Salak Weet


Salak Weet, also known to the Sanyassan King Terak as the star traveler, was a Humanoid male explorer whose starship crashed onto the Forest Moon of Endor around the year 26 BBY. Weet had been attempting to chart the Moddell sector with his friend Noa Briqualon, but a damaged crystal oscillator in their star cruiser left them stranded on Endor. After setting out to search the moon for a replacement part, Weet was taken captive by a group of shipwrecked Sanyassan Marauders and brought to their castle stronghold. Misunderstanding the tale he told them, the primitive Marauders believed that he had the "power of the stars," a power they could take from him and use to leave the moon. Weet was in turn killed by Terak, their king.

Weet's corpse hung in the castle's dungeon over the years as the Sanyassans continued to hunt for the "power." Although Briqualon accepted that his friend would not return, Weet's father Jimke organized a massive search effort that finally bankrupted him after four years. Weet's fate was confirmed to Briqualon in 3 ABY, when Briqualon infiltrated the Marauders' castle to rescue his captive friend Cindel Towani and came across Weet's skeleton. The skeleton's presence helped Briqualon realize that Towani's own crystal oscillator was in the castle, and, after escaping with it, he and Towani were able to leave Endor.

Stranded


The Humanoid male Salak Weet lived during the final years of the Galactic Republic. He was the son of Jimke Weet, a renowned kloo horn soloist. Shortly before 26 BBY, the younger Weet set out to chart the Moddell sector alongside his friend Noa Briqualon, a Human who had spent years as a mid-level scout. On the two explorers' maiden voyage, they reached the Moddell sector's Monsua Nebula, from where they broadcast a responder signal. Shortly afterward, their star cruiser crashed onto Endor, a forested moon that had claimed hundreds of ships throughout the millennia due to the presence of nearby gravity shadows and stellar debris. A damaged crystal oscillator rendered the ship inoperable, and the explorers hid their cruiser beneath a layer of foliage, from where they began to enact repairs. Weet eventually left to search the moon for a replacement oscillator.

While wandering through the forest, Weet encountered a group of Sanyassan Marauders who had themselves been stranded on Endor for nearly a century. The Sanyassans captured Weet and brought him to Terak's Keep, the castle stronghold of their leader, King Terak. There, they chained Weet to the walls of the keep's dungeon, and he told his captors of the stranded star cruiser and his hunt for a crystal oscillator. The primitive Marauders were both desperate to leave Endor and fascinated by the "power of the stars"—their term for the ability to travel through space—and Terak killed Weet in an attempt to gain that power. When the murder accomplished nothing, the Marauders embarked on a quest to locate Weet's ship and the great power they presumed was contained therein. Weet's corpse was left in the dungeon to rot.

Legacy


Weet's skeleton hung in Terak's Keep for years after his death.

Weet's skeleton hung in Terak's Keep for years after his death.

In 26 BBY, Jimke Weet organized a massive search-and-rescue effort for his son and set up a corresponding HoloNet registry for the receipt of information from anyone who had it. After four fruitless years, he was forced to file for bankruptcy and abandon his efforts. However, the elder Weet refused to give up hope, and in an interview with HoloNet News, he asked his fans to donate any available credits to the registry in order to help revive the search. Meanwhile, on Endor, Weet's body decomposed into a skeleton as the years passed. Although his name was known to Terak's accomplice Charal, Weet was remembered by Terak as "the star traveler."

Briqualon continued repair work on the crashed star cruiser for nearly three decades. Although he realized that Weet would not return, he refused to admit it to himself until 3 ABY when he shared his story with Cindel Towani, a young shipwrecked Human girl whom he had befriended. The Marauders had attacked an Ewok village and killed her entire family before stealing the crystal oscillator from their star cruiser, recognizing it as the power of which Weet had spoken. Towani learned of Weet's fate after later being kidnapped by the Marauders, and when Briqualon stormed Terak's Keep to rescue her, she pointed out Weet's skeleton and told Briqualon that his friend had been killed for "the power thing." Quickly realizing that she meant her family's oscillator, Briqualon snatched it from the castle; after defeating Terak in battle, he used the oscillator to power his ship and leave Endor with Towani.

Personality and traits


As a young man, Salak Weet was eager to set out on his charting expedition, hoping that he and Briqualon could "tear up the galaxy." When kidnapped by the Sanyassan Marauders, Weet revealed information to them. After crashing onto Endor, he was missed by his father, who openly wept to the media.

Behind the scenes


The character of Salak was introduced in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, a 1985 television movie directed by Jim and Ken Wheat. Although he appears only as a long-dead skeleton, the movie's plot is driven by Salak's past actions. The character was named after actor Tom Selleck, whom ABC Entertainment originally suggested to play the role of Noa before Wilford Brimley was cast. Salak is not included in The Ring, the Witch, and the Crystal: An Ewok Adventure, a truncated children's storybook adaptation of the movie written by Cathy East Dubowski—in the storybook, Briqualon tells Towani that he crashed onto Endor years before, but he makes no mention of having been with a partner. Additionally, the book does not provide a backstory to the Sanyassan Marauders' desire to leave Endor.

Further information on Weet's past was later revealed in the StarWars.com Databank and in "Missing Starship Search Abandoned", a 2002 article published in Volume 531, Issue 49 of the HoloNet News website that was written by Pablo Hidalgo and Paul Ens. The article spells the character's name as "Salek," as does another article included in Star Wars Insider 110. However, this spelling is contrary to the spelling of "Salak" given in the subtitles of the 2004 Ewoks: The Battle for Endor DVD release, the Databank entries, and 2008's The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. Nevertheless, the two erring articles are the only sources to provide the last name of "Weet," and as such, the correctly spelled full name "Salak Weet" has never appeared in canon.

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