I am not of the Jedi Order, nor am I a servant of darkness. I am not a shade of gray, for I despise the darkness. I am Taecelle.
—Gatekeeper of the Selena Holocron (answering "who are you?")
Taecelle (pronounced as "tai-cell"), also known by her adopted name Amaterasu Selena or by her nicknames Ama and Amy, was a former Jedi Knight of the Jedi Order and one of the last members of the dying Selena clan. She participated in a war caused by an attempt by the Alsakan Union to stage a coup to take over the Galactic Republic. After a schism erupted within the Order, Taecelle left the group and was immediately branded a traitor. Taecelle joined the splinter faction known as the Ospion Guardians in hopes that it would help protect her from being hunted by Jedi.
Though a founding member, Taecelle did not feel a strong attachment to the Guardians, leaving shortly before the organization disappeared to become the Dark Jedi of the Bogan. She felt the disappearance of the Ospion roots when the Bogan were first formed, though was not able to determine what happened at the time. Without any affiliations, Taecelle went into hiding, only to reemerge when the Bogan revealed themselves.
Biography[]
Early years[]
Taecelle was born on Corulag, and was quickly found and brought to Coruscant by a Jedi Knight. She never became acquainted with her parents, thus knew little about her family, especially why her name was so unusual in comparison to other people like herself. However, it was revealed that her actual parents were killed, and she was adopted by an old couple who followed virtues similar to the Jedi. They changed her name to hide Taecelle's identity, but gave the Jedi Knight who took her in her actual surname. It remains unknown why the elderly couple kept Taecelle's actual given name a secret from the Jedi.
At the monastery on Coruscant, Taecelle was the ordinary student: working and studying equally with dedication. During most of her free time, Taecelle socialized with others, or looked up something that came to mind in the Jedi Archives. Most, if not all, of her masters thought of her as an excellent student. Taecelle always seemed to pay attention, give respects, and treat others kindly, smiling on the surface. Underneath, she felt pangs of sorrow of not knowing the meaning behind being trained as a Jedi, at all. This inner feeling haunted her for years.
She was selected to be trained by a Jedi Knight known as Corina Linar, a twi'lek, and moved from the Coruscanti monastery to the Jedi Temple on Ossus. Alongside Linar, she continued to study diligently but somewhat stubbornly. The two grew close, but the full extent of their friendship remains unclear.
Taecelle performed a mission alongside another padawan that involved investigating a dark cave, which gave her experiences in electrocution by force lightning and was choked by the Force at the hands of an unidentified Dark Jedi master: experiences she would avoid going through again if her path allowed that denial. Shortly after her mission, Corina evaluated her performance to be excellent, despite short-comings against that Dark Jedi, and was soon knighted.
As a knight, Taecelle became well versed in the arts of Soresu, in order to be able to protect others. It was also around this time that Taecelle felt that she needed to expand her capabilities, as the galactic crisis grew. She adopted the fifth form, Shien, as her auxiliary style of lightsaber combat. Alongside that, Taecelle spent her free time learning more about the Force, asking for lessons from other Jedi knights and masters at times.
Her first pupil was a padawan named Darius Khan, though Taecelle was never able to complete his training.
The Alsakan Crisis[]
Taecelle took on another apprentice shortly after the beginning of the Alsakan Crisis. But that apprenticeship was short lived, since a rift in the Jedi Order resulted in a lost of trust in Grandmaster Banik Kelrada, and a growing belief that the Order has been tainted by the dark side. She left the Order and her apprentices behind, and returned to her home planet of Corulag. As she left Ossus, Taecelle vowed to return to check on the progress of her former students.
Sometime during her period of independence, Taecelle learned about the Selena Prophecy and its contents, beginning her travels around the galaxy in search for artifacts missing from the Raid on Orleng. She encountered a young orphaned boy who had an unusual hair color for a human while investigating a possible lead on Telos IV. She saw that he was force sensitive, taking him with her as a student, despite the boy having failed at stealing her food. The relationship between the two did not last very long, as Taecelle later sent him, giving the unnamed boy the name Haar, to the Jedi Order for "proper" training and to spy on the Order for her.
The ex-Knight was later contacted by Sarina Lightell concerning the formation of an order consisting of the exiled Jedi. Selena ultimately decided to ally herself with this group, which called themselves the Ospion Guardians. She was present upon the Clouded Dawn when the organization was officially formed. As one of the first Ospions, Taecelle provided as much service to it as she had with the Jedi Order: accepting missions and teaching young hopefuls rudiments to the usage of the Force. On of her earliest missions of importance was when she accompanied a team of Ospions led by Linora to Bothawui, in order to investigate disturbances upon the planet.
In order to preserve her heritage, philosophy and studies, Taecelle created a holocron. Due to the extensive time Taecelle gave to the archiving of data within the holocron, the gatekeeper developed an uncanny resemblance, personality-wise, to Taecelle, despite still being a simple piece of artificial intelligence. Taecelle decided to upgrade the gatekeeper to have a degree of sentience.
Mission to Bothawui[]
Accompanying Linora to the Bothan homeworld, Taecelle was among the first of the Ospion team to realize that there was something sinister going on on-planet. A conversation with Linora revealed that she is not alone in knowing this. Taecelle was disturbed by the fact that there did not seem to be any concrete reason for the Republic to have sent the Ospions and was even more troubled by Linora's claim that Senator Alcor Bac was advocating an end of Ospion-Republic relations and resuming the previous affiliation with the Jedi Order.
