User:Grand Moff Tranner/Sandbox

Welcome to my sandbox. Here I'll be working on articles in an effort to get them to FA or GA status. Feel free to leave any comments on the relevant talk page. See my resume for articles that have reached either FA or GA status.

Projects done: Kendal Ozzel, Osvald Teshik

=Titus Klev=

"Rebel scum! Do they really think they can penetrate our defenses with these new ships?"

- Titus Klev, during the Battle of Mon Calamari

Titus Klev was an officer of the Imperial Navy. He was an active member of the Sub-Adult Group, and was accepted into CompForce despite his young age. He later became the 37th generation of Klevs to enter the Imperial Naval Academy after being rejected once.

Following the defeat at Endor, Klev was assigned to Battle Station Observations onboard Dedicated Siege Platforms. Onboard such a platform in the Battle of Wann Tsir, he discovered a Rebel agent attempting to sabotage the platform. He earned both a commendation and a promotion for the action. His path potentially could have led to becoming a Moff.

In 10 ABY, Klev was a member of the resurrected Emperor Palpatine's forces. He commanded the World Devastator strike force from the Silencer-7 in the First Battle of Mon Calamari. His path to the title of Moff ended in the oceans of Dac, where he died when the World Devastators were sabotaged by the astromech droid R2-D2 into colliding with each other.

Biography
"Send a message to Byss. Inform Supreme Commander Skywalker of their presence... Meanwhile, let's give the Alliance a taste of what they're up against!"

- Klev, onboard the Silencer-7 at Mon Calamari

Titus Klev was born on Alsakan into privilege, his father being a high-ranking veteran of the Clone Wars and his mother being the wealthy heiress of a trading company. Klev was an active participant in the Sub-Adult Group, being one of the first enrolled, where he proved skilled in Wegsphere. At age 13, Klev was sent to a special training camp on Ibanjji, and after saving an instructor from a pack of wild varns, was accepted into CompForce despite being four years underage.

He volunteered for CompForce Assault, but his parents arranged for him to go into Observation, where he became Chief Ideological Monitor. Wanting some excitement, he applied to enter the Imperial Naval Academy, and after being rejected once for insufficient grades, a fellow SAGroup member bent the rules to allow him in. Titus became the 37th generation of Klevs to enter the Academy. While there, he was noted as being the kind of Human that was usually featured in Imperial propaganda. He graduated first in his class.

He never got the chance to serve aboard the Death Star II, and following the defeat at Endor, was assigned to Battle Station Observations and served onboard Dedicated Siege Platforms. Klev participated in the siege of Wann Tsir onboard such a platform. His discovery of a Rebel agent attempting to sabotage his vessel's shields earned him a commendation and a promotion, and he was considered on the road to becoming a Moff.

By the time of Palpatine's resurgence in 10 ABY, Commander Klev was given his first command, commanding the World Devastator Silencer-7 as he led the Imperial forces during the First Battle of Mon Calamari, reporting to Jedi Knight-turned-Imperial Supreme Commander Luke Skywalker. He saw the Rebels' X-wings as standing no chance against the power of the World Devastators. Skywalker, however, had decided that in order to defeat the Emperor once and for all, he must temporarily embrace the dark side. Though nearly being consumed by it, he managed to remain loyal to the New Republic he had served. He tasked his astromech droid, R2-D2, with transmiting the command to shut down the World Devastators through the master control computer on Byss. When the crew onboard the Silencer-7 discovered this sabotage, Klev ordered that all systems be put on override; however, the control signal prevented any such occurance. Unable to operate, the superweapons plummeted into the oceans below. Klev was one of the casualties.

Personality and traits
As an adolescent, Titus Klev was rather skilled, excelling in the sport of Wegsphere. His exceptional abilities, combined with his saving of an instructor from varns on Ibanjji, gained him access to CompForce though underage. His grades originally prevented him from entrance into the Naval Academy, but after he was admitted, he graduated at the top of his class.

His participation in the siege of Wann Tsir earned him respect in the eyes of his peers, and along with this respect came promotions. Many presumed that Klev would ultimately rise to the rank of Moff. A step on that path was the command of the Silencer-7 during the Battle of Mon Calamari. During the attempted subjugation of the planet, he was overconfident, believing the armada of World Devastators to be unstoppable. In the end, however, his overconfidence proved to be fatally wrong.

Behind the scenes
Titus Klev made his first appearance in 1992's Dark Empire, written by Tom Veitch and illustrated by Cam Kennedy. Klev would later appear in 1998's Star Wars: Rebellion, where he was one of the Imperial NPCs that could be recruited to the player's forces. His biography was supplied in West End Games' Dark Empire Sourcebook, published in 1993.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Rebellion
 * Dark Empire

Notes and references
=Lorth Needa=

Lorth Needa was a fleet officer in the Republic and Imperial starfleets during the Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War.

Biography
"I shall assume full responsibility for losing them, and apologize to Lord Vader."

- Needa before his death

Needa was a veteran command officer, having served in Strike Group Five of the Coruscant Home Fleet during the Clone Wars. During the Battle of Coruscant, Lieutenant Commander Needa served as commanding officer of the Carrack-class cruiser Integrity. He trapped the Invisible Hand as it was trying to escape, and demanded the surrender of General Grievous. During this encounter he refused to believe the General's statements that Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was aboard.

After the conclusion of the Clone Wars, the Republic Navy transitioned into the Imperial Navy, and Needa eventually rose to the rank of captain. Fleet Admiral Kendal Ozzel, commander of the Star Dreadnaught Executor and Death Squadron, placed Needa in command of the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Avenger. Needa gained a reputation for efficiency in quelling uprisings in the Outer Rim Territories, and Admiral Ozzel assigned Avenger to the "point" position in Death Squadron. Needa became one of Ozzel's closest advisers, and acted as the squadron's de facto second-in-command. Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine distrusted Needa along with Ozzel and his advisers, but after Ozzel's death at Vader's hand for his mistake in bringing Death Squadron out of hyperspace to close to Hoth, allowing the Rebels to raise their shield and evacuate Echo Base as the battle went on, Needa and the Avenger were charged with the pursuit and capture of the Millennium Falcon.



The Avenger pursued the Falcon from Hoth. However, Han Solo's light freighter outmaneuvered the Star Destroyer and caused it to nearly collide with another pursuing destroyer. After chasing the Falcon into the Hoth asteroid field, the Avenger lost track of the freighter when it sought shelter in a cave on one of the asteroids. Needa informed Darth Vader that the Millennium Falcon had not appeared on their sensors for hours. He asked the Dark Lord of the Sith to consider the damage the Imperial fleet had sustained, but Vader was set on capturing the freighter.

The Millennium Falcon eventually reappeared after discovering that the "cave" it had hidden in was in fact the mouth of a giant space slug. While pursuing the Millennium Falcon out of the asteroid field, the Falcon vanished from Avenger's sensors when Solo cut the ship's power and landed on a blind spot on the conning tower of the Avenger. Seconds later, Vader demanded an update on the pursuit. Needa ordered his ship to rendezvous with the Executor so he could personally apologize for losing Vader's prey. On the bridge of the Executor, Needa did just that, but Vader telekinetically throttled him to death as he had done so to Kendal Ozzel for his. Vader then formally - some would say cynically - accepted the man's apology. Needa's body was dragged from the bridge by two Imperial Navy troopers.

As a consequence of his failure, members of the Needa family were purged from the Imperial military. Possibily, Needa's failure to capture the Millennium Falcon was partly due to his sympathies to the Rebel Alliance, which he only revealed to his first cousin once removed, Virar, the commander of one of Coruscant's orbital mirrors.

Behind the scenes
Lorth Needa was portrayed by Michael Culver in The Empire Strikes Back.

When Needa's body is carried away by the Imperial Navy troopers, he visibly locks his legs in such a way as to help them stand him up easier.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith novel
 * Star Wars: Rebellion
 * Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
 * Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back novel
 * Star Wars 42: The Empire Strikes Back: To Be a Jedi
 * LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
 * LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
 * Payback: The Tale of Dengar
 * X-wing: Wedge's Gamble
 * X-wing: Wedge's Gamble

Biography
Pitta spent most of his time obsessed with the purity of the Imperial New Order, and especially the racial purity aspects of it (reputedly, even COMPNOR members felt he was too vociferous); in a classic case of psychological projection (since Pitta himself was not pure Human&mdash;he also had Etti and Borneck blood), Pitta spent considerable effort investigating varied people's racial background and purging ruthlessly those who were even the slightest bit "impure." When not investigating backgrounds, Pitta busied himself wandering around the Outer Rim Territories with three of his Imperial dungeon ships (Apocahk, Angrix, and Azgoghk) abducting aliens, and torturing, enslaving, or experimenting on them. Despite this apparent lack of military ability or ambition, after the Emperor's death at the Battle of Endor, Pitta quickly bribed or otherwise coerced the Diktat of the Corellian system into accepting the new warlord as his "protector", which gave Pitta control of the strategically valuable Corellian Sector and its invaluable shipyards.

About a year and a half after Endor, Pitta obtained a torpedo sphere from an unknown source, and set about procuring the thousands of proton torpedoes necessary to render the sphere militarily useful. Hard on the heels of finishing refurbishment and supply, fellow warlord and Grand Admiral Josef Grunger invaded the Corellian system, which culminated in the Battle of Tralus. Pitta enjoyed initial success, his modest fleet savaging Grunger's armada amidst a devastating fusillade of proton torpedoes. Grunger, facing defeat in this battle, and the defeat in his larger aim of becoming the new Emperor, surveyed the wreckage of his once-mighty fleet, and in desperation ordered his Super Star Destroyer Aggressor to ram at full-speed Pitta's torpedo sphere.

Both Grand Admirals were aboard their respective flagships, and both perished in the ensuing explosion.

Behind the scenes
Though never published and thus not canonical, Star Wars Insider author Daniel Wallace indicates that Pitta's personal Star Destroyer was named Impenetrable.

The psychological projection that drove Pitta to his racial-purity obsession mirrors the rumors that Reinhard Heydrich had Jewish ancestry, which angered him enough to fuel his destructive rage (whether Heydrich actually had such ancestry or not is unknown, but he hid his ancestry out of such fear).

Early life
Wullf Yularen was born to an influential Coruscanti family, which provided him the political backing to get a job as a special agent with the Senate Bureau of Intelligence. Over the next decade, he investigated a myriad of cases for, against, and about the Senate, observing all the major delegates and assembling detailed dossiers on all of them. Even then, there was corruption within the SBI, and numerous low-level functionaries who were game to support any Senator's schemes by passing on misinformation for the right price. Ultimately, the sheer scale of the corruption led Yularen to leave the service. Afterwards, he was assigned to an anti-corruption unit under the Office of the Supreme Chancellor, investigating both government corruption and the growing Separatist movement. It was during this period that Yularen became enamored with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and the direction in which he intended to take the Republic. Very soon, he was a loyal follower and a trusted agent for Palpatine's inner circle.

Service during the Clone Wars
During the Clone Wars, Yularen joined up with the naval contingent of the Grand Army of the Republic at least in part to distance himself from the intelligence community. He served as an admiral a year into the war and commanded a major task force, led by Jedi General Anakin Skywalker. Yularen was often worried of his commander's reckless tactics.

After the Jedi had been requested to help rescue Rotta, the son of Jabba Desilijic Tiure, Yularen was tasked with delivering Ahsoka Tano to Generals Obi-Wan Kenobi and Skywalker on Christophsis. After Tano's shuttle had landed, Yularen, aboard the Jedi cruiser Resolute was forced to withdraw from the planetary orbit, leaving the ground forces on their own. His flagship at the time was the Spirit of the Republic.

Sometime afterward, Yularen and Skywalker were participating in the search for General Grievous's secret weapon, the warship Malevolence. Yularen led the briefing of Shadow Squadron before they launched in their BTL-B Y-wing starfighters to attack the Malevolence. He would later warn Nala Se and the Kaliida Shoals Medical Center of the Malevolence's plan to destroy the medicenter, killing approximately 60,000 wounded clone troopers in the process. Ultimately, Skywalker, Plo Koon, and Shadow Squadron were able to stop the Malevolence in time, destroying its two ion cannons. The destruction of the primary weapons disabled the hyperdrive and inflicted massive damage throughout the ship. From the Resolute, Yularen led a total of three Star Destroyers in pursuit of the damaged Malevolence as it attempted to flee to Separatist space. When Senator Padmé Amidala and her protocol droid C-3PO were captured by the Separatist warship, Generals Skywalker and Kenobi infiltrated the battleship and recovered the senator and her droid. However, the battle droids onboard had managed to repair the ship's hyperdrive, so Skywalker and Amidala infiltrated the bridge and set the coordinates of a nearby moon into the navicomputer. The two Jedi, the senator, and the droids C-3PO and R2-D2 fled onboard the Twilight as Grievous, in his Belbullab-22 starfighter Soulless One, and Vulture droids followed close behind. As the Malevolence attempted to flee, it impacted with the moon, obliterating the massive warship.

Yularen's forces would also participate in the battle above Nexus Ortai, a strategic world located at the junction of some hyperlanes. Though the initial Separatist invasion force was destroyed, the Republic suffered many casualties and were forced to withdraw when enemy reinforcements arrived. Sometime after the retreat, Yularen was present when Skywalker, Kenobi, Tano, and a squad of clone troopers under Captain Rex had themselves frozen in carbonite in order to infiltrate the Separatist shipyards at Gwori. Yularen was present when Tano indicated that the strike force was in position, and that Plo Koon's and Saesee Tiin's Hunter Squadron would proceed to Gwori to destroy the shipyards in their BTL-B Y-wing starfighters. Yularen's fleet did not participate in the engagement, however. The Republic fleet under Yularen later accompanied Generals Kenobi and Skywalker to the Togruta colony world of Kiros. The subsequent battle ended in a Republic victory after Kenobi defeated the Besalisk commander of the droid occupation force, Ugg, in hand-to-hand combat. Yularen reported via hologram that the Togruta population appeared to have vanished completely from the planet, leading Kenobi to believe that the missing Togruta were being held as slaves in the nearby Zygerrian system.

Service in the Imperial Security Bureau
With the coming of the New Order, the various major intelligence organizations&mdash;the Senate Bureau of Intelligence, the Republican Security Organization, the Interstellar Consortium on Technology, and the Special Acquisitions Branch of the Library of the Republic&mdash;consolidated themselves into a more professional and objective force known as Imperial Intelligence, overseen by a governing body called the Ubiqtorate and headed by former SBI director Armand Isard. Yularen's personal loyalty to Palpatine made him a poor fit for a supposedly objective organization.

At the same time, however, Palpatine's advisor Crueya Vandron, reforming the grassroots patriotic organization COMPNOR to meet the needs of the New Order, was sufficiently alarmed by the sudden transition and expansion of Intell that he established a COMPNOR spin-off organization called the Imperial Security Bureau as an intentional rival to Intell, a secret police organization to increase Palpatine's knowledge of political events. The ISB had no pretensions of objectivity, and so Yularen, now in his mid-thirties, was reassigned there. His move lost him respect in the eyes of his former superiors or colleagues, many of whom viewed COMPNOR, especially the ISB, as a misuse of valuable resources. Yularen had good connections to the Emperor's inner circle, but he himself remained outside of it.

