Etah

Template:Obbie charinfo “I am but the shadow of a nightmare.
Forget me, as if I were never here.”

He was once a young and up and coming star within the Clan Arcona, but in his time he has made enemies as well as friends. Because of those enemies he has largely been politically isolated. Despite this abandonment he remains optimistic and refuses to betray his loyalty to the Clan Arcona which has been his home for some time now. Rest assured Etah d’Tana is not going anywhere and whatever he is doing, he is probably doing it just to spite you.

Infancy (11 BBY/0 years old)

"I guess darkness was always my path"- Etah to Selen, 25 ABY

It was a dark, stormy night the evening a young dark skinned babe was left on the doorstep of the Sodality of Pius Dea. The sporadic bolts of lightening shined even into the depths of the lower levels where the Sodalities Temple lay and the mighty thunder heralded his arrival. The monks took the baby in, wondered who left him there and whether it was an accident, a mistake or a perhaps providence. There were disagreements among the leadership of the organization about what to do with the hapless young Sakiyan.

Most of the Sodality’s members were human and many of them had Imperial backgrounds and thus held varying views about non-human species. Bishop Eftelis, a former Special Agent from the Imperial Security Bureau advised Abbot Krino not to burden the Sodality with the responsibility of raising a young child and pointed out that his demonic, nonhuman visage was an external sign of internal weakness and thus supremacy would forever elude him. Master Synetos, a former Colonel from the Storm Corps, advised the Abbot that the child was the Sodalities responsibility and was raised with the morals and beliefs of the ancient organization he could go onto lead a life uncommon and thus bring honor to the Sodality.

In the end Abbot Krino choose Synetos’s impassioned plea above Eftelis’s hateful judgment. It would have been very difficult indeed, for a cabal of old human’s men to raise an infant Sakiyan. Luckily Sister Mitera, an elderly Sakiyan female, had been among the Sodality all her life. She was tasked with being Etah’s nanny, a task she took too with gusto. During his infancy she bathed him, fed him, clothed him and made sure he stayed out of trouble. Through her, Etah learned to speak basic, Hutties and Sakiyan. She was the mother that life had never given him, and in many important ways, created the moral groundwork for the man he would become.

Childhood (5 BBY/6 years old)

"Only the apathetic and the weak fear hardship" – Etah to Apprentice, 26 ABY

Though it can be said the whole of the Sodality of Pius Dea aided in raising Etah, there were several members of the Sodality who took direct responsibility for the growing young boy. Sister Mitera continued to be a major part of his life into his childhood, others were needed to shape and guide the young Monk. The first individual was his tutor, Adept Kompsos and the second was his task master, Adept Ergatis. Synetos and Eftelis returned to his life as adviser and disciplinarian respectively.

Tall and lanky with prominent boney cheeks, Adept Kompsos was a professor of history at a prominent university on Coruscant before joining the Sodality. He began working with Etah at an impossibly young age. He taught the child how to read and write in basic, along with basic arithmetic and critical thinking. Etah later credits Adept Kompsos as beginning Etah’s life long fascination with learning, a pursuit that sets him apart from most of his Obelisk peers.

A full, lazy face and corn fed figure, Adept Ergatis was was loud, abrasive, verbally and physically abusive. He served as the young Sakiyans task master. He assigned the child’s chores and made sure they were completed and punished the lad if they were not completed in a satisfactory manner. In a sick and twisted way he played a very important role in the future Dark Jedi’s development. Adept Ergatis taught Etah that nothing was for free, that to eat you must work and he taught him to be strong.

Tall, clean shaven and muscled, Synetos’s just barley tanned skin had hardened into leather over the long hard years. Originally a Clone Trooper he became more and more autonomous over the years, rising in rank, he retired a Colonel in the Regular Storm Corps. An unparalleled feat for a clone, being that clones generally never rose above their programming or noticed the world outside of their small sphere of influence. He was a master of the sodalities canon and the boy’s theology instructor.

White, balding hair with a thin build and a skinny face, Eftelis had sunken eyes and a stare that could make a giant piss his pants. He was a Counterintelligence Agent with the Senate Bureau of Intelligence in Old Republic Intelligence and had mentioned serving under Admiral Kiner. After the Declaration of a New Order he became an interrogator for the Imperial Security Bureau and was very good at his job. He served as the boy’s disciplinarian and was a brutal one at that, from a very young age.

Adolescence (2 ABY/13 years old)

"Blood sweat and tears were the legacy of my young years" – Etah to Psycho, 25 ABY

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Etah practicing martial arts

As he grew older, most of the important people in his life remained but their relationship and interaction changed. Sister Mitera was still around in the background, but had effectively stepped back as Etah began to dive into the teachings and methods of the Sodality. Adept Kompsos was still his tutor, but his lessons now included history, literature and philosophy. Adept Ergatis was assigning the young lad more intense physical labor and was more violent and abusive than ever before. But at this point three new people entered his life.

Adept Dynatos was an Imperial Royal Guard before joining the Sodality. He was near making the status of Sovereign Protector when the Empire came to an unfortunate end. As an Imperial Royal Guard he was one of the Galaxies foremost experts on hand to hand combat, which is why he became Etah’s martial tutor. Through him Etah learned Mandalorian, Echani and Teras Kasi techniques. Adept Dynatos specialized in controlling his opponent through different locks and holds and striking vital areas including arteries and organs.

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Etah practicing the sword

Master Synetos was one of the leaders in the Sodality. He had successfully argued for the boy’s presence in the Cult. He taught the boy breathing, meditation, kinetic mediation and through these how to control the internal properties of his body. This would aid him in later years, when Etah began to utilize the force. In addition to these, Synetos also taught the Sakiyan the specific theology of the Sodality of Pius Dea and how to apply it to his life. Master Synetos became his confidant and friend, more like an older Adept than a paternal figure.

Adept Eftelis was also one of the leaders of the Sodality. He had unsuccessfully argued that the Sodality should cast the inhuman burden aside. Eftelis was the boy’s disciplinarian, a position that perhaps mirrors the task masters position, but with a little more theological legitimacy. He taught the young Sakiyan mortification of the flesh which was the use of pain in prayer and meditation and aided with aesthetic discipline. Meaning he whipped the young Monk with a barbed whip in order to focus him.

In addition to study and the metal exhaustion that accompanied that, heavy chores and the beatings that accompanied them, martial exercise and the physical exhaustion that accompanied that, mortification of the flesh, discipline and the searing pain that accompanied them, Etah also practiced fasts, which deprived him of sustenance and vigils which aside from prayer, meditation, corporal mortification and discipline also involved chants, recitations and study. This exercise deprived him of sleep and sanity.

Young Adulthood (7 ABY/18 years old)

“Naivety dies on the battlefield, along with the greatest of our generation” – To Dynatos, 7 ABY

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Etah as a Recon officer in the Saki Army

Reaching the age of eighteen, he was not quite a man in the eyes of the Sodality but it had been decided that he had probably learned all he could within the protective walls of the monastery, and thus he should leave the Brotherhood and experience life for himself. He wasn’t exiled or stripped of the priesthood, but the members of the Sodality of Pius Dea while aesthetic Monks generally entered the Cult in the fourth stage of their life, after having raised their children into adulthood and retired from a profession.

Etah had done it backwards. He spent eighteen years as a monk and was now being sent into the Galaxy, to adventure and experience both the good and the bad, and to find his own way to power. Just prior to this he had watched Sister Mitera die, more or less of old age. After her death, funeral and burial Etah had only one destination in mind. The planet Sakiya, the home world of his people, a place Sister Mitera had spoken of fondly. Gaining passage with a freighter in exchange for some lessons in basic, the Sakiyan eventually reached his destination.

He was well received by the family of Sister Mitera, who had been corresponding with them for years. They treated Etah just as if he were Mitera’s son and thus their blood. Raised from infancy by Monks in a life of essentially solitude, he felt the warmness of belonging for the first time. Less than a year into his stay on the Planet Sakiya, everything went nuts. An invasion force hit ground and his entire city went airborne on powerful repulsorlift’s in order to avoid the fighting on the ground as was their practice. The Antartis rebels were a group of Hutt’s bent of monopolizing the Sakiyans valuable repulsorlift technology.

After approximately a year of living with the relatives of Sister Mitera and learning how to control his advanced senses, Etah felt a call to serve. He chose to join the First Sun Mobile Regiment, a mercenary group who was coordinating the defense of Sakiya. He was trained in basic infantry skills before being chosen for officer training because of his advanced level of education. He was educated in command functions, light infantry tactics, reconnaissance and other forms of intelligence collection, a very difficult, elite and highly competitive training pipeline.

Just as he was commissioned and assigned to his first command, the Antartis rebels landed. An infantry commander Etah was involved in the heaviest fighting against the Hordes of the rebel Hutts which included legions of Klatooinians, Nikto, Vodran, Weequay and even a few rebel Sakiyan Scouts who were the most detested. A year and a half into the fighting, about when the tide turned against Hutt’s, Etah was reassigned to reconnaissance. A Regimental level asset, he coordinated with local commanders and reported to the Command Generals Staff about intelligence collection and direct action operations including small unit assaults, ambushes and command head hunting.

Though not quite a celebrity war hero, he is considered a hero by some and is pretty well known in Sakiyan military circles. Years later Etah would remember the fighting on Sakiya as some of the fiercest and most brutal of his life. The rebels were driven off the planet and the crisis was abated. The cities that had launched into the sky landed and reorganized themselves in their traditional manner. After just shy of two years of military service, Etah was given an honorable discharged by the First Sun Mobile Regiment. The Regiment disengaged from Sakiya as the locals were uncomfortable with a semi-permanent military force on the planet.