Lero Danthe

During the Age of the Empire, Lero Danthe was a significant figure in the droid manufacturing industry. In his 20s, Danthe was considered one of the "New Imperials," a term used by the media to describe the initial generation of Imperial citizens who reached adulthood under the rule of the Galactic Empire. As the successor to a prominent family that controlled a company specializing in heavy-duty droids for harsh environments such as Mustafar, Danthe possessed substantial wealth and strong ties to both the Imperial government and its elite circles.

Approximately eleven years before the Battle of Yavin, Danthe served as an attaché to Count Denetrius Vidian, the Imperial efficiency expert, within the Imperial government located on Coruscant. Despite their professional association, Vidian perceived Danthe as a competitor in his pursuit of the Emperor's approval. Similarly, Danthe desired Vidian's affluence and standing. Aware that Count Vidian held investments in the comet-chasing sector, Danthe sought to disrupt Vidian's holdings by proposing the services of his company's heat-shielded Mining drones. Vidian, unwilling to be indebted to Danthe, declined his offer.

Before his inspection visit to the Gorse system, Vidian pressed Danthe to dissuade the Emperor from increasing the thorilide production target for that year. Danthe feigned offense at Vidian's insinuation and denied any intention of harming his "friend." Upon Vidian's announcement that he would be submitting the latest thorilide production report to the Emperor, Danthe requested a copy, which Vidian interpreted as an attempt to encroach upon his authority. Vidian pledged to transfer management of the Gorse system to Danthe if he successfully achieved the Emperor's target for the year. Danthe's expression of delight at this "generosity" provoked Vidian's fury, leading him to demand that Danthe stay out of his affairs.

To maintain surveillance on Vidian, Baron Danthe enlisted Commander Nibiru Chamas of the Imperial Navy as his informant. Commander Chamas was stationed on the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Ultimatum, the vessel Vidian was using to travel to the Gorse system. Following Count Vidian's inspection of the thorilide mining moon of Cynda, Danthe contacted Vidian via hologram from Coruscant. He informed Vidian that the Emperor had launched several "new amazing initiatives," resulting in a 50 percent increase in weekly thorilide production. Vidian was displeased that his friend had gone back on his earlier promise to influence the Emperor otherwise and rejected Danthe's offer to provide the services of his droid factories.

Following his second communication with Danthe, Vidian, in a fit of anger, wrecked his personal quarters on the Ultimatum. Danthe's informant, Chamas, reported the state of Vidian's room to his superior officer, Captain Rae Sloane. Later, during Vidian's tour of the planet Gorse, Danthe contacted Vidian for a third time via hologram, informing him that the Emperor had tripled thorilide production again after high-level meetings with Imperial officials. Danthe also informed Vidian that he would be assigned to his administration. He also offered the services of his droid factories if Vidian agreed to put some of his territories in his hands. An enraged Vidian told Danthe that this was not finished and he vowed to succeed. After learning from Moonglow Polychemical's chief operations officer Lal Grallik that her company could not meet the Emperor's new quota, he callously murdered her by throwing her into a vat of xenoboric acid.

In an attempt to discredit Danthe and gain favor with the Emperor, Count Vidian devised a scheme to detonate Cynda under the guise of meeting the Emperor's thorilide quota by facilitating the extraction of the moon's thorilide by his comet-chasers. To alleviate Captain Sloane and her science officer Lieutenant Kanna Deltic's concerns that detonating Cynda would damage its thorilide crystals, Vidian conducted a test bombing and manipulated the results to support his claim that detonating Cynda would not damage the crystals. Satisfied, Vidian ordered all mining ships in the Gorse system to accompany the Ultimatum to his depot in the Calcoraan system, which contained vast stockpiles of Baradium-357 explosives. Under the pretext of stabilising Cynda, Vidian planned to detonate the moon. Once the moon was detonated, his thorilide harvesters would extract the moon's thorilide crystals. Vidian also planned to frame Baron Danthe by inviting him to mine the resulting asteroid field. Once the thorilide had been depleted within a year, Vidian hoped to cast blame on Danthe and Sloane.

Vidian kept his plan secret from Baron Danthe. Through Commander Chamas, Danthe became aware of Vidian's Cynda operation and contacted Captain Sloane via hologram. After thanking Sloane for saving Vidian's life, Danthe inquired about the progress of Vidian's special project. He also told her to contact him immediately if ever she had the smallest need. Sloane accepted his offer before terminating the transmission. Danthe's offer to help came at an opportune time. Shortly later, Sloane was ambushed by a group of rebels while touring the Calcoraan Depot. These rebels were opposed to Vidian's plan to destroy Cynda and had uncovered evidence that Vidian had tampered with the test results. While downloading Vidian's mind, the rebels learned about his rivalry with Baron Danthe. One of the rebels Kanan Jarrus posed as an agent of the Emperor and revealed the full depth of Vidian's deception to Sloane. She complied with his demands to send the original test results to the Emperor.

Upon returning to the Ultimatum, Captain Sloane had Commander Chamas arrange a secure hologram channel to Baron Danthe, using the contact information he had provided. While it was rare to involve a civilian in military matters, Sloane and Chamas regarded Danthe as the only person who had a hope of directly reaching the Emperor or one of his top officials. Sloane transmitted the message that Kanan had forwarded her to Danthe, who sent it to the Emperor. The Emperor's experts quickly found out that Vidian had indeed suppressed the original results which stated that destroying Cynda would destroy its thorilide crystals. After uncovering Vidian's deception and alerting the Emperor, Danthe traveled to the Gorse system to join Sloane and Chamas aboard the Ultimatum.

Danthe was present on the bridge of the Ultimatum when Captain Sloane issued orders to suspended the Detonation Control link to Vidian's ship Forager and to arrest the Count. When the Count refused to surrender and revealed that he could still control the detonation remotely, Sloane ordered the Imperial fleet to destroy Vidian's ship. This effectively ended Count Vidian's plan to destroy Cynda. The Count was killed by one of the rebels Skelly, who had earlier tried to dissuade the Count from destroying the moon. The other rebels including Kanan escaped the derelict ship before it exploded.

Following Vidian's demise, Baron Danthe assumed control over thorilide mining operations in the Gorse system. Among his initial actions were the commencement of mining on Gorse's sun-facing side and the reclassification of Cynda as a nature preserve. Given the extreme heat conditions on Gorse's sunward side, mining operations were conducted by his company's specialized heat-resistant mining drones. Danthe also leveraged his connections to secure Sloane's promotion to permanent captaincy of the Ultimatum.

During a celebratory event marking the establishment of mining operations on Gorse's sunward side, Danthe personally expressed his gratitude to Sloane for alerting him to Vidian's scheme. Sloane clarified that she was alerting the Emperor. During the conversation, Danthe revealed that he had back stabbed Vidian in order to engineer his demise. Sloane remarked that this was the nature of the game before emphasising that she preferred flying her starship. Danthe then asked her about the mysterious rebels she had encountered. Danthe chose to downplay the Gorse Conflict as a single rebellious act that would not start anything. In his view, it was a blip or glitch in the Gorse system. In retrospect, Danthe's assessment was premature since Kanan and his rebel companion Hera Syndulla would go on to form a rebel cell that harassed the Empire.

After Rae Sloane failed to apprehend the rebel Jedi Kanan Jarrus in a later incident, Sloane was demoted from her rank as Vice Admiral down to Commodore. Sloane's ship the Ultimatum was nearly taken away from her but Danthe interceded on her behalf, acting as her patron within the Imperial aristocracy. Eventually however, Denthe fell out of the Emperor's favor. This came to affect Sloane, who over the interceding years found herself being assigned more and more mundane tasks as a result.

Lero Danthe was a young human man with golden-blond hair who liked to dress in regal business attire. He wore a richly decorated suit or clothes with gold buttons and a half cape slung over his right shoulder. Danthe was an ambitious businessman who was determined to advance the business interests of his family's droid manufacturing company and to curry favor with the Emperor. Danthe's ambition for prestige and wealth led him to manipulate the Emperor into increasing the Gorse system's thorilide production quota in order to undermine his rival Count Vidian. This led Count Vidian to embark on an elaborate plot to discredit Baron Danthe by detonating the planet Gorse's moon Cynda, which was rich in thorilide. Kanan Jarrus regarded Baron Danthe as an untrustworthy schemer.

Due to his family's wealth and connections, Danthe enjoyed direct access to the Emperor in Coruscant. This privileged access to the highest level of Imperial government gave him a leverage in decision-making and political appointments. Despite his wealth, Danthe coveted Vidian's wealth and name. This led Danthe to make several attempts to sabotage Vidian by convincing the Emperor to rapidly increase the Empire's thorilide production quota. By doing so, he provoked Vidian into embarking on an elaborate conspiracy that eventually ensnared its maker. Knowing Vidian's violent temperament, Danthe made at least two attempts to drive Vidian into a homicidal rage; with one claiming the life of the Moonglow chief operations officer Lal Grallik. To gain an edge over his political rival, Danthe also cultivated several informants including the Imperial Navy Commander Nibiru Chamas.

Baron Lero Danthe first appeared as a secondary antagonist in John Jackson Miller's 2014 A New Dawn, the first in a new line of Canon novels produced in conjunction with the Lucasfilm Story Group.