Sic Transit Gloria: Rise and Fall of the Empire

by Teutonic Knight 92

This informative piece of work tells the true story of the fall of the Galactic Empire. Starting with the Battle of Endor and leading up to the formation of the neo-Imperialist 'Imperial Remnant.'

This is not my mine Star wars belongs to George Lucas. "Sic Transit Gloria" also is not mine it belongs to Julius Sykes of the Domus Publica site

Sic Transit Gloria

Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire

Introduction

"Sic Transit Gloria" is an article about the collapse of the Galactic Empire in general and the Imperial State in particular in the years following the disastrous Battle of Endor in 39 rS. It is the result of several years of refinement and development, with indispensable assistance from such persons as Messrs. Derek Benz, Adam Gehrls, Jay Shah, Matthew Trias, John Vermazen, and many others who cannot be mentioned by name not because of any insignificance in their contributions, but rather because of the author's inability. Major Premises and Part I were published together on 24 November 2004; Part II was published on 06 February 2005, Part III on 18 April 2005, and Part IV on 10 May 2005. After years of research, countless revisions and two complete rewrites, the article is complete, and hopefully serves as a useful guide to the familiar question, "How did the Empire fall so quickly?"

The title is a reference to a striking part of the Papal coronation ceremony (discontinued in 1963); thrice during the coronation the master of ceremonies would kneel before the new Pope carrying a brass staff mounted by a brazier containing a piece of smoldering cloth and recite the warning "Sancte Pater, sic transit gloria mundi" (Latin: "Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world"), a memento mori recalling the ancient triumphs of Rome's conquering generals. The subtitle can of course be recognized as an homage to Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.This article is dedicated to Dr. Curtis Saxton, whose dedication and superb work stand as an inspiration to the author; without his scholarly example, there would have never been a Domus Publica.

Major Premises

Ubi Imperator, Ibi Imperium. Technically speaking the Imperial Throne was never vacant until the Galactic Emperor's death at Onderon in Empire's End. Therefore, the legitimate ruling authority of the Galactic Empire in the post-Endor period was located not on Imperial Center in the Core Worlds, but on Byss in the Deep Galactic Core. For the purposes of clarity, however, during the Galactic Emperor's secret convalescence in the Deep Core, this article will treat whomever was in actual control of the Empire-without-the Core — that is, the "Empire proper" — as being the legitimate head of the Imperial State. Other factions and groups will be defined relative to this person or group.

Send in the Clones. The Dark Empire Sourcebook describes cloning as "a science of infamy and horror to most citizens of the galaxy" and even explicitly states that cloning is a "long-banned technology." Nevertheless, the Imperial Marines (i.e., the stormtroopers) are predominantly clones, and the majority of the galaxy's population — including the rebel Alliance — appear to be ignorant of this fact. In "Pax Empirica — The Wookiee Annihilation," a single template of "GeNode" is said to account for not less than 40 percent of all troopers in the Imperial Marines, and the story mentions at least three other templates (one of which had been discontinued by the time of the story). In The Last Command, Pash Cracken tellingly draws a comparison between Grand Admiral Thrawn's cloned Naval Aviators and the Empire's ubiquitous stormtroopers. Nevertheless, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and even MaraJade (a former Emperor's Hand) were shocked and outraged by the discovery of Thrawn's reintroduction of clone warfare during Thrawn's War in Dark Force Rising and The Last Command.

The Dustbin of History. The self-styled Empire of eight Sectors in the Outer Rim, more often called by the appropriate nickname "Imperial Remnant," is not the same entity as the Galactic Empire; this polity's establishment ex nihilo by "Grand Admiral" Gilad Pellaeon in 47 rS is described by the New Republic Historical Council in The Essential Chronology, having used resources taken by
Fleet Admiral Daala from Imperialist warlord states earlier that year, in Darksaber. As it is fundamentally and constitutionally a different organism than the Empire (although it mimics the form of the Imperial State in many respects), the Imperial remnants will not be discussed herein.

Balkanization. Independent, quasi-Imperial polities like the Pentastar Alignment, the Empire Reborn, the Kaarenth Dissension, the Second Imperium, &c., although created by former Imperial leaders and officers or else by leaders politically or ideologically sympathetic to the Empire, are not really legitimate authorities when viewed in the context of the Empire itself. In most cases, they are in fact created by deserters, separatists, secessionists, and political opportunists whose behavior would probably be legally considered barratrous, mutinous, or treasonous under Imperial law. These "warlord states" will be discussed only insofar as they relate to the Empire proper.

Part 1: From the Battle of Endor to the rise of Isard,

The catastrophic loss at the Battle of Endor in 39 rS in Return of the Jedi proved to be quite costly for the Galactic Empire. In the first place, the Death Star was destroyed, representing in itself an astronomically large investment of capital, resources, and manpower, quite apart from its psychological significance and central role in the Tarkin Doctrine of rule through fear of force rather than force itself. Aside from the Death Star, HIMS Executor, said by Heir to the Empire to have included among her ship's company some of the finest officers in the Imperial Navy,
was lost with all hands, and an additional six Imperial Star Destroyers were destroyed in firefights they ought to have won. The propaganda value of the battle for the rebels was staggering: The Imperial fleet had ambushed the entire rebel starfleet with overwhelming force, and yet had been handed an unequivocal and ignominious defeat. But the most devastating loss of all was the death of the Galactic Emperor, who was in the words of the novelization of Return of the Jedi "the cohesive force to the Empire." This is no mere figurative description; the Dark Empire Sourcebook describes how he had deliberately designed the Empire so that it could not function without him, and the entire organization depended to a very high degree on his personal prestige and authority in order to operate. The question now confronting the ruling class of the Empire is how the Empire could work — assuming that it was even possible — without him.

The First Saga of the Journal of the Whills, quoted in the Prologue of Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, explains that the Galactic Emperor had become reclusive and remote after his acclamation as Galactic Emperor in 16 rS in Revenge of the Sith, and he was "seen only by those who needed to see him" (in the words of The Essential Guide to Characters); the First Saga explains that the popular perception of his rule was that he was being manipulated by "the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office" and that "the Imperial forces and the name of the increasingly isolated Emperor" were being appropriated by his underlings for their own ambitions and self-aggrandizement. Nevertheless, he was enormously popular, seen by the vast majority of the population as a "beloved old man" according to "Who's Who in Star Wars Galaxies," with Coruscant and the Core Worlds adding that many Imperial citizens" "regarded Palpatine as a demigod." In Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader reflects that when the Emperor died, "the galaxy would bend from the horror of that loss." He provided a unifying symbol and object of loyalty, unsullied by the day to day politics; he made it possible for there to be loyal opposition in the Imperial State, and the population of the galaxy had a reflexive loyalty to him as an individual that quite probably converted quite easily to loyalty to the Empire as an extension of his dignitas — so long as he was alive. Without him, it was questionable just how much loyalty to the Empire as an institution there existed independent of the cult of personality surrounding the Galactic Emperor.

Even at the Battle of Endor itself, the death of the Galactic Emperor had an immediate disruptive effect on the coherence of the Imperial system. In The Essential Chronology, the New Republic Historical Council explains that before the battle had even ended, one of the Imperial task force commanders present, Admiral Harrsk, disregarded Captain Gilad Pellaeon's unlawful order to retreat — it was mentioned in Pellaeon's first appearance in Heir to the Empire that he had been merely Executive Officer, HIMS Chimaera, and would not have succeeded to command of the fleet until well after all flag officers were killed or incapacitated — and instead commandeered his forces and fled to the border between the Deep Core and the Core Worlds Regions, where he quickly established for himself a miniature empire of his own, the first of the Imperialist rogue warlords. He was quickly followed by others; the Historical Council lists among them in rapid succession task force commander High Admiral Teradoc and then Admiral Gaen Drommel, who commanded his forces from the bridge of HIMS Guardian, a Super Star Destroyer. The number of deserters — and the high ranks held by many of them — was scandalous; most shocking of all was the desertion of Grand Moff Ardus Kaine, Governor of Oversector Outer, a vast domain in the Outer Rim Territories Region. As explained by "The Pentastar Alignment," this leading figure in COMPNOR (and presumably the New Order Party) carved an enormous warlord state for himself out of Oversector Outer, allying with corporate interests and forming the Pentastar Alignment, one of the largest and most powerful of all the warlord states. The Bacta War states however that the majority of the Armed Forces remained loyalists during this time.

The problem of the sudden and wholly unexpected regicide at Endor was complicated by the Byzantine power structure of the Empire. The Galactic Emperor deliberately designed a system in which no one individual or group (aside from the Galactic Emperor himself) was able to amass too much power. Hence, a plurality of competing authorities — both official and informal — existed in a complicating system of separation of power but overlapping spheres of responsibility and authority. The most powerful groups in the Empire included the Ruling Council, the Imperial Senate, the Privy Council (i.e., the corporate body of the Galactic Emperor's formal advisors), the Imperial High Command, the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order (COMPNOR) and the New Order Party, the Grand Moff Governors (both severally and collectively), and the million autonomous governments of the member states of the Galactic Empire. Above all these multifarious authorities, in fact but not in law, was the Galactic Emperor's Inner Circle, an informal club of those individuals closest to the Galactic Emperor, known to have included Sate Pestage, Ars Dangor, Kren Blista-Vanee, Sim Aloo, and Janus Greejatus, according to "Who are the gentlemen with the Emperor?" and Nefta and Sa-Di, according to Dark Empire II. One may presume that Lord Crueya Vandron, the blue-blooded dictator of COMPNOR in the Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition — and therefore one of the most powerful men in the Empire —was probably also a member of the Inner Circle.

It was a foregone conclusion that someone must take the Galactic Emperor's place as the supreme head of the Empire. But this conclusion introduced an entirely new set of complications to the problem: Who would accede to the Throne, and how would he or she be selected? Although the Galactic Emperor's first Speech from the Throne in 16 rS in the novelization of Revenge of the Sith mentions a claim that the Empire would be "directed by a single sovereign, chosen for life" (his emphasis), the Dark Empire Sourcebook explicitly states that the Galactic Emperor had left no final orders, no last will and testament, and no constitutional mechanism for designating an heir; apparently this part of his Speech was quietly buried. Legitimists saw a simple solution to this: Why not simply elevate the next dynast of the House of Palpatine? Unfortunately, as explained by the Dark Empire Sourcebook, "nearly all of Palpatine's personal records had been deleted from the known libraries" (presumably this refers to his private life and family details only, and public records of his official acts as Supreme Chancellor of the Republic and Galactic Emperor would remain on file, as demonstrated by Luke Skywalker's discovery that Jorus C'baoth had been "Jedi advisor" to Senator Palpatine, but inability to locate any further details in Dark Force Rising); Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Dictionary mentions that "records of Palpatine's ancestry, immediate family members, and upbringing on Naboo have mysteriously vanished" already during his term as Supreme Chancellor. The Glove of Darth Vader reveals that there were well-known rumors — so common that even
stormtroopers knew of them — that the Galactic Emperor had a three-eyed son, but that "the Emperor and the Central Committee of Grand Moffs always denied those rumors." The answer, then, might perhaps be found in the Imperial Personal Archives, "Palpatine's most secret holo-communications and recordings," but all access to those records was steadfastly denied by Sate Pestage, Grand Vizier of the Galactic Empire — also rumored by some to be a son or perhaps even a clone of the Galactic Emperor — , who numbered Steward of the Imperial Personal Archives as but one of his many, many offices; among his responsibilities the Dark Empire Sourcebook lists "preparation and tasting of the Emperor's meals, manager of his household, holder of the Imperial Seal, and chief scheduler of all functions," the gatekeeper who "determines who, of all those who request his master's attention, finally gains access." Although no sources explicitly use the terms, the Grand Vizier was quite clearly HIM Privy Secretary, Master of the Household, and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of the Galactic Empire (Lord Privy Seal).

Of all the members of the ruling class in general and the Inner Circle in particular, the Grand Vizier had perhaps the greatest personal power at the time of the Galactic Emperor's death in early 39 rS. Both the Dark Empire Sourcebook and the scribe's biography of him in The New Essential Guide to Characters emphasize that he had day-to-day control of the Empire by 38 rS (specifically, around the time of the Battle of Hoth VI in The Empire Strikes Back), making him the de facto regent; the fact that this power and influence is exactly equivalent to that of Ars Dangor prior to the Battle of Yavin as described by the Death Star Technical Companion suggests that it is possibly derived from a particular office (aside from Dangor's status as the Galactic Emperor's public spokesman and messenger to the Senate — which strongly suggests he was both an Assistant Privy Secretary and the Lord Chamberlain of HIM Household), perhaps the Presidency of the Ruling Council. In any case, the Grand Vizier, despite being not particularly well-liked by anyone in the ruling class, was essentially Galactic Emperor in all but name after the Battle of Endor, which — fully consistent with the Galactic Emperor's political science theories about the nature of power — made him the single most visible target in the entire Galactic Empire. His rule was to last approximately six months before being brought down not by the rebel Alliance or secessionist member states, but by intrigue and backstabbing in his own camp and among the 'loyal opposition' of the so-called Emperor's Ruling Circle.

For now, the Grand Vizier's refusal to allow any search of the Imperial Personal Archives — which the Dark Empire Sourcebook explains to have been done at the explicit orders of the Galactic Emperor himself, although he had not yet reincarnated — served as the desired cause célèbre, and the Dark Empire Sourcebook explains that "the ranks of Imperial Advisors" closed around him "within weeks" and impeached and censured him, formally stripping him of all his properties, titles, and privileges, with the only thing saving him from the disintegration booth being his offer to retire permanently to Byss, the Galactic Emperor's private retreat world deep in the Deep Core Region. Yet "In the Empire's Service" depicts the Grand Vizier still in power six months after the Battle of Endor, well beyond the reasonable limits of "within weeks," and the depiction of his fall from power in "Masquerade" and "Mandatory Retirement" is an event quite different from the preceding version of events. Although the two versions are inconsistent, they are not necessarily contradictory; in the Star Wars Encyclopedia, the scholars write that the Inner Circle had attempted (unsuccessfully) to seize power after the Galactic Emperor's death, while "The Emperor's Pawns" adds that the Grand Vizier's agent in the Ruling Council, Sarcev Quest, "sabotaged the Ruling Council's attempts to wrest control
from the Imperial vizier, Sate Pestage." These two claims, otherwise unexplained, may be identified with the impeachment and censure of the Grand Vizier. One may therefore conjecture that the members of the Inner Circle, acting through the Ruling Council, attempted to oust the Grand Vizier, but were prevented by Quest. The Grand Vizier must have then recovered from this early strike at his power, but must surely have alienated much of the ruling class even further by what would seem capricious and inconsistent behavior.

At the same time that the Inner Circle was making this power grab, it seems that Ars Dangor, the Galactic Emperor's official spokesman and a member of the Inner Circle, was busy with plans of his own. It is around this time that the Emperor's Ruling Circle was formed, a coalition of disparate interests including not only other Privy Counsellors but also Government ministers, political leaders, flag and general officers, capitalists and business tycoons, noblemen and noblewomen, and even no doubt some Moff Governors and Grand Moff Governors. Despite its importance in the transitional period of post-Endor Imperial politics, the Emperor's Ruling Circle is not well described in the Expanded Universe; it is said to be a group of Privy Counsellors by the scholars in the Star Wars Encyclopedia, Wedge's Gamble, The Bacta War, and Cracken's Threat Dossier. But in The Essential Chronology, the New Republic Historical Council adds "moffs, governors, and other political leaders," while the Dark Empire Sourcebook mentions "ministers, munitions tycoons and functionaries." The fact that it represented the 'loyal opposition' to the Grand Vizier's rule in "In the Empire's Service," "Masquerade," and "Mandatory Retirement" indicates that one may add certain elements of the Armed Forces to the aristocrats, bureaucrats, and plutocrats of the coalition. Dangor's role as the leader of the Ruling Circle is unambiguously stated by Cracken's Threat Dossier, which also states that the coalition began issuing orders throughout the Empire, and that Admiral Zsinj refused to obey their order to withdraw from Quelii Sector and deserted, establishing himself as the self-styled
Imperial Warlord, the most powerful and formidable of the rogue warlords; interestingly, in The Essential Chronology, the Historical Council dates Zsinj's desertion well within the Grand Vizier's six months of rule, which indicates that the Ruling Circle had been carrying on as though its assumption of power were a fait accompli, while Zsinj's reaction indicates that the situation was sufficiently confused that some in the Empire mistakenly thought this to be the case.

Both "The Emperor's Pawns" and the scribe's biography of him in The New Essential Guide to Characters claim that at some point the Grand Vizier secretly abandoned the Empire and left a clone to administer in his place, while he set out to find Jeng Droga and recover the Galactic Emperor's spirit from his body. His agent-in-place among the opponents of his regime, Quest, is further said to have deserted him after this rapidly-gestated clone began to show signs of instability. It is convenient to place this switch shortly after the attempted coup d'état of the Inner Circle/Ruling Council, and that the clone of the Grand Vizier immediately recognized that his hold on power was not as firm as it could be. Therefore, one conjectures, he did not dare risk striking directly at the Emperor's Ruling Circle despite its treasonable behavior, and instead sought some sort of cohabitation accommodation. In any case, both the Grand Vizier and the Emperor's Ruling Circle turned to Ysanne Isard, the Director of Imperial Intelligence, to act as their interlocutor, a role she is seen to perform in "In the Empire's Service" and "Masquerade." One finds, furthermore, that the emerging alliance between the Emperor's Ruling Circle and the Grand Moff Governors, who controlled the Oversectors and the vast military and naval resources assigned to them, presented a very real threat to the Grand Vizier's already tenuous grip on the Imperial State. It is quite likely that this is the reason that prompted the Grand Vizier to use Isard to establish an official State religion, the Church of the Dark Side, governed hierarchically by the "Prophets of the Dark Side," according to "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals."

The Rebellion Era Sourcebook and The Dark Side Sourcebook are both quite clear that these "Prophets" were in fact a group of charlatans sponsored by Imperial Intelligence, and were impersonating the Galactic Emperor's genuine Prophets of the Dark Side, a schismatic sect of the Sith Order. The Church was established as "a last ditch effort to keep the Empire together" and "to help certain moffs retain power in the face of the Emperor's demise." One may use this information to conjecture that the Church was also a political maneuver intended to woo Moff Governors and Grand Moff Governors who might otherwise have joined the Emperor's Ruling Circle or the later Central Committee of Grand Moffs in opposition to the Grand Vizier's regency. The Church confessed a "necromantic" faith which proclaimed the ultimate triumph of the Empire and the resurrection of the Galactic Emperor Palpatine (the Dark Empire Sourcebook says that this belief was never taken seriously by anyone in power). The Church appears to have been quite popular among Imperials, which gave the pseudo-Prophets a substantial power bloc, including the ultimate loyalty of Grand Admiral Peccati Syn, on whose staff "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals" says that the Prophetess Merilli served as chaplain. Their headquarters was found on Space Station Scardia, and Lost City of the Jedi explains that the Church functioned as "a sort of Imperial Bureau of Investigations" and used murder, espionage, and other covert tactics to realize their 'prophecies.'

Fortunately for the Empire, the rebel Alliance to Restore the Republic — the New Republic Historical Council says in The Essential Chronology that it was officially renamed the Alliance of Free Planets "within days" of the Battle of Endor, as first mentioned in "Diplomacy" — had not yet begun to press the tremendous advantage the Galactic Emperor's death had given them. The very day after the Battle of Endor, the Alliance committed itself to the defense of the Imperial world Bakura on the very edges of civilized space in the Outer Rim Territories Region from the extragalactic invasion of the Ssi-Ruuvi Imperium, as seen in The Truce at Bakura. Immediately after that campaign's successful conclusion (which included the secession of Bakura from the Empire), the Historical Council states that the Alliance moved to assist the rebellion of Clak'dor VII (Mayagil Sector), whose loyalist Governmental Assembly had "worked steadfastly to advance the ideals and goals of the Empire, providing support for the computer programming needs of the military and assisting in the review of the designs of all
new Imperial equipment," according to sentientologist Obo Rin's Catalog of Intelligent Life in the Galaxy, Revised Edition (the notional 'in universe' document corresponding to Galaxy Guide 4: Alien Races). That loss, tied with the proliferation of warlordism and the creation of the Pentastar Alignment, apparently caused a rapid collapse of loyalist governments throughout the Outer Rim, to the point that Admiral Ackbar could talk of the Empire's holdings as "nothing but the remnants" as early as "Diplomacy," when the Alliance was still headquartered on the Sanctuary Moon of Endor (the Alliance departed its base on the Sanctuary Moon one month after the Battle of Endor, in "First Strike," whose date was fixed by the Rebellion Era Sourcebook).

