A Thousand Generations

"For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire. A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights."

Obi-Wan Kenobi
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope


Darth Sidious, though he didn’t possess the raw power of the Sith of previous generations like Exar Kun, managed to do what no other Sith had done -- utterly destroy the Jedi order.

But how does one eliminate in a single generation the reputation and deeds of a thousand previous generations? What would it take to eliminate thousands of beings not only trained in the martial arts from infancy, but also possessed of extrasensory powers?

My first reaction, especially having been treated to seeing traditionally trained Jedi in the prequel trilogy, is, no way. Thousands of Jedi would've been in hiding.

And yet…

In The Phantom Menace novel it is mentioned that there are approximately ten thousand Jedi. It’s not clear if this figure lumps together both Jedi and padawans, but let’s say that it does to make the math easier.

At the battle of Geonosis in Attack of the Clones, 186 Jedi and padawans were killed. That’s almost 2% of all the Jedi, dead in just the first battle of the Clone Wars!

We’re now down to 9,800, roughly.

It’s difficult to say what the ratio of padawans to knights may have been in the last days of the Republic, but if the Jedi training program is at all like present-day schools or military institutions, students surely outnumber masters. The Jedi probably have a very high retention rate, but they would still need to “over recruit” in order to compensate for the on-going loss of older Jedi and for padawans that may not make it through the program for a variety of reasons (injury, failure to adhere to the teachings, death, inability to pass the Jedi trials, etc.).

Let’s say there are two padawans for every full knight -- six thousand padawans or so. Let’s split the padawans up 50-50 -- three thousand are paired with a knight (these are "padawan-learners") and three thousand are too young to be paired up ("younglings"), have not yet been chosen as an apprentice, or whose master has died, etc.

Although it makes poor tactical sense to have the entire future generation of your organization housed in one training complex, this is apparently exactly what the Republic-era Jedi did. So, when Anakin marched on the temple with several thousand clone troopers in tow, it is conceivable that three thousand padawans were put to death. These padawans must’ve had some adult supervision, but it’s a safe bet that any adult Jedi that were at the temple instead of out in the field were injured, were scholars, or were past their prime. I’ll go with a ten to one ratio of students to staff and instructors at this time when staffing must've been inadequate.

From our initial 10,000 figure:

186 dead at Geonosis
3,200 padawans killed in the Temple Massacre
320 Jedi instructors killed in the Temple Massacre

We’re now left with about 6,300 Jedi and padawans in the field.

In the novelization of Revenge of The Sith, Mace mentions that some Jedi joined the Separatists. I’ll give Jedi training the benefit of the doubt and say that only 1% of the original 10,000 would’ve rebelled against the order and defected -- 100 Jedi. Ironically, these defectors were probably more likely to survive the first wave of the Jedi Purge than their counterparts in the Republic -- they would not have been in the proximity of clone troopers when “Order 66” came down. However, I still think the attrition rate for the defectors would be high. The Separatists would likely think they were spies and they would be given deadly assignments. Moreover, their former comrades in the Republic would be gunning for them. Let’s say 80 of them were dead by war’s end.

6,220 left.

Of these, a certain amount would be undercover, or involved in civilian endeavors of some kind. 500 sounds like a fair number, though it may be high. Undercover missions are dangerous, but as with the defectors, these are the people most likely to survive Order 66. Let’s give a 50% death rate to the undercover Jedi -- 250 dead.

5,970 left, some of whom are padawans. Let’s say padawans are more likely to die in the field. I’m going to say that the 2,860 padawans have a 75% death rate -- about 2,145 dead.

3,825 left. Now comes the big question -- what percentage of Jedi were caught unawares by clones when Order 66 came down? This is supposed to be a tragedy, so let’s say 80%.

That still leaves 765 Jedi who, through the will of the Force, escaped the first strike of the purge. Of these, 20 are former Separatist sympathizers, 143 are padawans and 50 are deep cover agents.

You’re Darth Sidious. In a 13-year period you have killed 92% of the Jedi. How do you get the remaining 8%?

More to come…