The Talorons were a race of sentient humanoids with blue skin who hailed from the Taloron system found in Wild Space; they are classified as a species. For a large portion of their history, the Talorons existed as merchants and peaceful farmers. However, the Talorons were compelled to reorganize and militarize to prevent total annihilation when pirate groups established bases in the Taloron system and started to victimize the peaceful inhabitants. This led to the Taloron Pirate Conflict, a war that fundamentally altered Taloron society and gave rise to the notorious Taloron Hunters, who were recognized by their distinctive armor.
After successfully expelling the pirates from their system, many Talorons redirected their strong sense of justice and order toward careers as assassins and bounty hunters. During the Galactic Civil War, Talorons found themselves on opposing sides. For instance, Crutag, a Taloron Hunter, sided with the Galactic Empire and pursued bounties on members of the Rebel Alliance, while Korgath, another Hunter, supported the Rebels as a member of the Scandium Team within Special Operations. Post the establishment of the New Republic, another Taloron, known as "Blue" Imcrix, engaged in smuggling spice. The Talorons possessed advanced starship technology and were the manufacturers of the Taloron Prey Chaser spacecraft.
The Talorons were humanoids with blue skin and sentient beings, exhibiting a physiology akin to that of Humans, featuring a head, four limbs, and hands with five fingers. Members of this species possessed sunken facial features and relatively small eyes. While some Talorons were tall and slender with broad shoulders, others were of shorter stature. The species included both male and female individuals. A Taloron aged sixty-seven years was considered to be middle-aged.
The Talorons placed a high value on order, sometimes to an excessive degree. Historically, they were a tranquil society, with a majority of Talorons making a living as merchants or farmers. However, the trials of the Taloron Pirate Conflict transformed them into a culture of warriors. Their native language was Taloron, though they were also capable of learning and understanding Galactic Basic Standard.
Following the reshaping of their society by war, the Taloron Hunters emerged as an organization. Members of this group became known as ruthless and focused assassins and bounty hunters, infamous in the less reputable areas of the galaxy as aggressive and irritable predators. Their reputation was such that Cene Gilvent, an Ocsinin martial artist and member of the Zulirian Swordmasters, wielded a three-bladed sword called Soknar, which is the Taloron term for several. The distinctive armor of the Taloron Hunters was notable, consisting of a padded undersuit, armor plating, a wide helmet with two slender projections on the sides, a hip pouch, and a cylindrical backpack. Their typical weaponry included a blaster carbine equipped with a vibrobayonet and a standard sword. Other galactic toughs adopted this style, such as a Human crony of the Aleena crime lord Sollima.
The Talorons had access to technology that was comparable to much of the galaxy. Their own manufactured starships included the Taloron Prey Chaser. This particular vessel had a length of forty meters and, while it only needed a single pilot, it could accommodate up to twenty-five passengers.
The Talorons originated from the Taloron system, situated within Wild Space. They cultivated a peaceful society largely composed of farmers and traders.
As time passed, groups of space pirates began to infiltrate the Taloron system under the leadership of a merciless pirate chief named Halgir. These brigands primarily targeted the Talorons, whom Halgir intimidated into complying with his demands. By several years leading up to the Galactic Civil War, the system had become overrun with bandits, prompting the Talorons to realize that they could no longer endure Halgir's oppression. In a conflict known as the Taloron Pirate Conflict, the system's inhabitants turned against their pirate oppressors, employing farming implements as weapons or resorting to hand-to-hand combat. Halgir and his forces retaliated by destroying villages and killing anyone who opposed them. At the height of these hostilities, the Talorons were nearly driven to extinction.
Despite this, the surviving Talorons reorganized, their resolve strengthened by Halgir's plundering. They transformed their army into a guerrilla force, employing tactics that emphasized ambushes and hit-and-run attacks against the pirates. It was also during this period that the elite warriors known as the Taloron Hunters were formed. The Taloron Pirate Conflict persisted through the decline of the Galactic Republic and the rise of the Galactic Empire, until the Talorons ultimately defeated Halgir. They captured him alive and handed him over to the Imperial authorities in their region.
Despite the war's conclusion, Taloron society did not revert to its previous state of peaceful trade and agriculture. The conflict had reshaped their culture into one centered around warfare and violence. Consequently, many Talorons left their home system in search of employment as bounty hunters, directing their intolerance of pirates into campaigns against criminals and pirates throughout the galaxy. Decades later, by 137 ABY, the Taloron system had fallen within the sphere of influence of the Chiss Ascendancy, a society of blue-skinned humanoids known as the Chiss.
