Ulric Tagge

Major General Ulric Tagge was an Imperial officer. His family, the ancient House of Tagge, which descended from one of the original Founders of the Republic, owned numerous industries under a large holding company, the Tagge Company or TaggeCo.

Biography
Ulric Tagge was the youngest of four sons (though he had a sister, Domina Tagge, who was younger still). Born to Baroness Sanya Tagge and raised on the Tagge homeworld of Tepasi in the Core, he grew up surrounded by all the wealth and luxury his ancient house could provide. He remained personally insecure, however, as he often found himself left in the shadow cast by his elder brothers. Orman Tagge, the oldest, had been groomed practically from birth to follow their mother as head of the family. Of the other two, Silas Tagge gained an early interest in the sciences and eventually obtained a doctorate, becoming chief scientist for all Tagge industries, and Cassio Tagge was a strategist &mdash; though not a bold one &mdash; and eventually entered Imperial military service. It was only with his younger sister Domina Tagge that Ulric felt comfortable, though it is not clear if she reciprocated this feeling.

At the appropriate age, Ulric followed Cassio into Imperial military service. Both were quickly raised through the ranks on the basis of their family's prestige. While Cassio was selected to serve as Army advisor to Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin on his Death Star Project and a vital member of Tarkin's command triumvirate, Ulric was quite content to live out his career being known as a competent officer, if not necessarily an imaginative one. Not long after Cassio's death aboard the Death Star during the Battle of Yavin (0 BBY), however, Ulric found himself enmeshed in events that led to his eventual rise to the headship of House Tagge itself.

The eldest brother, Orman, determined to win the favor of Emperor Palpatine and disgrace his rival Darth Vader, with whom he had a personal grievance, used his family, his fortune, and all his resources to achieve his ends. It was through Orman's machinations that Ulric was suddenly promoted to the rank of major general and given made fleet commander of a flotilla of Tagge warships assigned to take part in the blockade of the Yavin system (0 ABY), which had been exposed as the headquarters base of the Rebel Alliance. This was partly accomplished to allow Orman to manipulate events to suit his designs; his younger brother's presence in the blockade, for instance, allowed his ships to secretly tow his Achtnak Turbine Station to Yavin without Vader learning about it. This project failed, along with a series of others.

In the end, both Orman and Silas were reported killed in a skirmish with the Rebels at Junction, and Ulric suddenly became the new Baron Tagge. Vader gave his own blessing to the young general's ascension, provided the family would cease its interference with Vader's affairs. Ulric agreed, standing down from his fleet position and retiring from military service.



Ulric visited his sister Domina on the cloistered world of Monastery before returning to Tepasi. Not quite concealing his pride at his new position, he explained to Domina that their brothers had died because of the Rebels, in particular a Rebel named Luke Skywalker. He also suggested that if she was interested in retribution, the best hope to achieve it was to make peace with Vader. Ulric then left his sister to overcome her revulsion at dealing with the Sith Lord and form her own plans for revenge.

Ulric Tagge subsequently took charge of the family holdings, and the indications are that he proved surprisingly capable. Under his leadership, TaggeCo rapidly regained the strength it had lost in the months following the Battle of Yavin and has remained one of the leading business concerns in the Galactic economy. In the absence of contradictory information, Ulric is still believed to be have been the reigning head of the family as late as 35 ABY.

Behind the scenes

 * Ulric Tagge 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 did indeed die aboard the Death Star. 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.
 * It is hard to understand why Ulric, a fleet commander, has an army-style rank; similarly, dialogue in A New Hope makes Cassio sound like a fleet commander, EU identifying him as an army officer nonetheless.

Appearances

 * Star Wars 18: The Empire Strikes
 * Star Wars 31: Return to Tatooine
 * Star Wars 33: Saber Clash
 * Star Wars 35: Dark Lord's Gambit