Arrax lived on the planet Andelm IV during the Age of the Empire. He was the husband of a woman who became the mother of their daughter Zarro. Arrax got into debt due to his sabacc gambling habit. Shortly before the Battle of Yavin, he took a loan from the local gangster Jaum, who had a reputation for enslaving his clients. To keep Arrax and his daughter trapped in debt, Jaum pegged their loan to Imperial Credits, which experienced a downturn as a result of the Battle of Yavin. When Arrax and his daughter were unable to repay their debt, Jaum forced them to work as slave miners in the Andelm beetle caverns.
Jaum used the larvae of the Andelm beetles to produce dedlanite, a substance used in the production of blasters. After several days of toiling in the mines, Arrax decided to smuggle his daughter Zarro out to save her life. Arrax convinced Zarro to hide in a crate of larvae. Before parting, he warned his daughter not to return home and never to come back to the mine. Later, his daughter Zarro befriended a Wookiee named Chewbacca, a member of the Rebel Alliance who had played a role in destroying the Galactic Empire's Death Star. Zarro managed to convince Chewie to free her father and the other enslaved miners.
Despite Arrax's warning, Zarro chose to return to the mine in order to free her father and the other miners. While Chewie searched for a functioning air vent, Zarro allowed herself to be recaptured by Jaum's henchmen, who took her back into the mine. While Arrax was disappointed in his daughter, he was mollified when she told him that she had come to rescue all the miners. Zarro planned to rendezvous with Chewie in a hollowed-out section of the mine but was captured by Jaum's henchmen. Jaum then summoned all of the miners including Arrax and Zarro for a special debriefing.
Arrax was relieved that Jaum was not going to hurt his daughter. However, this elation dissipated when Jaum informed them that he would be selling his entire work force to the Empire in order to buy droids for his dedlanite mining activities. When Arrax quickly realized that Jaum intended to sell them, another human miner tried to strike the gangster with his spade but was shot in the chest. Realizing that Jaum was going to kill his work force, Arrax and the other miners fled by reached a dead end. Before the gangster's henchmen could execute them, Chewie surprised them and knocked them out with his fists and bowcaster.
While Arrax distrusted the Wookiee, Zarro urged her father to trust her judgment for once. Arrax immediately told the miners to be prepared to fight their way out of the beetle caverns. Chewie gained Arrax's trust and respect after the Wookiee used an improvised rod to disable Jaum's wheeled battle droid. When Chewie dropped his bowcaster to dispatch another of Jaum's minions, Arrax picked up his bowcaster and handed it to him. Despite defeating Jaum's minions, the gangster's Shistavanen enforcer Tyvak tried to destroy the mine by blowing up several stocks of incendiary Andelm beetles.
This created an explosion that levelled much of the mine and trapped Arax and the other miners underground. Arrax was relieved that his daughter and Chewie survived the explosion and cave-in. After hugging her, he began to chastise Zarro for disobeying his orders not to return. However, Zarro urged them to devote their energies to finding a way out of the mine. Arrax and his companions' predicament was worsened when he realized that the explosion had disabled the power grid, allowing the Andelm beetles to return to the caverns. Father, daughter, and Chewie were pursued by a swarm of Andelm beetles but Chewie managed to slow down the horde by shooting down a metal girder, sending tons of earth crashing down on the insects.
However, Chewie's action destroyed the miners' only way out. Zarro and his daughter watched as the other miners debated how to escape the mine. When Chewie suggested climbing through a sinkhole, Arrax thought that a vertical climb was practically impossible. Zarro shared her father's sentiments and thought the sinkholes were too dangerous. Despite their skepticism, they and the other miners agreed to give Chewbacca a chance to try out his plan. With much difficulty, Chewie managed to climb out through a sinkhole that led to the roots of a dead tree. Using his strength, the Wookiee was able to create a pit wide enough for all the miners to climb out.
Arrax, Zarro, and the other miners climbed out using a rope. Arrax waited for the other miners to climb out before leaving the mine. When he advocated fleeing Andelm IV on the next ship, his daughter Zarro disagreed and argued that she did not want to become a refugee on a strange world. Zarro further added that failing to stop Jaum would lead to the destruction of Andelm's natural environment. While Zarro disliked the Empire, he refused to consider losing his daughter to the Rebellion. Zarro responded that she only wanted to keep the Empire out of Andelm IV.
When Arrax asked Zarro to help treat the wounded, she responded that he had enough help and that she was going to fight Zarro. While Arrax understood his daughter's sentiments, he told her that she was just a kid. Realizing her father's opposition to her plan, Zarro made up the lie that she was going to help Chewie fix his starfighter. Arrax reluctantly acquiesced to his daughter's request but warned her to stay away from the spaceport.
Despite Arrax's wishes, Zarro and Chewie embarked on a mission to stop Jaum. The two companions managed to sabotage Jaum's business deal with the Empire by planting a bomb inside a mothballed R5 repair droid called Boomer. After being captured by Imperial forces led by Commander Kai, Zarro managed to convince the Commander that Jaum was a fraudster and rebel spy. Zarro managed to back-up her story by detonating Boomer, creating an explosion that damaged Kai's Imperial Star Destroyer. As a result, Jaum was imprisoned and the Empire abandoned its plan to establish a dedlanite mining operation on Andelm IV.
After parting company with Chewie, Zarro commandeered Jaum's landspeeder and returned to their family home. Arrax was initially startled because there had been a rumor his daughter had been taken by the Empire. Zarro reassured her father that Jaum had been taken by the Empire and no longer posed a threat to them. Arrax was proud of his daughter's actions. When he asked about her friend Chewie, she told him that the Wookiee had left Andelm IV for a "special mission."
Arrax was a pragmatic, moderate individual who preferred finding peaceful resolutions to conflicts. He deeply loved his daughter Zarro but was sometimes frustrated with her stubborn, strong-willed streak. Prior to the Battle of Yavin, Arrax had a habit of gambling with Sabacc, a pastime that landed his family in debt to the gangster Jaum. Arrax's love for his daughter Zarro led him to try and protect her from slavery by smuggling her out of the mine. When Jaum recaptured Zarro, he pleaded with the crime boss not to hurt his daughter.
While Arrax disliked the Galactic Empire, he was unwilling to lose his daughter to the Rebellion. Though he understood his daughter's frustration with living under Jaum's oppression, he still regarded her as a child who should not be doing dangerous adult work. During his stint as a forced miner, Arrax developed some familiarity with harvesting the larvae of Andelm beetles, which were used in the manufacture of blasters.
Arrax first appeared as a secondary character in Gerry Duggan's 2015 Marvel comic story Star Wars: Chewbacca, which featured the titular character Chewbacca. He was illustrated by Phil Noto.
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