Yesugen Khonoyon

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Site Lore.

yesugen03.png

An artist's representation of Yesugen Khonoyon, drawn from historical accounts.


- Yesugen Khonoyon -

Yesugen Khonoyon, also known as Yesugen Khon, or Yesugen the Defiant. Pirate queen of the Ossein, humbler of the Amaxine.
To her people, still remembered after long centuries, she is the one who united the Ossein, and struck the first blows of a campaign which would drive a hated enemy from the Galaxy itself.
Yesugen was an Ossein Noyon who lived during the early years of the Old Republic. Much about her is unknown - her true species, the story of her early years, her home-world if she had one - but what is known paints a tale of a larger-than-life figure, a rebel who stood up to a brutal, overwhelming enemy.

- Origins -

Yesugen Khonoyon did not begin life with her title. The earliest known accounts of her life tell that she was a slave, kept by an Amaxine lord whose flagship was crippled and boarded during a battle with an Ossein fleet. She was liberated by Ossein boarders, and reportedly assisted them in taking the rest of her master's flagship, putting a pulse-blaster bolt into the brain of the Amaxine lord personally.
Yesugen's age was not recorded, but from other accounts, historians have determined that she was probably in her early 20s when she was rescued. Her species is not known for sure - the Ossein seldom bother to differentiate between sentient races - but it is thought she was probably human or near-human, humanoid at the very least, and female.
After her rescue, it is reported that Yesugen readily assimilated into the Ossein culture. She studied the Jazaq Yassa, and became a respected warrior, fighting with a particular ferocity in battles against her former captors, the Amaxine.
It was here that Yesugen began her rise to greatness.

- Rise -

"It is not enough that the enemy fail. They must know the taste of defeat."
_Yesugen Khonoyon.

Yesugen came to the Ossein in a time of crisis.
At that time, the Galaxy had been plunged into a brutal conflict. The Amaxine, a culture of warriors who lived and breathed conflict and conquest almost from the moment of birth, were on the march across the Galaxy. For reasons unrecorded by history, the Amaxine and the space-borne Ossein had a long-standing feud with one-another; though the Ossein wanted no part of planetary conquest, seeing such holdings as unimportant and unnecessary, and thus not being in direct competition with the Amaxine, they were attacked at every opportunity by the massive Amaxine fleet. In return, the Ossein had long raided Amaxine supply lines and destroyed isolated warships.
Unfortunately, the Ossein were at a major disadvantage compared to the Amaxine. Whereas the Amaxine were united, the Ossein fleets were disunited, reluctant to cooperate with one-another. These divisions made Ossein fleets relatively easy to isolate and destroy, a tactic the Amaxine employed with regularity.

Having been a slave of the enemy, Yesugen recognized that without unity, her adopted people stood no long-term chance of defeating the Amaxine. Her consultations with the Noyon of her fleet fell on deaf ears, however, despite her status as a skilled Jazaq.
That was, until one day, the Amaxine attacked in force during a trade meeting with another Ossein fleet.
When the Noyons' ships were destroyed during the fighting, Yesugen herself took command of both fleets, leading them in a cooperative counterattack which sent the Amaxine running. Afterward, popular opinion in both fleets - which had effectively merged after the death of their leaders - supported Yesugen as a good choice for a new Noyon, replacing the remnants of the two original dynasties with a single new one.
And so, Yesugen came to lead her own fleet.

"Divided, we will fall before the Amaxine; our fleets will be scattered, our children will be slaves. Together, though, we may turn the future to a different course!"
_Yesugen Khonoyon.

From her new position of influence, Yesugen began to institute the changes she knew were necessary to defeat the Amaxine. She pursued alliances with other Ossein fleets, including traditional enemies of both her adopted ones. It was slow going, especially at first; the Ossein had seldom been united in all their known history, and traditional wisdom told that space was vast. If an enemy could not be defeated, there were enough stars to hide in.
Yesugen worked to instill the idea that running from the Amaxine was not the only long-term option. If the Ossein could be united as a single force, they might defeat their hated enemy after all, and make the stars safe for future generations to continue the Ossein way of life.
Gradually, the idea began to take root, accelerating as Yesugen's growing coalition of allies began to win more and more battles. After a time, new Ossein fleets began to come under Yesugen's banner - the Starry Death's Head - unbidden, and the movement grew to be self-sustaining.
Victory, it suddenly seemed, might be within reach. In honor of her achievements, the Noyons of Yesugen's allies created a new title for her.
She was now Khonoyon, Noyon of Noyons, leader of all the Ossein...

- Alliances -

New_Starry_Deaths_Headv2.png

The Starry Death's Head.

As the scope of Yesugen's war against the Amaxine grew, the former slave began to grow concerned. The Ossein were powerful, but they lacked the depth of numbers of their opponents; the Ossein were skilled spacers, but theirs was only one theater of war. The Amaxine were adept both in space and on planets, and thus were used to far larger, more complicated wars than the Ossein typically fought.
Yesugen knew that without outside help, even the combined might of the Ossein fleets could not win the war.
Luckily, they had many potential allies.
The Amaxine had been at war with many of the great powers in the Galaxy at that time. Most powerful among these was the fledgling Republic, already a major force on the Galactic scene, but still young and vibrant, and rearing for a fight. They had gotten one in the Amaxine, and had been fighting them for years, gradually losing ground to the invaders as the fearsome born warriors battered at the Republic's own citizen soldiers.
Yesugen approached the Republic with a proposal to cooperate in driving back the Amaxine hordes, which was readily accepted. The Republic's enrollment in the alliance - on theoretically equal terms with the Ossein fleets - was greeted with wariness by Yesugen's Ossein allies; outsiders were fine as trading partners and clients for mercenary work, but to bring them into the alliance of fleets seemed unnatural to some. Nevertheless, Yesugen was able to sell the idea, and the Ossein joined the Republic war effort alongside the Jedi and others.

As the war progressed, the Ossein were mainly deployed to fill gaps in the coverage of the Republic Navy, foiling Amaxine attempts to sneak around their allies' defenses in space. They found their niche, however, as raiders; massive attacks on supply convoys and troop carrier groups severely hampered the Amaxine war effort, giving Republic ground troops on worlds across the frontier the breathing space they needed to push back against the invaders, driving them into space, where the Ossein and the Republic Navy waited.
It is said that the actions of the Ossein were instrumental in turning the Amaxine offensive from an unstoppable advance into a grinding stalemate, a state which eventually caused the Amaxine to abandon their war with the Republic, as well as the Galaxy entirely, setting their course for unknown stars and leaving in search of a war they could win.

- Fall -

"If the Ossein menace to our supply lines is not eliminated, our front against the Republic is in danger of reversing momentum. Something must be done."
_Amaxine war planner.

Before the balance could shift, however, the Amaxine recognized the true nature of their enemy. Their war planners identified Yesugen as the linchpin holding the Ossein alliance together; without her, it would splinter into a thousand disunited cliques and individual fleets, all too preoccupied with fighting amongst themselves to obey any orders from Republic high command.
Though she often led her people from the front, Yesugen Khonoyon could not be everywhere at once. She traveled with her own fleet, a powerful one composed of many heavy warships and swarms of Jazaq-piloted fighters, but not invincible.
The Amaxine thus prepared their own task force, a behemoth of a fleet dedicated solely to hunting down and crushing Yesugen's. The two fleets actually engaged in several running battles, but the Ossein fleet was always able to escape relatively intact. Knowing they could not continue running forever, however, they requested reinforcements from the Republic and Jedi navies, which would enable them to turn and meet the enemy in a decisive battle with the benefit of superior numbers.
Yesugen's fleet received an affirmative from the Republic, and was instructed to wait in orbit above the planet Kirima for their arrival.

"I shall not concede. Look not for a trophy of victory, for I place my bones beyond your reach!"
_The reported last words of Yesugen Khonoyon.

Unfortunately for Yesugen's fleet, the Republic forces were not the first to meet the Ossein at Kirima.
As the Ossein awaited their reinforcements, promised to be mere hours away, the Amaxine fleet arrived in the system, almost on top of Yesugen's fleet. Amaxine dreadnaughts quickly blocked the fleet's escape routes, bottling them up in orbit.
With her allies still en route, and faced with an overwhelming enemy, Yesugen ordered her forces to attempt a breakout. As always, she led from the front; her pinnace was reportedly at the head of a spear that attempted to break through the enemy formations, and though all accounts speak of her as a skilled pilot, the weight of the enemy's numbers and the strength of their discipline apparently led to the plan's failure.
Yesugen Khonoyon was trapped along with her fleet. Their only hope was the swift arrival of Republic and Jedi reinforcements; Yesugen thus ordered her forces to sell their lives dearly, and try to survive as long as they could.

The Republic and Jedi fleets sent to aid Yesugen were too late. Mere minutes before their arrival, the Khonoyon's ship was badly damaged, and she mortally wounded. When the Amaxine admiral called for her to surrender, however, she gave her defiant retort over an open comm, swearing to deny the Amaxine even her corpse as a trophy, and then engaged her ship's damaged hyperdrive. To this day, as the pirate queen of the Ossein vowed, her bones have never been found.
It is said that almost half the remaining Ossein ships with an even partially functional hyperdrives attempted to follow Yesugen. No account tells the coordinates they set, and it is widely believed that most of the ships which followed their leader on her final, defiant voyage were too badly damaged themselves to survive reversion to realspace at their destination. As with Yesugen herself, no-one has ever found where her followers emerged.
Reinforcements arrived shortly afterward. The Ossein who had stayed had been driven into a berserker rage by the death of their leader, and despite their numerical advantage against them, the Amaxine had been badly mauled by their prey. They were quickly driven off by the fresh Republic and Jedi forces.
The day, ultimately, was won, but at great cost.

- Legacy -

"In salute to Yesugen Khonoyon, Noyon of Noyons, first of all the Ossein."
_Inscription found in an Ossein wreck.

With the death of Yesugen, the predictions of the Amaxine war planners indeed played out. The alliance between the Ossein and the Republic was broken, with many Ossein blaming the Republic and Jedi navies for not being swift enough to the aid of their ally, and even accusing them of a conspiracy to let their leader be killed, fearing that Ossein unity could lead to a threat to Republic power and influence in the future.
Whether this was true or not mattered little; the Ossein were splintered, with fleets reverting back to the authority of individual Noyon. Most broke their ties to the Republic, and though the Ossein have never openly sided with enemies of the Republic or the Jedi, or attacked either outright, there is a deep sense of resentment and betrayal felt by the Ossein toward both entities even today.

Though Yesugen's alliance of Ossein did much to halt the Amaxine in their attempt to overrun and conquer the Republic, by the time of Yesugen's death they had served their purpose. The Republic and Jedi navies took over the commerce raiding duties once assumed by the Ossein, although this extra commitment of resources and manpower is likely what turned the war into a stalemate, rather than a true counteroffensive against the Amaxine. With the strategic advantage denied to both sides, the war could have dragged on indefinitely, had the Amaxine not decided to seek more fulfilling conquests elsewhere in the universe.
Had the Ossein stayed in the fight as a united force, it is likely that the Republic could have begun a real offensive into Amaxine space.

"Bright Bones of Yesugen!"
_Ossein expression of surprise and/or amazement.

Though attempts have been made in the centuries and millennia after her death to recreate the alliances forged by Yesugen, none have succeeded. She remains the only Ossein ever known to have held the title Khonoyon without contention, a feat which has made her almost a figure of worship among her people; the Starry Death's Head, for instance, once the emblem of Yesugen's fleet only, has become the symbol of all the Ossein. It is traditional for Ossein to wear patches, pendants and other items bearing the emblem.
There are a handful of spacer cults which have gone as far as to deify Yesugen outright, though this is considered a bit excessive and even offensive to the deeply secular Ossein.
Even outside the Ossein, the name of Yesugen Khonoyon is known. She is popularly depicted as a strong, steely-eyed pirate queen, the anti-hero who fights against a greater evil, and a tragic figure killed by the indifference of her allies. Countless plays, holodramas and novels have been written about her.

- Intent -

Yesugen Khonoyon is intended to be an important historical figure in the Ossein culture. She is the first - and so far only - Khonoyon of the Ossein people, their highest position of leadership, roughly equivalent to the Mandalorian title of Mand'alor. She was the first to unite all the various Ossein fleets under a single alliance, though this alliance fell apart shortly after her death. As the Ossein are currently in steep decline as a culture, this alliance is not likely to be reestablished any time soon.
She is partially inspired by Genghis Khan, with a dash of Nobunaga Oda as well.

 
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Brandon Rhea

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This is interesting. I have one question and one main point of feedback.

Question: what will this Lore be used for on the site?

Feedback: the character feels very overhyped. There's a lot of talk about how great he is and how feared he is. I'd tone that down. Rather than being a figure so well-known throughout the galaxy, I'd make his impact be more on the Ossein and their history.
 

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@Brandon Rhea

I sort of designed this character to be an in-fanon equivalent to real-world historical figures like Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great. Both ruled empires which covered a large area of the known world, and in the case of Alexander, fell shortly after their death.
Yesugen's impact would not be felt much in the present day, aside from a few barren planets which are for the most part not included on modern Galactic maps, but the fact that she existed would be worthy of note to scholars of history. Both she and her culture are more or less long gone; there aren't any more Ossein for her to have an influence on, in much the same way that you don't hear much about the Mongol Hordes anymore.
I do suppose I could tone down the actual extent of her empire. If I can figure out how to do it, I'll make a map showing the approximate extent of her empire, just to nail it down better. I'll work on toning stuff down in general.

It should be noted, though, that ancient conquerors tended to encourage this kind of talk about them. Genghis Khan especially used to cultivate a larger-than-life persona.

The intent behind this is basically to give my character, Triter, and members of the new Ossein Khanate, a historical figure to inspire them. Yesugen was a conqueror and a hero to her people, and as Triter considers himself to be a member of that culture, he will doubtless want to invoke its history.
 

Brandon Rhea

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My biggest concern with the extent of her legacy and influence is just how it could potentially lock us into something with lore if we ever went way back in time for a timeline, or that this could be overruled by actual canon at some point. So if the extent is limited more, then it's much safer from a canon and site lore standpoint.
 

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@Brandon Rhea

Well, I mean, the thing is that this person lived and made her achievements many thousands of years ago. I think people really underestimate just how much can happen in, say, 10,000 years; even if Yesugen's empire existed for, at best, 30 years, even with how big it was, its existence can be relegated to just a footnote in history with the passage of so much time.
Nobody talks much about the Austro-Hungarian Empire anymore, and yet it was one of the largest, most enduring empires in history, and existed up until less than a century ago.
I don't think you'd have trouble working around this in any future fanon or canon. There's plenty of room before or after; I haven't fixed when this empire existed, either, just that it was around the same time the Republic was becoming a Galactic power. That could be mere decades after its incorporation, or it could be centuries, even millennia.

At any rate, I would be be quite happy to tone things down a bit, if you truly believe it is necessary. What specifically do you think should be changed? Do you have any suggestions?
 

Brandon Rhea

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I think the biggest issue in terms of it feeling overhyped is the adjectives and descriptions used to talk about the character, less so than her actual exploits. Things like "In all of Galactic history, few names conjure such images as those of the great leader of the Ossein fleets." If you town down the flowery imagery and focus it more among her people, I think that would work better.
 

Brandon Rhea

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Moved into submissions area per author's request, so it can be revamped and reevaluated.
 

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@Brandon Rhea @Malon

Changes made. Bear in mind that this iteration of the character is meant to fall in line with my recently approved Ossein culture.
 
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Malon

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@Brandon Rhea — I believe you handled this one last time. What do you think of the changes?
 

Malon

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I was waiting for Brandon to weigh in, since he handled this when it was last posted; I'm too busy this week to give it the review and reading it deserves, but I can get to it this weekend. If Brandon has not weighed in by Friday or Saturday, I will sit down, give it a thorough read and give you a final answer. Either way, I apologize that you've had to wait so long; I just wanted to make sure it got the attention it deserved before deciding one way or another.
 

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