Thread by @JoinTheSchwarz

So let’s start our deep dive at @pablohidalgo’s Scum and Villainy, Case Files on The Galaxy’s Most Notorious

First, let me say that this book is not like the Smuggler's Guide at all. It's more art-focused, for a start. And you know how I feel about posting art, so unless absolutely warranted I'm often going to be using other art references.

If you want more, but the book!

So what is this book? It’s an in-universe book not unlike Pablo’s previous work, Star Wars Propaganda. These are the books I personally favor, by the way: more interesting to read given the biased voices, and less likely to either destroy continuity or set too much in stone

This book is a literal collection of police files, and it's often written in a serious, gritty tone. There's evidence, surveillance footage, even a paragraph that details what spice is cut with. Part procedural, part gangster film.

(You know why I'm including this picture.)

The cop writing the book is the Hosnian Prime police commissioner for the New Republic, Exantor Divo, latest in seventeen generations of Divos to wear the badge. He’s including his mother’s and grandfather’s files as well as his own.

And yes, Tan Divo is the Peter Lorre-looking police officer from The Clone Wars. Welcome back, Tan!

The book, then, follows three generations of law officers serving the Galactic Republic, the Galactic Empire, and the New Republic.

Fuck the police but hey, it's a great hook!

I'm going to do something a bit non-orthodox and finish this prologue by looking at the acknowledgments at the end of the book, specifically at two authors Pablo thanks: Michael Allen Horne and Rick D. Stuart, both writers for West End Games.

Michael Allen Horne is probably most popular for his fundamental Dark Empire Sourcebook but he also worked in Cracken's Rebel Operatives and designed the amazing Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook, both heavily dealing with the galactic underworld.

Rick Stuart's thumbprint on our understanding of the galactic underworld is even more evident, as he designed two Galaxy Guides heavily dealing with the topic: Bounty Hunters and Criminal Organizations.

So standing on the shoulders of giants, right?

This is it for now. Next, we'll start the first section, "From the Files of Tan Divo", and look at crime during the prequel era.

See you next time!

PART I. THE LAST DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC

We start this section with Exantor's profile of Tan Divo, his grandfather, who was a police inspector in Coruscant. We find out that his nemesis was Senator Ask More, the Gran senator from TPM. It turns out he might have been a bit corrupt.

Exantor paints a grim picture of the era, perhaps influenced by his grandfather's notes: rampant corporate crime and corruption was the norm. And the Jedi, being deployed by the Chancellor's office and focused on interplanetary issues, had little effect on crime on Coruscant.

And, of course, the Clone Wars didn't improve things one bit, adding war profiteering to the mix and legitimizing many Hutt enterprises in the name of strategic alliance. The dark side of the Clone Wars film, basically.

Tan Divo saw how these deep imbalances created a perfect ground for crime to grow, so he decided to research galactic criminal conspiracies. That's why Exantor considers his files so important to understanding the era.

FILE 7953.441.3

Okay, first of all: this book introduced a new dating system. Whoa, yeah, I know: an in-universe dating system! I felt very proud when I cracked it, only to discover that many nerds had already done the same thing. Ah well.

This first file is dated 7953. You might remember from Twitter that Pablo's personal timeline arbitrarily used 1977, the year ANH came out, as the year for the Battle of Yavin.

Well, add 6,000 years to that and you get this new calendar.

Simple, elegant, unobtrusive: I love it.

So yeah, this is year 1953 in real-life years or 24 BBY in publishing terms.

This file shows Tan Divo speaking before the graduates at the Federal District Police Academy in Coruscant. A rousing speech about the shadows projected by Coruscant's light.

The academy is abbreviated as FedPoAcad. We've seen this kind of abbreviature before, most infamously in ChanPalSuRecon (Chancellor Palpatine Surgical Reconstruction Center), but it always reminds me of WEG's take on Imperial Intelligence's divisions like IntSec or DiploServ.

Also, blame autocorrect or Grammarly or whatever for turning "Aks Moe" into "Ask More", but I guess it's fitting.

I'm too exhausted today to be coherent so this is it for now, but we'll be back tomorrow with the next two files!

FILE 7951.121.1

This entry opens up by talking about Coruscant's layered nature, something that has fascinated me since at least Heir to the Empire. Literal urban strata!

(Pic from 1996 Jedi Academy Sourcebook--a rare look at pre-TPM Coruscant!)

Tan Divo condemns the "species tribalism" that happens in the perilous lower levels. Ah, yes, I love it when cops talk about the dangers of minorities sticking together.

(Things like this are why I love IU sourcebooks)

He then goes on to talk about the Coruscant Underworld Police, a fascinating concept that George Lucas himself added to The Clone Wars. Faceless enforcers that patrol the poorest parts of the world. Or did you think Coruscant became dystopic only because of the Empire?

Anyway, the file itself is a snapshot of the arrest of a Pauan. The gorgeous picture shows most TCW signifiers of police: you have the Underworld Police, a police gunship, camera droids, Coruscant Police officers... it's only missing some police droids!

Further investigation by Tan Divo discovered that the Wandering Star crime syndicate was connected to the events of the night.

If they sound familiar, it's because you've seen them before in the pages of Daniel José Older's Last Shot.

FILE 7942.113.2

Tan Divo's next file goes into spice in the Coruscant Underworld. Are we going to get full "war on drugs"? Only a little bit for now.

(Including the pic as it was released for promotional reasons)

It's fun that Divo blames the spread of the spice epidemic to miscommunication between agencies and jurisdictions. Think of any cocaine cowboy movie you've seen and you get the picture. I'm picturing Space DEA agents yelling at Space FBI cops for botching a job and giggling.

We get a short story of how spice got to Coruscant: the Pykes apparently abused medical export treaties to weasel refined spice into the undercity. Ever saw a Wookiee in a k-hole? It sounds terrifying.

You know the Pykes. They appeared in TCW and resurfaced in Solo. I suspect they were also developed for the Underworld TV series. They hold sway over Kessel, a world that in the era is outside of the Republic's jurisdiction.

And here we get into the meat of this entry: Pyke racial profiling. Special profiling? Specific profiling? Species profiling? I hate English.

Tan Divo mentions that people judge Pyke newcomers because they assume they are spice peddlers or worse.

And he appears to hate it: he mentions that he dislikes breaking into Pyke domiciles or businesses just because of the reputation spice lords have given them.

He still does it, of course.

The file itself is about a spice den (I don't need to draw the opium den parallels for anyone, I'm sure) that was busted thanks to a deal the cops cut with a holostar that really didn't want their name on the news. Very LA Confidential: I love it.

(Pic: WEG's Holovid Celebrity)

The picture (sharing again for reference) shows a lobbyist and a cargo hauled completely passed out. Tan goes on to call spice "the great equalizer." Some Danse Macabre, indeed.

FILE 7941.521.33

I was going to profile only two entries per day, but these two files kind of go together.

It's a portrait of Lom Pyke, seized evidence from an allegedly corrupt senator's residence. Lom is the Pyke Syndicate leader, seen in TCW.

The senator herself is Yudrish Sedran of Chalacta, a name we had seen before. She appeared briefly in HoloNet News, the fantastic website that Pablo Hidalgo, Paul Ens and Joe Corroney cooked up for the ramp up to AOTC. I briefly profiled it here: eleven-thirtyeight.com/2016/02/contin…

Even though he was eventually exonerated, Sedran was accused of accepting bribes in exchange for giving the Pykes diplomatic access to the Senate and the standard "look the other way."

(Pic: I'm running out of Pyke pictures, send help)

Tan Divo mentions that each load of spice has a unique traceable marker due to it having "an organic core."

Hm, spice being organic in origin? Probably a wink towards the EU's Kessel spice spiders. The spiders themselves appeared in canon in the fantastic C3PO comic, btw.

In Legends, the most powerful Kessel spice (glitterstim) came from the spiders' webs. I guess it's less icky than Arrakis sandworm poop but I'm disappointed.

And that's it for the Pykes. We'll be back soon with a small Propaganda crossover. Okay, kinda.

Next time!

FILE 7944.169.1

So let's look at some police recruitment posters!

The first poster shows two police droids arresting a crook before the thankful eyes of a Twi'lek lady and her smiling baby. Adorable.

(Pic: wow is it hard to find posters that paint cops ina a positive light)

These posters were part of a PR campaign spearheaded by good old Finis Valorum to get Coruscani citizens to recover their faith in the police, shaken after years of Pyke-related corruption and gang warfare. So very eighties!

(Also this entry mentions "round-the-chrono" PSAs, referencing WEG's spacey term for "clock." Because I know you read these threads for the obscura and not for the social commentary.)

These absolutely ineffective posters eventually became ironic kitsch. I love it.

FILES 7957.910.3

And, of course, posters got METAL during the Clone Wars! Police propaganda now shows a Coruscant shocktrooper giving the thumbs up posing next to a police gunship. Who doesn't love militarized police?

The idea of a special corps of stormtroopers protecting Coruscant was already explored in Shadows of the Empire through the ghastly-looking Coruscant Guard.

Look, nostalgia is a bitch and I own the action figure, but they were hideous! 1990s-Hasbro-ugly!

The police gunship that we know from Clone Wars and Rebels gets an official designation as well: LAAT/le (I assume that for "law enforcement.") The text explicitly mentions that such unprecedented firepower in hands of the police was readily accepted by a scared population.

Apparently, this campaign was started to instill a sense of confidence in a Coruscant shaken by a recent bombing in the Senate District. I'm assuming the Jedi Temple one given the timeframe?

(Pic sourced from ArtStation through the Wookiee)

That's it for today. Tomorrow we'll look at some more Coruscant Underworld pleasantries. Cya!

FILE 7953.231.1

The next file contains an advert for a company called Xomit Transport Systems.

Exantor notes that fiction tends to focus on street cops fighting hoodlums when corporate crime's impact on society is immeasurably larger. XTS is a good example.

If the company sounds familiar, there are two possible reasons for it.

One, its chairman is Xomit Grunseit, the Falleen crimelord who led Black Sun during the Clone Wars before an encounter with Maul left him... uhh... incapable to lead syndicate or company.

Two, XTS was also the corporate face of Black Sun in Legends. That's, Xizor Transport Systems, property of space kung fu rapist Prince Xizor. You remember him from Shadows of the Empire and... well, most late-90s EU.

XTS was based on Falleen but had a major hub on Mustafar, by the way. Most likely the Black Sun fortress that we saw in The Clone Wars. I guess the council we saw in those episodes was also the administration board!

Back to the entry, Exantor laments how often corporations remain untouched by the not-that-long arm of the law. XTS, for example, has the protection of the trading guilds and their pet senators, and investigations involving them tended to end up in dead ends.

(Pic from SOTE SB)

Tan Divo explains that these guilds blocked a law proposal by Chancellor Palpatine to add extra regulations to hyperspace fuels (namely coaxium) in what I assume was another part of his evil plan. "Dem aliens and dem regulations!"

Oh, and if you (for some reason?) miss Xizor, Exantor closes the file mentioning that it's unclear who became the new CEO of XTS after Xomit's death.

So you know: Xizor might still return to canon and start selling XTS-branded nootropics or whatever!

FILE 7951.313.6

It's Quinlan Vos' time!

This entry talks about the strained relationships between Jedi and law enforcement by focusing on the one exception: Vos, whose portrayal here is closer to his early Legends self than to TCW (Dark Disciple excepted, maybe)

Quin was the Order's contact person with local law enforcement agencies. He would talk openly to them and even go out for drinks with cops.

Exantor seems to think he was genuine but it fits really well with our Quinlan who would do anywhere and do anything for an investigation.

FILE 7956.901.3

And the counterpart to the police's good relationship with Vos? Well, the Rako Hardeen case from The Clone Wars. You know, when Kenobi faked his death and assumed this bounty hunter's identity to go undercover?

According to Tan Divo, the Clone Wars killed the admittedly strained but traditionally back-and-forth collaboration between Jedi and Cops. He is pretty pissed, for he had been building a case against Hardeen for years! Whoops.

After summarizing the events of the TCW story arc, Divo complains that this Jedi sting operation (with no official record of it ever happening) ended up with dozens of dangerous criminals free and with the real Hardeen MIA.

He then openly wonders what side the Jedi are on.

FILE 7956.991.4

The next file is about Evo Morales... I mean... Moralo Eval. Sorry. This happens sometimes.

You know him from the same TCW episode. He's a psychopath and he invented The Box, Star Wars' take on The Cube.

Divo gives us a short capsule on this monster (repeating the known fact that he killed his mother in cold blood because "he was bored") and wonders why the Jedi took the risk to free someone like him.

And then Sheev enters the scene to do some Sheev things.

He contacted Tan Divo in-person to share his concerns with Jedi independence and show some sympathy towards the frustrated cop.

You know, now that the PT era has come and gone, I love seeing again Palps seeding and grooming dissatisfaction with the Jedi.

FILE 7956.901.3

The third profile of a character involved in the Crisis in Naboo arc is that of Cad Bane. He is duros. Also the most Lee-Van-Cleefy bounty hunter this side of the galaxy. I love him quite a bit, but I always love a good black hat.

Exantor repeats Bane's claim that after Jango's death he was "the best bounty hunter in the galaxy." Bane was a licensed bounty hunter, but Exantor shows his disdain by such characters calling their licenses little more than "permits to break the law."

And it's not just the typical disdain of a professional for an amateur: he adds that most bounty hunters end up being little more than guns for hire, and we know that to be true: if the credits are right, Star Wars bounty hunters will happily work for any crimelord.

Apparently Tan Divo kept an eye on Cad Bane. Exantor notes that Bane was only apprehended when he moved against Jedi interests: it would appear that anti-Jedi rhetoric is alive and well during the New Republic era!

And WHOOPS I picked the wrong bookmark and skipped quite a few pages! Don't worry, this is, uh, an avant garde desconstructive thread.

(It wouldn't be a thread of mine without a disaster happening)

I will return later tonight with a look at the pages I accidentally skipped!

FILE 7947.923.1

It's the return of the galaxy's most flamboyant Hutt: Ziro!

Ziro is described as an outlier among Hutts: instead of doing business out of Hutt Space, he opened a nightclub on Coruscant.

Exantor complains that sadly it was not woke to accuse him of crimes without proof. Okay, my wording, but that's the sentiment.

Have I mentioned that I love the POVs from this book?

Anyway, Ziro's clientele was varied and shady.

Also! The author accurately describes Hutt kajidics as "clan-based businesses" and not simply "Hutt clans."

THANK YOU, PABLO. We all have dumb pet-peeves and this is one of mine (I loved GG11): a kajidic is a unique Hutt concept, part familiar bond, part corporate bond.

Anyway! Already before the Clone Wars treaty with the Hutts, Ziro was well-connected: Hutts would routinely line politicians' pockets and Ziro's club was the natural place for these transactions to happen.

The file contains surveillance footage from the club: people like Aurra Sing or Moralo Eval can be seen either in the bar area or talking to Ziro.

Who doesn't love a good gangster-owned club, come on? I suspect Underworld would have had heaps of this kind of thing.

FILE 7955.314.3

I'm preemptively tagging @aDillonDev here because the next entry is a collection of surveillance footage from Dex's Diner.

Tan Divo notes that Dex is a good guy, don't worry! He has nothing to do with some shady goings in the diner but he ain't no snitch either!

@aDillonDev Dex's Diner is located at CoCo Town, officially known as the Collective Commerce District. Not too far from Ziro's, making it a good place to go early in the morning for some drunk food.

[picture here a montage of every single one of my weekends between ages 18 and 30]

@aDillonDev The surveillance footage shows people like Aurra Sing, Cassilyda Cryar (the lightsaber thief from TCW) or Dannl Faytonni being in or around the diner.

Also a Swokes Swokes. We love them.

@aDillonDev FILE 7955.811.4

And speaking of Dannl Faytonni, he's the focus of the next entry.

Don't remember him? He was the Outlander Club extra played by Anthony Daniels in AOTC. Despite being dressed as a Judicial, lore described him as being actually a con man.

@aDillonDev Tan Divo had a pretty thick file on Dannl, who tended to operate around Uscru District, the entertainment district that included the Outlander Club.

It was precisely his impersonation of a Judicial what triggered a warrant being issued against him, but he was a low-level crook.

@aDillonDev But guess what: he was an informant!

Knowing that Divo and the Uscru cops were after him, he decided that selling out a few bigger fishes in exchange for continuing his businesses was the way to go.

Tan adds that he hates it, but that Dannl will eventually mess up.

@aDillonDev CONSPIRACY THEORY TIME

And maybe he did eventually pay for his crimes! His character in Solo, Tak, is a Kessel prisoner described as a former con artist from Coruscant. COULD IT BE?!

FILE 7956.103.1

Tan Divo was fascinated (some would say obsessed) with young Boba Fett. I mean, a child that nearly kills a Jedi Master and ends up leading a bounty hunter cadre? I don't blame him.

Exantor mentions some interesting legal wrinkles regarding Boba. He was a minor (a "subadult", as the book uses this piece of WEG lingo), so maybe the true mastermind was Aurra Sing. And a clone! Was he to be considered property of the Republic and thus denied due process?

In any case, the way kids were turning into soldiers (remember also the clones' accelerated aging) kept Tan Divo awake at night, per his own recollection.

He thought rehabilitation should be the goal with young Boba, but the Judiciary disagreed: he had downed a ship in wartime.

FILE 7956.103.2

The next file is a piece of evidence from that bombing: Jango's helmet, having survived the explosion mostly intact due to being almost pure beskar (Mandalorian Iron, created in Tales of the Jedi for the purpose of eventually coming out of Werner Herzog's lips)

FILE 7959.222.4

The next entry references real police profiling: the existence of tattoo databases.

We see intake photos of Wroonians, Gamorreans, and Devaronians sporting complex tattoo patterns where we can see the symbols of Black Sun and the Hutt Cartel.

Exantor admit that this kind of profiling is problematic, as tattoos are legal and a legitimate cultural expression for certain species (ahem) but hey: what can you do?

He then mentions that some crooks use special electro-conductive tattoos to smuggle information. He's alluding to electro-tattoos, like the ones our beloved Chelli Aphra sports.

Oh, and the entry ends on a happy note: Divo had a plan to deploy protocol droids with tattoo-recognizing programming in crowded areas, an idea the Imperial Security Bureau would eventually adopt.

Joy!

(and with this I conclude the skipped entries. rest assured this will happen again, probably more than once.)

FILE 7956.101.1

And now we are getting into True Crime: Streets of Coruscant territory!

If you are following this with the book at hand, keep 7955.314.3 (Dex's Diner) at hand for reference.

This entry is the first one on the events in Lightsaber Lost.

The piece of evidence is a massive portrait of Nack Movers, Cassie Cryar and Ione Marcy. The three main characters starring in the closest thing that Star Wars has ever had to an erotic thriller.

Got your attention now? Pervs.

The story goes like this: Nack is an assassin (a Malkite-trained poisoner); Cassie is his bodyguard; Ione is his girlfriend. When Cassie and Ione get secretly involved, they start plotting his demise.

You've seen this plot many times before, queer or not. A few examples.

Yes, I'm aware this entry is AGAIN out of order, but at this point I wanted you to have Dex's entry fresh in your mind... because the surveillance footage shows Cassie and Ione arguing outside the diner! One year before the murder! This has been a long time in the works.

Also: is the romance between Cassie and Ione explicit? Sadly no, not really. They are said to "have grown close." According to people involved with the show, they were always written as a couple, but it was never made explicit.

Anyway, Nack Movers was poisoned with sennari, a poison first seen in (I think) WEG's first adventure, the still-kickass Tatooine Manhunt. I should profile it one of these days!

According to crime scene evidence, his death was not pretty. Tan Divo mentions the irony of the poisoner dying poisoned.

Oh, and I already mentioned the Malkite poisoners in my Smugglers' Guide thread, but they are a poisoner sect from the Daley novels.

FILE 7956.101.2

I'm all for cheeky references but Russo-ISC, the CSI droid that spoke in one-liners and kept lifting his visor? Too much for me. It's what the younguns call "cringe."

Anyway: blood analysis, showing traces of sennari.

Let's move on *shudder*

FILE 7958.512.1

And back to our regular schedule!

