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Ponda Baba

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the Aqualish who assaulted Luke Skywalker in the Mos Eisley cantina. He was a member of the lower Quara of Aqualish, having fingered hands instead of webbed ones. He was known as an average-skilled smuggler, never really gaining any notoriety. He worked for a while with the Grueshite arms dealer Jothel Merritt, until he met up with a bounty hunter named Jodo Kast on Truuzdann. There, he met Doctor Evazan, and the two of escaped the bounty hunter's notice. Once free of pursuit, Ponda Baba and Evazan continued smuggling, eventually gaining the rights to Han Solo's old smuggling routes from Jabba the Hutt. This led them to be in the cantina when Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker entered. Evazan decided that Luke was easy prey, not realizing that Obi-Wan was a Jedi Knight. When Evazan got in over his head, Ponda Baba moved in to help, and had his arm severed by Kenobi's lightsaber. He and Evazan fled the cantina and Tatooine, eventually setting up residence in a rocky castle on Ando. There, Ponda Baba made a deal with Evazan: Baba would keep the Andoan authorities off their backs if Evazan promised to move Baba's mind into a non-disfigured Ando body. As Evazan neared success in his quest to transfer a mind from one body to another, he lured an Andoan senator to the castle and trapped him in the machine. He strapped Ponda Baba in and turned it on. Unfortunately for Ponda Baba, the machine worked in reverse. Instead of Ponda Baba's mind going into the senator's body, the senator's mind was placed into his. The mind of Ponda Baba ceased to exist; his body was destroyed when the senator exploded a thermal detonator in the castle. Evazan escaped, however.