Crimson Dawn

Crimson Dawn was a criminal syndicate once led by the former Sith Lord Maul, who became the leader of the Shadow Collective near the end of the Clone Wars. Starting out as a band of ruthless traveling mercenaries, bounty hunters, and privateers, by the end of the Galactic Republic, Crimson Dawn became a syndicate led by Rintero before Maul employed the gangster Dryden Vos as the public face of the syndicate during the reign of the Galactic Empire. During its existence, Crimson Dawn quickly cemented a reputation for being ruthless. Qi'ra publicly served as Vos' top lieutenant, but later directly worked with Maul after she killed Vos.

After Maul's death during a mission to Tatooine, Qi'ra became the new leader of Crimson Dawn and was given the title "Lady." She rebuilt Crimson Dawn and planned to use it to destabilize the galaxy in her ultimate plan to take down Darth Sidious and his apprentice, Darth Vader. Qi'ra hoped that she could succeed where Maul failed and use the chaos and disorder Crimson Dawn created to take down the Sith and the Empire. In preparation for its secret war against the Sith, Crimson Dawn also grew by creating a web of agents throughout the powers of the galaxy.

In 3 ABY, Crimson Dawn announced its return with an auction for the carbonite-frozen Han Solo that they had had stolen from Boba Fett. Syndicates and organizations from all over the galaxy were invited and attended, and Crimson Dawn used the auction to demonstrate their power and cause a rift between the Empire and the Hutts by manipulating them into a battle over Han Solo. This eventually led to a Syndicate War over which syndicate would take over the Hutts' contract with the Empire, escalated by a series of anonymous attacks carried out by Crimson Dawn.

Once Crimson Dawn was found to be behind the war and their campaign against the Sith became clear to Sidious, Qi'ra ordered all of the Crimson Dawn agents across the galaxy to cause as much chaos for the Empire as they possibly could. She also used her agents to come into possession of the Fermata Cage, an ancient dark side weapon she planned to use against the Sith. However, during a Battle at Amaxine Station against the Empire for which Qi'ra rallied all of Crimson Dawn's troops and forces, Qi'ra failed to trap Vader and Sidious, leading to Crimson Dawn's defeat and ultimate destruction at the hands of the Imperial forces. However, because the organization revealed the existence of the Empire's DS-2 Death Star II Mobile Battle Station to the Rebel Alliance and kept the Empire occupied while the Alliance regrouped, Crimson Dawn ultimately did contribute to the Empire's defeat.

By the New Republic Era, Crimson Dawn had returned but lost their power and glory with their position as one of the Five Crime Syndicates, were replaced by both the Son-tuul Pride and the Guavian Death Gang.

Text and facts from the “Crimson Dawn” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.