Wilek Nereus

Hailing from OrulShai III, a moon orbiting the resort world of Gyosha in the Galactic Core, Wilek Nereus was a Human male. He enlisted in the Imperial Navy and served in different locations across the Outer Rim Territories, such as the Jospro sector, Alk'lellish III, and Arkonne III. While stationed on Arkonne III, he became involved with Divina Quri Adner, who was assassinated by her business rival Phean Tic'Karcta. Nereus placed an Imperial bounty on Phean and personally killed him.

From a young age, he cultivated an interest in the dentition and parasitology of Non-Human species, a fascination that continued into his adulthood. By 4 BBY, he had amassed tooth samples from predators on seventeen different worlds, including the Bakuran cratsch, the ketrann of Alk'lellish III, the cooha of Gandeid IV, and the orycats of Orryxia. He weaponized his parasitology expertise by infecting opponents with parasites like olabrian trichoids and adipose louse eggs, viewing these infestations as a potential method of enforcing discipline.

Progressing through the Imperial Navy's ranks, Nereus eventually commanded a cruiser. Before his assignment to Bakura, Nereus served on Berea in the Elrood sector alongside Conn Doruggan, an Alderaanian Imperial officer. This icy, mountainous planet served as a penal colony where captured Rebel prisoners were forced to work as slave miners for Imperial Mining, Ltd..

In 0 ABY, Imperial forces seized Bakura, seeking to exploit its repulsorlift industry, primarily controlled by Bakur RepulsorCorp. The Empire also desired access to Bakura's [repulsor coil](/article/repulsor_coil-legends] production and the ore from its two mineral-rich satellites, resources needed for the construction of the second Death Star. This isolated planet, situated in the Shiritoku Spur near the Unknown Regions, had been colonized by Humans from Hemei IV in the Core Worlds around 150 BBY. Due to internal strife among the Bakuran population, Imperial forces swiftly conquered the planet with minimal resistance and casualties.

Soon after the annexation, Nereus was sent to Bakura as its governor, marking his entry into the political arena. Nereus was personally disappointed, as he had hoped for an assignment to the resort world of Gyosha in the Core Worlds. His arrival in the capital, Salis D'aar, was met with protests. Later, Nereus managed to establish a new agreement with Bakuran leaders, including Prime Minister Yeorg Captison and the Bakuran Senate, who agreed to cooperate with the new regime.

One of his initial actions as governor was to order the execution and punishment of the Belden family. Because of their support for the Alliance during the Imperial invasion, Nereus ordered the execution of Rebel operative Roviden Belden and his mother Eppie Belden. While he succeeded in killing Roviden, the dead man's father, Orn Belden, pleaded for Eppie's life. In a perverse act of mercy, he spared Eppie but infected her with a debilitating parasite that destroyed her mind. Due to Orn's position as a senator for the Bakur RepulsorCorp, he was spared as well, but his voice box was destroyed to ensure his compliance.

During his governorship, he tried to emulate his Republic predecessors by minimizing the deployment of stormtroopers for law enforcement, instead relying on the local Bakuran police force. Nereus's main goals were to increase taxation and maximize the output of Bakur RepulsorCorp, the primary reason for the Empire's occupation of Bakura. As his tenure progressed, he developed both a sexual attraction to Gaeriel Captison and an addiction to namana, both of which he attempted to control. He also established his own personal bodyguard, the Protectorate, a squad of sixteen stormtroopers who had undergone specialized training at the Bounty Hunter Guild's Skine Bounty Hunter College.

In 4 ABY, a Ssi-ruuvi fleet, commanded by Admiral Ivpikkis, attacked and blockaded Bakura. The Ssi-ruuk, a technologically advanced reptilian species from the Unknown Regions, used captives for entechment—a painful and deadly process that mechanically drained a sentient being's life energy to power machines. In the initial hours of the invasion, the Ssi-ruuk destroyed half of the garrison's ships and captured all outposts within the Bakura system, except for Bakura itself.

