Durga Besadii Tai

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**Durga Besadii Tai** also known as **Lord Durga**, was a Hutt based on Ulmatra and served as the head of the Besadii Kajidic after his father was killed. As the leader of his clan Durga also served as a Vigo in a crime syndicate Black Sun for a time while enlisting assistance from their leader Prince Xizor, but after the collapse of the Galactic Empire and the demise of his rival Jabba, Durga set out on his own. The ambitious Hutt made a plot to bring down all who opposed him and at the same time return the Hutts to the glory they once knew, by creating a weapon called Black-Saber, a scaled-down model of the Death Star envisioned by scientists of the Empire early in the Galactic Civil War. Yet the plans he had for the underworld would fail, thanks to the efforts of the New Republic.

## Biography

### Crime Lord of the Besadii

#### Learning from his Father

**Durga** **the Hutt** was born 105 years before the Battle of Yavin, but would for the duration of his life suffer a disfiguring birthmark over his eye. Hutts were notoriously superstitious and his relatives urged his father to kill the offspring, but his father foresaw that Durga would be a great Hutt one day, then ordered them to cease their complaints. When Durga reached an age of responsibility he began to learn the business of Besadii and the other clans as his father's right hand.

#### Taking his Father's Place

After his father met his demise, Durga called for help from the leader of the Black Sun, Prince Xizor, to secure the succession and locate his father's killer. Xizor agreed, on the condition that Durga relinquish substantial profits from Ylesia. In desperation, Durga agreed, although Xizor had already discovered that Durga's father had been poisoned by the Desilijic clan and deliberately thwarted Durga's attempts to uncover the truth. Infuriated, Durga squirmed over to the Desilijic palace and challenged the Hutts under the Old Law. Durga and a member of the Desilijic clan fought in mortal combat, and the rival clan was defeated. Durga knew that some were planning independence for Ylesia and so he had purchased a turbolaser and hired many more guards. Durga then put in a request a mercenary force from Xizor to ensure that no trouble would break out and he then hired Boba Fett to assassinate his enemies and bring him their remains as a trophy to be mounted on the wall. To his misfortune, the Rebel Alliance had already embarked upon a mission to liberate the Ylesia slaves and shut down the Hutt spice factories. The world was devastated and the enterprise shut down. Durga had to honor his bargain and became one of Xizor's Vigos.

#### Creating a Weapon of Death

Xizor knew that Durga had enough ambition for ten people, and while he reflected that greed was good, fear and greed were better. After the simultaneous death of Jabba and the fall of the Galactic Empire, Durga took over a good portion of Black Sun's assets. With the underworld in chaos following the deaths of the most power beings in the galaxy, Durga was able to dislodge Desilijic and make Besadii become one of the most dominant clans on Nal Hutta. He allied himself with technician officers of the Imperial Remnants to gain Imperial support on the Black-Saber project. Although the Imperials liked to think of themselves as still powerful, and also as being in charge of the project, Durga was the mastermind. Also unknown to Durga was the fact that they In order to gain information which would be used for his superweapon, Durga ransacked Jabba's Palace on Tatooine for information on how to hack into Imperial databases. During a diplomatic visit to the New Republic capital planets, Durga worked to track down and acquire the original plans for the Death Star. While in diplomatic meetings, Durga casually informed the Republic that the remnants of the Empire were making some very interesting plans of their own.

Leia Organa decided to pay Durga a visit, seeing that it was clear the Hutt was up to something and brought the fleet along for a "training exercise". Durga made his excuses and left for the Darksaber.

The New Republic was fully aware of what Durga was planning and they sent a commando team led by General Crix Madine to sabotage the project using the fleet as back-up. The team failed in their objective and Madine was personally executed by Durga. Before he died, Madine signaled the New Republic Fleet. He also revealed to Durga that Sulamar was just a technician, and a poor one at that. Ultimately, Durga's defeat came about not from the New Republic, but by shoddy construction. The Taurill were used as the builders for the Darksaber but their hive-mind and Durga's cheapness meant that the Darksaber's superlaser wouldn't work. The ship broke up and a hail of asteroids finished off the superweapon, killing the Hutt.

Bevel Lemelisk, the former Imperial engineer whom Durga had hired to design and oversee the construction of the Darksaber, presciently fled the ship before its maiden voyage. As he ran to board his private shuttle, he reflected that, for all the Hutts' vaunted business acumen as crime lords, Durga had committed a grave error by thinking he could build a superweapon at minimal cost.

Indeed, in the aftermath of the Darksaber fiasco, the Besadii clan was severely discredited in the eyes of the other Hutt clans, and the Hutt species as a whole became the butt of jokes around the New Republic for their seeming ineptitude at anything except running criminal organizations.