The New Jedi Order: Traitor

Traitor, part of the New Jedi Order series, is a novel by Matthew Stover, published in 2002.

Editions

 * ISBN 034542865X; August 2002, Del Rey, 292-Page paperback

Publisher's summary
From the depths of catastrophe, a glimmer of hope.

''After the capture of Coruscant, the mighty heart of the New Republic, a stunned galaxy fears that nothing can stop the Yuuzhan Vong. Still, that crushing defeat produces one small miracle: Jacen Solo is alive. Yet he can scarcely imagine himself in stranger circumstances.''

''The young Jedi Knight is in the care of Vergere, a fascinating creature of mystery and power, her intentions hard to fathom, her cruelties rarely concealed. But this master of inscrutable arts has much to teach the young Jedi&hellip; for she holds the key to a new way to experience the Force, to take it to another level—dangerous, dazzling, perhaps deadly.''

''In the wrong hands, the tremendous energies of the Force can be devastating. And there are others watching Jacen's process closely, waiting patiently for the moment when he will be ready for their own dire purposes. Now, all is in shadows. Yet whatever happens, whether Jacen's newfound mastery unleashes light or darkness, he will never be the same Jedi again&hellip;''

Plot
Jacen Solo is being tortured aboard a Yuuzhan Vong ship and he receives frequent visits from Vergere, who betrayed him to the Vong after he killed the voxyn queen. Vergere begins showing Jacen that there is no dark side in the Force and that the "dark side" is but merely the full power of the Force, and during this, Vergere helps the Vong shape Jacen into one of their own. This process is observed by Executor Nom Anor.

Eventually, Jacen is sent to a Yuuzhan Vong seedship, which is basically the forming of a new planet for the Vong as a home. Jacen becomes the ones to tend the non-Yuuzhan Vong workers developing the ship into a planet, and he begins to have a belief that the cruel non-Vong workers need to die after the death of a Devaronian who was assisting Jacen in an assignment. And just at the beginning of his stay on the seedship, Jacen is implanted with a slave seed in his chest by Vergere to connect him with one of the dhuryams of the seedship. However, it turns out the dhuryam realizes Jacen can't be broken into doing work, so the dhuryam resorts to a mutual partnership with Jacen.

Soon more Yuuzhan Vong forces arrive to the seedship to select to one of the dhuryams for becoming a World Brain, which would be able to take complete independence into controlling a Vong-formed planet in a ceremonial ritual. But Jacen refuses to join the ceremony and the dhuryam allows him to take control of the immature amphistaffs and wear them as armor as he goes through the seedship and causes carnage toward the Yuuzhan Vong and makes all the other slaves attack the Vong with immature weapons, which is as much a danger to them as it is to the Vong. He makes it to the dhuryams and kills every one of them, but when he is about to kill the last one, which happens to be the one he partnered up with, Jacen believes he sees Anakin telling him not kill the dhuryam because of their partnership (all appearances of Anakin Solo here are ambiguous as to whether or not they're real or fake). Vergere convinces Jacen not to kill the last dhuryam, and he falls unconscious.

When Jacen wakes up, he finds he's on the Yuuzhan Vong homeworld of Yuuzhan'tar, and thanks to Vergere, who aids him on his trek to the city capital, he realizes it was once Coruscant now captured by the Vong. Jacen learns that he can sense the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force, a result of the slave seed Vergere had implanted in him on the seedship to make him obey the Yuuzhan Vong. He used this Vongsense to escape Yuuzhan Vong forces on Coruscant. After a confrontation with the Yuuzhan Vong, Jacen and Vergere travel underground Yuuzhan'tar to get underneath what was once the old Jedi Temple that was destroyed after the fall of the Old Republic and the rise of the Empire. Vergere questions Jacen further as to whether or not who he is while blinding him in the dark of the underground. Jacen states proudly he is a Jedi, and Vergere tells him that it was all a game and that Jacen has lost. She reveals he's surrounded by Yuuzhan Vong with Nom Anor. Jacen slips into unconsciousness and unleashes the dark side of the Force on Vergere and the Vong. When confronted by Vergere about it, she argues that there is no difference between the light and the dark sides of the Force: they are all but merely the same.

Jacen leaves Vergere to discover who he is and chases after what he believes to be the spirit of his brother Anakin Solo. However this is a hallucination and Jacen unwittingly enters a cave beast. Inside the belly of the gargantuan animal, he hears a voice, crying for help. He tries to shut it out, believing it another hallucination. Then, to his horror, he realizes that it has a presence in the Force. He tries to rescue a girl crying for help, but to no avail. But when he unleashes the hate inside himself he uses the Dark side to rescue the child. This confuses him and drew his mind back to Vergere's teachings; that the Dark side was simply the Force's unleashed potential. He discovers more survivors, refugees of the conquest of Coruscant. He assumes that they too, were drawn in by illusions and false hopes. Through his confusion though he also finds anger and rage. The refugees have a rule: whoever arrives last in the beast would be sent to feed its ravenous hunger. The girl arrived last, and she was undergoing an execution. The survivors and, most enraging to Jacen, the girl accuse him of being the last and then try to send him on his way to the stomach. Enraged, he drew on the anger he felt and uses the Force to make the animal believe that humans are poisonous, triggering it to forcibly eject all of them. Bereft of their shelter, the survivors would most likely die of Coruscant's many dangers. Lost and confused, he left them and went on.

