Kueller
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Kueller is a character from the fictional Star Wars Expanded Universe. Originally known as Dolph, he was a Jedi in training at Luke Skywalker's Academy on Yavin 4.
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[edit] Fall to the Dark side
When his parents on the Outer Rim planet Almania were tortured to death by the Je'her, he fell deeply to the dark side of the Force. Kueller started a resistance movement opposed to the Je'har and crushed them with his army, and the help of his apprentice Brakiss, another fallen Jedi, whom he had forced to aid him. After Kueller wiped out the Je'her, he slaughtered/purged tens of thousands of "sympathizers" of the war.
[edit] Plot against the New Republic
He then proceeded with his plan to conquer the New Republic; he saw himself as a great man who would bring peace to the galaxy through his strength, preventing any more genocides or other mass slaughters- he recounciled this view of himself with his own genocides such as the destruction of Pydyr by analogy with the historical Kueller, who was centuries perviously a great general, who conquered the sector Almania was in through methods of then-unprecedented brutality, but then proceeded to reign over an equally unprecedented era of peace and prosperity.
Kueller planned to bring down the New Republic by planting bombs in droids and critical components of computers. He took this first step by having Brakiss — another former student of Skywalker's that Kueller had helped — supervise the droid factories at Telti. Brakiss' role as supervisor would prevent anyone from outside of the plot from discovering the bombs. The droids would be sold at bargain prices to specific buyers and then Kueller could use the bombs as a scalpel to undermine the faith of a populace that had already suffered crisis after crisis under New Republic rule. He used the revenue generated by the sale of the droids to purchase all available Imperial surplus, intending to take advantage of the fear a resurgent Empire would provoke to further destabilize the Republic. Simultaneously, he would feed on the deaths caused by his droids to gradually increase his power in the dark side, which would enable him to defeat the Skywalkers, and thus become a new Emperor. He would then carefully use them as a scalpel to manipulate the galaxy's turbulent politics, eventually toppling the legitimacy of the New Republic.
Kueller began his galactic campaign first by killing the inhabitants of Auyemesh and Pydyr, two of the three inhabited moons that orbited Almania. He quickly followed them up by causing the droids in the New Republic Senate to self-destruct as its first session was being opened, killing the representatives of several planets. The Senate was forced to hold emergency elections. Several former Imperial officials became representatives of their planets, giving the opposition to Chief of State Leia Organa Solo a simple majority in the Senate. A no-confidence petition was filed.
Kueller further undermined Leia by demanding that she let him become the ruler of the New Republic, or else her brother, Luke — who had come to Almania to find him — would be executed. Instead of giving into his demands, and allowing the no-confidence petition to come to a vote, she resigned. Mon Mothma, Leia's predecessor, took over for her.
Leia took off for Almania to find Luke along with a small fleet led by General Wedge Antilles. When they arrived at Almania, Kueller was ready for them with three Victory-class Star Destroyers which were entirely crewed by droids. Leia managed to slip past them and their fighters and made it to the surface of Almania. He was defeated militarily when Antilles realized that the Victory-class Star Destroyers were commanded by droids (from Brakiss and Telti, again), and used that aspect against them: Kueller's fleet was initially successful, causing heavy losses to the New Republic task force. However, by observing the actions of Kueller's fleet closely, Antilles realized the true nature of the crew of the Star Destroyers and their fighters. He ordered his gunners to fire on the other ships in the Republic convoy. This caused the droids in Kueller's fleet to believe that the ships of the Republic fleet were actually their allies. The Star Destroyers went into a flanking position to protect their "allies." They were then crippled by precise turbolaser fire from the Republic fleet.
Kueller was defeated when Luke broke out of his prison, and Han Solo distracted him with a Ysalamir; at that point, too late to halt the general detonation order for all Telti-manufactured droids, Leia shot him twice with a blaster, killing him. Fortunately, C-3PO and R2-D2, along with a young mechanic named Cole Fardreamer, had blocked the relay on Telti, neutralizing Kueller's last gasp of malice.
[edit] References
- Star Wars: The New Rebellion, 1st printing paperback, 1996. Kristine Kathryn Rusch, ISBN 0-553-57414-0
- The New Essential Guide to Characters, 1st edition, 2002. Daniel Wallace, Michael Sutfin, ISBN 0-345-44900-2
