In the year 23 BBY, a year prior to the Clone Wars commencing, the Hutt named Groodo devised a plan to obliterate the Fondor Shipyards by fabricating a duplicate of the ancient starship known as the Sun Runner. This fraudulent, seemingly abandoned vessel was equipped with a hypermatter reactor for power, a modern sensor jammer, and a weapons system consisting of 20 sensor-guided missiles from Arakyd Industries. Furthermore, it housed advanced Duelist Elite combat droids from Trang Robotics, armed with flexisteel sabers and vocabulators. An R1 astromech (Industrial Automaton) with a dome-shaped head and black plating controlled the ship, protected by three 501-Z security droids from SoroSuub, each heavily armed with the latest B-20 blaster rifles from Merr-Sonn that featured stocks wiped clean of pressure marks. Senator Rodd of Fondor, asserting his belief in the derelict's authenticity based solely on its exterior, laid claim to salvage rights for the drifting craft. He announced his intention to convert it into an entertainment complex—an orbital museum dedicated to interstellar travel—while secretly collaborating with Groodo. Simultaneously, Quenelle, the Margravine of Nallastia, as the direct heir of Margrave Octan, declared her complete ownership of what she, too, perceived as genuine. She accused Rodd of secretly believing, despite her assurances to the contrary, that the vessel contained the legendary Lost Stars of Nallastia.
However, when the derelict launched an attack on the Republic diplomatic cruiser Unitive, Jedi Master-apprentice duo Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker retaliated, destroying it. The counterfeit ship's sophisticated power system, navigation technology, and weaponry revealed that this imperfect imitation did not originate from the Unknown Regions, as initially suspected. Skywalker, at the age of 18, ultimately eliminated the false Sun Runner by planting a proton grenade on its hypermatter reactor and obliterating its sensor-guided missile silo using the concussion-missile launcher of a CloakShape fighter borrowed from Rodd.
Upon returning to Fondor, Rodd publicly accused Kenobi of destroying what the Senator insisted was the authentic Sun Runner, alleging it was a desperate attempt to resolve the dispute with Nallastia and avert a civil conflict on Fondor. Kenobi, however, reiterated the ship's modern internal structure and state-of-the-art components, estimating its construction to be within the last four years. He suggested that Rodd consult with the crew of the Fondor Space Patrol ship recovered from the derelict to ascertain their observations. The Senator responded by accusing Kenobi of employing Jedi mind tricks to manipulate the crew's testimony, rendering them even less credible than the memory-wiped droids aboard the Sun Runner. It was at this point that Obi-Wan realized he had not informed Rodd about the droids' memory wipe, a detail Anakin had discovered while on board the derelict.