The Kyber memory crystal, or simply the Kyber crystal, was a memory crystal that contained a list of all known Force-sensitive children in the galaxy. As it was considered to hold the future of the Jedi Order, it was highly valuable to both the Jedi and Sith. The information contained in the crystal could only be accessed when placed in a holocron which, in turn, could only be opened with the Force.
The Kyber crystal within a holocron
The Kyber memory crystal was a small, blue, diamond-shaped crystal which held the identities of every known Force-sensitive child in the galaxy.
The crystal was designed in such a way that its data could only be accessed if it were to be installed in a Jedi holocron. In turn, the holocron could only be opened by a Jedi's use of the Force.
The two components were kept separate; the holocrons were stored within the Holocron Vault of the well-protected Jedi Temple on Coruscant, while the crystal itself remained in the care of a Rodian Jedi Master named Bolla Ropal.
During the Clone Wars, the crystal was kept and protected by the Rodian Jedi Master Bolla Ropal.
Darth Sidious hired the Duros bounty hunter Cad Bane to infiltrate the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and steal a holocron necessary to accessing the information stored on the crystal. While Ropal was on Devaron, Duros bounty hunter Cad Bane captured him and stole the memory crystal.
Cad Bane apprehends the Kyber memory crystal.
Later, during a mission to recover the holocron Bane had stolen, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker was coerced into opening the holocron to save his Padawan's, Ahsoka Tano, life. Bane then inserted the Kyber crystal into the holocron, making it possible for his client to access the information stored within. The crystal was believed destroyed, along with Bane, when the Munificent-class frigate they were on exploded. Bane survived, however, disguising himself as clone trooper Denal.
Under Sidious' instruction, Bane kidnapped several of the children listed in the memory crystal. However, he was captured; after Masters Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Skywalker coerced Bane with the Force he led the Jedi to the holocron with the crystal inside (which was on a booby-trapped space station) and escaped during the confusion. The kidnapped children were located on Mustafar based on the logs of the Xanadu Blood, Bane's Rogue-class Porax-38 starfighter, and rescued from surgical droids by Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano. It was said that Bane never copied the list before it was recovered by the Order.
Jedi seekers then entrusted the memory crystal to Jedi Master and Chief Librarian Jocasta Nu. In 19 BBY, during the hunt for her shortly into the Great Jedi Purge, Darth Vader captured Nu and acquired the memory crystal from her. Vader secretly destroyed the memory crystal in order to prevent the Emperor from recruiting more Sith, an idea that Nu had presented to him and asked if it was what he truly wanted to happen.
Another Jedi holocron containing a list of the locations of Force-sensitive children across the galaxy was hidden in the Bogano Vault sometime before 14 BBY by Jedi Master Eno Cordova as a means of ensuring the survival of the Jedi Order.
It is possible that this was a term for a more general category of memory crystals. While the name suggests a connection to kyber crystals, no such connection has been established.
Several items have been referred to with variations of the name "Kyber" or "Kyber crystal," including the Kaiburr crystal in the 1978 novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye, and the kyber crystals used in the Death Star superlasers and Jedi lightsabers in canon.
The Kyber crystal was first mentioned in early drafts of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope as the "Kyber crystal." It was a Force artifact sought by both the Jedi and the Sith. The poison dart Jango Fett used to assassinate Zam Wesell was originally going to be identified as a Kamino kyber dart. This was again changed in the finished film to be a saber-dart.
During "Cargo of Doom," Cad Bane states that the holocron contains information he's been paid to collect. This is inaccurate, as it is later established that the Kyber crystal contains the actual information and the holocron is only the means of accessing the data. It is unclear if this was an oversight by the script writers or an intentional element.
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