The olive-skinned Captain Starn was a former Star Devil captain who served in the faction's Volturnus expedition. Once the Sathar battle fleet arrived, he escaped with his small crew aboard one of the SD assault scouts. Drive troubles forced a crash landing in Gruna Garu before he could make it outside UPF jurisdiction, thus he was never able to rejoin his comrades. 

The Star Devil disowned him, thinking him lost. His identity unknown at the time, he was rescued by a yazirian clan and nurtured back to health. He made friends with the heiress to the clan (Countess Krishtar) shortly after saving her from a Sathar agent raid that claimed her parents and most of the clan as well. 

When the few surviving clan members departed to go their own ways and seek their destiny, the two also departed with the heiress' family fortune. They eventually found work on a civilian freight hauler. The freighter fell under pirate attack, but when the raiders could not take the craft (mostly due to Starn's luck at driving past the main assault), he made his way with ship troopers into the invading craft and quickly overtook it instead. Starn parked the vessel in an asteroid cluster and marked the location for future retrieval, and salvaged a few items for the freighter in the meantime. 

That ship was eventually registered with a legal UPF salvage title under Starn's name once he and his heiress companion departed the freighter crew, and now plies the space lanes as the SS Dark Tramp. Now, back in the command chair of a pirate vessel once again, Captain Starn immediately adapted to his former lifestyle and had little trouble convincing his she-yaz friend of joining him on such exploits.