Trachta was a Human male Imperial Grand Moff over the Imperial Center Oversector who unsuccessfully masterminded the Anti-Sith conspiracy and attempted to kill Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader during the Galactic Civil War.
Trachta appeared to be a Human male, but was encased with cybernetic implants after being horribly maimed by a thermal detonator during the Clone Wars at the hand of a Jedi Padawan defecting to the Confederacy of Independent Systems. His most distinctive feature was a triangular breath mask that fed into the mechanical lungs required to keep him alive and obscured his pale face. In addition to his cybernetic respiratory system, Trachta's organic eyes were replaced with ocular cameras, and a third ocular camera was installed in the back of his head, allowing him to see behind him.
Trachta first met Senator Palpatine during the last years of the Republic. He was impressed by a lecture given at the Republic University and offered his services to Palpatine if ever they were needed. Palpatine forwarded Trachta's records to the Republic Military Academy, where Trachta became an instructor in tactics and intelligence.
Trachta during the Clone Wars
In the first days of the Clone Wars, Agent Trachta coordinated the transfer of Tark Squad from Kamino to the Golandras in the Marat system. This squad was actually a team of clones from the Dark Worlds, the Empire of Zeta Magnus. Designed to infiltrate the Grand Army of the Republic, the clones were eventually destroyed by Jedi Halagad Ventor during the Battle of Skye. Serving as liaison between the Jedi High Council and Armand Isard at the Senate Bureau of Intelligence, Trachta was personally assigned by Chancellor Palpatine to investigate and capture Jedi leaving the Republic for the side of Count Dooku. On one mission to the planet of Noctralis, they tracked a Padawan who had joined Dooku. Trachta and a team of clone troopers surrounded the Padawan, but he armed a thermal detonator and used the Force to throw it at Trachta and his men. The clones were incinerated, as were Trachta's arms and eyes. He was brought back to Coruscant, where his arms and eyes were replaced with cybernetics, as well as his damaged respiratory system. Trachta resumed his service by the end of the Clone Wars.
Trachta, as a loyal servant of Palpatine, became one of the first Moffs in the Galactic Empire, where he ruled over the Imperial Center Oversector. He served as the commander of the 1st Sector Army during the Clone Wars. Trachta held an intense rivalry with the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Military and Sith Lord Darth Vader.
Shortly after the creation of the New Order, Trachta was forced to work alongside Darth Vader and Lieutenant Laurita Tohm. Palpatine was severely injured from a terrorist attack shortly after the graduation of various Imperial cadets, organized by Headmaster Gentis as part of a military coup against the Emperor. Like Vader, Trachta survived the airborne viral attack because of his breathing apparatus. When Vader and Tohm encountered him near the weakened Emperor, they immediately accused him of being involved in the coup, but Trachta vehemently denied any involvement. The trio sought a refuge for the Emperor where no one could find him, and Vader realized that only one such place existed—the secret Jedi prison known as the Prism. While Vader and Tohm went to the Jedi Temple to find the location of the Prism, Trachta remained with the Emperor in a secret shuttle hangar, and fought off a medical droid re-programmed to kill Imperial officers.
On the journey to the Diab system, Trachta recounted the origin of his injuries to Tohm, and in return, learned how the young lieutenant had been disfigured. After landing at the Prism, Trachta and Tohm destroyed the droid guards while Vader slew the lone Jedi warden. After reviewing the prison records with Vader and Tohm, Trachta discovered that the rogue Jedi who had caused his injuries was imprisoned within the facility. Trachta and Tohm found the fallen Jedi's cell within the prison and Trachta told Tohm to seal the cell behind him, as he would not be leaving for many hours. He then began to savagely beat the Jedi with his cybernetic fists, exacting bloody revenge.
Vader amended Tohm's idea, and rather than simply releasing the prisoners, he forced 207 of them to fight one another, as well as Tohm and himself, for the right to serve the Empire. The battle was vicious and wild, with casualties mounting quickly. In the end, only thirty-three prisoners survived in fighting condition, and Vader ordered Trachta to tell the survivors what it meant to serve the Empire. He told the survivors that their crimes were now forgotten, but their reasons for committing them were not—they would now serve an institution not beholden to the "selfish" senators of the Republic, nor the Jedi Order. The prisoners knelt before Trachta and the others, becoming Imperials through their submission. He then told them that their training was to begin that night.
Afterward, Tohm entered a room where Trachta was undergoing a diagnosis from a medical droid, carrying a bloodied length of pipe. As Tohm vomited, disgusted by the act he had committed, Trachta recognized that the young man had done a task for Vader—beating a wounded prisoner to death. Trachta then urged Tohm to consider following him instead of Vader, claiming that the Sith Lord only knew how to make followers, whereas Trachta could train Tohm to be a leader.
Tohm realized they could use Shonn Volta, one of the prisoners and a hyperspace expert, to find Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin while he changed hyperspace lanes at the nexus of several trade routes. Successfully finding and hailing his vessel, the Imperials and freed prisoners secreted themselves within Tarkin's shuttle.
When the shuttle landed and Gentis attempted to take the Grand Moff prisoner, Trachta, Vader, and the others attacked. Though Gentis's forces outnumbered the attackers by eight to one, there was no accounting for the disparate skills Vader's group brought to the fight. Trachta's onboard targeting computer allowed him to use two blasters, while Vader used the Force to slaughter dozens of cadets and Volta used her sniper skills to kill a detonations expert, igniting his grenades and further decimating Gentis's forces. Soon, Gentis's own son, Caul, was killed by Tohm, and Gentis stopped fighting, cradling his fallen son in his arms. The Emperor himself, recovered from his ailments, attacked and killed Gentis with Force lightning, leaving him a charred husk.
In the aftermath of the battle, the Emperor rewarded Trachta for saving his life by promoting him to Grand Moff as well as Headmaster of the Imperial Academies. Unbeknownst to him, the surviving ex-prisoners, who were celebrating their victory and impending reward with the Imperials that they had fought beside, were at that moment trying to determine their fates. Trachta believed that they owed the prisoners a debt of gratitude, and that they should honor their promises to them. Vader thought that they should all be executed, to prevent them from becoming enemies in the future. Tohm created a third option, and the prisoners were told they would be set free but they had to exile themselves to the Corporate Sector. Before they left, they were met by Trachta, Tohm, and Vader, and the details of their release were once more gone over. Nax Cirvan agreed to all of the parts of the deal, and Trachta wished him luck.
As the ship ascended over the Coruscant cityscape, it detonated, killing Cirvan and all those aboard. Tohm and Vader had betrayed the agreement, as well as Trachta, who was horrified by the dishonorable massacre. He railed against Tohm and Vader for their duplicity, but both men were unapologetic. Trachta, disgusted, left Tohm to Vader's care, no longer willing to try to take the young man under his own wing. Tohm's betrayal of Trachta's trust would be his undoing—after the Emperor promoted Tohm to the rank of Admiral, Vader murdered him, not willing to suffer a future rival.
In 11 BBY, several years after the birth of the Galactic Empire, Trachta became increasingly more power hungry, craving to overthrow the Order of the Sith Lords and take control of the Imperial state. Just as Gentis had done before him, he concentrated his life on the upcoming coup, preparing to assassinate the Sith and rule the Empire. Trachta was not the only member of the conspiracy, but he recruited the other conspirators as well, including Grand Moff Bartam, General Skosef, Second Officer Dezsetes and the assassin Gauer. He saw both the Jedi and the Sith as foolish, declaring that the Empire could not be ruled by a clique of two Force-sensitive men. Trachta convinced his accomplices that the Empire was doomed unless the conspirators would overthrow the theocratic Sith and install a secular leadership. The pivotal element in Trachta's plot was a detachment of a one hundred clone stormtroopers, programmed to be loyal to the conspirators and trained by an army officer named Carsan.
Grand Moff Trachta
In 1 BBY, Trachta accompanied Darth Vader and Moff Kadir, commander of the Coruscant Security Force, to test the blaster accuracy of the stormtroopers. Vader ordered the stormtroopers to be transferred to Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin's ship, but Kadir objected to the Dark Lord's orders, because the stormtroopers were assigned to the Coruscant City Guard. However, Kadir finally had to obey Vader unless he wanted to be executed like his predecessor in the Coruscant Security Force. Sensing Kadir's hatred of the Sith, Trachta recruited the Moff to the conspiracy. Then, Trachta visited in the Imperial Palace and met Emperor Palpatine, who informed Trachta of his plans to dissolve the Imperial Senate. Afterwards, Trachta met Carsan and the clone stormtroopers. Trachta ordered Carsan to be placed under arrest to prove the stormtroopers' loyalty to him. When Carsan panicked and tried to resist the arrest, he was shot down by the stormtroopers.
In the meeting with the conspirators, Trachta introduced Moff Kadir and announced the Emperor's scheme on rendering the Senate irrelevant. Using the fact that Vader was sent to Dargulli to slay a lightsaber-wielding Force-sensitive, Trachta planned to storm the Imperial Palace with the clone stormtroopers and eliminate the Emperor during Vader's absence. Meanwhile, Dezsetes was assigned to eliminate Vader aboard the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Mathayus. However, Trachta became paranoid, suspecting Bartam for being disloyal and secretive. He asked Kadir to observe the Grand Moff, sowing the seeds of distrust and rivalry between the conspirators.
Trachta planned to assassinate Palpatine by destroying his personal Lambda-class shuttle, as the Emperor was going to visit the unfinished Death Star. Trachta's clone stormtroopers planted a bomb, hidden in a crate of bottles, on the shuttle, but Palpatine sensed the assassination attempt through the Force. Trachta accompanied the Emperor, realizing that Palpatine was too cautious and shrewd to spring the trap. The bomb exploded destroying the shuttle and killing several Royal Guardsmen and stormtroopers, but Palpatine himself survived unharmed.
Since the Emperor lost many of his loyal bodyguards in the assassination attempt, Trachta sent his own clone stormtroopers to replace the men killed in the explosion. However, the clone stormtroopers were to allow the conspirators to invade the Imperial Palace and eliminate the Emperor in his throne room. When Kadir introduced the stormtroopers to the Emperor, Trachta informed Skosef that he was implicated in the assassination attempt, affecting Skosef's role in the plan.
While Trachta planned to betray his co-conspirators, he was not oblivious to the reality that one of his allies might plan to betray him as well. Trachta's suspicions were confirmed when, while working in his personal quarters, an armed droid prepared to assassinate him from behind. Trachta's rear ocular camera allowed him to sense the attack, and he easily destroyed his would-be assassin.
The death of Grand Moff Trachta
However, as Trachta went to examine the destroyed droid, he overlooked Gauer, who was standing just outside his room. Out in the hallway, the Grand Moff was shot in the chest, with bolts of electricity bursting from his ocular implants. Gauer dragged the remains of the droid with him, leaving Trachta's corpse in his personal quarters. Gauer was sent by Bartam to remove Trachta, in response to the infighting between the leaders of the coup.
Meanwhile, Skosef, acting under Trachta's orders, assassinated Bartam and was killed by the Grand Moff's stormtrooper guard. With Trachta, Bartam and Skosef dead, Kadir became the leading figure of the conspiracy and attempted to eliminate the Emperor, but he and the clone stormtroopers were killed by Palpatine and his Royal Guard. Thus, Trachta never saw the conclusion of his failed coup.
While developing the story for Star Wars: Empire: Betrayal, writer Scott Allie originally intended Trachta to be the absolute leader of the plot to assassinate Vader and Palpatine. It was only later in the development process that he came up with the idea of the other conspirators becoming more independent and treacherous on their own.
Trachta's cyborg body
According to Abel G. Peña, the article Imperial Betrayal in The Official Star Wars Fact File 122 was supposed to imply that Trachta worked with genetics master Atha Prime, a character developed for the Kenner toy line in the 1980s, and that Prime was the one responsible for creating the clone stormtroopers under Trachta's command. However, the reference was removed from the released product.
On the cover of Empire 2, illustrated by Brian Horton, Trachta's breathing mask is more elongated than the triangular breathing mask seen in the comic.
In the scene where Gauer's armed droid is attempting to assassinate Trachta before it is shot itself, the reader can see what appears to be a symbol made out of the to-be-finished Death Star I on Trachta's door.
As part of the 2008 Legacy Collection, Hasbro released a Moff Trachta 3¾-inch figure in their Dark Horse Comic Pack wave. The figure was well articulated with a movable head, hinged shoulders, elbows and ankles; he also came with a hand blaster. The pack also contained another figure, that of Darth Vader, and a reprinted Star Wars: Empire comic book.
Although some details about his characteristic life support system and cybernetics were supplied, namely it being the result of being caught in a thermal detonator blast during the Clone Wars, the specific circumstances behind the injury were never revealed until issue 3 of the comic book arc Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison.