The Essential Guide to Force Exile/Selusda Kraen

If you had told Seludsa Kraen at age nineteen that he would end up accomplishing something the entire Jedi Order hadn't managed in centuries, he probably would have shaken his head and told you that you had the wrong person. Born as the second son of a lawyer father and teacher mother in 38 BBY, Selusda was taken from his parents at a young age when it was discovered that he was Force-sensitive. His parents regretfully let him go, knowing it was for the best, but they also knew they would never see their son again.

Selusda, or Selu as he was more commonly called, was taken to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant for training. Due to the eidetic memory he possessed, academics came easily to him, and he was expected to become a Jedi historian, as he was otherwise considered an average student. However, the aftermath of the Invasion of Naboo saw a need for more Jedi Knights to actively police the Republic and Selu saw his history classes replaced by unarmed combat and lightsaber techniques. At age thirteen, he was accepted as a Padawan by Kel Dor Jedi Council member Plo Koon. Selu's teen years were filled with training, but he also found time to make several friends his age who were also training to become Jedi Knights. Serra Keto, a human female, and the Tynnan Skipper were special comrades of his, though holos have also been found with those three as well as Bairdon Jace, Cal, and Aubrie Wyn, three other Human Padawans.

Selu's life was drastically altered in 22 BBY with the outbreak of the Clone Wars on Geonosis. Though he didn't accompany Mace Windu's strike force to Geonosis, the Clone Wars saw him participating in a number of battles, including the Battle of Rendili and the Battle of Boz Pity. Selu was no prodigy with a lightsaber or with the Force, though, and his particular talents had little use in the bloody killing fields of the Clone Wars. For that reason, he wasn't given any solo missions, typically being assigned on missions with his master, Plo Koon, one of the more formidable Jedi of that era, or remaining behind at the Jedi Temple to conduct analyses of battles, which he proved proficient at doing. His group of friends was not so lucky, as both Aubrie Wyn and Cal fell in combat.

The Battle of Boz Pity initially saw Selu participating from a starfighter, but he was shot down, crash-landing on the planet. Evading Separatist droid patrols, Selu was rescued by an ARC trooper, Alpha-28 "Spectre", who conducted him back to the Republic lines. Selu spent several days with Spectre and the two became close comrades. Before he could be re-united with his Master, the outpost fell under attack from droid gunships. Staying to help defeat the gunships, Selu then remained at the outpost until all the clones could be evacuated, returning to meet up with Plo Koon afterward. By then, most of the fighting on Boz Pity was done, and the two returned to Coruscant.

On Coruscant, Selu continued in his Jedi training and was eventually granted an opportunity to take the Jedi trials. He would not have ordinarily been chosen for such a test, but the Republic was desperate for more active Knights. Selu passed his tests and was granted the rank of Jedi Knight, one of the happiest moments in his life. However, not long afterward, the Separatists attacked Coruscant and Selu was thrust headlong into the fray that developed, battling fiercely to fend off the attackers. His fighter was once again shot down and he continued to fight on the ground, but sustained heavy injuries trying to protect three Senators-Bail Organa, Padme Amidala, and Mon Mothma from droid starfighters. He was conducted back to the Jedi Temple and spent some time convalescing. Shortly after he recovered, though, Anakin Skywalker betrayed the Jedi Order and led an attack on the Jedi Temple. Selu once again found himself on the defensive, but the bloodbath that followed took the life of his friend Skipper. At that point, Selu tried to escape the Temple, but before he could, he encountered a badly injured Serra Keto. With her dying breath, Keto urged him not to fall to the dark side like Anakin and told him that she loved him. Heartbroken, Selu escaped the Temple into the Coruscant night.

While he was wandering through the cityscape, he was found by his older brother, Sarth Kraen, an engineer and freighter crewman who was in Coruscant on business. Sarth took him in, giving him a place to stay, but soon Selu was forced to protect his brother. A pair of Mistryl commandos kidnapped Sarth, but Selu was able to kill them and rescue Sarth after a prolonged chase through the skyways of Coruscant. Soon thereafter, they met up with R'hask Sei'lar, Sarth's employer and the captain of the light freighter Hawk-bat. Selu got a job as a pilot with Sei'lar and proved his worth. After an initial cargo run to Bespin, the ship ran into trouble in the Corellian system when pirates attacked. Thanks to Selu's skills, they were not able to escape, but instead routed the pirate force. Selu was later questioned by Corellian Security officer Hal Horn, who was suspicious of him, but Selu drew on Horn’s relation to Jedi Master Nejaa Halcyon to persuade the law officer to let them go.

