Beilert Valance/Legends

"Interesting. I seem to have a rival. Perhaps even a formidable one."

- Darth Vader

Beilert Valance, also known as Valance the Hunter, was a former Imperial stormtrooper officer who, after a crippling injury in combat, was rebuilt as a cyborg and, after leaving the Stormtrooper Corps, went into business for himself as a bounty hunter. His hatred of droids, and his own half-mechanical nature, was incensed when he chanced upon information of an unidentified Human who befriended droids. In his search for this boy, his path crossed with that of the former Star-Hoppers of Aduba-3, until finally locating Luke Skywalker and his droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO. Rather than ending in a fatal firefight, their confrontation actually caused a change of heart in Valance, driving him to protect Skywalker from the Empire in hopes that one day the Rebels might create a society that had room for cyborgs like himself. His new mission brought him into conflict with Darth Vader, and he sacrificed himself on Centares to prevent Vader from learning Skywalker's identity.

Early life
"But that's the past&hellip; I've destroyed that!"

- Beilert Valance



Much of what is known about Beilert Valance's backstory comes from Imperial service records discovered, long after his death, in the Boudolayz archives. They indicate that Valance was born on Shinbone, a mining world in Wild Space where one had to scratch hard to eke out a living. His parents died from the Hardan Plague when he was still a child, leaving him to fend for himself until he reached the age of enlistment for Imperial stormtrooper service.

Imperial stormtrooper service
After enlistment, Valance was sent to Sirpar, an Imperial heavy-gravity training center in Arkanis Sector. After performing superbly in training, he was assigned to Nembus Sector, a volatile part of the Outer Rim Territories. The legion to which his platoon was attached saw extensive action against both pirates and Rebels. He was promoted to sergeant major of his platoon for his actions during the pacification of Praadost II. Soon after, as the campaign died down, his legion was reassigned to the nearby Kwymar Sector.

The Kwymar Suppressions, as the Imperial campaigns against Rebel positions in this Outer Rim sector would be named, were the climax of Valance's stormtrooper career. The fighting was spread over Picutorion, Protazk, Doniphon, Kestos Minor and Telos IV. Of these engagements, it is the battle on Picutorion that fills Valance's service file. During the frantic Rebel evacuation from the planet, his squad (consisting of himself, twelve stormtroopers, two elite stormtroopers and two scout troopers) performed especially well in taking a dug-in Rebel position, preventing the Rebels (twelve men and two droids strong) from sending a distress signal through Imperial jamming.

As Picutorion calmed down, Sergeant Major Valance was transferred to nearby Doniphon, where his luck changed very much for the worse. Rebel starfighters strafed the Imperial artillery position he was manning with proton torpedoes, and one of them struck home practically on top of him. Incredibly, he survived the blast, but he was so badly wounded as to be considered as good as dead. The retreating Imperial forces left his ruined body at Anglebay Station on Telos IV, not expecting him to live. In fact, the medics saved him, but it had been a near thing and required the replacement of half his body with cybernetic parts. For the rest of his life, Valance bitterly wished he had died on the operating table.

Early career as a bounty hunter
When he was finally released from Anglebay, Valance felt lost. He could not proudly continue his Imperial service; his physical condition made that impossible. But he was a trained, skilled and ruthless fighter. Ultimately he decided to become a bounty hunter. His first jobs were small, but they quickly gained him notice. He began with a Sikurdian berserker pirate, Alabar Double Ax, chasing him from Sikurd to the Red Nebula. When he caught up with and captured Alabar, he claimed the pirate's ship as his own, renaming it Kill Switch, and he assembled a gang of ruthless mercenaries to serve as his crew. On Donadus in the Inner Rim, they routed the Chorran shipjackers that had threatened Bamula Sector. On Thraisai, they captured a slavers' ring. Valance's reputation as a hunter of the first rank was rapidly made.



Few people, if any, knew of his pre-hunting career, and still less knew of his secret life as a cyborg; he used a kind of artificial skin to cover most of his exposed mechanical parts. Many noticed that his hatred of droids and other mechanical constructs was far more severe than the common prejudice against droids that had been in evidence ever since the Clone Wars, but they knew not to ask why. That it was in fact a deep-seated hatred of his new half-mechanical nature was something they never caught on to. As such a weakness would have instantly killed his new career, Valance sought to hide all traces of his personal history.

His self-hatred was intensified once he saw a tape his men captured from a Rebel spy they later killed. An illegal duplicate of an Imperial transmission, it was a report concerning the rescue of a political prisoner, Leia Organa, from the first Death Star. It was not specific, but it said that one participant was Han Solo, a smuggler who already had a price on his head, and that another, an unidentified older man, held off Darth Vader himself during the rescue. But it was a third participant, an unidentified boy, who aroused Valance's ire, because it was reported that the boy's part in the rescue was done with the cooperation&mdash;even friendship&mdash;of two droids. The very thought of a Human willingly allying himself with mechanicals&mdash;with junk&mdash;repelled him.

The destruction of Anglebay Station


In the weeks following the Battle of Yavin, Valance announced to his crew that they would be embarking on a new mission, paid for out of his own pocket: the complete destruction of Anglebay Station. Nothing was to be left behind that could be salvaged, and not one being, staff member or patient, was to be left alive. His crew was unable to understand why he would order the sacking of a politically-neutral medical station that offered care to anyone, even bounty hunters. But they feared their captain too much, sought his credits too much, to say anything that might set him off.

The Kill Switch soon pushed up the Hydian Way, bound for the Telos system. Once his gang breached the station, they shot the patients where they lay; the droids were rounded up and blasted en masse. Valance himself saw to the obliteration of the computer records, destroying his Anglebay personal medical files along with everyone else's. When Valance and his men finally lifted off from Telos IV, they left behind only a burned-out shell littered with charred organic corpses and melted droid frames, along with the last remnants of the past he despised.

Beilert Valance vs. the Star-Hoppers
"Between my obsession and the crew's greed&hellip; we did this all for nothing!"

- Beilert Valance, to Jimm Doshun

From Telos IV to Aduba-3


Valance confronted Jimm Doshun, the "Starkiller Kid," on his homeworld of Aduba-3, mistakenly believing him to be the companion of Han Solo responsible for destroying the Death Star. Though Doshun had been a friend of Solo's, he was not Luke Skywalker, the battle station's true destroyer. Still, Doshun, joined by his friends from the former Star-Hoppers, the mercenary group that had once defeated a pirate band from Aduba, routed Valance's crew and sent the bounty hunter off to begin his search anew.

The destruction of Ultaar Outpost
Undaunted, Valance continued investigating leads alone. Eventually he came upon a Rebel information-retrieval team operating in the blossom-laden jungles of Ultaar. The Rebel team, one officer and four troopers, were surprised to see Valance charge into their hut and confront them, demanding information about the group of Rebels aiding Leia Organa, particularly a boy with two droids. They did not have what he needed, but one of them tried to draw a sidearm, igniting a firefight; Valance shot him immediately, critically wounding him. The other three tried to flee into the jungle, but Valance gunned them down. Leaving them where they fell, Valance returned to the hut to examine the Rebels' computer core, but he was only able to confirm that they really didn't know anything.

Valance left Ultaar having found nothing new to aid him in his search. What he had gained, however, was a new enemy. Just days after his raid, Darth Vader came upon the Rebel outpost to find the entire Rebel team wiped out. One Rebel soldier, the one Valance left wounded in the hut, was captured and administered enough drugs to talk. He told Vader that it had been the work of a cyborg calling himself Valance (evidently something happened during the raid to expose his true nature to the Rebels). Vader killed the Rebel and returned to his flagship with the knowledge that he now had a formidable rival in his own search for the Death Star's destroyer.

Beilert Valance vs. Luke Skywalker
"Droids and Humans don't behave like this&hellip;! They don't sacrifice themselves for one another!"

- Beilert Valance, to C-3PO

From Ultaar to Feriae Junction


Valance left Ultaar behind and started over. He had learned (possibly from the Ultaar computer banks) that in the interim, the Empire had blockaded the Yavin system in an attempt to trap the Rebels there. But Valance was sure that the Rebels would try to run this blockade to keep the Yavin base supplied, and they would need a supply transfer point. Tracing known Rebel supply lines, he narrowed the possibilities down to the run-down shadowport of Feriae Junction, located at an intersection between the Hydian Way and the Gordian Reach, the route that led to nearby Yavin. He set up operations there and waited, certain that, eventually, the boy and his droids would show up.

In Junction City he passed the time as best he could, picking up bounties where they showed themselves. When a certain Marko Tyne, a Zygerrian slaver wanted on Thesme for unlicensed slaving activities in nine systems, appeared in the Junction City cantina, Valance shot him. He was duly paid for his efforts. To amuse himself he indulged his hobby of blasting "junk," paying his local informant, the scrap dealer Skinker, for salvaged or rebuilt droids simply so he could destroy them.

