- "Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience."
- ―Shard proverb
Solari is a Shard Augur and the former Aedile of the House Satele Shan. He is an expert slicer and archivist whose time inside droid hosts has adapted his thought processes to be on the same levels as an advanced computer and prefers the company of electronic beings; whom he can communicate with naturally without the need of a translator.
Character History
Formation and the Force - 3803 BBY to 119 BBY
Solari and a number of his siblingsSolari was the last of thirteen siblings to form off of his parent, the process for which started in approximately 3803 BBY. Life at the edge of one of Orax's many hot springs was slow going - especially considering his races' natural immobility - but he adopted to it quickly and patience became second nature to him very quickly.
Solari never saw his environment, electromagnetic sense being the only sense his race possessed naturally - and how they communicated - but he realized at a young age that he wasn't an average Shard. He was touched by what he latter learned was the Force; not uncommon for his species but none other in his hot spring, as far as he was aware, was blessed with this connection.
He was insatiably curious about the phenomenon and spent many days ignoring the slow and steady political debates of his people to learn he could of his powers through trial and error. Eventually he was able to sense organic life - generally fish and bugs - in and around his hot spring and later was able to manipulate it; initially forcibly lifting them then forcing his will upon them.
The more he learned, the more knowledge he craved and his self-directed training continued slowly for many centuries.
Galactic Republic Colonization - 118 BBY
Orax was discovered by the Galactic Republic in 118 BBY, an event that saw many Humanoid species arrive near his community's hot spring, intent on plundering this new planet for profit. Solari was the first to of his kind to detect the intrusion, given that he was able to sense their minds. It took the Republic a long time to discover the Shard's were sentient but by this time Solari had already secured passage off world.
Solari, making use of over 3,500 years of touching the minds of local wildlife, forced a gun for hire who had strayed too close to extract him from his family cluster and smuggle him aboard the ship that had brought him there. Against his will, and perhaps without his knowledge, the mercenary complied, going as far as to place the Shard close enough to one of the ship's droids that he has able to interface his thoughts with it almost as naturally as if it were his own body.
Curiosity drove Solari to acquire every scrap of information he could aboard the ship, from the ships computers, droids and even crew. At times he would even interface directly to the ships HoloNet transceiver, though he limited the time doing this as his mind would often slip towards madness while assimilating that volume of raw data.
Solari never once wondered if the Shard mind had a limit to how much it could learn.
Droids and Technology
Solari's first droid host. For years he traveled with the ship, posing as one of its maintenance droids and gaining an intimate understanding of the technology of the galaxy. Solari decided it was time to leave the ship he had called home for many years when its crew took an inert CY-M Prototype as cargo. The Shard took an intense interest in the droid, having never seen a droid that had legs, let alone mimicked the form of its Humanoid creators.
Over the course of three days, Solari secretly repaired the droid and hollowed out a cavity in its metallic abdomen to house his crystalline form. Once complete he transferred himself to his first real host and began orientating himself to a new life on legs instead of tracks.
Within a week Solari was leaping about the ship's hold, practicing a number of combat styles he had learned from the HoloNet and considered himself ready to venture out into the wider galaxy on his own.
Earning a Living
Solari spent the next one and a half centuries traveling on various ships and working for numerous organizations posing as a protocol droid. He spent this time assimilating information, learning about anything he was given the opportunity to. It was also during this time that he developed acute skills in the art of slicing – often to garner information from systems he shouldn’t have access to.
His reputation spread within the organizations he served and he was often called upon to extract information from the systems of competitors, something that Solari happily did as it allowed him to learn even more – about the systems themselves and how to break them and the data they contained.
The Dark Brotherhood
Service to the Dark Council - 19 ABY to 30 ABY
The copious amount of information that Solari sifted through lead him to discover something that few, if any, people found through conventional means; the existence of a secret cult of Dark Jedi.
It took Solari almost a year to piece together the information that lead to him seeking them out and even he was now sure what he would find – after all, he only knew about them because of a host of dummy corporations and businesses that funneled money and supplies through nearly indiscernible channels. But the Shard knew that there was a large amount of information he would only be able to gather if he sought the cult and he speculated that they would be some of the only beings in the universe that could teach him to harness the powers that allowed him to control his host.
He set out, on one of the smallest craft he could obtain that was still able to travel faster than light, for the Yridia System. This portion of space was where a number of trails went cold and he knew that going there would grant him access to the information he craved.
It didn’t take long for the Tarentum Military, as he later knew them, to capture his trespassing craft and deliver what they thought to be marginally valuable cargo and a dilapidated droid to Antei.
The personnel on Antei, more in tune with the force than the grunt that had captured him, felt the connection he had with the Force. He was inducted into the Brotherhood and sent to the Shadow Academy to begin his training. After his training he stayed on at the institute and worked in the massive library that house untold secrets.
Everyday granted him knew insight into the universe and his place in it, he reveled in his new found font of knowledge.
The Holocron Center of the BrotherhoodHe stayed on at the Shadow Academy until 26 ABY when, with the construction of the Holocron Center of the Brotherhood, he transferred to the Dark Hall and volunteered to help categorize and digitize the data held within the Brotherhood’s Holocrons. His work was delayed for a time following the Battle of Antei. With the Holocron Center inaccessible, Solari returned to his work with the Shadow Academy, now located on the Arcanum.
His background work for the Dark Council earned him numerous accolades, with little - if any - fanfare. He remained all but unknown to everyone but those that he reported to directly.
Deal with a Dark Lord 30 ABY
The reclamation of Antei following the Ninth Great Jedi War in 30 ABY allowed Solari to return to his work with the Brotherhood's Holocron Center. For the next two years Solari toiled over the Brotherhood’s collection until Grand Master Muz Ashen discovered him. Muz, like most Force-sensitive beings, knew that the Shard was more than he appeared externally.
Once the Dark Lord determined what Solari was, he was determined to see what power a force sensitive crystal could bring to a lightsaber. Solari was given a choice, either return to his home world and retrieve a Shard for the Grand Master to experiment with or sacrifice himself to the same fate.
The decision pained Solari, but his thirst for information and the knowledge that he was still missing volumes of it drove him to submit to the Dark Lords whim and sacrifice one of his own kind. His decision haunted him for a long time; he felt the strongest emotions because of it that he assumed any other Shard had felt.
In return, Muz granted Solari his life, a new host, and also appointed him to Holocron Center’s head position, Tribune. It was only then that his presence was known to the wider Brotherhood after so many years in the Dark Council’s shadow.
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The call of the Light - 33 ABY
- "There were some Shard, however, that were still more persecuted than the rest, for they were a menace in yet another sense. For not only were they aliens, and not only were they droids, they were Jedi."
- ―Tam Azur-Jamin[2]
In 33 ABY a sect of Jedi, known as the Disciples of Odan-Urr, joined the Brotherhood under the protection of Muz Ashen and his Dark Council. They were founded as House Odan-Urr with their leader, Ji, becoming the House's first brotherhood sanctioned Quaestor. Ashen, knowing he would need eyes and ears within this group and a physical presence to impose his influence, inserted Solari as Odan-Urr's Aedile.
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The Shadow Academy - 36 ABY
The Shadow Academy's Central Library
Solari's lightsaber while holding office on the Dark Council
The Dark Crusade - 37 ABY
Solari's host at the beginning of the Dark Crusade
Placeholder info
"The Dark Council, in totality, was under siege. Reports indicated the Headmaster's droid body laid in ruin in the Shadow Academy[...]"[3]
HM and P:HM, 37 ABY
A shining beacon
Odan-Urr becomes a clan, Houses open, Solari an Aedile again.
Personality
Solari was an avid archivist, preferring to assimilate knowledge more than any other activity. Many beings attempted to coerce him into other pursuits but he would always decline unless an argument could be made for it being an opportunity to collect information that would otherwise be unavailable to him. He believed his purpose in life was to collect, study and understand every aspect of the universe.
His formative years instilled in him the traditional patience of his people. Solari, like his people, could sit on idea for a very long time; contemplating all possible outcomes before deciding on the best course of action. The length of time, however, is relative as the Shard are able to think at speeds that would boggle the mind of the average human.
Some would have considered the Shard cold and emotionless, but by his people’s standard he was overly affectionate towards all living beings and cared greatly for life in general.
Like many Shard, Solari has an insatiable curiosity. He devours and stores information like a machine and will, if the opportunity to obtain particularly unique information arises, put himself in danger in order to acquire more knowledge. He rarely talks, preferring instead to interface with his droid host and the machines around him. Solari had a strong opinion that all knowledge should be open and available to all beings who sought it, even if those being may use it for the will of the Dark Side.
Most consider Solari to be extremely wise, his nature allowed him to store copious amount of data, supplemented by even more in the databanks of his droid host. He was able to recall information and analyze almost anything in what seemed an instant. He was however, aware of the fact that he didn’t know everything there was to know and that he would never fill the gaps in the information he possessed.
Appearance
Solari's natural state
Solari's droid host donning Jedi Robes
Natural State
In his natural state, Solari is a sentient silicon-based irregularly faceted cylindrical crystal. He is 36 centimeters long and weighs only 2.34 kilograms. Translucent with a tinge of deep green, faint pulses of green light can be seen can be seen inside him when thoughts pass through his "brain."
Host
When he joined the Dark Brotherhood, Solari was supplied with a standard protocol droid. This droid was soon replaced by a specially crafted and Mechu-deru altered droid from the hands of the Grandmaster, Muz Ashen. The droid had a chamber built into the chest to accommodate him. This chamber terminated in a transparisteel window allowing the pulses from his transparent natural form to be seen by those around him. The droid's exterior was painted grey except for the sensors which emanated an eerie emerald glow and framed in polished chrome.
The droid stands at an intimidating two meter in height and it's form is frighteningly similar to a Human skeleton, which - coupled with his sentience and personality - can be unnerving to people who initially believe him to be nothing but a standard droid.
Solari dons a Jedi robe while inside his host.
DJB Facts
Trivia
Name
Solari takes his name from the Solari Lightsaber crystal. This was a common practise among Shard Jedi[4]. When first introduced to the Brotherhood he named himself after the Vexxtal crystal but decided taking the name of a crystal corrupted by the Dark Side was inappropriate after swearing himself to the Light.
Notes and references