Dr. Shi Ravak

Background

Dr. Shi Ravak was born on one of the Zabrak colony worlds and never knew her mother. Until recently she didn’t really remember much of her childhood either, except that her father had always told her stories of Jedi-Knights, the keepers of peace in the Republic. What had happened to her father also eluded her, but his stories always inspired her. So the wild girl thirsty for knowledge went through school with top grades and finally went to study at Coruscant university. Archaeology, history, anthropology and languages were here favorite subjects, and in her spare time she researched and compiled all available information on the Jedi and their lore without raiding suspicion from her imperial peers or teachers.

When Shi’s interest for Jedi finally came to light an inquisitor questioned her, but could not find anything at odds with her. She graduated with excellent grades and applied for a research position at her university to begin working on her dissertation. Not even Darth Vader who visited the university once could sense anything odd with her. Shi continued to work hard for her research, and after the empire had been beaten in the battle of Endor she received her doctor’s degree in Archaeology.

When the New Republic was encroached by the returning sith led by Master Cyrus and a covert ops team had managed to gain coordinates of important archaeological sites General Lionel Shore tasked Dr. Ravak with exploring these sites and maybe dig up a possible opportunity to stop the empire and the new sith. On the mid-rim planet Kintoran II she found an ancient, overgrown ruined city which was permeated by the dark side of the force. She set up a base camp and discovered that the city had been built by an ancient civilization which revered six extremely powerful force users known as the guardians, who had almost vanquished all evil from the galaxy. Instead, evil force users had been captured, placed in stasis and kept as “fuel” for gigantic machineries that could sustain whole cities including infrastructure and defense systems. But the dark aura also posed a threat to the scientists so they were forced to purchase some Ysalamiri from the criminal organization of Talon Karrde, so they could protect themselves from the negative influence.

During the following months Dr. Ravak and her team, accompanied by freelance “assistants” discovered and explored ancient ruins on several planets, most of which also had a dark force aura. While some of the team members were influenced by or even succumbed to this dark aura it seemed to have no effect at all on Shi. At first, she attributed it to the heightened resilience and willpower of her Zabrak heritage, but as more cases came up she also began to suspect something odd.

It was clarified when she and her team were sent to retrieve the powerful artifact known as “Heart of the Eclipse” before it would fall into sith hands. Only Shi was able to safely touch the heart while everyone else was drawn into a powerful force vision they could not exit themselves again. But when she touched the crystal a symbol glowed on her tiara which she had gotten from her father and worn ever since. The archaeologist identified it as the seal of a secret Jedi order that had taken on the burden of banishing and neutralizing dangerous force artifacts from the known world. But things went even further when they were trying to leave the temple and were attacked by a sith lord. The sith hit Shi with a force lightning, knocking her down and her tiara fell off.

In this moment Shi remembered everything: Her father had indeed been a Jedi-Knight and had instructed her in the Jedi ways as a child. At the age of 9, when the relentless pursuit of the empire became too strong he sealed her memories and her force powers and gave her a force-neutralizing tiara to hide her from the emperor's minions. He then vanished and was not seen again, with only her fascination for Jedi and her impressive resilience to the force as a hint to her past. But now, everything came back to her and so she was able to heal her gravely wounded companions and telepathically call for help after the empire had destroyed their means of transportation.

With her rediscovered powers and the light-bow she received from the last guardian Anpu Shi fought in the battle of the eclipse together with her friends against one of four sith-lords who were meant to support their dark master in his huge ritual. By defeating the sith she helped save the galaxy from Apep, the devourer, who had possessed Cyrus.

After the battle Dr. Ravak returned to Kintoran II to continue exploring the ruins of the guardian city. Although with her boosted reputation she could have gotten a leading research-position at almost any university in the galaxy she was always more into active field-research instead of a boring desk job.

Physical Description

Dr. Shi Ravak is an attractive Zabrak in her thirties, standing 1,75m tall. She has dark skin and relatively short, blonde hair in a wild, unorderly cut. Through her hair one can barely see her small vestigial horns that are typical for her species. Shi has six horns, four of which are in a straight row starting at the top of her skull towards the back, with the other two sitting on either sides of her temples. What makes her appearance even more exotic are her bright yellow eyes and the fine black lines of her facial tattoo that she got as her rite of passage like most Zabrak do. Her most common, and usually singular piece of jewelry is an ornate silver tiara she wears almost all the time.

When at work in one of her archaeological sites Dr. Ravak usually wears a yellow, orange or black jumpsuit with many pockets for her scientific gadgets, scanners, datapads, glowrods, recording sticks and even an old fashioned paper notepad. In addition she never goes unarmed into ancient ruins since you never know what you will find. Her armament usually consists of a standard blaster pistol and a survival knife on her belt. In an additional belt-pouch she carries a metal cylinder that most who know of her force powers would mistake for a lightsaber, but it is actually a lightbow which allows Shi to shoot projectiles of pure light. Nevertheless she also carries her favorite weapon, a foldable high-tech precision bow and a couple of arrows in a closed pouch. You never know.

For the rare occasions when Shi actually does work at an institute or holds a speech she dresses in an orange mini-skirt, a white blouse, orange high-heels and a white belt. In addition to her tiara she wears a pair of plain pearl earrings and a plain silver ring on her middle finger, while she never uses make-up at all.