An Abridged History of the Great Galactic War

by Kaiser Chris

After centuries in exile, the Sith Empire returned to the galaxy. Upon their entrance a great and terrible war was raged for 28 years, ending in the Sith's victory and changing the course of galactic history. This is the story of the Great Galactic War, of the victors, of the losers, and how the war transformed the galaxy forever. GGW Expanded narrative, mostly canon compliant.

9. Forging the Throne

"Take pride in your duty, for it is upon the fruit of your labor that a Second Holocaust shall never come." - Darth Marr, 61 BNO.
"Help...Sith...We're...Die!"- Last transmission from Rayshus Prime." - 61 BNO
"I serve the Force and the Force is one with my blade."- Sark Dukas 21,374 AGC

The Imperial Throne

In less than a month the Sith Empire had accomplished the great dream that had infected each and every one of its citizens since the Exiles had first landed on Dromund Kaas, the reclamation of ancient Sith Space and total restoration of the Empire's borders. While the great dream may have been turned into reality, holding onto Sith Space would be an endeavor harder than the actual conquest. In terms of astropolitical and martial realities, Sith Space is one of the poorest locations to defend against a galactic hyperpower like the Republic as while the worlds were connected through a local series of hypernetwork, they were nearly isolated in hyperlanes from the rest of the galaxy, including Imperial territories in the Unknown Regions. Sith Space was wedged between the heavily developed Perlemian Trade Route and Hydian Way, giving the Republic the ability to deply and reinforce fleets of tens of thousands that could be supplied from the Core in a matter of days. The region was also home to the most well-trained and supplied Armies and Fleets of the Republic thanks to its past ties to the Brotherhood of Darkness, the Neo-Crusaders, and Revan's Sith, giving rise to multiple warlords in their collapse and requiring a hard Republic boot to prevent the rise of more Sith or Mandalorians.

It was only thanks to the Republic's fear of galactic attack from the Sith that the Republic Navy was not mobilized in the Core and sent to Sith Space and attempt to wipe out the Empire in one stroke (though such an attack would have caused the Empire to show their true hand and unleash their massive reserves, though any victory would undoubtedly come at a key cost). In order to prevent a Second Holocaust for the Sith and to never again take one step back, Darth Marr was tasked by the Dark Council to create a defensive strategy that would make sure that no Republic or Jedi presence would ever again touch Sith Space. The end result would be the Imperial Throne.

The Imperial Throne, or Marr's Wall as it is colloquially referred to in military strategy, refers to the political and military hearth of the Sith Empire with its territory being placed in the Outer Rim between the Perlemian Trade Route and Hydian Way. The purpose of the Imperial Throne was to create a permanent Sith foothold in the galaxy that would one day become the equivalent to the Core where the Sith could reign without fear of attack on their homeland with access to a military-industrial complex that could not only render death against all who sought to invade the Empire, but wage a war of conquest to bring down all enemy states in the known galaxy and crush down any rebellion in the conquered territories. In Marr's vision, every system within the Imperial Throne would have their habitable planets and moons become fortress worlds from which millions of troops and a minimum of 100 ships per world would be stationed with a massive base of local industry to not only feed the requirements of the system forces but provide aid to nearby systems. All local resources would be stripmined to feed the Imperial war machine and from their extraction new defensive goliaths would be emplaced that would obliterate nothing short of a grand armada. While Marr's ambitions would never be fully achieved, what would come of his work and that of his successors would create a grand network of bastions that would stand as the equal of the Core.

The foundations for the Imperial Throne would be laid with the deployment of the Imperial Corps of Engineers in the second year of the conflict to both convert the defenses of the Republic to Sith usage and construct new defensive emplacements to prevent a repeat of their rapid conquest. 18 million Army Engineers would be deployed to Sith Space and with the aid of 40 million civilian laborers and 150 million slaves that Marr had conscripted from the Empire's direct ownership, Sith Space saw the creation of next-generation defensive relays which were the equivalent in quality and firepower to the most advanced Republic fortress worlds on the Rim. Each system had millions of Troopers to flood in and man the titanic defensive turbolasers either in deep space or within atmosphere, while a fleet of 20,000 ships under the direct command of Marr would patrol the area at all times, a massive deployment of naval forces for a single sector that would be complimented by the construction of hundreds of defense platforms and hundreds of thousands of planetary-based starfighters.

