Marek S`hadar
Time Passes By
FACTION: Silver Jedi Order
RANK: Jedi Master
SPECIES: Human
AGE: 50s
GENDER: Male
HEIGHT: 6'2
WEIGHT: 207 lbs
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Graying brown
SKIN: Caucasian
FORCE SENSITIVE: Yes
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FAMILY:
- Cale Gunderson (twin brother)- Galen (brother)
- Rasu Gan (spouse)
- Allana S'hadar (daughter)
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STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES (Required: 2 Weaknesses Minimum) :
+ Marek is an extremely capable combatant and has rightly earned a designation as battlemaster, holding dangerous proficiency with both the blade, the Force, and his own two hands.
- A life 'well'-lived has given Marek a wealth of experiences to draw upon both for his own use, and for the teaching of others
- If all else was stripped away, Marek's greatest strength is undoubtedly his endurance and nigh-superhuman power of will. He will fight, and he may die, but there will be no keeping him down short of ending him, something far more difficult than it has any right to be.
+/- In direct contrast to his old outlook, Marek almost always seeks to show mercy, fully conscious that the only good in his life came because others thought he was deserving of their grace. Though his echoing of that compassion is admirable, it is also easily exploited.
- Though the strange Magnus Metal that makes up his armor is a formidable thing, Marek is still over a half-century old by the present day. Wounds sting longer, tired bones have begun to ache, and the limited prosthetics he relies upon have begun to need replacement far more often. He's getting old.
- The state of the galaxy, or rather the constant changing of it and his own mortality has left Marek somewhat fatalistic. While eager to help and serve others, no longer does he truly believe that any good he has done will last longer than a half-decade. As such, he is prone to clashing with his more idealistic peers.
- Even still, Marek is an impulsive man. Though no longer spurred to action by anger, cry for help is something he answers first, and considers the risks of later.
BIOGRAPHY:
Life is a series of strange coincidences and chance encounters that mold the beings of the galaxy into what they are. Marek S’hadar and his brother Cale were born into the galaxy unwanted, practically thrown into the streets by a mother mad from illness. Both should’ve died, both were saved, and both have since questioned if it would have been better that they died there deep beneath the surface of Coruscant.
Cale was taken in by agents of the One Sith, deep undercover, disguised as Nabooian missionaries, and Marek was sheltered by a simple brothel worker. She was Allana S’hadar, a Twi’lek who owed nothing in the world to the squalling human child, much less assuming the role of his mother, yet she did. It was an upbringing of hardship and squalor, but the woman loved her son with all she had.
Then, the force called her back to it. In later years Marek would shame himself for not seeing the logical fallacy of a Jedi so eagerly soliciting his mother, yet always seeming a deal more interested in what fledgling signs of force sensitivity Marek showed than her companionship. Had he been a Jedi, he’d have taken Marek to the temple, at its most stringent the code forbid attachment, not simple pleasure, there would’ve been no shame. But when the supposed Jedi, masked and hooded, cut down his mother and beat him, Marek was left vulnerable.
So vulnerable, that he never thought to question how the man who he would come to call master, Gallark Morten, could ever have known as much as he did about Marek. The man preyed on his grief, manipulated his anger, and by the time Marek had entered adolescence he was a dedicated apprentice of the Sith, standing proud amongst the ranks of the Sith Empire.
He’d discover Morten’s lies by the age of fourteen, and had killed him by his next year as the man slept. From there he passed from several masters, former emperors, feared commanders, monstrous adepts, and grew into a warrior all his own. Rage against the Jedi was scarcely enough to sustain him, but Mikhail Shorn was all too eager to provide Marek another outlet in his attacks on the apprentice.
By the time he grew to Knighthood, Marek had uncovered another truth, that of his brother’s existence, and of the clone of himself Gallark had ordered created. To the former, he swore to be a bitter foe in the wake of their first clash, and to the latter, he swore just the opposite and gave his copy a name; Galen.
Darkness ought to have consumed Marek, given all he had suffered, how a temple had ripped his body apart the encased him in metal, and his ignorance of the bounty of rewards that the light offered, but somehow it did not. In the depths of the Dark Harvest, surrounded by the risen dead and the blackest pits of the dark side, Marek found light. Forced into cooperation with Jedi as the battle became merely about the living against the dead, he even found himself back to back with Cale against the horde.
His brother pleaded with him to come to the light, and though Marek fought to hide it, the thought had taken root in his mind. It did not happen instantly, the turn was at first slow, then what felt like all at once. First he and a former master broke their ties with the Empire and fled to the rim, then eventually wandered home to his brother. Taken in by the Jedi he was trained by one of the men he’d stood with against the Harvest, but the road to true redemption was far longer than Marek anticipated.
He rose to Jedi Knight, but still warred with his own anger and impulses, succumbing to both more than once, even throwing another Jedi aside in order to strike at Mikhail Shorn. Though disciplined and nearly expelled for this, Marek found his way back with the aid of his brother, and together they saw the Sith Empire fall.
From there, he took to teaching. Several padawans would study under him, learning both from and with him. The most notable of these would of course be Rasu Gan, and Sochi Ru, both of whom would go on to found the order which he would dedicate his life to, and the former of the two would become his wife. Rasu was a balm to old wounds and brought laughter and adventure to his life that he’d never known.
She held age over him, no surprise given she was Shi’ido, but regardless of how they met, it quickly became clear that they both had a great deal to teach one another. Somewhere between then and now, the two were wed, Rasu founded the Silver Jedi, and a daughter, Allana, was born.
When the One Sith rose, and Cale was revealed as a sleeper agent of the One Sith, more a meat puppet of their dark lord than a willing traitor, Marek threw himself into war. He fought tooth and nail against the rising tide, determined to free his brother from the darkness as he had once done for him. But he failed, time and time again.
For a period of years, he seemed to vanish, dark figures in strange armor not unlike his own making themselves known in conflict after conflict. But eventually, as always, he found his way home. Wars still raged even as his hair began to show signs of gray, and even as he and Rasu set out to the unknown to do all they could. He’d watched his brother crawl back from the darkness, only to disappear into drink, and smuggling, watched his daughter vanish, watched worlds crack and burn, the idea of being with her with nothing but each other and the drive to serve others was too enticing a chance to turn down.
In his time gone, he trained another, a boy named Talos, one who could’ve just as easily walked the darker path he’d so narrowly avoided. But they pulled him back from the brink, set him on a path like their own, and brought him with them across the stars. Tragedy struck as it always did, some dark artifact shattering Rasu’s memories, and leaving Marek with a haunting reminder of how little time he truly had with her.
But, they returned to the galaxy as they knew it, changed and shifted as it seemed to always be any time he looked away for but a moment. But they did not fear the new, and Marek no longer feared what would come, the broken and angry boy he’d once been was long dead, now the stalwart Jedi stood in his place.
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