Nikora Rhan

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Nikora Rhan
Biographical Information
Homeworld:	N/A, voidborn
Date of Birth:	6 ABY
Physical Description
Species:	Nautolan
Gender:	Female
Height:	1.8M
Weight:	140.0 kg
Eyes:	Black
Personal Information
Mother:	Arail Rhan
Father:	Kheal Rhan
Lightsaber Color(s):	Green double-bladed lightsaber
Lightsaber Form(s):	Niman
Weapon(s):	PLX-1 Portable Missile Launcher MK-6 Explosive Lures Ion Grenades Sonic Grenades Adhesive Grenades
Fighting Style(s):	Mandalorian Core
Chronology & Political Information
Profession:	Jensaarai Defender
Position:	Mystic
Era(s):	New Order Era
Affiliation:	Clan Odan-Urr Jensaarai House Sunrider
Dossier:	14751
[ Source ]

"'You can develop all the fancy stunts, tricks, and tactics you like. They won't mean a damn thing unless you have someone around to make sure that your ships fly and your guns can shoot."

―Rhan

Nikora Rhan is a Nautolan female serving Clan Odan-Urr. Raised by a pair of smugglers operating on the Outer Rim for much of her childhood, she was eventually recruited into the Jensaarai Order as her blossoming powers became increasingly difficult to control. This affinity with machinery led to her becoming a defacto weaponsmith within their organisation, serving to keep the Ring Defenders in operation and maintaining equipment. This emphasis on engineering and maintenance meant that she was one of several who voiced in favour of the Reclaimer experiment to seek out lost battlegrounds and recover salvage for the Jensaarai to use. This activity led to her frequently butting heads with those among the Jensaarai who believed that secrecy and isolation were needed in order to survive.

Rhan became increasingly disillusioned with the Order's leadership as they pushed for ever-greater seclusion from the galaxy. This finally led to her breaking with the group entirely following a discovery that the elder Jensaarai were hoping to avoid possible annihilation by the likes of the First Order by erasing past records. After being tasked with arresting Ka Tarvitz during his reappearance on Susevfi, Rhan instead opted to follow him into exile and sided with the Dark Jedi Brotherhood.

Character History

The Nomad (6 ABY - 13 ABY)

The Engine of Souls

Like many children born among the Outer Rim, Nikora Rhan was someone who came into existence without a home. Unlike most this was because she was bound to no single world. Born during a hyperspace jump between planets, Rhan grew up surrounded by machinery and listening to the constant thunder of ships' engines. Both of her parents were smugglers, seeking to make their fortunes by profiting from the ongoing Galactic Civil War and the infighting among Imperial warlords. With so many battlefields left behind from the Clone Wars and other conflicts littering old battlegrounds, there was no shortage of profit to be made by reclaiming everything still operational. Although it carried with it no shortage of dangers, the work at least avoided the more typical risks associated with smuggling such as dealing directly with the Hutts, or some planetary authorities. Favouring selling their supplies to small planetary governments and the New Republic, they were able to gain some degree of legitimate backing for their ventures and even direct support when needed.

Salvage hunts rarely made for a safe childhood.

The constant need to jump from world to world, system to system, meant that Rhan became accustomed to making only fleeting friendships with others. Her parents' operations could drag on for months or even weeks at a time, and she was frequently left to entertain herself while they worked to free their prizes. It was perhaps because of this state that Rhan's abilities manifested as they did, with the Force granting her an innate connection with machines. These things were subtle at first, with Rhan claiming to "hear" when the engines were complaining of constant strain or when droid motivator was coming to the end of its life. Coming from a child, her parents laughed this off at first, largely accepting this as her way of comprehending the world. Yet as time drew on, her efforts in listening to equipment became more pronounced and accurate. She was able to briefly bring technology back to life simply from being in close proximity to her, and her crude repairs to simpler machines worked almost in spite of her errors. Nevertheless, they worked.

As Rhan grew older, her idiosyncrasies about the souls and emotions of machines became less tolerated. Her parents became increasingly infuriated at Rhan's refusal to abandon what they regarded as a childish misunderstanding, even as her technological aptitude expanded. She was repeatedly encouraged to abandon her ideas, and reprimanded when she was caught holding conversations with their ship's engines, or her own creations. This was the subject of ridicule more than once, among the few times that she did remain on a world long enough to hold a conversation with others, especially those of greater experience. The fact that she could break their creations with little more than a gesture, or seemingly give them minds of their own, was overlooked in the face of mockery. However, Rhan remained adamant that she could listen to the words of machines and correct them without needing access to even the most basic tools. It would be several years before she was able to definitively prove this skill.

Derelict of Ages

By 12 ABY, life was becoming increasingly difficult for Rhan's parents. With many past battlefields picked clean and the New Republic itself backing Operation Flotsam under the newly appointed Historical Battle Site Preservation Act, they were relying less upon freelancers to carry out its salvage operations. Even without that, the brief peace which had emerged with the Empire's fractured warlord states had permitted larger powers to strip old derelicts bare of goods. Driven from more profitable ventures, they were gradually pushed to pursue less likely leads in order to fund their lifestyle. After months of raiding the sites of old skirmishes and planetary crash sites, they were doing little more than maintaining their funds. Yet one yielded an unexpected reward. The aging cockpit of a Trade Federation gunship carried with it an active and up to date navicomputer. Severed from the main fuselage, exposure to vacuum had killed the pilots instantly but it had left the machinery within undamaged and unwiped; an act which had prevented its automated functions immediately wiping the machine.

The navicomputer was code-locked but, after working past its defences via older CIS codes that they had previously prcutred, Rhan's parents were able to examine the data within. The information was decades out of date, speaking of locations known to many scavengers and sites picked clean. One, however, proved to be of immense interest. The vessel that the gunship had been seconded to was noted to have been located within a nearby nebula, and logged communications indicated that it had suffered significant damage. More importantly its name, the Merciless, was listed as one of the few Lucrehulk-class battleships which was still listed as missing. Having never been confirmed as destroyed, integrated into the Rebellion, or even sighted flying under a pirate flag, its fate had been one of the mysteries surrounding the final days of the Clone Wars. More importantly, it was the sort of haul that no salvage hauler could afford to overlook.

Following the last listed location, they were able to follow the gradual drift of the vessel and locate it within a dense pocket of the nebula's gasses. Its engines had suffered severe damage, and the hull plating was blackened under multiple impacts. Yet even with this damage, the ship's hangers and central sphere seemed remarkably intact. Noting the number of missing escape pods on the ship's surface, Rhan's parents soon elected to investigate the ship. If nothing else, they would examine the main hanger, confirm its status, and then take proof of their find. Either they would be able to sell its location to the New Republic or, if possible, to begin harvesting the hardware and selling it off in smaller deals. Unfortunately for them, the battleship was far from abandoned. A small group of pirates had discovered the vessel and had utilised one of its massive hangers as a base of operations. Upon detecting the smugglers' approach, they waited to ambush the new arrivals and claim their ship.

No sooner did either of Rhan's parents step free of the ship than forcefields locked into place behind them, blocking any avenue of escape. Tractor beams activated, holding the ship in place and armed figures emerged about the ship. Most came out firing, driving the smugglers from the warship as they sought cover. Rhan, out of curiosity, had followed them and was quickly pinned down. Instinctively reaching out in fear with the Force, she hunted for anything which might keep them alive. Boosted by her heightened emotions, a trio of red Photoreceptors burst into life amid the darkness. A Destroyer Droid, partially disassembled and long disused, dragged itself free from a pile of broken droids. With its power core sputtering and only a single active cannon, it seemed to be little more than scrap metal. However, as its shield sparked into life and blasters screamed through the air, it proved to be more than a match for the surprised pirates. By the time it halted in its rampage and shut down, not a single pirate was left standing.

This act proved without a doubt that Rhan's abilities were far more than mere childish fancy, but this only made her parents more wary of her.

Keepers of a Bygone Era

For the following months, the smugglers stripped the Merciless' complement of fighters for spare parts. Ignoring the larger warship, the far smaller and more manageable groups of Scarabs and Vultures filled their cargo holds, ferrying spare parts and raw materials back to New Republic worlds. However, Rhan found herself isolated at this time. Even after the shock of her seemingly bringing machinery to life through sheer force of will had worn in, neither of them could look at her in the same way as before. Rhan was still their daughter, the one they had loved and raised for years, but her abilities were an understandable cause for concern. Neither of them was certain that, in an outburst, that the event might be repeated with themselves or even an innocent figure being caught in the crossfire. These concerns were shared by Rhan herself. It had not been will or even concentration which had pushed her powers to new heights but raw fear tinged with rage. Yet a solution was soon to present itself.

In one of their later visits to the wreck of the Merciless, they were greeted by several waiting figures in the hanger. Clad in stylised metalwork and with swords at their belts, they were clearly warriors and yet they made no move to threaten the smugglers. Cautiously giving the group the benefit of the doubt, the smugglers met with them. Their leader, an aging Nikto by the name of Kylun, spoke with the smugglers freely and enquired of the pirates' fate. Rather than being allies or a rival group of corsairs, the warriors had been hunting them after they had pillaged their world. In particular, a selection of crystals mistaken as precious gems had been stolen by these groups. While effectively worthless to most of the galaxy, the warriors regarded them with great value. The smugglers had found these among the pirates' belongings, hidden within a safe that Rhan had coaxed into unlocking for them. While her parents tried to avoid mentioning Rhan's role in either the pirates' deaths or her later efforts, Kylun rapidly picked up on the fact that they were hiding something. When pressed, they first tried to claim that they had accomplished Rhan's feats themselves. When this effort failed to shield her from their interest, they then tried to pass it off as a third member of their group who was not present. Neither occasion worked to dissuade Kylun, as he quickly picked up on the deception. It was only when the warriors became increasingly suspicious, to the point of near hostility, that Rhan stepped forward.

Rhan's parents first objected to this, trying to still hide her role in the hopes of sparing their daughter the warrior's attention, or even to make matters worse. Yet rather than accusing them of another falsehood, Kylun showed genuine interest in her abilities. Rhan was shy, worried that the hulking figure in plate armour might choose to simply slay her parents and take her as a slave if he deemed her abilities as useful. To her surprise, Kylun spoke of things that Rhan had always been half-aware of in her life. He asked about energies she felt but no one else could pick up on, or the imprints of lives on objects which others claimed held no life to them. Gradually, he was able to coax answers from her and gain a better picture of how her abilities were manifesting. In return, he displayed some powers of his own: Casting lightning from his fingertips and moving objects with his will. He claimed that what she was experiencing was an extremely strong connection to the Force, and that it was both a blessing and a curse.

Kylun spoke to both Rhan and her parents as the hours wore on. He outlined what the Force was, how its practitioners - near-mythical among the galaxy's outer worlds even with the steady rebuilding of the Jedi Order - could often be divided into two groups of recruits. Some only had their powers manifest in small ways, requiring training and self-discipline to gradually focus their energies in any conscious or substantial form. Others retained them in a far stronger but less controlled manner, displaying connections through either constant passive actions or sudden outbursts. While both ultimately held the same potential for control and growth, the latter group could easily find their lives ruined as their powers overwhelmed them or developed in a way that controlled their lives. Rhan was one of these people, or so it seemed to him. Without training, her ability to listen to machinery could slowly overwhelm her, or her emotions could more easily lean toward the Dark Side. Kylun offered her an opportunity to train with a group of similarly gifted individuals, to control her powers and avert this fate. As he spoke, all that Rhan could think of was her emotions when she had indirectly slaughtered the pirates, and the fear that still clung to her. To her, the choice was an easy one. The two groups left the derelict as one, traveling to the moon of Susevfi to show Rhan just what her future might hold.

The Defender (14 ABY -24 ABY)

The Domain of the Hidden Truth

Rhan remained with her parents during the long flight to Susevfi, each talking over their concerns, hopes, and problems. As the first time that any of them had been able to speak to one another about Rhan's skills without disbelieving her or fearing what it could bring, it offered a hundred possible implications. The most pressing matter was to gain further knowledge of Kylun's group and what her training would require, but also how it might change Rhan herself. Even after seeing their powers manifest first hand, the mysticism that the warriors shrouded themselves in seemed ridiculous. In the end, Rhan herself pushed to at least listen to them. She hungered to explore and develop her skills now that they were being taken seriously. Even if Kylun had lied about everything else, his own abilities made it clear that he had some understanding of the Force and how to control it. It seemed like a singular opportunity to fully explore her abilities.

After landing on the planet's sole spaceport, near to the coastal city of Yumfla, the trio were led to the former Governor's Palace. The world had only just repelled and freed itself from an Imperial splinter-group, with help from the Jedi no less. Having claimed the palace and now operating in the open, the Force users - now freely calling themselves Jensaarai - had begun moving more openly in the nearby systems. The Jensaarai themselves were typically a secretive and isolationist group, but Kylun went to great lengths to explain and detail all he could about them. If ever a question was asked, even if it was typically taboo, he made a point of answering it in full. His reasons for doing so were simple: Rhan's affinity with machinery was rare and most Force users were typically trained from near birth. He openly admitted that he wished for her to develop those skills, but not specifically for the benefit of the Jensaarai. In his eyes, allowing her abilities of wither or go unused would be to rob the galaxy of a rare skill.

After several days of talks - and watching training sessions - Rhan agreed to stay on the moon. Her parents could not remain on the planet, their lifestyle simply would not permit it, but it was agreed that they would visit as often and frequently as possible. From there it would be up to Rhan to decide if she continued to move up the ranks within the Jensaarai or return to the life of a scavenger. After one final night to say their goodbyes, Rhan watched her parents depart for the stars once more, and began the long process of honing her powers.

The First Step into a Larger World

Even as she was trained and tested, Rhan was told of the horrors her power could unleash if it was not focused with discipline.

Rhan's lessons began the very morning after her parents departed. Old by the standards of their favoured recruits - who were typically inducted into the Order from near-birth - her tutors instead favoured using a staggered series of concentrated tests to examine the limits of her abilities. Once they were certain of the extent of her skills, and her shortcomings, she was quickly subjected to continuous trials and lessons to bring her up to speed with other Apprentices. Rhan chafed under some of these lessons, particularly those relating to lightsaber combat and Force powers beyond simple telekinesis. She was continually set targets, trials, and goals to achieve in almost every session. No single one seemed to emphasise the more expansive and detailed explanations of the Force that she had hoped to find. Isolated from other students and seemingly being set tasks with the expectation she would fail at them, Rhan began to regret her choice in remaining among the Jensaarai. As much as she wished to speak out, she felt as if any objection might mark her down as a failure in their eyes. Rhan's mood was hardly improved when, through eavesdropping, she learned that this method of training had been devised based upon the failings of a similarly late starting apprentice: Ka Tarvitz.

Infuriated at the Defenders' methods, Rhan eventually sought out Tarvitz personally. Driven by sheer frustration, and blaming Tarvitz for her treatment, she was all but ready to pick a fight with the boy over these lessons. Undaunted by the fact that he was twice Rhan's age and substantially larger than the Nautolan, an outright fight was only averted thanks to Tarvitz's unwillingness to do more than dodge her blows. Talking Rhan down, and learning of her frustrations, Tarvitz offered to instead help her. He did not deny that his own failings were numerous and felt sympathy for Rhan, but his own experiences offered him a greater perspective on why she was being subjected to such a rigorous series of tests. The ability to utilise Force stemmed from strength of purpose, will, and determination as its foundations, and the Jensaarai favoured aggression focused through total self-discipline. The tests were to build her sense of conviction and encourage creative thinking rather than to have her directly overcome them, mimicking how his own means of catching up with other students. Tarvitz offered to help her at least gain some even footing in facing their challenges, and to overcome tests on her own terms.

