Magna Tolvan

Magna Tolvan was a female human who served in the Galactic Empire in various positions, first as a captain and subsequently as a lieutenant within the Imperial Military, then as an Lieutenant-Inspector and Captain-Inspector of the Imperial Inspectorate, and later joined the Alliance to Restore the Republic and lead the Strike Team Misericorde, a special team of the Rebel Alliance Intelligence Service during the Galactic Civil War. Tolvan was a strict disciplinarian, and she valued knowledge of, and adherence to, protocol. Tolvan admonished those who fell short of her lofty standards as "sloppy." During her time with the Empire, Tolvan developed a complicated relationship with rogue archaeologist, Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra.

Following the Battle of Yavin and the evacuation of the Alliance base on Yavin 4, Tolvan was in command of Imperial forces tasked with investigating the now-deserted base. After the Yavin operation went awry, Tolvan was demoted to Lieutenant and stationed on an Imperial base on Someilk. After surviving a siege on Someilk, she faced execution. Tolvan was spared in timely fashion, however, by being re-assigned to the Inspectorate, as Lieutenant-Inspector on Coruscant, after she had been named legatee to Inspector Thanoth. After her success at crippling the criminal organization Son-tuul Pride, Tolvan regained her Imperial rank of captain.

In the aftermath of aiding Doctor Aphra's escape from Accresker Jail, Tolvan defected the Empire to the Rebel Alliance, assembling and leading a highly-effective strike team known as Strike Team Misericorde.

Magna Tolvan was a human female with blue eyes, white hair, and light skin. The studious Tolvan dedicated herself to mastery of Imperial protocol, and in so doing, won high marks in technical and tactical engagement. She believed that though some were drawn to rules of authority simply for the chance to break them, others like herself, craved discipline in order to make sense of and control their own inner turmoil. For this, Tolvan was never lax in citing and applying Imperial regulations, often admonishing the efforts of those who failed at adhering to them, as "sloppy."

Well-versed in combat and survivalist skills, Tolvan was, for example, able to overcome, kill and skin the Defel Glahst Ombra, later using the latter's pelt as a disguise. Tolvan even managed to shoot down Sana Starros' Volt Cobra, using only a hand-held rocket launcher—and the element of surprise. Under the Scourge's infection, Tolvan's eyes glowed purple.

Tolvan's relationship with Aphra was a complicated and tumultuous affair, with Tolvan in pursuit of the rogue archaeologist as a matter of bringing Aphra to face Imperial justice, but also because of the mutual attraction developing between the two women. Time and again, Tolvan and Aphra would cross paths, eventually consummating their romantic relationship, after their escape from Hivebase-1 and Lucrehulk Prime.

The Galactic Civil War, also referred to as the revolution or the Rebellion, was a galactic power struggle in which the Alliance to Restore the Republic waged a rebellion against the ruling Galactic Empire in an attempt to restore democratic rule to the galaxy. The origins of rebellion could be traced to the Clone Wars, when rebel cells were equipped by the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order to fight against the Confederacy of Independent Systems. After Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, secretly the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, transformed the Republic into the Empire and destroyed the Jedi Order, many rebel cells began fighting the Empire. A number of these cells eventually joined together and became the Alliance to Restore the Republic.

Strike Team Misericorde, also known as Extraction Team Misericorde, was a unit of Rebel Alliance Intelligence, founded and led by Captain Magna Tolvan, former Imperial Captain-Inspector who defected to the Rebellion.

The Alliance to Restore the Republic, also known as the Alliance to Restore Freedom to the Galaxy, the Rebel Alliance, or informally as the Rebellion, was a loose alliance of planetary, system, and sector-level insurrectionist factions. They were generally united in common cause, against a common enemy in the form of the Galactic Empire. In order to achieve their primary goal in restoring the former Galactic Republic, the Alliance aimed to remove Emperor Palpatine from power, and his hegemonic New Order from the galaxy. Members of the Rebellion were known as "Rebels," "Rebs," or "Rebel scum" by stormtroopers and other Imperials.