The Nova Blades were a gang of pirates that were based on the planet Rishi in the decades before the Galactic War. Originally a loose conglomerate of pirate crews that shared resources, the Blades eventually joined together and began to collaborate tactically, extensively preying on the galaxy's major hyperroutes—to the point where many corporations established a line item known as the "Blade Tax" to account for the expected losses due to the Blades' attacks. The corvette Aggressor was a major part of the Blades' forces, but when the Blades attempted to reach the Rishi Maze dwarf galaxy over a century before the Galactic War, the Aggressor crashed on Rishi, where Ralen Margok spearheaded an effort to turn the wreck into a headquarters.
By the Galactic War in 3637 BBY, the Blades were led by Dael Margok and allied themselves with the Order of Revan, who assigned them to perform hit-and-run attacks on Republic and Imperial patrol routes to remap hyperlanes to force command fleets on both sides to Rishi. They also built a signal jammer on Rishi to scramble all communications for when the Republic and Imperial fleets arrived, leaving them with no way to coordinate as Revanite saboteurs and the Revanite fleet wiped them out. However, Margok incidentally alienated Shae Vizla's Mandalorian clan, who refused to aid the Revanites' machinations.
In the same year, the Blades were being harassed by an upstart pirate gang, losing several weapon stockpiles and the slave camp. Margok contacted Revan directly for aid, but the Revanite leader declared that the Nova Blades had reached the end of their usefulness and demanded that Margok deal with his new rivals before resuming any talk of alliance. Unknown to both sides, the rival pirate gang was a mere fabrication created by Theron Shan, Lana Beniko and Jakarro in an attempt to thwart the Revanites' plan. With the aid of a spacer posing as the representative of the pirate gang, they assaulted the Aggressor to recover whatever intel the Blades had on the Revanites, killing Margok in the process and leaving the surviving Blades leaderless.
In 3627 BBY, the Nova Blades were contracted by the Sith Empire to attack the Republic on Dantooine, but eventually the gang members turned on the Empire and assaulted the assets of both factions.
Lieutenant Yarvok of the Nova Blades seized control of the Dantooine Power Station and asked for 15 million credits in exchange for the reactor. The power station was quickly besieged by Republic and Imperial forces and a spacer drove off Yarvok and cleared the building of Nova Blades.
The pirates deployed a prototype assault walker which they had stolen from a weapons-testing facility on Balmorra. A spacer was tasked to destroy the experimental vehicle before it could fall into the hands of either the Republic or Empire.
Nova Blades were holding slave auctions for selling those captured during their pillaging. One of such was guarded by the infamous exoboar Hugo and terminated by an adventurous spacer.
By 3626 BBY law had been established on Rishi under the Tribunal. The Nova Blades attempted to sabotage their efforts and return Raider's Cove to a pirate center but were stopped by a Feast of Prosperity envoy, seeking the support of Tribunal members to establish one such feast on Rishi.