Master Soda

Name: Master Soda

Species: Unknown

Homeworld: Unknown

Gender: Male

Age: 352 (4303 BBY-present)

Affiliation: Jedi Order

Rank: Jedi Master

Physical Description
Short. That is the first word that comes to mind when Soda is thought of. Green, froggish, and pointy-eared are close behind. Soda stands 30 inches tall from the ground. At first glance he appears to be some sort of enlarged mutant frog. He has green skin, with thin gray hair, though most of it is on his head. He has big, bulbous eyes, along with large pointy ears that stick out from his head. He walks slowly due to his short legs, and many write him off as immobile and slow. This odd appearance is deceiving, as Soda is not feeble by any means. To compensate for this slow walking pace, Soda's species has remarkable jumping ability and is very agile in quick bursts. Add the power of the Force to that, and you get a whirling green tornado of doom to anyone who fights him. Soda wears a plain, comfortable khaki robe, as it suits him just fine.

Psychological Description
Soda is a very complex being. He is serious, yet comical. Stern, yet flexible. Gruff, yet friendly. He is a very wise being, and looks beyond the immediate problem to the possible dangers and hopes of the paths of the future. He is also a very logical and rational being, using these two things as well as reason and common sense to fuel his thinking, his plans, his strategies, and his views on life. He has little patience for those who can't see things in front of them, being blinded by greed, arrogance, pride, and foolishness. Now, while all of this is true of Soda, he has another side to him. Soda has a quirky, comical, and odd streak in him a mile wide. He likes riddles, pokes fun at those he knows, prodding them with tiny barbs to test their patience, and to have some good fun. This has led some individuals to think that he has a split personality, but that is not the case. Soda is just one complex being, forged this way through centuries of life experience.

Favored Force Uses, Weapon, and Saber Style
Force Speed+Force Jump to make himself a green tornado of doom, Force Heal(for obvious reasons), and his own special form of Energy Resistance, which reflects attacks such as Force Lightning and other Force energy attacks directly back at their casters. Master Soda primarily wields a short lightsaber with an emerald-green blade. Soda is proficient in all saber combat forms, having had over three centuries to become well-versed in them. His specialty is the Ataru form which is best suited for his body and gives him the most advantages. Soda is such an expert at Ataru that in the decades before he went into temporary isolation, he was the primary saber combat teacher for padawans learning Ataru and was considered by top duelists in the Order as the Master of the Ataru form.

Weaknesses
Soda is a lover of logic and rational thinking, which leaves him vulnerable at times to the irrational and illogical actions of desperate beings. He does recover quickly to the unexpected, which is why he is still alive. Another weakness is his small size, which limits his strength and walking speed, as well as fighting radius while standing still. He compensates for this by utilizing his species' agile bursts and quick jumping ability and the Force to augment this.

Early History
Because Soda is a very long-lived being, it is not practical to go into all of the events of his life, as it would make for a very, very long summary. It will be sufficient that the major events of Soda's life be covered, and times such as his growing up and training to be shown minimally, as they hold little relevance to the current times.

Soda's species is very long-lived, aging up to near a thousand years before passing on. Of course, this slow growth and aging rate meant that Soda was not a mature adult until he was closer to 100 than 50. Once he was mature enough, he was taken to become a Jedi, in the tradition of those members of his species found to be strong in the Force. His training was conducted by Master Vandar, who was a blood relative of Soda's, though a few hundred years older. This training was longer than normal, due to the slow growth rate of the species, but when Soda was near to 100 years of age, he was commissioned as a Jedi Knight.

Soda did not take a padawan for a long time, preferring to work alone and serve the Jedi Order as best he could in his own way. The Terriz Disorder, the Siege of Marshubal, the Blood Wars of Alker, Soda was involved in each as he helped to bring these conflicts to a peaceful solution. He was closer to 200 when he finally took a padawan, now teaching what he knew of the Force to a student. It was a new experience for Soda, and a somewhat rocky road at first, but he perservered, and his first student became a Jedi Knight under his tutelege. At age 200 exactly, he became a Jedi Master, having been eligible for the position at an earlier age, but refusing it until he thought he was ready.

Meeting the Chiss
Now a Jedi Master, Soda continued to aid the Republic in many conflicts and troubles, all the while serving the Jedi and training students to the best that he could. 100 years prior to the present day, Master Soda was between padawans and was out exploring the edges of the Republic on a leave of absence when he stumbled upon a new civilization out in the Unknown Regions: The Chiss Ascendancy. After a inital meeting that was quite tense, Soda was able to smooth things out with the Chiss leaders of the group he met and arranged for himself to be taken to their capital at Csilla. There, he met the Chiss Ruling Council and fully explained who he was, where he was from, etc. The Chiss were intruiged by news of this "Galactic Republic" and made a deal with the diminutive Jedi Master. In exchange for him telling them about much of the Republic, Soda would have free passage among the Chiss worlds and could learn as much as he wished of the Chiss lands and culture. It was on one of these voyages that Soda stumbled across a Force-Sensitive Chiss. Because untrained Force Sensitives left to their own devices posed a great risk to national safety, Soda began to train the Chiss in the ways of the Force, as well as searching the Ascendancy for more Chiss open to the Force. He found several more, and began to train them in the Force. Because they grew up in a vastly different culture than most races in the Republic, and because their basic mentality was different, Soda had to forgo some of the traditional Jedi teachings and favor instead a more gray approach in those areas. The students were still taught the ways of the Light Side, but also learnt things more associated with fringe Gray Jedi groups as well.

Soda stayed with the Chiss for close to forty years, developing an order of Force-Sensitives that would aid the Chiss Ascendancy in maintaining the peace. Finally though, it was time for the Jedi Master to return to the Republic, now that the Ascendant Knights, as the Chiss order was called, were able to work and grow on their own, the first students now Masters in the Order. Before leaving, Soda made it known that if the Chiss Ascendancy ever needed his assistance, he would come as quick as he was able to.

The Sith War to the Mandalorian Invasion
Soda returned to the Galactic Republic and settled back into his position in the Jedi Order. Things were mostly at peace in the galaxy, but that changed when a Jedi called Exar Kun fell into darkness. Exar called out to the lower ranking Jedi, padawans and knights. He told them of the Dark Side's power, how they were being held back from greatness, and how they could acheive such greatness by joining him and the Dark Side. Sadly, Soda's padawan learner at the time heard this call, and after an angry and bitter confrontation with Soda, fled to the Sith. With the Jedi now at war, Soda forged his own path into the struggle, focused on one thing: finding and saving his student. After several weeks, he found him, on the shores of the dark lake of Ambria, with a few other turned Dark Jedi. Soda was alone, but the Force was with him that day, and the other Dark Jedi attacked him, and were soon disposed of, leaving only Soda and his padawan there. It was a tense meeting between the two, with Soda using all of his speaking ability and compassion to convince his student to return to the light. His padawan, realizing how close he had come to falling, agreed, and came back with Soda to the Order. A few years later, the padawan became a knight, and would later become a prominent member of the Jedi Council. The padawan's name was Vrook Lamar.

In the time after the Sith War, things settled down for Soda, who took off time from training students to think about the state of the galaxy, to research the intricacies of the the Force, and to indulge in one of his favorite pasttimes, history. Soda was already a historian, but in this time he vastly built up his knowledge, studying past events to try and see how the future would play out. Very few Jedi at this time knew more about history than Soda, and very few others in the Republic as well. About fourteen years before the present, Soda returned to training students with a new pupil, Orven Kalan. Orven was different because he joined the Jedi as a teenager, so he had a normal life for many years. As such, Soda knew that the training for Orven would have to be different than for normal students, as Orven had a previous life, while most padawans became Jedi at very young ages. So this interesting training began, very unorthodoxly and unusual by Jedi standards. Soda had always been an unorthodox teacher, but with Orven he did things even more differently. Why? Who knows, but Soda did everything for a reason. For several years the training progressed, until another event came that would shake things up: The Mandalorian Wars.

When the Republic called for help, Orven was in the last stages of training. Soda was neither in Revan's, nor in the Jedi Council's camp on things. Soda saw the Mandalorians as a threat, and agreed that some help should be given to the Republic. But Soda was wise, and saw that the Mandalorian Wars hid an underlying menace that threatened the Republic. To fully committ without knowing where it would end was lunacy in his eyes. But something had to be done to help the Republic. Unfortunately, the Council was both stubborn and stagnant, refusing to not only lend aid, but also refusing to explain why. Not even Soda's entreaties to them to do something, lest Revan lead a massive defection, moved them. So when Revan left, with thousands of Jedi at his back, Soda saw the possible doom of the Order, and the darkness awaiting those in the Mandalorian Wars. Things were moving fast, and a shadow subdued was creeping back up to threaten the galaxy. Soda saw this before anyone else, and felt he must withdraw from the galaxy and meditate on this, coming back into things when the critical point was reached. But first, he had a padawan to finish training.

For one more year, Soda trained Orven, his pupil becoming a Jedi Knight just under six years before the present day. On the day of his becoming a Knight, Soda took Orven aside and whispered a few things to him, reminding him of the key components of training that Soda had taught, and warning him of the pitfalls that awaited a Jedi Knight. He also cryptically mentioned a few things that would have tipped Orven off to Soda's departure and reasons, but they remained hidden at the time. Shortly after this talk, Soda left Orven and came to a hangar where a customized starfighter that fit his species awaited him. He took off in the ship, heading for a planet on the edge of space that was known to only his species at this time. His disappearance was discovered the next day.

Meditation, Travels, and a Brief Return
For nearly six years, Soda meditated, thought, and planned about the situation in the galaxy, keeping track of events through secretive ways. He also paid a couple quick visits to Chiss Space to re-familiarize himself with the people and the area, giving the current Grand Master of the Ascendant Knights some tips in maintaining control over a growing order that numbered in the dozens now. It was several months after the defeat of Darth Malak at the Star Forge when Soda returned to the Republic yet again. He soon became quickly embroiled in the actions of the mysterious Malya Helindin, who seemed to be one of the keys to defeating Darth Shadow of the Sith Empire. Soda was there when Darth Shadow secured the powerful green Force crystal, defeating the vermin Dark Jedi Akari in a duel before the Sith Lord interfered. When Shadow rebelled against the Sith Empire and threatened both Sith and Republic, Soda was one of the leaders of the combined Republic and Jedi task force that took the fight to Shadow's main forces at Ziost. Soda led the Republic party that boarded the main space station and seized the command center of it, fending off many rebel Sith along with Dark Jedi. Though his efforts were key in defeating Shadow's forces, the victory over Shadow belonged to another, and the means of it were not what was expected.

Shortly after the defeat of Shadow at Ziost, Soda helped Malya Helindin regain her sight by arranging a radical eye transplant procedure under the supervision of the Ho'Din chief of Coruscant's center of cutting edge medical technology. It was during this time that Soda was reunited with his former padawan Orven, though only for a short time. Less than a month after Shadow's downfall, Soda received a frantic message from one of the Lords of the Chiss Ascendancy. A new enemy had come to their lands and was ravaging worlds. Soda's experience and wisdom was needed to halt the advance. Remembering his promise to aid them, Soda once again bid farewell to Republic space, journeying to the Chiss Ascendancy to aid the aliens in their fight against the new threat: The Sarissi.

The Sarissi War
The Sarissi were an enemy unlike any Soda had fought before. They relied on droids to do most of their fighting, and while most were of the standard variety, some of them were not. Some of the were some odd mix of machine and Force, making them extremely deadly. But, even they did not combine to the real reason behind the Sarissi success, their monk caste. Mages who wielded the Force to devastating effect, they were able to cut swaths through Chiss ranks and destroy whole formations of them when grouped together. One on one against a Ascendant Knight, they won almost all the time, because they were so vicious, and used such strong powers to terrible effect. Even deadlier was the frontline leader of the Sarissi offensive: Salstra'thaar, the Demon's Hand. Stronger than most beings that Soda had come across, his strength in the Force was matched by his skill with weapons, his physical power, and his capacity for evil. In his first brush with the Sarissi executor, Soda barely escaped with his life.

After several months, the war between the Sarissi and Chiss stalemated. The Sarissi had gobbled up almost a third of Chiss lands, but they could advance no farther. It was at this time that a ship carrying Captain Raolph Scindia and Shivana Culu entered Chiss space, and Soda was there to meet them when they were brought onboard a Chiss battleship. Soda qucickly gave them a brief education on Chiss culture and history, and had the threat of the Sarissi explained to them as best as he could in such short notice. He also introduced them to the Ascendant Order, and had them take part in two key missions. The first dealt with an investigation of a remote Ascendant Knight training ground that had been off the air for several days. Soda and Shivana investigated along with a pair of Ascendant Knights, and discovered that the Sarissi had leveled the enclave and were excavating the ruins, searching for something. A Sarissi monk attacked them with war droids, Shivana defeating the monk while the droids were taken care of. It was then that Salstra'thaar appeared, and engaged the Miraluka in a vicious fight. He disarmed her, and was about to obliterate her with a massive blast of Force energy when Soda stepped in and blocked the attack. He then quickly engaged the Demon's hand in a fight until their shuttle arrived to pick them up and escape. They had managed to get away, though the Sarissi got their true prize, a crystal that had something to do with time warping, though whether it would ever amount to anything is unknown. As of the present, no use of the crystal has been detected, and it is believed that the research project failed upon the Sarissi defeat later on

The second mission dealt with Scindia and a team of Chiss Intelligence agents sabotaging a fuel depot in occupied territory that supplied hundreds of Sarissi warships. The station was sabotaged, the detonating fuel causing a massive explosion that destroyed or crippled over a hundred warships and transports, dealing the Sarissi a large blow. Files from the databank were downloaded as well, and when they were decoded, they indicated that a massive offensive was soon to take place...against the Republic. Hundreds, possibly thousands of Sarissi ships would soon crash into Republic territory, causing great destruction if they came in unwarned off. Soda arranged for Shivana and Scindia to get transportation out of the Ascendancy and back to the Republic so they could warn the government of the Sarissi threat.

With the Republic now warned, and Sarissi attentions now also focused on the Republic as well with the Republic on the defensive so far, Soda was up to his usual tricks and aided the Chiss in tactically planning moves against the Sarissi. Strangely though, the alien invaders ceased their offensives almost immediately, and resorted to limited raids and defensive manuevers. The reason for this was most likely that the Sarissi devoted their full attentions to assaulting the Republic, which they did have great initial success in. Of course, this diversion of attention allowed the Chiss to regroup, and with Soda's advice leading them on, they slowly reconquered the territory that had been lost to them until most of what was the Chiss Ascendancy at the beginning of hostilities was once again under their control. That done, the Chiss were content to let the Republic deal with the Sarissi onslaught on it's own, though at Soda's request they did send their discoveries on Sarissi technology and tactics, so that the Republic could more easily adapt to fighting the strange foe. Knowing that they were facing defeat, the Sarissi launched a brazen assault on the Chiss capitol world of Csilla, hoping to decapitate their enemy's leadership. Salstra'thaar, the Sarissi warmaster who had caused so much ruin in the war, led the offensive. Soda helped coordinate the defenses and arranged for Chiss forces to leap into the fray from all corners with pinpoint accuracy, bottling up the Sarrisi horde inside the main planet's gravity well. Soda boarded the Sarissi flagship with a party of Ascendant Knights and made his way to the bridge, where Salstra'thaar waited for him. After a terrible and vicious duel, the Sarissi leader was decapitated by Soda, and the remaining Sarissi forces lost morale and either fled or were trapped and annihilated. As of that point, the Sarissi threat to the Chiss was ended, though several months of fighting between them and the Republic would linger on.

Aftermath and the Republic Civil War
When the Sarissi War finally ended once and for all, the small number of Jedi who had come into Chiss space all left save for Soda, who remained to ensure that the rebuilding process was going to plan and that the battered Order of Ascendant Knights was on it's way to recovering from it's heavy losses. As tides of power and sentiment shifted in the Galactic Senate against the Jedi, Soda foresaw the coming violence and gathered a corp of volunteer Chiss soldiers and Ascendant Knights, termed the CVC (Chiss Volunteer Corps) who felt they owed a debt of honor to the Jedi Order for doing so much to aid them over so many years. When the Galactic Republic finally outlawed the Jedi and moved on the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, Soda led in a small wing of Chiss clawcraft to knock a hole in the naval blockade over the planet for several Jedi transports and numerous fighters to escape through. While the Jedi refugees went on to Tatooine, Soda returned to one of several CVC outposts in the Outer Rim outside of the Republic and began organizing them.

Soda then arrived on Tatooine to conference with the Jedi Council and Legion commander Colonel Nantaris over what next steps to take. After conferring with Nantaris on some issues, Soda borrowed a transport and went to Ord Mantell, where his old student Orven was isolated in after fleeing Coruscant. He met up with Orven, but before they could do much, they were assaulted by mercenaries hired by the IED to hunt them down. After a quick and vicious fight, Soda and Orven were able to get aboard the transport and flee, with several mercenaries friendly to Orven providing some cover. The group then journeyed to Palanhi, a notable Republic banking world, in order to transfer funds from the bank to a safer account in the Rim. After doing so, they managed to temporarily evade IED detection, but were caught in a firefight with two squads of the agents. They managed to get aboard their transport and blasted off into space, where they encountered a number of Republic craft moving to intercept. Luckily, Soda had called in elements of the CVC to stand by, and they jumped in and blunted the Republic advance long enough for Soda and his group to jump into hyperspace.

After escaping the pursuit of the IED and Republic Navy, Soda returned to a CVC outpost with Orven, and summoned Colonel Nantaris there for a meeting about coordination between the Legion and the CVC, as well as plotting what moves they needed to take next.