Devlia

Devlia was a Human male who served as an officer with the Imperial Navy during the Galactic Civil War. He came out of retirement after the Battle of Endor to help the struggling Galactic Empire. He was regarded as short-sighted and arrogant by his superiors, and was blamed for the failure of an attempt to destroy Rogue Squadron during a surprise commando assault on their base at Talasea.
==Biography==
Devlia was a short, plump man with gray hair and a gray mustache. With his rank of Admiral, he was placed in charge of the defense of the Rachuk sector, and established his base, located on Grand Isle, within a hollowed-out volcano on the world of Vladet, the Rachuk sector's capital. The Interdictor cruiser Black Asp was one of the ships under his command. Like most pre-Endor Imperial officers, Devlia possessed an ingrained bias against aliens and female Humans, as indicated by his discomfort in communicating with the Black Asp Captain Uwlla Iillor.
===Reputation and weaknesses===
Devlia was not respected by his Imperial superiors, the Imperial Intelligence agent Kirtan Loor in particular, who recognized in him major weaknesses such as vanity and an overdeveloped sense of superiority. This tended to result in the Admiral underestimating the Rebel Alliance and the New Republic Defense Force, both of which he considered to be inferior and under-trained.
Devlia was also distrustful of Imperial Intelligence and its head, Director Ysanne Isard. This ultimately contributed to his undoing, as his disregard for the advice given him by Intelligence resulted in a failed assault against Rogue Squadron while it was based on the fog-bound planet of Talasea and led to a New Republic counterstrike that ended in his death, along with the destruction of his base of operations.
===First encounter with Rogue Squadron===
Devlia first encountered Rogue Squadron, which had recently been reformed by squadron leader Commander Wedge Antilles, in 6.5 ABY when the squadron's X-wing starfighters encountered Black Asp in the Chorax system. The squadron disrupted an attempt by the Asp to capture the Pulsar Skate, a smuggler ship captained by Mirax Terrik that had been running supplies to the New Republic.
Uwlla Iillor, the vessel's commander, determined from communication intercepts and visual data that the X-wings belonged to Rogue Squadron. Although Devlia assumed the strike was a planned ambush against the Black Asp, Uwlla and Imperial Intelligence Agent Loor correctly deduced that the starfighters were accidentally pulled from hyperspace by the Asp gravity well projectors. Devlia reluctantly agreed to work with Loor, who was charged by Director Isard with the destruction of Rogue Squadron. The admiral agreed to send units to find and destroy the squadron base if Loor could isolate it, which Devlia described as "impossible." Soon, however, Loor determined that the Rogue Squadron training base was located on Talasea.
===Failed assault and subsequent counterstrike===
Although Loor advised Devlia to send a probe droid followed by a full-scale attack, the admiral did not entirely trust the accuracy of the Imperial Intelligence and instead sent only a single stormtrooper platoon to seek out and attack the base. Devlia felt probe droids were more valuable than stormtroopers, which he described as "a renewable resource."
Upon indeed finding the base, the platoon attempted to destroy it themselves by killing Rogue pilots in their sleep and planting bombs at the base. Although the covert assault resulted in the death of six Rogue sentries and pilot Lujayne Forge, all of the Imperial commandos were captured or killed. The stormtrooper transport craft was also captured.
As a result of the failed assault, Rogue Squadron retaliated by striking Grand Isle. Devlia presumed the Vladet base was adequately protected by a shield, but Rogue Squadron slipped underneath the shield by blowing a hole in the side of the volcano and piloting the fighters through the hole to destroy the base. Grand Isle was destroyed and Devlia was killed.
Kirtan Loor posthumously described him as an "idiot" who "got what he deserved" for failing to heed his advice regarding the Talasea strike. Loor was also confident that had Devlia not been killed during the counterstrike, that he would have been executed by Ysanne Isard for mishandling the assault against Rogue Squadron.
Isard also posthumously described Devlia as "stupid."
==Appearances==
*Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds 
*X-Wing: Rogue Squadron 
==Sources==
*
*The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
==Notes and references==
Category:Humans
Category:Imperial Navy admirals of the Galactic Empire
Category:Males