Memories of Eternity (Character Development)

2453 BBY, Coruscant
The Roktar Estate

Along the coastline of the artificial Great Western Sea, stood a grand estate of a major political and economic family. For generations, the Roktar clan had amassed their wealth and over a thousand years, had cultivated themselves from self-made merchants to come to the Queen of the Core and stride amongst the richest and most powerful of society. Having made their debut in their service to the Republic, they profited from war and expanded their merchant empire in peace. Now, the head of their family was at death's door.

A man of firery passion and a strength of will to succeed, Lucius Roktar was dying of ill health. The physicians could not figure out how, but his body was wasting away at an alarming pace. The family physician had assembled his three sons together to say their farewell to their patriarch, but like their father, ambition was a trait inherent amongst all three of them. It was simply expressed in a different manner.

All three sons sported the golden hair of their mother and the sharp aquiline face of their father. Their crystal blue eyes were piercing to observers and each and every one of them was gifted with a certain degree of intellect that specialised in one form or another to the running of their patriarch's merchant empire.

The eldest son, Azmoday Roktar, had a fire much like his father's but one that he did not hide. Subtlety was not something one would approach Azmoday for. A tough negotiator who rewarded loyalty and honour, Azmoday demanded his standards applied to all others. A born leader, his charismatic personality attracted many an obedient follower, but never a friend or colleague.

The second son, Belith Roktar, was a liar and a crook. He was the exact opposite of his elder brother. To Belith, the ends justified the means. Where Azmoday awed and inspired, Belith cowed and blackmailed. The pair had worked together for most of their career and despite their arguments as to how best to go about any specific problems, the pair working in tandem was half the reason Lucius Roktar's gains had been consolidated and magnified.

The third son, Azurael Roktar, was a silent young man who contemplated and calculated every word, every movement. When he opened his mouth, all would make an effort to hear him and understand. For his intellect was greater than his brothers', introverted he may have been, but it was often his plans that Azmoday and Belith sought to implement in their own unique ways. A great administrator and an organizer, Azurael was the least ambitious of the brothers, seeking only to further the clan's rise to glory and fortune.

Or so they all thought.

As Lucius fell ill, it was Azurael who attended to his father. While his brothers sorted through the legalities in the unlikely event of their father's death, to safeguard their hard earned wealth, it was Azurael that maintained the household in efficient cacophony. It was Azurael Roktar that was slowly poisoning his father, in such small increments, that tests would not detect anything wrong with Lucius.

On the day Azmoday and Belith Roktar returned to see their father at the deathbed, they returned to their respective quarters, and never again left their chamber.

That night, assassins infiltrated the estate and murdered the two sons. Azurael Roktar barely escaped with his life.

Belith's and Azurael's agents gave chase to the assassins, tracing them back to rival families on Coruscant. The wounded Azurael vowed vengeance, Republic security investigations turned out the proof needed, and the rival families were arrested, their assets were divided into their subsidiary corporations and companies all in a matter of months. All of them, ended up being bought or cornered into joining the Roktar family's enterprises.

Soon after this incident, Lucius Roktar, who had showed signs of weak recovery, died on the cold and final days, 2453 years before the Rebels destroyed the Death Star over Yavin IV. The next day, the Roktar clan proclaimed the sole surviving son, Azurael Roktar, as the new Head of the Family.

Present day

"But Dear Uncle, what does that have anything to do with how we were made?"

A hatchet came down with another sloppy splat, another tired moan of pain that barely made it past the sensory overload of pain after pain of the victim. The axe was bloody and rust could be seen around the edges of its dull and blunted blade. It was a simple, primitive weapon without even vibro technology to power it, and it was a size that could be wielded single handed by a muscular male adult. A child, no older than ten years old by appearance, with light fair hair and pristine fair skin, with white eyes that glowed with insane innocence gleefully raised the axe as long as his leg and smashed it down onto the side of his victim. Blood splattered all over his archaic, white collared shirt, black vest, jacket and string tie as well as his black trousers, a gentlemanly mourning clothes for young boys completed with black polished shoes and white knee high socks.

"Hush Dear Elder Brother. Dear Uncle will tell us when he wishes to tell us."

A shot of a slug thrower echoed in the deepest chasms of an ecumenopolis, drowned out by the noise of repulsorcraft miles away. But here, where darkness reigned and degenerates ruled, it was a thunderclap of deafening proportions, so too was the fresh, tearful scream of a woman clutching a bundle of cloth. The giant repeater needed two hands to wield, was single barrelled and held a box of gunpowder propelled shells in cartridges bound in a string of bullets fed directly to the firing mechanism. Wielding this primitive weapon of war was a girl almost identical to the young boy save a longer hair that reached down to the bottom of her skirt. A skirt that reached down to her ankles. Matching the boy, she wore mourning dress with frills and a matching bonnet. A slightly elevated heel shoes with a black polish adorned with a red rose ornament finished her appearance.

