Solo, Jacen

• Appeared in:
  
  I
  II
  III
  IV
  V
  VI
  CW

• Homeworld:
  Coruscant

• Species:
  Human

• Gender:
  Male

• Size:
  1.79 meters

• Weapon:
  Lightsaber

• Affiliation:
  Jedi

• 

From the Expanded Universe

The war against the Yuuzhan Vong was an excruciating crucible for young Jacen Solo, who survived capture, torture and questioned faith to transform from a confused youth into a determined adult.

At the start of the conflict, Jacen stood at a crossroads, consumed by indecision, and concerned with the implications of using the Force. He was a complicated young man burdened with responsibility of being a Jedi.

His conscience wasn't always so plagued. In fact, Jacen lived a happy, adventure-filled childhood of privilege, being the son of the Chief of State of the New Republic. He and his twin sister, Jaina, were born to Leia Organa and Han Solo on Coruscant during the end of the Thrawn crisis. As infants, the Solo twins were strong in the Force, and had an inseparable mental bond between them.

During the earlier years of their lives, the twins were sequestered at safeworlds meant to protect them from Imperial attacks. Ultimately, their parents decided it would be safest to keep the family together. They were safeguarded and tended to by Chewbacca, C-3PO and their nanny, Winter. When the twins were a year-and-a-half old, they were joined by a younger brother, Anakin Solo, also strong in the Force.

Even before the tender age of three, the twins managed to toddle into adventure. Sneaking away from C-3PO, the two took a decommissioned turbolift into the scary depths of Coruscant. Luckily, they were rescued before any harm befell them.

A short time later, Jacen came to the defense of his uncle Luke Skywalker. Luke was rendered unconscious by the actions of a dark spirit, Exar Kun. None of Luke's students could see the disembodied spirit of their Master, but the young Jedi twins could. Luke guided Jacen to defend to his uncle's body from attacking predators, and the two-year old even wielded Luke's lightsaber.

When in their early teens, Jacen and Jaina joined Luke's Jedi academy on Yavin 4. There, they became friends with fellow students Lowbacca, and Tenel Ka. As Jacen studied, he developed an affinity and sensitivity towards nature and the living Force. He could instinctively communicate with animals, and kept a large menagerie of small critters in his quarters in the Massassi temple.

During this time, he and his friends weathered many a crisis, from attacks of dark Jedi initiates of the Second Imperium, to the anti-human activists of the Diversity Alliance. While Jacen learned much from these experiences, they could hardly prepare him for the carnage that would follow shortly thereafter.

The Yuuzhan Vong invasion came as a shock to the Jedi order. This new menace was inexplicably removed from the Force, and seemingly beyond all efforts of negotiation. While the aliens loathed the inorganic technology of the galaxy, they fostered a special hatred to the Jedi and their supernatural powers in particular. As the war escalated, the Yuuzhan Vong called for the delivery of the Jedi as prisoners in exchange for a cease in hostilities. A battered and beleaguered galaxy was all too ready to listen.

With the new Jedi order challenged from all fronts, Jacen was torn. He believed the Force to be more than just a weapon wielded against a foe. He was concerned that many of the Jedi, including his younger brother Anakin, were adopting too aggressive a stance. In the thick of war, Jacen turned his back on his powers. Rather than using them offensively, he instead abandoned his talents to contemplate on his inner connection to the Force, to seek out answers to put his mind at ease.

Jacen applied his more passive talents in the Force in a daring mission to Myrkr. A Jedi strike force, led by his brother Anakin, was to infiltrate a Yuuzhan Vong cloning facility where the invaders crafted deadly Jedi-hunting beasts called voxyn. Jacen would use the Force to bind the team together into a cohesive fighting unit. The mission ended disastrously. The Yuuzhan Vong killed young Anakin, Jaina reacted by touching the dark side of the Force, and Jacen was captured by enemy troops led by Vergere and Nom Anor.

Jacen disappeared. His presence in the Force had seemingly vanished. Many in the New Republic considered him dead, though his mother never lost faith that he was alive, somehow, somewhere.

Jacen awoke to find himself in the Embrace of Pain, a rack-like torture device favored by the Yuuzhan Vong. His captor was the enigmatic Vergere, who puzzled him with queries and riddles as Jacen drowned in his pain and sorrow. Yet his inner strength of character staved off madness or total collapse.

Aboard a seedship -- a vessel designed to transform worlds into Yuuzhan Vong strongholds -- Jacen was put to work at the Nursery, a chamber where the organic tools of transformation were nurtured. Jacen's natural empathy for living creatures forged a strong bond with the dhuryam, a sort of larval form of a World Brain. Using the implanted slave seed beneath his flesh as a conduit, Jacen was able to communicate with the living instruments of Yuuzhan Vong technology. He used this connection to stage a daring escape from captivity, commanding Yuuzhan Vong amphistaffs to surround him like living armor. The dhuryam, protective of Jacen, aided his efforts of escape, but Vergere foiled his larger plans of sabotage.

Jacen and Vergere fled to Coruscant. The city planet's entire surface was undergoing a radical transformation. Yuuzhan Vong organic growths covered the once gleaming metropolis, remaking the planet into a Yuuzhan Vong paradise.

Vergere removed the slave seed from Jacen, but he found he could still sense the Yuuzhan Vong. Once again surrounded by Yuuzhan Vong captors, he surrendered and agreed to join their cause. He became the "khattazz al'Yun," or Avatar of God. Nom Anor intended to use Jacen to sacrifice his twin sister, Jaina, thus fulfilling an ancient Yuuzhan Vong prophecy.

But young Solo's true allegiance was his own. During a test of Jacen's faith, the Yuuzhan Vong ordered Solo to sacrifice a captured Jedi, Ganner Rhysode. Instead, the two Jedi turned against their captors. As Ganner valiantly held of the Yuuzhan Vong, Jacen confronted the World Brain controlling the transformation of Coruscant. The World Brain remembered the bond that Jacen had forged earlier, and Jacen suggested to it to work against the Yuuzhan Vong.

Ganner perished that day, though Jacen escaped with Vergere. He returned to the dwindling New Republic territories, haggard, thin and hardened. He was given a much needed vacation, but returned to frontline combat aboard the cruiser Ralroost. As the newly formed Galactic Alliance emerged, Jacen accompanied his uncle Luke Skywalker into the Unknown Regions to seek a solution to the Yuuzhan Vong menace.

Behind the Scenes

Jacen and his twin sister Jaina were born in the pages of The Last Command, the final book of Timothy Zahn's landmark Thrawn Trilogy. Jacen was named after a friend of Zahn's son, Corwin, named Jasen. Bantam Books editor Betsy Mitchell suggested a respelling of the name to make it less Earth-based.

Though Jacen and Jaina were minor players in Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy Trilogy, they were full supporting characters with chapters dedicated to them in The Crystal Star, Vonda McIntyre's tale of kidnapping and intrigue that saw the twins captured by the evil Lord Hethrir.

The twins would appear in later books, but it was not until 1995's publishing of Heirs to the Force by Berkley Books that they became the main characters. The Young Jedi Knights series, that eventually numbered 14 books, chronicled the adventures of the twins and their fellow Jedi students at Luke Skywalker's academy.

The twins had a turbulent entry into adulthood in the pages of The New Jedi Order series of books from Del Rey. They continue to be featured players in the Yuuzhan Vong invasion.