This is a lovely entry, profiling a case that was cold for more than a decade: the mysterious implosion of the Xrexus Cartel.

Tan Divo doesn't know what happened to the Xrexus, but we do! Who was responsible? Well, let's just say that this entry covers the events shown in this miniseries:

We learn a bit about the Xrexus Cartel: how they were formed by shady droid makers banding together to fix prices and how Tan Divo first heard of them because he uncovered a deal with The Glitch, a militant splinter of the Droid Gotra, your favorite robomafia.

(Pic unrelated)

The mystery of their sudden disappearance would never be resolved, but new evidence came out during the first year of the Empire, when a droid called KRONOS-841 was captured. A new character but probably somehow related to KRONOS-327, Ziro's lackey.

KRONOS was a member of the Droid Gotra and during interrogation he offered information about what had actually happened the day the Xrexus Cartel disappeared.

And hey! Guess what! The comic DOES show IG droids attending that fateful meeting!

KRONOS told the police what we already know: that Xev Xrevus, leader of the Cartel, was auctioning a captured padawan called Eldra Kaitis. Oh crap. The Gotra were outbid by the Moogans, so KRONOS' recollections end there.

Oh, but that Moogan, Jee Kra, turned up dead.

Let me add here that if by any chance you haven't read Cullen Bunn's Darth Maul miniseries, you should amend that mistake ASAP. It's some of the best Star Wars comics ever.

Tan Divo adds that he suspects the Jedi were the cause for the Xrexus disappearing. Oh the irony.

If you feel bad about the padawan-kidnapping Xrexus, don't: according to @danwall88's Smugglers' Guide they eventually made a return. The worst weeds are the hardest to kill.

FILE 7956.319.3

The next file is a short one: the conjectural hierarchy of the Shadow Collective, a short-lived syndicate suspected to have funded the coup at Mandalore.

As you can expect, the two leaders are unknown.

(Pic unrelated)

And that's it for now. We'll return later with some more Hutt shenanigans!

FILE 7956.221.4

Back to the Hutt Cartel. The pic shows Ziro before the Hutt Grand Council. We can see two Hutts who might be Jabba and Marlo.

Exantor mentions that his grandfather would gather Hutt evidence that would have been inadmissible, as Hutt Space was a sovereign state.

Exantor complains that even though Republic law didn't extend into Hutt Space, their kajidics would happily operate within the Republic.

Sicario: Day of the Poodoo

The treaty between Republic and Hutts barely changed things, and Hutt lawyers* amended the treaty over and over to make sure of it. A Hutt never loses.

*I hope this meant Hutts who were lawyers themselves, PLEASE

FILE 7956.919.5

We get into slavery now, and who better to represent this than the Zygerrians?

Zygerrians are well-known through The Clone Wars, but they actually had deep roots in Legends.

We first heard of them back in 1987, in the hero profiles contained in the Star Wars Sourcebook. Historian Arhul Hextrophon, the narrator, tells the tale of how Han Solo and Chewbacca rescued him from a Zygerrian slave ship.

(I remember at the time assuming they were humans)

They would be rescued by a 2008 comic, a tie-in to the animated series that would present them like, uh, punk elves.

The series would end up adapting those comics and redesigning the Zygerrians to be the jackal-inspired aliens we know.

Back to the entry, Exantor laments how the Republic did nothing to fight slavery in the Outer Rim, as we know thanks to TPM.

Hutts dabbled on it, but Zygerrians turned slavery into a central pillar of their whole culture.

Tan Divo discovered that kids were abducted on Coruscant and shipped to Zygerria, who had decided to go fully slaver empire assuming no one would care with the Clone Wars raging. Human (sentient?) trafficking is also a thing in the Star Wars galaxy.

The Republic didn't intervene until it turned out Zygerria had aligned with the Separatists. A major power ignoring blatant human rights abuses until it's strategically convenient to stop doing so? Doesn't ring a single bell.

FILE 7956.919.5

A picture of a Zygerrian electro-whip confiscated from a ship that raided the Core Worlds. Exantor mentions that electro-whips are not unique to Zygerrians but that theirs are certainly the most feared...

It's been a long day, so this is it for now. We'll be back tomorrow with some... podracing?

FILE 7944.111.3

The next file features the character that served as my online avatar for fifteen years, before Rogue One stole my heart.

It's Sebulba of Pixelito!

Why would Tan Divo care about Sebulba? Well, Zugga Entertainment intended to open a podracing course in Coruscant, so he did his research.

I assume this company to be related to Groff Zugga from Episode I Racer, who owned the Mon Gazza tracks.

Apparently Divo's interest itself made Zugga stop his plans, but his files are still extensive.

And would you believe that podracing is more corrupt than FIFA? Shocking, I know.

Tan Divo seems especially offended that someone as crooked as Sebulba could become a popular hero. That someone willing to hire killers to get rid of his opponents would be featured in toys and posters is too much for him.

Choose your favorite sportperson for a comparison.

For once I'm going to quote: "It's a relief to know trash like this won't set foot in our town and kids here won't be holding up this miscreant as some sort of idol."

It's your dad talking about hip-hop!

FILE 7945.313.2

Next file adds new information to one of Star Wars' most enduring mysteries for anyone who cares about it (not a big population): what happened to Neva Kee after he flew out of the Boonta Eve race track?!

This is also the first entry to give a name to the calendar system used within the book: C.R.C. date.

I assume the last "C" to mean calendar, but I don't think anything else has been revealed.

Christina Ricci Calendar!

This file establishes a Neka Kee conspiracy (KeeAnon?) by mentioning that the track stretch where he disappeared was not covered by cams.

Oh, and including a picture of dubious origin showing Aurra Sing delivering Neva Kee to Jabba. Yeah, that too. So that's why she was there.

Also, note that "deleting EXIF metadata from a picture" in Star Wars is "scrubbing signature authentimarks on a hologram."

What? I thought you would like to know.

Divo has his theory: that Farwan & Glott, manufacturers of Kee's podracer, wanted to get their hands on his very secret mods.

Neva's FG 8T8-Twin Block 2 Special was infamously weird and non-standard. I guess the company was willing to kill for that infamy.

FILE 7957.338.1

It is I, Hondo Ohnaka, finally gracing the pages of this volume with my presence!

The next file contains several letters of marque of this notorious pirate. Apparently he emitted them himself, so it's not like he went privateer, don't worry. It's just Hondo.

Letters of marque are, of course, something that actually existed during the Age of Sail, but they came into Star Wars through a fantastic WEG supplements, Pirates & Privateers.

"Wahh you see WEG references everywhere!" Pablo mentioned this in an interview, so hush.

Hondo's idea of a letter of marque is a letter you leave to the people you rob to make sure your legend grows. Exantor deadpans that this proves that the Ohnaka Gang had no political convictions.

And the letter is a treasure. It will make you laugh for sure.

Apparently Tan Divo first put his sights on Hondo when he decided to raid the Metellos Trade Route, dangerously close to Coruscant.

