Mezhan Kwaad

Mezhan Kwaad was born into Domain Kwaad, a prominent domain of shapers, and demonstrated extraordinary talent for shaping, the biological science used by the Yuuzhan Vong to create organisms for their benefit. Unbeknownst to her superiors, Kwaad harbored heretical beliefs and disregarded the strict rules of her caste. According to orthodox shaping practices, all knowledge originated from Yun'o, the collective name for the Yuuzhan Vong gods, who would bestow it upon the Supreme Overlord when deemed appropriate. This implied that if Yuuzhan Vong technology ever failed, shapers had to request new insights from the gods through the Supreme Overlord. Since seven of the eight Yuuzhan Vong cortices were already filled with shaper lore, it was believed that any remaining bio-technology for the Yuuzhan Vong resided in the eighth cortex. However, Kwaad eventually concluded that the gods did not provide information to the Supreme Overlord and that the Yuuzhan Vong needed to adapt the rigid shaping protocols to survive. This viewpoint, which questioned the gods, was considered a grave heresy punishable by death. Domain Kwaad shapers were known for their heretical tendencies, with at least one, Yakun Kwaad, being discovered and executed during the Yuuzhan Vong fleet's long journey to the promised galaxy, where Supreme Overlord Shimrra had declared the Yuuzhan Vong would find their rightful home.

Around the time of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the galaxy, Mezhan Kwaad fell in love with Vua Rapuung, a commander from the warrior caste. Unions between castes were prohibited, seen as insults to the gods, but while Kwaad disregarded this due to her heresy, Rapuung was troubled by defying Yun-Yuuzhan, the chief deity. Despite their love, Rapuung stopped praying to Yun-Txiin and Yun-Q'aah, the lover gods, and realized the affair would destroy them. He ended the relationship, prompting Kwaad to reveal her heretical beliefs and dismiss the gods as superstition, asserting that their strength allowed them to do as they pleased. Rapuung was unconvinced, and although he assured her he would not reveal her heresy, Kwaad feared her secret would be exposed. To eliminate Rapuung as a threat, Kwaad manipulated his warrior implants, causing them to fail. Implant rejection marked one as a Shamed One, relegated to menial tasks and shunned by others. Rapuung lost his rank, reputation, and domain status, suspecting Kwaad's involvement. He dedicated the rest of his life to seeking redemption and proving Kwaad had made him a Shamed One.

At some point, Mezhan Kwaad conspired with the Fosh familiar Vergere and the deception sect priestess Ngaaluh to form a secret society aimed at overthrowing the Yuuzhan Vong religion and caste system. Kwaad, who had been escalated to the rank of Master Shaper, was among those selected to experiment on captured Jedi one year into the Yuuzhan Vong War. The Jedi Order, based on Yavin 4, a moon of Yavin Prime, was of interest to Supreme Overlord Shimrra and other high-ranking Yuuzhan Vong. The shapers were tasked with determining the source of the Force, the enigmatic energy field the Jedi claimed to control. Kwaad chose Nen Yim, a shaper initiate from the worldship Baanu Kor, to assist her. Yim had impressed her with a creative protocol to preserve a section of the vessel's nervous system and had committed heresy during her work. Yim, now a [shaper adept](/article/shaper_adept], accompanied Kwaad to Yavin 4, though Kwaad did not yet discuss heresy with her. Vua Rapuung and Master Shaper Yal Phaath from a rival domain were also aboard the fleet heading to the moon. In space above Yavin 4, fleet commander Tsaak Vootuh learned that members of the Peace Brigade, collaborators with the Yuuzhan Vong, had already attacked the Praxeum. Most Jedi had escaped aboard starships belonging to smuggler Talon Karrde, whose forces remained in the Yavin system. Only Tahiri Veila, a thirteen-year-old Jedi, had been captured. Kwaad was tasked with experimenting on Veila, ostensibly to study the Force, but she had other plans: to discover the Force's source while molding Veila into a loyal protector and achieving unparalleled glory.

After Commander Vootuh's forces reached a standoff with Karrde's, the landing commenced, and the shapers were permitted to enter Yavin 4's jungle. Damuteks, Yuuzhan Vong compounds, were to be erected over the Great Temple. As the organic structures took shape, Kwaad and Nen Yim disembarked. Kwaad explained to her adept why she had been chosen, encouraging Yim in their mission to shape the galaxy. She reminded Yim that the Yuuzhan Vong needed shapers willing to push boundaries and that Supreme Overlord Shimrra was closely monitoring events on Yavin 4. Kwaad then took Yim to have her shaper hand attached, a painful process Kwaad had also endured. Kwaad waited for Yim in the grotto of Yun-Ne'Shel, the goddess of the shaper caste, while Yim's wrist was severed. After the shaper hand was attached, Kwaad offered advice and reassurance, speaking of the joy they would find in experimenting on Veila and bringing glory to their caste, the Yuuzhan Vong, and themselves.

Mezhan Kwaad and Yim interrogated Veila, confirming that the Jedi believed she drew on an energy field produced by all living things—the Force. They began mapping Veila's nervous system to discover the biological source of her ability to manipulate this energy. As Humans were largely unknown to the Yuuzhan Vong, Veila's nervous system was uncharted territory. Kwaad used the protocol of Tsong and a provoker spineray to explore it. The spineray would elicit a painful reaction from nerve clusters in Veila's body, and with Veila confined in a membrane-bound section of a vivarium, Kwaad and Yim could safely conduct their investigation. By selectively targeting nerves, they discovered that the Human nervous system contained structures without counterparts in the Yuuzhan Vong. In manipulating the protocol of Tsong, Kwaad was again flirting with heresy. As she conferred with Nen Yim, Master Shaper Yal Phaath entered the chamber with his aide, confronting the two shapers.

Phaath, a strict adherent to protocols, questioned Kwaad's belief that Humans existed outside the eight cortices of shaper lore, as Yun-Yuuzhan had theoretically created all life. He reminded Yim and, indirectly, Kwaad, that seeking new knowledge instead of petitioning the Supreme Overlord was heresy. As their verbal sparring continued and Phaath threatened to watch Kwaad closely, Veila suddenly attacked them through the Force, manipulating the molecules in the vivarium's air to crush her captors. Kwaad collapsed under the intense pressure but was saved by Nen Yim, who used the device controlling the provoker spineray to trigger a massive wave of pain in Veila, causing her to faint. Kwaad regained control, saving Veila from death, and explained the Jedi's theory of the Force to a skeptical Yal Phaath. The ancient master departed for the planet of Myrkr to oversee the shaping of vornskrs into Jedi-hunting creatures. This news disturbed Kwaad, as such a creature would threaten Veila once she had bent the Jedi to her will. However, she was eager to see Phaath leave the system. During Kwaad's experiments on Veila, she was visited by her co-conspirators Ngaaluh and Vergere, who oversaw some of her work.

The ongoing project focused on mapping Tahiri Veila's neural pathways, while Kwaad suffered emotionally from the impending removal of her Vaa-tumor. This shaper implant, grafted onto the brain to enhance knowledge, ultimately required excision. The Vaa-tumor caused Kwaad persistent pain until its removal, so Nen Yim conducted experiments on Veila in the meantime. Upon learning from the adept that the nervous system mapping was complete, the master shaper decided to initiate a conversation about the profound heresy they were about to commit. Kwaad understood that Yim's mapping of the Human's nervous system had revealed significant physiological differences between Veila's species and the Yuuzhan Vong, rendering the Tsong protocol ineffective for their Force investigation. This realization necessitated a departure from orthodox protocols, requiring the adaptation of the provoker spineray to meet their specific needs. To Kwaad's relief and satisfaction, Yim responded positively to her cautious inquiries, expressing a willingness to disregard the strictures of shaper law. The heretical master cautioned Yim against betraying her; after the younger shaper pledged unwavering loyalty, the master took her protégé to visit Veila once more.

The plan was to completely reconstruct Veila's personality, making her believe she was a Yuuzhan Vong warrior. Knowledge of the Yuuzhan Vong was directly implanted into the Jedi's brain. After completing this task, Kwaad warned her captive against any further harmful use of the Force, threatening her with torture. The master shaper continued her scheme, rewriting Veila's life story to portray the Sand People and Jedi who raised her as kidnappers. Kwaad claimed that Veila's true identity was the Yuuzhan Vong warrior Riina Kwaad, brainwashed by the Jedi into accepting false memories of her early life. When the Jedi girl resisted this claim, Kwaad simply instructed Yim to proceed with further modifications. The ultimate plan was to transform Veila both mentally and physically into a Yuuzhan Vong, whom Kwaad could present to her peers and superiors, and then keep as her personal possession.

Later, Veila's forehead was scarred with the ritual markings of Domain Kwaad, but the Human's memories remained a persistent challenge. Had the primary goal of the project not been to investigate the Jedi's ability to touch the Force, Kwaad would have completely erased Veila's memory. However, this would have also destroyed her captive's connection to the Force. Therefore, new memories had to be transplanted, but the Human's brain consistently rejected them. To create the components of Veila's new personality, Kwaad and her adept manipulated the protocol of Qah, which is generally used for implanting memories into Yuuzhan Vong brains. This adaptation of the protocol was a grave act of heresy, punishable by execution if discovered. The process of creating new memories was not only dangerous but also laborious, because the differences in the Human brain made it difficult to predict which memories would be accepted and which would be rejected. At some point, without Nen Yim's knowledge, Kwaad used her adept as a donor; real Yuuzhan Vong memories of childhood were needed, so Yim's memories were implanted into Veila's brain. To expedite the project, the provoker spineray was used to inflict pain whenever Veila tried to access her long-term memories, forcing the Jedi's true personality back into the depths of her mind with the goal of completely eliminating it.

Kwaad's Vaa-tumor continued to cause her pain. One night, while the master shaper was at the shaper damutek's succession pool contemplating her suffering, she unknowingly encountered the young Jedi Anakin Solo, who had infiltrated the compound as a slave, guided by his ally, Vua Rapuung, Kwaad's former lover. In the darkness, with Solo disguised as a Shamed One, Kwaad forgave the unseen "Shamed One" for his trespass, as the pain from her Vaa-tumor was overwhelming. Kwaad's suffering was so intense that her rival, Yal Phaath, used it as part of his plan to investigate and expose the heresy he suspected her of committing. A shaper initiate, Tsun Qel, was sent to the vivarium where Veila was held, and he told Nen Yim that he had been sent by Mezhan Kwaad and that he was also a heretic. Qel claimed that Kwaad was finally having her Vaa-tumor removed, and Yim, convinced by the initiate, revealed to Phaath's spy the heresy that she and her master were committing in their experiments on Veila. For several days, Kwaad was kept away from Yim, Veila, and the vivarium while the deception unfolded. Called to a pointless convocation by Yal Phaath, ostensibly to discuss procedures for the new worldship being constructed at the Yuuzhan Vong shipwomb at Sernpidal, Kwaad was forced into ritual seclusion, isolating her while Phaath conducted his investigation.

Kwaad's absence from the project made her impatient, and she demanded to see the results of Yim's work, questioning Veila about her past. To Kwaad's satisfaction, the specimen showed much less hesitation when referring to herself as Riina Kwaad and recounting her capture by the Jedi. Kwaad wanted to see more; she instructed Yim to silence the provoker spineray, allowing Veila to access her memory of the Force and use telekinesis to lift a stone from the ground, while Kwaad and her adept ensured that Veila's buried personality did not resurface. The experiment was successful, and Kwaad and Yim began mapping the areas of the Human's brain that showed the most activity during her use of the Force. As the two shapers discussed the puzzling results—which suggested that the Force did not have a specific biological source in the Jedi—Kwaad's Vaa-tumor caused her pain again. Yim, who believed the tumor had already been removed, expressed her confusion, and Kwaad quickly realized that Tsun Qel had been Yal Phaath's spy. Defeated and exhausted, she was then interrupted by Commander Tsaak Vootuh himself, accompanied by his personal guards. Kwaad and Yim were arrested on charges of heresy and were escorted by Vootuh and his warriors, along with Veila, to the commander's personal shuttle.

The master shaper, her adept, and Veila were already on the shuttle ramp, about to depart, when a disturbance stopped Vootuh and his guards. Vua Rapuung and Anakin Solo had launched the final stage of their rescue attempt, charging the shuttle and killing several of the commander's bodyguards before being struck by nang hul projectiles. Vootuh prevented Solo from continuing the fight by threatening to kill Veila with his amphistaff; Kwaad watched as Solo tried to appeal to his friend's buried personality, but she intervened. Vootuh silenced the shaper, and at that moment the critically wounded Vua Rapuung asked Solo to demand that Mezhan Kwaad reveal her actions. The master shaper's old lover was dying and wanted to be redeemed before his death by hearing Kwaad admit that she, not the gods, had given him the appearance of a Shamed One. Despite the evidence of heresy already against her, Kwaad refused to respond to Solo or Rapuung. Hul Rapuung, Vua's brother, and others in the crowd questioned why she wouldn't answer if the truth was in her favor. Vootuh threatened Domain Kwaad if the master shaper refused to answer, and Kwaad realized she was trapped.

She answered Rapuung's question, admitting that she had caused his implants to fail, as he suspected, and that there were no gods. In the resulting uproar, Kwaad manipulated her shaper hand and used the finger-spears hidden inside to fatally impale Vootuh and his three guards. She also incapacitated Solo and Rapuung with two more of the barbs. With her immediate enemies neutralized, Kwaad took out a potent nerve toxin, huun, and threatened the assembled Yuuzhan Vong to allow her safe departure. Announcing that she answered only to Supreme Overlord Shimrra himself, the shaper tried to escape, ordering Yim to drag Solo and Rapuung into the shuttle. As Solo's lightsaber rose from the ground and arced toward her, manipulated by the Force, Kwaad overloaded the young Jedi's senses with pain from her finger-spear in an attempt to stop his concentration and his use of telekinesis. The master shaper failed to realize in time that it was Veila who had used the Force to lift the blade. With a swift strike, Veila decapitated Mezhan Kwaad.

The most significant consequence of Mezhan Kwaad's actions on Yavin 4 was the rise of a heretical movement among the Shamed Ones, which quickly gained support among the members of the caste. The fact that Kwaad, not the gods, had Shamed Rapuung, proved to some that the lowliest of the Yuuzhan Vong were being manipulated by their superiors. Many claimed that redemption from Shamed status could be found with the Jedi, as Vua Rapuung's alliance with Solo had allowed him to confront Kwaad and regain his honor. Upon arriving on the moon, Warmaster Tsavong Lah tried to crush this emerging heresy. However, word spread from Yavin 4, inspiring the oppressed Shamed Ones to revolt against their masters. The legend of Vua Rapuung, in which Mezhan Kwaad played a crucial role as the main antagonist, became the guiding principle of the Jeedai heresy, a movement that grew so powerful that it attracted members from higher castes and ultimately helped topple Supreme Overlord Shimrra and the Yuuzhan Vong Empire during the last battle of the war.

Domain Phaath, as Mezhan Kwaad's rival Yal Phaath had intended, took over the project of investigating the Jedi, and Domain Kwaad was relegated to tending the ailing Koros-Strohna. The master of the domain, Tjulan Kwaad, was deeply angered and embarrassed by his subordinate's heresy and felt that Mezhan and her adept had disgraced the Kwaad. Indeed, Qelah Kwaad, Mezhan's domain sister, often had to live under the shadow of her late sibling's heresy and try to make up for the master shaper's mistakes.

Nen Yim survived the events in the Yuuzhan Vong compound, hiding among the Shamed Ones to preserve the new knowledge about the Jedi, and was later debriefed by Tsavong Lah when the warrior leader arrived on the moon. Yim was spared from the customary sacrifice so that she could record the information on the Jedi in a qahsa, a memory storage organism. Thus, Kwaad's discoveries about the Force and the physiology of Jedi were not lost. Kwaad's adept was also sent to tend to the Koros-Strohna, and aboard the dying vessel Baanu Miir she tried to save the Yuuzhan Vong trapped there. Eventually, Yim came to the attention of Shimrra himself, after the young shaper gazed into the eighth cortex and saw the truth Kwaad had suspected—there was no knowledge held in reserve for the Yuuzhan Vong, and defeat was therefore inevitable against the constantly adapting New Republic forces. Shimrra promoted Yim to the rank of master, aware of her experience in heresy, and ordered her to create new technology to fight the New Republic. In her adept, Kwaad's heresy lived on, and in the last year of the war Yim discovered the truth behind the Yuuzhan Vong's inability to touch the Force.

For the young Tahiri Veila, the results of Kwaad's incomplete shaping were devastating. Left with her Riina Kwaad alter-ego lurking in her psyche, Veila later suffered a mental breakdown in the penultimate year of the war, and remained vulnerable even after she successfully integrated Riina Kwaad's ego into her own. Veila also became part of the epic cycle of the Jeedai heresy as the "One-who-was-shaped," and the Shamed Ones honored her as a symbol of hope. She continued to bear the scarring of Domain Kwaad on her brow and maintained a high pain threshold due to the experimentation.

Mezhan Kwaad was driven by a belief in her heresy as intense as the fanaticism that guided the orthodoxy of the Yuuzhan Vong religion. The master shaper believed that the only way for the Yuuzhan Vong to adapt and survive was to defy the protocols and make innovative advances; in this respect, Kwaad was trying to improve the fortunes of her race. Indeed, as she claimed during her failed escape, she had no desire to harm any fellow members of her species, and stated that she had killed Commander Vootuh and his guards out of necessity.

However, the master shaper was not motivated solely by pragmatism and altruism. Kwaad's desire to help the Yuuzhan Vong was just one of the factors that influenced her actions. In the Jedi project, Kwaad primarily sought glory for herself, and much of her motivation to shape Tahiri Veila came from her desire to possess a tame Force-wielder of her own. The master shaper's heresy and ambition, which led to delusions of grandeur, even caused Nen Yim to later confide that Mezhan Kwaad may have been insane.

In terms of her shaping ability, Kwaad was a talented and intelligent Yuuzhan Vong, capable of adapting protocols in various ways to suit her purposes. However, the master shaper's prolonged attempt to keep her heresy secret made her paranoid and defensive, and she conducted her work in secrecy. Kwaad's paranoia also led her to destroy the life of her former lover, Vua Rapuung, when she believed he posed a threat to her survival. The shaper's actions were also motivated by spite; after being rejected by her lover, she chose not to kill Rapuung, but instead to make him appear as a madman.

Kwaad's cruelty in her manipulation of Rapuung was reflected in her work; Veila was fourteen when she was experimented on by the master shaper, and the heretic showed no remorse as she observed the effects of her scientific investigation and subjugation of Veila's personality on the Jedi. Proud and confident in her work, Kwaad was nevertheless tricked twice by those around her; lured out by Yal Phaath, her heresy was exposed, and when faced with the lightsaber moving toward her telekinetically, she did not realize that it was her prize specimen who was using the Force. The master shaper's overconfidence and arrogance, demonstrated in her declaration of heresy before her death, often concealed a more introspective side of her personality. Kwaad was fascinated by the world of knowledge granted to her by her enhanced brain, and she sometimes became mesmerized and placid when she spoke of it.

Mezhan Kwaad is a prominent Yuuzhan Vong character in the first novel of Gregory Keyes's Edge of Victory Duology. The New Jedi Order: Edge of Victory I: Conquest allowed Keyes to extensively explore the structure of Yuuzhan Vong psychology and society, as he intended, and to introduce the shaper caste and the Shamed Ones for the first time in print. Although the narrative is never presented from Kwaad's perspective, her character provides one depiction of the previously unseen shapers and serves as a vehicle for introducing the concept of Yuuzhan Vong heresy, which was later developed into a significant plot point throughout The New Jedi Order series.

Cover artist Terese Nielsen, who created the image of Mezhan Kwaad for the cover of Edge of Victory I: Conquest, mentioned that while she enjoyed creating the art, she was somewhat disappointed to learn that the master shaper's features had been artificially colored blue without her knowledge. Despite Mezhan Kwaad's role in Edge of Victory I: Conquest and in Tahiri Veila's character story, the master shaper did not receive a separate entry in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, published in 2008.