Before 126 ABY, a Rutian Twi'lek female named Astraal Vao entered the world. As a young child, tragedy struck when the starship of her parents crashed on Vendaxa, a planet. She and her twin brother, Shado, survived, but their parents were killed. Rescued by the humanitarian Imperial Mission, they were taken in. Years later, Jedi Master Wolf Sazen discovered their Force-sensitive nature. Shado joined the Jedi Order, but Astraal Vao felt her calling was with the Mission, becoming an Imperial Missionary and dedicating her life to helping others.
When the Empire the Mission served was seized by the One Sith, Emperor Roan Fel and his daughter, Princess Marasiah, went into hiding. The young Fel began to infiltrate Imperial systems to find loyalists, and Vao grew close to her. Defying the new Empire, she protected Fel from capture. In 137 ABY, pursued by Sith Hand Darth Talon from the Imperial Mission temple on Socorro, they escaped on the Mynock, the ship of bounty hunter Cade Skywalker. Vao planned to meet her brother on Vendaxa, but Talon followed and attacked. Shado and Sazen, with Fel and the Mynock's crew, subdued her, but her sabotage grounded the ship.
Vao sought aid from Konrad Rus, the Mission's leader, but help came from Imperial Knights Antares Draco and Ganner Krieg, loyal to Fel, arriving before a legion of Sith. During the battle, the Princess was mortally wounded, and Vao cared for her on the Mynock. As they evacuated, tensions rose between Skywalker, the Imperial Knights, and the Jedi, nearly resulting in a fight. Vao calmed the situation and convinced Draco to let Skywalker heal the Princess. Arriving at Emperor Fel's fortress world of Bastion, Vao tried to persuade her brother to stay with the Empire-in-exile, but Shado refused and left.
Astraal Vao, a Rutian Twi'lek female born prior to 126 ABY, was the sister of Shado Vao, her twin. Both Vao siblings were born with a strong sensitivity to the Force. When they were very young, the twins were passengers aboard their parents' starship, which suffered a crash landing on the surface of the planet Vendaxa. Their parents died in the crash, but Vao and her brother survived. Soon after, they were discovered by members of the Imperial Mission. This organization aimed to spread the influence of the Galactic Empire by providing aid and support to citizens in need across the galaxy. The Mission's members took in the orphaned Vaos and raised them within their ranks. The siblings lived there for many years until Jedi Master Wolf Sazen discovered them before 126 ABY. Recognizing their Force potential, Sazen brought them to the Jedi Academy on Ossus for training. Shado chose to join the Jedi Order, but Astraal Vao felt a deep connection to the Mission, having been rescued and raised by its members. She became an Imperial Missionary herself, embracing its humanitarian ideology. Despite choosing different paths, the siblings created a holocomm signal for emergencies, agreeing to meet at their parents' crash site on Vendaxa.
During her years of service, Vao collaborated with other Missionaries like Ethan Adare and became a trusted confidante of Moff Konrad Rus, the Mission's leader. In 130 ABY, Darth Krayt, a Sith Lord, usurped the Empire's leadership. Rus was compelled to find ways to justify the Mission's existence under the new regime, outwardly supporting Krayt to maintain the Mission's survival. Agents of the Dark Lord began hunting deposed Emperor Roan Fel and his daughter, Princess Marasiah Fel. For seven years, the young Fel secretly visited Imperial systems to identify loyal officers. During this time, Vao grew close to the Princess on Socorro, becoming her trusted friend. She often traveled with Fel, protecting her from Imperial agents. Despite her efforts, Vao's defiance did not go unnoticed.
In 137 ABY, Vao was stationed on Socorro as its local Missionary, operating from the world's Imperial Mission temple. Fel arrived that year with her bodyguard, Imperial Knight Elke Vetter, seeking refuge in the temple. Darth Krayt dispatched his Sith Hand Darth Talon, who set the temple ablaze. Vetter dueled Talon as Vao and Fel fled, but Talon's plan was to let them escape, hoping they would lead her to Emperor Fel, whose Empire-in-exile had been conducting guerrilla warfare on Krayt's fleets for seven years. As Vao and Fel fled the temple on foot, the Princess sensed Vetter's death in the Force. Fel wanted to avenge her bodyguard, but Vao persuaded her to honor Vetter's sacrifice by escaping. As they moved through deserted city streets, Vao contacted her brother on a public holocomm using their signal. Soon after, growing tired, she convinced her friend to rest briefly, but their respite ended in seconds when they spotted Talon shadowing them.
The two eventually found the Mynock, a starship belonging to bounty hunter Cade Skywalker, parked in the Killee Wasteland. Skywalker and his mechanic, Deliah Blue, stood on the ship's open loading ramp. Fel tried to use the Force to convince the captain to give them passage. Skywalker, a former Jedi, resisted her efforts but ushered them onboard when he saw Talon approaching on a speeder bike. The crew initiated emergency takeoff, and Skywalker showed Vao and Fel to Blue's quarters, where they asked to be taken to Vendaxa. Fel promised reimbursement, but Skywalker recognized Fel from an Imperial wanted poster and plotted with his crew to collect the bounties on her and her father.
The Mynock traveled to Vendaxa, and Vao directed Skywalker and Jariah Syn, the co-pilot, to land near her parents' crash site. The jungle forced them to land some distance away. As the group of five approached the rendezvous point, they were attacked by a native acklay. The Mynock's crew used their blasters to hold it off as it chased them, but when they reached the crash site, the beast grabbed Vao. Shado and Wolf Sazen arrived. Vao's brother freed her from the acklay before helping Sazen down the creature with their lightsabers. As the siblings embraced, Fel told the Mynock's crew she knew their intentions and would not pay them. Shado and Sazen's nearby transport exploded, and its saboteur, Darth Talon, appeared. Accompanied by a horde of vanx creatures she was controlling through the Force, Talon attacked the party. Everyone except Vao fought off the attackers with lightsabers and blasters, and Skywalker subdued the Sith by using the Force to throw wreckage at her. He led the group back to the Mynock.
When Blue discovered Talon had sabotaged the ship, Vao offered to fix the comm unit. After repairs, she tried to contact Rus, believing he could send aid. Shado was surprised she trusted an Imperial Moff, but trusted his sister's judgment and praised her humanitarian work. Vao reached Rus and told him their situation. He promised to inform Roan Fel and told Vao to remain on Vendaxa until contacted. Vao was unaware that Rus was with Darth Krayt. Rus served the Sith Lord to ensure the Mission's survival and, to draw out Roan Fel, used channels to contact the deposed Emperor and inform him of his daughter's danger.
As the crew fixed the Mynock, Shado told his sister about Skywalker's past as a Jedi, which Vao passed on to the Princess, prompting a conversation about their legacies. As everyone stood outside, two Imperial TIE Predators arrived but were shot down. Vao assumed it was Emperor Fel and rushed toward the crashing starfighters, but Skywalker held her back. The fighters belonged to Imperial Knights Antares Draco and Ganner Krieg, who had acted on Rus's intelligence and come to rescue the Princess. Talon emerged with a legion of Sith reinforcements, and the battle began. Vao insisted on helping Fel but was dragged inside the Mynock by Syn. They manned the cockpit as Blue started the engines.
The Princess was gravely injured and brought inside by Draco and Sazen. Draco rushed back to battle, and Vao stood by her friend as she lay on a table and Sazen tried to heal her. When Skywalker, Shado, Draco, and Krieg boarded, the ship took off, and Shado and Krieg joined Sazen's healing efforts. Their attempts failed, and when Skywalker offered help, Draco punched him. Skywalker drew his blaster, and Draco, Krieg, and Shado ignited their lightsabers. Vao stepped between them and appealed to the Imperial Knights, suggesting they let Skywalker try to heal Fel. Skywalker cured the Princess with his healing abilities, and the Mynock went to the Empire-in-exile's fortress world of Bastion. The Emperor invited everyone to stay, but the Jedi distrusted the Empire after its role in a massacre of the Jedi Order seven years prior. Shado and Sazen left with Skywalker. Vao contacted Rus again, reporting the princess's healing and Roan Fel's retaken Bastion. Rus passed the intelligence to Krayt.
Later, Blue used Vao's name as an alias when posing as an Imperial Missionary to steal a trivalve assembly from the Imperial Mission on Tatooine. Ethan Adare saw through her ruse but helped her acquire the assembly.
Astraal Vao felt indebted to the Imperial Mission for raising her and her brother, declining Jedi training to become a Missionary and live by its humanitarian ideals. The Mission aided needy people across the galaxy, and Vao embodied the kind of person it sought. She was intelligent, gentle, and faithful to the Mission, believing her destiny lay there. After years of service, she grew close to Konrad Rus and confided in him, seeing him as embodying her ideals, unaware he confided in Darth Krayt.
Vao was a trusted friend, advisor, and mentor to Marasiah Fel, an enemy of the Empire the Mission served. Vao protected Fel from Imperial hunters for years, balancing service to the Empire with hiding her friend. Vao lived to serve others, bound by duty, believing her desires meant nothing in the face of it. When Elke Vetter sacrificed herself for Fel's escape, Vao appealed to Fel's sense of duty, convincing her not to confront Vetter's killer. Despite no Force training, Vao wanted to fight alongside Fel against a Sith army on Vendaxa.
Vao was also close to her brother, Shado. Orphaned and raised together, they arranged to meet on Vendaxa in danger. When Shado became a Jedi, Vao feared being torn apart, but realized the Jedi Order was his place. Shado admired her passion and philanthropy, and came to Vendaxa in 137 ABY when she was in trouble. When Shado and Cade Skywalker were about to fight Antares Draco and Ganner Krieg aboard the Mynock, Vao defused the situation, convincing the Imperial Knights to let Skywalker heal the Princess.
Despite being Force-sensitive, Vao had no formal training. She spoke Basic, the Twi'lek's native Ryl tongue, High Galactic, and Huttese. She also understood Binary.
Astraal Vao was created by John Ostrander and Jan Duursema for the Star Wars: Legacy comic series. An identifying illustration by Duursema was published in New Force Rising, an article in the eighty-seventh issue of Star Wars Insider magazine (2006), previewing Legacy before its launch. More information was revealed in pre-release material, including the preview comic issue Star Wars: Legacy (2006) 0. Vao played a major role in Legacy's first story arc, Broken, published throughout 2006 and January 2007. Despite being billed as a principle character, Vao did not appear in Legacy after that, though she was referenced and her name was used as an alias in the Tatooine story arc.
Mission and Griff Vao, Rutian Twi'lek siblings with the same surname, had appeared in the 2003 video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Ostrander and Duursema did not intend the pairs of Vao siblings to be related, but included an homage to Mission in the fourth issue of Broken by having Konrad Rus address Vao as "Missionary Vao."
In Broken's final issue, Vao refers to Ganner Krieg as "Master Draco." Although her dialog specifically refers to Draco's romantic feelings for the Princess, Duursema has asserted that she is speaking to Krieg. The 2007 hardcover release of Broken reflected this by changing the dialog to "Master Krieg."