In desperation, Nereus dispatched an Elegance message drone with a coded SOS transmission to the Imperial forces in the Endor system, hoping to alert Emperor Palpatine. However, the Imperials had been defeated at the crucial Battle of Endor, which resulted in the destruction of the second Death Star and the Sith Order. Instead, the message was received by members of the Rebel Alliance—including [Luke Skywalker](/article/luke_skywalker-legends], [Mon Mothma](/article/mon_mothma-legends], and Admiral [Ackbar](/article/gial_ackbar-legends]—who decided to send a task force for moral reasons.

Under Skywalker's leadership, the Alliance task force arrived in the Bakura system. Several Alliance delegates, including Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo, arrived in the capital city of Salis D'aar, where they were greeted by Nereus himself. The Governor's first encounter with the Alliance delegates was unpleasant, as Nereus received news of Palpatine's death. Initially skeptical, he accepted the information when he learned that Darth Vader was responsible, as he distrusted the Sith Order.

Following local custom and Imperial regulation, C-3PO and R2-D2 were fitted with restraining bolts. The Rebels were then invited to speak at a special session of the Bakuran Senate. During the session, Imperials, Bakurans, and Rebels were shown a recording sent by the Ssi-ruuk through their Human puppet Dev Sibwarra, and were horrified by the process of entechment, where an individual's life energy was drained to power war machinery. The Alliance party then stated their intention to help Bakura and offered an official truce, which Nereus said he would consider. Across Bakura, paranoia spread among the populace, who feared the horrors of entechment.

That evening, Prime Minister Yeorg Captison hosted a dinner to which both the Rebels and Nereus were invited. Among the attendees were his wife, Tiree, and his niece, Gaeriel. Tiree emphasized the importance of the dinner, which would allow the Imperials and Rebels to discuss matters privately, and expressed concern about Nereus's interest in Gaeriel, a sentiment shared by Gaeriel herself.

During the dinner, Nereus received a transmission from Imperial Admiral Prittick, confirming the Rebels' claims of Imperial defeat at Endor. Facing the prospect of no Imperial assistance to repel a full Ssi-ruuk attack, Nereus agreed to an official truce. For the first time, representatives of the Alliance and Empire shook hands, although Nereus was unhappy about the arrangement. Nereus also warned the Rebels that any attempts at what he considered treasonous or seditious activity would be dealt with harshly.

Nereus had no desire to become Emperor, knowing he had no chance and that failure would mean death. However, an opportunity arose from an unexpected source—the Ssi-ruuk themselves. Recovering from the joint Alliance-Imperial attack, the Ssi-ruuvi leadership proposed a covert deal with Nereus, offering a full withdrawal in exchange for Skywalker, the Force-strong "Outsider." As part of Firwirrung's plan, Skywalker would be bound to a modified entechment rig and forced to drain the life energies of millions of sentients from light years away.

Their human puppet, Sibwarra, contacted the governor to make the offer. Nereus accepted, driven by his hatred of the Rebels and his secret plan to betray his Rebel allies. In private, he planned to execute Solo, surrender Skywalker to the Ssi-ruuk as appeasement to stop their attack, and hand over Leia Organa to the next Emperor to gain favor. However, Nereus also intended to double-cross the aliens by infecting Skywalker with parasitic olabrian trichoids. His plan involved contaminating Skywalker's food with tiny olabian trichoid eggs. Skywalker would be captured by the Ssi-ruuk and taken aboard one of their starships. The rapidly growing parasites would hatch and eat their way into the host's heart, causing a swift death. Nereus hoped that the Ssi-ruuk would retain Skywalker's body long enough for the trichoids to multiply and spread throughout the ship, infecting and killing more Ssi-ruuk. He would then add their teeth to his personal collection.

His opportunity came when Senator Gaeriel, who had developed feelings for Skywalker, visited the Jedi at his apartment. She ordered lunch for them, routing the meal through a different location to avoid attention. However, Nereus intercepted the meal and inoculated it with the trichoids.

Meanwhile, Leia Organa, Yeorg Captison, and Senior Senator Orn Belden were on a private airspeeder cruise. Using a Disruption bubble generator to prevent Imperial eavesdropping, they discussed the status of the Bakuran resistance and the likelihood of Bakura revolting against Imperial rule. However, the Imperials discovered their conversation, and Nereus had stormtroopers arrest them on suspicion of treason. Despite Organa's brief resistance, the entire party was captured. Orn Belden was killed during the interrogation by Nereus. As word of Belden's capture spread, pockets of resistance began to emerge around Bakura, as the statesman's capture had ignited defiance among the Bakurans. Protests occurred and worsened after news of Belden's death was leaked. Nereus placed Salis D'aar under curfew, but the measure was ineffective. Meanwhile, Han Solo rescued Organa from a rural retreat, and they escaped in their transport, the Millennium Falcon.

Later, Skywalker was captured by the Ssi-ruuk during a skirmish at the spaceport while defending Captison. With Skywalker in their hands, the Ssi-ruuk rescinded their secret deal with Nereus by launching a full-scale attack on Bakura an hour later, targeting the orbital station above the planet. Meanwhile, Gaeriel was rescued by the local Imperial staff. In the space above Bakura, the joint Alliance and Imperial warships launched a devastating counter-offensive against the Ssi-ruuvi fleet. Due to the chaos on board the flagship Shriwirr caused by Skywalker and Sibwarra's uprising and their fear of dying on an unconsecrated world, the Ssi-ruuvi were unable to continue the fight and were forced to retreat. Every ship in the fleet fled for the safety of Ssi-ruuvi home space except the flagship Shriwirr. For a moment, it seemed that victory would be achieved with the neutralization of the Ssi-ruuvi threat.

With the Ssi-ruuvi defeated, Nereus initiated his plan to betray his enemies by ordering Thanas to turn the turbolaser batteries of his flagship Dominant on the Rebel Alliance flagship Flurry, destroying it along with several Rebel starfighters. The Alliance fleet was then trapped between the Dominant and Bakura. Confident of Imperial victory, Nereus summoned Gaeriel to his office, hoping to secure her alliance with his faction in the government.

Gaeriel was initially repulsed by his mannerisms and his authoritarian plans for Bakura, but she maintained a diplomatic facade. Nereus then revealed to her the presence of olabrian trichoid larvae in her and Skywalker's lungs and had the larva in Gaeriel removed. Nereus also implied that he had used a parasite to debilitate Eppie Belden years earlier as punishment for her seditious activities. Giving her the chance to join him as his mistress and approve the governor as Prime Minister, Nereus threatened Gaeriel should she not cooperate. He then threatened to shoot Yeorg Captison, whom he accused of treachery, unless the two yielded to his demands. However, his plan was thwarted by the eruption of the Bakuran Revolution. Bakuran resistance fighters, led by the elderly Eppie Belden, launched an attack on the garrison compound. Wilek's personal stormtrooper bodyguards were incapacitated by a painful electronic alarm system that rang through their helmets.

The 123-year-old Eppie Belden and several other resistance members entered the room. To Nereus's surprise, she was fully recovered, leading the resistance effort and aware of her husband's death. Outnumbered, Nereus surrendered to Belden and her resistance fighters. Although the revolutionaries initially wanted to form a revolutionary tribunal to try him, they ceded power to the Senate and agreed to hand Nereus over to the Alliance.

During a brief exchange with Princess Leia, Nereus claimed that he still commanded three thousand ground-based troops and that Imperial survivors were landing on Bakura in escape pods. She countered by stating that Thanas and the Dominant had surrendered to Rebel control and that its weapon systems were aimed directly at the garrison. Earlier, Skywalker had used the Force to persuade the Dominant's captain, Thanas, to ally with them by sending feelings of peace and serenity. Admiring the heroism of his former foes and seeing the underlying flaws in his superior Nereus, Thanas ordered his ship to break formation and open fire on the Shriwirr as a gesture of cooperation with the Alliance.

In the middle of the argument, a rejuvenated Skywalker entered the scene. Having sensed the presence of the trichoid larvae in his body, Skywalker had used the Force to eliminate the parasites. Nereus, shocked that Skywalker had survived both the Ssi-ruuk and the olabrian trichoids he had infected the Jedi with, grabbed a blaster and fired at Skywalker, but Skywalker's lightsaber deflected the bolt back, killing the governor.

With Nereus's death, his ambitions for Imperial domination over Bakura were ended. Following his death, the Imperial garrison on Bakura surrendered to the Alliance and the Bakurans and was allowed to evacuate to a neutral location. Under the leadership of the new Prime Minister Gaeriel Captison, Bakura joined the Rebel Alliance's successor state, the New Republic. Nereus's second-in-command, Thanas, relinquished his Imperial rank and defected to the Alliance.

Wilek Nereus, like many Imperial governors during the Rebellion era, displayed significant intolerance and arrogance toward "inferiors," especially aliens and members of the illegal Rebel Alliance. This was apparent in his reluctance to engage with both Alliance delegates and the Ssi-ruuvi expeditionary command. Reflecting the influence of Human High Culture prevalent in Palpatine's Galactic Empire, Nereus disliked working with aliens as equals. One of his allies in the Bakuran Senate was Rennt Govia, an outspoken Humanocentrist who supported his coup attempt.

He was only willing to deal with either group when he had little choice or when it benefited him. When dealing with both the Ssi-ruuk and Alliance, he planned to betray them as soon as they were no longer useful. This was evident in his scheme to infect the saurians with olabrian trichoid parasites and his treacherous act of ordering Thanas to open fire on the Alliance flagship Flurry during the Bakura Incident.

Despite these flaws, Nereus considered himself liberal and moderate compared to other Imperial governors. He attempted to imitate what he believed a Galactic Republic politician would act like, but he lacked the dignity and self-control to do so. In keeping with his ideal of an Old Republic politician, Nereus allowed the Bakuran police to quell riots whenever possible without deploying the garrison's stormtroopers. He shared a sentiment with many of his Bakuran subjects in his dislike of the Jedi, who had been eliminated in the Great Jedi Purge. However, he was equally distrustful of other Force-sensitive creeds, especially the Sith Order.

In his personal life, Nereus was sexually attracted to Bakuran senator Gaeriel Captison, although she disliked his methods and views. Toward the end of the Ssi-ruuvi invasion, he attempted to coerce Captison into becoming his mistress by threatening to kill her uncle, Prime Minister Yeorg, if she refused. However, he was stopped by the intervention of a group of Bakuran revolutionaries under Eppie Belden, who subsequently apprehended him.

He was also addicted to namana, a fruit unique to Bakura. He was fascinated by the dentition and parasitology of nonhuman species, interests he had developed in his youth. He enjoyed hunting exotic animals on various worlds and collecting their teeth. Later, he even turned his attention to Human political opponents and considered collecting Ssi-ruuvi jaws during the Bakura Incident.

In terms of parasitology, he liked to dispose of those who got in his way by infecting them with various alien parasites, including adipose lice and olabrian trichoids. Nereus used an unidentified parasite from the Jospro sector to debilitate Eppie Belden, destroying her mind and leaving her in a state of senility. However, she was later healed by Skywalker's ministrations. Nereus also infected the Jedi Skywalker with olabrian trichoids in an attempt to eliminate both him and the Ssi-ruuk. Still, he was defeated by Skywalker, who used the Force to eliminate the parasites.

Wilek Nereus was created by Kathy Tyers for The Truce at Bakura in 1994. The novel was the character's only appearance in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, as he was killed off at the end of the story. His backstory was expanded by Paul Sudlow in two Galaxywide NewsNets articles published in Star Wars Adventure Journal 5 and Star Wars Adventure Journal 6.

Further details of his backstory were developed in the February 1996 The Truce at Bakura Sourcebook, co-written by Tyers, Eric S. Trautmann, and Bill Smith. He was first illustrated in this book by Jordi Ensign. On July 21 1998, he was mentioned in Daniel Wallace's The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons in the Bakura chapter. In April 2000, Nereus was referenced in Kevin J. Anderson and Daniel Wallace's The Essential Chronology and illustrated by Bill Hughes.

On March 24, 2004, he was referenced in Wizards of the Coast's role-playing book Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds, published for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. Nereus was also mentioned in Wallace's revised The New Essential Chronology, published on October 25, 2005.