Theemo

Theemo was a Duros who won the Dalnatos dueling championship several times.

Early life
Theemo was born into a relatively rich family settled on Scarfa. He was raised by his strict father, who taught him of self-reliance, creativity, and inventiveness. According to him, asking for others' help is a weakness and should be avoided unless it's the question of survival. Driven by this discipline, he left his family at an early age and started a small business of selling domestic items on his homeworld.

The business brought profit and he established a family. It seemed his youth was successful, although not void of challenges and tension. He was still in his youth when his wife and child died in a speeder accident while the police chased a wanted bounty hunter. The solitude that was caused by the death of his family almost broke him down, but he recovered and continued running his business.

As a respect of his perished beloved ones, he did not seek a new relation to start a new family. He started fencing as his pastime which diverted his attention from business life. At that time, his company was losing profit, but it did not run as far as bankruptcy. During one of his visits to Duro, the traditional homeworld of his species, he stranded down in a nearby forest due to an air accident. He was the only survivor and had no apparent way of calling help. He had lived nearly two months in the forest when he discovered some chewed corpses with some equipment. He hoped to find a comlink or any equipment capable of sending messages, but he found nothing of that sort. Fortunately for him, a map was in the backpack of one of the corpses which helped him in finding a way out of the forest. There, he was discovered by some wandering hunters who helped him return to civilization.

Returning to Scalda, he dreaded to realize his company was shut down due to inactivity, however, he did not lose any money as his bank account still contained a large sum of money. Going to the nearest police department and found out about the identity of the bounty hunter, during the chase of whom his family was killed. He was still on loose and Theemo started to seek revenge on him.

The revenge
Slowly but steadily, Theemo finished his quest and found the bounty hunter. He learned his name was Nevass'kuro, a Nikto professional assassin, wanted in 4 star systems. Knowing that he had an advantage most planetary police departments did not possess, he started to forge a quest against the Nikto to finally take vengeance on him. This advantage was secrecy: while police are easy to spot, he could remain unrevealed until he gets really close to his target.

Theemo did not waste a second after hearing about Nevass's location: Dalnatos. Nevass'kuro not only was a professional bounty hunter, but a decent fencer, too. While he did not win any games previously, he was discovered by Gedha's henchmen and brought to Dalnatos. The Nikto initially refused, but he got approached by Theemo soon after. The circumstances were not given to directly attack Nevass, so Theemo had to find an alternative way: still having a large sum of money on his account, he offered a little bit of an extra pay if he enrolls the tournament and kills the champion. He lied about the concurrent champion being his debtor, easily persuading the Nikto to sign up.

This way, he guaranteed he does not flee Dalnatos until he completes his plot. One possibility was that he gets killed by one of the competitors or he finds a way to deliver the final blow himself. Theemo still had time to consider signing up for the tournament and have a possibility to combat him face-to-face, but dropped the idea to pretend being the "rich and cowardly businessman," a role he played perfectly while convincing Nevass.

The tournament started and circumstances turned to favor Theemo.

Nevass was beaten by a competitor in the semi-final, suffering severe injuries. His life was spared and he was taken to the Arena's medical facility. The Nikto was barely conscious, being an exraordinarily easy target. However, there was a slight problem; the medical facility was guarded by some Gamorreans who were to prevent any injured to get away. They also guarded against intruders.

The time to drop his previously elaborate image as a peaceful businessman had come. Already knowing a bunch about Dalnatos and the champioships, he found a was to get hold of a lightsaber undetected and headed toward his goals: to eliminate Nevass once and for all. Theemo, already being trained in fencing, easily mopped up Nevass's Gamorrean guards and killed the helpless bounty hunter. It looked like the time had come for him to escape Dalnatos before anyone knows about this. However, it turned out to be different. The competitor who had almost taken his life did not do it voluntarily; it was the will of Gedha and the audience to leave Nevass alive. Being now vulnerable, he proceeded to end his life, too. The Aqualish competitor and Theemo found each other having had a common goal. The Aqualish wanted to be the one to kill Nevass, a plan now being obviously thwarted by Theemo. Seeing the stubborn, belligerent, and otherwise stupid Aqualish, he knew this dispute will not end without a fight. He took the initiative and was fast enough to slay his opponent before he could put up a defense. Panicked by what he did, he rushed out of the facility, attracting unwanted attention. He eventually fleed the planet and started to think about a new life.

However, there was something he did not know: the Aqualish he slew had won the tournament and officially became the Dalnatosian champion.

Dalnatos career and death
Leaving clues behind, Gedha's minions had no particular difficulty finding the Duros assailant. However, it is not his death that the Hutt wanted. He was offered to participate in next year's championship, an offer he accepted. He went to Dalnatos and started training.

It is probably because of the "mercy" Gedha showed him that he devoted himself to the tournament and trained as intensively as he could. Gedha recognized his skills and realized a good opportunity that is mutually profitable for both: Theemo becomes a killing machine, thus has the chance to remain alive longer than most average contesters, and Gedha's matches would attract more audience.

One day before the official start of the next tournament season, he returned to his homeworld to wander its surface once again, as he feared: for the last time of his life.

The games could not have begun better for Theemo: he won his first match with incredible speed; such a quick game was unheard of in the previous century, at least not on Dalnatos. It is no exagerration to say he had easy time slaughtering some of Gedha's casual gladiators. The final match, however, almost cost him his life. After being debilitated by a severed finger, his opponent thought it was enough to win the match, his enemy being unable to continue the fight. He turned toward the audience, lifting up his hands, bowing, thinking he was victorious. All this changed as soon as Theemo woke up and stabbed his opponent in the chest.

During the 19 BBY tournament, he built his own, customized vibrosword and used it against numerous opponents. The blade was made by phrik, a rare metal that is known to be resistant against lightsabers. While not many of his victories can be attributed solely to the quality of his sword, it can still be said that having his own weapon customized on himself helped him greatly against anyone who fought against him. The sword had a longer-than-usual blade but was kind of lighter than most swords of that size.

Theemo little understood why an entire batallion of clone troopers entered the Arena training grounds and brutally killed one of the contesters. Gheda later argued that the recently killed had "affiliations hostile to the Republic." Gheda was right about the first part but wrong about the second one: the Republic ceased to exist, it was no longer called as such.

It only turned out after the championship was over that the victim was skilled in the Force. Official reports said that he was killed because he tried to assassinate Gheda and usurp his position.

It is of particular interest that there was no official final game in 19 BBY. Theemo and the the other finalist, a female Aqualish, had a bar fight from which the Duros emerged victorious. Preliminary hearings were held and it turned out that they fought because of the Aqualish's condescending behavior toward all Duros, the species Theemo belonged to. Due to Dalnatosian traditions, they had no way of knowing they would have faced each other anyway the following day.

Between the 19 BBY and 18 BBY tournaments, he left Dalnatos and started setting up plans for his own fencing school. He wandered the galaxy, gathering ideas and supporters. Though he preferred his true identity as a Dalnatosian champion remain hidden, he only revealed this to those who directly asked. He stumbled upon a young Duros who he accepted as his first learner. Under modest circumstances, Theemo started training his specie-mate in the hopes he will become his successor; he planned to retire soon anyway and start making a fortune as an instructor.

The 18 BBY tournament was rather easy for him to win as almost the entire galaxy was preoccupied by the sudden political change brought about by the Galactic Empire. There were only 8 contesters that year. He did not win without effort, though. The semi-final yet again almost cost him his life when his physically superior Wookiee opponent kicked his sword out of his hands and lifted him up, starting to choke him. Normally, Theemo could not have survived this, but he kept a small gauntlet under his armor and used that to stab the unsuspecting Wookiee in the chest, killing him. Gedha then started to reconsider some details in the rules. He did not like contesters using such tricks. The finals was not so close, however. Theemo won the last championship in his life.

In 17 BBY, everything seemed normal when the tournaments started. Theemo fought his way until the finals where he encountered an adversary simply superior to him. His opponent's agility, phyisical strength, and fencing technique combined could defeat the three-time champion.

Abilities and traits
Even though he was eventually defeated in a fair one-on-one duel, he remained notable as one of the tournaments' most notable figures (even if he was not the best swordsman of that era). Despite he was untrained in fencing in the majority of his life, his innate abilities for practical learning eventually made him a considerable duelist. His fighting style resembled that of the Jedi's Shien. Theemo managed to win the championship three times in three subsequent years: 20 BBY, 19 BBY, 18 BBY.

He preferred the use of long and heavy melee weapons and often fought using brute strength rather than elegance or dexterity. However, when it turned out his physical attributes were inferior to that of his opponent, he could quickly change tactics and overcome.

Legacy
He remained a noteworthy participant of the Dalnatos championships for twenty years after his death. Time and galactic events, however, faded his reputation and he gradually became only an entity of the History of Dalnatos encyclopedia.

Dalnatosian slang preserved his name. The phrase to go Theemo on sy means to quickly defeat sy, especially in the Arena.