"First Strike" reveals that the apparent leader of the remaining loyalist forces in the Outer Rim, Lady Lumiya, had allied with the Nagai, extragalactic invaders from beyond the Outer Rim. When speaking to the Nagai leader Lieutenant Den Siva in "Duel with a Dark Lady!" Lumiya makes reference to "our masters," which is obviously a reference to Commander Knife, the overall leader of the Nagai, and her own superior, who is never named in the story but is clearly the Grand Vizier, as indicated by the timing of the story. However, "The Party's Over" shows that the Nagai were followed into the galaxy by the aggressive and expansionist Tof, their historical oppressors, and the loyalist Imperial forces formed a temporary coalition with the Mandalorian Protectors, the Nagai, the Zeltrons, and the Alliance against the Tof; as for Lumiya herself, "All Together Now!" shows that her lust to avenge her teacher, Darth Vader, drove her to abandon the Empire and to ally herself with the Tof at Saijo, formerly a major spaceport and trading post among the Outer Rim worlds before its sack by the decadent Tof invaders. The temporary multilateral coalition attacked the Tof headquarters even as Lumiya negotiated with the Tof supreme commander, the Prince Sereno, Crown Prince of Tof; the coalition succeeded in capturing the Crown Prince and left Lumiya for dead. The Alliance appears to have commemorated their successful conclusion of the Nagai-Tof invasions by releasing the Declaration of a New Republic one month after the Battle of Endor according to The Truce at Bakura Sourcebook; the actual change from the Alliance of Free Planets to the New Republic appears to have been delayed until the fall of Imperial Center in late 41 rS, seen in Wedge's Gamble, possibly because of the "months" of politicking at the Constitutional Convention called to frame the new government, as mentioned by The Essential Guide to Characters.

The Alliance was riding high. The President of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, Mon Mothma, became first Leader and then Chief Councilor of the Provisional Government of the Alliance of Free Planets, a fact symbolically obnoxious to the Empire; she had been the Imperial Senator for Chandrila, and had led the opposition to the Galactic Empire in the Senate until the Imperial Security Bureau decided to silence her, as mentioned in the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, Second Edition. A former radical — she had once advocated "visionary new plans for social change" — , Mothma was in many ways the charismatic 'Great Leader' for her Alliance that the Galactic Emperor had been for his Empire. But now the Empire had lost its source of unity, and there was little left to hold the loyalty of many of the galaxy's citizens. In The Essential Chronology, the New Republic Historical Council states that "countless worlds" in the Rim left the Empire after receiving word of the Galactic Emperor's death, and that in the months following the Alliance won over "hundreds of planets through diplomacy" while
undertaking "no large-scale military incursions into Imperial territory." The result was that within months, the Imperial presence in the Outer Rim was reduced to virtually nothing without battle or serious engagement. Although it had been long a source of support for the Rebellion (according to the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, Second Edition), the scholars write in the Star Wars Encyclopedia that the Outer Rim was a major source of the Empire's resources and slaves; the loss of such a well-known (if backwater) Region of the galaxy must have been quite a blow to Imperial morale. The Empire had unambiguously lost this Phoney War in the Outer Rim.

The loss of so large an amount of territory (and the resources that went with it) must have been simultaneously inconvenient and embarrassing for the Grand Vizier's regime. In the first place, it seems a potent argument that he was incompetent and could not rule, and public confidence in his regime must have plummeted, a concept which must surely have been unknown in Imperial politics, where the Galactic Emperor had always enjoyed overwhelming popular support. In the second place, it meant that the Empire had lost a large and valuable source of manpower, matériel, and manpower; every world that left the Empire was a world that stopped paying taxes to the seemingly infinite HIM Treasury. In some ways, the situation resembles the crisis of the Count of Serenno's Separatist movement that had caused the Clone War in 13 rS in Attack of the Clones; the secession of the worlds of the Outer Rim represents an outright attack on the credibility of the Imperial State, as well as causing disproportionate damage to the interconnected economic network of the galaxy (hence the Lord Serenno's confidence that the secession of ten thousands of worlds from the Galactic Republic could represent a significant blow to that state's integrity in Attack of the Clones, despite being a mere 1% of the galactic union's total membership). The increase of industrial mechanization tends to increase demand for raw materials, and the Imperial socio-economic order is known to be highly industrialized and urbanized, especially in the Core Worlds Region; the loss of the Outer Rim may not have represented a serious blow to the Imperial economy, but when combined with the heavy
taxation of the wartime economy mentioned by the Dark Empire Sourcebook, may have nevertheless caused inconvenient and annoying shortages and inflation throughout the Empire, a constant, everyday reminder of the Grand Vizier's conspicuous failure to stop the Alliance's expansion and his embarrassing loss in the Phoney War. The loss of the Outer Rim, in short, would be not only a blow to the Grand Vizier's public standing, but also to the average Imperial citizen's pocket.

But there was another factor to be considered. The growth of the Alliance, its more or less bloodless triumph over the Empire in the Phoney War, and its string of diplomatic coups, gave the Alliance a pool of resources that had increased almost as much as the Empire's had shrunk. The Alliance now had rather more logistical and economical basis than it ever had during the Civil War; most importantly of all, the Alliance had gained a measure of respectability that had always eluded them during the Rebellion. Although still viewed as something less than a fully functioning government — after all, they did not control Imperial Center or the Core Worlds, and most of their territorial holdings were in the Outer Rim — the Alliance was now something very much more than a ragtag band of pirates and guerrilleros. The Mid-Rim seemed to be next, especially in the wake of the Alliance's decisive victory over the Imperial forces at Kashyyyk (Sumitra Sector, Mid-Rim), during which Grand Admiral Syn was killed and his flagship, HIMS Fi, was vaporized, either "in a one-on-one test of tactics" with Ackbar (the scribe's version in The New Essential Guide to Characters) or against "overwhelming force" (the version contained in "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals"); the Kashyyyk campaign is dated simply before the Imperial Center campaign in late 41 rS by the New Republic Historical Council, but the fact that Syn's chaplain was an agent of the Church of the Dark Side (and Syn's own status as a devout Dark Sider and a nominal supporter of the Grand Vizier's regime) requires that the campaign have taken place after the establishment of the Church but before the fall of the Grand Vizier, in mid-39 rS.

The fall of the Outer Rim and the evident intention of the Alliance to begin further expansion Coreward must have encouraged the Emperor's Ruling Circle. By this time, the Grand Vizier's agent-in-place, Quest, must surely have abandoned him, and the Grand Vizier's clone was desperate for a decisive victory of his own to bolster his standing. By six months after the Battle of Endor, the Alliance seemed secure enough in its position (presumably with holdings throughout the Outer, Mid, and Inner Rim) to begin scouting worlds in the Core Worlds Region itself, prompting Isard to recommend using Brentaal IV, which Coruscant and the Core Worlds explains to be a major trade center for the entire Empire and one of the foremost worlds in Bormea Sector (which also included Chandrila and Corulag, the Sector capital, home to the Imperial Academy at Corulag and the Sienar Fleet Systems Advanced Research Division); in addition to its status as a primary trade world, starport, and jump point for traffic from the Core to the Corporate Sector and to the Colonies — it is located at the intersection of the Perlemian Trade Route and the Hydian Way, two major hyperlanes — Brentaal was the location of the Sector's primary HoloNet relay station, a vital link between Imperial Center and military/naval outposts and ships operating along the Perlemian Trade Route. If this were not enough to make Brentaal an attractive target, there was the fact that half of the Emperor's Ruling Circled owned property there, and the entire coalition had sizeable interests in its booming businesses, according to "In the Empire's Service." Because of this, Isard recommended that the Grand Vizier make his stand at Brentaal; she argued that it would demonstrate to the public that he was capable of decisive action and that the defeat at Endor and the Phoney War had been freak occurrences, as well as leaving the Emperor's Ruling Circle — "the Cabal," as the Grand Vizier's clone an his prime minister referred to it — no choice but to support him, or risk losing substantial amounts of money and property by opposing him.

The Grand Vizier's clone was dubious of the plan, but consented to its execution. Isard ordered to Brentaal elements of the 181st Imperial Fighter Group, commanded by 'Colonel' (i.e., Captain) Soontir, Baron Fel (who rivaled Tan Maarek Stele as the Empire's ace of aces), but arranged to leave the command of Brentaal's defense to Admiral Lon Isoto, an unsavory character addicted to glitterstim and disreputable liaisons, perhaps in imitation of Grand Admiral Miltin Takel, a man of undeniable tactical genius; for his part, Isoto's great genius was limited strictly to degenerate hedonism, indulging in glitterstim spice and wanton adultery (Isoto casually remarked to the Lord Fel that his wife
wouldn't approve of his willingness to partake of Brentaalian hospitality, "which is why she is on Coruscant"). The Grand Vizier — who privately commented that he'd gladly cede a Super Star Destroyer to the Alliance if they would accept "Isoto the Indecisive" in the bargain — only agreed to leave Isoto in command because he believed that the incompetent commander was favored by the Emperor's Ruling Circle, and accepted Isard's argument that if he left Isoto in command until the Ruling Circle begged for his replacement, it would reinforce his position as the supreme authority in the Empire while at the same time disgracing one of their favorites. Although the plan was risky, the Lord Fel's presence was anticipated to provide a stabilizing influence on Isoto's incompetence, and the Grand Vizier trusted his Prime Minister Isard to monitor the situation carefully for signs of potential failure. He publicly vowed that Brentaal would not fall.

Unfortunately, the Grand Vizier failed to realize until it was too late that Isard was using him. Isoto was in fact not favored by the Ruling Circle; they knew as well as the Grand Vizier did that the man was criminally incompetent, and had been told by Isard that Isoto was the Grand Vizier's favorite, and that he refused to remove him out of caprice. In fact, the Ruling Circle had already asked that Isoto be removed, via their interlocutor... Isard. The truth was that Isard had no intention of successfully defending Brentaal, and had planned to lose it from the very beginning of the whole sordid affair. Her actual plan was to simultaneously break any confidence remaining in the Grand Vizier's regency and cripple the power base of the Ruling Circle, in the process elevating her own standing due to the fact that the 181st — which would defend the world long enough to allow its evacuation and looting — would have been present on Brentaal at her orders and no one else's. The Grand Vizier, not yet aware at the enormity of her betrayal, discovered that she had issued orders in his name to mobilize an evacuation force, but agreed to allow it to proceed when she explained that she had intended to damage the Ruling Circle and to allow them to return to Brentaal only by his good graces, and at the same time to ingratiate himself with the Brentaalian expatriates, whom he would have had rescued. Although he allowed her to carry on with her plan, the Grand Vizier's clone realized that he was in mortal danger if he remained in the Empire, and began making new plans for his survival.

The fall of Brentaal IV in "In the Empire's Service" represents a significant blow to the Galactic Empire whose importance is not much commented upon by the Expanded Universe except in terms of the role it played in the fall of the Grand Vizier and the rise of Isard. Nevertheless, the evidence is clear: Coruscant and the Core Worlds is quite unambiguous in its description of Brentaal's economic status, not to mention its strategic importance as a major HoloNet and hyperspace traffic node. The loss of such a major port could be only slightly ameliorated by the fact that most of the physical wealth on-planet had been looted and that the Alliance could not benefit in turn from Brentaal's robust trade, because Coruscant and the Core Worlds explains that the battle had wiped out most of the orbital stations, crippling Brentaal's economy and sending it spinning into recession from which it would not recover for years. Furthermore, quite apart from the inconvenience of the shortages and inflation signified by the loss of the Outer Rim, the fall of Brentaal would cause direct, substantial financial
damage to the Galactic Empire as a whole, something which the entire Imperial elite would feel — and be quite unaccustomed to feeling. Isard was virtually the only person in the Empire to have benefited from the affair, and the fall of Brentaal IV can be safely categorized as an unmitigated disaster for the Imperial State. It serves to demonstrate the ruthlessness that Isard was capable of showing in the pursuit of her goals, to the point that she was willing to cause considerable damage to the Empire to gain political advantage.

The Grand Vizier's regime had all but fallen. The disastrous loss of Brentaal must surely have destroyed any support he may have yet retained among the ruling class, and he rapidly reached the conclusion that the only means of survival available to him was the Alliance. Although not excited to be negotiating with the Galactic Emperor's first lieutenant and personal deputy, the secret negotiations on Axxila between them in "Masquerade" produced an agreement that the Grand Vizier would leave Imperial Center open to the Alliance, in exchange for control of 25 worlds of his choice and the right to join the New Republic as a full member. The Provisional Council agreed to the terms, hoping that the Grand Vizier's defection might encourage others to abandon the Empire for the Alliance. Unfortunately for the Grand Vizier and the Alliance, his prime minister Isard's office as Director of Imperial Intelligence was not for show, and Imperial Intelligence's eyes were always watching. She discovered the Axxila talks and immediately informed the Ruling Circle. The three-member Tribunal — presumably a sort of presidium for the entire Emperor's Ruling Circle, although its nature has never been clarified by any source — immediately took the extraordinary step of formally deposing the Grand Vizier and installing itself in his place as collegial imperator pro tempore; with a warrant posted for his immediate arrest and extradition to Imperial Center, the Grand Vizier fled to Ciutric, where he hoped to find a sympathetic Governor. Instead, "Mandatory Retirement" shows that he found himself arrested by the very Governor he had installed there, and the Alliance dispatched a rescue mission, trying to keep good faith with the fallen Imperial regent. The Tribunal ordered Admiral Delak Krennel to proceed to Ciutric with HIMS Reckoning and effect the extradition of the deposed Grand Vizier.

As with the Brentaal fiasco, the affair on Ciutric ended badly for almost everyone involved. "Mandatory Retirement" recounts the ultimate failure of the Alliance's rescue attempt, Krennel's murder of the Grand Vizier's clone and self-installation as "Prince-Admiral of the Ciutric Hegemony," severing his connections to the Empire. On Imperial Center, the Tribunal was liquidated by Isard, who had Tribune Challer poisoned by a prostitute and Tribune Plumba murdered by an antiquities dealer wielding a Sith lanvarok; the Tribunal Leader, General Paltr Carvin, was arrested and sent to Imperial Intelligence's Lusankya penitentiary. Both the New Republic Historical Council in The Essential Chronology and the scribe in The New Essential Guide to Characters claim that Isard liquidated the entire Emperor's Ruling Circle, but this is impossible, because Dangor was identified as the leader in Cracken's Threat Dossier and he still figured as a major player in Imperial politics in the Dark Empire Sourcebook, nearly five years after "Mandatory Retirement" (in 45 rS) and taking place even after Isard's own death. Presumably, the Historical Council and the scribe were careless with their details and Isard only liquidated the Tribunal and whatever other elements of the Ruling Circle may have held specific high offices that she perceived to be threatening. Unfortunately there is no official clarification of this matter, or of the relationship between the Tribunal and the Ruling Circle; the fact that Krennel expected Carvin to be Tribunal Leader for life, combined with Dangor's subsequent machinations, suggests that perhaps Dangor intended to be éminence grise to the Tribunal's public face. In any case, the Grand Vizier's clone was dead, the real Grand Vizier was long gone, and the Ruling Circle was cowed. Ysanne Isard, who had deliberately engineered the Brentaal debacle and the Ciutric affair to her own advantage, assumed absolute power within the Imperial State, but cast her rule as mere stewardship of the Throne, according to Wedge's Gamble.The transitional period was over. Nicknamed "Iceheart" for good reason, Isard had possessed a reputation for remarkable ruthlessness even before masterminding her own rise to power; indeed, she had denounced her own father to the Galactic Emperor as a traitor to the Empire in 35 rS, in the process replacing him as Director of Imperial Intelligence, as seen in "Interlude at Darkknell"; Alliance intelligence believed the
denunciation to have been an entirely false fabrication. She had already demonstrated her willingness to use Imperial Intelligence's Assassination Branch to neutralize dissent and bring the 'loyal opposition' into line. Because Imperial Intelligence was a branch of the Imperial Armed Forces (as stated by the Death Star Technical Companion), the installation of Ysanne Isard as regent in place of the civilian Grand Vizier marked an entirely new development in Imperial politics: the stratocratization of the Empire. Whereas before the Imperial State had been militaristic, the civilian organs of government had always maintained strict control of the military/naval complex; now, for the first time, a military officer was in control of the Imperial State, and she held a reactionary philosophy quite different from the conservative authoritarianism of men like Ars Dangor and the Grand Vizier. Dangor and the Emperor's Ruling Circle apparently decided discretion was the better part of valor and toed the line. By mid-39 rS, six months after the Battle of Endor, in the absence of any organized opposition and at the cost of much of the Rim and the loss of Brentaal, Ysanne Isard — Iceheart — was Galactic Empress in all but name.

Part II: From the Rise of Isard to the fall of Coruscant

The years of Isard's regency (39 - 42 rS) were a time of great change in the galaxy. The disintegration of the once invincible Empire continued, independent states and rogue warlords proliferated throughout the galaxy, the rebel Alliance grew rapidly in size and span, and the galactic economy faltered. By the time Isard seized power as a nominal regent or interrex in mid-39 rS, the Empire had lost control of almost all of the Outer Rim Territories Region in the Phoney War, as well as a wedge of space reaching Coreward as far as Brentaal IV (Bormea Sector, Core Worlds). The mass defections of rogue warlords and would-be empereurs en petit further fractured the Empire and reduced its territorial holdings and resources; The Bacta War mentions that the greatest number of rogue warlords defected from Imperial service during Isard's regency, and in "Recon & Report: The Journey to Coruscant," the notional author Dirk Harkness (of the independent anti-Imperial insurgency group Black Curs) specifies that these warlord states were concentrated in the Expansion, Inner Rim, and especially the Mid-Rim Regions, and warlord states are known to have claimed "key industrial worlds" (e.g., Balmorra, a major industrial world in the Core and home to Kuat Drive Yards' primary AT-ST factories as well as other military vehicles and combat automata, declared its independence in 40 rS under Governor Beltane, as mentioned in The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons and Dark Empire II). Notable rogue warlords include the rivals Supreme Warlord Harrsk near the Deep Core, High Admiral Teradoc in the Mid-Rim, Admiral Gaen Drommel, Grand Moff Governor Ardus Kaine's Pentastar Alignment in the Outer Rim, Moff Governor Par Lankin's Lambda Sector, and rival Moff Governors Eyrgin and Prentioch in Wornal Sector. Most significant is the self-styled Imperial Warlord Zsinj, whose conquests are said to amount to one-third of the galaxy by the Rebellion Era Sourcebook.

Matters were complicated by the fact that the Alliance and the independent Black Curs resistance movement sabotaged much of Imperial Center's HoloNet communications systems and other parts of the intragalactic communications network, according to Harkness in "Recon & Report: The Journey to Coruscant"; this is believed to have encouraged the increase in rogue warlordism, in addition to damaging communications, command, and control between the Imperial State and its far-flung military and naval forces (an unanticipated side-effect to this tactic is that a number of worlds which depended heavily on the Imperial State's long-range communications monopoly in the absence of functioning subspace communications networks were left completely isolated). The Empire was spread out and its forces diffuse, with a much more concentrated opposition already possessing a beachhead in Bormea Sector within the Core Worlds Region (despite the fall of Brentaal, the Imperial State held onto part of the Sector).

Isard evidently decided that the best way to deal with this situation was to consolidate the Imperial State's forces around strategically vital territories. Hence, she immediately ordered complete withdrawal of all military, naval, diplomatic, and bureaucratic personnel from countless "worlds of lesser strategic importance." In "Recon & Report: The Journey to Coruscant" (dated six months after the Battle of Endor, i.e., at the same time as Isard's coup d'état), Harkness describes the immediate effects of Isard's synchronization policy (Harkness is evidently unaware of her seizure of power and attributes it to "the Imperial Advisors who have assumed the Emperor's role on Coruscant"). Concurrent with the Imperial State's withdrawal, factories and shipyards were shut down or scuttled and infrastructure was destroyed (Imperial engineers dismantled factories and shipped major components and raw materials to more centrally located sites, to construct new factories elsewhere).

Installations and outposts in the Mid-Rim and Expansion Regions were particularly targeted for evacuation and withdrawal, explaining the increase in rogue warlordism in those Regions. With galactic shipping having been badly shaken by the fall of Brentaal IV, the Imperial State's withdrawal meant that it was no longer profitable for major shipping firms to continue servicing many worlds throughout those territories abandoned by the Imperial State, causing massive supply shortfalls throughout those territories. Worlds freed of the Imperial State's control were simultaneously "freed" of its business (e.g., feeding, clothing, and billeting Imperial personnel, provisioning Imperial military and naval units, providing goods and services to personnel on liberty), and global economies plummeted into deep recession. As an example, "A Campaign Guide to the Centrality" mentions that the Centrality, a former Imperial client state found between Hutt Space and the Cron Drift in the Outer Rim Territories Region, suffered a major blow to its mining and agricultural industries after "the loss of the Empire's huge appetite." Economic conditions throughout the Imperial State's abandoned holdings in the Mid-Rim and the Expansion Region declined.

Some worlds were left without any government at all, and no protection from "warlords and independent marauders." Economic conditions were worsened by the takeover of warlord states, which imposed unfair and restrictive taxes (even relative to the Imperial State) on the populations and commandeered planetary resources for their own war machines. Furthermore, the breakdown in galactic central authority and coordinated naval force created an ideal environment for interstellar piracy, and in "Recon & Report: The Journey to Coruscant" Harkness indicates that it became common practice for rogue warlords to use small fleets composed of lighter ships ("Carrack-class cruisers, Strike cruisers, system patrol craft and Dreadnaughts") in conjunction with one or two Star Destroyers to raid interstellar commerce and "supply stations, factories and shipyards which provide resources unavailable in a warlord's home sector." Consequently, it became increasingly risky to ship goods or raw materials ("rawmats") to worlds or independent states that could not effectively patrol their space. The breakdown of the Imperial State's grip on its outlying territories brought commerce — the lifeblood of economy — grinding to a halt, as many of the major shipping lines cut back service (having been affiliated with the Trade Federation in the old days, many of the major shipping lines became part of the Imperial State's merchant marine when the TradeFed was Imperialized early in the Imperial era, according to 's Databank entry "Mungo Baobab").

Having withdrawn enormous amounts of military and naval assets from the Outer Rim, Mid-Rim, and ExpansionRegions, Isard now had the ability to redeploy those forces — "about half the remaining Imperial naval forces," according to Harkness in "Recon & Report: The Journey to Coruscant" — to defend key systems throughout the Core, Colonies, and Inner Rim Regions, primarily major shipyards, manufacturing and heavy industry sites, and high-productivity agriculture worlds, but also strategic jump-points, communications centers, and commercial ports; she also ordered the patrol of certain systems with "little strategic value" but of great symbolic importance (e.g., the Grand Vizier had ordered the complete interdiction of Chandrila in Bormea Sector, and Isard evidently neglected to reassign the seven Imperial Star Destroyers deployed to hold Chandrila hostage against a possible Alliance attack on Imperial Center). The Dark Empire Sourcebook states that as a result of this policy, "vast regions of space were left defenseless as the Core systems were transformed into fortress worlds."

Corellian and Kuat Sectors were heavily reinforced in order to protect the Corellian Engineering Corporation (CEC)'s and KDY's stardocks and shipyards. According to Harkness, at least fifteen Imperial Star Destroyers were deployed to Kuat and 25 to Corellia, in addition to "numerous smaller vessels — Dreadnaughts, Strike cruisers, and Interdictors," subjecting all ships entering either system to boarding and thorough searches; other shipyard facilities throughout the Sectors were also fortified with smaller naval forces ranging from two to five Imperial Star Destroyers and "numerous smaller naval vessels." In particular, Admiral Roek's Super Star Destroyer HIMS Aggressor and her escort squadron of five Imperial Star Destroyers (cf. Darth Vader's Death Squadron) were recalled and sent to Corellia, where the ruling Diktat's government was little more than the Isard regime's puppet state. The Imperial State also reinforced Kelada, a major repulsorlift and walker component factory world and site of an enormous Arakyd Industries repulsorcraft assembly factory; Isard assigned ten Imperial Star Destroyers and "a myriad of smaller support craft" to defend Kelada, and construction of repulsorlift and walker systems increased substantially to compensate for the loss of Balmorra's facilities. Efforts were made to improve security on key agricultural worlds, including the installation of Moff Gegren Throsen as head of Salliche Ag Corporation and its eighteen major agricultural worlds in the Core Worlds Region (e.g., Salliche, Yulant, Ruan, and Broest), each of which was assigned two Imperial Star Destroyers for defensive and (as necessary) occupational operations. However, Isard's regime decided not to significantly reinforce the Sluis Sector despite the presence of major
shipyards like the Sluis Van stardocks and the Sector's proximity to Alliance-held/Alliance-influenced territories, finding that the Imperial State's status as providing 90% of Sluissi business was adequate to guarantee Sluissi loyalty; one or two Imperial Star Destroyers were ordered to each major facility, with "maybe four" assigned to defend the Sluis Van yards.

In The Essential Chronology, the New Republic Historical Council describes Admiral Ackbar leading an aggressive campaign pushing into Imperial territory eight months after the Battle of Endor (i.e., two months after the start of the Isard regency), possibly in response to suggestions made by Harkness in his report to New Republic Intelligence (NRI) regarding Isard's fortification projects. Isard, concerned that this campaign — which appears to have been the occasion of the Empire's hard-fought rear-guard action at Notak in Before the Storm — might be a prelude to a campaign on Imperial Center itself, "recalled hundreds of Star Destroyers to defend the capital planet and other key Core Worlds," i.e., she expanded her current policy of transforming the Empire into a interstellar fortress. Three weeks after the engagement at Notak, Black Sword Command received orders to withdraw from the Koornacht Cluster in the Kokash and Farlax Sectors, and, per standard operating procedure, to destroy whatever infrastructure could not be evacuated; the ordered withdrawal from Koornacht did not happen, and a number of Imperial warships, including the Super Star Destroyer HIMS Intimidator, fell into Yevethan hands (the Imperial State mistakenly believed that these forces were destroyed at Cal-Seti, "several sectors away" according to the Historical Council). At the same time, eight months after the Battle of Endor, the chronically depressed Grand Admiral Ishin-Il-Raz, devoted Palpatinist and one of the founders of COMPNOR, committed suicide by plunging his flagship HIMS Emperor's Disciple into the Denarii Nova, according to "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals" and The Essential Chronology. It is possible that Grand Admiral Danetta Pitta took advantage of the confusion of Ackbar's attack to bribe the Diktat and set himself up as de facto ruler and "protector" of the increasingly isolationist Corellian Sector, as described in "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals" (unfortunately without providing a date); this presumably prompted Roek to go rogue rather than return to Isard and account for his failure to hold the Sector, although this is not stated.

Having bulwarked the Empire against further aggression from the Alliance or warlord states for the time being, Isard faced a number of internal problems. The huge (and overhead-free) gambling revenues derived from the Commonality had ceased to benefit the Imperial State earlier in the year, as the Commonality had become independent when the Empire lost the Outer Rim in the Phoney War, according to Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds. The Dark Empire Sourcebook indicates that the Corporate Sector Authority, a client state whose annual tribute to the Imperial State supplied enormous sums of credits and valuable strategic materials, declared its independence and ended the Imperial State's privileged status. The same sources indicates that Lianna, homeworld of Santhe/Sienar Technologies (SST), the parent corporation of Sienar Fleet Systems (SFS) — one of the Empire's primary defense contractors — also declared its independence. Rather than risk losing both
altogether — as had happened with Balmorra and Balmorran Arms, which now sold its SD-6, SD-7, and SD-8 robotic infantry soldiers to the Alliance of Free Planets, according to The Essential Guide to Droids — Isard allowed them both to slip quietly into full independence, with the conditio sine qua non that both continue to do business with the Imperial State. Nevertheless, the loss of revenues seriously hurt the Imperial State, and the diplomatic embarrassment of formally granting independence (a repudiation of the opposition to Separatism that was once the raison d'être of the Galactic Empire) only encouraged secessionism . Still, it seems overall that Isard's firm leadership was nevertheless able to stabilize the disintegration of the Empire proper.

There was also the issue of the stormtrooper shortage. During the height of the Empire, the precise origin of the majority of the Imperial Marines remained shrouded in mystery. Certainly, exceptional officer cadets and enlisted recruits were trained at the Military Academy and boot camps of Carida, but this cannot have accounted for morethan a mere fraction of the vast legions of Imperial stormtroopers. It was evidently a well-kept state secret that at least 40% of stormtroopers were in fact clones ("GeNodes"), belonging to a number of different templates, according to "Pax Empirica — The Wookiee Annhilation," which identifies at least four templates. GeNodes were decanted fully grown and immediately invented elaborate personalities and histories for themselves, having names and thinking they have families; they recognized that others were clones, but were apparently unable to realize that they themselves were clones. "Soldiers of the Empire!" describes a different procedure, without accelerated growth, which creates clones that do not have names and know that they are clones. Significantly, "Pax Empirica — The Wookiee Annihilation" states that no GeNode has ever left the service, while "Soldiers of the Empire!" indicates that the Imperial State maintains a "Troopers' Rest camp on the holiday planet of Sochi" for retired clones. Cracken's Threat Dossier describes an immediate and unaccountable shortage of stormtroopers taking place after the Battle of Endor; the Heir to the Empire Sourcebook mentions speculation that "perhaps the secret to training and recruiting the men inside the armor was lost with the Emperor and his senior officers." In The New Essential Chronology, the Historical Council notes that "in the five years since the Empire's defeat at Endor, the cloning technology that had once produced legions of stormtroopers had vanished, made useless by dwindling resources or destroyed outright in accordance with Emperor Palpatine's posthumous orders." The Imperial State's solution was to simply outfit Imperial Army soldiers in the Imperial Marines' distinctive white armor, so as to avoid a public perception of a waning Empire (although rarely permanently stationed on planet, the white-armored stormtroopers, along with the TIE fighter and the Imperial Star Destroyer, were ubiquitous symbols of the Imperial State's might; such a symbol could not be allowed to lapse).

The quiescence of the Emperor's Ruling Circle did not mean that Isard's regime was free of rivals. Although she still commanded the loyalty of three of the Galactic Emperor's grand admirals — Grand Admiral Afsheen Makati and Grand Admiral Miltin Takel are said to have been Loyalists by "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals," and Isard herself indirectly indicates that Grand Admiral Thrawn is a Loyalist in Wedge's Gamble — a fourth member of the "Circle of Twelve," Grand Admiral Josef Grunger, now claimed to be the legitimate ruler of the Imperial State and the Galactic Empire. According to "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals," Grunger had been supervising operations at Gargon in the Mandalore Sector when he had received word of the Galactic Emperor's death, and promptly became a rogue warlord and established his supreme headquarters at Gargon, using his personal prestige to amass "within a year" (i.e., by 40 rS) a considerable armada, including Roek's HIMS Aggressor, along with thirty Imperial Star Destroyers and Victory Star Destroyers, sixty Strike cruisers, a hundred Carrack light cruisers, and "various miscellaneous vessels." Isard ordered Takel to retake Gargon, which had previously been his base of operations — in fact, Grunger had seized Takel's task force from his second in command while Takel had been at Endor as an observer — , but he repeatedly failed, and was under threat of execution. Presumably, the Warlord Zsinj was still busily expanding his holdings.

Six months after Isard's seizure of power, in early 40 rS, one of Isard's earlier schemes was beginning to backfire. She and the Grand Vizier had conspired to establish the Church of the Dark Side to "help certain moffs retain power," but the Church's leaders were becoming increasingly uncooperative and independent-willed. Additionally, several Grand Moff Governors — possibly the same ones that Isard had created the Church to support — had been plotting to usurp control of the Imperial State from her. Grand Moff Bertroff Hissa, Grand Moff Dunhausen, Grand Moff Muzzer, and Grand Moff Thistleborn formed the Central Committee of Grand Moffs and openly defied Isard by calling a general convocation at Kessendra Stadium on Kessel (note that Hissa's opening remarks in The Glove of Darth Vader imply that the Central Committee existed before the Battle of Endor, but "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals" is very clear that it was formed afterward, with Hissa as chair). There, the Central Committee declared the truth of the old rumors that the Galactic Emperor had a three-eyed son, and announced that they would support his "right" to the Imperial Throne (the Dark Empire Sourcebook indicates that there was no constitutional mechanism of any kind providing for succession, so strictly speaking there was no right of succession and therefore no heir apparent). As their candidate for the Throne, the Central Committee put forward Trioculus, the ruthless Lord Overseer and Supreme Slavelord of Kessel; he was in fact a pretender.

Reaction was mixed. One grand admiral — who has been identified as Takel, having fled from Isard following his failure to capture Gargon, but who visually resembles Makati, a known Loyalist (note that Hissa's keynote address mentions "grand admirals" as being in attendance) — brought up Grunger's claim of being the Empire's legitimate ruler, and a Royal Guardsman who had converted to the Church of the Dark Side questioned Trioculus's right of succession without having received the Supreme Prophet's "Dark Blessing." Trioculus responded by seemingly unleashing Sith lightning on both objectors, and in so doing convinced most of the attendants of the convocation — visually seen to be larger than the old stone Senate Hall of the old Republic in Tales of the Jedi: The Sith War — that he was in fact the Galactic Emperor's son; they agreed to support the Legitimist pretender. Although the Central Committee and the new supporters from the convocation — including Takel — provided an enormous power base for Trioculus's pretensions, including territory seized by Committee member Moff Disra from the late Rufaan Tigellinus (former grand admiral and Grand Moff Governor of the Core Worlds according to "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals"), the majority of the Empire and the Armed Forces remained in Loyalist hands, supporting Isard's regime, according to the New Republic Historical Council in The Essential Chronology.

Trioculus's powerful supporters in the Legitimist faction could not protect him from his own poor judgment and bad luck. "His Dark Lordship" (as he preferred to be styled) received tentative pledges of support from Grunger and even COMPNOR, provided that he secure the Supreme Prophet's "Dark Blessing," which the Supreme Prophet would give only to the holder of the glove of Darth Vader. Trioculus promptly squandered his chances with a series of blunders that seemed calculated to make him appear as incompetent as humanly possible. Among these blunders were the summary execution of Takel — the greatest commander among his partisans — because he had spoken out of turn at a meeting with the Central Committee, and a growing infatuation with the Princess Leia of Alderaan, a high-profile leader of the rebel Alliance. In The Essential Chronology, the Historical Council states that Isard took advantage of this infatuation by arranging for the escape of Zorba Desilijic Tiure (alias Zorba the Hutt) from prison on Kip in Zorba the Hutt's Revenge; the Princess Leia had killed Zorba's offspring Jabba Desilijic Tiure (alias Jabba the Hutt) in early 39 rS in Return of the Jedi, and Zorba's consequent desire for revenge could not help but bring him into conflict with the would-be "Emperor Trioculus." The two did indeed come into conflict in a series of farcical events that resulted in Trioculus's emergence from Cloud City on Bespin encased in carbonite. Even that did not put an end to the three-eyed pretender's blundering, and his last mistake was to attempt to marry the Princess Leia; unbeknownst to him, the real Princess had been replaced by a human replica 'droid, and it shot and killed him during the wedding ceremony in Queen of the Empire.

Isard's ploy and action by the Alliance had successfully put an end to the Legitimist pretensions. Unfortunately, the increasingly ambitious Church of the Dark Side stepped into the fray. The Supreme Prophet — actually an Imperial Intelligence-sponsored charlatan impersonating the Galactic Emperor's personal counselor (and former Master Jedi) Kadann, Supreme Prophet of the Dark Side — renounced his "Dark Blessing" on Trioculus, appropriated the glove of Darth Vader for himself, and declared that the new ruler of the Empire was to be "the Dark One of ancient times," for whom he would speak and act as executor in Prophets of the Dark Side. The leadership of the Church promptly tried and convicted the Central Committee members of high treason, and sentenced them all to death (the creatively cruel and unusual sentences were not actually carried out), annexing as much of their holdings as possible.

According to the Historical Council in The Essential Chronology, Isard was more concerned by this time with the Alliance's three-month-long ground campaign for control of the manufacturing world Milagro, located at a strategic hyperspace route junction, and was profoundly annoyed by this latest development in the Trioculus Affair. She ordered one of her two remaining grand admirals, Afsheen Makati, to deal with the Church of the Dark Side's leadership; according to "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals," Makati entertained a cordial hatred of the real Supreme Prophet stemming from an incident during Makati's attack on a rebel base on Thila during which the Supreme Prophet humiliated him in front of his crew. According to the same source, while the pseudo-Supreme Prophet was trapped in the Lost City of the Jedi on Yavin IV (where he had been left in Prophets of the Dark Side), Makati tracked down the Church's headquarters aboard Space Station Scardia in the Null Zone with help from the real Supreme Prophet's former apprentice and bodyguard Azrakel (from The Dark Side Sourcebook), and killed all of the remaining Church leaders. When the pseudo-Supreme Prophet returned to Space Station Scardia, Makati destroyed it with long-range turbolaserfire. Isard brought the Trioculus Affair to a satisfying conclusion by executing the Central Committee and stamping out the last vestiges of the Legitimist party; it should be noted, however, that one member of the Central Committee, Moff Governor Disra, was not executed, as he remained in power as Governor of Braxant Sector in the Imperial remnants as late as the events of Specter of the Past, set in 54 rS.

This personal success for Isard was matched by a number of setbacks for the Imperial State. The Imperial Army's position on Milagro had become untenable, and Isard ordered a Base Delta Zero operation, which Rear Admiral (Retired) Michael Unther defined in "A World to Conquer" as "the Imperial code order to destroy all population centers and resources, including industry, natural resources, and cities." The execution of this order cost the Empire all access to Milagro's manufacturing facilities — an economic and logistical loss not to be taken lightly, even by an Empire with entire worlds like Metalorn from "A Princess Alone!" devoted to rawmat mining, industry, and
manufacturing; however, consistent with Isard's policy of denying resources to the Alliance, the operation also prevented the Alliance from benefiting from their victory over the Imperials in the campaign. At about this time, Makati was himself killed, and the Alliance executed Grand Admiral Osvald Teshik — captured a year earlier at the Battle of Endor, according to "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals" — for crimes against sapience, possibly in retaliation for the destruction of Milagro. Inquisitor Jerec, a former Jedi Master and distinguished archaeological expert on the ancient Sith and other Force-related societies, took his dark Jedi disciples and rallied corporate sponsors in Ardus., Kaine's Pentastar Alignment — Jerec and a number of other Inquisitors had allied with the Pentastar Alignment after the Galactic Emperor's death, becoming a Great InQuestor of Judgment according to "The Dark Forces Saga, Part 6: Outcasts and Megalomaniacs Welcome" — for his search for the fabled Lost Valley of the Jedi, part of a plot to apotheosize himself and rule a vast new empire created in his own image as seen in Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. All the while Zsinj continued to expand his empire. According to The Essential Chronology and the Dark Empire Sourcebook, a brutal campaign in the Inner Rim came to a bloody end at the Battle of Mindor, less than six months after Milagro's reduction (i.e., late 40 rS to early 41 rS); stormtroopers under Lord Shadowspawn fought to the death against the Alliance's General Luke Skywalker, whose victory "The History of the Mandalorians" attributes to crucial assistance from the Mandalorian Protectors (Skywalker resigned his commission afterward in dismay over the bloodshed). And to add insult to injury, Grand Admiral Grant, the Tapani aristocrat (probably a member of House Melantha) who had been left with no power base after the Battle of Endor and had promptly taken sanctuary in Ardus Kaine's Pentastar Alignment, defected to the Alliance in 41 rS, taking amnesty in exchange for military secrets and retiring to Rathalay as the so-called "Last Grand Admiral," according to The Essential Chronology and "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals."

One of the few consolations of this period was that, shortly after Teshik's execution (but necessarily before Grant's defection) according to "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals," Grunger had swaggered into Corellian Sector in an attempt to use it as a staging point for an assault on Imperial Center; he had come into open conflict with Pitta, and the spectacular clash of the grand admirals in the Battle of Tralus — only the second time grand admirals had ever faced each other in battle — resulted in the complete annihilation of both, with Grunger's Aggressor and Pitta's torpedo sphere destroying one another in the end.. A bare two years after the Battle of Endor, only Thrawn remained of the Galactic Emperor's famous Circle of Twelve (Grand Admiral Nial Declann had been killed aboard the second Death Star at Endor according to "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals," and The Essential Chronology claims that "grand admirals" had died in the explosion, which must refer to another, still unknown grand admiral — probably Tigellinus's replacement — and the New Republic must have believed at one point that three grand admirals died aboard the Death Star, explaining their failure to account for the twelfth grand admiral; Grand Admiral Martio Batch had been assassinated early on by his second in command, a partisan of the late Admiral Sarn who took Batch's task force to join Harrsk's pocket empire near the Deep Core). Presumably Corellian Sector returned to its previous condition of a quasi-satellite state of the Imperial State, with the Diktat again becoming a puppet of Isard, as this is the condition it is said by The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons and Coruscant and the Core Worlds to have retained until the Diktat's eventual replacement by a New Republic governor general; it is possible that the Diktat's poor taste in having allowed Pitta to take control prompted the gradual erosion of his power by the dictatorial Triad of Sacorria, which Isard may have regarded as being more trustworthy, given that they had not been bribed by Pitta.

Nevertheless, despite losses of prestigious leaders, diplomatic debacles, and commercial and economic turbulence, Isard's firm hand had steadied the tottering Imperial State, and the Empire remained the dominant power of the galaxy, holding the Core Worlds, the Inner Rim, and the majority of settled planets, according to The Essential Chronology. Despite the increasing prevalence of rogue warlordism, secessionism, piracy, and the Alliance's steady growth, the Empire retained the upper hand in the more-or-less Cold War, occupying a central position in the galaxy and controlling the galaxy's largest industrial, agricultural, and technological production centers. Isard's policy of centralization and consolidation, although probably substantially reducing the power of the Moff Governors — Isard's new deployments were made at the Imperial level, disregarding the traditional Sector-based defense posture in favor of synchronization — , served to strengthen the Empire's hold on its remaining territories. Logistically, the Empire's position was also unmatched; all of its territorial holdings were relatively close to its industrial and logistical base, and resources could be easily moved within its boundaries from one end to the other (if the Alliance wanted to ship something from one end of its territories to the other, it would be required to make several hyperspace jumps around the Imperial holdings at the center of the galaxy). The Imperial State also had unity of command; Isard's autocratic rule tolerated no bickering over policy, and decisions were made by fiat rather than by vote like in the Alliance's Provisional Council. Despite the loss of the grand admirals — Thrawn was still operating in the Unknown Regions, and was therefore of limited immediate value — Isard retained the services of the formidable Grand General Malcor Brashin, seen in Force Commander, and General Tal Ashen, one of the Galactic Emperor's favorite generals, seen in Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns.After many months of relative stalemate in the Cold War, the Alliance had decided on a campaign to seize Imperial Center itself, bypassing the Empire's fortified industrial base and hoping to knock the Imperial State itself out of the war. As part of this strategy, Imperial defector and Rogue Squadron pilot Captain Tycho Celchu was sent on a reconnaissance mission to Imperial Center, but the scribe explains in The New Essential Guide to Characters that he was captured "several months after Jerec's death" and sent to Lusankya by Isard. The Essential Chronology states that the Alliance nevertheless adopted a "stepping stone" strategy, capturing minor planets in series within Imperial space to provide strategic jump points and bypassing well-defended planets and Sectors; part of this strategy was the reformation of Rogue Squadron, which The New Essential Guide to Characters dates to "nearly a year" after "approximately one and a half years after Endor" (i.e., mid-41 rS). Seen in Rogue Squadron and The Essential Chronology, one of the most significant of the operations in this campaign was the capture of Borleias, a small and relatively obscure outpost in the Colonies which provided a strategic jump point for the final assault on Imperial Center itself. For her part, Isard had already determined that she would not fight to retain Imperial Center. Even before the fall of Borleias, she recalled the post's commanding general, a gifted botanist and virologist named General Evir Derricote, to Imperial Center in order to prepare her "parting gift" to the Alliance: the Krytos virus, a carefully engineered contagion that could infect only nonhuman species and could be treated only by Bacta. The Essential Chronology places Derricote's work in the time period "6.5 - 7 years A.B.Y." (i.e., 41 - 42 rS), The New Essential Guide to Characters specifies that it happened "three years after Endor" (42 rS), meaning that his work was completed just as the year was winding down. The Krytos virus was immediately introduced to Imperial Center's water supply, and Isard herself disappeared to Lusankya — actually a Super Star Destroyer, HIMS Lusankya, built by KDY at the same time that Fondor Yards had constructed HIMS Executor and hidden in the Imperial City, as seen in The Krytos Trap — and conducted business on Imperial Center via holographic proxy. She then set about arranging for the planet to fall into the Alliance's hands.

Admiral Ackbar described Imperial Center's defenses in Wedge's Gamble as centering on a set of "overlapping defense shields," whose geometry was arranged so that at no point was any part of the planet exposed by an opening in either shield. This primary defense was supplemented by "Golan Space Defense stations," which are said to be "comparable in power to a Star Destroyer," augmented by "seven Victory-class Star Destroyers," "ground-based fighter groups," and "fighter wings stationed in and around the ships, shipyards, and orbital factories," with the possibility that "orbital mirror stations and low-orbit skyhooks may have also been armed" (the Prince Xizor of Falleen's skyhook Falleen's Fist was seen to be armed in Shadows of the Empire). Force Commander adds a sensor network on the planet itself which is said to be able to detect and destroy any large amphibious landing force; Imperial Center's second moon, Centax 1, had been converted to a military staging base during the Clone War of 13 - 16 rS according to Jedi Trial, and it is unknown whether or not these facilities remained in use in the Imperial era. Certainly, it is known from Pollux Hax's description in The Illustrated Star Wars Universe that Imperial Center was home to "spidery docking and starship repair yards" that "ride high above the planet, providing reconditioning facilities for the largest of spaceliners"; the same source mentions that "spherical self-contained colony vessels, Imperial Star Destroyers, and huge luxury yachts are built in the space-dock centers." In any event, the Alliance's latest intelligence indicated that HIMS Emperor's Will and HIMS Imperator, Imperial Star Destroyers with formidable reputations, were deployed to defend Imperial Center; instead, when Ackbar's fleet arrived, it was met only by HIMS Triumph and HIMS Monarch, Imperial Star Destroyers with only mediocre reputations. Imperial Center's shields were brought down by fifth-columnist action on the part of Rogue Squadron in Wedge's Gamble, and a medium-sized amphibious force led by General Brenn Tantor — a defected Imperial Marine officer — eliminated the sensor network in Force Commander, paving the way for the main body under General Rand Talor to land in the Imperial City itself in Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns.

The Imperial forces were commanded by Isard's Loyalist generals Brashin and Ashen, Brashin having concentrated his efforts on Tantor's forces, and Ashen on Talor's. As the battle progressed, both forces retreated toward the Imperial Palace; Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns states that the remnants of the Imperial High Command joined Ashen in his last stand in the Palace. Evidently both Brashin and Ashen lost their fights against the Alliance's separate forces, as Children of the Jedi includes the Princess Leia's memory of "the day the Rebels had taken Coruscant," which included the fact that the Palace "had been shelled hard and partially looted," with "Rebel partisans having killed whichever members of the Court they could catch." The Princess Leia listed among these casualties "the President of the Bureau of Punishments," "the head of the Emperor's School of Torturers," "the court clothing designer," and "any number of minor and completely innocent servants of all ages, species, and sexes"; it is entirely possible that Brashin, Ashen, and the other officers of the High Command were also lynched during this apparent loss of control over the Alliance's troops. This would certainly explain why neither man is ever mentioned or heard from again in the Expanded Universe, despite their prestige and importance.

Coruscant and the Core Worlds mentions the War Room, the Admiral's Office, the Crypt (a "computer slicing and decoding center"), and the ultra-sensitive Imperial Information Center — said to have contained "everything from ancient hyperspace maps to the plans for the first Death Star," while The Jedi Academy Sourcebook mentions that it "processed millions of political, economic, and military reports flowing in from all of the vast domains of the Empire" and that "anyone gaining access to the information center could actually rewrite the most important official Imperial records" — as being within the Imperial Palace itself; east of the Palace, on the site of the late Prince Xizor of Falleen's castle, was the Imperial Security Operations building, and an intercepted report by Imperial Intelligence quoted in the Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition adds that the Imperial Security Bureau Central Office is a "mammoth complex in Imperial City ." The Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook mentions the Imperial Ministry of Land Management as being in Imperial City, and it is quite probable that most of the Government ministries were headquartered there. Likewise it is highly probable that the Imperial High Command, as well as Navy Command and Army Command, was also located on the planet (as suggested by the fact that the High Command barricaded itself in the Palace with Ashen). The fall of Imperial Center would simultaneously be the loss of almost the entire infrastructure of the Imperial State, including countless, irreplaceable records and files of diplomatic, defense, state security, intelligence, and financial matters. Two of the Imperial Army's finest commanders were lost during the battle, along with the entire remaining High Command. The Jedi Academy Sourcebook points out that the New Republic had captured the Imperial Information Center intact, because "a power failure during the siege of Imperial City cut off the air supply and power to the sealed center as the techs labored to wipe the computers." No more than a fraction of the sensitive data on Imperial Center could have been properly disposed of before the planet's fall; indeed, it is specifically said that the New Republic gained access to "important economic information on the worlds of the former Empire," as well as "ultra-secure diplomatic codes still in use in the Imperial Core" (still in use as late as 45 rS) and "organizational charts for intelligence operations running on Coruscant and other worlds." From the perspective of operational security, the successful capture of the Imperial Information Center alone was a catastrophe of indescribable proportions.

Furthermore, quite apart from its strategic value as the Imperial State's center of operations, Imperial Center was a symbol of galactic civilization and authority. Wedge's Gamble claims that "taking Coruscant would confer upon the New Republic a legitimacy it had not yet earned in the eyes of much of the Empire's citizenry," and that without it many regarded the Alliance as being little different from the rogue warlords and various other secessionist states. "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals" even mentions that Makati had been loyal to "whomever ruled Coruscant's Imperial City," a sentiment repeated in The Bacta War, which remarks that although "a few brave individuals declared themselves Warlords as soon as they heard of the Emperor's death," "a fair number of military leaders and politicians proclaimed their loyalty to the Empire until Coruscant fell" (curiously, it is also claimed that the self-styled High Admiral Teradoc, having spent most of his career in Rimward duty stations, "remained nominally loyal to the Empire until Coruscant fell," contradicting his known desertion immediately after the battle; perhaps his warlord state maintained a sort of informal alliance with the Imperial State). The fall of Imperial Center in early 42 rS was a major loss to the Imperial State, far more severe than the fall of Brentaal. Just as Brentaal served as the catalyst for the fall of the Grand Vizier's regency, Imperial Center prompted the collapse of Isard's. Immediately after the fall of Imperial Center, the absentee dictatrix — who had all but vanished even before the disaster had happened — lost control of the Imperial State, and with it, the Empire. She remained hidden in Lusankya on Imperial Center itself — now renamed Coruscant by the triumphant Alliance — while a coalition took her place at the head of the Imperial State, according to Solo Command. In the absence of Isard's dominating personality and unity of command, the Empire's fortunes took a turn for the worse, and plunged headlong into a humiliating period of chaos and confusion. The iron-fisted dictatorship of Ysanne Isard had ended, to be replaced by the politicking and in-fighting of the heterogeneous Emperor's Ruling Circle. It has been said that there are two ways to fight a war, by generalissimo or by committee; the former leads to victory, the latter to defeat. The
Imperial State was now in the hands of a committee.

Part III: From the Fall of the Imperial Center to the Battle of Bilbringi

The fall of Imperial Center in early 42 rS brought with it the immediate collapse of the Empire's hitherto iron grip on the Core Worlds. The Dark Empire Sourcebook states that "Coruscant, Alsakan, Grizmallt, Wukkar and a host of the most heavily populated worlds surrendered to Admiral Ackbar's fleet" and "many worlds eagerly threw off the yoke of despotism" (given the prevalence of Quisling satellite regimes among the million member states of the Empire, this actually implies widespread revolution and regime change). The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons adds that Duros and its large shipyards were abandoned by the Imperial State "several years after the Battle of Endor," and that Chandrila was finally captured "a mere handful of years" after the Grand Vizier's blockade six months after the Battle of Endor. Coruscant and the Core Worlds states that the city-states of Recopia IV were among the first Core Worlds to secede and support the Alliance, while Esseles (Essess III) in the Darpa Sector is said to have peaceably seceded "during the retreat of the Imperial Navy." Prominent among these losses is the surrender of Osted Wermis, Commandant of Anaxes Citadel, on Anaxes (Solis Axum IV), the so-called "Defender of the Core" and headquarters of Azure Hammer Command, charged with defending the worlds of "Sector Zero," Imperial Center Oversector. The Bacta War states that "a fair number of military leaders and politicians proclaimed their loyalty to the Empire until Coruscant fell."

The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition explains that the Core Worlds Region had "comprised the heart of Palpatine's support" and "there were few who desired the destruction of the Empire" there. Nevertheless, the Imperial State rapidly lost control of this heartland of the galaxy, and the New Republic took control of much of it. However, at the same time the sourcebook states clearly that the Core Worlds had been "carefully insulated from the evils taking place in the outer regions" and as a result the New Republic enjoyed popular support that was "broad, but not particularly deep." It is not clear how the New Republic addressed the Mussolinification of life under the Empire, if it could even do so at all, being founded on the principle of decentralization and self-government; more than likely it hoped for local political pressure or revolution to reverse the more Palpatinistic policies in place on member states. Certainly the Dark Empire Sourcebook indicates that a large number of Imperial loyalists remained in important positions throughout the Core and the New Republic bureaucracy. In contrast, the Colonies Region, which "suffered through several brutal battles as the Empire prepared its retreat," had been much more vigorously administered by the Imperial State, and as a result came to be much more firmly supportive of the New Republic; presumably these brutal battles took place after the fall of Imperial Center, as the New Republic had only engaged in "planet hopping" campaigns before the Battle, and Isard had maintained her hold on most of the Inner Rim, Colonies, and Core Worlds Region throughout her regime.

In The Essential Chronology, the New Republic Historical Council concisely states that "as soon as Isard lost control," the collapse of the Empire "grew more severe as officers lost faith in their leaders." Leadership was very much a part of the problem: The Empire was accustomed to strong leadership, a tendency that had become very much more pronounced during the two and a half years of Isard's dictatorship. Yet there was now no single leader strong enough to take command as she had done. Isard's synchronization policy of centralized defense had undermined the command and control functions of the Sector Governors, and instead entrusted the High Command with responsibility for deploying and commanding the Imperial Armed Forces. Yet much of the High Command had been killed or captured with the fall of Imperial Center, and there was now little in the way of an Imperial general staff to command the centralized forces. In place of Iceheart the dictatrix, the Imperial State was now directed by "the coalition that had replaced Isard," according to Solo Command. This coalition was the heterogenous and fractious Emperor's Ruling Circle, hitherto united only by their opposition to the Grand Vizier's and Isard's regimes. Without this common element, there was little impetus to maintain solidarity amongst themselves, and each faction within the Circle sought to aggrandize itself at the other factions' expense.

Chronologically, the Ruling Circle is first mentioned in Cracken's Threat Dossier, which states that Admiral Zsinj had chosen to defect from Imperial service in 39 rS rather than accept subordination to "a group of Palpatine's advisors led in force by the loathsome Ars Dangor" based on Imperial Center (this innocuous passage becomes important later because of its statement regarding Dangor). The Essential Chronology, however, dates Zsinj's defection as having happened within the first six months after the Battle of Endor, during the Grand Vizier's regency. For this reason it seems that the Ruling Circle had attempted to take control of the Imperial State at the same time as the Grand Vizier, and it resented the latter's success at establishing himself as the de facto ruler; relations between the Ruling Circle and the Grand Vizier evidently remained strained for the duration of the Grand Vizier's regency. Oddly, most stories actually set in this time period do not use the name "Emperor's Ruling Circle" at all. The Grand Vizier and his effectual prime minister Ysanne Isard both refer to "the Cabal" in "In the Empire's Service," while the Grand Vizier is formally replaced by a triumvirate called the Tribunal in "Mandatory Retirement." The Tribunal consisted of two Tribunes, Challer and Plumba, and one Tribunal Leader, General Paltr Carvin; earlier the story depicts Isard reporting to a committee of at least six members earlier in the story, of whom Carvin is one. Neither the Tribunal nor the second committee is mentioned in other sources.

Indeed, most other sources gloss over the Grand Vizier's ouster and Isard's own coup d'état against the Tribunal. "The Emperor's Pawns" calls the ERC "the Imperial Ruling Council" and claims that Sarcev Quest betrayed the Grand Vizier's clone and left him to the Ruling Circle and to Isard. In The New Essential Guide to Characters, the scribe calls it "the Imperial Interim Ruling Council" and the Grand Vizier's "rivals in the Ruling Circle." In Wedge's Gamble, Admiral Ackbar says that the Grand Vizier was overthrown by "a coup by a coterie of other Imperial advisers" but at the same time says that Ysanne Isard, the Director of Imperial Intelligence, "deftly undercut the bureaucrats she had used to vanquish Pestage and took control of the Empire for herself," and The Bacta War agrees by calling the Ruling Circle "a cabal of Imperial Advisors" that "ousted [the Grand Vizier] from power." In The Essential Chronology, the Historical Council calls the ERC "Palpatine's former advisory staff" and claims that "Isard ruthlessly exterminated the Ruling Circle and assumed the throne," which 's Databank agrees with by claiming that "the Ruling Circle of Imperial officials came to power next, but it was only a matter of time before Isard had them slain as well." These sources seem to agree that the late Galactic Emperor's Privy Counsellors form the basic core of the Ruling Circle, although "Mandatory Retirement" clearly indicates that there are also commissioned officers of the Armed Forces involved, as evidenced by Carvin's position as Tribunal Leader. The Dark Empire Sourcebook heavily implies that the former "Imperial Advisors" and grandees of the Galactic Emperor's Imperial court form the backbone of the Ruling Circle, comparing their position in the Empire to that of the Provisional Council in the New Republic, a non-elected junta which evidently exercised absolute power subject to no check outside its own membership. The same source, however, also refers to members of the ruling class as "squabbling ministers," "munitions tycoons and functionaries," and The Essential Chronology refers to "a coalition of moffs and Imperial advisers," "the coalition of advisers," and "moffs, governors, and other political leaders." These disparate interests, in many ways incompatible with one another, were all collected into the Ruling Circle.

The Dark Empire Sourcebook provides a broad outline of the period of the Ruling Circle's direct control of the Imperial State, one of the few sources to touch on the period in any detail. It mentions that "charismatic leaders who seemed capable of asserting power were toppled by jealous rivals and their own greed," and that "public confidence was eroding rapidly" in light of the crisis in leadership. Internal leadership in individual Sectors "had not changed significantly," but nevertheless "Mon Cal cruisers, Corellian Corvettes and the rest of the Republic fleet drove Star Destroyers from planet after planet," provoking increasingly pessimistic public sentiment. Furthermore, the Imperial State's command and control systems were breaking down, as "access codes changed overnight, troops received inconsistent orders, and commanders were intractable and independent" (this is symptomatic of the increasing problem of rogue warlordism), and "the Navy might order a system under Rebel siege defended, only to find a few weeks later the same fleet had been, with all proper procedure, redirected to an insignificant fortress world deep in the Core" (the Prologue also refers to this breakdown in command and control by saying "whole squadrons and battlegroups abandoned strategic objectives to follow seemingly random dispatches from competing authorities"). As the Empire lost its grip on the Core Worlds, Inner Rim, and Expansion Regions, it began to suffer serious financial crises, as HIM Treasury was no longer receiving anything remotely like the revenues it had once collected; exacerbating this situation was the fact that "huge sums continued to be spent on useless projects," such as the construction of an Imperial residence in the Corporate Sector and the construction of the late Galactic Emperor's personal flagship, Eclipse; this too was no doubt affected by the loss of comprehensive and accurate treasury records along with Imperial Center, thus explaining why the finance ministry was unable to "streamline the enormous spending programs" and "guarantee proper apportionment of credits vital to the perimeter defense efforts" (quite simply, if the ERC didn't know exactly how much was being appropriated for any given project, or if it didn't even had records of all projects, it would be impossible to properly organize them).

The Dark Empire Sourcebook further states that the Imperial State "disintegrated under its own weight, splintering into countless independent factions with cautious allegiances to other factions, all swearing loyalty to the 'Empire'," while "party officials, admirals and advisors jockeyed for some clear mandate." Warlordism and secessionism became increasingly acute, and the rapidly expanding New Republic continued to advance on Imperial territory, "claiming system after system, sector after sector." Indeed, some of the power blocs within the Empire simply "surrendered and were absorbed into the growing Republic." The Ruling Circle's rule was clearly insufficient to control the dying Empire, and a mere six months after its assumption of power in early 42 rS, Admiral Betl Oxtroe opened secret negotiations with the New Republic for the creation of a parliamentary monarchy, with the Galactic Emperor's "eleven year old remote grandniece" Ederlathh Pallopides as a purely ceremonial Galactic Empress, and the New Republic's Provisional Council replacing the Ruling Circle as the actual ruling class; Oxtroe was assassinated by what is believed to have been a Noghri Death Commando after the first round of these secret talks, and her proposals were never again put forward.

While the Empire was busily breaking its own back with its death throes, charismatic and audacious rogue warlords rose to increasing prominence, most especially the self-styled Imperial Warlord Zsinj, who had since come to control a third of the galaxy, according to the Rebellion Era Sourcebook. The greatest of all the rogue warlords, Zsinj is said by The Essential Chronology to have "gained many new officers, ships, and planets during the post-Isard defections," and was revealed in Solo Command to have a matching financial empire of aliases, pseudonyms, holding companies, and dummy corporations extending not only throughout his own territory, but that of the New Republic and of the Empire as well. Dressed in the immaculate white of an Imperial grand admiral, Zsinj surveyed his vast domain from a Super Star Destroyer, the Iron Fist (originally HIMS Brawl, placed under his command by the Galactic Emperor himself). Zsinj's habit of expanding his territory at his neighbors' expense brought him into inevitable conflict with the New Republic and his former masters in the Empire, and both commissioned special task forces to deal with him, commanded by General Han Solo and Fleet Admiral Teren Rogriss, respectively. For five months Zsinj battled directly and indirectly with both task forces, at one point even going so far as to launch a sneak attack on Kuat in an attempt to steal the new Super Star Destroyer Razor's Kiss in Iron Fist. Finally, Solo and Rogriss agreed to informally coordinate their efforts, and Zsinj was soundly defeated in the Battle of Selaggis, seemingly resulting in the destruction of his flagship Iron Fist (in reality, Zsinj fled with Iron Fist to Rancor Base, an enormous 10-kilometer shipyard and naval base orbiting Dathomir in the Outer Rim, defended by "dozens of old Victory-class models and escort frigates, thousands of box-like barges"). Nevertheless, even this defeat did not eliminate Zsinj as a threat, and his holdings remained extensive and formidable until his unexpected death — he was vaporized by concussion missiles fired directly into Iron Fist's bridge by Solo's tramp freighter SS Millennium Falcon — in the Battle of Dathomir with a Hapan battle fleet in The Courtship of Princess Leia.

Zsinj's death in 43 rS set off what was apparently one of the most violent struggles in the history of the Civil War and the ensuing wars. According to the Historical Council, the Ruling Circle ordered Rogriss and other fleet commanders into Zsinj's empire, even as the New Republic and other warlords — most notably the self-styled High Admiral of the Mid-Rim, Teradoc — did the same. The fighting apparently resulted in the destruction of a large number of the ships donated to the New Republic by the Hapes Consortium as well as many of their captured Imperial Star Destroyers (specifically, NRS Crynyd was destroyed, NRS Liberator and NRS Emancipator were heavily damaged and sent to undergo extensive repairs at the Hast Shipyards, and NRS Rebel Dream was "mercilessly shelled" and recaptured by HIMS Peremptory). The culmination of this exhausting campaign, during which "the Republic and Empire suffered grave fleet losses," was the capture by the New Republic of the highly-prized Kuat, one of the most important shipbuilding centers in the galaxy (KDY's senior design team fled to the Deep Core aboard "the half-completed warship Eclipse"); although The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology states that pro-New Republic administrators were installed in the halls of Kuat Drive Yards' corporate headquarters, Imperial loyalists remained in control of parts of the company. In any case, the question was academic, as the New Republic's capture of Kuat is said by The Essential Chronology to have caused such extensive damage to the yards themselves that "new construction was delayed indefinitely," thus depriving both the New Republic and the Imperial State of their services.

By this time, the Empire was ailing badly. Most of the Core Worlds Region had been lost early in the Ruling Circle's tenure, as had the Colonies Region and the Inner Rim Region, although The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition notes that the Inner Rim Region "was held by the Empire far longer than New Republic analysts expected," giving rise to a great deal of popular resentment against the New Republic for its perceived failure to drive the Empire out in a more timely manner. The Expansion Region, formerly a source of "rich tax revenues," was now "generally allied with the New Republic," leaving most of the Imperial State's holdings in the backwater Outer Rim (which had long ago ceased to be a major Imperial holding) and the resource-poor Mid-Rim Region, which was infested with pirate fleets and rogue warlords, and "private empires," which the Imperial State apparently tolerated on the condition that they supply troops and tribute to the Empire proper. The latest series of clashes had left the New Republic with control of three quarters of the galaxy, according to The Essential Chronology, leaving the Empire to share the remaining quarter with other independent states and rogue warlords, such as the Commonality, the Corporate Sector, the Pentastar Alignment, the Centrality, the Tion Hegemony, and Hutt Space (many of these independent states were formerly Imperial client states). Even much of these holdings were theoretical at best; some warlords, like Moff Governor Getelles of Antemeridian Sector and the self-styled Prince-Admiral Delak Krennel of the Ciutric Hegemony, recognized a nominal suzerainty on the part of the Imperial State, but little else; the Imperial State's territories in Wild Space, formally annexed by Grand Admiral Thrawn according to A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, Second Edition, were also largely nominal, as the Empire was "too busy to enforce its subjugation."

Although the Imperial State held onto its shipyards at Bilbringi in the Inner Rim, it had in fact lost most of its major shipyards, including Kuat, Corellia, Duro, Sluis Van, and Imperial Center (the disposition and allegiance of Rendili and Loronar are not known during this period), thus depriving it of much of its capacity to manufacture the Imperial Starfleet's larger warships, although some shipyards like Ord Trasi and Yaga Minor remained in the Outer Rim. At the same time, enormous numbers of Imperial warships were simply disappearing, vanishing into the Deep Galactic Core, making the Navy's losses during the recent fighting over Zsinj's territory all the more debilitating. It was quite fortunate that in an Isardian twist, Kuat — like Brentaal in 39 rS — had been denied to the New Republic as well, and a sudden and unexpected Imperial raid on the New Republic's secret Hast Shipyards resulted in that yard's also being rendered inert, and single-handedly "helped throw the Republic's plans years behind schedule," "cutting short a planned campaign against what remained of the Empire," according to the Dark Empire Sourcebook.From its very beginning as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's comprehensive program for socio-economic reform, the New Order had enjoyed powerful corporate sponsorship. One large corporation, SoroSuub Corporation, a conglomerate which rivaled TaggeCo. in sheer variety of markets, actually allied with the rebel Alliance before the Battle of Endor in 39 rS, becoming one of the New Republic's staunchest allies; Balmorran Arms, chief manufacturer of the Imperial Army's AT-ST and SD series war androids, abandoned the Empire when Balmorra itself did in 40 rS. Two of the largest and most important of the Empire's corporate partners, TaggeCo. and KDY, had fallen into irregular relationships, with pro-New Republic administrators being installed in corporate headquarters on Tepasi and Kuat; a third, Santhe/Sienar Technologies (SST), was now fully independent, and freely sold its products to both the Empire and to the New Republic, according to The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology. The same source mentions that artillery manufacturer Golan Arms "allied itself with the New Republic" after a fight with the Imperial Army's bureaucracy resulted in most of its contracts being cancelled, and that Czerka Arms, a voracious corporate imperium in imperio, cancelled its exclusive distribution deal with the Imperial State and began making weapons sales to the New Republic. Arms & Equipment Guide Extras! mention that Arakyd Industries, a major weapons, starship, and automaton manufacturer, "sold its products without concern of political background," despite the claim in The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels that it "remains a loyal Imperial company" "despite the death of Emperor Palpatine." The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition states that "the Empire had lost control of the corporations which manufactured its weapons and supplies."

Furthermore, the collapse of the Empire, rise of the New Republic, and proliferation of independent states created instability in currency, a phenomenon last seen during the Separatist crisis preceding the Clone War in the 10s rS, as described in "Currency Upheavals Deliver Profits to IBC." The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition explains that at the height of the Empire's power, the Imperial credit was universally accepted, "even outside the boundaries of the Empire." However, the collapse of the Imperial State resulted in this Imperial credit going out of circulation, replaced by the New Republic credit and a new Imperial credit (which was used only in Imperial territory and in the so-called Borderland Regions, unaffiliated and independent areas of space between Imperial and Neo-Republican territory); oddly, Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds states that the InterGalactic Banking Clan (IBC) on Muunilinst III was guarantor of both currencies and presumably functioned as the central bank for both rival states (even though Muunilinst remained Imperial territory, the Imperial State was unable to act against the IBC without destabilizing its own currency). Furthermore, the relative value of the two currencies fluctuated wildly, a problem exacerbated by the fact that "many planets, local governments and other corporations have their own currencies, which may or may not be accepted depending on where in the galaxy you are," which of course provoked currency speculation, which in turn encouraged lack of faith in money; barter became an increasingly preferred means of exchange. The Dark Empire Sourcebook mentions that in this time period "corporations go bankrupt or make fortunes on a regular basis," that "companies default on their loans and use military force to dissuade creditors," and "the value of the myriad of currencies in the galaxy fluctuates more rapidly than financial market computers can calculate," which, in addition to rampant piracy, made commerce extremely risky. The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition even points out that these "fears of economic instability" and "lack of new incentives to restart the engines of industry" had dragged the galactic economy into depression, leaving even the New Republic "far from wealthy" and needing to "scrounge for supplies and ships."

The arrival of the year 44 rS found the Ruling Circle ruling an Imperial State with nominal control of "barely a quarter of the galaxy" and suffering from a stagflated economy and lack of ships and resources. The Dark Empire Sourcebook explains that the Ruling Circle suddenly and quite unexpectedly received "a series of ident codes" from the Unknown Regions, which were "unquestionably authentic" and "accompanied a holo message" from the last of Isard's pet Loyalist grand admirals, Grand Admiral Thrawn, the last Warlord of the Empire (a title whose precise
significance is unknown, but which appears to have been distributed at the Galactic Emperor's pleasure, as the Dark Empire Sourcebook refers to him as "the last of the Emperor's Warlords," and Heir to the Empire states that his "brilliant successes had won him the title of Warlord and the right to wear the white uniform of Grand Admiral — the only nonhuman ever granted that honor by the Emperor"). The Essential Chronology states that Thrawn was promptly occupied for six months with reorganizing the fleet and commanding "strategic raids along the New Republic-Imperial border," which "weren't sufficient to panic the New Republic," but served to impress the Ruling Circle (referred to as "the moffs, governors, and other political leaders"); evidently this included having Imperial warships patrol deep within New Republic space, as the smuggler Mara Jade was detained in Dark Force Rising by HIMS Adamant, a Victory Star Destroyer patrolling the Abregado system,
which Coruscant and the Core Worlds explicitly states to have been a lawless port on the edge of the Core Worlds Region. The Dark Empire Sourcebook explains that the Ruling Circle quickly put aside their differences and decided that Thrawn would be the perfect figurehead, being a non-human with "no power base save his own competence," who could "rely on no support other than what they chose to give him." In the event of his success, they would back him and reap the rewards of his conquests. In the event that he should prove "too independent," they resolved to have him assassinated. Thus in agreement, the Ruling Circle appointed him their supreme commander and Thrawn was "effectively handed the reins of the Empire."

The Essential Chronology states that Thrawn "consolidated loyal Imperial forces," which probably refers to the quasi-independent pocket empires under nominal Imperial suzerainty in the Mid-Rim; The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition states that "many such areas" controlled by the Empire were "firmly controlled by the Imperial starfleet, which for the time being has rallied around Grand Admiral Thrawn," but "this is a tenuous alliance at best," as "many of the regions of 'Imperial Space' are actually small dictatorships, administered and controlled by the Moffs who were directed to run them for the Emperor in years past." (The Dark Empire Sourcebook adds that "Thrawn's support was far from universal or even enthusiastic.") Second to this consolidation of Imperial command and control, the Historical Council further states that he "marginalized warlord fiefdoms" such as Ardus Kaine's Pentastar Alignment and the Prince-Admiral of the Ciutric Hegemony (although
Isard's Revenge indicates that the latter gave some financial support to the Imperial State during Thrawn's shōgunate). According to Thrawn's flag captain, Captain Gilad Pellaeon (Commanding Officer, HIMS Chimaera), actual operations during this period generally consisted of "minor shipping raid[s]" and "complex but straightforward hit-and-fade[s] against some insignificant planetary base." One such minor operation was the information raid on Obroa-skai seen in Heir to the Empire.Thrawn used information recovered from Obroa-skai to find his way to Wayland, an obscure planet which happened to house one of the Galactic Emperor's private storehouses; among those items to be found in this particular storehouse was a working cloaking device (which The Essential Chronology states was a derivative of the late Grand Admiral Martio Batch's defunct Vorknkx Project), and 20,000 cloning cylinders manufactured during the Clone War by Spaarti Creations, as seen in "Hero of Cartao." He also obtained the services of an insane clone of Jorus C'baoth, a Jedi Master who had formerly been "Jedi Advisor" to Senator Palpatine; for some inexplicable reason, this clone mispronounces his own given name as "Joruus," which Thrawn tells his flag captain is a telltale sign of his identity as a clone (more probably, Thrawn knew that Joruus C'baoth was a clone based on the rather more mundane evidence that he had killed Master Jedi Jorus C'baoth on then-Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's orders several years before, as mentioned in Heir to the Empire). One month after joining the Grand Admiral's war effort, the dangerously unstable C'baoth proclaimed himself the legitimate heir to the Galactic Emperor, a claim which was ignored by everyone not under C'baoth's direct influence (for his part, Thrawn chose to indulge C'baoth's fantasy that the Chiss warlord continued to serve as shōgun of the Empire at his pleasure).

Although Thrawn had finally found a partial solution to the stormtrooper and manpower shortage which had been plaguing the Empire since Isard's regency — partial, because with only 20,000 cylinders and a gestation period of 15 to 20 days (as stated in The Last Command), Thrawn could only decant about 35,000 to 47,000 clones per 35-day month, which is only equivalent to a full ship's company of an Imperial Star Destroyer — , he encountered the strategist's worst logistical nightmare: he now had more troops than he had ships to move them. His first solution to this crippling shortage of ships was to attempt to steal warships from the Sluis Van shipyards, where there were "a hundred ships [...] at any given time, not to mention the docking facilities themselves," according to Commander Wedge Antilles. Despite personally commanding the strike force, he was defeated in battle and wisely withdrew once it was clear he could not accomplish his goal (he had, however, successfully crippled forty New Republic warships, which were "grievously damaged, and removed from military service until their bridges could be rebuilt," which would take months, according to The Essential Chronology). Still, hoping to get as much value out of the operation as possible, Thrawn used Imperial Intelligence — which the scholars call in the Star Wars Encyclopedia "one of the best trained and professional parts of the Empire to survive the Battle of Endor," and is said to have "fully supported" Thrawn — to manufacture a scandal against Ackbar, effecting his removal as the New Republic's supreme commander in Dark Force Rising; aside from Ackbar and the former Grand Admiral Grant, in quiet retirement on Rathalay — "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals" indicates that he waited the entire length of Thrawn's War for an invitation to fight his ex-colleague, confident in his ability to defeat the Chiss generalissimo — , there was no one in the New Republic who could match Thrawn's tactical brilliance.

With the failure of his scheme to steal New Republic warships in Heir to the Empire, Thrawn needed to find another source to supplement the new construction being undertaken at the Bilbringi, Ord Trasi, and Yaga Minor shipyards (all of which were mentioned as being active in The Last Command). He decided to make use of the fabled lost Katana fleet of Dreadnought heavy cruisers, which had vanished into hyperspace shortly before the outbreak of the Clone War in 13 rS, according to Dark Force Rising; these Dreadnoughts had been modified so as to be less manpower-intensive than the standard model. This operation was largely successful; at the cost of a single Imperial Star Destroyer — HIMS Peremptory, destroyed by collision with an unmanned Dreadnought during a battle with New Republic forces — Thrawn had recovered 178 of the 200 derelict heavy cruisers (The Essential Chronology states that fifteen remained unclaimed, to which must be added former Imperial Senator Garm Bel Iblis's six refitted Dreadnoughts and the Dreadnought which collided with Peremptory, both mentioned in Dark Force Rising).

Thrawn had kept up a brisk operational tempo throughout the Empire's forces since his appointment as the Ruling Circle's generalissimo, but it was not until a month after the Katana fleet skirmish — a time that Pellaeon described as being occupied with "frenzied preparations" — that he finally felt prepared for a full resumption of hostilities, seen in The Last Command. The first operation of Thrawn's "master campaign for the Empire's final victory" was the attack on Ukio (Abrion Sector), a complicated and elaborate affair in the Abrion and Dufilvian Sectors. The attack began with Captain Aban's Bellicose Battle Group — the Imperial Star Destroyer herself and eight of the recovered Katana Dreadnaughts — launching an attack on Ando, in the process drawing away ships from the New Republic's naval base at Ord Pardron; this attack was immediately followed by Captain Brandei's Judicator Battle Group's attack on Filve, Nemesis Battle Group's attack on Crondre, "and so on and so on," until the Ord Pardron base itself was badly underdefended and exposed to attack by Captain Harbid's Death's Head Battle Group. This in turn drew all available naval assets to relieve the beleaguered naval base, leaving them unable to come to the defense of Thrawn's true target: Ukio, which Luke Skywalker called "one of the top five producers of foodstuffs in the entire New Republic."

Ukio's planetary defense shield and ground/space arsenal would have ordinarily made it an unattractive target, necessitating heavy orbital bombardment, a lengthy siege, or an amphibious landing in force, any of which would require a sizeable investment in time and resources on the Empire's part, in addition to the difficulty of capturing so well defended a planet intact; Ukio was defended by a full-scale planetary deflector shield, as opposed to the theater deflector shield employed by the rebel Alliance at Hoth VI, which was in itself "powerful enough to deflect
any bombardment" by the late Darth Vader's Death Squadron, which was substantially larger than Chimaera and Stormhawk Battle Groups, which Thrawn had assigned to capture Ukio. To overcome this tactical and strategic problem, Thrawn made novel use of Batch's cloaking technology and C'baoth's preternatural abilities in order to create an effective illusion of his flagship accurately firing through the planetary deflector shields; this illusion was so effective that the Overliege of Ukio surrendered, with Thrawn's guarantee that there would be no war-status tax levies on the planet or conscription of Ukian youths. Nevertheless Thrawn made clear that Ukio would be expected to contribute its share toward the Imperial war effort, most probably making those contributions from its "extensive food production and processing facilities" and "food distribution system, the processing facilities, and vast farming and livestock grazing regions." In a single stroke, Thrawn acquired a major source of foodstuffs and supplies for his own forces, deprived the New Republic of the same in equal measure, and sent political shockwaves throughout Abrion Sector and its neighbors: Not only had the New Republic failed to defend so important a world as Ukio, and had a major naval base sustain severe damage, but now the Empire had a beachhead and staging point in the Sector, not to mention what appeared to be a powerful weapon capable of piercing even the most formidable of planetary defenses.

Ukio was only the beginning. Coruscant and the Core Worlds states that "Imperial forces seized a region of space bordering Abregado-rae," which the New Republic's strategists interpreted as a potential beachhead for invasion of the system itself in preparation for an "advance on Coruscant with a twin-pincer tactic through the galactic northern and southern quadrants," which was ultimately a game of misdirection, as Thrawn was quite unambiguous with his flag captain and C'baoth that he was not prepared for an attack on Coruscant. Instead, Thrawn invaded the Farrfin and Dolomar Sectors, where he met stiffer resistance than he had anticipated and had C'baoth repeat the Ukian fraud with Death's Head Battle Group at Woostri. He began planning an attack on Mrisst, in order to divert the Coruscant sector fleet to defend it, or else seize the planet and acquire a forward base, complementing the Abregado-rae beachhead, and personally led an attack on Ord Mantell to destabilize the surrounding region of space and ease New Republic pressure on the Empire's shaky shipyard supply lines; already the Bilbringi Naval Shipyard was running low on Tibanna gas, as well as hfredium and kammris. Thrawn's response was to order an increase in Tibanna production from the garrison on Bespin and to order three Katana Dreadnaughts to Nkllon to steal Lando Calrissian's stockpiles of hfredium, kammris, dolovite, and other metals, rather than pay the rising market prices (the stockpiles, which were probably destined for sale to the New Republic, were worth some three million credits according to Calrissian). As with the capture of Ukio, the raid on Nkllon simultaneously deprived the New Republic of the same resources, with the added bonus that the mining facilities were crippled and would not soon replace the stolen metals.

Thrawn's campaign against the New Republic met with considerable success. As the Princess Leia of Alderaan's aide Dame Winter described the situation, "In the past five days we've effectively lost control of four sectors, and thirteen more are on the edge," a statement that Admiral Hiram Drayson — Mothma's pet admiral and evidently the New Republic's deputy supreme commander, although that is far from certain — supported with his claim that "at the rate he's going, Grand Admiral Thrawn could take three more sectors in ten days." It seems necessary that much of Thrawn's success was as much due to political victories as to military ones, given that Sectors can contain thousands of planets and stars. These victories could possibly owe much to propaganda and political fallout from spectacular triumphs like the bloodless conquests of Ukio and Woostri — indeed, The Essential Chronology states that "this trick worked so well that dozens of planets, thinking their defenses
hopelessly compromised, surrendered to the Empire without a fight" — or to the fact that Thrawn seemed invincible, even dealing a sound defeat to the New Republic's famed General Garm Bel Iblis at Qat Chrystac, where Thrawn's Star Destroyers and Dreadnaughts destroyed a third of Bel Iblis's ships before forcing the former Imperial Senator from Corellia to retreat. Coruscant and the Core Worlds states that at some point the Empire re-occupied Duro in the Core Worlds Region, while Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds mentions that the Empire also launched an attack on the major shipping port of Svivren, which ultimately resulted in defeat for the Imperial invasion forces, but in the process destroyed the Svivreni crystal gravfield trap (CGT) array. Thrawn was even so audacious as to launch a raid on Coruscant itself, an extended hit-and-fade operation intended to shake New Republic morale; the course of this raid involved the release of 22 cloaked asteroids into Coruscant's orbit, requiring the planetary deflector shields be kept up constantly to prevent a disastrous asteroid strike. He then proceeded to launch an attack on Atrivis Sector, capturing the New Republic's communications center on Generis and most of the sector fleet's supply depots, although the New Republic's General Kryll managed to evacuate the famous rebel leader Travia "Icewoman" Chan and her staff before Atrivis Sector fell. Thrawn then promptly oversaw the capture of Xa Fel and the heart of Kanchen Sector (The Last Command Sourcebook succinctly calls Xa Fel "one of Kuat Drive Yards' (KDY) major manufacturing facilities, producing fully 20 percent of the corporation's inventory of starship hyperdrive engines").

The New Republic's joint operations staff determined that it was necessary to relieve Coruscant of the phantom siege — Thrawn's attack force had simulated the launch of 287 asteroids, and the New Republic did not know there were only 22 actually released — and so determined to acquire a new CGT array in order to assist in searching for the asteroids. New Republic Intelligence located three available arrays, all in Imperial space. The joint operations staff decided to prepare a feint on the new Ubiqtorate base being constructed at Tangrene, while the real operation would be an assault on the Bilbringi Naval Shipyard, with the intent of stealing the CGT array and at the same time severely damaging the Empire's still limited shipbuilding capabilities (Talon Karrde's sources indicated that the New Republic was supposedly to devote two sector fleets to the attack on Tangrene). Thrawn's interpretation of Ackbar's and Bel Iblis's personalities — based on their tastes in art — led him to guess that the Tangrene operation was a cover for an attack on Bilbringi and immediately set out to prepare a trap, at the same time freely admitting to his flag captain that he had no intelligence to substantiate his guess, and indeed expressly prohibiting an increase in Imperial Intelligence operations near Bilbringi to identify Neo-Republican preparations, on the grounds that such operations would tip off the New Republic that their plan had been discovered.

Mere days before the attack on Tangrene was scheduled to go forward, Thrawn received word from High Colonel Kleyn Selid, garrison commander at Mount Tantiss on Wayland, that Thrawn's best general, General Freja Covell, had died hours after arriving at Wayland with a company of soldiers and troops intended to serve as templates for the cloning project. The matter was made even more unfortunate by the fact that Covell's death was a direct result of C'baoth's destructive form of mind control; Thrawn ordered C'baoth's immediate arrest and detention in the Galactic Emperor's quarters in Mount Tantiss, on the grounds that it was the safest place in the Empire to confine him. Unbeknownst to Thrawn, a team of New Republic saboteurs led by a trio of former New Republic generals — Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Lando Calrissian — had already arrived on Wayland to destroy the cloning facilities, having obtained the planet's location from the former Emperor's Hand, Mara Jade, who had once accompanied the Galactic Emperor to Wayland.

Somewhat earlier in the course of Thrawn's War, the smuggler chieftains Mazzic and Ellor had launched a surprise attack on the Bilbringi Naval Shipyard, destroying an Imperial Star Destroyer that was nearing completion as a rather costly vengeance for an Imperial raid that had killed Mazzic's friend. Since then, Thrawn had ordered the Shipyard's commandant, High General Theol Drost, to reorganize the security measures; Drost had positioned shield generators throughout the yards to create security fields preventing traffic from flowing through the yards except in flight paths predetermined and assigned by Bilbringi Control, where the CGT array was. The smuggler chieftain Talon Karrde — Mara Jade's current employer — convinced other smuggler chiefs to combine their fleets to steal the CGT array from Bilbringi during the New Republic attack on Tangrene and sell it to the New Republic; as a result, a sizeable fifth column of ships was within the Shipyard facilities themselves when the Imperial battle fleet arrived and set up an entrapment formation, dragging the two New Republic sector fleets from hyperspace by means of Interdictor cruisers. Isard's Revenge indicates that the Imperial fleet had been arranged in a large bowl-like formation, with Golan II Space Defense Stations in place behind it protecting the yards themselves. Unfortunately for the Empire, the combination of the New Republic fleet and the smuggler forces damaged the Golan II stations, and exposed the Shipyard itself to enemy attack. Even as Thrawn prepared to maneuver his forces in response, he received word of an attack on Mount Tantiss — although Thrawn did not yet know it, the cloning facilities had been destroyed and C'baoth killed — and Thrawn himself was assassinated aboard his own flagship by his bodyguard, a Noghri Death Commando named Rukh clain Baikh'vair, in revenge for the Imperial State's deliberate and treacherous policy of holding his species in perpetual servitude. Panicked, Thrawn's flag captain immediately ordered a full retreat, leaving the entire Bilbringi Naval Shipyard in the hands of the New Republic.

Thrawn's successes were remarkable, especially given the desperate strategic, financial, and political situation he'd inherited upon assuming the supreme command of Imperial forces. He had commanded a successful war against a numerically, militarily, and strategically superior enemy despite severe handicaps, demonstrating ingenuity and genius in a war quite unlike any that his predecessors Admiral Terrinald Screed and Darth Vader had ever fought. Despite the fact that he was only the supreme commander and not regent like the Grand Vizier and Isard, Thrawn was the first strong leader the Empire had seen since the fall of Isard's dictatorial regime; indeed, Thrawn's shōgunate ultimately reflects better on his prowess as a leader than Isard's regency reflects on hers. Isard the regent had acquired her position through treachery and ruthlessness, whereas Thrawn the shōgun's rise to power was the product of pure merit. Isard had ruled a vast Empire with every advantage, and had lost it to the rebel Alliance; Thrawn had commanded a crippled and demoralized Empire banished to the galactic backwater, and yet had become the first Imperial leader to retake territory that had been lost to the Empire's enemies; The Essential Chronology says that Thrawn's War, which lasted somewhat less than six months, nearly doubled the size of the Empire. Thrawn had succeeded brilliantly despite commanding the forces of an Empire plagued by chronic shortages of resources, manpower, ships, and money, and still ruled by a fractious cabal of intrigants.

Unfortunately, Thrawn was a one-man show, and there was no one else in the Empire who could take his place when he was killed; the result was an immediate collapse of the Imperial offensive after his assassination. The High Command had evidently not been involved in much of the strategic planning; like some musical prodigy, Thrawn appeared to do all of his operational planning in his head, and only then informed his subordinates of their assigned tasks (Pash Cracken notes for example that he didn't think Thrawn personally commanded the attack on Generis, but "he sure planned out the assault"). He kept his own counsel and only discussed his plans with his flag captain; his only interaction with his best general, General Freja Covell, was to give him his marching orders and to subject him to professional discourtesies like attempting to micromanage his operations (such as giving him instructions on how to deploy his already-advancing cavalry force on Myrkyr in Dark Force Rising). While Thrawn may have been a genius, he did little to endear himself to his senior commanders, treating them as little more than junior watchstanders. He had not even so much as informed his "top Fleet and army commanders" about the Mount Tantiss project until two weeks before Covell was to lead a force of clones to the surface of Ukio, according to The Last Command. Furthermore Thrawn was poor at delegating responsibility, and frequently commanded operations in person; this necessarily left the coordination of concurrent operations in other theaters to someone far less qualified and not privy to all the details of the overall strategy, while the supreme commander exposed himself to unnecessary danger and wasted his time with work that should have been delegated to a competent task force commander or fleet commander. Thrawn's uniqueness was simultaneously his greatest strength and his greatest weakness: his death left the Imperial State in the unenviable position of having to replace an irreplaceable supreme commander. With his death, the entire Imperial war effort ground to a halt, and, as The Essential Chronology puts it, "the New Republic began recapturing its lost territory, planet by planet."

Part IV: Operation Shadow Hand and the Twilight of the Empire,

Even before 42 rS brought the fall of Imperial Center — and with it, Isard's regency — there were some circles of the Imperial ruling class that had realized that it might be prudent to seek alternatives to reliance on the Imperial State for defense of their power and holdings. The Dark Empire Sourcebook states that some of these New Order loyalists —having a "vested interest in seeing the Empire endure" — remained in place and "feigned loyalty to the New Republic," leaving the New Republic's civil service "noble in its intentions" but "riddled with Imperial holdouts," prompting a long and largely unsuccessful policy of "de-imperialization." Other "lords, nobles and governors," thinking it likely that Imperial Center itself might someday fall to the rebel Alliance, found that they had "little recourse but to leave before being overrun." Soon thereafter, "Coruscant, Alsakan, Grizmallt, Wukkar, and a host of the most heavily populated worlds" fell to the Alliance, Isard's regency collapsed, and the Emperor's Ruling Circle came into power. Still others, closer to the Deep Core, remained defiant, like the Inquisitorius's headquarters world of Prakith in "Byss and the Deep Core, Part 3: Prakith," a world so heavily defended that it was reputed as one of the leading examples of the so-called "Fortress Worlds" (Dark Empire succinctly says "whole systems became fortresses, bristling with firepower"). With the collapse of the Imperial State and breakdown of Imperial command and control, Prakith's Moff Governor Foga Brill established a brutally repressive totalitarian police state, which controlled the commissions and postings of officers with "commission fees and annual posting assignments," paying off favors to "wealthy families" with "command ranks that drew pay in goods and gold instead of Prakith scrip," and controlled its enlisted personnel by leaving "the security of their families to Brill's promise of the protection of the Red Police for the daughters and wives of those who protected his power with their lives," according to Shield of Lies; those whom Brill's government did not draft into the navy were "drafted into the slit mines or the foundaries," or else were "one of the hundreds rousted nightly from the riverbanks in Prall and Skoth to dig their own graves." Nor was Brill's Terrorist rogue state alone in the outskirts of the Deep Core; in The Essential Chronology, the New Republic Historical Council mentions that the pocket empires of Supreme Warlord Harrsk and High Admiral Teradoc were both located on the fringes of the Deep Galactic Core, among the Imperial "safe worlds," dangerously close to the New Republic's holdings in the Core Worlds Region. Nevertheless, as these pocket empires and warlord states were no longer part of the Galactic Empire proper and were fiercely competitive amongst themselves, the New Republic was not faced with the prospect of a two-front war.

With the assassination of Thrawn at Bilbringi in 44 rS and the collapse of his shōgunate, the tide of Thrawn's War immediately turned against the Empire. Perhaps out of panic, Thrawn's flag captain, Captain Gilad Pellaeon, ordered the fleet to regroup near the Unknown Regions, despite the fact that Bilbringi was in the Inner Rim (given the insensibility of this order, it is possible that the New Republic Historical Council, notional authors of The Essential Chronology, may have erred in this matter, or else Pellaeon may have ordered a withdrawal vertically relative to the galaxy's disk). The same source does mention that the sudden loss of leadership provoked a new collapse into warlordism and sectarianism, while "the New Republic began recapturing its lost territory, planet by planet," "amazed at the ease with which they swept up small pieces of the Empire, as if the Imperial fleet had gone into hiding." Indeed, Isard's Revenge indicates that the New Republic had immediately seized control of the Bilbringi Naval Shipyard, even going so far as to finish repair and refitting work on the captured Super Star Destroyer HIMS Lusankya there. Encouraged, the New Republic Defense Forces (NRDF) undertook a campaign against Isard's former Loyalist admiral and rogue warlord, Delak Krennel, Prince-Admiral of the Ciutric Hegemony, who had murdered the Grand Vizier's clone in 39 rS and was now believed by New Republic Intelligence (NRI) to have custody of Imperial Intelligence's missing political prisoners, including among them the rebel Alliance's Lieutenant General Jan Dodonna, architect of the Alliance's victory in the Battle of Yavin in 35 rS. With the Prince-Admiral's death in battle and the annexation of his territories in Isard's Revenge, The Essential Chronology says that the NRDF "pushed forward still farther," and that "the Empire had lost nearly all of its recently won territory" "in only a short time since the death of Thrawn." Flush with victory, the Provisional
Government of the New Republic ordered its forces "outward into the Imperially held sections of the Rim, leaving Coruscant and the Core Worlds relatively unprotected."

Dark Empire says that "within days of Thrawn's downfall, surviving members of the Emperor's Ruling Circle, in concert with six former Starfleet commanders," launched a surprise attack on the Core Worlds. The Essential Chronology mentions that "within days" of the new alliance between the Empire and the six rogue warlords, "the Imperials conquered several key systems." The Dark Empire Sourcebook lists among these conquests "the nearby Kaikielius and Metellos systems," which so alarmed the Provisional Government that they decided to "select a new command base immediately." Coruscant and the Core Worlds mentions the ferocity of the Empire's assault, with "an Imperial armada under the command of Admiral Delvardus" — the rogue warlord and self-titled "Superior General" who had laid claim to most of the Rimma Trade Route but had been forced into the Deep Core by military reverses — "shelled the planet in a cruel and wholly unnecessary show of force, killing more than five billion people." It is important to emphasize that such violence in the Core Worlds Region was unheard of throughout the Civil War of 35 - 39 rS; The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition notes that the Empire "carefully insulated" the Core Worlds from "the evils taking place in the outer regions." Indeed, the Core Worlds are known to have seen little to no rebel activity throughout the war, remaining firmly in Imperial hands until the fall of the Isard regency; even the fall of Brentaal IV in mid-39 rS and Coruscant in early 42 rS had been relatively limited military operations. Not since the destruction of the ecumenopolitan world of Humbarine by the Confederacy of Independent Systems in Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross-Sections during the Clone War of 13 - 16 rS had such violence been seen in the heart of the galaxy. "Retreat from Coruscant" describes the sudden appearance of an Imperial armada (including a very large number of Star Destroyers, Dreadnaught heavy cruisers, and smaller support ships) over Coruscant, and the beginning of a heavy bombardment against the planetary deflector shields which apparently lasted all night; hoping to spare the population the hardships of a long siege or an even more destructive amphibious assault, the New Republic abandoned the world and fled abroad, relocating its headquarters to the secret Pinnacle Base on the fifth moon of Da Soocha in the Cyax system. Interestingly, The Jedi Academy Sourcebook indicates that the Imperial attack came as the New Republic was "celebrating our victory over Thrawn," and that "between the first wave of attack, the ensuing battles, and the evacuation," the New Republic "lost over 60 percent of the Army's command staff," including "the upper hierarchy" and "many of our best COs, even those stationed on other worlds." With one swift stroke, the New Republic was humiliated and its army decapitated; the Dark Empire Sourcebook mentions that "a formal ceremony to reconsecrate the capitol city earned General Balan fame throughout Imperial space and a triumphal parade."

The renewed Imperial offensive continued even after the recapture of the re-(re-)named Imperial Center. The Dark Empire Sourcebook mentions an Imperial siege of Caprioril, "a New Republic Sector capital, " during which Major Arhul Hextrophon, the Executive Secretary and Master Historian, Alliance High Command, — the notional editor-in-chief of both the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook (in continuity, it is The Official History of the Rebellion, Volume One) and the Imperial Sourcebook (in continuity, it is a companion report to the Official History), and quite probably a member of the New Republic Historical Council — was injured in an assassination attempt. Nor did the offensive stop there; Coruscant and the Core Worlds mentions the capture of Esseles III and Ralltiir (Ralt II) in the Darpa Sector — the banking world of Ralltiir was nearly totally evacuated — , of Duro II in Duro Sector (during the capture of Duro, the newly-promoted Vice Admiral Pellaeon's flagship HIMS Chimaera was severely damaged and abandoned, with the loss of "many of Pellaeon's most loyal and skilled officers," according to The Essential Chronology), and of Corulag (Corulus IV) in Bormea Sector, this last world becoming "a major battleground" during the offensive, with heavy damage being sustained by the capital city of Curamelle and other major metropolises on the planet. The Historical Council describes the capture of Chandrila II in Bormea Sector, but Coruscant and the Core Worlds claims that the world was unaffected during this phase of the war, while the Dark Empire Sourcebook indicates that Hextrophon was convalescing on Chandrila at Mothma's dacha at Lake Sah'Ot, and that he gave a guest lecturer at the Brionelle Memorial Military Academy shortly after the events of Dark Empire, which suggests that the Empire's hand rested very lightly indeed on the pastoral world. The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons describes the re-annexation of Balmorra, near the inner edge of the Core Worlds Region, and The Essential Chronology summarizes by saying that "Ralltiir, Chandrila, Esseles, and other key Core Worlds soon fell to the Imperials." By the time of the Dark Empire Sourcebook, the Empire had "regained the Core Worlds, and still holds the Deep Galactic Core, as well as many high industry regions beyond the Core Worlds," in addition to supplying its fleets from "power bases in the Mid-Rim and the reclaimed Inner Rim, where industrial planets depend on wartime economies to survive." The re-conquest of the Core Worlds and Inner Rim Regions, combined with existing Imperial territories in the Mid-Rim and Outer Rim Territories Regions, had the effect of "linking Imperial holdings all the way to Wild Space." "Once control of these vital planets was ensured," the sourcebook says, "the Empire began bulwarking them against further attack." In only a few months the balance of power had been shifted radically, and the Galactic Empire was once again galactic in fact as well as in name.

The grandees of the Emperor's Ruling Circle were determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past, and the Dark Empire Sourcebook states that they immediately sought "more drastic measures to guarantee their control over these worlds," "the newly reinstalled nobles" being little reassured by Balan's triumph. Inspired by the so-called "Fortress Worlds" of the Deep Core like Prakith, the powers that be "set out to fortify their worlds," with impenetrable planetary deflector shields being de rigueur amongst the members of the ruling coalition, who amassed" perimeter defense squadrons" of ships loyal to themselves personally to form "an overpowering border guard," ranging from the 30 ships defending the shipyards of Gyndine to the hundreds of warships defending the banking world of Aargau (Zug III). Nor did they stop at these measures, having "the wealth to indulge their paranoia," creating "airless moons" that "bristled with turbolaser and ion cannon emplacements" and "asteroid belts" that were "mined with anti-matter particles and reflecting satellite arrays for surface based beams." The rise of the Fortress Worlds indicated a breakdown in trust by the members of the Ruling Circle in the ability of the Imperial State to defend their property and their interests, and set a dangerous precedent by unifying the politics of personality and control of armed force. In short, the rise of the Fortress Worlds signaled the triumph of warlordism within the Empire itself.

Thus infected with distrust for their fellow oligarchs, "the factions of the Empire" were now faced with the question of governmental reform. The moribund Imperial State had never recovered from the crippling fall of Imperial Center in 42 rS, and the haphazard style of the Ruling Circle was grossly insufficient to govern the vastly expanded Empire. It now went without saying that there could be no return to the disorganization and confusion that had followed Isard's regency and the humiliating retreat to the Outer Rim; regime change was necessary. According to the Dark Empire Sourcebook, Ars Dangor, still the most powerful man in the Empire and the de facto leader of the Emperor's Ruling Circle, led the surviving Privy Counsellors in proposing that the remains of the Privy Council should "convene in the old Senate building on Coruscant" and hold a conclave to elect a new Galactic Emperor, after which the Privy Council would form a legislature, "overseeing the new ruler's decisions." The Moffs and Grand Moffs who had managed to hold onto their power bases heartily approved of this plan, but demanded the right to vote with the Privy Counsellors, further suggesting that votes be apportioned according to "the number of worlds they controlled." As the Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition indicates that only weak Privy Counsellors were given large territories to govern as proconsuls, this proposal would naturally skew the votes against the powerful Privy Counsellors who remained. The "wealthy party functionaries and corrupt officials" of the
Commission for the Preservation of the New Order (COMPNOR) were disgusted by this proposal, decrying "any decision based on political convenience" as "nothing short of treasonous" and demanding "litmus tests of ideological purity." COMPNOR was a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization (QUANGO) that still controlled most of the bureaucracy and the totalitarian New Order Party's political machine on countless worlds throughout the Empire, and although COMPNOR's leadership could rely on the fervor of "CompForce chiefs and other New Order purists in the government" and had "regional armies and CompForces at their disposal," the fact remained that it had few voices in the Privy Council and did not actually directly control any planets at all, so it would effectively be frozen out of the new regime by either the Dangor Plan or the Moffplan. Furthermore, the Inquisitorius — a secret branch of Imperial Intelligence which handled special interrogations and planetary pacifications, as well as being the Galactic Emperor's preferred organization for dealing with the Jedi and other Force-related cults that "smacked of the old ways during the Great Purge" — deeply resented their lack of influence in the Ruling Circle and believed their enemies in COMPNOR, the military, and the Privy Council were "secretly beholden to Rebel interests"; they "staged show trial after show trial to cow resistance." Finally, leaders in the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy, remembering the power the Armed Forces had held under the stratocratic regency of Isard and shōgunate of Thrawn, demanded the right to designate from themselves a new supreme commander to take charge of the situation, a dangerous indication that the old Imperial State's firm control of its Armed Forces had deteriorated badly.

Several months after the crisis of succession began, tensions escalated and fighting broke out among the countless factions, resulting in the outbreak of full-scale civil war within the Empire itself; the conflict was called the Imperial Civil War by most non-participants, the War of Purification by COMPNOR purists, the Imperial Mutiny by those opposed to the ambitions of the military and naval leaders, and the Time of Destruction by most others. The Essential Chronology succinctly says that the fighting "involved the ruling council, the moffs, the fleet, the Inquisitorius, COMPNOR, and the Imperial Security Bureau, each trying to claim the whole sabacc pot at the expense of the others." The Dark Empire Sourcebook indicates that "fleets bombarded rival worlds from orbit, destroying whole planets," sometimes without any apparent reason. Imperial Intelligence "published proscription lists naming 'enemies'" and "partisans were offered incentives to betray and assassinate their fellows, and by doing so gain possession of their property"; the tactic was soon adopted by Intelligence's rivals in the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB), a quasi-official secret state police organization within COMPNOR, and copied "eventually by others as the sides splintered further." The fighting reached its fierce climax when "the equivalent of three sector battlegroups, divided among a dozen loyalties, hammered against each other in the skies" above Imperial Center; as these forces "annihilated each other," "planetary bombardments were ordered," the planetary shields were sabotaged by ground forces, and fighting broke out in the streets and walkways of the megalopolis between private armies and counter-insurgents. Once the shields had collapsed, "Star Destroyers began blasting cities at will," while "walkers and tanks and fighters dueled non-stop for weeks," transforming "thousands of square kilometers" of Imperial Center into "burned-out wreckage," with severe damage to "the great public transit systems, the malls, and many of the great buildings of the capitol," sparking a humanitarian crisis as famine and disease broke out in the population. Between the destruction wrought by the battle and the flight of all those inhabitants who could manage to evacuate, Imperial Center's population was reduced to less than a billion during this time, according to the Dark Empire Sourcebook. Hoping to hasten the collapse of the Empire and restore order to the situation, the New Republic's supreme commander, Admiral Ackbar, ordered "a few captured Imperial vessels to stir up trouble," including NRS Liberator's mission to Imperial Center under the command of General Lando Calrissian and General Wedge Antilles, the heroes of the Battle of Endor; once Liberator arrived in the system, however, "three battlewagons" challenged it with "ident codes they'd never heard before." Fighting immediately broke out and Liberator was incapacitated by an ion cannon and crashed into the planet; mirroring his own father's exploits years during the Battle of Coruscant in 16 rS during the Clone War, former General Luke Skywalker took the Star Destroyer's controls and maneuvered a controlled crash landing that caused minimal casualties to the ship's company. It appears that the fighting within the Empire had stopped as suddenly as it had begun, as there is no mention of any further action in the Time of Destruction after Liberator's crash into the planet's surface. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that the whole affair was an elaborate and deadly pantomime arranged by a single intellect; this is of course because that is exactly what it was: The Galactic Emperor had returned.

After his Sith Apprentice, Darth Vader — the former General Tan Anakin Skywalker — betrayed him and threw him to his death aboard the second Death Star in 39 rS in Return of the Jedi, "The Emperor's Pawns" explains that the Galactic Emperor "used the dark side knowledge the Sith Lords had granted him years earlier" to "transmigrate his essence across lightyears" and possess the body of his most loyal Emperor's Hand, Jeng Droga, who was at that time aboard his yacht, HIMY Emperor's Shadow, on Kaal. Driven mad by the possession, Droga murdered the crew and plunged the ship into the ocean; only later was the Grand Vizier — who had by then abandoned the Imperial State to the superintendence of his hapless clone — able to "tear the Emperor's essence from Droga's body," enabling him to reincarnate in a cloned body on Byss. The Dark Empire Sourcebook states that he had "spent over a year disembodied," which presumably refers to the period between his death at Endor and his reincarnation on Byss. The experience was traumatic — "he had never foreseen having to transport his spirit so far across space" and "had nearly dispersed forever" — and he spent the next years convalescing and devoted even more time to his studies in the "Science of Darkness." In the meantime, he continued to interfere in the galaxy's affairs, by means of "his Dark Side Adepts or other loyal servants," including "his Hands and his Noghri." He still retained his extensive network of contacts outside of the Imperial State's formal structure, such as his secret corporate allies from the Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook, or his secret pass codes and built-in back-doors from Dark Force Rising. The Dark Empire Sourcebook claims that his "spies moved everywhere with confidence, probing loyalty, checking for those most likely to prove worthy." He summoned some of those struggling for power to his secret lair deep within the heart of the Deep Core, and demanded their renewed loyalty; those who obeyed him were rewarded and those who rejected him were summarily executed and their forces destroyed. In The New Essential Guide to Characters, the scribe identifies the former regent Ysanne Isard as one of those summoned by the Galactic Emperor.

The Galactic Emperor was not prepared to reveal himself to the galaxy for several years, but via his intermediaries and agents he was directly responsible for much of the confusion of the period following his death. The Dark Empire Sourcebook states that it was he "who had given all the various orders and counter-orders that were impeding the petty plans of the various factions," and that his activities were "the reason so many of the warships Thrawn needed had vanished into the fortress systems, forcing him to rely on the Katana fleet of lost Dreadnaughts" and that "the construction of new palaces and his flagship" inexplicably continued. Given the scribe's assertion in The New Essential Guide to Characters that Isard had indeed been contacted by the Galactic Emperor, it is probable that her deliberate policy of weakening the authority and influence of the college of Moffs, and deliberate abandonment of Imperial Center were part of his plans; certainly these events made possible the
political crisis and loss of command and control that he used to test his subordinates and their abilities. Indeed, he had decided that "no contender could ever be allowed to become too powerful," and the Dark Empire Sourcebook says that "it was no accident when Thrawn fell," having been used by the Galactic Emperor "to divert attention from his own return"; this statement, combined with the fact that the sourcebook refers to a cadre of Noghri Death Commandos loyal to him and the appearance of other Noghri Death Commandos at the Sith temple on Dromund Kaas in Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith, implies very strongly that the Galactic Emperor arranged for Thrawn's assassination at Bilbringi. The Dark Empire Sourcebook is clear that he had allowed the fratricidal infighting — Imperial politics had always been dangerous, with "Soldiers of the Empire!" even going so far as to say that Imperial Guards units were frequently used to assassinate rivals — and had even organized the Time of Destruction to "cull out the weak, the cowardly, the stupid," regarding "one such Civil War" as being "useful to prune the nest of vipers"; when the time had come to finally reveal himself, he summoned "each of the leaders in the Mutiny" and put an end to the farce.

The Galactic Emperor had created an enormous reserve of military and naval power in the Deep Core. His interest in the Deep Core had begun during his days representing Naboo and the Chommell Sector in the Galactic Senate (ca 27 BrS - 3 rS). The Dark Empire Sourcebook mentions that even as a Senator he had "funded and promoted long range Deep Core explorations"; with his ascension to the podium as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic in 3 rS, he gained access to "more comprehensive charts" than even the Trade Federation's extensive and monopolistic astrogation charts, according to Attack of the Clones Incredible Cross-Sections. Through more unethical means he gained details of secret hyperspace routes charted by the Jedi during their own secret explorations of the Deep Core, according to Labyrinth of Evil. Once he had taken possession of detailed maps of the Deep Core, he immediately set about creating a hidden empire within it, ordering modified scout ships
and survey teams into the region, where they "catalogued and surveyed hundreds of potentially habitable worlds" (the Galactic Emperor had all of the surveyors put to death, however, to preserve the secrecy of his activities). Over the next decades, the Dark Empire Sourcebook describes the careful colonization of some of these worlds, creating "secret military facilities, shipyards, and training grounds for his exclusive troops," along with "worlds of loyal servants and private retreats for him and his select ministers"; it is possible that the Empire's cloning facilities were located in the Deep Core, which would explain the stormtrooper shortage described by Cracken's Threat Dossier, as well as explaining why the New Republic did not seem to be aware that the Imperial Marines were predominantly clones. The Galactic Emperor's retreat world Byss, which served as the new headquarters of the Imperial State, and as "a military staging area, refueling depot, and stopover station" where "hundreds of ships arrive on an hourly basis," was nearly at the center of the Deep Core. To protect this secret empire, he ordered the construction of the Imperial Hyperspace Security Net, a system of hyperspace interdiction technology and "connected non-mass transceivers linked by a network of coordinated hyperspace S-threads." The transceivers could detect when a ship in hyperspace passed through the "cross-channeled radiation" emitted by the network, and then used gravity-well generators to force the ship to exit hyperspace. The Dark Empire Sourcebook is explicit that all of the navigable paths within the Deep Core were monitored by the Security Net, and that many of the navigable regions were "mined, patrolled, and otherwise blockaded to prevent further unauthorized exploration." The entire Deep Core Region was the culmination of the Fortress Worlds phenomenon, an entire region of the galaxy turned into an impregnable fortress.

In the Star Wars Encyclopedia, the scholars state that half of the Empire's Star Destroyers were "held on reserve in the Galactic Core to protect key military, industrial, and political systems," and the Dark Empire Sourcebook adds that the Galactic Emperor had begun to "bring supplies and troops into the Deep Core" in preparation for his return. Using the vast wealth he had accumulated throughout his rise to power via his secret corporate and criminal alliances (not to mention surplus tax revenues from the Wheel, the Commonality and the Corporate Sector Authority, which could easily be made to "disappear" during the Imperial State's financial disarray following the capture of Imperial Center, given his secret connections within the banking industry), he created the Deep Core hauler system, a tightly regulated system whereby the Imperial State licensed certain reliable cargo haulers — ranging from reputable and old-line shipping lines like the Tagge Company (TaggeCo.) to smugglers and fringe independent freighters — to ship war matériel, fuel, and ammunition through well-supervised routes within the Deep Core in exchange for "huge sums." The Galactic Emperor's Deep Core reserve combined with the remnants of the Emperor's Ruling Circle and the rogue warlords — The Essential Chronology mentions that "surviving warlords such as Harrsk, Delvardus, and Teradoc swore obedience to the same master and fought under the same banner, as did the loyal Imperial forces under Pellaeon," the Galactic Emperor having "done a better job of reuniting the Imperial factions than anyone before him, including Thrawn" — to create a renewed Galactic Empire in control of approximately half the galaxy, although a Top Secret memorandum to the Provisional Council of the New Republic from Brigadier Colin Darkmere of the Intelligence Operations Command was quoted in the Dark Empire Sourcebook as saying that the New Republic's analysts had concluded that "militarily, we still hold the winning hand and most likely [the Imperials] realize this."

In the early days of 45 rS, the Galactic Emperor launched Operation Shadow Hand, which was the actual implementation of his "Shadow Hand Strategy," a detailed plan so comprehensive that the Dark Empire Sourcebook calls it "an autopilot system for the Empire itself." The Shadow Hand Strategy was "a summation of the Emperor's battle philosophy," which he considered "more important than any admiral or weapons system." He had begun designing it "as he waited for the Alliance fleet to walk into his trap over Endor," and it "made use of all his resources — not simply COMPNOR or the military, but everything," including "his Dark Side Adepts and Dark Jedi," who were provided with "a secret and chilling role to play." Notably, not even the Galactic Emperor's closest advisors had access to the entire Strategy, having access only "to as much of the plan as necessary," it being made clear that "it was in their best interests to follow it precisely." The Essential Chronology states that the plan was "designed to subjugate the galaxy in a series of unstoppable wave assaults." The Galactic Emperor's identity as a Sith Lord is reflected by the fact that "a new servant to replace Vader" was "one of the key ingredients of this Shadow Hand Strategy," and he had already chosen Luke Skywalker — the son of Darth Vader and the cause of Vader's betrayal at Endor — to replace his father in the Sith Order. To that end, the Galactic Emperor captured Skywalker at Imperial Center after Liberator crashed, and brought him to Byss, where he convinced the Jedi Knight to join him in order to learn his secrets of the dark side so as to destroy him, à la Ulic Qel-Droma's deliberate joining of the Krath in order to learn their secrets and thus destroy them. Skywalker was henceforth styled "Lord Skywalker" and was appointed supreme commander in Thrawn's place, with responsibility for overseeing the next step in Operation Shadow Hand: The destruction of Calamari (Daca II), homeworld of one of the most important groups in the rebel Alliance and a leading member of the New Republic.

Hextrophon's guest lecturer at the Brionelle Memorial Military Academy on Chandrila mentions that the New Republic "received reports of fringe worlds in the Borderland Regions whose surfaces had been burned away by monstrous things the survivors called 'city-smashers.'" The attack on Calamari was to shed light on these reports, as the attack was led by the so-called "city-smashers," the Galactic Emperor's World Devastators, war machines designed by Umak Leth, Master of Imperial Projects and Chief Engineer to the Galactic Emperor, as self-sustaining mobile molecular furnaces with on-board factories. Controlled by "highly advanced computers" and regulated by the Master Control Signal transmitted from Byss, the World Devastators operated freely within their designated parameters, virtually immune to attack, and able to adapt and modify themselves to respond to threats. Quite simply, a World Devastator was able to eat whatever ship the enemy sent to fight it, and use the materials to create more armor and weapons for itself. These war machines (including Silencer-1, Silencer-7, and Inquisitor-4 from the Dark Empire Sourcebook and Nullifier-5 from Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds) were constructed in secret at the shipyards of Thomark, which were officially closed years before because of "a new strain of contagious hive virus," a cover story created by the Galactic Emperor's agents to create an abandoned and haunted area suitable for a top secret project (the Dark Empire Sourcebook mentions that this cover story was made credible by the murder of over 450 people).

The World Devastators proved to be as lethal as Leth had claimed them to be, and they ran roughshod over the Calamarian defenses, bringing "destruction to Mon Calamari on a scale not seen since the reprisals that triggered the planet's uprising," according to Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds; The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons mentions the destruction of the floating cities of Kee-Piru and Heurkea; Dark Empire even shows the lead Devastator, Commander Titus Klev's Silencer-7, eating Calrissian's other Star Destroyer, NRS Emancipator. Only the treachery of Skywalker prevented the complete destruction of Calamari; he used the Master Control Signal to order Silencer-7 to destroy itself and immobilized the other Devastators, then gave the Master Control Signal to his astromech R2-D2, which then used it to order the Devastators to attack and destroy each other. In the mean time, Skywalker attempted to prevent the Galactic Emperor from reincarnating in another clone body, and though he destroyed the Galactic Emperor's Clone Vat Chamber, he failed to prevent the reincarnation; with Skywalker once more subdued by the power of the dark side of the Force, the two then boarded the Galactic Emperor's flagship, the enormous Star Destroyer HIMS Eclipse, and set course for the New Republic's secret headquarters at Da Soocha V, where the Galactic Emperor intended to capture Skywalker's sister, the Princess Leia of Alderaan, and the ancient Jedi holocron she'd stolen from him on Byss (he himself had taken it years before from Master Jedi Ashka Boda).

But the Galactic Emperor had miscalculated, and Dark Empire shows that he was defeated in a second duel against Skywalker, and retaliated by attempting to destroy the New Republic fleet with a Force storm. The twin offspring of Tan Skywalker — Skywalker and the Princess Leia — joined their strength in the Force together with that of the Princess Leia's unborn son, and disrupted the Galactic Emperor's control of the storm, causing it to return to him, killing him and destroying his flagship. The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons states once word of his second death reached the Empire, Balmorra again seceded and returned to arming the New Republic. In the meantime, Operation Shadow Hand continued unabated, with the Galactic Emperor's chief Dark Jedi, Military Executor Sedriss, in overall command (the position of military executor apparently served as a sort of substitute for that of supreme commander; Skywalker is the last known incumbent of that older office). Darkmere's memorandum to the Provisional Council in the Dark Empire Sourcebook mentions that the Intelligence Operations Command detected "a 64% increase in inter-sector communications" in the weeks following the Galactic Emperor's second death, and suggested that "a unified front may be forming," as "the Emperor, through proxies or by decree, galvanized his servants into a new level of coordination." The New Republic Historical Council mentions that Sedriss first "consolidated the forces remaining in the newly subjugated Core and Colonies regions," but the Dark Empire Sourcebook states that the New Republic had "a stable hold" on the Colonies Regions, indicating that the Empire
must have seized most of the Colonies Region in the time between the Dark Empire Sourcebook and Dark Empire II. It is possible that former Grand Moff Ardus Kaine, ruler of the Pentastar Alignment in the Outer Rim, may have died during this period (The Essential Chronology states
only that he died during Operation Shadow Hand, giving no further details).

Sedriss then moved against Balmorra in Dark Empire II, intending to conquer the planet and bring its factories under direct Imperial control, landing a force of at least "36,000 stormtroopers, 700 AT-ST class assault vehicles, and 382 SD-9 war droids," using an operational plan created by the recently-demoted Captain Maximilian Veers (the former major general and victor of the Battle of Hoth, a victim of Sedriss's envy of his relationship with Darth Vader). Beltane deployed his own defense force of Balmorran soldiers and SD-10 war 'droids (also designed by Leth); Sedriss countered by pulling back his troops — Veers had been killed — and deploying the powerful new Shadow Droids, which made "a mess of the SDs," according to one of Beltane's staff officers. Beltane responded by playing his trump card, the X-1 Viper Automadon, an advanced war machine that proved a match for the Shadow Droids. Intrigued, Sedriss agreed to grant Balmorra its freedom and the right to continue to sell arms to the Empire, in contravention of Imperial policy — he mentions that the Galactic Emperor "doesn't buy weapons from free planets," apparently ignoring the embarrassing case of Lianna — in exchange for a shipment of the X-1s; ironically, both parties to the agreement were dealing in bad faith, as Sedriss planned to "reduce Balmorra to space dust" as soon as he had the war machines and their designers, while Beltane gave the New Republic the itinerary and registry numbers of the shipment of X-1s to Byss, which Calrissian proposed to hijack and then use to target "the six top Imperial command posts," but Antilles suggested instead that the shipment be allowed to proceed to Byss with a special forces team aboard, and then be used to make "a dash for the Citadel." Skywalker — now Master Jedi Luke Skywalker, having returned to the New Republic and eschewed his Imperial courtesy title — disagreed, saying that Byss security would prevent the X-1s from reaching the Citadel, and that it would be better to use them to "liberate other worlds that can help the Alliance launch an all-out attack" (after the fall of Coruscant to Balan's armies, it had become commonplace to refer to the New Republic as "the Alliance" again). There was strong support for Antilles's suggestion, however, and Mothma settled the matter by voting for it.

Other schemes were afoot as well. There are at least two separate plots by Imperial leaders current during this time period. Dark Empire II mentions that it was known that "a number of hidden clone tanks survived Skywalker's assault" in Dark Empire, and there was therefore the possibility that the Galactic Emperor could reincarnate again (the Empire was as yet still being driven by the Shadow Hand Strategy's autopilot), but "certain powerful adepts, members of the Emperor's inner circle" had been "spreading rumors that the Emperor will not take a new clone ." Two of the Galactic Emperor's "closest friends," the dark side adepts Nefta and Sa-Di, set about destroying the remaining clones, hoping to ensure that "the rumors of the Emperor's permanent demise come true." They were summarily executed by Sedriss when he found them in the Clone Lab ("The Emperor's Pawns" claims they were betrayed by Sarcev Quest, an Emperor's Hand and former member of the defunct Imperial Ruling Council and apparently a member of the New Imperial Council mentioned by the scholars in the Star Wars Encyclopedia; it is difficult to see how he could have betrayed them unless he tipped off Sedriss to their intentions and prompted his abrupt return to Byss). There was a parallel plot by Quest and his partner in intrigue, the overly ambitious Sovereign Protector Carnor Jax, who had been promoted to that rank from the lower rank of Royal Guardsman at Quest's suggestion. According to Crimson Empire, Jax sent his own agent, General Redd Wessel, to meet with "those whose appetites for power were left unfulfilled while the Emperor was alive," and negotiated for a certain amount of "funds" which were used to "persuade the Emperor's trusted private physician to secretly sabotage Palpatine's clones." The Essential Chronology mentions that the sabotage would "trigger a premature aging cycle and a quick death for the resurrected Palpatine." The sabotage accomplished before Nefta and Sa-Di made their own move, Jax and his conspirators kept a low profile, although Crimson Empire indicates that Jax's assistant Lieutenant Geff Blim was compelled to murder at least one conspirator in order to prevent their plot's revelation. The Galactic Emperor reincarnated in his last remaining clone — which had been affected by the physician's sabotage — and he immediately commanded
Sedriss to capture both Skywalker and the Princess Leia. One of Sedriss's probes tracked Skywalker to Ossus in the Adegan system, which had been a Jedi stronghold until ravaged during the Sith War of 3,961 BrS, and the Galactic Emperor sent Sedriss and his fellow Dark Jedi, Vill Goir, with a team of Darktroopers (elite stormtroopers imbued with the dark side) to Ossus to capture the Jedi Master. The mission failed, however, and both Sedriss and Goir were killed.

