Mara Jade Skywalker (Blyatman1)

"If I had two credits for every rage-blind pro-Imperial sleemo who's told me that." Mara Jade responding to an accusation of treason by a First Order commander during the Hosnian Prime Central Art Museum Hostage Crisis.

Mara Jade Skywalker is a Force sensitive Human female who formerly served as an Emperors Hand before defecting to the New Jedi Order. Born in 11 BBY, during the early years of the Galactic Empire, she was taken from her parents while she was a little girl by agents of Sidious, and would for the rest of her childhood be trained as an assassin skilled in the ways of the Force. As a secret Hand to the Emperor, she carried out the will of the Dark Lord, killing rebels and corrupt Imperials alike with a cold degree of professionalism. Her mission was so secret that not even the Emperor's closest aides knew of her, with the few who did knowing to fear her. Even as a cold calculating Imperial assassin, Jade was not a bad person, acting out the will of Sidious, because she believed what she was doing was right. Palpatine's final order was for her to to kill the son of Skywalker, but the death of the Emperor and disgust with the hardline elements of the Empire caused her to go rogue.

Early Life
Mara Jade was born in 17 BBY, after the birth of the Galactic Empire, during a time of great instability as the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious publicly known as Emperor Palpatine, and Sidious's student Darth Vaderwere eliminating the remnants of the Jedi Order. Identified as Force-Sensitive, the Emperor arranged for Jade to be taken from her parents and for her to begin training in the ways of the Force at a very young age along with several others. Although she was officially known in the eyes of the general public as a dancer working at the Imperial Palace. Years after her separation from her family, Jade could barely remember anything about her early life besides her parents were reluctance to let her go and her own certainty that she was going to leave with the Emperor. She did recall at one point that she had had a falling-star globe as a child and had gotten in trouble after breaking it to see how it worked. Her instructors trained her in the ways of the Force and she was made into an agent of the Empire. Some of the Imperial court assumed her to simply be a dancer or one of Palpatine's concubines.

Hand of the Emperor
Throughout Jade's youth, she was pushed through an intensive training regimen which involved training alongside the Imperial Royal Guard and learning covert espionage and assassination skills, at which she was adept by the age of fourteen and became a Hand of the Emperor, one of Palpatine's personal assassins, after a final test in which she successfully broke into Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin's private quarters. In order to accomplish her mission, Jade, posing as a guest at a formal event at Tarkin's residence, feigned illness in order to get away from the other guests. She then retrieved a sack of equipment and descended down the side of the building to the room containing Tarkin's private safe. While she was breaking in, a group of droid guards came in and she engaged them with her blaster and Lightsaber. However, upon sensing that one of the guards was living, she knocked him out rather than kill a soldier willing to give his life in a training exercise. Vader and Sidious were pleased with her skills and she was pronounced the Hand of the Emperor. Despite there being several Hands, she, like the others, was unaware of the existence of any other Hands or of the Inquisitors. The existence of the former being revealed to her years later would give her the final push toward the light.

Jade carried out Palpatine's will on numerous worlds, eliminating corrupt Imperial officials, traitors, and others who he deemed deserving of death or judgment. His esteem for her was such that he actually allowed her time for relaxation, atypical of Palpatine's usual style. In addition to a personal starship and a protocol droid to aid her in her duties as Hand, she also received a private quarters on Coruscant, where she kept her Lightsaber and a lanvarok for left-handers even though Jade herself was right-handed among the items in her personal weapon collection. Before the Battle of Yavin, the destruction of an Imperial superweapon called the Death Star, she was tasked with gathering intelligence in order to help hunt down any Jedi she found that had survived Order 66. During the years following the Battle of Yavin and preceding the Battle of Hoth, Jade spied on Darth Vader and delivered reports on his actions to the Emperor, even going so far as watching, from afar, his assaults on the rebels. In later missions where she was assigned to discreetly observe him, Jade soon became envious of Vader and sensed a division in him, specifically because she didn't understand the basis of his obsession concerning a young Jedi named Luke Skywalker.

