(Extended Edition)
Episode VI: The City of Gold
Now make you ready, said Merlin, this night ye shall lie with Igraine in the castle of Tintagil; and ye shall be like the duke her husband, Ulfius shall be like Sir Brastias, a knight of the duke's, and I will be like a knight that hight Sir Jordanus, a knight of the duke's.
--Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur
In the days of the Republic, the Jedi Knights were famed not only for their skill as warriors, but also as just arbiters and mediators of disputes.
That was why the Jedi Knight Kane Skywalker, hailed as a hero across the galaxy, had come to Sullust X: a lush, garden-covered world with three suns in the sky, a place of gleaming golden cities and tall spires. This was the ancestral home of two of the great Clone clans, House Valorum and House Katarn.
The Clone warriors, who traditionally wore full-body armor and helmets when they left their planets to make war and seize slaves, were feared across the galaxy, and not merely for their prowess in battle. Cloning was still much more of an art than a science. While individual appendages could be cloned with reasonable success, the entire reproduction of a human mind was still extremely problematic.
Some clones came out of the birthing labs with inherent mental instabilities. Over time, if these clones lived to beget other clones from their own DNA, a form of hereditary insanity took root. This became a distinguishing characteristic of certain Clone clans, who prized it as a heroic “battle madness.”
One such clan was Clan Valorum, whose members were distinguished by their red hair and green eyes.
Kane Skywalker had come to settle a border dispute between King Zander, ruler of Clan Valorum, and the other Clone King ruling on Sullust X, Justin Katarn.
The Katarn clan was known for its dark skin, dark eyes, and close-curled hair. Unlike Clan Valorum, its members generally did not show signs of “battle madness”… which, scornful Valorum men said, was because many Katarn “clones” were actually the product of illicit sexual reproduction.
Kane’s mission, such as it was, failed. The dispute over territory between King Zander and King Justin could not be resolved peaceably, largely due to the intransigence of the leader of House Valorum. And so the peace summit broke up, having accomplished nothing.
Or so Kane thought.
As he was preparing to depart in his Republic starship, Kane had a sudden change of heart, and sent a retainer to board the ship in his place, dressed in his brown Jedi cloak.
Kane’s skepticism was justified. Soon after takeoff, the starship exploded as it flew into the sky, the apparent victim of a catastrophic accident… or, Kane guessed, more likely sabotage.
Kane lay low on Sullust X for a few months, watching and waiting.
And then King Zander Valorum acted.
House Valorum launched an invasion of the hereditary lands of House Katarn. King Justin Katarn was forced into exile from his capital city, fleeing into the fertile grasslands which surrounded it.
Kane Skywalker emerged from his exile and met with the fugitive King Justin. Together, the two plotted a way to thwart the schemes of the mad Clone King, and restore the kingdom of the Katarn dynasty.
Justin Katarn warned the Jedi Knight that House Valorum possessed a terrible superweapon, a device which could destroy a sun remotely, by terraforming it into a planet. Doing this to even one of the three suns of Sullust X would be enough to bring unspeakable ruin upon the entire system.
If Zander Valorum had no other option, Justin warned, he would use this device, and destroy his entire home planet, rather than suffer defeat.
Kane Skywalker agreed that this must not be allowed to happen. The two men decided that Justin should lead a counter-attack against Zander’s armies, accompanied by a small force of Jedi Knights, summoned by Kane via sub-ether radio. Meanwhile, Kane himself would infiltrate Zander Valorum’s palace while he was away fighting, and disable this superweapon before it could be used.
Though the battle between Zander’s massive army and Justin’s small force of loyal warriors and Jedi Knights hung long in the balance, eventually numbers decided the outcome.
Zander killed King Justin, and many of the Jedi Knights. There too the King of Organa Major was badly wounded, fighting as a Jedi as he had not done for many years.
Yet two Jedi—Bail Highsinger, Kane Skywalker’s old friend, and Jaden Monroe, Bail’s current Padawan--escaped the bloody battlefield. Knowing that one man might move faster than an army encumbered with loot, Bail sent Jaden on ahead to Zander’s palace, to warn Kane of the Clone King’s impending return.
