Beld Yulan

Beld Yulan grew up and lived during the Republic Dark Age, the last century of the New Sith Wars. During that period in galactic history, large areas of the galaxy were controlled by various Sith warlords while the Galactic Republic had been reduced to a rump state around the Galactic Core. In his adult life, Yulan worked as a mercenary for various different parties including the Sith Lords Odion and Mandragall. Yulan was also influenced by Mandragall, who had an extensive knowledge of ancient Sith history and used this knowledge to devise a new military model. Citing Elcho Kressh's historic precedent of recruiting armies by absorbing individuals with different skills from outside cultures, Mandragall forged a polyglot army consisting of pirates, mercenaries, and alien species that held a grudge against the Republic and his Sith rivals. By the height of his rule, more than three-fourths of Mandragall's armed forces consisted of independent operators, who had fled enslavement by other Sith Lords. Most of these were willing to fight under Mandragall's banner in exchange for autonomy and getting access to recruits and resources.

In 1052 BBY, the female Sith Lord Xelian—the mother of Lords Odion and Daiman—conspired against Mandragall by seducing him and then killing him. However, Mandragall's vaunted army proved ephemeral due to its unique composition and none of his rivals were able to seize control of his armed forces. Yulan lived during the Mandragall era and was greatly influence by Mandragall's military strategies and tactics. He became a good artilleryman, cultivated an interest in military history among the recruits who served under him, and acted as a mentor to the Human mercenary Jarrow Rusher. However, Yulan's children died on the world Fostin IX as a result of plague, causing Yulan to succumb to depression. He sent squads to increasingly dangerous assignments with more soldiers being left behind each time. At an unknown point, Yulan planned on turning over command of his unit to his second in command, and then committing suicide.

However, he encountered an unidentified female Claimer from the Odionate who succeeded in converting him to Sith Lord Odion's nihilistic beliefs. Under her influence, Yulan came to embrace nothingness and to believe that both life and death was meaningless. When he finally became a member of an Odionite death cult that was dedicated to the Sith Lord Odion and accepted an assignment from the Sith Lord, Jarrow Rusher left him and began working for Daiman, Odion's brother. Meanwhile, Rusher established his own mercenary group called Rusher's Brigade, which would be employed by several different Sith warlords in the Grumani sector. By the time of the Chelloan affair in 1032 BBY, Rusher's Brigade had grown to approximately three thousand personnel and operated from the modified starliner Diligence. While Rusher had respected Yulan for mentoring him during his early days as a novice mercenary, he completely shunned Yulan after his conversion to Odion's nihilistic cult.

While the Odionate military theoretically had no field ranks, Yulan rose to become one of their top generals and became part of Lord Odion's inner circle. His favored position led other subordinates to speculate that Yulan was one of those few sentients whom Odion bothered to keep alive because of their usefulness. During the Battle of Skarpos, he commanded an invasion force of Force-wielding Novitiates and members of the Thunder Guard. These forces included the Jedi Knight Kerra Holt, who had infiltrated the Novitiates disguised as a Sith recruit named Mercy. Yulan's forces clashed with Lord Malakite, who commanded an army of Mutates, sentient beings who had been physically and mentally twisted into Sithspawn. Several of troops were killed during an ambush when they were trapped in a tar pit set alight by Malakite's minions. Several Sith troopers were killed and wounded but Mercy tried to stop them and even tended to a wounded fellow Novitiate.

Yulan witnessed this and berated Mercy for her unwillingness to die in a glorious death for Odion's cause. He reminded her that as a Novitiate she was setting an example to the regular trips and stressed that survival meant nothing to Odion's adherents. However, he was interrupted by Wayman, the Claimer who had unwittingly recruited Mercy into the Novitiate. Wayman countered that Yulan's suicide tactics were culling Odion's ranks at an unsustainable rate and were causing widespread inexperience within the Odionate's forces. Wayman also defended Mercy by claiming he had high hopes for her. Yulan responded derisively that she called herself "Mercy" and that had gone into her head. While disagreeing with Yulan's tactics, Wayman advised Mercy to obey him next time due to his senior position in Odion's hierarchy.

Wayman then informed Yulan and the Novitiates that Lord Odion had recalled them for a top-secret assignment and that they were to attend a briefing session at Jubalene. He also reminded Yulan that his fleet was to meet at Jubalene. Yulan complied with Wayman's orders but stopped at Vanahame to replenish his fleet's ammunition stocks. Later, Yulan was present at the briefing session where Lord Odion outlined his plans to restart Project Pandemonium to locate the Sith relic the Helm of Ieldis and to invade Sarrassia, the last known location of Project Pandemonium. Yulan announced to his master that his forces were rearmed and replenished and commented that the Sarrassians would not know what hit them. Later, he and Odion attended a fight at the nearby arena pitting some of Ayanos Bactra's former accountants against a gundark, armed only with their datapads. While Yulan and Odion were away, Wayman confided in Mercy about his suspicions that Odion secretly favored Yulan since he was efficient at his job.

During the Invasion of Sarrassia, Yulan's forces were involved in a skirmish against members of the Grumani Hierophants, some of whom wielded lightsabers. During a melee, Yulan witnessed Kerra attempting to restrain fellow Sith acolyte Doyan from killing a Hierophant. Yulan's cannons opened fire on the combatants, killing and wounding several of his own troops in friendly fire. He encountered Mercy whom he reprimanded for her soft-heartedness and unwillingness to die in combat. Mercy countered that Yulan's cannons nearly vaporized his own troops and countered that Odion would be greatly displeased if his mission to find the Helm of Ieldis was hampered by the death of its members. Yulan grumbled that Odion would merely find more Novitiates and then went to inspect the situation on the ground. He quickly discovered that several Sith troopers had been killed and wounded by his friendly fire.

One of his officers reported that his Sith troopers had cleared the cave entrance and killed the defending priests who were making a last stand. Yulan speculated there was something inside and ordered Mercy and her comrades to explore the caves, commenting that he wanted to be back in Vanahame while he was still young enough to remember its location. While in the cave, Kerra was separated from her fellow Novitiates and discovered a secret entrance that was accessed by the symbol on her mother's pendant. She discovered a temple separated by an underwater river and met the alien Hierophant Aunt Zoojoo who revealed the last known whereabouts of her parents and that the Helm of Ieldis was actually located on Skarpos. Meanwhile, Yulan sensed that there was a chamber beneath the cave based on gravimetric analysis. He rejoined the other Sith Lords who entered the chamber by using explosives to create a hole. Zoojoo detonated an explosion which buried the temple in rubble, killing herself in the process.

Yulan and his companions managed to escape the debris caused by the cave caving in from the explosion. He expressed his disbelief that a 'crazy woman' was willing to die to protect this place. His Kubaz colleague replied that he thought that Yulan had said that people did not need a reason to die. Yulan replied that they did not but admitted this case looked particularly worthless. At that point, Mercy surfaced and inquired why she was talking with that woman. Mercy quickly revealed that the Helm was located on Skarpos and ordered Yulan to take them there since he was responsible for their transportation. Yulan complied and began making travel arrangements for the hyperspace travel to Skarpos, which was currently being besieged by Odion's forces.

During a stop-over at Vanahame en route to Skarpos, Beld Yulan went to the basement beneath the Sith base to visit the Odionate cloister, a de-facto re-education camp where thousands of sentient children were imprisoned and indoctrinated with Odion's nihilistic ideology. Feigning boredom and devotion to Odion's quest to find the Helm, Mercy followed Yulan into the underground basement and stumbled across the Cloister. She met Yulan who revealed the existence of the Cloister network and his conversion to Odion's death cult. For Yulan, his regular visitors to the Cloister at Vanhame was to reflect on the deaths of his children who had succumbed to the Candorian plague.

Despite his war record as a Mandalorian warrior, the meaningless nature of their deaths drove him to despair and he came to embrace Odion's nihilistic ideology following a meeting with a Claimer, an Odionate recruitment agent. He justified war and bloodshed as a tool of speeding up the killing on both sides. When Mercy suggested that all life was sacred regardless of who they were, Yulan countered that Mercy's objection was an odd view for a Novitiate and commented that the only sacred lives were his deceased children. He likened all sentient beings to droids who were ready to power down. Before leaving to continue the mission to locate the Helm of Ieldis, Yulan ordered Mercy to switch off the lights. Mercy was so shaken by her discovery that she took the cargo elevator with Yulan back upstairs to the spaceport.

Beld Yulan and his Sith team subsequently arrived at Skarpos, and established a garrison at the Morbollon Mesa. The encampment was attacked by Lord Malakite's forces who wanted to retake the planet. His army included a phalanx of winged Night-Soarers who were used to ferry his troops. Yulan ordered his artillery to open fire on the invaders and spotted the arrival of an Odionate transport landing at the top of the mesa. When Mercy queried about the identity of the transport and asserted that the original plan was for the Novitiates to find the Helm alone, Yulan replied that he had too much on his hands to bother with the hunt for the Helm.

Mercy subsequently saved Yulan from being hit by enemy fire from Daiman's bombers. Daiman was accompanied by the Kubaz Novitiate Glenk, who was actually working for the Daimanate. Daiman was also after the Helm of Ieldis and ordered his forces to destroy Odion and Malakite's forces. Yulan expressed his anger and shock at the presence of an enemy agent among the Novitiates, Odion's most trusted followers. The Odionate encampment was struck by enemy bombardment and Mercy saved Yulan from a fiery death by pushing him out of harm's way. Motivated by both Odion's mission and gratitude towards the young woman, Yulan ordered Mercy and her fellow Sith to evacuate the battlefield on a skiff and find the Helm within the Mesa while he and his own troops and artillery kept Malakite and Daiman's forces at bay.

Mercy succeeded in reaching the Grumani temple chamber within the Mesa. However, Odion had already beat her to the Helm and struck her with Force lightning. Odion disarmed Kerra and took her captive, binding her in restraints and taking her back to the top of the Mesa. Later, Odion would reveal to Yulan and the Novitiates that all that time he had been aware about the presence of a Jedi infiltrator within their ranks. However, Odion allowed her to remain undetected because she would lead him directly to the Helm. He also assigned his recruiter Wayman to monitor her whereabouts.

By then, General Yulan had arrived on the Mesa with a contingent of Sith troopers. They proceeded to explore the network of caves and tunnels within the mesa while Odion's sages confirmed that the relic was indeed the fabled Helm of Ieldis. Despite his gain, Odion expressed frustration that he did not know how to operate the Helm. Meanwhile, Yulan and his troops emerged from the mesa. They reported that they found some camping supplies and two human skeletons, which had been crushed during an explosion. Yulan also discovered a heirloom which was revealed to belong to Aron and Mercia; confirming the deaths of Kerra's parents. Kerra immediately descended into a state of grief and anguish, which activated the Helm of Ieldis. Odion then used the revitalized Helm of Ieldis to amplify his own Dark Side powers.

At that moment, a pair of Malakite's Mutate warriors riding dragon steeds stumbled upon Odion and his entourage, intending to slay him themselves and take back his hide as a trophy to their Master. Instead of fighting them, Odion used the Helm to compel the two enemy warriors and their steeds to turn on themselves and kill each other. Following that successful test demonstration, Odion commented that the Helm of Ieldis had forcibly brainwashed them into accepting his own nihilistic rationale that the only way to end their own pain was through bloodshed and death. Odion then ordered Yulan to start evacuating his best companions aboard their shuttle since he was going to deploy the Helm against the three massed armies beneath the mesa.

The Helm of Ieldis had an immediate effect on the three massed armies, driving all the combatants into a homicidal frenzy. By forcing his opponents to kill each other and therefore embrace death and nothingness, Odion hoped to become the sole owner of the Universe. Within minutes, the combatants descended into a murderous rampage, killing both their comrades and opponents indiscriminately. With their armies in total disarray, Odion's competitors Daiman and Malakite were forced to flee the battle while they could still resist the power of the Helm. By the end of the battle, all three armies had annihilated each other.

