Jenna Zan Arbor

At the beginning of her career, Jenna Zan Arbor was a famed scientist and the head of Arbor Industries. She was known for saving a planet from a pandemic after creating a vaccine for a deadly virus. Zan Arbor was also known to help planets with little technology such as Melasaton overcome their burdens. However, nobody knew that she actually started the problems in the first place, to gain credits and improve her reputation.

Zan Arbor became interested in how the Force worked and began conducting experiments. She had connections to the senator of Belasco, Uta S'orn who kept her dark deeds quiet in the Galactic Senate. Unbeknownst to Senator S'orn, her son Ren, who was Force-sensitive (although his mother had taken him away from the Jedi Order when she was unable to cope with losing him) was being studied by Zan Arbor. These experiments lead to Ren's death, something Zan Arbor didn't expect. Feeling somewhat remorseful, she felt she needed a subject stronger in the Force, so she hired a bounty hunter, Ona Nobis, to capture the "retired" Jedi Master Noor R'aya and bring him to her research facility on Simpla-12. Then, weeks later, another Jedi named Qui-Gon Jinn was knocked out by Nobis in the Cascardi Mountains on Duneeden. He was taken to the laboratory, where Zan Arbor tortured him to the point of near death.

However, Qui-Gon was rescued by Obi-Wan Kenobi, along with Astri Oddo, who was disguised as Ona Nobis. Yet Zan Arbor warned the Jedi that she had another in custody—Noor R'aya—and threatened to inject him with poison should Qui-Gon leave the building. She killed her assistant, Nil, as he was a liability. Zan Arbor then made plans to leave the planet, contacting Cholly, Weez and Tup, who were droid dealers to arrange shipment of battle droids. But the trio were helping Obi-Wan, Siri Tachi and Adi Gallia get into her lab.

With the droids all destroyed, Zan Arbor escaped the planet with Noor. She fled to Belasco, where she engineered a virus from natural waterborne organisms on the planet. She planned to infect the populace through their water supply, designing the bacteria to proliferate if threatened. With S'orn's help, she was able to infiltrate the containment facilities to introduce the bacteria. The Jedi caught up to her, with the data to cure Belasco. As Qui-Gon trapped her under a tapestry, she deeply regretted that she didn't kill him when she had the chance. Both Zan Arbor and Uta S'orn were sent to a penal colony for life. The solution for the bacteria Zan Arbor introduced was found on her datapad and the water was fixed.

Around 25 BBY, Zan Arbor somehow escaped the penal colony. She settled on the planet Vanqor and began perfecting a drug known as the Zone of Self-Containment. With this drug, she was able to capture Anakin Skywalker and many other innocent people; however, she was forced to flee Vanqor when Obi-Wan Kenobi, Siri Tachi and Ferus Olin came to rescue Anakin. Fleeing Vanqor, Zan Arbor teamed up with Granta Omega who agreed to fund her next project. She went into hiding on Romin, under the protection of Roy Teda and her Phlog bodyguard Hue. When Teda was overthrown, the Jedi came to capture them, but they escaped yet again.

In 24 BBY, Zan Arbor then constructed the Blackwater Systems facility on Falleen to create machines that would be used to spread the Zone of Self-Containment. The Jedi once again foiled her plot and she was forced to destroy the facility. The Jedi chased her to Coruscant, where she and Granta Omega orchestrated a failed attempt to assassinate Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, and finally to Korriban, where she and Omega were cornered by the Jedi in the 23 BBY. When the Jedi killed Omega, Zan Arbor fled. She went into hiding and went unnoticed by both the Jedi and the Republic. That same year, when Count Dooku publicly declared the formation of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, Zan Arbor was hired to be one of their leading scientists.

Now a scientist for the Separatists, Zan Arbor created devastating agents of biological warfare. A few months before the Battle of Geonosis, she worked with Arkanian genetic researchers to create the stone mites, insects that could devour entire buildings in mere hours. These stone mites were unleashed on a number of worlds.

Two months into the Clone Wars, Zan Arbor successfully perfected a deadly gas poison that was used to wipe out the entire Gungan colony on the Naboo moon of Ohma-D'un. A form of this same gas was incorporated into the defense mechanism of Viceroy Nute Gunray's mechno-chair.

A year after Order 66 was carried out, Zan Arbor was spotted on Korriban by Ferus Olin and Trever Flume followed by a high-ranking Imperial Officer. She commanded the officer to bring her to the Valley of the Dark Lords.

Later, on Bellassa, Olin discovered evidence possibly linking her to a secret Imperial project. Zan Arbor was working with scientists who had been forcibly taken from their homeworlds to help with this operation, though weapons systems weren't in her repertoire. She had been working to create a memory-erasing serum that would completely remove specific unpleasant memories. Scientist Linna Naltree was with her when the Sith Lord Darth Vader came to call for the serum, seeking to eliminate his memory of Padmé Amidala. In return for her services, she would have an apartment in 500 Republica, a personal visit to and starship designed for her by Raith Sienar, and a high level security pass.

After Vader left, Zan Arbor and her assistant ran into fugitives Trever Flume and Ry-Gaul. As the two attacked the scientist, Linna administered the serum via syringe to Zan Arbor, wiping her memory slowly. As she screamed over her fading formulas and fifty years of work, Trevor Flume destroyed her personal datapad, eliminating the threat of Jenna Zan Arbor once and for all. Now an empty shell of her former self, Zan Arbor was left with no identity and a vague sense that she had once been a brilliant genius.

Later, when Vader visited Zan Arbor after she failed to respond to any of his messages, he found her trying to remember her favorite tea, and misremembering her homeworld to be the planet Moseum instead of Ventrux. As she was unable to help him forget Padmé, Vader killed her in a flash of anger.

• Power of the Jedi Sourcebook
• Droids, Technology and the Force: A Clash of Phenomena on Hyperspace
• The New Essential Chronology
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