Jacen Solo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Star Wars character | |
| Darth Caedus | |
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| Portrayed by | Not applicable |
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| Position | Jedi Knight, Sith Lord |
| Homeworld | Coruscant |
| Species | Human |
| Gender | Male |
| Affiliation | Order of the Sith Lords, New Jedi Order, Galactic Alliance Guard |
Jacen Solo is a fictional character in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. He is a major character in several Star Wars novels, particularly the Legacy of the Force series.[1][2]
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[edit] Character overview
He is the middle child of Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo; the younger twin of Jaina and the older brother of Anakin. Even before he and his sister were born, their uncle Luke Skywalker could sense their strong presence in the Force. Jacen shares an almost inseparable bond with his twin sister, as well as close bonds with humanoids and animals alike. He is trained in the Force by his uncle, and becomes an exceptionally strong Jedi Knight. Jacen had been unofficially training his young cousin, Ben Skywalker.
In the Legacy of the Force series, Jacen encounters the Dark Lady of the Sith, Lumiya. Shortly after, Jacen Solo willingly accepts the dark side of the Force. In his quest to become a Sith Lord, he kills a young Jedi to prevent an event in the future. He then kills the murderous daughter of Boba Fett during an interrogation. Later he stages a military coup and seizes control of the Galactic Alliance, ruling in joint-control with the Supreme Commander. He becomes a Lord of the Sith by murdering his aunt Mara Jade Skywalker, the wife of Luke Skywalker when she attacks him. Jacen then assumes the title Darth Caedus (pronounced [kie'duss][3]), Dark Lord of the Sith after the battle. After several failures in the battle field, he overthrows the Supreme Commander and takes over control of the Galactic Alliance. Ultimately, Lord Caedus is killed during a duel with his sister Jaina, ending the tyranny of the Sith until the rise of Darth Krayt.
[edit] History
[edit] Childhood
Jacen Solo is born near the end of the Thrawn Trilogy on Coruscant, five minutes after his sister Jaina. The twins, and eventually their younger brother Anakin, are sent to live at various safe havens for their first few years, under the protection of Leia's handmaiden, Winter. A majority of their time is spent on New Alderaan and Anoth.
In the Jedi Academy series, the twins return to Coruscant at age three and have many an adventure there. They once get lost in the underworld of Imperial City with C-3PO, but are quickly rescued and return to their mother, the Chief of State of the New Republic.
Jacen's aptitude for the Force is apparent at a young age. As a toddler, he uses the Force and Luke's lightsaber to defend his unconscious uncle from the dark spirit of Exar Kun.
In The Crystal Star, all three children are abducted, together with many other children with Force abilities, by a Dark Force user who tries to brainwash them into becoming Dark Jedi in order to bring about the rebirth of the Galactic Empire. The children defeat their captor.
[edit] Jedi Academy Years
In the Young Jedi Knights series, Jacen travels to Yavin 4 with his sister to begin his Jedi training. Jacen discovers a strong connection to the Living Force — the concentration on the present moment — and can communicate with and calm many of the jungle creatures near the Academy. He even keeps a small menagerie of animals in his room in the Great Massassi Temple. He and his sister befriend the Wookiee Lowbacca (nicknamed Lowie by his friends) and the warrior princess Tenel Ka.
In The Shadow Academy, Jacen and Jaina discover a crashed TIE fighter from the Battle of Yavin. Jaina installs a hyperdrive in the downed starfighter and begins fixing it to fly again. Jacen, Lowbacca, and Tenel Ka help her to practice their Force skills until all are held captive by the TIE's original pilot, Qorl, who had been living in the jungle for two decades. They eventually escape, but so does Qorl, leaving the jungle moon behind and searching for any remnants of the Galactic Empire. Qorl discovers the Shadow Academy, a training ground for Dark Jedi commanded by one of Luke Skywalker's fallen students, Brakiss, along with the remains of the Dathomiri Nightsisters. These elements of the so-called Second Imperium kidnap Jacen, Jaina and Lowbacca, but they resist the dark side and are rescued by Luke Skywalker and Tenel Ka.
The friends return to Coruscant for a short vacation, and are reunited with the twins' childhood friend Zekk. They are forced to fight Jacen and Jaina several times, and the twins and their friends finally progress far enough to be tasked with building their first lightsabers. Jacen uses a corusca gem he had gained earlier for his focusing crystal.
Jacen's hard-learned lesson hits home once again in Lightsabers, when Tenel Ka rushes to complete her lightsaber to keep up with her friends. She uses an imperfect crystal and her blade shorts out in a sparring match with Jacen. His lightsaber passes through thin air where her weapon had been seconds before and severs the young woman's arm. Though she bears him no ill will for the accident, Jacen is wracked with guilt.
In Darkest Knight, the Jedi trainees and the Shadow Academy have their final confrontation on Yavin 4. The twins, with help from Luke and Zekk, bring down the Shadow Academy and the Second Imperium forever.
Throughout the series, Jacen and Jaina continue their training at Yavin 4, meeting new friends like Raynar Thul. They cannot convince Zekk to stay at the Academy with them, but Jacen and Jaina remain friends with him. With his and Raynar's help, they discover a threat to the New Republic: the Diversity Alliance, an alien, anti-human group. The Alliance is building up massive support among peoples that had been oppressed by the Empire. They are led by a Twi'lek Nolaa Tarkona, the sister of Oola, who was murdered by Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi.
In Jedi Bounty, Jacen, Jaina, and their friends are briefly held captive on Ryloth and have to escape to its harsh surface. They have gone there in an attempt to rescue Lowbacca, who had misguidedly join the anti-human Diversity Alliance. In the following book, The Emperor's Plague, they get to the bottom of a plot they had suspected all along, and catch up with Raynar's father, Bornan Thul, to race the Diversity Alliance fleet to an Imperial storehouse hidden in the deep core. There is hidden a supply of deadly diseases created by General Evir Derricote almost two decades before. Tarkona wishes to unleash a plague against humans and wipe them all out, but the Jedi and Alliance dissidents defeat her. She succumbs to one of the diseases herself on a faraway planet. Bornan Thul dies from one of the plagues right before his son's eyes.
In Return to Ord Mantell, they go on a trip with their father to the titular planet to watch a race. There, they run into Czethros, a bounty hunter who once hunted Han. They are ambushed by Black Sun agents, but are helped by Anja Gallandro, a young woman who wields a lightsaber, though she is not a Jedi. Although attracted to Tenel Ka, Jacen becomes infatuated with the older woman. Anja had blamed Han Solo for killing her father, but Solo reveals that her father died in a trap while finding treasure.
In Trouble on Cloud City, they discover Czethros is a minor leader of Black Sun, and is trying to gather enough power to overcome the New Republic. Jacen, Tenel Ka, and Lowbacca are ambushed by several Black Sun mercenaries, and Jacen is almost killed.
In Crisis at Crystal Reef, Jaina attempts to help Kessel and capture Czetheros while Jacen rushes to help Anja with her spice addiction and help her with Black Sun. With help, Anja beats her addiction and accepts her father's death. Jacen thinks Anja has Jedi potential, but it turns out she didn't. He gets over his infatuation with Anja when she goes to work for Lando.
[edit] Yuuzhan Vong War (25 ABY – 29 ABY)
In the The New Jedi Order series, Luke takes Jacen as his Jedi apprentice. Jacen learns much from Luke, though they disagree on many philosophical issues. Jacen believes in the Force not only as a tool, but as part of something greater. He tells his brother Anakin that the Force is a guide to find one's place in destiny.
When the Yuuzhan Vong attack the New Republic in Dark Tide: Onslaught, Jacen comes to believe that many Jedi are handling the threat too aggressively. He abandons his powers temporarily to contemplate the Force and butts heads with his father over the morality of 'pirate' attacks on Peace Brigade vessels. Only his love for his mother brings Jacen back into the front lines of the battle. Eventually, Han and Jacen make their peace, the former declaring that while he doesn't always understand his son, he is proud of him.
In Star by Star Jacen joins a daring mission to Myrkr. A Jedi strike force, led by Anakin, is to infiltrate a Yuuzhan Vong cloning facility where the invaders craft deadly Jedi-hunting beasts called Voxyn. The mission is a disaster, ending with Anakin's death, in which Jaina reacts by touching the dark side of the Force. Forced into the leadership position, Jacen uses the Force Meld to bind the team together into a cohesive fighting unit. After destroying the voxyn queen, Jacen is captured by the Yuuzhan Vong army under the command of Vergere and Nom Anor.
Jacen disappears, along with his presence in the Force. Vergere strips him of his ability to use the Force, and thus takes away his connection with Jaina. Jedi and even untrained Force-sensitives throughout the galaxy feel Jacen's presence die in the Force, and only his mother trusts that he is still alive.
In Traitor, Jacen awakes to find himself in the Embrace of Pain, a rack-like torture device favored by the Yuuzhan Vong. His captor puzzles him with queries and riddles as Jacen drowns in his agony and sorrow. Yet his inner strength of character staves off total collapse as he learns to become sustained by pain. He remains under the care and tutelage of the avian Vergere, who he learns had once been a Jedi of the Old Republic, and who had even met his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker.
Jacen is put to work at the Nursery in a Yuuzhan Vong seedship. His natural empathy for living creatures forges a strong bond with the dhuryam, a sort of larval form of a World Brain.He also uses a number of herbs in the area to heal slaves and get the dhuryam to trust him. Using the implanted slave seed beneath his flesh as a conduit, Jacen communicates with the living instruments of Yuuzhan Vong technology. He uses this connection to stage a daring escape from captivity, commanding Yuuzhan Vong amphistaffs to surround him like living armor. The dhuryam, protective of Jacen, helps him escape, but Vergere foils his larger plans to destroy the seedship and all aboard.
Jacen and Vergere flee to Coruscant. The planet's entire surface is undergoing a radical transformation. Yuuzhan Vong organic growths cover the once gleaming metropolis, remaking the planet into a Yuuzhan Vong paradise. The world is to be their new capital, a recreation of the planet that had spawned them, Yuuzhan'tar.
Vergere removes the slave seed from Jacen, but he can still sense the Yuuzhan Vong. Jacen is later surrounded by Yuuzhan Vong warriors whom Vergere had led to him. Wanting revenge, Jacen channels his hatred for Vergere into Force lightning; he is frightened by this connection to the dark side, however, and runs away. Vergere finds him in his destroyed home and gives him back full use of the Force. He is once again surrounded by Yuuzhan Vong captors; left with no choice, he surrenders and agrees to join their cause. He becomes the "khattazz al'Yun," or Avatar of God. Nom Anor intends to use Jacen to sacrifice Jaina, thus fulfilling an ancient Yuuzhan Vong prophecy.
Jacen's true allegiance is his own, however. During a test of Jacen's faith, the Yuuzhan Vong orders him to sacrifice captured Jedi Ganner Rhysode. Instead, the two Jedi turn against their captors. As Ganner holds off the Yuuzhan Vong, Jacen confronts the World Brain. The malevolent entity remembers the bond that Jacen had forged earlier, and Jacen suggests to it to work against the Yuuzhan Vong.
Ganner dies that day, though Jacen escapes with Vergere. He returns to the dwindling New Republic territories a different man: haggard, thin and hardened. He goes on a much needed vacation, but returns to frontline combat aboard the cruiser Ralroost. His ability to start the Jedi Meld is a large asset to Admiral Kre'fey, and Jacen joined the Alliance Fleet with elements of Garm Bel Iblis's forces in a large-scale deception at Ebaq 9. The battle ends in a victory, but results in Vergere's death. Her spectral form appears to him soon after.
As the newly formed Galactic Alliance emerged, Jacen accompanied his uncle Luke Skywalker into the Unknown Regions to seek a solution to the Yuuzhan Vong menace. Jacen would be instrumental in the search for Zonama Sekot and in the efforts to convince the living planet to join the fight against the Yuuzhan Vong. Jacen kills Supreme Overlord Onimi, who had been using Supreme Overlord Shimrra as a puppet, in a spectacular confrontation where the Force uses Jacen as a conduit to defeat Onimi, considering that Jacen was almost killed with just one hit by Shimrra himself, and in that moment Jacen started believing that he is beyond good and evil, marking the beginning of his fall. After the grueling final confrontation and the war's end, Jacen tells Luke that he had decided to travel the galaxy to learn more about the Force.
[edit] Dark Nest Crisis (35 ABY – 36 ABY)
In Dark Nest, Jacen feels an urge through the Force and follows his sister to the Unknown Regions to help the insectoid Killik against an invading Chiss force. He returns to Republic space after his parents, resulting in his uncle and aunt to come for him, Jaina, and the other Jedi. He then travels to the Hapes Cluster to ask Tenel Ka to assist with the Chiss/Killik conflict, believing that the fleet could act as a buffer between the two armies. She obliges and sends a fleet of Hapan Battle Dragons to protect the Killiks.
In The Unseen Queen, Tenel Ka gives birth to his daughter, Allana, who is then attacked by the Gorog. Jacen successfully repels the attack and keeps his daughter safe. Possessed with a strong fear of his daughter or Tenel Ka being harmed, Jacen uses the Force to send Tenel Ka's grandmother (the person behind the attack) into a coma. Immediately afterward, he sees a vision of a neverending war that will destroy the galaxy, with the Killiks at the heart of it. Determined to save his daughter and the galaxy from his vision, he sets out to provoke the Chiss into destroying the Killiks. Jacen later reveals that he never knew who started the war in his vision.
Jacen's rationale for the preemptive strike is to keep the Chiss forces from starting a war on their own terms. His actions prevent a genocidal attempt by the Chiss to wipe out the Killiks with a biogenetic weapon. Despite his best efforts, however, the war eventually spreads to the Galactic Alliance when Killik forces try to dominate the Alliance's insectoid species. Under Jacen's advice, however, the Jedi prevent all of the strikes except one attack which targeted the Alliance's bacta supplies.
In The Swarm War, Luke Skywalker comes to respect Jacen almost as much as a senior master, much to the dismay of Jacen's peers. He takes his nephew's advice so many times that he even listens when Jacen tells him that he is not ready to face Lomi Plo, the Dark Queen of the Gorog. Jacen, Mara and Luke know that doubt and fear would make Lomi Plo invisible to her enemy. Jacen, along with R2-D2, helps Luke conquer some of his fears about Mara's involvement with the death of his mother, and then accompanies him to face Lomi Plo.
During the fight with Lomi Plo, Jacen's fear is realized when Luke falters for a moment when Mara is injured, and doubt enters his mind. Lomi Plo then holds him in place, unable to move. In that instant, Jacen is critically wounded by Lomi Plo while saving Mara Skywalker's life. A well-placed shot from Mara blasts Lomi Plo away, after which Mara tends to Jacen's wounds. While he and Mara recover in a medical bay, Jacen tries to corrupt Luke by telling him to embrace the dark emotions. Luke rejects Jacen's views and goes back to the true Jedi way, eliminating his doubts and defeats the Dark Queen and Raynar Thul without using the dark side, proving Jacen wrong. This, in conjunction with the capture of Raynar Thul, ends the Killik threat.
In the latter novel, Jacen joins his uncle in watching holovideos of his grandparents, Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala; in particular, he sees Anakin fall to the dark side and Padmé die in childbirth partly as a result of Anakin's treachery. (These scenes are first portrayed in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith). Jacen actually sympathizes with Anakin's desire to protect his wife (while disagreeing with the manner in which he did it) and reminds Luke that Anakin was a fallible human being. In the end, Jacen is left wondering what caused Anakin to succumb to the dark side.
[edit] Legacy of the Force (40 ABY)
In Betrayal, Jacen starts training his young cousin Ben in the ways of the Force. After a successful mission to Adumar that ends in a life-threatening attack, they return for a dinner party at his parents' new home. There, Han voices his concern over Corellia trying to gain independence. A while later, Luke orders Jacen and Ben to disable the Centerpoint Station, an ancient artifact that Corellian leader (and Han's cousin) Thrackan Sal-Solo is trying to use to his advantage. Ben disables the station while Jacen keeps Thrackan busy, ensuring the Galactic Alliance's partial victory as another fleet built in secret spoils the main attack.
A mission to Kuat is organised, where several Jedi go along with Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon to meet the Corellian Prime Minister Aidel Saxan. There, Saxan is assassinated by troops sent by Lumiya. A tassel is found in the ensuing investigation, one that contains several similarities to the Sith Code. Jacen and Ben go to the planet Lorrd, to follow up on this lead.
There, they meet fellow Jedi Nelani Dinn. Several suicides take place while they are on the planet, and Jacen and Nelani miss the threat of one while they are arguing. Ben spots the deception and warns everyone off. Jacen knows that some couldn't be saved, and two people die as a result of one of his decisions. Eventually they meet a woman called Brisha Syo. She leads them to an asteroid near Bimmiel, where they are to fight a Sith Lord.
While travelling to the subterranean base, Ben and Nelani are forced out of a mining car. Then Syo creates a dark side phantom of Luke Skywalker, who attacks and very nearly kills Jacen. Eventually, Brisha stops the projections and takes Jacen to an office, where Darth Vectivus, the supposed Sith Lord they are hunting, lives. After fighting Force projections with Ben, Nelani catches up with them.
Brisha is revealed to be Lumiya, the Dark Lady of the Sith. She reveals that Vergere is a Sith apprentice, and that Jacen has already received Sith training. Jacen's resilience starts to falter, and Nelani worries that he is going to turn to the dark side. Lumiya says that Jacen is going to become the next Sith Lord. Unsure of his next move, Jacen uses the Force to create visions of the future. It showed in each case where Lumiya is arrested, the galaxy being consumed in an endless war that would eventually place Jacen against Luke. In the vision, Jacen kills his uncle.
Horrified by the vision, Jacen spares Lumiya. Nelani then tries to arrest the Sith but fails when Jacen intervenes. Jacen realizes that Nelani will, if allowed to survive, possibly fulfill the dark vision he had seen. He pursues Nelani, but she escapes. He catches up with her and defeats her. He has her at his mercy, and asks her forgiveness before killing her. He agrees to think over what Lumiya had said and leaves the asteroid with an unconscious Ben. Jacen then erases Ben's memories of Lumiya and tells him that both she and Nelani had been killed by dark side phantoms. They then return to Coruscant; however, after Jacen departs, Lumiya says that she had won.
Fully pledged to Lumiya, Jacen begins to engage in much more morally questionable behavior. As the standoff with Corellia continues, Jacen becomes head of the GFFA's newly-formed secret police, the Galactic Alliance Guard. With Ben at his side, he begins rounding up Corellians for internment and deportation. During an interrogation of a suspected assassin (who turned out to be Ailyn Vel, Boba Fett's daughter), Jacen tries to use the Force to extract information from her and kills her in the process.
Jacen also takes command of Rogue Squadron while it participates in the blockade of Corellia. He shoots down a civilian freighter that was attempting to run the blockade, then relieves his sister from duty because she had refused to do it. He also uses the Galactic Alliance Star Destroyer Anakin Solo to fire upon the Millennium Falcon, while both his sister and his parents were onboard. He believes his parents to have been involved in a failed attempt to assassinate Tenel Ka. The Solos had in fact been set up by Dur Gejjen, Prime Minister of Corellia.
In Sacrifice, Lumiya says she is pleased by his progress, but instructs him that to truly become Sith he would have to undergo the Trial of Sacrifice: to kill that which he loves most. Doing this, he believes, would allow him to use the powers of the Sith without becoming evil and would "immortalize his love" for his sacrifice. Jacen decides there is only one way to fulfill this last obstacle: he would have to kill Tenel Ka and their daughter Allana. Nevertheless, after Ben tells Mara that he overheard Jacen communicating with Lumiya, Mara tracks Jacen down in the Hapes Consortium. After a long and heated battle, one in which Mara nearly defeats Jacen, Jacen kills Mara Jade by using a force illusion, making his face appear to be Ben's just as Mara was about to administer the killing blow to Jacen who was running out of power. Mara had ambushed him with the intent to kill him. He is relieved that he was not forced to kill Alana or Tenel Ka. Instead, the sacrifice necessary to becoming a Sith Lord is Ben's love; however, Ben does not begin to suspect that Jacen is his mother's killer until Inferno. Eventually, Jacen chooses the Sith name Darth Caedus.
By Fury, Jacen is the main antagonist of the series and declared enemy of nearly every other major character. His parents and sister have disowned him, Luke is sworn to redeem him, and Ben is driven to kill him as revenge for his mother.
In Revelation, Jacen takes on a new apprentice, Tahiri Veila, to replace Ben, and turns to the task of ending the war. He entices the Imperial Remnant to join him in an attack on the planet Fondor. Although Admiral Niathal wants to force the planet into surrender for their resources, Jacen is determined to make an example of Fondor by crippling the shipyards and its planetary government. After previously sharing military secrets which leads to 100 deaths and compromises the battle plan at Fondor, Niathal arranges a cease-fire without consulting Jacen. Enraged at this treason, Caedus orders the fleet to ignore Niathal's orders and bombard the major cities. Niathal orders all ships loyal to her to attack the Anakin Solo. In the division of the GA fleet, two-thirds of the fleet side with Jacen. When the Imperial Remnant refuses to assist Jacen, his new apprentice assassinates Grand Admiral Pellaeon and turns control over to the Moffs who then come to Lord his aid. A mysterious fleet led by Admiral Daala, loyal to Pallaeon, appears, accompanied by 100 Mandalorian mercenaries, and together, owing to Daala's experimental weapons, they send the Galactic Alliance Fleet into retreat.
Jacen Solo then takes control of Coruscant, and claims sole control of the Galactic Alliance.
In Invincible, Jacen and Jaina fought multiple times. Unfortunately for Jacen, the other Jedi now viewed him exclusively as Caedus. Caedus' meditations were disrupted by Luke Skywalker, in an attempt to hide Jaina's attack from Caedus. On Nickle One, the Verpine homeworld, Jaina, accompanied by several Mandalorian commandos confronted Caedus. Caedus quickly dispatched the Mandalorians, while Jaina acted as a sniper. When she finally ran out of ammunition, Caedus was attacked by Jaina. Despite fighting hard, Jaina seized a beskad, Mandalorian saber and hacked off Caedus' arm. He had done enough damage to Jaina though, that she retreated. At the book's climax, Caedus and Jaina face off in a final lightsaber duel. After a grueling battle in which both are seriously injured, Caedus is defeated when Jaina stabs him in the heart. As he dies, Jacen reaches out to both his former lover and his child through the Force, warning them to flee from an approaching bio-warfare attack designed by his allies - the Imperial Remnant - to kill them. In this act of selflessness, Jaina sees the remnants of the good man her brother had once been.
[edit] References
- ^ Answers from Aaron Allston. Lucasfilm (2006-05-30). Retrieved on 2008-02-21.
- ^ Kaszuba Locke, Josephine Anna (October 2006). Interview: Aaron Allston. Bookloons. Retrieved on 2008-02-21.
- ^ Star Wars: Blogs | Keeper of the Holocron's Blog | Common Star Wars Pronunciations
[edit] External links
- Jacen Solo on Wookieepedia, a Wikia wiki
- Jacen Solo in the Star Wars Databank
