A wall of light was an immense manifestation of potentially destructive light side Force energy created by the focused power of a united Jedi front. When performed successfully, a wall of light allowed participants to effectively contain or purge the power of the dark side from a specific location, or sever an especially dangerous darksider from their Force connection. The ability was popular among Great Sith War–era members of the Jedi Order, who used it to great effect against the resurgent Dark Lords of Exar Kun's Sith Brotherhood, and later against the spirit of Kun, by the inaugural class of Luke Skywalker's Jedi Praxeum.
The use of the Force to create a wall of light side energy was a Jedi's most devastating offensive ability. The technique required the collective effort of several participants to form—with considerable difficulty—an all-encompassing prison of blue energy, from which the dark side could not escape. Celestial bodies besieged by a wall of light were sterilized utterly with flames and violent weather phenomena, while wielders of the dark side found themselves completely blocked from the Force.
The primary purpose for the creation of a wall of light around a specific location was the quarantine or total eradication of the dark side's malevolent influence. Jedi Knights also used walls of light to harmlessly subdue or repel extremely dangerous enemies. Under dire circumstances, however, a lone Jedi was able to channel the light side of the Force to offensively incapacitate a foe, but use of such power often brought forth unexpected and potentially catastrophic results. The victim of a wall of light experienced extreme agony as their connection to the Force was interrupted in a severance that could be made permanent at the discretion of the Jedi. Walls of light were also an effective weapon against Sith spirits.
Exar Kun is humbled by the Jedi's creation of a wall of light.
Draethos Jedi Knight Odan-Urr used a wall of light to disconnect Sith Lord Naga Sadow's defeated Sith warriors from the Force in the final stages of the Great Hyperspace War. He later recorded a detailed account of the ability in the Tedryn Holocron. More than a thousand years after the Hyperspace War, Odan-Urr taught a prodigious Jedi Knight named Nomi Sunrider to utilize walls of light in the harmless incapacitation of enemies. During the Jedi conclave on Deneba, Arkanian Jedi Master Arca Jeth inferred that a wall of light was required to drive away the Krath cult, whose holy crusade against the Republic had spread the influence of the dark side across the galaxy. When the Krath later attacked the planet Coruscant, their leader, fallen Jedi–turned–Sith Lord Ulic Qel-Droma, was defeated and trapped within a wall of light by Masters Vodo-Siosk Baas and Thon, who were assisted by Knights Tott Doneeta, Cay Qel-Droma, Nomi Sunrider, Dace Diath, and Sylvar.
Nomi Sunrider faced Qel-Droma again on Ossus and imprisoned him within a wall of light that inadvertently resulted in Qel-Droma's permanent severance from the Force. At the culmination of the Great Sith War, Sunrider guided thousands of Jedi, including Tott Doneeta, Sylvar, Oss Wilum, and Thon, in the creation of a wall of light over the Yavin moon to defeat Dark Lord of the Sith Exar Kun. Although his spirit had been successfully trapped within the walls of his Massassi temple, a planet-wide firestorm caused by the Jedi's magnified power annihilated Yavin 4's landscape in the process. More than four thousand years later, Kun's ghost was forever cleansed from Yavin 4 through the creation of a wall of light initiated by the trainees of Master Luke Skywalker's Jedi Praxeum.
Wall of light was first mentioned in Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson's Descent to the Dark Side, the third issue in the Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi - Dark Lords of the Sith comic book story arc. Wall of light's first appearance was in The Battle of Coruscant, the second issue of Tales of the Jedi's subsequent Sith War story arc. It was also featured as the means by which the Jedi and Republic defeated Exar Kun in The Sith Wars final issue, titled Dark Lord. While The Sith War 6: Dark Lord depicts the destruction of Yavin 4's landscape as the result of the Jedi's creation of a wall of light, The Essential Atlas states incorrectly that the moon's surface was destroyed by orbital bombardment.
In the BioWare MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, one of the servers is named after this Force technique.
- The Essential Guide to Characters
- The Jedi Academy Sourcebook
- Star Wars Encyclopedia
- The Essential Chronology
- The Dark Side Sourcebook
- The New Essential Guide to Characters
- Power of the Jedi Sourcebook
- The Official Star Wars Fact File119
- The New Essential Chronology
- Star Wars: The Comics Companion
- Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
- Jedi Academy Training Manual
- The Essential Atlas