Jonn Kuchta

Eldest child of Emperor Kythran Carroll and Daved Kuchta. When Jonn was only days old, the Imperial Council designated him as Heir's Heir. From infancy, Jonn was primarily raised by his father and the extreme members of the Bubs party, which favored all-out war with the Patalanian Union.

Jonn's approval among the populace began with the TE 450 tour of the Empire conducted by Jamez Carroll and including Kythran and the 4-year-old Jonn. As he grew, Jonn came more and more under the influence of the extreme Bubs. When his mother took the Throne in 459 (Jonn was 12), his father and advisors began a concerted effort to convince the boy that his mother represented a growing danger to the Empire.

By the time of the Council of Euphrates in 460, Jonn was openly hostile toward Kythran, and Kythran began making arrangements to replace Jonn as Heir. While rival claimants to the Throne emerged, and the Provosts began to behave independently of the Imperial government, Jonn's advisors kept up a constant refrain of Kythran's failures. Finally, on 27 March 467, when Jonn was 20, Kythran died under the Memory Crown. Although suspicion immediately fell on Jonn, later historians favor the theory that his younger brother Kidlat, under the control of extreme Bubs, was actually responsible for her death.

Jonn succeeded to the Throne immediately, and at once started to carry out an extreme Bubs agenda. He sent fleets to Borshall and New Sardinia, Provinces that were under control of Idara Chen and which were acting friendly toward the Patalanian Union -- these fleets, under Jonn's direct control, were instructed to treat as enemies any Borshall/New Sardinia ships that were trading with the Union.

Matters worsened, as conflict erupted throughout Borshall/New Sardinia and the Transgeled. The rest of 467 and early 468 were an unrelieved march to disaster, as virtual civil war flared across a quarter of the Galaxy. Patalanian and Chen war vessels had free run of the other Imperial Provinces, and several times hostile forces attacked Laxus, to be repelled with increasing difficulty.

Despite various attempts with several women, Jonn was unable to produce a child to inherit -- a previously-undetected genetic defect made his offspring non-viable.

In late 468, Odonia (which had been semi-autnomous since 395) exercised its option to secede from the Empire. Jonn was livid, but he simply did not have the forces to offer any resistance, so the secession entered the annals of history as peaceful.

In January 469, Elendan followed Odonia's lead, also announcing independence. Apparently this was the last straw for Jonn's backers -- on 30 January 469 he was found dead under suspicious circumstances. He had reigned a total of one year, ten months, and three days.

Jonn was succeeded by his sister, Marilag Kuchta.