Space General
SHOKOH AL KHAYYAT
Theme | |
Full Name | Shokoh al Khayyat |
Alias(es) | Captain Khayyat Amay - Kaleeshi for "auntie" "Sho" if she fancies you |
Age | Adult |
Character Class | Fleet Captain |
Homeworld | Kalee |
Rank(s) | High Republic Strategic Command Grand Navy Captain |
Faction(s) | |
Species | Kaleesh |
Language(s) | Kaleeshi (native tongue) Galactic Basic (fluent, accented) Binary (understood) |
Gender | Feminine (she/her) |
Force Sensitive | Not at all; she does not possess the clarity of mind for such things |
Character Alignment | Lawful Evil |
Height | 172 cm (or 5'8" ft) |
Weight | 67 kg (148 lbs) |
Playby | All art by me (Pendulumgraph) |
Color | #FBC02D |
Writer | Pendulumgraph |
Template Credit |
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PERSONALITY
Restraint is anathema to Shokoh al Khayyat.
It is possible to doubt everything about Shokoh except her bravery. She is fearless: not dragons nor monsters nor evil will make her so much as tremble. She believes that it's wrong to run away when one has the strength to fight, for reasons that seem steeped in blood, and she denies the dangers that await her if she fights until she cannot. This pretense of hers, that negative consequences do not exist for her alone, leads Shokoh only into trouble. She knows that as well, but the truth is that even if she were to be confronted with every terrifying consequence of failure, she would still set all her strength into succeeding, maybe then more than ever. She will never shy from a fight, or a challenge, even if — especially if — everything is on the line.
Unafraid of hard work, intensely curious, and prone to bouts of self-examination and long, winding trains of thought which leave her inclined to choose her words with great care. For Shokoh, wherein the metaphorical wheels are perpetually spinning, she tends to overthink anything and everything that gives her a reasonable opportunity to do so. Hers is an analytical mind, geared towards strategy, long-term thinking and careful problem solving, but she is also prone to anxiety brought on by the constant mental game of move-and-countermove. She has always been self-motivated and inclined to pursue a thought not just to its end but to as comprehensive an understanding as possible. She is rather good at picking up on what she feels and why, and is surprisingly forthcoming with her discoveries.
Shokoh is no shrinking violet, and while she says what she means, she does so with a certain poetic flare rather than bluntly or with a mind to injure — in the end, after all, people are meant to look out for people, and that is a tenet she holds near and dear to her heart. Only slightly second to it is the belief that no one can dictate your life to you, nor judge you for who you are or who you become. When she feels like she has betrayed who she is (or wants to be), Shokoh can fall to pieces for some time, withdrawing into herself and growing wildly melancholic.
Her temper is slow, but fierce when provoked; she takes swift, decisive action when roused. Her frustration tolerance is low, and she is prone to fits of wrath that go just as quickly as they come. Being underestimated is a major trigger, as an alien surrounded by human peers. To be treated as insignificant, weak, or otherwise lesser is a profound insult. Inaction in the face of suffering or evil is another. She carries a profound sense of responsibility, and those who stand by while others are hurt become targets of her wrath. She has been stepeed in hate and anger for years, making her an effective blister in the Force for those who can feel it. She is a poisoned well to the clear minds of Jedi, and to sense Shokoh is to brace against a roiling storm.
Shokoh will never be described as 'sweet' or 'gentle', and only rarely as 'kind'. She sees the world in successes, failures, and in making a point.
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Generations ago, her clan would have been semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, but Shokoh al Khayyat had been born under Sith occupation of Kalee. The decline of traditional subsistence foods by colonial overfishing meant that Shokoh grew up on whatever they could afford from commercial Imperial stores to the north. Shokoh was fifth child of six, and often served as her mother's assistant and understudy, which made her present during clandestine meetings where her clan examined their position as an Imperial possession and debated when and how to rid themselves of their colonial masters.HISTORY
The clan's adults, two-dozen warriors in total, struck out against their Imperial masters one black night. Left with her infant sisters, Shokoh only ever saw the plumes of smoke from the north, but heard the distant staccato of blaster-fire that lasted until the morning. Sith retribution was merciless, and the bombers were upon them that same night. Their clan became nothing more but smoking craters and distant memory, and Shokoh was left alone with the ash and an infant sister, only barely escaping Sith slavery.
She spent years forcing herself into the kind of analytical, calculating, constantly-thinking person who could even begin to protect what mattered to her, exacerbating several already-present issues and added a few new ones. Her anger was the only thing that kept her moving during this time; she dreamed of revenge, of painting her war-mask on human viscera, but had no desire to feed any more Kaleeshi souls to the colonial machine except for hers, and committing suicide on an Imperial fortification would only bring retribution on her people.
In a strike of wicked fortune, the Kalee civil war ripped the planet to pieces, and she was quick to sieze the chance. A quick learner and cunning brutal example of someone wanting to claim sky and space both as her hunting ground, she became a pilot in Kalee's fledgling defense fleet (armed by stolen starfighters of the Sith), clawing her way through tangled dogfights, diving into the slipstream of the bombers that killed her people and shooting them down, each for each.
But the defeat of the Sith did not mean victory for the Kaleesh: the New Imperial Order put the same human faces in the same positions of authority. Merely wearing different uniforms, human colonization made many problems worse, and created many new ones, faster than the Kaleesh could ever fix them. There's hot fierce coals in her neck that burn up into her throat, but she swallowed them bitterly down, and refused to break herself on the colonial wheel.
Survival breeds bitterness.
Surrendering her ancestral homeland, she gathered her sister and her daughters, fleeing Kalee to lush Naboo, capital of the fledgling High Republic. She had already been a quiet, introspective person inclined towards anxiety, and now that her mind was one where the metaphorical wheels almost never stopped turning, these tendencies became worse. She became more withdrawn, her confidence became easier to shake, and her anger got worse. She was an ill hermit - not in any physical sense, but in the kind that leaves her aimless.
It's the sunk cost fallacy with teeth. It felt like by giving up on her methods, she proves that all those years were pointless except for the pain. Her neices proved quite helpful on this front; it was their idea to channel Shokoh's passive seething and overthinking into calm, peaceful activities which required focus and attention to detail, like cooking, art, meditation, and games of strategy. She continued piloting, now for the Naboo, picking the best routes for travel, keeping her head on a swivel and searching scanners for any signs that could signal trouble; first a civilian pilot, then military, when her prior experience in combat became needed.
She has been all over the system, and outside it, facing down threats and problems foreign and domestic, wherever she happened to be needed. In doing so, she has helped defend the Republic and her holdings, flushing pirates out from the edges of Republic space and keeping civilian lanes safe. She has formed a reputation for herself within the Naboo Royal Navy, which was terribly strained under High Republic reformation, for her hatred of the Republic's many enemies. Their enemies were as numerous as they were mutual, and she became a valuable asset to the Republic. The past years have been interesting ones for her, who has suddenly been thrown from fieldwork to matters of battalions of soldiers, fleet formations, and deadly cold war politics.
She feels more at home here, on the bridge of a command ship in the void of space, than on lush Naboo.
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APPEARANCE
The most striking thing about Shokoh is her Kaleeshi war mask, carved from the top jaw of a karabbac skull; though she is naturally an expressive example of her species, her traditional mask is, to her, merely part of her military uniform. The uniform of the Naboo was a human uniform, and not designed to fit for a body such as hers; plantigrade pantlegs are not appropriate for her digitigrade own, and the talons of her feet would ruin any boot. Over a simple patterned dress she wears only the overcoat of the High Republic Navy proud on her shoulders, underneath her long cloak lined with warm karabbac fur.
Shokoh is a woman with a wiry strength that lurks under her willowy build, earned in her years of fighting on Kalee. Her scaled skin is of a naturally deeply tanned red complexion, and is lightly irridescent. She has deep orange eyes that take on a more vibrant golden color in certainl light. Her hair, which is of a warm black color, is cut short, giving her an overall masculine appearance, something aided by her reptilian biology (ie; lacking breasts typically associated with the gender signifiers of mammalian species). For her ferocious reputation, she appears almost fragile for all her bare skin. Her body is crisscrossed with scars: some are long, others short. Some are deep, others just welts. All of them are old, gnarled and ugly, marring the smmoth scales of her skin.
She inherited her stubborn mouth and long, elegant tusks from her mother. Her shimmering eyes and the graceful curve of her neck come from her father's side of the family. Her square jaw and broad shoulders are her own. When unmasked, she seems mischievous even when she's relaxed, when she smiles it's with all of her teeth, and she has the same wild look about her whether she's laughing, crying, or furious. Her hands are restless, flitting creatures, and she is, as it happens, somewhat tall. Just shy of 5'11", it's often overlooked; in memory, she's usually thought of shorter than she is.
Her voice rasps when she speaks, but nonetheless carries like the bark of a hound even when muffled by her war mask. Her Basic is Kaleeshi-accented, trilling her "R's" and catching on certain vowels.
Unusually for her human peers, Kaleesh produce pheromones for communication. In times of calm her smell can be tolerated or even pleasant to some, but never ignored. When angered or stressed or otherwise upset, Shokoh gives off an unpleasant, acrid odor that quickly fills the room.
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STRENGTHS
Highly-analytical mind 
Aggressive, decisive attack strategy 
Quickly recognizes the talent of others 
Always repays a favor if possible 
Learns quickly from her mistakes 
Mostly instinct-driven
WEAKNESSES
Privately dislikes most humans 
Low frustration/rage tolerance 
Unlikable; grows rivals on trees 
Totally lacks inner clarity 
Willing to fight over small disagreements
Mostly instinct-driven
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EQUIPMENT
Apparel - Her Kaleeshi war mask is part of her formal military attire, for her, carved from the skull of a karrabac she'd hunted as a young girl and painted with human blood. Her long cloak is furred for warmth, and lined with armorweave as a protective measure.
Pistol - Shokoh carries a Republic Service Pistol on her hip, fond of the weapon as a holdout option in a firefight. Its versatility is a plus, granting her more flexibility than a sidearm would ordinarily provide, and its particle fire function packs more punch in a single shot than some rifles, making it very useful against armor.
The Space General - Shokoh is the captain of the Space General, a factory-standard HRNV Dreadnought heavy cruiser with nearly all hands manned by either droids or clones - evidence of the stretched-thin Republic's lack of manpower. When push comes to shove, she's more than capable of piloting a HRNV N1 Suncrown Snubfighter of her own, though the presence of the ship captain in a starfighter presupposes that something has gone wrong on the bridge.
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THE HIGH REPUBLICNameDescriptionNone Yet
FAMILYNameDescriptionLajwadrd al Jang Sister Qimin al Kuran Niece Ghazalah al Kuuli Niece Rahil al Kunna Niece
OTHER CONNECTIONSNameDescriptionNone Yet
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