Battle of Mos Espa

The Battle of Mos Espa was a conflict fought between the citizens of Mos Espa, a city on the planet Tatooine, and an army of Tusken Raiders led by the Tusken King. The battle took place sometime after the conclusion of the Battle of Yavin during the Galactic Civil War, but before the Battle of Hoth. The catalyst for the engagement was the theft of three sacred artifacts from the Sand People. They were stolen by a spacer from the Tusken relic cave so that they could be studied by a scholar named Srimaur. Following the looting of the cave, a group of Tuskens marched on the city and occupied it. Kav Goldor, the leader of the city's militia, and several spacers retook the city and prepared its populace to defend themselves against the advancing Tusken army and their leader, the Tusken King. In a fierce battle, the spacers, citizens, militia and Kav Goldor were successful in killing the Tusken King and his elite guard, liberating the city of its occupiers.

The prelude
The trouble began shortly after the Battle of Yavin when a Human scholar named Srimaur hired a spacer to infiltrate the relic cave of a tribe of Tusken Raiders, an indigenous and hostile species of Tatooine, and find three specific relics for him to study. These relics were a chieftain's head, a krayt dragon skull and a ghastly gaderffii baton. The spacer entered the cave and began searching for the relics and after stealing the final item, the spacer was discovered and attacked by several Tusken relic guards. The sentient managed to escape and returned to Mos Espa to deliver the items to Srimaur.

The spacer informed Srimaur that they had been discovered. Srimaur, knowing that the Tuskens would seek retribution for the theft of their relics, sent the spacer to speak with Kav Goldor, leader of the city's militia. Together, they would formulate a strategy in the event of a Tusken attack on Mos Espa.

The battle
While Kav Goldor and a group of spacers planned their response to the Tusken threat, the raiders invaded the city and drove out most of the civilian population. Kav and the spacers began their attack by retaking the city's cantina and using it as a staging area for the continued liberation of the other key buildings within the city. While one of the spacers stayed inside the cantina to defend Kav, the rest went out into the city to liberate the starport, university, medical center, hotel, cloning center, the combat hall, and the Toydarian Watto's junk shop from the Tuskens which occupied them.

When the spacers eradicated all Tuskens from the six key buildings, the populace began to reenter the city. However, the liberation of Mos Espa was not yet complete. Countless more Tusken warriors began to pour into the city, forcing many of the civilians to flee to the safety of the city's hotel. In order to secure the liberation of Mos Espa, expert citizens had to be mobilized by the spacers to the six key buildings. These experts were stationed in the slums near Watto's junk shop, a lone house in the middle of town, and a mansion. These three areas were constantly attacked by the Tusken's in an attempt to kill the experts. However, the three areas were well defended by the spacers, allowing a group of experts to reach each of the city's key facilities. While the city remained under attack, expert citizens reached the combat hall to upgrade the militia's equipment. Others reached Watto's shop to arm an armada of pit droids to act as a deterrent to further Tusken attacks. Others reached the medical center and university, to get medicine and learn as much about the Tusken's weaknesses as possible. Those which reached the starport were able to launch pilots who performed bombing runs over the city against the Tuskens in their BTL Y-wing starfighters.

When each of the key buildings were fully staffed, Kav called on all spacers, militia, and droids to rally near the cantina to fight off one final push led by the Tusken King himself. The denizens of Mos Espa waited and prepared, as the Tusken King marched toward the collected force with four of his Tusken Honor Guards. In a final, epic clash, the King and his followers engaged the large number of citizens defending the city. The fierce battle eventually ended, when the King was successfully slain. With their leader dead, the remaining Tuskens either retreated, or were killed off. Finally, the liberation of Mos Espa was complete.

Aftermath
The city of Mos Espa sustained minimal damage during the attack. While the Tuskens suffered heavy losses during the battle, including the death of their King and his honor guard, exact casualty numbers among the Mos Espa citizenry were never accounted for. The spacers largely responsible for the successful defense of the city were commended for their efforts. Several interesting and powerful items and weapons were looted from the Tusken King's corpse, including the Rucksack of the Tusken King and elite versions of the Tusken Cycler rifle and gaderffii baton.

Behind the scenes
The Battle of Mos Espa first appeared in the 2003 video game Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided, a massively multiplayer online role playing game developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts. It was added to the game as a high level combat challenge known as a "Heroic Encounter" on November 1, 2007 as part of the Chapter 7: A Collection of Heroes game update. The battle was also recreated in a special "Heroic encounter" scenario for the Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game expansion set Squadrons Over Corellia released in December of 2008. The games were shut down on December 15, 2011. While the player was free not to participate in the battle, this article assumes they did.

Players who completed the encounter would receive a Mos Espa Token of Heroism which could be used to buy rewards for their character at the township of Aurilia. Additionally, killing the Tusken King gave the player's character a point to their critical hit reduction combat statistic, reducing the chance an enemy would critically strike them. This effect could be gained up to a maximum ten times per character. The Tusken King had several highly sought after loot items, including the aforementioned rucksack, rifle and baton. Additionally, players could loot anywhere from undefined150,000 to  undefined200,000 from the King. These credits were evenly split among all players present at the time of his death, depending on the group loot settings.