Service aboard the Death Star
By the outbreak of the Rebellion, Yularen had risen to the rank of colonel in the ISB, and had acquired a reputation as an effective leader with boundless personal loyalty to Palpatine. It was probably for this reason that he was assigned to head the ISB contingent aboard the nearly-completed Death Star I battle station as a member of Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin's command staff. Officially, he was assigned to brief Tarkin on intelligence matters; unofficially, he was there to ensure that the station's personnel remained absolutely loyal to the Emperor. Given that the Death Star could literally change the dynamics of power in the Empire, and that men like Tarkin and his naval advisor, Admiral Conan Antonio Motti, were possessed of apparently-limitless ambition, there were legitimate concerns on Imperial Center that, even though Palpatine's personal emissary Darth Vader made repeated visits to remind them of their obligations, one or more officers on the station would be tempted to use it take power themselves. Yularen was there to prevent this, and in all likelihood he was not the only prevention measure that Palpatine had in place.

As head of the ISB contingent, Yularen was placed in charge of numerous agents specializing in surveillance, investigations, internal affairs, interrogation, reeducation, and enforcement. Death Star security forces were obligated to provide office space and reasonable assistance to the ISB, though they did not welcome his men with open arms. In addition, there were several undercover agents aboard to investigate suspicious activities, acting as soldiers, administrators, and lower-level officers – in fact, at least one of Tarkin's personal aides was an undercover ISB agent.

Yularen believed that Tarkin would attempt to grab power for himself. The colonel was certain that he could stop the Grand Moff in time, thus ingratiating himself to Palpatine, who would almost certainly appoint him to head the ISB in return. Yularen's plans were foiled when he was killed in the Death Star's destruction during the Battle of Yavin.

Personality and traits
Wullf Yularen was considered an excellent observer. He was comfortable in the halls of power, and over his multiple military and intelligence careers had amassed a great deal of information on a large number of beings. Though his intelligence reports were factually correct, he tended to add a pro-New Order spin to them. He headed up his own special task force during the early years of the Empire, which received high-level assignments, often involving an Imperial Senator or other important individual. One of these assignments was to investigate the names of the signatories of the Petition of 2000, the document that Senator Padmé Amidala presented to Palpatine on behalf of a vocal group of opposition senators.

Behind the scenes
In Star Wars: The Clone Wars film and Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series, he is voiced by the veteran Star Wars voice actor Tom Kane. Kane compared Yularen in Imperial times to General Rommel, a German commander in World War II. Rommel's opposite number on the battlefield, Lieutenant-General Montgomery, respected the German commander and said that even though Rommel wore the Nazi uniform, he wasn't a Nazi. Kane believed that Yularen, a strict military officer, was simply following orders when the Republic transitioned into the Empire.

Yularen's last name may have been inspired by a character from Sutâurufu named Colonel Yarulen who wears a white uniform. His first name may be a reference to the same film's main character, who is a Jedi-like warrior known as a "Star Wolf." Featured in the United States as Star Force: Fugitive Alien II on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Sutâurufu has many similarities to (and may itself have been partly inspired by) A New Hope.

An action figure of Yularen was produced by Hasbro in 2007 as part of the Death Star Briefing set. It included a short biography claiming that none of the officers present at the briefing were aware that Yularen was an ISB agent, though he was obviously wearing an ISB uniform in the scene.

On the packaging of the Hasbro Death Star Briefing set, his first name is misspelled as "Wulff." On page 138 of The Clone Wars: The Visual Guide and in the end credits of The Clone Wars TV episodes, his last name is misspelled as "Yularan."

In commentary for The Clone Wars movie, the creators stated that Yularen was seen as a Grand Admiral in Episode IV and thus put him in the movie to show him rising through the ranks. They based the Grand Admiral claim on his white uniform, which is similar to the uniform worn by the Grand Admirals. The commentary does not mention Yularen's accepted rank as a colonel in the Imperial Security Bureau, as specified in the Star Wars Customizable Card Game, "Premiere Limited" (1995) and the Death Star Briefing action figure pack (2006).

Appearances

 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars film / novel
 * The Clone Wars: Shakedown
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars Volume 1: Shipyards of Doom
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Slaves of the Republic - Chapter 1: The Mystery of Kiros
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars Volume 1: Shipyards of Doom
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Slaves of the Republic - Chapter 1: The Mystery of Kiros
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope