Callista

• Appeared in:
  
  I
  II
  III
  IV
  V
  VI
  CW

• Homeworld:
  Chad

• Species:
  Human

• Gender:
  Female

• Size:
  1.7 meters

• Weapon:
  Lightsaber

• Affiliation:
  Jedi

• 

From the Expanded Universe

Since infancy, Callista displayed an undeniable strength in the Force. Her midi-chlorian rich blood kept her connected to the mystical energy field binding the galaxy together. Had her home planet, the watery world of Chad, been part of the Republic, she would no doubt have been found and taken into the Jedi order. It was a maverick Jedi Master named Djinn Altis who ultimately discovered her and brought her into the larger galaxy.

Djinn Altis was a scholar of antiquity who often strained the rules of the Jedi order in his pursuit of knowledge. In debates, he would evoke the protocols of old, when the less structured Jedi order allowed multiple Padawans-per-master, or when the Jedi abided romantic attachment and even marriage within their ranks. Altis, not unlike the legendary Qui-Gon Jinn, would travel the stars far from Coruscant, following the will of the Force. He would amass knowledge and study new ways of interpreting and communing with the Force in cultures scattered beyond the Republic borders. He traveled aboard his starship Chu'unthor, named in reference to an older training vessel from an earlier time.

It was on one of these voyages that he discovered Callista. The young woman had worked on her family's wander-kelp farm and tsaelke ranch. She had used the Force to communicate with the cetaceans of the Chadrian oceans, having a supernatural advantage in her ranching duties. Djinn identified her potential, and took young Callista as an apprentice, even though she was far older than the strict rules of the Jedi Code would allow.

Djinn took Callista to his secret training compound veiled in the billowy clouds of Bespin. There, she learned and mastered Jedi techniques at an accelerated pace. She also met Djinn's other Padawan, Geith. Before long, Callista and Geith fell in love. Further stepping on the proper rules of the Jedi Code, Callista crafted a lightsaber handle with a pattern of swimming tsaelkes, showing a strong sign of attachment to her past.

Though Djinn longed for detachment from the affairs of the Republic, not even he could ignore the scourge of the Clone Wars. Djinn and his students rejoined the Jedi from Coruscant, offering their skills in the battles that spread across the stars.

After the war, when Palpatine had fully ascended to the title of Emperor of the New Order, the Jedi were hunted down and destroyed as enemies of the Empire. Dozens of young students fled to Belsavis, where Jedi Master Plett sheltered them. Imperial intelligence had discovered this secret stronghold, and the Emperor ordered the Eye of Palpatine, an asteroid-sized battlemoon and one of the earliest superweapons of the Empire, to destroy this Jedi sanctuary.

As the Eye of Palpatine passed through the Moonflower Nebula, Callista and Geith boldly tried to destroy the station. The battlemoon's weapons proved too powerful, and both Callista and Geith were killed. But Callista didn't die. Perhaps it was through the arcane teachings of Master Djinn, but Callista was somehow able to shed her corporeal form, and fuse her consciousness into the battlemoon's main computer. By inhabiting the gunnery computer, she was able to prevent the battlemoon from completing its deadly mission. She stayed alive, disembodied within the inner mechanisms of the station.

Three decades passed. The Empire rose to incredible power. The Jedi were all but destroyed. The Empire was toppled. A young Jedi, Luke Skywalker, sought to rebuild the order. And the threat of the battlemoon arose once more.

A former Emperor's Hand, Roganda Ismaren, was using her son Irek to summon the Eye of Palpatine. Callista again stirred, after so long a slumber. She detected ripples in the Force. Luke Skywalker and two of his students, Nichos Marr and Cray Mingla, were aboard, seeking to finally destroy the battlemoon. Callista did not want to see history repeated and witness the deaths of these three. She attempted to communicate with Skywalker, but could not breach the divide between her realm and the corporeal one. Occasionally, her consciousness would penetrate into Luke's dreams, but it was not enough. In time, she was able to communicate to Skywalker through the computer system itself, displaying messages across monitors.

Even through this medium, Luke was able to feel a strong connection to Callista, and despite the hurried pressures of destroying the battlemoon, the two fell in love. Sacrifice again became the only means of stopping the battlemoon. Luke was reluctant to destroy the station, for it would mean killing Callista, his newfound love and the last remaining link to the Jedi of old. Cray, who was grieving the loss of her love Nichos, suddenly stunned Skywalker and deposited his inert form into an escape pod. She took it upon herself to destroy the battle station, feeling no need to continue her now empty life. The battle station erupted in a fiery explosion, and Luke watched as it turned into falling embers.

But another escape pod had fled the station, and aboard was the body of Cray. Though it was physically the body of the beautiful Cray Mingla, Luke was able to sense a different presence within. In the final moments before the station's destruction, Cray had agreed to allow Callista to enter her body. Cray died so that Callista could live.

Though she was corporeal once more, she was shocked to find herself blind to the Force. She could not touch it, wield it, or sense its flow. She was a Jedi no more. Having lived her entire life with the Force as a gift, Callista felt robbed of her identity.

Luke, trying to ease her loss, made it his purpose to find a way to restore Callista's connection to the Force. The two traveled throughout the galaxy, to places strong with the Force, to rekindle that sensitivity. To Callista's dismay, she discovered she could make contact, but only through the Force's dark side. Notraised with the proper disciplines of the Jedi of old, Callista found herself on dangerous ground, tempted by the dark side, unable to hear or see the light.

This led to a bold recklessness that culminated in an amazing display when she single handedly destroyed the Super Star Destroyer Knight Hammer, the flagship of Admiral Daala who tried to destroy Luke Skywalker's Jedi order. Callista was presumed killed in the blast, but she survived. She contacted Luke via hologram, informing him that she needed to go on alone, to discover herself, to reclaim her identity, and to seek out the Force.

As she drifted across the galaxy, Callista eventually came to Nam Chorios, a world drenched in the power of the Force, a phenomenon brought about by the living crystals on the planet. She had joined the Theran cultists of the planet, meditating on the Force even though she was not able to touch it. The isolationist cultists also operated the gun stations that effectively quarantined the world by preventing anyone from landing or departing Nam Chorios.

When Seti Ashgad, leader of the anti-Theran Rationalist Party contacted Chief of State Leia Organa Solo for diplomatic relations, Callista attempted to warn Leia to stay away from the world. The Chief of State did not heed the warnings, and found herself kidnapped by Ashgad. Callista returned from hiding to thwart Ashgad's schemes. It was at this time that Luke Skywalker, who was searching for Callista, finally found her again. But they only shared a single wordless look, and they knew that any chance of their lives continuing together was gone.

The two went on their separate paths. Callista's whereabouts remain unknown.

Behind the Scenes

The character of Callista was created by author Barbara Hambly for the 1995 novel Children of the Jedi. Though not a formal trilogy, the story of Callista continued in the two following novels, Darksaber by Kevin J. Anderson and Planet of Twilight, again by Hambly. Callista appeared once more in "Murder at Slushtime," a short story printed in the Star Wars Adventure Journal, which will be reprinted online as part of starwars.com Hyperspace.