“ | There is nothing wrong with vengeance. It is a noble emotion—a powerful one. | „ |
~ Lomi Plo |
Lomi Plo is the main antagonist of the Dark Nest trilogy. She is the Unseen Queen of the Gorog nest. Furthermore, she was the dark side Master of fallen Jedi Knight Alema Rar and (earlier) the Dark Jedi Welk, both having served as Night Herald of the Dark Nest.
Biography[]
Before the series[]
Lomi Plo was a Nightsister from Dathomir. She was presumably a member of the Great Canyon Clan of Tamith Kai. At some point, she became the Master of a former Shadow Academy student Welk.
Following the fall of the Shadow Academy and the deaths of Kai and Brakiss, Lomi joined up with the New Sith Order of Darth Krayt. Around the time of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, Lomi tried to convince the Sith Lady Lumiya to join them. This attempt was unsuccessful.
New Jedi Order[]
Star by Star[]
Lomi Plo is first introduced in the ninth installment of the series, Star by Star. She is encountered by the Jedi strike team, led by Anakin Solo, on the worldship Baanu Rass over the planet Myrkr. She and Welk had been captured by the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong. While a few Jedi, such as Zekk, frowned upon releasing the Nightsister and her apprentice, Solo agreed to help them escape, if they helped them in turn infiltrate the worldship and destroy the deadly voxyn. During this time, Jedi Knight Alema Rar was attracted to Lomi, due to her affiliation with the dark side. The angry young Twi'lek began accepting unofficial tutelage from the Nightsister, ignoring Solo's warning that this was not the Jedi way.
In the end, it proved unwise to trust Lomi. In the heat of battle, Lomi and Welk elected to save themselves, abandoning the Jedi, boarding the Tachyon Flier, and fleeing from Myrkr, unaware that Jedi Knight Raynar Thul was aboard the ship. However, the vessel was shot down by the Yuuzhan Vong and crash-landed in the Unknown Regions. Lomi, Welk, and Thul were tended by the Killik hives that found them, and they were absorbed into the collective consciousness of the hives. Little did they know, but their abandoning the Jedi played a major role in the later death of Anakin Solo.
Dark Nest Trilogy[]
The Joiner King[]
“ | We remember. She was afraid that the Yuuzhan Vong would find us again, or that Anakin would come looking for her, or Master Skywalker. She was afraid of many things. She wanted to hide. | „ |
~ UnuThul, on Lomi Plo |
Lomi Plo did not appear again until The Joiner King, the first installment of the Dark Nest trilogy. In the novel, it is finally divulged what became of Lomi and her travel companions after the Crash. As they were absorbed by the Killiks, their inherent Force sensitivity extended the hives beyond previous limitations. Lomi's dark side allegiance essentially created the Gorog hive, a dark and elusive subconscious will that was part of the larger Colony hive mind.
Lomi herself became the Unseen Queen of the Dark Nest, while Welk became the Night Herald. Her incredible connection to the dark side of the Force allowed her to completely mask her activities and those of the Gorog, even from Jedi Grand Master Luke SKywalker. Lomi remained out of sight, directing the Gorog and planting various alternative truths in the Colony's collective mind in an effort to cover her tracks.
Throughout this novel, the Gorog began to slowly disrupt the efforts of the Galactic Alliance, undermining every attempt to create a galactic peace in order to divide the Alliance and conquer the galaxy. During this time, Rar finally apprenticed herself to Lomi, becoming an agent of Gorog in the process. At the climax of the novel, Lomi and Welk confronted Skywalker and his wife Mara Jade. Unfortunately for her, Welk was killed, and the Masters Skywalker escaped.
The Unseen Queen[]
In the second installment of the series, The Unseen Queen, the Jedi finally focused on locating Lomi Plo, realizing that the Killiks would always be a danger so long as the Unseen Queen was alive. Their efforts impeded by the fact that UnuThul, leader of the Colony, refused to believe that she existed.
It was in this novel that it was revealed that Lomi Plo thrived on doubt. If she sensed any doubt in a person's mind at all, she could hide behind it in the Force and make herself effectively invisible. In this way, she sowed discord among the Jedi Knights. Working through Rar, now the Night Herald of the Dark Nest, Lomi created conflicted in Skywalker's relationship with Jade by implying that, as an assassin for the Galactic Empire, she may have played a part in the death of his mother, the late Senator Padmé Amidala.
During the Gorog's attempts to spread beyond the blockaded Utegetu Nebula, Plo was at last confronted by Skywalker. The Unseen Queen nearly overpowered Skywalker, who was rescued by Jade. By this time, Lomi was already gruesomely disfigured due to her time with the Killiks. She had mismatched legs, one insect and one human. Her body was encased in a somewhat cylindrical Killik pressure carapace. A pair of long, crooked arms extended from stooped shoulders, with a second pair of shorter, more human-looking arms protruding from the middle of her body. She had a half-melted, noseless face with bulbous multifaceted eyes and a pair of stubby mandibles.
The Swarm War[]
“ | I could call off the attack on the hospital ship. All you have to do is let me go. | „ |
~ Lomi Plo's last words |
In the final novel of the series, The Swarm War, Skywalker managed to push away his doubt and fears by watching a holographic recording of his mother's death at the hands of the Sith Lord Darth Vader, his father. At the climax of the novel, the Jedi tracked Plo to Tenupe. Skywalker again confronted her, this time cleansed of any doubt. In a swift battle of lightsabers, Skywalker got inside her guard. In her last moments, Lomi tried to use doubt against the Grand Master one last time, threatening Jade's life. Her efforts were in vain, as Skywalker sliced her into four pieces.
With the death of Lomi Plo, the Gorog were left without direction, and they were eventually absorbed into the rest of the Colony, or died out altogether. However, one last Gorog Joiner survived—Lomi's apprentice Alema Rar.
Legacy of the Force[]
In the Legacy of the Force series, Lomi's legacy lives on through supporting antagonist Alema Rar, her surviving pupil. During this time, Rar works with Lumiya and Darth Caedus in her quest to avenge the Dark Nest by killing Caedus's parents, Han and Leia Solo. In the sixth installment of the series, Inferno, Rar travels to Korriban in search of guidance in helping Caedus achieve his destiny. While there, she meets a former apprentice of Lomi's, Morto. The Sith there reveal that Lomi had once been one of them. In the seventh installment, Exile, Rar is at last killed, bringing an end to Lomi's Dark Nest at last.