Conan Antonio Motti is a human Imperial admiral from Seswenna, played by Richard LeParmentier in A New Hope (1977). He is the Death Star's senior naval officer and a member of the Joint Chiefs, and he is in the film for one scene that has outlived most of the cast.
The conference room
The Death Star briefing does an enormous amount of world-building in ninety seconds. General Tagge argues the Rebellion is a real threat; Motti argues that the battle station has made every previous consideration obsolete; Motti then makes the mistake of extending the argument to Darth Vader's beliefs and is choked across the table until Tarkin intervenes. The scene establishes, before Vader has done anything else, that the Empire is a coalition of people who despise each other.
What the scene is actually about
Motti is not a fool. He is a technocrat, and in 1977 his position is the reasonable one: the Empire has built a weapon that ends the argument, and a man in a cape talking about an ancient religion is an embarrassment to the service. The film's whole plot exists to prove him wrong twice over — the Force is real, and the exhaust port works.
Afterwards
He survives the choke, files a formal protest about it, participates in the destruction of Alderaan, and dies at the Battle of Yavin along with everyone else aboard. Later material fleshes out a career commanding the Star Destroyer Steel Talon, but the character is and always will be the conference table.
