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At the end of Solo: A Star Wars Story, we see
Darth Maul
revealing himself to be the boss of Dryden Vos and Qi'ra. However, according to Star Wars: Clone Wars, he is supposed to be the leader of Black Sun, not Crimson Dawn which was never mentioned before.
Is Crimson Dawn part of Black Sun? If so, are there any canon sources on that subject?
We don't know yet.
From Star Wars: Clone Wars, we know that Darth Maul survived his supposed demise in The Phantom Menace.
We also know that he continued his quest to dominate the galaxy, leading to his command of the Shadow Collective. Then the Shadow Collective is defeated, after which Darth Maul disappears.
He doesn't appear again until Star Wars: Rebels, when he encounters Ezra Bridger and they attempt to retrieve a Sith Holocron.
There is a period after the defeat of the Shadow Collective, and before Maul encounters Ezra, that is completely unexplained. Other than the basic scenes in Solo, we don't know anything about his relationship to Crimson Dawn.
To my knowledge, there isn't any canon media that details this, but I would imagine that after Maul's capture by Sidious, the death of Mother Talzin, and the defeat of the Shadow Collective that was then led by Maul, Maul lost his position as the leader of the Shadow Collective and would then proceed to build up his own new criminal organization that would include, but maybe not be limited to, Crimson Dawn. This would make sense since Crimson Dawn does not appear anywhere before Solo and since Black Sun and the Pyke Syndicate that were originally part of the Shadow Collective also appear after the Clone Wars without any indication of Maul leading them.
We learn in the (canon) book Crimson Climb that Crimson Dawn and Black Sun were part of a grouping of five rival 'syndicates'. They and the Pykes, the Crymorah and the Hutts each possess their own spheres of influence in the galaxy.
All five major crime syndicates would be in attendance, but the party was officially hosted by Black Sun.
...
“Relax, Aemon.” Vos was still talking, though his voice had lost the ennui of his previous words. He turned to Qi’ra. “Aemon has been with me for a while, and he remembers the old days. Back then, I would have had three times as many guards at a party like this. But that was when the five syndicates worked against each other. Now that we are allies, we cooperate.”
In very recent years a single mysterious individual has come to prominence and taken over control of all five syndicates.
It wasn’t the first time Qi’ra had heard rumors of the mysterious figure who ruled the five syndicates with an iron fist. No one seemed to know very much about him, and Vos was reportedly the only person in Crimson Dawn who had ever spoken to him. It was strange to think about Dryden Vos reporting to anyone, but he seemed to have made his peace with it. Or at least, he was biding his time.
That’s not right, he lied in Rebels. He knew of Ezra’s coming and assumed a role that would seem humble. He had been forced to become one of the emperors hands when his brother was killed. That may have something to do with all of this.
