Valarian Syndicate

The Valarian Syndicate was formed on Tatooine by the Whiphid crime lord known as Lady Valarian. Her goal was to develop a powerful criminal empire throughout the Outer Rim Territories. However, due to Jabba the Hutt's grip in most illegal activities, she admitted she had to destroy first Jabba's criminal organization in order to achieve her objective. Thus, Lady Valarian was one of the few crime lords who openly defied the Hutt and she proclaimed herself as Jabba's chief rival on Tatooine. Beyond Jabba, the Valarians also had hostile relationships with the Black Sun. On the other hand, it was allied with Talon Karrde's smugglers.

The Valarian gang counted numerous henchmen, enforcers, thugs, thieves, scouts, assassins, smugglers, bookies, hackers and pirates. It also included various kinds of pilots such as swoopers, pod racers, and starfighter pilots. Valarian special operatives were provided with old-fashioned Republic blasters while Lady Valarian's most trusted agents were awarded ornate daggers. As Valarian was a female herself, she used to offer positions of responsibility in the Syndicate to women.

The Syndicate was based in the Lucky Despot cantina in Mos Eisley's but also owned many facilities throughout Tatooine, including a smuggling depot in the Jundland Wastes, a outpost near Jabba's Palace, a bunker for podracers in the Lowland Basin, a hacker bunker near Wayfar and a strategic command bunker in the Western Dune Sea. Valarians were also very active in the Tatoo system. Based in a region of space known as the Valarian Sun, Valarian pilots frequently patrolled several areas of the system such as the Desert Sands quadrant, the Rebel Ruins, the Dragon's Spine asteroid field, the Station-Star 1, the Pirate's Gold, Jabba's Star and the Dragon's Pearl. These pilots used to fly M12-L Kimogila heavy fighters as their primary starfighter but they also used Ixiyen-class fast attack crafts. Beyond the Tatoo system, Valarian pilots were also present in the Dantooine, Karthakk and Yavin systems.

After the Battle of Yavin, two women served as the main lieutenants of Lady Valarian: the Gran Ind and the Chiss Kavas Urdano. However, Urdano and Ind had a very conflicting relationship as both competed for getting Valarian's attention. Kavas Urdano was in charge of all Valarian's smuggling operations. As the war between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance progressed, relations between Valarian and Jabba deteriorated, and the two began continually assaulting each other's assets.

In 1 ABY, Kavas Urdano and Ind recruited a number of spacers to assist them in their operations against Jabba's organization. These adventurers fought a group of Jabba's enforcers came to eliminate Valarian operatives on the edge of Mos Eisley, they then rescued Lady Valarian's advocate Ysho from the Hutt's henchmen and later killed one of Jabba's thugs who harassed the patrons of the Lucky Despot. The spacers also assassinated the traitor Cie Vos. In another mission, they tracked one of Jabba's assassins who had failed in murdering Lady Valarian but had managed to steal most of the Valarian financial records. The spacers finally killed the assassin and returned to Urdano with the sensitive information before it was delivered to Jabba. Impressed with the spacers, Lady Valarian requested them to go work for Ind. The adventurers rescued a Valarian's compound guard who was carrying a rill casserole for Lady Valarian from a Jabba's henchman, they then killed the assassin Roden Venthrall before he could murder Valarian, they later prevented Jabba's enforcers to poison the water supplies of the Lucky Despot. Meanwhile, Ind was informed that a scientist specialized in beam weapons named Kaum had been recruited by Jabba the Hutt to produce new weapons for his organization. As the scientist did not know any of Jabba's men, one of the spacers picked him up upon his arrival in Mos Eisley before Jabba's thugs and escorted him back to Ind at the Lucky Despot. Unaware that he had been deceived, Doctor Kaum began to work for the Valarian Syndicate rather than for Jabba. Thereafter, Lady Valarian tasked Ind with stealing an expensive avian egg that had been ordered by Jabba himself to be cooked by his chef Porcellus. After the spacers succeeded in stealing the egg from Jabba's enforcers, Lady Valarian was so pleased that she requested Ind to have the spacers working personally for her. Valarian had discovered that a former agent of hers, Una Githori, was providing Jabba with secret information and requested a spacer to kill him. She also had the spacer kill one of Jabba's spice dealer, Soobu Javeedo, who was encroaching on her territory. A short time later, the Whiphid realized that Jabba's prime enforcer in Mos Eisley, Arrud Barsoomu, recruited local swoop gangs to attack the Valarians. She responded by having the spacers decimate the gang of the Desert Banshees and their leader Kilth Saanu, as well as Barsoomu himself. Later, the spacers also killed the Chadra-Fan assassin Duska Murgo and the Weequay criminal Siron Vurn'ke who were sent after Lady Valarian by Jabba.

After the Battle of Yavin, Valarian's and Jabba's pilots battled in space for the control of the Tatoo System. During the war, both factions clashed to secure Station-Star 1, the space station connecting the planet Tatooine to the space system. However, none of the faction succeeded in capturing the station that was eventually destroyed in battle. During that period of time, Shamdon Kree served as starfighter pilot trainer for the Valarians and commander of space operations. In 1 ABY, Lady Valarian developed a partnership with Talon Karrde, the leader of the Smugglers' Alliance. This allowed Shamdon Kree to employ Karrde's pilots in a series of missions to defend the interests of Lady Valarian's organization and against Jabba's assets throughout the galaxy. These missions included the destruction of Corsair starfighters in the Karthakk system, elimination of Black Sun aces in the Yavin system, escort of Valarian freighters against Hutt pirates in the Tatoo system, and destruction of an Imperial patrol in the Dantooine system. Secondary missions also included escort of transports in the Karthakk system, hijacking of Imperial transports in the Dantooine system and destruction of Black Sun fighters in the Yavin system. However, the successes of these pilots attracted the attention of Jabba who discovered the alliance between Karrde and Valarian. Rather than punishing Talon Karrde, Jabba the Hutt threatened the smuggler leader and forced him to provide the services of his skilled pilots to one of his lieutenant, Beissa, against the Valarians. The subsequent attacks severely crippled Valarian's operations outside the Tatooine system. Valarian pilots suffered heavy casualties in the Yavin system

The same year, in 1 ABY, Imperial Commander Barrezz and Rebel Captain Bastra dispatched agents to the Valarian smuggling depot near Bestine in order to search for an important cargo smuggled earlier from Tansarii Point Station. Around the same time, the depot was also visited by a Rebel spacer to retrieve an RX-8 modulator from the leg of an AT-AT for Droma Ordo. Meanwhile, Imperial Captain Jasha sent an operative to infiltrate the depot and plant a transmitter on a X-wing starfighter acquired by the Valarians in order to be sold to the Rebellion.

A short time later, Jabba's lieutenant Reelo Baruk hired a spacer to eliminate Valarian soldiers who were skulking around Jabba's Palace and other Valarians who were buying up gambling debts to Jabba. In the meantime, Jabba's cook, Porcellus, hired a spacer to steal several bottles of Corellian Merlot from Valarian pirates, who stole the shipment soon before. Barada, Jabba's chief mechanic, then investigated the Valarian Pod Racers Bunker because he suspected the Valarian podracer pilots to cheat. He eventually ordered the assassination of Doane Watki, the podracer champion of the Valarian gang. Meanwhile, Valarian hackers' bunker near Wayfar was attacked by Bib Fortuna's henchmen because a Sennex spy known as Romo Vax claimed they had stolen information belonging to Jabba. In response, Lady Valarian eventually assembled a team of off-world specialists in order to compete with Jabba's criminal empire and possibly assassinate the Hutt. It was made of the spice trading specialist Delrice Capreese, the weaponsmith Arkahn Greystar, the slicer Iris Tanada Sinclair, the warlord Careem, the tactician Fnast Drexler, and the assassin Emanon. However, the Hutt crime lord discovered the plot and assassinated Delrice Capreese and Lady Valarian's bodyguard, Tyrok. The other specialists were then killed during Jabba's henchmen assault on the Valarian Strategic Command Bunker.

Shortly thereafter, the Valarians stole a cargo of droid disciplinary devices from Jabba's supervisor droid EV-9D9. EV-9D9 thus sent a spacer to infiltrate the Valarian Depot to retrieve the stolen cargo. The spacer sliced a binary load lifter to load EV-9D9's cargo in a shuttle, and then killed the shuttle's pilot, Rando M'Kabe. The spacer finally reprogrammed the shuttle for an automated flight to Wayfar where the cargo was retrieved by EV-9D9. A short time later, the Valarians dispatched a group of M12-L Kimogila fighters to exfiltrate Jabba the Hutt's fugitive droid R3-B57 from the Tatooine system. However, the mission failed and all ships were destroyed by Jabba's pilots.

The same year, Lady Valarian managed to corrupt one of Jabba's men to provide information on the Hutt's spice smuggling runs. This allowed the Valarians to intercept one of those spice shipments, causing Jabba to loose a lot of money. The Hutt crime lord promptly tasked one of his minions, the Trandoshan bounty hunter Bossk, to find the culprit. Bossk then recruited a spacer in order to attack Valarian's people and interrogate them about Jabba's shipments. The spacer finally identified the identity of Valarian's informant, tracked the traitor in the desert and killed him.

In 4 ABY, Lady Valarian infiltrated her lover, the Whiphid J'Quille, into Jabba's organization with the objective to assassinate the Hutt crime lord. Although J'Quille failed in his mission, Jabba was killed soon thereafter. After the death of Jabba the Hutt, Lady Valarian finally managed to take the control of all Jabba's operations in and around Mos Eisley.

The Valarian Syndicate appeared in the 2003 video game Star Wars Galaxies, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts, prior to its closure on December 15, 2011.

• Galaxy Guide 7: Mos Eisley
• Secrets of Tatooine
• Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided Quick Reference Guide
• Star Wars Galaxies: The Total Experience: Prima Official Game Guide
• Star Wars Galaxies: The Complete Guide: Prima Official Game Guide
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia