Mai, Shu

• Appeared in:
  
  I
  II
  III
  IV
  V
  VI
  CW

• Homeworld:
  Castell

• Species:
  Gossam

• Gender:
  Female

• Affiliation:
  Commerce Guild, Confederacy of Independent Systems

• 

From the Movies

The savvy businessbeing knows how to stay afloat in turbulent economic times, and how to spin social hardships into record revenue. Scruples get traded for profits among the leading corporate bodies, and the Commerce Guild is no different. Presidente Shu Mai was present in the Geonosis conference room when Count Dooku proposed that his Confederacy of Independent Systems would be committed to capitalism and free trade.

Shu Mai was prudent enough to identify Dooku's tactics as treason, and pledged her support only in secret. Though the Commerce Guild didn't openly back the Separatists, its spider-like combat automata joined the fight against the Republic at the first battle of the Clone Wars.

During the Clone Wars, Mai served on the Separatist Council, the board of executives that funded and governed the Confederacy of Independent Systems under Count Dooku and General Grievous. She was killed by Darth Vader when the Sith mastermind behind the Clone Wars no longer had need for the Separatists.

From the Expanded Universe

A worldwide economic depression once enveloped the Gossam homeworld of Castell. It was so bad that Gossams killed each other for such simple things as food, jobs and offworld passage. The Commerce Guild came to the rescue, purchasing devalued Castell real estate and infusing huge amounts of money into Castell's economy, in exchange for the servitude of the Gossam people.

Shu Mai was one of those saved, and she worked her way up the corporate ladder, eventually becoming the Chief of Property Resources. She had the opportunity to free the Gossams from their servitude by buying back their world. She did repurchase Castell, but only to raise the rent and demand further tribute from her people. The Commerce Guild was so impressed by her actions that she was further promoted.

Shu Mai is very unscrupulous, but is careful enough to stay within the letter of the law. She hired accomplices to help spur the secession of the world of Ansion, in hopes that the resulting separation would further line the Commerce Guild's coffers, but the Jedi were able to settle that border dispute.

Behind the Scenes

Shu Mai was realized as a computer-generated character during her brief scenes on Geonosis in Episode II. Though she was developed for Attack of the Clones, Star Wars readers got a first look at her in the pages of The Approaching Storm, a novel by Alan Dean Foster.