Earth in Star Wars Part II and 1/2: The Art of War
Description: As Earth's war against the Galactic Empire nears its third year, the conflict escalates with the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn to the known galaxy and his deployment against the Terran forces along with several Imperial force sensitives. Earth and its allies will be tested like they never have before. However Thrawn may not all be what he seems, and his views of the Empire might not entirely be so clear cut.
Author's Note: I'll put more notes at the bottom of the chapter with one exception, however for this story to make sense you should read EARTH IN STAR WARS I, II and Earth in Star Wars Mini Series Part I: Earth War
Prologue Part 1: The Return
"Thrawn's brief return to the galaxy proved to be monumental, though its effects would only become apparent several months later. His return was one of the darkest times of the war, but one that would play a major role in today's galaxy."
Excerpt from: Earth-Imperial Wars, The Admiral's View by Admiral William Johnson
This book was published after the war by Johnson to massive acclaim.
System SSHSISB-3829 was a barely chartered piece of space on the edges of the Galactic Empire's known territory, and by extension, the known space of the galaxy. It held no habitable worlds and had barely a planet to its name. Its only significance was that it was the last officially charted system before wild space, at least in the Far Galactic East. Both officers of the Imperial Exploration Corps and several civilian exploration and survey agencies had filed several requests for charter and survey. However, they had never been returned. Anyone who tried to explore further (and it wasn't that many) just assumed their request had been lost in the gigantic bureaucracy of the galaxy-spanning empire, something that seemed to happen with alarming frequency. It was inevitable that requests got lost in the largest bureaucracy in history, and in some people's opinion, the most inefficient.
If they were particularly persistent, they were told that the area had been declared off-limits by the Imperial military and that the surrounding space had been mined to both protect against extragalactic invaders and keep rebels or criminals from fleeing into wild space. And usually, there was little that one could do if they got to this point and were still denied. Still, a few of those with power within the Imperial system such as mid to high level Imperial bureaucrats attempted to pursue further. Their requests for more information were denied, and no one was sure that any others had been officially filed. A couple of people thought it strange, and eventually, a disgruntled Imperial exploratory crew that ended up defecting from the rebellion made a note of it to the Alliance, who made plans to investigate it. However, due to a million different priorities that were generally a lot more important, such as their ongoing war against the Empire, no further investigation of the system materialized.
Despite being barren, the system was a lot more important to the empire than anyone would be willing to admit. It was the jumping-off point to the Imperial expeditions into the unknown regions. Further systems beyond it had been explored however this had not been revealed and records of it had been intentionally lost. What lay beyond it had been kept at the highest levels of classification to prevent it from being discovered.
A small fleet of Imperial ships excited hyperspace in this sparsely populated star. They were led by a Star Destroyer with an unmistakable paint job on its ventral hull of the animal Chimera.
This animal bore the name of the ship, the Chimera. A ship feared by the rebel alliance, not for its expensive modifications that significantly increased its battlefield performance on its own but for the man who commanded it along with its supporting fleet.
Grand Admiral Thrawn looked out one of the ship's few windows on its bridge as he examined information about galactic events in the past few years. During his expedition to the unknown regions, information about the wider galaxy had often been hard to come by. Communication lasers and comm drones could only get you so far once you got into truly unknown space.
After his inability to secure a decisive victory against the recently formed Rebel Alliance (although he was still able to delay their growth) he was sent by the empire to further improve relations with the Chiss and utilize his extensive knowledge of the unknown regions to help the empire scout develop bases and installations far away from the rest of the known galaxy. It had been a nice change of pace when compared with his previous Imperial service.
Palpatine had looked for someone to blame for the failure to destroy the early rebellion, and he had been a prime target.
On some level, the Grand Admiral did take responsibility for his failure to eliminate the rebellion but there was only so much he could have done with the resources that he had. Fighting a guerrilla conflict required a vast amount of man and material, and despite the empire's vast resources, there were still limits to its power. It was his professional opinion that he who defends everything defends nothing, and the rebellion had a very good ability to pick out and find targets to attack. Which made them a cunning foe. It was a matter of luring them out and trying to get them to fight a battle that he could win against them.
And he made a very good scapegoat as well. He always faced discrimination for his non-human status, even if his competence was second to none. It was one of many of his growing issues with the empire, despite its strengths and power.
He mentally reconsidered his past thoughts and corrected them.
The Empire was now flawed, and if it didn't change course it would face major issues that could potentially see its collapse.
To begin with, it was trying to fight a different type of war than the rebellion was, and its doctrine had not adapted to fighting an insurgency in both space and on the ground. This meant that they had lost important ground and the rebellion may not be able to be dislodged. The Tarkin Doctrine had simply melded the rebellion into a force that fought without the fear of death, one that turned them into the most determined enemy that he had ever faced. In many cases, the rebels had nothing left to lose and everything to gain. And it had turned civilians who may have once been in favor of the empire had turned into ardent rebels.
Corruption was pervasive on every level of the imperial state, and this significantly reduced their ability to fight effectively. Many of the officers he was given cared far more about advancing their promotions rather than serving the state. Even Palpatine, despite having immense resources at his disposal, didn't significantly use them to improve the state of the galaxy but rather to enrich himself in both finances and power.
Perhaps worst of all, the Empire and its forces were characterized by an extremely high level of brutality against any who even thought about opposing them. Thrawn didn't particularly like wanton violence, as any commander should try to achieve their objectives with the smallest amount of force possible. However the Imperial military saw and used every opportunity to extract something from the population. Perhaps they might bring down the rebellion but do so with such an unnecessary level of violence as to create a hundred rebels for everyone they killed. It was no wonder that now the Rebellion had morphed from a ragtag insurgency to a formidable fighting force that controlled more and more of what had once been stable Imperial space. As a general rule of thumb, almost anywhere outside the core worlds and a few other areas generally held at least some rebel presence. This also alienated the Imperial leadership, far from the average person's problems.
And perhaps one thing he had realized was more important than any other details. The Emperor and the Empire more briefly and broadly were resistant to new ways of thinking. Its deeply authoritarian society did not tolerate deviances, even if they were more effective. Now there certainly were some exceptions, for example, he stood in opposition to the rampant xenophobia that was pervasive throughout the regime.
This had been the case over four years ago when he had left and since then the situation had far from improved. The Death Star project had failed and been destroyed by the growing Rebel Alliance after destroying Alderaan, which had given the rebellion far more support than it could ever imagine. How much of the outer rim and some of the mid rim was under the control of the alliance whose fleet numbered over a hundred thousand ships, thousands of which were major capital ships over a kilometer long like the various Mon Calamari Star Cruisers? Still only a small fraction of the size of the Imperial fleet, but it was now to the point that while in theory, the empire could take back rebel territory, the losses would be extremely high and it would mean stripping ships and manpower away from another front which the rebellion could exploit to great effect.
He couldn't say it was unexpected.
Perhaps the emperor was recalling him to deal with the current situation, hoping that his tactical skills would make a difference. But Thrawn was starting to see that he should have an alternative to service in the empire. He had once been exiled from the Chiss but their opinions had now reversed. He had been offered several lucrative positions in their navy, which gave him another option should he find his service in the empire lacking.
Or should the Empire continue to deteriorate and he finds it necessary to consider alternative employment prospects?
He read carefully through the documents, which gave him an accurate rundown of the past few years. This system was at the end of the full communications range, and therefore he was only just learning about some of this information now.
However, as he began scanning through the various files, he found that the emperor was not recalling him to help with the rebellion. A holographic recording from the most powerful man in the galaxy soon answered his questions which he played after returning to his quarters.
"Grand Admiral, I am sure that your journey in the Unknown Regions has been fruitful. Assuming that you were able to do as I asked, you have done a great service to the empire, a service that makes up for any previous failings several times over, and has allowed me to accelerate my plans for the empire."
To say that the message was cryptic would certainly be an understatement. But he had succeeded at least.
"A new expedition is to be prepared, one that you will depart within a matter of months. I will give you full authority on its composition and scale, though several individuals and packages will need to be delivered, and some facilities that need to be set up. I trust that you and your officers will perform any necessary tasks to the highest levels of competence."
He certainly wasn't wrong, but in several ways, the emperor was playing into his hand. Palpatine had suddenly given him the authority to manage a great number of resources, ones that he could use in the future for his plans.
"However, from my understanding, it will take some time to assemble many of the specialized resources that you need. In the meantime, a new threat has emerged, one that I need someone to assess a growing threat to the empire. One that has struck at our territory from a previously unknown space, and a force that has allied themselves with the rebellion and taken many sectors on the edge of our space, an area that the rebellion had little operations in beforehand. They had defeated our forces time and time again, and I fear that they are rapidly encroaching on more valuable land. Another disturbing fact is that they have managed to amass quite some former Imperials, including the former Moff Karla Illustrious who has brought her entire sector to their ranks. I want you to evaluate this threat and determine if it will be a major problem or if they are a minor nuance in the current situation. You will have help from one of my trusted assistants to fulfill this order."
There was still something that he wanted from the empire, and hopefully, he could engineer it before the collapse. If he played his cards right, he could prepare for the inevitable attack by the far outsiders who had been harassing the Chiss at their borders. It was not known how long it would take for them to become a major presence throughout the galaxy but their rise was inevitable.
He and the rest of the Chiss ascendancy had initially believed that the empire had what it took to protect the galaxy from this growing threat and despite the ascendency neutrality it had been decided that the Empire would have the best chance of preventing them from taking place in the wider galaxy but that was proving to be false. Perhaps a new, smaller power will be able to stop them. Or a combination of several.
He then moved on to a report about a mostly unknown group of humans from a world that appeared to be quite primitive. Under other circumstances, this would be of little note. But these reports had somehow been false and they had instead of being occupied easily they had fought back with a fleet of starships and with the help of a few allies were plunging into exposed imperial space, taking a few sectors worth of territory in a short period. Most confusing of all was that several former imperials had joined forces with them, including an old friend of his, Moff Karla Illustrious. Beyond that,t they had seemingly rallied a large number of former Imperials to their cause.
There was a reason for something like this to happen, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it. While Thrawn's dislike of the empire had grown, the rebellion would never accept him if he were to go the route of defecting. It still was a bad idea as far as he was concerned, but perhaps forming a mutually beneficial relationship with some of these groups would be useful.
He needed to keep up appearances though, so he'd probe them to see how powerful they were. He only needed to do a little bit since his objective was not to destroy them. Perhaps while doing so he would be able to come to a mutual agreement with their leader.
The head of state for this world called Earth was on his home planet and even with Thrawn's extensive knowledge of hyperspace lanes he didn't think that getting there was realistic. Perhaps with enough time but that would require some major intelligence work and while it appeared that a large number of former imperials were a part of their fleet and army there was no luck trying to reach them. They had probably been heavily brainwashed which would explain their lack of communication.
"What has been happening since we've been gone." The voice of the once-governor Price of Lothal asked Thrawn. He had brought her along with the expedition as a special diplomatic advisor considering that she didn't have great career prospects in the rest of the galaxy after the fall of Lothal. She still harbored some loyalties to the empire but had grown disillusioned with it as time went on. She had tried to help the people of Lothal when she had been the governor of it but was hampered by the Tarkin Doctrine and broader sector commands, along with trying to deal with a growing rebellion across the planet that wanted nothing less than the deposition of the Imperial regime. Not to say that she had much sympathy for the rebellion but the empire wasn't exactly as successful of a state as it had appeared to be at first.
"The rebellion has gained a significant foothold throughout the galaxy after Tarkin's pet project fell through." He replied. "I think that our positions might be able to be improved, however."
Pryce smiled. Perhaps one day they would be able to reject both the corruption of the empire and the radicalism of the rebellion and make the galaxy better for its people.
Soon Thrawn and her were discussing how they would implement their plans. Plans that would hopefully be useful for both of them. They would soon share these plans with the rest of the senior command staff, which had been handpicked for their competency by Thrawn himself. They were also devoutly loyal to him and his cause, and therefore shouldn't cause trouble. These ideas were still traitorous, but they would be effective if nothing else.
Author's Note: So Earth in Star Wars is back. It's been a while, but a combo of my BSG rewrite and college/work have put this on the back burner. What will Thrawn mean for our little planet? Before people get their hopes up Thrawn is not going to defect. However, he will play an important role in the conflict going forwards and how the Galactic Civil War eventually resolves itself.
Expect updates about once every 2 weeks.
-Dankuser