Beilert Valance Beilert Valance , also known as Valance the Hunter , was a former Human male Imperial stormtrooper non - commissioned officer who , after a crippling injury in combat , was rebuilt as a cyborg and , after leaving the Stormtrooper Corps , went into business for himself as a bounty hunter . His hatred of droids , and his own half - mechanical nature , was incensed when he chanced upon information of an unidentified Human who befriended droids . In his search for this boy , his path crossed with that of the former Star - Hoppers of Aduba - 3 , until finally locating Luke Skywalker and his droids , R2 - D2 and C - 3PO . Rather than ending in a fatal firefight , their confrontation actually caused a change of heart in Valance , driving him to protect Skywalker from the Empire in hopes that one day the Rebels might create a society that had room for cyborgs like himself . His new mission brought him into conflict with Darth Vader , and he sacrificed himself on Centares to prevent Vader from learning Skywalker ' s identity . Biography . Early life . Beilert Valance was a Human male , who — according to Imperial service records — was born on the planet Shinbone , a mining world in the Wild Space region of the galaxy . Valance ' s parents died from the Hardan plague when he was still a child , leaving him to fend for himself until he reached the age of enlistment for Imperial stormtrooper service . After enlistment , Valance was sent to the planet Sirpar , an Imperial heavy - gravity training center in Arkanis sector . After performing superbly in training , he was assigned to Nembus sector , a volatile part of the Outer Rim Territories . The legion to which Valance ' s platoon was attached saw extensive action against both pirates and members of the Rebel Alliance . For his actions during the pacification of the planet Praadost II , Valance was promoted to Sergeant Major . As the Nembus Sector campaign died down , his legion was reassigned to the nearby Kwymar sector . There , Valance participated in the Kwymar Suppressions , a series of Imperial campaigns against Rebels spread over the planets Picutorion , Protazk , Doniphon , Kestos Minor and Telos IV . On Picutorion , Valance led a squad of twelve stormtroopers , two elite stormtroopers and two scout troopers against a Rebel force consisting of twelve men and two droids . Valance ' s squad defeated the enterenched Rebels and prevented them from sending a distress signal through Imperial jamming . With Picutorion calmed down , Sergeant Major Valance was transferred to the nearby Doniphon . Doniphon and injury . On Doniphon , Valance ' s platoon was deployed to a plain below the Selpathian Hills , manning an AV - 9 towed gun . During the assault on Doniphon , Valance ' s platoon cleared the tunnels beneath a warehouse at the Pyrand outpost . The next day , Valance ' s position was attacked by Rebel starfighters : despite being low on ammunition and their transmissions being jammed , the Rebels had managed to contact the base at Damatua . The Rebels strafed Valance ' s position with proton torpedoes , inflicting 21 casualties , of which 16 died . Valance himself sustained severe injuries to his face , limbs and left side . Not expecting him to live , the Imperial forces left Valance ' s ruined body at Anglebay Station , a medical facility located on Telos IV . The Anglebay Station ' s medics , however , managed to save Valance , but at the cost of replacing half of his body with cybernetic parts : his prognosis was so poor that he was denied bacta to reserve it for higher - priority casualties , and his surgery took nearly 271 hours . When he awoke , Valence was intensively questioned by 4A8 - RA - 7 , a medical droid that tried to establish the identities and weapons of the Rebels he had fought on Doniphon . However , Valance was horrified to learn that he had received cybernetic replacements and attempted to claw the synthflesh coating off his face , to the point that the base ' s security had to be called to restrain him . Bounty hunter . Due to outright Imperial prejudice against cyborgs , Valance could not continue his stormtrooper service . Distraught at the abrupt ending of his military career , Valance developed a strong hatred toward all non - organic , including himself . Keeping his identity as a cyborg secret by covering most of his exposed mechanical parts with synthskin , Valance ultimately chose to become a bounty hunter . Valance first gained notice when he apprehended a Sikurdian berserker pirate , Alabar Double Ax , whom he had chased from the planet Sikurd to the Red Nebula . When he caught up with and captured Alabar , he claimed the pirate ' s ship as his own , renaming it the " Kill Switch " . Valance then assembled a gang of mercenaries to serve as his crew and chose the Hutlarian Slssk as his first mate . Together with his gang , Valance routed the Chorran shipjacker s that had threatened Bamula sector on the planet Donadus in the Inner Rim and captured an entire slavers ' ring on the planet Thraisai ; these missions established Valance ' s reputation as an elite bounty hunter . Soon , Valance ' s men obtained a tape from a Rebel spy . An illegal duplicate of an Imperial transmission , it was a report concerning the rescue of a political prisoner , Princess Leia Organa , from the Death Star battlestation . The tape was not specific , but it showed that among Organa ' s rescuers were a smuggler named Han Solo and a boy , who cooperated with — and even befriended — two droids . Although the boy had a bounty put on his head by the Empire , it was not the money that attracted Valance ' s attention , for the very thought of a Human willingly allying himself with mechanicals repelled Valance . Vowing to make the boy — in reality , Luke Skywalker — pay for his friendship with droids , Valance embarked on a search for the " droid - lover . " Destruction of Anglebay Station . During this time , Valance also decided to return to Anglebay Station and destroy all records of his treatment there . In the weeks following the Battle of Yavin , he announced his plans to his crew , informing that they would proceed with the complete destruction of Anglebay Station ; the mission paid for out of Valance ' s own pocket . Nothing was to be left behind that could be salvaged , and not one being , staff member or patient , was to be left alive . His crew was unable to understand why Valance would order the sacking of a politically - neutral medical station that offered care to anyone , even bounty hunters . The mercenaries , however , feared Valance and sought his credits too much to say anything that might set him off . To this end , the " Kill Switch " soon pushed up the Hydian Way , bound for the Telos system . Once his gang breached the station , they shot the patients where they lay ; the droids were rounded up and blasted en masse . Valance himself saw to the obliteration of the computer records , destroying his Anglebay personal medical files along with everyone else ' s . Meanwhile , inside one of patient bays , Valance ' s crew found an old man named Don - Wan Kihotay . The patient deliriously spoke of a boy and a droid , who had teamed up with Han Solo and individuals named Amaiza Foxtrain and Jaxxon the Lepus carnivorous and fought with them on one occasion . Tired and weak , the old man finished his speech before revealing the name of the boy — Jimm Doshun — or the planet where such an event occurred . Falsely thinking that the boy Kihotay spoke of was the same as the one depicted in the Imperial transmission , Valance decided to find out the name of the planet where his prey had served with Solo . After completely destroying Anglebay Station , Valance — certain that Jaxxon could reveal the needed information — put a bounty on the Lepi ' s head and dispatched several of his mercenaries to capture and interrogate him . Aduba - 3 . Valance ' s gang soon tracked Jaxxon to Nar Shaddaa , where they captured him and unsuccessfully tried to interrogate the necessary information . The Lepi refused to tell anything and was soon rescued by Amaiza Foxtrain — who killed all mercenaries except for one — but a slip of the tongue made by Foxtrain revealed the planet ' s name — Aduba - 3 . With that knowledge , the surviving bounty hunter successfully made it back to Valance , who immediately set off to Aduba - 3 . As soon as the " Kill Switch " reached the planet , its sensors detected another ship on the surface — the " Rabbit ' s Foot " , a freighter belonging to Jaxxon , who , along with Foxtrain , had rushed to Aduba - 3 to warn Doshun about Valance . Valance then confronted Jimm Doshun , the " Starkiller Kid , " on his homeworld of Aduba - 3 , mistakenly believing him to be the companion of Han Solo responsible for destroying the Death Star . Though Doshun had been a friend of Solo ' s , he was not Luke Skywalker , the battle station ' s true destroyer . Still , Doshun , joined by his friends from the former Star - Hoppers , the mercenary group that had once defeated a pirate band from Aduba , routed Valance ' s crew and sent the bounty hunter off to begin his search anew . The destruction of Ultaar Outpost . Undaunted , Valance continued investigating leads alone . Eventually he came upon a Rebel information - retrieval team operating in the blossom - laden jungles of Ultaar . The Rebel team , one officer and four troopers , were surprised to see Valance charge into their hut and confront them , demanding information about the group of Rebels aiding Leia Organa , particularly a boy with two droids . They did not have what he needed , but one of them tried to draw a sidearm , igniting a firefight ; Valance shot him immediately , critically wounding him . The other three tried to flee into the jungle , but Valance gunned them down . Leaving them where they fell , Valance returned to the hut to examine the Rebels ' computer core , but he was only able to confirm that they really didn ' t know anything . Valance left Ultaar having found nothing new to aid him in his search . What he had gained , however , was a new enemy . Just days after his raid , Darth Vader came upon the Rebel outpost to find the entire Rebel team wiped out . One Rebel soldier , the one Valance left wounded in the hut , was captured and administered enough drugs to talk . He told Vader that it had been the work of a cyborg calling himself Valance ( evidently something happened during the raid to expose his true nature to the Rebels ) . Vader killed the Rebel and returned to his flagship with the knowledge that he now had a formidable rival in his own search for the Death Star ' s destroyer . Beilert Valance vs . Luke Skywalker . From Ultaar to Feriae Junction . Valance left Ultaar behind and started over . He had learned ( possibly from the Ultaar computer banks ) that meanwhile the Empire had blockaded the Yavin system in an attempt to trap the Rebels there . But Valance was sure the Rebels would try to run this blockade in order to keep the Yavin base supplied , and they would need a supply transfer point . Tracing known Rebel supply lines , he narrowed the possibilities down to the run - down shadowport of Feriae Junction , located at an intersection between the Hydian Way and the Gordian Reach , the route that led to nearby Yavin . He set up operations there and waited , certain that , eventually , the boy and his droids would show up . In Junction City he passed the time as best he could , picking up bounties where they showed themselves . When a certain Marko Tyne , a Zygerrian slaver wanted on Thesme for unlicensed slaving activities in nine systems , appeared in the Junction City cantina , Valance shot him . He was duly paid for his efforts . To amuse himself he indulged his hobby of blasting " junk , " paying his local informant , the scrap dealer Skinker , for salvaged or rebuilt droids simply so he could destroy them . Enter Luke Skywalker . After five weeks , Skinker sent word that a young man with a 3PO unit had appeared in Junction City : Luke Skywalker had come to Junction with his protocol droid C - 3PO to find parts to repair their damaged friend , the astromech droid R2 - D2 . Valance first acted to protect his quarry from Imperial interference : knowing where the local Imperial spy was to be found , he jammed the spy ' s long - range transmitter , then killed the spy himself , to make sure he beat Darth Vader to the target . He expected that killing Vader ' s spy also killed any chance of a monetary reward from the Empire , but evidently he was by now more concerned with personal satisfaction . Skinker kept Skywalker and C - 3PO occupied at his salvage yard long enough for Valance to get there . Sensing a trap , Skywalker shoved C - 3PO into Skinker ' s office and dove in after , and then sent the droid out the back way while he tried to hold off the bounty hunter . Valance blasted his way in and confronted his mark . The boy proved a better fighter than he had initially assumed ; he was agile , clever , and to Valance ' s amazement , he wielded an old Jedi lightsaber . Skywalker used the blade to deflect one of Valance ' s blasts back at him , melting away the synthetic flesh that hid his mechanical parts . When Skywalker expressed shock , Valance was even more angered : a man who appeared to love droids was acting shocked at the sight of a cyborg . Determined to kill Skywalker , he slammed the Rebel to the floor , far from his saber , and prepared to fire . But then Skywalker ' s droid , C - 3PO , suddenly reappeared and placed himself in front of his master , willing to sacrifice himself to save Skywalker . The boy in turn , concerned for his droid ' s safety , tried to send him away . Valance was shocked ; in his experience , droids and Humans did not sacrifice themselves to save each other . " Certainly it ' s not widely accepted , " the droid answered , " But perhaps if it were , even being a cyborg might be easier to bear . " It awakened in Valance the hope that , perhaps , cyborgs like himself could one day exist without prejudice . To ponder this , he allowed C - 3PO to pick up Skywalker ' s fallen lightsaber and carry him back to their ship , while he wandered the streets of Junction City , lost in thought . A new quest . Valance found that his entire view of life had lost its meaning . He could no longer hate droids , for C - 3PO had proved himself capable of one of the very qualities that made one Human : compassion . His former loyalties to the Empire were undermined , for C - 3PO had sided with those who " opposed " the Empire . Even his bitter experiences with the Rebels had found a new context , for he now saw that the ferocity with which they fought was fueled by a belief in the very same better universe that C - 3PO had suggested . Without realizing it , he had become similar to a Rebel , in thought if not in fact . This realization gave Valance a new mission in life . The young Skywalker had already become a crucial player in the war against the Empire , and Valance knew that Darth Vader wanted to learn his identity just as badly , if not worse . Valance came to feel that if a universe that had room for cyborgs was ever to come to pass , it would be through beings like Skywalker , so Valance became determined to prevent Vader from finding him . Previously , Valance had kept what he knew about Skywalker from the Empire only for the sake of preserving the bounty for himself . Now he had to keep that knowledge from reaching Vader at all costs . Beilert Valance vs . Darth Vader . The pursuit of Tyler Lucian . Valance ' s new quest took him to Centares when he learned of the existence of one Tyler Lucian , a Rebel deserter who had been stationed at the Yavin 4 base before the Death Star had arrived . Certain that the battle station would annihilate the base , Lucian had stolen a supply ship and fled , but apparently learned the identity of Skywalker afterward . This made him a much sought - after being , and at the same time that Valance had learned about him , and his location on Centares , Darth Vader had tortured the same information out of a captured spy . Lucian suddenly became the prize in a stuggle between two powerful and determined rivals who had never met . Valance reached Centares first and , through Lucian ' s supply contact in Old Town , found the fugitive hiding out in a tower above the polluted and corrosive waters of Rubyflame Lake . Valance confronted him and drew his sidearm . But before he could pull the trigger , Vader ' s TIE Fighter suddenly appeared from out of the setting sun , screaming low over the lake and settling at the shoreline . Its arrival distracted Valance long enough for Lucian to run into the tower . Locked inside , Lucian was the only witness to the contest of weapons — and wills — between Valance and Vader . The last stand of Beilert Valance . Vader reached the walkway leading to the tower , and found Valance there waiting , his gun drawn , determined to prevent him from passing to get the name he wanted . When the first blows were felled , Valance ' s cybernetic weapons brought Vader to his knee — briefly . Valance ' s defiance intrigued Vader ; he offered Valance a chance to serve him , but the hunter was not interested . Valance blasted a gap in the walkway . Vader ignited his lightsaber and leaped over the chasm to where Valance was making his stand . The combat that ensued was fierce , but brief . At the end , Valance was critically wounded , but even then , Valance refused to give up . He gripped onto Vader ' s boot , holding him fast . Vader offered to save him if he would only quit ; even if he left Lucian alone , Vader argued , others would have the same information . Eventually , he would acquire it . And then what would have been the point of Valance ' s self - sacrifice ? But for Valance , the point was to buy time . " " The boy you seek , the one with the droids , is " good " . And he ' s growing . Someday he ' ll be your equal , or your better . Any delay works in his favor , increases his chances . " " Vader then decided that there could be no more delay . Vader prepared to swing his saber for the last time , but Valance rolled himself over the edge of the walkway , hauling Vader with him . Valance dangled above the corrosive waters , his weight pulling Vader toward the same toxic end . Vader desperately swung his blade , slicing through the cybernetic hand clamped to his boot . Beilert Valance plunged into Rubyflame Lake . There , his flesh dissolved in minutes , his metal parts following hours later . But Tyler Lucian had heard his last words and found his own courage . Steeling himself , Lucian jumped from the high tower , following Valance into the fatal waters and securing , for the moment , the secret of Luke Skywalker ' s identity from Vader . Personality and traits . Beilert Valance learned to be tough almost from the beginning of his life . His childhood on a harsh and unforgiving mining planet — much of it spent without the protection and emotional nourishment his parents would have provided him — left him cold and emotionally distant , and his desperate struggle for existence made him ruthless , able to make hard decisions that others , raised in more comfortable circumstances , could not make . Service in the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps would have — and no doubt did — provide a perfect outlet for the young Valance . His life on Shinbone no doubt fully prepared him for the rigors of stormtrooper training , and the two combined to make him an effective combat soldier . He was tactically astute , aggressive , cunning , and unfeeling . In short , he had all the tools required to be a superb bounty hunter long before he ever took up the profession . His crippling injuries sustained on Doniphon revealed a new and hateful streak of his character : his hatred of droids and other mechanicals , or " " junk " " as he called them . Prejudice against droids had been quite common long before the bitter experience of the Clone Wars reinforced it , and cyborgs were not spared this hatred . That he should himself be forced to live out his days as a half - mechanical being Valance regarded as a bitter pill . Thus his hatred of droids became the outward sign of an even more deeply - rooted hatred of himself . His pursuit of Skywalker and his droid companions may have been meant to eliminate a bitter reminder that it was not droids , but he himself , that he really detested . He was caught completely unprepared for the possibility that one of Skywalker ' s droids , C - 3PO , might actually prove himself to be more caring , more " human " , than he was . The acknowledgement of that fact completely changed him . Valance saw in C - 3PO ' s actions the possibility of a better galaxy , one in which cyborgs like himself need never face prejudice . In that vision he suddenly became something he had never been — an idealist . His childhood on Shinbone had eradicated any youthful idealism he might have had , and his sudden conversion to the protector of a major Rebel operative demonstrated that the Empire ' s ideology , which would have been a central part of his stormtrooper training , never really took hold . Lacking any trust in family , or hope for the future , or even a lasting belief in the New Order , Valance had no reason to have any ideals at all . The realization that he " could " believe in something beyond himself gave him new strength and purpose . He did not become a fully - fledged Rebel , but he understood enough of the Rebellion to know that Luke Skywalker ' s survival was a crucial component of its eventual victory , and his belief — no matter how thin — in that victory was sufficient to give him the courage to stand against the Empire ' s most brutal enforcer . In a conclusion laced with irony , Beilert Valance willingly laid down his life in the name of the very thing he had long ago thought banished from him : hope . Behind the scenes . The character of Valance was introduced in 1978 by veteran comic writer Archie Goodwin . He was not originally given a complete name , but when Jason Fry expanded the Valance story for roleplaying purposes in his multi - part online article " " , he gave the bounty hunter a first name . Convinced that Goodwin took the name " Valance " from the classic John Ford western film " The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance " ( 1962 ) , Fry intended Valance ' s first name to be an anagram of " Liberte . " He also named Valance ' s homeworld Shinbone , after the town in the film where Liberty Valance lived . Valance ' s confrontation with Vader was named as an " Honorable Mention " in the " Star Wars Insider " article " 20 Most Memorable Moments of the Expanded Universe " .