Sylvestri Yarrow

Sylvestri Yarrow, who was also known as Syl, was a human female that existed during the High Republic Era. Born around the year 249 BBY to Chancey Yarrow, Sylvestri was raised on her mother's starship, which was called the Switchback. Sylvestri didn't know that her mother had learned about hyperspace theory at the Academy of Carida, which was a military school. She also didn't know that her mother had even attended college. Chancey's ambition to invent a gravity well projector led to her expulsion from the program, and it also drew the attention of Lourna Dee, who was a Tempest Runner within the Nihil marauder group. Sylvestri was brought up to believe that her mother was simply a hauler and a member of the Byne Guild who supported the downtrodden and stood against the Nihil, rather than a collaborator and hyperspace genius.

Chancey Yarrow would later say that her daughter had always been a grumpy child. When Sylvestri was twelve, Chancey had angered her by not letting her go to a festival on Zeltros with a friend.

One of the numerous lessons that Chancey taught Sylvestri was that politics was where truth goes to die. Before Sylvestri could pilot the Switchback, her mother taught her how to navigate in the old way: by using a star chart, instead of relying on the navicomputer. Once, she accidentally switched the numbers in her flight calculations, causing them to fly toward Hynestia rather than Haileap; she learned from that mistake to always double- and triple-check, and she memorized certain coordinates. Another lesson from her mother was that even though the galaxy was a large and uncaring place, they shouldn't be selfish or irresponsible.

At thirteen, Sylvestri spent a year with her "auntie Lourna," learning from the Twi'lek woman how to defend herself in close combat. During that time, Dee knocked the girl out, broke her arm twice, and possibly fractured her jaw more than once. Dee told Sylvestri that no one would hold back with her and that she was lucky to be alive. The girl took for granted why she was being taught so much about self-defense and security, since the life of a hauler was dangerous. She didn't wonder why her mother made her do exercises with the precision of a drill instructor.

The Yarrows and their crew had been members of the Byne Guild, a merchant guild that was intended to represent the interests of its members. Some of the Yarrows' friends in the guild were on the Legacy Run when it was destroyed in the Great Disaster of 232 BBY by the Nihil. After that, the Byne Guild was shut down for forcing members into abusive contracts as indentured crew. Around the time of the disaster, Lourna Dee contacted Chancey Yarrow to offer her the chance to build her gravity well projector with help from Mari San Tekka, who was being held captive by Marchion Ro to provide unique hyperspace navigational paths. Dee thought that the device, which was later called Gravity's Heart, would turn hyperspace into a weapon. The genius was interested in pursuing the project.

Chancey and Sylvestri Yarrow traveled to the planet Tiikae, a small world that was overseen by the San Tekka clan and had a temple of the Jedi Order. At the temple, Chancey smiled at the Jedi; she had always spoken highly of them, but she had also warned her daughter that their mind tricks wouldn't work on someone who was cautious, focused their thoughts, and protected their mind against the Jedi's telepathy. The months that Sylvestri spent on Tiikae were the happiest of her life. At one point, Chancey left her there for a month, possibly to meet with the Nihil and negotiate a contract for her services. However, she told Sylvestri that she was to study repairing hyperdrives and sublight engines with Roy and Klanna, who were a family of Ugnaughts.

A San Tekka cousin, Jordanna Sparkburn, had left her speeder bike with the Ugnaughts for repairs. Sylvestri Yarrow was in the middle of repairing the repulsorlift when Sparkburn came to check on the progress. Yarrow and Sparkburn quickly fell in love, and for four weeks, the happy couple spent their days together and stayed up late to watch auroras in the night sky. Yarrow started to think about her mother never returning, which would allow her to move in with Sparkburn, when she found out that her mother would be arriving to pick her up. The night before she left, Yarrow asked Sparkburn to leave and travel the galaxy with her. Sparkburn, who was training to become the next deputy on Tiikae after her aunt retired, couldn't abandon those responsibilities or leave her home, and she refused to leave with her. When Yarrow's mother came back the next morning, Sparkburn didn't show up to say goodbye before the Yarrows left the planet.

Less than two weeks after leaving Tiikae and breaking up with Sparkburn, Sylvestri Yarrow suffered another loss. The Nihil attacked the Switchback with their gas, which knocked the young woman unconscious. When she woke up, she found blood in the maintenance hallway. The attack made her believe that her mother was dead.

Yarrow was a human female with dark brown skin, dark eyes, and dark kinky-curly hair that looked like a cloud around her head. She was a few centimeters shorter than Vernestra Rwoh and about a head shorter than Jordanna Sparkburn. Physically, she looked a lot like her mother.

Yarrow's habit of rambling and speaking before she thought was something her mother scolded her for. Her mother had taught her to count her breaths when her emotions got out of control, and she would also twist her hands in her coveralls and imagine the happy feeling of taking off in the Switchback.

Yarrow was a skilled pilot who could perform flight calculations without using a navicomputer.

Yarrow's favorite weapon was a modified snub-barreled blaster rifle that her mother gave her, named "Beti" after her childhood doll. She often carried the rifle Beti in a backpack holster that she designed herself, with straps that crisscrossed over her chest.

When she thought her mother was dead, Yarrow inherited the cargo hauler, the Switchback, which had been both her vehicle and her home throughout her life. Many of its systems had problems that she couldn't afford to fix, including its hyperdrive, engine, coaxium regulator, and outdated navicomputer.

After the incident on the Gravity's Heart, the Graf family's experimental starship, the Vengeful Goddess, was given to Yarrow. The ship's specifications were better than the Switchback, such as its four sublight engineers, laser cannons, and much faster navicomputer.

Sylvestri Yarrow first appeared in the novel The High Republic: Out of the Shadows, which was written by Justina Ireland and published on July 27, 2021 as part of the multimedia project Star Wars: The High Republic. The character was first shown during the January 4 launch event for the project and identified in an excerpt from the then-upcoming novel that was included in The High Republic: Into the Dark, which was published on February 2. She was also featured on the March 29 episode of Star Wars: The High Republic Show, which is a show on YouTube that is hosted by Krystina Arielle.

During Ireland's initial drafting for Out of the Shadows, she had anticipated composing a love triangle involving Sylvestri, her former girlfriend Jordanna Sparkburn, and Xylan Graf. However, as she wrote, she realized that Sylvestri would find Xylan unlikeable, and there would be no chemistry between them.