The Grand Inquisitor/Synopsis

The story of the Grand Inquisitor from Star Wars: Rebels.

History
The nameless Inquisitor was once a Jedi Temple Guard, he then served for the Galactic Empire, specifically its second most powerful entity, Darth Vader. Despite not being a Sith in general, the Inquisitor knew a lot about the Force and has practiced on the dark side. He was tasked by Vader to execute any surviving Jedi he discovered with an endless army of Stormtroopers under his command on the orders of Vader's master Emperor Palpatine. The Inquisitor is also tasked in finding younglings around the galaxy who are strong with the Force so that they will not become Jedi. During the series, he became bent on killing Kanan Janus (a former Jedi Padawan) and his turning his apprentice Ezra Bridger (the protagonist of the series) to the dark side.

Lord Vader's Orders
"Darth Vader: The Emperor has foreseen a new threat rising against him: the children of the Force. They must not become Jedi. The Inquisitor: Yes, Lord Vader. Darth Vader: Hunt down this new enemy, and if they will not serve the Empire, eliminate them along with any surviving Jedi who would train them. This is my Master's command."

- Darth Vader and the Inquisitor.

The Pau'an male known as the Inquisitor hailed from the planet Utapau, where he was born over 15 years prior to the Invasion of Naboo. During the Clone Wars, he served as a member of the Jedi Temple Guards. After Darth Sidious, publicly known as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, transformed the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire and declared himself Emperor, the Inquisitor fell to the dark side and came into the service of the Empire and the Sith. Though not a Sith himself, the Inquisitor was tasked with hunting down and eliminating any Jedi who had survived Order 66, the order given to the Grand Army of the Republic by Darth Sidious to destroy the Jedi Order. To accomplish this task, the Inquisitor was trained in the ways of the dark side of the Force and studied the records of the Jedi Temple in order to defeat his enemies.

At one point, the Inquisitor spoke via hologram with Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith, who told the Jedi hunter that the Emperor had foreseen a new threat rising against him. Vader told him that the threat was the "children of the Force" and that they could not be allowed to become Jedi. The Dark Lord ordered the Inquisitor to hunt them down and either make them join the Empire or destroy them, along with any Jedi survivors who could train them — as these were the orders of the Emperor. With the order given, the Inquisitor told Vader that it would be done. One method that the Inquisitor used to find Force-sensitive individuals was to look for cadets at the Imperial Academy on Lothal who met a set of criteria, one that indicated their ability to use the Force.

Trap on Stygeon Prime
"I am the Inquisitor. Welcome."

- The Grand Inquisitor meets Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger.

Sometime later, 14 years after the rise of the Empire, a group of rebels who operated on Lothal came to the attention of Agent Kallus of the Imperial Security Bureau. The rebels rescued a group of Wookiees that had been enslaved in the spice mines of Kessel, a mission in which the rebel leader, Kanan Jarrus, used a lightsaber and revealed himself as a Jedi survivor. After the rebels escaped, Kallus contacted the Inquisitor and informed him about what happened on Kessel. The Inquisitor was pleased that Kallus informed him of the rebel cell and the Jedi in its ranks.

The Inquisitor laid a trap for Jarrus and his apprentice, Ezra Bridger, on Stygeon Prime. Using the bones of Jedi Master Luminara Unduli, who had been killed during the fall of the Republic, the Empire was able to project an image suggesting that Unduli was alive. This information was then reported by Gall Trayvis, a former member of the Imperial Senate who went into exile after speaking out against the Empire; the information suggested that Unduli was being held captive in The Spire, a prison on Stygeon Prime. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity to rescue a Jedi survivor, the rebels undertook a mission to the prison where they intended to rescue the Jedi Master.

Once in the prison, the rebels fought their way through stormtroopers who were stationed there. Jarrus and Bridger made it to the detention area, and Jarrus believed he could sense the Jedi Master — though in actuality, it was the power from her bones. They entered the cell and saw a projected image of Unduli, which faded into a sarcophagus that revealed the remains of the Jedi Master. The Inquisitor entered the cell, his lightsaber ignited, and approached the two Jedi, revealing that Luminara had been dead for many years. Jarrus attacked the Inquisitor and the two engaged in lightsaber combat. The Inquisitor was able to correctly deduce that Jarrus had been trained by Jedi Master Depa Billaba, as she had been a teacher of Form III lightsaber combat in close quarter fighting, which Jarrus employed extensively. The two continued their duel within the cell until Bridger set off a small detonator that allowed him and Jarrus to flee.

Though they had escaped the cell, the Inquisitor pursued them and continued his fight with Jarrus in the halls of the prison. He soon pushed Jarrus away through the Force and, per Vader's command, attempted to convert Bridger to the dark side. The boy refused, however, and the Inquisitor prepared to strike him down, but Jarrus used the Force to pin the Inquisitor to the ceiling, giving the two Jedi a chance to flee. The Inquisitor followed them and chased them through the prison, before they met back up with their fellow rebels. Separated by a number of closed doors, the Inquisitor sliced through them with his lightsaber and arrived in time to see the rebels beginning to escape. He made one last attempt to stop them by throwing his lightsaber towards them, but Jarrus deflected it and the rebels escaped aboard the Phantom, the attack shuttle that belonged to their main ship, the Ghost.

Incident at the Imperial Academy
"Well, Leonis, let's take a walk, shall we? I want to know everything about your former friends."

- The Grand Inquisitor, to Zare Leonis.

After his failure to stop the rebels on Stygeon Prime, the Inquisitor was contacted by Commandant Cumberlayne Aresko, the lead officer at the Imperial Academy on Lothal, who informed him of two students who potentially met his criteria for Force-sensitivity. He learned that these cadets were Dev Morgan — who (unknown to the Academy) was Bridger in disguise, who infiltrated the Academy to learn the location of a giant kyber crystal of great power — and Jai Kell. Having learned this information, the Inquisitor, speaking via hologram, told Aresko that he would arrive at the Imperial Academy the next day. Bridger overheard the conversation, and he and Kell escaped the Academy with another cadet, Zare Leonis, who suspected that the Inquisitor was behind the disappearance of his sister, Dhara Leonis; Dhara was the star cadet at the Academy before her disappearance, which the Empire claimed was a result of her running away from the Academy.

Upon his arrival at the Imperial Academy, Aresko and Agent Kallus informed him of Bridger and Kell's escape. The Jedi hunter was shown the datafiles on the two cadets and recognized "Dev Morgan" as Bridger from their encounter on Stygeon Prime. The Inquisitor informed Aresko that the incident was a black mark on the Academy's record, though did have hope of learning more about the rebels, as Leonis was also present in the meeting; Leonis had opted to stay behind so he could find out what happened to his sister, and pretended to try to stop Bridger and Kell upon their escape. The Inquisitor spoke to Leonis and told the cadet to tell him everything he knew about Bridger and Kell.

Empire Day
The Inquisitor was on Lothal for Empire Day when the rebels destroyed the prototype TIE Fighter.

When the Rebels attempted to smuggle Tseebo off Lothal, he led a TIE Fighter squadron while piloting his own TIE Advanced v1 to stop them from escaping. He was able to plant a XX-23 S-thread tracker on their ship moments before they jumped to hyperspace.

Eventually, The Crew of the Ghost detached the Phantom and landed on an abandoned Clone base. The Inquisitor took a squad of troops to confront the two Jedi. Using the Frynocks to attack the stormtroopers, Kanan fought the Inquisitor and was knocked down. Ezra tries to stop him but sensing his Anger and Rage, The Inquisitor tells him to give into the Dark Side. Telling him that his friends will die and that everything he fought for, will be lost. Ezra does succumb to the Dark Side and has one of the creatures attack The Inquisitor. Kanan then escorts Ezra out, reclaiming his lightsaber and manage to escape on board The Phantom. Accepting his failure, The Inquisitor simply stated that his Master would not be pleased.

Visions of Darkness
Having had his first experience with the dark side on Fort Anaxes, Bridger ventured to the Jedi Temple on Lothal with Jarrus, who wanted to make sure that his Padawan could actually become a Jedi. Once inside the temple Bridger encountered visions of the Grand Inquisitor killing his friends, whom he had come to regard as his family. The Inquisitor first dueled and killed Jarrus in the vision, before entering the Ghost and killing the crew inside. Soon thereafter, the vision of the Grand Inquisitor moved to kill Bridger himself. Bridger realized, however, that he was not afraid of dying. Rather, he was afraid of losing those he cared about and being abandoned like he was when he lost his parents at a young age a fear represented through the threat of the Inquisitor. Once Bridger realized what his fear was, the vision of the Grand Inquisitor disappeared.

Capturing Kanan
"Inquisitor, I am giving you the opportunity to redeem yourself. Do not disappoint me, and remember, I want this Jedi, alive. Your faith will be rewarded."

- Grand Moff Tarkin and the Grand Inquisitor.

The Inquisitor was present in the Imperial Complex hangar when Grand Moff Tarkin arrived to investigate the situation on Lothal. Reports of the rebel activities had reached the highest levels of the Imperial government and worries had begun to emerge as Lothal's industries were vital for the Empire's expansion into the Outer Rim. Immediately upon arriving, Tarkin berated Minister Maketh Tua and Agent Kallus for their inability to stop the rebellion. He also dismissed the rumors that a Jedi was leading the rebels, claiming that all the Jedi had died during the Great Purge and that he knew because he had witnessed it.

Later that day, Tarkin summoned Commandant Cumberlayne Aresko and Taskmaster Myles Grint who had been pursuing the rebels for some time and who had failed at every turn. After a brief conversation during which he revealed that other rebel cells were active in the Empire and that the rumors of a Jedi leading a rebellion could spark hope and encourage unity, Tarkin informed the assembled dignitaries that there would be consequences for failure henceforth. Upon these words, the Inquisitor activated his lightsaber directly behind Aresko and Grint and triggered the spinning feature, decapitating the two officers as a horrified Tua and Kallus watched on. When Kallus discovered that the Rebels were planning to strike at the Imperial communications tower, Tarkin instructed him to let them enter the tower but prepare his troops to intervene as soon as they did. After Kallus left, Tarkin told the Inquisitor that this was his chance to redeem himself for his previous failures. The Pau'an promised the Grand Moff that his faith would be rewarded.

After the Rebels struck the tower, Kallus and his troops intervened, surrounding the tower and forcing the Rebels to escape to the roof. Only Kanan Jarrus remained behind to give them time to escape, at which point the Inquisitor arrived to confront the Jedi. Jarrus destroyed the console giving them access to the tower. Once again, the Inquisitor and the Jedi fought, with the former noticing that Jarrus had improved his technique. However, the Inquisitor proved the strongest of the two once again and he subdued Jarrus with the Force. However, the rest of the Rebels successfully escaped. With Jarrus in custody, Grand Moff Tarkin arrived and was given the captured Jedi just as a signal broadcast by the rebels begun to transmit by the tower. Tarkin gave orders for the tower to be destroyed before leaving with his prisoner.

Kanan's Interrogation
"Tell me, Jedi, how did you survive Order 66? It was your master Billaba who laid down her life for yours. Do you remember her last words to you? Her last and final breath before she died? You do, don't you? You see it in your sleep, you hear her voice when you wake. Tell me Jedi, what was her last word to you?. Run."

- The Grand Inquisitor asks Jarrus about his master's last words.

After Kanan was captured, he was brought aboard Grand Moff Tarkin's flagship in orbit above Lothal: the Sovereign. Tarkin and Kallus proceed to interrogate Kanan with a mind probe, but the Jedi proved stronger than this tactic. As Tarkin grew more frustrated with the lack of results, the Inquisitor arrived and told them that Jedi were trained to resist mind probes. Instead, he claimed that pain would be a more effective technique, as Jedi still felt it. The Inquisitor used the Force to try and pry the information from Kanan's mind but, once again, the Jedi resisted. Instead, the Inquisitor electrocuted Kanan to make him talk. However, the rebel proved to be far stronger than he believed and he resisted the torture. The Inquisitor came to believe that Kanan did not know anything of a larger rebellion. Tarkin eventually suggested to transfer him to a facility which had never failed to gain results. The Sovereign then departed Lothal for Mustafar, a world deep in the Outer Rim.

Over Mustafar, the Inquisitor continued his interrogation of Kanan, asking him about other rebels he may have known. Specifically, he wanted to know about a mysterious rebel known as "Fulcrum". Kanan still refused to talk to the Inquisitor changed tactics: he asked Kanan how he had survived Order 66. When Kanan failed to answer, the Inquisitor revealed that he knew how; Jarrus' Master, Depa Billaba, had sacrificed herself to save him, losing her own life in the process. The Inquisitor taunted Kanan, asking him if he remembered what his Master's last words were and Kanan answered that she told him to run. The Inquisitor told Jarrus that he could not save his friends any more than he could save his Master because he feared his own power and did not even dare wear his lightsaber in public because of it. When alarms began going off, the Inquisitor was unsurprised to find that the other rebels had come to rescue their friend.

Confrontation aboard the Sovereign and Death
"At last, a fight that might be worthy of my time."

- The Grand Inquisitor

After Ezra broke Kanan out of his cell, they headed back for their evacuation ship through the generator complex. The Inquisitor waited for them and ignited his lightsaber. Kanan borrowed Ezra's lightsaber and attacked the Inquisitor. As he was about to reach him, he activated the lightsaber's stun gun, surprising his opponent. The two engaged in a lightsaber duel with Kanan using both the blade and the stun gun to attack the Inquisitor. When Ezra used the Force to snatch Kanan's lightsaber from the Imperial agent's belt, the Inquisitor disengaged from the duel with Kanan and, activating his second blade, claimed that he would finally get the challenge that he had always wanted. After a brief engagement, he used the Force to push Kanan back before throwing his spinning lightsaber at Ezra, who fell from the pathway to Kanan's horror.

Distraught over the apparent loss of his Padawan, Kanan remained on his knees for a while as the Inquisitor glared at him, smiling sadistically at the Jedi's obvious anguish. However, he eventually pulled himself together, remembering his Jedi training and rose to his feet. When the Inquisitor asked him what would happen now that no one else would die for him, Kanan replied that he no longer had anything left to fear. He then used the Force to draw his lightsaber to him, using both it and Ezra's. After saluting each other, the Inquisitor and the Jedi resumed their duel. This time, however, Kanan proved a much more effective foe and he gradually started to drive the Inquisitor back, the latter of whom began to show fear and uncertainty for the first time. When the Inquisitor came perilously close to the edge, Kanan interrupted the duel to say that his foe was right: he was a coward but that he had discovered that there was something far more powerful than fear: the Force. Kanan then destroyed the Inquisitor's lightsaber and the Imperial agent fell off the edge, catching the side of the pathway in his fall. The two halves of his lightsaber hit the generator, causing it to catch fire and starting a chain reaction within the Sovereign.

As Kanan stood over his defeated foe, the Inquisitor looked up at him and told him that his defeat would unleash something far worse upon them all. Knowing the punishment he would receive for his failure, the Inquisitor told the Jedi that there were some things far more frightening than death before letting himself fall into the exploding generator, killing himself.

Legacy
"It means that you are what I once was: a Knight of the Jedi Order."

- The Sentinel, to Kanan Jarrus.

The Inquisitor's warning to Jarrus proved true. With their primary agent on Lothal dead and a growing rebellion in the galaxy, the Empire sent out a far deadlier agent to Lothal to root out and destroy the rebels: Darth Vader himself. After Vader attacked and crippled the rebel fleet and learned that his former Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, was still alive and in league with the rebellion, the Emperor ordered Vader to dispatch another Inquisitor to hunt the rebels. Vader sent the Seventh Sister and the Fifth Brother, both of whom hoped to become the new Grand Inquisitor.

Some time after the death of the Grand Inquisitor, Jarrus and Bridger traveled with Ahsoka Tano to the Jedi Temple on Lothal to seek the guidance of Jedi Master Yoda, with whom Jarrus and Bridger had communed with from there before. It was there that they hoped to find guidance for how to deal with the threat of the Inquisitors, who attacked the rebels at every turn. While in the temple, Jarrus entered a vision in which he saw a Jedi Temple Guard known as the Sentinel within a dojo. Unknown to Jarrus, this was a vision of the Grand Inquisitor, as the Jedi he once was, conjured by Master Yoda as a means of communicating with the young Jedi. The Sentinel warned Jarrus that Bridger would fall to the dark side of the Force and that the boy had to be eliminated. Jarrus refused and the two engaged in a lightsaber duel. By the end of the duel, Jarrus refused to fight any further and admitted that while he may not be able to protect Bridger forever, he would continue to do his best to train him. The Sentinel looked as if he was about to strike Jarrus down, but instead removed his mask to reveal the face of the Grand Inquisitor. Jarrus asked what everything that had happened meant, and the Sentinel said that it meant Jarrus was now a Jedi Knight, as the Grand Inquisitor once was. As the Seventh Sister and the Fifth Brother descended on the temple, the Sentinel told Jarrus to flee and said he would hold off the enemy. The vision of the Sentinel, flanked by other Jedi Temple Guards, surrounded the two Inquisitors as Jarrus, Bridger, and Tano fled from the Jedi Temple.