Legends Lore Notes
The Cyborg Grand Moff
"We were on Noctralis, hunting down another Jedi who had defected to Count Dooku's side. Only a padawan, but a Jedi just the same. He saved a thermal detonator for us. That blast was the last thing I ever saw with my real eyes." – Moff Trachta telling about his past to Lieutenant Tohm
Darth Vader wasn't the only cyborg holding a high rank within the Empire. There were numerous cyborgs such as Admiral Terrinald Screed and Grand Admiral Osvald Teshik, but in this chapter I have introduced Legends character Grand Moff Trachta.
Making his first appearance in the Betrayal story arc of the 2002 Dark Horse comic series Star Wars: Empire, I first encountered the cyborg Grand Moff in the 2012 Dark Horse five-issue comic book Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison set in 18 BBY. Before that, Trachta first met Senator Palpatine during the last years of the Republic, who forwarded Trachta's records to the Republic Military Academy, where Trachta became an instructor in tactics and intelligence.
Serving as liaison between the Jedi High Council and the Senate Bureau of Intelligence, Trachta was personally assigned to Chancellor Palpatine to investigate and capture Jedi leaving the Republic for the side of Count Dooku. On one mission to the planet Noctralis, Trachta and a team of clone troopers tracked down a padawan who had joined Dooku. Trachta and the clones surrounded the padawan, but he armed a thermal detonator and used the Force to throw it at Trachta and his men. The clones were incinerated, as were Trachta's arms and eyes. Brought back to Coruscant, his eyes and arms were replaced with cybernetics, as well as his damaged respiratory system. Becoming a cyborg, Trachta resumed his service by the end of the Clone Wars, becoming commander of the 1st Sector Army. As a loyal servant to Palpatine, Trachta became one of the first Moffs in the Galactic Empire, ruling the Imperial Centre Oversector which was the Core Worlds and the Deep Core of the galaxy. At the same time, he began to hold an intense rivalry with Supreme Commander of the Imperial Military and Sith Lord Darth Vader.
As mentioned, I encountered this character in the Ghost Prison comic book. In 18 BBY, one year after the creation of the New Order, Trachta was forced to work alongside Darth Vader and Lieutenant Laurita Tohm, a young cadet that had recently graduated from one the Imperial Academies, after Palpatine was severely injured from a terrorist attack shortly after the graduation of various Imperial cadets, organized by Headmaster Gentis as part of a military coup against the Emperor. Like Vader, Trachta survived the airborne viral attack because of his breathing apparatus. The trio sought a refuge for the Emperor where no one could find him, and Vader realized that only one such place existed—the secret Jedi prison known as the Prism. While Vader and Tohm went to the Jedi Temple to find the location of the Prism, Trachta remained with the Emperor in a secret shuttle hangar, and fought off a medical droid re-programmed to kill Imperial officers.
On the journey to the Diab system, Trachta recounted the origin of his injuries to Tohm, and in return, learned how the young lieutenant had been disfigured. After landing at the Prism, Trachta and Tohm destroyed the droid guards while Vader slew the lone Jedi warden. After reviewing the prison records with Vader and Tohm, Trachta discovered that the rogue Jedi who had caused his injuries was imprisoned within the facility. Trachta and Tohm found the fallen Jedi's cell within the prison and Trachta told Tohm to seal the cell behind him, as he would not be leaving for many hours. He then began to savagely beat the Jedi with his cybernetic fists, exacting bloody revenge.
To defeat Gentis and his followers, Tohm proposed the idea of releasing and recruiting the prisoners. However, rather than simply releasing the prisoners, he forced 207 of them to fight one another, as well as Tohm and himself, for the right to serve the Empire. The battle was vicious and wild, with casualties mounting quickly. In the end, only thirty-three prisoners survived in fighting condition and were recruited by Vader and Trachta. Afterward, Tohm entered a room where Trachta was undergoing a diagnosis from a medical droid, carrying a bloodied length of pipe. As Tohm vomited, disgusted by the act he had committed, Trachta recognized that the young man had done a task for Vader—beating a wounded prisoner to death. Trachta then urged Tohm to consider following him instead of Vader, claiming that the Sith Lord only knew how to make followers, whereas Trachta could train Tohm to be a leader.
Soon, the Imperials and freed prisoners found Tarkin's shuttle and secreted themselves within it. When the shuttle landed and Gentis attempted to take Tarkin prisoner, Trachta, Vader, and the others attacked. Though Gentis's forces outnumbered the attackers by eight to one, there was no accounting for the disparate skills Vader's group brought to the fight. Trachta's onboard targeting computer allowed him to use two blasters, while Vader used the Force to slaughter dozens of cadets. Soon, Gentis's own son, Caul, was killed by Tohm, and Gentis stopped fighting, cradling his fallen son in his arms. The Emperor himself,'recovered from his ailments, attacked and killed Gentis with Force lightning, leaving him a charred husk.
In the aftermath of the battle, the Emperor rewarded Trachta for saving his life by promoting him to Grand Moff as well as Headmaster of the Imperial Academies. Unbeknownst to him, the surviving ex-prisoners, who were celebrating their victory and impending reward with the Imperials that they had fought beside, were at that moment trying to determine their fates. Trachta believed that they owed the prisoners a debt of gratitude, and that they should honour their promises to them. Vader thought that they should all be executed, to prevent them from becoming enemies in the future. Tohm created a third option, and the prisoners were told they would be set free but they had to exile themselves to the Corporate Sector. Before they left, they were met by Trachta, Tohm, and Vader, and the details of their release were once more gone over. They agreed to all of the parts of the deal, and Trachta wished them luck.
As the ship ascended over the Coruscant cityscape, it detonated, killing all those aboard. Tohm and Vader had betrayed the agreement, as well as Trachta, who was horrified by the dishonourable massacre. He railed against Tohm and Vader for their duplicity, but both men were unapologetic. Trachta, disgusted, left Tohm to Vader's care, no longer willing to try to take the young man under his own wing.
In 11 BBY, Trachta became increasingly more power hungry, craving to overthrow the Order of the Sith Lords and take control of the Imperial state. Just as Gentis had done before him, he concentrated his life on the upcoming coup, preparing to assassinate the Sith and rule the Empire. Trachta was not the only member of the conspiracy, but he recruited the other conspirators as well, including Grand Moff Bartam, General Skosef, Second Officer Dezsetes and the assassin Gauer. He saw both the Jedi and the Sith as foolish, declaring that the Empire could not be ruled by a clique of two Force-sensitive men. Trachta convinced his accomplices that the Empire was doomed unless the conspirators would overthrow the theocratic Sith and install a secular leadership. The pivotal element in Trachta's plot was a detachment of a one hundred clone stormtroopers, programmed loyal to the conspirators and trained by an army officer named Carsan.
In the meeting with the conspirators, Trachta introduced Moff Kadir, a Moff who held hatred of the Sith, and announced the Emperor's scheme on rendering the Senate irrelevant. Using the fact that Vader was sent to Dargulli to slay a lightsaber-wielding Force-sensitive, Trachta planned to storm the Imperial Palace with the clone stormtroopers and eliminate the Emperor during Vader's absence. Meanwhile, Dezsetes was assigned to eliminate Vader aboard the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Mathayus. However, Trachta became paranoid, suspecting Bartam for being disloyal and secretive. He asked Kadir to observe the Grand Moff, sowing the seeds of distrust and rivalry between the conspirators. Trachta planned to assassinate Palpatine by destroying his personal Lambda-class shuttle, as the Emperor was going to visit the unfinished Death Star. Trachta's clone stormtroopers planted a bomb, hidden in a crate of bottles, on the shuttle, but Palpatine sensed the assassination attempt through the Force. Trachta accompanied the Emperor, realizing that Palpatine was too cautious and shrewd to spring the trap. The bomb exploded destroying the shuttle and killing several Royal Guardsmen and stormtroopers, but Palpatine himself survived unharmed.
Since the Emperor lost many of his loyal bodyguards in the assassination attempt, Trachta sent his own clone stormtroopers to replace the men killed in the explosion. However, the clone stormtroopers allowed the conspirators to invade the Imperial Palace and eliminate the Emperor in his throne room. When Kadir introduced the stormtroopers to the Emperor, Trachta informed Skosef that he was implicated in the assassination attempt, affecting in Skosef's role in the plan. While Trachta planned to betray his co-conspirators, he was not oblivious to the reality that one of his allies might plan to betray him as well. Trachta's suspicions were confirmed when, while working in his personal quarters, an armed droid prepared to assassinate him from behind. Trachta's rear ocular camera allowed him to sense the attack, and he easily destroyed his would-be assassin.
Unfortunately, as Trachta went to examine the destroyed droid, he overlooked Gauer who was standing just outside his room. Out in the hallway, the Grand Moff was shot in the chest, with bolts of electricity bursting from his ocular implants. Gauer dragged the remains of the droid with him, leaving Trachta's corpse in his personal quarters. Gauer was sent by Bartam to remove Trachta, in response to the infighting between the leaders of the coup. Meanwhile, Skosef, acting under Trachta's orders, assassinated Bartam and was killed by the Grand Moff's stormtrooper guard. With Trachta, Bartam and Skosef dead, Kadir became the leading figure of the conspiracy and attempted to eliminate the Emperor, but he and the clone sto'mtroopers were killed by Palpatine and his Royal Guard. Thus, Trachta never saw the conclusion of his failed coup.
In this chapter, Trachta was already a cyborg. In the third issue of The Ghost Prison, Trachta's flashbacks show that clones were already wearing the Phase II Clone Trooper armour, which was introduced in 21 BBY. So, in the continuity of my fanfiction, the incident happened somewhere around 21-20 BBY. Also, this is before he became commander of the 1st Sector Army. Last, but not least, the reason why Trachta saw what Leia did while fighting the Geonosians and why he was quick to kill enemies behind him was because of his rear ocular camera which allowed him to see what was going on behind him.
The reason for adding Trachta was that he is one of my most favourite Legends characters and Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison is one of my most favoured Star Wars comic books.
Chief Engineer Bevel Lemelisk
Another Legends character that appears in this chapter is Bevel Lemelisk. As Leia correctly stated, he was one of the Empire's chief engineers. However, what makes him famous among Legends fans is that he is the engineer and architect who designed, among other things, the two Death Stars.
Starting his career by working for the Galactic Republic during the Clone Wars, Lemelisk studied and worked alongside illustrious designers. When the Galactic Empire rose to power in 19 BBY, Lemelisk was tasked by Wilhuff Tarkin with the development of the Death Star battle station. When the station was finally completed, it was destroyed by the Rebel Alliance at the Battle of Yavin, Palpatine, furious at the fact that the Alliance had been able to locate and exploit a fatal flaw in the design, had Lemelisk executed, and subsequently resurrected in a clone body. Palpatine ordered Lemelisk to design a new Death Star, one that did not possess the same fatal flaw as the original. During development, the Emperor executed and resurrected Lemelisk a further six times. Though he succeeded in eliminating the original flaw, the Alliance once again destroyed his creation while it was under construction at Endor.
The Escape of Poggle the Lesser
In Disney Canon, Poggle the Lesser's escape from Republic custody was described in the novel Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel. In Legends, I couldn't find any information about how he escaped and rejoined the Separatists, only to be slain by Darth Vader on Mustafar in Revenge of the Sith.
Dogma's Return
I remember that when I was watching The Clone Wars, I kind of thought to myself, why Anakin wouldn't try to get Dogma released. Rex possibly told him of Krell's manipulations and that Dogma was used as a tool. I thought he could possibly try to get him out using his close connection with Palpatine, who was back then already a powerful figure with high authority both within the Senate and the military. I don't know, that's just my personal opinion.