Admiral Piett

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Fleet Admiral Firmus Piett (39 BBY–4 ABY) is a character from the Star Wars Universe. He was one of the few Imperial officers to appear in two Star Wars films (The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) (Tarkin was among the others), the only one to have been played by the same actor twice, and was perhaps the only character in the entire trilogy to benefit from Darth Vader's propensity to summarily execute his officers for failures great and small. Piett was played by Kenneth Colley.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Piett was born on the Outer Rim world of Axxila. In the Imperial Navy, it is always important to have Deep Core connections. Officers from the Outer Rim rarely received an important strategic posting. When he joined the Imperial Academy, Piett was the best in his class and when he graduated, he was already a lieutenant at age 26. After Piett was drafted into the Imperial Starfleet, he commanded a fleet that patrolled his home sector. Vader later assigned Captain Piett to command the Star Destroyer Accuser, under Admiral Griff. When Griff died at Yavin 4 during the Rebel evacuation, Piett became captain of the Super Star Destroyer Template:Ref Executor after its current commander, Captain Ozzel, was promoted to admiral and took command of Vader's fleet.

Three years after the Battle of Yavin, Captain Piett and his command staff received a transmission from a probe droid in the Hoth system that revealed the hidden Rebel Alliance headquarters, Echo Base. Piett ensured that Darth Vader was on the bridge before informing his superiors of this find; as he expected, Admiral Ozzel dismissed it as something other than the Rebel base, only to be overruled by Vader. The dark lord wasted no time in dispatching his fleet, the Death Squadron, to the Hoth system.

The fleet's exit point from hyperspace was close enough to the planet that the Rebels were able to detect it immediately, giving them time to raise an energy shield that would stop any orbital bombardment. Ozzel was swiftly killed by Vader for his incompetence and Piett was instantly promoted to admiral (crew members then started to bet on how long Piett had to live.) While General Veers successfully captured the Rebel base, the Millennium Falcon escaped. Vader ordered the fleet to pursue, even though the Falcon had entered a nearby asteroid field.

During the search for the Falcon, the Star Destroyer Avenger found it, but it strangely vanished. The bounty hunter Boba Fett, commissioned by Vader, realized that the Falcon was in fact secretly docked on the Avenger, followed and reported its movements as it disengaged and limped over to Bespin. While Han Solo, Leia Organa, and Chewbacca were being given a tour by Lando Calrissian, Piett's engineers deactivated the hyperdrive on the Falcon. As the Falcon fled, it was nearly captured by the Executor's tractor beam, but R2-D2 was able to reactivate the hyperdrive and the Falcon again escaped Imperial custody. Despite this failure, Piett was allowed to live by Vader. This was probably because, unlike Admiral Ozzel or Captain Needa, it was not due to a misjudgment on Piett's part that the Falcon escaped.

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One year later, Piett commanded the Imperial fleet at the Battle of Endor. If Piett had been allowed to engage the Rebel fleet, his ships could have easily destroyed them. Instead, he was ordered by Palpatine to hold position and just keep the Rebels from escaping so they could be vaporized one by one by the second Death Star's superlaser. The Emperor's plan backfired when the Rebels moved to attack the Star Destroyers at point-blank range. This action prevented the Death Star from firing on the Rebel ships for fear of destroying Imperial cruisers caught in the mix.

During the battle, Admiral Ackbar ordered all Rebel ships to concentrate their fire on the Executor. This concentrated fire temporarily knocked out the shields, allowing two A-Wings to destroy a shield generator dome on the Executor's bridge tower, lowering the shields protecting the bridge. In response to the lowering of the shields, Piett ordered the forward turbolaser batteries to intensify their firepower. It was too late, however; moments later, a disabled A-wing piloted by Arvel Crynyd made a kamikaze maneuver and flew right into the bridge as Admiral Piett and Commander Gherant dived into the lower command deck. The destruction of the bridge and main navigation complex caused the ship's thrusters to misfire, sending it on a collision course with the Death Star. Before the crew could regain control from the secondary command center, the Executor crashed into the Death Star and exploded.

Piett's nephew, Captain Sarkli, also served at the Battle of Endor. He was killed while defending the shield command bunker on the forest moon.

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References

The Annotated Screenplays, softcover, 1997. George Lucas, Leigh Brackett, Lawrence Kasdan, Laurent Bouzereau, ISBN 0-345-40981-7
The Hutt Gambit, 1st paperback printing, 1997. A. C. Crispin, ISBN 0-553-57416-7
Inside the Worlds of the Star Wars Trilogy.

Template:Note George Lucas provided an alternate explanation for Vader's uncharacteristic mercy toward Piett after the Millennium Falcon escaped Bespin. On the commentary track for the 2004 DVD of The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas says that Vader's encounter with Luke had apparently left him deeply conflicted. As such, he was able to find enough mercy within himself to spare Piett's life.

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