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Topics - Lord Xizer

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Star Wars Discussion / Crimson Empire alternate what if scenario
« on: November 25, 2018, 02:07:27 AM »
Carnor Jax, Lumiya and Sarcev Quest pulled off an incredible coup with the Imperial Ruling Council. They managed to poison and subtly direct Emperor Palpatine to his early death and prop Jax up as the new Ruler of the Empire with the Council's backing. However they did not anticipate the destruction of Byss, the Shadow Hand Armada, The Eclipse II and the Galaxy Gun(honestly who could) that cost them nearly all the centralized Imperial Fleet not controlled by the various Warlords, the invaluable Sith holocrons, texts and lore crucial to both Lumiya and Jax's progression as Sith Lords and the centralized power structure of the Imperial High Command with its codes on the Byss Citadel. This left Jax's Crimson Empire pathetically weak and ignored by the Imperial Warlords.

But what if, R2D2 does NOT send the Eclipse II on its fateful last jump? This leaves the super ship, the Galaxy gun, and the Byss Armada all intact. Also Jax and Lumiya now have access to all Palpatine's hoarded Sith knowledge to grow their own power in the Dark Side of the Force. However it also leaves many more of the Royal Guard alive and knowing soon enough(thanks to the physician's confession to the NR overheard by a lone Royal Guard) that Jax and the Council were behind Palpatine's final death. Who does Byss side with? Who becomes the new Emperor? What changes?

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Star Wars Discussion / What If Scenario Episode III
« on: October 15, 2018, 09:43:35 PM »
So, what if time for my fellow Star Warsians.
In Revenge of the Sith when the Invisible Hand(General Grievous flagship) is crashing onto Coruscant, what happens if it burns up in the atmosphere?
In a single stroke Palpatine(Darth Sidious) Anakin Skywalker(The chosen One) Obi Wan and R2D2 are gone.
Count Dooku has been killed by Anakin in the same manner so the Confederacy of Independent Systems(CIS) has lost its head of state and main unifying figure, though General Grievous and the Separatist Council are still alive.
Who becomes the new Supreme Chancellor for the Republic, what happens with Padme's unborn children, how does this effect the Clone Wars and the Jedi as the Death Star is still under construction in secret and many of Palpatine's top aides are either on board with his plans or at the least sympathetic to them.
This is factoring in the huge losses the CIS sustained in the Invasion of Coruscant, the loss of Dooku's political and financial force as CIS head of state, the state of the corrupted Senate and Palpatine's gathering of power to the Chancellor's position, the Jedi, Tarkin with the under construction Death Star and the state of the galaxy. Also in this scenario it's unlikely the Jedi ever learn Palpatine was Sidious as the ones who knew that(namely Dooku and Palpatine) die in this scenario during the battle and the crash subsequently so Palpatine remains a national hero-now martyr- of the Republic.
I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

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Star Wars Discussion / Screenshots of my adventures in TR and submods
« on: August 11, 2018, 10:02:23 AM »
Hus figured I'd post some of my best screenshots of awesome memories in game. Share yours as well!

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Imperial Civil War Community Mods / Under Construction submod
« on: February 20, 2018, 07:22:47 AM »
A few fellow enthusiasts and myself are working on a submod for the upcoming 2.2 main mod. Some of the features added will be as follows:(Always subject to change of course)

List of current changes

PA-Kazrak slavers will be buildable special units(similar to the purge troopers in TFU) with flamethrowers
Jerec will be able to recruit the Seven Dark Jedi(Sariss, Boc, Maw, Gorc, Pic and Yun)-if Jerec dies before this you can't recruit them and get Halmere instead.

Zsinj- Improved Raptor troopers(better range and sight than standard stormies and will come with therm dets or mines since they had training in explosives), recruitable Pirates, will attempt minefield like asteroids, the ability to build hidden economy buildings and some sabotage units to simulate his brain washing program. Gethzerion getting a major buff against infantry and light units.

GM- Adding Moff Hindane Darcc(Allows recruitment of Trandoshan Slavers and building construction time reductions do to wookie slave labor), Merili(Standard Nightsister-no lightwhip just drain health and force sight) and Pekt(Sniper rifle and flamethrower) to the hero roster to replace Moff Lesan Ramier, Admiral Garrik Trier and Boba Fett respectively(just for era 1, era 2 will see the three replaced heroes back in the GM roster). Trandoshan slavers recruitable at Kashyyyk if you have Moff Darcc there. They will have long range blasters and sight like the NR infiltrators but no detonators. Clutch fighters buildable for Tavira. Build cap for CC VSDs increased to 73.

IR-hero shifting for the IR-under Pestage you'll have Grand Admirals Tigellinus, Takel and Makati in their ISDs along with Supreme Warlord Harrsk in his Tector and General Tal Ashen in his ATAT.
using Project Ambition will kill Tigellinus and Takel while Harrsk will go rogue, along with the Corporate Sector Worlds (If those are not already taken of course)if Coruscant is taken before Project Ambition is set into motion Tal Ashen will also die.
Initiating Project Ambition will gain you Ysanne Isard, Delek Krennel, Ait Convarion, Erisi Dlarit and Fliry Vorru.

EA-adding versatility to the Storm Commandos in forms of explosives, saboteurs and snipers as elite teams of six but with build caps of 10 units so they aren't OP.

NR-Adding more of the Jedi Academies students(obviously later eras)

Warlords(NPCs)-adding Grunger and his armada over Mandalore and Gargon. Total of 1 SSD, 10 ISDs, 20 VSDs and about 40 support ships(less than he had in the EU but enough to not make him a pushover in auto resolve or battle.
Pitta and Zork above Corellia and Tralus with the Corellian Sector Fleet, torpedo sphere and versions of the World Devastators(to represent the prison ships that were used to genocide aliens under Pitta and his cronies) So two weaker World Devastators, about 4 ISDs, 8 VSDs, 20 Corellian corvettes and gunships, three torpedo spheres.
Zero Command gets a lot more forces for their two worlds-two battle cruisers, 12 ISDs, 3 Tectors and about 20 support ships.
General Drommel will be added over the world he repaired Guardian on with 3 ISDs as in era 1 those would have been functional and he'd just be starting out.


Comments, suggestions and critiques welcome of course.

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Star Wars Discussion / Character Study Garm Bel Iblis
« on: February 05, 2018, 03:14:32 PM »
Proud and Stubborn, noble and self-sacrificing. Both descriptions fit Garm Bel Iblis, Senator, Idealist, Solider, Militant. He was all of these thing- but also a very tragic figure who has lost more than nearly everyone in the Lore, yet internalized it all due to his nature and pride. Bel Iblis was born and raised on Corellia and like many Corellians came to prize independence and belief in one’s ideals above all else. He also believed fiercely that those ideals and independence had to be protected. To that end Bel Iblis decided to devote himself to the public service as a zealous patriot of both Corellia and the Republic. He joined the Corellian Sector military and then the Republic Defense Force to gain experience in arms and tactics. His time in the military bolstered his reputation among his fellow Corellians and he decided that the best way he could serve his world was in the Senate. Bel Iblis was a naturally gifted speaker and extremely charismatic with people he met in his early running days still recalling vividly the presence he seemed to command even at that early stage of his life.  Bel Iblis won his Senate seat in a landslide and immediately made an impression on his fellow representatives in the senate with his steadfast incorruptibility-a rarity for a senator and even more so from Corellia which had a long history of smugglers and lawlessness compared to the rest of the Core. Most notably was his immunity to flattery, Bel Iblis was not in it for his own glory, though that is not to say the man had no ego. Far from it, Bel Iblis was very proud of his abilities and prowess and could take slights poorly and once he got an idea in his head he’d see it through regardless more often than not out of stubborness.
One of the first major events that tested him was his decision to keep Corellia out of the Clone Wars due to the nature of Chancellor Palpatine’s emergency powers greatly concerning him. Garm opposed nearly every addendum to the Constitution that steadily eroded the Senate’s power and gave it to Palpatine. What’s more he did so publicly, gaining him little love outside of his home Sector who saw him as abandoning the Republic. Resolute in this decision to both spare his world and oppose to the best of his ability within the law Palpatine’s gradual ascent to total control Garm joined with 2,000 other Senators to voice his concerns with the Chancellor near the end of the Clone Wars. When Palpatine ascended the Throne and created the Empire, Bel Iblis was not murdered or incarcerated on trumped up charges like most of the petitions members, mostly due to Corellia holding one of the largest defense forces and shipyards in the Galaxy with Garm being beloved in his home. Needing the shipyard and not yet ready to deal with full on rebellion so early, Palpatine tolerated Bel Iblis for the moment, while marking him. Bel Iblis for his part still believed he could work within the system rather than outright armed rebelling and so resumed his post as Corellian Senator in the now Imperial Senate under protest.
Any other man might well have hunkered down, or at least PRETENDED to-like Senator Organa but not Garm. He remained as fiercely vocal as ever of the new Emperor’s policies. His protests were often alone in the senate but growing more visible due to his standout nature. Added to his isolation was that his own wife was firmly pro Imperial and this put grievous strain on the marriage. Rather than take the easy route and play along with Palpatine, Garm continued to be a voice of protest and restraint in the public eye, much to his wife’s chagrian. Despite this, Bel Iblis still greatly loved Arrianya and planned for the two of them to go on a second honeymoon in an effort to rekindle their marriage.  It was round this time that Mon Mothma, Bel Iblis and Bail Organa had finally agreed that trying to remove Palpatine within the law was never going to succeed and that the time for armed rebellion had indeed come. Finally after nearly fifteen years, Palpatine dubbed the time had come to deal with this irritant, he had a popular replacement set up in Fliry Vorru who unlike Bel Iblis turned a blind eye to smugglers and Black Sun gaining much support from their corrupt constituents to usurp Garm. The Senator prepared a speech for an event at the political center on the planet Anchoran, in which he would denounce the Empire and reveal Palpatine's dark motives. Bel Iblis was extremely nervous about the speech, as his pro-Imperial wife would be present. Just before he was scheduled to address the congregation, he received a message in his office from "an agent ‘Aach’ the alias of Bail Organa's prime messenger and agent. The message told Bel Iblis to meet with Aach at the building's northeast exit immediately; worried, Bel Iblis complied and rendezvoused with Aach, who relayed a message from Organa: he had discovered information pertaining to the location of a top-secret Imperial project overseen by Grand Moff Tarkin.
Their meeting was interrupted by a large explosion in the Treitamma Political Center, as agents of the Empire had planted explosives in Bel Iblis' office, intending to kill him. Aach wrestled Bel Iblis to the ground in order to avoid the blast, and the Corellian Senator was distraught at the loss of his wife and children.