I'm on record as a Metellos fan, so yay Metellos mention!

FILE 7958.721.4

The next file is an interesting Christmas card (I mean, Life Day greeting) that Tan Divo for from the Mos Eisley constable. She probably knew of Divo's obsession with Fett, for it's a picture of his cadre in their "Bounty" attires.

Tan is impressed that Boba is leading now, and gives us a name for the hang: the Krayt's Claw (I wonder if from the lost bounty hunter episodes!) He thinks it could be worse.

Exantor notes laconically that Divo never wrote about Boba Fett again.

FILE 7955.442.1

We now jump back to the start of the wars, to the attempted assassination of Padmé Amidala via Death Centipedes, as shown in AOTC. There's some footage apparently reconstructed from Artoo's passive sensors. Yeah, sure. Little creep...

The arthropods are identified as Indoumodo kouhuns, referencing the homeworld given in the AOTC Visual Dictionary.

Divo praises Typho's response in calling the cops, but prefers to say nothing about the Jedi. Exantor notes that this shows his frustration with them.

FILE 7957.203.3

We jump to the Jedi Temple bombing than would eventually precipitate Ahsoka's abandonment of the order. We get a summary of the episode, and also an explanation for the hologram CSI thing: a combination of security sensors and safety monitors.

FILE 7957.211.0

Next file is about the nanodroids used in the bombing, first identified as NM-K Reconstitutors. The file explains that nanotechnology is outlawed by the Republic except in very controlled scenarios.

There are no Grey Jedi *nor* Grey Goo!

The NM-Ks are usually kept in stasis and applied with a swab to raw materials that they then use to build advanced electronic.

STOP THE PRESSES! There are swabs in Star Wars!!!

Of course, these NM-Ks had been hacked to turn stuff into explosives. Boom.

Exantor goes to say that the bombing investigation spilled into a military court due to the dead clone troopers. Poor Tan Divo was still kept to the sidelines, though.

FILE 7956.123.2

The last file shows some confiscated Moogan tea from The Clone Wars. We first saw Moogans and their shady dealings in "Corruption."

Apparently this tea is from Ardees, a drink from an AOTC previous cut named after production assistant Ardees Rabang Jundis.

Tan Divo is happy to report that Republic and Mandalorian cops were able to collaborate to end the black marketeers' plot, that in case you don't remember involved poisoning schoolkids with tainted Moogan tea.

Apparently, after the episodes, Mando police captain Ru-Saxon tipped Tan Divo of the events that had transpired, and thanks to this information Tan was able to intercept a shipment of tainted Moogan tea directed to the Coruscant Underworld.

Divo and Ru-Saxon then exchanged drinks, proving that cops have drinking problems everywhere. Divo sent a bottle of Tarine tea (from the old TIE Fighter game but more famously the TCW movie) and Saxon sent back kri'gee ale (from TOR)

And like this, with alcohol, we finish Tan Divo's files.

Next, we'll travel into the dark times of the Empire through his daughter, Space Gestapo agent and fitness model [citation needed] Andressa Divo.

See you then!

PART II. THE TIME OF THE EMPIRE

Exantor begins recounting the fall of the Republic and the ascent of the Republic. The militarization of the galaxy was complete: "to love the Empire was to love the stormtrooer, the TIE Fighter, and the Star Destroyer."

Of course this affected local police forces. The lines between police and military were blurred, with cops becoming an afterthought and the best candidates being headhunted by the armed forces. Even patrols were replaced by Orwellian surveillance centers, like in A New Dawn.

Exantor then talks about the Imperial penal code, a simple standardized code they imposed upon the galaxy.

This code is based on the ImPeRe (Imperial Penal References), first alluded to in the Imperial Sourcebook and then developed by WEG in further supplements.

This extremely simple code broke crime into five categories, ranging from Class 5 (public disturbances and minor crimes, usually penalized with a fine) to Class 1 (treason and conspiracy, punishable by death.)

A godsend to the RPG, honestly. Made sense plus simplified things.

But, of course, this simple code came alone extreme leeway to interpret it, creating an easily abusable system--especially when rewards became tied to arrest quotas.

And that's how Los Angeles was built.

I kid. Let's move on!

Adding even more fuel to the fire, local police were forced to complain with the Imperial Security Bureau.

This Space Gestapo, the Empire's political police, was another lovely creation of WEG. You most likely know them thanks to Kallus, from Star Wars Rebels.

*And* this plus the rise of the Rebellion caused many planets to declare martial law, becoming even more militarized.

Long live the Empire!

And that's when Andressa Divo said: "lol I'm so joining the ISB"

Exantor doesn't make excuses for her mother: she was devoted to law and order, but also believed firmly in the ideals of the Empire. He kind of buys the "good cop under a bad regime" myth but hey: she was her mom.

Exantor ends up by mentioning that under the Empire many "good citizens" ended up having to commit treason while the military bureaucracy allowed many criminals to act undeterred.

Look at him sucking up to Mon Mothma! Loser!

And this is it for tonight.

Tomorrow we'll continue with "From the Files of Andressa Divo"

FILE 7956.211.0

The rare weekday morning update!

This introductory file includes a picture of Andressa attending an ISB rally.

I'm including it here as it literally is the second result when you google "Imperial Security Bureau."

Tan Divo served during the first days of the Empire and then retired with honors. His daughter also became a cop but then enthusiastically joined the ISB, in part influenced by the toll she had seen the Clone Wars take on her father.

Andressa's rise in the ranks was steady but became meteoric once the Death Star was destroyed and took with it several high-ranking ISB officers.

RIP Wullf Yularen

Even she still operated out of Coruscant, her Gestapo duties often took her around the galaxy. She kept frequent correspondence with her father, so Tan Divo's commentary will adorn future entries.

(I love how Peter Lorre this illo is)

FILE 7972.311.0

This entry feels like a counterpart to Tan's entry about Coruscant. Here we also have the Coruscani night, but an ISD hangs ominously on the sky. Boba Fett delivers a perp to Andressa and other ISB goons, surrounded by stormtroopers.

(Pic from 1313 concept art)

The perp is Quarren pirate Isquik Tors of Lamaredd, a world from Star Wars Gamer magazine. It makes me smile whenever I see references to the d20 edition of the RPG: I didn't like the rules much, but they did a superb job with the lore.

Exantor tells us that the Empire's heavy use of bounty hunters showed its shortcomings. Disparaged by higher-ranking officers ("we don't need their scum") yet rumors pointed to Sheev and his inner circle having their own private accounts with bounty hunter guilds.

Yup, guilds.

Yup, guilds, plural. This could mean nothing or signify a return to the multiple guilds from WEG's days, before the Boba Fett novels popularized the idea of one massive Bounty Hunter's Guild.

I guess we'll find out reeeeeally soon.

Andressa told her father about the way Fett had delivered Tors to the ISB's landing pad. Apparently, Tan Divo was familiar with the pirate.

Sadly, we don't get to hear what Tan's reaction to this was.

And this is for now. Next, we'll be taking a look at some crooks from Solo.

FILE 7966.781.0

The next entry tells us of an investigation Andressa led in Corellia. Ah, Corellia, how I love Solo's take on you and how much it makes me groan whenever any author decides to add boulevards and near suburbs to you. I want grit!

As we knew (or suspected) the Empire nationalized the Corellian shipyards.

I knew they had a good side! But I digress!

Our friends in Kuat and Sienar started blaming their missing quotas on sabotage, the White Worms becoming the likeliest suspects.

So Divo and her ISB buddies sent probes into the sewers, probes that the Scrumrats promptly destroyed. Teehee. Still, Andressa concluded that the White Worms were not to blame and that SFS and Kuat were trying to cover their tracks scapegoating poor urchins.

(Pic: Anoat sewer😱)

This book, like the Solo Guide before, calls the impoverished areas in Coronet "favelas", using the real time Brazilian term for shantytown.

FILE 7966.781.1

Andressa's probe never found a trace of Lady Proxima, but they did manage to get to Moloch. Still, Andressa rejected the idea the White Worms could be politically motivated and left the matter to the local CorSec.

The ISB is a political police corps, after all!

FILE 7966.781.3

Still, influenced by her father's files on podracing, she did investigate Corellian street racers. As she tells her father, Coronet and Tyrena have both gone full The Fast and The Furious. She laments all the energy wasted in unlawful endeavors. What a cop...

Does Tyrena sound familiar? It's a Corellian city that first appeared in The Paradise's Snare, my favorite non-Daley Han Solo book. It was then featured in the original Star Wars MMORPG, Star Wars Galaxies (depiction pictured below)

FILE 7966.045.2

Andressa might have been frustrated by her investigations in Corellia, but that's not the only thing she investigated. A string of thefts in museums appeared to be connected to one Dryden Vos, capo of Crimson Dawn, owner of a well-know collection.

Why would the ISB be interested in this? Well, Vos would often host parties for Imperial officials, officials who would not denounce Vos. Political corruption? It sounds like a job for the Bureau.

Andressa lists three important stolen items presumed to be in Dryden's collection.

Well, presumed for her, because we've seen them in the movie. Oh, Dryden, you were such a bad apple.

Item #1 was a partial set of Mandalorian rally master armor. Mandalorian rally masters appeared in KOTOR and SWTOR and, indeed, wore red armors.

It was stolen from the Museum of Mythos on Kalevala. Kalevala is a planet in the Mandalore system, Satine Kryze's homeworld. The name was probably taken from the Finnish epic poem, because Lucas was clearly after a Space Nordic theme with Mandalore.

Museum of Mythos might be a reference to the Mandalorian mythosaurs, or it might just be a cool-sounding name. Your call.

The text mentions an ancient Mandalorian war, not the one from KOTOR but the one that gave birth to the current Mandalorian Space.

Item #2 is... my favorite. And you know what that means: WEG reference! I can recognize 99% on sight, but I swear I could almost *feel* this one.

It's the ou'tranoi (and I can hear my old gaming group from back in the 90s laughing)

The ou'tranoi is an artifact mentioned in a couple of examples in the original Star Wars RPG rulebook, the one Fantasy Flight Games republished last year. My buddies and I used it as part of a running joke about silly Star Wars names.

This canonical take on the ou'tranoi is a vase stolen from the Tion Hegemony, that we know from the Daley novels. I wonder if Farsten and Jackson were the two Hylobons mentioned to be behind the theft!

(Short break for dinner and I'll be back with the last three items in Andressa's list)

Item #4 is a couple of ancient Mandalorian weapons stolen from Ordo (from KOTOR) and Krownest (from Rebels.) It would appear Dryden Vos has a think for Mandos!

The weapon on the right is, uh, familiar. Reused prop? Deep connection? Yeah, no: it's a reused prop. We might end up getting an in-universe connection, though! Wouldn't that be cool?

Item #5 is pretty cool: an old Duros spherical astrolabe detailing the Core Worlds, including the three worlds considered to be the cradle of galactic civilization: Duros, Alderaan and Corellia #HerglicErasure

Item #6 was stolen from the Bureau of Ships and Services. Dryden Vos is crazy: you don't steal from BoSS, the crazy ancient bureaucracy created by WEG that controls space travel. It's a Kafkian version of Dune's Guild by way of Marvel's Time Variance Authority!

The item is an old plaque said to be from the Permondiri Explorer, an old legendary ship from Han Solo's Revenge. I believe that its identification as a Jedi survey craft is new information, but I could be wrong!

(Pic: Nebulon Ranger, because it's an old Jedi ship and I love it)

And that's it for tonight! We'll return with an update on Hondo's activities!

FILE 7971.325.3

It is I, Hondo Ohnaka, once again blessing your screens with my presence!

The file includes a security picture of Hondo, wearing his attire from Rebels, in a market in Trammis III. This is the Jurassic World from the Lando books; I mean it: it has dinosaurs.

He's selling Sansanna (a spice from the old Marvels but most importantly from The Clone Wars) and puffer pig bladders. Wow. I wonder if they also balloon.

Exantor mentions that Hondo diversified his activities during the Imperial era.

His tracsheet got considerably longer during this era. Yeah, tracsheet, not tracksheet: this is again WEG lingo, this time from Galaxy Guide 11: Criminal Organizations.

Fellow ISB agent Aleksandr "Hot" Kallus implicated Hondo in numerous seditious plots. This references every single Hondo appearance in Rebels where he wasn't just trying to get rich, and almost half of those as well.

This caused the Imperial Office of Criminal Investigation to place a Notice of Imperial Remandation on him.

Both IOCI and NOIRs are from GG 10: Bounty Hunters (although the IOCI was mentioned before that.) This is how you get the Empire to send hunters after your seditious ass.

As it was the norm, this posting appeared in the IOCI DataCore, another WEG creation: basically a database of all available Imperial bounties. Like most bounty hunting lore, Ryder Windham brought it back to canon through YA novel Ezra's Gamble.

The following comment appeared under his post: "Good luck, my friends! If I can in any way help with the capture of so dashing and handsome a pirate king, perhaps we can split the bounty! Who wants to partner up?"

Unsurprisingly, the Empire suspected the comment came from Hondo himself.

Hondo Ohnaka tends to take over all books (and threads) he appears in, right? He should.

FILE 7970.882.4

And we move to a different kind of crime: counterfeit money!

Is this a first? I don't know if we've ever seen forged currency in Star Wars before. I'm totally drawing a blank.

Anyway, here's a screenshot from To Live And Die In L.A. because it's so great.

Oh yes, we are going to be talking about currency.

First, we learn that Confederate money lost all value after the Clone Wars. It sounds kind of familiar.

The Galactic Imperial Credit seamlessly replaced Republic credits: electronic credits were easy to convert and physical coinage was continued.

Anyone else went through the Euro transition? Raise your hands!

(Pic: horrible Euro PSA)

We next get a brief discussion of galactic money: how credits are backed by the Imperial treasury, how physical coins have less gold (aurodium) than their face value, and how weirdos did extract aurodium from them for a more "real" currency.

Counterfeiters would still forge their own counterfeit credits replacing the aurodium by valueless materials like pyrodium, enough to fool the naked eye.

And yes, it would seem there are no paper bills in Star Wars.
Flimsiplast bills.
Flimsibills.
Stop it.

All in all, a very interesting topic, even if it gave some flashbacks to that time I thought "I should totally go to college for Economics!" and was somehow radicalized there.

More tonight with a closer look at the Malkite poisoners!

FILE 7976.131.1

Here we are with a look at some Malkite gear. Considering they've existed in lore since the late seventies, it's amazing they haven't been completely squeezed out, but no: they are still pretty enigmatic.

The kit itself pretty much looks like a new take on the Malkite kit from WEG's Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook. Here's a comparison between both.

And isn't it amazing that Mike Vilardi's art is instantly recognizable even when he's drawing a damn box?

The text leans heavily into the mystery surrounding the Malkite Poisoners, who apparently have existed for millenia. Maybe. No one knows for sure.

And I like that in-universe there are dark jokes about all unsolved crimes being Malkite-caused.

Andressa started investigating the Malkite Poisoners after Admiral Ottdell was killed with zolall extract, another WEG pull (this time from one of their cool planet gazetteers), and she appears to have gone deep into the dark web. Dark holonet. Whatever.

Do you remember that fantastic Wired piece of the fall of Silk Road? Well, that's what Andressa tried to do here. She tried purchasing Malkite poisoner kits online (hololine? okay enough) and of course all of them turned out to be frauds... all but one.

That last one came with an ampule of actual zolall poison and a message asking Andressa to drop the investigation and to please watch what she drank.

We don't know how she proceeded, but we can assume.

FILE 7972.113.2

This is a rather cool one! We are seeing how the holographic disguise matrix, the gizmo from TCW's "Crisis on Naboo" fared under the Empire. I always thought it was a pretty radical new tech to introduce to the universe, so picture me interested!

Andressa ran into this technology when some thieves tried to use it to rob the Imperial Museum on Coruscant.

(The museum could be inspired by the one first seen in Tales of the Jedi but, come on, a museum in the capital is pretty generic...)

Andressa found the cloaking devices the thieves had used and cross-referenced them with Tan Divo's investigation, finding out that it indeed appeared to be a newer version of the same technology created by the Snivvian genius Sinrich, long M.I.A.

Andressa couldn't confirm Sinrich himself was behind this tech, but she still decided to turn it to Imperial Intelligence. I bet they put it to good use!

Taking a break, but we'll return with a look at a certain bounty hunter. No, not Fett!

FILE 7973.121.0

So next we have the profile of one Ketsu Onyo. We see her Imperial Peacekeeping Certificate, or IPKC, another piece of lore from WEG's Galaxy Guides.

We find out she's from Shukut, a Mandalorian world first mentioned in The Essential Atlas.

Ketsu was in Andressa's shortlist, although she decided not to use her services as a bounty hunter. She still recommended her to Agent Kallus given her reliability and shared past with Sabine Wren.

FILE 7973.120.7

The next file contains a picture of Ketsu meeting with the XTS executive board that, as we know, is a front for the Black Sun leadership. It will make you happy to know that in this era the vigos are not only Falleen: we also see a Gotal, a Nautolan, and a Human.

Apparently, Ketsu left Black Sun in good standing: public XTS records show that with her "security contract" over she can still be considered for "future consultant work."

Andressa recommended her for a possible future infiltration in the syndicate. Colonel Yularen rejected her plan, thinking that a killer-for-hire was not the most reliable source of intelligence.

Okay, let's be honest: he absolutely hated the plan. Sorry, Andressa!

And that's it for now. Next, we are getting to other, most popular bounty hunters. Yes, the ones from that movie with the striking back. See ya!

FILE 7973.224.1

Next we discover another one of Andressa's shortlisted bounty hunters: Bossk. I always thought he looked amazing, the coolest of all ESB bounty hunters. He's one of the VIPs I've used most often in my RPGs. Not that you care.

The file reminds us of Bossk's Clone Wars era exploits, explaining that after Krayt's Claw disbanded he went solo, and adds that he was an instrumental part of the "pacification" of Kashyyyk. Trandoshan-Wookiee hatred was first established by... guess who.

We also find out that his criminal record was expunged after the rise of the Empire. Considering all the hell he raised during the Clone Wars and his being a prison escapee, yeah, he definitely needed that.

FILE 7973.224.1

The next file is kind of gross: the severed arm of Bossk kept in some kind of fluid. A good reminder that Trandoshans can regenerate missing limbs! Interestingly, he lost it to a Wookiee on Ord Mantell. Hmmmmm.

FILE 7976.611.3

And we get back to Boba Fett and the Divos' obsession with him. Andressa was less emotional than Tan, and instead of empathy felt admiration for his effectiveness. He operated mostly in the Outer Rim and left the Core alone.

And here's an interesting tidbit: like Bossk, Boba received a pardon for his crimes under the Republic, but he initially refused, not wanting to be in debt to the Empire. It's not clear why he changed his mind. There's probably a cool story there.

FILE 7976.611.3

Andressa's records continue, mentioning that Boba came with super-high and super-secret recommendations. Also, his gear was apparently genuinely Mandalorian, despite him not being one. Sorry, George's word is the law!

His jetpack is identified as a genuine Mitrinomon Transports Z-6. I'm not sure what source first identified Boba's jetpack as a Z-6 (I know, I'm a disappointment); I know WEG did at some point (not the Sourcebook) but they might have been referencing some other source.

FILE 7979.133.1

Our bounty hunter tour continues, and it's Dengar's time. Once a member of Krayt's Claw, he disappeared after the war, allegedly recovering from serious injuries. This injury was part of his EU portrayal, and now explains his change from Simon Pegg to zombie man.

We learn that he was a gladiator when he was younger, a stark contrast with his EU background that had him as a former swoop mechanic and enthusiast. He was famously nimble, as seen in TCW, but the injuries turned him into a long-range combatant.

His headdress is described as an Agrilatian turban referencing Agrilat, a region of Corellia that featured in his EU background. This is closer to George's interpretation than to the EU's, that had the turban hiding hideous cyborgy scars.

And in case there were any lingering doubts, Andressa specifically says that it's a goddamn turban, although she understands that people might think of Imperial-era-Dengar as someone brain damaged. Ouch.

Dengar's armor is said to be Imperial surplus armor that he obtained in some unknown way.

In real life the prop was made with repainted and cobbled-together stormtrooper armor, including most noticeably a chest plate from a snowtrooper.

Scotch tape and popsicle sticks!

FILE 7979.231.4

And now we get to an old favorite, IG-88, the bounty hunter droid (or, following modern terminology, "a bounty droid")

(IG-11 pictured below for clickbait purposes)

The first deep dive starts in the file's name itself: "IG-88 aka Phlutdroid."

Project Phlutdroid was, in Legends, the Holowan Mechanics project that created IG-88 and ended in Skynet-like rise and massacre. As shown in that tale that ended in the Death Star II, wink wink.

This is probably little more than a knowing wink, as the file describes a very different background for him.

First it talks about the IG-droid phalanxes the Banking Clan used during the Clone Wars, probably a reference to the IG lancers from the 2003 Clone Wars microseries.

Apparently, battle droids were scrapped after the Clone Wars but the Droid Gotra took upon itself to liberate as many as possible. This keeps the original Gota/Clone Wars connection.

IG-88 is probably one of these freed droids.

(Pic unrelated)

IG-88 refused Gotra membership and became an unlicensed bounty hunter, as it was impossible at the time for a droid to get an IPKC. It would appear the fall of the Empire allowed droids like IG-11 to break the transparisteel glass and go into bounty business #HireMoreDroidGuards

Andressa had a file open on IG-88, gaining her father's ire. Deeming the bounty droid a murderer with nothing to do with a police droid and reminding his daughter that the Clone Wars were fought to stop droid hordes, he couldn't believe the Empire would even consider this option.

FILE 7979.231.3

This item is pretty hilarious by itself: it's IG-88's EUA and liability waiver, absolving Holowan Mechanicals of any liabilities from injuries or damage from the droid.

The waiver has four blaster holes on it, presumably shot by IG itself.

Exantor explains that, after the Clone Wars, Holowan faced next to no consequences thanks to their army of lawyers and lobbyists.

Still, battle droids were made illegal under the Empire and Holowan could do nothing to stop it.

Holowan, of course, didn't bat an eye and merely reclassified their battle droids as "personal protection droids." Echoes of a certain assault rifle here!

And, of course, the corporation now included the aforementioned End User Agreement in all their droids.

This was especially bad considering that after-market modifications often glitched IG droids into murder machines. Like, say, Droid Gotra mods? Hm?

Exantor considers this another example of the power held my megacorps under the Empire. I'm sure that changed under the NR! lol

FILE 7979.313.3

It's time for Zuckuss! This entry is close to my heart as a founding member of the Zuckuss Society, a Star Wars fan club that never existed but still had a long thread devoted to it. It's complicated.

Exantor starts off by saying that bounty hunters tend to be an eccentric bunch. That's why so many people like them OOU, of course.

Zuckuss, for example, was a Gand Findsman, as first described by WEG and then popularized by the Rogue Squadron novels.

What are Findsmen? Well, they are Gands who follow complicated rituals to find their prey.

The thing is, the Inquisitorius investigated it and found Findsmanship to be mere quakery not worthy of inquisition... yet it worked.

Zuckuss creeped out other bounty hunters with his creepy rituals. Yes, he was That One Guy or at least That One Gand.

Andressa notes that there was something very creepy about the findsman's rituals. So she asked for permission to film Zuckuss performing one.

Andressa describes the braziers, the burning of herbs, the chanting... and how Z found a target the scientists had hidden in a matter of minutes.

The conclusion was that Gand perception was simply much deeper than human... but Andressa suspected there was something else to it...

Exantor explains that there are multiple findsman subcultures. Zuckuss is a believer of Laromun'rac from the Osia'Kru Brume lands, so he burned altasocra sage in a kanger bowl.

This is all new lore and it's nerdy and silly af, so it's very welcome.

When time was pressing, though, Zuckuss would just Juul some sage. Okay, not their wording, but that's the idea: he would inhale sage resin (Gand hashish?) and go wild. It would indeed improve his perception and visual acuity, as the Imperial scientists had determined.

Laromun'rac, by the way, is probably a tribute to Cathy Munroe, who portrayed Zuckuss in ESB. I'm sure there are more Tuckerizations hidden in the new lore, but it's Saturday and I'm tired so cut me some slack!

FILE 7979.313.3

And we close our look at the ESB bounty hunter with the other original bounty droid: 4-LOM.

Things that make you happy: he's no longer second-fiddle to Zuckuss, and he's said to have "manumitted" himself. Hmmm, delicious word.

Apparently 4-LOM suffered a manlfunction went from protocol droid to bounty hunter in such a spectacular and bloody way that Industrial Automaton spent millions trying to bury the story.

IA's efforts were unsuccessful, as someone else spread the word nonetheless: the Droid Gotra, who held 4-LOM as an example of droid emancipation.

(Picture unrelated)

Andressa Divo had her own theory, though. She did not believe 4-LOM had just malfunctioned: she thought that Gotra slicers had been the source of the code that had corrupted the droid. And she had an elaborate scenario on it!

As it turns out the Gotra had a plan to target the Kuari Princess.

The Kurai Princess was a luxury liner that first appeared in the original SWRPG core rulebook and then was the setting of adventure Riders of the Maelstrom. And yeah, it looked like the Liberty. Different times.

Even though the attack never happened, Andressa found a promotional brochure of a steward droid that reaaaaaally looked a lot like 4-LOM. She suspected that the attack had happened and had actually been a rescue: the liberation of said droid.

A pretty cool backstory, plus I guess it explains that red stripe on 4-LOM's chest: the last leftover of his original Kuari Princess colors!

FILE 7980.111.1

The last of Andressa's files on bounty hunters is a collection of recovered weapons.

We read that there a lot of wannabes among bounty hunters, thrillseekers more than happy to pay for copies of their favorite hunter's gear.

Jodo Kast's ears are ringing!

All these weapons have been recovered from this kind of wannabe, and Andressa made notes of whose style they were trying to copy.

"[They all think] they'll be the next Boba Fett or Black Krrsantan," she says mentioning Boba and the very scary Wookiee hunter from Marvel.

We have weapons of known hunters and criminals, like Fett, Ponda Baba or Zuckuss, and a detonator favored by one Puggles Trodd.

Puggles hails from WEG's Tatooine Manhunt, the first published Star Wars adventure ever. As you can see from the cover, it had a bounty hunter theme.

Puggles was a meter-tall grenade-obsessed Lasat bounty hunter.

Yup! Lasat, like Zeb! He was not originally identified as one, but as soon as the "McQuarrie Chwebacca concept art alien" was named he became the original Lasat.

And yes, I know he's very small, but WEG mentioned Lasat of many different heights to exist. A fact that Star Wars Rebels respected, by the way!

And yes, I just spent many tweets on Puggles. Deal with it.

This is it for now! I have a party to attend. But next, we'll get to some fan favorites from Rogue One and Solo. I can't wait!