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.

10. Dreadful South

"Why is it that every time the Sith strike the Rim burns while the core is scratched? Why is it that after the fall of a million systems on the Rim, that the Republic refuses to mobilize unless the Core or one of its precious jewels comes face to face with the enemy? I'll tell you why, it is because of the bigotry and prejudice of the Republic's establishment. When war comes to the galaxy, the Rim is used as your shield so that the Core remains untouched. Constipex may be dead but his will is not!" -Senator Fidola Freyus 21,373 AGC
"When I killed for the first time on Eliad, the Sith I fought looked upon me with such hatred, it was as if I was being showered with rage incarnate, though later experiences admittedly eclipsed this show of the Dark far and wide. Despite the fact that the Sith were the invaders, that they had disturbed the peace and brought death to billions, that we had not met one another for more than 1300 years, he gazed upon me as if I was the greatest evil of the galaxy. Were we so awful in the Great Hyperspace War, to cause such loathing that it would last millennia?" - Eclipse: The Ballod of the Defeated by Gnost-Dural. 21,405
"Are you willing to take responsibility for the continuation of this war, for Trillions of your citizens to die, for your worlds to burn, all for the existence of the Dread Guard? Yes, the Guard were vital weapons in winning this war, but they are not the Lords of the Apocalypse that you make them out to be just because they are the heirs of the Dread Masters. The masters powers did not just come from their mastery of dread, it is because they were the Emperor's companions for centuries, such a relationship grants great power to any who are in the Emperor's Inner Circle, you know this from your usage of Scourge the False Wrath. The Guard are servants of the Emperor, nothing more. You know that we view the Masters as heretics, anyone who wishes for the formation of a Second Dread Council shall be purged." - Emperor's Herald Darth Arcaevus 189 NO

War in the South

With the Empire beginning its formal conquest in the North, it was up to Fleet Admiral Lucius Delaz to keep as many Republic forces as possible tied down South so that the Empire's march could continue with little issue. After the Battle of Sluis Van the forces of the Rimma Trade Route had been crippled while reinforcements to the Southern Outer Rim were shifted to the North to deal with the feared march on the Core that the Hydian-Perlemian campaign presented. These factors, along with the later entrance of the Dread Masters, gave Delaz some much needed space to conduct his campaign of guerilla tactics to harass the Republic and stretch its logistics and manpower incredibly thin.

Thanks to the protection of their bases within Hutt space as well as shelter within southern Wild Space, Imperial ships could destroy elements of the Republic Navy along with large formations of the Republic Merchant Marine and safely retreat with little fear of pursuit. The Southern Naval Campaign saw 1,632 Republic ships be destroyed, though in return Delaz suffered the destruction of 190 ships. The ratio made each loss well worth it though and Delaz was able to receive steady but slow reinforcement from the Empire. The cost in civilian shipping would see many systems collapse into either heavy recessions or depressions with 603 billion tons of shipping be destroyed. From the raids conducted upon Republic-aligned worlds, 411 million civilians died while 6.2 Trillion credits of property damage were created. Delaz's campaign saw the Southern Outer Rim see the largest amount of destruction since the Bothan War with many worlds that had been untouched since the Pius Dea crusades falling into ruin. In addition to the loss of life and materials suffered by the Republic, Delaz was successful in forcing the transfer of 8,000 ships and 50 million Troopers from the coreward sectors to deal with the threat of him, vast quantities that would not be used in a potential retaking of Sith Space.

While undoubtedly successful, Delaz's memoirs reveal an insatiable hunger to cause more death and devastation on the Republic, with dreams of him going beyond a mere raider and instead becoming a warlord of the Empire who would conquer the entirety of the Southern Rim on his own, rising to the position of Grand Moff, if not the Minister of War. What prevented Delaz from achieving his own dreams of conquest were the long supply lines to Sith Space. Supply from the Empire could take months and while their bases had some means of autonomous production, they would require the requisition of resources from Hutt space or domestic industry, leading to paper trails which could expose their location or visible mining and production which would expose these backwater bases. If Delaz wanted to expand his reach and conquer, he needed a sphere of influence through which he could feed his war machine to launch distant operations in the Rim and not have to rely on the Empire.

Delaz sent his request to the Dark Council, and fortunately for him received a majority approval as the military Triumvirate of Sera, Hroth, and Marr wished for the creation of a new theater on the opposite end of the galaxy that could tie down a heavy minority of the Republic in preparation for their plans. With the support of the ruling Dark Lords, Delaz personally lead a fleet of 432 ships to the Empire's next target of conquest, the Minos Cluster.

Minos Campaign

The Minos Cluster is one of the most resource rich sectors within the Outer Rim, being the ninth most dense sector in the Outer Rim for raw materials. Each system contained an average of 19 terrestrial worlds and with the addition of many more moons along with multiple asteroid belts, it made for the perfect target for a campaign of self-sustaining. Best of all, the Minos Cluster was nominally under the defense of the 69th fleet, but after the Battle of Sluis Van most Republic forces had been redirected to aid in the defense of Eriadu. At the start of the invasion there were only 15 ships and 37,000 Republic troopers alongside local millitias to defend the entire sector. This made its conquest an easy task for Delaz on paper.

On 7.20 Delaz would invade the Minos Cluster with the entirety of his fleet deploying to Pergitor and eliminating the meager two frigates that were stationed in-system with ease. For the next four months Delaz would slowly advance through the Minos Cluster by following the tactics of Darth Marr, consolidating each system gained and then depositing a small number of Imperial ships and Army divisions before proceeding to the next system. Delaz saw Marr's strategy in the First Perlemian campaign as the best approach for constructing his new fiefdom and protecting it from a potential Republic counterattack when they were deep behind enemy lines and tens of thousands of lightyears away from Imperial space. At first the plan seemed to work as any and all resistance was quickly squashed with the local populations forced into submission. While such an open advancement in the Southern Rim was alarming, with the Minos Cluster being at the end of the Rimma Trade Route and all nearby sectors being strategically worthless, Munli and the Senate decided to best focus on the defense of the North, refusing to send reinforcements to the Minos Cluster.

These were the best possible conditions for Delaz to perform his conquest, which looked to be more of a flag-planting campaign than a true battle. As the months went by, Delaz grew bold and instead of sticking to a slow consolidation with each system turning into a fortress, Delaz decided to spread his forces to capture as much of the Cluster as quickly as possible. While it would stretch his numbers thin in isolation, Delaz believed that by securing as many systems as possible Delaz would have the maximum amount of resources to launch a new theater that would possibly become the equal of the North. A sign of his ambitions was Delaz's redeployment of 200 ships from raiding duty to his command in the Minos Cluster. Delaz's ambitions would prove to be a crutch as while he was correct in believing that the Republic would not dare to stop him, that did not mean that the Jedi would stand idle.

Battle of Eliad

For a casual student of history it would appear that the first year of the war, barring the Battle of Telos IV and a few isolated incidents of heroism such as Orgus Din's participation at the Battle of Lisbet, that the Jedi had abandoned the galaxy to the march of the Sith and were hiding at Coruscant. While the Jedi could have been more proactive, their lack of public participation in the war initially comes down to the Order trying to fix their institutional flaws rather than cowardice. Since the Order's rebirth after the end of the Intersith Wars by the followers of Surik, the Jedi had taken hard measures against any display of militarism to prevent a rise of Revan. Martial aspects of the Jedi lifestyle were either heavily toned down or removed entirely in favor of a new role as keepers of the peace. Now Jedi were diplomats first, not warriors. While this did not mean that the Jedi were entirely absent from the battlefield between the Jedi Civil War and Great Galactic War, their presence was only as an auxiliary to Republic forces, and even then the Jedi were hardly present unless it was a major campaign that could impact the stability of a major star system or sector. With most members of the Order being oriented towards diplomacy and humanitarianism, with battle instincts limited to self-defense, Zym recognized that each member of the Order had to be heavily retrained in order to become the necessary soldiers to lead the Republic against the Empire. Thus after Shan returned the Jedi were recalled to Coruscant to participate in training for their new roles as officers of the Republic military.

In addition to education in the art of war, the Jedi also had to be educated in combat against force users of the Dark Side. While any properly trained Knight could hypothetically stand against a Dark Jedi, against a Sith many would fall without great numbers or power. The Order had a proper answer to fight the Sith with the Dark Shadows, but nearly half of them had been killed in Sith Space, leaving the number of Jedi who could truly stand 1 to 1 against a Sith being few, and the Jedi needed as many trained to combat the Sith as possible, as reports indicated that these Sith far outnumbered the Brotherhood of Darkness, Revan's Sith, and the Triumvirate, if not all combined. During this time not only did the Jedi have to learn how to become military officers, but they also had to take a grueling crash course in combat against the Dark Side. It was a process that took a great deal of time and effort, and if it was rushed then every Jedi sent to the field would be another victim of a Sith blade.

Lastly was the issue of numbers. While the Jedi had no true comprehension at the time of the Sith Order's size, they did understand that they were numerically on par with this Sith, if not inferior with only 120,000 potential combatants, and many of them being unable to be sent on the frontlines due to various commitments. As such the Jedi had to undergo a mass recruitment spree to prepare for any long-term war as well as to bolster its numbers so that it would not suffer an outcome similar to the Great War. During the first year of the war the Jedi would manage to recruit 16, 659 beings into the Order, breaking the newly-established tradition of selecting only children at the age of or biological equivalent of 7 years or under to target mostly adults. These new Initiates had largely joined the Jedi out of a sense of patriotism and duty to protect the Republic and greater galaxy than a strong commitment to the Jedi ideals, culture, and lifestyle, creating future conflict that would give rise to the Tython rebirth.

By the first anniversary of the war's beginning, enough of the Order had been trained in warfare that they were confident enough to begin proactive campaigns against the Empire. Unfortunately for the Order, such a desire went against the wishes of Taf Munli who sought to instead concentrate the Jedi in bulk against the Sith advance in the North so that the Sith could be driven to extinction in a single stroke such as the Sith Holocaust of the Great Hyperspace War. Without Republic support, the Jedi could only act on their own if they wished to take the fight to the Sith. To the great surprise of the Republic's leaders, the Jedi did just that with Grand Master Zym organizing an expedition under Master Sark Dukas to give aid to the Minos Cluster from the Sith Onslaught. The Order would be able to do so thanks to Zym using the Order's treasury to purchase a small fleet of century-old Republic vessels that had been decommissioned or sold from the Republic Navy thanks to advancements in the previous two decades. With a small fleet of 91 ships at his command, Zym would staff it through the creation of a PMC called the Sunrider Company after the beloved Grandmaster of the Jedi Order Nomi Sunrider. Days after its creation the Sunrider Company would gain hundreds of thousands of resumes, mainly from veterans of the Republic military and planetary defense forces of the Core, all of whom were eager to take the fight against the Sith. With a new fleet of vessels fully staffed and a Corps of Marines to aid the Jedi in ground operations, 51 of the ships along with 1531 Jedi and 40,000 Marines would depart Coruscant and make the grand journey towards the Minos Cluster.

Despite the benign intentions of Zym in creating the Jedi fleet and Sunrider Company, such a move was heavily bashed within the halls of the Senate as the Senators feared that Zym was quickly on the verge of being the second coming of Revan. They feared that even if the Sith were driven entirely from the Minos Cluster with heavy losses, that the Jedi would use this as an opportunity to take whole control of the Republic forces just as Revan did during the Mandalorian Wars, and that even if these Sith were driven to extinction, that Zym would just fall to the Dark Side and create another Sith Empire, just like Revan who up til that point had no explanation on why he and Malak fell. The most anti-Jedi Senators even promoted conspiracy that the "Sith" were just a secret faction of Jedi that would bring the Republic to its knees with the Jedi then launching a coup and uniting the galaxy under its sinister rule. The day after the Jedi fleet departed, Zym was called to the Senate to testify on his actions with a vocal minority of Senators demanding that the Grand Master be arrested for treason. Fortunately no charges were created due to Zym's actions being those of a sovereign citizen as he solely used the Order's wealth, did not appropriate funds, resources, or manpower from the Republic, and the Sunrider Company met the legal qualifications of the current PMC laws within the Republic. Munli was also hesitant to press charges against the Jedi as while he was in heavy disapproval of Zym, such a move could dangerously divide the Republic in half as the Sith were marching across the Outer Rim. However, the scandal would dominate the holonet for months and it would critically occupy much of the Jedi's attention on a PR war instead of tending to the actual war with the Sith.

Fortunately for the Jedi, not all within the Republic were against their move with many supporting the endeavor to relieve the Minos Cluster. When the Jedi fleet arrived at Eriadu, they were met with a heavily warm reception by the defenders of the system who had been heavily in support of a relief of the Minos Cluster but due to the politicking of Coruscant, were forced to stay on guard at the crosspoint of the Hydian Way and Rimma Trade Route instead. Knowing that the Jedi would likely face certain naval defeat on their own due to their highly outdated arsenal, with the most modern ships within the Republic Navy failing to come close to the quality of the Empire's, the Jedi had to receive Republic support if they were to make a true impact. From the Eriadu defenders, Rear Admiral Maribeth Tarkin offered to aid the Jedi with a compliment of 11 vessels using the "Operational Autonomy" given to the 69th fleet to eliminate a regional threat, i.e the Sith. While Tarkin's journal revealed extensive thoughts of ideological conflict with the Jedi, she was highly approving of their case of action against the Sith instead of sitting around and letting them conquer much of the galaxy as the Republic was seen to have acted in the InterSith Wars. The Jedi graciously accepted the offer with the commanding Admiral Soto looking the other way, and the expanded fleet made its way to the Minos Cluster.

In the planning for the campaign, Master Dukas wished to simply stop the Sith advance rather than to set up base and collect their forces, correctly summarizing that doing so would only cause the Imperial fleet to organize and isolate the Jedi for extermination while they called in the reinforcement of Sith Lords from the Empire proper. With the aid of local sources, the Sunrider Company found the latest advance of the Empire to be concentrated on the Eliad system, a system in the galactic south-east of the Minos Cluster that contained a total of 227 celestial bodies, a worthy prize for the Empire. With Tarkin's aid, Dukas devised a plan which would use the system's unique astropography to secure a decisive victory over the Sith. Taking a major gamble, 13 ships of the Sunrider company would jump in-system and make a straight run for the planet of Eliad where the Empire where concentrating their forces. The Imperials would respond rapidly to thwart the Jedi invasion, highly tempted by the prize of killing so many Jedi, especially if there were Sith mixed in with the leadership. While the Imperial fleet was distracted, the rest of the Sunrider Company along with Tarkin's forces would jump in close to one of Eliad's 12 moons using hypercharts created by one of Freia Kallea's colleagues in the charting of the Hydian. The plan was bold and a major risk for the Jedi who would be sitting porgs for a potential slaughter, but it was a risk that the Jedi seemed willing to take to finally strike against the Sith as there was no recorded dissent.

When the Battle of Eliad occured on 12.3, the plan worked to near perfection for the Republic. With the Imperial Navy being high on its string of high profile space victories and conquests throughout the year, the commanding officer of the fleet naively directed all of his ships to target the Jedi so that he could kill every ship before they were brought down to the surface and claim some prestige with the Sith. While the Jedi were outgunned and slightly outnumbered, they had the advantage of battle meditation on their side with half of the Company's battle meditation trained Jedi, 9 in total, being spread among the relief ships which helped them to gracefully weave and dodge from the incoming fire to come down to Eliad. It was not a perfect performance as two ships were destroyed and five sustained various areas of damage, but none of the ships with meditation masters were destroyed and over 200 Jedi were able to come to the surface of Eliad. Twenty-five minutes into the battle the Sunrider-Tarkin fleet jumped in-system and by pushing their engines to maximum acceleration, quickly came upon the orbiting Imperial fleet and pounced upon them with full prejudice. While the Sunrider ships were outdated, their firepower gave the Republic a heavy advantage of numbers and when directed by the battle meditation Jedi, they were able to land upon the Imperial ships with near perfect accuracy. The Imperial fleet had no Sith practiced in the art of battle meditation for which to protect themselves with, and thus desperately attempted to reposition themselves to protect their rear as well as form a defensive ring around Eliad to prevent more Jedi from dropping down.

Thanks to superior numbers and skill, the Jedi-Republic fleet displayed their full might to the Empire for the first time in the war without the threat of overwhelming reinforcements. The Imperial vessels present at Eliad did not perform horribly as they were able to cause significant damage due to their superior quality in firepower as well as a slight numerical edge in starfighters, but the lack of orbital defensive emplacements gave the Empire little defensive advantages with their fleet slowly becoming encircled and whittled down with absolutely zero rest or repose. With more than half their fleet being destroyed by the third hour of fighting, a breakout was attempted by the surviving captains with their target being an isolated section of Tarkin's fleet with two destroyers and a frigate, with the captains feeling that it would be their best bet due to a lack of Jedi from which they could gracefully dodge or call in reinforcements quickly thanks to battle meditation. The gamble was a successful one with the surviving Imperial ships escaping back to Delaz, though one would be destroyed while another having their hyperdrive crippled with the cruiser later being open for boarding by the Jedi, with only 3 ships escaping to hyperspace to Pergitor. The space portion of the battle of Eliad had ended, though it was not an overwhelming victory as the Jedi and Tarkin had hoped for as the fleet suffered 13 ships destroyed, 5 heavily damaged, and 10 suffering light to moderate damage. In return though they were able to break the Imperial fleet with 10 destroyed, 1 captured, and 3 retreating, a decent performance considering their composition of 8 dreadnoughts, 3 cruisers, 2 destroyers, and 1 transport. Now the Republic and Jedi had total space supremacy over Eliad, an advantage that they used to quickly funnel in hundreds of Jedi to the surface as well as to provide tactical support through bombing of Imperial positions.

For the first time in the ground war, the Empire was outnumbered and isolated with only 9,000 Imperial Troopers and 21 Sith to face off against the oncoming hoard of Jedi. Had the Jedi and Republic arrived a week later then perhaps the Imperial invaders could have dug in to Eliad's mountainous terrain and wait out a siege until Delaz arrived to rescue them. Unfortunately, they had just been on the planet for three days and thus were only laying the foundation for the planetary base, a job which had until then been done slowly due to the expectation that they would only face danger from native fauna and lightly armed colonists. The Engineer compliment quickly worked to enhance their defensive positions while the Sith under a Lord Gorex became filled with rage and hate, ready to kill as many of the Jedi as possible. The battle that would play out was a king of the hill affair as the Empire and Sith dug in as quickly as possible while attempting to shoot any and all Republic/Jedi forces that attempted to drop in on their positions or climb the high mountain. Dukas, who was leading personally on the ground, spread out the Jedi in a ring so that the Imperials, and most importantly the Sith, would be forced to spread out and create multiple holes in their defense, all the while they would face harassment from aerial forces and dropships would ferry in Jedi and Troopers behind enemy lines so that Imperials and Sith would either have to retreat to face the new foe, or stand their ground and be encircled. The defenders fought with all they could, but when faced against near a thousand Jedi, many of whom were the Order's greatest combatants, victory was never meant to be. Early in the morning of the next day, the Jedi would reach the main camp, where upon the death of Lord Gorex at its gates along with four fellow warriors in a desperate last stand that saw Gorex be beheaded by Dukas, the remaining Imperials surrendered.

The ground portion of Eliad saw all Sith die in combat while the Empire suffered 3,979 dead, 3,336 wounded, 764 missing, and the remainder being captured. The Republic and Jedi did not come out cleanly as they suffered the death of 1,088 Troopers, the wounding of 817, and 118 missing. Of the Jedi who participated there were 32 dead and 11 wounded. While not without loss, 12.4 saw the Republic receive their first major victory against the Empire with their first successful defense of a world against Imperial invasion. While it would not lead to the end of the war, the Battle of Eliad prevented the complete conquest of the Minos Cluster, was a major propaganda victory for the Republic that raised its morale in a time of defeat after defeat on the Rim, and perhaps most importantly it restored public faith to the Jedi that had been on a decline since the Inter-Sith Wars.

While nominally the victors at Eliad should have been immediately swarmed by the rest of Delaz's forces, who would have surely wiped them out if he had brought only half of the fleet along with the Sith contingent, a gamble made in insubordination thwarted his plans. Admiral Soto, who was inspired by Tarkin's display of courage and disgusted at having to stay defensive while the Sith marched across the galaxy, decided to go on the offensive and stop Delaz in his tracks. Soto would gather 191 ships of the 69th fleet and upon receiving word from Tarkin of the start of Eliad, immediately deployed to the Minos Cluster, leaking to Delaz through an open holo communication that he was coming with the 69th fleet to push him out of the sector. While such a move appears to be astronomically idiotic on paper, the leak was purposeful so that Delaz was aware that Soto was coming and thus he would be forced to face him, thus focusing his fleet on the incoming 69th and not Eliad, saving Tarkin and Dukas' forces from what most certainly be a swift death. The plan worked as Delaz was scrambling to recall his very spread out fleet to converge on him and stop the Republic invasion. Thanks to the Empire being spread over light-years and most forces in the midst of consolidation, such a task was easier said than done, allowing Eliad to continue without interference while for Soto he was able to arrive at the Yelsain system with only 27 Imperial ships to face him. The First Battle of Yelsain provided another resounding Republic victory at the end of the year with Soto destroying 18 Imperial ships and capturing 3 at the loss of 9 ships. Unfortunately for Soto the planet would not be secured as he had not brought the proper ground compliments to conduct a proper invasion, and thus he had to settle for a blockade of the planet Yelsain, allowing the Imperial defenders to settle in for a long siege unlike Eliad, an affair made further troubled by a group of Sith and Imperial Commandos fading into the planet's backwater and conducting a brutal guerilla war against the Republic invaders to disorganize the siege. Still, the system had been won, the Republic had a firm entrance into the Minos Cluster, and Soto was able to relieve Eliad with Tarkin and the Jedi regrouping with Soto at Yelsain to continue the march through the Minos Cluster.

For the first time in the Great Galactic War, after a year of brutal losses for the Republic with no possible victory in sight, the Republic had the upper hand in a campaign and looked to soon be able to secure it entirely. While Munli was privately incensed at Soto and Tarkin's direct insubordination, the two Admirals overnight became war heroes and models of dutiful and valiant Republic citizens. As such with their high popularity and the Minos Cluster appearing to soon be a Republic encirclement and destruction of the great Sith fleet that had been harassing the core, Munli begrudgingly accepted their free actions and publicly lauded them as heroes while awarding them and many of the Jedi leaders with medals. Knowing that such a major victory would be a huge boost in the leadup to the building Operation Daragon, decided to support the move by deploying 1560 ships to the Southern Front with 400 ships and 20 million Troopers, most of which were recent enlisted, to the theater. Munli would also in a public show of goodwill hire the Sunrider Company with an intended role of serving under special forces, increasing the Jedi's good reputation and quickly ending their political descent caused by the company's creation.

On the side of the Empire, while there was never any panic within the Dark Council as the Minos Campaign was always intended to be a sideshow distraction to spread the Republic thin and hide their true intentions, there was a high amount of displeasure over the breaking of the image of Sith invincibility, despite the string of minor victories earlier in the year and somewhat heavy casualties at the end of the Hydian-Perlemian campaign. Fortunately for Delaz, he was not relieved of command or taken care of in a more traditional form of Sith justice. The Admiral had proven himself the previous year at Sluis Van, and this was merely an unexpected play of the Republic that Intelligence had failed to account for. Instead, Delaz would be reinforced with a grand fleet of more than 600 vessels and a legion of 15,000 Sith to ward off against the Jedi. However, Delaz would made clear that this would be the only help he would get unless he could prove that he was worthy of more resources by inflicting heavy death on the Republic. If Delaz died or was defeated, then he would receive no salvation from them, and if he was to dare come back to the Empire in failure, then he would beg for death by the Jedi. With such a dreary mandate inflicted upon him, Delaz vowed that he would not become the first Imperial flag officer to suffer complete defeat to the Republic and Jedi. Delaz abandoned his strategy of a full conquest of the Minos Cluster, calling all of his forces not deployed directly within the Rimma Trade Route to converge on his position where they would soon be distributed throughout recent conquest on the direct Route. Here Delaz would make his stand and upon receiving his reinforcements, would begin his plan to blockade the Rimma Trade Route.

Thus the beginning to the Great Galactic War's longest campaign had begun.

Lords of Dread

When it comes to documentation of the Dread Masters, information is scarce to gather with little if any primary sources on their history while the historical narrative is usually crafted together from Sith and Jedi official statements along with the rare point of view of survivors of their encounters. Due to the mighty power that they wielded, no information has been released by either the Sith or Jedi on how they wielded the force, a reasonable move in order to prevent other force sects or independent force users from harnessing such a power. While the Dread Guard can be inferred as the successors of the Dread Masters, its lack of autonomy and strong subservience to the Throne present a picture of a much more controlled, perhaps limited force, though no true assertions can be made about the Guard despite their seven centuries of existence due to the preservations of their secrets by the Emperor. With all of this being said, the telling of the history of the Dread Masters will be heavily limited in narrative, though it is an important tale to spread to show the power of the Sith Order, a fraction of what they can achieve today.

The first Sith/Imperial documentation that hints to the existence of the Dread Masters is around 900 BNO when the Dark Council is first made aware of their existence and position as the Emperor's advisors. While the Dread Masters would become acknowledged on paper, awareness of them by the general public was seemingly nonexistent with even most Sith not knowing of what a Dread Master was. This is most likely due to their close position of the Emperor, and as Vitiate retreated into isolation, they stayed at his side and thus never became a part of Imperial society in the same manner as the Dark Council. Due to documentation from non-Sith officials such as Ministers, Admirals, Generals, and Moffs; we do know that it is possible for non-Sith to be aware of the Dread Masters, but it was only for those in the highest positions of power.

For the next nine centuries of their existence, it is difficult to tell what role the Dread Masters played within the Imperial Court and Sith Order. Accounts give conflicting tales of what the Dread Master's power truly was with some Sith and Imperials regarding them as the Emperor's toys of amusement, and others detailing of their grand power and position as the Emperor's Inner Circle, going above the Dark Council and perhaps being the true rulers of the Emperor. While no account disagreed of the effects of their power with the spread of dread, the lack of hard usage of this power upon the Empire's governance made the Dread Masters' role confusing at best.

With most of their lives shrouded in mystery, we can only best speak of the Dread Masters from their entrance into the Great Galactic War and downfall in the Second Great Galactic War. Why the Dread Masters deployed specifically for the war and were used the way they were is unknown. The lack of any information from Marr, Sera, and Hroth on their usage or a potential commanding of this suggests that this was Vitiate's personal project. Why they were absent from major battles such as Second Korriban or Bothawui is heavily unknown, and the leading theory for many historians on the era is that it was Revan's influence that limited Vitiate from unleashing them on the battlefield proper, though if such was the case why did the Dread Masters be deployed at all? Whatever the reason, the Dread Masters would exist from their seclusion and enter into the battlefield in the seventh month of 21,373 AGC/62 BNO, presumably to deploy a superweapon that would hold down significant portions of the Republic fleet from the Galactic North and allow the Empire's march to continue with little fear of confrontation with an equal numerical force.

From this point on most information on the Dread Master's activities in the first war, and the majority of their history in general, comes from records released by the Jedi Order after the end of the Second Great Galactic War, though the Jedi themselves have admitted to heavy censorship in order to prevent knowledge corruption. These records come from the Droumnd Terror, a Harrower-class Dreadnought which would serve as the mobile base of operations for the Dread Masters. From Jedi accounts, the crew of the Dromund Terror had after the conclusion of the Hydian-Perlemian campaign been assigned to the Dread Master's command under the direct order of the Emperor. Since direct orders from Vitiate towards the military were rare, the crew treated this as a great honor with some believing that it would make them the flagship of the Imperial Navy. Unfortunately for the dutiful souls of the dreadnought, they would face one of the worst fates of serving under a Sith, becoming mind raped and enslaved to completely serve their will and exist only as tools to further the Dread Masters goal. Holologs released by the Jedi show the Imperials switch frequently between humans with free will that lived and worked in a state of fear and unease, into emotionless automatons that acted out in the manner of the biological droids. Such a loss of will and agency was a fate that in many respects was far worse than falling to the wrath of a ruthless Lord.

With the crew of the Dromund Terror now firmly under their control, the Dread Masters had a mandate to do as they pleased and a galaxy to spread dread to prepare for future conquest by the Emperor. The first entrance of the Dread Masters into the war would be the First Battle of Manda, where the Dread Masters would attack a Republic fleet of 17 ships that were patrolling the system. Despite the fact that the Dromund Terror was heavily outnumbered by Republic forces with the Republic having 3 Dreadnoughts of their own, the battle was a one-sided slaughter for the Dread Masters. With their power, they were able to spread a wave of heavy terror with veterans with decades of service being reduced to cowards and emotional wrecks that could not perform their duty. With the Republic fleet collapsing into a disorganized and terrified chaos, the Dread Masters with their usage of battle meditation was able to pick apart each ship one by one with little fear of death. To get a sense of how lop-sided the battle was, the Dread Masters only suffered 11 dead, six being starfighter losses and five being on the ship from stray fire by the Republic fleet.

If there is one benefit that could be said of being a victim of the Dread Masters, is that death was not a guarantee. In many of their battles the Republic forces who were targeted with Dread would outright flee immediately instead of putting up any semblance of a fight, allowing countless millions to escape death at their hands. This would be the case of four Republic ships who at the beginning of the battle would enter into hyperspace and abandon their comrades, but for the remaining 13 they were too terrified to put up a proper fight or comprehend the possibility of escape, thus leaving them to killed by the Dread Masters. After all 13 ships were destroyed, the Dromund Terror would launch a strategic bombardment of Manda that would inflict the destruction of a third of its industrial capacity with 127 million dead, and then exited into hyperspace.

When word spread throughout the public of the First Battle of Manda by its survivors, a wave of hysteria and terror was unleashed throughout the galaxy that was perhaps far greater than the Dread Masters could have conjured up on their own. As devastating of a loss as Sluis Van was, the battle was won through the conventional usage of military tactics and weaponry conducted by the Imperial Navy. With Manda a single ship was able to cause an entire enemy fleet to either flee or be frozen in fear and left for death. The accounts from the survivors indicated that this was a superweapon of the Dark Side, one that seemed to match the unnatural and great powers of Exar Kun and Darth Nihilus. Fearing that this was perhaps the ultimate Sith weapon, the Jedi mobilized to the Outer Rim and formed search fleets to identify where the Dromund Terror was located and ensnare it with a strike force of the Jedi Order's most powerful masters to either capture or destroy. Unfortunately for the Jedi, this would not occur for over a decade.

With the Dread Masters completely separated from the Imperial Navy, there was no information that SIS could gather from Imperial and Sith prisoners on its whereabouts, to both groups the existence of such powerful Sith was a complete surprise with many believing it was a fabrication by the Republic to get them to spill information. The Dread Masters only conducted battles by themselves and as such were entirely isolated from the goals of the Dark Council. With no logs of communication to Imperial Space, it can only be assumed that the Dread Masters were near-independent and acted on their whims, or were in constant communication with Vitiate through the force. The only constants of the Dread Masters were their desire to spread as much fear and destruction as possible. Through the rest of the second year, the Dread Masters would destroy 714 Imperial ships and through their raids on various systems would cause the deaths of 1.89 billion civilians and the loss of tens of Trillions of credits. While the rare resistance to their dread, most often with the presence of Jedi, caused the Dromund Terror to take some damage in its campaigns, it was nothing that a quick repair and the transfer of some Imperials assigned to damnation could not fix. The only apparent safety to prevent a Dread Masters attack was to be located within a system that had at minimum more than 40 warships to defend as well as the Dread Masters for now limited their activities to the Eastern and Southern Mid and Outer Rim, choosing to desolate isolated but somewhat valuable strategic targets instead of targeting the major powers of the Core. For all of their strength, it appeared that the Dread Masters power was not so great that they could launch an attack on Coruscant and get away with it.

The only clue that the Republic and Jedi had about the Dread Master's operations was that during their attacks they never once attempted to raid for supplies, indicating that they either had a base or a reliable convoy of supplies to keep their operations going. Since the Dread Masters were by no accounts masters of Sith Alchemy who could conjure food, medicine, raw materials, or tibanna gas out of thin air, this was indeed the case. It would take over a decade for the Jedi and Republic to succeed in their search, but thanks to the efforts of Jaric Kaedan, the Dread Masters would eventually be isolated and trapped, at the Dagobah system.

A/N: Hello everyone, Kaiser Chris here with another chapter of Abridged History. For this chapter I wanted to cover the second half of the first year of the war through the Southern theater. Here the Empire is waging a very Battle of the Atlantic-esque campaign to cripple the Republic's economy. Then we have the Minos Cluster and the Republic securing their first major victory at Eliad with the campaign now equal and looking to end in victory for either side, all depending on the next moves of Soto and Delaz. The Minos Campaign is someone that I really dislike from the lore as it's insanely stupid that the Empire was bogged down on this one theater for the entirety of the war when they curbstomped the rest of the Outer Rim, and it makes no sense why they launched a war there when the Empire is based in the Northern Unkown Regions and the Minos Cluster is at the end of the Rimma Trade Route in the Southern Rim. So here the campaign happens so that Delaz gets some glory and land and also expands his fleet's reach in the South, a campaign that in many respects is similar to the North Africa campaign in World War II, though this will end nowhere similar to North Africa. The Minos Campaign will be a long affair, but it will not still be ongoing at the end of the war and it will have a different outcome, as shown by how I wrote the Battle of Eliad to be a Jedi assault instead of a defensive siege.

Another issue in the lore of the Minos Campaign is how the Jedi were able to deploy their own private fleet when the Republic at the time was heavily anti-Jedi, and I doubt that they would have an established military when such a thing would basically be seen as allowing another Revan. So I explained it away with the Sunrider Company as a very rushed endeavor by Zym to stop the Sith, a gamble that paid off. Also I hope you liked my nod with Maribeth Tarkin, an OC of mine who if the AU of Recht's rise never happened would be Wilhuff Tarkin's ancestor. I created her to show the rise of the Tarkin family in the Republic as well as to partly explain why the Tarkins choose Eriadu as their new family home in 990 BBY out of all the planets in the galaxy to build their power, since their rise to fame happened under Maribeth who was stationed at Eiradu. Maribeth will be important later in the war, and her existence is also a strong showing of how far the Tarkin family fell from its inception, from a strong woman who defended the Republic in its hour of need and gave its people hope, to a chauvinistic man who helped to kill the Republic to install a new order based on fear with Wilhuff destroying one of the Republic's founders.

Lastly we have the Dread Masters, who for the most part are going to follow canon with my biggest change from them being how they were captured as I hinted at in the last section. Here I didn't go in-depth with them, as the Jedi and Sith wouldn't want the public to know how their powers worked so it makes sense for them to be shrouded in secrecy for historical research. The reason why I didn't go too crazy with them in an AU is because their existence in the lore makes no sense as they were the Emperor's advisors and some of the most powerful Sith to live based on their command of fear and dread, yet Vitiate didn't unleash them on a bloody march to the Core or wipe out the Jedi, instead having them kill a couple fleets and based on Gnost-Dural's summary of the war, hardly an impact. Not to mention how quickly they're defeated by the players, so much for Vitiate's Inner Circle in comparison to Palpatine's elite who gave Luke's Jedi hell for several decades. So overall the Dread Masters are lame, but I'll still include their existence.

Next chapter in honor of the second season of The Mandalorian I will go over the history of the Mandalorians from KOTOR II to the start of the war and how they fell from a time of hopeful unity and rise under the Preserver to their disorganized and fractured state before the rise of the Lesser. Next chapter will show how this went down in "Tale of Three Mandalores." Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!