Jacen arrives at the Solo's now ruined apartment and is saddened by how much things have changed, the home and his life now a perversion of its former self. Shortly after his arrival he was visited by what he thought was (and may have been) Anakin's spirit. This also challenged his thoughts on the Force. The apparition of Anakin engaged in the playful banter they had once shared, and Jacen told him of the things he had done, and also his confusion. Jacen also asked Anakin whether he was real or an illusion. He countered asking Jacen if there was a difference saying that life, like the Force, was all one thing and that there was no difference, akin to Vergere's teachings. Jacen then thought that Anakin really was an illusion and tried to shut him out, falling into a deep depression. Vergere arrived and woke him, once again challenging Jacen's beliefs. They were soon joined by Nom Anor and his entourage of warriors, who confronted Jacen, saying that they believed him to be an avatar of Yun-Yaamka, offering him Anakin's lightsaber if he would convert to the Yuuzhan Vong religion. Jacen agrees, although Nom Anor was unaware that he was lying.

The rest of the story reveals Ganner Rhysode has been searching for Jacen due to rumors of him being alive. On a New Republic camp ship that keeps refugees from the Vong war, Ganner finally confronts Jacen and Vong forces and is captured. After Ganner's capture and sending to Yuuzhan'tar, Jacen reveals he did not truly fall for the Vong ways and he's just acting. But nevertheless, the Vong don't know whether or not they can trust Jacen to be an avatar, and Nom Anor knows exactly of Jacen's acting. However, they still bring Jacen and Ganner to the Well of the World Brain where the Galactic Senate used to be. Jacen and Ganner lock themselves in where Jacen would destroy the World Brain that used to be the dhuryam he partnered up with at the seedship (after Jacen killed all the rest of the dhuryams, his partner was selected to be the World Brain on Yuuzhan'tar) while Ganner would be able to escape. However, Ganner tells he will sacrifice himself to the Vong so Jacen will be able to kill the World Brain in time. So Ganner confronts all the Yuuzhan Vong warriors who come his way and kill nearly all of them, but he dies himself from the wounds inflicted upon him. Meanwhile, Jacen doesn't really kill the World Brain, but just merely convinces it not to make things perfect for the Vong. Vergere, in the meantime, manipulates Nom Anor into revealing his coralskipper that would let him escape in case trouble came to Yuuzhan'tar. Vergere betrays Nom Anor and lets the biological lifeforms trap him while she and Jacen escape to become a third party all on their own in the Yuuzhan Vong War.

Dramatis personae

 * Nom Anor; executor (male Yuuzhan Vong)
 * Ch'Gang Hool; Master Shaper (male Yuuzhan Vong)
 * Tsavong Lah; warmaster (male Yuuzhan Vong)
 * Ganner Rhysode; Jedi Knight (male Human)
 * Jacen Solo; Jedi Knight (male Human)
 * Vergere (female Fosh)

Other characters

 * Ackbar
 * Anakin Solo
 * Chewbacca
 * Tenel Ka Djo
 * Kyp Durron
 * Corran Horn
 * Lowbacca
 * Pillon Miner
 * Danni Quee
 * Luke Skywalker
 * Mara Jade Skywalker
 * Han Solo
 * Jaina Solo
 * Leia Organa Solo
 * Trask
 * World Brain
 * Zekk

Creatures

 * Dhuryam
 * Tauntaun
 * Yammosk
 * Cavern beast

Events

 * Battle of the World-Well

Locations

 * Belkadan
 * Coruscant
 * Jedi Temple
 * Senate Building
 * Duro
 * Myrkyr
 * Sernpidal

Sentient species

 * Bothan
 * Fosh
 * Human
 * Mon Calamari
 * Twi'lek
 * Wookiee
 * Yuuzhan Vong
 * Devaronian

Behind the scenes

 * Jacen Solo's torture and Ganner Rhysode's Battle of the World-Well were included in Star Wars Insider's 20 Most Memorable Moments of the Expanded Universe.
 * Due to the death of Rhysode, the graphic torture scenes, and the introduction of Vergere's views of the Force, Traitor is one of the most controversial EU books among fans.
 * Traitor was the first novel not to feature any character from any of the Star Wars films.
 * It has been suggested by some fans that the book alludes to Dante's Inferno in many respects, such as Vergere's name's similarity to that of Virgil, and how she described herself as Jacen Solo's guide through the land of the dead. In addition, when Jacen allows himself to be taken under the slime to the mouth of the World Brain it is very similar to the Devil in the ninth circle of hell who chews eternally on three traitors. While Vergere and Nom Anor&mdash;both traitors in their own rights&mdash;are not present within the mouth, they are still very nearby, just beneath the slime pool. Matthew Stover has not confirmed that parallels exist between Traitor  and Dante's Inferno.

Cover gallery
This is a gallery of the different cover variations of Traitor.

Notes and references
Verräter Zdrajca Изменник