Sarcev Quest

"Without power, one dies."

- Sate Pestage

Sarcev Quest was one of the Emperor's Hands, an elite cadre of Force-using agents answerable only to Galactic Emperor Palpatine.

Early life
Sarcev Quest began as a Jedi initiate. Failing to find a Master willing to make him a Padawan by his thirteenth year, he entered the Agricultural Corps, the supposed refuge for those who could never make the grade as an apprentice.

It was only with the rise of the Galactic Empire in 19 BBY that Quest was rescued, as he put it, from this monotony. He may have been among the AgriCorps members captured early in the Great Jedi Purge and taken to Byss, where the useful were selected for new roles in the New Order, while the others were left to Darth Vader's mercy&mdash;or lack thereof. At any rate, Emperor Palpatine brought the young Quest into his service.

As one of the early members of the group of dark-siders known as the Emperor's Hands, Quest's function was two-fold. By day, he affected the role of a dashing playboy, and his charm, elegance and natural good looks served him well in this task. By night, he was his Master's eyes, spying on Palpatine's political enemies, such as Seti Ashgad, and Fliry Vorru. Taking full advantage of his skills, he charmed his way straight into a membership in the Imperial Ruling Council, the first dark-sider ever to infiltrate this body.



One of Quest's missions involved serving as the lover of a Force-sensitive woman, Yasinda Bardak. The Emperor had originally planned to train Bardak as another Hand, but she was so indoctrinated in New Order propaganda that she did not believe in the Force. However, the Emperor had other uses for her, and assigned the couple to Tasariq, home of Force attuned crystals. The Emperor was curious as to the impact of the tasar crystals on Force-sensitives, and set Quest to observe the effect on Bardak. To this end, Quest gave her an amulet containing a tasar crystal, and continued to visit her. Her sensitivity to the Force expanded greatly and she began to believe she was going insane, but the Emperor refused transfer requests until his "experiment" was complete.

Quest also fathered a son, Irek Ismaren, to fellow Hand Roganda Ismaren. However, his paternity was downplayed, and Roganda always claimed Irek's father to be Palpatine himself.

Political machinations
After Palpatine died in the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, the Imperial Ruling Council, led by the loathsome Ars Dangor, sought to wrest power from the late Emperor's Grand Vizier, Sate Pestage. Quest opposed his fellows, sabotaging their efforts, but Pestage's own actions turned Quest against him. Seeing the proverbial writing on the wall, Pestage left Coruscant for Byss to immerse himself in his dark side experiments (and oversee the return of Palpatine), leaving a clone of himself to maintain order in his place&mdash;and to take the fall when his enemies moved against him. Quest evidently realized that the switch had taken place, yet went along with it as long as it served his purposes. But when the real Pestage failed to send word to him, and when the rapidly-gestated clone went mad, Quest abandoned it to the ambitions of the Council, and of Ysanne Isard.

Quest suspected that the real Pestage had perished in one of his dark experiments (he could not know that Pestage had actually resumed his place at the side of a resurrected Palpatine, but he soon would). With no check on his ambitions, he began to maneuver within the Council in preparation for an eventual bid for the throne himself. He struck up an alliance with an ambitious, charismatic and Force-sensitive Royal Guardsman, Carnor Jax, teaching him some Force powers in the process. Quest eloquently urging others in the Council to support Jax and won the favor of both the Council and the Royal Guards for his efforts. With these two tentpoles holding him up, he had become more powerful than he had ever been before.

Conspiracy, success, and failure
The sudden return of Palpatine in 10 ABY sent all his six years of work into a tailspin. With no other choice, he reaffirmed allegiance to the Emperor, but he still worked to his own ends. By advocating the "loyal" Guardsman Jax's promotion to the even more elite rank of Sovereign Protector, Quest placed Jax into a position where he could potentially eliminate Palpatine. He also had an ally in the Imperial Ruling Council, which had worked hard to win its current authority and was determined not to surrender it to anyone else, even the Emperor. By skillfully promising a greater share of political power than they would inevitably have under Palpatine, Quest and Jax gained the Council's support, supplying the credits to bribe the Emperor's personal physician to sabotage Palpatine's clones. When the last of the clones expired on Onderon in 11 ABY, Jax seized power, with Quest assuming the leading position on the Council.

Quest took full advantage of Jax's protection, using his power on the Council to eliminate any dissent. But Jax's hold on the throne was short-lived. Out of nowhere, one of Jax's former fellow Guardsmen, Kir Kanos, killed Jax on Yinchorr in 11 ABY. Without Jax to protect his position, Quest was exposed, and the Council moved against him, stripping him of his rank and titles and imprisoning him. It is said that Quest was tortured non-stop for an entire week, during which he screamed in a manner inconsistent with his usual elegance, and was then dumped on Nar Shaddaa like so much garbage.

Capture and death
Quest disappeared without a trace for years, and only rumors of his whereabouts ever came to light. Eventually (circa 22–23 ABY), on the edge of senility, he decided to make a break for it and used one of his lesser-known aliases to book first-class passage on a luxury liner from the Core Worlds to the Corporate Sector. That caught the attention of another former Emperor's Hand, Jeng Droga, who knew about Quest's role in the final death of Palpatine and was determined to avenge his late master. Droga posted a bounty of 100,000 credits for Quest's head, and it was the bounty hunter Ailyn Vel, assuming the Mandalorian armor and identity of her biological father Boba Fett, who hunted down and hauled Quest in. Sarcev Quest was personally executed by the fanatical Droga.

The Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker, kept information on Sarcev Quest in his information database which he accessed this during the Yuuzhan Vong War while researching Irek Ismaren.

Behind the scenes

 * Sarcev Quest's name was taken from the IFBB pro champion and Mr. Universe Miloš Šarcev.
 * The character of Quest was designed around an unnamed character in Tasariq: The Crystal Planet. Peña outlined this connection in the Jedi Council Forums at TheForce.Net.

Appearances

 * Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand