White Star Pirates

The White Star Pirates was a very feared pirate organization founded in 81 BBY by Devin Mastruk. Devin's goal was to build a powerful empire and take over the galaxy. Devin was a complete failure, however, so Orion Forte took over the small pirate organization. Under Orion’s strong and guiding hand, the pirate group grew to be worthy of awe and fear. Through the years, the pirate organization struggled and had many setbacks, including the organization's 'apparent destruction' at the First Battle of Ris'danon. After that disaster, the remaining pirates gathered together and lived in secret until Dak Jesser finally discovered them and destroyed the pirates for good. The White Star Pirates were strange in that they were highly organized for a pirate group, having all proper ranks and troop groupings. In fact, the pirate organization served as the source of the 'regiment' division for the Grand Army of the Republic over 30 years later, though the pirates' regiment division was much smaller than the GAR's.

The symbol of the White Star Pirates consisted of a white star with five dots, one next to each point on the star. Those five dots were connected by thin white lines. The background was black, with small white dots representing other, less important stars. See right for picture.

Beginning
Devin Mastruk, a very practical but greedy man, decided to form a pirate group whose goal was to conquer the galaxy (or at least a part of it). He called his organization-in-creation the White Star Pirates. At first the White Star Pirates struggled. They had a very hard time finding other pirates that wanted to join the organization, because the White Star Pirates gained a reputation of being weak. For the next few years, the organization was barely able to acquire fifty pirates. They had to raid as many areas as possible just to get enough money to survive. Other pirates saw them as an easy target and Devin had a few assassination attempts against him.

Rise to power
All this struggling was reversed in 78 BBY when Orion Forte came along. Devin Mastruk was reluctant to give up the White Star Pirates to this stranger, so he and Orion fought. Devin didn't know when he challenged Orion that the stranger used to be a Jedi. Orion easily won the fight and killed Devin, then took the organization under his control. After Orion did this, the White Star Pirates grew very quickly. Orion used the Force to persuade others to join the group. He even brought a few fellow fallen Jedi into the organization to help him keep the pirates under control and prevent any internal disorder within the organization. Orion wanted his starship fleet to be unique, as to bring fear into enemy hearts in the most effective way. He came to Loronar Corporation and asked them to make a new class of capital ship specifically for him. This type of ship came to be known as the Strike-class cruiser. After the fall of the White Star Pirates that class of ship was completely lost, not revived until the Galactic Civil War. After a few years, Orion Forte decided that if the pirates wanted to truly bring fear into the entire galaxy, they need more than just pirates. With that decision, he began having battle droids constructed for him. By 63 BBY, he had more than six thousand pirates and nearly half that many battle droids under his control, along with thousands of hired crew members for his fleet of Strike-class ships. This is when Forte began his plan to take over the world.

Downfall of Orion Forte
Orion Forte picked the planet Ris'danon as his first victim. He brought nearly his entire army for the invasion as a precaution, for he didn't know how militarily trained Ris'danon's citizens were. He did leave a small portion of his army behind, for he did not want his entire army in one place in case of an ambush. He wanted to be sure that even if he died, at least some of his pirates would live. When Orion was on his way to Ris'danon, the last thing he was expecting was a Jedi. Especially not one as powerful as the one that was sent. Orion discovered that the Jedi Council had sent the extraordinary three-armed Jedi Dak Jesser too late to call off his invasion, as the Army of Ris'danon had already began attacking as had the Strike-class ships of the White Star Pirates. Orion tried to use his advantage of numbers to capture or kill the Jedi, but Dak was too smart, and Orion had the Army of Ris'danon to worry about as well, making it so he didn't have enough time to properly think of a good plan. The Jedi joined with one of Ris'danon's few elite squads and snaked deep into the heart of Orion's fleet. Dak, against all odds, fought his way through to the bridge of Orion's own ship, the White Star, with virtually no injury to himself or his squadron. Orion drew his lightsaber and fought against Dak, but even though the Padawan was only sixteen years old, Orion could barely defend himself from the amazing Jedi. In the middle of the lightsaber duel, the White Star suddenly shook from a blast. The two Force-sensitives stopped fighting and looked out the viewport. They saw a fleet of ships coming their way. What surprised them most was that the ships were Sith ships. Darth Subeth's Hidden Sith Army had come. Dak was able to run away to an escape pod and get off the White Star, but Orion was not so lucky. Because of the chaos aboard the ship following the arrival of the Sith, Orion could not reach an escape pod. He was killed along with nearly all the crew members of his ship. After the destruction of the White Star, the rest of the pirates began panicking even more than they already were. The gunners shot wildly at both Sith and Ris'danans, too scared to actually aim correctly, and the Sith destroyed the pirates' fleet with little injury to their own fleet.

Struggle back to power and final destruction
For the next few years, the pirates that survived the attack scattered across the galaxy to look for more pirates to recruit. But without the help of Orion's Force persuasion, they were not able to convince many to join them. Finally in 59 BBY, after 4 years of struggling and searching, they had amassed a total of 540 pirates. The White Star Pirates were back, though not as powerful as before. The next three years were spent going to small Outer Rim planets and invading them. Because of the unimportantness and remoteness of these planets, it was awhile before the Republic found out, and it was very unusual circumstances under which they were discovered. Dak Jesser was investigating some other happening in an area near one of the planets the White Star Pirates had conquered, and he heard news of the conquering. The White Star Pirates had conquered six planets by the time Dak Jesser finally found out that the organization was still alive. With seven more years of training since Orion's death on his side, Dak was easily able to wipe out the organization for good.

Behind the scenes

 * The name of the organization came from Orion's name. Since "Orion" is a group of real-world stars, the organization was named "White Star."

Appearances
Dak Jesser: True Enemy