With Sith Space prepared for any immediate counterattack, the Dark Council sought to expand the Empire's borders so that the Republic could not return back to Korriban in a single jump. The process had originally been intended to be a slow process that would take place over the next two years, but Satele Shan's proclomation of the Sith's return before the Senate along with personal testimony of Republic forces being wiped out at Korriban had significantly speed up the timetable. In the fifth month of the war, the "Perlemian-Hydian" Offensive began, primarily supplied by hastily activated reserves of the Imperial Navy. 7,000 ships under Hroth would conquer the Hydian Way while 11,000 ships under Marr would conquer the Perlemian. Once the two hyperlanes had been siezed, the two Dark Councilor would link up their forces with the conquest of the Botajef-Columex and Zygerrian routes, creating an encirclement that would entrap all Republic and independent worlds from which the Sith could pick apart with ease.

First Hydian Campaign

The Hydian portion of the Offensive undertaken by Hroth saw his forces be split into equal thirds with the three initial targets of his being Botajef, Serenno, and Telos. These three worlds were the primary arteries through which the Norhtern Rim portion of the Hydian Way flowed and if Hroth captured all at once then he could cause the Northern Hydian to collapse and easily connect his forces. Hroth's attack took place on 1.3 with the three planets being attacked minutes apart. Fortunately for the Republic, they had additional reinforcements in the form of the 79th fleet which had just arrived after a rapid redeployment in the wake of Shan's address, significantly upgrading the ship presence with 365 ships for Botajef, 307 ships for Serrenno, and 258 ships for Telos. Unfortunately, these increased numbers could only cause a slightly larger flesh wound on the Sith who still had overwhelming numerical superiority with over 2300 ships at each engagement. The battles that occured were one sided massacres such as Korriban with only 23 heavily damaged Republic ships from all engagements managing to flee to hyperspace while the rest were destroyed. The Empire in return suffered 103 ships destroyed and 67 suffering various forms of damage.

With the immediate space under complete Imperial hegemony, the Army landed dozens of divisions upon the planets to root out any and all Republic resistance, capture local industries and resources for Imperial exploitation, and convert the locals to their cause. The shipyards of Botajef were the first major galactic shipyard to be captured and converted into Sith usage. The ruling nobles of Serenno quickly surrendered unconditionally an hour after Imperial boots landed upon the planet, causing the world's nobles to keep their titles and lands for integration into Imperial nobility, though at a high price of a war tax that saw 70% of their wealth confiscated over the next decade to fund the Imperial March.

The Battle of Telos IV is noticable for the personal presence of Darth Hroth who led a legion of 6,000 Sith to wage war on the Telos Jedi Enclave. Since the end of the Sith Triumvirate, Telos had hosted a Jedi Enclave which acted as the primary base for the Jedi Agri Corps, washouts of the Order who due to weak proficiency with the Force, poor understanding of the Jedi's teachings, or a poor character which made them suitable to be padawans, was a place for failed younglings to transfer and still serve the Jedi Order as farmers and laborers to feed and build the galaxy. The Enclave also served as a resting place for pilgrims in their long journey across the Outer Rim. In total 491 Jedi called the Enclave home with 20,000 members served in the Agri Corps. Hroth's goals in this attack was to not only take the fight to the Jedi and wipe out one of their strongholds which served as a mark of defiance against the Sith by being the resting place of the Triumvirate, but to also capture as many members of the Agri Corps as possible and convert them into Sith. The Jedi present at the Enclave put up a brave fight with full dedication to defending the Light, but as Knights and Masters of the order who primarily filled the role of humanitarians they could only do so much against scores of Sith who spent their entire lives to perfect the art of war. All Jedi present along with 1166 Agri Corps members were killed, the Corps doing their best to take part in the Enclave's defense. In return 110 Sith died in the battle, most of these being Apprentices and lesser Sith who died either to the Jedi or Republic Troopers present.

Nearly 19,000 Agri Corps members were captured and sent to Korriban where they would become the inaugural class of the reborn Sith Academy. When it comes to documentation of the Agri Corps prisoners, primary and secondary sources (mostly from the Sith but a few key pieces coming from the captured) detail of a months long hellish process where the Agri Corps personnel were completely broken down, made to survive against the hellish landscape of Korriban, turned on each other to break potential alliances for escape, and fed with propaganda on how the Jedi had betrayed them and how they would now have a chance to be liberated by giving themselves to the Dark Side. Many refused to become infected with Anaxes Syndrome with defiance through either open challenge or small acts of standing by their identity being commonplace. Overtime the failure of numerous escape attempts and absolutely no sign of rescue caused many to lose hope and suicide became an increasingly common fate of the prisoners. This is not to say that the Sith were only met with failure though as they found thousands of willing converts through either open sympathies, hidden-distrust of the Jedi, or brainwashing into believing the Sith were righteous. With the Agri Corps filled with the dumping grounds of those who were unworthy to rise as Knights, there were many scorned beings who felt that the Jedi had betrayed them after ripping them apart from their families and giving them a false hope of being great heroes of legend. Joining the Sith was to many a form of righteous justice against the Jedi for their mal-treatment, whether real or imagined. 7,811 Agri Corps personnel would convert to the Dark Side through their stay and 6,160 would survive the trials to become true Sith. They would be the first of many fallen Jedi in the war to come.

With the three major systems of the Northern Hydian under Sith control, Hroth spread out his forces to animate the remnants of the 65th and 79th fleet and claim the hyperlane for the Sith Empire. With near half of their forces decimated, the remnants over the next month could do nothing but either flee or make a desperate last stand against the approaching Sith. The Republic fleets would suffer 502 ships destroyed in return for 133 Imperial ships. Ground combat was massively slanted in the Empire's favor with the Republic suffering 11 million casualties and 14 million captured or enslaved while the Empire only suffered 1.7 million casualties. The final battle of the campaign would take place at the Junction system on 2.16 where 357 ships making up the surviving remnant of the Republic Hydian forces would battle against the more closely numbered Imperial force of 680 ships. For the first hour it seemed that the battle would be another overwhelming Imperial victory with the Republic forces destined to die like in so many other engagements. Then, a miracle happened when the forces of the 82nd provisional fleet arrived from hyperspace and reinforced their wounded brethren with 1007 ships, causing the Imperial fleet to be overwhelming outnumbered by near twice for the first time. The 82nd would arrive with a collection of 66 Interdictors, causing the Empire to be trapped and withstand the unrestricted onslaught of the Republic for the first time. The tides were turned and for the next 13 hours the battle looked to be in the Republic's favor.

Unfortunately for the Republic, the commanding officer of the 82nd, Admiral Tai Malark, had gotten too greedy and driven by revenge, wanting to wipe out the Imperial fleet one by one as the Republic had been in previous engagements. This caused him to chase the dispersed Imperial fleet into the outer system, giving plenty of time for Hroth to receive warning of the potential disaster taking place and rush to reinforce. Thanks to Junction lying squarely on the Hydian, Hroth was able to quickly organize a relief fleet of 2585 vessels to arrive at Junction, which they did during the 14th hour of the battle. With the Sith sporting their own Interdictors, Malark gave up the fight and retreated in haste, causing Malark to break off in haste with 566 ships under his command retreating from the incoming Sith swarm. The Battle of Junction would come to be a pyrrhic Imperial victory with the Empire destroying 898 Republic ships in exchange for 524. At the end of the day though, Junction came under Imperial Conquest and the first Hydian Campaign was a total victory for Hroth.

First Perlemian Campaign

Unlike the more ambitious Hroth who decided to spread his fleet throughout the Hydian to gain as much space as possible at once, Marr took a more cautious and slow approach fitting the head of the Sphere of Military Defense. For the Battle of Columex, Marr personally led all 11,000 of his ships to jump into the Columex system, with the local 171 Columex fleet being destroyed completely in return for only 13 Imperial ships destroyed. With one of the largest fleets the galaxy had ever seen hanging over their planet, Columex surrendered without a single shot fired on the ground. Unlike many of his contemporary Dark Lords who prefered the thrill of carnage and destruction, Marr was a cautious Sith who always attempted to design battles where all forces were under his control and victory was 100% garunteed. Unlike Hroth who immediately dispersed his forces, Marr spent the next two weeks converting Columex into a fortress world with the goal of making it second to citadels that he was building over Sith Space. After two weeks, Marr deposited 500 ships and 2.3 million Troopers then continued on his march northward on the Perlemian.

Marr's policy of obliterating the opposition and then depositing a fraction of his forces, with the lowest numbering in the dozens of ships and tens of thousands of Army personnel, was copied and continued throughout the campaign. This caused Republic forces and the limited Jedi presence to be wiped out wholesale with minimal loss to his own forces, and if the Republic wished to retreat and concentrate their forces, then it was all the better for Marr who captured another world for free. The man opposing Marr, Mon Calamari Admiral Dakata, knew that there was little that he could do to directly defeat Marr without heavy reinforcement from the Core, thus upon observing his strategy deciding to come up with a bold gamble. Dakata decided to implement a Quinosian strategy where he would avoid battles with Marr and allow his advance to continue. While this meant more lost worlds to the Sith, it also meant that Marr would further deplete his forces with a shrinking Armada and Army divisions to boot. Meanwhile, Dakata would rally the remaining portions of the 67th and 80th fleet to the world of Quermia, one of the last stops for Marr on his march. Together with aid from the incoming 83rd provisional fleet, and the 68th fleet who Dakata requested to be transferred from the Tion Region to Quermia, they could amass a sizable force to hopefully outnumber the Sith for the first time and destroy them.

Dakata's hoped for battle would come on 3.6 with what would become the most intense naval battle of the war up til that point, the Battle of Quermia. With Marr's reliance on his strategy, he jumped into Quermia with a heavily depleted force of 1636 ships, against Dakata's force of 1968 ships. Finally, the Republic would be engaging with superior numbers. With Dakata's usage of 37 interdectors, Marr would also not be able to flee and thus face the Republic on in what they hoped would be the Sith's destruction. While the battle was favorable to Dakata from the onset, there were multiple factors which would be crucial in preventing victory.

Firstly, the 68th fleet, which had been intended of arriving in the middle of the battle to encircle their Imperial counterparts, never showed. This was due to Imperial Intelligence intercepting Dakata's messages to the 68th fleet for the battle, and thus they responded by sponsoring a rogue Hutt warlord, Zowza the Hutt, launch a raid with his syndicate on the Tion Cluster. This attack was interpreted by the Republic as a sign that the Hutts would prey on the Republic in their time of weakness, or even worse had allied with the Sith, and thus the 68th fleet had to stay put. The leak in intellegence more importantly made Marr aware of Dakata's plan, which made him prepare for the occasion. While Marr walked in with the lesser number of ships, his fleet was superior in technology and firepower, but more importantly had force hegemony. Marr had 237 Sith of various rankings spread across the fleet, with 15 of those Sith, including Marr himself, practitioners of Battle Meditation. Dakata had no Jedi within his fleet due to their lack of activities in the region, those that had been present at the outbreak of the war returning to Coruscant to have the Order united. Additionally, Marr had reinforcements which he could call upon at any time, while Dakata could not.

For the first four hours of the Battle of Quermia, the engagement looked even with the Empire and Republic taking equal losses and neither side losing ground. Overtime however, the advantage was given to Marr as the presence of his Sith caused vital holes to be created within the Republic's line, holes which were masterfully filled with Marr while the fleet isolated dozens of ships at a time for destruction. Upon the ninth hour of the battle, the advantage was Marr's with a now 2.5:1 lead in numbers. At this point Dakat decided to deactivate the Interdictors and flee to the Tion Cluster, but moments after the gravity wells disappeared, they were re-established by an incoming force of 564 Imperial ships, which had 41 interdictors among their forces.

For the next ten hours, the Republic ships were taken apart one by one, Dakat's death at the 17th hour caused a collapse of what little order remained, making each and every target open for destruction. The Battle of Quermia saw the total destruction of all Republic forces involved, though it was not without some punishment in return as the Empire lost 383 ships with 162 suffering varying amounts of damage. Marr's victory may have come at a price, but in return he saw Quermia surrender unconditionally and the rest of the Perlemian was free to take. Another victory for the Sith.

Constructing Marr's Wall

With the destruction of the 65th, 66th, 67th, 82nd, and 83rd fleets; and absolutely no chance of reinforcements with the Great Scouring, Minos Campaign, and rise of the Dreadmasters, the remaining systems that would soon make up the Imperial Throne were left practically defenseless with only local antiquated defense vessels and planetary militias with small arms and light armor to stand against the Sith Juggernaught. Throughout the third month, Hroth and Marr linked their forces through a joint occupation of the Botajef-Columex route. For the northern ends of the Hydian and Perlemian Route, the Empire was able to conquer the area without a single shot fired thanks to the creation of an alliance with the Zygerrian Empire. While the Zygerrians were considered to be inferior to the dominant Pureblood-Human-Chiss Triarchy of the Empire, Imperial elites found the Zygerrians to be given some amount of respect for their millenia-old perfection of the institution of slavery. With the Zygerrians, the Empire saw an untouched market in forced labor where they could find fresh bodies outside of the conquests, with the Zygerrians having the potential to act as a middle cast in the Imperial slavery system whom the Empire's enslaved species could direct their anger and hatred to, much like the Hutt method of middle species management which preserved their Empire. Darth Fulroth sent emissaries of the Diplomatic Service to Zygerria after Shan's revelation of the Sith's return. The Zygerrian Queen, Praja Vental, was highly enticed by the honeyed words of the Imperials due to offers of open access to all slaves acquired by the Empire in the war, promised to be in the tens of billions or hundreds of billions at minimum, the new open market of Imperial and Sith nobility for the Zygerrians with the potential to make billions of Imperial credits, and low tarriff trade with the Empire on other products, a much needed necessity as the Zygerrians only had positive relations with the Hutts. Despite her advisors warning her of how the Sith of three centuries ago had promised similar good terms to Zygerria and they fell within a few short years, Praja was convinced and signed a treaty of alliance with the Sith Empire, granting the Empire its first formal ally in the known galaxy.

The next two months were spent with the Imperial Armada scouring through the systems that lied within Marr's Wall and eliminating all local resistance with the rapid settlement of human colonists and subversion or enslavement of the natives. At the same time Marr got to work on strengthening the defenses of the Empire's new conquests with every second seeing millions of laborers, either Imperial citizenry or forced, seeing to the creation of bastion systems that would cause any Republic advance to bleed. By 5.15, the Hydian-Perlemian Offensive was declared over with a resounding victory for the Empire, it's conquests being ten times the size of the Second Sith Empire during the Golden Age. Lastly of note that is often overlooked by historians is the activities of Darth Luros who led his own private fleet aligned with the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge to scour the Gordian Reach and recover all remnants of the Second Sith Empire, most especially the legacies of Naga Sadow and Exar Kun. His findings would give great aid to the Empire and Sith Order for generations to come.

The Great Scouring

Despite the fact that the Galactic North was the first direction of Republic colonialism, as well as the destination for the first wave of human migration outside of the Core, by the outbreak of the Great Galactic War it had developed a reputation as a sleepy backwater. The reasons for this were many, but it would mostly boil down to the lack of great hyperlanes with most pointing east to the Mid Rim, along with a lack of diversity of sentient species, or at least those who achieved FTL capability. With a few exceptions such as Muun Space, the Kanz Sector, and of course the infamous Sith Space, the Galactic North was bereft of galactic civilization. This did not mean that the civilized galaxy stayed clear of the great Galactic North, as there would always be willing adventurers who would brave into the unknown with the dream of making their own into the galaxy and claiming a world as theirs.

By the war's outbreak there were 400,000 civilized systems outside of Republic space in the Galactic North. Most of these were colonies (populated and backed primarily by Human, Duros, Twi'lek, and Muun) with 13% of systems being controlled by native species. During the Inter-Sith Wars these systems largely escaped the fighting with little scars thanks to the Sith and Mandalorians marches on the Core as well as the bulk of their conquests being in the Mid Rim. With the recent discovery of the Hydian Way, it was hoped that a new golden age of expansion could begin for the Galactic North which would make them just as viable of a frontier as the South. This all came to an end during the Great Galactic War with the return of the Sith, their first great mark on the Galactic North being the Great Scouring.

The Great Scouring was the next stage of the Sith's raiding on the North leading up to its conquest, this time being of greater scale and more thorough in its destruction. Instead of simply scattering Republic forces and inflicting multiple strikes on commercial and industrial hubs in the region, the Imperial Armada, with the portion responsible for the Great Scouring being led by Vice Admiral Mara Odona, decided to target isolated worlds with populations of less than 100,000, and wipe them from existence. During the Great Scouring, a Harrower-dreadnought or small collection of Dreadnoughts, would drop from hyperspace and eliminate any signs of development in space. With all system infrastructure and whatever miniscule defenses they set up being destroyed, the Dreadnoughts would commence a combination of orbital and atmospheric bombardment with all signs of civilization being reduced to dust. Once the bombardment was completed, companies of Imperial Marines would drop to the surface and conduct thorough eliminations of surviving groups. After a day of sweepup operations, the Dreadnoughts would withdraw with the survivors, most often in the dozens or hundreds with miracles producing low thousands; left to fend for themselves until beings stumbled upon by Republic or neutral ships that gave them mercy.

Over the course of 21,373 AGC/61 BNO, the Great Scouring would claim 1,207 worlds as its victims with a death toll of 33,359,244 and only 558,450 survivors. While the Great Scouring would be relatively tame in terms of life lost when in comparison to the rest of the war, with entire battles such as Bothawui or Alderaan eclipsing the body count several times over, the heavily brutal and thorough nature of what could only be described as extermination was appalling to the Republic. When word spread to the Republic, these isolated worlds became a rallying cry for the Republic to wipe out the evil Sith with billions of beings going to recruitment poll, every civilian either joining the defense industry or contributing to bonds, and support for the Jedi increasing tenfold. While the Great Scouring at first sense appears nothing more than senseless genocide, and a genocide it rightfully is, information from the Empire's perspective reveals a more rational reason to committ such an act instead of a need for senseless slaughter.

The reason the Great Scouring was conceived by the Dark Council was so that it could eliminate any possibility of the Republic using these underdeveloped worlds as bases to not only attack the Empire's gains, but to potentially launch offensives on the Empire's territory in the Unknown Regions if the Republic ever discovered the true nature of the Third Sith Empire, and more importantly was able to locate their colonies which were hidden on the galactic fringes and into the greater Unknown Regions. Every action that would take place during the first decade of the war can be eventually linked back to the overwhelming fear within the Empire and Sith that anything short of absolute victory would see the potential for a Second Sith Holocaust and for the Sith to be extinct permanently. It was only thanks to centuries of careful manipulation of exploration by Imperial Intellegence along with countless miracles that the Empire had not been discovered in its thirteen century exile. However, if they were to wage open war against the Republic, there was nothing to stop them from launching expeditions into the Unknown Regions to discover the Empire's heartland and then take the fight to the Sith. After all, the Jedi Civil War was caused by Revan and Malak discovering Dromund Kaas after Malachor V, and these were just two Jedi who ventured on their own, what was to stop the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order from repeating the same feat?

Thus, in order to protect the true heartland of the Sith Empire for as long as possible, the Imperial Armada committed the great scouring to cleanse the Galactic North of as much non-Sith presence as possible. The systems picked were not random targets, rather they were systems close to Imperial Space, all of which being less than 1,000 light-years, with no strategic value to require an occupation, and thus reveal to the Republic possible origins of the Empire from their deployments. While preventing genocide with genocide is never the correct method, this was what the Sith believed to be part of the few methods they could use to guarantee their survival. Once again it must be stressed that despite the Sith's overwhelming dominance of the Great Galactic War, that most of the war was conducted with a supermajority of Sith and Imperials living everyday in fear of the dreaded Republic and Jedi who would wipe them all. If this fear never existed, then the war would either not take place or be far more restrained, causing countless Trillions to still be alive.

First Victories

While the Republic was highly motivated to win the war, and was entering a state of total mobilization that was soon to equal that of the Jedi Civil War, motivation by hatred and fear combined with a lack of success is not a good recipe for conducting a galactic war. The Republic wanted to take the fight to the Sith, with a poll conducted on Coruscant showing a strong 89% support for the war, but the lack of large victories while the numbers of dead and planets lost piled on by the day made the average citizen of the Republic increasingly frustrated and at times despondent with the war effort. While it would be years before grand victories such as Alderaan would be achieved, the Republic would begin experiencing small victories that showed that on equal terms, fighting the Sith was possible.

The first recorded victory for the Republic was on 2.26 during the Great Scouring. In the Lisbet system, a Republic squadron of 1 destroy, 1 frigate, and 2 corvettes under Cathar Captain Mikas Lottl had stopped in-system as the destroyer's hyperdrive was malfunctioning and thus needed to be stabilized before a jump could be conducted and the destroyer would not be torn apart in a hyperspace accident. Unfortuantely for the squadron, or fortunately to the settlement on Lisbet IV's salvation, the squadron was still in-system when a single Harrower-class dreadnought arrived to target Lisbet as part of the Great Scouring. While nominally the Dreadnought would have an easy time with its opponents, the Dreadnought was lacking in Sith while the Republic squadron had a single Jedi with them, Jedi Knight Orgus Din.

At the age of 17, Din had recently been made a knight and shortly after his knighthood ceremony, decided to take the path of a pilgrim, to go to the Outer Rim and eliminate any and all traces of major crime that he found to make it a safer place. For the past year Din had been doing such a task, taking down thousands of criminals and bringing peace to multiple small communities. When stopping at Dantooine for resupply, Din had heard for the first time of the Sith's return to the galaxy. As fate would have it, Lottl's squadron had been in-system at the same time, and thus Din offered his services to Lottl to protect the ships against Sith attack until such a time that he could receive proper posting from the High Council. Lottl agreed and for the previous month Din had integrated himself into the squadron, training his martial skill while the ships searched for all whispers of the Sith. Now in the Lisbet system, Lottl's squadron would have their first taste of combat against the Sith, and for Orgus Din especially his legend would be born.

Knowing that he lacked the firepower to outright defeat the dreadnought, Lottl opted to have his squadron retreat into the outer system and dispersed. He gambled that the Dreadnought would have to choose between four Republic ships or a relatively worthless planet. If the Dreadnought choose the ships then Lisbet IV was safe, if it choose the planet then it would leave itself exposed to attack from the Republic. The Dreadnought choose Lottl, and thus the Battle of Lisbet IV was born.

Unfortunately for the Imperial warship, Lottl's high agility as a Cathar translated to his abilities as a Captain. The four Republic ships dispersed and moved in an erratic behavior that made firing on them difficult for the singular Dreadnought. With an inability to pick them apart one by one, the Imperial Captain launched his fighters, with Lottl doing the same, allowing Orgus Din to take to the field . While this was Orgus Din's first time in combat in a starfighter, the young Knight had always had a gift for flying, having one of the best performances in solo piloting within the Order at the time. Guided by the force, Din performed at the same level as a veteran, destroying multiple Imperial starfighters in a row, saving many of his new squadmates from doom, and flying circles around the Dreadnought. Not only did Din manage to eliminate 24 starfighters on his own, but he was able to destroy or cripple most of the Dreadnought's turbolaser batteries, leaving it as a toothless leviathan against the Republic forces.

