Tariun Sakaros

The youngest of the Sakaros brothers, the sons of the Sith warlord Tak Sakaros, Tariun Sakaros was a Sith Lord during the New Republic era. A talented Force adept, famous lover, and master of Jar'Kai, Tariun was his father's most loyal agent and his right hand man for decades.

Early Life and Training
In 1 ABY, Tariun was born into a family which could be described as dysfunctional at best; his father was a Sith conqueror, his oldest brother Khrado was constantly criticizing and badgering his other brother Marquand, and within months of Tariun's birth, his mother was decapitated by his father for infidelity. Remarkably, Tariun would grow up to become the most well-adjusted of the three brothers.

While Khrado had disliked Marquand from the onset, viewing him as both weak and a competitor for power, he took a more neutral view toward Tariun due to the ten-year age difference between them. By the time Tariun was four years old, Khrado was fourteen and already an expert lightsaber duelist, so he occasionally assisted his father in training the young Sith. Less powerful than Khrado with the Force, Tariun nonetheless had greater Force potential than Marquand, roughly equal to his father.

After developing formidable skill with a single blade, Tariun, like his brothers, began to search for a more personalized style of combat. He found Khrado's style too incapable of defense, and Marquand's not powerful enough to suit his tastes. Instead, the young man adopted one of his father's preferred fighting styles, Jar'Kai. To him, it seemed the perfect form: twice as many blades, and one could either have double defense, double-offense, or both at the same time. Like Marquand, Tariun bested Khrado once with his mastery of an alternative style.

During his training, Tariun developed a fondness for leisurely activities. Somewhere between irritation and amusement, Tak constantly challenged his son in new and brutal ways, but Tariun always came out successfully, so Tak indulged the boy's hobbies. Tariun was a talented Sabacc player and a fantastic fighter pilot, far better than either of his brothers and nearly as good as his father. He stumbled across his favorite pastime, however, on a mission in the Outer Rim.

The Star-Crossed Lover
In 17 ABY, Tariun was sent to Nar Shaddaa with Khrado to visit Arba the Hutt. While Khrado handled negotiations, Tariun found himself more interested in the Hutt's dancers. Khrado was irritated, but Arba, a very old friend of Tak's, was amused and gave the Twi'lek girl the rest of the night to spend with Tariun. The next morning, the young Sith was a changed man.

On subsequent solo missions throughout the galaxy, in the midst of gathering resources or allies for his father, Tariun would always find at least one woman at every spaceport he stopped in. While his earlier conquests were marked by mixed success, sometimes forcing him to resort to mind tricks, he gradually developed a reputation as a lover that stretched for Nal Hutta to Borgo Prime. When word of this reached Tak from a now-deeply amused Arba, the elder Sith Lord commanded his son to maintain a lower profile and most often sent him in the company of one of his brothers.

However, Tak was quickly forced to admit that Tariun was far better on his own, and often a more useful agent than either of his brothers. He was more ferocious and resourceful than Marquand, but also more subtle and tactful than Khrado. Khrado was a weapon to be used against any enemy; Tariun was a silver-tongued diplomat as much at home wooing useful contacts and trading diplomatic barbs as wielding a lightsaber.

Dorian IV
While the Sith brothers were performing their various missions in training, Tak was leading his armies through the Outer Rim, conquering systems that had once been part of the Sith Empire. In 21 ABY, however, he launched an attack on Cato Neimoidia while the Neimoidians were applying to join the New Republic. Seeing a chance to rid the galaxy of a cadre of dangerous Sith, the Jedi persuaded Republic Chief of State Ponc Gavrisom to agree to the Neimoidian request for a counter-attack.

After the Sith decided to hole up on the fourth moon of the Dorian system, Khrado was assigned to lead the vanguard. Though still a just an apprentice, Tariun was allowed to lead the rearguard, the last line of defense before the fortress in which Tak and Marquand were holding the last redoubt. The battle initially favored the Sith; from his vantage point, Tariun watched gleefully through his electrobinoculars as his brother slew Jedi after Jedi. However, the Jedi finally realized that Khrado was the lynch-pin of the counterattack, and four Jedi Knights attacked him together, slicing him and his lightsaber apart.

His brother's final cry ringing through the Force, Tariun bellowed in rage and led his rearguard in a second attack. He engaged the Jedi, killing a Knight before being struck an injury. Tariun was willing to fight to the death, but was dragged from the field by his father's Massassi general, Kartok. Once inside the fortress, Tariun was unable to prevent the death of his brother Marquand, but escaped with his father to the Sith fleet in orbit. Together, the Sith Lords vanished into hyperspace.

Exile
During their decade of self-exile, Tak and Tariun continued the younger Sith's training, but given his defeat of a Jedi Knight in even combat, it was not long before he was declared a Sith Lord in his own right in 22 ABY. Tak decided to wait out the aftermath of his defeat, letting the Republic focus on other concerns and forget about him. Discontent with sitting around and practicing his Force powers, Tariun traveled the galaxy, spreading his reputation as a connoisseur of alcohol and women. Over the course of a decade, he managed more conquests than even his father.

In the downtime between these more pleasurable pursuits, Tariun occasionally lent his services to Arba the Hutt (with his father's consent), dealing with the gangster's enemies and amassing favors to be later owed to his father. On one such mission, though, he was stunned to encounter his cousin, Adrienne Keane. While she did not return with him to the hidden Sith fleet at the Denarii Nova, she nonetheless provided Tariun with a long-absent connection to family.

Naboo
(Note: Story deviates from canon here with non-acknowledgement of the New Jedi Order series.)

When Tak Sakaros returned to Naboo in 31 ABY, Tariun remained hidden with the fleet; the elder Sith had already lost two sons, and was not eager to lose the only child he had left. However, the appearance of Darth Teeron at Naboo necessitated the intervention of the Sith fleet, which Tariun led into combat. Nevertheless, his identity was not revealed to the Jedi at the time.

After Naboo had been liberated and the Republic presence minimalized, however, Tariun began to become more free with his visits to the planet. On one such visit, though, he was discovered by the Jedi Master Ye`keb Auroras. Tak and Tariun prepared to kill the woman or die trying, but stunningly, she was prepared to keep the secret, so they let her live. It was during this same trip that Tariun first encountered Tak's newest apprentice, Lorelai Whitesun, as well as the Sith Syrth Akai.

In 32 ABY, Tak Sakaros struck a deal with his old ally Gav Daragon to undermine the New Republic. Daragon, leading the Imperial Remnant, declared war, and Tak allied with the Republic. Either way, a Sith would be among the victors, and in place to destroy the Jedi. Over a year of battles in the Outer Rim and Core, Tariun frequently led all or parts of the Sith fleet to "victory" over the Empire. The Imperials grew to fear him and the Republic to appreciate him, though neither side knew his true identity and he was referred to melodramatically as the "Dark Hand of Sakaros".

Things began to fall apart for the Sith in early 34 ABY. Gav Daragon, having touched the dark side too deeply, fell into madness and bequeathed the Empire to Tak, who imprisoned him and cut him off from the Force with ysalamiri to help him recover. However, Daragon escaped and announced his plans to repopulate the Sith through cloning technology, which both Tak and Tariun found reprehensible. The alliance was breaking.

To add to the misery of the Sith Lords, Tak's sister Valadyn returned from Wild Space, bearing the comatose body of Adrienne, who had entered such a state after an alchemical experiment went horribly wrong. Shortly after, Valadyn (who had been poisoned in the same incident) died, driving Tak to grief. The Sith vanished with his niece to put her in hiding, leaving Lorelai, Syrth Akai, and Adrienne's daughter Andromeda under Tariun's protection.

Realizing he was risking his father's displeasure, Tariun nonetheless slept with both Lorelai and Syrth, initially thinking nothing of it. As he spent more time with Lorelai, though, he began to see in the fiery young woman something he'd never encountered in a lover: an equal. Intoxicated, the Sith Lord started an affair with her which would persist, on-and-off, for a long time. When Tak returned and discovered what had happened, he was angry, but dismissed the matter, as he had greater problems, and realized his apprentice's new passion could connect her even more with the dark side.

Hiding Again
When Gav Daragon and Tak Sakaros came to blows, Tariun helped evacuate Lorelai, Ye`keb Millennium, Ye`keb's student Jade Star, and Andromeda off Naboo and into hiding. While Tak went on sabotage and insurgent missions with Lorelai, Tariun kept Andromeda at Denarii, teaching her the basics of the dark side and lightsaber combat. In 38 ABY, Lorelai was proclaimed a Sith in her own right, Tak took Andromeda as his new apprentice, and the roles were reversed; it was now Tariun conducting the raids and assassinations. He personally assassinated two Imperial governors who had hunted his family most ruthlessly, and sent holovids of their (gruesome) deaths to Gav Daragon.

By 40 ABY, nineteen years after the deaths of his brothers, Tariun's existence was still known only to a handful of close allies, and the Sith Lord had Lorelai as his now-consistent lover and the Sith fleet at his disposal. He began to search out an apprentice of his own, having mastered the Force and being eager to mold a mind to his service.

Powers and Abilities
As strong in the Force as his father, Tariun Sakaros was inferior to the elder Sith only in terms of experience, and the expertise it brought. He was a master of the Jar'Kai dueling style, using his own dual-blade variants of Djem So and Ataru. Though capable of using Force lightning, he preferred more creatives methods of combat, such as Dun Moch and performing saber throws with one lightsaber while attacking with the other. As an outgrowth of this skill, he developed skill at telekinetic lightsaber combat, using one lightsaber as a Force-controlled boomerang and fighting two-handed with the other.

Like his father, Tariun was a phenomal fighter pilot, preferring Sith fighters to his father's Z-95 Headhunter Mark II.