Nalrik J'tarr

"I am thinking of the future... when the dark times are going to return...I have seen it in my dreams, I can feel it in the air. When the darkness rises the Jedi will fall. Their order was built to collapse into itself like a house of cards... all it needs is a catalyst. This game of cause and effect has been played before, with Revan, and Malak and Palpatine and Krayt and in the end the Jedi come out strong... But this time I am in control of the board... and their time is running out. And wish... I suffer every second of every minute of every hour until that dark day to feel the same thrill as I do every time I kill a one of their miserable, pathetic kind. The thrill I get when I can see the fear of pain and loss in their eyes. And I swear to the Force itself, whenever I see that; the chaos, the horror, and my blood-drenched hands upon releasing their cold dead bodies, I feel more alive than ever before."

- Darth Echo

Darth Echo, born Nalrik J'tarr in 4,020 BBY and renamed in 3,956 BBY, was a ruthless Dark Master of the Sith from 3,956 BBY up until his presumed death in 491 ABY. Vicious, brutal, horrifying, and disturbing were just a few words to describe his actions. His former tendencies to kill in brutal ways came through to his new life and, with his new powers, were enhanced in more ways than one.

Early Life
Nalrik J'tarr was a Trandoshan Jedi four thousand years before the Rise of the Empire. He was born on Trandosha, one of twins, his identical brother was named Trossk. His father always knew his first-born son was always attuned with the Force, and he didn't want to lose him to the Jedi. Upon being born, a force-sensitive was always taken from his or her parents and trained in the Jedi ways and never sees said parents again. Knowing that the Order was coming for their son ten years before, Yal'ssk J'tarr took family and fled to a planet where they would live in peace. Unbeknownst to him, the Jedi knew exactly where he and his family lived, and it was only a matter of time. On one stormy night, a Jedi craft landed outside his home and the Jedi within took it upon themselves to enter the building. When Yal'ssk attacked the group, they tried to warn him that the Sith had planned to use Nalrik for their own ways. He refused to listen and was accidentally struck down by a lightsaber. Following this, Nalrik's mother tried to sneak the children outside a hidden door in the house but was knocked out by a falling piece of rubble. When she awoke, she found that her sons were taken by the Jedi. Not much is know about her after that.

Nalrik nor Trossk had any memory of the event.

Nalrik immediately began the life of a Jedi in the Coruscant Temple and was trained under Master Veshin Drenak, an Alirar from the edge of the Galaxy. Veshin wanted to take on Nalrik's twin brother Trossk J'tarr as a Padawan Learner as well, as he had sensed a hint of the Force in the child. Unfortunately, the Council dismissed the idea and worse yet, they had Nalrik and his brother separated from each other. Trossk would only be able to see his own flesh and blood for one day every year, while the former was sent to an academy to become a pilot without Jedi training. This angered Nalrik to no end, who questioned the teachings of the Order. Nevertheless, he eventually learned to deal with the Masters' decision whether he liked it or not. When he was in his teens, Nalrik met a young man named Revan who, along with another padawan named Malak, was looking through restricted files in the Jedi Archives. Nalrik tried to stop them, but Malak force-pushed him headfirst into a wall and knocked him out cold. He woke a few weeks later with no memory of the attack, and no record ever surfaced of anything happening in that room. A few weeks passed and the young Trandoshan’s memory grew worse. He eventually tracked down Jedi Master Vandar on Dantooine who told him that he would have to enter a Force-sensitive cavern on Naboo to regain control of his thoughts. He reluctantly agreed and traveled to the planet. During his trek through the cave, Nalrik entered a small room that contained a single shrine. The young padawan kneeled down before it and calmly placed his lightsaber before him as a token of good faith. After a few minutes, the shrine opened to reveal a simple black robe with a single, cryptic word burned into the back; "Echo". He dropped the robe back into the shrine and ran out of the cavern, never looking back.

Loss on Dantooine
Aside from being reunited with his brother, Nalrik always had one goal in life; to go to his homeworld of Trandosha. Seeing as how he was a padawan, he could only leave Coruscant if he were on assignment with his Master or if his master accompanied him. Knowing this, he constantly begged Veshin to take him to his homeworld but the Alirar Master could not allow it, for if he were to step foot on the planet his personal attachment for Trandosha would grow beyond control. Eventually, Nalrik had convinced his master to take him there. But they could not go until Veshin shown himself before the council. When Nalrik was a padawan at 20 years of age, Veshin was expelled from the Jedi Order for marrying and fathering a child. Nalrik was furious at this, telling the Councilmen in the Enclave on Dantooine that his master was innocent, but the Council declared otherwise. While Veshin decided to leave the Order without incident, he asked the council one last request; to train Nalrik in the ways of becoming a Jedi Knight. After the meeting, Nalrik and Veshin returned to their shuttle and Veshin boarded it, saying that the council needed Nalrik to stay on Dantooine to complete his training. Unfortunately, Nalrik never saw his master alive again, as while Veshin left Dantooine to return to Coruscant a Sith Vessel disguised as a Mandalorian Mercenary ship destroyed his transport, killing him and four other Jedi knights. Over the next year, Nalrik had slowly begun to be trained in the ways of the Jedi, but the sadness in losing his oldest friend hampered his trainings, almost to the point where he was about to leave the Order himself.

Echoes of the Future
"The final task of the trials is for a Jedi to see the reflection their future. Your feelings of my Death will not hamper you in the next decade, or the next century or millennium. If you put yourself in that situation you will fall to the dark side, and if that happens I am afraid I will not be able to help you..."

- Veshin Drenak

One year after the death of his master, Veshin came to Nalrik in a dream and told him of the future that would happen if he fell to the Dark Side. His fall "would send an echo in he force so powerful that the very resonance of it would be felt by every living being across the galaxy". Nalrik then woke up to his friend Jak Olren shaking him awake, then telling him to meet Master Vandar to discuss the final test of becoming a Jedi Knight: The Trial of the Spirit. On their way to meet the Jedi Master, Jak and Nalrik encountered a dead Kath Hound hanging from a tree. Nalrik and Jak looked at each other with worry before a squad of Mandalorians drove out of nowhere and attacked them. Before Jak could do anything, Nalrik swiftly killed two of the Mando's and disabled the third. Instead of sparing his life, Nalrik quickly took one of his lightsabers and stabbed the Mandalorian leader in the heart.



Nalrik and Jak eventually made their way to Vandar's private hut, where the Jedi Master told them about the Dark Side cavern nearby, where a Jedi Padawan killed himself to prevent his future from happening. The two Padawans looked at each other with worry before entering. When Nalrik entered his side of the cave, he arrived at a large room lined with torches and jagged walls. In the middle was a small mirror. Nalrik walked over to the mirror and questioned his destiny, only to have his own voice come back.

"Your future is a wheel that will not stop turning. You cannot stop it, you cannot even slow it. The wheel will reach it's destination eventually and when it does, YOU will be the one driving it, who leaves everything crushed and decaying in your wake. You will destroy"

- Darth Echo's voice to Nalrik J'tarr

Afterwards, Nalrik left the cavern. Vandar sensed something was wrong, but the young Trandoshan lied to him, saying that everything was perfect. Having no choice, Vandar and the Masters promoted both Nalrik and Jak to Jedi Knights, and let them battle in the upcoming war.

Jedi Civil War
"Many Jedi believe that I am unfit to be a Knight, and many other Jedi think I shouldn't even be in the Order. Those Jedi, they have no idea what they are talking about.

Those sad, ignorant little people."

- Nalrik J'tarr's Personal Log

Nalrik fought in the Jedi Civil War in a way to proclaim justice for his Master's death, as he came to the conclusion that it was the Sith who killed his master and not the Mandalorian as he had initially thought. Despite this, he still had feelings of distrust towards the Mandalorian race because of their attacks on the Dantooine Enclave. During the war, Nalrik realized that as he fought his combat skills thrived faster than his Jedi Training. In a duel on Rataak, Nalrik faced off against a Human Sith Apprentice named Darth Kabal. The fight lasted an hour, at the end of which Nalrik gave into his dark side tendencies and slain Kabal by using the Force to crush his lungs, then stabbing him through the head and heart with his two lightsabers. In the Battle of Dantooine, Nalrik swiftly moved through burning fields and annihilated groups of Sith Troops without hesitation and without remorse, crushing tanks and ships and entire cruisers with his near-mastery of the Force. Near the end of the war, Nalrik played a crucial part in a battle on Trandosha, where thousands of Sith troopers invaded his homeworld-- In the city of Daviir, he was in a building, surrounded by Sith Troopers and all alone. Unable to escape, he walked outside and activated his lightsabers, twirling around in a circle until he looked by a blue/green disk. When the troops began firing at him, his lightsabers absorbed the blaster fire, rather than deflecting it. When he stopped spinning, his blue and green sabers were bright red, and he "echoed" the blaster fire ten-fold back at it's respective sources. He then leaped high into the air spun around collecting Force Energy, and slammed into the center of the troops, forming a massive crater and a shockwave that shattered bones, windows, tanks, and buildings. This "Force Devastation" became his most effective weapon against the Sith during many battles, but some Jedi believed that it was fueled by hatred, a belief that would prove to be troublesome to the young Jedi Knight and his hopes. When he returned to Coruscant declared a hero for many victories, the Jedi overlooked it all, instead looking at the Force Devastation that he used to proclaim his wins. With that, the Council refused his only request to see his brother again, as the two had been separated for years. An enraged Nalrik took out his lightsabers and began slowly spinning around, but came to his senses and stopped, dropping his weapons on the floor and leaving the room. The witnessing council declared that he was unfit to be a Jedi and had planned his Exile Ceremony, but it would have to be after an upcoming battle that would need his abilities: The attack on the Star Forge.

Path of Darkness
During the Battle of the Star Forge at the end of the Jedi Civil War, J'tarr was attacked by Sith Troops who boarded his ship, the Legacy Fight. After a short battle, J'tarr was incapacitated and captured. Days later he awoke in a small cage in a Kelorian Asteroid medical facility with Sith science officers overlooking him. The officers removed him from the cage and latched him into a table, where they tortured him for months on end. They twisted his mind, brainwashed him, making him blame the Jedi for Veshin Drenak's death as well as fueling his thoughts of the Council's refusal to let him see his brother, among other things. With his mind filled with hatred and vengeance, Nalrik crushed the steel latches holding him to the table and killed the two officers by twisting them in half with the force. With his immense power killing everything on board in his path, J'tarr left the facility, using his Force training to cause the asteroid to collapse inward into itself, killing hundreds of innocent workers who were there to mine deposits of Jasca crystals. Because of his torture and his boiling hatred, Nalrik became a broken, confused Trandoshan. He wandered the galaxy for a dozen years, not knowing what to do or where to go. Finally, he returned to the Coruscant Temple where the council knew he was a changed person. They looked upon his face and his walk, and saw deep into his feelings and thoughts. Before he could even speak to them, they dismissed Nalrik, and told him to leave. They knew why he had come there and couldn't tell him that his brother Trossk was killed in a botched attack on the planet of Korriban. Not knowing what to do, the young Trandoshan boarded a shuttle and left the planet. Many months later, Nalrik crash-landed near a Sith Academy hidden in the foliage of Kashyyyk's moon Alpha Prime. When the three Grandmasters of the Academy approached him, Nalrik saw them not as Sith, but as the councilmen who refused to hear him out--he killed them using his powers instantly. Fueled by rage and insanity, he made his way to the nearby temple and walked inside. Furious, unstoppable, and driven to destroy the Jedi, Nalrik fiercely made his way to the central tower of Exar Kun, absorbing the energy off of it, which caused a unstable shift in the Force. The Academy shook violently and exploded, sending a massive fireball straight into the sky and killing hundreds of innocent Wookiees in a echoing shockwave. Nalrik resided with the ruins of the academy for days, meditating and such. When he emerged, Nalrik J'tarr was no more and Darth Echo was born. He lost so many memories of his past life that he had even forgotten his own brother, who's separation from him was half the reason he turned. He began his life-long conquest where he began his new life as Sith, in the destroyed academy on the half-destroyed moon. Echo sensed a tremor in the Force that brought him underground to a library of Sith Holocrons. He stayed there for hours, overlooking every single detail in the preserved room. Then, he stumbled upon a small paper scroll that emanated a very powerful Force signiature. He traced it back to it's source: Ruins of a Temple Shrine buried deep underground, near the moon's very core. Apparently, a Ssi-Ruu Sith Lord named Darth Phoenix had learned the ability to live forever, and was only defeated when his sprit was separated from his body. Upon reaching Phoenix's Shrine, Darth Echo read a more elaborate version of the Scroll and learned an ability never before seen since the days of the Ssi-Ruuk Sith Lord.

Immortality.

Life as a Sith Lord
Ten years after he became Sith, Darth Echo returned to rebuilt Jedi Enclave on Dantooine to find evidence against the Jedi for Veshin's death. When he searched for hours and couldn't find anything, he went into a rage and began attacking the Jedi. He walked through the halls, slicing apart young padawans. Eventually, he faced off against his old friend Jak, who couldn't believe what had happened to him. After a few minutes of trying to revert Echo, Jak Olren armed his lightsaber and readied himself for the Duel. It was a cakewalk for the ruthless Sith Lord, who used a more enhanced, lightning imbued form of his Force Devastation to destroy not only Jak but the Enclave, a hundred Jedi and Padawans, and half the continent they resided on. Alone and without a ship, Echo kneeled before the scarred landscape and meditated. Eventually, Darth Echo retreated to the shadows without a trace and for a very long time. He first reappeared in 3,750 BBY, 250 years after his renaming, when he killed hundreds of Republic troops on the then-unknown world of Geonosis. He killed them so fast and so swift that no one had a chance to report him. Therefore, no one in the galaxy knew he was there. Four days later a Republic transport vessel was sent to Geonosis to investigate and it was never seen again. By that time the Republic had definitely suspected something was up, so they sent an elite group of Jedi Knights equipped with stealth field generators to investigate the deaths. They arrived on Geonosis and set up camp at their landing site, surrounded by motion sensing devices and heavy turrets. One dark night, however, Darth Echo made his way past the sensors and turrets. With his Trandoshan infrared vision, he slowly picked off the cloaked Jedi one-by-one. Only one Jedi managed to escape and reported the attack to the Council. Due to maintaining secrecy to prevent panic and further deaths from deranged bounty hunters searching the galaxy, Darth Echo remained in the shadows. However, 2,000 years after killing the Jedi on Geonosis, Darth Echo appeared on a HoloNet transmission declaring himself a Master of the Sith. The Jedi, seeing him as a very great threat, hunted him down to no avail. After a while they decided to write him off as a hoax to prevent panic in the Galaxy. Even after this, however, he was still impossible to catch, more so that the Jedi never even caught glimpses of him. When they neared him, he returned his eye color, his skin color, and his pale face back to the way he looked before he turned to Darkness. He even used an advanced form of the Mind Trick on Jedi, making them believe they never saw anything. Over the next years, Echo became a Sith Assassin, killing people he believed needed to die anyway. It was one of these missions that sealed his fate as a Dark Lord of the Sith...

Redemption
In the year 230 BBY, Darth Echo met a young Trandoshan woman named Kortha Zachrit when he returned to Dosha to assassinate an unwelcome Senator. After he killed the senator he ran out of the building, running into the scared woman. Seeing her as a witness, he almost killed Kortha before he stopped himself, running off into the darkness. A month later, The two met again, only this time Echo was in his Nalrik J'tarr form. The two spoke with each other for hours on end before Darth Echo left. The next day Nalrik came up to her again and the two talked even longer. It wasn't long before the two went out on dates and eventually married. In his first time of happiness in a long, long time, Nalrik J'tarr buried his blood-stained robe and turned away from the Path of Darkness, even giving up his immortality to be with his new wife. Over the next three years, Nalrik and Kortha J'tarr lived on Dosha, even parenting a child named Vosha. Nalrik finally realized that his life was complete, but the good times did not last long as In the year 207 BBY, a Jedi master named Jaxor Dezali learned of Darth Echo's identity. He went to Dosha to destroy the then-redeemed Dark Lord. On one fateful night, Kortha was killed when the Jedi attacked her home, believing the Ex-Sith lord to be alone at his family estate. Without searching the location, four Jedi Knights who were led by Dezali used the Force to crush the area around the building, fatally wounding Kortha. The Jedi left the area without searching for her body. Nalrik and Vosha returned to their home to find it destroyed. Nalrik ran into the remains of the building to help his wife but she was too close to death. The moment she died Nalrik felt a familiar sound: the echo in the Force that called to him before. He walked out and looked at his daughter. He told her of his past.

He told her everything.

Nalrik J'tarr died again that night and Darth Echo was reborn. Vosha joined her father in his bloody quest of hatred and suffering. She named herself Darth Banshee, and trained herself into adapting Force Scream power, a power magnified by Darth Echo's teachings. Darth Echo himself taught his daughter his secret to immortality, a power known as Force Phoenix and told her that she was the first apprentice in his new Order.

Path of Vengeance
Darth Echo and Darth Banshee moved across the galaxy, locating Trandoshan and Kaleesh infants and padawans who were capable of Corruption. One such being was nether a Jedi or Sith, but a fatally wounded Kaleesh soldier named Helorn Jal Greegen. Darth Echo appeared before the dying Kaleesh and told him in exchange for immortality, the young soldier would have to kill over a hundred Jedi. Helorn agreed and Darth Echo named him Darth Kalas. Over the next two hundred years Darth Echo and Darth Banshee trained nine Sith Apprentices into the ways of the dark side and gave them the secret of Force Phoenix. Over the next thousand years, Darth Echo and his Sith Order had begun to spread terror across the galaxy, killing every single Jedi who crossed their paths. Five months before the Battle of Naboo, Darth Echo had sent his most favored apprentice Darth Karja, to assassinate Master Yoda. "The power of the Sith derives from passion... anger. Use these wisely and you will surely be victorious."

- Darth Echo to Darth Karja

But the trained master was too powerful for him. Karja lost an eye as well as a hand in the fight. After realizing that he taught his apprentices was useless against an enemy that has trained for thousands of years against the Sith, Darth Echo and his followers retreated back into the shadows, and their fleet drifted harmlessly past the outer rim. Only a few years afterward did Echo return with a single agenda. With no help from his followers, Darth Echo returned to the Galaxy to destroy strategically placed Mandalorian camps on the barren, lifeless planets across the outer rim. His first attack, in 18 BBY, had him cross paths with a powerful Jedi padawan: He arrived on Telos IV's Citadel Station to assassinate a High-ranking ambassador from the planet Mandalore who was visiting there. He snuck on board the station and quietly entered the Mandalorian's Residential Compound. Swiftly, Echo crept up to his target and snapped his neck, then just as quickly left. As he was departing, Echo saw a young padawan with an aged Whiphid Jedi. Without even saying a word, he walked into an unpowered hangar and flew away in his customized (and stolen) Jedi Starfighter. He would not see him for many years, and then never again.

The Restoration War
Nearly five hundred years after they hid themselves away, Darth Echo and his Sith Order returned from the unknown regions of the Galaxy to reap their vengeance upon those who shunned them. Echo's reasoning behind this is that he has seen the Jedi Order fall numerous times, and that he can finally return to finish them off. With the help of a powerful rebuilt Sith Artifact known as the Star Forge, advanced cloning tanks built forcibly by the Kaminoans, and an endless fleet of massive battle cruisers designated "Advents", constructed specifically for him by the Collicoids, Darth Echo had everything he needed to dominate the entire galaxy and rule it with an iron fist. In that time, he approached a Trandoshan-only group named the J'korr and told them that the then-rulers of the Galaxy were going to mass Genocide the entire planet of Trandosha and use the remains of the planet as a staging ground for their troops (a statement that would turn out to be untrue.). This led to a massive Trandoshan revolt that would lead to a massive battle between the J'korr and the newly-formed Restoration Alliance. Around 460 ABY, Darth Echo simply waited and watched as the J'korr forces crushed the Republic Capital of Coruscant, bringing an end to the J'korr high command. Darth Echo himself had assassinated all the leaders of the mercenary group and took control of it. Thirty years later, around 490 ABY, the Restoration Alliance had grown to their fullest extent and had begun guerilla strikes on key J'korr planets. Eventually, the Alliance forces had mustered all their troops and attacked Coruscant itself, retaking the planet. Unfortunately during the battle the personal starfighter of Darth Banshee, Darth Echo's own birth-daughter, was shot down over the planet and slammed into a RA battle cruiser. The death of his daughter sent Echo down a new path of vengeance much like the one he walked after the death of his wife so long before.

"This galaxy will feel my vengeance... it will taste my power... from now on every time my name is spoken it will be used to define the ultimate power in the universe... forget the long-forgotten teachings of the old Sith Order- THIS is personal, and come hell or high water the entire galaxy will know my name and DREAD it."

- Darth Echo

The Final Battle
Main Article: Battle of Coruscant (DESC)

In 491 ABY, Darth Echo used his fleet of Advents to strike at the heart of Coruscant along with the Star Forge. He positioned thousands of ships along the equator, and told them that when he gave an order, all the ships were to fire at the same time. With this, the armada would penetrate the crust and cause a massive amount of earthquakes along the planet, before finally diving the capitol completely in half. One half would spiral into the sun, and the other would crash into a nearby planet. Over time, the altered gravitational forces would cause the orbit of the Coru system to collapse, killing trillions and many more in a massive gravitational wake that would spread all across the galaxy. Luckly, the plan failed when the Restoration Alliance attacked the Star Forge. At around the same time, the J'korr realized that Darth Echo was using them for his own gain and attacked his Advent. Darth Echo was being attacked at both fronts, but he gave the order anyway, the Advents charged their weapons and fired. The battle raged on outside and Darth Echo smiled as the Advent lasers began digging into the crust of Coruscant, his plan was almost complete, but a single RA Battle Cruiser piloted by the long time descenant of Jak Olren flew close to the advent ring on the other side. Echo realized what was happening but it was too late, as the Battlecrusier intentionally flew too close directly into the Advent's main laser canon. The resulting explosion wiped out the ship and the shrapnel flew into the advent at both sides, resulting in a chain reaction. The semicircle of equator-lined ships exploded in tandem and the massive blast reached Echo's flagship, disrupting the core. The Sith Lord smiled and waited, and on the first day of 491 ABY, Darth Echo and all his Generals were killed at once, bringing an end to four thousand years of pain and suffering. After his death, the battle of Coruscant wound down.

Victory over the Sith
On Coruscant, the Restoration Alliance and the J'korr cheered and celebrated over Echo's death. The Jedi Council honored the fallen heroes who sacrificed themselves to destroy the Sith Lord once and for all. Finally, there was peace in the Galaxy, Echo was dead, and his war was over. Unbeknownst to them, however, there was another Sith Lord waiting in the wings.

Force Powers
Darth Echo's powers were considered to be the morally darkest abilities ever recorded in Galactic history. One such power was known as Force Phoenix, which gave him almost God-like immortality. His favorite powers to use against enemies, however, were Force Crush, Force Storm, Force Destruction, Death Field, and Force Insanity.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Echo in the Force