Cere Junda Bio

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Cere Junda may have been a little-known Jedi Master during her days in the Jedi Order. After its premature demise at the hands of Emperor Palpatine, she had suddenly become the only hope the Jedi had to return and save the galaxy. Junda is the leader of the central mission in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and knighted the last Jedi during the reign of the Empire.

Bottom Line Up Front

Cere Junda is a stern but caring mentor who survived the Great Jedi Purge. She picked up Jedi survivor Cal Kestis from the scrapyards of Bracca, then shaped him into a fully developed Jedi Knight. Junda helped save the lives of countless children across the galaxy in the process.

Description

Appearance

Cere Junda Appearance
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Cere Junda is a human female with black hair and bright brown eyes. She is 5 ft 4 in tall. During the secret mission to restore the Jedi Order, Cere is dressed in a beige pullover with a belt and holster above her waist and adorned with a black leather vest with a yellow interior lining. She also wears black pants and tall black boots. She sports a short and neat haircut.

In her years as a Jedi Master, Cere Junda wore traditional light brown Jedi robes and boots. Her hair was long but tied behind her head.

The makers of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order modeled Cere Junda after actor Debra Wilson.

Equipment

DL-18 Blaster Pistol
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As a Jedi master, Cere Junda possessed a lightsaber with a woven leather grip on the hilt. The weapon produced a green blade. She stopped using this lightsaber after she escaped from imperial captivity after deciding to leave her life as a Jedi in the past.

Junda sold the kyber crystal that powered her weapon to help her pilot, Greez Dritus, pay off his gambling debts with the Haxion Brood. The hilt stayed in her possession until the year 14 BBY, when she gave it to her new apprentice Cal Kestis.

During the years following the fall of the Jedi Order, Cere Junda became an excellent marksman to defend herself. She owns a BlasTech Industries DL-18 blaster, kept holstered in her belt. It was cheap, easy to hide, and reliable.

When Cal Kestis first defeated the Second Sister in the Bogano vault, he kept her lightsaber and gave it to Cere Junda. She used the weapon to award Cal Kestis the title of Jedi Knight, restoring herself as a Jedi Master.

In the water moon of Nur, Cere Junda reconciled her experiences as a fugitive gunslinger with her formal Jedi training. She brandished the Second Sister’s lightsaber and her DL-18 blaster together to devastating effect, fighting through hordes of stormtroopers and Purge Troopers with ease.

Personality

Cere and Trilla
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The story of Cere Junda is similar to many of the survivors of the Jedi Order. Most of the Jedi hunted down by the new Galactic Empire suffered deep trauma during the Great Jedi Purge, and in her case, it manifested a deep sense of guilt and a desperate desire to make things right.

Cere Junda had already displayed a strong temper as a child under the tutelage of Jedi Master and historian Eno Cordova. This strong personality was a stark contrast to the calm nature of Cordova.

The travels under Master Cordova helped Cere find solace in the arts, which is a passion she carried on beyond her training. She spent most of her free time enjoying art and music pieces found in the Jedi Archives of Coruscant.

As she grew older and completed her training under Master Eno Cordova, Cere Junda had lost most of the explosive temper that marked her youth. The Seekers were envoys of the Order that scouted the galaxy for Force-sensitive younglings potentially fit to become Jedi.

Junda was a stern yet caring and protective mentor. The trips and teachings of Master Cordova made her one of the most knowledgeable Jedi Masters in the Order. She valued the mental and physical well-being of those under her tutelage and was willing to sacrifice herself to allow her students to escape during the Great Jedi Purge. This unconditional devotion to protecting others broke Cere Junda’s once imperial torture and led to her Padawan falling to the Dark Side.

Cordova and Junda had grown apart after he knighted her, and she felt many of the Jedi traditions and beliefs were outdated or outright wrong. The guilt over losing her apprentices to the Empire motivated Cere to put her past away and try to carry out Eno Cordova’s plan of restoring the Jedi Order.

Despite the later chasm between them, Eno Cordova had always disagreed with the direction of the Jedi Order. I believe that he was the one who taught Cere Junda to question her superiors.

Key Moments

A Childhood with the Historian

Cere Junda joined the Jedi Order as a young child after a Jedi Seeker found her. She moved to Coruscant and took part in the traditional journey to Ilum under Grand Master Yoda to build her lightsaber. Her lightsaber produced a green blade.

The Jedi Order noticed that Cere often displayed impulsive behavior, so they assigned her as the Padawan of Master Eno Cordova, a middle-aged Jedi Master and archeologist at the Temple in Coruscant.

Most Jedi regarded Eno Cordova as eccentric and too concerned with the past to deal with present troubles. In turn, Cordova believed the Jedi Order was losing its way amidst political disputes and wars. His calm and soft-spoken manner helped Cere Junda find her peace.

Cordova took Junda along on his many adventures across the galaxy. One of their first trips together took the pair to Nameel to settle a conflict between Dupei monks and a Trandoshan gang. The young Cere lost her temper immediately after arriving.

She believed that the Trandoshan gang lied about the Dupei monks stealing. Master Cordova interviewed the two groups in private, starting with the monks.

Cere stayed outside with the Trandoshans and interfered in a private gang matter, which triggered a fight. Cordova showed up to announce a monk had confessed to stealing credits. Junda apologized to the gang members and later to the Jedi High Council, where Cordova defended her actions.

She traveled with him to a routine excavation of artifacts on Ontotho, which dragged Cere and her Master into a complex insurgency brewing on the planet. Junda and Cordova fought their way out, but the mission was the first contact between her Master and the Zeffo civilization.

Jedi Seeker and the Clone Wars

Cere and Trilla Flashback

Cere Junda completed her training with Eno Cordova and took up a role as a Jedi Seeker, searching for Force-sensitive children across the galaxy to recruit into the Jedi Order. She spent the time between her travels studying arts in the Jedi Archives and exploring different temples and cultures on the road.

The cultural journeys with Cordova had shaped Junda as a person. As a full-fledged Jedi Knight, she was calm, caring, and appreciated cultures across the galaxy. Despite that, the two did not remain close.

As a Seeker, Cere Junda found Trilla Suduri and took her in as a Padawan after attaining the rank of Jedi Master. Cere was stern but caring and placed the well-being of her apprentice above everything. She taught Trilla everything she had learned during her training, including the encryption slicing skills that would prove both priceless and dangerous later on.

After the Clone Wars broke out, Cere Junda and Trilla Suduri followed the path of the most surviving Jedi. Cere became a Jedi General like her friend Jaro Tapal, and both served with clone troopers against galactic separatism.

The Confederacy of Independent Systems was on the brink of defeat when Chancellor Palpatine triggered Order 66, a secret protocol that instructed clone troopers to regard all Jedi as hostile. Cere Junda and her Padawan survived the initial onslaught and managed to evade the troops they once commanded with a group of younglings.

Junda knew the new Galactic Empire would not stop hunting them and decided to risk her own life so that Trilla Suduri and the younglings could have a better shot at escaping. Cere left their hideout in hopes of dragging the attention of imperial troops. Trilla and the younglings had to stay put until it was safe, but the Empire captured the Jedi Master.

Cere Jundo Talks about Her Past

The Empire took Cere to Fortress Inquisitorius, the secret base of the inquisitors. This facility in the Mustafar system operated as detention, torture, and reeducation center for Jedi captured alive. The Inquisition was under the supervision of Darth Vader.

The Empire typically tortured those brought in to death, but a select few that turned to the Dark Side received training and became Inquisitors.

Cere Junda resisted but eventually cracked in an imperial torture chair and revealed the whereabouts of her Padawan and the younglings. The inquisitors tracked down and captured them. Unbeknownst to Junda, her Padawan had undergone severe torture and became an Imperial Inquisitor herself.

When Cere first saw Trilla after her transformation into the Second Sister, she had a fit of rage and despair. The outburst killed most of those in the room and freed Junda from the torture chair. Her life was never the same after the incident.

Life as a Fugitive

Stinger Mantis
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Cere hurt inside in the immediate aftermath of her escape. She feared the darkness that had come out in Nur would return. To prevent this, Junda began suppressing her connection to the Force. She had lost the Jedi Order, her apprentice, and her life as a Jedi.

Cere Junda relinquished her Jedi robes and carried a blaster instead of a lightsaber. She inhabited the seedy underworld that brewed in the Outer Rim of the galaxy. Greez eventually hired a grumpy but caring Latero pilot by the name of Greez Dritus to run errands aboard his ship, the Stinger Mantis.

They monitored imperial communications for Jedi sightings and frequented cantinas in search of information. After partaking in a bar fight in Nar Shaddaa, Cere and Greez spent the night drinking in an alley, which took the two from business partners to true friends.

Finding a Jedi

Saving Cal

Cere and Greez heard of a promising Jedi sighting in Todola, but the rumor turned out false. They found a secret walker construction facility instead and left before imperial security shot at their ship. Their luck turned around after the Mantis crew heard of a Jedi sighting in the junkyard world of Bracca.

The Stinger Mantis arrived late, but the former Padawan Cal Kestis had begun to engineer his escape alone. Junda and Dritus intercepted Kestis while he engaged the Second Sister in lightsaber combat and flew away from the Bracca system.

The Trials of Cordova

Cal Kestis was happy to have a ticket out of Bracca, but he did not know nor trust the two people who had saved him. Cere knew from personal experience that Cal was in a fragile state, so she avoided overloading him with information.

They exchanged introductions, and Junda explained that the person hunting Kestis down was an imperial inquisitor. She revealed their mission to rebuild the Jedi Order from its ashes. They departed to Bogano, a secluded planet where Master Eno Cordova used to study.

Cere Junda revealed that she was once a Jedi and knew Jaro Tapal and comforted Kestis about his trauma. After arriving in Bogano, she told Cal to explore the mysterious temple and meet someone staying on the planet. Kestis expected this to be another Jedi, but it turned out to be the explorer droid BD-1.

BD-1 projected encrypted logs stored by Master Eno Cordova that revealed his plan. The historian had a dark vision about the end of the Jedi Order and hid a list of Force-sensitive children across the galaxy, accessible only to someone who understands the Force.

Cere confessed to Cal that she had cut herself off from the Force after a life-altering event and that her primary motivation was to defeat the Empire rather than rebuild the Jedi Order itself. The crew followed the path of Cordova to the homeworld of the Zeffo, where Cal found links to Kashyyyk, their next destination.

A Past Exposed

Trilla Suduri
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Before departing, Junda shared part of the story of her captivity. Cere explained that she sacrificed herself to buy her apprentices more time but fell captive and experienced intense torture.

The trip to Kashyyyk landed Cere Junda and her crew in the middle of heavy fighting between the Empire and the Partisans of Saw Gerrera. They worked together to assault an imperial refinery but found no sign of Tarfful.

News of another imperial excavation in Zeffo led Junda and her crew to the planet again. After narrowly escaping an ambush from the Second Sister, Cal Kestis learned the truth about Cere Junda and her past.

The inquisitor revealed her true identity as Trilla Suduri, the Padawan captured by the Empire after Cere Junda. She survived, but her captors shaped her into a Jedi hunter. Suduri told Cal about how Cere used the Dark Side upon discovering this. After parting ways, the Second Sister used the slicing skills taught by Junda to jam communications between her and Kestis.

Cal Kestis survived another ambush by the Second Sister and kidnapping by the Haxion Brood. When he returned to the Mantis, the Jedi had an altercation with Cere Junda. The incident strained the fragile trust between the two, which worried Greez Dritus as he had grown to consider both his family.

The journal entries of Eno Cordova took them to Dathomir and Kashyyyk, where a Partisan had finally found Chieftain Tarfful. The Wookiee leader guided Cal Kestis to the top of the Origin Tree, where he fought and defeated the Ninth Sister. Cere tried to clear the air, but Cal was too excited about this victory to care about the past. Under the guidance of Eno Cordova, they departed to Dathomir.

A Master Reborn

Cere and Cal after Dathomir

The second visit to Dathomir was a turning point in the relationship between Cere Junda and Cal Kestis. The young Jedi survivor had a dark vision of Master Jaro Tapal inside a Zeffo temple and broke his lightsaber. Kestis returned to the Mantis traumatized and scared once more, just like in Bracca. I believe it was at this moment that Cere Junda reclaimed her responsibility and powers as Jedi Master in order to protect him.

Cal felt hopeless, so Cere directed the Mantis to the sacred Jedi planet of Ilum. She gave Kestis her empty lightsaber hilt and ordered him to find a kyber crystal to build a new weapon of his own. The new lightsaber had two blades and joined those of his two Masters, Cere Junda and Jaro Tapal.

After rearming her apprentice, Junda sent him back to Dathomir to face his past. There Kestis accepted the death of Jaro Tapal as a fundamental part of him and defeated former Jedi Taron Malicos. This fallen Master had his nature corrupted after the Jedi Purge and feasted on the darkness of Dathomir for power.

By defeating Malicos, Kestis gained access to the Astrium required to unlock the Bogano vault and allied with Nightsister Merrin. Cere welcomed Merrin to the crew as Cal vouched for her, but the Jedi Master openly said it would take time to earn her trust.

On their way back to Bogano, Merrin raised concerns about finding the Jedi Holocron, as using it would expose the children there to the Empire. Junda and Kestis waived those concerns away, but inside the temple, her apprentice had a premonition similar to that of Master Eno Cordova. The vision showed the reborn Jedi Order hunted down by the Empire and culminated in the capture of its members and the transformation of Cal Kestis into an inquisitor.

Kestis retrieved the Jedi Holocron in the Bogano vault, but this was a trap laid by the Second Sister. The two engaged in combat for the third time, and though the Jedi disarmed the inquisitor, he fell victim to the Force echoes of her lightsaber, allowing her to escape with the Holocron.

The echoes showed the full story of how Cere Junda tried to protect her Padawan. Cal apologized to Cere immediately, but she forgave him. Instead of dwelling on the past, Junda picked up the Second Sister lightsaber and used the powers invested in her to knight Cal Kestis. He had completed his training and was ready for the final challenge.

Infiltrating Fortress Inquisitorius

Infiltrating Fortress Inquisitorius

With the help of Nightsister Merrin, the Stinger Mantis flew to the main inquisitor base on the moon of Nur. Kestis and Junda entered Fortress Inquisitorius in separate areas to track down the Jedi Holocron. Cere found the artifact and directed Cal to the room where it lay. The new Jedi Knight and the Second Sister engaged in one final battle, with a decisive victory for Kestis. Cere arrived just in time to find her former Padawan wounded and on her knees and apologized for failing as her Master.

Their touching reunion ended when Darth Vader entered the room and executed Trilla for failing him. Junda knew the Sith Lord wanted the Holocron that Cal now possessed, so she told him to run and attacked Vader using Trilla’s lightsaber. He shoved her aside without much effort and began pursuing Kestis.

Cere came between the two in the hallways of Fortress Inquisitorius to save a wounded Cal. She briefly tapped into the Dark Side to stop the Sith Lord, who taunted her as a perfect inquisitor candidate, but Kestis broke the deadlock and flooded the tunnels.

The effort had rendered Junda unconscious, and though Cal tried to bring her to the surface, he fainted from his wounds. Nightsister Merrin jumped into the water and rescued the two.

The End of the Journey

Mantis Crew

Junda and Kestis woke up in the Mantis outside the Mustafar system. The pair joined Dritus and Merrin to see Cal unlock the Holocron and decide what to do with it. They considered the visions in Bogano and the warning by the Nightsister.

Kestis destroyed the Jedi Holocron to prevent it from falling into Imperial hands, and the crew of four began discussing their next destination.

Five years later, the Stinger Mantis was empty, while Cere Junda, Greez Dritus, and Nightsister Merrin had gone their separate ways. Cal Kestis searched for answers alone.

Related Quests

Cere Junda on the Ship

In Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Cere Junda is the leader of the secret mission to restore the Jedi Order, which is the main storyline in the game.

After escaping imperial captivity and spending years laying low, Cere met Latero pilot Greez Dritus and recruited him to run errands in the underworld aboard his ship. Despite leaving her life as a Jedi Master behind, she continuously monitored imperial transmissions and other signals activity in the hopes of finding other members of the fallen Jedi Order.

In 14 BBY, Junda intercepted a reported sighting of a Jedi in the junkyard planet of Bracca. The Stinger Mantis raced the imperial inquisitors there and successfully extracted Cal Kestis, a former Padawan trained by Jedi Master Jaro Tapal.

She took the lonely Padawan to a planet her mentor Eno Cordova had kept secret during his studies, where they uncovered a secret plan to reestablish the Jedi Order from its ashes. Junda led Cal Kestis, Greez Dritus, and explorer droid BD-1 through the worlds of Bogano, Zeffo, Kashyyyk, Dathomir, Ilum, and Nur. During most missions, Cere Junda stays with Greez by the Stinger Mantis to monitor imperial transmissions and provide guidance to Cal Kestis.

When you are near the ship, talk directly to her. I highly recommend going through the additional dialogue sequences with Cere, as she reveals information about the mission and the past. These conversations help you learn more about her fascinating character.

Cere only engages in combat in the first and last missions of the story. She uses her blaster and commands Greez to fend off the Second Sister and let Cal Kestis board the Stinger Mantis and escape Bracca.

In Nur, we see Cere in a much more direct role. She joins Kestis in infiltrating Fortress Inquisitorius and helps fight elite units while still directing her apprentice around the base. Junda is the one who locates the Jedi Holocron and sends Cal to retrieve it.

In short terms, Cere Junda typically acts as the brain, tapping into the many talents of Cal Kestis, Greez Dritus, BD-1, and later Nightsister Merrin to accomplish their ambitious mission.

Special Abilities

The Force

As a Jedi Master, Cere Junda was a powerful Force wielder. This power scared her when trauma led her to tap into the Dark Side. Cere decided to cut herself off from the Force after that.

Lightsaber Combat and Marksmanship

Cere Attacking Vader

Thanks to the formal lightsaber training and combat experience during the Clone Wars, Cere Junda was a dangerous fighter. Her tastes in combat were unconventional. When the Jedi Order fell apart, Junda put aside her lightsaber and picked up blasters as her primary weapon.

Cere Junda exhibited excellent marksmanship, and in the imperial era, blasters made more sense for her. A trained Jedi with a lightsaber would always win against any enemy short of a similarly-skilled Sith Lord. However, times had changed.

The odds of engaging in lightsaber combat had become extremely low, and brandishing a Jedi weapon was a surefire way to draw attention from the inquisitors. A Jedi with good marksmanship could defeat most of the threats in the galactic underworld with a blaster.

While most survivors still kept their weapons ready in case of need, Cere Junda did not share such an emotional connection. She sold her kyber crystal to pay the debts of her pilot Greez Dritus.

Once Cal Kestis delivered the lightsaber of the Second Sister to her, she combined her lightsaber and blaster skills, fighting devastatingly that the troops at Fortress Inquisitorius had no way of countering.

Electronic Intelligence

Cere Tracks Imperial Communications

The mentors of Cere Junda had noted her technological prowess at a young age. She learned how to break into encrypted communications and used this to monitor radio traffic during her travels.

Cere listened in on imperial transmissions to discover the whereabouts of a Jedi tracked down by the inquisitors in Bracca. This Jedi turned out to be Cal Kestis. Junda constantly tapped into her slicing skills to keep her crew one step ahead of the Galactic Empire.

Cere Junda had passed these skills onto her Padawan Trilla Suduri. The former apprentice weaponized this knowledge against Cal Kestis in the tomb of a Zeffo sage to sow distrust between him and Junda.

Music and Arts

Training under Jedi Master Eno Cordova exposed Cere Junda to many cultures across the galaxy and turned her into an art enthusiast. She possessed knowledge about historical artifacts and was a talented hallikset player. Cere kept her instrument aboard the Stinger Mantis.

Conclusion

I love Cere Junda as a character because she is unbreakable. Despite the deep trauma and loss she experienced, she constantly found ways to adapt and learn from her skills and experiences to push forward. By the time Cal Kestis joined her, Cere was one of many brave people trying to fight the Galactic Empire and its tyranny in any way they could. Her mission to restore the Jedi Order may not have ended how I had expected initially, but I hope we see more of Cere Junda in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

FAQ

Question: Is Cere Junda a Sith?

Answer: No. Cere Junda is a fallen Jedi Master. She harbors darkness inside her due to the trauma suffered after Order 66 and losing her Padawan to the Galactic Empire. As a result, Junda tried to cut herself off from the Force to avoid falling to the Dark Side.

Question: Is Cere Junda alive?

Answer: Cere Junda survived the beginning of the Great Jedi Purge with a group of younglings and her Padawan Trilla Suduri. Most of them died at the hands of the Empire in the following years, but Cere survived long enough to retrieve the secret Jedi Holocron. Five years later, her whereabouts are unclear.

Question: Why is Cere Junda not a Jedi anymore?

Answer: Junda had an outburst of rage and hatred once she first saw Trilla Suduri as a member of the Imperial Inquisition. Tapping into the Dark Side allowed Cere to escape, but it made her cut herself off from the Force to avoid using it again.

Question: Was Cere Junda an inquisitor?

Answer: No. Imperial inquisitors were all Force-sensitive people captured and shaped into their new position through physical and psychological torture. Most inquisitors were Jedi captured during the Great Jedi Purge, and if she had not escaped, Cere Junda might have become a member of the Inquisitorius.

Question: Why did Cere Junda’s lightsaber not work initially?

Answer: Cere Junda had managed to retrieve her lightsaber when escaping Fortress Inquisitorius, but she stopped yielding her Jedi weapon. Junda sold the kyber crystal inside it to help pay off part of his massive gambling debt. Her lightsaber comes back to life in Ilum after Cal Kestis joins it with the hilt belonging to Master Jaro Tapal.

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