Viidaav (species)

The Viidaav or Viidaavs were a species of sentient humanoids with green skin and angular projections growing from their heads. They were thin beings with large, expressive eyes and three-fingered hands. The Viidaavs hailed from the planet Viidaav, where many of them worked as miners, shipbuilders, and soldiers.

During the Clone Wars, the Viidaavs allied with the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Clone troopers from the Galactic Republic attacked the planet, sparking the Battle of Viidaav. The natives resisted the Republic troops but were eventually driven back to defending a small mining array. The Viidaavs were preparing to retreat when the Separatist leader Count Dooku ordered his battle droids to detonate mining charges set within the planet's crust. A lone Viidaav commander managed to defuse the explosives seconds before they exploded.

Biology and appearance
Viidaavs (or Viidaav) were sentient bipeds with green skin and lithe, humanoid bodies. Their feet had two large toes, and their hands had three thick fingers with nails. The average Viidaav stood about the same height as a Galactic Republic clone trooper at 1.8 meters.

The Viidaav head was covered in thick, square-like projections. They had large, red eyes under an expressive brow, and white teeth behind thick, green lips. Their prominent cheekbones framed small, round ears on the sides of the head. Members of the species had no visible nose.

During the Clone Wars, Viidaav soldiers wore uniforms that consisted of a brown baldric over the left shoulder, brown boots, a brown loin cloth, and brown wraps around the forearms. Soldiers bore a colored stripe on the chin, and at least one commander wore white face paint around the eyes and the center of the forehead.

Society and culture
The Viidaavs lived on the planet of the same name. Their population centers were situated near large outcrops of stone and had only small numbers of settlers. By the time of the Clone Wars, they had access to galactic-standard technology, including macrobinoculars and blaster rifles. At least some members of the species worked as miners, and the species operated at least one mining colony on its surface. There, they used mining charges under the planetary crust to help excavate valuable materials. Other Viidaavs worked as shipbuilders and soldiers.

History
The Viidaavs evolved on the planet named for them, located in the Mid Rim. They spread across their homeworld and founded at least one colony, which was used for mining. As part of mining operations, the Viidaav colonists set explosive charges into the planetary crust for help in the excavation of raw materials. The species also set up a shipbuilding industry on the world.

At some point during the Separatist Crisis and subsequent Clone Wars, the Viidaavs sided with the Confederacy of Independant Systems versus the Galactic Republic. In the early days after hostilities between the factions, the Viidaavs provided starships to the Confederacy while the Separatists sent armies of battle droids and helped set up a base and command center in a mining colony.

The Battle of Viidaav
After Republic scouts found the Separatist base on Viidaav in 20 BBY, clone troopers attacked the world, and the Battle of Viidaav began. The green-skinned natives and their droid allies resisted, but the Republic landed most of its available forces and moved ever closer toward the Viidaav mining colony. There, Viidaav soldiers were reduced to a few hundred thousand troops concentrated around the defense of a small mining array in a bunker. With the Republic poised to take the array and the world, the Viidaavs prepared to evacuate the planet.

Any retreat had to rely on spacecraft of Viidaav manufacture, but too few remained for a full evacuation. Meanwhile, the Confederacy leader, Count Dooku, was secretly plotting to take out large numbers of Republic clone troopers, but the plan relied on a sizeable loss of Viidaav lives as well and would leave the planet's surface uninhabitable: Dooku ordered his battle droids to surreptitiously set the mining charges in the planet's crust to destruct, and he left the Viidaav forces to fight on to keep the Republic forces engaged until the explosives went off.

The battle droids set the charges and initiated the bunker's defense systems to slow down attempts to disable it. The Viidaavs recognized that they had been tricked and sent a unit to diffuse the explosives. At the same tme, a unit of clone troopers approached the bunker, and the two sides exchanged fire and suffered heavy casualties. Eventually, only a single member remained on both sides, the Viidaav commander and the clone commander; both entered the mining array from different entrances. After fighting through the bunker's defenses, the enemies met in the computer room and leveled their weapons at one another; the computer steadily counted down. With three seconds remaining, the Viidaav commander fired his weapon and was shot dead. Only then did the clone realize that the green-skinned warrior had only intended to shoot the computer. At any rate, the computer was destroyed, the explosives deactivated, and the battle finished.

Behind the scenes
The Viidaavs appear in "Heroes on Both Sides," a story first published in the comic book Clone Wars Adventures: Volume 5 in 2006. The story was written by Chris Avellone and illustrated by Stewart McKenney and Dan Jackson. The comic leaves it vague whether the world depicted is the Viidaav homeworld or a colony. However, the 2008 book The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia clarifies the matter, giving the name "Viidaav" to both the species and the planet depicted in the story. The 2009 source The Essential Atlas places the world in the Mid Rim.