Artoz

Dr. Artoz was a starship systems engineer who served in the Mon Calamari Knights during the Clone Wars. Following the transformation of the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire, Dr Artoz was stationed at Desolation Station where he worked on the Death Star project's hyperdrive components but was unaware of the true extent of the superweapon's capabilities. There, he was recruited by the former Republic Intelligence officer and insurgent leader Berch Teller, who formed an an insurgent cell. Teller recruited him due to Artoz's expertise with stygian crystal stealth systems.

Teller's rebel cell consisted of various individuals who had survived or witnessed the Antar Atrocity, a violent Imperial purge that indiscriminately targeted civilians including Republic loyalists on the moon Antar 4. Teller and his followers held a special animus towards Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, the architect of the Antar Atrocity. In the years leading up to 14 BBY, Teller and his followers amassed various Clone Wars–era weapons, starships, and communications jammers through the auspices of Vice Admiral Dodd Rancit, the Director of the Naval Intelligence Agency and a rival of Tarkin.

Following the attack on Sentinel Base, Teller devised a plan to steal Moff Tarkin's stealth corvette Carrion Spike in order to launch an insurgency against the Empire. With the help of Teller's ally Knotts, the insurgents obtained several fuel cells from the Sugi crime lord Faazah and the Crymorah Syndicate. Aiding the insurgents, Vice-Admiral Rancit planted a communications cache on the planet Murkhana, fueling rumors that insurgents were planning to launch attacks on the Imperial HoloNet mimicking the Separatist Shadowfeed broadcasts of the Clone Wars. Under the Emperor's orders, Vader and Tarkin traveled to Murkhana to investigate the communications cache.

Teller's operation involved Dr Artoz, the Gotal pilot Salikk, the Koorivar operations specialist Cala, the former journalist Anora Fair, and the Zygerrian film-maker Hask Taff. The insurgents lured Sergeant Crest and the stormtroopers guarding the Carrion Spike away using a fake transmission. They then stormed the ship and killed the captain, comms officer, and two stormtroopers. After seizing the ship and escaping into space, Artoz briefed his comrades on the corvette's weapons controls, navigation computer, stealth system initiator, sublight ions, and hyperdrive.

As Artoz was listing the rest of the ship's systems, Anora asked which of the controls emptied the toilets. As the rebels conversed, Artoz mentioned that the Carrion Spike was designed by several shipwrights including Sienar Fleet Systems, Theed Engineering, and Cygnus Spaceworks. After Teller talked about Tarkin's role in designing the Carrion Spike as a narrow-profile ship with swivel cannons, Cala remarked that these should come in handy. Artoz agreed before listing the ship's proximity alarms, hpercomm unit, and Imperial HoloNet encryptor.

Shortly later, Salikk picked up the crime lord Faazah's starship Parsec Predator on the Carrion Spikes transponder. Unaware that Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader had requisitioned the Parsec Predator, Artoz assumed that the Sugi was heading to the same hyperspace jump point as them. The rebel crew then noticed that the ship was matching their every move. Realizing they were being chased, Artoz reassured them that they could outrace the Predator if push came to shove. Realizing that Vader was pursuing them, Teller instructed Salikk to bring them into hyperspace. Despite fleeing into hyperspace, Lord Vader was able to track them due to the meditation sphere that was onboard.

After departing the Murkhana system and travel through the Fial system, Teller's insurgents attacked the Imperial station in the Galidraan system. Using the Carrion Spikes stealth technology, the insurgents inflicted considerable damage on the station and ripped through the defending V-wing and ARC-170 starfighters. Tarkin and Vader caught up in the Parsec Predator but their ship was disabled by the Carrion Spikes powerful pintle guns.

Despite the successful raid, the Carrion Spike sustained some damage to its air lock controls and hyperdrive generator. While searching the ship's cargo hold for tracking devices, Artoz discovered Darth Vader's meditation sphere in cargo hold one and alerted Teller. While unaware of the device's true purpose, Artoz told Teller that the black sphere was not linked to the ship's stealth systems. Having combed the ship's interior, Artoz speculated that this was the homing beacon that Vader had used to track them to the Fial system Fial and Galidraan. With Teller's help, Artoz ejected Vader's meditation sphere. Before departing the Galidraan system, the rebels destroyed the system's hyperspace buoy.

After raiding Galidraan, the insurgents raided the TaggeCo mining facilities on Lucazec and broadcast footage of their attacks on HoloNet, attracting the attention of the Emperor and other high-ranking Imperial officials. Following the raid, the insurgents traveled to a remote system with a lifeless volcanic world. Having been advised by Teller's mysterious informant Rancit to avoid Gromas due to the presence of an Imperial task force, the group decided to travel to Phindar in the Mandalore sector to refuel their ship.

When Artoz asked if this news had been confirmed, Teller responded that he consulted multiple sources. Teller then briefed his followers about how Tarkin used to track pirates by calculating their fuel consumption. Knowing this, Teller disguised himself as the Imperial Commander Abel LaSal so that they could refuel the Carrion Spike without attracting Imperial attention. This ploy worked and the Carrion Spike managed to dock with an orbital tanker above Phindar.

While refueling, Artoz waited in the ship's cockpit with Teller, Anora, Hask, and Cala. As the ship was almost finished refueling, Teller and Cala sighted an Imperial escort carrier exiting hyperspace. This ship turned out to be the Goliath, which was under the command of Tarkin and Lord Vader. The Phindian administrator aboard the station had been suspicious of Commander LaSal and alerted Tarkin. Artoz thought the escort carrier was here to refuel until the ship performed a microjump and deployed several V-wing starfighters. Realizing that the Empire had caught up with them, Artoz and Cala prepared to make a jump into hyperspace.

As the hyperdrive was loading up, the Carrion Spike flew rings around the Phindar tanker to prevent the Imperials from targeting their ship. A brief dogfight ensued and the insurgents managed to shoot down four Imperial starfighters. Once the hyperdrive was ready, the Carrion Spike activated its cloaking device before jumping into hyperspace. Before leaving the insurgents also detonated the tanker using a concealed explosive within a spent fuel cell.

Following the dogfight above Phindar, Artoz and his fellow insurgents nursed their wounds in the Expansion Region system designated as LCC-4-4-7, which lay between the planets Aquaris and Thustra. He and the others listened as their leader Berch Teller recounted Tarkin's ruthless career in the Outland Regions Security Force. Teller believed that the Emperor and his disciples Vader and Tarkin were in the process of winnowing the galaxy. He explained that they had stolen Tarkin's starship Carrion Spike in order to turn an Imperial symbol into an icon of resistance against the Empire.

Later, Teller and Salikk investigated a fuel discrepancy in the Carrion Spikes systems. When Teller asked Artoz for advice, the Mon Cal suggested that the hyperdrive motivator was addled and proposed recalibrating the synchronization relays. Teller then sent Cala in a hazmat suit to check the fuel cells they had taken on Phindar. Artoz told Cala that the problem may be a faulty fuel cell. Shortly later, Cala returned with a supposedly empty fuel cell which was carrying a Paralight tracker, a type of HoloNet transceiver that parsed commands from the ships navicomputer. Realizing that Tarkin was tracking them, Teller and the insurgents decided to relay a false set of coordinates claiming that the Carrion Spike was traveling to the Obroa-skai system.

In addition, Teller got the information broker Knotts to hire the crew of the freighter Reticent to travel from Taris and Thustra to Obroa-skai as decoys. Acting on this disinformation, Tarkin and Vader assembled a sizeable Imperial force including three interdictor vessels in the Obroa-skai system. However, the Immobilizer 418 cruiser's gravity well projector malfunction, causing a massive accident in the Obroa-skai system that claimed 1,100 lives and damaged many starships.

Despite this setback, Tarkin and Vader managed to capture and interrogate the crew of the Reticent and learned that Knotts was connected to both the Obroa-ski incident and the theft of the Carrion Spike. After consulting Imperial files on HoloNet, Tarkin uncovered information on Teller and the rest of his followers including Artoz. He deduced that the insurgents were former Republic loyalists with a vendetta against him for his role in the Antar Atrocity.

Artoz and his fellow insurgents then raided the Imperial facility in the Nouane system. However, Vice-Admiral Rancit had fortified the system's defenses. The rebels managed to escape aboard the Carrion Spike but the ship sustained considerable damage to its weapons and operational systems. Following the failed attack, Artoz tended to Salikk's facial injuries. When Hask remarked that the Empire had released holovids of the Nouane engagement, Artoz responded that this had cost them their ratings. Anora then warned Teller that his secret informant Rancit had betrayed them.

When Teller asked Artoz if the wounded Salikk would live, the Gotal quipped that he would live long enough to finish this. When Teller decided to evacuate the Carrion Spike and to send the empty ship on auto-pilot to the Colonies world of Carida, Artoz warned that the Empire would not rest until they had been found an dealt with.

In response, Vice-Admiral Rancit assembled an Imperial fleet including the Secutor-class Star Destroyer Conquest to intercept the Carrion Spike. Rancit also secretly intended to destroy the Carrion Spike in order to destroy all evidence of his treason, planning to use the crisis to elevate his standing in the Imperial Ruling Council. However, Lord Vader discovered Rancit's treachery and prevented him from destroying the Carrion Spike. He then executed the Vice-Admiral by ordering him to enter an escape pod and to issue the order to destroy the ship.

After evacuating the Carrion Spike, Artoz and his comrades joined Knotts aboard Berch Teller's warship, a modified Providence-class carrier-destroyer, near the Gulf of Tatooine. Artoz had received intelligence that an Imperial convoy ferrying supplies for the mysterious Death Star project would exit hyperspace at the edge of the system before traveling to the Imperial marshaling station at Pii and then Sentinel Base and Geonosis. Since the Imperial Navy had been dispersed across the galaxy, the convoy was relatively unprotected.

When Knotts asked if there was any word from Rancit on Carida, Artoz replied there was nothing. Unaware that Vader had executed Rancit, Teller speculated that Rancit believed that they had abandoned the cause. Teller speculated that their planned raid on the Imperial convoy would damage Rancit's career and lead to his dismissal from Naval Intelligence. When Artoz asked about Tarkin, Knotts replied that the Moff would get back his "precious corvette." Knotts then asked Artoz how far the attack on the Imperial convoy would set them back.

Based on his time at Desolation Station, Artoz explained that work on the hyperdrive components had been in progress for three years before he had been sent to that station. He speculated that the attack would knock the Empire back by four years. Though Teller hoped that their group's activities would inspire a rebellion, Artoz pointed out that the Empire was churning out many Imperial Star Destroyers. Even if they impeded the Empire's weapons project on Geonosis, Artoz remarked that their rebellion still had little chance of success due to the military might of the Empire. He also dismissed the Imperial Senate as an ineffectual body that was unable to restrain the Empire. Though they were outnumbered and outgunned, Artoz shared Teller's sentiment that they would continue to hold out for hope and do what they could do.

As planned, the Imperial convoy exited hyperspace. After jamming their communications, the insurgents attacked the convoy with their Providence-class carrier-destroyer, a Nebulon-B escort frigate, swarms of droid tri-fighters, and several starfighters. Before they could destroy the convoy, Moff Tarkin arrived aboard the Imperial Star Destroyer Executrix. After deploying starfighters to protect the convoy, he destroyed the Nebulon-B frigate before bombarding the insurgent's carrier-destroyer. With the battle turning against them, Anora and Salikk convinced Teller to flee on his Z-95 Headhunter into hyperspace.

After the insurgent's carrier-destroyer was boarded, Dr. Artoz and his comrades were captured by Moff Tarkin's Imperial forces. Tarkin personally greeted Artoz and his fellow captives including Anora, Hask, and Knotts. Artoz maintained a silent defiance when Tarkin asked about Teller's whereabouts, leading the Moff to deduced that the insurgent leader had escaped.

Following the Battle near the Gulf of Tatooine, Artoz along with Teller's followers and collaborators were interrogated by Tarkin, Lord Vader, and the Imperial Security Bureau. Though the ISB advocated a public execution, the Emperor had them executed in private to avoid turning the dissidents into martyrs.

Dr. Artoz was a male Mon Calamari who was a starship systems engineer. As a Mon Calamari, Artoz had a high-domed, salmon-colored head, large webbed hands, and huge eyes. He also emitted a saline smell. Due to his line of work as a starships engineer, he was familiar with Moff Tarkin's stealth corvette Carrion Spike since parts of the ship's stygian crystal stealth systems had been manufactured at the Mon Cala shipyards after the concept-design team had given up their attempts to utilize hibridium.

Dr. Artoz used his engineering expertise to help Teller and his fellow insurgents crew Tarkin's stolen corvette Carrion Spike during Teller's short-lived insurgency. Though Artoz realized that he and his dissidents were outnumbered and outgunned by the Empire, he shared Teller's sentiment that they should hold out for hope and do what they could to resist the Empire.

Dr. Artoz wore a flight suit which had been modified to accommodate his species' physiology and whose sleeves ended mid-fore-arm to allow passage for his large webbed hands.

Dr. Artoz first appeared in James Luceno's 2014 canon novel Tarkin.