Star Wars: The Last Qymaili | ✔

Appendix A: Grievous

Author's Note: The following information is intended to help anyone from book clubs (or any non-fans who may find this book interesting) to understand the canon. This information is intended to help anyone who needs it understand where I deviated from the canon. The following information comes from the Wookieepedia article "Grievous/Legends".

I am also aware that there are two conflicting backstories under Legends, but the one referenced in the article and used in The Last Qymaili is the one found in the article Unknown Soldier: The Story of General Grievous. Credit for this work goes to the Wookieepedia article, which can be found at https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Grievous/Legends.

Grievous, born as Qymaen jai Sheelal, was the Supreme Commander of the of the Confederacy of Independent Systems for most of the Clone War. Grievous was originally a Kaleesh from the planet Kalee, where he lived his early life. During the Kaleesh war against the Yam'rii, Qymaen jai Sheelal quickly learned the art of war, specializing in a slugthrower's combat.

Quickly amassing a great number of Huk kills, he became a demigod among his people. He eventually met the Kaleesh gypsy Ronderu lij Kummar, a master with the sword. The two became very close before Kummar's death at the hands of the Huk. Heartbroken, Qymaen jai Sheelal renamed himself Grievous and turned all his anger and grief toward the Huk. Aided by his izvoshra, he forced the Huk off Kalee and then swarmed the Huk system, conquering them. The Huk turned to the Republic for help, and the Kaleesh were forced back to their own planet by the Jedi and left to starve.

Desperate to help his people, Grievous took a job as an enforcer with the Intergalactic Banking Clan. However, after learning that the Huk had attacked Kalee, he headed home to gain vengeance. The Banking Clan, after consulting with his ally, Count Dooku, arranged for a to be placed on Grievous' ship. The Kaleesh was critically injured, but lived, and Hill arranged for the final stage of his plan. Grievous was reconstructed as a and was presented to Dooku as a potential weapon to be used in the upcoming war that the count had planned against the Republic.

After being made Supreme Commander, Grievous proceeded to wreak havoc on the Republic for the three-year–span of the Clone Wars. The general was trained in the art of lightsaber combat by Dooku himself, who was also a former Jedi. Grievous was a quick study and eventually came to be recognized as one of the most skilled duelists in the galaxy.

Aided by his droids, Grievous killed many Jedi, and led the Confederacy to victory in many battles.

Early Life

Though he would achieve his greatest infamy as the cyborg General Grievous, Qymaen jai Sheelal was originally an organic Kaleesh, a reptilian native of Kalee, a world torn by famine and war. For generations, Kalee had been assaulted without respite by a technologically superior insectoid species, the Yam'rii (referred to by the Kaleesh as the "Huk" or "soulless bugs"), who coveted the Kaleesh as slaves. The conflict between the two species was known as the Huk War.[1]

Sheelal's father, seeking a useful outlet for his son's anger, taught him how to handle a slugthrower rifle. The young Sheelal proved himself an excellent marksman with a mind as finely honed as any weapon; by eight years of age he had already become an expert sniper with more than forty Huk kills to his credit. By the age of twenty-two, he had slain so many Huk that the Kaleesh people considered Sheelal a demigod.[1]

Sheelal's closest comrade was a fellow Kaleesh warrior and mercenary Ronderu lij Kummar. According to legend, his relationship with this wild and skilled swordswoman had its beginnings in a dream, in which Sheelal saw himself slaying a wild mumuu in the Kunbal jungle with Lig swords.

So taken was he with this vision that he set out in his mumuu hunting mask to kill one in reality, but instead of finding a mumuu in the jungle, he saw Kummar. He realized that the slayer in his dream had not been himself, but the woman standing before him in a karabbac mask and wielding twin Lig swords. The two of them were, therefore, considered living manifestations of the cryptic Kaleesh parable Sheelal, or The Dreamer/The Dreamt One.[1]