Born strongly attuned to the Force, Nichos Marr travelled to Yavin Four to study at Luke’s academy. He went with his fiancée Cray Mingla, a gorgeous blonde scientist. Together they trained in the ways of the Force, which was the first of Nichos’ goals; the second was to wed Cray.
A year into his studies, and Nichos was coming along well. He showed great potential, but then fate stepped in. Although the Force can do much good, it could not stop Nichos from being struck down with the deadly Quannot’s Syndrome. It was an absolute tragedy, one that no-one could have possibly foreseen.
In a way, Nichos was lucky. Cray was a leading expert in artificial-intelligence programming, and knew that if she could get Nichos into a new body, he would survive. The process involved transferring Marr’s very persona into a completely artificial body, a process that had earlier been studied by Stinna Draesinge Sha. Back on Coruscant, the body was built, and it was quite hard t tell that it was actually synthetic. The droid body, which was able to imitate human functions with incredible precision, was placed in a casing of brushed pewter-grey steel, which was very tough. In a sense, it was a human-shaped suit of armour. In order to maintain a sense of continuity for Nichos, the technicians even placed a small scar on his little finger, one that the real Nichos had acquired a while ago. This sort of thing was essential to Nichos, as had only a partial memory of his past. The process had allowed him to live, but had taken away his Force abilities. But worst of all for him and Cray, Nichos had lost all sense of emotion. He would no longer be able to feel the love for Cray that he had had before the disease had struck.
Nevertheless, Nichos aided Luke and Cray on several Jedi missions, including one to a place known as Plett’s Well. By now Marr had become used to thinking in binary, instead of human thought, but his memory was still very clouded. However, the mention of Plett’s Well triggered something, and Nichos was able to recount about how he had been one of the children of the Jedi, and how he had been placed in Plett’s Well for protection. Plett had been a Jedi Master, and needed to hide the Jedi families from the great Jedi purge that was taking place throughout the galaxy.
These memories let Nichos show Leia and Luke the way to Plett’s Well. This path also led them to the Eye of Palpatine, a prototype battle station that was in orbit within the Moonflower Nebula. Skywalker realised that the station had to be destroyed, for he had visions of yet another Death Star being unleashed upon an unsuspecting galaxy.
Nichos, Cray and Threepio went with Luke to destroy it, but they found a barrier. The station’s computer core had an essence trapped inside it. That of a Jedi, named Callista. She had kept the weapons out of commission for the last thirty years. To destroy the Eye of Palpatine would mean killing Callista. She would not be able to do so herself, but she explained to the assembled Jedi that the station could be destroyed from within. But this meant that whomever detonated the Eye would also perish in the explosion. It was not an easy choice to make, for some.
Marr knew that Cray would not have an easy life with him. How could she marry a man who could no longer love her? Therefore he volunteered for the suicide mission, knowing that only death would release him. Cray, however, knew that she would not be able to live without him. She decided to stay with him, for a life without Nichos was death for Cray.
The Jedi left the couple to it, but before they destroyed the station, Cray used the Force to transfer Callista’s essence into her own body. The trapped Jedi thanked them both, and left in an escape pod. Together Nichos and Cray detonated the Eye of Palpatine, and in the ensuing explosion, they knew that, at last, they would be together once more.
At last Nichos could once again feel the Force, and although he and Cray may have been physically dead, in the Force they were very much alive.