Talmoor Pryce was a Lothalite human male who was the father of Arihnda Pryce and the husband of Elainye Pryce. He and his wife Elainye owned Pryce Mining while their daughter managed the mine. After losing their mine to the Galactic Empire through the machinations of Governor Ryder Azadi and Senator Domus Renking, Talmoor and Elainye relocated to the planet Batonn.
They lived there for several years and were caught up in the events of the Batonn insurgency. Talmoor and Elainye survived due to the intervention of their daughter Pryce, whose actions caused many deaths during the Siege of the Creekpath Mining and Refining complex.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Talmoor Pryce lived on the planet Lothal with his wife Elainye Pryce and their daughter Arihnda Pryce. The Pryce family owned a mine and mining company called Pryce Mining. He worked in the family mine all of his life. By the time a doonium vein had been discovered in their mine, he and Elainye had taken a less active role in running their mine, allowing their daughter Arihnda to handle executive decisions.[1]
Losing Pryce Mining[]
During the Imperial Era, Governor Ryder Azadi learnt about the doonium vein in the Pryce family mine and sent one of his staffers Arik Uvis to buy a controlling stake in Pryce Mining. Realizing that Governor Azadi planned to take over their company, Arihnda Pryce rejected his offer and ordered him to leave. In retaliation, Governor Azadi had Talmoor's wife Elainye arrested on trumped up embezzlement charges.[1]
Unable to secure bail for Elainye, Arihnda sought the help of Senator Domus Renking. To prevent Governor Azadi from taking over Pryce Mining, Renking convinced Arihnda to sell her family firm to the Galactic Empire. Arihnda and Renking also managed to clear Elainye's name by pinning the blame on the Lutrillian heavy equipment inventory operations manager Pomi Harchmak. To compensate for the loss of Pryce Mining, Renking offered to give Arihnda a job as a senatorial staff on Coruscant and her parents mining jobs on the planet Batonn.[1]
Faced between a rock and a hard place, Arihnda reluctantly agree to sell Pryce Mining to the Empire. After securing Elainye's release, Arihnda spent the next three hours persuading Talmoor and Elainye to accept Renking's offer and the dangers of declining it. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Talmoor and Elainye obliged and reluctantly left their home and mining business. While Arihnda moved to Coruscant to work at one of Renking's citizen assistance offices, Talmoor and Elainye found work as the new foreman and assistance manager at the Creekpath Mining and Refining complex respectively.[1]
Batonn crisis[]
Over the next several years, Talmoor and Elainye settled into their new lives and home comfortably. Meanwhile, their daughter Arihnda rose to become Lothal's new Governor after helping the Imperial authorities expose the rebel leader Nightswan's spy ring on Coruscant. Returning to Lothal, Arihnda sought revenge against Senator Renking by selling off Pryce Mining and exposing him for bribery during a bidding war between Lothal and Kintoni to host Imperial Navy docking facilities.[1]
Prior to 2 BBY, Nightswan became the leader of the Batonn insurgents, who gained popular support among the local population due to the corruption of Governor Restos. The Batonn insurgents attacked and captured the Imperial garrison on Scrim Island. Though the insurgents were defeated by Admiral Thrawn, seven ships managed to evacuate with personnel and equipment to the Creekpath mining complex on Batonn's main continent.[1]
The insurgents drove out the Batonn Defense Force personnel guarding the mine and set up base inside. In response, the Empire and Batonn Defense Force imposed a siege around the mining complex. Though Talmoor and Elainye lived inside the complex, Talmoor was sympathetic towards the grievances of the insurgents and blamed the conflict on the incompetence of Governor Restos.[1]
Reunion with Arihnda[]
Concerned about the safety of her parents, Arihnda traveled undercover to Batonn with the Imperial Security Bureau Agent Gudry. Posing as a man named "Mattai", Gudry claimed that he was searching for a friend who worked as a mechanic and had been caught up in the mining siege. In truth, his mission was to plant explosives in order to knock out the insurgents' DSS-02 regional shield. Unaware of Gudry's true mission, Talmoor told him that there was nobody in the mine who wasn't there of his or her own free will. He contended they were fighting for peoples' rights against a repressive and dangerous government.[1]
When Pryce pointed out that he was painting the Empire with "too wide a brush", Elainye pointed out the corruption of Governor Restos. Pryce promised to look into the matter but Talmoor responded that the developments on Batonn constituted a "revolution." When Gudry claimed that he heard stories about people being press-ganged by pirates and insurgents, Talmoor agreed to help Gudry get through the cordon and asked what was the man's name. Gudry claimed the man was named Blayze Jonoo and that he was a weapons electronics specialist.[1]
Talmoor led Pryce and Gudry to the Creekpath mine. Before leaving, Pryce secretly switched her mother's comm. Using his connections with the miners, Talmoor managed to get his daughter and Gudry through the cordon. During the journey, Talmoor briefed Arihnda about the crisis, which he blamed on Governor Restos' refusal to send soldiers to guard the mine. He added that the insurgents had managed to secure the DSS-02 shield generator before the operators had time to sabotage them.[1]
Knowing that Gudry planned to blow up the mine, Arihnda hid inside a speeder truck and used her mother's comm to impersonate Elainye and feign sickness in order to draw her father home. Talmoor fell for his daughter's ruse and roused Arihnda. Arihnda managed to get Gudry's permission to leave by telling her that the mine had Makrid String crates. Talmoor reluctantly agreed to leave Gudry in the mine to search for his non-existent friend.[1]
Escaping destruction[]
When Talmoor and Arihnda returned home, he realized that Arihnda had feigned Elainye's sickness but accepted his daughter's explanation that she needed to get away from "Mattai." When Pryce warned that the Empire was going to attack the mine, Talmoor tried to calm by saying that the governor would not dare deploy his troops to use against "them." Arihnda then claimed that the Imperial task force had orders to neutralize the insurgents in Creekpath.[1]
Heeding his daughter's warning, Talmoor convinced Elainye that they had to pack up and leave. He reluctantly accepted having to leave without their colleagues in the mine. Before they could leave, a vindictive Gudry returned and revealed that he had planted remote detonators on both the explosives cache and shield generator. Arihnda pleaded with Gudry to let her parents come along but the ISB agent claimed that they they would draw attention. Following a struggle, Arihnda killed Gudry with the agent's blaster.[1]
By the time Talmoor, Elainye, and Arihnda were approaching the insurgents' outer picket line, shooting had broken out to the north and west of the Creekpath complex. In fact, Admiral Thrawn had ordered the Imperial ground forces to strafe the insurgents until the shield was down. While Talmoor and his wife went ahead, Arihnda stayed behind and planted an explosive below a bulldozer in order to distract the insurgents. In the process, Arihnda killed a sentry but claimed that the man had been struck by shrapnel.[1]
Due to Arihnda's efforts, her parents safely reached the Imperial lines and sought refuge in Major Talmege's headquarters. In her parent's absence, Arihnda detonated Gudry's detonator which had been planted in Nightswan's cache in order to destroy evidence of her role in killing Gudry. The ensuing explosion killed all insurgents inside the deflector shield radius but also killed numerous civilians and the Imperial troops that Colonel Wullf Yularen had sent to rescue Arihnda. While Talmoor and Elainye expressed horror at the high death rate, their daughter blamed the bombing on the insurgents. Unaware of Arihnda's hand in the explosion, Talmoor and Elainye accepted their daughter's explanation.[1]
Following the defeat of the Batonn insurgents, Pryce instructed a pilot to take her parents to the Paeragosto City landing field where a transport called the Duggenhei was waiting. From there, the couple departed on a chartered flight to the Governor's Mansion on the Pryce homeworld of Lothal. Arihnda also made arrangements for her parents to be put in one of the guest suites. Meanwhile, Arihnda stayed behind and claimed that Gudry had detonated the explosives in order to prevent himself from being captured by the insurgents.[1]
Personality and traits[]
Talmoor Pryce was a human man[1] with gray hair and blue eyes.[2] He was an experienced miner who had acted calmly and decisively in dozens of mining crisis situations. However, Talmoor was rattled by the arrest of his wife Elainye on trumped up charges of embezzlement. Like Arihnda, Talmoor and Elainye reluctantly accepted Senator Renking's offer to let the Empire take over Pryce Mining in order to prevent Governor Azadi from taking over their company.[1]
During the Batonn crisis, Talmoor expressed sympathy with the grievances of the Batonn insurgents, whom he regarded as revolutionaries fighting against a repressive and dangerous government. He blamed the self-indulgent Governor Restos for contributing to the crisis. While his daughter Arihnda still regarded the Empire as a force for good, Talmoor and Elainye's faith in the Empire was shaken by the high civilian death rate during the Siege of the Creekpath mining complex. They were unaware that their daughter had engineered the bombing in order to hide her complicity in Agent Gudry's death.[1]
Talmoor loved his family including his wife Elainye and daughter Arihnda. Arihnda exploited Talmoor's love for Elainye by faking a comm message in order to escape from Gudry. While Arihnda loved her parents, she was willing to risk the lives of other people including Gudry and the civilians in Creekpath to save them.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
Talmoor Pryce first appeared in Timothy Zahn's 2017 novel Thrawn, a rebooted Canonical origins story of the eponymous character. Most of his lines are told through the point of view of his daughter Arihnda Pryce.
He was first illustrated in the Marvel Comics Thrawn 3, a comic adaptation of the novel which debuted on April 11, 2018. Talmoor was drawn and inked by Luke Ross, and colored by Nolan Woodard. He reprised his role in Thrawn 4, which was released on June 13.