User:Xicer9/Temp

Zevulon Veers, called Zev for short, was a former Human male CompForcer and eldest son of Imperial Army General Maximilian Veers who later defected to the Rebel Alliance.

Early life and Imperial service
Zevulon Veers was the eldest Human child of Maximilian Veers, an up and coming Imperial Army officer. Born into a life of power and prestige, Veers spent a joyful early childhood under Imperial rule in the care of his mother. Several years after his birth, Veers and his family went on a summer vacation where his mother contracted a rare, but fatal disease, and passed away. Veers was then left in the care of his father, who buried his own pain by committing nearly all of his time to Imperial service, and raised the young Veers to honor his mother by becoming a loyal Imperial youth.

As Veers grew older, he began growing increasingly distant from his father and longed for the love of his mother. He attended the finest schools and had everything he ever needed, but he soon began to ask questions regarding the nature of Imperial rule. He wondered why his tutors, who were far more intelligent than him, were slaves, and why friends of his father's who spoke out against Imperial policy kept disappearing. He continued asking these questions but received no answers from anyone, including his father. In the face of what he viewed as Imperial atrocities, such as slavery against aliens, Veers began to believe that much of what the Empire stood for was a lie.

At his father's behest, Zevulon Veers reluctantly joined a local battalion of the Empire's Sub-Adult Group, the youth branch of COMPNOR. The idea of working to improve society appealed to Veers, but he didn't get along with many of the other youths and saw no point to the constant marching and climbing while singing New Order anthems he was drilled to do. Veers was able to make it through his adolescence relatively smoothly, but his father was dismayed at the low marks he received from a Political Reliability Observer. Veers was given a lecture by father on how his low marks and constant questions while at a field trip to a slave camp had the potential to jeopardize the general's career, causing Veers to kept his ideas to himself from then on. He made it through the next few years without repeating his previous mistakes, but his mistrust of the Empire only continued to grow.

Veers eventually passed junior officer training with the hopes of being assigned a non-combat position, but his father wished to toughen the younger Veers and forced him to join CompForce, COMPNOR's military branch. Veers thought very little of CompForce and was growing tired of the constantly drilling he was being forced to do. A few weeks after the Imperial victory at Hoth, in which his father played an important role, Veers and his father returned from a short leave and were both treated as military heroes. Alongside his father, Veers attended numerous celebrations and heard many speeches about the glory of the Empire and the coming defeat of the Rebel Alliance.

Defection and New Republic service
During a routine CompForce police operation several months before the Battle of Endor, Veers served as a bodyguard to his battalion commander, Ivo Laibach, who began interrogating prisoners suspected of working with the Rebel Alliance. Intending to harden the young CompForcers to the sight of torture, Laibach began beating and torturing an old librarian, much to Veers's horror. Simultaneously, a squad of Rebels led by the librarian's daughter launched an attack on the CompForce battalion and wounded Laibach. Veers, disgusted at what he had just witnessed happen to the librarian, untied the old man and healed him with a medpac just as the Rebel squad leader came to her father's rescue. She was initially distrustful of Veers but was convinced of his loyalty after hearing her father's testimony. Veers was nevertheless taken prisoner by the Rebels but was treated kindly by them.

Veers soon defected to the Rebel Alliance and served its successor goverment, the New Republic. Upon learning of his son's fate, the elder Veers wished his son had actually died during the Rebel attack and tried to put the shame of his son's defection out of his mind. The younger Veers disowned his father but still hoped that his family would reject the Empire and that his father would understand his decision to defect. Veers never saw or heard from his father again.

In 10 ABY, Emperor Palpatine was resurrected in a clone body and launched an offensive against the New Republic. Zevulon Veers served as a gunner aboard the New Republic Star Destroyer Emancipator when Admiral Ackbar ordered the Emancipator and its fleet to engage the Emperor's newest superweapons, the World Devastators, which were attacking the planet Calamari. The Emancipator, under the command of Generals Wedge Antilles and Lando Calrissian, intercepted an Imperial transmission originating above Calamari and planned to drop out of hyperspace close to the signal's source. Calrissian ordered to Veers to fire all of the Star Destroyers forward turbolasers and ion cannons at his command upon arriving above Calamari. Veers fired the Emancipator weapons immediately after the fleet dropped out of hyperspace and was able to destroy the source of the Imperial transmission, the Super Star Destroyer Allegiance, while its deflector shields were down.

During this battle, Veers found himself in direct conflict with his father. After squadrons of starfighters were sent from the Emancipator to combat the World Devastators on the surface of Calamari, one Devastator ascended to low orbit and engaged the Star Destroyer. Calrissian ordered Veers and the other gunners to fire all forward torpedoes at the Devastator, but the Emancipator was caught in one of its large furnaces and began disintegrating, prompting Calrissian to order all hands to abandon ship. The crew of the Emancipator fled aboard escape pods and were picked up by newly arrived New Republic rescue frigates.

Sometime later, Veers and large New Republic task force under the command of Antilles and Calrissian infiltrated a shipment of the Empire's X-1 Viper Automadon war droids aboard the Imperial Star Hauler Reliance. En route to the Imperial fortress world Byss, the New Republic team intended to launch an attack on the Emperor's Citadel using the war droids. Calrissian was concerned that the war droids would be difficult to control once their battle programming was activated, but Veers assured him that they had manual override in case anything went wrong. Once the war droids were unloaded onto Byss's Imperial Freight Complex, Veers and the New Republic team activated them and began heading for the Emperor's Citadel. Veers, piloting one of the war droids, came under heavy fire from Imperial forces and, after encountering and defeating Imperial gunships, Veers and the rest of the team were able to make it through the city to the Emperor's Citadel.

Behind the scenes
Zevulon Veers first appeared in the third issue of the Dark Empire comic book series, written by Tom Veitch and illustrated by Cam Kennedy. He later appeared in the fourth issue of Dark Empire II. He was given a full backstory in the Dark Empire Sourcebook by Michael Allen Horne.

The Dark Empire Sourcebook mistakenly uses a picture of a different crew member aboard the Emancipator in its entry for Zevulon Veers.

Appearances

 * Dark Empire 3: The Battle for Calamari
 * Dark Empire II 4: Battle on Byss
 * Dark Empire II audio drama