Wyle Ulbreck

Wyle Ulbreck was a moisture farmer on Tatooine near Pika Oasis, and was married to Magda Ulbreck. He had one of the largest moisture farms in the area. He didn't want to join the Settlers' Call Fund run by Orrin Gault as he claimed it was incapable of defending the settlers.

Moisture farmer
Wyle Ulbreck was born around 94 BBY, during the last decades of the Galactic Republic. Sometime around 79 BBY, the young Human became a moisture farmer on the desert planet Tatooine in the Arkanis sector of the Outer Rim Territories, using moisture vaporators to extract water vapor from the barren planet's atmosphere. During a sixty year career, Ulbreck saw it rain four times, only twice more than he claimed to have encountered a krayt dragon, a carnivorous reptile native to Tatooine.

Ulbreck spent most of his early career working alone, but in later years was able to hire farmhands and increasingly delegate work. By 19 BBY, Ulbreck employed a small army of farmhands to work on the ranch he owned near the Pika Oasis, north of the rocky region known as the Jundland Wastes. Ulbreck's ranch was vast, more than twice the size of that of his largest competitor in the region, Orrin Gault. At the center of the ranch was Ulbreck's home, a cluster of bubble-like buildings larger than many of the other homes in the desert. Ulbreck shared his home with his wife, Magda, but the pair had no children. One of the wealthiest farmers in that region, Ulbreck was well known for his frugal nature and famously kept most of his fortune in aurodium-plated ingots buried beneath his home's septic system.

Due to his distrust of others and, Ulbreck rarely visited the towns of Anchorhead and Mos Eisley. For over twenty years prior to 19 BBY, he was, however, a regular customer at Dannar's Claim, a store and bar located at the Pika Oasis which was run by Annileen Calwell following the death of her husband, Dannar, in an attack by the indigenous Tusken Raiders in 27 BBY. The threat of the Tuskens led Orrin Gault to form the Settlers' Call, a fund into which many settlers in the region paid and which was used to provide weapons and vehicles for their mutual defense. Gault tried on several occasions to convince Ulbreck to subscribe to the Setters' Call Fund, but Ulbreck preferred to employ his own security personnel, operating out of barracks east of his house.

Anchorhead incident
At the conclusion of the Clone Wars in 19 BBY, the Galactic Republic was restructured into the Galactic Empire under the rule of Emperor Palpatine. The Republic's long-time guardians, the Jedi Order, had been accused of plotting to overthrow the Empire and virtually wiped out by Imperial forces, assisted by the former Jedi Anakin Skywalker, who had fallen to the dark side of the Force and become the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader. Shortly after the rise of the Empire, Ulbreck visited Anchorhead to meet with a vaporator parts supplier. Having had a big fight with Magda that morning, Ulbreck was not eager to return home, so stopped at the Junix's Joint cantina and ended up falling asleep at the bar after several hours and half a dozen lum ales. After being woken by the Duros bartender, Ulbreck stood up to leave, only to lose his balance and fall. Before he hit the floor, however, Ulbreck was caught by a man in a brown cloak, who helped him back to his stool. Unknown to Ulbreck, his helper was the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, one of the few surviving Jedi, who had come to Tatooine to deliver Skywalker's infant son Luke safely out of reach of his father to his uncle and aunt, Owen and Beru Lars.

While Kenobi was asking Ulbreck and the bartender for directions, a fight broke out in the cantina between a group of youths, comprising Orrin Gault's children, Mullen and Veeka, Annileen Calwell's son, Jabe, and Gault's farmhand Zedd Grobo, a Wookiee customer, and a group of Rodian henchmen to the local crime lord, Jabba the Hutt. As customers fled for the exit, Ulbreck took cover, but Kenobi went to join the fray, leaving Skywalker with the bartender's wife, Yoona, until a nearby blaster shot caused her to panic and hand the baby over to Ulbreck as she ran to join her husband. Ulbreck watched as the Wookiee easily picked up Jabe Calwell and threw him towards a wall, only for Kenobi to use the Force to redirect the young Human safely behind the bar. Kenobi picked up Calwell's blaster and shot the light overhead, leaving the bar illuminated only by the blue glow of Kenobi's lightsaber. By the time Kenobi returned to collect Skywalker from Ulbreck moments later, the Rodians were dead and the shootout was over.

Unable to explain Calwell's survival, the strange blue light or the fate of the Rodians, Ulbreck attributed what he had seen to alcohol and gave up drinking. A few days later, he was traveling to Dannar's Claim in his dilapidated ST-101 repulsortruck when the engine overheated, leaving him stuck in the desert. Concerned that somebody would steal his vehicle if he left it alone, Ulbreck contacted Gloamer, the mechanic at Dannar's Claim, for assistance. It soon arrived in the form of Orrin Gault, who had offered to take some coolant to Ulbreck. After Gault finished refilling the coolant in the ST-101, he attempted once more to sign Ulbreck up for the Settlers' Call Fund, citing a Tusken Raider attack on the Bezzard family's farm a few days earlier, which had been stopped by the arrival of armed Settlers' Call members. Ulbreck, however, was quick to point out that they had arrived too late to save Tyla Bezzard's father, Lotho Pelhane, and insisted that he had faith in his own security.

Attack on Dannar's Claim
One week later, most Pika Oasis residents traveled to Mos Espa for the annual Comet Run Podrace, leaving Ulbreck as one of only a handful of customers at Dannar's Claim. Among the other customers was Obi-Wan Kenobi, who had settled in the area after leaving Skywalker with his aunt and uncle. Ulbreck almost recognized Kenobi from the Anchorhead incident, but quickly dismissed it and thereafter paid the other no mind. Kenobi eventually went outside with Annileen Calwell, leaving a sleeping Ulbreck and the Rodian Bohmer as the only customers in the store. Ulbreck woke to the sight of Tusken Raiders entering the store. Wedging himself behind the store's weapons counter, the old farmer used the weapons there to keep the Tuskens at bay, but Bohmer was caught by the attackers and seriously wounded.

The settlers soon started to return and helped Calwell and Kenobi fight more Tuskens outside, but Ulbreck was in danger of being overwhelmed in the store. Help came when Kenobi entered the store, setting off a fire extinguisher and using the resulting haze of chemical retardant as a cover while he attacked the Tuskens with his lightsaber. When the haze cleared, over a dozen Tuskens lay dead. As Calwell activated the Settlers' Call and more settlers arrived, the surviving Tusken Raiders fled. Kenobi claimed that Ulbreck had been the one to kill the attackers while he provided a distraction; Ulbreck's recollection was unclear, but he was quick to agree with Kenobi's assessment and began telling the story to anybody who would listen. Orrin Gault organized a retaliatory strike on the fleeing raiders, which resulted in the deaths of 48 Tuskens. Ulbreck, however, did not accompany them and was adamant that the incident proved the ineffectiveness of the Settlers' Call.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Kenobi