Firmus Piett

A human male, Firmus Piett was born on Axxila, a planet located in the Outer Rim Territories of the galaxy. At some point, Piett joined the starfleet of Palpatine's Galactic Empire, and rose through the ranks. As a junior officer under the command of Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, he attended the planet Jelucan's introduction ceremony into the Galactic Empire, following its conquest eight years after the Clone Wars. Piett held command at the Battle of Comantira, where he held back the evacuation transport for four additional seconds past the planned launch, thereby granting late shuttles a chance to dock. The shuttle carrying Corleque arrived three seconds late to the evacuation point but was able to dock thanks to Piett's decision, earning Piett Corlque's respect.

By 3 ABY, Piett had been made a Flag Captain. He was stationed on the Executor, a Super Star Destroyer that acted as the flagship of Darth Vader, the right-hand man of Emperor Sheev Palpatine himself. The mission of Vader's personal fleet of Star Destroyers, the Death Squadron, was to search the galaxy for the Rebel Alliance's secret base. On the Executor, Piett was subordinate to Admiral Kendal Ozzel, whom he saw as a pompous and incompetent officer.

Like his fellows, Piett was tasked with collecting and analyzing data sent by Imperial probe droids looking for traces of the Rebels. While Piett and the rest of the fleet were stationed in the Juris sector, information came in from a probe exploring the Hoth system, Piett called out to Admiral Ozzel while Vader was present on the bridge. Ozzel initially dismissed Piett when he explained what the probe droid captured, but Vader overheard them talking and asked Piett what information he had. Piett showed Vader a picture of the Rebel base's shield generator, to which Vader recognized as a solid lead on the location of the Rebel headquarters, and he ordered the Death Squadron to set course for the icy world of Hoth, despite Ozzel attempting to change Vader's mind to no avail. After Vader walked away, Ozzel silently reprimanded Piett for embarrassing him.

However, Admiral Ozzel made a complete mess of the Death Squadron's approach to Hoth, taking the ships out of hyperspace too close to the system. As the Rebels were now aware of the Empire's presence, they were able to erect a defense shield over their base, preventing any orbital bombardment. Captain Piett stood at Ozzel's side when Darth Vader force choked the admiral. With Ozzel dead, the Emperor's right-hand man promoted Captain Piett to admiral at that moment. Piett's first action as an admiral of the Imperial Navy was to order the disposal of his predecessor's corpse.

Thanks to the intervention of General Veers' ground force, the Empire managed to get the upper hand on Hoth, forcing the Rebels to evacuate. Despite the orbital blockade imposed by the Death Squadron, many enemy ships managed to fall through the cracks under the cover fire from the Rebel's planetary ion cannon. Subsequently, Admiral Piett was ordered to track one of the fleeing ships, the Millennium Falcon. With that vessel and its crew of Han Solo, Leia Organa, C-3PO, and Chewbacca as bait, Vader was confident he could lure Luke Skywalker into a trap.

Under Piett's command, the Executor then engaged in the pursuit of the Millennium Falcon. One of the bridge crew that served under his command during the pursuit was Lieutenant Commander Ciena Ree. When it transpired that the Rebel craft was hiding in the Hoth system's asteroid field, the admiral was concerned that debris would cause significant damage to Death Squadron's vessels. Vader, however, ignored Piett's advice, ordering the fleet to enter the asteroid field. True to his words, the asteroid field brutally punished the Imperial fleet with repeated meteor impacts, destroying at least one Star Destroyer and causing significant damage. In a holographic conference with Vader and the commanders of the other Destroyers, one of whom was killed during the meeting when his Destroyer was obliterated, Captain Lorth Needa voiced his belief that the rebel ship must logically have been destroyed considering the damage they had taken, but Vader insisted that they were still alive and ordered him to keep searching. Shortly thereafter, Piett joined the conference after receiving word that Emperor Palpatine himself demanded to speak with his right hand man, informing Vader. On Vader's orders, he moved the Executor out of the asteroid field, in hopes of sending a clear transmission.

Admiral Piett spoke with Commodore Rae Sloane, who informed him of her own efforts to investigate the situation. Sloane's forces had uncovered a mynock that had been shot with a hand blaster, indicating the Rebels were still alive. Vader, who had been listening the whole time, berated Piett and ordered him to send for bounty hunters. Vader then gave Sloane command of the Vigilance, an Imperial II-class Star Destroyer originally intended for Piett's nephew. Sloane subsequently commandeered a shuttle from Piett.

To Piett's discreet distaste, Vader's bounty hunters later assembled on the Executors bridge, enlisting them in the search for the Millennium Falcon. However, after the Dark Lord spoke with the hunters, among them the legendary Boba Fett, Piett reported that the Falcon had been found, as they had received a priority signal from the Avenger. However, the Star Destroyer ultimately lost the craft, and Vader executed its captain, Lorth Needa, to account for the failure. Immediately afterwards, Piett reported that their scan was complete and there was no sign of the Falcon. Vader ordered for every possible hyperspace destination to be calculated, and threatened that Piett could not fail him again, but the Falcon truly had hidden on the conning tower of the Avenger. While the crew believed they could simply escape, disguised with the garbage dumped before the warship jumped away, they were followed by Fett. The Empire soon learned they had left to Bespin, and Vader launched a trap for Skywalker. To prevent a possible Rebel escape, Piett's forces deactivated the Millennium Falcons hyperdrive on Vader's orders.

While Captain Solo was imprisoned in carbonite and given to Fett, Skywalker, C-3PO, R2-D2, Organa, Chewbacca, and their new ally Lando Calrissian managed to escape Cloud City. However, Piett assured Vader that the Falcons hyperdrive was disabled. Vader ordered for a boarding party to be prepared, with their blasters set to stun. Once he believed it was right, Piett ordered for the tractor beam, but R2-D2 had learned the hyperdrive was disabled and reactivated it. The Rebel freighter escaped to lightspeed, causing clear surprise and fear in Piett. However, Vader, after taking a glance back to where the ship had been, simply walked away from the viewport and past Piett. Ultimately, Piett managed to escape the wrath of his superior, as he survived.

Directly afterwards, Piett was contacted by Grand Vizier Mas Amedda on behalf of the Emperor by hologram. After Piett confirmed that the Millennium Falcon had escaped, Amedda informed the admiral that the Emperor wanted Vader to immediately contact him. Piett took out his comlink to contact Vader to relay the Vizier's message only to have another officer turn his attention to the bridge viewport where he witnessed Vader's shuttle departing the Executor. Piett tried to hail the shuttle only to witness it jump into hyperspace. Amedda addressed the admiral, who cautiously stated that Vader was currently unavailable. In his throne room in the Imperial Palace on Coruscant, the Emperor started to laugh after hearing Piett's response while the hologram of the admiral looked on.

Piett was ordered to take the Executor to Jekara to oversee the transfer of the frozen carbonite block of Han Solo from the ongoing auction being run by Crimson Dawn. While there, the ship detected the arrival of a single X-wing. At first, Piett presumed it to be affiliated with the criminal syndicates gathered for the auction, voicing his displeasure and hope that Vader would order their extermination once he completed his business on Jekara. After hearing confirmation of the ship's design, Piett correctly presumed it to be affiliated with the Rebellion and thus ordered a fighter wing be deployed with the goal of pushing the X-wing into range of the Executor and its tractor beam, hopefully allowing them the chance to interrogate the pilot, although Piett did not discount the possibility of destroying the ship outright.

During the dogfight, several stray shots from the Imperial side managed to hit the Son-tuul Pride War Cruiser Dark Syndicate. This then gave the Dark Syndicate the pretext it needed to attack the Empire's ships, which in turn gave the Rebel pilot the chance it needed to temporarily escape. Piett then ordered the Executor to fire on the Dark Syndicate, which proceeded to annihilate the War Cruiser with one volley. Piett then remarked that he hoped the display would serve as a lesson to the criminal syndicates. Piett was then informed that Vader was giving the order to establish a direct line of communication between Vader and the Rebel pilot in the X-wing. Piett was taken aback by the order and was even further confused when he learned that Vader wanted the pilot taken alive. Piett then established the comm link as instructed. Piett then contacted Vader shortly after to inform him that the X-wing was fleeing. He then asked for further orders from Vader. Going over Vader's head, Piett contacted the Emperor to inform him of the Hutt attack. The Emperor ordered that Piett and the Executor hold back whilst Vader would eradicate the insurrection. The admiral then relayed the Emperor's message to the Dark Lord. Vader obeyed, breaking off pursuit of the pilot to execute the Hutt leadership.

Vader contacted Piett from Governor Tauntaza's flagship above Gabredor III, ordering the admiral to lock on to his position and, should he not countermand the order within two hours, destroy it. Vader later contacted Piett from the planet below, the admiral affirming he had followed orders and that the Executor was in position. Vader ordered Piett to lock on to his position and fire all of the Star Destroyer's ventral turbolasers immediately. Piett began to object, but Vader strangled him into compliance from the planet's surface. Piett, gasping for breath, ordered his men to comply. The Executor fired a direct hit, but failed to inflict any damage, prompting Piett to order the appropriate officer to fire again. Vader contacted Piett once more, who explained that Govenor Tauntaza's facility was shielded and its defenses seemed only to be getting stronger.

Adimral Piett contacted the assassin Ochi of Bestoon during a mission to Skako Minor to speak with Commander Sabé. Piett received a response from Dormé, who was masquerading as Sabé, who he informed that her presence had been requested by Darth Vader. Piett again contacted Ochi later during the same mission to inform Vader of a transmission from Skakoan revolutionary Jul Tambor, who had taken Sabé hostage. Upon Vader and Sabé's return to the Executor, Piett informed Vader that three of Tambor's gunships had been identified en route to facilities on the planet's surface, asking the Dark Lord for orders. Vader deferred command to Sabé, who sought to confirm the ships were Tambor's and inquired about the number of life-forms aboard. Piett questioned her about the latter point, indicating the gunships belonged to the enemy. Sabé then ordered Piett to prepare her shuttle, prompting the admiral to utter a response to the affirmative.

Vader later lost control of his Force abilities, tearing a hole in the Executor. Vader was sucked into space, and Sabé subsequently took a shuttle to find him. Piett contacted the Emperor via hologram, apprising him of the situation. The Emperor ordered Piett to find the pair, threatening to make the admiral disappear should he fail in his task.

Piett was aboard the Executor when a group of droids brought aboard for repair by Darth Vader fell victim to the Scourge, a malevolent entity targeting Darth Vader in an attempt to control the Force. The droids pushed the surviving crew back to the bridge and its adjoining sectors rather than kill them, intending to leave them with limited access to communications so they would call for help and attract Vader. While the crew would soon find they could not fully contact anyone beyond the ship, the Executors status was learned by the wider Empire, with Grand Vizier Mas Amedda sending Vader and the few droids with him on Mustafar to contain the Scourge. Once Vader crashed into the Executor to fight his way through infected battle droids, Piett was informed of Vader's boarding and the sudden ability to make contact with him by a bridge officer, allowing the admiral to warn Vader of the droid infection.

With Vader finally aboard, the corrupted droids began to break through the doors to the bridge with the intention to kill Piett and the other survivors. Amid the battle for the Executor, as more and more Imperials fell by the moment, an Imperial fleet of five Star Destroyers closed in pn the Executor in attack formation, which Piett took as a sign that the Empire would destroy the Executor so long as the droid infection remained. He contacted Vader to inform the Sith Lord and accepted Vader's declaration no one under his command would retreat. When Piett ordered the crew to brace for impact after telling them to divert all available power to the shields, however, he realized the outside fleet was refusing to fire: as he soon learned from a subordinate, the fleet outside was under the command of his former subordinate Corleque. While it had been many years since he had last been under Piett's command, the now-Admiral Corleque had never forgotten Piett's delayed retreat at the Battle of Comantira and decided to rescue Piett and the others before firing on the Executor.

Informed of two incoming rescue ships by one of his subordinates but unable to contact them, Piett ordered a team rush out to the hull and use an old flag code to warn their would-be-rescuers of the droids. Shortly after the hull team were wiped out by the infected droids, the Scourge would spread itself to the would-be-rescuers' KX-series security droids and massacre them. However, Vader and his own droids would manage to end the Scourge threat aboard the Executor themselves; repairing a command line, Vader's droids issued a fail-safe order that shut down all droids on the Executor, thereby saving the crew and allowing Piett to contact Corleque. As Vader departed aboard his TIE Advanced, Piett was informed that the Scourge had spread to Corleque's flagship and the crew had already lost their command-line. Piett gave Corleque the same four seconds he had delayed the Comantira retreat by; with the Scourge not contained in that time, Piett ordered the fleet to destroy Corleque's Star Destroyer to stop the Scourge from spreading again.

Later, Admiral Piett assembled a group of Imperial officers including the now-Commander Ciena Ree and her friend Nash Windrider for a patrol in the outer edge of the planet Hudalla's ring. In private, Piett told Commander Ree that there were rebel spies in the planetary ring. He tasked her with ensuring that at least one of the pilots escaped into hyperspace. During the dogfight, Ciena and Nash encountered their former fellow cadet Thane Kyrell, who had joined the Rebel Alliance's Corona Squadron. Since she still loved Thane, Ciena ensured that he and most of Corona Squadron escaped into hyperspace. Following the mission, the TIE fighter pilots were reprimanded for their failure to destroy all the rebel ships. However, Piett discreetly nodded at Ciena to thank her for following his orders. Ciena later learned that the dogfight was part of an Imperial plan to lure the rebels into a trap at Endor.

Piett eventually rose to the rank of Fleet Admiral and served in Imperial Navy High Command. Piett and the Executor arrived at Endor ahead of schedule, though the admiral was not commended by either Moff Jerjerrod or Darth Vader. Piett commanded the Imperial fleet in the Battle of Endor, where he received orders from the Emperor himself to retain the Executor and the Imperial fleet from directly engaging the rebel forces; Piett wryly cited to a fellow officer that he was told the Emperor had something special planned and that the ships only needed to prevent another Rebel retreat. The special plan was revealed to be the fully operational superlaser, which annihilated two Rebel cruisers in quick succession. However, Piett's orders backfired when the rebels, in a desperate gambit, moved their remaining fleet into direct combat with his own armada in the hopes that the Death Star would cease fire rather than risk friendly casualties.

Becoming nervous during the battle, Piett was spoken to by a hallucination of Ozzel, who then appeared on the bridge as if once again choking to death. Piett cried out, startling his officers before apologizing to Romodi and staring down at the forest moon. The admiral contemplated that he was waiting for the Empire's to win and was surprised by engagement by Rebel starfighters, whose maneuvers he considered suicidal. Confident in an inevitable Imperial victory and not wanting to be goaded into accidental friendly fire, Piett ordered the Executors batteries to hold. Considering whether Vader would have disapproved of the decision, Piett wanted to flee to his bunk but knew the Sith Lord would kill him for acting out of cowardice.

When General Han Solo and his force, who had managed to sneak under Piett's nose in a stolen Imperial shuttle, destroyed the shield generator protecting the second Death Star, the battle began to turn against the Empire. Rebel starfighters began to strafe the superstructure of the Executor, which had been personally targeted by Rebel admiral Gial Ackbar, a former personal slave to Firmus' deceased mentor, Governor Tarkin, and dealt a potentially mortal blow to the mighty ship when two A-wings destroyed the portside bridge-mounted deflector shield generator, disabling the Executors bridge shields. In response to the increasing threat, Piett ordered that all guns on the flagship "intensify forward firepower."

This was to be his final command, however, as moments later an RZ-1 A-wing interceptor piloted by Arvel Crynyd was struck by turbolaser fire and spun on a collision course with the bridge. Piett's subordinate, seeing it coming, screamed that it was too late. Piett whipped round, saw the fighter barreling straight for him and reflexively, but futilely, dived for cover as it crashed into the Executors bridge and exploded, killing Piett and the entire bridge crew and, moments later, causing the vessel to lose control and crash into the second Death Star. The admiral was almost relieved at the sight and, in his final moments, Piett settled on the conclusion that he had made the right choices in life.

As the Executor collided with the second Death Star, Admiral Garrick Versio expressed anger at Piett's incompetence before calling in Inferno Squad to deal with the rebels on the forest moon. Despite the Empire's efforts however, the loss of the Executor soon led to the second Death Star's destruction, killing the Emperor and forcing the Imperials into a temporary retreat.

An ambitious officer, Firmus Piett was known for his quick thinking in his ability to shift blame for his blunders. Piett had a habit to delay certain orders by an exact four seconds. If he did so for a retreat order, that gave those who were late a chance to reunite with their fellows in time, instead of leaving them behind. In cases of an order to destroy, it granted those in rage of the destruction a chance to solve whatever problem called for the order or a chance to escape. However, once those four seconds were up, he would carry out the order; when his fellow Battle of Comantira veteran Corleque was under siege by the Scourge, Piett only gave his Star Destroyer an additional four seconds to contain the droid infection before ordering its destruction.

Piett knew to speak with respect when talking about Vader, even advising Corleque to keep surprise out of his voice when he revealed Vader had survived the battle for the Executor. However, Vader himself would often be blunt with Piett, such as ordering him to not "run" during that battle or presuming the admiral thought he would repeat his mistakes. For Piett's part, he accepted Vader's orders in that battle and was ready to remain at his post. After the Executor was lost at Endor under Piett's captaincy, Admiral Garrick Versio judged him foolish.

Piett wore an Imperial officer's uniform complete with an Imperial kepi command cap. He also wielded a SE-14r light repeating blaster when he needed to defend himself.

Admiral Piett was played by Kenneth Colley in both 1980's Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back and 1983's Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. Piett is the only Imperial officer to survive more than one film and be portrayed by the same actor. As a result, Piett became a favorite character among fans due his unusual longevity over time. Though not originally intended to return in Return of the Jedi, fan mail supporting the return of the character convinced George Lucas to rehire Colley once more and write several new lines of dialogue for him.

Colley recalled that when he auditioned for the role, The Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner said to him, "'I'm looking for someone that would frighten Adolf Hitler!' And he sized me up and down and continued, 'Yes, I think you're it.'" In playing the role, Colley chose not to play a single attitude and instead attempted to evoke the humanity of Piett's character, as the actor believed that this made audiences react so strongly.

In Lawrence Kasdan's rough draft for Return of the Jedi, instead of being stationed over Endor, Piett was stationed at Had Abbadon, where two new Death Stars were being constructed. Piett accompanies Darth Vader to his communications chamber, where Grand Moff Tiaan Jerjerrod is present, disabling all surveillance devices. Later, when the Rebels are able to blow up a communications dish on Had Abbadon, Piett informs Vader that all communications have been disabled. He also tells Vader that a large Rebel force was incoming. Vader then directs Piett to take the fleet and defend the Death Stars under construction over the Green Moon. Vader also instructs Piett to send more troops down to the moon to reinforce the beleaguered General Veers, while Vader plans to take Luke Skywalker to see Emperor Palpatine. Despite this, Piett's death remained largely the same as in the final cut.