Jade began to hope that Vader would betray the Emperor so that she could kill him and take his place as the Emperor's apprentice. Despite these spy activities, she still performed tasks for Vader himself. Jade was in Palpatine's chamber when Darth Vader brought the Force-Sensitive Lumiya to Palpatine to serve as another Hand. Jade was dismissed from Palpatine's presence before he accepted Lumiya's service, maintaining her illusion that she was the only Hand, but Jade nevertheless sensed immediate hostility from Lumiya. Though Jade's interactions with many of Palpatine's servants were remote, there have been noted accounts when she met with them. Darth Vader, one of the few who knew Jade's true identity, often worked alongside her on the few times when their missions coincided. One of the few high-ranking Imperials who knew Jade's true identity was Thrawn, the only Non-Human Grand Admiral in the history of the Empire. Jade met the Chiss on the day he was promoted to Grand Admiral, in which Palpatine informed Thrawn of her position within his court. Earlier, she and Thrawn had unknowingly worked together against the rebel terrorist Nightswan, who could have been made a great asset of the Rebel Alliance. Mara herself cannot understand why she was never tasked with going after the Ghost crew at this time. She was mildly disconcerted with the news of Thrawns demise at the TIE Defender factory on Lothal and was briefly tempted to pursue Ezra Bridger on her own time but decided better of it.

Path to Redemption
Following the Battle of Hoth, Jade became aware of Palpatine's worries about the young Luke Skywalker, and as an extension of this she was sent to infiltrate Jabba Desilijic Tiure's Palace on Tatooine, disguised as a dancing girl, in order to await Skywalker. While waiting for Luke Skywalker, Jade witnessed C-3PO and R2-D2'sarrival at the palace. Later, after the droid was forced into the Hutt's service, C-3PO met Jade. After a brief conversation, in which she questioned 3PO regarding Skywalker and introduced herself as one of Jabba's dancers, Jade disappeared as C-3PO witnessed the dancing girl Oola's execution. However, a member of Jabba's secret security detail, suspected her of being out to assassinate the Hutt, and attempted to arrest her. Jade turned the tables on the one who suspected her, however, taking her into custody and then using the Force to influence her into shooting one of Jabba's Gamorrean guards. Jade fled down a tunnel and came to a ventilation shaft of the rancor pit. After fighting through three rows of guards, she was able to watch Skywalker kill the Rancor. She then entered the ventilation shaft of the rancor pit using a vibro-ax, and used the Force to open the trapdoor and follow the crowd out to the sail barge.

Though she begged Jabba to let her join him and others at the Dune Sea, a suspicious Jabba instead provided her with a landspeeder and told her to leave and never come back after she tried to use the Force on him. Thus stymied in the attempt to fulfill her mission, she made her way back to a displeased Sidious. Due to Mara's failure to kill Skywalker, the Jedi was present aboard the Death Star during the epic Battle of Endor. Though Mara was not present, she later learned that Skywalker's actions soon led to the redemption of Anakin Skywalker and the death of Palpatine, who Mara viewed as a kindly uncle figure. Not long after the Emperor's death, she was apprehended by two of Director Ysanne Isard's henchmen, who imprisoned her and used intelligence tactics to try and force Jade to aid her in her bid for power. Jade, though, was able to escape from captivity and find passage to a backwater world. After his death, Palpatine arranged for Jade to be given a Sentinel droid with a message carrying his final order for her. His secret order was for Jade to kill Luke Skywalker in retaliation for the destruction of the Sith, filled with guilt she vowed to still kill Skywalker, for that was the Emperor's final command.

However, with both Darth Vader and Darth Sidious no longer giving her direct orders and instructing her in the ways of the Dark Side, she became consumed with bitterness and thoughts of vengeance and upon arriving on Coruscant aligned herself with Galius Tax, Rae Sloane and Brendol Hux due to her desire for revenge on the Rebel Alliance and Luke. However, she soon began to realize the extreme lengths her new cohorts were willing to go and found herself unable to reconcile her conscience with their plans. She was still able to maintain a highly luxurious lifestyle but decided it wasn't worth taking orders from the more fanatic and unstable elements of Imperial command that emerged following the partition of the galaxy, even more so when she discovered they planned to involve her in operations that would purposefully result in mass civilian casualties.

"I'm furious, sure. Despondent, yeah. But you what what I feel most of all Luke? I feel cheap, expendable, about as replaceable as a B1 Battle Droid or some Car Shaddaa hooker!" Mara expressing to Luke her anger over finding out about Palpatines other Dark Side agents.