Imperial bioweapons Project I71A

Imperial bioweapons Project I71A, codenamed Blackwing, was a project dedicated to designing a weaponized self-propagating infectious disease. Its creation was at the direct order of Darth Vader.

History
The Galactic Empire committed the Star Destroyer Vector to carrying containers of the disease. While somewhere on the edge of the Unknown Regions, the infectious agent broke containment and infected the crew.

When the engines of the Imperial prison barge Purge broke down, a team was sent to the derelict Vector to scavenge parts. When they returned, they had been contaminated with the disease. When they were questioned, the only thing the crew could tell them about the situation was the word "Blackwing." Databank searches of the term only resulted in obscure references. In short order, all but a handful of inmates and staff on the Purge were infected.

When Han Solo, Chewbacca and Trig Longo found containers full of the liquid which seemingly caused the plague aboard the Vector, damage was showing on more than one of containers, which identified the cause of the outbreak. Later, after Jareth Sartoris encountered Commander Gorrister, it was revealed that the disease had been released aboard the Star Destroyer by accident ten standard weeks previous to arrival of the Purge.

Behind the scenes
In the released texts of Warden Bissley Kloth's letter to Sergeant Hazar Yupcavage, the final sentence of the penultimate paragraph has two words redacted from it, relating to the obscure reference. The text reads "... no results except for one arcane reference to [REDACTED] in the [REDACTED]."

Appearances

 * Black Orchid
 * Death Troopers
 * Star Wars Galaxies