The battle of Mos Espa was a conflict fought between the citizens of Mos Espa, a city on the planetTatooine, and a tribe of Tusken Raiders led by the Tusken King. The battle took place sometime after the conclusion of the Battle of Yavin during the Galactic Civil War. The catalyst for the engagement was the theft of several sacred artifacts from the Sand People. They were stolen by a spacer from the Tusken relic cave so they could be studied by a scholar named Srimaur. An advance group of Tuskens marched on the city and occupied it. Kav Goldor, the leader of the city's militia, and several spacers retook the city and prepared its populace to defend themselves against the advancing Tusken army and their leader, the Tusken King. In a fierce battle, the spacers, citizens, militia and Kav Goldor were successful in defeating the Tusken King and his elite guard, liberating the city its occupiers.
The trouble began when a Humanscholar named Srimaur hired a spacer to infiltrate the relic cave of a tribe of Tusken Raiders, an indigenous and hostile species of Tatooine, and find three specific relics for him to study. These relics were a chieftain's head, a krayt dragonskull and a ghastly gaderffii baton. The spacer entered the cave and began searching for the relics and after stealing the final item, the spacer was discovered and attacked by several Tusken relic guards. The sentient managed to escape and returned to Mos Espa to deliver the items to Srimaur.[1]
The spacer informed Srimaur that they had been discovered. Srimaur knew that the Tuskens would seek retribution for the theft of their relics and sent them to speak with Kav Goldor, leader of the city's militia, to formulate a strategy in the event that the Tuskens attacked Mos Espa.[1]
While Kav Goldor and his spacer hires planned their response to the Tusken threat, the raiders invaded the city and drove out most of the civilian population. Kav and the spacers began their attack by retaking the city's cantina and using it as a staging area for the continued liberation of the other key buildings within the city. While several of the spacers stayed in the cantina to defend Kav, the rest went out into the city and liberated the starport, university, medical center, hotel, cloning center, the combat hall, and the ToydarianWatto's junk shop from the Tuskens which occupied them.[1]
The fearsome Tusken King.
With the seeming liberation of the town, the populace began to re-enter the city. More and more Tusken warriors began to pour into the city however and many of the citizens began to take up arms or use many of the local facilities to assist the spacers. Citizens within the combat hall upgraded the militia's equipment while others went to the medical center to supply themselves with medicine to help the injured. Several pilots began doing bombing runs over the city against the Tuskens in their BTL Y-wing starfighters.[1]
The spacers and their helpers among the citizenry continued to fight on and eventually forced the Tusken King to enter the battle himself. Along with his four Tusken Honor Guards, the King engaged the spacers and the militia right outside the Mos Espa cantina. A fierce battle ensued and eventually, the spacers were successful in slaying the Tusken King. With their leader dead, the remaining Tuskens retreated and the city was finally liberated.[1]
The city of Mos Espa sustained minimal damage during the attack. While the Tuskens suffered heavy losses during the battle, including the death of their King and his honor guard, exact casualty numbers among the Mos Espa citizenry were never accounted for. The spacers largely responsible for the successful defense of the city were commended for their efforts. Several interesting and powerful items and weapons were looted from the Tusken King's corpse, including the Rucksack of the Tusken King and elite versions of the Tusken Cycler rifle and gaderffii baton.[1]
The battle of Mos Espa appears in the 2003video gameStar Wars Galaxies, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts. It was added to the game as a high level combat challenge known as a "Heroic Encounter" on November 1, 2007 as part of the Chapter 7: A Collection of Heroes game update.
Players who complete the encounter receive a "Mos Espa Token of Heroism" which can be used to buy rewards for your character at the township of Aurilia. Additionally, killing the Tusken King gives your character a point to their critical hit reduction stat, reducing the chance an enemy will critically strike you. This effect can be gained up to a maximum ten times per character. The Tusken King has several highly sought after loot items, including the aforementioned rucksack, rifle and baton. Additionally, the King drops anywhere from 150,000 to 200,000 which are evenly split among all players present at the time of his death.
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