Malcor Brashin

Malcor Brashin was an unambitious Human male who lived during the reign of the Galactic Empire, entering a military academy as a very young man. Even though he lacked ambition and was not outstanding, Brashin impressed his superiors as a competent and intelligent officer. During one of Brashin's deployments, his wife and daughter were killed by Rodian thieves. This tragedy transformed him into a New Order zealot. Committed to destroying "unchecked anarchists and aliens," his new-found fervor for the Empire, combined with a string of victories, propelled his climb through the ranks of the Imperial Army until he reached its apex with the rank of Grand General.

Something of a technophile, Grand General Brashin oversaw the development of the Battlefield Holographic Control Interface, an advanced command-and-control interface that allowed an officer to command his troops on a planet's surface from the safety of an orbiting starship. Brashin employed a decorated training officer, Captain Beri Tulon, to recruit promising young candidates for training on the BHCI. During the Battle of Kalaan, Tulon discovered a young stormtrooper by the name of Brenn Tantor leading his squad after the death of his sergeant. Impressed by Tantor's leadership, Tulon issued him a battlefield promotion to lieutenant and ordered him to report to the Inquisitor, the Star Destroyer from which Brashin led his forces.

Once Tantor was aboard his Star Destroyer, Brashin observed Tulon leading Tantor through a series of training exercises on the planet Tatooine. During this time, Brashin interrupted Tantor's training and reassigned Tantor's squad to track down the escape pod that had been ejected from the starship Tantive IV, with the plans to the Empire's under-construction Death Star battlestation inside. When the plans were discovered to be missing from the pod, Brashin oversaw a series of operations designed to track down the droids that were carrying them. Despite the efforts of Tantor, the droids escaped Tatooine on the Millennium Falcon, a freighter owned by the smuggler, Han Solo, and its destination was determined to be either Alderaan or the Ruul system.

During the course of Tantor's training on Tatooine, Brashin came to be concerned by the attitudes and opinions displayed by Tulon. In his opinion, Tulon held to an outdated and subversive code of ethics that had no place in the New Order. When the Millennium Falcon left Tatooine, Brashin took Tantor and Tulon with him on the Inquisitor to the planet Ruul, while the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader departed for Alderaan aboard the Star Destroyer Devastator. Though the Millennium Falcon had in fact fled to Alderaan, Brashin's trip was rendered worthwhile when he discovered that Rebel forces had captured a computer facility on Ruul. Brashin observed approvingly as Tantor retook the computer complex and, with the aid of his brother Dellis Tantor, strung a series of data relay beacons from the facility to a working broadcast antenna.

Brashin took advantage of Tantor's excellent performance to promote him over Tulon's head. Now a commander, Tantor would report directly to Brashin. Due to Brashin's concern with Tulon's instilling of more traditional military values in Tantor, Brashin reassigned Tulon from the BHCI project entirely. Brashin could now exercise direct control over his promising pupil without worrying about Tulon's negative influence, making it clear to Tantor that he had lost confidence in Tulon and that the Captain's mistakes were not to be repeated. Reviewing the information that the Rebels had stored in the facility on Ruul, Brashin discovered that the Rebel Alliance had covertly taken control of several energy collectors on the planet Sarapin, a key source of geothermal energy. Brashin took the Inquisitor there and deployed his forces under the command of Tantor. Brashin and Tantor were able to retake the collectors with assistance from the technical skills of Brenn Tantor's brother, Dellis Tantor. In the course of the operation, Brenn Tantor, with the help of his brother, also managed to keep a drilling platform that had been captured by Rebels, from causing destructive groundquakes, after fighting through significant Alliance forces.

During the Sarapin operation, Brashin received the news that the Death Star had been destroyed over the moon Yavin 4, with the loss of nearly all personnel aboard. To fill the void, Brashin promoted Brenn to major and Dellis to colonel, the latter of whom he transferred to Imperial Intelligence, a branch of the military better suited to his talents. Brashin and Brenn Tantor rushed to Yavin 4 on a mission to crush the Rebel base there. Tantor was able to raze the base and rescue Colonel Maximilian Veers, who had crashed on the moon after escaping the Death Star's in a shuttle. Tantor's performance drew the eye of even higher powers than Brashin, leading to personal congratulations from Darth Vader. Over the course of the next three years, Tantor rose to the rank of general with Brashin continuing to serve as his superior, with their most notable engagement being the Battle of Hoth. During this battle, Tantor oversaw General Veers's assault on the Rebel Alliance's power generators. Tantor also supervised the landing of Darth Vader's attack force that was going to attack the Rebel base. Brashin and Tantor next moved on to the Forest Moon of Endor, where Brashin decided on three possible locations to become the site for the second Death Star's deflector shield generator. Brashin oversaw Tantor's exploration of the three sites and after that was complete he selected which of the sites was the most suitable. Even though the mission was completed successfully by Tantor, Brashin was angered by his reluctance to attack the native Ewoks who lived on Endor's moon.

Unbeknownst to Brashin, Tantor had gained knowledge of his superior's other acts. Prior to the Battle of Hoth, Brashin had become aware that Tantor had used his position within Imperial Intelligence to look up records on his father. Tantor had discovered that his father had been killed not by Rebels, as the brothers had been told, but by the Empire itself in order to make an example of him after he lost a grain shipment to pirates. Brashin reacted by sending Dellis on a mission to Ruul and arranging for his capture and imprisonment during its course. What Brashin did not know was that Dellis managed to pass the data and his suspicions to Brenn before embarking on what he believed to be a suicide mission.

This knowledge tortured Brenn. Despite his misgivings, Tantor successfully recaptured the Government Center and an Imperial base on Abridon and apprehended Rebel hero Luke Skywalker. Following the victory, Tantor prevented Beri Tulon, now under his command, from defecting. After the General destroyed the last Rebel base in the area, Brashin ordered him to destroy a nearby refugee camp in order to make a statement that anyone who tolerated the presence of Rebels would be destroyed. Brashin soon learned that, despite his removal, Tulon's teachings had remained with Tantor. Citing the mentor he had so recently captured, Tantor refused Brashin's order. Infuriated, Brashin locked him out of command frequencies and issued the order directly to Tantor's stormtroopers. In the aftermath, Brashin assigned Tulon to the Tarkin Detention Facility on Ruul and directed Tantor to report to the planet Kalaan, where he would be court-martialed. In the same message, he gave Tantor the news that Dellis had been killed.

Upon arrival at Kalaan, Tantor was imprisoned in an outdoor cell, where Brashin informed him that he would be tried, found guilty, and publicly executed in the morning. What Brashin did not know was that Tantor had contacted General Tyr Taskeen of the Rebel Alliance and arranged to defect. Brashin assigned Tantor's own troops to guard Brenn Tantor. However, the stormtroopers were loyal to Tantor and released him, taking with them Tantor's fellow captive, Luke Skywalker, and the Tracked Mobile Base, a prototype vehicle that contained a portable BHCI unit.

Brashin later encountered Tantor when the defector attempted to steal an All Terrain Armored Transport from the proving grounds of Trasse. Brashin appeared with his Star Destroyer, Inquisitor, in the middle of Tantor's operation. By doing this, Brashin trapped Tantor and Beri Tulon, whom Tantor had rescued from the Tarkin Detention Facility on Ruul, on the asteroid's surface. When Tantor and Brashin spoke to each other before the battle, Brashin expressed his disappointment in his one-time student, while denying a chance from Tantor to defect. A battle ensued, in which Tantor captured the planetary ion cannon, which Tulon used to disable the Inquisitor. Following the battle, Tantor escaped with the captured Imperial walker without further resistance from Brashin's disabled starship.

Although he failed to stop Tantor at Trasse, Brashin remained a prominent general within the Empire, even after the death of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader at the Battle of Endor. When the former Rebel Alliance, under the name of the New Republic, attacked the Imperial capital of Coruscant, Brashin commanded the defense of the capital world alongside General Tal Ashen, who oversaw the Imperial Palace. The New Republic sent Tantor against Brashin, who hammered through his defenses and, with the help of fellow New Republic general Rand Talor, captured the Imperial Palace, freeing Tantor's brother, Dellis Tantor.

Malcor Brashin began his career as a quietly competent and unassuming officer, with a predilection for advanced technology. However, that was radically changed when Rodian thieves murdered his family. Anger transformed Brashin into a fanatic supporter of the New Order and its doctrines. This fervor energized his career, driving him ever higher through the Army. It was this radicalism that caused him to reassign Beri Tulon when the Captain took moral positions that Brashin regarded as contrary to Imperial doctrine. Subsequently, Brashin also advocated extremely harsh actions against enemies of the Empire—a category he defined rather broadly.

Brashin treated Brenn Tantor kindly and took great pride in his accomplishments, though he remained somewhat distant. When leading Tantor before the young officer's insubordination, Brashin let him control the forces during many engagements, while he supervised Tantor's efforts by pointing out general objectives and relaying information. Even after Tantor's training ended, Brashin continued to merely supervise Tantor as the younger man took care of the tactics in his battles. However, when Tantor refused to follow his orders, Brashin's goodwill toward Tantor vanished. Brashin took Tantor's contrariness as a personal betrayal, and his kindness evaporated as he ordered his student's death.

Malcor Brashin made his first appearance in Star Wars: Force Commander, produced by and LucasArts and released on March 21, 2000. In the game, he was voiced by David Warner. In the 2001 video game Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, in standard game matches Brashin's name can appear as a leader for an AI Imperial Brashin was later briefly mentioned in The Official Star Wars Fact File 34, which was released on August 22, 2002. In the Fact File, his last name was mispelled "Brashen", and he was only mentioned as the one who identified three possible locations for the second Death Star's shield generator on the forest moon of Endor.

• Star Wars: Force Commander: Prima's Official Strategy Guide
• The Official Star Wars Fact File34
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia