Wilek Nereus

"Obviously Nereus is the real power on Bakura. But he's trying to keep the Bakurans quiet by letting them play government games.''" "''You bet he is. And he's as bugged as a closet full of rat roaches about having armed Rebel ships in his system."

- Princess Leia and Han Solo

Wilek Nereus was a Human male Imperial governor of Bakura during the planet's brief time in the Galactic Empire. Following the annexation of Bakura by the Empire in 1 BBY, Nereus administrated the planet and wielded greater authority than even the Bakuran Prime Minister and the local Senate. A staunch Imperial loyalist, he despised the Rebel Alliance and viewed alien species as objects.

In 4 ABY, Bakura was attacked by the saurian Ssi-ruuk from the Unknown Regions. With the Bakuran defenses overwhelmed, Nereus dispatched a message drone to the Imperial fleet in the Endor system. Following a truce with Alliance delegates, the Imperials and Bakurans were able to defeat the Ssi-ruuvi invaders. No longer needing the Alliance's help, Nereus then turned on his former Alliance allies and destroyed several of their ships. However, he was deposed and captured by Bakuran revolutionaries. In an ensuing confrontation with Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, Nereus was killed.

Imperial career
"...I have tried to be lenient with Bakura, and it betrays my good intentions. I give up. I must operate like any other Imperial governor, branding the terror of the Empire on Bakuran hearts..."

- Wilek Nereus

As a young man, Nereus was fascinated with the dentition and parasitology of nonhuman species, two interests that he would continue into his adult life: he enjoyed removing teeth from animals (or, later, Human political opponents) he had personally killed as trophies, and he liked to dispose those who got in his way by infecting them with various alien parasites. He had several adipose louse eggs in his possession, considering the parasites to be potentially useful for disciplinary purposes. By 4 BBY, he had teeth from predators from seventeen worlds, including the Bakuran cratsch and the ketrann of Alk'lellish III.

As an officer in the Imperial Navy, Nereus eventually became the captain of a cruiser. In 1 ABY, Bakura was occupied by Imperial forces who sought access to its repulsorlift industry which was dominated by the Bakur RepulsorCorp. Due to the internal unrest amongst the Bakuran people, Imperial forces were able to quickly conquer the planet with minimal losses and resistance. Shortly afterwards, Nereus was appointed as governor which marked his first foray into politics.

He attempted to imitate what he believed a Galactic Republic politician would act like, but he lacked both the dignity and self-control. The entire Belden family were among the Bakurans he was responsible for eliminating or subduing in his own fashion. As with many Imperial civil servants, Nereus disliked dealing with aliens on equal terms and subscribed to the views of Human High Culture prevalent throughout the Imperial bureaucracy then.

During his tenure as governor, Nereus's main priorities were to increase taxation and ensure increased output of Bakur RepulsorCorp, the main reason the Empire occupied Bakura. In keeping with his ideal of an Old Republic politician, Nereus let the Bakuran police quell riots as often as possible without deploying the garrison's stormtroopers. During this time, he developed both a sexual attraction towards Gaeriel Captison and an addiction to namana, both of which he tried to moderate. While he despised the vanquished Jedi Order which had been wiped out in the Great Jedi Purge, he was equally distrustful of the Sith.

The Bakura Incident
"Nereus, take help when you can get it. Everyone on the planet knows why the Rebels are here. If you turn away their help, you're going to provoke an uprising."

- Eppie Belden



In 4 ABY, Bakura was attacked and blockaded by a Ssi-ruuvi fleet under Admiral Ivpikkis. The Ssi-ruuk were a technologically-advanced saurian species from the Unknown Regions who utilized captives as sources for entechment&mdash;an excruciating and lethal process whereby a sentient's life energies were mechanically drained into a machine. In the early hours of the invasion, the Ssi-ruuk destroyed half of the garrison's ships and captured all outposts within the Bakura system excluding Bakura itself.

Desperate, Nereus dispatched an Elegance message drone to the Imperial presence in the Endor system, hoping to alert Emperor Palpatine. However, the Imperials had been defeated during the pivotal Battle of Endor, which saw the destruction of the second Death Star and the destruction of the Sith Order. Instead, the message was received by members of the Rebel Alliance including Luke Skywalker, Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar who decided to dispatch a task force for moral reasons.

Under Skywalker, the Alliance task force arrived in the Bakura system. Several Alliance delegates including Skywalker, Leia Organa and Han Solo arrived at the capital city Salis D'aar where they were greeted by Nereus himself. The Governor's first encounter with the Alliance delegates was a sour experience as Nereus received news of the death of Palpatine. Initially skeptical, he accepted it when he learned that the Darth Vader was behind it since he distrusted the Sith Order.

Per local custom, C-3PO and R2-D2 were fitted with restraining bolts. The Rebels were then brought to speak at a special session at the Bakuran Senate. During the session, Imperials, Bakurans, and Rebels alike were shown a recording sent by the Ssi-ruuk by Sibwarra and were horrified to see how entechment worked; the individual's life energy was sapped from his body and used to power war machinery. The Alliance party then iterated that they were there to help Bakura and offered an official truce, which Nereus said would be discussed. Across Bakura, there was a general feeling of paranoia among the populace, who feared the terror of entechment.

That evening, the Bakuran Prime Minister, Yeorg Captison, organized a dinner where both the Rebels and Nereus were invited. Among those who attended were his wife Tiree and niece Gaeriel. Tiree stressed the importance of the dinner, which would give the Imperials and Rebels a chance to discuss matters privately, and also expressed concern for Nereus's interest in Gaeriel; the latter sentiment was also held by Gaeriel.

Midway through the dinner, Nereus received a transmission from Imperial Admiral Prittick informing him of the veracity of the Rebels' claims of Imperial defeat at Endor. Faced with the prospect of no Imperial aid to stave off a full Ssi-ruuk attack, Nereus agreed to an official truce. For the first time, representatives of the Alliance and Empire shook hands, though Nereus was far from happy about the deal. Nereus also warned the Rebels that any attempts at what he considered treasonous or seditious activity would be met sternly.

An unworkable truce
"One offer, Captison, one minute to accept...Tell your people to lay down their weapons and submit to Imperial rule. To me, as your designated successor. Or die here with your niece watching."

- Wilek Nereus threatening Yeorg Captison

Nereus himself had no urge to try to become Emperor, knowing that he had no chance and that to push for the throne and failure meant death. However, another opportunity in the Governor's favor soon arrived from an unlikely source&mdash;the Ssi-ruuk themselves. Licking their wounds from the joint Alliance-Imperial attack, the Ssi-ruuvi leadership decided to make a covert deal with Nereus by proposing a full withdrawal in exchange for the handover of the Force-strong "Outsider"&mdash;Skywalker. As part of Firwirrung's plan, Skywalker would be bound to a modified entechment rig and forced to drain the life energies of millions of sentients from light years away.

Their human puppet Dev Sibwarra contacted the Governor to make that offer. Nereus accepted the offer, given his hatred of the Rebels and as part of his secret plan to stab his Rebel colleagues in the back. In private, he planned to execute Han Solo, surrender Luke Skywalker to the Ssi-ruuk as their appeasement to stop their attack, and hand over Leia Organa to the next Emperor to curry favor. However, Nereus's plan was to allow the Ssi-ruuk to capture Skywalker, only to have the trichoids hatch and begin multiplying and killing the Ssi-ruuk.

His opportunity came when Senator Gaeriel, who had developed a nascent attraction for Skywalker, went to visit the Jedi at his apartment. She ordered lunch for them, routing the meal through a different location so as to avoid attracting attention. However, she was unsuccessful in escaping Nereus's attention, as the governor had the meal intercepted and inoculated with parasitic Olabrian trichoid, which would eat into Skywalker's body upon hatching. Nereus's plan was to allow the Ssi-ruuk to capture Skywalker, only to have the trichoids hatch and begin multiplying and killing the Ssi-ruu went over to Skywalker's apartment near the spaceport.

Meanwhile, Leia Organa, the Prime Minister Yeorg Captison, and Senior Senator Orn Belden were out on a private airspeeder cruise. Using a disruption bubble generator to prevent Imperial eavesdropping, they discussed the status of the Bakuran resistance, as well as the likelihood of Bakura revolting against Imperial rule. However, the Imperials caught hold of this and Nereus had stormtroopers arrest them on suspicion of treason. Despite Organa's brief attempts at resistance, the entire party was captured. Orn Belden was killed during the interrogation by Nereus.

As word of Belden's capture spread, pockets of resistance began springing up around Bakura, as the statesman's capture had ignited flames of defiance in the Bakurans. Protests occurred and only worsened after news of Orn Belden's death was leaked. Nereus placed Salis D'aar under curfew, but the measure was of little effect. Worse, Organa was rescued from a rural retreat by Han Solo, who then escaped in their transport, the Millennium Falcon.

Later, Skywalker was captured by the Ssi-ruuk during a skirmish at the spaceport while defending Gaerial. However, with Skywalker now in their hands, the Ssi-ruuk rescinded their secret deal with Nereus by launching a full scale attack on Bakura an hour later, striking at the orbital station that hovered over Bakura. Luckily, Gaeriel was rescued by the local Imperial staff. In the space above Bakura, the joint Alliance and Imperial warships launched a devastating counter-offensive against the Ssi-ruuvi fleet.

Due to the chaos onboard the flagship Shriwirr, caused by Skywalker and Sibwarra's uprising and their fear of dying on an unconsecrated world, the Ssi-ruuvi were unable to continue the fight and were forced into a retreat. Every ship in the fleet fled for the safety of Ssi-ruuvi home space except the flagship Shriwirr. For a moment, it seemed that victory would be achieved with the vanquishing of the Ssi-ruuvi threat.

A desperate gamble
"No! You can't be here! Get back onboard! You're infest us all! You don't realize that&mdash;"

- Nereus's last stand against Skywalker.



With the vanquishing of the Ssi-ruuvi, Nereus then hatched his secret plan of back-stabbing his enemies by ordering Thanas to turn his flagship Dominant's turbolaser batteries on the Rebel Alliance flagship Flurry, destroying it along with several Rebel starfighters. The Alliance fleet was now trapped in a bottleneck between the Dominant and Bakura. Confident of Imperial victory, Nereus summoned Gaeriel into his office in an attempt to ally her with his faction in the government.

Captison was initially repulsed by his mannerisms and his iron-fisted plans for Bakura, but managed to maintain a diplomatic front. Nereus then revealed to her the existence of olabrian trichoid larvae embedded in her and Skywalker's lungs and had the larva in Gaeriel removed. Nereus also intimated that he had used a parasite to debilitate Eppie Belden years earlier as punishment for her seditious activities. Giving her the chance to join him as his mistress and approve the governor as Prime Minister, Nereus also threatened Gaeriel should she not cooperate.

He then threatened to shoot Yeorg Captison, whom he accused of treachery, unless the two yielded to his demands. However, his plan was quashed due to the eruption of the Bakuran Revolution. Bakuran resistance fighters under the leadership of the elderly Eppie Belden sprang into action and began attacking the garrison compound. Wilek's personal Stormtrooper bodyguards were incapacitated by a painful electronic alarm system ringing through their helmets.

The elderly 123-year-old Eppie Belden and several other resistance members entered the room. Much to Nereus' surprise, she was fully recovered, leading the resistance effort and already cognizant of her husband's death. Outnumbered, Nereus surrendered to Belden and her resistance fighters. Although the revolutionaries initially wanted to form a revolutionary tribunal to try him, they ceded what power they had to the Senate and agreed to hand over Nereus to the Alliance.

During a brief war of words with Princess Leia, Nereus claimed that he still commanded 3,000 ground-based troops and that Imperial survivors were landing on Bakura in escape pods. She counteracted by stating that Thanas and the Dominant had surrendered to Rebel control and that its weapon systems were aimed directly at the garrison. Earlier, Skywalker had used the Force to persuade the Dominant's captain Thanas to come on their side by sending feelings of peace and serenity. Admiring the heroism of his former foes and seeing the underlining flaws in his superior Nereus, Thanas ordered his ship to break formation and open fire on the Shriwirr, as a gesture of cooperation with the Alliance.

It was then that Luke Skywalker arrived. Sensing the presence of the Olabrian trichoid larvae in his body, Skywalker used the Force to eliminate the parasites. Nereus, shocked to see that Skywalker had survived both the Ssi-ruuk and the olabrian trichoids he had infected the Jedi with, managed to grab a blaster and fire at Skywalker, but Skywalker's lightsaber deflected the bolt back, thus killing its shooter.

With Nereus's death, his dreams for Imperial domination over Bakura were ended. Following his death, the Imperial garrison on Bakura surrended to the Alliance and the Bakurans and were allowed to evacuate for transit to a neutral location. Under the leadership of the new Prime Minister Gaeriel Captison, Bakura joined the Rebel Alliance's successor state, the New Republic. His second-in-command Thanas relinquished his Imperial rank and defected to the Alliance.

Personality and traits
"Princess Leia, that is enough&mdash;unless you wish to be arrested for your crimes here and now.''" "''Governor, I have only strengthened your position. The Empire rules by fear. I have just given the Bakurans one more reason to fear you."

- Nereus and Princess Leia

As with many Imperial governors during the Rebellion era, Wilek Nereus displayed a profound intolerance and an unabashed arrogance when dealing with "inferiors," especially aliens and members of the illegal Rebel Alliance. This was evident in his reluctance to deal with both Alliance delegates and the Ssi-ruuvi expeditionary command. As with many Imperial civil servants, Nereus disliked dealing with aliens on equal terms and subscribed to the views of Human High Culture prevalent throughout the Imperial bureaucracy then.

He was only willing to deal with either of the two when he had little choice or it suited his fortunes. When dealing with both the Ssi-ruuk and Alliance, he arranged to have them double-crossed as soon as they were no longer of use to him. This was evident in his scheme to infect the saurians with olabrian trichoid parasites and his treacherous backstabbing when he ordered Thanas to open fire on the Flurry during the Bakura Incident.

Despite these inherent flaws, Nereus considered himself to be moderate. He attempted to imitate what he believed an Galactic Republic politician would act like, but he lacked both the dignity and self-control. In keeping with his ideal of an Old Republic politician, Nereus let the Bakuran police quell riots as often as possible without deploying the garrison's stormtroopers. As with many Bakurans, he despised the vanquished Jedi Order which had been wiped out in the Great Jedi Purge. However, he was equally distrustful of other Force-sensitive creeds especially the Sith Order.

On a personal level, Nereus also displayed a profound sexual attraction towards Gaeriel Captison and an addiction to namana, both of which he tried to moderate. He was fascinated with the dentition and parasitology of nonhuman species; two interests that he would continue into his adult life. He enjoyed removing teeth from animals (or, later, Human political opponents) he had personally killed as trophies, and he liked to dispose those who got in his way by infecting them with various alien parasites. He had several adipose louse and olabrian trichoid eggs in his possession, considering the parasites to be potentially useful for disciplinary purposes.

Behind the scenes
Wilek Nereus was first created by Kathy Tyers for The Truce at Bakura in 1994.The novel was the character's sole appearance in the Star Wars Expanded Universe media empire, since he was killed off at the end of the story. In April 2000, Nereus was referenced in Kevin J. Anderson and Daniel Wallace's The Essential Chronology and his first published image was illustrated by Bill Hughes.

Appearances

 * The Truce at Bakura
 * Force Heretic II: Refugee
 * The Truce at Bakura
 * Force Heretic II: Refugee

Notes and references
Wilek Nereus