A'Shar Farless was a human male captain in the military of the Galactic Empire. While Farless was training at the Arkanis Academy he learned that the older cadets planned to turn in the younger cadets for trashing a port even though the younger cadets were ordered to. So the captain gathered some of his fellow students and told them go to the cliffs to distract the villagers long enough so the young cadets could run away. He inspired his classmates to jump off a cliff and to the rescue.
Farless was the stationed Imperial security complex on the the planet Scarif along with his DT-series sentry droid, DT-JZ that his sent to protect him. One day, Governor Wilhuff Tarkin arrived at the complex. After giving a speech, he invited Farless to walk with him. Farless told him about his time at the Arkanis Academy. Tarkin revealed that he personally requested that Farless be stationed on Scarif because of his ability to inspire action. He told Farless that the Citadel Tower was housing very important plans in the Scarif vault and was worried about spies infiltrating the complex. He wanted Farless to tighten up the act of the Imperial personnel at the complex and assigned him his own squad to command. Tarkin would not allow for DT-JZ to stay with Farless so the captain went ahead and said a last goodbye to the droid. Farless then met his new squad and gave them a speech about fighting for the Empire.