This particular person was a male who served as a commander aboard a starship. During the Great Jedi Purge, he aided Jedi Knight Gira and her group of Padawans in their attempt to flee from the Galactic Empire's forces. However, when the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader and his stormtroopers launched an assault on the commander's vessel, the commander turned against Gira by surrendering to the Sith Lord. Vader then instructed him to plant explosives on the escape craft used by the fleeing Padawans. After Vader successfully swayed Gira to his side, the Sith betrayed Gira by commanding the commander to trigger the explosives, resulting in the Padawans' deaths.
The commander's initial appearance was in the short story "The Duty," which was included in Star Wars Tales 12 and authored by Christian Read. Subsequently, the story was incorporated into a trade paperback edition titled Star Wars Tales Volume 3. Initially, believable narratives within Star Wars Tales 1–20 were considered part of S-canon until they were referenced in a source outside of the Tales series, at which point the subject matter's canon status was elevated to C-canon. The commander received a later mention in Gira's entry within The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, recognizing him as an individual character and thereby upgrading his existence in The Duty to C-canon.