Lumina Tara was born in Arkania in a rather well-off family to two relatively well known academics at one of the more prestigious universities. They were both scientists and had one , a child with more artistic sensibilities than was considered typical on Arkania. Her two parents were high-profile supporters of the Arkanian Revolution due to their distaste over unethical scientific experimentation of other species - at the end of the Revolution, the two were executed in what most at the time considered an unfair trial. The orphaned and permanently embittered Lumina had an unhappy childhood, making it through cutthroat Arkanian schools with few scientific inclinations and a problematic family situation.

Ultimately, Lumina became a relatively prominent Coruscant journalist, whose editorial takes, which often included cartoons, were popular for humorously drawing attention to obscure social problems, often painting absurd portrayals of political corruption, corporate malfeasance, prejudice, and other problems. However, Lumina remained embittered unusually towards the Jedi (a common target of her jibes) and after the start of the Clone Wars, Lumina flew to the Outer Rim and worked for the CIS's propaganda department, using her artistic skill to effectively disparage the Jedi (who she had hated ever since their intervention in Arkania) and create widespread anti-Jedi sentiment as part of a sophisticated psy-ops operation (for example, Lumina was informed about slicing hacks into Republic archives that revealed embarrassing facts that quickly found their way into anti-Jedi propaganda, regularly maintained statistically rigorous tracking polls to gauge propaganda performance, etc.)

After the Separatist surrender, Lumina was arrested by Imperial forces, but escaped official punishment when Imperial intelligence sought to use her skills for them - recruiting her and putting her to work continuing to create anti-Jedi cartoons.

From her rather unhappy childhood on Arkania, Lumina's strongest motivation is opposing what she perceives as injustice in the pursuit of scientific progress, even if many other injustices become necessary.

After several years of work and a largely successful Jedi purge, Lumina's handler sought to put her on "reserve" by having her appointed as an "arts" professor at a college in obscure Dantooine, which then placed her on an even more obscure "art sabbatical" in nearby Gudellun with the job of doing landscape paintings of the Great Ourdoors. Her real "reserve" duty is manage a listening post (disguised as her art studio/makeshift clinic when locals get injured and can't wait to get to the real doctor, an apparently very well-regarded local Wookie) monitoring possibly suspicious traffic into Dantooine (in case any Jedi tried to sneak into the old ruins.)

A slightly below-average but otherwise typical middle-aged woman, Lumina generally hides her racial heritage with dyed black hair, although a rather cunning individual might notice that the roots of her hair are white. She also wears brown contact lenses to hide her eye color,