The Galactic Emperor received word of their deaths while conducting an inspection tour of his new Galaxy Gun, an enormous missile launcher that fired "intelligent projectiles into hyperspace," designed by Leth to be able to "exist hyperspace at precise coordinates, find its target... and destroy it," using "a particle disintegrator that initiates a massive nucleonic chain reaction" able to "destroy a city... a land mass... or even an entire planet anywhere in the galaxy." Having lost four of his elite Dark Jedi — Baddon Fass and Zasm Katth were killed earlier when their Star Destroyer, HIMS Invincible, crashed on Nar Shaddaa — the Galactic Emperor used an ancient Sith secret and made his military aides de camp Xecr Nist and Tedryn-Sha into "Dark Jedi... extensions of my own power," with Nist as military executor and Sha as his second in command. At the same time, however, the X-1 Vipers from Balmorra were delivered, and the commando team — under the command of the star-crossed team of Calrissian and Antilles — took control and made their way to the Imperial Citadel itself, making short work of the ground forces and air defenses ordered to stop them. Observing the battle from high orbit, the Galactic Emperor immediately realized that "those war droids are invulnerable to short-range fire," and ordered the release of his Chrysalides, alchemically created Sithspawn Rancors which literally tore the X-1s to pieces, prompting a hasty retreat aboard three licensed Deep Core haulers' ships. Because the escaping freighters passed too close to the Galaxy Gun, Byss's spaceborne security forces did not fire on them, and the Galactic Emperor casually ordered their release, not caring about
their eventual fate. He ordered the firing of the Galaxy Gun, whose test firing completely annihilated Da Soocha V, although the New Republic had already evacuated the moon. The Galactic Emperor then sent his seven Dark Jedi to the New Republic safe world New Alderaan., intending to capture the entire Skywalker family — Skywalker, the pregnant Princess Leia, and her twin children, Jacen and Jaina Solo. The raid proved to be a disastrous failure, as Tedryn-Sha, Krdys Mordi, and Kvag Gthull were all killed and a fourth, unidentified Dark Jedi had his arm cut off, with the death of only an untrained Jedi initiate, Jem Ysanna, to show for their efforts. Nist and two others (both unnamed) escaped, but Skywalker and the rest of his clan, which traveled to Nespis VIII in late 45 rS, a space station in the Auril systems that now served as the New Republic's central headquarters.

The Essential Chronology states that "New Republic commando and sabotage teams attacked the Galaxy Gun but were unable to destroy it," and the Galactic Emperor destroyed two more worlds with the weapon in early 46 rS, "bringing the resistance to its knees." The knowledge that the Galactic Emperor now possessed the ability to completely destroy even a fully-shielded world anywhere in the galaxy and at any time, without warning, was apparently enough to break the fighting spirit of worlds throughout the galaxy, and many began to surrender. The Essential Chronology states that the Empire soon "regained key territories in the Inner and Outer Rim," solidifying its hold on most of the galaxy, an amazing feat considering that the New Republic had controlled approximately three-quarters of the galaxy barely two years before, just before Thrawn's War. The New Republic was on the verge of total collapse, holding onto a handful of worlds (no source describes the conquest of the Expansion Region, for example, which implies that the Empire did not successfully seize the majority of that region), and Empire's End mentions that "troopships and heavy armor" were "directed against Imperial supply ports and shipyards"; one such was the troopship NRS Pelagia, "transporting a hundred thousand ground troops and their assault armor to the galactic rim, where rebel forces have a great Imperial shipyard under siege." Seemingly selecting this target at random, the Galactic Emperor destroyed Pelagia with the Galaxy Gun, watching the spectacle via "subminiature probe drones" which followed the missile to its target; the sight of the troopship's destruction prompted Nist to remark that the Galaxy Gun "has only been fired four times... and yet planets all over the galaxy are capitulating." A spy provided the location of the New Republic's new base, and a fifth Galaxy missile was fired, which failed to detonate because of a "faulty Bonadan timer"; a sixth Galaxy missile finished the job approximately an hour later, but this delay gave the New Republic government the time it needed to evacuate the spaceborne city. Mothma ordered the New Republic forces to disperse throughout the galaxy, preventing the Galaxy Gun from destroying them all at once.

With the Shadow Hand Strategy continuing to direct the Empire's forces and resources, the Galactic Emperor was able to focus entirely on his deteriorating condition, as his body was being destroyed by "his dark powers and the cellular sabotage of Carnor Jax." The Essential Chronology indicates that "he tried to clone other bodies so he could resurrect himself again, but Jax's manipulations had tainted even the genetic source material" (incidentally, this passage confirms that there were other cloning facilities in the Deep Core, as between Skywalker in Dark Empire and Nefta and Sa-Di in Dark Empire II, the Clone Lab within the Imperial Citadel had been completely destroyed). In Empire's End, the Galactic Emperor traveled for the first time in ten years to the great Sith necropolis of Korriban, home to the tombs of most of the previous Dark Lords of the Sith; there, he conferred with the Dark Lords' specters, and he realized that he needed to reincarnate in the body of the Princess Leia's youngest son, Anakin Solo. To that end he boarded his new flagship, HIMS Eclipse (hastily commissioned to replace the destruction of her predecessor over Da Soocha V in Dark Empire), and accompanied by his physician, the dark side hierarch T'iaz, and his last Emperor's Hand, Jeng Droga, he traveled to Onderon. Meanwhile Skywalker and a small cadre of Jedi — former Dark Jedi Kam Solusar, Jedi initiate Rayf Ysanna, and King Empatajayos Brand, a Jedi Knight of the old Order who had survived the Purge — attacked Bast Castle on Vjun, the Dark Jedi headquarters, killed six of the Dark Jedi and captured Nist. At Onderon, the Galactic Emperor ignored Droga's concern that it would be too dangerous for him to travel to the surface and capture young Solo, and left for the planet, accompanied by his physician, T'iaz, Droga, and a contingent of Royal Guards. While the Galactic Emperor made his way to the fortress of Modon Kira where the Princess Leia and her children were hidden, Solusar, Calrissian, and Antilles led a team of commandos in sneaking aboard Eclipse, sabotaging its guidance and astrogation systems. The stage was set for the greatest disaster ever to occur in the history of the Galactic Empire, more devastating by far than even the debacles of Endor, Brentaal, Imperial Center, and Bilbringi.

Sneaking into the Kira Fortress under the guise of a monastic pilgrim, the Galactic Emperor killed Rayf Ysanna and mortally wounded King Empatajayos. The Galactic Emperor moved to take hold of young Anakin Solo, but was shot in the back by the infant boy's father, General Han Solo. Desperate to escape final death, he attempted to reincarnate in the boy's body, but was prevented from doing so by King Empatajayos, who held the Galactic Emperor's spirit in his body while they both died. The Galactic Emperor was finally dead, never to return; Crimson Empire mentions that his physician was captured and confessed his treachery to Skywalker, and this confession was overheard by a surviving member of the Galactic Emperor's Royal Guard detachment. Added to the Galactic Emperor's final death was the fact that the sabotaged Eclipse was set on a collision course with the Galaxy Gun and the collision of the two sent a loose Galaxy missile with a fully-armed particle disintegrator warhead spiraling toward Byss. The destruction of Byss and its 19.7 billion inhabitants proved to be the coup de grâce from which the Empire never recovered, as the planet took with it an enormous amount of war matériel and warships, not to mention the Shadow Hand Strategy, the Imperial State, and most of the Empire's ruling class, including the Grand Vizier, according to the scribe's biography of him in The New Essential Guide to Characters. The Empire immediately suffered a total collapse; The Essential Chronology says that "the confused Imperial fleet went into retreat, abandoning Coruscant and other Core planets," and that "the speed with which the Empire crumbled was amazing, surpassing the mass confusion that had occurred following the Battle of Endor." Former warlords like Admiral Harrsk, Admiral Teradoc, and Admiral Delvardus abandoned the Empire, returning to their pocket empires in the outskirts of the Deep Core and re-assuming their old titles of Supreme Warlord, High Admiral, and Superior General, respectively. By the time some semblance of order was restored in 46 rS, virtually all of the gains made during Thrawn's War and Operation Shadow Hand had been lost and the Empire had been reduced to "a narrow band stretching from the Outer Rim to the Colonies." As a sign of the Empire's weakness, Crimson Empire II: Council of Blood reveals that the Mining Guild was able to extort an agreement from both the Empire and the New Republic acknowledging its right to sell its ores to both sides openly and without legal penalty from either.

Carnor Jax — now styling himself "Lord Jax" and affecting an idiosyncratic black version of the Imperial Royal Guard's vestments — set up a provisional government in early 46 rS on Ord Cantrell, which The Essential Chronology calls "a thirteen-member Interim Council." The first appearance of the Imperial Interim Ruling Council (many sources refer to it only as "Imperial Ruling Council," confusing it with the pre-Endor ruling council also known by that name) is in Crimson Empire, where Jax's deputy is seen to meet with four Imperial officers, a Defel, and a Devaronian " whose appetites for power were left unfulfilled while the Emperor was alive" and whom Jax called "the members of the current ruling council" (it is implied that these six are not the only members of the conspiracy). Crimson Empire II: Council of Blood says it was "assembled to manage the affairs of the Empire until a new emperor could take the throne," but in its first depiction of the Council shows at least twenty-five members. Between the evidence of Crimson Empire, Crimson Empire II: Council of Blood, "The Emperor's Pawns," and Star Wars Handbook Volume Two: Crimson Empire, fifteen members of the Interim Ruling Council have been identified. Jax, the chairman, was a former Sovereign Protector and had some limited training in the use of the Force. His vice chairman, Sarcev Quest, was a former Emperor's Hand and member of the old Ruling Council, a "dashing playboy" known for his "silky charm." Burr Nolyds was an arrogant aristocrat with enormous wealth, and one supposes he might have been a Privy Counsellor. Xandel Carivus was a career civil servant, probably included for his expertise regarding bureaucracy (the Interim Council would of course need to establish a new civil service to replace the losses suffered at Byss). Norym Kim, a male Myke, was a warlord who ruled a Sector as well as a pirate lord with control of several groups of deep-space pirates. Spearmaster Ch'unkk was leader of the largest clan of Whiphids, a species which frequently served as bodyguards of many highly-placed Imperial officials. Lord Manos was the Devaronian foreman of the galaxy's largest labor union. The bigoted General Immodet was the highest ranking general officer still serving the Empire, and commanded the soldiers that formed the first line of defense against the New Republic in several Sectors. Admiral Banjeer and Admiral Jeratai commanded two of the Empire's largest fleets, and were of course included in order to placate the Navy, which had acquired a taste for playing kingmaker during the Time of Destruction. Tann Starpyre was an older and experienced colonial administrator who represented the Diet of Imperial Planetary Governors, a group that "put a positive spin on Imperial edicts" and served to "create the illusion of representative democracy within the Empire." Ragez, Baron d'Asta, was a powerful nobleman who controlled a strategically important Sector as well as owning "the largest privately owned fleet in the galaxy" and controlled most of the Empire's remaining shipping; because of the Lord d'Asta's poor health, he was represented on the Council by his daughter Feena d'Asta, although Crimson Empire II: Council of Blood explains that she had actually been kidnapped by Black Sun gangster Grappa the Hutt in 42 rS, and replaced with a clone fed with information extracted from the genuine Feena by drugging her with Gree spice (as a result, it was the clone of Feena d'Asta that participated in the plot against the Galactic Emperor and who covertly pushed the agenda of Y'ull Acib, Underlord of Black Sun; the Lord d'Asta himself had
no knowledge of either matter). Kooloota-Fyf was the Givin guild master of the Shipbuilders and Astromechs Guild, which designed many of the Empire's astrogation systems; he was included in the Council to ensure good relations with the Guild. The Prince Za was a Defel that controlled a number of strategic trade routes. Mahd Windcaller had been a part of the Empire's ruling class since its earliest days, and controlled a media empire which doubled as an ersatz spy network (given that she is a known media mogul with very early connections to the Empire, Windcaller may be the chairwoman of Millennium Entertainments).

The known composition of the Interim Council reflects the Empire's condition at that time. Norym Kim's power points to a serious weakness in the central government, as one of the Imperial Navy's raisons d'être was the eradication of piracy; given the known conditions of the galaxy throughout the post-Endor period, it is likely that he controlled one of the nominally Imperial regions of space in the Mid-Rim Region, near the Borderlands. Banjeer, Jeratai, and Immodet point to the triumph of Isardian stratocracy and the final collapse of the old doctrine of strict civilian control of the military, as they no longer report to the civilian-controlled bureaucracy or the Privy Council, but have a direct voice at the highest level of government, their continuing command of operational forces notwithstanding. Starpyre's inclusion suggests timid steps toward liberalization, possibly to alleviate the effectiveness of Neo-Republican propaganda (notably, The Essential Chronology points out that the inclusion of Lord Manos, Ch'unkk, Kooloota-Fyf and the Prince Za was hoped to "give new life to the dying Imperial military" via "alien strength"). The influence of Lord Manos points to a breakdown in the Empire's traditional laissez-faire attitude toward labor relations, and suggests that the traditional alliance between the Empire and corporate leaders might have broken down. Much as the Mining Guild's dictation of trade policy is indicative of an astonishing collapse of the Empire's own industrial resources and its firm control of its corporate associates, the influence of the Lord d'Asta and the Prince Za points to an ironic relapse to the conditions of the Galactic Republic before the Naboo Crisis that prompted Senator Palpatine of Naboo's election as Supreme Chancellor: private entities holding a de facto monopoly on shipping and trade routes that effectively neutered the state's power to regulate commerce and gave the monopolists the ability to directly and substantially influence state policy. This marks a complete reversal of the Imperial tradition of the boardroom being junior partner to the throne room. It is especially interesting to note the shift in ideological composition; few if any of these Interim Councilmen have any clear political identity. The Interim Council resembles a technocratic government, and it is remarkable in itself that COMPNOR, the totalitarian wing of the monarchist party, is not represented at all.

The twilight of the Empire was short and bitter. Jax ordered the destruction of the remaining 21 members of the Imperial Royal Guard — most of the Guard had been killed on Byss or on board Eclipse and Eclipse — but he was too late: The Guard had discovered his treachery, and the sole survivor, Kir Kanos, vowed revenge. Jax's obsession with capturing Kanos led to the loss of two Imperial Star Destroyers — first Commander Vivant's HIMS Steadfast was captured by the New Republic at Phaeda, and then Jax's own flagship HIMS Emperor's Revenge was destroyed by Kanos at Yinchorr — and his own death at Kanos's hands on Yinchorr in Crimson Empire. With Jax's death, "The Emperor's Pawns" indicates that the Interim Council ordered Quest's arrest and subjected him to "a week-long torture session" before "dumping him like refuse at Nar Shaddaa," and Burr Nolyds took control as chairman of the Interim Council. D'Asta proposed a peace treaty with the New Republic, but she was voted down by the Council; Nolyds was blown up immediately afterward in his residence in De-Purteen, Ord Cantrell, bare minutes after adjourning the Council for the day. Recognizing that the head of the Council would inevitably be a target for assassination — the concept that power makes one into a target was a major theme of Palpatinian political theory — , Kim, Windcaller, Kooloota-Fyf and the Prince Za agreed to support Carivus for chairman, and he was duly elected, to d'Asta's considerable disdain. Unbeknownst to the others, Carivus was under the influence of Nom Anor, subsequently revealed to be a representative of the extragalactic Vong invaders in Vector Prime; although the assassination of Nolyds was blamed on Kanos, it was actually the work of Anor. The stabbing to death of Banjeer in his suite — also Anor's doing — prompted Lord Carivus — as he was now styled, suggesting that "Lord" was a courtesy title attached to the chair — to suggest sending both Banjeer's and Jeratai's fleets on a massive manhunt; d'Asta and Lord Manos moved a motion of no confidence in Carivus's leadership, but were soundly voted down, with only the Prince Za voting with them. Immodet, one of Carivus's supporters, was poisoned (not at Anor's behest), and Carivus panicked, ordering the arrest of all nonhuman members of the Council — Ch'unkk was shot and killed while resisting arrest — and declaring d'Asta a traitor, ordering her arrest as well. Even as Windcaller tried to convince Carivus of the inadvisable nature of these orders, they survived an attempt by Black Sun to kidnap the Chairman and replace him with a clone, in an attempt to replace the cloned d'Asta's lost voice on the Council. The Lord d'Asta threatened to secede from the Empire, and Carivus announced the dissolution of the Interim Council, arrested its remaining members, and proclaimed himself Galactic Emperor. His notional reign proved short, as the Lord d'Asta launched a direct assault on Ord Cantrell, forcing Carivus to sue for peace and release his daughter. He was stabbed to death by Kir Kanos that evening in Crimson Empire II: Council of Blood.The Lord d'Asta followed through on his threat to secede from the Empire, depriving what remained of his shipping line's services. Although the remaining members of the Council — Jeratai, Kim, Windcaller, Kooloota-Fyf, the Prince Za, and Starpyre — were captured by the New Republic, and at any rate they lacked the ability to control the remainder of the Empire: Jeratai was simply one fleet commander, no longer distinctive in any way; Starpyre was only a representative and lacked any power base of his own; Kim controlled only one Sector and was a pirate lord; the Prince Za's control of strategic trade routes was effectively neutered without the ships of the d'Astan fleet; and Kooloota-Fyf and Windcaller were only business leaders, lacking any real direct power in the Empire. The Essential Chronology aptly remarks that the outcome of Carivus's policies and the assassinations was that the Interim Council was simply "gone," and the loss of this government ad interim — which surely could not have had much success at reordering the mangled Imperial State — resulted in "most of the Imperial fleet disappearing into the Deep Core to form warlord allegiances"; even Gilad Pellaeon, an old-line Imperial loyalist who had never defected throughout the long retreat of the post-Endor period, "cast his lot with High Admiral Teradoc, who possessed the largest intact military." Pellaeon's decision to join a rogue warlord speaks volumes about the total collapse of the central government of the Empire. Faced with the break-up of the Empire, "die-hard Imperial planets like the academy world Carida," like the grandees of the Emperor's Ruling Circle after Thrawn's War in 44 rS and the worlds on the edge of the Deep Core like Prakith before them, transformed themselves into Fortress Worlds, remaining Imperialist holdouts for years after the final collapse of the Empire itself in early 46 rS. Although these states would continue to use the imagery and trappings of the Galactic Empire, few made any pretense at establishing any sort of central government again. Carivus's death marked the complete collapse of what was left of the Imperial State after Byss and the breakup of the Empire into unconnected pocket empires; in Children of the Jedi, Luke Skywalker mentioned that there were "six, maybe ten major fragments" as soon as 47 rS, less than a decade after the seemingly invincible Empire — Galactic in fact as well as in name — had been defeated at Endor.

The decline and fall of the Galactic Empire is primarily a result of its leadership. It is true that the New Republic made substantial gains against the Empire, but it is also true that its most spectacular victories had as much to do with Imperial policies and Imperial politics as with their own strategies and heroism. It is difficult to say how successful the Grand Vizier's regency might have been; he was an experienced administrator and had governed the Empire on the Galactic Emperor's behalf for years by the time he found himself its regent. The fall of Brentaal IV in 39 rS cannot fairly be blamed on his misgovernment (or, more accurately, that of his clone), as it was after all a deliberate act planned by his de facto prime minister, Ysanne Isard. Isard proved to be relatively capable, reorganizing the Empire and holding it more or less intact for two years before she deliberately lost Imperial Center in 42 rS (and with it, much of the Core) as part of a dangerous and risky plan to shatter the New Republic; although there was rhyme and reason behind her schemes, it remains undisputed that her policies deliberately weakened the Empire, perhaps as part of the Galactic Emperor's plan to "prune the nest of vipers." The Emperor's Ruling Circle proved to be disastrous for the Empire, subjecting it to inconsistent, weak, and directionless leadership for two and a half years, during which the Empire was steadily pushed from its position at the heart of the galaxy and reduced to controlling less than a quarter, primarily in the Outer Rim Territories with some residual holdings in the Inner Rim and largely nominal territories in the Mid-Rim and Wild Space; the only success the Ruling Circle can claim was its decision to appoint Thrawn as the Empire's shōgun. The remarkable successes of Thrawn's War in 44 rS demonstrate that firm leadership was indeed capable of reversing the march of history, accomplishing an expansion that nearly doubled the Empire's size in six months; the ultimate loss in Thrawn's War was a result of Thrawn's assassination, not of any real success on the part of the New Republic. With the return of the Galactic Emperor in 45 rS, Operation Shadow Hand reversed the losses of the past six years, seeing the Empire return to being the single overwhelming superpower of the galaxy, re-conquering vast territories and seeing the Empire once again stretch from the Core to the Outer Rim; the Galactic Emperor's defeat had little to do with the New Republic and much to do with treachery, the Force, and sheer bad luck. Even the loss of the Galactic Emperor, Byss, and the Shadow Hand Strategy in 46 rS might not have been fatal had the surviving Imperial leadership kept their wits about them and stayed the course; rather, the most ambitious and powerful immediately abandoned the Empire and set about aggrandizing themselves instead. The Empire was left to the ineffectual management of a glorified bodyguard, an arrogant aristo, and finally, a spineless bureaucrat. When the Empire did die in early 46 rS, it did so not with a bang but with a whimper. Ambitious men and women had fought each other ruthlessly and violently to take control of the Empire, either not knowing or not caring about the devastating consequences of their struggle for power. The result was that the Empire ultimately broke its own back, cut off its own head, and fell into a grave it had dug for itself. Ambition's debt was paid.