Daeshara'cor

Daeshara'cor, a female Twi'lek, was born into destitution on Ryloth, the Twi'lek homeworld. Her father died early in her childhood and Daeshara'cor spent much of her youth in the company of her mother, who was a traveling dancer. The young Force-sensitive became familiar with spaceports and docking bays across the galaxy, learning to live life on the fringe of galactic society, among spacers, tramps and explorers. As with many Twi'leks, however, Daeshara'cor's mother was forced into slavery and eventually died. Deprived of both parents, Daeshara'cor began to nurture a deep hatred toward slavers and their ilk.

As a Force-sensitive, the Twi'lek was recruited into the New Jedi Order and came to Jedi Master Luke Skywalker's Jedi Praxeum on the fourth moon of Yavin Prime for training; she was one of the first of her species to do so. Daeshara'cor spent the entirety of her formal Jedi training at the Praxeum. Other Jedi who observed her believed that she worked hard to succeed and Daeshara'cor attained the rank of Jedi Knight. Due to her diligence, the Twi'lek was held in admiration by some younger Jedi. Aware that the emotion was traditionally seen as a path to the dark side of the Force, however, Daeshara'cor kept her deep anger hidden from others.

She became close friends with Octa Ramis, a woman from Chandrila, and was partnered with Ramis on several missions. Due to her experiences, Daeshara'cor decided to campaign for freedom in the galaxy with the hope that one day its inhabitants could all be liberated from bondage and that slavery would no longer exist. At some point after constructing her own lightsaber and attaining the rank of Jedi Knight, Daeshara'cor revisited her homeworld of Ryloth, a journey which she rarely made.

In Kala'uun, a large subterranean city and spaceport, Rar discovered two Force-sensitive Twi'lek sisters, Alema and Numa Rar, who were working as enslaved dancers for money to survive and living in one of the city's most notorious ryll drug dens. Recognizing the innate talent in the Force possessed by the Rar sisters, Daeshara'cor purchased their freedom and arranged for their transport to the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4. Daeshara'cor acted as an informal Jedi Master to the two Twi'leks, going so far as to give Numa Rar her lightsaber before constructing a second weapon herself with a scarlet blade.

In the years following the New Republic's declaration of peace with the Imperial Remnant, the New Jedi Order began to experience division within its ranks. On the one hand, a bloc of younger Jedi, led by Kyp Durron and including Ganner Rhysode, Wurth Skidder, and Durron's apprentice Miko Reglia, espoused the philosophy that the Jedi should be proactive and assertive in terms of combating illegal activity that put the citizens of the New Republic at risk, whereas Luke Skywalker and a traditional group of Jedi, such as Kam and Tionne Solusar, preferred to use the Force only to defend the weak and refrain from aggressive activity.

Regarded by Skywalker as sensible, Daeshara'cor had little time for Durron's rhetoric and drama when it came to the debate. She remained firmly in Skywalker's camp, despite her closely guarded emotions against slavers and the deep anger she held for those who had taken her mother away. In 25 ABY, however, matters rapidly changed for the Twi'lek. Kyp Durron and his anti-smuggler vigilante starfighter squadron were ambushed by a previously unknown alien species, known as the Yuuzhan Vong, who utilized advanced biotechnology, loathed artificial machines, and were intent on conquering the galaxy.

Miko Reglia was killed and Durron returned to the New Jedi Order eager to take the fight to the new enemy. The Wookiee Chewbacca, who had close ties to the Order, also met his death due to the invaders' actions, and Daeshara'cor noticed the impact it had upon Luke Skywalker's nephew Anakin Solo, a young Jedi to whom Chewbacca had been a dear friend. Following Reglia's death, Daeshara'cor became withdrawn and spent hours accessing the Jedi archives. When the Twi'lek learned that the Yuuzhan Vong were implanting inhabitants of the galaxy with surge coral that turned them into mindless slaves, Daeshara'cor transferred her hatred of slavers to the invaders, deciding that Durron's aggressive stance had more merit than that of Skywalker. She came to the conclusion that against a powerful opponent, Jedi had to take up their martial heritage, as Skywalker himself had done while fighting the Galactic Empire.

In her belief that an aggressive strike in honor of the martial tradition of the Jedi Order would serve to stall the Yuuzhan Vong advance, Daeshara'cor assembled at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant with over sixty other Jedi as part of what Kyp Durron, who called for the convention, referred to as a council of war. Making a break from her usual dismissiveness of Durron's rhetoric, Daeshara'cor sat with his supporters, observing events in silence. Luke Skywalker entered the chamber a short time later and addressed the assembled Jedi. Skywalker announced that he had chosen a course of action and that the Jedi, rather than assembling themselves for a strike against the Yuuzhan Vong, who had not yet focused against a specific target, would fan out among refugees and help those in need as guardians and helpers.

Daeshara'cor raised her concerns, but it was Durron who criticized Skywalker's methods, prompting Skywalker to remind the Jedi that they were not warriors. The Twi'lek Jedi Knight spoke out at this statement, claiming that the martial tradition of the Order was clear and that it should be employed against the Yuuzhan Vong. Kam Solusar, one of Skywalker's supporters and a leading Jedi Master, criticized Daeshara'cor's logic in turn, claiming that the martial tradition of the Jedi that she saw was in fact a reaction to the limited evidence of Skywalker's necessary battles against the Galactic Empire. Skywalker managed to sway Durron's faction but Daeshara'cor remained unconvinced and was disgusted when the Jedi Master revealed that the New Republic government had refused to sanction or support Jedi missions.

As Skywalker handed out pre-prepared assignments, Daeshara'cor became outspoken in her criticism, accusing the Jedi Master of overruling the opinion of the Order and deciding upon courses of action without consultation. She claimed his methods were wrong and revealed her premonitions that if the Jedi Order did not go on the offensive, Coruscant would fall to the invaders. Skywalker tried to warn Daeshara'cor against her line of thought, reminding her that a Jedi Order of aggressive warriors would be one steeped in the dark side of the Force. The Twi'lek, however, had made up her mind. In the belief that the Yuuzhan Vong threat had to be stopped, she accessed the Jedi archives and began to pull data on superweapons that could be employed against the invaders. Although she knew that if she was successful in locating and utilizing such a weapon she would ultimately be confronted by Skywalker, Daeshara'cor was prepared for the eventuality.

The Twi'lek researched the Death Star, a moon-sized battle station with a superlaser capable of destroying planets; the Sun Crusher, an Imperial craft with the power to destroy entire star systems by inducing supernovas; the Eye of Palpatine, a dreadnaught that could lay waste to planets; the Darksaber, a Hutt superweapon utilizing superlaser technology; and several other devices. Daeshara'cor also pulled data on where such superweapons had been constructed—although all of the different superweapons were long since destroyed, the Twi'lek believed that she could possibly locate a stored superweapon as yet unused by the Galactic Empire. The Death Star prototype and the single Eye of Palpatine led the Twi'lek to believe that there was another Death Star or a second Eye of Palpatine, as Emperor Palpatine had rarely only constructed one of each superweapon.

Having amassed large quantities of data, Daeshara'cor covered her tracks. She asked her friend Octa Ramis, who had the necessary computer skills, to wipe the search requests from the Jedi archive databanks. Luke Skywalker had assigned Daeshara'cor to travel to Bimmisaari aboard the starship Durastar, but the Twi'lek had no intention of traveling to the Bimm homeworld. Deciding against visiting the Maw, where Imperial Admiral Natasi Daala had been based at the home of Imperial superweapon research, Maw Installation, Daeshara'cor elected instead to visit Vortex, where former Imperial scientist Qwi Xux, an Omwati genius who had worked on the Death Star and the Sun Crusher, resided. She traveled to Docking Bay 9372 on Coruscant to visit the Durastar, whereupon she sabotaged its hyperdrive to ensure that she had an alibi for her absence on Bimmisaari.

She then boarded the tramp freighter Lucky Star II, headed for Ord Mantell, a planet near Vortex, and used a mind trick on the starship's mate to make him forget her passage. Upon arrival at Vortex, Daeshara'cor tracked down Qwi Xux and asked the Omwati for information on the superweapons she had designed. She revealed her newly found knowledge on the Death Star prototype and the Sun Crusher and asked Xux if more superweapons had been built. As Xux informed her that she knew of no such devices, the Twi'lek asked her whether she had the knowledge to produce the craft. As it happened, Xux's memories of designing the superweapons had been forcibly excised from her mind by Kyp Durron in 11 ABY. The Twi'lek left to find information elsewhere. For her next lead, she alighted upon the library world of Garos IV, a planet that had survived Imperial excesses and retained a wealth of information on the Galactic Empire in its university.

Once she had arrived at Garos IV's capital city of Ariana, where the University of Garos was located, Daeshara'cor began her fresh search for information. Due to the busy nature of the educational institution, the Twi'lek elected not to search the records within the university itself. Instead, Daeshara'cor used her time among the fringe of galactic society to her advantage, searching for means by which she could illegally obtain the information. In Ariana's backstreets, the Jedi Knight located a curio shop in which a man directed her to another individual who would be able to secure the data files she needed. Daeshara'cor wiped the man's memory of her presence before setting off for a nearby cantina known as the Violet Viska.

Daeshara'cor entered the cantina to meet with the information vendor but soon realized that she had been tracked to the location. The Twi'lek, hidden in her Jedi apparel, sneaked through the crowded cantina until she spotted a young Human male in a booth, who she realized was Anakin Solo. Daeshara'cor used her talent at mind tricks to plant an image of her fleeing out of the front entrance of the cantina. Solo fell for the trick and pursued the image of Daeshara'cor, running into a solid wall and briefly knocking himself out. The Twi'lek then revealed herself to the dazed young Jedi and decided to abduct him for use as leverage over Luke Skywalker, whom she knew would not be far behind.

Daeshara'cor took the young Jedi to an apartment were she bound his hands and warned him that if she sensed him accessing the Force, she would kill him. The Twi'lek then appropriated Solo's comlink and used it to contact Luke Skywalker, who was at the University of Garos. Daeshara'cor kept the conversation brief so that she could not be tracked, offering to trade the information on the Eye of Palpatine and other superweapons in exchange for Solo, safe and unharmed. Once she had delivered her ultimatum to Skywalker, Daeshara'cor spoke with Solo, explaining why he couldn't understand her motives, although without mentioning her hatred toward slavery.

During the conversation, an old spacer named Chalco, who had been helping Solo track Daeshara'cor, burst into the apartment with a blaster and fired a stun bolt at her. The Jedi Knight reacted quickly, deflecting the stun bolt back into Chalco with her lightsaber and placing him next to Solo. She then tried to explain herself to Solo, asking him whether he would kill great quantities of Yuuzhan Vong in order to bring back Chewbacca, his dead Wookiee protector. Daeshara'cor recognized the deep emotional turmoil Solo was in but decided to put an end to the stand-off by contacting Skywalker. As she did so, however, Solo used telekinesis to smash Chalco's blaster into her skull, knocking her unconscious.

Luke Skywalker arrived a short time later and Daeshara'cor followed the Jedi Master to the planet Ithor, where he had convened the adult members of the Jedi Order. The Jedi remained on the Tafanda Bay, an Ithorian herdship over the planet of Ithor, which was the next target of the Yuuzhan Vong. During the build-up to the battle, as a New Republic task force and its Imperial allies prepared to defend the world, Daeshara'cor remained in seclusion at her request, visited only by Skywalker, who spoke with her at length about what she had done and why. The Jedi Knight remained confused, however, unsure of why she had chosen such drastic means to resolve her issues or how she had allowed the emotions to have such a strong hold over her life.

Shortly before the battle, Ithor's high priest, Relal Tawron, asked the Jedi to attend a ceremony in which they would abandon an aspect of their personality in order to become closer to the Mother Jungle, sacred to Ithorians, that they would be protecting. Daeshara'cor's appearance at the ceremony alongside her peers was the first time she had met with the other Jedi in several weeks. The Twi'lek stood beside her friend Octa Ramis as individual Jedi began stepping forward to renounce aspects of their personalities. Daeshara'cor decided to abandon hatred, stating that it was a personal motive that had led her astray. After the ceremony she spoke briefly with Skywalker, thanking him for helping her to return to the Jedi and consider her motives. Over the next days, the Jedi readied themselves to defend the Tafanda Bay against the Yuuzhan Vong.

The Jedi decided to separate themselves into teams of two while defending the herdship. Daeshara'cor was paired up with Anakin Solo for the imminent battle and together the two Jedi took up their positions. A skirmish in space precluded the arrival of yorik-trema landing craft, which disgorged Chazrach reptoid soldiers and Yuuzhan Vong warriors into the herdship. When a large number of the warriors had boarded and begun destroying the holocams monitoring their passage, Daeshara'cor told Solo that it was time to defend the herdship and together they set off. Rather than sneak through Tafanda Bay and approach the Yuuzhan Vong by stealth, Daeshara'cor elected for a bold advance along the herdship's corridors to meet the invading warriors head-on.

With Solo following her, she moved into position in the herdship's central plaza and communicated her readiness to the other teams. Before the battle commenced, the Twi'lek thanked Solo for his help in leading her back from the brink of the dark side of the Force. They were interrupted by the arrival of a half-dozen Chazrach, whom the two Jedi dispatched with ease. Leaping down to the walkway below, Daeshara'cor was alerted by Solo to the presence of a Yuuzhan Vong warrior. The Twi'lek ordered Solo to follow her down into another corridor, but a Chazrach stalled the younger Jedi, allowing the Yuuzhan Vong warrior to notice him and rush to attack.

As Solo had been wounded in the leg, the warrior was about to kill the young Jedi when Daeshara'cor used the Force to pull Solo to safety, rushing to engage the warrior herself. Daeshara'cor successfully beat the warrior back away from Solo as the young Jedi recovered, using her lightsaber to fend off the Yuuzhan Vong. As the warrior retreated, however, he reversed his amphistaff—a Yuuzhan Vong serpent used as a living weapon—allowing it to bite the Twi'lek on the left arm and inject potent venom into Daeshara'cor's bloodstream. The Twi'lek Jedi Knight collapsed as Solo rushed forward to continue the fight.

Solo quickly dispatched the warrior, before turning to Daeshara'cor and hoisting her up onto his shoulders. As Solo carried her to safety, he was intercepted by numerous Chazrach en route and wielded Daeshara'cor's lightsaber as well as his own against the reptoid soldiers. Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker arrived to support Solo, and Jade Skywalker took the Twi'lek on her shoulders while Solo scouted ahead. The Yuuzhan Vong were beaten off the herdship and Jedi Master Corran Horn managed to secure a truce with the Yuuzhan Vong commander, resulting in a week-long cessation of hostilities. Daeshara'cor, however, was dying. While Humans could survive amphistaff venom with the use of bacta, Twi'lek physiology differed to the extent that Daeshara'cor could not be cured.

The mortally wounded Jedi Knight was placed in a medical bay and readied herself to pass on to the Force, calm in the inevitability of her death. The Twi'lek asked for Anakin Solo to come and visit her, wishing to set the young Jedi at ease with her passing and that of Chewbacca. When Solo arrived, Daeshara'cor was resting. She awoke to explain that she was about to die, to Solo's grief, and urged him to believe that she, and Chewbacca before her, had died saving Anakin so that he could continue to serve life and the Force. Daeshara'cor's words calmed the young Jedi and with her last breaths the Twi'lek told Solo how proud she was of him. As she died, the Twi'lek Jedi Knight surrendered herself to the Force, becoming incorporeal.

Although Daeshara'cor had returned from the brink of the dark side of the Force to fight the Yuuzhan Vong in the protection of others rather than in service to her hatred of their culture of slavery, those close to her continued to battle the invaders on an aggressive footing. Octa Ramis, who had come to terms with Reglia's death, found her grief renewed by Daeshara'cor's passing and became a vocal adherent of Kyp Durron. For Alema and Numa Rar, Daeshara'cor's death also had ramifications. The two Twi'leks became the leaders of a resistance movement on the occupied planet New Plympto and began waging a partisan war against the Yuuzhan Vong.

In grief over the death of their protector, the Rar sisters frequently invoked Daeshara'cor's memory as they waged their war. While Numa Rar was able to keep her sister's strong emotions in check to some extent, Alema developed an angry focus following Daeshara'cor's death that did not fade over time. Once Numa Rar had also fallen in battle against the Yuuzhan Vong, her sister lost control of her emotions and eventually descended into the dark side of the Force. Anakin Solo later perished fighting the Yuuzhan Vong during a desperate mission, sacrificing himself to protect his companions. Daeshara'cor's belief that the Yuuzhan Vong would conquer Coruscant was justified in 27 ABY, although the rift between Durron and Skywalker was later healed.

Daeshara'cor was driven by anger for much of her life and kept this fact hidden from her fellow Jedi. To some, therefore, she appeared reserved, calm, and sensible and was admired for her diligence and hard work. These latter traits were indeed possessed by the Twi'lek and were far from a false persona; they were, however, clouded once the Jedi Knight gave into her anger. To prevent the Yuuzhan Vong from inflicting suffering on the galaxy's inhabitants, Daeshara'cor was willing to countenance genocide against the invading species as she believed it was preferable to the deaths of loved ones. During her quest for superweapons, Daeshara'cor was often nervous and fearful and surprised those who knew her by being outspoken and critical.

It was only once the Twi'lek had a period of introspection and discussion with Luke Skywalker that she began to realize that hatred was obscuring traditional Jedi beliefs. Upon this epiphany, Daeshara'cor demonstrated her bravery and dedication to the preservation of life by facing the Yuuzhan Vong directly rather than employing stealth tactics and by giving up her life to save Anakin Solo. Following her abandonment of hatred, therefore, Daeshara'cor began to fight in the service of the Force rather than in service to her emotions and desires. As such, Daeshara'cor was willing to die and did not fear for her life, instead resigning herself to death and holding on to her Jedi principles.

The Twi'lek Jedi Knight refused to believe that those who had not lived what she perceived as a hard life on the fringe could understand her situation. She felt that the pain and suffering that was the result of slavery was incomprehensible to those who had not witnessed or experienced it directly, and this feeling of isolation compounded Daeshara'cor's situation. Although willing to steal and use Jedi powers to achieve her goals, Daeshara'cor refrained from inflicting harm on Anakin Solo and Chalco following her initial capture of the two Humans but did issue threats in order to convince Luke Skywalker to yield the data from the University of Garos.

Despite her knowledge that she would eventually have to face up to her actions once she had secured a superweapon and employed it against the Yuuzhan Vong, Daeshara'cor was resourceful and cunning in her race to obtain such a device before she was caught, arranging the appropriation of data and an alibi for herself that were only uncovered due to a hidden computer program monitoring the Jedi archives. Due to her life on the fringe, Daeshara'cor knew how to live on the other side of the law and did not like to draw attention to herself unnecessarily, remaining concealed in her cowl and robes. She was skeptical and distanced herself from Kyp Durron's ostentatiousness and rhetoric, siding with his faction only when she lost faith in Skywalker's approach to dealing with the Yuuzhan Vong.

Daeshara'cor was skilled at the use of mind tricks, utilizing her powers both to blank the memories of those with whom she interacted and to project images into the perceptions of others. With the latter manifestation of the power, Daeshara'cor was able to trick Anakin Solo on Garos IV into running into a wall, despite his strong Force-sensitivity. She was also able to employ telekinesis with ease, whisking Solo to safety with great speed during the Battle of Ithor and levitating his body on Garos IV. Daeshara'cor used her Force powers to attempt to conceal both her presence and that of Anakin Solo from Luke Skywalker, cloaking herself in the Force in order to evade detection. Skywalker, however, was able to sense her despite these abilities. The Twi'lek had the ability of precognition and received strong premonitions that the Yuuzhan Vong would one day conquer Coruscant itself if action was not taken; while the Jedi Order did oppose the invaders with concerted military efforts, the galactic capital did in fact fall to the Yuuzhan Vong two years after Daeshara'cor's death.

In addition to recognizing the potential in both Alema and Numa Rar, Daeshara'cor began the informal training of the two Jedi. She also constructed her own lightsaber with a scarlet blade, which she wielded against the Yuuzhan Vong during the war. Previously, Daeshara'cor had owned another lightsaber, which she passed down to Numa Rar. Despite her familiarity with the weapon the Twi'lek was, however, quickly wounded by the Yuuzhan Vong warrior whom she faced on the Tafanda Bay. Upon her death, Daeshara'cor was able to surrender herself to the Force, with the result that her body became discorporeal and vanished. In addition to Galactic Basic Standard, Daeshara'cor could also speak Huttese and Twi'leki. She was used to living life on the fringe and developed a talent for concealment and evasion.

Daeshara'cor appeared in only a single novel, The New Jedi Order: Dark Tide II: Ruin, the second novel in Michael A. Stackpole's Dark Tide Duology and the third overall installment in The New Jedi Order series. In Dark Tide II: Ruin, Daeshara'cor's search for superweapons comprises of one of several plots running through the novel and acts as a vehicle with which Anakin Solo's character can be developed, as well as exploring the use of superweapons, which featured prominently in the Bantam Spectra era of Star Wars publishing, against the Yuuzhan Vong. The Twi'lek's character arc spanned the novel. Stackpole commented in an interview concerning the Dark Tide duology that differences in Jedi philosophy became a more viable concept following the release of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, in which George Lucas introduced the possibility of divergent views on the Force through the medium of Qui-Gon Jinn, a maverick Jedi Master of the Jedi Order during the time of the Galactic Republic.

Another Star Wars author, Troy Denning, developed Daeshara'cor's backstory further in 2001 by revealing that she had been the informal Jedi Master of Alema and Numa Rar, the former of whom became a long-running character in the New Jedi Order series, the Dark Nest Trilogy, and the Star Wars: Legacy of the Force series. Daeshara'cor was subsequently featured in several reference works, such as The New Jedi Order Sourcebook and Who's Who in the New Jedi Order, which expanded upon her background and provided two illustrations of her. Described as a green-skinned Twi'lek in Dark Tide II: Ruin, Daeshara'cor is portrayed as having light pink skin in The New Jedi Order Sourcebook. Although Solo does notice that her skin takes on a "milky hue" following her injury at the Battle of Ithor, it is likely that her coloring in the image was simply an oversight.

Daeshara'cor was indirectly mentioned in The New Essential Chronology, as one of "two rogue Jedi" seeking superweapons, the second rogue Jedi presumably being Octa Ramis. Daeshara'cor also received an entry in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia in 2008. In The New Jedi Order Sourcebook, it is stated that Daeshara'cor began her superweapon research immediately after Miko Reglia's death, which contradicts Dark Tide II: Ruin, in which it is stated that Daeshara'cor's research commences after her arguments with Luke Skywalker on Coruscant. This article assumes that although Daeshara'cor began research in the Jedi archives following Reglia's death, she did not pull information on superweapons until later.

• "Who's Who in the New Jedi Order" — Star Wars Insider 57
• The New Jedi Order Sourcebook
• The New Essential Guide to Characters
• The New Essential Chronology
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia