Jakob is an old man, by his standards and by many who know him.
He was born into a family with a natural affinity for using the Force. Throughout the generations, much of his family had grown to become great Knight or Masters of the Order on Shor. He was given the choice to train with his family or at the Temple. He could almost see that to choose one would mean completely different futures. At the age of five, he began to dream of himself as a young man, at the Temple, but it wasn't him. He was a very influential Jedi, he was strong in the Force, but deciding to turn from his family had cut the connection between them, and while he had many friends and allies, there was a hole where his family had once been, and no amount of friendship could replace such love lost to him. After a few nights he began to dream of another future, one where he had chosen to train with his family. He had become a great Master at the Temple on Shor, very powerful and a great leader. He also had an empty heart. Because of his decisions, this future version of himself was alone and empty, and had resentment and a growing hatred in place of happiness and growing love for those around him.
This distraught young Jakob, and he tried a compromise; to train under his grandfather, a Master at the Temple, therefore doing both. Each member in his family was required to add to the Archives of the Mevrain family, eventually creating a great library of information on the Force. His grandfather had focused on secrets and techniques of emotional control, persuasion, and his belief for love in the Order. For this, in a family of traditional Jedi, he became slightly shunned. He was the perfect choice for a Master.
His grandfather gladly took Jakob under his wing, taking him as his padawan, and teaching him how to learn from his emotions and the emotions of those around him. Jakob proved to be a very good student, studying with his grandfather and learning from him everything he could. His grandfather was not a patient man, however, and Jakob was often yelled at and criticized for not being able to produce quick results. His grandfather did not share all of the Jedi's beliefs, but he held enough in common to take their side, and help their cause. He himself had grown up in the shadow of an older brother, and had great resentment in his heart, which clouded his judgement. He was growing ill in body and mind as age took his physical body, and the Dark Side ate away at his spiritual one. This was another reason why he had been shunned by his own family, jealousy had a strong hold on him even as a boy.
Knighthood and K
Jakob around the age of thirty.
aethe[]
12 years passed and Jakob had become a young Jedi Knight. He continued to train under his grandfather until the day he died. On the day of his funeral, a woman named Kaethe, another Jedi Knight, came into his life and the two became great friends, and eventually more.
They married when Jakob was twenty-two and Kaethe was twenty-one, against the warnings of the Masters at the Temple. Jakob studied from his family's Archive, learning from his Ancestors the secrets that they had learned after years of study, practice, and mistakes. He did not understand all of it, but he picked up on many skills easily, most of which had to do with using the force to influence those around him. One of his relatives had found a way to create a link between two sentient beings, to bring them closer. Jakob told Kaethe of this, and said he would do anything to be as close to her as possible, and to open himself up to her more.
Jakob as a younger man.
After repeated tries and failures, a weak link was made between them. He improved it after more years, and soon him and his wife were able to share thoughts and feelings that had never been known to either of them.
After several more years they had a daughter. They named her Carmen. By the age of three she had been tested and was found to be Force sensitive. Jakob, happy at the news, began to teach her the basic principles of the Force and the Jedi Order. The two grew close, almost as close as Jakob and Kaethe were with their Life Bond. A man could not show his daughter more love or patience. She was a very fast learner, but unlike her father, who favored persuasion and manipulative techniques, she was very proficient at enhancing the abilities of herself and others. They came almost naturally to her. He even began to teach her from the Mevrain Family Archives, but stopped when he caught her using the holocron of a Sith that had been in their family. That was the only time he had ever shown anger towards her.
Death of Kaethe, Resignation, and a Journey[]
Jakob in mourning
After nearly twenty-five years of happy marriage, Kaethe began to show signs of an unknown degenerative disease. She began to weaken physically, and Jakob could feel through the Life Bond how much pain she was going through. She, in turn, could feel the worries and sadness inside him. But she could see an anger deep within him. He was angry he could do nothing, it grew stronger as she grew weaker.
In Kaethe's final days, she did her best to calm the anger of her love, and it helped, but the fire within him was still strong. She continued to fight the anger within him, to help soothe him in any way she could. In her final hours, she brought her husband close, and made him swear on their love that he would not let his anger rule him after her death. She died the next morning.
He disappeared for several days, meditating on his emotions, to bring them under control. He understood it was natural to feel anger and sadness after thirty-four years of marriage, but letting those feelings rule him was why he went away. He appeared back in the Temple nearly a week later, and went to the other Master of the Temple and informed them of his resignation from the Order. After days of philosophical speeches and warnings, he left, packing everything he had into his ship and leaving Shor and his daughter, who had just taken her first padawan at the age of 29.
With him he also took a small amount of Kaethe's ashes, her lightsaber, and a copy of his family's Archives. He restricted entry of the Original to only him, knowing his daughter would turn to her mother's additions, and possibly the entries of several Dark Siders who, even in Holocron, would corrupt her soul with the promise to let her see her mother once more. She still hasn't forgive him for making the decision for her.
Jakob left Shor, not knowing where he was going, but believing the Force would guide him through his Journey to find a purpose.
Fall to the Dark Side[]
Soon after Kaethe's death, and his abandonment of the Jedi Order, Jakob's sadness and anger over his inability drew him closer to the Dark Side. What pushed him over the edge was an event on the planet of Dantooine. He had taken to this planet as a temporary resting place, to seclude himself from technologically advanced life. He largely enjoyed the simple life the planet brought him, and spent a few good years with the locals. When the
Jakob as Darth Legem
pirates came, Jakob was too far away from his ship to try and defend them in the air, so he stayed on the ground, with his lightsabers. But in his older age, Jakob was not as quick as he used to be, despite the aid of the Force, he was wounded. He was captured and tortured by the pirate leader, and was made to watched as the locals he had grown close to were murdered before his eyes.
Jakob snapped, and in his rage killed the pirates and their leader with a Force Blast but inadvertantly destroyed the village as well, and any remaining survivors. He embraced the Dark Side of the Force to complete his goal, but he fell to its power. Over time, hundreds of people he judged as criminals fell to his lightsaber, and he took the name Darth Legem. He was judge, jury, and executionor. He was too blind in his rage the people he was actually killing; women, children, fathers, and mothers. It took his daughter, Carmen, to stop him. She almost died rescuing him from the Dark Side, and when he realized this, his grief grew, and he withdrew to the planet Isis. He meditated for many months, battling both his grief over the death of his wife, and the Dark Side. He knew he did not deserve the title Jedi, and so he made a vow to never return to the Dark Path he had taken in the past. For his wife. Instead he took to wandering from planet to planet, trying to, once again, find purpose in his life.
Carmen[]
Birth and Childhood[]
Carmen Mevrain is the daughter of Jakob and Kaethe Mevrain. She was born after the couple had been married for five years. Jakob could not have loved his daughter more unless Kaethe would become jealous, if she was that type of person. She was not, and Kaethe actually approved of all the time the two spent together. Kaethe already knew she was dying, but Jakob had not yet realized it. She was doing her best to keep the truth from him until it became an actual problem, and the Life Bond between the two made it that much more difficult. She knew she could not hide the truth forever.
Carmen had been identified as being Force Sensitive at an early age, and her Father took her as his padawan, teaching her the ways of the Force and the Jedi. She learned quickly, and in some ways surpassed her Father, who was often amazed at her abilities. She was not sheltered though. On several occasions her Father, and Master, took her on dangerous missions off-world.
Pirates[]
On one mission they were sent to an asteroid being used as a pirate base. They had hollowed out and fortified the asteroid, and even attached sub-light engines to stabilize its orbit and to move it if necessary. Jakob, against the advisement of the Council, took his daughter with her; she was thirteen. The pirates had been terrorizing a nearby settlement on a planet which had been taken as a Republic Colony. Their mission was to board the asteroid and put an end to the pirate's violent crimes. If possible, they were to open negotiations with the pirate leader to unconditionally halt the attacks on the Colony. The Order wanted to do this without bloodshed if possible.
They were allowed to dock with no trouble, and met with the leader of the pirates, and man who called himself Strafe. This was not his real name but rather a title, given to himself. For hours Jakob and Carmen both gave the pirate leader options. They were willing to give him food, medicine, fuel, unarmed ships, and even amnesty for his past crimes. Strafe was too cocky to take any of the offers, and believed that the Republic sending negotiators meant they were too weak to actually deal with him any other way. He was wrong.
He separated them in different cells, so they could not communicate any plan of escape. He did not understand the concept of communicating through the Force.
They escaped easily, found the main power generator and rendered it inoperable. Power drained from the asteroids systems; first went the sub-light engines, then the artificial gravity in more than half of the asteroid. Life support was in danger of losing power by the time Jakob and Carmen ran into any real resistance. Strafe had not fully prepared for internal sabotage. The two became briefly separated when Jakob ran ahead to check the area, and several men came and pinned Carmen down with blaster fire down a corridor. By the time Jakob was able to take out the pirates headed their way, Carmen had taken out all but two of the group that had had her pinned.
They had made it to the hangar without much more trouble, and we heading towards the ramp of their shuttle when Strafe walked down it and shot Carmen with a blaster. Carmen managed to roll but caught the blaster shot in the shoulder. Jakob almost immediately grabbed him with the Force and slammed him against a wall; whether the blow killed him or not Jakob never found out, and he hoped he would never have to. Jakob carried Carmen into the shuttle and they left. He set the shuttle to automatic pilot so he could try to heal Carmen, and she might have died if he hadn't, something he would not be able to live with himself afterwords.
The Archives and Knighthood[]
She made a full recovery and continued her training under her Father, learning as much as she could from him and occasionally sneaking the the Mevrain Family Archives and learning things from her dead Ancestors whose legacy was preserved by her family's tradition. Her Father caught her using the holocron of a Sith that had been in her family, after she had learned how to activate it. She had never known her Father could be so angry, and she stopped sneaking into the Archives after that. She did not want to see her Father that angry ever again.
She was Knighted at the age of nineteen, after several delays by her Father. He kept making excuses. By this time her mother's illness was known to her Father and her. He wanted to keep her close to him to keep a part of mother close to him, though he would never admit it. One day she told him she was not leaving as his padawan so much as coming back as a Knight, she would always be his student. She underwent the Trials the next day, and was officially Knighted the next. She continued to train and study with her Father, but he now considered her an equal, and gave her the respect she deserved.
Loss[]
Carmen Frikari'na-Mevrain
At the time of Kaethe's death Carmen and her Father seemed to have grown closer, going on several more missions together, but when new came of Kaethe's death, a barrier formed between Jakob and the world, including Carmen. When he decided to leave the Order and go into a sort of self-Exile, she tried to talk him out of it, but every time she saw him she grew angry at him for no apparent reason, and often yelled in her one-sided arguments. He did not respond most of the time but listen deeply to what she had to say. When he did respond, he did not raise his voice, he was not angry, but told her that she had her own path, and he had his. Only he could choose which way to walk. This was his choice, just like it was her choice which path she would walk, though he still had a bit of say, being her Father. He did not ask for her forgiveness, or her understanding of his choice, but it was his.
When he left he closed the Archives to everyone except him, and Carmen was greatly angered that after a speech about following her own path, but realized this might have been his final say. It took her many weeks to understand the true meaning behind his words, and while she did not forgive him for leaving, but after time she began to understand, just a little. She continued to live though, she had a padawan, and could not let personal feelings rule her. She vowed to find her father one day, though, and try to fix things between them.
