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如果大家想看Han Solo简历全文的话：
PART III
Galactic history is more than the epic sweep of battles and conquerors, of grand armies and dread discoveries. On its most basic level, history is the story of individual people. Emperor Palpatine and Mon Mothma are so revered and reviled by various segments of the population that they appear as archetypes in the modern consciousness, not as human beings at all. Nevertheless, it's important to remember that even the highest heroes have humble beginnings, and that the actions of a single person can affect billions of lives.
HAN SOLO
Han Solo never knew his parents. His earliest memory was being lost and alone on Corellia, until a venal con man named Garris Shrike took the abandoned child under his wing. Solo spent his youth aboard the ancient troopship "Trader's Luck" as a member of Shrike's well-organized trading clan, who earned their keep through begging, pickpocketing, and grand larceny. If the children failed, they were beaten to near death.
The only bright spot in Solo's early life was a kindly female Wookiee named Dewlanna, who worked for Shrike as a cook and acted as the human boy's surrogate mother. She taught Solo to speak and understand the Wookiee language of Shyriiwook.
He desperately wanted to learn more about his parents, but that door remained closed to him. The only Solo relative he found was Thrackan Sal-Solo, a cruel bully who appeared to be Han Solo's cousin. After an unpleasant encounter, Sal-Solo disappeared from sight, then eventually rose to a leadership position with an antialien organization called the Human League. More than three decades would pass before Sal-Solo would torment the New Republic, during the Corellian insurrection.
Over the years, Han Solo became an expert thief and street fighter. His skill at piloting swoop racers earned plenty of prize money for Shrike, and his mastery of alien languages served him well when the Trader's Luck went from system to system on moneymaking scams. At seventeen, Solo was captured by law-enforcement officials and forced to fight in Regional Sector Four's All-Human Free-for All Extravaganza on Jubilar. He won the contest by defeating three much larger opponents, but Shrike mercilessly beat him for insubordination when he returned to the Trader's Luck.
Without the contributions of "scoundrels" such as Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, as well as the youthful heroism of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia Organa would have died in Imperial captivity and the second Death Star would have destroyed the Alliance fleet at Endor. As a service to future historians, we have interviewed these key figures, chronicling their early years and elusive histories to better understand what made them into the heroes they are today.
YIesia - 70 B.B.Y.
At nineteen, Solo escaped from the Trader's Luck by stowing away in a robotic cargo freighter. The freighter deposited its passenger on Ylesia, a tropical world within the lawless borders of Hutt Space. Though Ylesia advertised itself to the galaxy as a religious retreat, it was actually a brutal spiceprocessing planet controlled by the Besadii Hutt crime family. Weak-minded converts, attracted by the empty promises of a pseudoreligion, were shipped to Ylesia and put to work toiling in the glitterstim and ryll factories.
Han Solo began piloting ships carrying spice cargoes for the Hutts and their t'landa Til underlings. Though the pay was good and the work interesting, the attentions of a beautiful woman shook Solo from his complacency.
He fell in love with Pilgrim 921, also known as Bria Tharen, and vowed to rescue her from slavery. During the escape, Solo and Tharen destroyed the primary glitterstim factory and plundered the t'landa Til high priest's priceless art collection. They fled Ylesia aboard a stolen yacht after staging a daring rope-ladder rescue of a Togorian prisoner from a neighboring colony.
The Academy 10-5 B.B.Y.
The Besadii Hutts placed a sizable bounty on Han Solo's head, but they knew him only under the alias Vyyk Drago. Solo planned to sell the Ylesian loot, use the money to alter his retinal patterns, and enroll in the Imperial Academy to start a new life as a naval officer. He suffered a great blow when a suspicious Imperial Bank manager placed a freeze on Solo's questionable account-and another when Bria Tharen left him.
Bankrupt and despairing, Solo was able to scrape together enough credits to obtain a forged set of ID credentials and have his retinas surgically altered. Since the Besadii clan was looking for him under an alias, he used his true identity on an application to the Imperial Academy. His last night before enrollment was spoiled by an ugly figure from the past - Garris Shrike, who had been lured by the Hutt bounty. Unlike the other bounty hunters on the trail, Shrike was the only person in the galaxy who knew Solo's alias.
Fortunately, a rival bounty hunter shot Shrike down, and Solo killed the second man in a brutal bare-knuckled brawl. He then switched clothes and ID, and shot the corpse in the face - thus confounding forensic identification. As far as the Besadii Hutts would know, Vyyk Drago was dead.
Free and clear for the first time in his life, Cadet Solo boarded a troop transport for Carida, home of the most respected military academy in the Empire. Over the next four years, Solo proved to be extremely talented, but not a model Imperial student. During one infamous exercise, he landed a malfunctioning U-33 orbital loadlifter with suicidal flair, earning himself the nickname Slick from Lieutenant Badure, his piloting instructor. In another incident, Solo's classmate Mako Spince destroyed Carida's mascot moon with a gram of antimatter.
Despite the misadventures, Solo graduated at the top of his class, beating out Cadet
Soontir Fel for the title of valedictorian.
Graduation was followed by eight months of commissioned service in the Imperial Navy. A promising career in the Corellian sector fleet was cut short when Solo rescued a Wookiee slave from ill-treatment at the hands of a superior officer. This earned him a dishonorable discharge, which would prevent him from obtaining any civilian piloting job. However, the Wookiee-Chewbacca-swore a life debt to Solo and promised to follow him everywhere. Solo initially tried to discourage Chewbacca, but gradually realized that a two-anda-half-meter-tall fanged Wookiee wasn't a bad ally to have at one's side during firefights and cantina brawls. With no hope of lawful employment, Solo and Chewbacca headed into Hutt Space to work for the criminal syndicates.
The Life of a Smuggler 5-2 B.B.Y.
Hutt politics seethed with intrigue. On Nal Hutta, the two most powerful clans-Besadii, headed by Aruk and his offspring Durga; and Desilijic, led by Jiliac and his nephew Jabba vied for dominance. The Besadii clan controlled the spice operation on Ylesia, but Desilijic possessed important holdings on Tatooine and elsewhere. Their discreet maneuverings would inevitably be replaced by deadly conflict.
On Nar Shaddaa, the smugglers' moon, Solo and Chewbacca were introduced to illicit Hutt activities by Mako Spince, Solo's old friend from the
Academy. They formed a partnership and, as the months passed, met dozens of offbeat individuals such as smuggler- mechanic Shug Ninx, the beautiful and exotic technician Salla Zend, and the female con artist Xaverri. They visited hideaways and hellholes like Smuggler's Run and Kessel, and Solo learned how to fly the dangerous Kessel Run cargo route by skirting the Maw black hole cluster. Solo's piloting skills came to the attention of Jabba the Hutt, and soon he was making regular smuggling runs for the Desilijic clan.
Rubbing elbows with high-level Hutts was a risky game, since Solo still had a price on his head from the rival Besadii clan. On Ylesia, the colony's high priest uncovered astonishing evidence that Vyyk Drago-reported dead five years earlier-had resurfaced under the name Han Solo. The galaxy's best bounty hunter was hired to bring in Solo's hide.
The bounty hunter Boba Fett tracked Solo to Nar Shaddaa, but his capture was spoiled by the impromptu rescue by a charming stranger: Lando Calrissian, owner of a banged-up YT-1300 freighter called the Millennium Falcon. Calrissian proved somewhat lacking as a pilot, so Solo taught his rescuer the basics of flying, and Calrissian soon took off in the Falcon, headed for the Rafa system and some adventuring of his own.
Meanwhile, Solo stayed largely out of sight, working as a magician's assistant on Xaverri's sixmonth illusionist tour. Upon his return, he purchased a shoddy, cut-rate SoroSuub Starmite, which he christened the Bria, after his lost love, Bria Tharen.
Sudden scrutiny from the Empire brought all normal life on Nar Shaddaa to a screeching halt. Moff Sarn Shild proclaimed that the Hutts' lawless territory would greatly benefit from stricter Imperial control. As a public-relations stunt, Shild was authorized to blockade Nal Hutta and turn the smugglers' moon into molten slag.
The Hutts responded in typical fashion: They sent a messenger to Shild's offices to bribe him. When the moff refused to bend, the Hutts shifted their attentions to Admiral Greenlanx, the officer in charge of executing the assault. Greenlanx proved to be considerably more accommodating and agreed to sell his battle plan. The Hutts organized a defense and placed their ships in precise locations dictated by the admiral's plan, hoping to inflict enough damage on the Imperial fleet to force a strategic withdrawal. The scheme worked perfectly. The Battle of Nar Shaddaa remained a localized conflict involving no ship larger than a Dreadnaught, and today is considered little more than a historical footnote. But for the desperate smugglers who banded together to protect their adopted home, it was a life-or-death struggle against staggering odds. Though he didn't realize it at the time, Han Solo was pitted against his former Academy classmate Soontir Fel, then serving as captain of the Dreadnaught Pride of the Senate. The battle came to a premature end when one of Greenlanx's three Dreadnaughts was destroyed. Unable to justify further losses, the admiral retreated into hyperspace.
After distinguishing himself in the Battle of Nar Shaddaa, Han Solo lost the Bria in a mishap. To raise funds for a new starship, Solo entered the annual championship sabacc tournament, held that year in Cloud City's Yarith Bespin casino. Lando Calrissian, freshly returned from his adventures in the ThonBoka, was one of his many opponents. The roster of players steadily dwindled until the two men faced each other across a card-strewn table. Solo took the final hand, winning the sabacc championship and earning his pick of any vessel on Calrissian's used-starship lot. Solo chose the Millennium Falcon.
Celebrating their new ship, Solo and Chewbacca visited Kashyyyk, the Wookiee homeworld, where Chewbacca was married to his love, Mallatobuck. At about the same time, Solo became involved in a serious relationship with fellow smuggler Salla Zend, but spooked by commitment phobia, he abandoned Zend and fled Hutt Space entirely, heading out with Chewbacca for the Corporate Sector in the hopes of striking it rich.
Corporate Sector Blues 2-1 B.B.Y.
The semi-independent Corporate Sector Authority was, in many ways, worse than the Empire. The ruling CSA cared little for ideology and ruthlessly rolled over individuals who stood in the way of pure profit. Prior to Solo's arrival, the CSA completed
construction on the Stars' End prison complex on the desolate rock Mytus VII. Dissidents, agitators, smugglers, and other troublemakers were quietly rounded up and imprisoned in Stars' End stasis cells.
Solo accepted small-time smuggling commissions for Big Bunji and Ploovo Two-For-One, but he also fell in with a covert team of independent dissidents investigating the disappearances. Team members included Bollux, a labor droid, and Blue Max, a positronic processor hidden in Bollux's chest cavity. Chewbacca was captured, and Solo became more determined than ever to scuttle the CSA's top secret prison.
Posing as a troupe of entertainers, Solo and his team landed on the airless planetoid and were escorted to the dagger- shaped prison tower. On Solo's orders, Blue Max triggered an overload in the prison's reactor core. During the chaos, as the team tried to free their friends and escape, Stars' End's power plant exploded-much more than the simple distraction Solo had hoped for. The blast, contained by the prison's anticoncussion field, was funneled downward against the surface of the planet. Facing negligible gravity and no atmospheric friction, the entire tower rocketed into near orbit.
The structure reached the top of its arc and fell back toward the rocky face of Mytus VII. It was a race against time as the Falcon docked against the tower so that Chewbacca and other prisoners could be rescued, then detached just as Stars' End smashed back into the surface. According to unconfirmed reports, the CSA salvaged the molecularly bonded structure and erected it on a different world, a rumor that has soured negotiations between the New Republic and the Corporate Sector Authority to this day.
Solo and Chewbacca continued their association with Bollux and Blue Max. They inspired the Cult of Varn on the arid planet Kamar by showing the holofeature Varn, World of Water to the desertdwelling native insectoids. When Solo replaced the bland documentary with a toe-tapping musical comedy, the water-worshipping Kamarians angrily chased away the false prophet and his great flying chariot. Since that time, Varn cultists have estalished evangelical religious orders on Mon Calamari, Bengat, and Varn itself, much to the consternation of the locals.
Heading back to the Corporate Sector, Solo was promised ten thousand credits to make a pickup on Lur. When he learned that the pickup consisted of slaves, he turned the tables on the slavers and freed their captives. Nonetheless, Solo stubbornly insisted that somebody still owed him ten thousand credits, and he doggedly followed the slavers' trail to Bonadan, where he met Fiolla of Lorrd, an assistant auditor-general of the CSA who enlisted Solo's help, hoping his smuggler connections might prove useful. When the slavers tried to jump them, Solo hopped aboard a swoop and used the racing skills Garris Shrike had taught him to throw off pursuit.
They followed the next link in the slaving chain to the planet Ammuud. En route, Solo and Fiolla booked passage aboard a luxury liner, while Chewbacca and the droids, accompanied by a CSA territorial manager named Odumin, took the Falcon.
Odumin was working to crack the slaving ring on his own and had an agent already in place on Ammuud. That agent was the legendary gunman Gallandro, who is still remembered in gunfighting circles for his blinding speed-draw. In the events that followed, Gallandro challenged one of the clan leaders to a duel. The clan leader chose Han Solo as his champion-and Gallandro backed down. Grateful at having averted the conflict, the ruling clan of Ammuud turned over all records they had relating to the slaving ring and their operations. Solo and Fiolla fought against the vengeful slavers and were rescued through the timely arrival of a CSA Victory-class Star Destroyer.
Territorial Manager Odumin, while grateful to the two smugglers for their help, fully intended to prosecute them for their numerous violations of the CSA legal code. With a fast maneuver, Solo managed to take both Odumin and Fiolla hostage; then he successfully negotiated his unconditional release-and managed to have his ten thousand credits thrown in, to boot.
Destitute in the Tion 1-0 B.B.Y.
All CSA naval patrols were issued holographs of the Millennium Falcon and orders to "destroy on sight." Realizing that their days in the Corporate Sector were over, Solo, Chewbacca, and the droids Bollux and Blue Max hopped through the Outer Rim for months, squandering their ten thousand credits on repairs, celebrations, and far-fetched, disastrous schemes. Bankrupt, they eventually wound up in the backwater Tion Hegemony, working as starship mechanics for Grigmin's Traveling Airshow.
Solo parlayed this embarrassing vocation into a slightly better job running cargo for the University of Rudrig. While there, he bumped into his old friend "Trooper" Badure, formerly a respected piloting instructor on Carida but now a desperate fortune hunter searching for the fabled lost ship, Queen o f Ranroon. Built during the glory days of Xim the Despot, the Queen o f Ranroon had once hauled the plunder of a thousand conquered worlds. Xim had constructed a vault on the planet Dellalt to house the treasure, but according to legend, the ship had vanished-along with all her wealth.
Accompanied by Badure and Skynx, a multilegged Ruurian academic, Solo landed on primitive Dellalt. The Falcon was promptly stolen by rivals of Badure's, who parked it on the opposite side of a mountain range. With no other ships available for hire on the uncivilized world, Solo and his companions were forced to head over the mountains on foot. During one fight for survival, Solo was slashed across the chin with a primitive hunting knife. The wound never healed properly and left a scar that is noticeable to this day.
Marching through the snowy highlands, they were captured by a strange cult called the Survivors. The inbred, backward descendants of the Queen o f Ranroon's honor guard, the Survivors had existed on Dellalt for more than a thousand generations, maintaining Xim the Despot's war-droid army in their secure mountain keep. Solo and the others escaped the Survivors and located the Millennium Falcon at a contract-labor mining camp. The fast-gun mercenary Gallandro, anxious for a rematch with Solo, was waiting for him.
Before either party could make a move, rank on rank of the war droids of Xim marched into the clearing where they stood. Despite their antiquity, the droids followed their orders with ruthless efficiency and began to raze the camp. Bollux and Blue Max saved the day by transmitting a rhythmic frequency to the automaton army. At a point where the killer droids paraded over a rickety suspension bridge, the signal caused them to march in a pounding lockstep. Beneath their shaking, vibrating footfalls, the bridge bounced, swayed-and collapsed.
Gallandro, one of the few survivors, claimed that he would forget his enmity with Solo-in exchange for a full share of Xim's treasure. The Falcon's quad laser cannons made short work of the vault gates, and when the group reached the hidden treasure chambers, Gallandro showed his true, traitorous stripes.
In a one-on-one blaster duel, Gallandro outdrew Solo and incapacitated the Corellian with a blaster wound to the shoulder. He then pursued the fleeing Skynx, but the multilegged Ruurian tricked the gunman into entering a lethal no- weapons zone. Dozens of laser bolts fried Gallandro to cinders.
It was the end of the gunman's legendary career, though he was survived by his infant daughter Anja, who lived on the colony world of Anobis. Anja Gallandro would cause new problems for Han Solo more than a quarter century later.
Even though they had located Xim the Despot's treasure, instead of the priceless jewels Solo had expected, they found only kiirium and mytag crystals-valuable war materiel in Xim's day, but worthless in the modern era. Skynx stayed behind on Dellalt to translate and catalog the vault's many historical artifacts, and Bollux and Blue Max remained with the Ruurian, rather than accompany Solo and Chewbacca back to Hutt Space.
Skynx eventually became the lead researcher on the Dellalt Project, as it came to be known in archaeological circles. After ten years of study, he succumbed to the life cycle of his species and metamorphosed into a mindless chroma- wing, though his offspring Amisus grew up to become the leader of the Unified Ruurian Colonies. Amisus pledged the Ruurians' loyalty to Grand Admiral Thrawn during the Hand of Thrawn incident fifteen years after the Battle of Endor.
Return to Ylesia, 0 B.B.Y., months before the battle of Yavin
Han Solo and Chewbacca were welcomed back to Nar Shaddaa as returning heroes. But much had occurred in their absence. The Desilijic clan had surreptitiously poisoned Aruk the Hutt, ancient leader of the Besadii clan. During the two years that had followed, Aruk's offspring Durga had assumed control of Besadii with under-the-table help from Prince Xizor and the Black Sun criminal syndicate. When Durga uncovered the truth about his father's death, he slithered over to the Desilijic palace and challenged Clan Leader Jiliac to single combat under the Old Law. The opponents met, and the two Hutts crashed into each other with the full force of their mammoth bodies, using their huge tails as massive bludgeons. After an exhausting contest, Durga emerged victorious.
The death of Jiliac made Jabba the ruler of the Desilijic clan. Jabba immediately began to implement a scheme that would devastate the Besadii clan by eliminating their primary source of income-the spice-processing facilities on Ylesia. To do this, he contacted Han Solo's ex-love Bria Tharen.
Tharen had become an undercover operative in the growing resistance movement opposed to Emperor Palpatine. She had helped lay the groundwork for Mon Mothma's orchestration of the Corellian Treaty, which merged various dissident groups into a unified Rebel Alliance. Jabba agreed to help Tharen fund a full-scale Ylesian assault that would destroy the spice factories and leave Besadii with nothing. The Rebels would then be free to sell the spice on the open market to fund their growing insurgency.
On Nar Shaddaa, Han Solo and Bria Tharen fell in love all over again. Accompanied by Lando Calrissian, Solo agreed to join in the Ylesian assault with his fellow smugglers for half of the spice profits. While Jabba's assassins killed the Ylesian priests, the smugglers and Rebels landed on the steamy planet and assaulted the colonies on foot. Casualties were high, but before long the invaders had eliminated all opposition and secured the spice factories. In the aftermath, however, Commander Tharen and the Rebel troops doublecrossed their smuggler allies and took all the spice for themselves.
The betrayal was a double blow for Solo. He and Tharen parted on the worst of terms, yet Solo's comrades assumed he'd been in on the whole operation from the beginning. And Lando Calrissian proclaimed that he never wanted to see Solo's face again as long as he lived.
The Last Spice Run, 0 B.B.Y., IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO THE BATTLE OF YAVIN
Betrayed and rejected, Han and Chewbacca agreed to make a Kessel Run for Jabba on their way back to Nar Shaddaa. They were pursued by Imperial customs vessels tipped off by the spice supplier Moruth Doole, and the Millennium Falcon skimmed closer to the Maw black hole cluster than anyone had thought possible. Unfortunately, Solo was forced to dump his load of spice to avoid detection; the loss of such a valuable shipment angered Jabba greatly.
Since none of his former friends would loan money to a man they considered a traitor, Solo was forced to go to Tatooine in the hopes of earning enough credits to pay off Jabba. There, a bounty hunter from the past made an unexpected reappearance. Boba Fett wasn't interested in Solo's head this time; he wished only to relay a message. Fett had once crossed paths with Bria Tharen and had agreed to notify the woman's father in the event of her death. His sources had confirmed Tharen's demise during the Rebel Alliance's Operation Skyhook on Toprawa. Solo agreed to convey the tragic information to Tharen's surviving family.
With his first love dead, one chapter of Han Solo's life closed forever. But a new one was about to begin. The Corellian smuggler strode into the smoky darkness of the Mos Eisley cantina for a fateful rendezvous with two local desert dwellers, who needed passage to Alderaan. Soon Solo would have a large bounty placed on his head by Jabba the Hutt, for the subsequent tangle of events prevented him from paying back the crime lord. He was to be kept very busy indeed.
LANDO CALRISSIAN
Unlike most reluctant heroes, Lando Calrissian has always been extremely forthcoming with details about his early entrepreneurial career. Unfortunately, each of the stories is more outlandish than the last, and they often conflict with each other. As a result, much about Calrissian remains a riddle.
One can only guess at the environment that spawned this ambitious man and the forces that shaped him into a charming gambler who always placed his biggest bet on the underdog. Luckily, Calrissian entered a high-profile career phase in his late twenties, so that his accounts began to be verified via independent eyewitnesses, historical records, and interviews with contemporaries such as Han Solo.
Approximately four years prior to the Battle of Yavin, Calrissian was already separating fools from their money as a professional sabacc gambler and con artist. Calrissian lost quite often, but when he won, he won big. His profits allowed him to indulge his tastes in clothing, fine cuisine, and members of the opposite sex.
He hopped around the galaxy in style aboard luxurious pleasure liners such as the Star of Empire, and so when he won a dilapidated Corellian freighter, the Millennium Falcon, from a sabacc player on Bespin who couldn't cover his debt, Calrissian had mixed feelings. It would be an expensive and time-consuming process to learn how to fly, but having his own mode of transportation would come in handy whenever he needed to make a quick getaway. Besides, the ship could always be sold for ready cash.
To learn the art of piloting, Calrissian hired a tutor-Han Solo, a smuggler, a fair sabacc player, and one of the best star jockeys in all of Hutt Space. He caught up with Solo at just the right time. The bounty hunter Boba Fett had Solo at gunpoint, but Calrissian intercepted the pair and turned the tables on Fett. He injected the bounty hunter with an obedience drug and ordered him to fly off to the rim of the galaxy. A grateful Solo offered to teach Calrissian how to pilot, at no charge.
The Sharu Awaken 4 B.B.Y.
Calrissian was a quick study, but learning to singlepilot a freighter was a tricky proposition. Thus, he was still an abysmal aviator when he decided to pack up and leave Hutt Space for someplace-anyplace-else. He assumed that Boba Fett would be back looking for revenge, and Nar Shaddaa wasn't an easy place for a con man to find gullible marks.
So Calrissian headed for a wealthy asteroid field in the Oseon system, stuck in the outback Centrality region. Normally the Oseon was a gambler's paradise, but Calrissian encountered poor luck at the tables. He did win ownership of a droid, though it remained in storage in the neighboring Rafa system. Calrissian prepared to leave the Oseon immediately to collect his prize on Rafa IV.
Remembering the difficulty he'd had landing the Millennium Falcon on Oseon 2795, Calrissian rented an unnamed Class Five pilot droid to handle the much more difficult task of an atmospheric touchdown on Rafa IV.
Every planet in the Rafa system was covered with colossal plastic pyramids built by the ancient Sharu. At the time of Calrissian's visit, the Sharu were considered a long-vanished aboriginal species; their impregnable pyramids had never been opened or explored. The present natives of the system were referred to as the Toka, or "Broken People." To all appearances the Toka were primitive and simpleminded, and they were exploited by the human colonists as cheap slave labor.
When Calrissian arrived in the Rafa system to pick up his newly won droid, the robot turned out to be a strange, starfish-shaped construction named Vuffi Raa, boasting five detachable limbs and a perky personality; immediately, Calrissian recognized there was more to this unusual droid than was readily apparent.
Calrissian was soon arrested on charges trumped up by the colonial governor. He and his new droid were forcibly enlisted on behalf of Rokur Gepta, the Sorcerer of Tund. The mysterious gray-cloaked wizard was a disciple of ancient Sith teachings and eager to get his hands on a fabulous artifact known as the Mindharp of Sharu.
Calrissian was given a transdimensional key designed to unlock the Mindharp's pyramid. Unfortunately, no one knew exactly which pyramid that was, and the Rafa system was choked with thousands of the plastic ziggurats. Calrissian decided to start on the neighboring world of Rafa V, home to the largest Sharu structure of all, but was ambushed by an army of Toka archers. The hostile primitives tied Calrissian to a crystalline lifetree, hoping he would freeze to death during the night.
But Vuffi Raa rescued his master, and the two of them investigated the most massive pyramid. There, they discovered the Mindharp-it was a strange object that constantly changed form as it shifted through dimensions-and removed it from its eons-old place of rest.
Calrissian discovered that the ancient Sharu once had been threatened by an unimaginably powerful alien entity. To ensure their own survival, the Sharu had gone underground, hiding their cities beneath the plastic pyramids and using crystalline life-orchards to temporarily drain their own intelligence. They had also spread rumors of a fabulous treasure- the Mindharp of Sharu. When another civilization proved advanced enough to reactivate the Mindharp, the Sharu would know it was safe to come out of hiding.
Rafa IV's colonial governor greedily took the Mindharp and sentenced the gambler to a lifetime of hard labor in a penal colony. Vuffi Raa freed him again, but the planet began to rock with violent quakes and tremors.
The colonial governor had activated the Mindharp, and the artifact's subharmonic emanations stimulated a complete reversal of the social order throughout the entire planetary system. The pyramids crumbled, and bizarre new cities emerged from the dust. Intelligence and memories were restored to the primitive Toka, making them into the legendary Sharu once again.
For weeks the Rafa system was completely blockaded, and when the inexplicable interdiction field suddenly vanished, the first visitors beheld an utterly changed society. The new cities were frighteningly alien, and the Sharu appeared to care little for the concerns of "lesser" sentients. Many of the human cities had been damaged beyond repair in the quakes, and the surviving colonists chose not to remain behind in a place where they were the objects of scorn. Trade with the Rafa system dried up virtually overnight.
On the other hand, the event was a boon to scientists, who descended on Rafa in droves. For his part in the transformation, Calrissian was hailed as a hero. While the Sharu did not shoo the researchers away, neither did they choose to cooperate. Detailed information on Sharu history and technology is still an elusive unknown.
Apparently, Emperor Palpatine felt threatened enough by the Sharu to post a permanent picket guard on the system's outer fringes, though he never made a military move against the advanced race. The New Republic has limited its involvement with the Sharu to a five-hundred-member, government-funded research team, staffed by the Obroan Institute for Archaeology.
The Battle of Nar Shaddaa 3 B.B.Y.
Calrissian and Vuffi Raa fled the system mere hours after the Mindharp's activation, escaping to the safety of hyperspace with a full cargo of rare life crystals in the Falcon's hold. When worn around the neck, life crystals were rumored to increase a person's life span; thus, they were a highly profitable Rafa export. After the Sharu reemergence, life crystals were suddenly in limited quantity.
Calrissian acquired the last load of life crystals before the Sharu locked down all trade-which meant he could set his own price. The gambler cleared nearly a quarter of a million credits on the deal.
He returned to Nar Shaddaa and, with a portion of his credits, purchased a used-starship lot from a dissatisfied Duros salesman. But running the business proved more difficult and expensive than he had anticipated, despite the able assistance of Vuffi Raa. Calrissian was already considering cutting his losses-when the Empire invaded the system.
Along with hundreds of other smugglers, Calrissian took to the sky and successfully blunted the Imperial offensive in the Battle of Nar Shaddaa. Like a born maestro, Vuffi Raa piloted the Millennium Falcon through the blaster barrages.
But the Battle of Nar Shaddaa signaled the end of Lando's used-starship lot. Calrissian, feeling a sense of obligation to his fellow outlaws, had donated his entire inventory for the space skirmish. When the dust cleared, less than a tenth of his stock remained spaceworthy. Privately, Calrissian sold his old friend Roa 90 percent ownership in the lot, at a considerable loss, then puzzled over how to salvage his career.
He turned his sights toward Cloud City's Yarith Bespin casino, which shortly would be hosting the regional sabacc championships. It was the perfect opportunity for Calrissian to recoup his losses. Unfortunately, the entry fee was ten thousand credits. Having paid off his creditors, Calrissian didn't even have a tenth that amount. Discouraged, he decided to return to the Centrality with Vuffi Raa.
There, Calrissian used the Falcon for its original cargo-hauling purpose, but he was a washout as an interstellar trader. Tariffs, import fees, and sales licenses sucked his credit account dry. Thus, when he received an invitation to play sabacc in the Oseon system, Calrissian jumped at the chance.
Back to the Oseon 3 B.B.Y.
Calrissian and Vuffi Raa arrived just in time for the annual Flamewind. For three weeks each year, stellar flares interact with ionized vapors to create a stunning visual feast in brilliant pulsing hues of green, yellow, blue, orange, and every color between.
The Oseon asteroid belts are infamous playgrounds for the wealthy and powerful, but things get even more decadent during the Flamewind. Since it's impossible to navigate during the event, guests are stuck in the system until the breathtaking light show subsides.
Upon his arrival, Calrissian was apprehended by the administrator senior of the Oseon system and forced to participate in a dangerous drug bust. The trillionaire industrialist Bohhuah Mutdah, drug addict and sole owner of Oseon 5792, had made some powerful enemies in the upper echelons of the Imperial law-enforcement community. The administrator was authorized to arrest him in a sting operation.
Posing as Mutdah's drug dealer, Calrissian ferried two drug-enforcement agents to Oseon 5792, through the heart of the Flamewind. It was almost impossible to navigate through the blinding sheets of color, and the accompanying radiation storms nearly drove them all mad. Eventually, however, they reached Oseon 5792. As Calrissian made the drug exchange, the two agents burst in to place Mutdah under arrest. Ten seconds later, both agents were dead.
As Calrissian looked on in astonishment, Mutdah set down his blaster and began to shimmer and fold in a mindbending display. The disguise melted away, revealing a familiar figure-Rokur Gepta, the Sorcerer of Tund, whom Calrissian had outwitted with the Mindharp of Sharu. In hindsight, the fact that Gepta took the time to insinuate himself into this affair is remarkable, given that his only motive was a deep-seated hatred of Lando Calrissian. Gepta blamed the rogue gambler for the loss of the Sharu artifact, and he was spiteful enough to carry a grudge across lightyears. He also enjoyed an amicable relationship with Emperor Palpatine, who had given the sorcerer a decommissioned Republic cruiser and granted him near-total autonomy within the confines of the Centrality. Gepta could command Imperial naval units and call in TIE bomber airstrikes on recalcitrant worlds. It is a testament to Calrissian's notoriety that this power was completely subverted to making his life miserable.
Calrissian was saved when a squadron of starfighters bearing Renatasian markings appeared outside the asteroid's canopy, lasers blazing. The transparisteel dome shattered, and Calrissian narrowly reached his ship through the swirling air and
debris. The Falcon escaped just as the Renatasians hurled a towed Dreadnaught engine straight into the asteroid, destroying it utterly.
The timely intervention was a happy coincidence; the starfighters hadn't been gunning for either Calrissian or Rokur Gepta, but rather for the harmless but mysterious droid Vuffi Raa: Thirteen years prior to the Battle of Yavin, Renatasia, one of many "lost" human colonies, had been rediscovered in a seldom-visited pocket of the Centrality. Obeying his programming, Vuffi Raa had landed on Renatasia and paved the way for an Imperial takeover. While just as brutal as the devastation of Caamas, the invasion of Renatasia received little outside attention and failed to inspire outrage in the senate. Nevertheless, a group of handpicked natives had commandeered twelve aging starfighters and vowed to kill the "Butcher of Renatasia."
Calrissian, while sympathetic to the Renatasians, was unwilling to help them annihilate his closest friend. He flew away, leaving them behind in the Oseon, using the Flamewind radiation to mask his escape. Nonetheless, the Renatasians soon teamed up with Rokur Gepta, who also had escaped the destruction of Oseon 5792. Together they continued their search for Calrissian and Vuffi Raa.
Fortune Won, Fortune Lost 3 B.B.Y.
The aftermath of the Mutdah drug bust turned out to be the most fortuitous turn of events Lando Calrissian ever experienced. During the chaos of his escape, Calrissian lifted the case containing Mutdah's drug payment. In one day, he went from insolvency to being a millionaire twenty times over.
Like all things with Calrissian, though, it didn't last. He deposited the money in small lump sums across numerous bank accounts, to reduce suspicion and the risk of a financial audit. Fifty thousand credits-more than enough to cover the sabacc tournament entry fee-went into the bank first, then were electronically transferred to a numbered account on Aargau. Calrissian then departed in the Millennium Falcon for Dela, the Centrality's financial hub, to deposit the rest of his money. Through sheer dumb luck, he arrived at Dela during the middle of a pirate attack by Drea Renthal's gang. Renthal, the infamous "pirate queen," possessed one of the largest freebooter fleets in the galaxy and had fought against the Imperials in the Battle of Nar Shaddaa.
The Falcon was captured and boarded. When the pirate raiders discovered the astonishing sum stashed in Mutdah's lockbox, Calrissian was brought before Renthal. The queen was an attractive woman, and Calrissian turned his charm up to maximum wattage in the hope of convincing her to leave him at least a token portion of the cash. He failed, but it wasn't to be the last time Calrissian and Renthal would cross paths.
To Save the ThonBoka 3-2.5 B.B.Y.
With the sabacc tournament mere months away, Calrissian and Vuffi Raa made a new and unusual friend-Lehesu of the Oswaft. The Oswaft are an extremely reclusive species of gigantic vacuumbreathers who resemble a cross between a Corellian sea ray and an Arkanian jellyfish. The Oswaft communicate via an intense, information-dense language and possess the ability to make natural hyperspace jumps.
The Centrality had known of the Oswaft's existence for generations, but the aliens hadn't come to the attention of the Emperor until just before Calrissian's debacle at Dela. Mistrustful of an intelligent species that could traverse hyperspace at will, Palpatine issued orders to exterminate the Oswaft. Five hundred capital ships blockaded the "mouth" of the creatures' home, a sack-shaped nebula known as the StarCave or the ThonBoka. The fleet's Carrack-class cruisers were modified to emit electric charges that would contaminate the interstellar plankton that drifted inside the nebula. With their sole source of nutrients poisoned, the Oswaft began to starve.
Lehesu's desperate pleas spurred Calrissian and Vuffi Raa to action. The Millennium Falcon ran the Imperial blockade, and Calrissian met with the besieged Oswaft elders - each colossal creature nearly a kilometer in diameter. Since the Oswaft had no conception of warfare, Calrissian was forced to improvise a desperate plan of survival. The alien defenders synthesized Oswaft-shaped excretions through their pores, so that the Imperial gunners shot at false targets and inflicted friendly fire on their own ships. Simultaneously, many Oswaft "shouted" at the warships; their powerful voice-streams destroyed many enemy vessels.
The fighting abruptly ceased when a vengeful Rokur Gepta arrived in his battleship and ordered the fleet to stand down. He delivered a startlingly bitter ultimatum: he would fight Lando Calrissian, one on one, in the zero-gravity vacuum between the ships. If Calrissian refused, he would fire an electromagnetic torpedo and lethally irradiate everything in the nebula.
The holographic log recorder aboard the Star Destroyer Eminence recorded the single combat, much to the gratitude of future historians. Zipped up in spacesuits, Calrissian and the Sorcerer of Tund faced off in the middle of the watching fleet. They shot at one another while maneuvering for position with jet packs. One of Calrissian's wild shots caught Gepta in the ankle. With a shriek, the sorcerer's form withered and disappeared.
It is unknown whether Emperor Palpatine had been aware that Rokur Gepta was actually a Croke, a tiny snail-like creature from the Unknown Regions. The Emperor had long been interested in the Sorcerers of Tund, since their religious teachings were based on an archaic interpretation of original Sith doctrine. Gepta had used his Croke powers of illusion to infiltrate that secret society, co-opt its Sith teachings, and then annihilate it; Tund is now an uninhabited, irradiated wasteland. The death of Gepta marked an end to the Sorcerers of Tund.
The Imperial fleet responded to Gepta's demise with a hail of laser fire. Suddenly, a booming cry burst across all comm channels: "Cease fire or be destroyed!" Thousands of gargantuan, fifty kilometer-wide metallic spheres rapidly surrounded the armada on all sides. The new arrivals were selfaware droids, hailing from deep in the Unknown Regions. They had come for Vuffi Raa, their "child."
Vuffi Raa had been constructed by the mechanical beings for the purpose of recording new experiences throughout the galaxy. Now that his purpose had been fulfilled, Vuffi Raa departed with his progenitors. The Imperial fleet quietly withdrew, abandoning their mission of Oswaft genocide.
The mysterious droids disappeared into the vastness of the Unknown Regions. Though there is no proof that they have ever reappeared, numerous eyewitness reports tell of massive objects roughly matching the droids' appearance. These have been compiled from all over the New Republic, including a hundred-thousand-person mass sighting documented during the Priole Danna festival on Lamuir IV. While many of these anecdotes may have commonplace explanations, it remains possible the entities have been observing galactic civilization from a distance, for their own purposes.
Entrepreneurism 2.5-0 B.B.Y.
Calrissian was sorry to see his companion go, but through the strange droid's tutelage, he had learned a great deal about starship piloting. Furthermore, the grateful Oswaft had given him a full cargo hold of precious gemstones as a generous farewell gift. He invested the gemstones in a berubium mine in the Borgo asteroid belt and then lost the fortune again when the mine proved to be worthless. Down to nothing, Calrissian withdrew the fifty thousand credits from his numbered account and waited for the sabacc tournament.
Two things made the waiting easier. The first was his old used-spaceship lot on Nar Shaddaa. Calrissian picked up the pieces of the struggling business and hired several new managers. The second was Drea Renthal, the pirate queen. Though he had good reason to carry a grudge against her, Calrissian realized that he and Renthal shared a similar outlook on life. Against all odds, the two became romantically entangled-at least for a few weeks.
The sabacc tournament on Cloud City proved a crushing disappointment for Calrissian, however. The gambler made it to the final championship round and found himself facing his old friend Han Solo-a fair sabacc player, but far from a master of the game. When the final card-chips were played, though, Solo had won an impressive stack of credits and sole ownership of the Millennium Falcon.
After the match, Calrissian was so impoverished that he was forced to swallow his pride and ask Solo for a fifteen- hundred-credit loan. Over the next year, he turned the small sum into hundreds of thousands of credits by gambling with the galaxy's high rollers. He also carried out several masterly con jobs against the Imperials, including a scam on Pesmenben IV that was similar to the berubium mine scenario that had ruined him.
Calrissian's second run-in with Boba Fett occurred aboard a luxury liner, where Fett had come to capture Rebel Alliance commander Bria Tharen. He picked up Calrissian for use as an expendable hostage, but fortunately, a chance attack by Drea Renthal's star pirates saved both their lives. Renthal put up a substantial sum to buy Calrissian's and Tharen's freedom.
Bria Tharen eventually joined forces with the Desilijic Hutts to coordinate a massive attack on the spice-processing planet Ylesia. Lando Calrissian participated in the assault, fighting alongside Han Solo. But when the combined Rebel and smuggler armies had wiped out all resistance, Bria Tharen swindled her allies. The Rebels departed with all the spice, leaving the smugglers with nothing.
Lando Calrissian, like many others, blamed Solo for the double cross. When Solo came to Calrissian to ask for a loan to pay off Jabba the Hutt, Calrissian threw him against the wall and declared their friendship to be a thing of the past.
"The Respectable One" 0-3 A.B.Y.
The Rebels won the Battle of Yavin not long afterward, but Lando Calrissian was busy with larger and larger escapades. Five months after Yavin, Calrissian shipped a denta bean cargo to the agricultural planet Taanab and was caught on the surface during a pirate raid. Instead of huddling and waiting for the squall to blow over, Calrissian accepted the wager of a drunken cantina patron and flew an unnamed freighter against the notorious Norulac freebooters. The battle was short and one-sided-Calrissian smashed and humiliated the pirate fleet, even dumping his outgoing cargo of electrified netting in order to tangle the enemy ships into one helpless, immovable lump.
He was a hero on Taanab, but his fame didn't extend past the sector's borders. That changed, however, when TriNebulon News picked up the story months later and broadcast it across the newsnets. Calrissian became a minor celebrity and the subject of endless "can you believe it" barroom banter. Years later, this notoriety is precisely what would convince Alliance High Command to promote Calrissian to the rank of general, just prior to the Battle of Endor.
Calrissian briefly investigated Hologram Fun World as a possible investment opportunity and got caught up in the Imperials' Project Starscream. (Calrissian would assume ownership of Hologram Fun World one year after the Battle of Endor; this also led to his interest in investing in a large family amusement center on Cloud City, the SkyCenter Galleria.)
Calrissian's greatest coup, however, came in a sabacc game held in the Trest casino on Bespin. His opponent was Dominic Raynor, Cloud City's baron administrator. By the time Raynor folded his cards in frustrarion, Calrissian had won the title of baron administrator-and all the power that came with it.
To his credit, Calrissian took his new political assignment very seriously. He charmed the citizenry of Cloud City and won over the Exex business administration board. He established an excellent working relationship with the city's computer coordinator, a cyborg named Lobot. He staved off the advances of the Mining Guild and deflected the attention of the Empire, allowing business to continue as usual, despite the growing Rebellion.
He hired a squadron of commando pilots to protect the city from pirate raids. When the droid EV9D9 went psychotic and dismantled a quarter of the city's droid population, he salvaged the situation and enacted new security procedures. He increased net Tibanna gas mining profits by over 35 percent and turned Cloud City into a stable, prosperous center of industry. Millions of sentients looked to him for their well-being.
Which is why the arrival of two intruders-Han Solo and Darth Vader-along with a third unwelcome interloper, Boba Fett, threw Calrissian into a moral quandary. He balanced the life of Solo against the welfare of an entire city and found his friend wanting. But Calrissian wasn't so foolish that he would keep on playing when the Empire had stacked the deck.
Fortunately for the fate of the galaxy, the gambler made the right decision in the end.
THE SKYWALKERS
Like a ray of hope in the darkest night, the Skywalker twins emerged from one of the galaxy's most turbulent periods to reverse a generation of injustice and genocide. Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa were destined for great things from the moment of their birth and have arguably influenced modern history more than any other duo.
Luke Skywalker, now a Jedi Master, brought the Jedi Knights back from extinction and presided over a new generation of Force-strong galactic guardians. Leia Organa, the second chief of state of the New Republic, helped overthrow the Empire and shepherded the civilized galaxy through some of its bleakest years.
The two grew up in different foster homes on opposite sides of the civilized galaxy and consequently know very little of how they came to be placed in the care of their guardians. Historians have pieced together this critical chronicle as precisely as possible, though the end result contains an inevitable amount of speculation and supposition.
The lineage of the Skywalker twins is, quite simply, epic. Their father was Anakin Skywalker, one of the most powerful Jedi Knights in history, whose dark actions under the name Darth Vader nearly brought an end to that order. Their mother was a queen, who bestowed upon her children a royal birthright despite their adopted upbringings.
Both infants were amazingly strong in the Force. Emperor Palpatine, who feared rival Force users so much that he had overseen the Jedi Purge, realized that Anakin Skywalker's heirs could possess enough latent power to pose a serious threat to his reign. The great Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi is believed to have recognized this danger and hidden the newborns, both from the Emperor and from their own father. In the care of others, he hoped, the twins would develop into finely honed weapons that would doom the Emperor in the long run.
Kenobi placed Luke with Owen and Beru Lars, hardworking moisture farmers on the sun-seared planet Tatooine. The harsh desert world had been Anakin Skywalker's boyhood home, and a remote possibility did exist that Vader could uncover his son's hiding place. Owen and Beru Lars, however, were low-profile isolationists, and Kenobi remained behind on Tatooine as added insurance. In his sparse hermitage in the Jundland Wastes, "Old Ben" Kenobi hid from Emperor Palpatine and watched over young Luke, waiting for the day when the boy would reach manhood and fulfill a destiny.
Leia's upbringing was the polar opposite of her brother's. Raised on the pacifist planet Alderaan by Bail Prestor Organa, Obi-Wan Kenobi's commander in the Clone Wars, Leia lived a life of privilege and responsibility. House Organa was the royal family of Alderaan, and Leia was accorded all the prerogatives due a princess.
Like her mother, Leia became a confident, poised young woman and a quick political thinker. In the ruling city of Aldera, Leia studied diplomacy, government, and languages, and played in the palace corridors with her best friend Winter. Senator Bail Organa often brought his adopted daughter on trips to other worlds, including the Republic capital planet of Coruscant, and attended to her physical development by hiring weapons master Giles Durane to instruct Leia in the arts of self-defense and marksmanship. While still in her teens, Leia became the youngest representative ever elected to the Imperial Senate.
The general public did not learn of Luke and Leia's sinister lineage until years after the Battle of Endor. In fact, due to their having been raised apart, the two siblings did not even realize they were brother and sister until four years after Leia's rescue from the Death Star battle station.
In the wake of the public revelation regarding Darth Vader's ancestry, some partisan politicians have accused Leia Organa of following in her father's footsteps. However, most citizens have been surprisingly conciliatory toward the offspring of Vader, holding the view that children should not be punished for the transgressions of their parents. In any case, the good that Luke and Leia have accomplished over the decades weighs heavier than any shadow legacy.
__________________
There is no emotion; there is peace.
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
There is no passion; there is serenity.
There is no death; there is the Force.
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2002-08-02 11:42