Meanwhile, in Zander Valorum’s palace, Kane Skywalker searched fruitlessly for the controls to the Clone King’s superweapon…. until he met Zara Valorum, the concubine of King Zander.
Zara was not a Clone by birth, but a slave captured on one of the Clones’ warrior forays. She had golden hair and blue eyes, and Kane Skywalker thought she was very beautiful. Zara, too, found Kane handsome, a tall and well-built man in his prime with dark hair and dark eyes.
They made love, and afterward, Zara took Kane Skywalker to the controls for House Valorum’s superweapon of last resort. The control room was housed in a bunker shielded by a cloaking device, explaining why Kane had not been able to find it earlier.
Kane studied the weapon, hoping to disable its delicate machinery with his lightsaber, so that it would have to be entirely rebuilt before it could be used. And that could take many years.
But then Jaden Monroe burst into the master control room. King Zander Valorum had triumphed on the battlefield, Jaden warned Kane, and now he was returning to his palace—
And then Jaden Monroe’s head fell from his shoulders.
Zander Valorum had had word from his scouts about this young Jedi making in haste for his palace, and had gone himself to investigate. Now he discovered that Kane Skywalker not only was alive, but had in his absence infiltrated his home and seduced his favored concubine.
Kane and Zander dueled with lightsabers, and their duel was long and arduous. In the end, Zander triumphed, and Kane Skywalker was mortally wounded.
Zander’s laugh of victory rang through the control chamber. But it was to prove short-lived.
Bail Highsinger had learned that Zander was pursuing young Jaden Monroe, and had followed in turn. Now he arrived at the control bunker, too late to save his young protégé… and his old friend and comrade lay dying as well.
But he could still avenge them.
In his anger and wrath, Bail Highsinger activated the superweapon, turning it upon the Clone King’s own planet.
As King Zander watched in horror, one of the three suns in the sky began to darken, and the ground shook beneath their feet.
Then Zander Valorum watched no more. Rising up one last time, Kane Starkiller cut Zander’s head from his body, and then fell down dead himself.
The menace of House Valorum was ended, and the greatest hero of the Jedi Knights was no more.
Bail Highsinger escaped the ruin of Sullust X with Zara Valorum. Others too escaped, many from Clans Valorum and Katarn alike reduced to flight by the ending of the world they had known.
Sullust X was reduced to a post-apocalyptic wasteland by the blast wave from the extinguishing of the sun. Its once pristine rivers filled with toxic sludge. Those Clones who stayed behind became terrifying mutants, and hid their ravaged faces behind bandages.
Where the system’s third sun had been there now was a planet instead, a harsh desert world set between two burning stars: known simply as Sullust, or in the half-ironic name used by its settlers afterward, Utapau.
Bail Highsinger, ashamed of the blood he had shed and fearing punishment, reported to the Jedi Council that Kane was the one who had activated the superweapon. Yet no punishment came.
In recognition of his reputed deed, Kane Skywalker was posthumously given a new surname by the grateful Senate of the Republic. Thus he became known to posterity as Kane Starkiller.
But Bail Highsinger was consumed by guilt for his actions, and even more disturbed that they were not condemned by the people of the Republic. He retired from the Jedi Order, and became a moisture farmer on Sullust, the world he had brought into being.
Nine months after the devastation of Sullust X, Zara Valorum gave birth to a child, a boy with dark hair and blue eyes: Annikin Starkiller. Zara died shortly afterward, and so Bail Highsinger raised the child of his old friend as one of his own family.
Eventually Bail Highsinger married another immigrant settler on the new-made world of Sullust, and they had a daughter, whom they named Beru.
But living among the Valorum refugees from Sullust X was Zara’s daughter by the late King Zander—a young green-eyed redhead named Lumiya, whom her mother Zara had left to her fate when their homeworld perished.
Aged nine when House Valorum fell, she was just old enough to grieve for her dead father, but not old enough to understand how cruel he had been to her mother.
And, with the passionate intensity of a child wronged, Lumiya Valorum vowed revenge upon those who had slain her beloved father.