Shon-Ju was a tall and muscular fallen Padawan-turned-cult leader who taught himself to direct the Force into his hands in the place of fighting with a lightsaber. He then went on to find other Force-sensitives to whom he taught his methods. During the Clone Wars, Shon-Ju's Force school went to Cavamina Minor to pursue the war-profiteer Attuma Duum. There they saved the Jedi Knight Aayla Secura from Duum's mercenaries, and Shon-Ju agreed to help the Twi'lek Jedi stop Duum. Shon-Ju betrayed Secura, however, and his actions led Secura to cut off his hands and allow Duum to escape. Shon-Ju ran off into the doomed headquarters and later found his way back to his students; eventually he accepted prosthetic hands, which were superior to his old ones.
Shon-Ju's first memories were of being taught at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. However, the Jedi saw Shon-Ju as being too focused on using the Force as a weapon and refused to make him a Jedi Knight. Eventually he became too old to continue the training and was told he would never attain a knighthood. Angry and dejected, Shon-Ju decided to leave the Jedi Order.
On exiting the temple, Shon-Ju was met by Count Dooku, alias Darth Tyranus, who encouraged him to take what he had learned as a Padawan and use it as a foundation to continue his studies on his own.
Heeding Dooku's advice, Shon-Ju went into exile and focused on deepening his connection to the Force. During that time, he believed he had found balance and cast off his lightsaber so he could instead teach himself how to wield the Force for combat through his hands. He then went on to find other Force-sensitives who had been rejected or overlooked by the Jedi Order and established a school where his new students could learn the ways of the Force as he knew it.
Jedi Knight Aayla Secura met Shon-Ju during the Clone Wars on the Mid Rim moon of Cavamina Minor after her mission to apprehend Attuma Duum had initially ended in failure. Secura's starfighter had been shot down and she was running from the mercenary Sabat. Secura was rescued by Shon-Ju and his students; Sabat chose to attack Shon-Ju directly after having been given a choice to fight or flee. Sabat ran away after Shon-Ju defeated his men, leaving Shon-Ju to assist a wounded Secura.
Secura later woke up in Shon-Ju's castle. Finding her way outside, she saw Shon-Ju's students practicing their brand of the Force. Secura requested help, and Shon-Ju said they did not have a comm-unit, and it was too late to check out Sabat's ships. He then went on to tell her part of his history as a Jedi. The next morning, they agreed to help each other take down the war-profiteer Attuma Duum and stole two of Sabat's bombers to reach Duum's hidden base in the nearby asteroid field.
The two force-sensitives snuck into Duum's facility. Shon-Ju deliberately tripped the alarm to infiltrate further by surrendering to the guards. Secura Force-pushed the guards and fired at Attuma Duum's security droid. Sabat, however, took Shon-Ju hostage to induce Secura to surrender. The two were held in bonds and were met by Duum himself. Duum told them they would be ransomed, and took Secura's lightsaber.
Duum then left to watch his plan fall into motion. He had lured a Galactic Republic and Separatist fleet under false pretenses and ambushed the two fleets with a vast minefield. As Duum watched the fireworks, Shon-Ju confessed to Secura that he planned on killing Duum, to humiliate the Jedi Order. Shon-Ju used his hands to break free of his bonds then pushed Sabat into a turbine, killing him and causing an explosion.
Shon-Ju told Secura he'd return for her later, so she would not interfere in his plans, then arrived at Duum's control center. Duum revealed his true form, a cyborg body and directly challenged Shon-Ju. Meanwhile, Secura broke free of her bonds and arrived to save what was left of Duum, saying he was now under her custody. Shon-Ju then attacked Secura, telling her she had chosen her path and to follow through with it. He knocked her down, then picked her up, vowing to end it. She called her lightsaber to her using the Force, then cut off Shon-Ju's hands to teach him how helpless he was. Ignored, Duum escaped. In tears, Shon-Ju said the Jedi kept taking from him, and asked how much would be enough, before running into the flames. Secura then escaped the doomed station and returned to Coruscant.
Unbeknownst to Secura, Shon-Ju survived the destruction. He was given prosthetic hands. Not willing to be just whole, he thought himself as more, using his hands to shear through the 2-1B droid attending to him.
In his time at the Jedi Temple, he channeled the Force in ways other students could only imagine. Eventually, he was told he could not graduate to Knighthood because of his focus on using the Force as a weapon. Angered, he left and pursued his studies elsewhere, and achieved tranquility. Afterward, he forsook a lightsaber and directed the Force through his hands. He developed another form of Force combat, and passed it on to others, teaching them himself and thereby rejecting the Order's exclusivity. He told Aayla Secura he was learning as much from his trainees as they were from him.
Despite what he said, he harbored a grudge against the Jedi Order for abandoning him. He lied to Aayla Secura, and then tried to kill Attuma Duum to humiliate the Order, whose agent could not capture the mercenary. He thought the Order had taken everything for him. After his injuries at the hands of Secura, his felt his cybernetic replacement hands did not make him whole, but better.
He enjoyed fighting and taunted Sabat.
Shon-Ju appears in the 2010 graphic novella The Clone Wars: Deadly Hands of Shon-Ju as the titular character.
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