Tarvitz's advice went a considerable way to improving her performance, with Rhan typically working around any challenges through outside means or loopholes to accomplish her goals. Lightsaber training duels would often turn into brawls with both weapons discarded, and she would often use her powers to enhance machines to help with certain tasks. This at once both set her as an infuriating and promising individual in the eyes of her peers, as Tarvitz had partially misunderstood their intentions, but they would not deny Rhan her successes. Even with concerns that her over-reliance upon mechanical Force powers was a flaw, Rhan was soon permitted to join broader groups of apprentices and continue with a more conventional means of tutorship.

By the Saarai-kaar's Word

Now better grounded in her understanding of their ways, Rhan dedicated herself entirely to the lessons of the Order's Defenders. Kylun, while limited in his contract with her, frequently took to personally training Rhan in lightsaber combat; a move which was made in response to one too many black eyes following training matches. The older Nikto was bemused by her antics, but nevertheless did his best to encourage a superior level of swordsmanship and appreciation of lightsaber combat, teaching her Niman so not to be limited to blunt and brutal attacks. Rhan listened to his words, but largely found herself doing so simply so she could better exploit a lightsaber's flaws in battle. For all the artistry and skill in mastering a form of combat, Rhan found that the simplest means to overcome an enemy was to deny them their chosen weapons.

Although Rhan proved to be adept in channeling the Force and the essential skills required of a Defender, she had a natural edge when it came to creative outlets. Machinery and engineering had long been a major part of her life, and Rhan's abilities to judge, manipulate and "jinx" complex mechanisms only grew with time. However, even without her connection to the Force, she was capable of forging complex designs and rebuilding items from little more than a memory. Others that she was gifted were frequently reworked and rebuilt, with upgrades or custom modifications when needed. With Kylun's backing, her duties as an Apprentice monitoring the streets of their city were scaled back, and she was instead given time to better familiarise herself with the small fleet of snubfighters that occupied their hangers. This left her in frequent contact with Tarvitz, and the two entered into an odd sort of rivalry for a time, each trying to outdo the other. The fact that few to none of their skills overlapped meant that the results of such contests were typically inconclusive.

Rhan's lessons were punctuated by infrequent visits from her parents, still finding work even after their concerns. Their presence served as a stabilizing factor during Rhan's training, anchoring herself and giving her a deadline by which to accomplish her next series of goals. While wishing to hear more of their daughter's life there than offer news of the wider galaxy, their stories nevertheless served as a reminder to Rhan of the greater galaxy beyond the Jensaarai's moon. While they lived in an era of relative peace now that a treaty had been signed between the Imperial Remnant and the New Republic, Rhan valued their tales and the greater events that they outlined. Knowing of them was more important than even participating in them, and Rhan even went so far as to construct a datapad to note down the general details that her parents passed on to her. Equally, while they were never truly friends, Rhan came to know Tarvitz's grandparents and became an infrequent visitor of their homestead.

Although hardly a beautiful creature, the Devilsquid served as a basis for Rhan's armour.

While others might have chafed under being kept within the palace, Rhan found a degree of personal joy in applying her skills to various mechanical systems. Each was a chance to truly experiment on just how far her abilities had developed, and to apply herself to something that was truly her forte. As she found ways to keep fighters operational with substandard parts, reworked the palace's aging machinery and took the time to repair the other Defenders' equipment, Rhan applied herself to reinforce the Order as a whole through her abilities. Any one of them could pick up a lightsaber, fly their ships or repair their own equipment but, with their new homes and territories and equipment, they were in desperate need of others to keep the lights on and the plasma furnaces running. Because of this Rhan found herself granted the rank of Defender far sooner than she might have otherwise expected, allowing the Order to permanently assign her to the palace as a de-facto engineer. The change was so sudden that - without greater inspiration - Rhan chose the Devilsquid of Mon Calamari as the inspiration for her armour out of the simple desire for additional limbs to carry out her tasks.

Despite her newfound role, Rhan was ordered by the Saarai-kaar to still join street patrols several times per month. Even with the benefits that she offered the Order, their leader still decreed that they were an organisation of swordsmen before all else, and she did not wish for Rhan's skills to decay while trapped within the palace. Rhan did not object to this, but she quietly chafed under the more regimented schedules and objectives that this placed upon her. Her training had been similar in many regards, but that at least had been leading toward something greater. Without the freedom to choose her tasks and approach them as she desired, her duties gradually wore away at her enthusiasm. Seeking distractions or excuses to frequently disrupt the daily schedules put before her, Rhan began voluntarily taking on additional work of any form. From patching up armour plating, enhancing the palace's power generators, or even attempting to convert some wrecked fighters into combat effective uglies, Rhan attempted to distract herself through any means available to her.

Childhood's Nightfall

Susevfi had long been a safe harbour for its populace. Largely unknown to the greater galaxy and absent from most major star maps, the moon and the Suarbi system as a whole were ultimately unremarkable in almost every regard. However, to some its relative isolation made it a far more tempting target than more prominent worlds. Viewing the moon as a potential source of slaves for Nal Hutta's auctions, a pirate band named the Confederated Suns infiltrated the system. With their cruiser disguised as a civilian freighter, the pirates were able to land just beyond the capital city's outer limits and swarm its streets en mass. The attack blindsided the Jensaarai. While they had sensed the impending attack, any premonitions led the Defenders to believe that it would originate from within Yumfla itself, and had dispersed their numbers to prevent possible riots, not to engage enemy raiders. Most Defenders were sluggish in their responses, with fights breaking out in multiple running battles rather than on any coordinated front.

Having been unable to escape her tasked duties in patrolling the streets, Rhan was among those caught up in the opening wave of pirates. Along with a few others present on the outskirts of the city, she worked to blunt the initial wave of attackers. Utilising her skills to stall the engines of the raiding vehicles favoured by the pirates, she was able to force a substantial number of them to halt and engage the Defenders before they could breach the city. Unprepared for substantial resistance, or the presence of multiple lightsaber-wielding figures, their presence was enough to force some to break. Others were determined to press their attack, threatening to overwhelm the group with sheer numbers. It was in this battle that Rhan slew her first opponents. As efforts to drive them back or render them unconscious failed thanks to their sheer numbers, she finally resorted to killing them to prevent their position from being overwhelmed. It was only sheer adrenaline and the intensity of combat that prevented her from fully absorbing the shock of her actions, or their consequences. Driven by a subconscious desire to stave off that same realization, Rhan was among the first Defenders to pursue the pirates when their assault finally broke. Claiming one of their landspeeders, she and several others set off after the raiders, ensuring that any who considered turning or rallying their comrades would see a band of Jensaarai at their backs.

Managing to drive them back to their ship, Rhan's group barely arrived in time to see it initiating lift-off. Having heard of the Invids occupation years prior, and knowing that letting them flee would see them return in greater numbers, Rhan concentrated her powers on the vessel's great engines. Reaching out with the Force, she pushed herself to the absolute limit, shorting out the vessel's reactor for a brief time, preventing it from departing the moon. The Suns responded with violence, assaulting the group again and again as Rhan denied them their escape, holding their ground as ever more corsairs beset the small group. Repeating this effort several times over the course of the following hours allowed the Jensaarai to gather in strength and board the vessel, eventually seizing the ship with few casualties on either side. While this was seen by some as a great victory, others regarded it as a failing, adding their voices to long-standing criticism of the Order's isolationist policies. For Rhan herself, it was a realisation of just what their duties required. Even with her training, knowledge and appreciating the Jensaarai ideological tenants, and dueling more students than she could count, the act of taking a life nevertheless stunned her in the aftermath of the battle. Both Kylun and the Saarai-kaar consoled her over her actions, but she was nevertheless disturbed by memories of her lightsaber carving through flesh and eyes staring at her in shock as the life faded from them.

