Jedi Satele Shan and Private Jace Malcom met in the years leading up to the Empire's return, when both were stationed around Korriban. She was still only an apprentice, a teenager at the end of her training. He had the rank of corporal. Were they already dating? We do not really know, they are the only survivors of the Sith attack which reclaimed the planet. They escaped thanks to smuggler Nico Okarr, who allowed them to warn the Republic. Thus began the Great Galactic War, during which the two will cover each other in glory. They will meet in particular during the Battle of Alderande. Malcolm was then serving as captain of the 326th Infantry Squad, nicknamed the Chaos Squad, and which soon joined the Special Forces division. After they defeated the Sith Darth Malgus troops, while healing their wounds, Satele indulged in forgetting the Jedi's strict rules on attachment. They thus began a romantic relationship. But the young woman also discovered the dark side of her lover, the vengeful slope on which he was sliding. She then decided to break up, and not to tell him about the child growing in her womb. A son she named Theron.
Having to return to the front lines, Satele entrusted little Theron to Ngani Zho, the old master who had taken care of her clan when she was still only an initiate. The only person she made aware of her situation. She quickly realized that she could never take it back. The feelings she felt towards her son were against her Jedi precepts. It was her weak point, the angle that prevented her from being completely serene. It was only by abandoning him that she could become the Jedi, and later the Grandmaster of the Order that the galaxy needed. But even though she never allowed herself to look in his direction, she never managed to forget him. His former master continued to raise the child, preparing him to become one of the greatest Jedi the Order has ever known. After all, with his mother and her lineage (Revan), what else could he have been? He is no worse blind than the one who does not want to see, and Ngani Zho's blinders prevented him from understanding his pupil's lack of progress. In the small enclave of Haashimut, the trials he put him through forced other Jedi to decide. The boy had no connection to the Force. So he couldn't stay among the Jedi students.
Theron Shan may not have had Force skills, but his training gave him the discipline needed for various high-flying jobs. It wasn't long before he caught the attention of Marcus Trant, director of the Strategic Information Service (SIS), the most important spy organization in the Republic. Recruited, Theron rose in the organization and hierarchy to one of the elite agents who take their orders directly from the director. Proximity that has its advantages. The Republic has no interest in anyone looking into the identities and contacts of their best spies. Thus, Theron's family is filed in a hidden file, where no one can make the connection between the secret agent and the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order. And for Marcus Trant (who knows the contents of this file, including the passages ignored by Theron), it is also a question of ensuring that untimely revelations do not come to disturb his investigator at the wrong time.
Theron's relationship with his mother is very complicated. She never tried to follow what was becoming, and he gives her back. The first time they met after he left the Jedi was when he came to tell him about Ngani Zho's death during one of his missions. And when she asked him his name, he replied "confidential". It's not really resentment, more indifference. Recently, their relationship has softened. When Satele learned that Jace Malcom was interested in her son, she contacted him to warn him of the potential darkness she had sensed in him. The meeting did not lead to anything, but Theron contacted him some time later to ask him to intervene in his current mission. She had become a potential resource when he needed to get over Director Trant and the Commander-in-Chief of the Republic's Armed Forces. Having his entries with the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order cannot be negligible for a spy. And then, even if he denies it, all abandoned children have this question in them: "Why?". For her part, she sees in her son the equivalent of a Jedi shadow: evolving in shades of gray but servant of the Light side. She wants to trust him like every Jedi around her. In this strange dance, it remains to be seen who will really take the first step.
Theron's relationship with her father is clearer, though not idyllic. Jace Malcom learned he had a son during one of his first briefings as the Supreme Leader of the Republic's Armed Forces. He noticed the name of an SIS agent whose last name was Shan and whose age dated back to when he had had his relationship with Satele. A presence that had escaped Headmaster Trant, who preferred to keep them apart. He quickly called his ex-lover to ask if it was his son. Then he added Theron as an active agent for this mission so he could talk to him. The spy’s first reaction was to reject this revelation. But the second was that if Satele had indeed decided for him, she could also have done the same for others involved. So he gave her a chance. They often disagree on the military line of the Republic, especially on the level of necessary deaths. But there are differences in all families and they both strive to build a healthy and cordial relationship.
A very high level agent, personally implicated in the deaths of two members of the Black Council and with the sponsorship of two very high ranking members of the Republic, Theron Shan certainly felt sufficiently covered to tackle a conspiracy undermining the ranks of the army on its own initiative. But he didn't know what he was up to while investigating Colonel Darok. Such a high-ranking Special Forces officer is also a competent spy. His subordinates confused his official file, accusing him of several murders including that of their leader. If his relatives and direct superiors know that he cannot be guilty, they also know that someone capable of passing off him as a traitor must have enough powerful supports to eliminate before any attempt at rehabilitation. In his fight against the Revanites, he can only count on a small group of allies, including a Sith who followed the same fight as him within the Empire and a wookie smuggler and his droid. On Rishi, he was able to find the evidence to exonerate him. But if he hadn't handed them over to his mother, could he have returned to his former status so easily?
References
BD:
- The Old Republic, tome 2 : Soleils Perdus
Literature:
- The Old Republic, tome 4 : Annihilation de Drew Karpyshyn
