Application :: Cape & Cowl
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Mara Jade
FANDOM: Star Wars Expanded Universe
CHRONOLOGY: Mara is bringing brought in from just prior to the Hand of Thrawn Duology. In fact, most likely from right when she was enroute to Nirauan.
BACKGROUND:
Mara Jade never knew her parents. In fact, the name she was born with may not have even been Mara Jade. Before the time she was taken away does not really matter in the scope of her personal history. She was taken at an extremely young age by Emperor Palpatine, and was born approximately one year after the fall of the Galactic Republic and the emergence of the Galactic Empire. She was then trained from a young age to be the hand of Emperor Palpatine. This meant that she would become an extension of his will, and was trained to be an efficient killer and enforcer for his Imperial Highness. When she was 16, her training had been completed, and Mara Jade had learned to use any weapon, trick any fool, and kill anybody. She was then unleashed as a secret hand for the Emperor, and was given several missions throughout her life, until approximately 3 years after the battle of Yavin, in which she was given the mission of a lifetime. She was assigned to assassinate Luke Skywalker.
Mara infiltrated Jabba the Hutt's palace as a dancer with the alias Arica. Unfortunately, she was stopped by a member of Jabba's security guards under the suspicion that she was working for an enemy of Jabba's, Lady Valarian. This kept her from coming to Jabba's sail barge, where she planned to kill Luke. Because of this failure she was unable to reunite with her master, and following the events of Return of the Jedi, she was given a final message from her master; to Kill Luke Skywalker. However, this plan was not easily executed, since after the fall of the Emperor, Mara Jade was immediately imprisoned by the warlord Ysanne Isard. She managed to escape, but not without permanently severing all ties with the current Imperial administration. After that, Mara performed a number of odd jobs, until she landed a position as a mechanic, and impressed a ‘rich gentleman’ when he was in trouble on a game hunting expedition. The man was named Talon Karrde, and he offered her a job as a mechanic in his smuggling empire. However, Mara was far more than just a mechanic, and she rose through the ranks of his group, until she was his second in command.
While she was working for Karrde, the Grand Admiral Thrawn began his acclimation of Imperial Powers. When this happened, Luke Skywalker was left stranded in his X-Wing when Mara sensed his presence through the Force, and managed to stop Karrde's ship and pick him up. Of course, Mara had her own reasons for this. Since Palpatine's death and message to her, she had been plagued by his dying wish with increasing severity. She saw this as an opportunity for revenge. Unfortunately, Talon saw it as an opportunity for business, and they continued to their hideout on Mykyr. However, Luke eventually managed to escape, and Mara chased after them, meaning that they had to work together to escape Imperial forces invading the planet and get out. It was here that Luke discovered why Mara hated him so much, and that he needed to die. However, he wasn't ready to be killed, and soon after they escaped the planet. During the Thrawn uprising, Mara enlisted in Luke's help a few times, until it came to taking on the mad clone of Jorus C'boath. They took him on, along the clone of Luke, named Luuke. Mara killed this clone, and ended Palpatine's voice calling for revenge. Luke gave her the lightsaber his clone had used (Which had been the lightsaber of Anakin Skywalker), and begged her to come to Yavin IV to train as a Jedi.
However, Mara was stubborn, and preferred the life of a smuggler. She attempted to go to Luke's Jedi academy, but found the training techniques lacking. She was also very put off by his wavering relationship with the dark side, and felt that the darkness hanging over him was poisoning everything around him. When she was at the Jedi Academy, it was right before the ghost of Exar Kun took possession of Luke’s body, rendering him in a coma for quite some time. While she was there, she trained with Corran Horn, and although they were originally off to a rocky start, Mara and Corran became friends, and Mara became very involved in the campaign to end Exar Kun’s control over the Jedi Academy. However, after this incident, Mara left. She felt that the temptation for the dark side was too great, and she would not be a part of that again, especially after Palpatine.
After this, Mara became a leading figure in the Smugglers Alliance, and went through several incidents, before she started a legitimate trading company, to give her the experience needed to become the leader of Karrde’s organization. It was during a large conference on Corellia that Mara was brought back to association with many of the head figures in her galaxy. During this incident, a xenophobic group called the Human league attempted to take over the Corellian system by eliminating the Selonians and the Drall from the triad (the governing body in the system) as well as overtake Centerpoint Station, which had the power to completely destroy planets across the galaxy. Mara and Leia rendezvoused with each other, and Mara was drawn into the battle for Centerpoint, eventually helping Leia, Han, and Luke (along with the Bakuran fleets) to defeat the Human League.
After this, Mara was drawn into the Caamas Document crisis, but only marginally. She managed to rescue her boss from a Pirate base, and they caught sight of a Chiss ship, and when Mara and Karrde returned to his ship, the Errant Venture, they caught sight of the ships again. This time they managed to track their destination to the Nirauan system, where Mara planned to go in one of Karrde’s ships, the Starry Ice to investigate. (Enroute is where I will be bringing her from.)
PERSONALITY:
Mara's greatest strengths come from her spirit. She is commanding, confident, cool, but also capable of great love. (Even if she does not know it at this point in the canon.) She has a strong will, and can command the force very well, when she wishes to. However, Mara does not rely on her command of the force, as she believes it will make her weak. Instead, she avoids it almost altogether, and uses her quick thinking, sharp tongue, and quick trigger-finger to get her through any situation. However, she cannot cut herself off from the force so readily, and is prone to experiencing visions and using it when the need is there. She doesn’t rely on it, but she is pragmatic.
However, her biggest weakness is her inability to depend on anyone or anything. She has begun to learn to trust again, but has not quite reached that point. After the control that Palpatine held over her life, she has thus begun to reject anything that could have control over her. Perhaps this is why she chose to work for Talon Karrde, who is a leader, but also a man that greatly respects each member of his crew a great amount. Another weakness she has is to the Dark Side. Since Mara is still not fully trained (Her former teacher, Kyle Katarn did not complete her training, and in fact fell to the dark side himself for a time) she is very susceptible to the dark side, but her spirit and stubborn attitude have kept her from ever actually falling, and she has even lectured the Jedi Grand Master, Luke Skywalker, on this subject several times.
With that, comes the way that Mara interacts with people. She is snarky and hot-headed. She does not let others come close to her, and makes sure that they only even marginally like her. The exception to this is Luke and his family. She has helped them out a number of times, but she still does act exactly nice to them. Luke, however is very persistent, and does put up with her increasingly snarky attacks. It seems that the closer she gets to someone, the harsher she becomes, and the less willing she is to relinquish any control to that person. However, Mara is respectful when the time is called for, and those that she has gained a respect for she will die trying to protect and fight for.
Lastly, Mara tends to cling to inanimate objects. Not in any particularly damaging way, but she feels that things that she earns are hers, and should be known as such. (Her ship, for example, is called the "Jade's Fire".) She simply has a need to fill up a particular emptiness in her life that she did not feel when working for Palpatine. She felt a strong ideology towards the Imperial Cause, and only when she broke from his post-mortem control did she realize that the cause she had felt so strongly for was a sham. This is why she clings to things that are very much in reality, instead of ideologies.
CLASS: Mara is a Hero, although she isn’t against getting down and dirty when the need calls for it.
SUPERHERO NAME: Mara wouldn’t bother with this.
ALTER EGO: Mara Jade; She will most likely try to do some trading or freelance mercenary work, if at all possible.
POWER: > Mara’s abilities are grounded in the Force. Since there are living beings in the city, it is safe to assume that she will be able to use the force. This means that she has a way to use telekinesis, put herself into a healing trance, put others into a healing trance, minor empathic abilities, if she is extremely close to a person, they will hold something of a telepathic link. (By close, I mean that she has felt this to both Emperor Palpatine and Luke Skywalker. We’re talking close close.) Most canon Jedi abilities apply, although she is not as good at force suggestion, but her danger sense is Very keen. She can pick up readings from the force far better than even Luke can.