Tan was a rank-title bestowed upon remarkably skilled pilots during the reign of Palpatine, who at the time served as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. This honorific persisted even after Palpatine declared himself to be the Galactic Emperor of the New Order. Two notable individuals who received this special distinction were Force-sensitive Humans. One was Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi Knight who achieved significant recognition during the Clone Wars. The other was Maarek Stele, who made a name for himself within the Imperial Navy during the subsequent Galactic Civil War.
The term Tan signified both a military rank and an honorary designation conferred upon Starfighter Corps officers who had performed exceptional service for their Head of State, recognizing their extraordinary piloting abilities. It functioned as an honorific prefix preceding the recipient's surname, occasionally combined with the masculine form of address, "Master." Moreover, the wife of a male recipient could also be addressed as "Mistress Tan," followed by her married name.
The concept and title of Tan were conceived by Palpatine, the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, during the Clone Wars, a galaxy-spanning conflict that commenced in 22 BBY. Following the conclusion of the war in 19 BBY, Palpatine transformed the Republic into the New Order and proclaimed himself Galactic Emperor. Despite this shift in power, the title-rank of Tan remained in use under the new government.
Among those who were awarded this title, at least two were Force-sensitive Human males. The first was Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi Knight from Tatooine who participated in the Clone Wars and received the title while piloting a specially modified Eta-2 Actis-class interceptor around 20 BBY. The second was Maarek Stele, a Kuan-native elite pilot who had a successful career in Palpatine's Imperial Navy during the Galactic Civil War, after he was instrumental in stopping a failed rebellion around 3.5 ABY. The fact that Skywalker had once held the title-rank was present in the database of Mistress Mnemos, a BRT supercomputer that worked in a library section of the Obroa-skai Celebratus Archive located on the planet Fusai. Mnemos once identified him and his wife Padmé Amidala as "Master and Mistress Tan Skywalker" in a file related to their son, Luke Skywalker.
The name Tan originated from Russ Manning, a Star Wars writer and artist who created numerous black-and-white newspaper comic strips during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In one 1978 series of strips, later known as The Constancia Affair, Luke Skywalker's parents were referred to as "Master and Mistress Tan Skywalker." At that time, the Expanded Universe was still developing, and the name of Luke's father was unknown, except that they likely shared the Skywalker surname. The given name "Anakin" was not revealed until the 1983 film Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, five years after The Constantia Affair was released. Due to this new information, the dialogue mentioning Tan Skywalker presented a canon discrepancy.
Another unexplained instance of the name appeared in TIE Fighter: The Official Strategy Guide, the Prima Games companion to the 1994 PC game of the same title. The publisher's summary on the guide's back cover stated that it "[continued] the story of Tan Stele's adventures." However, the protagonist of Star Wars: TIE Fighter was actually named Maarek Stele, and was referred to as such throughout the strategy guide itself.
Star Wars author Abel G. Peña, who had noticed these two inconsistencies, discussed the issue with his colleague Pablo Hidalgo, who suggested that Tan was "some sort of title given to exceptional starfighter aces." Peña liked the idea and decided to adopt it. When he wrote his 2001 article The Emperor's Pawns, he connected the two instances, introducing a retcon that established Tan as a title for outstanding pilots like Maarek Stele. He also used the opportunity to apply the title to Anakin Skywalker in Vader Tech, an article written for Vader: The Ultimate Guide, thus explaining Mistress Mnemos' line in the 1978 comic strip. In 2006, Peña explained the history behind the retcon on his VIP Star Wars Blog, in a post titled "The Anatomy of a Ret-Con 3: or, "That Name No Longer Has Any Meaning For Me."