The Deference was a Pythar-class Imperial shuttlecraft that belonged to a scientist of the Sith Empire during the Great Galactic War between the Empire and the Galactic Republic. In 3665 BBY, the Deference was shot down during the Battle of Hoth and crashed into the icy surface of the planet Hoth, and the shuttle remained buried in a cave system for decades. During the subsequent Galactic War between the Empire and the Republic, the Deference was the subject of a Jedi mission to recover information from the shuttle's databanks.
The Deference was a Pythar-class Imperial shuttlecraft, a small, gray shuttle with short, curved wings on either side. The Deference had a minimum crew of one pilot, and contained databanks, which the Imperial scientist who owned the shuttle used to store his research.
The Deference was used by a scientist of the Sith Empire during the Great Galactic War with the Galactic Republic, during which the scientist updated the defenses of the space fortress of the Sith Emperor. In 3665 BBY, the scientist was piloting the Deference in the Hoth system when it was shot down during the Battle of Hoth, a major naval engagement between the Empire and the Republic. The Deference crashed in the Highmount Ridge region—which killed its scientist pilot—where it broke into a cave system within the ridge. Imperial Intelligence recorded the Deferences loss, but the Empire made no attempts to recover the starship.
Around 3642 BBY, the Republic Strategic Information Service intelligence organization raided an Imperial Intelligence base and learned of the Deferences existence, and the SIS notified the Jedi Master Tol Braga, who was working on a plan to capture the Emperor. Braga then dispatched the Jedi Knight Leeha Narezz to Hoth to recover the Deference so that their strike team could obtain the schematics for the Sith Emperor's space station. However, the White Maw pirates came across the wreck before Narezz could locate it, and they stole the shuttle's databanks—but they missed the decryption file, leaving them unable to read the information.
Sergeant Rusk's squad fights Imperial forces in search of the shuttle
An Imperial salvage team soon came across the Deference and began to excavate the shuttle, though they were interrupted by the arrival of Narezz and the Jedi Knight known as the Hero of Tython, another member of the strike team. The Emperor's Imperial Guard attempted to capture the two Jedi in the caves, though the Republic Military's Sergeant Fideltin Rusk and his squad forestalled their efforts, and Narezz and the squad searched the shuttle for their prize—only to find that the databank was gone. After questioning an Imperial technician named Urrisov who had been captured during the fight, the Jedi and Republic troopers learned of the White Maw's acquisition of the databank, and they were able to track down the databank and acquire the schematics of the space station.
The Deference was owned by an Imperial scientist who also served as the shuttle's pilot. The scientist went down with his vessel during the Battle of Hoth and died when the shuttle crashed on the ice planet.
The Deference first appeared in the 2011 video game Star Wars: The Old Republic.