However, the Second Battle of Skarpos proved to be a Pyrrhic victory for the Odionate. While Odion succeeded in testing the Helm of Ieldis on the armies of his rivals Daiman and Malakite with devastating results, the Helm also annihilated his entire army with the exception of General Yulan and a small contingent troops, the Novitiates, and a captive Kerra Holt. When Yulan expressed concerns about sacrificing his entire force on Skarpos, Odion merely rebuffed the General's concerns by telling him that their deaths were inevitable, and that the Helm merely hastened the process. A jubilant Odion then set his cruiser on course for Vanahame, intending to harness the anguish and misery of the captive orphans within the cloister there. Despite Odion's optimism, Yulan regarded the loss of his men on Skarpos as unnecessary and wasteful.

Despite his earlier hostility towards Kerra, Beld Yulan came to grudgingly respect Kerra for risking her life infiltrating the Odionate to find her parents. Towards the end of the journey, Yulan would spend some time meeting with Kerra in her holding cell. He expressed his surprise that Odion had given so much attention to a young woman, admitting that he had expected a great and powerful general. An exhausted Kerra replied that she was not feeling at her best right now and was very tired since she had been running so hard for so long. When Yulan asked if she came all the way from the Republic to find her parents, she replied that it was not part of her original plan but admitted she had hoped there was the slightest chance they were still alive.

Kerra lamented her failure for not expecting that Odion's spies were monitoring her. Yulan sympathetically commended her for infiltrating the Odionate, stating that she took such a chance to find her parents. During the meeting Kerra also expressed her desire to find her lost younger brother or sister, whom she believed was incarcerated in one of the Odionate cloisters. She explained to Yulan that was going to be her next search but conceded that she did not expect to have to do it alone. Odion then explained the purpose for his visit; a holorecorder had been recovered from the wrecked mesa chamber. Odion had viewed it privately and had ordered Yulan to bring it to Kerra in person.

It turned that the holorecording was a message from Kerra's late parents to Vannar Treece or any other Jedi involved in the University of Sanbra on the Ieldis study. Four years after the Massacre of Aquilaris, Mercia and Aron Holt had finally recovered the Helm of Ieldis on Skarpos. Following their capture by Lord Odion, the couple had been forcibly impressed into Project Pandemonium, a secret Odionate project to recover the Helm. The Holts had intended to bring the Helm to the Jedi and the Galactic Republic for safekeeping but were unable to since the planet was besieged by warring Sith factions. By that stage, the Holts had run out of food and there was a permanent Sith presence outside the Morbollon Mesa. To prevent the Sith from finding them and the Helm, the couple made the fateful decision to blow themselves and the chamber up, in a last ditched attempt to deny the Sith access to the Helm.

Prior to their deaths, Mercia lamented she would never meet her younger child. She also left a farewell message for Kerra, wishing her good luck. They also explained to her that as her parents were sacrificing their lives for the good of all the children in the galaxy. They reiterated that they still loved her and had never given up on the possibility that she had survived. Following the end of the transmission, Yulan commented that the Holts had only feigned devotion to Odion's death cult. He added that they thought Kerra had died, lost everything, and sacrificed themselves on the chance that other people's children would be hurt. He surmised that they had no one to live for but they died for everyone else. For a Sith devotee like Odion and Yulan, this did not make sense.

Kerra disagreed but without showing any malice, argued that her parents' sacrifice had made perfect sense. For her, their sacrifice signified that if death could have a meaning, then life must have a meaning as well. Shortly after their meeting, the Gravedigger landed on Vanahame. Kerra asked if Odion had wanted more anguish to feed on, adding that Yulan could tell Odion it did not work. Yulan replied that Odion may have just wanted her to understand the Helm's potential. Upon realizing they had landed on Vanahame, Kerra reached the conclusion that he come to the Cloister to harness the misery and sadness of the thousands of inmates within the planet-sized orphanage. By using the Helm to tap into these negative emotions, Odion's powers would be unlimited.