With the Dreadnought lacking its firepower and its starfighters destroyed, the battle was now Lottl's to win. Most leading officers in this scenario would destroy the Dreadnought as vengeance for Sluis Van, but Lottl saw the greater tactical picture and saw a necessity to capture the Dreadnought alive, to gain intel on the Sith's origins and fully dissect their seemingly superior technology. Lottl would over the course of two hours cripple the Dreadnought with ion canons. Once the ship was depowered, Lottl sent three battalions of Republic Marines along with Orgus Din to capture the Dreadnought.

Once again in this scenario, the Empire should have easily been able to repel the boarders and wait for relief to arrive, but the Republic had Orgus Din. Despite choosing the lifestyle of a pilgrim, Din fought with the grace and skill of a seasoned veteran, personal accounts tell of how every move he conducted was near perfect, diving headfirst into a crowd of Imperial Troopers and emerging with no scratches. Against any droid or organic that dared to raise its blaster against Orgus, he would cut them down with his lightsaber like hot butter. High on the success of the naval action and inspired by Din's example, the Marines also served with heavy valor and mowed down any defenders who sought to separate them from the bridge. Within 43 minutes Din and the Marines had secured the ship, suffering only 28 dead and 34 wounded in comparison to 782 Imperials dead and 963 wounded, the rest being taken prisoner thanks to slicing of the ship's system locking down most personnel from the path of Din and the Marines.

While Imperial reinforcements would arrive the next day, they would arrive to find their dreadnought captured and the new addition of 27 Republic ships, scurrying them off. Thus, the Battle of Lisbet IV was the first Republic victory. While the battle wasn't exactly a gamechanger for the war as the Lisbet system was strategically insignificant, and the starchart for Imperial space was wiped out before the Marines could slice into the central computer; the technology that was captured and reverse engineered allowed the Republic to gain a full understanding of what they were facing with plans soon underway in R & D for the Republic to adapt and innovate. The prisoners captured after extensive interrogation revealed the true nature of the Empire, that they were not remnants of Revan's Sith Empire, but Naga Sadow's Sith Empire, waiting in the shadows for over a millennia while their mysterious god-like Emperor guided them towards the prophesized return. It was highly valuable intelligence that shed more light on the mystery of the new Sith. Perhaps most importantly for the Republic, it served as a huge propaganda boost to show that not every battle with the Sith would end in defeat, and in the aftermath the fame and careers of both Lottl and Din would skyrocket with both becoming heroes to the Republic over the course of the war.

By the second year's end the Republic had many more Lisbet's, with 62 planets protected from the Great Scouring due to timely intervention while reinforcements to the Galactic North allowed the Republic to intercept the Sith more often. By the year's end for the Galactic North, 172 Imperial ships had been destroyed with 19 captured (though all had their starcharts wiped in-line with a new directive by Marr to prevent discovery of the Empire's hearth). The Empire would suffer 2.16 million casualties along with 289,000 taken prisoner. These small victories would not have any chance of changing the war, but it gave the Republic some light in its time of great darkness.

A/N: And with that the first half of 3,680 BBY comes to a close. Here we see the Sith expanding their borders with crushing victories against the Republic in the Hydian Way and Perlemian Trade Route, though not without its own losses, Sith warcrimes continue with the Great Scouring, and small signs of hope are abound with the tale of Orgus Din's rise. Here I wanted to show the continued dominance of the Sith, how they conducted the war after being exposed and what their main strategy was besides just conquer, and for the Republic small moments of bravery and defiance that allow them to carry on. Next chapter will cover the second half of 3,680 in the Southern Outer Rim. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!