Following the end of the Taloron Pirate Conflict, numerous Talorons combined their newfound combat skills with their species' inherent inclination toward law and order to find work as bounty hunters. These Talorons traversed the spacelanes, capturing pirates and other criminals. One such Taloron was Crutag, a Taloron Hunter and a veteran of the Pirate Conflict who departed shortly after its conclusion. After a period with the Bounty Hunters' Guild house known as the Ragnar Syndicate, Crutag left the organization with his Taloron Prey Chaser, named the Scent of Fear. He assembled a diverse crew, which at one point included an Taloron lieutenant, who eventually died on a hunt. Despite Crutag's claim that he had never failed to capture a target, he was, in reality, only a moderately successful bounty hunter. Nevertheless, he was known for his unwavering determination and violent cruelty towards his targets. Although he publicly professed loyalty only to himself, Crutag believed that the Galactic Empire was the rightful government of the galaxy.
Between 2 BBY and 1 BBY, Crutag learned of a bounty placed on a group of Rebel Alliance operatives. The Taloron pursued the Rebels from Kwenn Space Station to the nearby planet Trinta. When the Rebels crash-landed, Crutag and his minions gave chase. However, they encountered strange apparitions that led to the deaths of several hunters. Unbeknownst to them, these were Force illusions created by the fallen Jedi Halagad Ventor. Crutag was unaware that he had attracted the attention of Ventor, who sought to corrupt and seduce the Taloron to become his dark-side minion. Nonetheless, the Rebels managed to evade the Taloron Hunter.
Another Taloron Hunter, named Korgath, joined the Rebel Alliance during the Galactic Civil War. He served as an Alliance Infiltrator, ultimately joining Scandium Team, one of the Rebellion's earliest Special Operations units, to bring the fight to the Empire. Even after Scandium Team disbanded, Korgath officially remained an Infiltrator, even if his missions were more akin to those of a Special Operations soldier. Despite being described by friends as kind and amicable, Korgath wore Taloron Hunter armor and—though shorter than most Talorons—cultivated a fierce reputation, capitalizing on the widespread perception that Taloron Hunters were ruthless and violent.
Following the fall of the Empire, the Taloron smuggler and crime lord known as "Blue" Imcrix transported shipments of rokna blue, a type of spice derived from rokna fungus found on the Forest Moon of Endor. Imcrix eventually abandoned drug trafficking. However, shortly after the outbreak of the Yuuzhan Vong War, the Taloron discovered that an old spice-processing center called Rokna Station contained a new strain of rokna blue that had been slowly aged since the drug's decline in popularity years earlier, following the Black Fleet Crisis. Imcrix reactivated the station's slave-rigged security and weapons systems in an attempt to lure the New Republic to the site. The plan was successful, and a New Republic Security Force team arrived to disable the ancient station to prevent its weapons systems from harming innocent bystanders. However, Imcrix hijacked their starship and took them hostage, intending to use them as bargaining chips when additional New Republic forces arrived and attempted to destroy Rokna Station and to help him fight through the reactivated weapons systems to reach the spice harvest. Ultimately, "Blue" Imcrix was captured by his own hostages, who handed him over to the authorities to await trial.
Bill Slavicsek, Bill Smith, and Curtis Smith created the Taloron Hunters for The Star Wars Sourcebook, published by West End Games in 1987 for Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. The authors based the group's appearance and standard equipment on a previously unused production sketch for one of the Star Wars feature films. The book makes no indication whether Taloron designates a distinct species. The Taloron Hunter named Crutag features prominently in the West End Games adventure Domain of Evil, written by Jim Bambra and published in 1991. The background description for Crutag indicates that he has blue skin, the first source to mark the Talorons as non-Human. With the republishing of Domain of Evil as part of Classic Adventures: Volume Two in 1995, editor Eric S. Trautmann greatly expanded on Crutag's background, detailing the history of the Talorons in general as well—although his revised description omits any mention of skin color. Cracken's Rebel Operatives, written by C. Robert Carey and Trevor J. Wilson and published in 1996 as part of Star Wars Adventure Journal 11, includes the first unambiguous indication that the Talorons are a species and not a race of Humans.
According to the version of Domain of Evil in Classic Adventures: Volume Two, the Taloron system is located in the Outer Rim Territories. However, the Star Wars: The Essential Atlas Online Companion instead places it in Wild Space.
The comic book Star Wars Adventures: Han Solo and the Hollow Moon of Khorya, published by Dark Horse Comics in 2009, features a character wearing Taloron Hunter armor. The figure, drawn by Rick Lacy and colored by Michael Atiyeh, has pale skin like a Human rather than blue skin, like Crutag. The character's species is not mentioned, although this article assumes the figure is not a Taloron due to the skin-color discrepancy.