A certain amount of dignity, refinement, and gravitas is expected from academics on Dac, the Mon Calamari homeworld. Education is highly prized in Mon Calamari society, and success in the academic sphere is an essential part of social status. To be well educated is to be, by definition, well bred.

As such, Tendaar Bel has always been a bit of an anomaly. Undeniably brilliant, Tendaar was an indifferent student at the Coral Collegium and a complete social misfit. In accordance with his family's wishes, he studied astrophysics. Or rather, he was enrolled in astrophysics classes that he never actually attended, instead preferring to spend time in his chambers or in the Lagoon, an undersea community of renegade computer techs who took delight in unorthodox solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems and in challenging what they saw as stodgy social conventions. Because of his reclusive lifestyle, Tendaar's social graces did not improve at the Coral Collegium.

His career would have continued to putter along this meandering path, but then the Empire arrived and enslaved his planet. Tendaar Bel went from frustrating Collegium student to indentured shipyard technician overnight. Tendaar spent years crafting starships and weapons of war for the Emoire, and resentment finally began to give him a sense of purpose.

When Dac was finally freed and joined the Rebel Alliance, Tendaar eagerly signed on to do his part in undermining the Empire. Initially, Alliance High Command assigned him to work in the Mon Calamari shipyards, but Tendaar's disrespect for the social conventions of his own people proved problematic. He was reassigned to an R&D position on the A-wing project, where his unorthodox approach helped him solve certain persistent problems with the targeting computers, but he still chafed against regulations. Tendaar helped save the base on Cardooine from an Imperial assault by randomizing all of the starfighters' IFFs mid-battle, creating confusion for the untested A-wings to exploit. As a result, Alliance Command concluded that his true talent lay in unconventional-to-the-point-of-crazy thinking and assigned him as a tech expert for Special Operations. Tendaar enjoys the ever-changing puzzles of his duties and takes particular pleasure in finding unorthodox ways to fight the Empire.