Tikin

Tikin was a Quarren from Dac who lived during the time of the Second Imperial Civil War. He was the parent of Tilin and had a wife who died in the Genocide on Dac by the One Sith in 137 ABY. The Sith also poisoned the planet Dac's oceans with viral spores, which had killed all life on the planet within a week; Tikin and Tilin survived and escaped offworld. Following the defeat of the One Sith and the establishment of a new galactic government known as the Galactic Federation Triumvirate in 138 ABY, Tikin and his son, along with a large number of Quarren and Mon Calamari, were lured back to Dac with the promise of a renewed homeworld. However, this was actually a labor trafficking operation created by the rogue Sith Darth Luft and his pirate associates. When the Quarren and Mon Calamari refugees arrived, they were enslaved by the One Sith and forced to build a fleet of starships in the abandoned Mon Calamari Orbital Shipyards. Tikin's son, along with a large number of other Quarren and Mon Calamari dependents and elderly, were imprisoned by the pirates as hostages to ensure the cooperation of their relatives.

During his enslavement at the hands of Darth Luft, Tikin and the other beings were frequently beaten and abused by their captors. In 138 ABY, the Imperial Knight Jao Assam and the junk dealer Ania Solo stumbled on Darth Luft's slaving operation in the Mon Calamari Shipyards while on their quest to hunt down another rogue Sith Darth Wredd, who had launched an insurgency against the One Sith with the aim of creating a new Sith order based on the Rule of Two. Disguised as pirates, Assam and Solo cornered Tikin and a female Mon Calamari captive named Luen. Believing that they were going to be mistreated, Luen pulled a dagger despite Tikin's advice. However, Ania was able to defuse the confrontation by pointing out that Jao was an Imperial Knight and assuring Tikin and Luen that they were not here to harm them.

After resolving their misunderstanding, Luen and Tikin related the story of their enslavement to Jao and Ania. While Luen explained that they had been lured back to Dac under false pretenses of a renewed Dac, Tikin revealed that the pirates were holding their children and elderly hostage and expressed his fear of losing his son Tilin. Jao then used his Imperial communications droid to send an encrypted Imperial signal reporting the presence of the pirates and their slaving operation to Galactic Empress Marasiah Fel. Shortly later, they were discovered on the bridge by a group of armed pirates. However, Jao used his lightsaber to slice the bridge in half, throwing the pirates to the floor below. Tikin, Luen, and their liberators then fled through the assembly yards.

However, they were stopped dead in their tracks by the rogue Sith Darth Luft, who had them thrown down a trapdoor into an escape pod. The escape pod was then jettisoned into the poisoned oceans of Dac, where one drop was enough to kill a sentient being. The ocean was littered with the corpses of many dead sentient beings and animals. As their escape pod dived deeper into the poisoned depths of Dac's oceans, Luen commented that they had a slim chance of survival since their escape pod was only designed to withstand atmosphere pressures. In response to Luen's pessimism, a despondent Tikin told her to keep quiet. Jao's Imperial comm droid managed to reconfigure his antennae to transmit a distress signal to Ania's friends, the assassin droid AG-37 and the Mon Calamari engineer Sauk, who quickly traveled in their freighter to Dac. Ania attempted to take control of the escape pod's directional thrusters. However, Tikin revealed that the pirates had forced them to strip all propulsion systems from the pods for use in their new fleet.

Tikin and his companions were rescued by Sauk and AG-37 who plucked their escape pod from Dac's oceans. AG-37's freighter towed the escape pod into an abandoned section of the Mon Calamari Shipyards. Tikin met Ania's companions the assassin droid AG-37 and the Mon Calamari Sauk. When Luen commented that the shipyards where the Mon Calamari and Quarren slaves had been forced to work in were awful, Tikin added that the shipyards were a living hell, describing Luen as a "master of understatement." A disagreement quickly broke out between Jao Assam and Ania Solo over how to deal with the threat posed by the pirates and Darth Luft. While Jao wanted to take the fight to the rogue Sith immediately, Ania insisted that they depart and wait for reinforcements to arrive. Tikin refused to abandon his son Tilin to the depredations of the pirates and strongly objected to Jao's plan on the grounds that his son could get killed in the process. He explained that the pirates punished recalcitrant slaves by harming their family members. Worried about his son and unwilling to risk provoking Darth Luft, Tikin left his newly-found companions and returned to the shipyards.

Unable to resolve their differences, Ania and Jao Assam parted company. Ania and her companions including Sauk departed aboard AG-37's freighter while Jao traveled into the depths of the shipyard to confront Darth Luft. Meanwhile, Tikin managed to obtain an audience with Darth Luft at his office on a multi-level building in the shipyards. During his meeting with the Sith Lord, Tikin informed Darth Luft about the presence of the Imperial Knight Jao and explained that he had never been part of the conspiracy. He attempted to secure the release of his son Tilin in return for providing this information. However, Darth Luft callously used the Force to throw Tikin out of the window. Tikin plummeted several storeys to the ground floor and was killed by the impact. At that point, Darth Luft looked out the window and caught side of Jao Assam.

Unfortunately for Darth Luft, his callous murder of Tikin sparked a slave uprising among the Quarren and Mon Calamari slaves. Reinvigorated by the presence of the Imperial Knight Jao, the slaves attacked their captors. Jao was narrowly saved from being shot by a Weequay pirate by a friend of Tikin, who strangled the pirate and announced that Tikin was his friend. Jao concurred and rushed to fight Darth Luft, who had ordered his pirates to kill all of the slaves and their families. In the end, Darth Luft and the pirates were defeated by the arrival of a combined Galactic Alliance and Fel Empire task force. The Triumvirate forces flooded the shipyards with water, overwhelming the pirates and allowing the Quarren and Mon Calamari slaves to gain the upper hand over their captors. The surviving pirates were then apprehended by a force of seatroopers and Imperial Knights led by Jao's friend and mentor, Master Yalta Val. Following a protracted lightsaber duel, Darth Luft was killed by Jao Assam, bringing an end to the slave shipbuilding operation.

Fortunately for Tikin, his son Tilin survived the fighting which engulfed the Mon Calamari Shipyards. During the fighting, the pirates had exposed the family detention bays to zero gravity space in an attempt to kill their prisoners. However, Ania and her companions managed to close the doors, saving the lives of countless Quarren and Mon Calamari. Following the liberation of the Mon Calamari Shipyards, the newly-liberated Quarren and Mon Calamari slaves settled in the flooded chambers and hangar bays. Tilin was adopted by Tikin's one–time friend Aunt Luen as a gesture of honor to the late Tikin. Thus, the Mon Calamari Shipyards would become home to many Quarren, Mon Calamari and Whaladon refugees.

As with many Quarren and Mon Calamari, Tikin was a skilled shipbuilder. Having narrowly escaped death at the cost of losing his spouse during the Mon Calamari Genocide, Tikin was a fearful and anxious individual. As a captive and forced labourer of the rogue Sith Darth Luft, Tikin was concerned with the paternal urge to protect his son Tilin, the last known surviving member of his family. Thus, Tikin took every precaution to avoid antagonizing his Sith and pirate captors during his enslavement in the Mon Calamari Shipyards. Ultimately, his overriding concern for his son's well–being led him to spurn his rescuers and to report their presence to Darth Luft. However, Darth Luft viewed all his captives as expendable and murdered Tikin. Thus, Tikin's devotion to his son ultimately cost him his life. However, Tikin's death provided a sparked for a slave uprising which ended Darth Luft's criminal enterprise.

Tikin first appeared as a supporting character in Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman's Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2 comic series, which is part of the Star Wars Legacy universe. He first appeared in the second story arc Star Wars: Legacy: Outcasts of the Broken Ring, which ran from August 28 to December 18 2013. He was drawn by Brian Albert Thies, colored by Rachelle Rosenberg, and designed by Jimmy Presler.