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| Who’s Who Orman, Baron Tagge |
Orman Tagge, Baron Tagge (2 BrS - 35 rS) was a nobleman who rose to prominence as a technical mastermind in 15 rS during the Clone War, and
remained a powerful and influential figure in galactic politics until his death in 35 rS. As he was seventeen years old in 15 rS, according to “New
Tagge Baron Leads Tech Initiative,” Orman was born in 2 BrS, probably on the House of Tagge throne world of Tepasi in the Core Worlds Region
(the House of Tagge is descended from one of the Founders of the Republic); although it is never stated, he is probably the eldest child of Sanya,
Baroness Tagge, the head of the House as of 13 rS, according to “House of Tagge Sides with Loyalists.” He had three younger brothers – Cassio,
Silas, and Ulric – and one sister, Domina, of whom Orman was particularly protective (according to “Red Queen Rising!”, he once threatened to kill
his brother Silas after he suggested that they should arrange for Domina to marry into the Imperial Family once she was of age, saying, “Domina’s
the one pure and innocent thing in the Tagge family... I won’t see her corrupted in any way! Ever!”). The Lady Tagge apparently died during the
Clone War, as Orman acceded to the barony and headship of the House – and with it, the vast Tagge Company (TaggeCo.), the largest conglomerate
in the galaxy – in 15 rS, at age seventeen; one month later, according to “New Tagge Baron Leads Tech Initiative,” he was named chair of a
specialized technological steering committee under the auspices of the Senate Bureau of Intelligence (SBI), with the intention of closing the
“technology gap” between the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent States (CIS).
Interestingly, Orman had already begun work on ‘closing the technology gap’ as early as 3 rS, after the Naboo Crisis that catapulted Senator
Palpatine of Naboo into office as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic; The New Essential Guide to Droids states that he “began sketching
designs for Republic battle droids that could stand against the Trade Federation” (assuming that these designs were not mere flights of fancy, this
would indicate that he had at least some grasp of mechanical engineering and autosystems engineering by the age of 5; one suspects the use of the
accelerated learning procedures mentioned in Children of the Jedi). By the time of the Clone War in 13 rS, he had already finished the design, the
TaggeCo. L8-L9 combat ’droid, which he marketed to the Republic as a supplement to the clones of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). It was
his intention to establish a beachhead by selling the L8-L9s as hazardous environment shock troopers, and then to use this and his family’s “close
ties with the Republic government” as leverage for a contract to outfit an entire army of L8-L9s, which he anticipated would be sufficiently
profitable as to “enrich the company beyond the wildest dreams of the Tagge forebears.” The L8-L9 was destroyed by dark Jedi Asajj Ventress on
the amphitheater world of Rattatak in Clone Wars chapter six, costing Orman not only his prototype but also the 100,000 credits he’d wagered on
its victory in the games. Interestingly, both “L8-L9” and The New Essential Guide to Droids claim that Orman was Baron Tagge at the time of the L8-
L9 testing, but this is plainly not the case, as he did not accede to the barony until 15 rS, two years after the beginning of the Clone War.
“Evasive Action: End Game” shows that the Lord Tagge met privately with the Galactic Emperor in 16 rS, and offered TaggeCo.’s services beyond
“mere commerce,” saying that “from all counts, this Darth Vader is adept at matters of intimidation, but something as vast and complex as a Galactic
Empire requires leadership, innovation, fresh ideas, political savvy and many ways to motivate,” offering himself as an obvious replacement for the
Dark Lord of the Sith as the Galactic Emperor’s favorite, in the process setting up TaggeCo. to take “the nexu’s share” of the massive increases in
state spending. The conversation was recorded by spies loyal to the crime boss Prince Xizor of Falleen, who saw both Lord Tagge and Vader as
threats, and deliberately leaked to Vader via his own protégé, Inquisitor Tremayne. Angry, Vader came to Tepasi and confronted the entirely
unintimidated Lord Tagge, who pointed out to Vader that he was “indeed a powerful presence in the room [...] but that is as far as your reach
extends, isn’t it?” The Sith Lord, acknowledging that the Lord Tagge was too valuable to the Empire to kill, instead decided that, “Your eyes, Baron,
are looking too far past your station,” and blinded him with his lightsaber (surprisingly, the Lord Tagge immediately had the presence of mind to
send his aide Zenfrei to summon medical help, despite having suffered severe ocular trauma mere seconds before). The galactic upper class had a
longstanding antipathy for cybernetic prosthetics – a prejudice first seen among the lower classes in “New Planets, New Perils!” and mentioned as
being common in the scribe’s biography of General Maximilian Veers in The New Essential Guide to Characters – and rather than submit to such
humiliation, the Lord Tagge took to wearing specially designed “cyber-vision” goggles, which restored his vision and gave him the added benefit of
clear vision in low-light environments.
The Lord Tagge remained a leading industrial and political figure well into the Imperial era, and at some point had his sister cloistered with the Order
of the Sacred Circle on Monastery, in order to preserve her purity and innocence, as revealed in “Red Queen Rising!” According to the Han Solo and
the Corporate Sector Sourcebook, the Lord Tagge was the informal leader of the so-called Galactic Corporate Policy League, a policy consortium of
some of the largest of the galaxy’s megacorporations with secret ties to Palpatine of Naboo and his New Order policies that dated back to his time
representing Naboo and Chommell Sector in the Galactic Senate (ca 27 BrS - 3 rS); when the GCPL began analyzing the revenues of the existing
Corporate Sector, it was he that suggested the complete reconstitution of the Sector (and its expansion to 30,000 star systems) and the incorporation
of the Corporate Sector Authority to act as “sole owner, employer, government and military of the region.” With that end in mind, he invited “all the
existing Corporate Sector companies, as well as members of the League, to a week-long closed door conference on the banking world of Aargau,”
where “in the splendor of the famed Dragonbird Gardens of Aargau, from dawn to late at night, they haggled and wrangled and debated,” emerging
with a finalized draft charter, which refined the Lord Tagge’s ideas into a “limited free market fief,” a “special non-interference region, separate and
autonomous from the surrounding Empire.” The Lord Tagge’s status as a rising star at court is only accentuated by the fact that the Galactic
Emperor himself had taken a personal interest in the Tagge Plan (in fact, he had sent “his Vizier” to suggest the idea of the Corporate Sector as a
client state), and granted the Imperial Assent to the Corporate Sector Charter on the spot, in front of a full court assembly.
As chairman of the vast TaggeCo. economic empire (and the dominant partner in the CSA), the Lord Tagge stood at the very pinnacle of the galaxy’s
business sector, perhaps rivaled in particular areas of business by such single-market industrialists as Kuat of Kuat, the chief executive officer of
Kuat Drive Yards; but even though KDY could boast of most of the Imperial State’s warship contracts, it could not compare to the enormity and
diversity of TaggeCo.’s holdings, which had hundreds of subsidiaries in nearly every segment of the galactic economy. Though he may have had
peers in individual sectors of the economy, he had none when it came to the economy as a whole; only a captain of industry of the first rank could
claim to be his peer, and even then only in a given market. As the Lord Tagge himself remarked in “Evasive Action: End Game,” TaggeCo. was
“ubiquitous... from the food beings eat, to the vehicles they drive.” It was not for no reason that Imperial Governor Corwyth of Metalorn called the
Lord Tagge head of “the galaxy’s most renowned industrial concern” in “A Princess Alone!” Nor had he forgotten his nemesis the Dark Lord of th
eSith; as mentioned several times throughout his appearances, the Lord Tagge trained constantly with the lightsaber in preparation for a rematch with
Vader, honing his skills to the point that the Baron was able to deflect blasterfire from training remotes, much like Luke Skywalker learned to do by
using the Force in A New Hope. Given the level of speed and coordination required for such a feat, the Lord Tagge was clearly one of the finest
swordsmen in the galaxy.
At some point during his tenure as chairman of TaggeCo., the Lord Tagge was given the opportunity to revitalize one of his first projects, the
defunct L8-L9 combat ’droid. According to The New Essential Guide to Droids, TaggeCo.’s subsidiary Tagge Industries was tasked to work with the
Lord Tagge’s acquaintance Lieutenant General Rom Mohc – a highly-decorated war hero, who boasted of three Medals of Valor and a Distinguished
Medal of Imperial Honor – , who had been recently appointed head of the Droid Trooper Project.
Tagge Industries took the old L8-L9 and produced a second-generation war ’droid, the Z-X3
experimental ’droid trooper – first seen in “Droid World!” – , manufacturing “less than one
hundred” Z-X3s for testing and evaluation. Post-Clone War prejudices resulted in the Project’s
termination, and the Z-X3 was shelved. For his part, Mohc took his experiences with Tagge
Industries to the Imperial Department of Military Research, where he produced the
third-generation Dark Trooper.
The Lord Tagge first appeared in “Siege at Yavin!”, in which he was introduced as a rival to
Darth Vader, the first such character in the Star Wars Expanded Universe (he predates the
introduction of the Prince Xizor of Falleen by 17 years). “Siege at Yavin!” explains that after
the Battle of Yavin in 35 rS, the Empire blockaded the entire Gordian Reach Sector, said by
used starship dealer Jorman Thoad to contain the Yavin, Krylon, and Torque systems as well
as “a jillion more”; rather than admit that the Death Star had been destroyed – Imperial losses
included Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Governor of Oversector Outer, his relative by marriage
Rear Admiral C. Antonio Motti, and the Lord Tagge’s younger brother, High General Cassio
Tagge – , the Empire simply used TaggeCo. to manufacture a cover story: Rumors were
circulated that TaggeCo. had discovered “a big spice strike” on one of the planets in the
Gordian Reach, and the Lord Tagge used his Imperial connections to arrange for the Empire
to blockade the entire Sector (the Lord Tagge’s youngest brother, Major General Ulric Tagge,
was the commander of the blockade). For three consecutive days, the rebels’ Massassi Base
was subjected to TIE fighter raids, but neither reconnaissance patrols nor long-range sensors
was able to detect any suitable launch platform (during a briefing by Lieutenant General Jan
Dodonna, a pilot remarks that “to constantly throw so many TIE fighters at us, it has to be
one of those big Imperial battle cruisers,” but one of the “scanner jockeys” immediately
objected that “tracking equipment would have detected anything in the Star Destroyer class
long ago”). Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds explains that Dr. Silas Tagge – the Lord Tagge
calls his brother Silas “chief scientist of all the Tagge industries” in “Thunder in the Stars!” –
had designed a Star Destroyer-sized turbine called Achtnak Station that was able to generate
large windswept corridors through a gas giant’s troposphere, allowing the launch of regular
fighter raids from a base hidden within the planet and denying the rebels the opportunity to
retaliate; although the Imperial Navy rejected the design, the Lord Tagge financed it himself,
investing “millions of credits” in the station’s construction. In “Siege at Yavin!”, the Lord Tagge
personally boarded a “House of Tagge mining explorer” on the trading world of Centares –
“outer-most of the Mid-Systems trading worlds” and “last civilized stop for those doing
business in the galactic backwaters” – and oversaw the transport of reinforcement TIE fighters to Achtnak Station; when he was informed that his
explorer had been followed past the blockade and into the Yavin system by a small ship trailing his explorer very closely – the ship was occupied by
the former Imperial Senator the Princess Leia of Alderaan and Luke Skywalker – , he promptly ordered the release of a cluster of magnetically
charged heavy duty mines in an effort to destroy the ship, but Skywalker’s Force-inspired piloting allowed him to escape destruction in the mine
field, and the ship was intercepted by a patrol of TIE fighters, rescued only by the fortuitous arrival of a rebel reconnaissance patrol of T-65 X-
wings in “Doom Mission!” Skywalker was able to salvage a signal device from one of the destroyed enemy fighters and was sent in a captured TIE
fighter to enter Yavin and attack Achtnak Station with his TIE fighter’s cargo of “enough proton charges to destroy a city.” Despite its size, Achtnak
Station was relatively undefended, and easy prey to Skywalker’s proton charges; the Lord Tagge’s mining explorer barely cast off in time, and
surreptitiously followed Skywalker’s TIE fighter out of the gas giant (Skywalker found his way out of the planet’s troposphere by relying on his
Force-enhanced intuition).
With the failure of his scheme with the Achtnak Station, the Lord Tagge found himself faced with the Galactic Emperor’s displeasure, and as
punishment he was made to personally inspect the House of Tagge’s various ongoing operations on the Imperial State’s behalf (as he himself put it
to Governor Corwyth of Metalorn in “A Princess Alone!”, “The failure of one Tagge project against the rebel Alliance left the Emperor doubting all
of them. To reassure him... I’m forced to personally check each one.”) To that end, he traveled to Metalorn – “just one in hundreds of Imperial
factory planets” – to inspect the Tagge Weapons Detection System, capable of monitoring all weapons and explosives on the planet; the system
worked perfectly, and notified the planetary control center immediately when a stormtrooper’s rifle was seized by an unauthorized person (rebel
organizer the Princess Leia of Alderaan) via “pulse beat sensors.” While Corwyth’s men chased futilely after the rifle that the Weapons Detection
System could track anywhere on the planet, the Lord Tagge took a “voice print” from the “recording unit” of a stormtrooper whom the Princess had
shot; he checked the voice print against the Known Enemies file, and then cross-referenced her identity with any citizen of Metalorn that might have
had a prior connection to her, thus leading him to a cafeteria where he interrupted the Princess Leia’s brief reunion with Arn Horada, a former
professor of galactic history who had given the Princess private lessons years before on Alderaan. When he attempted to capture her himself, he was
foiled when she unexpectedly threw her food tray at him, blinding him by getting food paste clogged in his cyber-vision; before he could recover, she
shackled him to a table. Although this proved only a temporary inconvenience – the Lord Tagge’s lightsaber made short work of the energy shackles
she’d fastened about his ankle – it was long enough for her to make her escape. The Lord Tagge advised Corwyth that the entire incident was best
left unreported, and the entire matter was quietly buried.
Fresh from that encounter, the Lord Tagge began preparations for what would prove to be his final plot. According to “Return to Tatooine!”,
TaggeCo. bought up a large number of moisture farms in the vicinity of the Dune Sea and Jundland Wastes on Tatooine, including the former Lars
and Darklighter homesteads, and set up a base in the desert, using the area to test Dr. Tagge’s latest invention, the Omega Frost, a device that could
instantly flash-freeze any object containing even the slightest amount of moisture (the freezing effect was so rapid and violent that it would cause
metal to shatter); the Lord Tagge himself remarked to his younger brother that “there were several arid planets that fit your conditions... but a name
in the Imperial Census records drew me to this one. Luke Skywalker.” The experiment was a complete success, and although Skywalker did discover
the Omega Frost, he escaped capture (the Lord Tagge had become obsessed with revenge on Skywalker for his humiliation at Yavin). In “Saber
Clash!”, the two elder surviving Tagge brothers rendezvoused with the younger, Major General Ulric Tagge, in space above Junction, the port that
served as Massassi Base’s “chief source of supplies,” and transferred “module packs” containing the Omega Frost equipment to General Tagge’s
battle cruiser and Imperial Star Destroyer. Having familiarized himself with Skywalker’s face from official records, the Lord Tagge spotted
Skywalker sneaking into the manual cargo transfer, and dispatched stormtroopers to capture him – but not before he sent out a warning that the
Empire was planning on using the Omega Frost to flash-freeze Junction itself (in reality, the mining explorer installed the Omega Frost conductors in
the asteroid corridor that the rebel Alliance usually used to run the Imperial blockade and pick up supplies at Junction, so as to intercept the relief
expedition that the Alliance would no doubt send to prevent Junction’s destruction). He allowed Skywalker to escape and run loose aboard the
mining explorer, saying that “lightsaber opponents are difficult to find in this age of blasters” and that he hoped to use Skwyalker for “valuable
practical experience,” so that “when the day comes that I challenge Darth Vader with the very same weapon he used to blind me, it will be most
useful to know that my killing techniques work,” having tested them on Skywalker.
The two met again in the docking bay, where Skywalker hoped to steal a TIE fighter and warn the Alliance of the ambush. The Lord Tagge’s superior
training gave him the edge over his preternaturally gifted but technically deficient opponent; he said to Skywalker, “Your reflexes are excellent... You
show some skill... But your technique is primitive. Almost nonexistent. A talented amateur... with the benefit of only a few lessons.” Having easily
overcome Skywalker’s technically inferior swordsmanship, the Lord Tagge taunted him, telling him to draw his lightsaber again so that he could end
their duel swiftly, as “even for vengeance... there’s no sport in tormenting a novice.” Once Skywalker submerged his conscious self into the Force,
however, Skywalker easily parried the Lord Tagge’s intended lunge, and only “reactions owned in countless hours of practice and training” saved the
Baron from death from Skywalker’s riposte. When Skywalker parried his every “attack and counterattack pattern,” it became increasingly clear to
the Lord Tagge – as noted, an experienced and very skilled swordsman – that, like Darth Vader, Skywalker had “a touch of the wizard,” prompting
him to use “the final strategy I was saving to dispatch the Dark Lord himself!”, and destroyed the docking bay’s lights, effectively blinding
Skywalker but not himself, thanks to his cyber-vision. Much to his surprise and dismay, however, Skywalker was able to fight in the dark, expertly
slicing the Baron’s cyber-vision in half, without so much as scratching his face beneath the goggles and then escaping in a TIE fighter (unbeknownst
to either Skywalker or the Lord Tagge, the TIE fighter had been modified at Dr. Tagge’s orders, leaving it with “no armament, no communications...
and just enough fuel to carry him to disaster”). The experience shook the Lord Tagge to his core, and he lapsed into a state of shock. He was still
being treated – in fact he had been drugged at Dr. Tagge’s orders, so as to prevent him from recovering in time to take charge of the operation and
prevent Silas from reaping the laurels of victory for himself – when a group of nine rebel “war wagons” attacked the mining explorer in “Thunder in
the Stars!”, destroying it.
The Lord Tagge was legally considered to have been killed in the explosion, and the barony – and with it, headship of the House and chairmanship of
the Company – passed on to the sole remaining brother, General Tagge. The truth, however, was that neither the Lord Tagge nor Dr. Tagge had
actually been killed; as Darth Vader explained to General Tagge in “Dark Lord’s Gambit,” “Evidently their compartment suffered no damage... the
emergency seals kept it airtight. Still, they had nearly suffocated when my spies investigated the wreckage and found them... but, in time, these
machines can restore their life functions to normal.” The youngest Tagge brother showed “a certain lack of enthusiasm” at this idea, as it would mean
that he would lose his barony and all the privileges that came with it; he acquiesced to Vader’s blackmail, and both the elder brothers were left to
remain indefinitely in suspended animation aboard Vader’s battle cruiser (part of a plot by the Dark Lord of the Sith to use the Tagges’ sister, Sister
Domina, a priestess of the Order of the Sacred Circle, to entrap Skywalker). The Lord Tagge somehow recovered from his condition and escaped,
stowing away aboard the impounded freighter Millennium Falcon and forcing his way at gunpoint to the surface of Monastery in “Red Queen
Rising!” In “In Mortal Combat!”, he made his way into the planet’s Crystal Valley, where Domina – chosen as All-High Priestess in “Red Queen
Rising!” – had ordered Vader and Skywalker to duel in order to determine the allegiance of the Order of the Sacred Circle. The Lord Tagge was nearly
crushed by a crystal stalagmite, but Vader saved him, holding him at bay with the crystal’s huge bulk, and forcing him to watch a visi-cube revealing
his sister’s deviousness (at the same time, Vader admitted that he had engineered the entire sequence of events in order to take vengeance on the Lord
Tagge for his constant interference and to finally put an end to their long rivalry; he had opted not to simply kill the Baron because he called that “an
unimaginative vengeance,” the Lord Tagge having “troubled me enough to deserve better”). The Sith Lord forced the Lord Tagge to take his place and
duel Skywalker again, albeit under a Force illusion that made Skywalker think he was fighting Vader himself; the duel ended when Skywalker ran his
the Lord Tagge through (shiak in High Galactic), killing him with a lunge through the heart.
Note that “Fight Saber: Jedi Lightsaber Combat” wrongly claims that the Lord Tagge was blinded in a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader afer the Battle
of Yavin. This claim was already disproven by the simple fact that he was already blind in his first appearance immediately after the battle in “Siege
at Yavin!” The further evidence of “Evasive Action: End Game” conclusively demonstrates the falsity of the claim; he was blinded in 16 rS, nineteen
years before the Battle of Yavin (i.e., 19 BBY, reckoned according to the Neo-Republican calendar).
References:
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Goodwin, Archie. “Doom Mission!” Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 26. Marvel Comics Group, 1979.
Goodwin, Archie. “Droid World!” Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 47. Marvel Comics Group, 1981.
Goodwin, Archie. “In Mortal Combat!” Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 37. Marvel Comics Group, 1980.
Goodwin, Archie. “Red Queen Rising!” Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 36. Marvel Comics Group, 1980.
Goodwin, Archie. “Return to Tatooine!” Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 31. Marvel Comics Group, 1979.
Goodwin, Archie. “Saber Clash!” Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 33. Marvel Comics Group, 1980.
Goodwin, Archie. “Siege at Yavin!” Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 25. Marvel Comics Group, 1979.
Goodwin, Archie. “Thunder in the Stars!” Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 34. Marvel Comics Group, 1980.
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“L8-L9.” Star Wars: Databank. Lucasfilm Ltd., 2003.
Lucas, George. A New Hope. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 1977.
Reynolds, David West. “Fight Saber: Jedi Lightsaber Combat.” Star Wars Insider No. 62. Paizo Publishing, LLC, 2002.
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remained a powerful and influential figure in galactic politics until his death in 35 rS. As he was seventeen years old in 15 rS, according to “New
Tagge Baron Leads Tech Initiative,” Orman was born in 2 BrS, probably on the House of Tagge throne world of Tepasi in the Core Worlds Region
(the House of Tagge is descended from one of the Founders of the Republic); although it is never stated, he is probably the eldest child of Sanya,
Baroness Tagge, the head of the House as of 13 rS, according to “House of Tagge Sides with Loyalists.” He had three younger brothers – Cassio,
Silas, and Ulric – and one sister, Domina, of whom Orman was particularly protective (according to “Red Queen Rising!”, he once threatened to kill
his brother Silas after he suggested that they should arrange for Domina to marry into the Imperial Family once she was of age, saying, “Domina’s
the one pure and innocent thing in the Tagge family... I won’t see her corrupted in any way! Ever!”). The Lady Tagge apparently died during the
Clone War, as Orman acceded to the barony and headship of the House – and with it, the vast Tagge Company (TaggeCo.), the largest conglomerate
in the galaxy – in 15 rS, at age seventeen; one month later, according to “New Tagge Baron Leads Tech Initiative,” he was named chair of a
specialized technological steering committee under the auspices of the Senate Bureau of Intelligence (SBI), with the intention of closing the
“technology gap” between the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent States (CIS).
Interestingly, Orman had already begun work on ‘closing the technology gap’ as early as 3 rS, after the Naboo Crisis that catapulted Senator
Palpatine of Naboo into office as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic; The New Essential Guide to Droids states that he “began sketching
designs for Republic battle droids that could stand against the Trade Federation” (assuming that these designs were not mere flights of fancy, this
would indicate that he had at least some grasp of mechanical engineering and autosystems engineering by the age of 5; one suspects the use of the
accelerated learning procedures mentioned in Children of the Jedi). By the time of the Clone War in 13 rS, he had already finished the design, the
TaggeCo. L8-L9 combat ’droid, which he marketed to the Republic as a supplement to the clones of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). It was
his intention to establish a beachhead by selling the L8-L9s as hazardous environment shock troopers, and then to use this and his family’s “close
ties with the Republic government” as leverage for a contract to outfit an entire army of L8-L9s, which he anticipated would be sufficiently
profitable as to “enrich the company beyond the wildest dreams of the Tagge forebears.” The L8-L9 was destroyed by dark Jedi Asajj Ventress on
the amphitheater world of Rattatak in Clone Wars chapter six, costing Orman not only his prototype but also the 100,000 credits he’d wagered on
its victory in the games. Interestingly, both “L8-L9” and The New Essential Guide to Droids claim that Orman was Baron Tagge at the time of the L8-
L9 testing, but this is plainly not the case, as he did not accede to the barony until 15 rS, two years after the beginning of the Clone War.
“Evasive Action: End Game” shows that the Lord Tagge met privately with the Galactic Emperor in 16 rS, and offered TaggeCo.’s services beyond
“mere commerce,” saying that “from all counts, this Darth Vader is adept at matters of intimidation, but something as vast and complex as a Galactic
Empire requires leadership, innovation, fresh ideas, political savvy and many ways to motivate,” offering himself as an obvious replacement for the
Dark Lord of the Sith as the Galactic Emperor’s favorite, in the process setting up TaggeCo. to take “the nexu’s share” of the massive increases in
state spending. The conversation was recorded by spies loyal to the crime boss Prince Xizor of Falleen, who saw both Lord Tagge and Vader as
threats, and deliberately leaked to Vader via his own protégé, Inquisitor Tremayne. Angry, Vader came to Tepasi and confronted the entirely
unintimidated Lord Tagge, who pointed out to Vader that he was “indeed a powerful presence in the room [...] but that is as far as your reach
extends, isn’t it?” The Sith Lord, acknowledging that the Lord Tagge was too valuable to the Empire to kill, instead decided that, “Your eyes, Baron,
are looking too far past your station,” and blinded him with his lightsaber (surprisingly, the Lord Tagge immediately had the presence of mind to
send his aide Zenfrei to summon medical help, despite having suffered severe ocular trauma mere seconds before). The galactic upper class had a
longstanding antipathy for cybernetic prosthetics – a prejudice first seen among the lower classes in “New Planets, New Perils!” and mentioned as
being common in the scribe’s biography of General Maximilian Veers in The New Essential Guide to Characters – and rather than submit to such
humiliation, the Lord Tagge took to wearing specially designed “cyber-vision” goggles, which restored his vision and gave him the added benefit of
clear vision in low-light environments.
The Lord Tagge remained a leading industrial and political figure well into the Imperial era, and at some point had his sister cloistered with the Order
of the Sacred Circle on Monastery, in order to preserve her purity and innocence, as revealed in “Red Queen Rising!” According to the Han Solo and
the Corporate Sector Sourcebook, the Lord Tagge was the informal leader of the so-called Galactic Corporate Policy League, a policy consortium of
some of the largest of the galaxy’s megacorporations with secret ties to Palpatine of Naboo and his New Order policies that dated back to his time
representing Naboo and Chommell Sector in the Galactic Senate (ca 27 BrS - 3 rS); when the GCPL began analyzing the revenues of the existing
Corporate Sector, it was he that suggested the complete reconstitution of the Sector (and its expansion to 30,000 star systems) and the incorporation
of the Corporate Sector Authority to act as “sole owner, employer, government and military of the region.” With that end in mind, he invited “all the
existing Corporate Sector companies, as well as members of the League, to a week-long closed door conference on the banking world of Aargau,”
where “in the splendor of the famed Dragonbird Gardens of Aargau, from dawn to late at night, they haggled and wrangled and debated,” emerging
with a finalized draft charter, which refined the Lord Tagge’s ideas into a “limited free market fief,” a “special non-interference region, separate and
autonomous from the surrounding Empire.” The Lord Tagge’s status as a rising star at court is only accentuated by the fact that the Galactic
Emperor himself had taken a personal interest in the Tagge Plan (in fact, he had sent “his Vizier” to suggest the idea of the Corporate Sector as a
client state), and granted the Imperial Assent to the Corporate Sector Charter on the spot, in front of a full court assembly.
As chairman of the vast TaggeCo. economic empire (and the dominant partner in the CSA), the Lord Tagge stood at the very pinnacle of the galaxy’s
business sector, perhaps rivaled in particular areas of business by such single-market industrialists as Kuat of Kuat, the chief executive officer of
Kuat Drive Yards; but even though KDY could boast of most of the Imperial State’s warship contracts, it could not compare to the enormity and
diversity of TaggeCo.’s holdings, which had hundreds of subsidiaries in nearly every segment of the galactic economy. Though he may have had
peers in individual sectors of the economy, he had none when it came to the economy as a whole; only a captain of industry of the first rank could
claim to be his peer, and even then only in a given market. As the Lord Tagge himself remarked in “Evasive Action: End Game,” TaggeCo. was
“ubiquitous... from the food beings eat, to the vehicles they drive.” It was not for no reason that Imperial Governor Corwyth of Metalorn called the
Lord Tagge head of “the galaxy’s most renowned industrial concern” in “A Princess Alone!” Nor had he forgotten his nemesis the Dark Lord of th
eSith; as mentioned several times throughout his appearances, the Lord Tagge trained constantly with the lightsaber in preparation for a rematch with
Vader, honing his skills to the point that the Baron was able to deflect blasterfire from training remotes, much like Luke Skywalker learned to do by
using the Force in A New Hope. Given the level of speed and coordination required for such a feat, the Lord Tagge was clearly one of the finest
swordsmen in the galaxy.
At some point during his tenure as chairman of TaggeCo., the Lord Tagge was given the opportunity to revitalize one of his first projects, the
defunct L8-L9 combat ’droid. According to The New Essential Guide to Droids, TaggeCo.’s subsidiary Tagge Industries was tasked to work with the
Lord Tagge’s acquaintance Lieutenant General Rom Mohc – a highly-decorated war hero, who boasted of three Medals of Valor and a Distinguished
Medal of Imperial Honor – , who had been recently appointed head of the Droid Trooper Project.
Tagge Industries took the old L8-L9 and produced a second-generation war ’droid, the Z-X3
experimental ’droid trooper – first seen in “Droid World!” – , manufacturing “less than one
hundred” Z-X3s for testing and evaluation. Post-Clone War prejudices resulted in the Project’s
termination, and the Z-X3 was shelved. For his part, Mohc took his experiences with Tagge
Industries to the Imperial Department of Military Research, where he produced the
third-generation Dark Trooper.
The Lord Tagge first appeared in “Siege at Yavin!”, in which he was introduced as a rival to
Darth Vader, the first such character in the Star Wars Expanded Universe (he predates the
introduction of the Prince Xizor of Falleen by 17 years). “Siege at Yavin!” explains that after
the Battle of Yavin in 35 rS, the Empire blockaded the entire Gordian Reach Sector, said by
used starship dealer Jorman Thoad to contain the Yavin, Krylon, and Torque systems as well
as “a jillion more”; rather than admit that the Death Star had been destroyed – Imperial losses
included Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Governor of Oversector Outer, his relative by marriage
Rear Admiral C. Antonio Motti, and the Lord Tagge’s younger brother, High General Cassio
Tagge – , the Empire simply used TaggeCo. to manufacture a cover story: Rumors were
circulated that TaggeCo. had discovered “a big spice strike” on one of the planets in the
Gordian Reach, and the Lord Tagge used his Imperial connections to arrange for the Empire
to blockade the entire Sector (the Lord Tagge’s youngest brother, Major General Ulric Tagge,
was the commander of the blockade). For three consecutive days, the rebels’ Massassi Base
was subjected to TIE fighter raids, but neither reconnaissance patrols nor long-range sensors
was able to detect any suitable launch platform (during a briefing by Lieutenant General Jan
Dodonna, a pilot remarks that “to constantly throw so many TIE fighters at us, it has to be
one of those big Imperial battle cruisers,” but one of the “scanner jockeys” immediately
objected that “tracking equipment would have detected anything in the Star Destroyer class
long ago”). Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds explains that Dr. Silas Tagge – the Lord Tagge
calls his brother Silas “chief scientist of all the Tagge industries” in “Thunder in the Stars!” –
had designed a Star Destroyer-sized turbine called Achtnak Station that was able to generate
large windswept corridors through a gas giant’s troposphere, allowing the launch of regular
fighter raids from a base hidden within the planet and denying the rebels the opportunity to
retaliate; although the Imperial Navy rejected the design, the Lord Tagge financed it himself,
investing “millions of credits” in the station’s construction. In “Siege at Yavin!”, the Lord Tagge
personally boarded a “House of Tagge mining explorer” on the trading world of Centares –
“outer-most of the Mid-Systems trading worlds” and “last civilized stop for those doing
business in the galactic backwaters” – and oversaw the transport of reinforcement TIE fighters to Achtnak Station; when he was informed that his
explorer had been followed past the blockade and into the Yavin system by a small ship trailing his explorer very closely – the ship was occupied by
the former Imperial Senator the Princess Leia of Alderaan and Luke Skywalker – , he promptly ordered the release of a cluster of magnetically
charged heavy duty mines in an effort to destroy the ship, but Skywalker’s Force-inspired piloting allowed him to escape destruction in the mine
field, and the ship was intercepted by a patrol of TIE fighters, rescued only by the fortuitous arrival of a rebel reconnaissance patrol of T-65 X-
wings in “Doom Mission!” Skywalker was able to salvage a signal device from one of the destroyed enemy fighters and was sent in a captured TIE
fighter to enter Yavin and attack Achtnak Station with his TIE fighter’s cargo of “enough proton charges to destroy a city.” Despite its size, Achtnak
Station was relatively undefended, and easy prey to Skywalker’s proton charges; the Lord Tagge’s mining explorer barely cast off in time, and
surreptitiously followed Skywalker’s TIE fighter out of the gas giant (Skywalker found his way out of the planet’s troposphere by relying on his
Force-enhanced intuition).
With the failure of his scheme with the Achtnak Station, the Lord Tagge found himself faced with the Galactic Emperor’s displeasure, and as
punishment he was made to personally inspect the House of Tagge’s various ongoing operations on the Imperial State’s behalf (as he himself put it
to Governor Corwyth of Metalorn in “A Princess Alone!”, “The failure of one Tagge project against the rebel Alliance left the Emperor doubting all
of them. To reassure him... I’m forced to personally check each one.”) To that end, he traveled to Metalorn – “just one in hundreds of Imperial
factory planets” – to inspect the Tagge Weapons Detection System, capable of monitoring all weapons and explosives on the planet; the system
worked perfectly, and notified the planetary control center immediately when a stormtrooper’s rifle was seized by an unauthorized person (rebel
organizer the Princess Leia of Alderaan) via “pulse beat sensors.” While Corwyth’s men chased futilely after the rifle that the Weapons Detection
System could track anywhere on the planet, the Lord Tagge took a “voice print” from the “recording unit” of a stormtrooper whom the Princess had
shot; he checked the voice print against the Known Enemies file, and then cross-referenced her identity with any citizen of Metalorn that might have
had a prior connection to her, thus leading him to a cafeteria where he interrupted the Princess Leia’s brief reunion with Arn Horada, a former
professor of galactic history who had given the Princess private lessons years before on Alderaan. When he attempted to capture her himself, he was
foiled when she unexpectedly threw her food tray at him, blinding him by getting food paste clogged in his cyber-vision; before he could recover, she
shackled him to a table. Although this proved only a temporary inconvenience – the Lord Tagge’s lightsaber made short work of the energy shackles
she’d fastened about his ankle – it was long enough for her to make her escape. The Lord Tagge advised Corwyth that the entire incident was best
left unreported, and the entire matter was quietly buried.
Fresh from that encounter, the Lord Tagge began preparations for what would prove to be his final plot. According to “Return to Tatooine!”,
TaggeCo. bought up a large number of moisture farms in the vicinity of the Dune Sea and Jundland Wastes on Tatooine, including the former Lars
and Darklighter homesteads, and set up a base in the desert, using the area to test Dr. Tagge’s latest invention, the Omega Frost, a device that could
instantly flash-freeze any object containing even the slightest amount of moisture (the freezing effect was so rapid and violent that it would cause
metal to shatter); the Lord Tagge himself remarked to his younger brother that “there were several arid planets that fit your conditions... but a name
in the Imperial Census records drew me to this one. Luke Skywalker.” The experiment was a complete success, and although Skywalker did discover
the Omega Frost, he escaped capture (the Lord Tagge had become obsessed with revenge on Skywalker for his humiliation at Yavin). In “Saber
Clash!”, the two elder surviving Tagge brothers rendezvoused with the younger, Major General Ulric Tagge, in space above Junction, the port that
served as Massassi Base’s “chief source of supplies,” and transferred “module packs” containing the Omega Frost equipment to General Tagge’s
battle cruiser and Imperial Star Destroyer. Having familiarized himself with Skywalker’s face from official records, the Lord Tagge spotted
Skywalker sneaking into the manual cargo transfer, and dispatched stormtroopers to capture him – but not before he sent out a warning that the
Empire was planning on using the Omega Frost to flash-freeze Junction itself (in reality, the mining explorer installed the Omega Frost conductors in
the asteroid corridor that the rebel Alliance usually used to run the Imperial blockade and pick up supplies at Junction, so as to intercept the relief
expedition that the Alliance would no doubt send to prevent Junction’s destruction). He allowed Skywalker to escape and run loose aboard the
mining explorer, saying that “lightsaber opponents are difficult to find in this age of blasters” and that he hoped to use Skwyalker for “valuable
practical experience,” so that “when the day comes that I challenge Darth Vader with the very same weapon he used to blind me, it will be most
useful to know that my killing techniques work,” having tested them on Skywalker.
The two met again in the docking bay, where Skywalker hoped to steal a TIE fighter and warn the Alliance of the ambush. The Lord Tagge’s superior
training gave him the edge over his preternaturally gifted but technically deficient opponent; he said to Skywalker, “Your reflexes are excellent... You
show some skill... But your technique is primitive. Almost nonexistent. A talented amateur... with the benefit of only a few lessons.” Having easily
overcome Skywalker’s technically inferior swordsmanship, the Lord Tagge taunted him, telling him to draw his lightsaber again so that he could end
their duel swiftly, as “even for vengeance... there’s no sport in tormenting a novice.” Once Skywalker submerged his conscious self into the Force,
however, Skywalker easily parried the Lord Tagge’s intended lunge, and only “reactions owned in countless hours of practice and training” saved the
Baron from death from Skywalker’s riposte. When Skywalker parried his every “attack and counterattack pattern,” it became increasingly clear to
the Lord Tagge – as noted, an experienced and very skilled swordsman – that, like Darth Vader, Skywalker had “a touch of the wizard,” prompting
him to use “the final strategy I was saving to dispatch the Dark Lord himself!”, and destroyed the docking bay’s lights, effectively blinding
Skywalker but not himself, thanks to his cyber-vision. Much to his surprise and dismay, however, Skywalker was able to fight in the dark, expertly
slicing the Baron’s cyber-vision in half, without so much as scratching his face beneath the goggles and then escaping in a TIE fighter (unbeknownst
to either Skywalker or the Lord Tagge, the TIE fighter had been modified at Dr. Tagge’s orders, leaving it with “no armament, no communications...
and just enough fuel to carry him to disaster”). The experience shook the Lord Tagge to his core, and he lapsed into a state of shock. He was still
being treated – in fact he had been drugged at Dr. Tagge’s orders, so as to prevent him from recovering in time to take charge of the operation and
prevent Silas from reaping the laurels of victory for himself – when a group of nine rebel “war wagons” attacked the mining explorer in “Thunder in
the Stars!”, destroying it.
The Lord Tagge was legally considered to have been killed in the explosion, and the barony – and with it, headship of the House and chairmanship of
the Company – passed on to the sole remaining brother, General Tagge. The truth, however, was that neither the Lord Tagge nor Dr. Tagge had
actually been killed; as Darth Vader explained to General Tagge in “Dark Lord’s Gambit,” “Evidently their compartment suffered no damage... the
emergency seals kept it airtight. Still, they had nearly suffocated when my spies investigated the wreckage and found them... but, in time, these
machines can restore their life functions to normal.” The youngest Tagge brother showed “a certain lack of enthusiasm” at this idea, as it would mean
that he would lose his barony and all the privileges that came with it; he acquiesced to Vader’s blackmail, and both the elder brothers were left to
remain indefinitely in suspended animation aboard Vader’s battle cruiser (part of a plot by the Dark Lord of the Sith to use the Tagges’ sister, Sister
Domina, a priestess of the Order of the Sacred Circle, to entrap Skywalker). The Lord Tagge somehow recovered from his condition and escaped,
stowing away aboard the impounded freighter Millennium Falcon and forcing his way at gunpoint to the surface of Monastery in “Red Queen
Rising!” In “In Mortal Combat!”, he made his way into the planet’s Crystal Valley, where Domina – chosen as All-High Priestess in “Red Queen
Rising!” – had ordered Vader and Skywalker to duel in order to determine the allegiance of the Order of the Sacred Circle. The Lord Tagge was nearly
crushed by a crystal stalagmite, but Vader saved him, holding him at bay with the crystal’s huge bulk, and forcing him to watch a visi-cube revealing
his sister’s deviousness (at the same time, Vader admitted that he had engineered the entire sequence of events in order to take vengeance on the Lord
Tagge for his constant interference and to finally put an end to their long rivalry; he had opted not to simply kill the Baron because he called that “an
unimaginative vengeance,” the Lord Tagge having “troubled me enough to deserve better”). The Sith Lord forced the Lord Tagge to take his place and
duel Skywalker again, albeit under a Force illusion that made Skywalker think he was fighting Vader himself; the duel ended when Skywalker ran his
the Lord Tagge through (shiak in High Galactic), killing him with a lunge through the heart.
Note that “Fight Saber: Jedi Lightsaber Combat” wrongly claims that the Lord Tagge was blinded in a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader afer the Battle
of Yavin. This claim was already disproven by the simple fact that he was already blind in his first appearance immediately after the battle in “Siege
at Yavin!” The further evidence of “Evasive Action: End Game” conclusively demonstrates the falsity of the claim; he was blinded in 16 rS, nineteen
years before the Battle of Yavin (i.e., 19 BBY, reckoned according to the Neo-Republican calendar).
References:
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| This site is for informational and entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement of any kind is intended. Star Wars and related materials are © Lucasfilm Ltd., which reserves all rights thereto. All original material is © Julius Sykes. Please do not use without permission. |
| This biography was originally added in 2005. It was republished on 6 October 2007. The illustration was added on 13 October 2007; it is a pencil drawing colored in Adobe Photoshop. |
| Baron Tagge, as seen in 35 rS (“A Princess Alone!”) |