Delian Mors

Delian Mors was a human female who served as a Moff in the Galactic Empire in the years after the end of the Clone Wars. In 14 BBY, Mors served as the Imperial Moff of the Outer Rim planet of Ryloth. Her underling Colonel Belkor Dray grew frustrated with her leadership and collaborated with the Free Ryloth Movement in an attempt to discredit her. Mors was caught up in a plot by Cham Syndulla to assassinate Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. In an attempt to unseat her, Belkor collaborated with Cham. However, Mors and the two Sith Lords outsmarted their opponents. Mors exacted revenge against Belkor and executed him.
==Biography==
===Moff of Ryloth===
In the early days of the Empire's rule over the galaxy, Delian Mors was a lieutenant in the Imperial Military, where she served alongside Steen Borkas, who held the same rank. In 18 BBY,Star Wars: Timelines dates the events of Lords of the Sith to 14 BBY. Lords of the Sith also establishes that Murra's death on Coruscant occurred four years prior to the novel's events, meaning she must have passed away in 18 BBY. Mors' wife, Murra, was killed in a transport accident. Around the same time, she was assigned to the Outer Rim planet of Ryloth, a post she considered undesirable. Her loss and her assignment felt like a burden, one that made her neglect some of her duties. A known spice addict, she lived a luxurious lifestyle on Ryloth's largest moon while assigning the day-to-day affairs of her position to her disgruntled underling Colonel Belkor Dray, who she chose to promote over the more experienced Borkas, believing that the younger officer would be more easy to manage. Mors lived in a luxurious palace and was attended by green-skinned Twi'lek servants, all women and all scantily clad, who moved like pale-green ghosts through the rooms. Although none could leave, the Moff refused to call them slaves. With Dray taken aback by Mors' irresponsible lifestyle and shady contacts, he took it upon himself to actively support a growing resistance movement on the planet in an attempt to tarnish Mors' reputation and place himself in command.
===Calm before the storm===
In 14 BBY, Colonel Belkor visited Moff Mors at her luxurious palace on Ryloth's moon. The Moff was meeting with Nashi the Hutt, an envoy of the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure. After Belkor arrived, Mors concluded her meeting with Nashi and allowed her to leave with three cases of Theenwine. When Nashi made a joke about Belkor in Huttese, Mors translated that he was as straight and rigid as a tree. Mors described Belkor as a young ambitious officer. Following Nashi's departure, Mors turned her attention to Belkor and asked if he despised her for her decadence and her dealings with the Hutts.
Belkor denied this and claimed that rank came with privilege, concealing his disdain for her. Belkor then delivered Mors his quarterly report, which the Moff took little interest in. When Mors inquired about the Free Ryloth "terrorists," Belkor reported that he had dispatched his best assets to deal with the case and that things on Ryloth had been quiet for a month. Mors mentioned a recent failed attempt by the Free Ryloth Movement to hijack an Imperial weapons shipment. When Mors inquired about Belkor's counterinsurgency efforts, he reported that the insurgents had blended in with the local population and that killing innocents indiscriminately would only increase sympathy for the Free Ryloth Movement.
Mors mentioned that Senator Orn Free Taa would be returning to Ryloth within ten days. She speculated that Emperor Palpatine had ordered him back to publicize the failed terrorist hijacking and to offer support for the Imperial occupation. Belkor volunteered to handle the Senator's welcoming. Before leaving, she told Belkor to lighten up and to enjoy life and to fetch her wine girl. Unknown to Mors, Belkor planned to arrange for the Free Ryloth Movement to assassinate Orn Free Taa so that he could pin the blame on Mors. Both were unaware that the Emperor and Darth Vader were accompanying Orn Free Taa as part of a plan to lure the Free Ryloth Movement out of hiding.
===Attack on the Perilous===
After Cham Syndulla's forces ambushed and attacked the Imperial Star Destroyer Perilous, Belkor contacted Moff Mors via hologram. When Belkor reported the ambush, Mors chastised the Colonel for allowing a fleet of rebel ships to hold position at the edge of the system. Belkor claimed his resources were limited and that they did not normally patrol that far from the planet. In truth, Belkor had diverted patrol craft and flight clearances in a way that had allowed Cham to move his ships into position. To placate Mors, Belkor suggested calling for all available repair ships to give to the Perilous. Mors obliged and allowed Belkor to manage the relief efforts.
While Belkor went to dispatch repair ships, Mors conferred with another official and learned that the Emperor and Darth Vader were indeed aboard the Perilous. Mors was afraid, knowing the Emperor and Vader's fearsome reputations. Despite her efforts, the Perilous was destroyed in orbit. Breehld, Mors' pilot, informed her of the news. This shocked Mors because this was the first time that an Imperial Star Destroyer had been destroyed. Mors feared that her career was in tatters as a result of the ambush. Mors contacted Belkor, who informed her that Lord Vader and the Emperor had escaped the Perilous destruction. Since there were many survivors landing in escape pods, Belkor directed Breehld to assist in rescuing the Emperor and Vader. When Mors demanded to know why V-wing starfighters and rescue craft had not been diverted, Belkor claimed that he had delayed launching reinforcements to avoid colliding with the Perilous wreckage.
Mors reasserted her authority and chastised Belkor for not consulting her. She also warned that he would answer for his failures once she had returned to Ryloth. Mors instructed Breehld to get them around the planet as fast he could. Upon approaching the wreckage of the Perilous, Mors discovered that the rescue ships had not arrived and that old Separatist droid tri-fighters were approaching the vicinity. Mors' shuttle also narrowly avoided colliding with an Imperial escort ship that had been stolen by a group of Twi'lek rebels led by Cham's lieutenant, Isval. Breehld was killed during the collision, while Mors suffered a gash on her head when she hit a chair. Unknown to Mors, Belkor had transmitted her ship ID to Cham's rebels as part of a plot to assassinate her.
===Discovering a conspiracy===
Mors survived the crash-landing and woke up on Ryloth's rocky surface. After reflecting on the earlier events, Mors realized that Belkor was feeding information to the Free Ryloth rebels. After attending to the dead Breehld, Mors flew her damaged shuttle to the Equatorial Communications Hub, which was commanded by her friend Major Steen Borkas. The Communications Hub had just been attacked by Isval's forces, who had damaged the station's communication dishes. After Mors established a visual connection, she was allowed to land at the Hub.
Upon landing, Mors found that Major Borkas' crew was repairing the damaged communications dishes. Borkas recounted that the rebels had hijacked the communications system and tricked his crew into lowering their shields. When Borkas offered his resignation, Mors reassured him that he was not to blame and told him that she needed every trusted worker to get the situation under control. After seeing that Breehld's body had been removed from the shuttle, Mors met with Borkas to discuss the sequence of events surrounding the attack on the Perilous. Borkas realized that the attack took a lot of coordination and asked if it was a coup attempt.
After reflecting on the loss of Murra, Mors apologized for overlooking Borkas and promoting Belkor instead. Steen reassured her that he did not feel unfairly treated. Mors asked if she could rely on Borkas and he replied in the affirmative. Mors then disclosed her suspicions that Belkor was a traitor and that Vader and the Emperor had been aboard the stricken Perilous. Borkas revealed that he had intercepted a transmission indicating that the rebels knew that Vader and the Emperor had escaped on a shuttle. While Mors led a search party to find the Sith Lords, she instructed Borkas to repair the communications net and summon reinforcements. She emphasized that they were working against the clock to stop a coup against her, the Emperor, and Vader.
===Saving the Empire===
Mors and Borkas traveled in a shuttle and transport to search for the Emperor and Vader. The Imperials continued their search for the Sith Lords throughout the night. While conversing with the co-pilot, the two speculated that the survivors who had escaped the Perilous in escape pods, which had been attacked by lyleks, large insectoid predators native to Ryloth's equatorial forest. As the search dragged on, Mors and Bork's transports encountered a V-wing that was piloted by one of Belkor's men. Since Belkor had misled his men into believing that Mors was plotting to kill the Emperor and Vader, the starfighter had approached them with weapons locked.
Mors established contact with the pilot over the com and convinced him that Belkor was the true traitor. She told the pilot that she and Borkas were searching for Vader and the Emperor. The pilot introduced himself as Wing Leader Arim Meensa and agreed to warn his fellow V-wing pilots of Belkor's treachery. After questioning Meensa, Mors learned that Belkor had told the pilots that they would end up having to attack a ground target based on coordinates. She also learned that Belkor had abruptly changed the search area a short time earlier, which meant he was close to finding the Emperor and Lord Vader. Mors instructed Meensa and his men to warn her and Borkas once Belkor had discovered the Emperor and Vader's location. They were to ignore Belkor's orders to bomb the target and instead to give her his coordinates and delay their arrival. Mors planned to land stormtroopers at the village.
Belkor eventually discovered that the Sith Lords had taken refuge in a local village. By that stage, Cham and his forces had converged on the village for an assault. A panicking Belkor contacted Cham and warned that the Imperials had restored their communications and that their plan was unraveling. Despite this setback, Cham insisted on proceeding with his planned attack. Mors' shuttle and transport accompanied Meensa's V-wings on their fly-over of the village. Belkor tried to contact Meensa but received no response. Desperate, he hailed the shuttle only to hear Mors over the com. Mors chastised Belkor for trying to kill her and hundreds of their comrades. Belkor feigned innocence, but Mors chastised him for being dishonorable.
When Belkor criticized her for her hedonistic lifestyle and corruption, Mors pointed out that unlike her, he had blood on his hands. As a result, she concluded that he would have to pay a heavier price than her for his transgressions. When Belkor asked if she was going to turn him over to the Imperial Security Bureau or Vader, Mors ordered her V-wings to assume firing position. After Mors bid farewell to her former enemy, her V-wings destroyed Belkor's recon craft. Mors then led the assault on the Twi'lek village. She and Steen landed their ships on either side of the Twi'lek forces in the quarry. This allowed the Imperial stormtroopers to trap Cham's attack force. Mors remained aboard the ship for the duration of the assault and watched Vader slaying rebel soldiers with his lightsaber. The Emperor and Lord Vader survived the coup attempt due to Mors' diligence. While many of the Twi'lek rebels were killed, Cham escaped to fight another day.
===Searching for smugglers===
One year later, Mors, who had been warned by the Emperor that she had one chance left to prove herself, was alerted to a malfunction in the automated traffic control bringing ships to Lessu, Ryloth's capital. A ship, the Tirion, had gone missing during the brief outage. She dispatched fighters to search for the freighter, which, unbeknownst to the Moff, was actually a smuggling ship called the Eclipse that had been hired by the Free Ryloth Movement to bring in a shipment of medicine for an outbreak of disease on Ryloth. The fighters were able to track the freighter to Lessu, but after landing briefly on the city's shell to deliver its cargo, the Eclipse was able to evade its pursuers and escape back into hyperspace. Hearing of the escape, Mors was terrified, believing that she had blown her one chance.
==Personality and traits==
Delian Mors was a middle-aged human woman. Mors could understand Huttese due to her frequent contact with Hutts. She was in a same-sex marriage with Murra. After Murra was killed in an untimely airspeeder accident, Mors sank into depression and lost her sense of purpose. She became a consumer of spice, which caused her to have watery eyes and a vague expression during her spice hazes. As a Moff of Ryloth, Mors was known for her hedonistic lifestyle and lackadaisical attitude towards her work. She delegated most of the governing of Ryloth to Colonel Belkor Dray, who came to despise her.
Belkor's ambitions led him to become a spy for Cham Syndulla, the leader of the Free Ryloth movement. He attempted to exploit the Emperor and Darth Vader's visit to Ryloth as a means to discredit her leadership and boost his own political career. During the crisis, Mors rose to the challenge. With the help of Major Steen Borkas, Mors coordinated the successful search for the Emperor and Lord Vader. She appealed to her subordinates' loyalty to the Empire and won over Belkor's men. Mors took the deaths of hundreds of Imperial personnel personally and executed Belkor for his treason.
Mors was also a competent military commander and led a successful counterattack which trapped Cham Syndulla's forces.
==Behind the scenes==
Delian Mors first appeared in the 2015 novel Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp. Prior to the publication, the character was first revealed by Bryan Young, who spoke to Del Rey Star Wars editor Shelly Shapiro about the character in an episode of the Full of Sith Podcast. In the interview, it was revealed that Mors is a lesbian, making her the first LGBT character in Star Wars canon. Kemp later revealed on his Twitter account that Mors' first name was Delian, as is affirmed within the text of Lords of the Sith and The Official Star Wars Fact File Part 107. However, her name was spelled "Delion" in the short story "Mercy Mission" by Melissa Scott, which was published in the The Rise of the Empire compilation.
==Appearances==
*Lords of the Sith 
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==Sources==
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==Notes and references==
Category:Females
Category:Humans
Category:Individuals with she/her pronouns
Category:LGBTQIA+ individuals
Category:Moffs of the Galactic Empire