Xin Rao was a particularly intelligent Unbaran who was born of a particularly poor and low status on the planet Umbara. As a child she dreamed of traveling the stars but knew that the Umbaran government only allowed high status castes to leave Umbara and she realized from a very young age that if she wanted to realize her dreams she would need to make radical decisions. While Umbara was a largely culturally isolated world there were a few exceptions, one of the most prominent was the Ithorian herd ship the Emerald Dream.
Ithorians have a nearly unimpeachable reputation as being a benevolent force in the galaxy to the point that even the Empire largely leaves their herdships unmolested. The Emerald Dream traveled the Great Kashyyyk branch of hyperspace and traded cultural artifacts and knowledge to every planet on the hyperlane and their regular arrival was celebrated by the Umbarans like small out of the way towns would celebrate the Circus or a Fair coming to town.
In 20 BBY several major events happened in rapid succession that changed young Xin’s life forever. The first was the Emerald Dream which arrived in the skies above Umbara and Tourists including schoolchildren on field trips were taken on visits to the herd ship. The second was the sudden assassination of Umbaras Republic senator Mee Deechi at the same time as Xin’s class was touring the Dream. With reckless haste the government of Umbara expelled all extra terrestrial visitors and blockaded their borders, and in the haste Xin was left behind on the herd ship outside her people’s space.
Xin did not view being a stowaway on a floating jungle city spaceship crewed by benevolent aliens as a problem, and she was not terribly upset when the Ubaran government suddenly switched allegiances for the separatists and returning her to her homeworld became impractical. Stuck with a young girl who had now become a refugee the Ithorians enrolled her in their ships primary school and continued her education, fostering her talent for engineering, something someone of her caste would never have had the opportunity to learn at her homeworld.