JEDI HoloNet

When she was eight, Thala Bathiss (she/they) was like most kids in the galaxy: inquisitive, fearless, immortal. A Mon Calamari living in an insular, authoritarian community on a planet she knew as Mon Cala (Dac), she rarely had opportunity to leave her tightly-controlled home with permission. And, as one of the few living spawn of a family with old blood but low status in the community, Thala had high expectations thrust upon them from an early age: scholarly, diplomatic, with excellent social comportment, to be seen as desirable by those higher up in the hierarchy. With their elder brothers and sister already well on their way to fulfilling those expectations, little in common with their younger brothers, and surrounded by her betters in the peerage, she had little in the way of true friendship.

Any true means of escape were brief: Most often, rare research trips with her archivist father outside of the city, spending time with a friend of his she called Uncle. Otherwise, she was left with hiding artistic endeavors amidst her studies and slipping away unsupervised to swim out into the depths surrounding the bleached, dead reef into which her home had been rebuilt. It was only natural that they took every opportunity to escape the pressure. It was never a problem until one day it was.

Through war after war, occupation after genocide, and even the wiping of all life from the surface waters of Dac, ancient bioweapons still lurked in the dark trenches and hadal deeps. Among them — the Hydroid Medusa. Half machine, half monster, electrified jellyfish that had taken armies to subdue — over the centuries since their introduction to Dac scant decades before the Battle of Yavin, at least one had survived. Thala had been foolish to go out alone, and a small spawn was an easy snack.

Thala doesn’t know how she survived. By the will of the Force, Thala had drawn rescue quickly enough to drive off the monster and save the majority of their mind and body. She came to months later, in an intensive burn unit’s bacta tank, in a city she now knows was New Coral City, the floating capitol of Dac.

One can infer the sheer extent of her injuries from knowing that she spent two local Dac years in and out of bacta tanks and physical rehabilitation, and to this day is [i]still[/i] scarred where an electrified tentacle struck her left side. Thala relearned to walk and speak over those two years, and their body and mind can still relapse when they’re deeply stressed or exhausted, which she calls “getting stuck.”

Whether it was the attack that sparked her Force sensitivity, or simply made it clear, she doesn’t know for certain. What Thala knows is that when a spasm rendered them silent or incomprehensible, the frustration forced the words out. When her muscles seized and froze her, the anger and the pain could straighten her limbs and make her stand and walk. It didn’t take long for self-directed anger, physical pain, and grief to become the fuel of her recovery.

It didn’t go unnoticed. Jedi Knight Trayce came to investigate, supported by Thala’s father, and after an explosive verbal conflict with Thala’s mother, Thala left with the Knight — her destination undisclosed. After spending months as a Hopeful in Duneeden Temple, terrified that someone would tell her she wasn’t good enough to stay, the small Mon Calamari was initiated into the Jedi Order.

Thala’s first few months as an Initiate have been ones of revelation and self-discovery. After one of these, she decided to start exploring a new identity, and tied their ‘birthday’ to their initiation date. They have made friends and learned truths they’re struggling to understand.

Thala has sworn to the first friend she had ever made that she would never use her suffering to empower herself ever again. Now, she has focused her entire being on becoming a Jedi worthy of the kindness and guidance she has been given. And she wants to learn [i]everything[/i].