Who's Who in the Galactic Underworld in the Prequel Era

How much do we know about the big movers and shakers in the underworld from between, say, 33 BBY and 19 BBY?

* Jabba the Hutt is establishing himself on Tatooine. Jango Fett killed off his primary local rival, Gardulla of Clan Besadii, while hunting Komari Vosa, but it will still be decades before he's ready to take control of the Desilijic kajidic. I think we can assume that Aruk Besadii Aora and Jiliac Desilijic Tiron are the leading figures in the Hutt syndicates at this point.

* We know that Black Sun prospers prior to TPM under Alexi Garyn, but that all changes when Darth Maul cuts them all to ribbons in 32 BBY. Black Sun reorganizes under Xizor sometime between 32 BBY and 20 BBY, but it seems to be a while until it gets back to full strength.

* The Corporate Alliance seems to be as deeply involved in illegitimate activities as legitimate ones, and Murkhana seems to be a haven for underworld types in this era. They may be the dominant criminal force of their time.

* We know Cradossk is head of the Bounty Hunters' Guild. Other prominent bounty hunters and assassins are Jango Fett, Aurra Sing, Zam Wessell, and Saje Tasha.

* Prominent smugglers: Vilmarh Grahrk is active, Booster Terrik is active (anyone know how active?), anyone else?

 

The Bando Gora are apparently quite influential and feared for their size before Jango takes them out. It's possible that with Komari Vosa taking power at the same time Black Sun's been decapitated that they 'move in' on old Black Sun territory. They've certainly bought at least one senator, and Vosa considers him 'easily replaced'. The Bando Gora actually openly invaded a planet, and (by the Bounty Hunter manual) were powerful enough to kill scores of Jedi even pre-Vosa. Of course, that may be slight exaggeration.

Palpatine sees them as a threat to him personally (he only seems to have acted against Black Sun (and perhaps Vorru?) in this fashion), and it seems like a lot of bounties were set on them by (unknown) figures before the Vosa hunt, with no bounty hunters coming back. Presumably there's a reason for those bounties, aside from the death stick thing which appears new as of Bounty Hunter.

 

I never played Bounty Hunter, but I was under the impression that the Bando Gora were more terrorists or crazed cultists than criminals. I wasn't really thinking in terms of people doing illegal things for a cause (revolutinaries, terrorists, religious fanatics), more about people doing illegal or quasi-legal things for profit.

But if we want to throw in terrorists and such, there's the Bando Gora, the Nebula Front, the Flail, the Roshu Sune, the Cult of M'dweshuu, those revolutionaries who tried to blow up Coruscant with the Infant of Shaa... I think there are others but I'm drawing a blank.

Plus there are secret societies like the Malkite Poisoners, the Mecrosa, the Morgukai, the Anzati assassins.

 

Crazy cult, yeah, but also heavily involved in the drug trade and buying Senators.

For smugglers, the team of Dubrak Qennto, Jorj Car'das, and Maris Ferasi from Outbound Flight(small-time), and Drixo the Hutt, who they were smuggling for.

 

If anyone counts the Droids cartoon, there is the Fromm Gang who were probably rising to power at that time.

I think the Hutts were pretty much dominating crime at the time, as VOTF said they really hit their stride during the Clone Wars era.

As for Black Sun, well no-one can really know what happened to them, and as far as Shadows of the Empire quotes go, Xizor didn't get control of them until the inter-trilogy era.

 

Jorj Car'das would have been building his information-network-fronting-as-a-smuggling-cartel at this time into one of the top players, backed by Darth Sidious.

 

Decca the Hutt took over her mother's criminal holdings offworld in the Jedi Quest books, while her sibling Gardulla the Younger worked with Jabba on Tatooine.

TC

 

Xizor already has control of Black Sun (and is quite feared) by the time of the Han Solo Trilogy.

 

I think Inter-trilogy means the time between the PT and OT. I think this is from the quote in Shadows saying that Xizor was cementing his position in Black Sun when Vader's experiment went wrong on Falleen

 

Yes. And that is after the time when he was "cementing his control of Black Sun" about 7 years pre-Yavin.

So, how exactly would it take him 25 years to get control and cement it?

It's obvious that there was either a split that Xizor repaired, or there was an Underlord between Garyn and Xizor.

 

Evasive Action: Prey, the third in the series of Clone Wars/Dark Times era webstrips, will see Zonder, Ekira and Drake crossing paths with Xizor, the new Underlord of Black Sun. It appears to be a continuation of Recruitment, itself occuring not long after the original Reversal of Fortune set around Order 66.

There are also a few notable crimelords on Coruscant as of the Clone Wars: the Baath brothers, owners of the Outlander; spice-runner and Outlander founder Volven Roxe; and Hat Lo, a small-time gangster with delusions of grandeur working for Hutt crimelords.