The Reclaimer (25 ABY - 31 ABY)

A Return to the Stars

The attack by the Confederated Suns had sent shockwaves throughout the Jensaarai. Most had mistakenly believed themselves safe from outside influences following the defeat of their past occupiers, and the act had given strength to a number of outliers among their number. Certain Defenders had argued for years that the Order needed to scout out the surrounding systems and keep a closer watch on nearby space, preparing to fight if not outright confronting factions which could harm those under their protection. The Saarai-kaar had previously ignored these, but with voices now swinging in favour of those individuals, she granted them some leeway to act among the wider galaxy. Rhan might have previously sided with them but, shaken by her experiences, she opted instead to return to her duties. Attempting to find some degree of certainty and control in fixing machinery, Rhan withdrew back into her engineering skills to drown out her shock at having killed others. Kylun, recognising her disturbed state, attempted to coerce Rhan into opening up and at least receiving some form of councilling for her shock, but he gained little leeway in his efforts. Yet even among machines, Rhan's previous dissatisfaction clashed with her efforts to bury past memories, rendering her unable to fully accept either her duties as a Defender or mechanic.

Locations like Raxus Prime would become a common sight over the following years.

An eventual answer came with the return of Tarvitz's group, having procured a number of vital mechanical parts from a forgotten battlefield. This was enough to convince the Jensaarai to expand their efforts into salvage operations, taking what was needed to reinforce their holdings and repair their dilapidated vessels. Nicknaming these groups Reclaimers, they began setting out for months at a time to scavenge what was required for the Order. Upon learning of this, Rhan felt a twinge of nostalgia for her past life, and the familiarity it offered. Rhan petitioned to join them several times, only to be denied due to the vital nature of her role. It was only on the third attempt that she was granted permission, thanks to both citing the experiences of her parents and following several failings by other groups to find plentiful wrecks. Even if the Jensaarai needed her to keep things running, her duties would not help if she was forced to constantly jury-rig fixes for missing parts.

Contacting her parents, Rhan was able to rejoin them in their efforts to hunt down and raid lost warships with little convincing. An additional pair of hands were useful in their line of work, and both had looked forward to reconnecting with their daughter. However, Rhan remained distant for some time, unable to form any easy conversations or touch base following her experiences and time among the Jensaarai. More concerned with their work than social interactions, she was left to her own devices after several fruitless months of trying to speak with her. This continued for some time, as Rhan silently isolated herself more and more, speaking with others but unable to do more than establish a working relationship. This would only change with a visit to Sullust. In an effort to barter several vital parts from a local junk dealer - each needed to succeed in a far larger haul - the trio ran afoul of a local crime lord. Efforts to escape the planet repeatedly ended in disaster, until the trio were cornered in a local hotel. With no other option, and with innocents at risk of being killed, Rhan took up her lightsaber once more. Storming out of the hotel in order to prevent others being caught in the crossfire, Rhan utilised the Force to render several of their weapons inoperable and momentarily blind the criminals. Hacking through gun barrels, swords and rendering some unconscious with bursts of lightning, Rhan rapidly drove them into retreat. The fight only ended when one, leveling a grenade launcher at the hotel, attempted to kill all within it in a petty act of revenge. Too drained to drag the weapon away or render it inoperable, Rhan hurled her lightsaber, spearing the man through the chest and killing him instantly.

In the aftermath of the event, Rhan was given a better perspective on her actions. She had taken most alive, others had been captured by the police. A few more were so terrified of the red armoured figure that they had turned themselves in. All but one had been claimed without bloodshed, and even that had been to save more lives when there was no other option. Though thoughts of her past would continue to plague her for some time, this at least allowed her to look back on them with greater clarity and make peace with those she had killed. In similar events that followed, Rhan would continue trying to take others alive and render them unconscious first, only slaying them if the alternative was to allow others to die because of her pacifism or their will to fight could not be broken. It was a lesson that would ensure both her survival and many others over the following several years.

The Path of the Outlander

Over the following years, Rhan would largely remain with her parents and other groups, switching between them as her skills were required. Diving her time between tenures working within the palace and traveling among salvage teams on the distant fringes of the Outer Rim, Rhan was able to strike a far healthier compromise between her varied tasks. Coming to terms with her duties and appreciating the freedom she had been offered, she was able to find a degree of satisfaction in her twin roles. Yet, even with the Saarai-kaar's explicit orders not to draw attention to the Order, Rhan frequently found excuses to enforce justice where it was required. Minor fights against pirate groups, raiders or even petty criminals were far from uncommon, especially on planets with no official law enforcement. Even when she was required to hide her involvement, Rhan would utilise her powers to undermine their efforts, breaking equipment or rendering some members unconscious when needed.

Yet Rhan could not wholly escape larger conflicts. Wars would always rage across the galaxy, constantly shifting the tides of war in favour of the New Republic or allowing more hostile governments to emerge where its influence was limited. Attempting to remain neutral in such battles, Rhan would nevertheless find some excuse to always be present to help repair refugee ships, hold off attackers or to help others escape from dying worlds. Perhaps the most infamous of these would be one of the bloody conflicts which would become known as the Unsung Wars. Fought against a force of aggressive outsiders who sought to sacrifice or subjugate all in their path, Rhan was unable to escape the conflict or entirely ignore the widespread strife created by their onslaught. It would become one of the few times in which she deemed an entire culture exempt from her personal law regarding death as a final option in combat, an exemption which extended to all of their creations. Rhan concentrated her efforts on minor second fronts, but even then she saw cities burned and worlds stripped bare.

The conflicts which Rhan found herself dragged into served to reinforce her appreciation for the Jensaarai creed, and the role of Force users as guardians. Although she did not oppose the more isolationist groups among the Jensaarai, it was more out of a desire to spare her Order's home from conflict than true agreement with their arguments. Individuals who pushed for a far more offensive mindset, with the Order spreading out among the stars, were those who seemed set to ignore the mistakes of past Force sects or how easily they could fall to the Dark Side. Because of this, Rhan ultimately remained outside of any such arguments upon her return visits to Susevfi, only taking occasional sides when she deemed it most needed. Because of this she found herself frequently at odds with some individuals within the Jensaarai - even Kylun on rare occasions - but remained loyal to their values far more than any individual. Some would butt heads with her, even argue against her perception of their creed, but rarely contested her dedication to their ideology.

The Dregs of Old Night

By late 31 ABY, Rhan had become tired of wider galactic events. Having dedicated herself far more to the greater wars than she ever intended, Rhan found herself desiring to focus far more upon simpler quests. The renewed Jedi Order could be left to protect the New Republic, or the Alliance as it had become known, along with the greater militaries of the galaxy. Having seen what often became of so many caught in the crossfire, it was evident that someone needed to concern themselves more with the smaller crimes over constantly looking at the big picture. Yet, by this point, even pursuing that single general objective risked being reprimanded. The Saarai-kaar had granted Rhan considerable leeway in her actions, turning a blind eye to some actions which could easily be lost among larger battles. However, this had come to an end. Upon her return to the Palace, the Saarai-kaar explained that under no uncertain terms was she to continue drawing attention to them. When working among the wider galaxy, she was to remain in the shadows and avoid any risk of detection by others. Rhan understood this to some degree, but the urgency behind the Saarai-kaar's words was surprising to her. For the first time that Rhan could remember, her superior seemed unnerved if not outright scared.

By this era, most battlefields had been picked clean by scavengers. Rhan's parents had continued to find work but their sales had been dedicated more to private collectors of rare vessels than shipments to large governmental bodies. Nevertheless, they were able to offer her a few promising leads which suggested a substantial wealth of lost buried technology. The planet of Corbos had been recently colonized by a large mining consortium, which was seeking to claim much of the vast mineral wealth hidden beneath its surface. The planet was a rocky and unappetizing home, almost uninhabitable and with whole continents subjected to torrential rainfall for months at a time. Yet in spite of this, the new colonists had found a number of past ruins, dating back from the Clone Wars to the very foundation of the Republic itself. Yet, any records of the planet had been mysteriously erased along with details of past encounters. The only detail which could be confirmed was that a number of Jedi had visited the world some decades ago, but for what reason was unclear. Intrigued, Rhan opted to visit the planet to inspect this, driven as much by personal curiosity as her hopes of finding a new shipment of metal for the Jensaarai.

File:Leviathan Sithspawn.jpg

Arriving on the world during a massed downpour, Rhan was able to requisition a shuttle to investigate one of the more recent ruins found. Decades rather than centuries old, she was surprised to find signs of New Republic technologies among the destroyed prefabricated shelters, and modern weaponry in place of ancient blaster designs. Yet what was far more disturbing was the lack of burn damage. Buildings had been smashed open, ripped in two, or crushed by some massive force; but there was no sign of explosive or energy damage. Rhan investigated further, coming to the disturbing conclusion that physical impacts had caused the total destruction of the colony. She visited another ruin, and one more after that, each sharing the same pattern of damage impacts bereft of advanced weaponry. The contradiction of so primitive an attack overcoming advanced weaponry set Rhan on edge, but as did other things. Rhan could hear screaming in the back of her mind, quiet at first and yet growing with every passing day she remained there. It echoed through the very Force itself, manifesting in thousands of minds trapped in overwhelming agony.

Attempting to convince the colonists to leave proved fruitless. Unable to express her concerns without revealing her connection to the Force, those in charge of the new colony remained convinced that the past findings were the results of natural disasters rather than attacks. Worse still, a large coven of pilgrims belonging to the Church of the Force had joined them, adamantly convinced that the world was of some importance to their religion and disrupted Rhan's efforts. For three days she fruitlessly attempted to have them leave before the rain seasons became too heavy to initiate an effective evacuation, and then preparing for the worst. When it arrived, it came in the form of gargantuan monstrosities, spawned by Sith alchemy: Leviathans. The creatures had hibernated, waking only upon sensing souls to consume. Two of them smashed through the colony's outer defenses with ease, rampaging throughout the compound within. As blasters proved to be inefficient, Rhan resorted to every means at her disposal to defend the populace. In a thirteen-hour battle, the beasts were slain by Rhan - the first by lightning and the second by sheer attrition - but at the cost of almost all colonists.

When word of this conflict reached the Saarai-kaar - that Rhan had not only revealed herself but failed in her objective to secure new materials - Rhan was recalled to Susevfi for judgment.

The Preserver (32 ABY - 37 ABY)

Ghosts of Iron

Rhan's arrival was far from auspicious. While she was not arrested on sight, a small guard of defenders were assembled at the single spaceport, tasked with escorting her directly to the Saarai-kaar's chamber. Apparently believing that Rhan might flee rather than confront her personally, or even approach her in some roundabout way, the leader of the Jensaarai was leaving nothing to risk. Yet whatever her concerns, Rhan neither attempted to flee or avoid the meeting, marching directly to the palace and into her chambers, barely waiting for her escorts to keep pace. Already knowing that she had broken her word but unwilling to meekly accept punishment for saving the lives of others, Rhan cited her case against the Saarai-kaar. She brought up their duty to others, how she had given every means to avoid the fight, and that the only other option would have been to lie down and accept death at the hands of the sithspawn. Surprisingly, the Saarai-kaar accepted much of this, but found fault in how close she had come to death and a lack of request for support. With their numbers limited and few specialists among their Order, the loss of any pilot, medic or mechanically minded individual was a blow that they could ill afford. Because of this, Rhan's punishment was to serve as a teacher to any new Apprentices, passing on knowledge of her skills and encounters to the next generation of Defenders.

Rhan was surprised at her new duty, and certainly pleased to not be reprimanded over her actions, but she was once more left her permanently stationed on their moon. The loss of freedom that she valued was infuriating, but this at least granted a focus that she had craved many years ago. For a time, Rhan believed that her role was a potential blessing in disguise, until oddities began to emerge in her surroundings. Many of the Defenders who were now stationed in the palace were those who had once been on long-term assignments to retrieve salvage or observe the wider galaxy, each recalled without warning and even the rank of Reclaimer - an informal nickname for their subset of the Ring Defenders - had been removed from records. Equally, many icons, images, and displays that had been present in Rhan's past visit were absent from its walls. Initially, Rhan believed that both had legitimate reasons - With fewer battlefields to scavenge there was less of a need for such a duty, and many still regarded the Invids' dictatorship with bitterness. Yet more oddities continued to emerge within their records. Worlds were being erased from documents, ship classes were treated as if they never existed, whole sects of Force users were omitted from existence. Even more recent events, wars, and species were treated as if they had never existed, while many ancient eras had been reduced to fleeting mentions of vague events.

Rhan finally snapped when she was handed specific guidelines, advising her to avoid teaching her students of a broad range of subjects, many of which related to either the Force or their ideologies. Confronting the Saarai-kaar on this turn of events, Rhan learned of why these sweeping changes were being implemented. The First Order, a mysterious group that had abruptly replaced the Imperial Remnant, was hunting down and annihilating those they believed to be a threat. The Saarai-kaar and other elders had opted to return to secrecy and isolation to avoid possible destruction, discouraging new Apprentices from possibly leaving their home and erasing any reason for the Knights of Ren to annihilate them. Rhan attempted to argue against this, vocally opposing this decision, but the motion had been passed during her absence. To oppose this new decree was to court exile from the Order and be left friendless in the galaxy. It was an option that Rhan almost took, but she opted instead to remain among the Order and undermine this action by any means open to her. If the leaders of the Jensaarai were betraying their very history and name, she would at least remain true to their ideals.

The Age that Never Was

Taking on small groups of Apprentices at a time in her personal workshop, Rhan began training them to handle machinery, repair systems, and bypass missing components. Most of her work emphasized pragmatic workarounds above all else, and how to ensure that a machine could work without the right components or even conflicting parts. On the surface this was used to indicate a need to overcome possible resource shortages and creative thinking. While that detail was certainly true, Rhan utilised loopholes in her orders to teach Apprentices more of the outside galaxy and those there. Machine parts from the Corporate Sector Authority, Hapes Consortium, and far more outlandish groups frequently became the subject of teachings, along with components taken from the more modern New Republic ships now abandoned by the government. This hooked in the Apprentices with the ideas of what lay beyond their home, and Rhan was even able to use reverse psychology to leak information of her travels, or distant planets, in her lessons. Whenever she was confronted on this point, Rhan would only cite that she gave the students enough information to understand what they were working with when it came to conflicting design ethoses.

Although frequently challenged on various points and with her superiors issuing warnings multiple times over, Rhan maintained a very careful balance between revealing just enough information to get the Apprentices interested without going too far. She was well aware that pushing for too much change at once would ultimately backfire badly upon herself and possibly even the Apprentices. As such, she always aimed to inspire their hunger for more knowledge or the wider galaxy without giving too much information away. Whenever it seemed that Rhan might be going too far, she would ensure that some event or another was there to demonstrate the skills of her Apprentices. These ranged from the occasional convenient failure of key systems - ones that she happened to have trained Apprentices repeatedly in how to fix - when she was indisposed to active demonstrations. This was enough to frequently quell criticism but never remove it entirely. Rhan even went so far as to try and use this to her advantage, as she knew from firsthand experience that banned knowledge was often the most appealing to students, but such pushes often left her in a precarious position with the Saarai-kaar.

During this time, Rhan found that the Jensaarai were taking ever more stringent efforts to isolate themselves entirely. Banning speech was not enough in of itself, and entire passages, tomes, and records were found missing from their libraries. Information was "updated" to match the propaganda of the New Republic and the First Order, resulting in the erasure of entire revolutions, wars, and even people. Tens of thousands of years of history could disappear in the blink of an eye, only to be reintroduced at a later date in a so-called corrected format. These were self-contradictory and bare-bones variations of what had come before, defined more by propaganda than anything else. Rhan was forced to try and contradict these however she could, avoiding outright decrying them to her Apprentices, but encouraging them to remain open-minded enough to consider that their records might not be wholly accurate. Yet she was left contending with other Defenders, those who supported the Saarai-kaar's decision, who preached the version of their history the Order was supposed to now follow. Unable to openly deny their version of history, she found herself fighting a losing battle.

Clandestine Memories

Over the course of the next several years, Rhan would maintain her constant approach of carefully encouraging more open-minded trends among Apprentices and pushing for an ideological shift within the next generation. A sudden upheaval would only see a schism among the Jensaarai or, in worst-case scenarios, outright civil war. Even if it took decades to accomplish, Rhan favoured a quieter and more gradual shift which might allow the Jensaarai to become open to the galaxy once more. Yet even in this regard she found herself limited. The galaxy was moving on without them, and Rhan only learned of greater events through the slightest scraps of information. These were contradictory tales, many of which had been clearly embellished many times over by other voices. Some proclaimed that the Empire had established itself and was sweeping forth from another galaxy. Others that the Emperor had emerged alive once more, and was leaving a hidden fleet into battle. Some even went so far as to voice the concept that Luke Skywalker's renewed Jedi Order had been destroyed, and their survivors butchered decades ago. Rhan was left to sift through the falsehoods, finding the few consistencies which existed among the myriad of tales and use them to her advantage.

All throughout this time, similar news continually forced the Jensaarai to take ever greater extremes in their efforts to avoid attention. Along with their archives, old relics began to disappear from the palace. Ornamental and culturally vital images were torn down, never to be seen again. Rhan feared that most were destroyed, but she was never able to confirm this for herself. As such, she worked to quietly remove a number of them whenever given the opportunity. Having remained in contact with the Tarvitz homestead, Rhan was able to convince those living there to hide the relics until the madness possessing their leaders eventually passed. Whatever risks that she incurred by being discovered were worth it in her eyes. There would be no point in gradually turning the Order back from its self-destructive path if there was nothing left to save by the end. Much of what she was able to recover were typically small items, from texts to tomes, with a small handful of more prominent pieces. Yet for every one that Rhan was able to quietly remove, five would disappear without a trace, and all records of their existence denied.

As the first few of the Apprentices that she helped to train ascended to the rank of Defender, Rhan quietly began approaching them to expand her efforts. However, she found that most had been too heavily brow-beaten into actively pushing for change. Rhan's lessons had given them ideas to be sure, and impressed upon them the greater nature of the galaxy, but the others had conveyed its dangers all too well. They had attempted to rectify this compromise by believing that survival was required above all else when greater threats stood out in the galaxy, and that they could only carry out their duties once the greater danger had passed. Rhan would continue pushing for change over the following months, but this had signaled to Rhan that her efforts were likely to fail even in the long-run. Even pushing to have Kylun and several others seemingly refusing to openly support the Saarai-kaar act in support of a quiet revolution met with little to no success. The elder members had ensured that any will to resist them had gradually been sapped by constantly reminding them of the past mistakes while conveniently removing any mention of their victories. Now they only recognised how many times the Order had verged upon destruction from outsiders, and how easily such threats could emerge once again.

Fragments of a Lost Truth

Even after finding that her efforts would likely lead to no long-term victory, Rhan remained with the Jensaarai. Loyal to their ideals if not their leaders, and with nowhere else to go, she opted to continue training the younger generations in engineering skills. For a time she even considered mimicking their approach to new threats, guarding the knowledge that she had gathered and keeping it hidden from those who might destroy it. She was constantly provoked to act against what she knew was wrong, reminded at almost every turn of the mistakes that their leaders were making, but she did not openly move against them. To do so would have been to risk exile, and whatever little she could accomplish here was far more than she would achieve after being banished.

Yet one thing above all others served to highlight how great a mistake the Saarai-kaar had made in their purges. In a moment of curiosity, she delved into the history behind Corbos listed in their archives, as it had been one of the few yet to be erased or corrected to fit propaganda. Within it, Rhan uncovered information from recent events, some of which took place a scant decade prior to her arrival on the desolate planet. In an action similar to her own experiences, Rhan found that a New Republic colony had settled on the world only to awaken the Leviathans lurking beneath its surface. They had slaughtered the populace en mass and Skywalker's Jedi had initiated a rescue mission, who had found that similar events had taken place again and again throughout history. They failed to save the colonists but learning of the Leviathans and the threat present on the world. A warning had been left to avoid this mistake being repeated, only for it to be removed a scant few years prior to Rhan's arrival. Searching the Holonet for comparisons, Rhan found that this had been committed by the New Republic in its efforts to bolster their propaganda, deleting any mention of the Jedi, their activities or any information stemming from their presence. Countless innocents had died due to the arrogance of the galaxy's leaders, thanks to little more than a blind need to erase any concept which did not fit with their narrow view of history. A scant few days after she discovered it, Rhan eventually found that others within the Jensaarai altered the records to match the official version.

Tired and increasingly bitter over the willing blindness displayed by her comrades, Rhan came close to leaving entirely. Only one thing prevented her from doing so. Ka Tarvitz had arrived back on the world after months of being absent only to quickly disappear once more. Arguing loudly against the Saarai-kaar in her chambers, he had eventually stormed out of the palace, seemingly departing for good. A scant few days later, this self-exile was officially altered to complete banishment from the Order. What had taken place in this exchange, the information or even the subjects discussed, were a closely guarded secret. However, it was clear that the Saarai-kaar had been shaken by the experience, and something Tarvitz had passed on had cracked her iron resolve. Out of a mixture of curiosity and hope to perhaps exploit this for the better of the Order, Rhan remained with the Jensaarai to seek answers.

The Exile's Duty

Over the following months, Rhan attempted to gain information from the Saarai-kaar by various means. She was able to glean some details, that it related to Tarvitz's travels and that he had desired help in some venture. Anything else was far too closely guarded for her to learn, even the fine details of what Tarvitz had been doing in his absence from the Order. For several months she continued her efforts, delving into details surrounding this event and acquiring anything that she could liberate from the palace before it was mysteriously removed. Matters eventually came to a head when, on a visit to the bodies of Tarvitz's grandparents, she found the pair dead. There had been no foul play or poisoning that she could tell and, even after medical examination, it seemed that old age had done its work. With no other relatives alive or that she could contact, Rhan opted to deal with matters herself. Carrying out their wishes to be buried in their family shrine, in a pair of sarcophagi next to their children, Rhan carried out a small funeral after several days of attempting to contact their other relatives.

Spending some time visiting the homestead and keeping it in order, Rhan eventually forewarned of Tarvitz's return by the Saarai-kaar. She was officially instructed to arrest him for breaking his exile, with force if need be. Rhan agreed to carry out these orders, but quietly opted only to do so if she found Tarvitz to be a threat. After some searching, Rhan eventually found him kneeling before his family's shrine. Unarmed and unarmoured, he had come to carry out a variation of the return ritual, offering his deceased relatives gifts that they might have enjoyed and speaking to them of greater events. The deaths of his remaining kin had come as a shock, and he had not received any messages that Rhan had sent out. After giving him time to carry out his farewells the two of them spoke at length, filling in each other on events. Rhan spoke of how the Jensaarai Order had changed over the past few years, to the point of almost completely betraying their name with the erasure of their history, and how Tarvitz had been exiled. The latter point had come as a surprise to Tarvitz, even after he admitted that he had all but exiled himself due to the argument with the Saarai-kaar. Their disagreement had stemmed from points similar to Rhan's issues, as he had tried to sway their leader into parting with historical knowledge and even quietly provide aid against a far more hostile force hunting down Force users.

Tarvitz's absence had seen him joining a group called Clan Odan-Urr, a faction of Jedi, smugglers, and others who had been at war with a group known as the Dark Jedi Brotherhood. The Brotherhood's deranged leader had glassed their world in an effort to exterminate those he deemed ideologically impure, and had then even extended this to wholesale genocide of multiple species. Matters had only become worse with the emergence of the Collective, a group of zealots bent upon slaughtering any who showed even a slight degree of potential in the Force. Tarvitz had warned them of the threat initially and updated her of what would play out if the Jensaarai were found by the group. His return now was somewhat linked to this, as he felt that small groups of Force users in the right place could do far more good than a large army isolated to a single area. They could turn the tide of wars by either undermining larger governments in small actions, or decapitating them before they began.

Rhan listened, but could see that Tarvitz's plan to recruit others from the Order was doomed to failure. She explained how many were siding with the Saarai-kaar even over repeated criticisms, and he would likely find no allies among them. She had even been ready to draw her weapon against him after what he described sounded like an attempt to inspire a civil war among the Order, and had only relented when he voiced opposition over direct conflict. Eventually seeing some parallels between their goals, and understanding the scale of his efforts, Rhan opted to join Tarvitz over returning to the Order. If she remained she was likely to still meet with limited success but, in founding a new chapter of the Jensaarai, they might succeed in a new start where pushes to change philosophies had failed. After agreeing on a number of basic terms - a specific one being that Tarvitz would not be their leader given his reckless nature - the two gathered up a number of relics and documents hidden on Susevfi before departing the moon to begin a grander project.

Before departing for Brotherhood space, Rhan left behind a single holorecording explaining her decision to Kylun and wishing him good fortune in the future. While their relationship had been a strained one, his frequent help and guidance over the years left her feeling that he deserved some form of explanation for her actions.

...Different Destinations

After taking the coordinates for Clan Odan-Urr's base of operations from his navicomputer, Rhan was able to quickly make her way to Pharos station, one of the two guarding platforms on the edge of the Vatali Empire. The Jedi had served as peacekeepers among its people for a time, and a recent political change had allowed the Clan to become a recognised house within its nobility. This offered few obstacles for Rhan as, with Tarvitz vouching for her skills and intent, she was able to quickly pass the few tests put before her.

Rhan initially intended to immediately get to work on secretly forming a base of operations to begin their new goal, but she was soon sidelined by another task. An underclass of people on the planet of Kiast had been oddly quiet despite a constant flow of communications between their city-states and nomadic fleets. With some voicing the possibility that they might rebel, Odan-Urr's members were tasked with uncovering the truth. This was deemed a trial by fire for Rhan, both to prove her skills and loyalty to Odan-Urr, and as such she was quickly elected to join the team dedicated to spying on the Vatali. Tarvitz was also a member of this unit, alongside Essik Lyccane, a Gand and former Admiral within the New Republic military, and Tarvitz's Apprentice, Sirra. Traveling to the Quorahi settlement of Foothold, they were able to gradually pick out enough information to confirm that a meeting between community leaders was to take place that night, and identify its exact location.

After speaking with them for some time, Rhan ended up very different opinions of each individual. Essik was polite to a fault but utterly ruthless when the situation required it. Having been dishonourably discharged for continuing to fight long after the New Republic had declared its surrender, he had joined Odan-Urr as a means to serve the Jedi until he finally met his end. The two were able to speak at length of ships, galactic events and social upheavals in their free time, debating one another over differing accounts or historical changes. By comparison, Sirra proved to be a far more difficult individual to connect with. Due to her feral upbringing and extremely powerful telepathic skills, she had no innate language of her own save for emotions, images, and memories. The two were immediately at odds with one another because of this and her more ruthless qualities, which Tarvitz was supposedly trying to lessen over time. While each did their best to stay apart from the other, conflicts nevertheless frequently arose between them. This made the operation particularly troubling, as the eventual solution to spying on the meeting undetected involved a telepathic link being maintained between the two.

Sirra was able to infiltrate the warehouse where the meeting was taking place with relative ease. During this time, Rhan maintained a series of records through the link, noting down everything that Sirra detected through the Force and her own senses. Through this she was able to note down the bulk of the information taken in the meeting, and the internal thoughts of each individual. The Quorahi were forming a new government, seeking to unify their disparate groups into a single federation and using control of resources to put pressure on the Vatali nobility, this disrupting the societies of the Empire. Some were opposed to it, others sought to push for unity via more peaceful methods, while a few all favoured all but outright declaring open war on those above them. The revelation proved severe enough that, once Sirra had withdawn, the group hid in a more remote building on the outskirts of the township before departing with this news at first light.

Physical Description

Standing just slightly shy of six-foot-tall, Nikora Rhan is a typical example of the Nautolan species. With the lithe build of an athlete, she could easily be mistaken for a duellist were it not for the aged scars and markings of a blacksmith upon her hands and forearms. Her pointed nose and broad jawline are set beneath a pair of featureless round black eyes, which contrasts with her narrow features. About the crown of her head are a series of head tentacles, pale blue in colour as with the rest of her skin and rubbery to the touch. The majority of these are kept swept back and kept away from her eyes for ease of movement. Several of these are decorated with a number of small cloth rings, each bereft of any true ornamentation or distinctive pattern.

Personality

Blunt, direct and with an unyielding emphasis upon practicality, Nikora Rhan is someone who speaks through actions more often than she does words. She could be considered as a highly compassionate pragmatist, with a deep concern for the welfare of others while placing an extreme emphasis on practical results over everything else. While on the one hand, she is willing to lie, cheat, and injure others if it is necessary to save others, on the other she would be irritated by outbursts of hysteria as those would offer no means to resolve a crisis. With a near-pathological requirement for action and a directed goal, this has manifested in her talent as both a creator and destroyer through her mechanical and explosives skills. Each of these has been shaped in part by her upbringing, but they are nevertheless a reflection of how she will hunger to resolve a problem while also carefully considering the exact tool to complete her task. Because of this, Rhan neither bothers with or respects empty gestures made for political gain or to soothe an individual's conscience out of a belief that caring alone will make a difference. This need to continually fix things or help others stems from her travels on the Outer Rim, and the harsh life that others face on such worlds.

Nomadic by both nature and personality, Rhan has found herself being forced to uproot herself and start over more times than she can count. In a physical sense, this was her habit of rarely staying on a single world or station for longer than a few days at a time, sometimes without even a ship to call home. Far more concerned with the need to see what lay beyond the next horizon than setting down in a single safe space, Rhan required a singular goal or idea to explore above all others. In the few times that she was left couped up in a single location, Rhan required an objective or constant task to keep herself busy; such as experimenting with her own skills or even repairing the outdated systems within the Jensaarai holdings. In a far more personal sense, her willingness to change stemmed from a requirement by life to frequently start over and re-learn ideas from scratch. This first stemmed from her abandonment of a life as a scavenger to become a Jensaarai, then returning to the stars as a Reclaimer, only to rejoin the Order as a teacher, only to abandon it in the name of a greater goal. Whereas others have a direct or obvious path upon which their skills are built, Rhan's existence can be divided up into segments or even chapters. Because of this quality, Rhan is far more willing to reshape herself entirely to suit a new lifestyle and rarely holds any nostalgic value for the past.

Ironically, in spite of her willingness to personally start over, Rhan places an extreme value in learning from the past and its lessons. Even when she does not wholly agree with the concepts dreamed up by others, she will keep tabs on their ideas and personal efforts. Just because something fails in one moment, or retains flaws in some form, does not mean that there isn't some merit in aspects of its existence. It is because of this viewpoint that Rhan will both frequently re-try failed methods when experimenting with machinery, and will work to preserve the knowledge of the Jedi Order even when she has little respect for their more fundamentalist viewpoints. Her willingness to learn from the past and do the right thing has led to conflicts against her superiors, to the point of actively undermining her leaders within the Jensaarai order in teaching others.

Equipment

Weapons

In close combat, Rhan favours a twin-bladed and green-bladed lightsaber which suits her strength and stature. This has served as a means to rapidly counter most opponents, typically in coordination with a variety of grenades. With her experience in creating and utilising explosives, she deployed everything from stun weapons to thermal detonators in order to disorientate and overwhelm enemies in the opening moments of a fight. When required, she further backs this up with missile launchers at long-range, typically as a means of quickly disabling vehicles or crowd control.

Thanks to a number of engagements against Collective cyborgs, Rhan has taken it upon herself to examine and then use their own weapons against their troops. Chief among these is the MK-6 explosive lure - An anti-personnel weapon built for multiple uses and triggered by proximity sensors. Having discovered and disabled a number of these in skirmishes, Rhan took to building her own variants due to their undeniable effectiveness, and the impact turning the Collective's own weapons upon their troops has on enemy morale.

Armour

Armoured in the manner of all Jensaarai, Rhan's plating matches the same basic designs of all suits from the Order. Rhan's particular version has been tweaked and tailored over the years to fit her specific skills, with a strengthened chest and abdomen plating suitable for absorbing concussive blasts, but a flexible black-toned mesh plating across points of her limbs. These allow for easy mobility, even when combined with the more solid pauldrons, greaves, and hardened points intended to absorb heavier impacts. In a personal tweak added at a later date vambraces are slightly broader than would typically be expected of medium armour, in order to assist with movement underwater.

The armour's aesthetics were built with the inspiration of a specific animal above all others, as is typical of Jensaarai traditions. Trace visual elements reflect the Mon Calamari devilsquid as its overall icon, displayed through contrasting patterns and textures which reflect a cephalopod's skin. A far more obvious influence lies in the helmet piece, which has been built to incorporate her head-tails as a means to emulate the squid's overall appearance.

Powers and Abilities

Defender

Rhan is an experienced practitioner of Niman. Due to its more moderate aspects and balanced nature, Nikora found that it easily fitted to her even temperament emphasizing both heightened attack and defence. Its lack of prominent advantages, when compared with other forms, was something that she found could be more easily overcome when used in combination with other weaponry. What's more, the simple elegance of its movements both allowed her to more easily carry out her duties as an engineer while also using trickery and intimidation to rapidly end conflicts. The use of this fighting style was pressed upon her by Kylun, after the older Defender felt that she was limiting herself to blunt and brutal attacks, thus encouraging diversity in her combat style. Rhan adapted some of its more basic elements to better emphasize offensive pushes and integrating its more defensive elements into counter-slashes and parries, both of which can easily follow up primary strikes.

When required, Rhan substituted the more controlled slashes and sweeps with moves from Mandalorian Core, as its emphasis upon counters, grapples, and emphasis on improvisation provided an excellent contrast with her swordsmanship. Even though the two differed heavily in contrasting ideologies, Rhan finds that the controlled outbursts of abrupt violence can catch foes unawares after seeing the motions of Niman, ending a fight with opponents via something so simple as a quick kick between the legs while their blades were locked.

Engineer

Surrounded by machinery for much of her life, Rhan has an inherent understanding with machinery that no amount of training can fully match. Linked in part through the Force and in part through sheer experience, she has continually experimented and examined various forms of machinery throughout much of her life. While typically working on various vehicles and salvaged parts throughout her early years, Rhan developed a skill to quickly pick out and identify important qualities and familiar traits within varied designs. No matter the components or advancement in technology, machinery would always retain a few familiar components above all others. Rhan came to find that, in identifying them and the linking connections, she could find shortcuts and outline means to improve the inherent builds. She frequently employed this knowledge to cover for shortcomings or absent parts, especially in her service to the resource-starved Jensaarai.

This inherent understanding of technology is beneficial, but Rhan is by no means limited to high-tech designs. A recognised master of the forge, Rhan is also responsible for crafting swords, armours and redesigning weaponry for custom-built designs. With an eye for detail and fine craftsmanship, rarely will an item given into her care return in its same form, and she will quite readily reconstruct a design from the ground up in order to be better suited to its owner. Perhaps because of her unwillingness to entirely abandon certain methods for building equipment, much of Rhan's personal gear continually changes over time, with minor alterations and shifts in everything from tool grips to the patterns of her armour plating. Rather than holding them in any real spiritually enlightened regard or even seeing them as an extension for herself, Rhan treats her personal belongings as a test bed for later improvements.

Even in combat, Rhan can utilise her knowledge to overcome various foes. By picking out inherent flaws, design faults and ill-chosen materials in weapons, Rhan has learned to turn the very weapons of her enemies against their wielders. Even a basic knife had its own failings due to its crafting, just as how armour plating might have key blind spots to limit movement, both of which can be exploited in battle. Yet what is most remarkable is how Rhan can apply this skill on almost any scale, extending it to buildings and fortifications. Even with her lack of experience in commanding troops, Rhan's eye for structural weaknesses and failings means that she has served as an advisor in sieges on more than one occasion.

Explosives

When a lightsaber or even the Force proves to be insufficient to carry out her task, Rhan will fall back on explosives as a volatile problem solver. Rhan has found that the simplest, most direct and blunt means to a problem is typically the least easy to avoid, and explosives themselves have frequently proven to be a reliable means to accomplish this. As a momentary display of overwhelming force in the right place can be enough to encourage a retreat, or even an abrupt surrender when required, Rhan has come to favour them almost as readily as her lightsaber. Yet even with this approach, a significant portion of her arsenal consists of weapons intended to disable or incapacitate enemies over killing them through explosive force. A number of grenades, particularly ion and gas variants, serve as a means of excellent crowd control and an effective opening strike.

Along with their employment, Rhan has devoted time to better understanding the weapons through their limitations and basic elements. Studying and experimenting with various builds, Rhan has developed an understanding of any basic explosive device's limitations in terms of range, placement, and effectiveness against other materials. Equally, frequent studies of chemical combinations and compounds have led her to build custom variants of more common bombs, often with enhanced yields or altered roles in battle. This knowledge has even bled into her efforts as an artificer, as Rhan's designs for fortifications tend to place a heavy emphasis upon guarding against explosive weapons.

The Force

An experienced practitioner of employing the Force in a variety of tasks, Rhan's talents lie in a mixture of extremely bold and surprisingly subtle areas. Noted primarily for her ability to interfere and interact with machinery, she has used her powers to both undermine enemy equipment and even turn it upon its masters in battle. Capable of jamming complex mechanisms and hijacking droids with little more than a thought, she has continually devised means to turn the technological strengths of her foes upon themselves. Yet even without this quality, Rhan has proven herself an extremely talented telekinetic, capable of disassembling items with minute gestures and even unlocking mechanisms purely through her powers. These have made her a deadly opponent when facing the likes of the Collective, as she is capable of both literally disassembling her opponent's enhancements in the midst of a battle and throwing multi-ton objects about with little to no effort. When this fails, Rhan is more than capable of summoning lightning from her hands to directly attack her foes with a series of powerful strikes, or transform her telekinetic strength into a battering ram attack.

While the likes of telekinesis, Force lightning, and Mechu-deru have served as trademark skills of sorts, Rhan is by no means limited to more physical displays of power. With some noted skill in both telepathy and casting illusions, Rhan's ability to pick out surface thoughts and then warp her opponent's senses has served to create various openings against far superior opponents. Even the most martially skilled enemy can be brought down thanks to a brief opening if they cannot wholly trust their senses, or even the privacy of their thoughts. Such deceptions are a stark contrast to her typically bold personality, and Rhan favours keeping these powers secret until the moment is needed to turn the tables upon an enemy. This is to say nothing of their benefit in infiltration or cut-throat negotiations, problems that she frequently encountered during her travels across the galaxy.

Even with the wide arsenal of powers at her array, Rhan's ace in the hole is her ability to disrupt the physical movements of her opponents. By concentrating through the Force, she has found that she can slow and disrupt the agility of her enemies, hindering their capacity to dodge explosions or avoid her blade mid-battle. When required, she can even push this much further to lock a target into a form of stasis, rendering them comatose for a time and extremely vulnerable to her attacks. This requires total concentration to achieve, however, and Rhan has made a point of rarely relying upon it as a means to dispatch her opponents.

In the face of battle or possible obstacles, Rhan will utilise these abilities along with a multitude of other lesser powers to weigh the odds in her favour. However, she makes the constant point of utilising them in synchronized efforts with more mundane skills or as a means to bolster her natural capabilities. Rhan's innate mechanical knowledge and crafting skills are used as a means to enhance the impact her abilities have upon machinery, while the likes of Illusion is used to disrupt the perspective of enemies rather than entirely overwhelm it. Rhan does this out of a desire to avoid an asset like the Force becoming a crutch, and entirely replacing skills or covering for her lack of them in other areas. She constantly views the source as a tool and a means to benefit herself, but will draw the line at having them outright replace an ability entirely. Because of this, Rhan frequently holds back on exploiting their full potential in some key areas, but attempts to make up for it via ingenuity and experimentation in how they are utilised.