Ecclessis Figg / Legends Ecclessis Figg was an eccentric Human explorer and entrepreneur who founded Cloud City and propelled himself into vast fortune with the creation of a business empire . After leaving his homeworld of Corellia at eighteen , Figg spent his next years taking jobs and participating in adventures along the Corellian Trade Spine . After he saved the life of a woman named Yarith , a lesser noble of the Royal House of Alderaan , Figg courted and married her . Yarith opened her fortunes to him , giving him the capital he needed to found the Outer Javin Company . Figg ' s company sponsored a number of expeditions along the Trade Spine , the businessman and his wife participating in many of them , and Figg ' s eventual charting of new hyperspace routes through the Twin Nebulae made him an extremely wealthy man . He eventually turned to the seemingly unremarkable gas giant Bespin , on which years ago he had discovered vast amounts of easily accessible Tibanna gas , a hyperdrive coolant . When Figg found that Bespin ' s Tibanna was naturally suited for the ammunition of blasters , he expanded his operation into the airborne colony " Floating Home " . With the help of Ugnaughts , who he freed from slavery in exchange for constructing the colony , Figg had his new facility built . He saw the potential in Bespin ' s natural scenery for tourism and expanded the colony even further , turning it into the floating metropolis of Cloud City , a site of luxury , entertainment , and gambling . Figg lived long enough to preside over the formation of the Anoat sector , and after making pronouncements on the future of Cloud City ' s government from his deathbed , the entrepreneur died . His children survived him , continuing the Figg name and propagating the fortune and influence the man had built up . Figg himself remained a legendary figure in the region , especially among the Ugnaughts . Biography . The entrepreneur . Ecclessis Figg was born to a pair of commoners of Corellia around the fifth century BBY . Artistic in nature , Figg ' s parents raised him in an environment that encouraged creativity . Figg picked up the personal flair of his parents , causing him to be perceived by the upper classes of Corellia as impertinent , but he also developed a keen business sense that topped any in his family . At eighteen , Figg smuggled himself aboard a freighter to participate in adventures that would earn him money . Over the next few years , the young man made contacts all along the Corellian Trade Spine , impressing many with his charisma and daring . Figg dreamed of founding a surveying and trading company to open up systems along the Trade Spine . It was in the course of his travels that Figg inspected the seemingly unremarkable gas giant of Bespin and discovered an abundance of Tibanna gas , a common hyperdrive coolant , and easily accessible on this world . Further investigations , conducted in secret , revealed a number of other useful gaseous compounds in Bespin ' s atmosphere . However , Figg knew he needed capital to take advantage of this opportunity . He eventually took a position as steward on a luxury liner , and it was in this job that he saved the life of Yarith , a lesser noble of the Royal House of Alderaan . Figg courted Yarith for a brief period before they were married , and his new wife , understanding Figg ' s ambitions , opened her private fortune to him to start his new Outer Javin Company . Lord Figg had now also become part of the Alderaanian Royal Family . Figg took up residence on Gerrenthum , basing his missions from that world . His initial goal was to scout the systems off the Trade Spine and discover what potential they had in the way of resources , commerce , and colonization . He and Yarith accompanied a number of his expeditions to these worlds , and eventually he began to invest in several small colonies to collect resources on worlds thought inaccessible . On worlds with dangers ranging from poisonous atmospheres to hostile native life , Figg built numerous operations that not only proved themselves to be safe , but turned a profit . He was the first to map a safe hyperspace route into the Anoat system . When missions into the area known as the Twin Nebulae opened up hyperspace shortcuts to the worlds of Lutrillia and Nothoiin , the economic boom it triggered made Figg quite wealthy and turned the Twin Nebulae into an economic powerhouse . Not wanting to attract undue attention from the Galactic Republic and knowing that conflicts between native species would damage his trade , Figg made sure both the Lutrillians and Nothoiin reaped the rewards of the new routes . Figg established himself as a familiar sight on Coruscant as well , becoming a major benefactor of several powerful senators . City in the clouds . Within the next decade , Figg set his eyes again on Bespin . Despite the record of failures of previous companies in mining the gases of that world , Figg earned a charter for his company Figg & Associates to attempt it again . His first operation consisted of automated vessels that descended into Bespin ' s clouds , collected the gases , and returned to orbiting processing ships — an inefficient process , as much of the gas collected was useless . Bespin ' s rosy clouds intrigued Figg with the possibility of building a floating pleasure palace , and when survey teams discovered that the Tibanna gas in Bespin ' s lower atmosphere was naturally " spin - sealed " — a property that made it invaluable in blaster ammunition — he ordered the construction of the mining colony Floating Home , the first permanent settlement on that world . Figg contracted an Alderaanian architect named Nyrconnel to design the upper levels of the Floating Home colony , though some believed he did so only to please his Alderaanian wife . One of the first attractions commissioned by Ecclessis Figg was the Figg & Associates Art Museum , an upscale art museum located on the colony ' s twenty - second level ; the museum ' s reception area featured a massive dolomite statue of Figg as a middle - aged man in a well - tailored flight suit . Figg knew that Floating Home could not be built without a source of cheap manual labor , and he found it in the Ugnaughts of Gentes . Their species were long - time victims of slavers , and so Figg bought three entire Ugnaught tribes — the Irden , Botrut , and Isced — and brought them together on a space station in the Velsor ' s Ring asteroid field . There he promised them that if they built his city in the clouds , he would give them their freedom , a home and workplace in the colony they built , and a share in his company ' s profits . In the mines of the planet Miser , where resources for Figg ' s city were gathered , and in the clouds of Bespin the Ugnaughts worked to