Karae Nalvas, also known as Boss Nalvas and sometimes going by the alias Fesvk Wefos, was once a male Human Jedi Knight. However, he succumbed to the dark side and operated as a renegade Jedi during the decline of the Galactic Republic. Journeying to the planet of Genarius, he embraced the path of a Dark Jedi, constructing a mobile fortress known as the Conkesta. His aim was to threaten the cities of the world and instigate a large conflict.
Nalvas's journey began as a Padawan on the planet of Coruscant, where he studied the light side of the Force under an unnamed Jedi Master. In those early years, Nalvas was regarded as an inquisitive sentient with diplomatic talent, and a promising academic.
In 46 BBY, Nalvas and his master were dispatched to an undisclosed location within the Outer Rim Territories to investigate a disturbance in the Force detected by the Jedi Order. Despite the faintness of the ripples, they originated from a planet saturated with the power of the dark side of the Force. Upon reaching the planet, both Jedi felt the allure of the dark side, but Nalvas yielded to its temptation. Abandoning his Jedi path, Nalvas battled, wounded, and then deserted his master. His master, feeling corrupted by the dark side, contacted the Jedi Council to warn of the danger he and Nalvas posed, and suggested a quarantine of that sector to contain the evil.
Nalvas vanished for a period of twelve years. During this time, all records of Nalvas within the Jedi Order, including visual depictions, were erased, and his face faded from living memory. Nevertheless, his name and past remained relatively known among scholars of Jedi history. As he traversed the Outer Rim, Nalvas embraced the dark side. While the Jedi Order received reports about this individual, they failed to connect them to the missing Nalvas.
In 34 BBY, Nalvas successfully recruited a Jedi Padawan named Saren Valek, corrupting him into his dark side apprentice. Valek's master, the Jedi Knight Alec, began a relentless pursuit of Nalvas to bring him to justice. For three years, Nalvas instructed Valek in the ways of the dark side, with Alec unable to intervene.
Nalvas's ambition was to construct a mobile fortress possessing the firepower necessary to obliterate any of the cloud cities of Genarius, a gas giant situated in the Cularin system. In the years leading up to this, he amassed a vast collection of resources, including financial assets, technological schematics, and a workforce of both high-ranking and low-level employees, most of whom were unaware of Nalvas's destructive intentions, thanks to his skillful manipulation of the Force. The precise reasons behind his desire to devastate the Genariusan metropolises remain unclear, but Alec theorized that seizing control of the Cularin system's primary commercial centers could trigger a chain reaction, potentially escalating into a system-wide or even larger conflict.
Nalvas succeeded in initiating the construction of the Conkesta, a mobile city equipped with powerful shielding and nearing completion for its intended purpose. To accomplish this, he enlisted the services of several scientists, including Dr. Shilaea Motacc, an expert in large-scale propulsion systems and planetary movement. Knowing that Dr. Motacc would refuse to work for him if she knew his true intentions, Nalvas adopted the persona of Fesvk Wefos (pronounced fes-vik), an entrepreneur from the Usable Resource Location, Recovery, and Development Corporation (U.R.L.R.D.), who sought to expand his company's operations to Genarius. As Wefos, he hired Motacc to develop a new system for propelling flying cities, secretly utilizing her work in the Conkesta.
By 31 BBY, the Conkesta was nearing completion. To evade detection, Nalvas concealed the Conkesta, manned by a minimal crew, in a very low orbit near the core of Genarius. Nalvas felt more secure by doing this, and he did avoid detection.
Before Motacc could finalize her work for Nalvas, she was kidnapped during a vacation in the resort city of Rorkee, Genarius. The perpetrators were some of Nalvas's accomplices in the Conkesta project, who sought the fortress's designs for their own purposes and were willing to use force to acquire them. Posing as a concerned and sympathetic employer, Nalvas (as Wefos) met with an independent team at Bath Rabbud's, a bistro on the nearby planet Cularin. During a relaxed meeting, "Wefos" persuaded his new acquaintances to investigate Motacc's disappearance in Rorkee in exchange for payment, while also enjoying a paid vacation. He justified his need to hire external agents by claiming that U.R.L.R.D. lacked such personnel on its payroll.
The team successfully rescued Motacc and delivered her to Nalvas. Nalvas compensated them generously, including a bonus, and celebrated with them and Motacc at Bath Rabbud's. Even then, Motacc remained oblivious to the true reasons behind her abduction or the identities of her captors. As a result, Wefos gained a reputation for being a generous employer who sent his employees to exotic locations.
However, upon returning to her work, Motacc discovered her colleagues' involvement in her kidnapping and, frightened, attempted to flee. Fortunately, she was contacted by Alec, who had finally located Nalvas and was seeking a way to stop him. Alec assisted Motacc, and together they disappeared. Alec also stole the valuable blueprints of the Conkesta, to Nalvas's great frustration.
Nalvas learned that Alec had been sighted in the City of Masks, Depatar, a Genariusan city known for its strict bureaucracy and its mandatory carnival for outsiders: Anyone without the proper permit or a mask could be easily expelled. Nalvas also uncovered Alec's hidden location for the stolen blueprints, but he needed to divert Alec's attention before retrieving the designs.
Seeking to replicate his previous success, Nalvas decided to hire another independent team (potentially including the same individuals who had rescued Motacc) through deception and his Wefos persona. Nalvas enlisted the assistance of Fot Ducela, a professional Depataran bureaucrat, to help his team obtain the necessary permits, purchased the permits the team would likely require, reserved a private dining room at Bath Rabbud's, and convened with his new agents.
Nalvas falsely informed his employees that Alec was a courier working for U.R.L.R.D. who had mysteriously vanished with the prototype of a new resource extraction device before delivering it to company executives. Tasking them with recovering both the plans and the courier, Nalvas provided the team with available information and disguises, and dispatched them to Depatar. Nalvas anticipated that the team would likely find Alec, and that Alec would reveal Nalvas's true identity and plans; however, Nalvas planned to use this opportunity to recover the lost document. Alec offered to accompany the team and meet with "Wefos".
Alec and the team awaited Nalvas's arrival at Bath Rabbud's, but Nalvas had foreseen this move. Nalvas arranged for an astromech droid to project a hologram of himself mocking them and displaying the blueprints, followed by the droid initiating the countdown of a bomb. While the bomb resembled a thermal detonator, it possessed only the power of a fragmentation grenade. However, the countdown's conclusion would melt the explosive, while any unsuccessful attempt to disarm it would trigger the explosion: Nalvas relished the irony of his enemies causing their own demise. Nevertheless, Alec survived, and possibly the others as well.
Nalvas had populated the Conkesta with approximately 6,000 sentients brought from other systems. Among them was the Gungan Gus-Gus Tren, who referred to his employer as "Boss" Nalvas; it remains unclear whether Nalvas was a honorific Gungan Boss or Tren was using the word metaphorically.
Two weeks after Nalvas retrieved the plans, the Conkesta was nearly ready to launch its attack on the cities, but it was also discovered by Alec. Motacc and Alec's slicer contacts developed a virus designed to disrupt the city's propulsion system, theoretically sending the Conkesta into outer space, where it would be destroyed. Unbeknownst to them, the virus would actually send the fortress down, to the planet's core. Alec tasked the heroes of Cularin with infiltrating the Conkesta and uploading the virus into the Conkesta's main computer while he focused on confronting Nalvas elsewhere. He did not reveal whether Nalvas was on the station itself or not.
Although Alec's raiders successfully hacked the Conkesta, sealing its fate, their escape was thwarted by Valek and several guards. Nalvas, appearing as a hologram, commanded them to eliminate the intruders, but some of the guards attempted to abandon the sinking ship. Valek perished during the ensuing battle, and Alec's allies managed to escape. However, Alec himself was unable to prevent Nalvas from fleeing the Cularin asteroid belt and subsequently the Cularin system. The Jedi resolved to continue his pursuit and bring Nalvas to justice.
In the years that followed, Nalvas's name gained notoriety within the Cularin system, accompanied by tales of his malevolent scheme. Jedi scholars studied the reports and rumors surrounding Nalvas. Dazen Mok, a former Jedi scholar, analyzed Nalvas's actions and proposed that Genarius possessed a potent dark side energy that generated the storms and enabled Nalvas to construct his fortress near the core; however, this theory remained unproven.
Later, around 20 BBY, Nalvas formed a criminal partnership with Phylus Mon, a Chevin slaver. Phylus Mon had learned of the process for creating Sith battlelords, who controlled their armies using the dark side of the Force as a leash. Nalvas desired to become a Sith battlelord. Secretly, Nalvas plotted to betray Phylus Mon after that.
Following Phylus Mon's plan, Nalvas and other prospective Battlelords journeyed to the Almas Sith fortress, where the ritual would take place. They invaded the fortress, killing four Jedi and kidnapping two others for the ritual. During the ritual, a pendant with an orange gemstone was placed in Nalvas's neck. However, likely due to the interference of the Darkstaff, a damaged Sith artifact, the ritual failed: Instead of transforming them into Battlelords, Phylus Mon merely extracted the Force essences of the candidates, intending to store them in a crystal. Nalvas's and the others' bodies remained alive but immobile, as their minds and souls were absent. Phylus Mon departed the fortress with the crystal, leaving behind the empty bodies. The Darkstaff would then drain the Force essences from Phylus Mon's secret headquarters.
The bodies were discovered by a Jedi search team and transported to the Almas Academy. There, librarian Oden Malksch, recognizing Nalvas, attempted to analyze the amulet. While trying to take them, it cracked and suddenly Malksch's Force essence was forced in Nalvas's body. Malksch could feel that Nalvas's essence was trapped and that the body needed to reach it. The body felt where the essence was, so Malksch could guide a rescue team there.
It is unclear whether Nalvas's body survived the rescue mission or not.