Yarua

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Yarua was a male Wookiee Senator who represented Mytaranor sector in the Senate during the waning days of the Galactic Republic, as well as during the Clone Wars. He was assisted by two Wookiee aides and, at the end of his career, Yarua had at least 100 years in his senatorial place.

Biography

Yarua and Palpatine — Senator Yarua with his Nabooian colleague Palpatine

A male member of the Wookiee species, Yarua originated from the arboreal Kashyyyk, a planet of the Mytaranor sector. In his younger years, Yarua only wished to work in the family business and prepare for taking its leadership in due time. But events went out of control: at the age of 120, Yarua was forced to take the mantle of patriarch when his father died in an accident. The Wookiee took his new role with profound importance, learning to deal with conflicts by using diplomacy rather than brute force. He emerged as a capable diplomat, and the elders of his community came to admire him. Around 119 BBY, when the Wookiee senator who represented his people before the Congress of the Galactic Republic retired, the elders urged Yarua to succeed him. The young patriarch accepted the honor his peers did him and traveled to Coruscant, capital world of the Republic.^[1]

Yarua was one of the senators who supported Finis Valorum's sanctions against the Yinchorri in 33 BBY.^[2] Later that year, Chancellor Valorum proposed the taxation of the until then free trade zones. Senator Palpatine of Naboo then suggested that a part of the collected money could be invested in the growth of planetary systems in the affected areas. Yarua and other Senators of the region, including Tendau Bendon and Horox Ryyder, cheerfully supported the idea.^[3]

Before the Clone Wars, several peace negotiation meetings between the Wookiees and the Trandoshans took place on Hsskhor, but none reached profitable results. Senator Yarua and Trandoshan Speaker-Above-All Hadocrassk met up with the diplomat Jedi Oppo Rancisis, trying to find peace between the two cultures.^[4] Unfortunately, serious attacks from the Trandoshans against the Wookiees, including the destruction of a transport with 215 Wookiees, made it almost impossible. The negotiations finally stopped when it was learned that the Trandoshans had support from the Trade Federation, and finally declared themselves as Republican opponents.^[5]

During the Clone Wars, Yarua stayed on the Republic's side by his King's order because of his natural sympathy for the Jedi Order and the Republic itself.

Following the Battle of Kashyyyk, Yarua and the other members of the Kashyyyk Senatorial delegation were arrested and removed by the Galactic Empire, because the government on Kashyyyk was helping to hide Jedi Knights.^[6]

Personality and traits

YaruaDroid — Yarua disagrees with his interpreter droid.

Despite his attachment to diplomacy,^[1] Yarua still had the fiery temper of most Wookiees, and he would sometimes give way to anger. When he withdrew his delegation from the negotiations with the Trandoshans in 22 BBY, Yarua destroyed the protocol droid translating the talks by pulling the interpreter's right arm out of its socket.^[5] Nonetheless, Senator Yarua possessed a firm sense of fairness and was known as a forceful champion of justice in the Senate. In the halls of the Senate Rotunda, his imposing stature and fierce attitude inspired reverent awe among his peers.^[7]

Yarua of Kashyyyk despised the rampant corruption around him, and he found representation of commercial power within the Senate scandalous.^[8] Although his fondest wish was to return to the peace and tranquillity of his homeworld, the Wookiee was bent on seeing his responsibilities through to the end. Throughout his career, Yarua was a enthusiastic supporter of the Republican reform movements,^[1] which he thought could be funded by a through taxation plan.^[9]

Behind the scenes

Yarua first appeared in the 1999 movie Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, the first installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, in which he was played by John Coppinger.

The costume used for Senator Yarua was actually a Chewbacca costume from the original trilogy. It was altered slightly, so that he would not look exactly like Chewbacca.^[source?]

Because of the Italian Hasbro comic story Star Wars: The Power of the Force requiring that they implement images from Hasbro's FlashBack Photos franchise into the story for marketing purposes, it gave the, albeit forced, first implication that Palpatine, back when he was a senator, initially had good relations to the Wookiees in spite of his Empire's speciesist policies. The implementation of this led to some confusion, which had been noted in the Star Wars Insider 96 article Strangers Among Us, although the specific details were later supplied in both the story Jedi Council: Acts of War as well as in the 2001 Political Thriller Cloak of Deception.^[10]