complete Floating Home . Figg designed an idea to help mine the hot Miser , a rolling mining center that could move to stay on the planet ' s dark side ; however , the planet ' s terrain proved too difficult for a wheeled vehicle , and he abandoned the idea , leaving notes in his personal logs . While planning the colony , he also contacted Incom Corporation to see about contracting design and engineering personnel ; Incom ' s employees later worked to build the repulsorlifts needed to support the colony . When construction at last finished , less than a decade after Figg had first discovered the bounty of Bespin ' s resources , the businessman honored his word and granted the Ugnaughts their freedom . Figg ' s mining venture paid his wife back ten times more than the capital she had invested , and he saw even further potential in the colony as a site for tourism . He had other reasons for this , though ; knowing that anyone could see that the size of his operation was out of proportion with the usual mining of Tibanna as a coolant , he decided to hide his other operation in plain sight by expanding the city , turning Floating Home into the airborne metropolis of Cloud City . The mining of weaponized gas was illegal under the Empire , and the tourism side of Cloud City worked as a front to distract outsiders from the unauthorized mining operation . Figg remodeled , giving the city an Alderaanian - inspired architecture in honor of his wife — and transporting thrantas from Alderaan to Bespin as a gift to her — and promoted it as a site for vacationing , luxury dining , entertainment , and gambling . To prevent the workers from squandering their wages with the latter , Figg laid down laws banning citizens from gambling , and only allowing it for visitors . He also encouraged the spread of information brokers , wanting to know who knew what . A decade after Floating Home was first built , it had become known as Cloud City and a tremendous source of income from tourism alone . It was the first permanent settlement on a gas giant to last more than a decade . Within a few years , Ugnaught leader Boss Ugnor met with Figg to form the Ugnaught Mechanics Union . Figg granted Ugnor the leftover materials from the construction of Cloud City to build a " Surface " for Bespin , a floating platform beneath Cloud City and home for the Ugnaughts . Decades after his major hyperspace route discoveries , Figg brought his legacy full circle with two others : a new route between Lutrillia and Darlyn Boda , and another between the Corellian Trade Spine and Nothoiin Corridor that opened up the backwaters of the Javin sector . In his last year , Figg presided over a ceremony on Gerrenthum commemorating the creation of a new sector from the outer reaches of the Javin sector . Though Figg pushed for it to be named " Ecclessis , " officials in the Core Worlds named it the Anoat sector after an old surveying note . On his deathbed , Figg made a decree regarding the succession of Cloud City ' s ruling post , the Baron Administrator , that it would be passed down by appointment of the incumbent Administrator . Legacy . Figg was survived by his children , who inherited his vast fortune . Figg & Associates remained highly influential on Cloud City , expanding into numerous other ventures , and the Figg family retained a great deal of influence in the region , particularly on Figg ' s adopted world of Gerrenthum . Figg himself , though a historical footnote in the Core , remained legendary in the Rimward portion of the Corellian Trade Spine . Besides his family ' s companies of Figg & Associates and Figg Excavations , the businessman was memorialized in a number of names , from the Ecclessis Figg Room of Cloud City where Lando Calrissian later won control of the city , to the Figg Power Station of the Ugnaught Surface , to even a variation of sabacc . Figg and his wife were also memorialized in Figg Hall , a public space for visitors and residents to speak with representatives of Cloud City ' s government . The upper facade of Figg Hall featured bas - relief sculptures of Figg , his wife , and the construction of Cloud City , though the sculptures ' accuracy was highly questionable . An annual gala was held in the Figg & Associates Art Museum to celebrate an obscure milestone in Figg ' s life . By the time that Calrissian had become administrator of the station , the tourism business of Cloud City started as a front by Figg had become a legitimate operation and a major industry on Bespin . Figg was never forgotten by the Ugnaughts , who remembered how he had freed them , and he remained respected and admired by many of them . Centuries after his death , Figg was commemorated in a special report of the Ugnaught news program " Action Tidings " that related the species ' history . Calrissian also found Figg ' s plans for the rolling mining center in Figg ' s personal logs , and developed an altered version of the idea using legs instead of wheels ; the invention helped him design the mobile platform of Nomad City that traveled the surface of the planet Nkllon . Personality and traits . Ecclessis Figg was raised by parents of an artistic bent to encourage his creativity , and the young man developed a business acumen and personal flair that those of the classes above him saw as impertinence . Figg would willingly risk danger to help a friend , and this loyalty and his personal charisma impressed others and earned him numerous connections . Figg was charitable and a man of his word . He always emphasized the means over the end . He was not adverse to purchasing Ugnaught slaves , however , though the Ugnaughts did not hold this against him , as he freed them later . Figg was considered to be eccentric and a colorful character , with a flamboyant personality . Bold and visionary , he eagerly took great risks that often paid off , from his early decision to smuggle himself off - planet to his investments in later life . With a string of successes to his credit , he styled himself the " Master Trader of the Outer Javin " . Figg had a need to know who knew what , encouraging the spread of information brokers in Cloud City . He could be secretive as well , hiding business opportunities to prevent others from leaping upon them . Behind the scenes . Created for Jonatha Ariadne Caspian ' s " " , Ecclessis Figg has never made a direct appearance in a " Star Wars " story , relegated to reference and roleplaying game books and assorted mentions in stories . The bulk of the character ' s biography was presented in a pair of sidebars about him in " Galaxy Guide 2 " and , later , " " . " The Jewel of Yavin " , an adventure supplement for " " , expanded on Figg and the history of Cloud City , and also featured the first image of Figg , albeit a statue of the man .