The Master Codebreaker was a human male codebreaker who had an association with the Pirate Queen Maz Kanata and a love for gambling.
Sometime after Supreme Leader Snoke's assumption of leadership within the First Order, Master Codebreaker stole the Smuggler's Guide from the Kanjiklub chief in the middle of negotiations for the domination of Rim territories, and wondered if Maz Kanata intended the book for him as another one of their tests of intellect. Before trying to uncover the enigma, Codebreaker visited the betting parlors of Hosnian Cardota, where he played with the arms dealers, steadily decreasing their money supply to their offense. Eventually, one of them tried to poison him, but the toxicity was nullified by -culture . He claimed to exit the parlor from the 350th-floor balcony using a . Master Codebreaker then returned to the enigma of the logbook and wrote an entry detailing this exploit in the Smuggler's Guide.
Following his experience in the Hosnian system, Codebreaker noticed that Maz's list of powerful crime syndicates was decades out of date and that she neglected to mention the galaxy's true powers. He then wrote in the Smuggler's Guide new list of powerful syndicates: Black Sun lost their place in the list; the Crymorah Syndicate was replaced by Droid Gotra; Crimson Dawn was replaced by Son-tuul Pride and the Guavian Death Gang; the Pykes and Hutts were replaced by Kanjiklub and the Red Key Raiders. He also added corporate entities that Maz neglected to mention: Sienar Fleet Systems, BlasTech, Kuat Drive Yards, Mining Guild, and Corporate Sector Authority.
Taking a break from ciphers to earn credits, though he also said he wouldn't be against , Master Codebreaker paid a visit to the Brentaal Trading Houses on Brentaal IV, one of the few worlds that still allow Codebreaker to play the games of odds which he recorded in the logbook.
After his sojourn on Brentaal and parts spinward, he continued trying to uncover the secrets of the logbook, and suggested that it could be bio-hexacrypted and that he only needed to determine the biological sample Maz selected for encryption to crack this. He was also reminded that regardless of which faction holds power, Galactic Republic or Galactic Empire, New Republic or First Order, business interests retain their grip on manufacturing. Eventually, Master Codebreaker managed to decode the meaning of the logbook, concluding that it is an elaborate cipher that Codebreaker claimed means "Happy ," wondering if it was an elaborate way by Maz to wish him New Year Fete. He recorded his attempts to decode the Smuggler's Guide in it.
Later, Master Codebreaker tried to send the Smuggler's Guide back on course to Takodana as a thank you to Maz, so he decided to place it in the Millennium Falcon. He managed to locate the YT-1300f light freighter, and sneak the logbook on board, thinking Han Solo wouldn't notice it. The book then ended up being discovered by Gannis Ducain.
The Master Codebreaker was sought by Rose Tico and Finn on a mission to stop the First Order's flagship, the Supremacy, from tracking the Resistance through hyperspace. They were sent to him by Kanata because they were desperate for someone of his talents. When they finally spotted him in the Canto Casino in Canto Bight, they attempted to run up to him, but were apprehended by the Canto Bight Police Department for illegally parking their starship on the beach. The Master Codebreaker's companion—a woman going by the name "Lovey" who hoped to take his title—asked him about the disturbance, and he responded that he thought it was of little consequence.
Master Codebreaker was only known by his title, and kept his original identity a secret. However, he once posted all of his personal information to a public node, encrypted by bio-hexacrypt, and anybody who uncovered the information was welcome to take his mantle. However, nobody was known to have retrieved the information.
Matching his levels of secrecy, the Codebreaker's companion kept her real name hidden from him, and he only referred to her as "Lovey". At the Canto Casino, Master Codebreaker was only allowed to play dice games, and he was forbidden from electronic entertainment. He regularly wore a brooch in the shape of a red flower, a plom bloom, pinned on his lapel, which Maz told Finn and Rose about as an identifying mark. On the day he was sought out by the pair, he was sporting a thin black mustache.
The Master Codebreaker is a character created by Rian Johnson for the 2017 film Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi. He was portrayed by Justin Theroux, who was cast one day before filming.
In earlier versions of the film's script, Finn and Rose met the Master Codebreaker inside a cabaret room of the Canto Casino. The Codebreaker enlists their help to steal jewels from an insectoid warlord known as the Butcher of Brix. The three climb onto the casino's rooftop intending to break into the warlord's room, but are spotted by a surveillance droid. The Codebreaker is abducted using a "taser beam" from a huge prison ship, and Finn and Rose are arrested by the Canto Bight Police Department. Jason Fry, the author of the film's novelization, originally wanted (along with Johnson) to include this alternate meeting between the Codebreaker, Finn and Rose to shake up the fans' expectations, but ultimately it was decided that presenting an alternate version of a major scene would shake up expectations too much, so the idea was dropped.
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