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Lecchamemnon's usual appearance: A haggard old man in tattered robes. It's a cunning disguise - he looks older than he is, and as such is often underestimated. This was his standard Jedi garb - nowadays he tends to wear less readily identifiable clothing.
It’s funny, I’m actually quite young. The Galaxy sees me as a man on the edge of shuffling off the mortal coil, but in fact I’m not even middle aged for a Sephi. I used to go for this look on purpose, the better to deceive my enemies... But now? Now it’s just force of habit more than anything. I look how I feel, despite my youth; haggard, worn and weary.
I used to think I was wise, before the fall. So certain was I that my way of seeing things was correct - so completely focussed on my little black versus white universe... It was my downfall in the end. I went from celebrated Jedi to vagrant rogue overnight, a mistake I consider to be my darkest hour. It took me months to come to terms with what I’d done in the heat of the moment, but eventually I did. I was always going to, time is the one thing always on my side.
The life of the wandering Grey called out to me, and I was in no position to ignore it - For a good year or so I searched for a purpose, for the meaning behind all we do. I found Nothing.
The religion, naturally. For the most part they’re a sickening bunch, full of ideas about ending the Galaxy in a variety of brutal and impossible ways - but the very top of the Church of Nothing harbours some real power yet. A group of twelve exceptional individuals known as the Altar, they alone knew that the Church was no longer about Galactic annihilation. Gone were the malevolent whispers in the darkness about unspeakable destructive power (that predated even the ancient Sith and I fancy used to hold real threat) - Now it was all about the domination of the masses, personal wealth and greed. Equally sickening, but altogether more achievable.
I used them without remorse, forcing myself into their number (where still I sit, technically). From within their privileged number I learned as much as possible about just how little anything really means, and when I had exhausted their libraries and their greatest minds I left them in the night too. While their philosophies did rub off on me, I wasn’t about to consort with insects for any longer than necessary - they disgusted me, I did not look back.
Again I wandered without objective or cause. I met new people that previously would have been murdered without second thought, saw atrocities play out before my eyes and blessings inspire hundreds to greater things. Watching the war from outside I saw it for what it is - just another conflict. In a decade, maybe two, it’ll all be forgotten and some new, perhaps even more terrifying event will take to the Galactic stage. This appears to be all there is to the universe... Endless war after disaster after endless war, never ending strife as far as the eye can see. Sometimes I wondered if other Galaxies, or Universes if there are more, suffer from the same circular loop.
Then I remember my place as a simple Jedi, a mere character within this Galaxy, within this Universe. It isn’t my part to question the nature of all things, that way lies the sort of ruination whatever created the Church of Nothing brought upon itself.
Because I am a Jedi, and can’t ever escape my fate no matter where I run. I've come to terms with this now, and am content. Once I said that nothing would drag me back to the Jedi, but I regret that now. I mean to return, and I will. After musing upon the Universe I have come back from the brink an older, wiser man. All may indeed equal Nothing, but that doesn’t have to define us. I can still pick a side in this fight, and I therefore choose the light.
Figuratively speaking, of course. I’m still me...
Lecchamemnon with his hood down and beard trimmed, attending the funeral of Iona Peller.
There are many stories about Councillor Lecchamemnon. They circulate the Jedi temple every now and again… The same tall tales told from a different angle to some fresh ear. How they are believed and maintained from one generation of Jedi to the next is anyone's guess, the force only knows who spreads them. It is my understanding that they are, to a one, false.
The trouble is that when you disregard the rumours there is almost no other information on him at all. He is an enigma within our upper echelon, and while the Council obviously trust him enough to allow him the privilege of helping run our Order I’m not sure that many of the rest of us share their confidence. Indeed, some even think that the Council keep him close to ensure they always have an eye on him. It would be a disaster to the Order if he fell to the dark side, and he walks a finer line than most. I shudder to think how much classified information there is locked up in that brain.
For as long as any of us can remember he has been almost completely silent, only speaking when the situation requires. He isn’t a mute by any means, but unnecessary small talk appears to be anathema to him... He is stern in the extreme, old school some would call him. If he’s a different person when the Council convenes they keep it secret, either by his will or theirs. It fuels the mystery. I’m not sure if that’s the intention or if they have accepted the effect as a byproduct of some other motive. The gossips claim they know all about it, but no-one knows anything really. Personally I think he was born that way, some are. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to be born without the will to talk.
I speak well enough when I feel it is safe to do so. The others can speculate and rumour all they wish, I care not for their theories. They are misguided, each and every one of them obsessed with the purity of the Order... with maintaining the appearance of the Jedi to those without. It is a worthless task.
The nature of my occupation dictates that I am steeped in dark lore almost every waking hour. Mine is the task of uncovering every last secret of the Sith one by one, the better to prevent another purge. It is my duty to eradicate the Sith where I find them by any and all means necessary... And I do so. I have done things no Jedi would be proud of in my ninety four years of life, but every time they have been for the right reasons. I am not some weakling unable to control his lust for power, the opposite in fact. I am strong enough in mind and soul to resist the darkness that I battle, strong enough even to fight fire with fire should the situation demand it. I am a rare breed of Jedi, nowadays.
Others are more fortunate than myself in that they do not share my task. It is my calling alone to unravel the many mysteries of the dark side of the force, for I can trust no other to be as strong as I. I strive never to speak in the presence of those unable to remain untainted by association with the necessary corruption I carry within myself... It is my experience that individuals of such moral strength as I are few. I understand why many think of me as a man of few words.
No one knows his past, or at least no one tells. The incessant whisperers have their lies as ever, but it’s clear that they know just as little as the rest of us. It’s suspicious to say the least that one of the figureheads of our Order has not even revealed where he came from. I can only come to the conclusion that he is ashamed of his roots - the rest of the Council would not allow him to conceal it if there was not something to hide, I’m sure.
It is my calling in life as a Librarian of the Jedi to contemplate the unknown. I spend my days locked away in the archives considering heritage, ancient history, and the bloodlines of the mighty. I am surrounded by knowledge from the moment I wake up each morning to when my eyes close at night, and yet I can find nothing that even vaguely pertains to Lecchamemnon, the Lore Master of our Order and my direct superior. I find it most disconcerting that while I can pull up files on the very purge of the Old Jedi Order itself, Lecchamemnon appears immune to my scrutiny. Perhaps he was simply not of enough importance to have been recorded at birth by the Galaxy.
Perhaps.
I hail from Necropolis. Amid the squalor and dust my mother to-be lay with the priest of some long redundant faith and bore me into this galaxy, kicking and screaming. I forget what Aunt told me about my father, if I’m honest I’m simply uninterested in him. All I ever remember about him is his occupation: The head priest of a Church of Nothing. They are common on Necropolis, a legacy of some long forgotten horror... But that is all I know.[/I]
My mother did not raise me, but it was not through fault of her own. According to Uncle she died during my naming ceremony when I was still less than a year old, but he never truly recovered from what happened. She isn’t dead. Apparently it was a marvellous event, or at least it was for our family which was usually hard pressed to find money for the daily bread. My father’s friends organised it, and even had a whip-around among their flock to cover the cost. It was a humble party, but my mother was overjoyed. Bless her.
I remember exactly what Uncle tells me when I ask. Always the same words.
He says that it was just after a luncheon of Boneworm fritters, cheese and a relatively expensive shoulder joint of Gornt. The meat was stringy and of low quality, but the revellers didn’t mind it. They were used to starvation... A grey lump of seared flesh was a feast to them.
My mother stood with me swaddled in a dirty grey cloth. I was her world according to Uncle. For the ten months her and I knew each other I was never out of her sight, which is more than can be said for some Necropolitan slum mothers. The child mortality rate is so high there that there are cemeteries spanning miles just for the anonymous young. I never forget how close I came to joining them there, but for Aunt’s compassion.[/I]
He is never friendly. Never familiar. Even without words it is clear to all that he does not desire closeness with anyone. I wonder why that is... What made him so cold?
She wanted to give a speech, but everyone was too loud to hear her tapping her plastic fork against her plastic beaker. The noise became too much for me when I sensed my mother’s exasperation at it all, and I began to cry. One by one they looked up at me, and then to my standing mother. They understood and fell quiet. I stopped crying.
My mother’s voice was angelic. Her words filled the rented municipal hall, entering the hearts of everyone there. Aunt cried, despite having been at the rehearsal. She had never been one for speeches.
Did he lose someone? A lover, perhaps?
My father stood towards the end, just after my mother had pronounced me Lecchamemnon, but before she could say my surname. Questioning eyes swiveled to him. A single tear rolled down his cheek. His eyes were bloodshot.
He smiled, took a plasma grenade from his pocket and held it to himself, muttering but a few words that no one now lives to recall for me. Nobody did anything, either not fully understanding the situation or too shocked to react. He was standing seven seats away from my mother, and eight from my Aunt and Uncle. I remember the heat.
I don’t think I’ll ever know if he chose to sit away from my mother on purpose that day, or whether it was simple chance. She turned, shielding me from the blast with her body. Aunt and Uncle had chosen to sit next to her, on the side furthest from my father. She shielded them too.
There were seven dead and eight wounded. My mother and Uncle were two of the wounded, and at this point Aunt takes up the narrative as Uncle was out cold. She’s not as precise as Uncle, she forgets details that I consider vital - the screaming, the smell of burning meat. The blood.
He needs to get over himself and start behaving in a manner representative of his position. He’s not some snot nosed padawan anymore, as Jedi we sacrifice much to protect those who need protecting. If that means we have more difficulty than others when it comes to love then so be it - A fair cost. Good value for Galactic peace.
I grew up quickly. Uncle recovered, albeit without legs. My mother didn’t. She lay on the hospital bed paralyzed completely, dead to the world. No medical probe could get a response, she was comatose. Eighteen years of visiting her once a week, replacing the moulding flowers at her bedside with fresh ones and recalling everything that had happened to me over the previous seven days. Eighteen years of wondering why my miserable excuse for a father blew himself up at my naming ceremony.
I wonder if she can hear me. She’s still there, slowly fading on a hospital bed in Necropolis Central Hospital. I visit now and again.
It was eight years before it became apparent that she wasn’t going to recover. I was distraught. Aunt’s previously mentioned compassion came into play and they took me in permanently instead of leaving me to the streets. I could not have asked for more caring surrogate parents. I love them both deeply.
My mother’s incurable condition stirred the media into action. The declaration that the “Murderous Maniac’s Matriarch” was brain dead instigated a flurry of global attention that Aunt and Uncle were hard pressed to shield me from. Obviously the galactic child protection laws stopped my name from being printed anywhere, but there were still countless reporters and photographers hounding our footsteps for weeks. It was a busy time, had I still been a child at that point it would have proved a welcome distraction from the trauma of my mother’s slow fading. But I wasn’t. I hadn’t been a child since that ceremony. At eight years and ten months old I was more of an adult than many ever become. I knew death and loss and pain personally, they were the only friends I had.
There was a side effect to all the scrutiny. Private detectives and vigilantes flocked to our doorstep, eager to present their findings to Aunt and Uncle. They had been busy, it seemed. They tried to keep it from me but I was always a good eavesdropper, so I heard most of what they had uncovered. My father had not been in his right mind for a few weeks before the ceremony, and that was down to a cell of fallen Jedi influencing his mind. The experience was so stressful for him that the small disagreement he and my mother had shortly after the rehearsal dinner (about my last name - they were married but my mother wanted me to keep her surname) was enough for him to do what he did. I don’t know the reasons the Jedi had for the manipulation, I never found it out. I don’t know if they were Sith or mere exiles either, but I do know that there is little that separates the two in my mind.
I was pleased. I had some shred of knowledge to cling to, one thread of information that told me my father was not to blame for the death of my mother. It meant I could forget him, and focus upon the real cause of my life’s ruination. I told you I was an adult.
There are at least records of his arrival within our Order. A half starved young man with nought but a ship to his name staggering up the steps to our great temple on Tython. The Force knows how he found his way here, the Deep Core is perilous enough without the added handicap of obviously being too young to fly safely. He should have died, but there he was. An anomaly from his very first day.
Jedi Master Sevay took the young Lecchamemnon under his wing, training him as his padawan. As I understand it he was a harsh teacher, ever striving to see his students better than the rest. I don’t know how this affected Lecchamemnon, if at all. He might have been strange from before he even arrived. I don’t think Sevay’s responsible for his mystery. He wouldn’t have raised a radical.
There was a definite tipping point to Lecchamemnon’s behavior. It was not documented as he was still a humble knight at the time, but I witnessed it nonetheless. I run the risk of sounding just like the rumour mill at this point, but I assure you every word is truth. I watched it happen.
I was driven after I learned the cause of my family’s doom. I found myself a job at the tender age of twelve... I was an apprentice cook in a run-down restaurant called “The Coffin Filler”. It was tax free as I was technically working illegally, and the pay wasn’t half bad. The owner had gone to my father’s sermons regularly and knew Uncle, so he made exceptions for me. Every penny I earned went into a bank account set up by Aunt on my behalf. They pitied me, so they indulged me. I began to amass quite a tidy sum.
By the age of eighteen I had received promotion, and was then a chef at “The Coffin Filler”. The bank account had never once been withdrawn from, supported as I was by Aunt and Uncle. I owe them both so much, I never did pay them back for all the kindness they showed me. I don’t intend to now either. Their part in my life is done. It ended on my nineteenth birthday.
I woke up and ate breakfast with them, accepting with distracted gratitude their congratulations at having survived another year. I had already planned what I was going to do, and I wasn’t feeling particularly proud about it. I was being selfish and I knew it.
A week previously I had left work early and traveled to Teego’s Starship Emporium. It was a run down affair that sold ships of a used and dubious quality, but I stumbled across a little gem. I had told Teego to reserve it for me, after haggling a halfway decent price out of him. It was an old Barloz-class stock freighter, and I had a poster of one on my bedroom wall. As far as I was concerned they were vintage ships that deserved more praise than they got. The YT series killed them with an advertising campaign, but they’re just as good. Better, even.
After breakfast I walked out of that house with no intention of ever returning. I didn’t say a heartfelt goodbye, it would only have raised suspicions. Whichever way I left it was going to hurt the pair of them greatly, so I decided to do it in the bluntest and easiest way possible. I simply walked away.
I had flown before. I was not a good pilot, but I was competent enough at least to coax her off Necropolis and into hyperspace. I didn’t know where I was going at first, I didn’t know where the Jedi were based. I decided instead to travel to Coruscant in order to learn where to find what I hoped would be my future. It was not a long trip, and I came away with the knowledge I was after: The Jedi were based on Tython. Deep core.
I spent the last of my money on renting an astromech droid pilot to fly me there, as I had no doubt that doing so myself would merely be suicide. I had intended for that money to go on food, as I had not come away with much else but a few changes of clothes and what provisions I could carry in my backpack. It had suddenly become a need to reach the Jedi Temple. It was where my next meal was.
It took three days to negotiate the deep core and reach Tython. I had run out of food just before leaving Coruscant and was starving weak, but I had enough energy left yet to be happy. If the Jedi would take me I had found a home, a home light years away from the turmoil of my early life. All I wanted was to be rid of my past.
It was about a year after his knighthood. I don’t know the age at which he arrived but he can’t have been more than twenty. Over the period of about a week he began to spend more and more time in my library. We were friendly at first (by his warped standards, at least), until the last day when he simply handed me a note telling me the Council had given him permission to take out information of a dark nature, retrieved the data slates and retreated back to his quarters without so much as a nod of thanks. If he really did lose his tongue to a Sith it happened during that week, and it happened slowly. Preposterous.
Perhaps it was the knowledge of his rising in status within the Order that led him to forget all about me, merely being a humble Librarian. What other reason would he have not to talk to me? What reason did he find to become such a rude introvert? I can only ever speculate, I fear.
The Council took me on after hearing my tale. I was assigned a master that called himself Sevay, and I later learned that he’s a perfectionist as well as one of the few of the Order who still knows the old forms well enough to teach them. In our first spar he kicked me halfway across the training room and followed up by leaping the distance between us in a heartbeat. He knocked me out cold with a swift rabbit punch, and I woke hours later on my bed sporting several new bruises. So it would continue day by day until he deemed me ready to face the galaxy as a Jedi.
It took the best part of a year.
Once I was ready I forged a blade and struck out into the world of malice and sin a Jedi calls his stomping ground. In those dark undercities and slums I re-learnt a lesson from my childhood: Life isn’t fair. I watched allies get cut down by men who by rights should be dead ten times over. I saw innocents gunned down for no reason other than that they had happened to witness some misdeed. None of it influenced me. I was strong. Sevay was impressed, I think.
For nine years I learned the beginnings of the ways of the Jedi. I was taught Soresu, the least aggressive of all the old forms and mastered it well. I learned to manipulate the force to do my bidding, but also to listen to it. The whispers of the force are a valuable asset to those with the wit to hear them, for the force is unbiased. It does not lie.
Sevay knighted me after my successful completion of the trials, as was customary in the old days. He’s a stickler for the ancient traditions of the Old Jedi Order, something I have inherited to some extent. I was twenty-eight when I set out on my own this time, to learn the paths of the force that had been closed to me before by inexperience. I gained much power in my first year. I learned of the existence of many things, some less palatable than others.
Gradually I learned more of the millennia-old history behind the previous Jedi Order, the one destroyed in the first Great Purge. It quickly became apparent that the Jedi philosophy I studied had a dire flaw. We seek only to destroy the dark side where we find it, to eradicate without understanding. The puritans amongst us will preach that there is no need to understand what we can defeat, and as the Jedi have ultimately been victorious over the dark side every time it has challenged us we have no need to understand. They are utterly wrong.
Our reluctance to understand the great enemy has been the singular cause of every disaster we have ever suffered. I refuse to let the ignorance of the majority bring about yet another purge.
I communed with my ex-master, and he disowned me for my way of thinking. He’s straight as a die, a black and white puritan. I recognise now it was foolish to expect him to encourage me on this path. It had the potential to ruin his reputation, damn myself and endanger the Order all in one rash action... He was right to demand the opposite from me. If I could go back to that day and choose again, I’m not sure if I would pick this fate. It’s been a hard road, learning the power of the dark side without succumbing to it... But learned it I have. I can use a variety of dark techniques when the situation is dire enough, and have learned the ancient lightsaber form VII, or Juyo. It was favoured by the Sith of old, and now it is favoured by me, alongside Soresu. A Knight of the Old Republic indeed.
I broke ties with Sevay and instead began the mission that I strive to complete to this day. I must discover, collect and collate every mystery of the dark side that has ever existed in the hope that it will avoid our Order’s annihilation. I must destroy the threat of the Sith in whatever form they take, and the smaller individual threats posed by each and every fallen Jedi. I must understand the dark side of the force completely and know its weaknesses. I must do all this without becoming that which I fight against. I must do all this without failing my old master. I must not allow myself to become corrupted by the forbidden power I wield, and must not allow others to become corrupted from my laziness. I must not fail.
I am Councillor Lecchamemnon. I am the silent, dark enigma. I am Jedi.
The trouble is that when you disregard the rumours there is almost no other information on him at all. He is an enigma within our upper echelon, and while the Council obviously trust him enough to allow him the privilege of helping run our Order I’m not sure that many of the rest of us share their confidence. Indeed, some even think that the Council keep him close to ensure they always have an eye on him. It would be a disaster to the Order if he fell to the dark side, and he walks a finer line than most. I shudder to think how much classified information there is locked up in that brain.
For as long as any of us can remember he has been almost completely silent, only speaking when the situation requires. He isn’t a mute by any means, but unnecessary small talk appears to be anathema to him... He is stern in the extreme, old school some would call him. If he’s a different person when the Council convenes they keep it secret, either by his will or theirs. It fuels the mystery. I’m not sure if that’s the intention or if they have accepted the effect as a byproduct of some other motive. The gossips claim they know all about it, but no-one knows anything really. Personally I think he was born that way, some are. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to be born without the will to talk.
I speak well enough when I feel it is safe to do so. The others can speculate and rumour all they wish, I care not for their theories. They are misguided, each and every one of them obsessed with the purity of the Order... with maintaining the appearance of the Jedi to those without. It is a worthless task.
The nature of my occupation dictates that I am steeped in dark lore almost every waking hour. Mine is the task of uncovering every last secret of the Sith one by one, the better to prevent another purge. It is my duty to eradicate the Sith where I find them by any and all means necessary... And I do so. I have done things no Jedi would be proud of in my ninety four years of life, but every time they have been for the right reasons. I am not some weakling unable to control his lust for power, the opposite in fact. I am strong enough in mind and soul to resist the darkness that I battle, strong enough even to fight fire with fire should the situation demand it. I am a rare breed of Jedi, nowadays.
Others are more fortunate than myself in that they do not share my task. It is my calling alone to unravel the many mysteries of the dark side of the force, for I can trust no other to be as strong as I. I strive never to speak in the presence of those unable to remain untainted by association with the necessary corruption I carry within myself... It is my experience that individuals of such moral strength as I are few. I understand why many think of me as a man of few words.
No one knows his past, or at least no one tells. The incessant whisperers have their lies as ever, but it’s clear that they know just as little as the rest of us. It’s suspicious to say the least that one of the figureheads of our Order has not even revealed where he came from. I can only come to the conclusion that he is ashamed of his roots - the rest of the Council would not allow him to conceal it if there was not something to hide, I’m sure.
It is my calling in life as a Librarian of the Jedi to contemplate the unknown. I spend my days locked away in the archives considering heritage, ancient history, and the bloodlines of the mighty. I am surrounded by knowledge from the moment I wake up each morning to when my eyes close at night, and yet I can find nothing that even vaguely pertains to Lecchamemnon, the Lore Master of our Order and my direct superior. I find it most disconcerting that while I can pull up files on the very purge of the Old Jedi Order itself, Lecchamemnon appears immune to my scrutiny. Perhaps he was simply not of enough importance to have been recorded at birth by the Galaxy.
Perhaps.
I hail from Necropolis. Amid the squalor and dust my mother to-be lay with the priest of some long redundant faith and bore me into this galaxy, kicking and screaming. I forget what Aunt told me about my father, if I’m honest I’m simply uninterested in him. All I ever remember about him is his occupation: The head priest of a Church of Nothing. They are common on Necropolis, a legacy of some long forgotten horror... But that is all I know.[/I]
My mother did not raise me, but it was not through fault of her own. According to Uncle she died during my naming ceremony when I was still less than a year old, but he never truly recovered from what happened. She isn’t dead. Apparently it was a marvellous event, or at least it was for our family which was usually hard pressed to find money for the daily bread. My father’s friends organised it, and even had a whip-around among their flock to cover the cost. It was a humble party, but my mother was overjoyed. Bless her.
I remember exactly what Uncle tells me when I ask. Always the same words.
He says that it was just after a luncheon of Boneworm fritters, cheese and a relatively expensive shoulder joint of Gornt. The meat was stringy and of low quality, but the revellers didn’t mind it. They were used to starvation... A grey lump of seared flesh was a feast to them.
My mother stood with me swaddled in a dirty grey cloth. I was her world according to Uncle. For the ten months her and I knew each other I was never out of her sight, which is more than can be said for some Necropolitan slum mothers. The child mortality rate is so high there that there are cemeteries spanning miles just for the anonymous young. I never forget how close I came to joining them there, but for Aunt’s compassion.[/I]
He is never friendly. Never familiar. Even without words it is clear to all that he does not desire closeness with anyone. I wonder why that is... What made him so cold?
She wanted to give a speech, but everyone was too loud to hear her tapping her plastic fork against her plastic beaker. The noise became too much for me when I sensed my mother’s exasperation at it all, and I began to cry. One by one they looked up at me, and then to my standing mother. They understood and fell quiet. I stopped crying.
My mother’s voice was angelic. Her words filled the rented municipal hall, entering the hearts of everyone there. Aunt cried, despite having been at the rehearsal. She had never been one for speeches.
Did he lose someone? A lover, perhaps?
My father stood towards the end, just after my mother had pronounced me Lecchamemnon, but before she could say my surname. Questioning eyes swiveled to him. A single tear rolled down his cheek. His eyes were bloodshot.
He smiled, took a plasma grenade from his pocket and held it to himself, muttering but a few words that no one now lives to recall for me. Nobody did anything, either not fully understanding the situation or too shocked to react. He was standing seven seats away from my mother, and eight from my Aunt and Uncle. I remember the heat.
I don’t think I’ll ever know if he chose to sit away from my mother on purpose that day, or whether it was simple chance. She turned, shielding me from the blast with her body. Aunt and Uncle had chosen to sit next to her, on the side furthest from my father. She shielded them too.
There were seven dead and eight wounded. My mother and Uncle were two of the wounded, and at this point Aunt takes up the narrative as Uncle was out cold. She’s not as precise as Uncle, she forgets details that I consider vital - the screaming, the smell of burning meat. The blood.
He needs to get over himself and start behaving in a manner representative of his position. He’s not some snot nosed padawan anymore, as Jedi we sacrifice much to protect those who need protecting. If that means we have more difficulty than others when it comes to love then so be it - A fair cost. Good value for Galactic peace.
I grew up quickly. Uncle recovered, albeit without legs. My mother didn’t. She lay on the hospital bed paralyzed completely, dead to the world. No medical probe could get a response, she was comatose. Eighteen years of visiting her once a week, replacing the moulding flowers at her bedside with fresh ones and recalling everything that had happened to me over the previous seven days. Eighteen years of wondering why my miserable excuse for a father blew himself up at my naming ceremony.
I wonder if she can hear me. She’s still there, slowly fading on a hospital bed in Necropolis Central Hospital. I visit now and again.
It was eight years before it became apparent that she wasn’t going to recover. I was distraught. Aunt’s previously mentioned compassion came into play and they took me in permanently instead of leaving me to the streets. I could not have asked for more caring surrogate parents. I love them both deeply.
My mother’s incurable condition stirred the media into action. The declaration that the “Murderous Maniac’s Matriarch” was brain dead instigated a flurry of global attention that Aunt and Uncle were hard pressed to shield me from. Obviously the galactic child protection laws stopped my name from being printed anywhere, but there were still countless reporters and photographers hounding our footsteps for weeks. It was a busy time, had I still been a child at that point it would have proved a welcome distraction from the trauma of my mother’s slow fading. But I wasn’t. I hadn’t been a child since that ceremony. At eight years and ten months old I was more of an adult than many ever become. I knew death and loss and pain personally, they were the only friends I had.
There was a side effect to all the scrutiny. Private detectives and vigilantes flocked to our doorstep, eager to present their findings to Aunt and Uncle. They had been busy, it seemed. They tried to keep it from me but I was always a good eavesdropper, so I heard most of what they had uncovered. My father had not been in his right mind for a few weeks before the ceremony, and that was down to a cell of fallen Jedi influencing his mind. The experience was so stressful for him that the small disagreement he and my mother had shortly after the rehearsal dinner (about my last name - they were married but my mother wanted me to keep her surname) was enough for him to do what he did. I don’t know the reasons the Jedi had for the manipulation, I never found it out. I don’t know if they were Sith or mere exiles either, but I do know that there is little that separates the two in my mind.
I was pleased. I had some shred of knowledge to cling to, one thread of information that told me my father was not to blame for the death of my mother. It meant I could forget him, and focus upon the real cause of my life’s ruination. I told you I was an adult.
There are at least records of his arrival within our Order. A half starved young man with nought but a ship to his name staggering up the steps to our great temple on Tython. The Force knows how he found his way here, the Deep Core is perilous enough without the added handicap of obviously being too young to fly safely. He should have died, but there he was. An anomaly from his very first day.
Jedi Master Sevay took the young Lecchamemnon under his wing, training him as his padawan. As I understand it he was a harsh teacher, ever striving to see his students better than the rest. I don’t know how this affected Lecchamemnon, if at all. He might have been strange from before he even arrived. I don’t think Sevay’s responsible for his mystery. He wouldn’t have raised a radical.
There was a definite tipping point to Lecchamemnon’s behavior. It was not documented as he was still a humble knight at the time, but I witnessed it nonetheless. I run the risk of sounding just like the rumour mill at this point, but I assure you every word is truth. I watched it happen.
I was driven after I learned the cause of my family’s doom. I found myself a job at the tender age of twelve... I was an apprentice cook in a run-down restaurant called “The Coffin Filler”. It was tax free as I was technically working illegally, and the pay wasn’t half bad. The owner had gone to my father’s sermons regularly and knew Uncle, so he made exceptions for me. Every penny I earned went into a bank account set up by Aunt on my behalf. They pitied me, so they indulged me. I began to amass quite a tidy sum.
By the age of eighteen I had received promotion, and was then a chef at “The Coffin Filler”. The bank account had never once been withdrawn from, supported as I was by Aunt and Uncle. I owe them both so much, I never did pay them back for all the kindness they showed me. I don’t intend to now either. Their part in my life is done. It ended on my nineteenth birthday.
I woke up and ate breakfast with them, accepting with distracted gratitude their congratulations at having survived another year. I had already planned what I was going to do, and I wasn’t feeling particularly proud about it. I was being selfish and I knew it.
A week previously I had left work early and traveled to Teego’s Starship Emporium. It was a run down affair that sold ships of a used and dubious quality, but I stumbled across a little gem. I had told Teego to reserve it for me, after haggling a halfway decent price out of him. It was an old Barloz-class stock freighter, and I had a poster of one on my bedroom wall. As far as I was concerned they were vintage ships that deserved more praise than they got. The YT series killed them with an advertising campaign, but they’re just as good. Better, even.
After breakfast I walked out of that house with no intention of ever returning. I didn’t say a heartfelt goodbye, it would only have raised suspicions. Whichever way I left it was going to hurt the pair of them greatly, so I decided to do it in the bluntest and easiest way possible. I simply walked away.
I had flown before. I was not a good pilot, but I was competent enough at least to coax her off Necropolis and into hyperspace. I didn’t know where I was going at first, I didn’t know where the Jedi were based. I decided instead to travel to Coruscant in order to learn where to find what I hoped would be my future. It was not a long trip, and I came away with the knowledge I was after: The Jedi were based on Tython. Deep core.
I spent the last of my money on renting an astromech droid pilot to fly me there, as I had no doubt that doing so myself would merely be suicide. I had intended for that money to go on food, as I had not come away with much else but a few changes of clothes and what provisions I could carry in my backpack. It had suddenly become a need to reach the Jedi Temple. It was where my next meal was.
It took three days to negotiate the deep core and reach Tython. I had run out of food just before leaving Coruscant and was starving weak, but I had enough energy left yet to be happy. If the Jedi would take me I had found a home, a home light years away from the turmoil of my early life. All I wanted was to be rid of my past.
It was about a year after his knighthood. I don’t know the age at which he arrived but he can’t have been more than twenty. Over the period of about a week he began to spend more and more time in my library. We were friendly at first (by his warped standards, at least), until the last day when he simply handed me a note telling me the Council had given him permission to take out information of a dark nature, retrieved the data slates and retreated back to his quarters without so much as a nod of thanks. If he really did lose his tongue to a Sith it happened during that week, and it happened slowly. Preposterous.
Perhaps it was the knowledge of his rising in status within the Order that led him to forget all about me, merely being a humble Librarian. What other reason would he have not to talk to me? What reason did he find to become such a rude introvert? I can only ever speculate, I fear.
The Council took me on after hearing my tale. I was assigned a master that called himself Sevay, and I later learned that he’s a perfectionist as well as one of the few of the Order who still knows the old forms well enough to teach them. In our first spar he kicked me halfway across the training room and followed up by leaping the distance between us in a heartbeat. He knocked me out cold with a swift rabbit punch, and I woke hours later on my bed sporting several new bruises. So it would continue day by day until he deemed me ready to face the galaxy as a Jedi.
It took the best part of a year.
Once I was ready I forged a blade and struck out into the world of malice and sin a Jedi calls his stomping ground. In those dark undercities and slums I re-learnt a lesson from my childhood: Life isn’t fair. I watched allies get cut down by men who by rights should be dead ten times over. I saw innocents gunned down for no reason other than that they had happened to witness some misdeed. None of it influenced me. I was strong. Sevay was impressed, I think.
For nine years I learned the beginnings of the ways of the Jedi. I was taught Soresu, the least aggressive of all the old forms and mastered it well. I learned to manipulate the force to do my bidding, but also to listen to it. The whispers of the force are a valuable asset to those with the wit to hear them, for the force is unbiased. It does not lie.
Sevay knighted me after my successful completion of the trials, as was customary in the old days. He’s a stickler for the ancient traditions of the Old Jedi Order, something I have inherited to some extent. I was twenty-eight when I set out on my own this time, to learn the paths of the force that had been closed to me before by inexperience. I gained much power in my first year. I learned of the existence of many things, some less palatable than others.
Gradually I learned more of the millennia-old history behind the previous Jedi Order, the one destroyed in the first Great Purge. It quickly became apparent that the Jedi philosophy I studied had a dire flaw. We seek only to destroy the dark side where we find it, to eradicate without understanding. The puritans amongst us will preach that there is no need to understand what we can defeat, and as the Jedi have ultimately been victorious over the dark side every time it has challenged us we have no need to understand. They are utterly wrong.
Our reluctance to understand the great enemy has been the singular cause of every disaster we have ever suffered. I refuse to let the ignorance of the majority bring about yet another purge.
I communed with my ex-master, and he disowned me for my way of thinking. He’s straight as a die, a black and white puritan. I recognise now it was foolish to expect him to encourage me on this path. It had the potential to ruin his reputation, damn myself and endanger the Order all in one rash action... He was right to demand the opposite from me. If I could go back to that day and choose again, I’m not sure if I would pick this fate. It’s been a hard road, learning the power of the dark side without succumbing to it... But learned it I have. I can use a variety of dark techniques when the situation is dire enough, and have learned the ancient lightsaber form VII, or Juyo. It was favoured by the Sith of old, and now it is favoured by me, alongside Soresu. A Knight of the Old Republic indeed.
I broke ties with Sevay and instead began the mission that I strive to complete to this day. I must discover, collect and collate every mystery of the dark side that has ever existed in the hope that it will avoid our Order’s annihilation. I must destroy the threat of the Sith in whatever form they take, and the smaller individual threats posed by each and every fallen Jedi. I must understand the dark side of the force completely and know its weaknesses. I must do all this without becoming that which I fight against. I must do all this without failing my old master. I must not allow myself to become corrupted by the forbidden power I wield, and must not allow others to become corrupted from my laziness. I must not fail.
I am Councillor Lecchamemnon. I am the silent, dark enigma. I am Jedi.
It was a long time ago that I wrote those words. Much has changed.
I am no longer the Lore Master of our Order... That role has been handed down to another. It seems the generations are shifting once more, that my life has one again refused to remain set in stone. I am now the Grand Master of the Jedi.
I know not why I was selected, for the why is irrelevant. All that matters is that I have been, and that I see to duties to the utmost of my considerable ability. For whatever reason I have been entrusted the fate of the very galaxy, and I do not intend to squander it as so many have before me. The worthless people will not bring ruin while I still breathe, this I swear. I will use every ounce of my power to stop them.
No matter the consequences.
Despite my own bemusement at the choice of the Order, I do recognise that I have the talents required to lead them... Those talents are all that most of the Jedi can see. They chose me because they do not know me, not well at least. Because of this I must know myself better than I ever have, I must never allow the innocence of their decision to be marred by my own failure. Constant vigilance will ensure my protection against my own power, and the protection of others. Business as usual.
Make no mistake my brethren, war is coming to this galaxy. The Sith believe they will bring it, as they always have done in the past. I know otherwise. Things have been set in motion that cannot be undone, and when they are brought into the light I will make no apologies. My only regret is that Jedi are going to die in the process, which I suppose is my greatest failing. It is my duty to send men to die, yet it tugs at my conscience to do so. I will grow used to it in time. I have to.
[/I][/B]
I am no longer the Lore Master of our Order... That role has been handed down to another. It seems the generations are shifting once more, that my life has one again refused to remain set in stone. I am now the Grand Master of the Jedi.
I know not why I was selected, for the why is irrelevant. All that matters is that I have been, and that I see to duties to the utmost of my considerable ability. For whatever reason I have been entrusted the fate of the very galaxy, and I do not intend to squander it as so many have before me. The worthless people will not bring ruin while I still breathe, this I swear. I will use every ounce of my power to stop them.
No matter the consequences.
Despite my own bemusement at the choice of the Order, I do recognise that I have the talents required to lead them... Those talents are all that most of the Jedi can see. They chose me because they do not know me, not well at least. Because of this I must know myself better than I ever have, I must never allow the innocence of their decision to be marred by my own failure. Constant vigilance will ensure my protection against my own power, and the protection of others. Business as usual.
Make no mistake my brethren, war is coming to this galaxy. The Sith believe they will bring it, as they always have done in the past. I know otherwise. Things have been set in motion that cannot be undone, and when they are brought into the light I will make no apologies. My only regret is that Jedi are going to die in the process, which I suppose is my greatest failing. It is my duty to send men to die, yet it tugs at my conscience to do so. I will grow used to it in time. I have to.
[/I][/B]
Heavy lies the crown.
I was once a great man.
I led the New Jedi Order against the Sith Empire in this war, if only briefly. I was on the high Council of the Jedi for decades, and was a highly respected member of the Order. I was feared and respected by all that knew me, despised by my enemy and regarded as one of a kind... I was invaluable, worthy of the title Grand Master.
I was Lecchamemnon, once. Now? I question my worthiness even to wear that name.
A leader should never question their motives, that is for their underlings to do. It is the leader’s duty to act according to their duties and their motives to the utmost of their abilities until they accomplish their task or are deposed by those they serve. Only through this process can a man succeed in all he does, and only in this way will he be forced to remain honest to his beliefs. It is a chain of command that the Jedi have used for centuries - it has always been the Grand Master’s role to lead, and for the Jedi to elect their leader.
I... Did not follow this practice. That was my first mistake, I think. Instead I shut everyone out, preferring to keep my own counsel on what was and was not acceptable. Arrogance was always my most fatal flaw. Instead of using the Jedi I had at my disposal I elected to do everything myself, refusing to trust those I claimed to serve. I could not see it at the time, but I now know that this is not a good way to lead - if you consider your inferiors to be beneath you and undeserving of even something so basic as your trust, you cannot hope to accomplish anything with them. Because of this my workload increased, and I grew stressed.
Still, I did not see my failings.
Eventually things got out of hand. I was splitting my time to give attention to so many areas that I accomplished nothing of what I set out to do, and still I refused to delegate, refused to trust. I planted the seeds of doubt in my mind without even realising how or why, it was ignorance at its worst. The doubt grew, and I lost my sense of unshakeable adherence to the Jedi path. Some would say I matured... I see it as a chink formed in my armour against the Dark Side, and that would not do.
I have always walked a darker path than most. It isn’t exactly common knowledge, but there have always been stories about me. Lecchamemnon the man that sees murder as an acceptable cost for victory. Lecchamemnon the man that hunts Sith one on one, just to keep his eye in. Lecchamemnon the man that resorts to torture if necessary... The man that might enjoy it. I am not proud of these rumours, least of all the ones founded in truth. I only did all of those things because I knew I had a supreme aura of incorruptibility, a shield of pure faith in the Jedi way. I did them because they needed to be done, and I thought I was the only one capable of doing them.
The doubting changed my views a lot. No longer am I of the mistaken point of view that one can be completely pure. We all have flaws, and mine is a dire one. I tainted myself with those activities, and it took the top down view of the entire Order only a Grandmaster ever gets for me to see it. I was a monster, what right did I have to lead this Order of Light? How could I teach a padawan only to kill as a last resort if I myself murdered Sith as a borderline recreational activity?
