Ric Olié

Ric Olié was a human male starship pilot who served in the Royal Naboo Security Forces. He was the commander of the Naboo Royal Space Fighter Corps, and the leader of Bravo Squadron. Olié's talents also landed him the job of the Queen's personal pilot, often flying the Naboo Royal Starship in the service of Padmé Amidala. Due to Naboo's pacifistic nature, Olié's skills were rarely in use, although he saw military action during the Invasion of Naboo. Following the battle, Olié suffered an inner-ear injury and was eventually succeeded as Naboo's royal pilot by Daneska Varbarós.
By the time of the Galactic Civil War, Olié had become part of the Amidalans, a resistance group of Naboo which desired to hunt down and kill those responsible for Amidala's mysterious death, facing the Sith Lord Darth Vader when the Sith was tricked into going to Naboo by Sabé so they could kill him for his role in the former queen's death.
==Biography==
===Invasion of Naboo===
By the time that Naboo was invaded by the Trade Federation, Commander Ric Olié's only superior in the Royal Naboo Security Forces was Captain Quarsh Panaka. Towards the beginning of the invasion, Bravo Leader, Captain Olié, along with the rest of his pilots, were captured and arrested by Federation forces when they swept into Theed. Their Queen was also arrested, and Naboo was subjugated swiftly by the droid army. However, they did not anticipate the intervention of two Jedi, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, who were able to rescue the Queen, her entourage, Olié, and his pilots. Olié had no time to comprehend what was going on, as he was quickly ushered into the Queen's Royal Starship, and ordered to set a heading for Coruscant.
Escape would not come easily, as the Federation's blockade would provide Olié with a significant challenge. He was flying an unarmed transport against a fleet of heavily-armed capital ships. Although he tried his best, the ship sustained heavy damage during the escape, and lost its shield generator. R2-D2, one of the ship's astromech droids, repaired the shields, which allowed Olié to pilot the ship through the blockade to safety.
During the escape, the hyperdrive suffered enough damage to prevent the ship from finishing the journey to Coruscant. Kenobi suggested that they land on Tatooine, a desert planet, and purchase the parts needed to make repairs. Qui-Gon Jinn, the Queen (in disguise), the Gungan, Jar Jar Binks, and R2 set out to look for the parts. After a few days, they returned with both the parts and a new member of the group—nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker, an aspiring pilot. Olié took to the boy and offered him a few short lessons in starship piloting. When the Queen's pleas with the Galactic Senate to send aid to her besieged planet went unheeded, she decided to return and take matters into her own hands. Olié flew the group back to Naboo to confront their Trade Federation adversaries. Olié's skills, combined with a lessened Trade Federation space presence, allowed them to land on the planet with enough time for Amidala to contact the native Gungans to enlist their help.
===The battle for Naboo===
The Queen had a plan—the Gungan Grand Army would assemble and draw the droid forces out of Theed, she and Panaka would then sneak into the city and capture the Viceroy of the Trade Federation, Nute Gunray, and Olié and his pilots would attempt to knock out the Droid Control Ship. Destroying the ship was the key to deactivating all droid units and saving the outmatched Gungans.
When the Queen and the Jedi liberated Theed's hangar, Olié and his pilots sprang into action, clambering into their N-1 starfighters and setting out for the Droid Control Ship. The Federation launched Vulture droids in attempt to counter the Naboo offensive, and succeeded in destroying many of the N-1 fighters. Only upon reaching the enemy ship did Olié realize that the deflector shield was too strong, and that the battle seemed hopeless. Just when it seemed as though the Naboo fighters would fail in their mission, the Control Ship started to explode from the inside to Olié's surprise as none of the Naboo fighters managed to hit it. To his surprise, a fighter flew out of the exploding ship piloted by Anakin Skywalker who had inadvertently joined the battle, landed inside the ship and damaged the main reactor. As the Droid Control Ship exploded, Bravo Squadron jubilantly returned to their liberated homeworld to celebrate. He later attended the funeral of Qui-Gon Jinn.
