Wullf Yularen/Legends

Wullf Yularen was a male Human who served the Galactic Republic as an admiral in the Republic Navy, and the Galactic Empire as a colonel in the Imperial Security Bureau.

While serving as an admiral during the Clone Wars, he commanded his fleet from the Venator-class Star Destroyer Spirit of the Republic. He would also operate onboard the Resolute, during the Battle of Christophsis in 22 BBY, in which he was unable to provide support for Jedi Generals Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Later, he led his fleet into the Battle of Teth from the Spirit of the Republic.

Sometime following the creation of the Empire in 19 BBY, Yularen became a colonel in the Imperial Security Bureau. He would be stationed onboard the Death Star I, where he was tasked with maintaining loyalty to the Empire and briefing Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin. He was killed when the Death Star was destroyed at the Battle of Yavin by Luke Skywalker, the son of Yularen's former Jedi commander-turned-Dark Lord of the Sith.

Early Life
Wullf Yularen was born to an influential Coruscanti family, which helped him to get a job as a field agent with the Senate Bureau of Intelligence (SBI). Over the next decade, he investigated a myriad of cases for, against, and about the Senate, observing all the major delegates and assembling detailed dossiers on all of them. Even then, there was corruption within the SBI, and numerous low-level functionaries who were game to support any Senator's schemes by passing on misinformation for the right price. Ultimately, the sheer scale of the corruption led Yularen to leave the service. Afterwards, he was assigned to an anti-corruption unit under the Office of the Supreme Chancellor, investigating both government corruption and the growing Separatist movement. It was during this period that Yularen became enamored with Chancellor Palpatine and the direction in which he intended to take the Republic. Very soon, he was a loyal follower and a trusted agent for Palpatine's inner circle.

Service during the Clone Wars
During the Clone Wars, Yularen joined up with the naval contingent of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) at least in part to distance himself from the intelligence community, though the reason has not been disclosed. He either rose in the ranks very quickly or entered the service at a high rank, since he was already an admiral a year into the war, and commanding a major task force.

Yularen was the commanding officer in charge of Jedi General Anakin Skywalker's fleet. He was often worried of his commander's reckless tactics. After the Jedi had been requested to help rescue Rotta, the son of Jabba Desilijic Tiure, Yularen was tasked with delivering Ahsoka Tano to Generals Obi-Wan Kenobi and Skywalker on Christophsis. After Tano's shuttle had landed, Yularen, aboard the Jedi cruiser Resolute was forced to withdraw from the planetary orbit, leaving the ground forces on their own. His flagship was the Spirit of the Republic.

Service in the Imperial Security Bureau
The end of the war saw great changes in nearly every sphere of life, including the intelligence community. With the coming of the New Order, the various major intelligence organizations – the Senate Bureau of Intelligence, the Republican Security Organization, the Interstellar Consortium on Technology, and the Special Acquisitions Branch of the Library of the Republic – consolidated themselves into a more professional, more objective force, Imperial Intelligence, overseen by a governing body called the Ubiqtorate and headed by former SBI director Armand Isard. Yularen’s personal loyalty to Palpatine made him a poor fit for a supposedly objective organization. At the same time, however, Palpatine’s advisor Crueya Vandron, reforming the grassroots patriotic organization COMPNOR to meet the needs of the New Order, was sufficiently alarmed by the sudden transition and expansion of Intell that he established a COMPNOR spin-off organization called the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) as an intentional rival to Intell, a secret police organization to increase Palpatine’s knowledge of political events. The ISB had no pretensions of objectivity, and so Yularen was reassigned there. His move lost him respect in the eyes of his former superiors or colleagues, many of whom viewed COMPNOR as a misuse of valuable resources, especially the ISB.

Yularen had good connections to the Emperor’s inner circle, but himself remained outside of it. He was considered an excellent observer. He was comfortable in the halls of power, and over his multiple military and intelligence careers had amassed a great deal of information on a large number of beings. Though his intelligence reports were factually correct, he tended to add a pro-New Order spin to them. He headed up his own special task force during the early years of the Empire, which received high-level assignments, often involving an Imperial Senator or other important individual. One of these assignments was to investigate the names of the signatories of the Petition of 2000, the document that Senator Padmé Amidala presented to Palpatine on behalf of a vocal group of opposition senators.

Service aboard the Death Star
By the outbreak of the Rebellion, Yularen had risen to the rank of colonel in the ISB, and had acquired a reputation as an effective leader with boundless personal loyalty to Palpatine. It was probably for this reason that he was assigned to head the ISB contingent aboard the nearly-completed Death Star battle station as a member of Wilhuff Tarkin’s command staff. Officially, he was assigned to brief Tarkin on intelligence matters; unofficially, he was there to ensure that the station’s personnel remained absolutely loyal to the Emperor. Given that the Death Star could literally change the dynamics of power in the Empire, and that men like Tarkin and his naval advisor, Admiral Conan Motti, were possessed of apparently-limitless ambition, there were legitimate concerns on Imperial Center that, even though Palpatine’s personal emissary, Darth Vader, made repeated visits to remind them of their obligations, one or more officers on the station would be tempted to use it take power themselves. Yularen was there to prevent this, and in all likelihood he was not the only prevention measure that Palpatine had in place.

As head of the ISB contingent, Yularen was placed in charge of numerous agents specializing in surveillance, investigations, internal affairs, interrogation, reeducation and enforcement. Death Star security forces were obligated to provide office space and reasonable assistance to the ISB, though they did not welcome his men with open arms. In addition, there were several undercover agents aboard to investigate suspicious activities, acting as soldiers, administrators and lower-level officers – in fact, at least one of Tarkin’s personal aides was an undercover ISB agent. In this way, Yularen remained on top of any potential conspiracy against the Emperor. He was certain that he could stop Tarkin if the Grand Moff attempted to grab power for himself, thus ingratiating himself to Palpatine, who would, Yularen thought, appoint him to head the ISB.

Yularen's plans were foiled when he was killed in the Death Star's destruction during the Battle of Yavin.

Behind the scenes
An action figure of Yularen was produced by Hasbro in 2007 as part of the Death Star Briefing set. It included a short biography claiming that none of the officers present at the briefing were aware that Yularen was an ISB agent, though he was obviously wearing an ISB uniform in the scene.

Yularen's last name may have been inspired by a character from Sutâurufu named Colonel Yarulen who wears a white uniform. His first name may be a reference to the same film's main character, who is a Jedi-like warrior known as a "Star Wolf." Featured in the United States as Star Force: Fugitive Alien II on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Sutâurufu has many similarities to (and may itself have been partly inspired by) A New Hope.

On the packaging of the Hasbro Death Star Briefing set, his first name is misspelled as "Wulff." On page 138 of The Clone Wars: The Visual Guide, his last name is misspelled as "Yularan."

Appearances

 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars film
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars novel
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Slaves of the Republic - Chapter 1: The Mystery of Kiros
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars Volume 1: Shipyards of Doom
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope