Maat Jhe'hrun a.k.a. Drahk'n, was born on Arasi in 2470, but was brought up on the human colony planet San Paul in the Tenant Region. His mother, Aprit, is Sho'Tahl Ambassador to San Paul and his father, Gene'p, is a prominent Republican Member of Parliament on Arasi. Maat's parents have lived apart for most of his life due to their respective careers and Maat has a closer relationship with his mother than he does with his father.

It was expected that Maat would follow his parents into the political arena and growing up on a predominantly human world has given him a usefully different perspective on life. During his early adolescence Maat's mother, having reached the end of her child-bearing years, began to concentrate on her work in the diplomatic service. When the Sho'Tahl Ambassador to San Paul was killed in an 'accident' in 2482, Aprit Jhe'hrun inherited the post and young Maat returned to Arasi to live with his father.

Much to his father's disappointment the young Sho'Tahl found little to interest him in the world of politics and instead developed what Gene'p saw as a 'somewhat useless' obsession with human history, and in particular human mythology. In 2486 Maat returned to San Paul to begin studying at the Port San Paul Academy, where he majored in The Mythology of Ancient Earth.

Like many Sho'Tahl of his generation, Maat has some older relatives who fought in the Human/Sho'Tahl war. Many members of the his father's family were also active in the Sho'Tahl Civil War on the side of the Republicans, and the Jhe'hrun family has had a presence in the Tenant Region since the days of the old Merket Colonial Union. Maat has a deep affection for humans, particularly those in the Tenant Region who are seen as being under Sho'Tahl protection. He has never tired of hearing his grandparents' stories of the war against the Humans and the subsequent conflict amongst their own kind in which the Human Tenant Region was such a pivotal issue.

Maat's thesis on human mythology 'Dragon Fire' was written in English, in which he is fluent, but he had subtitled it's cover page with the Sho'Tahl picto-glyphs 'Drahk'n Ta Sheb'. Drahk'n being Maat's own coining in Sho'Tahl of the many human words for 'dragon'. It was to become a more familiar word to many when young Maat chose it as his Navy call-sign. It struck him as fitting that a fighter pilot should identify with a flying, fire-spitting beast. It was on the day that he was due to hand in his thesis that Maat, in a typically erratic piece of Sho'Tahl behaviour, walked into the campus recruiting office of the Republican Navy and signed up.

Drahk'n's choice of pataem is the Saa'ra (Second Son), a youthful temple which encourages interaction with humans. This choice being influenced by Drahk'n's upbringing surrounded by Humans, and his general interest in Humankind. His mother's is the Temple of the Three Sisters (M'haut for short), which may have had a bearing on Drahk'n's eventual assignment to Seht'tahru Squadron.

Physically Drahk'n is a completely typical Sho'Tahl male. His diet tends to keep his skin dark for most of the time, but he cultivates a very slight purplish tinge - just to be different.