Doctor Nasan Godera was a male Human scientist who worked for the Republic Strategic Information Service, the Galactic Republic's intelligence agency, during the Great Galactic War with the Sith Empire. Born on Balmorra in 3707 BBY, Godera was a brilliant scientist whose arrogance nearly crippled his career until he began aiding the Republic's war effort, and he soon became involved in the Shadow Arsenal project under Colonel Laren Omas. After the project was discontinued, Godera completed the weapons in secret but realized their destructive potential was too great, and he founded the Republic superweapon initiative to create weapons to protect the Republic and destroy the Empire. As head of the SIS's Advanced Development Laboratories, Godera trained a protégé in Boab Deduun, and was outraged when the Republic submitted to the Empire's demands in the Treaty of Coruscant. The fiercely patriotic Godera abandoned the Republic in protest and went into exile on the planet Taris, constructing a series of underground labs manned by droid assistants.
However, Godera became the target of an Imperial Intelligence operation almost a decade into the Cold War when the agents of Sith Lord Darth Angral attempted to capture the scientist for his knowledge of superweapons. A young Jedi Knight was sent to retrieve the doctor before the Empire could capture him, and the Jedi managed to rescue Godera after pursuing his captor, Watcher One of Imperial Intelligence, across the ruined world. Godera returned to the capital of Coruscant to aid the Republic during the campaign against Angral, and his knowledge proved invaluable in deactivating the Desolator weapon aboard Angral's ship Oppressor. He remained assigned to General Var Suthra of the Republic Military as a scientific advisor as the Galactic War began, and he helped halt the Sith's efforts to kill civilians during the Battle of Corellia. Godera was killed during an Imperial attack, though his inventions would continue to be utilized by the military and the SIS during the renewed war.
A Human male born on the planet Balmorra in 3707 BBY, Nasan Godera quickly became known for his genius intellect as a young man. Godera's abrasive personality and political insensitivity nearly doomed his career as a scientist in the years before the Great Galactic War, but when the resurgent Sith Empire returned in 3681 BBY and began to attack the Galactic Republic, Godera was recruited into the Republic Strategic Information Service, the Republic's intelligence agency. Not long after the Battle of Alderaan in 3667 BBY, Doctor Godera was one of many scientists recruited by Colonel Laren Omas of the Republic's nascent Special Forces. Omas convinced the group to design a weapon capable of stopping the Imperial threat, and over the course of several weeks the scientists developed a plan to build a "Shadow Arsenal"—a stockpile of interplanetary missiles with cloaking devices and payloads capable of destroying entire continents, intended to serve as an incredible deterrent against further Imperial hostility.
However, the group began to fall apart soon after the plan was finalized, and Omas's death at the Battle of Hoth in 3665 BBY caused the group to officially disband. But a determined Godera continued to secretly build the arsenal on the adrenal-producing world of Quesh, and it was not until he completed the weapon that Godera realized that the weapon's destructive potential was too much. Understanding that the catastrophic death toll the weapon would incur was too high a price, Godera locked the Shadow Arsenal away on Quesh and swore that from that day for his inventions would be different—they would either imprison or selectively target enemies, or guard against attack. After spending four years studying the technology of the ancient Rakata species on the prison world of Belsavis, Godera founded the Republic superweapon initiative to develop new technologies and weapons.
Godera soon became the Chief Designer within the Republic's Advanced Development Laboratories, developing prototype technologies and working with the galaxy's greatest scientists. Fellow scientist Boab Deduun became Godera's protégé, and Godera's genius eventually led to the creation of multiple superweapons and advanced technologies. Among his inventions were the Sky Torch weapon and the spy ray, a long-range surveillance device that every SIS agent knew how to build by the time of the Cold War.. Several superweapons—including the Planet Prison, Power Guard Enhancement System, Shock Drum, and the Death Mark laser—were developed years later from Godera's half-finished designs and research.
In 3653 BBY, the Republic was forced to sign the Treaty of Coruscant and end the war on the Empire's terms. This infuriated Godera, whose devotion to the destruction of the Empire led him to protest the Treaty. After the Galactic Senate repeatedly ignored his advice and predictions that the Empire would press their advantage, Godera left the Republic in disgust and traveled to the ruined world of Taris. There, he constructed a series of underground laboratories with the help of droid assistants, and the scientist continued his research and experiments over the next decade as the galaxy experienced the tense Cold War. The droid RE-M0 became one of Godera's favorite assistants.
Godera imprisoned by Imperials on Taris
In 3643 BBY, the Sith Lord Darth Angral declared a personal war upon the Republic and the Jedi Order in response to the death of his son Tarnis at the hands of a young Jedi Knight. Tarnis had been posing as a member of the Republic superweapon initiative—which had been reorganized following Godera's resignation under General Var Suthra with the purpose of weaponizing the technologies Godera had developed—and he sent all of his files on the Republic's weapons projects to Angral before his death. Tarnis also communicated the rumors that Doctor Godera had gone into hiding on Taris, and the Sith Empire's Imperial Intelligence confirmed this, as they had been tracking Godera's whereabouts for quite some time.
Angral therefore ordered Watcher One of Intelligence to take a force of Imperial soldiers to Taris and capture the scientist, and Watcher One's forces began to attack and capture Godera's laboratories across Taris. Imperial forces eventually located and captured the doctor, knocking him unconscious and bringing Godera to Watcher One in the Imperial-occupied ruins of the Taris ChemWorks Factory. However, Godera's interrogation was prevented by the impending arrival of the Jedi Knight who had killed Tarnis; the Jedi had been sent by General Suthra to rescue Godera, and was tracking Godera's biosignature with the help of RE-M0. To evade the Knight, Watcher One donned a holoprojector that disguised him as a Rodian and carried the unconscious doctor to the factory's entrance, where Watcher One tricked the arriving Jedi into letting them leave; the Imperial operative then took Godera to a secure base in the depths of the ruined transport hub known as Transport Station 5.
The still unconscious scientist was then injected with a class-four truth serum, which allowed the Imperials to easily interrogate Godera and mine his knowledge of advanced weaponry and technology. Once the interrogation was complete, Watcher One sent the data to Darth Angral just as the Jedi Knight who was pursuing Godera arrived.
Still strapped to the interrogation table, Godera witnessed the Knight's fight with Watcher One, after which the Knight allowed the defeated agent to flee and make a new life for himself outside of the Empire.
The Jedi then freed Godera from his restraints, and the doctor begrudgingly agreed to return to the Republic when he was informed of Angral's crusade. Godera was escorted by the Knight back to the Republic settlement of Olaris, where the Jedi delivered the scientist into the custody of Agent Fau-Kes of the SIS; Fau-Kes and his team then escorted Godera to Coruscant, where Godera was appointed as General Suthra's scientific advisor during the crisis with Angral.
Doctor Godera during the Galactic War
Nasan Godera was an expert in mathematics and loved calculating problems in his head. He preferred the companionship with droids over organics.
Like many in the Republic, Godera despised the Empire and was so outraged at the Treaty of Coruscant, that he retired and hid on Taris. However, he was willing to return after seeing that the Republic finally acknowledged the Empire as a threat.
Godera had an indifferent, casual outlook on life and viewed the weapons such as the Shock Drum to be fascinating designs, not even caring about its potential to destroy planets. He also had a close friendship with General Var Suthra and had confidence in his abilities, so much so that he was more than willing to stand in the middle of a war zone on Corellia, believing that the General's best troops would protect him and that no one would intentionally target a museum. Unfortunately, this proved to be his undoing when the Sith killed him.
Nasan Godera was first mentioned in the comic book The Old Republic—The Lost Suns 3, an issue in the Lost Suns arc of the tie-in comic series for the BioWare video game Star Wars: The Old Republic. Godera went on to appear in the game itself as a supporting character for the Jedi Knight class storyline, and was also mentioned frequently in the Imperial Agent storyline and other missions on Taris. The 2012 reference guide Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia sheds further light on his career, and Godera received his own entry in the guide's section on the Strategic Information Service. The timing of Doctor Godera's work with the Shadow Arsenal is a source of confusion; the Imperial Agent storyline states that the Shadow Arsenal project officially ended with the Battle of Hoth, but claims that the battle occurred at the end of the Great War, despite all previous sources and other parts of the game stating that occurred in 3665 BBY. As a result, this article assumes that the Shadow Arsenal dating is an error.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia