Tian Chyler was a female Human who gave her allegiance to the Alliance to Restore the Republic. Her career began as a member of the Galactic Empire's Sub-Adult Group, but her potential was spotted by her superiors, leading to her recruitment and training within the Imperial Security Bureau. Upon completion of her training, her initial assignment was to identify and eliminate Rebel Alliance supporters within the law enforcement community of Imperial Center. Her success in this role led to a more significant assignment: to infiltrate the mining guilds of Bespin and investigate any possible illicit Tibanna gas extraction.
Disguised as a Corellian official who had fled Ando, Chyler quickly discovered that Cloud City on Bespin was a hub of significant, undeclared mining operations. She informed the Sith Lord Darth Vader of her findings, and she was promised a promotion by the Bureau's leadership. However, an uprising by Aqualish miners resulted in her being reprimanded for her failure to maintain control over the workforce. The promotion never materialized, and, increasingly disillusioned with the Empire, she chose to join the Alliance.
A female Human named Tian Chyler, the cousin of the well-known swoop racer Kimmi Chyler, started her career as a member of the Imperial Sub-Adult Group, which was a part of the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order. She demonstrated a ruthless and pragmatic nature that caught the attention of the Sub-Adult Group's leaders. Consequently, they recommended her for training at the Imperial Security Bureau. While many who transitioned from the Sub-Adult Group to the Imperial Security Bureau were dismissed as overly zealous, Chyler's performance proved her capabilities and silenced her critics. After completing her training, she successfully infiltrated the law enforcement community of Imperial Center, where she tracked down and exposed Rebel spies.
Her superiors were impressed, recognizing her exceptional ability to blend in seamlessly with her surroundings. As a result, Chyler was assigned a more important mission: to investigate unauthorized Tibanna gas mining activities on Bespin. For this mission, she was to work alongside other Bureau agents. Her cover story was that of a Corellian mining official from Ando who had managed to escape the Imperial occupation of the planet. Chyler would claim to be seeking refuge in Cloud City with Andoan officials and Aqualish workers. Cloud City welcomed them and assigned them work in the Cloud City Miner's Guild, although Willrow Hood, an Alliance sympathizer, was suspicious of Chyler's background and intentions.
Before long, Chyler and her fellow agents were able to fully uncover the extent of Cloud City's illicit mining operations. In 3 ABY, Chyler personally relayed this information to Lord Darth Vader, who subsequently used it to coerce Baron Administrator Lando Calrissian into assisting in the capture of the Rebel commander, Luke Skywalker. Calrissian cooperated, but Vader failed to successfully capture the Rebel. Shortly thereafter, Vader's forces took over Cloud City, and Calrissian was compelled to flee. The Bureau was pleased with Chyler's performance and planned to offer her a promotion, but unfortunately for her, the Aqualish miners staged a revolt, creating significant disruption at the gas platforms.
The rebellious Aqualish were subsequently executed by the Empire. Chyler, however, was denied her promotion and instead received a reprimand for her failure to control the miners. She remained stationed on Cloud City as an undercover agent tasked with identifying Alliance sympathizers, but the Bureau never again considered her for advancement. Growing increasingly frustrated, and as the Alliance began to gain momentum in the Galactic Civil War, Chyler decided to defect. She contacted Willrow Hood, an employee of A'roFilter, whom she suspected of having Rebel connections. Hood was initially cautious of Chyler, having long suspected her of Imperial ties, but he eventually came to trust her. She provided the Alliance with crucial information about Cloud City's defenses, which proved vital during the liberation of Bespin sometime after the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY.
Tian Chyler was considered an exception to the common belief that members of the Sub-Adult Group who joined the Imperial Security Bureau were overly zealous. Her ruthless nature attracted the attention of her superiors, leading to a rapid advancement in her career. Chyler excelled at infiltration and undercover work, and her ability to blend in with her surroundings was a valuable asset. When her career stalled after assisting Lord Vader in 3 ABY, her frustration grew to the point where she was willing to abandon the principles and teachings she had been instilled with since childhood and join a force opposed to Emperor Palpatine. She possessed brown hair.
The character of Tian Chyler made her debut in the 1997 Special Edition re-release of the original trilogy film Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back. The Special Edition Limited set of the Star Wars Customizable Card Game identified the character as "Chyler," an agent working for the Imperial Security Bureau from Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. "Chyler" is an anagram derived from Cheryl (Kallenbach), who is the wife of a Decipher employee. In 2007, Timothy Carlsson, under the pseudonym "yoda's waiter," expanded on the character's background through the "What's The Story?" feature on StarWars.com's Hyperspace.
Carlsson's initial name for the character was "Sana Robben," with Chyler as an alias, but the StarWars.com staff changed this. Also removed from the entry was Chyler's designated homeworld, which Carlsson had identified as Coruscant. Carlsson also chose to omit an implied rivalry between the Sub-Adult Group and the Imperial Security Bureau, feeling that this plot element did not make logical sense. He intentionally avoided elaborating on Chyler's character, believing that, "kind of like James Bond," the character's actions were more significant than their personal history.
His concept of having Chyler identify Alliance sympathizers within the Imperial Center law enforcement community was loosely inspired by James Ellroy's The Big Nowhere. Instead of investigating unauthorized Tibanna gas operations, Carlsson had originally focused on Cloud City's failure to pay tribute to the Empire in order to maintain its neutrality. This concept was inspired by Sweden's tributary shipping of iron and ore to Nazi Germany during World War II. The first name "Tian" was provided by Ian Tapley, who also authored the Databank entries for Olana Chion and Antidar Williams. The name itself was a tuckerization of Tapley's first name and the first initial of his last name.
In his "What's The Story?" submission for Willrow Hood, Benjamin Christopher Norton Dawe chose to explain Chyler's defection by incorporating her into Hood's backstory.