Pell Baylo

Pell Baylo was a male Human who operated the Defiance Flight Training Institute for nearly fifty years, both under the Galactic Republic and its successor state, the Galactic Empire. Baylo's life ended when he tried to assassinate the Emperor Palpatine by plunging the starship Defiance into Christophsis's sun. The Emperor's enforcer, Darth Vader, managed to foil his plan and strangled the old man to death.

Biography
Pell Baylo was born over 84 years before the Battle of Yavin. During the last decades of the Galactic Republic, he created the Defiance Flight Training Institute. With the outbreak of the Clone Wars, Baylo's institute was brought under the direct authority of the Republic. When that government was reorganized into an authoritarian Galactic Empire at the end of the war, Baylo continued to serve for a time, although reluctantly, with the title of Commandant.

Eventually, Baylo plotted against Emperor Palpatine. One day, the Emperor elected to meet several of his naval chiefs on the starship Defiance, and he brought his personal enforcer, a black-armored man called Darth Vader. Baylo programmed the Defiance so that it would emerge from hyperspace around the planet Christophsis and plunge into its sun, which would cause the Emperor's demise and presumably bring an end to his reign. The commandant then confronted Palpatine in his office, tendering his resignation.

However, Baylo's plan had failed, as Darth Vader had seen through his little game and countermanded the old man's orders; when the Defiance reverted to realspace, there were still millions of kilometers between the ship and the star of Christophsis. With his plan thwarted, Baylo expressed his disgust of Palpatine and his methods. When Baylo compared the Emperor's minions to mindless robots in front of Vader, the commandant made his last mistake. Vader, who was a cyborg himself, Force choked the old man to death. Following Baylo's disappearance, the training vessel Defiance was renamed Obedience.

Personality and traits
A male Human, Baylo had a stumpy body, fair skin, brown eyes, and a long nose. In his old age, his hair had turned gray, and the sequela of a spine injury gave him an exaggerated limp.

Although he was cantakerous and sometimes foul-mouthed, Baylo had high ideals. He regarded naval service as a noble calling, thinking that navies should only be used to protect people, never as an offensive force.