Mara Jade Skywalker

Mara Jade used to be the Emperor's Hand for Emperor Palpatine and was ordered to kill Luke Skywalker. After many encounters and adventures, Luke and Mara fell in love, she later became a Jedi Master and married Luke.

Mara Jade was born during the rise of the Empire. She was taken from her parents in a early age by Emperor Palpatine and was trained on Coruscant as both an imperial dancer and in the ways of the Force. At age fourteen, she became The Emperor's Hand, the Emperor's personal assassin.

She would become redeemed, turning from her dark ways and becoming a Jedi Master in Luke Skywalker's New Jedi Order under the New Republic. She and Luke would fall in love, eventually marrying during a time of peace for the Galaxy.

Yuuzhan Vong War But the peace would not last as a new enemy, the Yuuzhan Vong, threatened to destroy the Jedi Order and the New Republic. The succeeded in the latter, but the Jedi Order survived and defeated the Vong. During the Yuuzhan Vong War, Mara gave birth to her and Luke's son, Ben Skywalker, naming him after the alias used by Luke's first master, Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi. In the aftermath of the war, the New Republic would be reformed as the Galactic Alliance.

Mara Jade Skywalker was an extremely proud woman, who always gave her best at everything that she did—that could be seen in her time as an Emperor's Hand. Due to her upbringing under Darth Sidious, and also to the training she received from the Sith Lord, Mara Jade Skywalker learned how to maintain a calm and collected composure in almost every situation. During the First Corellian Insurrection, and though she harbored a vendetta against Luke Skywalker, she was able to prioritize the severity of the situation and place her differences with Skywalker aside—she proceeded to warn Leia and the Senate about the recently uncovered plot to destroy the New Republic. During her brief tutelage under Kyle Katarn, Jade was forced to face Katarn in an ancient Temple when he fell to the dark side. While he was fully engaged in the dark powers of the temple, Jade was forced to defend against Katarn's attacks, managing to fend him off each time. Eventually, Katarn and Jade found themselves deep inside the catacombs of the temple, and Jade voluntarily turned off her lightsaber and surrendered, maintaining her calm composure as she realized she could no longer fight her one-time friend. Due to Jade's self-control, Katarn was eventually redeemed and brought back to the light.

Even though Jade exuded a toughened exterior, she was a warm and compassionate individual. Even as an Imperial assassin, Jade had a merciful side, particularly when it came to serving the greater good. She allowed the rogue stormtrooper unit Hand of Judgment to survive after seeing they were good men and after they aided her on one of her missions. She also allowed Governor Bidor Ferrouz to survive despite admitting to treason, since he had been forced to collaborate with the Rebel Alliance to save his kidnapped family. Jade was willing to make allowances using her official position in order to save the lives and careers of people she thought were good, though she had no qualms about using people as tools on her missions.

Through her love and marriage to Luke Skywalker, Jade Skywalker realized that her life of constant conflict had not provided her with everything she needed. However, through her experiences and relationship with Skywalker, she came to acknowledge her love for him and understand what his companionship offered her life—she realized that it was acceptable to let him past her defenses. A small way in which she showed Skywalker her love for him was through the playful nickname which she constantly called him—Farmboy. Jade Skywalker's love and compassion also manifested when she gave birth to her son Ben during the Yuuzhan Vong War.

Just as her personality was diverse, so were the talents that Mara Jade Skywalker utilized throughout her colored career. She was known to be a skilled slicer, breaking into secure files with relative ease. Jade Skywalker was also a skilled user of multiple types of weaponry, including blaster pistols and rifles, melee weapons, and heavy weapons. She often used blaster pistols, including a small hold-out blaster, which she carried in a sleeve holster. She was well trained in unarmed combat, and was also a skilled tactician who could quickly analyze a situation for dangers and traps and then formulate a means to secure her objectives. Jade was also capable of rewiring electronic devices with some proficiency.

During her life, she became an experienced pilot who flew a variety of ships in a number of situations. After years of training and battle, Mara Jade Skywalker's skills with manipulating the Force were well developed. Throughout her life Mara officially used two lightsabers. The first was a magenta-bladed lightsaber she used during her time as an Emperor's Hand but lost during a duel with Lumiya shortly after the Emperor's first death. She then used the blue-bladed lightsaber that once belonged to Luke and his father Anakin, which Luke gave to her.

The Yuuzhan Vong—"Children of Yun-Yuuzhan", also called the Chosen Race, known to the Chiss and Ferroans as the Far Outsiders, and sometimes incorrectly abbreviated to Vong (which implied that one was disowned by their family and their gods)—were a nomadic extra-galactic sentient species that nearly destroyed the New Republic, and were responsible for the deaths of over 300 trillion sentient beings during their invasion of the galaxy.

The Yuuzhan Vong originated outside the known galaxy. A typical Yuuzhan Vong resembled a Human in form, though they were taller and heavier than the average Human and had less hair on their heads. The Yuuzhan Vong were religious zealots, who viewed mechanical technology as blasphemy. Their technological innovations were genetically engineered and purely organic. Additionally, the Yuuzhan Vong deeply respected pain to the point of sadomasochism and strove to improve their physical capabilities through organ grafting. Such grafting was a status symbol within Yuuzhan Vong society.

Perhaps most notably, the Yuuzhan Vong were unable to be sensed through the Force. This confounded the Jedi who first encountered the Yuuzhan Vong. However, they were susceptible to some Force based attacks.