Rotue demonstrated latent Force abilities very early in life. He was born and lived the first few years of his life on Coruscant, so the Empire quickly discovered his abilities. His mother, terrified for his life, secretly sent him far away to the planet of Correlia, under the care of a spacer smuggler. The smuggler dropped him off on the streets of Correlia to fend for himself and left. Rotue, almost starving, was then adopted by a human Padawan in exile, Barith Kothka, who was hiding from the Empire. Barith raised Rotue as her own son, and Rotue never received his facial tattoos. However, shortly before his seventeenth birthday, Imperial enforcement officers arrested and executed Barith after she openly used the Force to save another Zabrak child from a collapsing building in the slums. He left Correlia then, and joined the Rebellion as a spy and negotiator, regretting that he never learned how to pilot well, despite living on Correlia— though he did learn to lie and negotiate with the traders around him. After the New Republic claimed victory over the Core Worlds, and the Empire was relegated to the Galactic North, Rotue left the service of the Rebellion-turned-Republic and looked instead to the emerging New Jedi Order. But, on his way to Yavin-4 to petition to join the Order, his ship was boarded by the Anarch. The Anarch killed everyone on the ship, except for Rotue after seeing his force powers. With the Anarch crew was a human Paladin Master, Sion "Omen" Brell, who recruited the distraught Rotue as his Apprentice. Ever since, the young Zabrak has stayed with his Master, learning and growing in the Force.