The bundle of cloth fell from the crying woman's clutches and an outstretched hand of hers tried to return it to her bosom. A heavy steel capped jackboot slammed down on her slender fingers with enough force to make her knuckles buckle and snap, tendons and skin ruptured as blood trickled forth, marring the pristine black leathery polish. Another scream wailed forth from the woman's lips but the owner of the boot wasn't even dazed. The woman stared up the boot that disappeared underneath a steel grey great coat, trying to see any semblance of humanity, of mercy, only for the coat's collar flaps propped up to cover the neck and lower face to reveal at its brim, staring down with cold ambivalence, a fair skinned, blue eyed man, emotionless in his dealing out suffering. His golden blond hair hidden under the combat cap that cast a long shadow over what few features of his face the outside light revealed.

"Dear Elder Sister...This one is broken I think...He doesn't scream as loud anymore..."

A fresh scream erupted from the butchered man and with a sheepish grin, the boy folded away his hatchet and pulled out some rusty nails and a small hammer. He then proceeded to hammer the nails into as many joints still intact on the poor man's body.

"Woops, never mind!"

The twin children started to angelically sing a children's song as they went about their work, torturing the family, keeping them alive but in pain for as long as they medically could. But even then, they were fading fast, the loss of blood too great and the pain too overwhelming. Their brains and pain receptors were shutting down.

Slightly off in the distance, down a side alley, a single match was lit that illuminated a cigarra. A finely crafted piece of work, slender and with the finest leaves money could buy. As the flame of the match faded, whipped away and out. A figure stepped out of the shadow trailed by another, lesser man.

The first to come out was tall, two meters in height, he towered over everyone else around him and beneath him. Dressed in a black trench coat, black cavalier steel soled and capped leather boots, a white shirt with black tie, slender fingers, almost talon-like covered in a white silk pair of gloves. His pale porcelain skin was only visible from his neck up. Framed by his knee long straight void black hair, an aquiline or hawk-like feature with eyes that seemed directly connected to the voids of space, empty and all consuming. He carried a silvery metallic cane, engraved with the thorned stems of roses and a pair of serpent tails that intertwined into a caduceus at the top. The pair of winged serpents had their bat-like wings outstretched to create a form of a cross and held aloft in their jaws a ringed pentagram made out of clockwork parts welded together with the occasional rose stems. The actual flower appeared here and there on the shaft of the cane itself, rather than at the handle. The pentagram itself appeared encased in an orb held in place by the claws of the four wings to make it easier to grasp the cane.

The second individual was a young man in his mid-thirties, with a monocle, a moustache and matching jet black hair tied back in a short ponytail. He was dressed in a manservant's uniform with black vest, white collared shirt, black trousers and matching leather shoes. Discarding the spent match, the manservant looked down at the bundle of cloth neglected by the trio in front of them and picked it up for his Lord's inspection. Inside was a human baby, with tell-tale signs of mutation around his skin.

"This will do."

The Obsidian Lord waved the creature away from his sight and his manservant, Benjamin Cromwell bowed once as he handed the bundle of cloth to the man in the greatcoat, Schultz Sarath who put it under his left arm. Benjamin and Schultz fell in line behind their Liege Lord as the taller, slender man approached the psychotic twins. Only the croaking sound of exhausted agony and the gleeful lullaby sung by the two children was left of their playtime.

"And so, the years passed, and our Creator, Azurael Roktar, the Great Father, started to crave for that which has eluded humanity, the most perfect of sentient life, for so long: Immortality."

As the five of them walked back to their shuttle, the narrative continued, a narrative of a single man's ambition for eternal life that has lasted for over two thousand years.

2401 BBY
The Roktar Estate

A brooding calm had descended upon the estate. Azurael went about his usual daily routines. His spies informed him of all that happened within the Senate. Half the Senators of the Galaxy were in his debt, one way or another. Debt that would never be repaid in their lifetimes. From the lowliest debt of currency to promises of support for certain projects, from life debts to those of blackmail. Azurael had proven his worth as a son of Lucius. Upon his ascendance to Patriarch of the Roktar clan, Azurael cast off a portion of his shroud to reveal the brutal ferocity of Azmoday, the twisted conniving nature of Belith, combining them behind his humble facade to treble the power and influence of his father, double his reach and before long, a third of the underworld of the Galactic City belonged and moved to his subtle rhythm.

Fifty two years ago, as he sat in mourning alongside the extended family to the death of Lucius, Azmoday and Belith Roktar, Azurael was already setting in motion plans that transcended his lifetime. His agents and those of Belith who had bent their knees to their new employer, were now searching throughout the galaxy for the brightest minds for a secret project.

The Ewigkeit Project, or the Eternity Project in basic had but one purpose. To confer upon humanity the gift of Immortality. Here, hundreds of years before the birth of Palpatine's Humanocentric Empire, was a human Coruscanti who strongly believed in the inherent superiority and purity of the Human species above all others. This of course did not hinder his alliances and debts with his more alien colleagues and fellows, but Azurael, deep in his black heart, believed a more sinister future for the greater majority of the Galaxy.

Even his scientists, his closest advisors were not privy to his thoughts, his innermost feelings. Locked behind bars of logic, vaults of misinformation, the web of lies he created was such that even the Jedi who called him friend, could not fathom as to what he was thinking save what he thought on the surface. This made them suspicious at first, but actions spoke volumes compared to empty words. The Roktar clan was a ferverent supporter of the Galactic Republic and its ideals of oligarchic domination. The donations to the Jedi temples, to further their goal of a better galaxy for the weak, everything revealed the introverted but meticulous clan head of the Roktars to be a rough heart of aurodium.

At first, they were innocent enough. Projects that rejuvenated the body and soul. An elixir of youth here, a surgery to boost cognitive ability there. Cloning of new body parts, using Khommite technology at first, then incorporating Kaminoean technology, the planet's location pried from a trusting Jedi Master's belief in Azurael, who had cultivated a friendship between a businessman and a Jedi-in-training over fifty years.

Ysalamiri of Myrkr were discovered from old records of the Jedi archives. Once again, the same source from the Jedi Master, recording the difficulty the Jedi had of the planet in the Mandalorian Wars, Azurael's men had, in the name of empirical science with Jedi help, discovered the nature of the lizard. But with Jedi consent, had "destroyed" the evidence of any such research for the knowledge of Jedi powers becoming ineffective, even with restrictions as to the circumstances was deemed too dangerous.

Such small steps, fifty years. Minute steps, each one independent of the other. Some in secret, others in overpopularised research projects. Were secretly assembled in tandem in the darkest recesses of the Roktar Estate. Scientists dissappeared behind the shroud of time and anonimity. False death certificates and accidents. Slowly these scientists worked, some forced, to provide an immortal shell for Azurael's ambitions.

Experiments, failures, trillions of credits and over two hundred lives snuffed from common existence and finally, the Project bore a fruit of the now aged man's minimal requirements.

A young clone body with his memories.

But not just any odd clone body. A Growth Decelerated Clone Body. Dubbed "The Everliving", this one was given the name of Moonstone.

Protected by the bubble of the Ysalamiri, hidden, deep in the bowels of Corsucant's undercity. This sole body slowly mutated beyond logic and weakened daily. So too, did Azurael Roktar percieve his own death approach.

A 87 years, Azurael Roktar had aged. Rejuvinating elixirs had lengethed his life but there was a limit as to how much his body could take. His mind was as sharp as ever. His heart, burning with the fear of his mortality. His cruel intellect watched his last hope, the Child of Light, Moonstone, dying. Unable to bear the terror in his mind, Azurael forged in this mindset his second Immortal.

The Child of the Void. If light could not save him, then Azurael would embrace whatever darker powers would aid him. The Second Immortal was christened Obsidian the Everliving. As his final act, Azurael let loose his very being. The decades of hiding behind false masks was over. He instilled his ambitions, his wishes, his memories, his hatred, his terror, his dreams, into the very DNA of this fresh embryo.

Such was the force of his will, that as his body failed and life left his grasp, Azurael Roktar's soul was dragged down into whatever abyss awaited him, knowing full well that the transfer of memory was complete. That the second Immortal will survive. But the cost was great for the small life that had been bred just for this purpose. The scientists and the extended family did not hear from their Obsidian Lord for the next five hundred years.

Present Day, Commenor

Upon the highest mountain ranges of the planet Commenor, far from the bustling spaceports that made this planet such a trade hub was the sanctum of an upstart nobleman. Nestled within the cliffs and plateaus, stood a mighty fortress of old that had since its height as a military outpost, been transformed into a magnificent estate. Boasting only the second generation as the head of its household, the House of Cromwell nonetheless was popular amongst the common masses that called these mountainous steppes home.

