Dark Jedi in order to bring about the rebirth of the Galactic Empire
, but the children defeated their captor.
Jedi Academy years
In the
Tenel Ka
.
In
Nightsisters
. These elements of the so-called Second Imperium kidnap Jacen, Jaina and Lowbacca, but they resist the dark side and are rescued by Luke Skywalker and Tenel Ka.
The friends return to Coruscant for a short vacation, and are reunited with the twins' childhood friend
Zekk
. They are forced to fight Jacen and Jaina several times, and the twins and their friends finally progress far enough to be tasked with building their first lightsabers. Jacen uses a corusca gem he had gained earlier for his focusing crystal.
Jacen's hard-learned lesson hits home once again in
Lightsabers
, when Tenel Ka rushes to complete her lightsaber to keep up with her friends. She uses an imperfect crystal and her blade shorts out in a sparring match with Jacen. His lightsaber passes through thin air where her weapon had been seconds before and severs the young woman's arm. Though she bears him no ill will for the accident, Jacen is wracked with guilt.
In
Jedi Under Siege, the Jedi trainees and the Shadow Academy have their final confrontation on Yavin 4
. The twins, with help from Luke and Zekk, bring down the Shadow Academy and the Second Imperium forever.
Throughout the series, Jacen and Jaina continue their training at
General Evir Derricote almost two decades before. Tarkona wishes to unleash a plague
against humans and wipe them all out, but the Jedi and Alliance dissidents defeat her. She succumbs to one of the diseases herself on a faraway planet. Bornan Thul dies from one of the plagues right before his son's eyes.
In
Return to Ord Mantell, they go on a trip with their father to the titular planet to watch a race. There, they run into Czethros, a bounty hunter who once hunted Han. They are ambushed by Black Sun
agents, but are helped by Anja Gallandro, a young woman who wields a lightsaber, though she is not a Jedi. Although attracted to Tenel Ka, Jacen becomes infatuated with the older woman. Anja had blamed Han Solo for killing her father, but Solo reveals that her father died in a trap while finding treasure.
In
New Republic. Jacen, Tenel Ka, and Lowbacca are ambushed by several Black Sun mercenaries
, and Jacen is almost killed.
In
Kessel
and capture Czetheros while Jacen rushes to help Anja with her spice addiction and help her with Black Sun. With help, Anja beats her addiction and accepts her father's death. Jacen thinks Anja has Jedi potential, but it turns out she didn't. He gets over his infatuation with Anja when she goes to work for Lando.
Yuuzhan Vong War
In the
New Jedi Order series, Luke takes Jacen as his Jedi apprentice. Jacen learns much from Luke, though they disagree on many philosophical issues. Jacen believes in the Force not only as a tool, but as part of something greater. He tells his brother Anakin that the Force is a guide to find one's place in destiny
.
When the
Dark Tide: Onslaught
, Jacen comes to believe that many Jedi are handling the threat too aggressively. He abandons his powers temporarily to contemplate the Force and butts heads with his father over the morality of 'pirate' attacks on Peace Brigade vessels. Only his love for his mother brings Jacen back into the front lines of the battle. Eventually, Han and Jacen make their peace, the former declaring that while he doesn't always understand his son, he is proud of him.
In
Nom Anor
. Jacen disappears, along with his presence in the Force.
In
Anakin Skywalker
.
He is put to work on Yuuzhan Vong ship, where he uses a number of herbs to heal slaves and get his captors to trust him. Using the implanted slave seed beneath his flesh as a conduit, Jacen communicates with the living instruments of Yuuzhan Vong technology. He uses this connection to stage a daring escape from captivity, commanding Yuuzhan Vong
amphistaffs
to surround him like living armor.
Jacen and Vergere flee to Coruscant. The planet's entire surface is undergoing a radical transformation. Yuuzhan Vong organic growths cover the once gleaming metropolis, remaking the planet into a Yuuzhan Vong paradise. The world is to be their new capital, a recreation of the planet that had spawned them, Yuuzhan'tar.
Vergere removes the slave seed from Jacen, but he can still sense the Yuuzhan Vong. Jacen is later surrounded by Yuuzhan Vong warriors whom Vergere had led to him. Wanting revenge, Jacen channels his hatred for Vergere into Force lightning; he is frightened by this connection to the dark side, however, and runs away. Vergere finds him in his destroyed home and gives him back full use of the Force. He is once again surrounded by Yuuzhan Vong captors; left with no choice, he surrenders and agrees to join their cause. He becomes the "khattazz al'Yun," or Avatar of God. Nom Anor intends to use Jacen to sacrifice Jaina, thus fulfilling an ancient Yuuzhan Vong prophecy.
