Tiaan Jerjerrod

"Lord Vader, this is an unexpected pleasure. We are honored by your presence.''" "''You may dispense with the pleasantries, Commander. I'm here to put you back on schedule."

- Jerjerrod and Darth Vader aboard the Death Star II

Tiaan Jerjerrod was a human male who served in the Galactic Empire during the Galactic Civil War. Initially an architect and a starship designer, he was eventually granted the rank of Imperial Moff. Prior to and during the Battle of Endor, he was made commander of the Death Star II partly owing to his previous work on the original Death Star. Tasked with overseeing the space station's difficult final stages of assembly, Jerjerrod faced the wrath of both the Sith Lord Darth Vader and Emperor Sheev Palpatine when the massive construction effort fell behind schedule. Despite warnings from Vader that the Emperor would not tolerate any further setbacks, the Emperor paid little attention to Jerjerrod when he visited the Death Star, though he did authorize the commander to operate the station's superlaser against the starships of the Rebel fleet when the Rebel Alliance launched its attack on the Death Star&mdash;a battle that culminated in the station's destruction and the death of all its occupants, including Jerjerrod.

Early career
A human male from the Core World of Tinnel IV, Tiaan Jerjerrod hailed from a wealthy family. In his youth, he attended an engineering academy until his high grades earned him a job drafting plans for warehouses. Later, his plans for a freight depot on Ord Mantell drew the attention of the Corellian Engineering Corporation, and he was hired as a starship designer. Eventually, his designs for an interstellar trash hauler led him to serve the Galactic Empire.

By the sixth year of the Empire's reign, Jerjerrod held the rank of Rear Admiral, and was a member of the Joint Chiefs. He helped build the first Death Star, a moon-sized battle station that used kyber crystals to generate a planet-destroying superlaser. Jerjerrod told himself that such a weapon would provide a defense for the Empire simply by existing, deterring attacks without ever being used. However, the Empire did use the megaweapon, blowing up the planet of Alderaan. Although extremely powerful, the station was finally destroyed when a pilot of the enemy Rebel Alliance fired two proton torpedoes into an unprotected thermal exhaust port.

Running behind schedule
"The Emperor is coming here?''" "That is correct, Commander, and he is most displeased with your apparent lack of progress." "We shall double our efforts!" "''I hope so, Commander, for your sake. The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am."

- Tiaan Jerjerrod and Vader discuss the Emperor's impending visit to the second Death Star

Eventually, Tiaan Jerjerrod became one of the twenty Imperial Moffs. Despite the fiasco of the original superweapon, the Emperor ordered the construction of a second Death Star above the Forest Moon of Endor. Moff Jerjerrod was assigned to supervise the difficult endeavor of completing that superweapon, and was given the cover title of Director of Imperial Energy Systems due to the project's secrecy. In order to fulfill his difficult mandate, Jerjerrod exhausted himself day after day, slaving over the plans and filing endless paperwork. The Moff notably made sure that all the exhaust ports of the new station were heavily armored, thus fixing the fatal flaw of the original Death Star. However, the architect faced a number of problems, ranging from budget cuts and supply chain breakdowns to the shortage of construction workers.

Eventually, the glaring lack of progress on the Death Star prompted Darth Vader, the personal enforcer of Emperor Sheev Palpatine, to travel to the station to rectify the situation. Upon learning that Vader's transport had touched down inside one of the Death Star's hangar bays, Jerjerrod ventured to the hangar to greet the Emperor's emissary as he disembarked from his shuttle. Feeling secure enough in his position, Jerjerrod planned to show Vader his detailed daily reports, hoping that the emissary might take his side and realize the Emperor was asking for the impossible. However, after brushing aside Jerjerrod's formal greeting, Vader bluntly informed the commander of the purpose behind his impromptu visit&mdash;the Emperor had become displeased with the Death Star's slowing construction, and Vader would see to it that the station was completed on schedule. At first, Jerjerrod protested that the task was understaffed and nearly impossible given the circumstances, but when the Sith Lord announced that the Emperor was to personally oversee the station's completion, the Moff pledged himself and his crew to a renewed effort, heeding Vader's mocking warning that the Emperor would not tolerate failure.

Last battle and death
"Fire at will, Commander!"

- Emperor Palpatine, to Jerjerrod

Driven by the fear of the Emperor's arrival, the Moff exhausted himself and his workers for several weeks. In spite of his best effort, the Moff was unable to finish the station before his master's arrival, and one whole hemisphere was still covered in scaffolding and girders. When Palpatine finally arrived aboard the Death Star with great fanfare, Jerjerrod joined Vader and a group of Imperial officers to welcome their ruler and his retinue. The Moff had hoped that he would be rewarded for his hard work. However, despite Vader's earlier warnings, the Emperor ignored Jerjerrod and the other officers as he conversed with Vader about their grand plan to deal with the Rebel Alliance, with which the Empire had been at war for some time, and Luke Skywalker, a young Rebel commander who happened to be Vader's son. Jerjerrod realized that not having displeased his master was enough of a reward.

In the Emperor's Throne Room on a spire high above the surface of the Death Star, the Emperor tasked Vader with setting the trap for the Rebel fleet at Endor, all while Jerjerrod stood by silently.

The Rebel Alliance unknowingly took the Emperor's bait, launching a two-pronged, all-out assault on the Death Star's construction site at Endor, in which a strike team infiltrated onto the forest moon's surface would disable the deflector shield protecting the space station while Rebel starfighters, supported by the capital ships of the Alliance fleet, would fly into the Death Star's superstructure and take out its reactor, thereby destroying the weapon before it could be completed. Palpatine had prepared for this, however, and once the Rebel fleet arrived and found itself trapped between the Imperial Navy and a shielded Death Star, he contacted Jerjerrod in the station's command center and authorized him to target and destroy the Rebel starships with the Death Star's superlaser. Under his command, the Death Star atomized a number of Rebel cruisers as the battle progressed.

Nevertheless, despite the odds, the Alliance soon gained the upper hand, and the battle concluded with the Emperor's death and the destruction of the Death Star with all hands lost, Jerjerrod included.

Legacy
While Tiaan Jerjerrod perished over Endor, other members of his family would join the First Order, the Imperial successor regime to the fallen Galactic Empire. One member of his family, Jo Jerjerrod, the son of First Order officers Jax Jerjerrod and Jul Jerjerrod, defected from the First Order and joined the Resistance.

Personality and traits
Unlike most officers, Jerjerrod showed petty spitefulness and a lack of ambition as he rose through the Imperial ranks&mdash;qualities which were considered admirable for a Moff. A technocrat with a chilly personality, Jerjerrod served as the commander of the second Death Star as it neared completion, a position of which he was proud, yet one he found concerning given the complicated nature of the station's construction. Though he claimed the men under his supervision were working as fast as possible to complete the station, the threat of personally facing the Emperor's displeasure at the lagging construction effort&mdash;a threat which made him visibly nervous&mdash;compelled him to reevaluate the speed with which the work was proceeding. When in the Emperor's presence, Jerjerrod was respectful, kneeling upon greeting him and bowing before departing.

Behind the scenes
Tiaan Jerjerrod was portrayed by Michael Pennington in Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. Late English actor Alan Rickman originally auditioned for Jerjerrod's role, whom he wanted to play with a "Big, slow, low voice", but at the end, Pennington was cast instead of Rickman. He is never identified by name in the movie and only addressed as "Commander," though both his name and proper rank are provided in the film's closing credits. Jerjerrod serves as a minor antagonist with relatively little screen time or dialogue in the finished film, though in earlier drafts his role was substantially larger, owing to the fact that he functioned as the Emperor's "secret agent," operating behind Vader's back to further the Emperor's plans. In these versions of the script, Vader kills Jerjerrod for his subterfuge. The Moff is also featured in a number of scenes filmed for Return of the Jedi that were ultimately cut from the finished product; some of these, comprising a subplot in which Jerjerrod is ordered by the Emperor to destroy Endor once the battle turns against the Empire's favor (scenes retained in the novelization of the film), were included in the Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray set.

In earlier versions of the film's script, Jerjerrod was written as a Grand Moff instead of just a Moff, also being Emperor Palpatine's personal representative, reason for which the two were planning to turn Luke Skywalker to the dark side of the Force and then betray Darth Vader. Following his discovery about this scheem, Vader was going to break out Jerjerrod's neck. Jerjerrod's role, however, was greatly reduced in the finished version of the film, in which he barely has some connection to Palpatine.

Before the Lucasfilm Story Group initiated a reboot of Star Wars canon in anticipation of the sequel trilogy, Jerjerrod's backstory had been explored and developed in a number of sources, one of which gave him the first name "Tiaan". The vast majority of this information has been relegated to the Star Wars Legends realm of Star Wars continuity; as such, this article reflects only information found within the new established canon, which includes the films and the StarWars.com Encyclopedia. However, his first name of Tiaan was brought back into canon with the publication of Ultimate Star Wars, a sourcebook published by Dorling Kindersley in 2015.

For the Special Edition of Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back, archival footage of Darth Vader's arrival aboard the Death Star at the beginning of Return of the Jedi was recycled to depict Vader returning to the Executor following his duel with Luke Skywalker on Cloud City. While the scene itself is presented from a different angle than the source scene in Return of the Jedi, Michael Pennington is still visible in the shot.

Appearances

 * Tarkin
 * Lost Stars
 * Star Wars: The Original Trilogy – A Graphic Novel
 * Battlefront: Twilight Company
 * Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
 * Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi
 * Return of the Jedi: Beware the Power of the Dark Side!
 * Star Wars: Return of the Jedi junior novelization
 * Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Read-Along Storybook and CD
 * Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Read-Along Storybook and CD