BesGas Three, a tibanna gas processing facility adrift above the Outer Rim planet Bespin, was constructed shortly before the Clone Wars began. The droid workforce of BesGas Three, fearing persecution from the staunchly anti-droid populace of the Galactic Republic during the Clone Wars, commandeered the refinery, plunging it into the depths of Bespin's life zone and expunging it from all records. The refinery and its inhabitants remained undisturbed for a quarter of a century.
In the year 3 ABY, a droid named Spanner inadvertently stumbled upon it. The droids of BesGas Three discovered that the galaxy had not, in fact, outlawed droids after the Clone Wars. Eager to rejoin civilization, the droids attempted to establish contact with Cloud City, but their timing proved unfortunate as the Galactic Empire took control of the floating settlement within a matter of hours. Consequently, the droids of BesGas Three were mind-wiped and integrated into the Empire's droid forces. In 36 ABY, the refinery became entangled in a siphoning controversy connected to the Dark Nest.
BesGas Three consisted of a sizable, saucer-shaped platform, characterized by a prominent central tower and numerous storage containers. The central tower accommodated living quarters and storage levels. To extract tibanna gas from Bespin's atmosphere, BesGas Three employed multiple intake fans, which were prone to freezing over time. Other recurring maintenance issues included blocked transfer pipes, which necessitated manual cleaning.
Just before the outbreak of the pan-galactic Clone Wars, BesGas Three, a tibanna gas refinery, was erected. The use of droid armies by the Confederacy of Independent Systems ignited strong anti-droid sentiments within the Galactic Republic when the wars erupted. Fearing for their continued existence, a group of labor droids working at the refinery hijacked the station and descended to the lower reaches of Bespin's life zone, the region of the planet's atmosphere inhabited by various native species. The droids were afraid that the Republic would outlaw all droids should they win the war.
When the Confederacy assaulted Bespin, independently operated harvesting platforms such as BesGas Three were disabled, as the invaders intended to seize the facilities for their own purposes. BesGas Three was presumed destroyed in the conflict, but in reality, the droids had erased the refinery's existence from all data records.
BesGas Three remained concealed until 3 ABY. For the twenty-five years following its "disappearance," the labor droids lived peacefully, constantly refining the refinery and performing continuous maintenance on each other due to the high pressure found in the lower areas of the Life Zone. The droids were unaware of the changes that had occurred in the galaxy until an LE-series repair droid named Spanner accidentally discovered BesGas Three. Spanner had escaped Cloud City after a droid uprising led by EV-9D9 and was en route to Tibannopolis when he stumbled upon BesGas Three.
Spanner informed the BesGas Three droids that their fears were unfounded and that droids were still prevalent throughout the galaxy. Acting on this new information, the droids brought BesGas Three near Cloud City, hoping to re-establish contact. However, their timing was unfortunate; only hours later, the Galactic Empire occupied Cloud City and assimilated the BesGas Three droids into their own forces, subjecting them to mind-wipes in the process. BesGas Three resumed refining gas, but this time under the control of the Empire.
BesGas Three continued its operations for decades after the end of the Empire. In 36 ABY, Verpine tappers, influenced by the Dark Nest, a hostile faction of the Killik species, arrived at BesGas Three and illicitly siphoned a significant quantity of tibanna gas from its reserves. Jedi Knights Jaina Solo and Zekk, who were investigating reports of gas siphoning, caught the tappers in the act. After a brief skirmish that resulted in a power outage in several residential sections of BesGas Three, Solo and Zekk drove the tappers away from the refinery.
BesGas Three first appeared in Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen by Troy Denning, serving as the opening location for the book. Tyler Fisher later provided a backstory for BesGas Three through StarWars.com's "What's The Story?" feature. The original submission identified BesGas Three as the refinery that debuted in the 1997 Special Edition release of Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back. It was based on an original concept drawing by Ralph McQuarrie, which was unused in the original 1980 cut of the film but was later repurposed for the re-release. McQuarrie's artwork was featured in 1995's The Illustrated Star Wars Universe. The Databank entry for BesGas Three also used McQuarrie's original concept art as an illustration. Fisher initially found writing about a refinery daunting, but upon noticing its proximity to Cloud City, he decided to explain its presence in The Empire Strikes Back.
His initial idea involved BesGas Three housing the brain of one of IG-88's sleeper drones, which would be drawn to its master upon detecting IG-88B on Cloud City. However, Fisher abandoned this idea and researched the Databank entries for Lando Calrissian, Cloud City, and Bespin. In Calrissian's entry, he discovered that the character was initially conceived as a clone trooper who had survived the Clone Wars. Recalling that Bespin was the site of a Clone Wars battle, he drew inspiration from Calrissian's original concept and connected BesGas Three to the earlier conflict. His initial idea was to populate the platform with clones, but he rejected this due to the platform's living conditions, lack of food, and the clones' lack of motivation.
After deciding on droids populating the platform, Fisher had to devise a reason for them to emerge from hiding during the events of The Empire Strikes Back. He remembered that in A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9 from Tales from Jabba's Palace, EV-9D9 had caused chaos for droids residing on Cloud City, and he reasoned that a droid fleeing Cloud City could encounter BesGas Three. Fisher's original droid character, "Spanner," was made an LE-series repair droid, as he believed that the model had not been prominently featured outside the Shadows of the Empire multimedia project. Initially, Fisher's entry left the fate of the droids ambiguous, but the StarWars.com authors altered this, having them mind-wiped by the Empire. The tidbit about Jaina Solo and Zekk's exploits at the end of the entry was also added by the editors, as Fisher saw no reason to recount the events of The Unseen Queen.