OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: A deprogramming and rehabilitation site for Sith, Sith cultists, and beings with similar beliefs and/or skillset.
- Image Credit: Clinton Felker
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Cloud City Sentinels
- Structure Name: Cheelit Valley
- Classification: Detention centre
- Location: Isde Naha
- Affiliation: Cloud City Sentinels
- Accessibility: Cheelit Valley is a remote facility on a backwater world near Bespin. Its location and purpose are secret. The surrounding ten million acres of grassland are off limits to the public. All ships that arrive and depart use full stealth suites, including cloaking devices.
- Description: Cheelit Valley encompasses the Core Site and several small, isolated, Peripherals. The Core Site is built below ground level and is not visible from any significant distance. On orbital sensors, it would show up as a small settlement. The peripheral sites are nondescript individual cabins with basic utilities.
- The staff rarely leave the Core Site, and inmates never set foot there. The Core Site handles administrative and remote counseling functions. It contains powerful multimodal lifesign scanners capable of monitoring and distinguishing between all staff, inmates, and large animal life.
- Each Peripheral is a residence for one inmate. It contains a dedicated comms link to the Core Site; detailed biosensors for monitoring the inmate's location, health, and emotional state; a medical droid; and supplies of food, water, fuel, and vetted entertainment.
- The Core Site is very well secured against any incident where an inmate might somehow locate and reach it. It is not designed to hold out against an external assault, but does have an area shield generator and plenty of Jedi on staff.
- The inmates are free to leave their designated Peripherals and wander the grasslands on foot. It would take days of Force-enhanced travel to reach another Peripheral or stumble on the Core Site, and they would likely be dosed with coma gas first, courtesy of a high-altitude probe droid.
- A monitored, low-visibility sonic fence surrounds Cheelit Valley's ten million acres.
- Taozin nodules are concealed throughout Cheelit Valley. Their purpose is to fractionally muffle telepathic contact, blunting psychic attacks and inmate cooperation. If an inmate attempted to secure one, it would make them difficult to find through the Force - but would do nothing to stop the sensors that monitor the inmates constantly.
In recent decades, the Jedi have taken a wide variety of ad hoc approaches to imprisoning and sometimes rehabilitating Darksiders and their cultists. One such approach is Cheelit Valley, a professional deprogramming and rehabilitation site run by Jedi with appropriate professional training and experience. High officials in friendly governments contract the Cloud City Sentinels to handle criminals or prisoners of war. At any given time, up to two dozen Peripherals are home to solitary inmates: Sith Knights and acolytes, fallen Jedi, and Dark Side cultists of various descriptions (either Force-sensitive or not).
To minimize all sorts of risks, including the site's discovery, Cheelit Valley does not take Sith Lords or Knight-level specialists in telepathy, illusion, or stealth. It does not accept members of large, established Force-using families like the Verds or Zambranos due to heightened risk of discovery through Force bonds.
Inmates spend two weeks in deep space, inside a ysalamir field, before being transferred to Cheelit Valley under sedation. This protocol serves three purposes: it partially detoxes them from the addictive effects of the Dark Side; it throws off any initial search efforts that might arise; and it keeps them from ever knowing the system and world where Cheelit Valley is located.
Individual inmates' only consistent company, other than their medical droid, is by communications link to their Jedi caseworkers at the Core Site. They may also be visited by pairs of designated Jedi Masters or senior Knights.
The criteria for release vary case by case (and authorizing government by authorizing government), but usually revolve around no longer being evaluated as a threat to others. Release might look like joining the Jedi or another friendly organization, taking Force-suppressing drugs, or transferring to a different appropriate detention facility. Naturally, inmates never see the world or system where they have been held.
Recidivism rates are quite low. However, the Cheelit Valley model is not scalable and requires a long-term commitment from quite a few specially trained Jedi. At most the site will only ever rehabilitate a couple of hundred individuals.