However, a hostage crisis prevented Taecelle from dwelling on the issues. Instead of joining the other Ospions in rescuing the hostages located in a bomb-damaged building, Taecelle acted on her own, drawing disapproval from her elders. Cade Varr attempted to dissuade her from this course, alongside another knight who attempted to follow him. Taecelle remained adamant in her course of action, aiming to fight the conflagration and give the others more time to evacuate hostages. The crumbling building brought her into the line of fire of the men who took the hostages: a trio of misled Jedi. While Cade fought off the two accomplices, Taecelle was confronted by the leader, Katu, and was taken by surprise with a Force power. A timely approach by Cade saved the female knight from being captured by Katu. Neutralizing all three Jedi, Cade and Taecelle returned to the rest of the Ospions to finish the evacuation of the hostages before the building collapsed.
Exile[]
Taecelle after leaving the Ospion Guardians.
Taecelle was troubled by the dark side sensed in her fellow Ospions, and she later left the group, unknowingly before they traveled to the Outer Rim where the influence of the Legions of Lettow transformed them into the Dark Jedi of the Bogan.
Without an order to fall back on, Taecelle returned to the ruins of her clan's home, and remained in hiding for nearly twenty years.[3] In that time, she focused on working on her studies and adding information to her holocron.
First Hutt War[]
In the waning years of the First Hutt War, her student Haar, now a member of the Jedi Council, found her in hiding on Taris. She begged her pupil to leave, to which he begrudgingly did. Taecelle was later attacked by Gareth Sode, who quickly overpowered by the Dark Jedi preying on her fear of the dark side. Haar attempted to save her and was mortally wounded in the process. Despite this, Taecelle forced Gareth to retreat and attempted to save Haar's life. She failed to do so, even with Force healing powers.[4]
She returned Haar's body to Ossus to be cremated and was brought to the Jedi Council for questioning, though she was allowed some time to mourn Haar's death beforehand. It was around then that she met Haar's last apprentice, Siri Firestorm.
Taecelle left Ossus the next day, leaving her holocron at the library. She was never seen again.
Talents and abilities[]
Her ability to utilize the Force was highly commendable among those of the Order, due to her uncanny ability to enter deep concentration. Through this, Taecelle described her connection to the Force like speaking to another person.[5]
Holding the beliefs of most idealists, Taecelle hated having to kill others, and focused on the third lightsaber form, Soresu, to maximize her own ability to survive combat without having to kill others. Instead of killing, she wore down her enemies to the point where they lack the strength to continue fighting, disarmed them, or rendered them unconscious.
Personality and traits[]
As a padawan, Taecelle was highly respectful to her masters, and worked diligently to complete the tasks set upon her. She was kind to everyone, not once did she show a sign of disrespect. From her cautious nature, Taecelle was not able to grasp basic use of a lightsaber as quickly as her comrades. Taecelle did not begin to question her own origins until she turned to the age of 8. Then, she frequently asked her masters "why am I here?" Every time, the answer was the same: to become a guardian of peace.
Her promotion to Knighthood brought new-found responsibility and reinforced her cautious nature. Taecelle's apprenticeship habits remained in a corner of her thoughts, such as that of stubbornness. Once her mind was set upon something, it took a high level of persuasion to think otherwise. However, Taecelle usually thought things over before remaining firm on a decision, to convince herself that she was going on the right path with her choice.
Her experience from electrocution and choking by an unknown Dark Jedi gave her a phobia-like sense when it comes to dark side powers, causing her to be strictly adherent to the light side powers. For this reason, Taecelle's greatest fear is the dark side. Although her idealistic beliefs were shaken since the Alsakan Crisis, her dislike towards the dark side has not changed.[3] However, Taecelle eventually overcame her fear of the dark side in her battle against Gareth Sode, driven by her desire to protect her dying pupil, Haar.[4]
After leaving the Jedi Order, Taecelle began dressing in a more elegant and aristocratic form to more freely express her mind. In this way, she represented purity in a time where corruption and strife plagued the galaxy. Leaving behind two padawans whose training were not yet completed, Taecelle felt the responsible for leaving her tutelage half finished. However, Taecelle believed that she would not be welcomed by the Order for a long time due to the conflict between the Ospion and the Jedi Order.
Despite all of her difficulties, Taecelle was still kind and warm to those around her, evident from her surviving holocron.[2]
Behind the scenes[]
The original concept image of Taecelle .
Although she left the Jedi Order and joined the Ospion Guardians, many of which were considered to be Dark Jedi, Taecelle was one of the few original members who would never tap into the dark side's power.
Amaterasu Selena is a role-playing character created and currently in use by Lavi on TheStarWarsRP.Com. Lavi considers Amaterasu to be his favorite of the characters he created for TheStarWasRP.Com's third time period: the Alsakan Crisis. The character returns in the site's fourth timeline in a slightly grittier approach.
The name Amaterasu originates from Japanese mythology, whereas Amaterasu is the sun goddess, an extremely important mythological figure. It is sometimes mistakenly written as "Ameratsu" and forms similar to that by other role-players. Amaterasu has been given the name Taecelle in order to better correlate with the usage of the Selena Clan's lingual background. Taecelle originates from the word Ta'ecelle, meaning "sunlight". The reasoning behind the usage of the name "Amaterasu", in-universe, has yet to be elaborated on.
Taecelle was originally going to have a brother named Tsukuyomi, to follow the naming motif of the Japanese deities. However, the character fell out of favor to focus more on Taecelle's story and to make a firm statement that the clan is at its end in galactic history.
See also[]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Amaterasu Selena on TheStarWarsRP.Com (Third Timeline)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Taecelle Selena on TheStarWarsRP.Com (Fourth Timeline)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Paled Light, Faded Black on TheStarWarsRP.Com
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 The Price to Pay on TheStarWarsRP.Com
- ↑ A Ray of Light on TheStarWarsRP.Com