Natasi Daala

"Why is it every time a competent woman is rewarded, others assume it's only because she's having sex with a man?"

- Daala

Natasi Daala was an enlisted soldier in the Imperial military, who, despite her origins, would go on to become one of the most famous Imperial warlords of all time. Thanks largely to the influence and aid of Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Daala was promoted to admiral after her talent was discovered.

Most famous for her command of security at the Maw Installation and the unification of the warlord factions into the eventual Imperial Remnant, she rose to eventually become one of the most hated and feared figures within the New Republic, at one point holding the post of Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet and exercising total and absolute control and power over the remnants of the Empire.

Claiming to be victim of the Empire's policy towards females herself, she issued a decree to allow all women and aliens to serve in the Imperial military, thus somewhat weakening the concept of Human High Culture within the Imperial Remnant.

Early career


Daala had a peaceful upbringing. While young, she fell in love with Liegeus Vorn, although the details of the affair are muddy. Presumably, following the end of the relationship, she enrolled in the Academy of Carida.

While she was a talented student and officer at the Imperial Academy, she was continually passed over for promotion due to her gender, though accounts by Imperial military officers said that she argued too much when she was passed over for promotions. To take out her frustrations toward the male-dominated military, she made herself a false computer identity. Under this alias, Daala was able to defeat many high-level officers, including some of her own instructors, in simulated battles. Many of her tactics were based upon ideas formed by Jan Dodonna. Her tactics were studied and implemented throughout the entire Imperial military. Despite graduating from the Academy, she ended up a non-commissioned officer in the Imperial Army.

She soon gained the attention of Moff Tarkin. He investigated Daala's hidden exploits at the Academy, hiring two black-market slicers who worked for several months to find the identity of the hidden strategist. He was pleasantly surprised to discover not only her identity, but that she was female. At the time, Daala held the rank of corporal and had first been a computer clerk, then a member of the kitchen staff preparing food for Star Destroyers. When the Carida staff discovered her identity, they planned to reassign her to a meteorological station at the planet's southern pole. However, Tarkin took her on as his protégé, using his influence to bypass the normal military hierarchy and promote her. Daala eventually received the rank of admiral, (though, in later years, her badge would come to represent the rank of Grand Moff)

Many quietly complained that Daala was sleeping her way to the top. When one of those remarks made its way back to Tarkin, he searched out the officer who had made it. He had the officer sealed inside an environmental suit and ejected him into the space over a planet as punishment. Tarkin had the suit's radio left on so that others could hear the man over the course of 24 hours as his orbit decayed. The officer's orbit decayed to the point where he finally entered the planet's atmosphere and burned up on reentry. However, the allegations were in fact accurate, as Daala did have an affair with Tarkin once she transferred under his command.

At the same time as she was carrying on her affair with Tarkin, Daala was also engaged in a romance with the holo faker Liegeus Vorn.

Maw Installation
Tarkin entrusted Daala with overseeing and protecting the Maw Installation, birthplace of the Death Stars, World Devastators, and the Sun Crusher. This facility was hidden away even from the rest of the Empire, and no less than four Imperial-class Star Destroyers were stationed there (Basilisk, Gorgon, Hydra, and Manticore). After having her promoted to admiral, Tarkin ordered Daala never to abandon her post or break communication silence unless he returned, as she had no authority outside Tarkin's command. However, in 0 ABY, Daala payed a visit to the nearly completed Death Star at the request of the Grand Moff. During the brief visit, she aided Tarkin in investigating the destruction of the Star Destroyer, Undauntable, but was unable to identify the saboteurs. On a second visit, her ship was attacked by a squadron of X-wings en route to the station. An explosion caused a piece of shrapnel to become lodged in her skull, which was removed in the Death Star's medcenter with the only likely long term damage being some memory loss. As soon as she recovered, Tarkin had Daala transferred back to the Maw and had the logs altered to make it appear she had never been on the station. Following Tarkin's death, Daala stayed isolated in the Maw with no news of the Galaxy outside and no one in the Empire aware of her existence.



In 11 ABY, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Kyp Durron escaped from Kessel and accidentally discovered the Maw Installation. Daala captured and interrogated them, learning for the first time about the destruction of the Death Stars and the deaths of Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, and Tarkin. Daala knew that her orders were obsolete and decided to leave the Maw to strike back at the Rebels. However, her plans were partially sabotaged when her prisoners, aided by researcher Qwi Xux, escaped with the Sun Crusher.

Though she made a valiant attempt and was armed with "the power to turn planets into slag", Daala was ultimately foiled. She lost one Star Destroyer on the Maw, when Han Solo piloted the Sun Crusher directly through the ship's bridge. Pursuing the diminutive superweapon out of the Maw, she ran into Moruth Doole's sizable mercenary fleet and defeated them in a confused brawl, albeit with more losses incurred. Undaunted, Daala continued to raid various planets, including Dantooine, where the original Eol Sha colonists had relocated. After determining that Mon Calamari was of some importance, she decided to attack the watery world. Although she was initially successful, a second ship was destroyed by Admiral Ackbar in orbit around Mon Calamari.

Following her defeat at Mon Calamari, Daala retreated to the Cauldron Nebula. She had planned to go down fighting, striking a fatal blow against the New Republic by evacuating one of her two remaining Star Destroyers of personnel and equipment, and send it crashing down upon the surface of Coruscant. This last desperate plan was again met with defeat when Kyp Durron ignited the stars in the nebula with the Sun Crusher, destroying the mostly abandoned Star Destroyer. Weary of her continuous failed efforts, Daala decided to return with Gorgon to the Maw, vowing to return to Tarkin's assigned mission, and defend it to the death.

What she found there, however, was total chaos. The Republic had already moved to seize Maw Installation, while Tol Sivron and the remaining scientists had sabotaged the facility and absconded with the prototype Death Star. Both Daala and Sivron returned to attack the occupied facility, though the re-appearance of the Sun Crusher distracted both of them. As the facility exploded, Daala desperately escaped the Maw, dejectedly setting a course for the splintered Empire.

The reunification of the Empire
"I didn't want to rule. I had no intention of becoming a political leader. &hellip;but you have given me no choice. I cannot leave the Empire in the hands of fools like you."

- Admiral Daala to other Imperial warlords at Tsoss Beacon



The remnants of the Imperial command dismantled Gorgon and distributed her surviving crew among the various commanders. Daala chose not to join with anyone, instead serving as a roaming ambassador amongst the warlords in an attempt to unify them. After "Supreme Warlord" Harrsk pressed her into his service on the threat of death, Daala at last grew tired of the chaotic state of the Empire. Feuding over what was left of a formerly Galaxy-spanning government, the warlords were slowly destroying what remained. Daala sought to change that and joined forces with then-Vice Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, forcing the most powerful warlords to meet in order to negotiate and discuss the future of the Empire at Tsoss Beacon in 12 ABY. After hours of petty squabbling and arguing, Daala executed the warlords, sealing them in a room and poisoning the air, leaving herself as the effective head-of-state and commander-in-chief of what was left of the Galactic Empire, under the self appointed title of Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet, with Pellaeon as her second-in-command. In this way, she has been attributed as the founder of the modern Imperial Remnant.

Following the warlords' deaths, Daala took command of their forces, consolidating fleets of Victory-class and Imperial-class Star Destroyers, Skipray Blastboats, and even a single Star Dreadnought, Knight Hammer taken from "Superior General" Delvardus. Additionally, Daala instituted societal reforms in the Imperial military, ending decades of oppression against women and nonhumans. Her fleet successfully raided a few systems before executing a poorly planned assault against the New Republic and Luke Skywalker's Jedi Praxeum on Yavin IV, which resulted in the destruction of Knight Hammer, several Victory-class Star Destroyers, and the damage of the forty-five Imperial-class Star Destroyers under Pellaeon's direct command. At the start of the battle, Daala's fleet landed a large number of ground troops on Yavin IV, but they were defeated by the Jedi there. In space, Ackbar arrived with a small fleet and engaged Daala's numerically superior fleet, though Ackbar would soon be reinforced by a much larger New Republic fleet. Defeated, Daala managed to overcome the Jedi Knight Callista Ming, and escaped from the dying wake of Knight Hammer after Callista sabotaged the behemoth vessel, only to relinquish command, promoting Pellaeon to the rank of Admiral and Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet, apparently resigning Imperial service for good.

Later life


She settled temporarily on Pedducis Chorios as an independent faction leader, leading a group of settlers (mostly retired or disillusioned Imperial military members) on the distant world&mdash;albeit settlers with a sizable military force, including capital ships. Daala would return to service, however, when she learned of Moff Getelles's plan to use the Death Seed plague to take over the Meridian Sector from R2-D2 and C-3PO, whom she found on Cybloc XII after receiving their distress call. Feeling nothing but contempt for Getelles's actions, Daala assisted New Republic forces in defeating a fleet under Admiral Larm at Nam Chorios. After the battle she was reunited with her old flame Liegeus Vorn and the two returned to Peduccis Chorios together.

Almost a year later, Daala resurfaced in the Deep Core looking to establish another fleet. With forces swelled by Imperials returning from imprisonment under the Yevetha, she united the squabbling factions under warlords including Foga Brill and Moff Tethys and prepared to strike once more at the New Republic. Though she did make an attack against the Republic a short time later, General Garm Bel Iblis defeated her soundly, causing her ship to make a blind hyperspace jump. Despite being presumed killed in battle, New Republic Intelligence consistently refused to remove her name from the list of potential threats, and she eventually returned to the larger galaxy in 40 ABY, commanding the Maw Irregular Fleet, at the behest of an aging Gilad Pellaeon. After Pellaeon was assassinated by Dark Jedi Tahiri Veila on orders from Sith Lord Darth Caedus, Daala and the Maw Irregular Fleet would join forces with the Mandalorians and Admiral Niathal's splinter government while the rest of the Remnant rallied behind Caedus and his government, who they saw as a potential new Emperor or as a way to gain more territory. She later told Mandalore Boba Fett that she had a son and a granddaughter.

Personality and traits
Daala was an aggressive commander who harbored much frustration at being so poorly treated in the Imperial command structure. She was in some ways charismatic, but due to her gender and suspect manner of promotion this was often ignored. She also could be ruthless, ordering the bombardment of colonies, the destruction of merchant vessels, the torture of prisoners, and the destruction of worlds with seemingly no remorse.

Daala was also devoted to the cause of the Empire almost to the point of irrationalism&mdash;at least in the eyes of the post-Endor warlords&mdash;and to following orders, remaining at the Maw installation for years without any outside contact. She also was willing to go to great lengths to further that cause, including killing other Imperial leaders, wanting to sacrifice a Star Destroyer to destroy Coruscant, and sacrificing her own life for the Empire.

However, despite her combative nature, Daala did have a soft side, which she displayed towards those she respected, such as her long time second-in-command and her former lover. This side of her personality was rarely seen by those she served over or fought against, though.

Behind the scenes
Admiral Daala was created by Kevin J. Anderson for the Jedi Academy Trilogy. However, she wasn't given the first name of Natasi until Karen Traviss's novel, Revelation, fourteen years after Daala was introduced to the EU.

All of Daala's Star Destroyers (Basilisk, Gorgon, Hydra, and Manticore) are named after mythical beasts, perhaps implying that they are sister ships of the famous Chimaera.

Appearances



 * Death Star
 * Star Wars: Rebellion
 * Jedi Search
 * Dark Apprentice
 * Champions of the Force
 * Darksaber
 * Jedi Academy: Leviathan
 * Planet of Twilight
 * Before the Storm
 * Shield of Lies
 * The New Rebellion
 * Specter of the Past
 * Vision of the Future
 * Star Wars: Union
 * Dark Tide I: Onslaught
 * Dark Tide II: Ruin
 * Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse
 * Edge of Victory II: Rebirth
 * The Unifying Force
 * Revelation