Jacen's true allegiance is his own, however. During a test of Jacen's faith, the Yuuzhan Vong orders him to sacrifice captured Jedi Ganner Rhysode. Instead, the two Jedi turn against their captors. As Ganner holds off the Yuuzhan Vong, Jacen confronts the World Brain. The malevolent entity remembers the bond that Jacen had forged earlier, and Jacen suggests to it to work against the Yuuzhan Vong.
Ganner dies that day, though Jacen escapes with Vergere. He returns to the dwindling New Republic territories a different man: haggard, thin and hardened. He goes on a much needed vacation, but returns to frontline combat aboard the cruiser Ralroost. His ability to start the Jedi Meld is a large asset to
Garm Bel Iblis's forces in a large-scale deception at Ebaq 9
. The battle ends in a victory, but results in Vergere's death. Her spectral form appears to him soon after.
As the newly formed Galactic Alliance emerged, Jacen accompanied his uncle Luke Skywalker into the
Supreme Overlord Shimrra
as a puppet, in a spectacular confrontation where the Force uses Jacen as a conduit to defeat Onimi, considering that Jacen was almost killed with just one hit by Shimrra himself, and in that moment Jacen started believing that he is beyond good and evil, marking the beginning of his fall. After the grueling final confrontation and the war's end, Jacen tells Luke that he had decided to travel the galaxy to learn more about the Force.
While on his five-year journey Jacen enters a realm of the Force known as beyond shadows, thanks to his training with a sect called the Mind Walkers.
In this realm Jacen gazes into the Pool of Knowledge that holds the Throne of Balance, (where in all future events are shown)
Jacen sees a dark man ruling the Galaxy and becomes determined to prevent this evil future.
Following this experience, Jacen begins his descent to the dark side of the Force.
Dark Nest Crisis
In
Chiss
force. He returns to Republic space after his parents, resulting in his uncle and aunt to come for him, Jaina, and the other Jedi. He then travels to the Hapes Cluster to ask Tenel Ka to assist with the Chiss/Killik conflict, believing that the fleet could act as a buffer between the two armies. She obliges and sends a fleet of Hapan Battle Dragons to protect the Killiks.
In
Gorog. Jacen successfully repels the attack and keeps his daughter safe. Possessed with a strong fear of his daughter or Tenel Ka being harmed, Jacen uses the Force to send Tenel Ka's grandmother (the person behind the attack) into a coma
. Immediately afterward, he sees a vision of a neverending war that will destroy the galaxy, with the Killiks at the heart of it. Determined to save his daughter and the galaxy from his vision, he sets out to provoke the Chiss into destroying the Killiks. Jacen later reveals that he never knew who started the war in his vision.
In
Lomi Plo, the Dark Queen of the Gorog. Jacen, Mara and Luke know that doubt and fear would make Lomi Plo invisible to her enemy. Jacen, along with R2-D2
, helps Luke conquer some of his fears about Mara's involvement with the death of his mother, and then accompanies him to face Plo.
During the fight with Plo, Luke falters for a moment when Mara is injured, and doubt enters his mind. Plo then holds him in place, unable to move. In that instant, Jacen is critically wounded by Plo while saving Mara Skywalker's life. A well-placed shot from Mara injures Plo, after which Mara tends to Jacen's wounds. While he and Mara recover, Jacen beseeches Luke to embrace his darker emotions. Luke refuses and goes back to the true Jedi way, defeating the Dark Queen and Raynar Thul without using the dark side.
In the latter novel, Jacen joins his uncle in watching holovideos of his grandparents,
). Jacen actually sympathizes with Anakin's desire to protect his wife, and reminds Luke that Anakin was a fallible human being.
Legacy of the Force
In
Thrackan Sal-Solo
is trying to use to his advantage. Ben disables the station while Jacen keeps Thrackan busy, ensuring the Galactic Alliance's partial victory as another fleet built in secret spoils the main attack.
While travelling to a subterranean base, Ben and Nelani, a Jedi Knight, are forced out of a mining car. Their guide, Brisha Syo creates a dark side phantom of Luke Skywalker, who attacks and very nearly kills Jacen. Eventually, Brisha stops the projections and takes Jacen to an office, where Darth Vectivus, the supposed Sith Lord they are hunting, lives. After fighting Force projections with Ben, Nelani catches up with them. Brisha is revealed to be
Dark Lady of the Sith
. She reveals that Vergere is a Sith apprentice, and that Jacen has already received Sith training. Lumiya says that Jacen is going to become the next Sith Lord. Unsure of his next move, Jacen uses the Force to create visions of the future. In each vision in which Lumiya is arrested, the galaxy is consumed in an endless war that eventually places Jacen against Luke. In the vision, Jacen kills his uncle.
Horrified, Jacen spares Lumiya. Nelani then tries to arrest the Sith, but Jacen intervenes. Jacen realizes that Nelani will, if allowed to survive, possibly fulfill the dark vision he had seen. He then fights and kills her, asking her forgiveness before striking the fatal blow. He agrees to consider what Lumiya had said and leaves the asteroid with an unconscious Ben. Jacen then erases Ben's memories of Lumiya and tells him that both she and Nelani had been killed by dark side phantoms. They return to Coruscant; however, after Jacen departs, Lumiya says that she had won.
Fully pledged to Lumiya, Jacen becomes head of the GFFA's newly formed
's daughter), Jacen tries to use the Force to extract information from her and kills her accidentally in the process.
Jacen also takes command of Rogue Squadron while it participates in the blockade of Corellia. He shoots down a civilian freighter that was attempting to run the blockade, and had fired on him, then relieves his sister from duty because she had refused to do it. He also uses the Anakin Solo to fire upon the Millennium Falcon, while both his sister and his parents are on board. He believes his parents to have been involved in a failed attempt to assassinate Tenel Ka; the Solos had in fact been set up by Dur Gejjen, Prime Minister of Corellia.
In
Sith name
Darth Caedus.
By
Fury
, Darth Caedus is the principal antagonist of the series, and the declared enemy of nearly every other major character: His parents and sister have disowned him, Luke is sworn to redeem him, and Ben is driven to seek justice for his mother. In the novel, Caedus kidnaps Allana so Tenel Ka and the Hapans won't decide to leave the government, but Han, Leia, Luke, Jaina, Ben, and their allies save Allana. After saving Allana, Leia tells Caedus to become a Jedi again, but he refuses. Han and Leia later find out Allana is Caedus and Tenel Ka's child. At the end, Jaina plans to have training from Boba Fett to help her face off against Caedus, despite her parents once being foes with Fett.
In
Mandalorian
mercenaries and together, owing to Daala's experimental weapons, they send the Galactic Alliance Fleet into retreat.
Caedus then takes control of Coruscant and claims sole control of the Galactic Alliance.
In
Mandalorian
commandos, confronts Caedus, who quickly dispatches the Mandalorians, while Jaina acts as a sniper. When she finally runs out of ammunition, she seizes a Mandalorian saber and severs Caedus' arm. Jaina withdraws, however, due to her own injuries. After escaping an attack led by Luke Skywalker on the bridge of the Anakin Solo, Caedus sees a vision of his daughter Allana on a white throne in a time of peace. This vision convinces Caedus that he has won — he would bring peace to the galaxy, and prevent his visions of war and suffering from coming true.
At the book's climax, Caedus and Jaina face off in a final lightsaber duel aboard Caedus' flagship, the Anakin Solo. In the midst of the duel, Caedus comes back to the light and attempts to persuade Jaina of his intentions to protect Tenel Ka and Allana. Jaina refuses to listen, however, and attacks him after he deactivates and holsters his lightsaber. She later slams the door shut in his face when he tries to leave the fight. After a grueling battle in which both are seriously injured, Jacen is defeated when Jaina severs his Achilles tendon and stabs him in the heart. As he dies, Jacen reaches out to both his former lover and his child through the Force, warning them to flee from an approaching bio-warfare attack designed by the Imperial Remnant to kill them. In this act of selflessness, Jaina sees the remnants of the good man her brother had once been. Following Caedus's death and the war's end, the Galactic Alliance emerges victorious over the Confederation and peace is restored to the galaxy, just as Jacen had foreseen through a vision in the Force.
Fate of the Jedi
Though Jacen makes few true appearances in the
negligence of duty and is sentenced to a ten-year exile
, in which alongside his son Ben, he tries to ascertain the circumstances of how and why Jacen turned to the dark side.
Jacen's spirit makes its first appearance in
Abyss, wherein he warns Luke and Ben about Abeloth
, the main antagonist of the series.
Then, in the final novel
Darth Krayt
in the final battle against Abeloth. Following Abeloth's destruction, Jacen reveals that Krayt was the dark figure he saw in his vision of the future and the source of his downfall; he saw his daughter Allana standing next to Krayt. In response, Krayt insists that while Caedus's actions simply delayed the Sith, and they are eventually going to succeed in their planned takeover of the galaxy.
In aiding the Jedi against Abeloth, Jacen posthumously redeems himself; however, he still refers to his fate as damnation. While Luke does not forgive his nephew for his complicity in Mara's death, he does receive an understanding of what led Jacen to that point.
Star Wars: Legacy
The second volume of the Legacy comic series, set about 140 years after Return of the Jedi, features Jacen's descendant Ania Solo as the protagonist. In general, the descendants of Jacen, Jaina and Ben are main characters in this era, set when and after Darth Krayt takes over the galaxy. Although they themselves do not appear in person as spirits, older characters like Luke and Mara do.
Reception
UGO.com listed Jacen as their top Star Wars expanded universe character, calling him "one of the most fearsome - and most tragic - villains in the Star Wars universe".[14]
Legacy
With the sequel film
Jacen Syndulla by series creator Dave Filoni in honor of Jacen Solo.[8]