Enter Luke Skywalker
After five weeks, Skinker sent word that a young man with a 3PO unit had appeared in Junction City: Luke Skywalker had come to Junction with his protocol droid C-3PO to find parts to repair their damaged friend, the astromech droid R2-D2. Valance first acted to protect his quarry from Imperial interference: knowing where the local Imperial spy was to be found, he jammed the spy's long-range transmitter, then killed the spy himself, to make sure he beat Darth Vader to the target. He expected that killing Vader's spy also killed any chance of a monetary reward from the Empire, but evidently he was by now more concerned with personal satisfaction.



Skinker kept Skywalker and C-3PO occupied at his salvage yard long enough for Valance to get there. Sensing a trap, Skywalker shoved C-3PO into Skinker's office and dove in after, and then sent the droid out the back way while he tried to hold off the bounty hunter. Valance blasted his way in and confronted his mark. The boy proved a better fighter than he had initially assumed; he was agile, clever, and to Valance's amazement, he wielded an old Jedi lightsaber. Skywalker used the blade to deflect one of Valance's blasts back at him, melting away the synthetic flesh that hid his mechanical parts. When Skywalker expressed shock, Valance was even more angered: a man who appeared to love droids was acting shocked at the sight of a cyborg. Determined to kill Skywalker, he slammed the Rebel to the floor, far from his saber, and prepared to fire.

But then Skywalker's droid, C-3PO, suddenly reappeared and placed himself in front of his master, willing to sacrifice himself to save Skywalker. The boy in turn, concerned for his droid's safety, tried to send him away. Valance was shocked; in his experience, droids and Humans did not sacrifice themselves to save each other. "Certainly it's not widely accepted," the droid answered, "But perhaps if it were, even being a cyborg might be easier to bear." It awakened in Valance the hope that, perhaps, cyborgs like himself could one day exist without prejudice. To ponder this, he allowed C-3PO to pick up Skywalker's fallen lightsaber and carry him back to their ship, while he wandered the streets of Junction City, lost in thought.

A new quest
Valance found that his entire view of life had lost its meaning. He could no longer hate droids, for C-3PO had proved himself capable of one of the very qualities that made one Human: compassion. His former loyalties to the Empire were undermined, for C-3PO had sided with those who opposed the Empire. Even his bitter experiences with the Rebels had found a new context, for he now saw that the ferocity with which they fought was fueled by a belief in the very same better universe that C-3PO had suggested. Without realizing it, he had become similar to a Rebel, in thought if not in fact.

This realization gave Valance a new mission in life. The young Skywalker had already become a crucial player in the war against the Empire, and Valance knew that Darth Vader wanted to learn his identity just as badly, if not worse. Valance came to feel that if a universe that had room for cyborgs was ever to come to pass, it would be through beings like Skywalker, so Valance became determined to prevent Vader from finding him. Previously, Valance had kept what he knew about Skywalker from the Empire only for the sake of preserving the bounty for himself. Now he had to keep that knowledge from reaching Vader at all costs.

Beilert Valance vs. Darth Vader


"That boy you're seeking&hellip;and his droid&hellip;held out hope of something better, Vader. A time, a life, when even someone like me might not be a freak."

- Beilert Valance, to Darth Vader

The pursuit of Tyler Lucian
Valance's new quest took him to Centares when he learned of the existence of one Tyler Lucian, a Rebel deserter who had been stationed at the Yavin 4 base before the Death Star had arrived. Certain that the battle station would annihilate the base, Lucian had stolen a supply ship and fled, but apparently learned the identity of Skywalker afterward. This made him a much sought-after being, and at the same time that Valance had learned about him, and his location on Centares, Darth Vader had tortured the same information out of a captured spy. Lucian suddenly became the prize in a stuggle between two powerful and determined rivals who had never met.

Valance reached Centares first and, through Lucian's supply contact in Old Town, found the fugitive hiding out in a tower above the polluted and corrosive waters of Rubyflame Lake. Valance confronted him and drew his sidearm. But before he could pull the trigger, Vader's TIE Fighter suddenly appeared from out of the setting sun, screaming low over the lake and settling at the shoreline. Its arrival distracted Valance long enough for Lucian to run into the tower. Locked inside, Lucian was the only witness to the contest of weapons&mdash;and wills&mdash;between Valance and Vader.

The last stand of Beilert Valance


Vader reached the walkway leading to the tower, and found Valance there waiting, his gun drawn, determined to prevent him from passing to get the name he wanted. When the first blows were felled, Valance's cybernetic weapons brought Vader to his knee&mdash;briefly. Valance's defiance intrigued Vader; he offered Valance a chance to serve him, but the hunter was not interested. Valance blasted a gap in the walkway. Vader ignited his lightsaber and leaped over the chasm to where Valance was making his stand.

The combat that ensued was fierce, but brief. At the end, Valance was critically wounded, but even then, Valance refused to give up. He gripped onto Vader's boot, holding him fast. Vader offered to save him if he would only quit; even if he left Lucian alone, Vader argued, others would have the same information. Eventually, he would acquire it. And then what would have been the point of Valance's self-sacrifice? But for Valance, the point was to buy time. "The boy you seek, the one with the droids, is good. And he's growing. Someday he'll be your equal, or your better. Any delay works in his favor, increases his chances." Vader then decided that there could be no more delay.

Vader prepared to swing his saber for the last time, but Valance rolled himself over the edge of the walkway, hauling Vader with him. Valance dangled above the corrosive waters, his weight pulling Vader toward the same toxic end. Vader desperately swung his blade, slicing through the cybernetic hand clamped to his boot. Beilert Valance plunged into Rubyflame Lake. There, his flesh dissolved in minutes, his metal parts following hours later. But Tyler Lucian had heard his last words and found his own courage. Steeling himself, Lucian jumped from the high tower, following Valance into the fatal waters and securing, for the moment, the secret of Luke Skywalker's identity from Vader.

Personality and traits


Beilert Valance learned to be tough almost from the beginning of his life. His childhood on a harsh and unforgiving mining planet—much of it spent without the protection and emotional nourishment his parents would have provided him—left him cold and emotionally distant, and his desperate struggle for existence made him ruthless, able to make hard decisions that others, raised in more comfortable circumstances, could not make. Service in the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps would have—and no doubt did—provide a perfect outlet for the young Valance. His life on Shinbone no doubt fully prepared him for the rigors of stormtrooper training, and the two combined to make him an effective combat soldier. He was tactically astute, aggressive, cunning, and unfeeling. In short, he had all the tools required to be a superb bounty hunter long before he ever took up the profession.



His crippling injuries sustained on Doniphon revealed a new and hateful streak of his character: his hatred of droids and other mechanicals, or "junk" as he called them. Prejudice against droids had been quite common long before the bitter experience of the Clone Wars reinforced it, and cyborgs were not spared this hatred. That he should himself be forced to live out his days as a half-mechanical being Valance regarded as a bitter pill. Thus his hatred of droids became the outward sign of an even more deeply-rooted hatred of himself. His pursuit of Skywalker and his droid companions may have been meant to eliminate a bitter reminder that it was not droids, but he himself, that he really detested. He was caught completely unprepared for the possibility that one of Skywalker's droids, C-3PO, might actually prove himself to be more caring, more human, than he was. The acknowledgement of that fact completely changed him.



Valance saw in C-3PO's actions the possibility of a better galaxy, one in which cyborgs like himself need never face prejudice. In that vision he suddenly became something he had never been—an idealist. His childhood on Shinbone had eradicated any youthful idealism he might have had, and his sudden conversion to the protector of a major Rebel operative demonstrated that the Empire's ideology, which would have been a central part of his stormtrooper training, never really took hold. Lacking any trust in family, or hope for the future, or even a lasting belief in the New Order, Valance had no reason to have any ideals at all. The realization that he could believe in something beyond himself gave him new strength and purpose. He did not become a fully-fledged Rebel, but he understood enough of the Rebellion to know that Luke Skywalker's survival was a crucial component of its eventual victory, and his belief—no matter how thin—in that victory was sufficient to give him the courage to stand against the Empire's most brutal enforcer. In a conclusion laced with irony, Beilert Valance willingly laid down his life in the name of the very thing he had long ago thought banished from him: hope. 

Behind the scenes
"Death and destruction are his tools! The Star Warriors are his targets!"

- Star Wars 16: The Hunter

The character of Valance was introduced in 1978 by veteran comic writer Archie Goodwin. He was not originally given a complete name, but when Jason Fry expanded the Valance story for roleplaying purposes in his multi-part online article The Hunt Within, he gave the bounty hunter a first name. Convinced that Goodwin took the name "Valance" from the classic John Ford western film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Fry intended Valance's first name to be an anagram of "Liberte." He also named Valance's homeworld Shinbone, after the town in the film where Liberty Valance lived.

Valance's confrontation with Vader was named as an "Honorable Mention" in the Star Wars Insider article "20 Most Memorable Moments of the Expanded Universe".

Appearances

 * Star Wars 16: The Hunter
 * Star Wars 21: Shadow of a Dark Lord
 * Star Wars 27: Return of the Hunter
 * Star Wars 29: Dark Encounter