Shaak Ti article, dedicated to Ms Kitti Keri, and Ms Orli Shosan, the Hungarian and the US actors, who played the Togruta Jedi. Both of them gave voice samples for CustomStarWars, which exclusive friendly messages can be listened by opening the articles with Internet Explorer.

Shaak Ti was a female Togruta Jedi Master, hailing from the planet Shili, serving the Galactic Republic as a member of the Jedi Order in the final decades of the Republic Classic era. Joining the Jedi High Council in the years before the Clone Wars, she took up the ranks of General within the Grand Army of the Republic and was tasked with the oversight of clone trooper training on the ocean world Kamino. We know her life at least from 5 different sources, some of them are real and authentic, others are controversial. First she appeared in the Tartakowski Clone Wars, then the animated series, which are mostly real, and I will mention them here. Then in comic books, I will mention her own comic, because many others are fictive. Finally in Force Unleashed, which is not real, and I won’t study it here.

As a Jedi Councilor, Master Shaak Ti was involved in many epic conflicts during the Clone Wars, including planning and engaging in the opening salvo on Geonosis. In addition, Master Ti was instrumental in the First and Third Battles of Kamino, where she helped to protect the future generations of clone troopers growing at the facilities, as well as during the Battle of Hypori, where she became one of the few Jedi to survive an encounter with the feared General Grievous. Shaak Ti was there on Brentaal IV, where she had important role in the events, these are well depicted in her own comic book.

Shaak Ti was assigned to protect the Jedi Temple in the final days of the war as the threat of the hidden Dark Lord of the Sith became clear. But these events are not clear, depicted several ways, therefore not realistic. For example she has at least 3 different way of her death. One of them was right here, in the Temple. Stationed there during the initiation of Operation: Knightfall, Shaak Ti was meditating in her chamber, when Anakin Skywaler entered, and killed her. Some says he cut her head off, and took for Palpatine, others say Shaak Ti has escaped with her life when the Temple and the Republic fell into the hands of the Sith Lords. Some comic books, and the Force Unleashed game follow this way, negate her death, and give new adventures for her.

Master Ti was eventually tracked by Darth Vader who sent his secret Sith apprentice, Starkiller, to kill her. Starkiller and Shaak Ti engaged in a vicious duel, ending when an injured Ti toppled into the Ancient Abyss.

Shaak Ti, like most Jedi of the era, was discovered on her homeworld Shili as an infant when doctors identified her as Force-sensitive. Taken to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, Shaak Ti entered into the academy there and spent the next decade studying the ways of the Force and the Jedi Code. After graduating from the academy, Ti was selected as a Padawan by a Jedi Master and traveled the galaxy to complete her training. After passing her Trials of Knighthood Ti was raised to the rank of Jedi Knight by the Jedi High Council. As a Knight Ti pursued the path of the Jedi Consular, strengthening her connection to the Force and working under the Council of Reconciliation. Like many of the Order, Ti was permitted to travel back to her homeworld and connect with her roots. Undergoing a traditional Togrutan right of passage, Ti tracked and killed a wild Akul beast and crafted an elegant headdress from its teeth. During her early career Ti took her first student, choosing to train him on her birth planet, Shili. Amongst the vast, dry scrublands Ti taught her student the ways of the Jedi, eventually raising him to Knighthood. Parting ways, it wasn't long before Shaak Ti got word that he had been killed by a criminal on one of his first missions.

Having failed her first student, Ti decided to try again when she chose the Initiate Fe Sun as her second apprentice. Once more traveling to Shili and training her student in a slightly unorthodox manner, Ti did not believe in the traditional application of skills through the acceptance of missions from one of the Jedi Councils. Training Sun to the rank of Knight, Ti suffered the loss of the girl when she was killed by the Zeltron criminal Lyshaa. While struck by grief, Ti was dedicated to the Jedi way of detachment and allowed herself to come to terms with both her students' deaths. This did not prevent some on the High Council from questioning her methods of training students. Shaak Ti took it upon herself to track down Lyshaa and bring her to justice, seeing her imprisoned for countless years on the planet Brentaal IV.

Jedi Master

Eventually, Shaak Ti was recognized by the High Council as a highly trained Jedi and raised her to the rank of Master. As a Master, Ti went on to complete many assignments, gaining great respect from her peers. Two years later, as tensions between the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems threatened to split the galaxy in two, the Dark Jedi Granta Omega, Master Yaddle's murderer, reemerged and arranged an assassination plot on Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Along with fellow Councilor Jedi Master Coleman Trebor and several other Jedi, Shaak Ti defended the Chancellor, foiling the plot. This is important because later she protected the Chancellor again during the Battle of Coruscant, as it could be seen in the Clone Wars cartoon.

Shaak Ti was stationed on Coruscant when an assassination attempt was made on the life of Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo hours before the vital vote on the Military Creation Act that set before the Galactic Senate. While the assassination was foiled by the Jedi, the High Council assigned Padawan Anakin Skywalker to escort her back to her homeworld while Skywalker's master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, tracked the being who put the hit on the Senator. Shaak Ti occupied the next few days with study and research at the Temple, spending many hours in the Temple Archives. We can see her reading something in the background, when Kenobi was talking to Jocasta Nu.

Battle of Geonosis

When the High Council was notified that Obi-Wan Kenobi had been captured and sentenced to death on the desert world Geonosis, Master of the Order Mace Windu rallied all Jedi present at the Temple and rushed to Kenobi's aid. Shaak Ti became one of the nine Jedi Masters to lead the striker team which consisted of over two hundred Jedi, Ti and her comrades landed on the dusty plains outside the Petranaki arena and rushed on foot to storm the structure. Once inside, the Jedi simultaneously ignited their sabers and set to freeing Kenobi, as well as the chained Padawan Skywalker and Senator Amidala. Shaak Ti entered the arena alongside her close friend Luminara Unduli and they remained close together for the remainder of the battle. Fighting through the hundreds of Techno Union battle droids, the Jedi who did not fall were herded into a tight circle at the center of the arena. Count Dooku, the leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, offered an ultimatum to Windu and the Jedi: join him, or die. Refusing, the Jedi were prepared to fight to the death when Grand Master Yoda arrived with the clone troopers of the Grand Army of the Republic. While deflecting blasterfire, Master Ti boarded a Republic gunship with fellow Jedi Luminara Unduli, Plo Koon, Agen Kolar, Stass Allie, Saesee Tiin and Roth-Del Masona. Setting the gunship down in the plains outside the arena, Shaak Ti and her comrades raced into battle, leading their new soldiers from the front lines.

Returning to Coruscant, Ti took up the rank of General and began helping coordinate war strategy for the Republic. Ti was known to lead Republic forces against the Separatist horde on many fronts, including during the battles of Centares and Ando. Because of the need for more Knights, Master Shaak Ti suggested that the Council forgot the typical Trials of Knighthood and reconstitute the method of war-time promotion; a practice which had not been permitted since the New Sith Wars. When Jedi Kenobi suggested that his Padawan be promoted, Master Ti joined Masters Oppo Rancisis and Even Piell in their hesitancy, proposing that Skywalker face the Trial of the Spirit before being knighted. When Skywalker completed the Council's test, Ti met with her fellow Councilors in the Hall of Knighthood to raise the boy to the ranks of Knight, as it was seen in the Clone wars cartoon.

Kamino

As the war began to gain momentum, the Jedi High Council decided to dispatch one of their own, Master Shaak Ti, to safeguard the clone production facilities and oversee the training of the clone cadets training there. Serving as adviser to Prime Minister Lama Su, Ti worked with the Cuy'val Dar trainers at Tipoca City to administer the tests that each clone squad had to pass before they saw battle. One squad in particular, Domino Squad, seemed to lack what it took to ever see battle, disappointing even their teachers. They seemed to be the biggest losers Kamino has ever seen, they argued each other, competed each other, did not worked together, and even wanted to quit, leaving the rest behind. Bounty hunter Bric deemed them a failure; hunter El-Les wanted to be sympathetic. Shaak Ti initially failed the group, but after giving them some motivational advice, the four clones passed their final test and were deployed, giving the Republic great clones, like Hevy, Echo, or even Fives, who later became an ARC trooper.

But she not always just overview the clone production, she had to protect the clone project in its existance. Not long after Master Ti was notified of a potential Separatist attack on the cloning facilities. Reinforced by Master Oppo Rancisis' battle group and several Jedi Knights, Jedi defended Kamino in the facilities, in the skies and in the vast oceans. Shaak Ti and the clone troopers were joined by Jedi Masters, like Kenobi, Secura, or Skywalker. Sometimes basic droid armies attacked Kamino, other times strike came led by General Grievous and Commander Asajj Ventress, two of the highest ranking members in the Separatist Droid Army. Shaak Ti's strategy proved successful in preventing Kamino from Aqua droids, SBDs, infiltrators, and hordes of basic B1 battle droids throughout the rest of the war.

The article will be continued, click the link below:

Shaak Ti part 2

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 written by: Norbert Rostas 2014.08.19.