I couldn’t, I wasn’t fit to. I saw myself as a disgrace and a failure, and my doubts turned to self loathing.
This was the tipping point. The penny dropped, and I took a step back to look at myself... I did not like what I saw. A man on the verge of complete self destruction, brought about entirely by his own actions. A man that professed to be of the light, yet that was in fact more corrupt that some of those he named enemy. A man that had failed all those he held dear, and caused them to suffer needlessly. I was a cancer at the very head of the Jedi Order, and I had made up my mind.
No-one stopped me on my way to the hangar - why should they? I was their leader, their commander, I had every right to go wherever I pleased. This aided me, I don’t think anyone expected me to go, to simply walk away from leadership in wartime. It looks rash, ill thought out of me to have left so abruptly, but it was not (Although I’m sure it will be viewed as such by everyone but me). Had I spoken to the council I would have received only advice, advice that I would in turn fail to trust and heed. Had I spoken to anyone else the Jedi would have lost all faith in their leader who throughout everything has to appear as a rock that will hold against any storm. I was not such a man, and nor could I appear to be for much longer... Better to flee in the night and leave them with questions and disgust than to publicize my failings. The Order would strengthen in my absence then, instead of collapsing in on itself as it mirrored the self doubt I felt myself.
The first few weeks were not easy. I wanted to go back, to tell them why I’d run or to try and explain why I wasn’t fit to lead - I hated the idea of them thinking me a coward. Eventually, however, my rational side always won through. What were they likely to do? Incarcerate me. How would I respond in my currently unstable state? Violently. I did not want Jedi blood on my hands.
I remained resolute in my choice. I stayed away.
Changing my identity was a must, and I did so within a month of my departure. I took the name Icarael, I thought it sounded good. In the end the false identity of Icarael became second nature to me - I would answer to it as much as I would Lecchamemnon. Time would prove this to be a good thing, despite the effect it had on my psyche. I lost elements of my individuality, becoming more malleable and more adaptable to new situations. Where once I had been the Jedi that stood by the old ways with a rod up his arse, I was now the deserter rogue that approached each new day with an attitude most conducive to success. I lost my personality, but gained in anonymity.
I have also fallen back on the beliefs I held as a child (along with drink, drugs and flesh) - the ways of Nothing. I am hardly devout... I’d describe myself as something of a peripheral believer. The Church is an ancient and corrupt organisation, but the teachings it advocates are comforting to me (if you ignore the fact that they worship some form of all destroying God). Nothing I ever do will ever be remembered, or will have significance, or will last. Ultimately, I am Nothing.
My shame is only fleeting therefore. Good.
I am using The Church, but to what end I do not know. Perhaps they use me, in a way. No doubt they will come in handy one day, when my past catches up with me again and I need to run. There are twelve saints after all... I could hide in there forever.
I do not mean to return to the Jedi, in fact I do not think they would accept me if I tried. My name is Lecchamemnon, or Icarael, or whatever the hell you want to call me. I am No-one, now.
NAME: Lecchamemnon
FACTION: None (Formerly New Jedi Order)
RANK: N/A (Formerly Grand Master)
SPECIES: Sephi
AGE: 94
LIGHTSABER FORMS:
- Form III: Soresu “Resilience form”
- Form VII: Juyo “Ferocity form”
NOTABLE EQUIPMENT:
SHIP: Lecchamemnon still possesses his heavily modified BARLOZ-class freighter; it was the craft he took when he left the Jedi. It’s as heavily modified as ever, sacrificing much of the copious cargo space in favour of two force dampened interrogation cells for holding any “persons of interest” he might come across, a rack for a speeder bike and a small armoury. He has also installed a cloaking device, although the system is power hungry and cannot be left on indefinitely lest the generator run flat and the entire ship lose power (barring basic life support).
LIGHTSABER: Lecchamemnon’s blade is a beautiful thing to behold. The durasteel circuit casings are coated in expertly molded ivory, into which are carved countless ancient Necropolitan hieroglyphics that date back several millennia. The areas about the emitter and the belt clip are finished in polished Electrum, which spirals from the two ends of the hilt towards the central Hieroglyph, almost like two fingers pointing to it. It is unique in that it has no visible igniter stud, or any other functional button or switch. When the blade is ignited it does so without drama. It shines with a brilliant green hue, which fades to purest white as you near the core of the blade.
FACTION: None (Formerly New Jedi Order)
RANK: N/A (Formerly Grand Master)
SPECIES: Sephi
AGE: 94
LIGHTSABER FORMS:
- Form III: Soresu “Resilience form”
- Form VII: Juyo “Ferocity form”
NOTABLE EQUIPMENT:
SHIP: Lecchamemnon still possesses his heavily modified BARLOZ-class freighter; it was the craft he took when he left the Jedi. It’s as heavily modified as ever, sacrificing much of the copious cargo space in favour of two force dampened interrogation cells for holding any “persons of interest” he might come across, a rack for a speeder bike and a small armoury. He has also installed a cloaking device, although the system is power hungry and cannot be left on indefinitely lest the generator run flat and the entire ship lose power (barring basic life support).
LIGHTSABER: Lecchamemnon’s blade is a beautiful thing to behold. The durasteel circuit casings are coated in expertly molded ivory, into which are carved countless ancient Necropolitan hieroglyphics that date back several millennia. The areas about the emitter and the belt clip are finished in polished Electrum, which spirals from the two ends of the hilt towards the central Hieroglyph, almost like two fingers pointing to it. It is unique in that it has no visible igniter stud, or any other functional button or switch. When the blade is ignited it does so without drama. It shines with a brilliant green hue, which fades to purest white as you near the core of the blade.
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