Commenor had long since abandoned aristocratic rule, but the vestige of nobility had remained until aproximately fourty years prior. The origins of the noble houses were uncertain but most families had traced its roots to grand merchant families. An incident nearly half a century prior had seen all but the House of Zenos, Roetblume and Cromwell survive and outside of their small tightnit community, the noble houses and their titles had dissappeared from the governmental sphere. Nonetheless, the sheer financial wealth concentrated within these three clans had meant that until the rise of the Empire under the New Order, the triumvirate held great prestige and influence in the overall policies of the local planetary government.

The incident resulted in a alliance of marriage between the Zenos clan and the Roetblume clan, and at the wedding ceremony, the first of the Cromwell clan had stood as the best man. Nonetheless, resistance to the New Order was strong in the proud military tradition of the Zenos clan, and the head of their house, Duke Doozel Zenos paid the price of resistance with his life. An elite squad of the Empire assassinated the Duke. The agents of House Cromwell and House Roetblume managed to save the life of Doozel's only son, Geherin, the former pressuring the highest echelons of the Empire to make no further issue of the matter, and the latter physically intervening in the raid to ensure the safety of not only Geherin Zenos, but also his mother, Lady Kisheelah of the House Roetblume.

A quarter of a century hence, and Lady Kisheelah died peacefully of old age. Leaving her son the last of the Zenos and the Roetblume house. Together with Lord Rahven of House Cromwell, the successor to the first Lord of House Cromwell, Isaac, the two represented in the truest sense, the last nobles of Commenor. With the Battle of Endor, Commenor declared its independence. A decision backed and encouraged by Duke Geherin. It was mostly due to Lord Rahven's advice that the Commenorian government was not pressured enough to secede to the New Republic. Instead, taking the neutral route of dealing with both governments. This neutrality and the vitality of Commenor as a trading hub, compounded to make it a difficult decision indeed for either forces to exert authority over the planet.

The Zenos Estate, which more closely resembled a full blown palace, been transferred into the House of Parliament four decades ago. The residence of Doozel Zenos and his small but loving family had been a large house outside of town that had served as a sort of town house for esteemed visitors who were not esteemed enough to warrant the guest suite in the Zenos Estate proper. With the town house destroyed in the raid and with most of his household killed, Geherin and his mother Kisheelah had been invited to live in the Cromwell Estate. To this day, the Cromwell Estate was the last bastion of the nobles, forgotten by society at large and left well enough alone. Only when asked, did the pair give guidance as to their interests in matters of politics.

The Cromwell Estate proper boasted a central structure that resembled more a towering keep. Five turrets served as the five corners of the petagonal structure and towered above the main keep like fingers reaching up from an outstretched hand. Built at the edges of a ravine, the cliff face below the keep hid a small hangar bay that could house several shuttles at once. A motor pool complete with a detatched stables housed repulsor craft, speeders as well as the old fashioned carriages and a full stock of horses and other such regal beasts. The inner estate itself was walled off and a further wall further down the slope bordered the castle town that had prospered despite the remoteness of the mountain plateau. The dozen or so acres between the inner and outer walls had several small structures that were used by the servants and land for the beasts to be set free in when they were not required.

But within the inner walls, under the watchful gaze of the central keep's gargoyles, was a courtyard. The courtyard itself was large enough to land a shuttle or two in and leave plenty of room to spare. In the middle of this square courtyard was a single fountain four meters in diameter. At its center rose a marble fountain that sported on top a caduceus, the symbol of the House of Cromwell. The elegant straight sword was pointed down with the pommel at the top. Interwining around the blade were two bat winged serpents, their two pairs of wings outstretched in the four cardinal directions. With their maws and the talons of their wings, they held aloft a crystal globe with a clockwork pentacle cradled inside. The thorned vines of roses laced their way up the blade, gently enveloping the pentacle within the crystal with the blooming rose, the symbol of the House of Roetblume. Atop the pentacle, as if clasping it with its talons, rested a giant raven, the symbol of the House of Zenos.

Around the circular fountain was a path wide enough to allow two men to walk comfortably side by side. Bordering the path were well maintained rose bushes divided by three equidistant paths that matched the circular path in size. The rose petals were black, blue and red. Divided into the three sets of bushes. The colour of heraldry for Cromwell, Zenos and Roetblume respectively.

The well maintained grass today, was home to a small tea party. Around a garden table sat Lord Rahven, clothed in silken robes of white. Embroidery of red, blue and gold etched a motif of eyes that peered out from various corners of the garb. As if in contrast, the retired Lord Isaac Cromwell wore a trench coat of void black. He hefted his silvery metallic cane that sported the same caduceus. The Obsidian Lord, the Benefactor, was also Isaac Cromwell, though few alive in the Galaxy had privy to such knowledge. The majority of the people who lived under the shadow of the Cromwell Estate did not know what the venerable Isaac Cromwell looked like.

