Crimson Dawn

"Once you're part of Crimson Dawn, you can't leave."

- Dryden Vos, to Han Solo

Crimson Dawn was a criminal organization led by Maul, who employed gangster Dryden Vos during the reign of the Galactic Empire as the public face of the syndicate. Crimson Dawn was based aboard Vos’s yacht First Light. During its existence, Crimson Dawn quickly cemented a reputation for being ruthless. Qi'ra publicly served as Vos' top lieutenant, but later directly worked with Maul after Vos's death.

The Shadow Collective
"Our combined strength will be rewarded. Mandalore will be yours, and Kenobi, this Sith pretender Dooku and all our enemies&hellip; will fall."

- Darth Maul to Pre Vizsla

During the Clone Wars, Darth Maul sought to supplant his former Master Darth Sidious, the reigning Dark Lord of the Sith, who was manipulating the war between the Republic and the Separatists for his own ends. In order to challenge both sides, Maul gathered an army of exiled Mandalorian warriors, known as the Death Watch, and criminal organizations such as the Black Sun, the Pyke Syndicate and the Hutt Clan into an enterprise known as the Shadow Collective. Combining their resources, the Shadow Collective seized control of the neutral world of Mandalore, establishing a power base for Maul to defy both the Republic and the Separatists.

However, a resistance movement on Mandalore led by renegade members of the Death Watch, who refused to bow to Maul's leadership, threatened the Sith Lord's position in the underworld. The Hutts abandoned the Shadow Collective and the absence of significant returns on their investments led the Pykes and Black Sun to follow suit. Sometime later, the Mandalorian rebels received assistance from the Republic and the Jedi Order to assist their liberation of Mandalore. Maul's hold on the world broke and he was forced into hiding as Darth Sidious established himself as Emperor of the regime born from the reorganized Republic.

Despite his defeat, Maul had established himself as a figure in the underworld during the Clone Wars and saw it as fertile ground to reestablish a power base in the wake of his failure.

Mercenary roots
"There's a story about a band of mercenaries who came to a peaceful planet. They had a resource that these men coveted, so they took it. They kept coming back, taking more, till finally the people resisted. When the ravagers returned and demanded their tribute, the people shouted back with one voice. No more. So they cut out the tongue of every man, woman, and child. That was many years ago. Do you know what that pack of animals became?"

- Enfys Nest

Before reorganizing into a larger criminal enterprise, the forerunners of Crimson Dawn were a band of ruthless mercenaries who traveled from planet to planet, seizing the resources they coveted or needed while brutalizing the natives into complying. One such world was the desert planet Savareen, which possessed a resource that they desired. After several raids on their world, the Savarians rose up against them, refusing to comply anymore. As punishment for their defiance, the mercenaries cut out the tongues of every single man, woman and child they could find.

Formation
Following the end of the Clone Wars, Maul was able to regroup and recruit some of his former allies from the Shadow Collective into Crimson Dawn. Much like in his previous rule of Mandalore, Maul elected to rule from the shadows rather than establish himself as the visible leader of his new syndicate. However, unlike the Shadow Collective, most of the rank-and-file of the organization did not report to him directly and few even knew his identity. Instead, Maul relied on a figurehead to serve as the executor of his will to his men. The public leader of Crimson Dawn in 10 BBY was Dryden Vos.

Legacy
Even after Maul's death during the mission to Tatooine, the mark left by Crimson Dawn on the galaxy could still be felt. In the years following the formation of the Galactic Senate of the New Republic in 4 ABY criminal organizations that evolved from Crimson Dawn held substantial power. Although the New Republic Senate formed the Sector Rangers to combat such criminal groups, it was a mere fraction of the size of the Galactic Empire, under which Crimson Dawn thrived as one of the deadliest and most powerful syndicates around. Though still active in the decades following the fall of the Empire, Crimson Dawn itself no longer held the influence it once did and was viewed as a relic of the past by contemporary underworld denizens such as Kanjiklubber Razoo Qin-Fee and the Master Codebreaker.

Behind the scenes
Solo: A Star Wars Story script writer Jon Kasdan stated that the name "Crimson Dawn" for the organization was conceived as a subtle way to hint Darth Maul's appearance in the film, in addition of the artifacts from Dryden's study and Qi'ra's use of Teräs Käsi.