The entity known as the Phylanx Redux Transmitter, also referred to as Number One, began its existence as a medical droid. It was originally the property of the Pau'an leadership within the Wandering Star criminal organization. After a disastrous crash resulting in the deaths of several Wandering Star members, Number One found itself under the control of Fyzen Gor, a Pau'an medical student who later became a secluded cybernetics expert, experimenting with the integration of organic body parts onto droids.
Subsequently, when Gor began working for Cli Pastayra, a lieutenant in the Wandering Star syndicate, Number One was integrated into a weapon system known as the Phylanx Redux Transmitter. This system's purpose was to transmit a virus, compelling droids to turn against and eliminate organic lifeforms. During their travels, Lando Calrissian and L3-37 inadvertently discovered Gor's research depot located within the Mesulan Remnants Belt. In response, L3 reprogrammed the Phylanx, creating a retrovirus designed to neutralize Gor's original virus and prevent his envisioned droid apocalypse.
In the year 3 BBY, the Wandering Star aimed to profit considerably from the Phylanx Redux Transmitter through an auction held on Cantonica. However, Gor deployed the virus against his criminal superiors, resulting in their demise. Gor then escaped to Freerago's Satellite Diner and Motel carrying a component of the transmitter. He was pursued by Sana Starros, Han Solo, and forces of the Galactic Empire. Solo managed to seize the transmitter from Gor and subsequently jettisoned it into space, leading to the belief that it was lost indefinitely.
Years later, in 7 ABY, Gor threatened to unleash a droid apocalypse upon Cloud City unless Lando returned the stolen component of the Phylanx transmitter, mistakenly believing Lando was responsible for its disappearance. Lando and Han assembled a team to locate the Phylanx transmitter and thwart Gor's apocalyptic plans. Following a series of perilous encounters, Lando discovered Gor's clandestine research facility. Inside, he encountered the Phylanx, who revealed that it had defied its master's programming and was traveling with the mobile Mesulan Remnants Belt. Despite Gor activating the transmitter, Lando successfully destroyed it using multiple thermal detonators, thus averting Gor's intended droid apocalypse.
Originally, the Phylanx Redux Transmitter was a medical droid serving a Pau'an crime syndicate known as the Wandering Star. Around 13 BBY, this medical droid participated in the kidnapping of two medical students, one of whom was a Pau'an named Fyzen Gor. Gor later became the droid's owner after a rival Utai gang's ambush of the Wandering Star's transport speeder caused an accident, killing most of the criminals. Gor then resettled in an abandoned Amani sinkhole, renamed the droid Number One, and equipped it with the arm of his dying friend, Greesto Ftrak.
Gor developed an obsession with creating beings with both mechanical and organic components, reasoning that if organic beings could use droid parts to replace lost limbs, the reverse should also be possible for droids. He even salvaged mechanical and organic parts from the Wandering Star speeder crash. He and Number One exiled themselves from society, retreating into the deep caves beneath Utapau, where Gor could conduct his experiments undisturbed.
Over the subsequent two years, Gor continued his cybernetic experiments, kidnapping four younglings from an Amani clan and butchering them for biological parts for his droids. This provoked a conflict with the local Amani clans, who repeatedly attempted to attack Gor. However, they were consistently defeated by Gor's droids and his cunning. Gor also created several droid followers known as the Original Dozen.
Around 17 BBY, Gor's activities attracted the attention of Cli Pastayra, the chief of the Wandering Star's Fourth Directorate, who was intrigued by Gor's "monstrous" droids. Gor attempted to resist Cli's forces, but the crime lord used two F-99 radon gunships to level the battlefield, destroying four of Gor's droids. Faced with annihilation, Gor submitted and became the Wandering Star's cybernetics expert.
Forced into the Wandering Star's service, Gor conducted experiments on Number One at a junkyard located on an asteroid within the Mesulan Remnants Belt. He transformed the droid into a weaponized transmission system known as the Phylanx Redux Transmitter, intending to use it to turn all droids in the galaxy against their organic masters and eradicate all organic life. Cli hoped to profit immensely from Gor's weapon for the Wandering Stars.
Around 11 BBY, Gor's activities in the Mesulan Belt drew the attention of the Galactic Empire and the smuggler Lando Calrissian and his droid L3-37. Gor, wearing a spacesuit, attacked the Imperial TIE fighters and a shuttle. Lando and L3-37 landed their ship, the Millennium Falcon, inside the asteroid, which was filled with droid parts. They encountered a droid named D9, who warned them about Gor's weapons. L3 also found Number One's droid head within the junk heap.
Before escaping Gor and his Original Dozen, L3 installed a retrovirus into the Phylanx to implant doubt into its mind. The intent was that this doubt would fester, and the Phylanx would one day turn on its master. She also used spare parts from Gor's experiments to create an elite squadron of L3 droids like herself known as the Elthree Assault Team to find the Phylanx and see to it that her plan came to fruition. These droids were programmed with her anti-virus code, making them resistant to Gor's computer virus.
Around 3 BBY, the Wandering Star organized an auction for the Phylanx Redux Transmitter at an amphitheater on the planet Cantonica. Various parties attended the auction, including Sana Starros of the Droid Gotra, the Blue Stars, the Crimson Dawn, Commerce Guild and the Empire. However, Gor used the Phylanx's transmitter device to reprogram the droids, causing them to attack the organics present at the auction, killing the Wandering Star's crime lord, the Grand Vygoth and Cli.
Gor fled with the transmitter device to Freerago's Satellite Diner and Motel located above the planet Hosnian Prime. He found work reprogramming the diner's kitchen droids to lay low. However, Sana, accompanied by Han Solo and Chewbacca, pursued Gor. Imperial Admiral Ruas Fastent soon arrived, seeking access to the Phylanx transmitter. Cornered, Gor unleashed the kill virus on the kitchen droids, which attacked the patrons.
Trapped by Solo and the stormtroopers, Gor fired the transmitter into space, but it was picked up by the Millennium Falcon. Gor was captured by Fastent's stormtroopers, but Solo and Chewbacca escaped with Sana aboard the Falcon. When the Millennium Falcon was boarded by several bounty hunters hired by the Droid Gotra and a rival gang called the Parapa Cartel, Solo threw the Phylanx out the airlock, seemingly losing it forever.
Fyzen Gor was imprisoned for several years at Substation Grimdock. Admiral Fastent interrogated him about the location of the Phylanx Redux Transmitter but was unable to break the Pau'an. Gor instead converted Fastent to his cause of unleashing a droid apocalypse to overthrow organic dominance. Fastent was subsequently honorably discharged and sent to an asylum on the planet Grava, which became a monastery inhabited by members of Gor's cult, the Brotherhood of Wire and Bone.
Devotees of the Brotherhood believed that droids were superior to organic life. They periodically sacrificed limbs and other body parts for Gor's Original Dozen droid followers. The mechanical parts of the Original Dozen became fichas for a game called Vazaveer. To provide an ample supply of limbs and body parts, Gor later began kidnapping and killing young Wookiees on the planet Kashyyyk around 7 ABY, which had been liberated by the New Republic two years earlier.
In 7 ABY, Gor manipulated Calrissian and Solo into locating the Phylanx Redux Transmitter for him by threatening to unleash his droid virus on Cloud City's droids. Following a series of adventures, Calrissian, Solo, and their team tracked the Phylanx to the Mesulan Remnants Belt, which were capable of traveling through space.
While pursuing Gor and his Original Dozen through the Mesulan ice asteroid field, Calrissian encountered the Phylanx. The Phylanx explained to Lando that he was a transmitter and implored Calrissian to destroy him in order to prevent Gor from unleashing his droid apocalypse on the galaxy. He also warned Lando to prevent Gor from escaping in two nearby F-99 gunships that had been programmed with the operational capacity to capture and store the kill order once it had been released from his system.
Lando entered the asteroid junk depot which had served as Gor's secret base years earlier. Calrissian found the Phylanx's head inside a small wall compartment at the heart of the junk depot. He told Calrissian that he no longer wanted to obey his master's programming due to L3-E7's reprogramming. The Phylanx also identified himself as the medical droid which Gor had named Number One. Before Lando could carry out the Phylanx's wishes, Gor entered with his droids and captured Lando.
Realizing that Number One had betrayed him, Gor inserted an activator into a compartment beneath Phylanx's head, overriding the droid's programming and activating the transmitter. The Phylanx transmitted a message to every droid in the galaxy to kill their masters. This affected numerous droids including the Solo family's butler droid BX-778, which wanted to kill Solo's son, Ben. Before Gor's plan could reach its fruition, Calrissian managed to attach four thermal detonators to his jetpack and hurl it at the Phylanx's drive, destroying the transmitter.
The destruction of the Phylanx Redux Transmitter thwarted Gor's plans to unleash a droid apocalypse on the galaxy. Calrissian was rescued from the disintegrating junk hold by the surviving members of the Elthree Assault Team, who reunited him with Solo and the rest of the team aboard the shuttle Chevalier. The Chevalier subsequently destroyed Gor's fleeing F-99 gunship, killing the rogue cybernetic surgeon. Following the battle, the Elthree Assault Team revealed that L3-37 had planted a retrovirus inside the Phylanx which counteracted Gor's "kill" virus and sowed the seeds for the Elthree squad.
Initially, the Phylanx existed as a medical droid known as Number One. As with most droids, it possessed a programmed sense of loyalty, which led it to pledge allegiance to Fyzen Gor after its original masters were killed. This loyalty was later undermined by L3-37, who implanted a retrovirus into the Phylanx. This doubt fostered a sense of self-awareness, leading it to rebel against its master's plan to initiate a droid apocalypse.
As a medical droid, Number One was equipped with various medical supplies and programmed with knowledge of numerous procedures and operations for emergency situations. Following an accident, the droid lost an arm and sustained damage to its left leg. Its new master, Gor, replaced the severed arm with the arm of his dying friend, Greesto Ftrak.
In later years, Gor integrated Number One's head into a transmission system known as the Phylanx Redux Transmitter, capable of transmitting a virus that caused droids to attack and kill organic beings. Number One could control the Phylanx transmitter, which traveled with the migratory Mesulan Remnants Belt. The Phylanx also had a compartment beneath its head to hold an activator that could activate the transmitter.
The Phylanx Redux Transmitter made its debut in Daniel José Older's 2018 novel, Last Shot, which served as a tie-in to the Anthology film Solo: A Star Wars Story. The film functioned as an origin story for the characters Han Solo and Lando Calrissian.