The twins ran around the fountain, their mourning clothes still the same as their time in Denon, though not covered in blood. Their childish innocence brought the warm echoes of laughter from their amusement and those who watched over them. Sipping his tea, Obsidian leaned over to Rahven as they looked over a datapad with the latest reports from the Empire.

"So...Unit 0400 is making his move?"

"It appears so, my Liege. This...Krytos Virus...looks most interesting. Unfortunate we cannot allow Ysanne Isard to continue."

Obsidian waved a hand of dismissal to the thought.

"The Emperor entrusted her with a wonderful warship. She will have her chance to shine. Just right now, we need someone else to take the fall for any lapse in security for the capital. Have Unit 0400, the Commodore as the Imperial like to call him, make the necessary preparations. The Empire will survive and for that reorganisation is in order. It will be bad for business otherwise."

c.1900 BBY

For five hundred years, Obsidian was enshrined deep under his estate. His incubation cylinder slowly uploading the memories through a combination of nano-technology and chemical injections. In the world of the living mortals, those who obeyed Azurael's last will and testament continued the line of Roktar. Awaiting the day when their Liege Lord would be reborn in the form of his only remaining son. Taking up the mantle-like title of Azurael Roktar, the head of the family continued down a different line. As stewards and caretakers of the grand Roktar estate, their wealth was magnified over time.

The hundreds of scientists who had been hired by Azurael on the Eternity Project were given their final gift. Their minds and memories were enshrined alongside their Liege Lord Obsidian and their Will was made eternal. As caretakers of their dream for immortality, they continued their own research over generations of lives. Their minds continuing on and their memories inherited with each passing generation of clones. But nature and the Force abhorred this effort of mortals to transcend their fate. A madness creeped into their memories with each passing incarnation, until the scientists, in their insanity came to believe themselves inheritors of a sacred duty to give birth to the perfect immortal being that would be a God striding amongst mortals.

Condensing their memories into five clone bodies, each taking on an aspect of their "Creator" or "Father", they declared themselves the Guardian Lords of the Everliving. Slowly, the Roktar clan was influenced by these madmen over generations into believing that rather than awaiting the day of Azurael Roktar's rebirth, they were the mortal guardians and eternal servants of the Everliving representation of an almighty Deity.

Phanius, the first of the Lost Twenty dissappeared after resigning his comission within the Jedi Order. Soon after, Darth Ruins new Sith Empire emerged and fractured. A hundred years after the Fourth Schism and the start of the New Sith Wars, there was an event on Coruscant that would change the fate of the Galaxy forever. Like a chip in a single cog within an intricate clockwork system, Obsidian awakened to the sound of battles and the distortion in the Galaxy. Like reverent acolytes of a cult, the Five Guardians knelt before their Liege Lord and God and listened to his first words.

"With the fires of War. We shall reforge this Galaxy."

For the next nine hundred years, the Roktar Clan would work openly in support of the Republic's war efforts. Their agents would secretly behind the scenes prop up the Sith war effort. When one side faltered, Azurael Roktar or his alter ego, the mysterious Benefactor would appear to offer money, resources, even manpower to the losing side. Freed from his stifling prison, Obsidian's reign of unfathomable designs began. To facilitate the more military needs of this operation, Obsidian had ordered created a new clone. Not an immortal, but a clone who would share portions of his memories. Enough only to know that they were the creations of an ancient man who sought to perfect humanity in the form of soldiers and an army. Clones whose sole purpose was to serve a war effort. Any war effort. "Volunteers" in the Republic army, Auxiliaries of the Army of Light, slave soldiers of the Sith forces, sadistic officers loyally serving their Sith Overlords. The new Shadow Directorate was to provide the manpower needed to keep bleeding the Galaxy.

Lead by 00 Units called "Directors", the first of their ranks, Unit Double Oh (00) would be free to invent and come up with better soldiers, better spies, better officers and better leaders. They were to obey the orders from the mysterious "Creator", a figure who would issue them a new challenge when required. Their finances were vast. Their resources nearly unlimited. Everything they needed, either the Sith or the Republic or the conglomerates would finance and provide. Like its name would suggest, it never was a tangible force. It constantly shifted shape and names. It was never situated in a single place for long and its laboratories were discreet.

Many times, the Jedi and Sith came close to finding out the truth. Many times, the Shadow Directorate's research were lost and decades of painstaking research and billions of credits were wasted in self destruct sequences. But with each unit designator, with each generation of new soldiers. They worked their way forward. Slowly, with a patience only possible to those who knew time was always on their side.