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- "I was once a companion to a friend of yours. Yakun."
- ―Tsun Qel, to Nen Yim
Yakun Kwaad was a male initiate of the Yuuzhan Vong shaper caste and a member of Domain Kwaad. As a shaper, Kwaad was schooled in bioengineering and the use of the Yuuzhan Vong's organic technology. Rather than observing the strict laws that governed the shaper caste, however, Kwaad deviated from the orthodox approach to shaping and practiced heresy. The young shaper initiate was discovered and executed for his crimes. Up until his death, Kwaad was the lover of fellow shaper Nen Yim.
Biography
Life and death
- Yim: "Yakun? He was a Domain Kwaad initiate in Baanu Kor?"
- Qel: "Yes. He introduced me to you once, when you tended the mernip breeding pools together."
- Yim: "That was before his heresy."
- Qel: "Yes. Before they took him."
- ―Nen Yim and Tsun Qel[src]
Yakun Kwaad was a member of Domain Kwaad, and a shaper of the Yuuzhan Vong. Yuuzhan Vong shapers were essentially scientists, who had been taught to manipulate and improve the biotechnology of the species. An initiate of the caste, he was at one point present on Baanu Kor, a Yuuzhan Vong Koros-Strohna worldship. Kwaad once tended the mernip breeding pools of the vessel along with a fellow initiate, Nen Yim, and at some point he and the female shaper became lovers.
Kwaad, however, was a heretic. The shaper caste was governed by strict laws, and shaping procedure was laid down in a series of protocols, deviation from which was considered heresy. After Kwaad and Yim had become romantically involved, his heresy was discovered. For the Yuuzhan Vong, the punishment for heresy was death, and Kwaad was summarily accused and sacrificed to their gods. Before his execution, he and Yim shared forbidden moments of passion together.
Legacy
- "I knew him well, Adept Nen Yim, in the days after your reassignment. He spoke of you often. He often wished to hear from you, especially near the end."
- ―Tsun Qel, lying to Nen Yim
Nen Yim, too, carried out heresy and, in 26 ABY, did so under the auspices of her similarly heretical master, Mezhan Kwaad, on the moon of Yavin 4. In a conspiracy to discover the suspected heresy of Nen Yim and Mezhan Kwaad, Master Shaper Yal Phaath dispatched an initiate, Tsun Q'el, to approach Yim while Mezhan Kwaad was absent.
Qel inveigled himself into Adept Yim's confidences by talking to her about Yakun Kwaad, and claiming that not only had he been a friend of the executed heretic, but also that Mezhan Kwaad had sent him to Yim to relate the details of Yakun's fate, to prove that Qel could be trusted. Yim trusted the beguiling initiate, chiefly due to his knowledge of her dead lover, and was subsequently exposed, along with her master, as a heretic.
Personality and traits
Yakun Kwaad was a heretic who defied the laws of his caste and species, and was subsequently executed for his transgression. He and Nen Yim shared a passionate love for one another, for which she possessed strong memories of long after his death.
Behind the scenes
Although Yakun Kwaad is only mentioned in Gregory Keyes' Edge of Victory I: Conquest, he plays a role in advancing the plot of the novel, as it is through Tsun Qel's invocation of Kwaad's name that Yim and her master are discovered as heretics, leading to the showdown at the end of the novel between the two shapers at protagonists Vua Rapuung and Anakin Solo. Yim's affair with the heretic shaper also advances her character's backstory.
Appearances
- Edge of Victory I: Conquest (Mentioned only)