Trech Molock

"We were in the main conference room on the officer's deck—Chief Moradim [sic] Bast, Colonel Wulff [sic] Yularen, Chief Siward Cass, General Trech Molock, General Hurst Romodi, Commander Cassio Tagge, and myself—discussing the relative threat levels facing our respective commands."

―Admiral Conan Motti mentions Molock in his incident report^[4]

General Trech Molock was a human individual who served in the Galactic Empire during the Imperial Era. In 0 BBY, Molock attended a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of the Imperial Military in a conference room on board the DS-1 Death Star Mobile Battle Station. At the meeting, Molock heard Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin announce the dissolution of the Imperial Senate and witnessed the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader use the Force to choke Admiral Conan Antonio Motti until Tarkin ordered the Sith Lord to stop.

Biography

Trech Molock^[4] was a human individual^[3]who held the military rank of general within the armed forces of the Galactic Empire.^[4] In 0 BBY,^[6] Molock attended a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of the Imperial Military that was held in the main conference room on the officer's deck of the semi-operational Imperial DS-1 Death Star Mobile Battle Station. The meeting was called by Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, but Molock arrived before the Grand Moff and sat with General Moradmin Bast, Colonel Wullf Yularen, Chief Siward Cass, General Hurst Romodi, General Cassio Tagge, and Admiral Conan Antonio Motti discussing the relative threats that each of their respective commands faced.^[4] This led to Tagge and Motti arguing about the threat posed to the battle station by the Alliance to Restore the Republic, but they were interrupted by the arrival of Tarkin and the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader, with Tarkin announcing that the Imperial Senate had been dissolved.^[3]

Molock remained silent as Tagge and Tarkin discussed the dissolution and then the Alliance's recent theft of a set of plans for the Death Star that they could use to make an attack. Motti dismissed the possibility of a successful attack on the station, claiming it was by then the ultimate power in the galaxy, but Vader chastised him and stated that the Force was more powerful. The admiral then criticized Vader' devotion to the Force, but the Sith Lord cut him off by choking Motti from across the room using the Force. Molock and the others watched the admiral struggle until Tarkin ordered Vader to release Motti and stated that they would soon destroy the Alliance.^[3] The next day, Motti mentioned Molock in an incident report about Vader's actions at the meeting that he submitted to Imperial High Command.^[4] The Death Star was shortly subsequently destroyed at the Battle of Yavin by the Rebel Alliance, resulting in the deaths of Tarkin,^[3] Motti,^[7] Yularen,^[8] Bast, and many others.^[3]

Legacy

"Leading–and already noted–figures such as Tarkin, Motti, Yularen, and Romodi were all killed onboard the Death Star, along with others such as General Trech Molock, Officer Siward Cass, and Chief Moradmin Bast."

―Beaumont Kin, on the Empire's losses^[5]

In 35 ABY,^[9] the historian and Resistance paramilitary member Beaumont Kin mentioned Molock in^[5] his^[10] book The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire. There, Kin stated that with the loss of leading figures such as Tarkin, Motti, Yularen, Romodi and others such as Molock, Cass, and Bast all perishing during the destruction of the Death Star, coupled with the Imperial losses of Director Krennic during the Battle of Scarif and Grand Admiral Thrawn during the Battle of Lothal, the Empire had many of its leading military commanders and figures culled.^[5]

Personality and traits

Trech Molock had light skin and reddish-brown hair.^[3] Molock was considered by Kin as one of the Empire's leading military figures and commanders.^[5]

Equipment

While in the meeting on the Death Star, Molock wore a gray Imperial officer's uniform with a rank insignia plaque that showed six red squares.^[3]

Behind the scenes

Trech Molock first appeared as an unnamed background character in the 1977 original Star Wars film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope,^[3] whom the fan website Aveleyman identifies as Charlie Gray,^[11] an actor listed as an Imperial Bureaucrat in Ann Skinner's continuity notes.^[12] He was given the name Trech Molock by the 2013 Star Wars Insider article The Death Star Coup.^[13] The name was brought back to canon by the short story "An Incident Report" of the 2017 anthology From a Certain Point of View.^[4]

The character shares his surname^[13] with Sate Molock, an unused character present in the second draft for the 1980 film Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back, who ultimately evolved into Sate Pestage.^[14] Molock's given name was inspired by Chris Trevas's "Star Wars name" according to an Internet meme, which requires taking the first three letters of one's last name and the first two letters one's first name.^[15]

In the early drafts of "The Summit," the fifteenth episode of the second season of the Disney+ animated television series Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Molock was supposed to be one of the Imperial officers present at a summit held on Eriadu by Governor Tarkin along with General Cassio Tagge and Admiral Conan Antonio Motti. However, it was eventually decided that the character would not have been high-ranking enough that early in the Empire's existence^[16]