Lit Was "Moff" Rebus an actual Moff?

In the first Dark Forces game Kyle Katarn is forced to chase down an Imperial weapons designer known as Moff Rebus.

We known that the title "Moff" indicated that an individual was the governor of a sector of space.

For a number of reasons I find it very difficult to conclude that "Moff" Rebus ever held such a prestigious position. Instead I would wager that "Moff" was just the guy's first name.

First of all, when you track him down he is hiding out in a massive sewage system complex. And when I say sewage, I don't mean rainwater runoff. The stuff you wade through while searching for Rebus is clearly animal waste of some sort.

How can a high government official such as an Imperial Moff conduct day to day business in such an environment? Imagine if the Governor of Kansas decided to hole up in similar environs. Would businessmen, legislators, political interest groups etc. really deign to meet the governor while he's hiding out in the sewer system? Or did the Emperor make him Moff of a sewage treatment complex?

And when you finally find Rebus he looks like this. Instead of wearing the usual spiffy Moff uniform he's wearing a dingy- very dingy- wifebeater with sweat stains around the armpit and neck regions. I'd like to think that the position of Moff comes with certain bare bones standards of bodily cleanliness. Standards that very clearly cannot be met while living in a sewer. What if Rebus had been called upon to attend a Mofference? Would his peers have allowed him to set foot on the Moffship looking (and smelling) like that?

There are simply too many incongruities surrounding the so-called "Moff" Rebus. I refuse to believe that the Galactic Emperor could ever entrust the dignity of such a high political office to such a slovenly oaf.

What say the rest of you?

 

Hey, the Empire needs working sewage systems too.

Rebus is the man who keeps the dianogas from crawling up out of your toilets. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it.

 

I wonder if he just (unofficially) adoted the title - to make himself sound more important? Sewage plants need spare parts too - and an indent from a 'Moff' would probably get preferential treatment, and not a lot of scrutiny!

Wasn't the title given to some planetary governors too? And if you're the only sentient being on the planet...

 

Moffulus G. Rebus could be his name, but it's quite possible that as a successful military engineer, he was given a sinecure in some subsector where his facilities were.

 

I figured it was a bragging, self-titled thing - like a crime lord calling himself "Baron" or something (in this case, pointing to his pro-Imperial sympathies)

 

I believe he is a genuine Moff, just ones who neglects his civilian management duties for weapon development and being utterly paranoid.

Which isn't uncommon for Imperial Brass. You didn't see Tarkin filling out paper work after all, did you?

 

Moffs are not all appointed for Sector government roles, we have several that are placed in charge of special projects - Jerjerrod for example was actually a Core World Moff before the Emperor sent him to Endor or Kadir who was just in charge of Imperial Center Security. Rebus could easily just be an eccentric weapons designer that the Emperor bestowed the Moff title on so he could call on whatever resources he felt he needed.

 

Ohh, Dark Forces, my favorite corner of the EU.

I suspect good old Rebus was intended to have Moff as a first name, just like Hutt was originally assumed to be just a gangster title (those were the days). I like @Gorefiend's interpretation a lot: it does make sense.

 

He could always be both.

Moff Moffulus G. Rebus, Head of Imperial Sewage Treatment.

 

Well, he signed his weapons "M. R."

 

How very Catch-22 of him.

 

How.

 

...

 

Or he just got wind of the fact that an assassin was being sent after him - and hid out, avoiding his usual haunts.

 

I genuinely never understood the controversy regarding Rebus as a proper Moff. According to the writer and lead artist for DF, Rebus previously worked for Imperial Machines, an Imperial arms manufacturer who hated their political infighting and left for "a more creative environment." By the time we see him, Rebus is working on developing weapons for one of the Empire's most top-secret and important projects at the time. Since he's on Anoat, one would assume that he was the Moff of the Anoat sector, an utterly insignificant and backwater sector even by the standards of the Outer Rim. Additionally, based on the top-secret nature of the Dark Trooper Project, it's entirely forgiveable that he operates out of a clandestine weapons lab buried deep underground in the sewers of a dead world, to ensure absolute secrecy. Yes, he's in the sewer and dressed like a slob when Kyle Katarn encounters him in his capacity as a weapons designer, but extrapolating further than that requires assuming he's permanently based there in that capacity all the time. Given that he's described in-game as a quriky genius, he could just as easily slap on his olive-greens and govern most of the time, only to strip down and delve into his lab whenever he's free to work on his extremely important, top-secret projects. If a figure as senior as Grand Moff Tarkin can vanish for long stretches in Outer Rim backwaters to oversee his own weapons project, I don't see why the Moff of a single sector - with arms manufacturing experience - can't periodically dip into his own isolated hellhole to do some clandestine work.

 

Is James Earl Jones actually James, Earl of Jones?

Frankly, I suspect that the OP is right in conjecturing that in this case "Moff" is used as a first name, rather like analogous uses of "Earl" or "Duke" in our own world.

 

Do not be too proud of this necrotic terror you have constructed. The ability to raise a thread is insignificant next to the power of the force.

 

I'm sorry, is he not already?

 

holy thread revival