Cassio Tagge/Legends

"Until this battle station is fully operational, we are vulnerable. The Rebel Alliance is too well equipped&hellip; They're more dangerous than you realize."

- High General Cassio Tagge to Admiral Conan Antonio Motti

Cassio Tagge was a Human male who served as High General in the Imperial Army and a prominent member of the wealthy House of Tagge.

Youth
Cassio Tagge was born on the planet of Tepasi, a few years before the Invasion of Naboo. He was one of four sons born to Sanya Tagge, head of the influential House of Tagge. Despite his family wealth, for much of his life Cassio was a cautious, low-key individual.

During the Clone Wars, Cassio's elder brother Orman assumed the title of baron of the House of Tagge.

By 18 BBY, Cassio had enlisted in officer training for the Imperial Army, against the advice of his elder brother Orman. They discussed the new Empire on Tepasi, where, despite Orman's optimism, a skeptical Cassio warned his brother to be careful of dealing with Palpatine and Darth Vader.

Cassio's caution proved well-founded, as Orman fell victim to Vader's wrath, losing his eyesight as a consequence. Learning from his brother's misfortune, Cassio would never be as unwise as to misjudge the competence of his enemies.

Years later, Cassio, promoted to the rank of General, was sent to Lucazec. The world was home to the Fallanassi, an order of Force Adepts. The Empire feared them and desired their power. Rather than enslave them at gunpoint, Cassio was ordered to offer Imperial protection to Wialu, the Fallanassi leader, so as to avoid the fate of the Jedi. Wialu refused to accept Cassio's invitation. In retaliation, he placed covert Imperial agents in villages on Lucazec to kill animals, start fires, and poison waters, blaming the Fallanassi all the while. As a result, the Fallanassi were ostracized and, in some cases, attacked by their neighbors leading the to flee Lucazec to escape persecution.

The Death Star
Almost two decades later, High General Tagge was commander of all Army forces stationed aboard the first Death Star. It was not just his family connections that had assured him the position&mdash;Tagge was a capable officer, if not a bold one, and he refused to participate in the usual political realities of the Imperial Court, preferring to focus on loyal service to the Empire. His aide onboard the station, General Moradmin Bast felt the same. However, he could not escape the politicking altogether: he often butted heads with the lower-ranking Admiral Conan Antonio Motti at meetings of the station's command staff.

Unlike other officers, General Tagge sternly protested that the Rebel Alliance was an underestimated foe that the Imperial Navy should have taken more seriously. He also raised concerns about the suspension of the Imperial Senate, believing that the Emperor would find it impossible to "maintain control without the bureaucracy." It was for this reason that his concerns about the vulnerability of the battle station were ignored, and his fears mostly dismissed by his fellow officers (save for his loyal aide Bast), but they were vindicated at the Battle of Yavin, when the station was destroyed by Rebel forces, and Tagge along with it.

He was survived by his three brothers, Orman, Silas, and Ulric; and by a sister: Domina.

Personality and traits
As the chief of Army operations on the Death Star, Tagge's role placed him as third-in-command of the station, underneath chief of Navy operations Motti (whose branch was far more represented than Tagge's), and Governor Tarkin. Despite this, the General never complained; he refused to partake in the political games that his allies and rivals played, simply wishing to serve the Empire to the best of his ability. Unlike his fellow members of the battle station's command staff, he took the Rebel Alliance seriously, and indeed his fears were vindicated at the Battle of Yavin.

Tagge chose to wear the prominent sideburns that were popular among the Imperial officer class at the time. Other serving Imperial officers who wore their hair in this fashion, many of whom were also assigned to the Death Star, included Motti, Moradmin Bast, Nahdonnis Praji, and Pol Treidum.

Portrayal
Cassio Tagge was portrayed by Don Henderson. In the end credits for A New Hope, Henderson is credited as playing "General Taggi" (sic).

Continuity
Though Motti references Tagge as head of the Imperial Navy, he is actually an Army commander. Motti is a commander in the Navy.

General Ulric Tagge, from the Marvel Comics, was originally intended to be the same character as the General Tagge seen in A New Hope. However, other sources showed that the General Tagge portrayed in the film indeed died aboard the Death Star, and to make matters worse, the Marvel Tagge seemed to resemble the character Motti more closely than he did the Imperial played by Henderson. The discrepancy was reconciled in Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds, which revealed that the two Tagges were indeed different persons, and that A New Hope's Tagge's first name was Cassio.

Though fans typically point to Janek "Tank" Sunber as a movie character who was unexplored for a long period in the Expanded Universe, Tagge in fact beat his "record", of sorts, by appearing in Evasive Action: End Game years after Tank appeared in Star Wars: Empire: To the Last Man. Also, Tank never appeared in the films, and was only alluded to in passing, while Tagge actually appeared on-screen. As such, Tagge currently holds the record between appearances.

Appearances

 * Evasive Action: End Game
 * Death Star
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope novel
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope junior novel
 * Star Wars 1
 * William Shakespeare's Star Wars
 * The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader
 * Before the Storm
 * Shield of Lies
 * Shield of Lies