Atour Riten was a Human male commander and librarian who served in the Janissariad in the Balduran Civil War and the Imperial Navy in the Galactic Civil War.
Atour Riten was born at some point prior to 40 BBY. He served in the Janissariad during the Balduran Civil War, which left a distaste for government and politics in his mouth. After the war, he decided to become an archivist and apprenticed in the Baobab Archives on Manda. He later served as an archivist for the Dorismus Athenaeum on Corellia and the Holorepository on the wheelworld Arkam 13. Eventually, he began working for Library Galactica and stayed with them for 40 years. Throughout his years as a librarian, he traveled throughout the galaxy, having been to the spice mines of Kessel, the ruins of the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine, and the Bi-Boran Cluster, where he witnessed stars explode. At some point after 19 BBY, Riten ran the library at an Imperial military base on Danuta. While running this library, he began a habit of collecting sensitive information about officials that they did not want to be released and storing them in a 47 character password protected file.
As a result of his file collecting, in 0 BBY he was assigned the role of Chief librarian of the Galactic Empire's Battlestation, the Death Star, as a way to put him somewhere that would prevent him from releasing any secrets. He was given the rank of Commander in the Imperial Navy, though it did not mean much to him.
He arrived on the civilian transport vessel Nordieus to Hangar Bay 1271 onboard the under construction Death Star orbiting the planet Despayre and began working in the Death Star Library on Deck 106. While on the battlestation, he often found himself reading through the schematics to the Death Star. After about a month, Sector admiral Poteet gave Riten a P-RC-3 librarian droid to assist him. He nicknamed the droid after its model and reprogrammed it to be loyal to him, rather than the Empire, and to suffer a firmware breakdown if excessively questioned about anything that would put a bad light on Riten. At one point, he sent a partial set of the Death Star plans to Death Star architect Bevel Lemelisk on Danuta. Unbeknownst to Riten, these plans were stolen by Rebel Kyle Katarn.
Though Atour considered himself to be mainly non-political, not caring much between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance, after the Death Star's superlaser destroyed Despayre and Alderaan, he dedicated the rest of his life to defeating the Empire, ordering P-RC3 to scan the battlestation for weak points, despite knowing the droid would likely be questioned for it and have its firmware breakdown.
Not long after, the Millennium Falcon arrived in Docking Bay 327, having been caught in the battlestation's tractor beam while trying to travel to Alderaan, not knowing it had been destroyed. The passengers entered the docking bay's control room, killing the two Imperial officers inside and began accessing the computer to figure out how to turn off the tractor beam. This was picked up by P-RC3 who informed Riten. He watched them through a security camera as one of the passengers, Luke Skywalker convinced another, Han Solo to help rescue Rebel member Leia Organa, who was being held aboard the Death Star. Riten supplied the turbolifts to the Detention Block with the proper access codes to help them.
After, he went to the Hard Heart Cantina where he developed a plan to escape the Death Star. He overheard a group of individuals discussing the Empire's recent actions and approached them, revealing that he had access to several important codes and other controls that would allow them to leave the Death Star. Explaining his detailed plan, the group agreed.
Not long after, during the Battle of Yavin, when the Rebel Alliance attacked the Death Star, the group got their opportunity to escape. The initial plan was to use his P-RC3 to trick Bay Door Control into giving their escape shuttle clearance to leave the Death Star so that he would also escape with the group, however, P-RC3 was taken due to looking for the Death Star's weakpoints, and Riten was forced to take the droid's place. He successfully tricked the controllers of the landing bay doors to allow the shuttle to escape, even after he was notified by one of the group's members that the Death Star would likely be destroyed in the battle. At peace with the fact that he had helped them escape, Riten perished on the Death Star when the attacking Rebels caused it to explode.
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
- The Essential Reader's Companion