Tepha Leonis

In the final decades of the Galactic Republic, Tepha Leonis and her husband Leo collaborated with the Trade Federation to develop genetically modified crops intended to help nourish the inhabitants of Chrona. However, because these crops were not yet ready for mass production, the Trade Federation prohibited their use to safeguard their profit margins. A legal case was initiated in the Republic courts to permit the Federation to postpone the release until production was fully prepared. Both Tepha and Leo provided testimony to the Republic judiciary, and the court ultimately sided with the Trade Federation. The crops were eventually released to the people of Chrona one year after their initial development.

In later years, the Galactic Empire altered this historical account to justify the need for a powerful central authority in galactic affairs. According to their revised narrative, the Trade Federation deliberately caused a famine by suppressing the distribution of genetically modified crops, with the intention of making the population ill and reliant on the Federation's medical resources. The Empire then intervened to alleviate the suffering of the Chrona people by nationalizing agriculture and reintroducing the modified crops. This version of history promoted by the Empire was later challenged by Leo and Tepha's son, Zare, who highlighted the factual inaccuracies present in the Imperial narrative.

Following the rise of the Galactic Empire, Tepha and Leo secured employment as agricultural scientists within the Imperial Ministry of Agriculture. Their professional duties required them to relocate among various planets, including Hosk Station, Moorja, and Viamarr. During this period, Tepha and Leo raised a family of two children: a daughter named Dhara and a son named Zare. To assist in the upbringing of their children, Tepha and Leo enlisted the services of an ancient nanny droid named Auntie Nags, who had been a part of the Leonis family for generations.

Approximately fourteen years after the establishment of the Empire, the Leonis family established their residence on Lothal, a remote Outer Rim world that had become the focus of an Imperial development initiative. Tepha's fifteen-year-old daughter, Dhara, enrolled in the Academy for Young Imperials located in Lothal's Capital City. Following her successful admission, the family hosted a celebratory farewell dinner that was attended by several prominent local Imperial officials, including Assistant Vice Minister Sarkos, Lieutenant Piers Roddance, and Governor Arihnda Pryce. During the dinner, Tepha praised a patriotic speech delivered by her husband but also subtly suggested to Pryce that he was prone to lengthy orations.

Since her son Zare was a year too young to enroll at the Imperial Academy, he attended the Junior Academy of Applied Sciences in Lothal's Capital City. While at school, Zare joined the school's grav-ball team, the AppSci SaberCats, and became friends with a local human boy named Beck Ollet and a girl from the Core Worlds named Merei Spanjaf. Tepha and Auntie Nags considered grav-ball to be a dangerous sport, but reluctantly permitted Zare's participation to ease his disappointment at not being able to attend the Academy with his sister.

Ollet felt strong anti-Imperial sentiments because the Empire had seized his family's orchard in the Westhills for mining operations. This development troubled Zare and his friends. When Zare informed his parents about this incident, Tepha investigated the matter. She concluded that the Ollet orchard had been mistakenly designated for mining extraction but was unable to reverse the decision. In contrast, her pro-Imperial husband Leo argued that the loss of one orchard was a minor sacrifice necessary to stimulate Lothal's economic growth. When Tepha expressed concerns about the Empire's prioritization of profits over people, her husband became defensive and even offered to lecture Beck on the advantages of Imperial rule.

As the year progressed, Tepha found it increasingly difficult to maintain her faith in the Galactic Empire. She reasoned that although the Empire's representatives made errors, the Empire ultimately had benevolent intentions for its subjects. Tepha's superficial loyalty to the New Order contrasted with her husband Leo's passionate devotion to the Empire. While both parents expressed joy that their daughter Dhara had been accepted into the Academy's officer training program, Tepha worried that their children might be sent to fight in future conflicts.

Later, Tepha attempted to mediate a discussion between her husband Leo and son Zare. Following a failed attempt by insurgents to sabotage Imperial mining equipment in the Westhills, Zare questioned Leo's assertion that the insurgents were simply troublemakers intent on plunging the galaxy into chaos. Instead, he argued that the insurgents had legitimate grievances against the Empire, citing his friend Beck's family being pressured into selling their land for an Imperial mining project. Intervening in the discussion, Tepha acknowledged that the Empire was capable of making mistakes but shared Leo's belief that sabotage and civil disobedience would lead to violence and anarchy. Like Leo, Tepha still maintained that the Empire was a force for good.

On another occasion, Zare stood up to his bigoted school athletic director Janus Fhurek, who had demanded that he remove two Alien players, the Rodian Frid Kelio and the Aqualish Hench Sina from his grav-ball team. However, Zare stood his ground and related the incident to his parents. When Leo condemned Fhurek as a small-minded bigot and suggested that his actions were a symptom of the Outer Rim's backwardness, Tepha reminded her husband not to blame the entire region for the actions of one man. While she agreed that Fhurek was wrong, she urged her son to avoid conflict in order not to jeopardize his chances of getting into the Academy, citing Fhurek's connections to the Academy. In the end, Zare decided to stand up to Fhurek despite the odds stacked against him.

One spring evening, Tepha and Leo were watching a HoloNet news report by the holo-caster Alton Kastle describing a recent disturbance in the Westhills. According to Kastle, the insurgents had attacked surveyors and destroyed mining equipment, forcing Imperial stormtroopers to open fire on them. When her husband advocated "whacking" the insurgents with a rifle butt, Tepha decried the need for such violence but lamented that Lothal had descended into a state of lawlessness. In reality, the Imperial authorities had opened fired on a crowd of peaceful protesters protesting the expropriation of their lands. Zare, who was an eyewitness, knew the truth but decided not to mention it to his parents since it would expose his and Beck's illegal visits to the Weshills.

Later that year, Tepha's daughter Dhara participated in a training exercise in the Easthills. Dhara was unreachable for more than a week, which raised concerns since she regularly kept in touch with her family. After a week had passed, Tepha and her family were visited by Commandant Cumberlayne Aresko, the director of the Lothal Academy for Young Imperials. She and her entire family including Auntie Nags were greatly distraught to learn that Dhara had allegedly run away during her training exercise. Aresko's report seem at odds with Dhara who was known to be a loyal and patriotic Imperial citizen. Despite the Imperial authorities issuing an alert for Tepha, no sign of her was ever found on Lothal.

For the next few weeks, Tepha and Leo spent much of their time contacting their friends at every Imperial ministry in Lothal and pleading for help to find their daughter. While sympathetic to the couple's plight, these officials were unable to help. While her husband Leo believed Aresko's report and blamed himself for not spotting any signs of Dhara's alleged distress, Tepha and Zare suspected that the Empire was witholding the full truth around her disappearance. In the end, Zare concocted a plot to infiltrate the Academy and learn the truth behind Dhara's disappearance. Tepha reluctantly consented to Zare's plot but warned that he could never tell their father.

To maintain the farce that Zare was a loyal Imperial citizen, Tepha arranged another farewell dinner and invited several Imperial dignitaries including Governor Pryce, Lieutenant Roddance, and Commandant Aresko. Following Zare's two week-orientation at the Academy, Tepha and Leo corresponded with their son via a datapad. Zare began crying upon seeing his mother's face but quickly regained his composure. While she was relieved to hear that her son's training was progressing well, they both knew that the Empire had covered up the truth behind Dhara's disappearance. When Zare mentioned Dhara during the conversation, Tepha buried her face in her hands in a sign of grief; prompting her husband Leo to comfort her.

During the fall season, her son Zare's girlfriend Merei Spanjaf paid a social visit to assure Tepha that she was continuing her efforts to find Dhara. When Tepha revealed that Commandant Aresko's assistant had told them that the Empire was monitoring every channel in case Dhara turned up, Merei replied that she had a feeling that this would change soon. Knowing that Merei was illegally accessing the Imperial systems, she warned her to be careful. Later, Merei discovered from hacking the Imperial network on Lothal that the official Imperial account of Dhara's disappearance was a fabrication. In reality, Dhara had been kidnapped by the Grand Inquisitor for a secret project called Project Harvester, which identified Force-sensitive individuals to train as Inquisitors. Project Harvester was run from a secret installation that was connected to the Imperial Academy on Arkanis.

Merei shared this information with Tepha and Zare, who took care to conceal it from Leo since his pro-Imperial leanings had blinded him to accepting anything that question the official Imperial narrative. During the winter season, Tepha's son Zare visited and stayed with his family. Tepha was visibly uneasy when her husband Leo unquestioningly accepted an Imperial HoloNet report by Alton Kastle discussing the surge in rebel activities on Lothal. In response to her husband's pro-Imperial remarks, she told him not to "ruin" a good morning. Leo pretended not to listen and instead went on to praise Governor Pryce's policies. On the last day of the winter break, Tepha managed to talk with her son in private at a market place about his plan to rescue Dhara from Arkanis. She expressed her fear that she would lose both her son and daughter. Later, they witnessed stormtroopers arresting a Faust and Ugnaught in the market place. Upon returning home, Tepha learned from Leo that Governor Pryce had launched a planetwide crackdown against dissent and sedition.

Later that year, Zare was transferred to the Arkanis Academy as a reward for exposing an attempt by a fellow Cadet named Nazhros Oleg to pervert the course of justice by shielding his uncles from arrest. Believing that the mid-year transfer was a good sign for his career development, Tepha and Leo bid their son farewell prior to his departure. However, Merei subsequently learned that the Imperials had transferred Zare to Arkanis in the hope of uncovering his connection to a rebel cell on Lothal. Durign a visit to the Leonis family home, Merei shared this information with Tepha under the pretext of taking a "ladies' walk." Tepha expressed her fears that she would never see her daughter and son again; prompting Merei to comfort her.

After Merei promised to inform her about any new developments, the two parted company. Over the next few days, Tepha received a call from her son Zare Leonis at midnight. Leonis had managed to access a comm booth in Scaparus Port, a town near the Arkanis Academy. Before she could disclose what Merei had told her about the real reason behind Zare's transfer to the Arkanis Academy, her husband Leo appeared. For the next few minutes, she watch as Zare and Leo chatted about the weather and other news on Lothal. Before she bid her son farewell, she told Zare that he need to contact Merei urgently.

After Merei Spanjaf learned that Zare Leonis had been arrested by the Imperial authorities on Arkanis and scheduled for a military tribunal, she realized that the Empire would arrest Tepha and Leo next. Together with her mother Jessa, Merei traveled in a speeder to Capital City. Upon arriving, they told Tepha, Leo, and Auntie Nags that Zare had been arrested and that they needed to flee into hiding. Realizing the danger to their lives, Tepha told her husband that they needed to leave. By contrast, Leo was dismissive of Merei's account that the Empire had kidnapped his daughter Dhara for Project Harvester and that his son Zare had joined the Imperial Academy to find Dhara and to feed secret information to the Lothal insurgents.

Before Leo could argue any further, Merei shot him with two stun bolts which knocked him unconscious. Before Auntie Nags could utter any protest, Tepha admitted that she wished she had stunned Leo months ago and instructed the nanny droid to help her evacuate Leon into the Spanjafs' speeder. While driving on the highway to their prearranged escape rendezvous point in the Westhills, Tepha and her companions were stopped by an Imperial roadblock consisting of two drivers and their speeder bikes. Before they could turn back, they were cornered by two more speeder bikes. Believing they were trapped, Tepha and her fellow passengers emerged from the vehicle to surrender.

However, the Ithorian tavern keeper Old Jho arrived in his freighter and blasted the Imperial drivers. Tepha, Leo, Auntie Nags, and the Spanjafs then fled aboard the freighter which took them to the nearby planet of Garel. Tepha and her husband later stayed behind on Garel while Merei, Jessa, and three members of the rebel cell known as the Spectres traveled to Arkanis to rescue Zare and Dhara. Following the successful rescue mission, Tepha and Leo greeted both their children at the ramp of the rebel freighter known as the Ghost. While embracing their daughter, Dhara told them not to let go.

Tepha Leonis was a devoted wife and a caring mother, always prioritizing the well-being of her family. While she outwardly displayed loyalty to the Galactic Empire, Tepha did not embrace the dogmatic views held by her husband, Leo, who was a staunch Imperial loyalist. She and her children, especially Zare, patiently endured Leo's lengthy speeches and arguments in praise of the Empire. While Leo eagerly anticipated the opportunity for their children to serve the Empire in any capacity, Tepha was hesitant to consider the prospect of either Dhara or Zare being sent to fight on the front lines.

Tepha's allegiance to the Empire was irrevocably broken when she and Zare discovered that the Empire had orchestrated Dhara's disappearance to conceal the existence of Project Harvester, a clandestine Imperial initiative aimed at identifying Force-sensitive cadets. She secretly supported Zare's efforts to infiltrate the Imperial Academy with the goal of rescuing Dhara. Upon learning of Zare's arrest and impending military trial, Tepha interpreted this as confirmation of her suspicions about the Empire and ultimately abandoned her support for it.