Vrad Dodonna

Vrad Dodonna was a Human male Rebel pilot and the son of General Jan Dodonna, the Alliance's top military strategist during the Galactic Civil War. Although living in the shadow of his father, by 0 ABY Vrad Dodonna was considered one of the Alliance's brightest and most experienced pilots. However, Dodonna lost his faith in the Rebellion after a harrowing encounter with the Imperial Super Star Destroyer Executor, causing him to flee a battle at Skorrupon in terror. Dodonna later planned to trade a valuable power gem to the Imperials to bargain for his own life, but instead sacrificed his life in a suicide run in the Executor, in doing so turning aside an Imperial attack on the Rebels' Yavin 4 base.

Biography

A Human male, Vrad Dodonna was the son of Jan Dodonna, a former Republic naval officer who came out of retirement to become the preeminent military tactician for the Rebel Alliance during the Galactic Civil War. Dodonna was raised by his father at his estate on Brelor, a moon of the planet Commenor, which had been granted to the Dodonna family as a gift from the Emperor upon his retirement. The elder Dodonna did not support the Imperial regime, but also initially resisted overtures to join the Rebel Alliance—however, after he and his son narrowly escaped an attempt on their lives from COMPNOR assassins, they entered the war on the Rebel side.

Vrad Dodonna engages the Executor at Yavin.

Vrad Dodonna engages the Executor at Yavin.

While Jan took his place as one of the Alliance's top military leaders, Vrad became known as one of the fighting force's most promising young pilots. By shortly after the Battle of Yavin, Dodonna had more combat experience than almost any pilot in the Rebellion, and was at Skorrupon when the Rebel Alliance had one of its first encounters with the Super Star Destroyer Executor, the massive flagship of the Sith Lord Darth Vader. Overwhelmed with fear at the sight of the vessel, Dodonna fled the engagement, leaving the rest of the Rebel forces behind to be annihilated. Although Dodonna was briefly feared dead, he later returned to the Alliance's Yavin 4 base in a damaged scout ship, claiming that he had been attacked by the enemy and needed to make emergency repairs to survive.

The only survivor of the Rebel defeat at Skorrupon, Dodonna was feted as a hero upon his return to Yavin. However, his story earned some suspicion: Luke Skywalker, hero of the Battle of Yavin, had entered the Skorrupon system shortly after the battle and had seen Dodonna's undamaged ship flee. Nevertheless, Rebel leadership was preoccupied with forming a plan to take out the Executor, which was en route to attack Yavin—over Skywalker's objections, Dodonna volunteered to fly an attack ship loaded with a power gem into the Executor, an extremely dangerous plan that his father hoped could cause catastrophic damage to the cruiser. Skywalker was named Dodonna's backup pilot, and slotted to fly the mission alongside him. However, angered by Skywalker questioning his story of escaping the Executor, Dodonna picked a fight with Skywalker that ended with Skywalker gaining the upper hand and Dodonna admitting that he had fled the battle.

Ultimately, Dodonna had no intent to actually face the Empire. Dodonna instead planned to ditch Skywalker on an uninhabited planetoid and instead parley with the Empire, believing that the Alliance had no chance to win the war—Dodonna hoped that the power gem would allow him to bargain with his own life. However, Vader sensed Skywalker's presence through the Force and reversed course, abandoning his attack vector on Yavin to target the man who had destroyed the Death Star. Skywalker pled with Dodonna to resume the mission, and ultimately got through to him—Dodonna went back up in the attack ship alone and did a suicide run on the Executor, doing grievous damage to the destroyer and forcing it to flee the Yavin system. In turn, Skywalker concealed Dodonna's treachery upon his safe return to Yavin, allowing the dead pilot to be remembered for a heroic sacrifice. However, his son's death caused his father Jan Dodonna to fall into a deep depression, ultimately resulting in his semi-retirement.

Personality and traits

Although his father was renowned as one of the Rebellion's finest leaders, Vrad Dodonna could be hostile, hotheaded and even treacherous. Dodonna was nevertheless a skilled pilot, with an extremely high level of experience in ship-against-ship combat, but the encounter with the Executor was unlike anything Dodonna had experienced before—Dodonna later said that seeing a ship that massive and overwhelming had broken something inside him, and convinced him that the Rebel Alliance had no chance to win the war. Believing an ex-Rebel would not be allowed to survive after the Alliance's pending defeat, Dodonna initially elected to save his own skin and parley with the Empire. However, Luke Skywalker managed to inspire Dodonna to finish his final mission, and he sacrificed himself in an effort to, in his own mind, make up for the mistakes he had made in the past.

Behind the scenes

Vrad Dodonna appeared in Doom Mission, an arc of the Star Wars comic strip written by Archie Goodwin, illustrated by Al Williamson, and released in 1983. Dodonna was also mentioned in The Official Star Wars Fact File 21 , where he was erroneously stated to be Jan Dodonna's nephew.

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