Jelok

Jelok was a Human male scientist who served in the forces of Imperial warlord Moff Kentor Sarne in 8 ABY. Assigned to research team MS-133, Jelok was part of an expedition dispatched to the planet Aaris III in the Kathol sector. The team's mission was to conduct an archaeological dig in ruins found on the planet in an effort to discover why the native species, the Aaris, had gone extinct. During the months-long mission, Jelok assisted his colleague, Grigor Tansad, in exploring the Place of Kastays, where he discovered the Plaque of Victory, an inanimate lifeform that influenced the emotions of those beings around it by heightening their suspicions and causing violent behavior.
The Plaque of Victory began to affect the team, causing an outbreak of paranoia. Shortly after, MS-133 came under attack by the primitive descendants of the Aaris. As the team began to take casualties, the expedition leader, Doctor Lancer Brunou, ordered the mission to be abandoned. Jelok, feeling that his exploration of the Place of Kastays had reached a critical stage, refused to abandon his research and had to be forcibly removed to the team's shuttle. That night, the shuttle was destroyed, stranding MS-133 on the planet. Jelok did not survive to be rescued by the New Republic CR90 corvette FarStar, which arrived in orbit in response to a distress call sent by Doctor Brunou.
==Biography==
In 8 ABY, Jelok, a Human male, was serving in the forces of Moff Kentor Sarne, the Imperial warlord of the Kathol sector. He was a scientist and was assigned to MS-133, a research team under the command of Doctor Lancer Brunou. The team was dispatched on an archaeological expedition to a series of extensive ruins on the planet Aaris III with the intention of discovering the cause behind the extinction of the world's sentient species, the Aaris. Over the course of several months, Jelok assisted Brunou and the rest of the team in exploring the extensive metal ruins.
On the forty-ninth day of the mission, one of Jelok's fellow scientists, Grigor Tansad, discovered a chamber within one of the ruined structures. Brunou assigned Jelok, along with two technicians and five troopers, to assist Tansad in exploring the chamber. The small group set up a secondary base camp close to the chamber, as the structure was away from MS-133's primary camp. The team discovered that the chamber was covered in bas-relief pictographs that emitted sounds when touched. Jelok believed that the sounds the pictographs emitted were the key to the language used by the Aaris, while Tansad was of the opinion that they represented a pictorial dating system and served as the civilization's aural history. Both scientists began to work on their own theories, attempting to translate the pictographs.
After several days of work, Tansad's theory about the pictographs proved to be correct, causing Jelok to abandon his own line of research and assist his fellow scientist. On the sixtieth day of the expedition, Jelok was clearing rubble from the chamber's floor when he discovered a concealed panel that housed a metal ingot. Brunou took the artifact to be analyzed at the main base camp and discovered that it was composed of material unknown to Imperial science, and that it gave off a faint energy reading. He resolved to send it back to Moff Sarne's laboratories on his capital, the planet Kal'Shebbol, for further testing. The team was unaware of the ingot's true nature; the artifact contained a sentient lifeform that fed off the life-force of living beings. Despite being inanimate, it sought to destroy those around it by manipulating their emotions, heightening their suspicions and turning them violent. The Aaris referred to the artifact as the "Plaque of Victory," and it had been responsible for the civil war that had destroyed their civilization thousands of years previously.
Jelok continued to clear the rubble and debris from the chamber while Tansad endeavored to translate the pictographs, entering the findings on his personal datapad. On the sixty-first day of the expedition, members of the team began to report feelings of being watched from the surrounding jungle, despite there being no evidence of any other living beings on the planet. As a precaution, the Lieutenant in command of the security detachment led five troopers into the jungle to investigate. An hour later, blaster fire was heard in the distance. When none of the team returned, weapons were issued to the rest of the team. Jelok and Tansad continued to work in the chamber despite the incident. That night, the main base camp was attacked by the primitive descendants of the Aaris, resulting in the wounding of a technician and Doctor Theda. Jelok later reported that Tansad was missing from the secondary camp, and that two more technicians had been killed by sniper fire from the jungle. With these setbacks, Brunou ordered Jelok to return to the main camp. Jelok refused, stating that he was close to translating the alien language, and that he had discovered that the name of the chamber they were excavating was the "Place of Kastays." Jelok felt that it was vital his work continue, but Brunou disagreed, ordering the remaining troopers to escort Jelok back to the team's shuttle, while he and the rest of the staff packed up the base camp in readiness to leave the planet.
That night, the Aaris attacked again, destroying the team's shuttle and reducing MS-133 to a handful of survivors—Doctors Brunou and Theda, Solla Deremot, two troopers, and a technician. With no way off the planet, they fortified the base camp as best they could and sent a distress signal to Kal'Shebbol. The message was intercepted by the New Republic CR90 corvette FarStar. In the months since MS-133 had departed Kal'Shebbol, the New Republic had liberated the planet. By the time the corvette had arrived, only Brunou and Deremot remained alive to evacuate. Captain Kaiya Adrimetrum, commanding officer of the FarStar, authorized an investigation into what had occurred on the planet. Crew members searched the Place of Kastays, where they found Tansad's body hidden in the rubble, with evidence that he had been killed by a blow to the head by a heavy rock. The rock in question was found nearby, along with Tansad's datapad, which noted that he felt that Jelok was jealous of his work.
==Personality and traits==
Jelok was a scientist with experience in translating alien languages, and he was able to make intuitive leaps and reasoned hypotheses when confronted with imagery from alien civilizations. During the Aaris III expedition, when his theory on the nature of the alien pictographs was proved wrong, he willingly set aside his own work to assist his colleague, Grigor Tansad. Despite this, Tansad felt that Jelok was jealous that his theory had been proven right. Dedicated to his work, Jelok was angry when Doctor Brunou ordered him to abandon his studies when the expedition came under attack.
==Behind the scenes==
Jelok was introduced in the RPG adventure Artifact of Aaris, published in The DarkStryder Campaign by West End Games in 1995. The character was later referenced in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. The adventure implies that, under the influence of the Plaque of Victory, the members of MS-133 turned upon each other, resulting in multiple deaths and the destruction of the team's shuttle. However, The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, published in 2008, confirmed that the team came under attack from the remnants of the Aaris civilization.
Regardless, the adventure implies that Jelok was responsible for the murder of Grigor Tansad. Tansad's own notes state that he felt that Jelok was jealous of his work, and Tansad's body was found under the rubble in the chamber in which he and Jelok were working. Tansad had been killed by a blow to the head, and the murder weapon was nearby, still covered in blood. However, since neither source directly confirms these implications, this article only presents the information without assumptions.
==Appearances==
* 
==Sources==
*The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
==Notes and references==
Category:Humans
Category:Males
Category:Personnel of Moff Sarne's forces
Category:Scientists