===Post-battle of Naboo===
At some point after the Battle of Naboo, Olié suffered an inner-ear injury that made it difficult for him to leave atmosphere, though he was still able to fly under the clouds.Queen's Shadow By 28 BBY,Star Wars: Timelines date the events of Queen's Shadow to 28 BBY. Daneska Varbarós had succeeded Olié as Naboo's royal pilot.
In 19 BBY, Padmé Amidala passed away after the end of the Clone Wars and the Galactic Republic's transition into the First Galactic Empire. Shortly afterwards, a funeral for the former queen and senator was held on Theed. Olié was one of those who attended the funeral and helped to bury Amidala, whose corpse was laid to rest in a tomb.
===Galactic Civil War===
By the time of the Galactic Civil War, Olié had become a member of the Amidalans, a resistance group founded by the former royal handmaiden Sabé, whose goal was to kill anyone involved in Amidala's mysterious death. Sometime after the duel on Cloud City in 3 ABY,Star Wars: Galactic Atlas the Sith Lord Darth Vader visited Naboo in his search to take revenge on those who hid the existence of Luke Skywalker, his and Amidala's secret son. He was tricked into going to Naboo by Sabé, and once he arrived there, the Amidalans tried to kill him. As Vader chose to battle the Amidalans at one site of Naboo's forests, Olié and some Amidalans trapped Vader, his forensics droid ZED-6-7 and some of his death troopers in Gungan bubble wort projectors.
Vader demanded Olié and his forces to show themselves, leading Olié to come out of the shadows and sentence Vader to death for the murders of Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker, unaware that Skywalker and Vader were actually one and the same. Recalling his meeting with Olié aboard the Queen's Royal Starship over thirty years ago, Vader asked Olié if he met Amidala and Skywalker and if he saw Amidala die, to which Olié told that he fought with them during the Battle of Naboo but he just buried Amidala. Vader thus responded that Olié and the other Amidalans were then of no use to him and broke free of the projector. Olié ordered the Amidalans to fight for Padmé and Anakin, but Vader and his troopers easily dispatched them before Vader impaled Olié through his back with his lightsaber. Olié died from his wounds and asked for forgiveness to his late Queen at the same time Vader managed to open Amidala's tomb, which Olié and the Amidalans had failed to protect.
==Personality and traits==
Olié was a naturally gifted pilot and could pilot any craft on Naboo. He was reverent towards his queen and always respected her decisions. Although he followed Panaka's orders, Olié's opinions were always respected.
==Behind the scenes==
The character played by Ralph Brown in the 1999 prequel trilogy film, Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, marks the first appearance of Ric Olié. He is referred to by some fans as "Captain Obvious" due to dialogue that simply states well-observed facts, such as "There's the blockade!", "That's it… Tatooine," and "We didn't hit it!"
Brown reprises his role in the 2022 video game LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which features Olié as a playable Hero class character. It carries on his trait of stating the obvious—Olié's dialogue for whether the in-game character has the necessary abilities to perform a specific task are "I am able to help" and "I can't do that," and upon obtaining a collectable item the character says either "I have found it and will take it with me" or "I've collected something." In the game's adaptation of The Phantom Menace, Olié's statement that Coruscant was "one big city" in the film is instead said by Obi-Wan Kenobi.
==Appearances==
*Queen's Peril 
* 
*Star Wars: The Prequel Trilogy – A Graphic Novel
*Star Wars Journeys: The Phantom Menace
*
*Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss 
*Queen's Shadow 
*Darth Vader (2020) 4
*Star Wars (2020) 43 
===Non-canon appearances===
*William Shakespeare's The Phantom of Menace: Star Wars Part the First
*LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
==Sources==
==Notes and references==
Category:Amidalans
Category:Captains
Category:Humans
Category:Individuals with he/him pronouns
Category:Males
Category:Pilots
Category:Royal Naboo Security Force officers