Warning: This infobox has missing parameters: parents, pronouns, children, siblings, partners, families, feathers and unrecognized parameters: era
- "I was once a companion to a friend of yours. Yakun."
- ―Tsun Q'el, to Nen Yim
Yakun Kwaad was a male Yuuzhan Vong who was an initiate of the 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
- "Yakun? He was a Domain Kwaad initiate in Baanu Kor?"
"Yes. He introduced me to you once, when you tended the mernip breeding pools together."
"That was before his heresy."
"Yes. Before they took him." - ―Nen Yim and Tsun Q'el
Yakun Kwaad was a male Yuuzhan Vong who was a member of Domain Kwaad and a shaper in service to the Yuuzhan Vong empire. Yuuzhan Vong shapers were essentially scientists, who had been taught to manipulate and improve the biotechnology of the species. An initiate of the caste, Kwaad was at one point present on Baanu Kor, a Yuuzhan Vong Koros-Strohna worldship, where he once tended the mernip breeding pools of the vessel along with a fellow initiate, Nen Yim. At some point during his time on the worldship, he and Nim became lovers.[1]
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.[1]
Legacy
Nen Yim, Yakun Kwaad's lover
- "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 Q'el, lying to Nen Yim
Nen Yim also 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 an attempt to discover the suspected heresy of Yim and Mezhan Kwaad, Master Shaper Yal Phaath dispatched an initiate, Tsun Q'el, to approach Yim while Mezhan Kwaad was absent.[1]
Q'el 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 Q'el 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.[1]
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, forbidden love for one another, of which she possessed strong memories long after his death.[1]
Behind the scenes
Although Yakun Kwaad is only mentioned in Gregory Keyes' 2001 novel The New Jedi Order: Edge of Victory I: Conquest, he plays a role in advancing the plot of the story, as it is through Tsun Q'el'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 and the novel's main protagonists, Shamed One Vua Rapuung and Jedi Anakin Solo. Yim's affair with the heretic shaper also advances her character's backstory.
Appearances
- The New Jedi Order: Edge of Victory I: Conquest (First mentioned)