The widower Orin Bold and his daughter Nella managed a moisture farm close to the Ten Mile Plateau as of 37 BBY, when Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn met them for the first time. Their existence was a solitary one, since Bold's wife had been killed by Mantellian Savrips several years earlier. The farm was large, reportedly capable of providing several nearby colonies with water. However, their business had been in steady decline for several years, as the would-be Jedi Baron Taxer Sundown had been attempting to take over their farm, as he had already done with many others. To achieve this end, Sundown intimidated their customers in order to ruin them. Bold, a talented mechanic, built a small army of improvised war droids to protect his farm.
However, when the two Jedi reached the farm, they were greeted by Bold's hostile droids and forced to defend themselves. Most of the droids were destroyed before Bold could intervene. He and Nella were at first vary of the strangers, since in their eyes their lightsabers marked them as members of Sundown's militia, but eventually came to trust them. The Jedi promised to look into the matter for them.
Bold did not take active part in their investigation, but their results affected him deeply. Nella, who helped the Jedi, was abducted and disappeared into the wastes. As the Jedi pressed closer to their goal, while at the same time the savrips were migrating, they forced their enemy's hand. Suddenly Sundown appeared at the Bold farm, forced by the Jedi to leave the planet in a hurry, and pressed Bold into helping him prepare his escape. Since he intended to kill Bold once he had no further use for him, he told him the truth of the last years.
He had mind-controlled Bold, he boasted, using his farm as a front for his illegal activities, and forced him to use his technical expertise to build lightsabers for his men. His daughter had been duped into serving as Sundown's courier. Most horrifying of all was the revelation of the true circumstances surrounding his wife's murder. She had actually discovered him aiding Sundown, who had then forced Bold to kill her with his bare hands and blamed it on the Savrips as part of his overall smear campaign against them, afterward removing Bold's memory of the event.
At this point, Padawan Kenobi arrived, in time to hear the final part of Sundown's confession. He attacked Sundown and the remaining droids, which now served him rather than Bold. When Sundown was thus distracted, the enraged Bold struck him with his crutch, destroying the mind control device he had been using to pose as a Jedi and forcing him to flee.
With Nella's being saved by Kenobi's Master, Jinn, and Sundown's death shortly afterward, the immediate threats to Bold's existence disappeared. However, he still had to reconcile himself with his daughter and his now-returned memories.
Orin Bold was a skilled mechanic, able to redesign and convert droids with apparent ease. He passed on at least some of his skills to his daughter, who was able to jury-rig Mobquet and Subpro components to interlink with Incom machinery. He could also manufacture lightsabers, a very rare trait among those not gifted in the Force. In addition, he was a hard and competent worker, able to run his large moisture-farming complex more or less alone, despite having to rely on a crutch to support an injured leg.
The widower Orin Bold and his daughter Nella managed a moisture farm close to the Ten Mile Plateau as of 37 BBY, when Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn met them for the first time. Their existence was a solitary one, since Bold's wife had been killed by Mantellian Savrips several years earlier. The farm was large, reportedly capable of providing several nearby colonies with water. However, their business had been in steady decline for several years, as the would-be Jedi Baron Taxer Sundown had been attempting to take over their farm, as he had already done with many others. To achieve this end, Sundown intimidated their customers in order to ruin them. Bold, a talented mechanic, built a small army of improvised war droids to protect his farm.
However, when the two Jedi reached the farm, they were greeted by Bold's hostile droids and forced to defend themselves. Most of the droids were destroyed before Bold could intervene. He and Nella were at first vary of the strangers, since in their eyes their lightsabers marked them as members of Sundown's militia, but eventually came to trust them. The Jedi promised to look into the matter for them.
Bold did not take active part in their investigation, but their results affected him deeply. Nella, who helped the Jedi, was abducted and disappeared into the wastes. As the Jedi pressed closer to their goal, while at the same time the savrips were migrating, they forced their enemy's hand. Suddenly Sundown appeared at the Bold farm, forced by the Jedi to leave the planet in a hurry, and pressed Bold into helping him prepare his escape. Since he intended to kill Bold once he had no further use for him, he told him the truth of the last years.
He had mind-controlled Bold, he boasted, using his farm as a front for his illegal activities, and forced him to use his technical expertise to build lightsabers for his men. His daughter had been duped into serving as Sundown's courier. Most horrifying of all was the revelation of the true circumstances surrounding his wife's murder. She had actually discovered him aiding Sundown, who had then forced Bold to kill her with his bare hands and blamed it on the Savrips as part of his overall smear campaign against them, afterward removing Bold's memory of the event.
At this point, Padawan Kenobi arrived, in time to hear the final part of Sundown's confession. He attacked Sundown and the remaining droids, which now served him rather than Bold. When Sundown was thus distracted, the enraged Bold struck him with his crutch, destroying the mind control device he had been using to pose as a Jedi and forcing him to flee.
With Nella's being saved by Kenobi's Master, Jinn, and Sundown's death shortly afterward, the immediate threats to Bold's existence disappeared. However, he still had to reconcile himself with his daughter and his now-returned memories.
Orin Bold was a skilled mechanic, able to redesign and convert droids with apparent ease. He passed on at least some of his skills to his daughter, who was able to jury-rig Mobquet and Subpro components to interlink with Incom machinery. He could also manufacture lightsabers, a very rare trait among those not gifted in the Force. In addition, he was a hard and competent worker, able to run his large moisture-farming complex more or less alone, despite having to rely on a crutch to support an injured leg.