikori in an attempt to heal the rift between the villagers and the Jedi, and Raloch was taken in for Jedi training. Par's student was also elevated to a full Jedi of the Order, but Par herself collapsed halfway through the meeting. The Council and the Temple's healers discovered that she was suffering from a kind of sickness, and they decided to send her and her former Padawan to Coruscant in hopes that Jedi artifacts from the ruined Temple could aid Par's seemingly untreatable illness.
Another conflict eventually arose on Tython—this one involving the Flesh Raiders. When the Flesh Raiders invaded the Tythonian Gnarls region and attacked the Jedi outpost there, the Jedi were able to repel the natives' attack, but the assault ended when a young initiate defeated the Dark Jedi Callef, who was commanding the Flesh Raiders. Master Din sealed the cave that the Flesh Raiders were using to enter the Gnarls and ordered the apprentice to meet him at the Jedi Temple, but Shan learned of what had transpired in the Gnarls and contacted the student as the young Jedi arrived at the Temple. She asked the learner to meet her within her private chambers before the Council meeting, and she discussed the Jedi Code and the dangers of emotions with the student briefly before going to the Council chambers. In the meeting, Shan and the few Masters present were surprised when Din announced his intention to take on the apprentice who defeated Callef as his own Padawan, the first he had taught since his previous student, Bengel Morr, who was believed to have been killed in the Sacking of Coruscant a decade earlier. After contemplating a dark presence of which the Council had recently become aware, Shan came to believe that the source was on Coruscant, and she dispatched Master Kiwiiks and her Padawan, Kira Carsen, to investigate. However, over the next few days, Din and his new student uncovered the truth behind the Flesh Raiders' recent increase in attacks—they were being commanded by Morr, who had survived the destruction of the Jedi Temple and turned to the dark side.
After the Padawan defeated Morr in battle and rescued Din, who had been betrayed by the villagers of Kalikori and captured by Morr, Shan and the rest of the Council elevated the student to the rank of Jedi Knight. When the Grand Master asked for the newly promoted Knight's opinion on what should be done about the villagers, the young Jedi believed that the Order needed to openly aid the Twi'lek villagers so that Kalikori would not turn on them again. The meeting was interrupted by a priority call from Kiwiiks, who confirmed their suspicions that something malevolent was working on the capital, and Shan decided to send both Din and his former student to assist her.
The Grand Master then accompanied a Republic Military convoy who was ferrying a high-level Imperial defector, codenamed the General. However, the convoy was ambushed by the Imperial Navy, forcing Shan to send the general ahead aboard the Thranta-class corvette Brentaal Star while her fleet fought off the attack. Yet Imperial Grand Moff Rycus Kilran learned of the Brentaal Star's location and sent the Gage-class transport Black Talon to attack the Republic vessel and recapture the defector. By the time Shan and the sixteen remaining vessels of her convoy were able to disengage from their attackers—crippling three Imperial dreadnaughts in the process—an Imperial strike team was preparing to board the damaged Brentaal Star and capture the general, and the Grand Master's requests that the Imperials withdraw and respect the Treaty of Coruscant went unheeded. Shan's convoy raced to the Brentaal Star's aid, but by the time she arrived, the Imperials had already eliminated the general, and the Black Talon was long gone.
During that time, the Jedi on Coruscant had uncovered the source of the dark presence—a Sith Lord named Tarnis, who had been posing as a top Republic scientist on the Planet Prison superweapon project—and also learned that Tarnis had stolen files on all of the Republic's weapon projects to give to the Empire. Din, Kiwiiks, and Agent Galen had been dispatched to secure the Republic's offworld facilities, and Din's former student had joined forces with Carsen to defeat Tarnis in the depths of the Jedi Temple before he could turn the Planet Prison against the Republic capital. However, the Knight's defeat of Tarnis incurred the wrath of his father, Darth Angral, and the elder Sith Lord had promptly declared a personal war against the Republic and the Jedi in order to gain revenge for the death of his son. Din's old friend Var Suthra, the general in charge of the Republic weapon projects, contacted Shan, who authorized the young Knight to work with Suthra to stop Angral's crusade. Shan also assigned Carsen as the Knight's own Padawan in the absence of Kiwiiks, and she wished the young Jedi luck as the two departed for Ord Mantell with their astromech droid ally, T7-O1.
Guiding the Order's heroes
- "You said your name was—"
"… I see. Is there… anything else you want to tell me?"
"Not anymore. It's been an honor, Grand Master Satele Shan."
- ―Satele and Theron Shan
Shan had also begun working with the Republic Emergency Response Corps to deal with crises across the galaxy that threatened the fragile peace, and a situation in the Outer Rim came to her attention. The Advozse Hegemony, a xenophobic political faction of the Advozsec people, had acquired a prototype battle station codenamed "Hammer" that used asteroids to bombard planetary surfaces. The station had been designed during the Great War but scuttled when the project's destructive potential was fully understood, and the prototype was set on autopilot to collide with a nearby white dwarf. However, a mechanical failure shut off the station's engines before it was destroyed, and the Hegemony had discovered it several months before. The station was brought to the Republic's attention when the Hegemony bombarded the capital city of the planet Skine after it refused to surrender, and Shan put out a call to as many Jedi and Republic heroes as were available. Gathering a small strike team aboard the Republic's staging area of Carrick Station, the Grand Master briefed the team on the situation and dispatched it to infiltrate the Hammer above Saleucami. However, Darth Malgus, Shan's opposite number in the Empire, had gathered a strike team to destroy the station at the same time, and only one of the two teams was successful in their attack on the station.
A short time later, another crisis arose—but one that involved a powerful threat from the dark side. An archaeological survey team was excavating Sith ruins on the planet Athiss when the Order received a distress signal from the planet that coincided with the Council's sudden sensation of an intense disturbance in the Force. Summoning several powerful Jedi and other trusted allies, Shan dispatched a strike team to Athiss to investigate. The Republic strike team competed with an Imperial strike force to recover the Sith artifacts and contain the dark side threat. The two strike teams combined to eliminate the primitive worshipers of the Sith Lord Vodal Kressh, who had been exiled to Athiss by the Sith Emperor centuries ago, and the destruction of Kressh's servants ended the possibility of his influence spreading out into the larger galaxy. Shan was still on Tython when Din's former student and Carsen arrived to reveal that Carsen was a native of the Empire. The two had been pursuing Angral's agents across the galaxy when they were lured into a trap by a Sith named Valis in order to capture her, and Carsen had revealed her past to her Master after they defeated the Sith. After Shan gathered the few Council members who were on Tython at the time, Carsen explained her tale in full: Born on Dromund Kaas to Sith parents, she had been raised at the Sith Academy on Korriban and was a Child of the Emperor—a servant of the Sith Emperor who would have been bound to the Emperor's will if Carsen had not escaped before the process was completed. Master Kaedan immediately called for Carsen's imprisonment, but Tol Braga disagreed—the Council had first learned of the Children's existence from his own Padawan, Sajar, a former Dark Councillor whom Braga had turned to the light side of the Force. While the conversation was ongoing, Shan reached out and probed Carsen with the Force, only to find no trace of the dark side within her. Carsen's teacher convinced the Grand Master that the Padawan would never betray the Order, so Shan decided to allow Carsen to remain a Jedi.
Shan returned to her chambers in the Jedi Temple to find that she was not alone. Sensing her visitor in the Force, she asked him to reveal himself and was greeted by a tall, dark-haired man with a cybernetic implant above one of his eyes. Informing the Grand Master that Master Zho was dead, he gave her the man's lightsaber and told Shan that he had died saving others. However, Shan recognized something in the man and realized that he was actually her son, Theron, though her visitor did not show any signs of recognizing her before he departed. Sometime later, the Republic alerted Shan to the theft of the Allusis, a highly-advanced Valor-class cruiser that had been undergoing refits at the Fondor Shipyards, and she gathered a strike team to reclaim the vessel from the Mandalorian Clan Varad, which was using it to pillage and raid the planets of the Tamarin sector. As the Empire was attempting to destroy the Allusis after Clan Varad attacked several Imperial planets, Shan led a Republic fleet to engage both the Mandalorians and the Imperial fleet while her strike team—a four-man group consisting of the Jedi Consular Magnus, the Jedi Knight Ezeraline, a smuggler named Taklan, and a Republic trooper named Keenor—boarded the Allusis and attempted to take control of the vessel. However, the team was opposed by an Imperial strike force that included the Sith Rotham and Vincine, a bounty hunter named Kyrenic, and an Imperial agent named Andan, and only one of the teams survived the battle and captured the Allusis for its side.
Yet another crisis also arose on the planet Cademimu V, a missile depot that supplied Republic defenses on worlds along the Celanon Spur trade route, when the planet's corrupt Governor Chornarov declared his independence before the Republic could begin investigations into his actions. With the help of the Mantellian Separatist Movement, which had recently been forced off Ord Mantell at the end of the Separatist War, Chornarov declared martial law and had the Separatist General Ortol deploy his troops to seize control. The governor also took control of the planet's missile depots, ensuring that neither the Republic nor the Empire could launch an invasion, so both Shan and Darth Malgus dispatched strike teams to infiltrate Cademimu and shut down the weapons. Both the Empire and the Republic sent fleets to the Cademimu system to ensure they could take control quickly, but only one galactic power was successful in taking the missile depots and conquering the planet.
When the Jedi enclave on Rhinnal was attacked by an Imperial warship and the Republic frigate Toron Voq was destroyed trying to investigate, the Republic believed that the Empire had attacked and broken the Treaty. Shan was deeply affected by the attack on the enclave, as she sensed the simultaneous deaths of many Jedi. However, an intercepted coded transmission from Malgus to the Dark Council revealed that the fortress of a Sith Lord named Senu and another fortress had suffered a similar fate; the message also identified the attacker as the Red Reaper, the flagship of the Sith Pureblood Darth Ikoral. Ikoral desired to purge the galaxy of all non-Purebloods, and, as the Red Reaper was detected near the agricultural world Chandrila, Shan immediately dispatched a Republic strike team to board the vessel and defeat Ikoral just as Malgus did the same. Between the two teams, Ikoral and his forces were defeated and the Red Reaper destroyed, and the Republic gained valuable astrogation and strategic data from the mission.
When the Jedi Ako Domi, who had been captured at the Battle of Sullust in the previous war and fell to the dark side while imprisoned on Nar Shaddaa, was defeated and returned to Tython by Republic forces, Shan sent messages thanking those involved in his rescue.
The crisis with Darth Angral came to its peak when the Sith Lord, having killed his rival, Orgus Din, and constructed a superweapon known as the Desolator, tested the weapon on the Republic agriworld of Uphrades before launching an assault on Tython. Angral's flagship, Oppressor, deployed mini-bursts of the Desolator technology that ionized the planet's atmosphere, preventing the Jedi from launching any fighters, and Shan was unable to do anything more than send a distress signal. Fortunately for the Order, Din's former Padawan had discovered Uphrades not long after Angral's departure, and General Suthra relayed Shan's distress signal to the Jedi Knight. Along with Carsen and T7-O1, the Knight was able to board the Oppressor above Tython and disable the Desolator, allowing the Order to launch its fighters. By the time that the Knight and Carsen defeated Angral on the Oppressor's bridge, Jedi starfighters were beginning bombing runs that tore apart the warship and permanently ended the threat of the Desolator. When the Knight and Carsen returned to Tython's surface, Shan learned that the Emperor himself had tried to take control of the former Child, but Carsen had severed the link between them permanently, and the Grand Master promoted the Padawan to the rank of Jedi Knight as a result. She also granted Carsen's teacher the ceremonial title of "Hero of Tython" in recognition for the Jedi's service.
Return to war
Against the Empire
- Shan: "Syo, please. Tell me this isn't true."
- First Son: "I'm afraid he cannot. I believe it is now Syo's turn to be silent, and watch. Fate has set me a challenge. I had hoped for more time, but all things must adapt or die."
- Barsen'thor: "Release Syo Bakarn, immediately."
- First Son: "He is beneath your reach now, Jedi. In the place I was forced to occupy. You kindly entrusted the Guardian Holds to me. And I, in turn, entrusted them to my brothers and sisters. Goodbye, Jaric, Satele… and thank you."
- ―Shan and the Barsen'thor speak with the First Son[src]
As the Cold War dissolved into a renewed Galactic War due to the recent proxy conflicts and heightened tensions between the two galactic powers, fellow Council member Tol Braga approached Shan with a bold plan—a strike team would capture the Sith Emperor himself and bring him to Tython, where the Sith ruler would be converted to the light side of the Force. As part of Braga's plan, the Jedi Knight Jomar Chul scouted the Dromund system, though he was pursued and shot down over the planet Tatooine. Chul was rescued by the Hero of Tython, who had been drawn to Chul's location by the instructions of Orgus Din's Force ghost, and Shan and Braga ordered the Hero to bring Chul's sensor logs to Tython while the Zabrak Jedi awaited medical aid. The Grand Master authorized Braga's mission and allowed the Jedi Master to recruit the Hero for the strike team, but as the strike team completed its preparations, Chul experienced a Force vision that the Hero would fall to the dark side. He confronted the Council, but despite the protests of Chul and Master Kaedan, Shan permitted the mission to proceed. True to Chul's vision, the Emperor turned the entire group to the dark side and trained them as his servants for months.
The Hero only escaped the Emperor thanks to the Din's ghost and the unlikely aid of the Emperor's Wrath, Lord Scourge, who freed the Knight's companions and promised to explain his actions on Tython. There, before the Council, the Sith Lord revealed his past: Centuries earlier, he had foreseen the destruction of the galaxy at the hands of the Emperor, and the vision had shown that only the Hero was capable of stopping the Emperor. The Emperor was attempting to repeat the dark side ritual that had granted him immortality over a thousand years earlier but on a galactic scale, a feat that would kill every living thing in the galaxy. However, the Emperor required a sacrifice of billions of simultaneous deaths, and Scourge urged the Hero and the Council to halt the Sith's plans on the prison planet of Belsavis. To Kaedan's shock, Shan decided that Scourge's help was essential in stopping the Emperor, and she allowed the Sith Lord to accompany the Hero to Belsavis while the Grand Master sent a Jedi named Enna Tabord ahead to investigate.
By the time the Hero arrived at Belsavis, Shan's investigations had identified there the presence of a high-ranking servant of the Emperor, Executor Krannus. Scourge confirmed that Krannus was likely the Emperor's intended agent of destruction, and the Grand Master gave Tabord's coordinates to the Hero so that the Knight could meet the other Jedi on the surface. She also attempted to notify the prison administration of the Knight's presence on Belsavis, but the chaos resulting from the Imperial attack on the planet prevented Shan from making contact until she located Colonel Bartaph, the Republic officer in charge of the military reinforcements that had been dispatched to secure the prison. Bartaph was able to send a Special Forces squad under Sergeant Bedd to reinforce the Hero in a final battle with Krannus, helping the Knight prevent Krannus from destroying the entire planet. Upon learning of the Knight's victory on Belsavis, Shan dispatched the Hero to the Imperial space station Korriban's Flame to investigate rumors of a meeting between high-ranking Sith and also to find Jomar Chul, who had disappeared on a previous mission.
Senator Tobas Grell of the planet Sarkhai, a member of the Rift Alliance splinter government, was kidnapped above Belsavis by a man named Stark. The former student of Yuon Par, who had been granted the title of Barsen'thor—Warden of the Order—and the rank of Jedi Master after resolving the earlier crisis involving the Force-induced plague that had afflicted Par and other Jedi Masters, investigated Grell's kidnapping with his daughter, Nadia, but the two were too late to prevent his death. Upon learning of the death of Grell, who had been an ally of the Jedi Order even after the Rift Alliance's split with the Republic, Shan convened the Council to offer the Order's condolences to Nadia and the Rift Alliance. Master Bakarn also displayed the Senator's will, which included a request that the Barsen'thor take on Nadia as a Padawan, and Shan informed the Consular that she and the Council had decided to approve Grell's request. Before ending the transmission to the Barsen'thor's ship, the Grand Master led Grell through the traditional vow to honor one's Master and the Jedi Code, and Shan then returned to her investigations of the Emperor's plans.
The Knight soon contacted Shan and relayed that the Korriban's Flame had been a trap set by a corrupted member of the strike team, Leeha Narezz, but the Jedi also learned something during the mission—the Emperor had dispatched a Sith named Fulminiss to the planet Voss, a world ruled by Force-using Mystics who rejected the Jedi Code. While the Hero and crew crossed the galaxy on their way to Voss, Shan gathered as much information as she could about the possible situation there, discovering that Fulminiss was communicating with the Emperor through an encrypted communications relay. However, the presence of several signal scramblers in the area prevented the Jedi from tracking Fulminiss' precise location, so the Grand Master sent the Hero to disable the scramblers upon arrival. The Knight pursued Fulminiss across the planet in a race to prevent him from unleashing a plague of madness upon the world, but the Hero was ultimately able to defeat the Sith Lord before his plans came to fruition. However, while the Knight was on Voss, Shan was alerted to the return of another fallen strike team member—Warren Sedoru had captured the Republic flagship Valiant and taken its commander, Admiral Dabrin, hostage in order to gather information on the Republic's war plans. Shan immediately dispatched the Hero to defeat Sedoru and rescue the admiral, and Sedoru revealed during the Knight's mission that Master Braga was on the embattled world of Corellia as the Emperor's agent.
Upon learning that only a few Jedi remained alive on Corellia, Shan immediately sent out a call to the Outer Rim and summoned as many Jedi reinforcements as possible, appointing the Hero as the Supreme Commander of all Jedi forces on the planet. Not long after the Hero's arrival on Corellia, the Barsen'thor arrived with the combined military forces of the Rift Alliance to aid the Republic. The Consular had also been able to recover a damaged holorecording of the First Son, the leader of the Children of the Emperor, and Shan was in the Jedi Archives on Tython with Master Kaedan when the Barsen'thor's crew contacted the Temple for access. Upon learning of the reason for the request, Shan immediately granted the Consular remote access to the Archives' systems. However, the recording showed a terrible truth—the First Son was none other than Syo Bakarn, Shan's friend and fellow Council member. When contacted, the First Son revealed that he had suppressed Bakarn's personality and had granted control of the fortresses known as Guardian Holds to his fellow Children, and the First Son cruelly thanked Shan and Kaedan for their gift before terminating the call. Horrified, Shan and Kaedan watched as communications with the Holds vanished, and the two Jedi Masters ordered the Barsen'thor to retake the Holds with the Alliance's forces. The Barsen'thor was successful in these efforts and also managed to defeat the First Son in a final duel, during which Bakarn broke free of the Son's control and locked the Child away within his mind. At the moment of the First Son's defeat, Shan and the rest of the Masters suddenly became aware of the presence of the Children across the galaxy—without the First Son's shield, the Children were exposed to the Jedi. Shan was also glad to hear that Bakarn had survived, and she immediately sent Jedi to retrieve her friend and return him to Tython after conveying Supreme Chancellor Leontyne Saresh's request for a meeting to the Barsen'thor.
At the same time the Barsen'thor was reclaiming the Holds, the Outer Rim Jedi under the Hero of Tython's leadership foiled each of Braga's attempts to supply the Emperor with the necessary sacrifice for his ritual, and the Hero was finally able to defeat and redeem Braga aboard the warship Eclipse above Corellia's capital of Coronet City. From Braga, the Knight learned that the Emperor was weakened and that he was in the structure known as the Dark Temple on Dromund Kaas, and Shan decided to pursue a radical course of action—while the Hero infiltrated the Imperial capital and confronted the Emperor, she would lead the Republic Navy in an all-out assault on the planet. While the Hero traveled from Corellia to the heart of the Sith Worlds, the Grand Master departed Tython and joined the invasion fleet that had been gathered at her request, and her task force arrived at Dromund Kaas and engaged the Imperial First Defense Fleet in a furious space battle. With Shan and Admiral Dabrin leading the fleet at the head of the Valiant, their ships caught the Imperial defenders by surprise and kept the planet's attention firmly on them, allowing the Hero to slip down to the surface and enter the Dark Temple with the aid of the Jedi's compatriots. Together with T7-O1, the Hero confronted and defeated the Emperor in a final battle, and the Knight immediately communicated success to Shan upon returning to the group's ship. Shan ordered an immediate withdrawal to the Colonies region.
During a ceremony aboard the Valiant, which was attended by many of the Republic's influential figures and allies of the Hero, Shan presented the Knight and crew with the Cross of Glory, the Republic's highest award, and granted the Hero the title of Jedi Master. The Grand Master then returned to Coruscant for a meeting with the Chancellor, the Barsen'thor, and the Rift Alliance, where she awarded the Jedi Master with Bakarn's vacant seat on the Jedi Council.
During the Battle of Ilum, Shan traveled to the icy world of Ilum when Darth Malgus declared his New Empire. On Ilum, Shan participated in a war council with Supreme Commander Rans, General Elin Garza, Fleet Admiral Numinn, and several other high-ranking officials in which they decided to send a small strike team to board Malgus's space station and defeat the Sith Lord.
- "Light side, dark side—these are just empty words. There are only two sides I care about: us and them. Republic or Empire!"
"It was not my intention to upset you."
"Of course not. That would mean I was showing some emotion. And we all know there is no emotion, only peace. Right?"
"Theron, I know you don't want me as part of your life. I respect your choice. But you know where to find me if you ever need my help. Reach out to me and I will be there. I promise."
- ―Theron and Satele speak for the first time as son and mother
Sometime after the battle at Dromund Kaas, Shan had begun to reside in an apartment on Coruscant, by which time Jace Malcom had been promoted to Supreme Commander of the Republic Military. Malcom soon became aware of his son, Theron, while working with the Strategic Information Service on Operation End Game, a joint operation between the military, SIS, and the Jedi Order to take down the powerful Imperial warship Ascendant Spear and its commander, Darth Karrid. Upon seeing Theron's name on an analysis report, as Theron was an agent for the SIS, Malcom attempted to reconcile with his son but was initially rebuffed. After Theron and Master Gnost-Dural returned from a mission to the planet Ziost, Shan contacted Gnost-Dural and asked him to relay a request for a meeting to Theron. Her son arrived at her apartment that night by disabling the perimeter sensors and climbing up the wall of the building, though Shan was aware of his presence and left the balcony doors open. Despite Theron's initial hostility, Shan expressed her pride in her son's accomplishments, and she attempted to warn Theron about Malcom's desire to destroy the Empire, but Theron grew angry with her and departed. Upon her son's departure, Shan allowed herself to experience the painful memories of her split with Malcom, and she reminded herself of her choice to give up a chance at a family in service of the Republic.
A few days later, the Coruscant Security Force called Shan to Diplomatic Spaceport 27-B, where a young Twi'lek female was holding a CSF officer hostage after the police had attempted to arrest her upon arrival—for she had landed in the Prosperity, the shuttle that Theron and Gnost-Dural had taken on their most recent mission. The young woman had forced the CSF officers to contact the Grand Master, and Shan immediately knew that she was telling the truth when the Twi'lek informed her that Theron had sent her to deliver a message. At Shan's apartment, the Twi'lek Teff'ith explained Theron's message: Malcom planned to sacrifice the planet Duro to the Imperial Moff Nezzor to prevent the Empire from realizing that the Republic had one of its black cipher encryption devices, and Theron and Gnost-Dural intended to prevent this by boarding the Ascendant Spear, which the two would ensure went to Duro. As a result, Theron needed his mother to convince his father to send the Republic fleet to Duro—and Malcom was furious to learn that Theron had told Shan about his plans when she called him in the middle of the night and arrive at his apartment.
Remaining calm throughout their entire conversation as the man she loved grew even angrier with her, Shan worked to convince Malcom to listen to their son, and her statement that Malcom had forgotten the difference between the Empire and the Republic cut deep. Shan acknowledged that Malcom was still a good man despite his hate and anger, and she revealed that her choice to hide Theron from his father might have been the wrong one. Teff'ith's interruption brought the pair back to the matter of Duro, and Satele's request that Malcom have faith in their son was the final argument that convinced the Supreme Commander to accept Theron's plan. Shan then shot down Malcom's objections and insisted that she was coming to Duro with him, and the two boarded Malcom's flagship, Aegis, within an hour along with Teff'ith. Nine hours later, Shan was on the bridge with Malcom and Teff'ith when Moff Nezzor's fleet arrived, and she watched as Malcom and his subordinate Admiral Gorwin pounded the Extempus and the rest of the Imperial fleet. Just as Malcom's ships finished destroying the Extempus and preventing its suicide run on one of Duro's orbital cities, Shan sensed the impending arrival of Darth Karrid and alerted the bridge mere seconds before the Ascendant Spear dropped out of hyperspace on the edge of the Duro system.
The Ascendant Spear's initial attempts to attack the Aegis were hindered by Theron's slicing efforts aboard the Imperial warship, but the Republic fleet scored relatively few hits on the vessel before Karrid assumed control again and took out 30 percent of the Aegis's shields in a single hit. As the battle continued, Shan watched as Malcom withdrew his fleet to a position where it could not inflict lasting damage on the Ascendant Spear but one that also prevented Karrid from completely destroying the Republic fleet in a single attack. Karrid's Force-enhanced mental control over the Ascendant Spear was lessened when Gnost-Dural engaged her apprentices in a duel and deprived her of their strength in the Force, but as the Ascendant Spear drew close enough for its long-range weaponry to attack the Aegis, Shan and the rest of the bridge were plunged into darkness when Malcom ordered the vessel to divert all power to the shields from everything except the sensors and life support. As Karrid's attack pounded away at the shields, Shan and Malcom held hands as they prepared for the Aegis's destruction.
However, the Republic fleet was spared the Ascendant Spear's wrath when Theron succeeded in separating Karrid from its controls, leaving the vessel dead in space as its commander, Moff Lorman, struggled to decide whether to assume control or wait for Karrid to take back the ship. The bridge crew of the Aegis waited in silence for Karrid's attack, but Malcom soon realized that the Ascendant Spear was vulnerable and ordered the entire fleet to attack. As the fleet pounded away at the defenseless warship, Theron succeeded in killing Karrid, and he and Gnost-Dural fled to the escape pods when Karrid's apprentices withdrew to save themselves. Shan and Malcom watched as the Ascendant Spear was consumed by a hypermatter explosion, but the entire bridge realized that the ship's destruction might have also killed both Theron and Gnost-Dural. Fortunately for Shan and Malcom, the missing duo hailed the Aegis from one of the escape pods and were quickly brought aboard the vessel. Both parents were overjoyed to see their son alive, though they contained their emotions in front of the Aegis's crew and confined themselves to congratulatory remarks.
Three days later, Shan attended a debriefing in Malcom's office with Gnost-Dural and SIS director Marcus Trant, with neither Shan nor Malcom having spoken to their son or one another other than an earlier ceremony in which Theron, Gnost-Dural, and Teff'ith were awarded the Cross of Glory. Both Shan and Malcom were disappointed that Theron failed to show up to the debriefing, but Shan remained behind afterward to speak with Malcom, reassuring him that their son would seek them out when he was ready. Shan then departed after holding Malcom's shoulder for a moment to convey her sadness for what was lost.
- Theron Shan: "The fourth moon of Yavin. That's where we'll find Revan. He wanted me to join him there… never said I couldn't bring a few friends."
- Lana Beniko: "According to our data, he still has extensive forces at his disposal. We would stand a better chance of overcoming them together."
- Satele Shan: "No matter what evidence I present, I doubt the Supreme Chancellor will agree to any kind of alliance or truce."
- Darth Marr: "Neither will the Dark Council. But my ships and the soldiers aboard them are loyal to me."
- Satele Shan: "I can convince my troops to maintain a truce. They've seen Revan's threat firsthand."
- ―Darth Marr and Satele Shan forge a truce[src]
That same year, the Hutt Cartel invaded the planet Makeb, and Shan and the Jedi Council meditated on the invasion to determine more information on it. Through its meditation, the Council came to believe that the conquest of Makeb was a stepping stone to a full-fledged Hutt expansion. As a result of the Hutt transgression, Supreme Chancellor Leontyne Saresh arranged to meet a Republic operative aboard Keylander Station above Makeb, a council in which Shan and Malcom participated via hologram. At Saresh's request, the Grand Master communicated the Council's findings on the Hutts' intentions. When Tython was attacked later that year, Shan was off-planet, serving as an emissary to the Drayvos League. Shan also visited the moon Oricon, fortress world of the powerful Dread Masters, and witnessed the powerful presence of the dark side there.
Not long afterward, fleets from both the Republic and the Empire collided in battle above the planet Rishi, and Shan commanded the fleet of Republic ships from the bridge of the flagship Dauntless. The two fleets had been lured there by the Order of Revan, whose pirate allies, the Nova Blades, had manipulated Republic and Imperial patrol routes in order to force a confrontation between the two. The battle was complicated by the presence of Revanite ships that attacked both sides and Revanite saboteurs aboard both fleets, and a signal jammer on Rishi prevented communication among the combatants. However, an independent group of Republic and Imperial agents brought down the jammer and contacted Shan and the Imperial commander, Darth Marr, warning them of the Revanites' involvement. The two sides agreed to a ceasefire and met in the town of Raider's Cove on Rishi, where Shan found her son, Theron, to be one of the allied operatives who had exposed the Revanites' plot. Theron's group revealed to Shan and Marr that Revan himself was alive and leading the Revanites and that he sought to bring the Sith Emperor back to a physical form on the moon of Yavin 4 in order to permanently kill the Emperor. Faced with the threat of the power-mad Emperor returned to his full strength, Shan and Marr agreed to a temporary truce between their two fleets and set off for the Yavin system.
Shan and Marr established a command post for their coalition on Yavin's surface and coordinated their forces with Theron and his allies, the Sith Lana Beniko and the Wookiee smuggler Jakarro. However, they soon found that their forces, while not in open conflict, were unable to trust one another, and so decided to establish a neutral sensor perimeter past the intermingled forces holding a perimeter around the command post. While on Yavin, both Shan and Marr confirmed the Emperor's presence but also sensed a faint and unique light side presence hidden among the residual energies of past Sith, though they were unable to pinpoint the location. The coalitions' sensors soon identified a series of ransacked structures that were mixtures of ancient and modern materials, and Marr was able to determine that the structures were the long-rumored Imperial Guard Academy. Coalition forces investigated and brought back the insane Commandant Iven, whose interrogation revealed Revan's plans—the nearby Temple of Sacrifice held a powerful Sith artifact that could consume all life on Yavin 4, fueling the Emperor's restoration. However, the coalition forces also encountered the spirit of the real Revan, who was unable to identify the person wearing his mask and leading the Revanites.
Under Shan and Marr's command, the coalition forces stormed the Temple, overwhelming the Revanites. Along with Theron, Marr, and a number of other Republic and Imperial heroes, Shan confronted her ancestor in the Temple before he began the ritual to restore the Emperor—but when they accused him of being an impostor, "Revan" removed his mask to reveal that he was, in fact, the legendary Force-user. In the battle that followed, the Grand Master held herself back to make use of battle meditation, sharing strength with her allies in the fight against Revan, and her power-mad ancestor was ultimately defeated. To the surprise of everyone present, a booming laugh rang out, and a blast of dark side energy rushed into the sky from the Temple: The Emperor, revealing that the battle on the moon had restored his strength, declared his intentions to retake the galaxy and vanished without taking a physical form.
Revan's spirit arrived in the aftermath of the battle, and the coalition learned the truth: Revan had died at the Foundry, but the mental torture that he had undergone at the Emperor's hands had caused Revan to split into two rather than die. Part of him joined with the Force, but his darker half had refused to die. The spirit Revan reabsorbed the dark Revan, causing Revan's body to vanish as he became one with the Force. With Revan's defeat, the coalition dissolved, though a truce remained in effect while the Republic and the Empire withdrew their forces. Before leaving the moon, Shan and her son spoke with a number of Republic heroes who had fought alongside the coalition against Revan, including the Hero of Tython and the Barsen'thor. After conferring with the Council, Shan appointed the Hero as the Order's newest Battlemaster and tasked the Barsen'thor with investigating the sources of the Emperor's power and his plans. Shan also spoke with the commander of the elite Havoc Squad; a new joint task force was being formed by the Jedi, the SIS, and the military with the intent of hunting down the Emperor, and Jace Malcom recommended the commander be made the task force's primary military advisor. The Grand Master was also present when Theron spoke with a renowned Republic-allied smuggler about working for the SIS.
Not long after the battle against Revan, the Sith Emperor consumed all life on the planet Ziost and then disappeared into the Unknown Regions. Shortly after a series of raids by an unknown third party against both the Republic and the Empire, a disturbance in the Force emanated from the Unknown Regions, sending ripples through the Force that were felt by all of the Force-sensitives who had felt the Sith Emperor's presence before. The source was the death of the Force entity's host body, and shortly afterwards the mysterious enemy—the Eternal Empire—invaded the galaxy in force, conquering both the Republic and Sith Empire in short order. The Jedi Order was scattered in the conflict, and the Grand Master disappeared into a meditative exile. In 3632 BBY, she was visited by the Force ghost of Darth Marr, and the two discussed how they could sense the presence of the former Emperor—now known as Valkorion. However, they were unsure how or why Valkorion had not assumed a physical form or taken a new host body. Some time later, Shan made her way to the remote and Force-strong planet Odessen, where she watched from afar as the figure known as the Outlander established a new Alliance against the Eternal Empire and built a base there.
By the time of the Galactic Empire, 3,600 years later, Shan was commemorated by Satele Shan Boulevard, a street on Coruscant. The street was located in the Pyochayarit district of Coruscant's Azda Cluster region, and the publishing company Anooba Press operated from a building on Satele Shan Boulevard.
Personality and traits
- "We're not going to hold them off. We're going to push past them, and march to the black heart of our enemy! We fight for our homelands, and for our freedom—may the Force be with us!"
- ―Shan rallies the troops on Rhen Var
A Human female with fair skin and blue-gray eyes, Satele Shan wore her brown-black hair cut short for most of her life. Shan sported bangs on either side of her face as a teen, though she later replaced them with a pair of braided ponytails. Shan was a relatively short woman, though she radiated a sense of power, confidence, and resolute calm throughout her life that was far beyond her short stature. In her youth, Shan—who preferred to be addressed by her first name, even as a Jedi Master—inherited her ancestor Bastila's impatience and impetuousness, though those aspects of her personality were later tempered under the tutelage of Master Dar'Nala. Shan was a powerful presence on the battlefield, and her reputation as one of the greatest heroes of the Republic was directly inspired by her actions in the Battle of Alderaan.
As a Jedi Knight, Shan was sworn to serve the Republic, and her devotion to her cause and her selflessness drove her to give up the chance at a normal life and a family when she had her son, Theron. This same sense of duty, coupled with her fear of the dark side's corrupting influence, had caused her to break off her relationship with Theron's father several months earlier. Shan recognized that she would do everything in her power to protect her son, and, coupled with the powers and responsibilities she possessed as a Jedi and a Republic hero, she believed the risk was too great and therefore gave Theron to Ngani Zho. Zho himself was a paternal figure to Shan, who felt that he was the only person she could trust enough to tell about her pregnancy. Of all of his many students, Zho felt that Shan was the one who made him the most proud, and she was greatly saddened by her Master's passing. However, despite her Jedi teachings and devotion to placing the galaxy's needs above her own, Shan deeply regretted ending her relationship with Jace Malcom and giving up her son, and the memories that were dredged up after meeting her son as his mother for the first time were still painful even twenty-six years later.
By the end of the Great Galactic War, Shan was still struggling with her impatience and strongly distrusted the Sith, leading her to aggressively attack Darth Baras when she discovered that the Sith's peace negotiations were a sham. However, over the course of the next few weeks, Shan was confronted with the hypocrisy of her former Master Dar'Nala's efforts to disrupt the Treaty of Coruscant and realized how Dar'Nala herself had become consumed by the very emotions that she had taught Shan to resist. As a result, Shan came to believe that the current peace was the best possible thing for the galaxy at the time and dedicated herself to doing good as she traveled the galaxy after the end of the war. As a Jedi Master and later Grand Master, Shan possessed a warm demeanor and an approachable personality, holding herself equal to even the youngest Padawans of the Order. However, Shan's outward attitude belied her true determination and strength of will, and the sense of authority that her voice conveyed could bring even the Supreme Commander of the Republic Military to a halt. Shan was renowned for her wisdom and considered by many to be the Order's voice and conscience, and her prowess in battle and experience with the dangers of the dark side made her both a wise teacher and a powerful warrior.
- "I saw the war change you. I saw you heading down a path I could not follow. I tried to help you, but I realized I was only being dragged down with you."
"So you abandoned me."
"I thought our feelings for each other were making things worse. I was afraid if you knew you had a son, your desire to protect him at any cost would take you even farther down that dark path."
"Is that how you really see me? As some kind of monster?"
"I do not always agree with your decisions, but I know you are a good man. Hate and anger are part of you, but they have not consumed you. I used to believe that was because of what I had done. Turning away from you, hiding your son from you—I used to tell myself these actions saved you from yourself."
- ―Shan and Jace
Shan first met Jace Malcom when she came to Korriban to study under Kao Cen Darach, and the two escaped the Sith Empire's return with the help of Nico Okarr. The two had other experiences together over the next fourteen years, during which Malcom made clear that he had feelings for her ever since they first met. However, Shan resisted reciprocating those feelings until the aftermath of the Battle of Alderaan, where she acknowledged that she felt the same way and began a romantic relationship that lasted for six months. That relationship ended when Shan, worried over the growing darkness within Malcom's spirit and his desire for revenge against the Empire, broke it off after confronting him over his reasons for waging war and decided not to inform him of her pregnancy.
Shan's trepidation over Malcom's closeness to the dark side kept them apart for over two decades, and their few interactions were relatively cordial. However, when Malcom discovered the existence of Theron, Shan and Malcom were forced to reconcile over their decisions and actions in the past. Shan deeply regretted that she could not pursue their relationship, but, during the battle at Duro, both she and Malcom were glad that they did not have to die alone—though thanks to their son, the pair's impending death was averted. In the days after Duro, both Shan and Malcom gradually came to terms with the status of their relationship, and both understood that they could not allow their feelings to interfere with their responsibilities as Grand Master and Supreme Commander.
- "You are going to raise him. You should chose his name."
"You're his mother. His name should come from you."
"Theron. His name is Theron."
- ―Satele Shan and Ngani Zho
Shan bore her son, Theron, during the Great Galactic War but, upon viewing her child for the first time, realized that she would have done anything to protect her son, even if it meant danger to the galaxy, and so she gave Theron to Ngani Zho. Shan did not see Theron again for over twenty years, and when she finally did meet her son, it was when Theron—by then an SIS agent—was bringing his mother news of Zho's death. Neither openly acknowledged their relationship during their conversation, though they were both aware of each others' identities. A few years later, when Theron participated in Operation End Game, a covert mission organized by his father, Jace Malcom, Shan contacted her son and asked to speak with him. Shan was proud of her son's accomplishments and loved him deeply, but her attempts to warn Theron about his father's dark desire to destroy the Empire only angered her son.
Shan's relationship with Theron complicated her relationship with Malcom, who had been unaware of his child's existence until Operation End Game, but she trusted Theron's judgment and was willing to stand up to Malcom in order to help Theron. Both she and Malcom were overjoyed to see Theron survive the battle at Duro, though they managed to contain their emotions in public. Shan did not speak with Theron in the days following Duro, but she remained confident that her son would reach out to his parents when he was ready.
Powers and abilities
- "She does have the gift, Master Zym, just like Bastila did. I'm sure of it."
- ―Dar'Nala, regarding Shan's lineage
As the descendant of Revan and Bastila Shan, two of their generation's most powerful Jedi, Satele Shan was incredibly strong in the Force. Shan was skilled with the use of telekinesis, and her strength with such abilities even as a Jedi Knight was enough for her to bring down an entire mountain on top of Darth Malgus during their battle. She was also able to dismantle the door to Darth Mekhis' fortress using the Force and was skilled enough with tutaminis abilities to block a lightsaber blade with her bare hands without injuring herself. Shan's powers continued to grow over her lifetime; by the Battle of Rhen Var, she was able to destroy a blast door simply by using the Force to break it into pieces. During the incident on Sebaddon, she dismantled hex droids with a mere gesture, when the droids proved more than a match for other Jedi and Sith alone.
Throughout her life, Shan was known for her affinity for foresight—she predicted the arrival of the Sith Empire at Korriban, and her ability to view the future grew stronger over the course of her life. By the time of the renewed war with the Sith, many Jedi believed that the Grand Master could change the future simply by predicting it. Shan was also an accomplished telepath, to the point that she could both read the minds of others and communicate in full sentences with them. She could influence the biological components of more than half a dozen hexes to keep them at bay, though Shan could not influence the hexes and maintain a Force shield strong enough to seal in the air around her at the same time for long. Shan's Master Dar'Nala suspected that she had inherited her ancestor Bastila's skill with battle meditation, and Shan was well-versed in the art of battle meditation by the time of the Galactic War, when she used it to support her allies in the battle against the returned Revan. The Grand Master also developed a strong bond with her apprentice through the Force, which allowed her to sense Konshi's emotions from halfway across the galaxy.
Trained by the Order's Battlemaster, Kao Cen Darach, Shan was exceptionally skilled with the use of both a normal lightsaber and a double-bladed lightsaber. In combat, Shan was an agile fighter who utilized acrobatics to both evade her opponents and quickly strike them down. During the battle of Alderaan, Shan was able to cut down four Sith Warriors effortlessly and hold her own against the powerful Darth Malgus, the killer of Shan's own master. Although Shan fought well Malgus proved to be the superior lightsaber duelist, destroying her double-bladed lightsaber before being caught off guard by Jace Malcome and overwhelmed by Shan's astonishing Force powers. 
Shan typically wore tight-fitting combat attire of an olive-brown color with gold trimmings, and she also sported an armband on her upper left arm that had a piece of metal affixed to it. She also donned more traditional Jedi robes of dark brown on occasion, and she frequently wore brown gloves that covered most of her forearm in silver or gray armor plating. She utilized a blue-bladed saberstaff in the years before the Great Galactic War, though it was destroyed when Darach utilized it and his own blade in battle with Vindican and Malgus. By the year 3667 BBY, Shan was utilizing a second blue-bladed saberstaff, though she again lost this weapon when Malgus cut it in half during the Battle of Alderaan. She quickly constructed another blue double-bladed saber, though she eventually exchanged it for a single-blade green lightsaber sometime during the Cold War and utilized that weapon during the Sebaddon affair in 3643 BBY. However, Shan exchanged it for another double-bladed saber by the time of the conflict with the Flesh Raiders not long afterward.
Behind the scenes
- "For me, Master Satele Shan = Cassandra + Joan of Arc + Elizabeth I + Oracle from 'The Matrix' + President Laura Roslyn."
- ―BioWare writer Hall Hood
Satele Shan first appeared in the 2009 webcomic Star Wars: The Old Republic, Threat of Peace, a prelude to the BioWare–LucasArts video game Star Wars: The Old Republic. The comics, which were drawn by Alex Sanchez, hinted at the possibility of Satele being the descendant of Bastila Shan and Revan, both of whom were major characters in BioWare's 2003 video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, though it was not until the release of her entry in the official site's Holonet section that her relation to Bastila was confirmed. The entry, which has since been taken offline along with the rest of the Biographies section, featured several messages in Aurebesh in the background. The first, "Jedi exiled her mother," was a reference to Tasiele Shan, though Tasiele and her history were not explained until the release of the Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia in 2012. The second, "a secret son," was a reference to Satele's son, Theron, who was a main character in the comic story arc Star Wars: The Old Republic—The Lost Suns. Finally, the message "Blood of Revan" further hinted at Shan's relation to Revan, though it was not officially confirmed until the release of Drew Karpyshyn's tie-in novel The Old Republic: Revan in 2011 that Revan and Bastila had a child, Vaner Shan.
Satele Shan features prominently in Star Wars: The Old Republic, appearing in both the Jedi Consular and Jedi Knight classes as well as many of the Flashpoint group missions. According to the game's text files, Shan's role in the Black Talon Flashpoint was originally filled by a "Master Tannar Va." In Star Wars: The Old Republic, Shan is voiced by Jennifer Hale, who also performed the voice of Bastila Shan in Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Shan's appearance in the game and its trailers is based on a 3-D rendering of a model named Sno E. Blac. Shan is one of the few characters from the Old Republic era to be made into a LEGO minifigure, as she appears in the Republic Striker Starfighter set. The set includes a red Liberator-class starfighter variant known as the Striker; minifigures for T7-O1 and Jace Malcom, although he is identified only as "Republic Trooper"; and a minifigure of Shan in the outfit that she wore in both the Return and Hope trailers.
The game was originally believed to occur approximately three decades after the events of Threat of Peace, though it was eventually confirmed that the correct beginning date was actually ten years after. Shan also appeared in Hope, the second cinematic trailer for The Old Republic, released on June 14, 2010. Her physical appearance in the trailer was drastically different than in Threat of Peace, leading many fans to dispute those who claimed that Shan was indeed the Jedi from the trailer. However, BioWare writer Alexander Freed confirmed in a post on the official site that it was indeed Shan, explaining that the character's appearance had not yet been finalized in-game at the time of the comic's release. She appeared again in the third trailer, Return, released on June 6, 2011, which she also narrated. However, the reference guide The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural, which was released concurrently with The Old Republic, depicted the events of Threat of Peace with Shan's correct appearance from the game and the trailers.
Shan also made an appearance in the novel The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance, released on July 20, 2010, in which she served as the archetype character for the Jedi Knight class. The novel introduced Shan's Padawan, Shigar Konshi, though to date Konshi and many of the other characters in the novel have not appeared anywhere else in The Old Republic metaseries. The fourth book in the novel series, The Old Republic: Annihilation, was released on November 13, 2012 and greatly expanded on the backstories of Shan; her son, Theron; and the Special Forces soldier Jace Malcom, who had appeared alongside Shan in both Hope and Return. The novel revealed that Malcom was Theron's father, as he and Shan began a relationship after the events of Hope that resulted in her pregnancy. However, Annihilation contradicts the Encyclopedia and the game itself by stating that Shan was a Jedi Master in 3666 BBY, when, in fact, she was granted the title of Master following her rediscovery of Tython.
- "The Old Republic: The Third Lesson"—Star Wars Insider 124 (Mentioned only)
- (Mentioned only)
- The Old Republic: Deceived
- Star Wars: The Old Republic, Threat of Peace (First appearance)
- The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance
- Star Wars: The Old Republic
- Star Wars: The Old Republic—The Lost Suns 1 (Appears in flashback(s))
- Star Wars: The Old Republic—The Lost Suns 2 (Appears in flashback(s))
- Star Wars: The Old Republic—The Lost Suns 4 (Appears in flashback(s))
- Star Wars: The Old Republic—The Lost Suns 5
- The Old Republic: Annihilation
- Star Wars: The Old Republic: Rise of the Hutt Cartel
- Star Wars: The Old Republic: Galactic Strongholds (Statue)
- Star Wars: The Old Republic: Shadow of Revan
- (Mentioned only)
- Star Wars: The Old Republic: Knights of the Fallen Empire
- "Blaster"—Star Wars Insider 110 (Picture only)
- "Bantha Tracks"—Star Wars Insider 120 (Picture only)
- "Blaster"—Star Wars Insider 124
- "Blaster"—Star Wars Insider 126
- The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Old Republic
- The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural
- Star Wars: The Ultimate Visual Guide: Updated and Expanded
- LEGO Star Wars Expanded Universe
- The Essential Reader's Companion
- Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia
- "Blaster"—Star Wars Insider 137
- The Bounty Hunter Code: From the Files of Boba Fett