Satisfied with his test demonstration on Vanahame, Odion planned to unleash the Helm's dark side powers on the entire Grumani sector, bringing about an apocalypse that would lead to the end of all life in the galaxy. He planned to use the Helm to convert the negative emotions of the children within the Cloister into dark side energy which would drive trillions of sentients into a homicidal frenzy. Odion thus made preparations for a ritual that would kill all life in the galaxy except himself. His followers also expressed their willingness to die so that they could "end the pain" of existence.

For the first time, Odion ordered the cloister's operators to shut down all the lights within its vast chambers, driving the children into a state of panic and fear. By then, Yulan had become disillusioned and disgusted with his master's nihilistic ideology, which had been heightened by the wanton sacrifice of an entire Odionate army on Skarpos. Prior to Odion's Sith ceremony, Yulan confided in Kerra that the lights in the cloister had never been switched off before. He also explained that Odion needed to harness anguish to power the Helm, describing the frightened state of the children as being worse than even the most sadistic forms of torture utilized by adults. While Odion was preoccupied with addressing his loyal cadre, Kerra took the opportunity to convince Yulan to turn against his master once and for all. She suggested that Yulan use his starship to ram into Odion's throneroom, adding that the cloister's vacuum was safe. She also added that they could not allow Odion's nihilistic ambitions to continue.

When Yulan asked Kerra if she was willing to die to save people she did not even know, Kerra replied that she did not want to die but she wanted to save the Cloister children and all the children in the galaxy from the impending apocalypse. Kerra also argued that people were different from droids because droids were unable to do anything when they were decommissioned but people could still accomplish great deeds even in death. Kerra concluded that people mattered, even Yulan's children. Yulan argued that they were dead but Kerra managed to bring home the point that they mattered. Yulan finally agreed that the lives of trillions of beings in the galaxy mattered including the captive children in the cloister.

As Odion and his Novitiates prepared for a death ritual, the Sith Lord himself addressed Yulan, praising him for his apparent devotion and loyalty to the Odionate maxim that "life was meaningless." When Odion offered him a last request, Yulan took that opportunity to ask for permission to go to the cloister. Yulan claimed that he wanted to meet his end in the Cloister by adding his life energies to the Helm's powers. Odion granted Yulan's wish and added that he would switch off the the light support in the cloister after draining all the life energies of the children there. After Yulan had departed, Odion started his ritual, using the Helm to exhort the Novitiates into a killing frenzy. The Helm's powers were also projected throughout the Grumani sector, leading to widespread deaths and destruction. Even Odion's estranged relatives were not immune to the Helm's dark side powers.

Kerra managed to break free and tried to attack Odion but was stopped by Wayman. Meanwhile, Yulan made his way downstairs to the Cloister's control room, which was being staffed by two Human men. Yulan shot the older man through the head with a blaster pistol and then forced the younger man Murl to move away from the control console at gunpoint. Yulan then used the controls to turn back the lights within the cloister, bring feelings of relief to the children. This immediately halted the Helm's killing frenzy. With Odion distracted, Kerra took that opportunity to kill Wayman with a lightsaber before telling Yulan over the intercom to free the captives from their bubble prisons. For the first time in years, the cloister children experienced the freedom to meet each other.

The surge of positive emotions like relief and joy caused the Helm to overload, creating a Force-induced firestorm which consumed Odion, killing him. Odion tried to parley for his life with Kerra by promising to help her find her younger sibling. However, Kerra refused and left Odion to burn to death. Meanwhile, Yulan was greeted by the children who quickly regarded him as their adopted father, which gave him a new sense of purpose in life.

Afterwards, the two former enemies were able to help evacuate thousands of Cloister children to the safety of the Galactic Republic. They were unable to reach all twelve of the cloisters since Odion's Sith family had taken advantage of the power vacuum to carve up huge chunks of territory within the Odionate. Odion's estranged younger brother Daiman took the largest share of territory.

While Kerra and Yulan were unable to reunite all the children with their parents, Kerra offered to bring their parents to them. She was also at peace with herself for discovering the fate of her parents and avenging their deaths. Before parting, Yulan shook hands with his former enemy and commended Kerra as the real Claimer who had given him a new purpose in life. Without Kerra, Yulan admitted he would have been as good as dead. After wishing farewell, and telling Kerra that he will return with help, Yulan departed at the helm of a fleet of transports carrying the children to the Republic.

Beld Yulan had a reputation as a skilled and effective mercenary commander during the last decades of the Republic Dark Age. He was a fiercely independent operator who adhered to the Mandragore tradition and cared strongly about the survival of his men. Yulan was also greatly troubled by the deaths of his children which adversely affected his worldview and judgment, leading him to regard life and death as having no intrinsic meaning. Yulan's grief drove him to needlessly sacrifice the lives of his men and led him to embrace the nihilistic doctrines of Sith Lord Odion's death cult. Until the year 1032 BBY, Yulan willingly embraced Odion's credo that the only answer to ending the pain of existence was to embrace nothingness through death.

Having known little peace throughout his life, Yulan also adopted the view that warfare was just a means of speeding the killing on both sides to hasten the end of times. While serving under Odion, Yulan cultivated a close relationship with his Master since both men shared nihilistic beliefs. He would also regularly visit the Odionate cloister on Vanahame—where thousands of children were incarcerated and indoctrinate into Odionate servants—to contemplate on the despair and hopelessness which led him to embrace Odion's dark side teachings. During the protracted internecine warfare between rival Sith factions, Yulan would utilize suicide attack tactics which inflicted a high attrition rate among the Odionate's military forces. His nihilistic military tactics brought him to conflict with "Mercy"—who was actually the Jedi Knight Kerra Holt—since the latter regarded all life as sacred.

Despite their initial animosity, Yulan gained an unlikely ally when Kerra saved his life during the Second Battle of Skarpos. Following the events on Skarpos, Yulan came to question his master's nihilistic doctrine after Odion's utilization of the Helm of Ieldis led to the deaths of an entire Odionate army on that planet. He came to respect his former foe Kerra after learning that she had risked her life to infiltrate the Odionate in a mission to find her long-lost parents. Following his meeting with Kerra, Yulan began to regain his humanity and respect for life, which led him to finally turn against his master during the Battle of Vanahame. Yulan was appalled by Odion's decision to harness the emotions and life energies of the child captives on Vanahame, leading him to free the children after being encouraged by Kerra who stressed the threat posed by Odion's apocalyptic conspiracy to the galaxy.

Following the collapse of the Odionate, Yulan became a father figure to the orphaned children at the Vanahame and cloister. He developed a friendship with Kerra whom he credited with restoring his humanity and compassion. Yulan was reinvigorated by his conversion on Vanahame and took on a new life mission to rescue all the remaining children within Sith space and bring them to the safety of Republic space.

As a mercenary commander trained in the Mandragore tradition, Yulan was skilled in military strategies and tactics. However, his pessimism and embrace of Odion's nihilistic beliefs led him to recklessly sacrifice the lives of his soldiers in combat. He also had sufficient skill and experience to captain the helm of a starship, which he used to ferry a team of Novitiates assigned to hunt for the Helm of Ieldis, an ancient Sith artifact. Yulan was also trained in combat particularly in the use of firearms, as shown when he shot one of the operators maintaining the Odionate cloister on Vanahame as part of his attempt to free the children and end Odion's Force-induced homicidal frenzy.

Beld Yulan was first mentioned in passing in the novel Knight Errant, which was written by John Jackson Miller, and was first released on January 25, 2011. Yulan subsequently makes his first appearance in the Star Wars: Knight Errant: Escape, the third comic arc within the Knight Errant comics, which ran between June 13 and October 10, 2012. Within that comic arc, he serves as a supporting character who undergoes an eleventh-hour redemption at the denouement of Knight Errant: Escape 5.