Gannon no Lapay

Darth Lapay as he appeared after his first resurrection.

Gannon no Lapay, also known as Darth Lapay, was a Dark Lord of the Sith who remains active in the Universe. He is a human of unknown origin, but whose studies originated in the line of Darth Sidious. The official autobiography detailing his first death and surrounding events is written under Chronicles of a Sith [1].

He died many years ago on Subterrel, leaving only the legacy of Lapay no Ryu...and who knows how many other secrets.

The Second Rebirth

Years and years passed in Chaos, and the soul of Gannon no Lapay lingered on. It was not lost, surprisingly, to the immaterial essence of the Force. Instead, he found a way back, managing to leave the realm of Chaos for short periods of time under the pretext of the Gatekeeper of Chaos. Eventually, he found himself a suitable target. Using a little girl on Dathomir as the medium, he was able to possess a body with a spirit transfer ritual. The targeted body was that of a particularly impressive ssither named Ulupong, who had become a captive of the Spiderclan of the Nightsisters on Dathomir.

Gannon no Lapay in his current incarnation: the body of a four-armed ssither.

Back in the Universe at large, Gannon has effectively given up on professing to be Sith; his goals are more extrinsically oriented (but you may find that in comparing his current ideals to the Sith that they are two sides of the same coin) and more eternal than in his previous lives. In contrast to his previous death, he did not experience any real breakthrough in terms of usage of the Force, but instead his mentality is fixated on Chaos. Even the name of the Force he now proclaims to be Chaos. The picture he has of the Universe is far more transient. This current body he holds is known to be a temporary shell that he would discard at any moment. And, perhaps most important of all, Gannon is now dominated by the picture of symmetry in all of the Universe.

Since he is fixated on symmetry, Gannon differs significantly from his son: for Lapay no Ryu, the question why was always of greatest importance. Why would he engage in a certain act? If it could increase his power, or avoid decreasing it, then Ryu had a reason to act. This is a subtle yet significant difference from Gannon's actions, which orbit the question how. For Gannon, symmetry alone is reason enough to act; the means are the ultimate question and to interpret symmetry in a significant way is all that remains.

His goal is one that symmetry dictates will arise: the downfall of Chaos to be replaced by Harmony, only to eventually see Harmony's utter destruction after its rise.

Weapons, Abilities and Powers

First Life

In his first life, Gannon always pressed the limits of the Force. He used Telekinesisand Sith Alchemy to marvelous effect, Lightning and Speed to some extent, showed proficiency in Doppelganger, and from time to time even called on Alter Environment and Force Storm. His power was great, and yet he desired more. In contrast, his swordplay left something to be desired. His style constantly changed, preventing him from achieving true potency. Initially, he used a single lightsaber, until finding a relic Sith Sword, which he called the Darksword, through which his powers of Telekinesis grew exponentially. The dual-wield style of lightsaber and Sith sword eventually led to his preference of the sword over the saber, which in turn led him to modify the saber into a four-bladed variant in the shape of a + (suitable for off-hand only). Both of these weapons were destroyed during a Jedi attack on Yaga Minor (which at the time was Empire-controlled). In turn, he created more weapons from Sith Alchemy, which he later would gift to the students at his Academy. At some point in this life, the +-shaped quadsaber took reincarnation as four lightsaber sais, which could disconnect from the + shape to be used independently.

Second Life

At the beginning of his second life, Gannon created the Phalanx of Shadow State Warriors, centered around the concept of transcending the typical Force abilities. They all focus on the natural elements to accomplish tremendous feats. To commensurate this occasion, he crafted for himself seven lightsabers: a saberstaff, two curved-hilt sabers, and four straight-bladed sabers. These sabers contained artificial crystals that tended to cause temporary paralysis if they struck an organic target-- in exchange for one of these crystals, Darth Nexus rescinded his attack on Serenno. Legend had it that Gannon could wield all seven lightsabers at once with what can only be called a brute-force method, using Reflex and occasionally Telekinesis. These seven lightsabers were used in conjunction with seven Dances, with each Dance requiring a different wield style. It was also during this life that the True Assassin, Valandil Ar-Feiniel, gave Gannon two vambraces with a concealed blade. This happened moments before Ar-Feiniel's death, on the planet Abyssissa. Upon Gannon no Lapay's death, the Seven Sabers of Lapay were taken into the custody of Darth Vihata, who was at the time a member of the Phalanx. They passed from his possession into Lapay no Ryu's possession when they met on Sernpidal, years later.

Third Life

Having invaded the spirit of a four-armed ssither, Gannon no Lapay immediately took for himself four lightsabers. Under the pretext of abandoning the Sith ways, the crystals are not synthetic in origin. In what one would come to expect from a symmetrical fashion, he wields two violet lightclubs (but they can hardly be called 'lightclubs' because they lack the weight typically associated, merely complying with the length requirement) and two guard shotos, complete with t-grips. These, in symbolism of his host's more tribal nature, feature wooden handles embossed with the image of a winding snake. For the first time, he now adheres to the use of a lightsaber form: Shii-Cho. His set of Force powers have also shifted to reflect focus on artificial improvement of his body's capabilities and mental dominance over others. This paradigm shift from physical dominance to mental dominance was a natural one; he did spend years in Chaos, after all. He has shown the ability to improve his own speed and endurance after even a very short time, as well as apply direct mental control and to inflict pain. Perhaps most notably, he demonstrates the ability to alter his own body chemistry on the molecular level, and to expel another's soul from its body in order to seize it for his own. These abilities have all been given new, non-traditional names to reflect his reference of the Force now as Chaos. Still, this is also far from a complete picture of his contemporary abilities; he has only been back for a short time.

The Ssither

For reference, the Ssither are basically human-sized snakes capable of using telepathy naturally. Gannon is at heart a human spirit inhabiting the ssither's body through the technique of spirit transference. Mind, body, and soul are completely his to control in this body now; as such, the body's instincts carry over and Gannon does not need to 're-learn' most of these things; instead, he performs them and has an odd sense of awareness that they exist beyond what normal human bodies are like and that is the extent of it. In the spirit of assembling relevant information, this is a semi-complete list of interesting snake facts and/or implied ssither traits[2].

• Snakes do not have eyelids. Instead, transparent scales protect their eyes. They are, however, capable of completely closing their irises. Ssither have golden-colored eyes with no irises, so they cannot block out light. Their eyesight ranges from poor to sharp; the Ssither most likely had weak eyesight because they lived in tunnels where little light came in anyways; thus, Gannon's eyesight is mostly motion-based. It can be improved with his Force power skillset, of course.
• Snakes smell by tasting the air, ground, and water with their tongues, which are forked to enable them to pinpoint location with frightening accuracy.
• Some snakes have 'pits' which enable them to detect infrared radiation, located somewhere along the snout. This is a trait that the ssither will carry over, since they are cave-dwellers and this would prove immeasurably useful.
• Pretty much all snake jaws can come unhinged.
• Snakes lack ears, yet they have a tremendous ability to detect vibrations (they can detect vibrations on the near-molecular scale). Resting their jaws on a solid surface enables excellent stereo detection. However, this also means that snakes cannot hear in-air sound in the traditional way. The ssither have conversations, however; this implies that through some use of air-to-ground vibrations in conjunction with their inherent telepathy to aid in inferring meaning, ssither can communicate verbally.
• Ssither have hoods, but that does not make them completely analogous to cobras only. They also have human-shaped torsos, but like true snakes, their organs are dispersed instead of adopting the humanoid configuration (their circulatory system would forbid it to be the other way around).
• Ssither do excrete venom. Snake venom itself is principally neurologically-active, and contains over twenty proteins and enzymes that perform various actions. This is relevant-- Gannon is in the process of modifying his venom with Chaos Effect.
• Roughly only three-quarters of all venomous snake bites have venom delivered. This is a conscious act on the snake's part; they may choose to flex the muscles or not, depending on the level of threat they feel. The rate of 'dry bites' depends on the species. Gannon knows this, by now, and he will probably deliver venom all the time if he can get a bite in. His fangs are roughly the size of a screwdriver.
• Some cobras can shoot their venom through the air up to three feet; ssither also likely possess this capability and as such their range is scaled up to about ten feet.
• Snakes move strangely! Actually, there are four principal methods of snake locomotion. These are:
  • Lateral undulation- which is your traditional slither. It is a calorically-demanding process.
  • Sidewinding- a corkscrewing sort of motion that most people have at least heard of. This is most often used on unstable terrain, and is actually about half as demanding as the regular slither. With this method, a snake can move to either side, so 'backwards' is technically possible.
  • Concertina- this is how snakes move through confined spaces where slithering is not an option. It can be thought of as an earthworm-type motion, where they compress and expand forwards. Because of its stop-and-go nature, this is the most demanding method of motion.
  • Rectilinear- this is for being very sneaky. The belly scales themselves are moved in the manner of a gastropod, literally pulling the snake almost silently forward. Constrictors use this method to ambush prey.
• Snakeskin is smooth and dry, and snakes have to molt every so often. Ssither are surely no exception.
• Some arboreal snakes have demonstrated the ability to flatten their bodies to effectively glide. Ssither, being cave-dwellers, probably lack this ability; however, Gannon possesses a skill in the Force that would permit him to do this without much difficulty.
• Most snakes do not have autonomy over their tails. Their motor control ends somewhere along their spine well before their body ends, right in the middle of one of the vertebrae (e.g. the one before it can be controlled, the one after cannot). This is kind of hard to picture because the snake's body can mostly be thought of as a tail. This trait will be maintained in the ssither.
• Some sea snakes can remain submerged for a few hours on end. Ssither can probably hold their breath longer than normal humans, but not too long. Also, despite having two lungs, only one is functional.
• A typical snake can stand upright about one-third of its body length. The typical adult ssither can reach 2.5m height this way, so the average ssither length is probably 7.5m. The body of Ulupong reaches 3m and is about 9m long, therefore.

Gannon's TIE Interdictor

The TIE Interdictor was a rare variant of the TIE/sa bomber that made use of the inherently modular design to incorporate four ordnance pods instead of the usual one. Always appreciative of innovation of this kind, Gannon purchased one of his own in order to make use of it for himself. After his death, it remained on Subterrel, concealed somewhere in the terrain. Most of the technical specifications are taken from the typical TIE/sa bomber (upscaled to the Interdictor level, of course) with the exception of shielding and hyperdrive systems which have been equipped. Whenever possible, missile launchers have been upgraded for maximum capacity.

Technical Specifications
Length	7.8 m
Maximum acceleration	2,380 G
MGLT	60 MGLT
Maximum speed	850 km/hr
Hyperdrive	Class 2
Shield generator	Nordoxicon-38 anti-concussion field generator Z-9 deflector shield projector
Engine	P-s4 Twin Ion Engines
Power	I-a2b solar ionization reactor
Hull	Titanium alloy with quadranium steel armor
Sensor	S-c3.4 multi-range TAG
Armament	Wing-mounted L-s7.2 laser cannons (2) Concussion missile (16) Fired from two M-s3 launchers in Ordnance Pod A Seeker-type space mine (6) Deployed from Ordnance Pod B Arakyd Huntmaster missile (16) Fired from two missile launches in Ordnance Pod C Disruptor torpedo (12) Fired from two missile launchers in Ordnance Pod D.
Additional systems	--