Da'Gara

Da'Gara was a Yuuzhan Vong male who served his species' empire. During his prefect training, Da'Gara helped perform several breakings, a technique of torture practiced by the Yuuzhan Vong that consisted of incapacitating a victim by degrading them mentally so that they were unable to fight back, ultimately executing them. The Yuuzhan Vong warrior became a prefect and a key member of the Praetorite Vong, the Yuuzhan Vong's advance force in their invasion of the galaxy the Yuuzhan Vong empire sought to conquer.

The Yuuzhan Vong executor Nom Anor gave the Praetorite Vong a yammosk—a telepathic creature capable of coordinating Yuuzhan Vong forces in battle—without authorization to allow Da'Gara to further his plans for the invasion. In 29 BBY, the ruler of the Yuuzhan Vong, Supreme Overlord Quoreal, was executed by Shimrra Jamaane, who was one of the candidates to succeed Quoreal. While the Praetorite Vong and Prefect Da'Gara swore loyalty to Jamaane, who succeeded Quoreal, their fealty to the Supreme Overlord was a ruse to keep the prefect's invasion plans secret.

In 25 ABY, while Da'Gara's forces traveled across the galaxies before entering their target galaxy, Anor allied himself with the Mandalorians, a people from the galaxy the Yuuzhan Vong sought to conquer. The executor sent a report on the Mandalorians' capabilities to Da'Gara eight weeks before the Praetorite Vong arrived in the galaxy. As the prefect's Koros-Strohna worldship traveled to the Outer Rim Territories ice planet of Helska IV, a Yuuzhan Vong warrior and agent named Yomin Carr made sure that no one witnessed the worldship's arrival. To achieve this, he incapacitated most of the scientists stationed at the ExGal-4 station on the nearby Outer Rim Territories planet of Belkadan.

While Carr ravaged Belkadan, Da'Gara and one of his servants, Tu Shoolb, discussed that the scientists could spot them. Shoolb claimed that accelerating their worldship's speed with its dovin basals, living organisms that propelled worldships, would alert those watching. The prefect asked if Shoolb believed that Carr had not completed his task, prompting an apology from the other, who accelerated Da'Gara's worldship. The prefect almost reconsidered his command, but decided against it, as he was anxious to arrive at his destination.

Once he arrived, the Praetorite Vong's yammosk helped land worldship on Helska IV, using its single tooth to bring the Koros-Strohna beneath the planet's icy crust and creating an energy field around the world. The prefect donned an ooglith cloaker, a being that protected his body from Helska's atmosphere, which did not contain any oxygen and would therefore kill Da'Gara, and a gnullith creature, which allowed the prefect to breathe on the planet. The prefect's warriors then constructed a base with the worldship.

After Carr incapacitated the scientists on Belkadan, he communicated with Da'Gara through a living communicator called a villip. The agent reported that he had begun terraforming Belkadan for the Yuuzhan Vong's purposes and that it would be destroyed and ready after a few days. He also told Da'Gara about one of the scientists, Danni Quee, who Carr believed was worthy of a Yuuzhan Vong sacrifice. The prefect agreed to honor the agent's request, seeking to sacrifice her to the yammosk instead of killing her dishonorably. Quee and a group of scientists were able to escape, however, using a Spacecaster-class shuttle to travel to Helska.

The Yuuzhan Vong prefect had hundreds of his yorik-et starfighters, also known as coralskippers, intercept the shuttle. The coralskippers fired a villip at the Spacecaster, with the living communicator relaying a message from Da'Gara to the scientists. The prefect welcomed them to Helska and invited them to his base; however, they tried to flee, prompting the yorik-et fighters to attack the shuttle and send it crashing down to the planet below.

All the scientists but Quee and Bensin Tomri surived, and the Yuuzhan Vong prefect killed the latter by driving his hand into the other's throat. Quee was brought to Da'Gara's worldship, where the prefect spoke with her. He asked her to understand that Carr deeming her worthy was a huge honor, and shoved her into the water below the worldship, accompanying her. Shortly afterward, Gara spoke with Anor through villip. The prefect reported that Carr had terraformed Belkadan and that he was ready to use ExGal-4's visual scopes to his people's advantage. Da'Gara and the executor agreed that the largest threat to the discovery of the prefect's forces was the Julevian system's planet Sernpidal. Da'Gara suggested using Yo'gand's Core—where a gravity manipulating dovin basal was used to crash a planet's moon into itself—to destroy the planet.

After Da'Gara's conversation with Anor, a squadron of starfighters of the New Republic—the major power in the galaxy—engaged several of the prefect's coralskippers. The squadron's members, Jedi Knights of the New Republic, were shot down, and only two of them were able to escape. One of the starfighters, Miko Reglia's, crashed on Helska, and Da'Gara's warriors captured the Jedi, imprisoning him. Da'Gara brought Reglia before Quee, putting a tizowyrm in his ear to know how to speak in the other's language, Basic. He identified the Jedi as unworthy as part of Reglia's mental breaking.

Gara then reported to Anor, telling the executor of the two starfighters' escape and claiming that the fighter craft would not get far, as several grutchins—insectoid Yuuzhan Vong creatures that tore through starships—were attached to the vessels. He shared his plans to sacrifice Reglia to the yammosk after he was broken and that a second worldship was to join his on Helska that day and that a third one would join within a week. In response, the executor warned him to prepare for a formidable New Republic attack.

Reglia and Quee escaped their compartment and arrived at a large chamber where Da'Gara was. Reglia, who had taken an amphistaff melee weapon from one of his captors, rushed at the prefect, who avoided the attack and began his attack. He threw goo at the Jedi, who was paralyzed by the material. The prefect invited Quee to a small alcove, letting her witness the arrival of the second worldship, commanded by Prefect Ma'Shraid. The scientist and the Jedi, along with most of Da'Gara and Ma'Shraid's warriors then joined the yammosk. Da'Gara did likewise later.

The prefect joined his mind with that of the yammosk, communicating with his troops through the war coordinator. He spoke of the zhaetor-shae of the Praetorite Vong—the faction's glory—about his forces' victory in their skirmish with the New Republic, and Shraid, whose forces then joined the gathering. The prefects gave several speeches, and Reglia was carried before the yammosk, who devoured the Jedi. After the sacrifice, the warriors left the gathering, and Da'Gara once again joined with the yammosk before speaking with Anor.

He reported that Sernpidal had been utterly destroyed and that the yammosk had dispatched four battle groups to follow a refugee convoy fleeing the planet to the next world before the pair called for the release of the Yuuzhan Vong's ferocity in their language. After the convoy led the four battle groups to the planet of Dubrillion and the subsequent engagement that ended with the Yuuzhan Vong's defeat, Da'Gara, Shraid, and the commander of the third worldship, Prefect Dooje Brolo, discussed their plans. They agreed that after the New Republic attacked their forces at Helska, they would conquer Dubrillion and its sister planet, Destrillion, and turn one of them into their second base.

The New Republic launched an attack on Helska shortly afterward, attacking with a large force led by the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Rejuvenator. The Jedi Jaina and Jacen Solo used the carrier vessel Merry Miner and an iceborer vessel, used to mine ice planets, to open Helska's crust to let the New Republic forces attack Da'Gara's base. The prefect's coralskippers detected the Jedi and attacked them, with Jacen going to the world's surface to rescue Quee. While Da'Gara's warriors fought Jacen and killed Reglia, the Rejuvenator and its complement arrived. The yammosk sent a small group of coralskippers to confront the New Republic forces and bring them closer to a much larger force of Yuuzhan Vong starfighters.

The war coordinator coordinated the Yuuzhan Vong forces in the battle, during which the enemy forces retreated. They returned with a smaller task force, and Da'Gara rushed to join the yammosk. As the force included shieldships, capable of shielding ships from a star, the prefect was worried that his enemies would try to destroy the war coordinator's field protecting the planet and the dovin basals on the world; however, as the war coordinator was confident that they would easily repel the enemy force, Da'Gara calmed himself, hoping that he would be able keep Quee—who had escaped—after the battle. The New Republic shieldships, however, used the Helskan sun's energy to evaporate Helska's ice. As Da'Gara's coralskippers destroyed enemy forces, the icy planet was shattered. All on the surface, including Da'Gara, were killed. Anor later tried to contact the late prefect and Carr, but failed to do so.

Da'Gara's defeat—which Yuuzhan Vong Supreme Commander Nas Choka deemed a miscalculation—disgraced Anor, as the executor had helped the prefect. Da'Gara's actions at Helska were deemed blasphemous by Shimrra, who believed that they had only earnt the prefect and his warriors ice graves on Helska's remains. Ultimately, the Yuuzhan Vong's invasion ended with their surrender.

A strong and powerful male Yuuzhan Vong warrior and officer, Prefect Da'Gara was astute and resourceful. The example of what a member of the Yuuzhan Vong warrior caste should be, the prefect was ruthless and fanatical, being an independent thinker with brutal efficiency while obeying the Yuuzhan Vong warmaster, the leader of the Yuuzhan Vong's military forces. He almost reconsidered his order to Tu Shoolb, but his eagerness to begin his operations on Helska prompted him not to. Once he heard that Carr considered Quee worthy, he considered the possibility of converting the scientist to a Yuuzhan Vong warrior; however, Carr believed that task would be impossible since Quee would resist the process, and Da'Gara accepted to perform a worthy sacrifice to the yammosk.

The prefect did not want the agent to die on Belkadan, as Carr had performed well on Belkadan. An ambitious Yuuzhan Vong, Prefect Da'Gara sought to lead the Praetorite Vong's conquest of the galaxy before the main invasion force arrived. When confronting Quee's scientists through a villip, he instructed them to follow his coralskippers to Helska or die and have their "honor of gift" from Yun-Yammka—the Yuuzhan Vong god of war—taken away from them. The prefect told Quee that she would learn the glory of the Praetorite Vog, promising that whether or not she was converted or killed, that he would make Yun-Yammka happier.

Contrary to Anor's opinion, Da'Gara claimed that the New Republic starfighters' escape would not be a problem, assuring the executor that they would not make it far. He regretted that the region of the galaxy surrounding Helska IV was sparsely populated, as that did not please him. Da'Gara repeatedly referred to Reglia as unworthy and used Quee against the Jedi as part of his breaking. The prefect had a bald, disfigured, and tattooed head, a broken nose, and black eyes.

Da'Gara was skilled in melee combat, and combat with tsaisis, Yuuzhan Vong batons. He was a native speaker of the Yuuzhan Vong language and able to speak Basic with a tizowyrm; while Quee deemed the prefect's Basic sentence structure horrible and the prefect stuttered over every word, he was eventually able to speak smoothly in the language, surprising Quee.

The prefect owned a coufee dagger, several villip communicators, and a worldship. He wore vonduun crab armor and wielded an amphistaff.

Prefect Da'Gara appeared in the 1999 novel Vector Prime, written by R. A. Salvatore as the first volume in the Star Wars: The New Jedi Order novel series. James Luceno's 2000 novel The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial misspells Da'Gara as "Da'gara."

The 2002 sourcebook The New Jedi Order Sourcebook, published by Wizards of the Coast for use with the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, establishes that Da'Gara was the leader of the Praetorite Vong; Galaxy of Intrigue, another Wizards of the Coast sourcebook for use with the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, states that a high prefect led the advance force. However, the latter sourcebook also states that Da'Gara was the leader of the Praetorite Vong. This articles assumes that Da'Gara was not the Praetorite Vong's leader.

• The New Jedi Order Sourcebook
• The New Essential Guide to Characters
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• Galaxy of Intrigue