Norvan Cheval

"None can lecture me on the Dark Side. There are few who have known it as I have."

- Norvan Cheval

Norvan Cheval was a male who was, throughout his life, an, a member of various  factions, a member of the  and eventually a member of the. Born on in the aftermath of the, Cheval was raised from childhood to be a servant of the Galactic Empire and its leader,  , who secretly led a double life as Darth Sidious, the. Cheval learned from both Sidious and his apprentice,, and shortly after the was named Hand of the Emperor. Driven by hatred for the, Cheval undertook his duties with ruthless efficiency, mercilessly killing anybody who stood between him and favour with the Emperor. Following the and the death of both the Emperor and Vader, Cheval fled toward the.

At some point, Cheval rendezvoused with  and joined his  against the. However, after the Grand Admiral's defeat, Cheval found himself once again lost. He took to following, seeing him as worthy to lead what remained of the Imperial forces. However, when Pellaeon joined forces with a rift emerged between the two men, born out of Cheval's disdain for Daala. Eventually, Daala's brutality, and the dire situation of the, caused Cheval to abandon the Imperial cause for good, and he became a freelance mercenary and bounty hunter for a short time. Eventually, Cheval encountered Vula Karto, a, who invited Cheval to journey with her to to join the fledgling. Despite being sceptical about the Jedi, Cheval believed that they were the only thing left in the galaxy to give his life meaning, and he requested of  that he be allowed to join the Order. Skywalker agreed, and Cheval's new life as a Jedi began.

Not long after his induction into the Jedi Order, Cheval assisted his fellow Jedi in defeating the forces of the and, later, the. During the Cheval met fellow Jedi Vetta Milan, and the two quickly fell in love. While serving together during the, the two consummated their relationship, a union which produced a son, Asaln, and in 23 ABY, the two married. Their happiness was soon shattered, however, by the onset of the. The war was enormously destructive and trillions of sentient beings died. The New Republic was shattered to its core and was reorganised into the. Though the Galactic Alliance would, eventually, emerge victorious it would take a long time for the galaxy to fully heal.

The following decade was spent rebuilding what had been destroyed in the cataclysmic war against the Yuuzhan Vong, and for Cheval it was also spent teaching his son Asaln, as well as his daughter Bella who had been born during the Yuuzhan Vong War, the ways of the Jedi. Both Norvan and Vetta Cheval had become during the war and were both granted seats on the. The peace proved only temporary, however, when a against a hive of  and their allies in the, though this war was neither as long nor as devastating as the Yuuzhan Vong conflict. , erupted. Originally fought over the desire of the planet to be more independent of the Alliance, the conflict rapidly escalated. Cheval briefly found himself reunited with Gilad Pellaeon at, before the latter's assassination. The war was brought to an end soon after when,. Nine more years would pass before the next great galactic conflict, this time waged by a new Sith Empire. Shortly into the war, Cheval was killed on by Darth Nathemus, the self-proclaimed Emperor of the Sith.

Early Life and Training
Norvan Cheval was born on the ecumenopolitan world of mere weeks after the end of the, a galaxy-spanning conflict that had seen the  transformed into the. Born strong in, Cheval was taken at a young age to the by , where he was trained for years in both   and in the application of the. Officially, Cheval was one of 's personal servants, but this was a ruse deigned to explain his constant presence to the Imperial Court. In actuality, Cheval was trained to become one of the, a position which - like his fellow hands - he believed that he was unique in occupying.

In order to become a Hand of the Emperor, Cheval was put through an intense training regimen, which involved participating in the training of the, learning how to operate as an intelligence agent and learning how to fight with a wide variety of weapons in a wide variety of conditions, including underwater and in zero gravity. In addition to his rigorous training, Cheval formed a telepathic link with Palpatine himself which allowed him to communicate with his master across the galaxy.



Hand of the Emperor
"You will be an extension of my will, the enforcer of my commands, and you will bring terror and death to those who do not obey me."

- Palpatine, describing to Cheval his role as an Emperor's Hand

Cheval thrived during his training as and, after successfully assassinating Thana Lawo, a former member of the, was officially named Hand of the Emperor. This occurred shortly after the and the destruction by the  of the Imperial superweapon called the  - colloquially, the Death Star. Palpatine was eager to use his Hands, Cheval included, to reap revenge on the Rebel Alliance. To that end, he gave Cheval a standing order to find, whose name Palpatine had recently discovered was. The Emperor dispatched Cheval to the ancestral Skywalker homeworld of, where he learned from Doggan, a whose  had once had a vested interest in the Skywalker family, that Skywalker had been friends with a young human named. Tracking down Deacon, Cheval tortured him for information on Skywalker, and learned the names of many of Skywalker's other childhood friends. Cheval hunted them down one by one and tortured each of them for information on Skywalker's life, leaving each one of them alive in the hope that they would inform Skywalker of Cheval's hunt, and thereby draw him out to protect his friends.

Cheval's plan failed to work as he had envisaged, however, and Skywalker refused to allow himself to be drawn out. Forced to adopt a new plan, Cheval retraced Skywalker's steps from Tatooine, visiting first the asteroid field that was all that remained of the planet and then moving on to the, where he arrived in time to participate in the  that was fought between the Empire, the Rebels, a group of pirates and the criminal organisation known as the , who were rapidly gaining power in the galactic criminal underworld. The battle ended in a tactical victory for the Empire, although the Zann Consortium managed to capture datapods that had been jettisoned from the Death Star prior to its destruction. Though Cheval had no way of knowing at the time, these datapods would eventually lead the Consortium to the , which would in turn begin a series of events that would, through the twists and turns of history, lead to the Darkness War.

From Yavin, Cheval moved on to where Skywalker's trail ended. Certain that Skywalker was somewhere to be found, Cheval persisted in his hunt, journeying back to Tatooine in the hope that he might find further information there. However, he was recalled to Coruscant by Palpatine not long afterwards and given a new mission. Vader, he was told, was now hunting for Skywalker, and it would be Cheval's mission now to serve as Palpatine's enforcer on worlds that the Emperor deemed likely to join the Rebellion.