Selu continued to serve with the Hawk-bat for several months. Eventually, the ship landed on Commenor and he and Sarth were re-united with their parents&mdash;a strange experience indeed for Selu. However, the Mistryl were relentless in their pursuit of Sarth and Selu once again fended off a pair of kidnappers in a short but brutal brawl at the Kraen residence. This time, however, he didn't escape unharmed, and was taken by R'hask Sei'lar and his first mate, Jorgesoll Knrr, to a medical facility on New Holstice to recover. Before he left, he was re-united with Spectre, who was now working as a private security. Selu was suspicious of Spectre at first due to the clones’ attack on the Jedi Temple, but the two made up, with Selu going so far as to entrust the safety of his family to Spectre while he was away. After he healed, he sensed the presence of another Jedi. Following his perceptions, he encountered Jedi Master Quinlan Vos. Selu stayed with Vos for a couple weeks, as Sei’lar and Knrr had disappeared on business, receiving guidance from the Jedi Master. However, Sei'lar and Knrr were attacked by the Empire for aiding dissidents on Naboo. In a firefight, Sei'lar was killed before Vos and Selu could arrive. The two Jedi quickly dealt with the stormtroopers and Selu, taking over for the shell-shocked Knrr, decided it was a good time to get off New Holstice. En route to his ship, though, he was contracted by the mysterious underworld Car’das Syndicate to help bring down the Mistryl, which he reluctantly agreed to do. Using an esoteric Force power, he was able to reach the spaceport and the Hawk-bat, only to find that it had been boarded by ship thieves. Furthermore, he discovered another stowaway, a runaway Echani mercenary named Milya Tayrce. Selu teamed up with Tayrce to defeat the ship thieves, but realized he needed a diversion to get the Hawk-bat off the planet. Leaving Knrr to take the freighter into orbit, Selu, Vos, and Tayrce attacked and captured a group of Imperial ships landed in the spaceport. In orbit, Selu and his comrades disabled an Imperial Carrack-class cruiser and made their escape, with Selu convincing Tayrce to accompany them and join their crew. Also at this time, Selu saved the memory moths that were part of a Jedi memorial on New Holstice from destruction by releasing them into the wild, where they would be impossible to hunt down.

From New Holstice, Selu took Quinlan Vos to Nar Shaddaa, where Vos hoped to locate his wife, Khaleen Hentz. Instead, he found an acquaintance of his who agreed to take him to meet Hentz elsewhere. After bidding Vos farewell, Selu returned to Commenor to find that the Mistryl had been relentlessly attacking Sarth and his family in an attempt to kidnap him. Upon his return, Selu disguised himself as Sarth and turned himself over to the Mistryl, bringing along a device the Car’das Syndicate had told him was a powerful computer capable of slicing into the defense network of the Mistryl homeworld of Emberlene in order to bring it down. Selu was taken back to Emberlene, along with another captive scientist, Jenna Zan Arbor, but Zan Arbor was far more amenable to working for the Mistryl, who were currently expanding their borders with aggressive military action.

On Emberlene, Selu activated the computer core after being brought to the Mistryl Matriarch. The core allegedly held droid designs and codes the Mistryl could use in their arsenal, but it was actually a fission bomb. Before it could detonate, though, Selu found himself confronted by Mistryl Shadow Guards. Furthermore, he suddenly found himself facing Dark Jedi Asajj Ventress, who had fought against the Jedi during the Clone Wars and had somehow become aligned with the Mistryl. Selu dueled Asajj, but the Dark Jedi soon gained the upper hand and she disarmed Selu. At that point, the Hawk-bat arrived, and Sarth, Spectre, and Milya came to save him with a pair of freshly reprogrammed destroyer droids to chase off the Dark Jedi. Ventress fled and the three carried the injured Selu back to the Hawk-bat just as the bomb detonated. Months later, Selu would blame himself for the deaths of millions he had caused in an attempt to stop the Mistryl from pursuing his brother. An attacking fleet of mercenaries finished off the job on Emberlene, devastating the planet.

Selu eventually recovered from his injuries and the emotional scars, returning to Commenor. There, he celebrated the end of Mistryl harassment with his family. Shortly thereafter, he was voted as the new captain of the Hawk-bat after Jorge left the ship, though he and his crew also worked as privateers for the right price and cause. They continued in this line of work for about a year, with Selu serving as the captain of the ship. However, while carrying a cargo of industrial explosives-actually legitimate in this case-the Hawk-bat found itself pursued by an Imperial Victory-class Star Destroyer, the Corrupter. Though his ship beat off the initial assault, Selu was forced to make a blind jump into hyperspace.

The Hawk-bat emerged in Wild Space near a sizable nebula. Setting down on a planetesimal in the nebula, Sarth and Selu tried to make repairs to the ship, but Selu sensed a disturbance in the Force. Investigating, he found that it came from a cleft in the rocky surface of the planetesimal. He and the crew of the Hawk-bat climbed down to investigate and soon found a refuge that had been cloaked from view, wherein eleven spirits of Jedi from millennia prior dwelt. Their leader, Revan, told Selu and his comrades that they were destined to reunite the Force exiles and provide a refuge against the Empire, but Selu was unwilling to accept this destiny at first. Eventually, though, he agreed to undertake the quest. He and his friends, newly imbued with Force power from Revan’s refuge, spent the next few months training there, but the arrival of an Imperial scout ship changed all that. Taking the Hawk-bat, Selu and his friends captured the vessel, the Observant, and the crew went their separate ways in search of different groups of Force exiles.

Selu and Spectre went to the remote planet of Yanibar, where the fiercely independent Zeison Sha lived, but there was tension between the two as they both were attracted to Milya Tayrce. Landing on the planet, they soon met the Zeison Sha who received them with due skepticism. However, they also told him about a prophecy concerning the heir of Revan, a man whom Revan had said would arrive to be their deliverer. Some of the Zeison Sha were convinced Selu was the heir of Revan and he agreed to remove the Imperial presence from Yanibar in exchange for the world becoming the refuge for all the Force exile groups he and his friends could gather.

On a scouting run over the Imperial base, the Imperial crew of the Observant escaped and attempted to overpower Selu and Spectre, who had come to blows over the subject of Milya. Spectre was badly injured, though Selu managed to subdue them. That quickly put an end to their argument and their scouting run. A disturbance in the Force emanating from Milya also hit them about this time, and they took the Observant to go aid her, promising the Zeison Sha they would return to deal with the Empire.

Arriving at Milya’s location on Darlyn Boda, they swooped down in the midst of an Imperial attack on the people Milya had been trying to persuade, the Matukai. Selu and Spectre set the ship down and rescued as Milya and as many Matukai as they could, but many had already fallen and Selu was revealed to an Imperial Inquisitor, Ajaur. They then escaped Darlyn Boda and reunited with Sarth and Cassi, who had brought the Jal Shey into the fold, in the Hoth system.

However, a pitched battle between pirates and Imperial ships was also occurring in the system. The Corrupter, the same ship they had encountered earlier and over Darlyn Boda, arrived in system and Selu took the Observant into the battle, trying to lose what he thought was relentless Imperial pursuit. Followed by the Hawk-bat, he landed in the hangar bay of the Imperial transport ship Griffin, which had already been boarded by pirates. On a wild impulse, Selu and his companions seized the under-crewed and weakened ship and fled. While investigating the Griffin, Selu discovered Imperial advisor Kinman Doriana, who attempted to persuade him to join Palpatine, and a large group of Xi Charrian prisoners, whom he liberated. Releasing all the Imperial prisoners, Selu and his friends took the Griffin into battle against the Corrupter alongside a pirate captain. However, the Corrupter defeated the pirate, who destroyed his own ship in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the Imperial ship. His last transmission to Selu gave him the location of an old Separatist weapons cache had been using to furnish his pirate band.

Taking the Griffin back to Yanibar, Selu dealt with the Imperial garrison by taking the Hawk-bat into the atmosphere and demanding the surrender of the base. When they refused, Selu had the Griffin bombard the base from long range, leveling it. He and his friends had little time to celebrate or get settled in, though, as they were expected back on Commenor to attend a wedding. They arrived the night before, much to the relief of the bridge and groom; the groom was Jorgesoll Knrr, who had fallen for a local woman, Annita Daowot.

The wedding day was interrupted by the Empire, though, as a local law official had traced Selu’s familial connections and informed Inquisitor Ajaur. While Selu and his friends had prepared for this eventuality, they were surprised to find Ajaur. Selu ended up dueling Ajaur while his friends held off the Imperial forces so the wedding party could escape. By the time the wedding party had left, Selu had dealt Ajaur several wounds and Spectre brought the Hawk-bat in so they could make their own escape. Before they could flee, Ajaur struggled to his feet and stabbed Milya through the heart. Spectre killed the Inquisitor, but Selu was in shock. Running to her side, he performed a Force healing unlike any he had ever done before and brought Milya back from the brink of death. This purely instinctual act was only possible because of the connection he had with Milya, as Selu wasn’t normally talented in the healing arts. He doubted he would ever be able to perform it again.

Selu and his companions returned to Yanibar, where Jorge and Annita and Sarth and Cassi were married in a dual ceremony. Selu and Milya also began a relationship at this time, though Selu knew that carried a cost. The Zeison Sha had warned him that for him to love would mean that he would forfeit any chances to defeat the Sith ruling the galaxy. His attachment to Milya would prevent him from fully devoting himself to the cause of defeating the Sith and Selu had heard from a prophesy that, since he had chosen the path of love, any encounter with the Sith would prove utterly disastrous.

However, he had succeeded in uniting four groups of Force exiles: Jedi, Zeison Sha, Matukai, and Jal Shey. The combined new government chose him as the official head of the entire Yanibar Guard, the defense force of the refuge, and Selu was also rewarded to find large numbers of Jedi relics and artifacts on the Griffin, which had been carrying them to an Imperial storehouse.

Selu spent the next year working on trying to improve life around the new Yanibar refuge. Leaving most of the training of the militia to Spectre, he studied Jedi texts and strategy, as well as drawing up plans for a much larger force to protect the refuge and recovering droids and weapons from the Separatist weapons cache. He and Milya developed their relationship further, but the road was rocky and long for both.

A year after the refuge was established, Selu, Spectre and Milya went to Ord Cestus after learning of Jedi refugees there. They quickly found about twenty Jedi, ranging from two older masters to younglings and evacuated them, though an Imperial presence complicated matters. Both Masters sacrificed themselves to distract Darth Vader while Selu evacuated some of the Jedi on the Hawk-bat and the rest were picked up by a local contact Spectre had developed. Fleeing offworld, Selu was disappointed at the new challenges he would face trying to teach the younglings and Padawans the ways of the Force by himself, but the spirit of one of the Jedi Masters appeared to him, declaring Selu a Jedi Master and telling him he would never be alone.

The relationship between Selu and Milya continued to deepen over the next several years, but he also had his obligations to the Yanibar colony. In 13 BBY, he, Spectre, and Sarth were responsible for bringing the Freedom’s Sons paramilitary group to Yanibar and he worked with their leader, Zozridor Slayke, to incorporate them into the Yanibar Guard. In the early parts of 11 BBY, Selu was present at the commissioning of the first indigenous warship of the Yanibar Guard, which, as was his prerogative, he named the Serra Keto, as a tribute and a form of release towards his childhood friend. Not long afterward, he accompanied Milya, Cassi, and Sarth on a trip to Cassi’s homeworld of Bakura, partially on a fact-finding mission and partially for personal reasons. The fact-finding mission was unsuccessful, as he learned of Bakura’s hostility towards Jedi which precluded fostering open trade with the world. However, his personal goals were accomplished when he took Milya to a remote Bakuran nature reserve and proposed to her. She accepted and they were married by Olno Mada several months later on Yanibar.

After the wedding, Selu and Milya took the Hawk-bat to their honeymoon on Bespin. However, their newlywed bliss was interrupted when the Dark Jedi Asajj Ventress, who burned with vengeance towards Selu for her humiliation on Emberlene, attacked them. Selu managed to fend off her initial assault and he and Milya then chased Ventress across Bespin’s Cloud City. In a final duel at a Tibanna refinery, Selu and Milya ultimately defeated Ventress and Selu slew the Dark Jedi. They were extracted by Jorge, who had gone with his wife, Annita Daowot, to live on Bespin after their marriage. Annita tended to their wounds and, after Selu and Milya persuaded the local officials that they hadn’t been involved in the destruction the duel had wrought around Cloud City, the two newlyweds were able to enjoy their honeymoon.

Appearances

 * Force Exile I: Fugitive
 * Force Exile II: Smuggler
 * Force Exile III: Liberator
 * Crossroads
 * Hand in Hand