The Jedi’s Shadow Agents Are the Closest the Order Came to Having Its Own Sith

Summary

• Star Wars: Vector
  follows Celeste Morne a Jedi Shadow who fought the Sith using dark methods, and was part of a hidden organization the Jedi Order knew nothing about.
• Jedi Shadows hunted Sith artifacts to prevent the dark side from spreading via powerful ancient evils and the resurgence of their kind.
• The Covenant, a secretive Jedi sect, utilized Jedi Shadows in ways that hewed closer to the dark side than traditional Jedi, but were eventually shut down.

In Star Wars, the Jedi are a respected group of heroes who fight and protect the galaxy with grace and skill unrivaled by all, save for their mortal enemies, the Sith. Yet in the Old Republic, the Jedi once utilized secret “Shadow” agents to carry out clandestine missions that the Jedi Order couldn’t, dispatched by a covert Jedi sect that uses their hate in ways that make them far closer to the Sith than expected.

Making their first appearance thousands of years before current Star Wars tales, Jedi Shadows were essentially Jedi assassins and Sith hunters who used their finely-tuned Force skills to track down Sith artifacts and help prevent the dark side from flourishing across the galaxy.

Featured in a handful of Star Wars Legends stories from the mid-2000s, one particular arc, Star Wars: Vector, confirms exactly what these Shadows are and what their shady Jedi overlords — the secretive Covenant organization — did to ensure their classified nature while pushing their Shadows closer and closer to the dark side with each new assignment.

The Covenant’s Jedi Shadows Secretly Hunted Sith and Retrieved Ancient Artifacts

Star Wars: Vector – 2008 (written by John Ostrander and John Jackson Miller)

Starting in the Old Republic and ending in Star Wars: Legacy’s 100-year time skip, Star Wars: Vector follows Celeste Morne, a Shadow tasked with finding a Sith artifact containing an ancient evil with the ability to infect others and turn them into vicious monsters known as the Rakghouls. Explaining in this issue that Shadows like Celeste were Jedi who had their information removed from official records or had falsified their deaths to become black ops agents within the Covenant, it’s the obsessive drive to keep the Sith at bay that makes these Shadows tick, for better or worse.

Eventually found out, shut down, and then arrested by the Jedi Order proper, only a handful of people ever knew about the Covenant, their Shadow agents, or the covert and morally grey missions they often partook in, as anything related to these special Jedi were deliberately kept a secret, both individually and as an idea. It’s shown in Vector that the Covenant’s purpose comes from hatred towards the Sith and the more questionable and callous ways Shadows operated in their single-mindedness, resulting in the Covenant and their Shadows consistently breaking the rules of the Jedi Order while technically serving its interests.

The Covenant and Their Shadows’ Hate for the Sith Made Them Just Like Their Enemies

Although this tale is now part of the non-canon stories that make up Star Wars Legends, these “Shadows” can always be brought back into mainstream Star Wars continuity, especially considering these Jedi were so off-the-grid that it wouldn’t take much to explain why they haven’t been seen or even hinted at before. Regardless of whether the Covenant or some version of it will ever debut in official Star Wars lore, this super-secret group of Jedi fighting with questionable morality is a fun world-building detail that begs to be adapted into the current canon of a galaxy far, far away.