Mission Vao is a fictional character and party member in the 2003 action role-playing video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, developed by BioWare and published by LucasArts. A teenaged blue-skinned member of the Twi'lek species, she is depicted as a kind and resourceful orphaned street child who is the constant companion of a Wookiee named Zalbaar. American actress Catherine Taber started her voice acting career with the role of Mission Vao. Mission has been well-received as a character; she is noted as an example of a well-rounded female extraterrestrial character in the Star Wars series, and has remained popular as a fan favorite. Conception and creation The character originated in pen and paper sessions of West End Games' Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game held by the game's lead designer, James Ohlen. In an interview with Electronic Gaming Monthly, Art Director Derek Watts said Mission has been altered from the character's original concept as a young Twi'lek male who is a teenager or a young adult in his early 20s. It was later decided that the character would be slightly younger, and her personality should be emphasized as a "cute teen" as opposed to a delinquent youth like John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Catherine Taber's role as Mission Vao served as a starting point for her career in the voice acting industry. Taber, a self-described Star Wars fan, noted that the audition for Mission was her career's second, and felt that her enthusiasm for the intellectual property helped her secure the role. She said the role earned her some credibility as a voice actor, which helped her agent during negotiations with casting directors, and she felt fortunate that it opened up more opportunities for the progression of her career. Taber alluded Mission's dynamic with Zaalbar to the relationship between Han Solo and Chewbacca. She applied her knowledge of Mission's past, which she said gives context into how it shaped her personality as an orphaned child who is alone in the world and wants to appear "cool and tough" to others, as part of her preparation for the character. She occasionally ad-libbed some of the character's mannerisms, including references to other works in the Star Wars universe. For Taber, Mission and other Twi'lek characters she would later portray such as Vette share some inherent traits, which include a "natural optimism in the face of adversity, a "can-do"