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Lemelisk, Bevel

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Lemelisk began his infamous career with the Old Republic, designing starships with Walex Blissex. Among his early assignments was the creation of fighter craft for the Geonosian people, a collaboration which provided the initial designs for the Death Star. He had trouble controlling his naturally violent tendencies until the Republic ordered the design and development of the Victory-class Star Destroyer. Lemelisk put himself into the work, creating the basis for a new generation of capital ships that eventually grew into the Eclipse-class terrors of the subsequent clones of Emperor Palpatine. After Palpatine rose to power, Lemelisk was sequestered at the Maw Installation, and was chosen by Grand Moff Tarkin to build the first production Death Star. He was an overweight man with pale features, including spiky white hair. He was killed by Emperor Palpatine for not fully reporting any possible flaws with the first Death Star. Palpatine had him eaten alive by the piranha beetles from Yavin 4, but not before Palpatine had his mind and his memories transferred into a waiting clone. He has served the Empire ever since, in seven cloned bodies required by numerous executions for failure. Lemelisk was responsible for the design of the Tarkin warship, and repaired the flaws of the first Death Star for the battle station that was built near Endor. When the Empire began to crumble following the deaths of Palpatine and Thrawn, he became indentured to Durga the Hutt, and helped Durga create the Mineral Exploiters. The mining ships were a ruse for the real plot in Durga's mind, the creation of a new Death Star. This was the real reason for his serving Durga: to revamp the old designs and created a new super weapon. He redesigned the old Death Star, removing nearly everything but the superlaser itself. This new design was dubbed the Darksaber, since it appeared to be a huge, space-going lightsaber when the superlaser was activated. However, Durga's frugality and Sulamar's ineptness meant that Lemelisk was forced to build with second-rate, outdated materials and components. On top of that, Durga insisted that Lemelisk use the captive taurills as workers, and they were too easily distracted to perform a quality job. Lemelisk reworked many systems himself, in order to keep the setbacks hidden from Durga's eyes. In the end, too many poor systems and too much inferior material told him that the Darksaber would never function properly. When the New Republic infiltrated the Darksaber, Lemelisk slipped away in the confusion, and escaped in a maintenance pod. He was captured by the Yavaris and taken to Coruscant for trial. Note that much of Lemelisk's history with the Death Star project may be rendered apocryphal, since Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones clearly shows the initial Death Star plans were developed by Count Dooku and the Geonosians.