Having now lost everything and being marked for death by the Empire, Bel Iblis went into hiding aiding the new Rebellion alongside Mon mothma with his military skills and resources, bail financed the Rebels, and Mon Mothma was it’s face. However Bel Iblis saw Mothma taking more and more roles and responsibilities for herself and mistaking this as ambition as he had seen from palpatine Iblis became wary of Mon Mothma and gradually began to have doubts about her intentions with the rebellion. Further Mon Mothma was far less willing to face more extreme aspects of warfare Bel iblis endorsed for victory, leading to repeated arguments and strain between them that Bail would facilitate. Then came the destruction of Alderaan, the death of Bail and Mon Mothma began to siphon off more and more power for herself, and Bel Iblis suspected that, should they overthrow Palpatine, she would take his place. Bel Iblis stayed on the with the Rebellion for several months, losing many friends and finding his name on an Imperial arrest list. Sometime later, Mothma gave the go-ahead for an Alliance attack on an Imperial garrison on a world in the Grycia system without seeking the approval of Bel Iblis or any of her other military advisors. Before the attack was enacted, Bel Iblis called Mothma out for her actions at an Alliance conference, requesting that she postpone and reconsider the attack. Mothma overruled him, but a livid Bel Iblis questioned her motives in ordering the attack, claiming it was simply part of a grab for power on her part. The two traded thinly-veiled insults, with Bel Iblis eventually stating that none of his troops would have a part in the attack. He felt that Mothma's Intelligence was flawed, as his own sources informed him it was in fact a heavily fortified Imperial Ubiqtorate base, which his men would be unable to deal with due to the firepower assigned to the base. For his dissent, Mothma told Bel Iblis that the Rebellion no longer required his services. He stormed out of the chamber and took his loyal supporters, including Sena Leikvold Midanyl and another aide, Irenez, away from the Alliance in a fury, certain he would soon be vindicated when Mon Mothma declared herself Empress.
Bel Iblis conducted a personal war against the Empire, but with ever smaller resources he was beneath galactic notice, he largely sat out the Rebellion, Black Sun and Zaarin insurrections always waiting for when he would have to fight Mon Mothma. When the Emperor and Vader died at Endor and the New Republic gradually took Coruscant and half the Galaxy Bel Iblis was sure Mon Mothma would crown herself, thanks to a broker he acquired six Katana dreadnoughts finally gaining some actual punching power. However, he still hunkered down, only launching occasional raids against Imperial targets, still stubbornly set on Mon Mothma’s ‘inevitable’ power grab. It had been nearly a decade since he left the Rebellion to fight his own private war against the Empire, five years since Endor and three years since the New Republic had claimed Coruscant, yet Mon Mothma had not declared herself Empress. He kept tabs on the Galactic situation in the New Republic through his Bothan contacts who did their best to further foment distrust of Mon Mothma for their own ends. By now everyone in the General’s army knew that mon mothma had been sincere in her desire to bring back the Republic and did not intend a coup, deep down even Bel Iblis knew it, but couldn’t admit it aloud. Further he couldn’t bring himself to come crawling back, begging to be let in to those he had forsaken after admitting he was wrong. His pride was too strong and so it took the combined forces of Thrawn, Karrde, Han, Lando and Leia to finally more or less force/trick the old Corellian into a situation where he would be asked back. Bel Iblis force was instrumental in the Katana fleet skirmish allowing the New Republic to capture the remaining 14 dreadnoughts and was welcomed back to the New Republic as a reluctant hero. Still the rift between Mon Mothma and himself was deep with old wounds, Bel Iblis now understood why Mon Mothma had gathered so much power and responsibility to herself, not for power’s sake, but because she truly felt that the more she assumed the less she had to put others in danger, the more she didn’t have to extend trust where it might not be secure. Bel Iblis had inadvertently caused much of this himself. Some of the New Republic military command resented the old general for abandoning the Rebellion at it’s most dire time out of what they considered ego. As such Garm was shuttered out of most of the command decisions upon his return. Feeling he deserved this and also not willing to double the burden on Mon Mothma he remained quietly to the side until the siege of Coruscant under Thrawn. It was this pivotal moment that Mon Mothma came to personally request Garm back, Garm for his part quickly saved her having to formally request, by cutting it short with friendly acceptance and thanks ‘due to the situation’ much to Mothma’s gratitude. The stubborn old soldier had finally both let go of his stubborn pride and his regrets. The New Republic was to benefit greatly from his return, he defended the capital, toured the front, shored up the NR forces fighting skillful rearguard actions against Thrawn but unable to ultimately turn back the Grand Admiral in each encounter they had Thranw emerged victorious. After the Thrawn crisis ended, Bel Iblis was placed in command of Coruscant’s sector forces. He was in overall command of the capital during the Warlord’s attack on the capital, faced with overwhelming odds and wanting to spare the civilians, Bel Iblis recommended evacuating the capital for the present. Again, displaying great personal courage and skillful tactics Bel Iblis managed to evacuate the capital under siege successfully with minimal losses. Tragically this was in vain for the local populace as the Warlords destroyed much of Coruscant in the following Imperial Mutiny much to the old warrior’s regret. During Shadow Hand Bel Iblis operated with the fleet encouraging the hit and run attacks he had perfected over his private war large scale. Following the final death of the Emperor and the subsequent conquest of the short lived Crimson Empire Bel Iblis once again resumed command of Coruscant where he would remain until under Pellaeon and Daala the reunified Empire launched a massive final assault after their initial success in Orinda campaign.
Bel Iblis, along with Etahn A’Bhett and Gial Ackbar counterattacked the Imperials. Bel Iblis fought Daala in the deep Core, soundly defeating her in a series of engagements leading to the complete collapse of the Imperial Forces in the Deep Core and allowing A’bhett and Ackbar to focus solely on Pellaeon. Bel Iblis then advocated for a full-on push to finish the Imperials in the mid rim helping Ackbar and A’Bhett drive Pellaeon’s outnumbered forces back to 8 sectors around Bastion.
The old General was also involved in trying to solve the Caamas crisis, determined not to let everything he had fought for dissolve into chaos, the General threw his full efforts into obtaining a copy of the document and preventing premature civil war among the factions. Bel Iblis was tasked with infiltrating the Imperial Ubiqtorate base at Yaga Minor for a copy. The old General agreed, knowing full well the risks, deciding he personally would ride the ship into the base, he outfoxed Booster Terrik in acquiring his ‘Errant Venture’ and nearly pulled off a successful bluff. Exposed he did just as he had always done, refused to give up and sacrifice everything in pursuit of what he felt was right. Luckily the old warrior and his crew were not required to make that sacrifice as Admiral Pellaeon arrived and ended hostilities.
Bel Iblis, unlike Ackbar and many others who had been in the Military of the Rebellion most of their lives-did not retire. He had no family left, no homeworld since Corellia more or less refused him due to it’s now pro Imperial/isolationist stance and now no comrades of his generation left as Mon Mothma and Jan Dodonna passed away shortly after Peace with the Empire was achieved. He had avenged his family, fought his entire life for the ideals of freedom, personal rights and justice sacrificing everything along the way and now that peace had been achieved this hero was not able to enjoy the fruits of his labors. The military was the only family he had left such as it was, Bel Iblis would continue to serve until he died, it was not only his nature, it was all he had left.
Unfortunately even the peace he had fought so hard for would not last, extra galactic invaders-the Yuuzhan Vong, Political corruption, traitors and internal strife burned down the New Republic around him. Micro managed by politicians and placed under the overall command of an officer technically his junior in both rank and seniority Bel Iblis grew more and more irate at the conduct of the war. The man who had defied Palpatine at great personal cost to prevent what he saw as galactic ruin was not about to stand by as political squabbling destroyed chances of victory.
At Coruscant Bel Iblis was one of the few commanders who opened fire on the kamikaze transports loaded with refugees by the invaders. The old soldier, realizing that he couldn’t save them, was willing to shoulder the burden of mass murder to save those on Coruscant, however most New Republic vessels did not fir eon the transports-which promptly crashed into the planetary shield collapsing it and allowing the Vong to begin sacking the capital resulting in around one trillion deaths. Bel Iblis had had enough, he ordered a retreat for his own fleet and more or less went rogue. Operating on his own outside command channels and refusing to acknowledge the Advisory Council at all, Bel Iblis had basically become a Warlord. Ever stubborn in his pursuit of what was right, Bel Iblis did as he saw fit, which while no doubt saving many lives both under his command and vicinity of his protection led to much fracturing galaxy wide as much of the NR fragmented in confusion. Eventually the political situation stabilized and a new head of state was elected on Mon Calamari who encouraged the military to run the war. Bel Iblis immediately returned to the command structure, thankfully not falling prey to his old doubts. The old warrior led task forces and helped coordinate the counteroffensives at Ebaq 9, Bilbringi and Coruscant helping drive back the invaders. Once again peace had been achieved, but for Iblis the victory was somewhat hollow. The war had left deep rifts among the species of the galaxy, whole scale power changes had occurred, many systems liberated by the Empire returned to it. More sectors had suffered irreversible damage, 365 trillion beings had perished and the Jedi themselves were fractured. It was not too long before his home world, the Imperial Remnant and many of his comrades found themselves on opposite sides of the second galactic civil war. Bel Iblis once again did what he felt was right and rode this conflict out as he had many of the others, stubbornly and fiercely.
Faced with peace once again and now very advanced in age, Bel Iblis could have retired but with nothing outside the military and very little in the military, Bel Iblis, Senator to a dissolved Senate, Corellian denied his home world, Father to murdered children, husband to a murdered wife, General to an eternally reforming military, he stubbornly marches on, devoted to duty and honor, for they are all he has left. As great as Bel Iblis reputation grew, he never was a supreme commander and was often shunted into lesser roles due to inter service rivalry and Mothma loyalists. He never remarried or even dated again, one can only imagine the true depth of the loss he felt, but his ship’s name was perhaps the best giveaway- Peregrine- from the Corellian legend of a man who wandered forever, unable to ever find his way home. It’s the mythical equivalent of Bel Iblis himself, a man who has sacrificed everything for how home-Corellia and the Republic-but can never return home to either in truth. Bel Iblis is proud and stubborn, because his pride in his service is his coping with the loss he constantly suppresses, his stubborn devotion to duty is his only home left to this Hero-who sacrificed everything else for his ideals.

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Star Wars Discussion / Character Study Carnor Jax
« on: January 23, 2018, 01:45:28 PM »
Carnor Jax. Last of the Sovereign Protectors, betrayer of the Royal Guard, Mastermind of Emperor Palpatine's final death and recognized Emperor in his final days, yet greatest traitor to the Imperial Cause. Seldom in galactic history has a man lived such polar opposites.

Carnor Jax was born to a Sun Guard that served Darth Sidious. His father was by all accounts loyal and skilled, but with Palpatine no one was above reproach. After failing in a mission, his father was executed by Sidious as an example to the other Sun Guards. Jax was unaware of how his father died or who murdered him. However at a young age, Jax was shown what happened to someone without power or connections, making him determined to gain more power for himself so as to become unassailable he also became exceptionally meticulous believing that the smallest detail could affect an outcome. Jax did not believe in justice or loyalty, he felt they were abstractions that the weak deluded themselves with and the powerful used as platitudes. He felt no shame for any action, so long as it furthered his own goals. In this way, he was a true sociopath. Jax saw the way the galaxy was feeding off the weak under Palpatine and thus devoted his every waking moment to becoming stronger in both power and influence with Palpatine as a goal, but Lord Vader's intimidating visage as an inspiration. As such it is only natural he joined the Imperial Army as a Stormtrooper- personally tied to the Emperor's command structure and visually associated with Lord Vader- and distinguished himself time after time in battle rising through the Stormtrooper ranks to command troopers himself. Aware that loyalty from the military was what gave the Emperor his power base Jax made a habit of cultivating loyalty with Imperial Officers he served with, impressing them and often maintaining connections with them from afar.
Eventually Jax qualified for training selection with the Royal Guard, seeing this as the ultimate chance to obtain connections in the centers of power. Unlike most of the trainees Jax was not there out of a sens eof loyalty and devotion to the Emperor, he saw it only as the best way to increase his own personal power. To this end he felt no camaraderie with his fellow guardsmen. Jax excelled in his training, only surpassed in skill by Bur Dannid and somewhat rivaled by Kir Kanos. It was at this time that the Emperor and Vader visited the academy to test the academies trainees. Vader personally selected their most skilled trainee and promptly toyed with him in the Squall then executed him. The other Guardsmen took the lesson to imply they must improve, Jax however saw it in an entirely different way. He saw it as how their lives meant nothing to the Emperor or Vader, that these two were not only an eventual threat to his own ambitions, but his very life. Jax doubled his efforts and reached his final test for the Guard, facing his team mate in mortal combat, unlike the other pair, Jax did not hesitate to kill his brother in arms and felt no remorse on the death, his fellows were just steps to his own ascension.
After this jax served with the Royal Guard of Palpatine and used his position to mingle with the Royal Court and the High Command. It was also during this time that Jax met Lumiya and Sarcev Quest. Both of whom found his latent force potential and began to train him in secret, though Jax played them off against each other learning from both, from Lumiya he learned the inner workings and history of the Sith, from Quest he learned politics of the inner circles of the Royal Court and some of the basics of the Force. Then came Endor while Jax was on rotation, he saw the opportunities of the Emperor and Vader's death and Lumiya attempting to reestablish the Order of Sith Lords under her vision and Quest's allies hunger for power. Jax accepted Lumiya's offer of apprenticeship while promising Quest to assist him in acquiring power for the Council and himself. In both of these arenas Jax had surpassed his mentors influence, he played the part of the trainee and figurehead while manipulating both for his own gain knowing Lumiya was in no position to replace him and Quest needed Jax's popularity with the military and court to keep him heading it behind the scenes. The next few years saw Lumiya, Jax and Quest working behind the scenes to secure their power while undermining their rivals or potential ones, like hunting down and killing the Prophets of the Dark Side, spurring the Council of Grand Moffs efforts while simultaneously sabotaging them. He also secured the patronage of General Redd Wessel's stormtroopers for his personal use. However they didn't count on how severely the Empire would fragment badly limiting their influence outside the centralized Empire. They largely sat out Thrawn's bid for power as Quest had been summoned to Byss to give fealty to the Reborn Emperor, Quest did so but now firmly allied with Jax, Lumiya and his Council, he was already dedicated to supplanting the Emperor. the three came up with a scheme whereby they would remove Palpatine and use the Ruling Council's influence to seize power over the Shadow Hand Fleet, the Galaxy Gun and the Eclipse to keep the Warlords cowed under Jax as a figurehead Emperor. Jax however already had plans within these plans, his eyes were set on the Throne in fact as well as name, also he craved the Darkside knowledge Palpatine stored in his vaults on Byss, with these he would no longer require Lumiya's teachings and could discard her. Jax suggested he be placed onto the Sovereign Protectors ranks in order to gain access to the Emperor's physician with a plan to poison the Emperor's clones while Quest secured the funds. With Quest's help Jax got placed onto the guard and convinced various Imperials whose personal power was limited due to the Emperor's return. In an ironic yet masterful plan, Jax orchestrated the betrayal and fall of Palpatine in very much the same way Palpatine himself had come to power. Using the corruption and greed of those who made up the political and military arms of the Emperor's new 'Dark Empire' Jax preyed on their fears, encouraged their hatreds, jealousies and fed their ambitions. He copied Palpatine's use of Emperor's Hands by taking an Imperial major named Blim as his personal agent loyal only to him as an assassin, bodyguard and enforcer. Setting up meetings through Quest, Jax sounded out potential allies while tricking those who would oppose the idea into coming to locations Blim could silence them. It took nearly a year of careful planning, collaborating and work, but Jax used Quest to get Sa Dee and Nefta to kill Palpatine's clone supply knowing they would be killed, as misdirection for the Emperor's Physician being bribed and poisoning the last batches-effectively dooming the Emperor to an accelerated decay that would ensure Palpatine put himself in the maximum risk to escape his fate. Jax then used the remaining funds to remove his name from the ranks of the Sovereign Protectors and joined Quest in the Mid Rim with the Council in preparation to seize power once Palpatine and his Dark Side Elite died. Jax now felt secure enough in his own power that he betrayed Lumiya, refusing to play the servant anymore, relying instead on Quest for the Force teachings since he held power over Quest until he could gain access to the Darkside Compendium of Palpatine when he took the Throne. Lumiya-with little recourse- responded by disappearing into the shadows for nearly 30 years.
The plan succeeded beyond their wildest dreams-Palpatine died, the Imperial High Command of the new Grand Admirals on Byss perished with all but 18 of the Royal Guard. However, there were significant costs as well. Byss had been destroyed with nearly all the Shadow hand fleet, the Galaxy Gun and the Eclipse II, virtually annihilating the ability of the central Empire to control the Warlords, who again went rogue and refused to acknowledge Jax as Emperor, the Emperor's physician did not perish but confessed to the New Republic his role and who bribed him in the conspiracy, and one of the Royal Guard heard this and spread the message to his fellows on Yinchorr. Further, the Compendium and all palpatines Sith secrets were now forever beyond Jax's grasp, further limiting his own personal power. Since their actions would have been high treason and undermined Jax and the Council's already tenuous rule over the parts of the centralized Empire that acknowledged them, Jax had Wessel send in his stormtroopers en masse via the secret passages Jax knew in the academy to kill them. While at tremendous cost of the near annihilation of the attacking Stormtroopers all but one of the Royal Guard were slain and Wessel felt this man could be labelled a traitor and discounted. Jax went with th efirst part of the plan, citing Kanos not declaring for the 'new' Emperor as treason, but refusing to ignore Kanos and personally deciding to hunt him down with his two Star Destroyers-Steadfast and the Emperor's Revenge. Jax attempted to cultivate a Vader like appearance wearing his Sovereign Protector armor and cloak while commanding from a Star Destroyer. He won great respect from the Imperial Army for this and subsequently surrounded himself with Army advisors to further garner support, however the Warlords still turned a deaf ear to his commands.
Jax now threw himself into capturing Kanos as he felt that the smallest detail could destroy him, much as it had destroyed his father and allowed him to destroy Palpatine. Jax became obsessed with Kanos and pursued him relentlessly, this action made him popular with the Ruling Council too as it kept him from meddling in their affairs, he ruled, but really as more of a figurehead than a functioning part of the government body. Jax was a man of action who held his personal skill unmatched and felt with his minimal force training to be close to Vader in power-though a Padawan might have been more accurate. Jax gradually began to slip at this point, he was a masterful planner and patient, but his ability as a military commander overall was hampered by his obsession with chasing Kanos. As a result he did not command front line battles and left that to his Generals, most of whom were sycophants with little ability and the Crimson Empire failed to expand or solidify it's holdings as a result. Jax's attention to the details, his obsession with holding his power was beginning to blind him to the fact that he held very little real power and it was fast slipping away-the cracks were already forming. Jax was willing to sacrifice anyone around him to secure his own power and it would come back to haunt him.
However Cronal supplied Jax with Blackhole Stormtroopers which Jax personally trained as his version of the Imperial Guard and won their full loyalty to himself over Cronal, betraying the Dark Jedi after taking resources from him. In this we see Jax trying to replicate Palpatine and Vader before him through imitation again, but his results were far less successful, the Blackhole Stormtroopers even with his training were no equal of the Royal Guard, Wessel was no Piett/Veers, Blim was no Mara Jade and he was no Vader/Palpatine and the council made up of back stabbers, courtiers and sycophants were no fit rulers. As such Jax had torn down the central pillars of the Empire and replaced them with rotting bracers. He proved how little he actually cared for his troops and allies in the final days of the Kanos pursuit, he sacrificed countless Stormtroopers, resources and ships to find one man, stripping the front of much needed material. He split his forces above Phaeda to pursue Kanos costing him the Steadfast and planet when the New Republic sent in reinforcements, then rather than warn Wessel of the vision he had of the bomb droid Wessel was pulling into the Emperor's Revenge Jax merely abandoned him to his fate, losing an ally, an ISD and all lives aboard just to pursue Kanos-the only threat he now saw to his power. The 'Tiny Detail' had now become his sole obsession. Jax landed and sent his Blackhole troopers into the ruins of Yinchorr not to succeed but merely buy time for Blim to get into a sniper position while he engaged Kanos. All this achieved was the deaths of Jax's personal guard with no effect as Kanos had no intention of fleeing. Jax encountered kanos and dueled him, hoping to humble Kanos with how powerful he had become, to prove his power was his own and even to win kanos to his side. Jax believed that ultimately everyone had a price, that personal ambition was greater than any loyalty, after all it was how he had become Emperor, so Kanos bewildered him when he not only refused but declared ultimate loyalty to the dead Emperor. In spite of his force training Jax had not been on the front lines in years unlike Kanos who had fought for his life every day for the past year and it showed, Kanos gained the upper hand, wounding Jax twice in the duel, bringing the Usurper Emperor to his knees and Mirith Sinn along with Sadeet killed Blim and destroying Jax's shuttle off the world. Jax didn't even hesitate, he used kanos focusing on their deaths as his opening to regain the upper hand, once again demonstrating how little he cared for anyone outside himself. Mistaking the feelings he sensed from Sinn to be mirrored in Kanos, Jax felt that the trios goals were one and the same and that he could use the two newcomers as leverage against Kanos. Mirith Sinn and Sadeet quickly found out that even injured and alone Jax was dangerous as he disarmed Sinn and used the Force to take Sadeet's blaster rifle. He dropped his guard to do so in aiming at Sinn and Sadeet thinking Kanos would focus on saving them rather than attacking him since he believed Sinn would make Kanos try and take him alive. It was Jax's last in a long line of mistakes. The man obsessed with little details and his own personal power through the manipulation of others, had failed to accurately read the detail that just because Sinn cared for Kanos-Kanos cared for her over his cause(at least at this point in time) Instead of shielding Sinn, Kanos disarmed Jax and impaled him through the chest with his vibroblade.
His life's blood pouring out of him, stunned that this could happen to him, Jax fell to his knees, his final words a weak plea for understanding, "But...your friends...wanted me...alive..." The cold answer he received was the last thing he ever heard, "They are not my friends. Carnor Jax, for your part in the assassination of Emperor Palpatine and the murder of your fellow Royal Guardsmen, I condemn you to death!" The man who had believed in nothing but his own abilities, used and manipulated all those around him for his own goals and who had scuffed at the ideas of loyalty and justice, was now dying alone, unaided and unmourned on a deserted planet, his executioner administering justice for Jax's many betrayals...out of loyalty to the man who had dictated Jax's life's actions. Jax bled out before the final blow was landed and he was left on the squall to rot alone and forgotten, in the very place his ambitions had been born. Within the year the council he had founded would tear itself apart with infighting, all would die or end their lives in New Republic custody, Quest would be ousted by the Council and live his life in pverty and fear on Nar Shaddaa until hunted down by a fanatical devotee to Emperor Palpatine, much in the same way Jax had died-alone and forgotten in the dust. All Jax had built collapsed and died either with him or shortly after their ambitions, like his reduced to dust and nothingness.

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Greetings one and all. Curious what each member of this forum feels is their favorite quotes from SWs.

No limit on choices!

Personally for me there are a couple that stand out.

"There is no shame in falling, for all stumble. There is only shame if you refuse to stand back up again." Jedi Master Pernicar's force ghost to General Hoth on Ruusan

"I stand in your way. What you see...you will not achieve." Jedi Master Luke Skywalker to Lord Nyax on Coruscant

"Remember, you can't look dignified while having fun." Wes Janson to Myn Donos on Hawkbat base

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Star Wars Discussion / Alternate outcome of Tsoss Beacon
« on: June 01, 2017, 09:43:43 PM »
I'd like to explore an infinities option. Instead of being gassed at Tsoss Beacon, Delvardus is allowed to leave(or makes a lunge for the door and makes it outside before it slams shut)
In this situation we get him enacting his original intent of going there in the first place. Cronus jumps in with the Night Hammer and annihilates Tsoss in seconds before any of the Warlord fleets can get near the station. With his own fleet already holding position at system's edge with the other fleets and the presence of the Night Hammer Delvardus holds the most firepower in the immediate area and all the other Warlords are now dead along with Daala and Pellaeon, in such an event the fleets likely submit to the Superior General as the last leader standing, much as they did for Daala after the gas attack success in the real timeline.

This is where things become interesting as Delvardus is very unlikely to have waited the weeks to months Daala did at Pellaeon's urging, fully consolidating her position and forces. While this has some severe downsides in terms of unit cohesion and unity of the now suddenly unified Warlord Fleets, it does give Delvardus the extremely valuable advantage of complete tactical and operational surprise. Since Kyp and Dorsk 81 don't warn the New Republic the Empire is reunified and about to attack them(since that decision doesn't happen until about a month or so after Tsoss) and Delvardus would very likely not do a wide series of hit and fades or target the Jedi Academy, he would hit Coruscant with everything in his fleet and army- and very likely take the world-though at heavy cost.

Coruscant at this point is still extremely battered from Shadow Hand and the Imperial Mutiny of the previous two years. Likely no battle stations and very decimated infrastructure. In addition the NR has largely ignored the Deep Core Warlords since the final defeat of Palpatine, focusing more on the Mid Rim and Crimson Empire. The thing is how does this play out?
Delvardus commands the Deep Core and now Coruscant with a large fleet and an SSD, possibly the Megador and Dominion once they are found. We also know that most of the galaxy stayed neutral after Shadow Hand rather than rejoin the NR or Warlords until they were sure who would win in the end, so the NR is not as strong or consolidated as they were before the nightmares of Shadow Hand and the Core is traditionally friendly to Imperial forces with few exceptions. Thus we have Delvardus with a mass force in possession of Imperial Center and possible support from Anaxes, Kuat, and Corulag. This puts him in a key position as a possible contender for Imperial Ruler if he plays his cards right...

This is Delvardus peak I think though, as unlike Pellaeon who offered protection and cooperation to the Imperial factions in the mid rim and New territories, Delvardus would demand fealty and threaten them with death should they refuse. The Moffs and Warlords would likely refuse to give up their personal power and war against the Superior General with the NR striking where it could and fomenting more bloodshed among the Imperials. In this scenario many of the rich core worlds, weary of war and seeing no end under Delvardus likely withdraw their support from him, his manpower cannot simply overwhelm his enemies due to the vast territorial demands on him. While he has three star dreadnaughts, his rivals have two(possibly three if the NR still captures Guardian) and due to the scattered nature of their governments, he cannot achieve a master stroke. Finally, improved though he is now as a tactician and strategist he is no match for the likes of Bel Iblis, Ackbar and Wedge Antilles. I see him eventually being forced back from the Core to the Deep Core and left there or assassinated eventually as he slips further into insanity over Seledra Zin.

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Star Wars Discussion / Character Study Blitzer Harrsk
« on: April 01, 2017, 11:15:59 PM »
They say that there is a fine line between genius and madness. Blitzer Harrsk proved it to be a very fine line and regularly danced on both sides of it in the years after a horrific injury shattered his mind.

Little is known of Harrsk's early life, save that he was a career naval officer. He rose quickly through the ranks and was considered by many a prodigy. He met and befriended a young cadet named Firmus Piett, the two would become lifelong friends. Shortly before the battle of Yavin Harrsk was put in charge of Arrowhead Command, a collection of fleet assets tasked with patrolling the Galactic Core Worlds and a portion of the Slice. It was a very prestigious command that allowed Harrsk to mingle with the Galaxy's wealthy Core citizens and more powerful political figures. Coupled with the Admiralty of his long time friend Firmus Piet to the equally prestigious command of Death Squadron under Darth Vader Harrsk became a household name for many of the Imperial elite. His tenure in the Core was marked by stability and efficiency as he developed and implemented tactics of his own to supplement Imperial textbooks on warfare. At the request of his friend Piett, Harrsk attached his personal Star Destroyer and a few escort forces to supplement Death Squadron for what was meant to be the final decisive victory of the Empire over the Rebellion at an obscure Moon in the Outer Rim known as Endor.

Instead of the climactic triumph cementing his reputation Harrsk experienced bitter defeat and watched his reality shattered both figuratively and literally as the Rebels decisively defeated the might of the Elite Imperial Fleet, destroyed the Death Star and killed the Emperor. In the chaos of the battle with the loss of the Emperor's battle meditation Harrsk's gunners failed to keep Alliance ships back when his ship's shields failed Harrsk was standing by his second in command above the crew pit when a direct hit to the bridge tower overloaded the terminals killing all nearby and burning half of Harrsk's head to a pulpy mess of shrapnel and melted flesh. One fragment actually imbedded itself in his brain. Seeing the battle was lost and senior leadership was all but gone the Chimaera under Gilad Pellaeon ordered the Imperial Fleet to retreat to Anaaj.

Harrsk's crew had saved the Admiral's life by getting him into a bacta tank...but the man who awoke in that tank was not the Blitzer Harrsk the galaxy had known. No one knows for sure what did it, the trauma to the brain, the destruction of everything he had known-watching the Executor plunge into the Death Star II-killing his lifelong friend Piett in the process, the shock of the Emperor's death or the pain-but Harrsk had developed a split personality of extremes and now had a very tenuous grip on reality. One personality was ruthless, egotistical and reckless in th extreme, the other was calculating and long suffering. It was as if to cope with the two realities he had been forced to experience his mind had divided itself to reflect the outside world. From his bacta tank Harrsk coldly informed Pellaeon that with the battle over Chimeara was no longer the command ship and therefore he would not follow orders of any subordinate. Declaring that without a clear chain of command no one had the authority to give him orders Harrsk took the forces he had left from Death Squadron and returned to his command briefly only to order all forces under him into the Deep Core. In the chaos of the post Endor collapse his entire command followed his orders. Harrsk dubbed his new protectorate Zero Command. Many wealthy patrons and nobles fled to his protectorate as the Empire dissolved into civil war. Harrsk was regarded as one of the best Admirals and held powerful forces so his protection was well sought. He also did not break with the mainstream Empire at first, merely exercising his 'initiative' he didn't fight with the other power hungry Imperials who went publically rogue and more or less kept to himself in the Deep Core. For the first two years after Endor, though he himself grew ever more unstable his second personality which he had began to create an identity for to personify it without accepting his madness-kept him from destroying himself, fixing errors, cancelling reckless orders, and holding meetings for him. Then when Isard lost Imperial Center Harrsk's cautious personality could no longer restrain him, he declared the Empire dead, and Zero Command it's successor state with himself as head of state under the title of Supreme Warlord and Lord High Admiral. He began attacking the smaller Warlords in the Deep Core and expanding slightly into the Core absorbing defecting Imperial Forces who either for lack of alternatives or because they believed Harrsk their best hope threw in their lot with him. Yet still his second persona kept him from ruin by stopping him from declaring war on the entire galaxy.

Harrsk doubled his territory in the year following Isard's defeat, taking advantage of the NRs focus on Zsinj and then Teradoc. However he still held relatively small amounts of territory and for the most part the NR and larger galaxy ignored him. He became more and more involved in internal warfare with other Imperials rather than the NR as fugitives like Delvardus, Teradoc and others began to carve up the Deep Core among themselves. Harrsk's megalomania would not allow anyone else to contest him, Harrsk attacked and allied with various warlords of the deep core bleeding his forces to galactic insignificance. The NR content with letting the Warlords kill each other ignored him mostly but kept intel tabs on him. Then Palpatine returned and Harrsk, possibly seeing a chance at reclaiming his past prestige joined him and threw all his forces into a reckless series of attacks on the NR. While successful the attacks were very costly and by the time Shadow Hand ended with Palpatines final death and Byss's destruction, Harrsk was left with lots of territory and few forces to hold it. The NR pushed back and Harrsk was forced back into the Deep Core completely losing all his Core holdings permanently. He was so short on men and material from his losses that he could not even crew two Star Dreadnaughts he had in his possession- Megador and Dominion, and so stored them at Deep Space Nine. Now blaming his failures on his fellow Warlords with the final death of his Emperor and Byss gone seeming like a repeat of the Endor trauma Harrsk became the dominant persona with his second reasonable one fading more and more each day, it's possible this was a subconscious attempt at passive suicide from his repressed consciousness. Harrsk might well have continued for decades of these little wars on his fellow Imperials had it not been for Nataasi Daala's peace talks. As she made her rounds Harrsk sought to convince her to join his cause, knowing her popularity with the rank and file he felt he could use her to tip the scales in his favor. When he was humiliated in an attack by his rival Teradoc, Harrsk viciously impressed Daala into service as a flunky, declaring any other action but obedience to be treason. He then refused to listen to Daala or his subconscious that tried to caution him and unleashed his last frontal assault losing 1/4 of his fleet and leading them into what surely would have been certain death had Daala not ended it early by incapacitating his destroyer and negotiating with Pellaeon. Faced with reason Harrsk displayed how very far he had sunk into insanity declaring Daala a traitor for wanting the Imperials to stop killing each other, and ordering his forces to kill her even though they were now hopelessly surrounded by Pellaeon's ships. Disgusted by Harrsk's increasing madness and trained to follow orders the Imperials under Harrsk followed Daala, and with Pellaeon they used all the influence to arrange a meeting on Tsoss between the Warlords. Harrsk attended mainly because at this stage his power of his own forces was largely with Daala and he hoped for an opportunity to either discredit or outright kill her. Things didn't go as planned however when sick of 3 hours of petty squabbling Daala nerve gassed them all. Harrsk blacke dout, but in a somewhat ironic twist his earlier brain injury had scrambled the part of the brain the gas should have affected and so he merely passed out from lack of oxygen. Awakening after the others had died and Daala and Pellaeon had left, Harrsk saw an opportunity. They thought him dead, he would take his private TIE shuttle and kill them as they headed to the rendezvous! They would not see him coming, and as he took off he came closer to his victims and his thumb was on the trigger, he would kill them and then he would conquer the other fleets with his in a headlong charge for their treason! His suppressed personality was horrified by this, as it would truly mean the end of the Empire, the ruin of all he believed in and inspired by Daala's bravery and insight in ending the ICW struggled for dominance with the Harrsk persona, wrestling his hand away from the trigger, the two fought desperately on the mental plane- the loyal yet reasonable subordinate personality against the dominant insane personality. It was as if the ICW had become internal inside Harrsk's own skull until as he wrestled and screamed his subordinates name in hate that personality played his trump card, he released a suppressed truth he had buried-a memory.

The subordinate had been dead for 7 years. He had died in the same explosion that had ripped Harrsk's mind and reality apart. Realizing what he had become, how far he had descended and what was true reality for the first time in years Blitzer Harrsk knew he couldn't live with it, he couldn't go back after all he had done, the millions he'd killed, the Empire he had betrayed, the Emperor, Empire he had served dead and gone and realizing he would slip back into insanity just so he could cope again the old Admiral Harrsk used his last seconds of control to turn away from Daala's ship and pilot the TIE Shuttle into Tsoss Beacon's surface killing himself and in so doing saving the Empire for someone else.

Blitzer Harrsk had once been one of the brightest minds in the Empire, he was devoted, reasonable and by all accounts not cruel, but caring to those under his command. However faced with pain, trauma and literally watching everything he loved and believed in die in front of him snapped him. He might well have blamed himself, believing only a monster could have let down the galaxy and so his mind created that personality to keep from facing reality in a twisted way of coping with what he couldn't accept. A part of him remained but only in the persona of his dead subordinate, partly to protect his fragile psyche from the added guilt of being responsible for this man's death too, and it is worth noting it was THIS persona, what he viewed as someone else that had his only redeeming qualities after Endor. He hated himself so much he created a separate personality that was all he hated, and his only check was from someone else. In the end he chose to kill himself rather than live with this reality. In th every end, he regained his perspective and sanity and in so doing redeemed himself somewhat.

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Star Wars Discussion / Personal Lightsaber style and preference
« on: March 15, 2017, 11:34:50 AM »
Which of the Seven Lightsaber forms and what style lightsaber hilt would you use? Include blade color.

11
Star Wars Discussion / Character Study Sander Delvardus
« on: February 27, 2017, 09:31:52 PM »
Some Imperial characters are very one dimensional. Cardboard cutout villains with the most basic motivation- taking over the world(insert M. Bison Clip) others are delightfully complex motivated by hidden agendas, regret and obsession. Such is the character of Sander Delvardus.

Very little is known of Delvardus early life. Whether by design or coincidence no information exists about where or when he was born. What is known is that very early in life he managed to secure a marriage with a powerful Tarkin family heiress tying his fate to that of the high class of Eriadu. Since it is very unlikely a commoner would be able to achieve this we can assume Delvardus was from the upper class of Eriadu with the appropriate connections to arrange the marriage to further his career and the ambition to pursue these goals ruthlessly. From an early age Delvardus seems to have embraced the idea that to gain supremacy in life one needed overwhelming power that couldn't be countered. The strong ruled and the weak died, that was the way of the universe- he also never accepted surrender as an option in life. As such he sought to tie himself to the most powerful family in the Outer and Mid Rim no matter the cost- the Tarkins. To Delvardus however his wife was never more than a way to further bolster his position, he never held any love or affection for her and stayed away nearly the entirety of their marriage. Delvardus joined the Imperial Navy shortly after his marriage recognizing that the Imperial Navy was the fastest way to power after his marriage. A Star Destroyer posting was achieved in very short time and his captaincy confirmed, it should be noted however that not once during his official career was Delvardus noted as taking part in any major offensives against enemies of equal strength-he remained untested in battle. Delvardus was not satisfied with mere power without perks and quickly developed a reputation as a womanizer. He was rumored to have a woman in every port. Delvardus might well have remained as such for the rest of his life had he not met a refugee worker named Seledra Zin. In perhaps the most unlikely pairing in SW history a ruthless Imperial noble fell deeply in love with a refugee worker who specialized in Aliens and she with him. he even secured a posting for his ship just to be closer to her. He gave up womanizing for her and had he not already been married might well have settled with her. However likely due to their separate outlooks on life and politics as well as treatment of others Delvardus and Zin argued constantly and one fateful time it exploded into violence. In a blind fit of rage Delvardus struck Zin without thinking knocking her into a coma.

For the very first- and perhaps only time- time in his life Delvardus was overcome by deep regret and grief at his actions. He had struck down the one person he cared about in the entire galaxy other than himself-with his own hand. Tormented by this and unable to accept she would never wake up again, Delvardus had her moved to his personal quarters on his ship in stasis. Believing that if he amassed enough power and rank he would have access to the very cutting edge of medical technology Delvardus threw himself into every possible advantage he could gain, tactically, strategically and politically he strove to be the best, he used his Tarkin connection and intense nature to climb to the rank of Admiral in a staggeringly short amount of time under Grand Moff Ardus Kaine. His every waking moment became devoted to the revival of his love. Her restoration became his one and only obsession. Yet no matter how he tried the cure eluded him. Frustrated at the seeming dead end to his rise and by extension his dead end pursuit of Zin's cure Delvardus was given what seemed to him a heaven sent opportunity-the Emperor died and the Empire shattered. Delvardus found himself in control of the fleets for Ardus Kaine in the Outer Rim and when Kaine abandoned the Rim for the New Territories Delvardus abandoned him. Seizing control of the abandoned territory with the forces unwilling to abandon their home sectors with kaine Delvardus promised to protect Eriadu in exchange for being the leader of the splinter faction. The Eriadu Ruling classes, wanting it's assets protected were all too happy to agree, thus Delvardus assumed rulership of the splinter faction he would deem the Eriadu Authority. As it's ruler he publicly took the stance of hard line Imperial out to secure his territory and protect Eriadu. Privately he used every campaign as an excuse to absorb, steal or conquer new Medical technologies from worlds near him. Now with no oversight he could pour as many millions into saving Zin as it took. During this time Delvardus captured hundreds of ATATs and seeking to legitimatize his new dictatorship and differentiate himself from his rivals like Moff  Utoxx Prentioch- who blocked some of his rimward expansions, Delvardus invented the title of 'Superior General" for himself. This alienated his army commanders and led to General Maximillion Veers leaving for the centralized Empire in the Core. Veers was just the first to jump ship...he wouldn't be the last.

When the worlds he held didn't yield the cure he sought Delvardus turned his eyes coreward. He planned a daring series of attacks to seize the Rimma trade route as a preliminary to attacking the Core- where Delvardus had become convinced a cure for Zin would be found. This notion horrified the Eriadu Ruling families who thought Delvardus was gambling their entire state in a potential war with both Coruscant and the Ruling Council withdrew all support to the Warlord. Shea Hublin the legendary ace TIE pilot, disgusted by what he saw as Delvardus abandoning Eriadu for the Core also left his service. Undaunted and confident in his own prowess he had begun secret construction of a supremacy weapon called the Night Hammer- an Executor class SSD unlike any other. It would have stealth armor over standard hull plating both giving it added protection and making it nearly invisible to sensors, he further had managed to through automation and efficiency reduce the need for crew from 250,000 to just 100,000. This ship would also house much larger hangars and capacity than it's standard sister ships who could carry 144 fighters and bombers the Night Hammer could carry over 1,000. Delvardus believed if he gained the resources of the Core he could finish this monster and use it as both deterrent and a weapon that could not be rivaled to quickly gain dominance as well as unable to accept he would have to remain in the Outer Rim as that would doom Zin to eternal rest, Delvardus attacked anyway pushing as far as Yag Dhul before running out of steam. Now stripped of his leading ground commander, starfighter pilot and financial backing events began to spiral rapidly. Delvardus had been marked as one of the first targets by the NR for destruction due to his antagonistic offensives all around him and his largely exposed territory. Veteran admiral Firmus Nantz led the NR into Delvardus territory and lured the Flagship - the Praetor II class Battlecruiser Thalassa of the Superior General into an ambush and destroyed it with coordinated Y wing swarms and B Wing Frigates. Nantz then hit Delvardus again and again besting the Warlord in each encounter through superior tactics and the dissension in Delvardus's ranks. Delvardus Eriadu Authority was poised on a knife's edge. The Ruling families had abandoned him, he had not won a single battle against Nantz making him appear vulnerable to the other Warlords around his border and he was unable to replace capital ship losses after Sluis Van was taken or finish the Night Hammer in his territory. Delvardus decided to double down and risk it all on attacking Sullust. He would seize the Rebel facilities there and press the Sullustians into slave labor to finish his new flagship, he even briefly regained Hublin's aid. Delvardus attacked in a reckless all or nothing way and was soundly defeated by a relative newcomer named Sien Sovv-who would one day become the NRs supreme commander-utterly shattered at Sullust Devardus was given no breathing room as the NR fleet led by Nantz and Calrissian pushed into his territory from both flanks, Eriadu backed the NR in exchange for amnesty and the Superior General's Eriadu Authority dissolved in the blink of an eye, even his own wife deserted him remaining on Eriadu.

This should have been the end for Delvardus, but amazingly it was not. He escaped taking Zin along with sufficient forces including the unfinished Night Hammer into the Deep Core where he established himself on Kampf dubbing his new Kingdom the Kampf Authority he warred with the likes of Harrsk, Kosh Teradoc, Pakith and others for dominance in the Deep Core in bitter internecine warfare that convinced him that the other Warlords were just obstacles to his glory, always in his way, he developed vendettas and deep hatred of each, gradually slipping into obscurity from the larger galaxy. Then one day he received a communication from Byss- the Emperor was reborn and made an offer sensing Delvardus heart of hearts that the Warlord could not refuse-if Delvardus would just swear fealty to him Palpatine would use the power of the Force to grant the Superior General's one desire when the NR was crushed-Seledra Zin would LIVE again! Delvardus eagerly accepted and turned his entire kingdom's forces over to Palpatine's cause. Along with the other Deep Core Warlords Delvardus joined the offensive to take back the Galaxy. The years of warfare had hardened Delvardus, no longer was he the inexperienced commander of the first year after Endor, he burst back onto the Galactic scene at Metellos where he swept the defending NR fleet from space and then orbitally bombarded the world until it surrendered-killing over 10 million in the process. He took part in the reconquest of Coruscant poised seemingly to stand victorious with the rest of the Imperials-then it happened- the Imperial mutiny, a senseless orgy of destruction and hate filled madness. Already bitter and hateful of his fellow Warlords from years of warfare with them Palpatine's dark side manipulations found easy purchase in Delvardus who joined in the destruction and faring better than many of his fellows. When it was over though Delvardus had lost much of his strength like the other Warlords-they now truly had no recourse but to serve the Reborn Emperor's massive shadow forces. Still Delvardus was hopeful-he was in the Core, the Emperor was back, the NR driven to the edges of the galaxy. Soon Palpatine would restore Zin to him! Then it all went straight to Hell. Palpatine was betrayed by Carnor Jax and slain by the NR, Byss, the Eclipse I and Ii and the Galaxy gun were destroyed along with the Shadow Hand Fleet. In the blink of an eye Zin had been snatched away from him again by the NR, who had also snatched his kingdom at eriadu  years earlier. He blamed this partly on them and partly on the other Warlords for failing to prevent it's occurrence. Delvardus pulled all support from the Empire, refused any offer of alliance or reconciliation and was determined to kill every other Warlord then with their united forces destroy the NR and save his love. He had by this time descended quite possibly into complete self delusion and all consuming hatred. He funneled every credit he had or could steal into the Night Hammer in absolute secrecy- convinced with this vessel he could achieve both complete surprise and complete annihilation of his two largest rivals in the Deep Core- Harrsk and Teradoc.
However as he finished the SSD he received a surprising invitation to unite with the Warlords from Vice Admiral Pellaeon at Admiral Daala's request. Scornful of the other Warlords and Daala, but unwilling to pass up a potential chance to get them all at once Delvardus agreed to go.

Delvardus arrived in his custom dress uniform with all his medals on. While the other Warlords wore equally pretentious vanity pieces Delvardus's were actually for another purpose entirely. Since his time in the Deep Core Delvardus had learned the value of secrecy, of duplicity better than any other Warlord. Alone among the Warlords Delvardus disguised his Stronghold as his center-while the Night Hammer actually was it's center, he had built a custom SSD in complete secrecy that could be dropped on these squabbling fools as soon as this meeting was over and they had NO idea it even existed. Finally, Delvardus alone among the Warlords had smuggled in a weapon. Disguised as medals it was actually an assembly knife that he was proficient in using. After hearing the opening to the meeting and likely predicting the useless nature of trying to negotiate with the other Warlords-all of whom he hated deeply Delvardus rose to leave only to be sealed in with his rivals. Over the next three hours Delvardus and the other Warlords argued, threatened and re declared vendettas. It is likely Delvardus planned to bring his trump card into play as soon as the meeting was over-which was why he had sought to leave early- he could bombard the station into atoms with Night Hammer before any of the enemy fleets could do anything, seizing power in one master stroke with a weapon that was supreme. It was in keeping with his nature. However it was not to be. Sickened by the display  Daala gassed the Warlords. Delvardus alone among the Warlords did not panic, instead realizing he was going to die he resolved to take his killer with him. Assembling his medals into their deadly dagger he advanced on Daala determined to take her with him for foiling his ambitions one last time.  However the nerve gas worked too quickly and Delvardus died a mere step from Daala.

His flagship the Night Hammer was taken by Daala-who never knew of the secret chamber that house the still comatose Seledra Zin in stasis and both were destroyed in the gas giant of Yavin. Delvardus had been obsessed with two things his entire life believing them intimately linked- Unrivaled Power and Unattainable Love. His pursuit of them had dictated every move he did after childhood and his all consuming obsession with them destroyed him. It's ironic in that had Delvardus been anyone but who he was he might well have lived a simple life with Zin, but his inability to let go of power cost him his love, then his pursuit of reclaiming that bit of himself that he killed with that hammer led him to an empty life of power without love or comfort. It could be said that Delvardus himself died with Zin all those years ago and what was left was a pale shadow eating itself every waking moment pushing the man to sacrifice everything to get back that one bit of himself he had lost. In some ways Delvardus is a deeply flawed and selfish man looking for salvation by trying to change the past but never realizing he was going about it the wrong way and it was pursuit of that way that had robbed him of his shred of humanity long ago. Such is the tragedy of Sander Delvardus, a man who made his own Hell and drove himself ever deeper into it in blind obsession.

12
Star Wars Discussion / Character Study Nil Spaar
« on: February 20, 2017, 03:48:47 PM »
Every now and then you have a character that is oppressed and a product of that oppression. They either rise up and make themselves better beings...then there are beings like Nil Spaar.

 "You have never faced an adversary like us. Your wars are decided by the death of a tenth of a population, a third of an army. Then the defeated surrender their honor and the victors surrender their advantage. This is called being civilized. The Yevetha are not civilized, General. It would be a mistake to deal with us as though we were." ―Nil Spaar

Nil Spaar was born in 32 BBY in the Koornacht Cluster on N'zoth. Growing up in isolation from the rest of the galaxy due to the density and navigational hazards of Koornacht Cluster Spaar like the rest of the Yevetha believed they were the only intelligent life in the galaxy and came to revere the space immediately around N'zoth as sacred as the cradle of life, calling it the All- to symbolize how to their views it was all there was, this fed their xenophobia to almost supernatural levels. N'zoth was a harsh unforgiving world of desert, wind storms and baking heat. The Yevethan culture mirrored this and death was so common it came to be worshiped after a fashion, becoming a cornerstone of their culture. When coupled with the fact that Yevethan birth casks were nurtured in blood of a sacrificed Yevetha the species came to see Death as vital to life and blood took on a religious significance as well as cultural. Spaar might well have remained typical of his species and done nothing of note had it not been for the arrival of the Galactic Empire. With their superior numbers and technology the Empire quickly subjugated the Yevetha, though it was an excessively bloody conquest with the Yevetha only pretending to capitulate to await the perfect opportunity to wet their dew claws on their master's exposed necks - although they never felt at ease over them like they did with other slave species they enslaved the yevetha for their unrivaled technical abilities. Still as ruthless as the Empire was, their Imperial overlords saw the Yevetha as barbaric in the extreme, vicious and many of the garrisons members were disturbed by the Yevetha's infatuation with death and blood. Ritual and honor killings were so commonplace that imperials felt these creatures were more dangerous than any they had enslaved and kept the world under very heavy guard with three mobile shipyards and a standing fleet with full planetary garrison.

Nil Spaar suffered this in silence, helping organize resistance cells and mastering all Imperial tech they could get their claws on. Slowly they built in overrides to the Imperial Ships and doors of the shipyards. After Endor with the Empire disintegrating into civil war all but a minor skeleton crew of the garrison and ships were withdrawn to help with other trouble spots in the crumbling Empire. Receiving an order from Ysanne Isard herself the last of the garrison was to be evacuated and moved to the Core. N'zoth was to be abandoned, but the Imperial commander feared what might happen if the Yevetha discovered the pull out now that there were 3 Yevetha for every 1 Imperial at N'zoth. Spaar's cells discovered the truth and infiltrated the ships on cargo vessels. Using the Override codes and accompanying the commandos himself Spaar arrived on the Intimidator and in a lightning strike seized control of the bridge and gunnery stations on the sparsely crewed SSD. Spaar now introduced the Empire to the YEVETHAN way of making war. While the horrified crew watched Spaar had the Intimidators turbolasers annihilate the fleeing Imperial garrison- including ALL their families. When the commodore protested that they were unarmed Spaar hauled him to his feet declaring that the Imperial as well as ALL non Yevetha were vermin in his eyes and used his dew claws to open the commodore's throat. Spaar was not on a path of conquest, nothing so trivial. The Yevetha were now to begin the path of genocide to 'cleanse' the All of vermin.

Spaar was vital to the success of the revolt on N'zoth but he had not been it's architect, that had been another Yevetha named Kiv Truun. Unwilling to share the light and power, Spaar killed him with his own claws and seized the position of Viceroy of the newly founded Dushkan League. Now seen as the sole architect of the Yevetha's freedom and subsequent control of Koornacht Cluster Nil Spaar became known as the Darama- the chosen one. He used this to full effect expanding and tightening his control over N'zoth becoming it's unquestioned dictator and religious ruler. Knowing that one day he might be challenged by either the Empire or another faction Spaar threw his entire economy and people into a frenzied War production, assisted by the very few imperials left from the revolt as slave labor for the duration of their usefulness. In just over 12 years Spaar turned the Dushkan League from one planet with sparse population, no navy and an improvised army into a 12 world Empire with a fleet comprised of 60 Imperial designed vessels- of which 3 were SSDs and some hundreds of Aramadia class thrustships and a highly fanatical army. The rate and success of this military and economic buildup is actually unrivaled in galactic history in so short a time and with so few worlds. It's worth noting that Leia  Organa Solo commented that Nil Spaar represented more worlds, industrialized power and military power than ANY faction joining the NR- and this was before knowing it's full extent. Meaning the Yevethan's possessed greater industrial and military capacity than the Hapes Consortium or any of the Imperial Sectors that had sided with the NR in the last decade. Spaar was not there to join the NR though, he was there to sow chaos and ensure the NR did not interfere in his plans to 'cleanse' the rest of Koonacht. He just wanted the NR to stay OUT of the Cluster and not interact with them in any way. In turn he would not interact with them. His sincerity in this is highly in doubt as he saw vermin as not only inferior but NEEDING to be exterminated so eventually a Yevethan expansion and Purge outside the Cluster would have likely occurred. Spaar was an expert manipulator, playing on Leia's sympathy for the oppressed and her bitterness against the Empire he manipulated her and the Senate's fears of Leia's parentage into a quagmire to ensure the NR would be paralyzed from acting. He even turned a senator into a catspaw by playing the victim and using the senators distrust of Leia to is full advantage. Satisfied that Coruscant was now in chaos and with his forces fully ready and frothing to be unleashed Nil Spaar returned to his people a hero, taking new concubines for his harem and many young yevetha as blood sacrifices for his harem's birth casks. He also gave the go ahead. With a casual offhand Order Nil Spaar unleashed the Great Purge. Upon every populated world in Koornacht not already owned by the Yevetha the Black Fleet descended like angels of death. Without explanation or any mercy the Yevetha exterminated all life killing tens of millions. Sites were bombarded from orbit, younglings with mothers were thrown into incinerator pits or used for target practice, settlements were 'sterilized' all in complete silence. Cries for help, pleas of surrender and unarmed beings trying to flee were all slaughtered. Of all the millions only ONE survived. A lone Givin TIE Interceptor pilot who nearly perished in his escape before being picked up by NR scouts. Only one Yevetha had been killed in the entire Purge. The holo recordings and audio from the pilot inspired horror in the NR, but little action as the NR didn't want to get involved as it had not been directly attacked itself- something Spaar had counted on. The first battle between NR forces and the Yevetha also was planned by Spaar in a brilliant psychological warfare move who had recordings and a few actual hostages on Yevethan ships beg for their lives over open comms to make NR pilots not fire on the Thrustships. It worked perfectly, unwilling to kill innocents they NR held fire and suffered the Yevethan return fire as a result. With the chaos, only one witness not fromt he NR and a stinging defeat with civilian hostages, Spaar seemed to have ensured the NR's withdrawal. However thanks mostly to Leia's skills as a politician and orator forces were gradually sent to the Cluster- including a last minute assignment of Han Solo. Spaar saw all vermin as weak and bound by their compassion, so he captured Han as a hostage to force Leia to leave Koornacht, in addition at the advice of Dar Bille Spaar faked a recording of an alliance with the Imperial Remnants in the Deep Core. The plans badly backfired on both counts. When the NR did NOT withdraw but rather committed a follow up attack that destroyed one of the Yevethan shipyards Spaar lost his elegance in the blood driven rage of his people, he decapitated Bille- his leading expert on other cultures for his miscalculation and beat Han Solo nearly to death with his own hands after slicing open Solo's pilot in a gesture of contempt and open hatred while having it filmed. He did this in complete silence until the beating was over then said just three words.

"LEAVE KOORNACHT NOW."

Spaar had revealed himself for what he truly was, a bloodthirsty and vicious xenophobic tyrant for all to see. It was the worst thing he could have done. Not only did it stoke the fires of the NR's species who remembered this heavy handed rule of fear by the Empire, but it laid bare the truth of the Yevetha's nature and crimes beyond any doubt. Finally Han Solo was a beloved HERO of the NR, seeing him tortured to threaten Leia caused a 180 degree turn in the NR from non intervention to whole heartedly backing Spaar's utter destruction. The NR fifth fleet was given complete autonomy under Etahn A'bhett to lay waste to the Yevethan war machine until it was incapable of making war.
Nil Spaar now reverted from sneaky to full out psychotic. Ranting and raving about the filth that dared to invade his All he stoked his people to new levels of viciousness, but Spaar was slipping. His Imperial prisoners had over the last 13 years been slowly adding programs to the Imperial designed ships, slave circuits. The Yevetha who copied the designs of the first few imperial ships programs without fully understanding what they were- just that they were needed to work knew nothing of this. At the opportune moment the Imperials would seize every Imperial Designed vessel much as the Yevetha had before them, the NR had also decided the only way to achieve a full and decisive victory was to shatter the heart of Nil Spaar's power- N'zoth. Spaar had even lost his hostages to a combination of Chewbacca and Fallaniasi illusion. When Luke Skywalker convinced the Fallanasi Force users to assist the NR with illusions in battle the final cogs of the machine that would grind the Viceroy to dust were in place.

With the arrival of the entire Fifth Fleet Spaar's Black Fleet was outnumbered 3 to 1. However the viceroy did not know fear or retreat. They were alien to him as with all Yevetha. The Yevetha would LITERALLY fight to the very last whereas any other civilization would hit a breaking point and retreat, that was his logic, because to him that was WHAT being a Yevetha was. Death was part of life, vermin could not be superior EVER to a Yevetha, they existed only to be exterminated. When the Imperial's staged their mutiny seizing the backbone of his entire fleet-not just the ones at N'zoth and leaving only the Aramadia class thrustships the battle's outcome was never in doubt- though the Yevetha did not ever once try to surrender. Every single Yevethan ship down to the last fighter died in the battle of N'zoth and NR casualties were so severe that the Fallanasi could not keep up their Force illusion due to the sheer amount of death int he force.

Ironically Spaar fell from power much the same way as he gained it, by a mutiny on board the Intimidator SSD. Captured by his former slaves Spaar expressed nothing but absolute hatred and contempt for them, despising them utterly as one would roaches crawling over oneself. Even staring death in the face this was his only thought process. There was never any fear, just complete unrepentant hatred of the highest magnitude. Shoved into an escape pod tied hand and foot Spaar was ejected into the chaos of hyperspace to die in absolute isolation never to harm anyone else again.

Spaar was in many ways typical of his species. Xenophobic in the extreme, contemptuous of anything non Yevetha, ruthless and pitiless coupled with arrogance. however he differed in many ways too. He could disguise his xenophobia when it suited him, he was a master manipulator and extremely ambitious willing to commit murder of his superior(ironically the only definition of Murder in Yevethan culture) in order to seize complete control. He would listen to subordinates to an extent and learned what he could of his enemies- though only in regard to how to destroy them. He cared only for himself and the ascendance of N'zoth under his control. When his elaborate machinations failed Spaar much like Professor Moriarty revealed the depraved psychotic he usually kept hidden. He reverted to brutality, intimidation and outright terror- not comprehending that his actions would unite his enemies rather than cow them. With hsi back against the wall at N'zoth's battle and his subsequent capture Spaar displayed only rabid ferocity and hatred. Never once did he ask for mercy because in his mind such a thing was so alien as to not even be able to be comprehended subconsciously. He stands to this day as one of the most evil and cruel villains of the SW universe only falling below Ysanne Isard and Palpatine due to galactic impact, but on the whole is easily their match in intent and psychopathic tendency if not more so, because at least Palpatine and Isard ruled over diverse species that might have been sub human to them but Spaar's version of rule held ONLY Yevetha, every other species was to be EXTERMINATED. This is evil on a level not seen in any other species in SW, even the Vong and Ssi Ruuk ABSORB and turn cultures into theirs via modification or entechment, the Yevetha just kill them all and Spaar was the darkest of them all.

13
Star Wars Discussion / Character Study Kosh Teradoc
« on: February 18, 2017, 02:28:39 AM »
Kosh was the younger brother of Treuten Teradoc. From an early age he shared a fierce and mutual rivalry with his brother. They chased the same goals of fame, wealth and power. inspired by holodramas and growing up under the Empire both enlisted in the imperial officer Academy for the Imperial Navy. kosh was not physically impressive, given to a paunch and relatively short stature he was however gifted in strategy. While not considered overly brilliant he was still sharp and adept. After a relatively uneventful career  yet moderately fast promotion to Commander he received command of an Imperial Star Destroyer- a vessel twice as large and prestigious as his brother's Victory class command. While he commanded a larger ship, his brother commanded far more vessels and rose higher in rank. It's not known if Kosh achieved the rank of Admiral before Endor, but what is known is that kosh chose to strike out on his own in the Deep Core rather than remain under his brother Treuten's command when he went Rogue. His rivalry with Treuten would not let him suffer to serve beneath his then more successful older brother. Arriving in the Deep Core with his ISD and a small fleet of support ships Kosh quickly discovered it was anything but a safe haven. In the Deep Core Warlords Harrsk, Delvardus, Prentioch and a dozen other smaller Warlords all fought and strove for dominance. However rather than die in this hostile free for all-Kosh FLOURISHED. He abstained from the overindulgence of his brother, developed new tactics, became flexible as a commander and opportunist. He won time after time against long odds becoming a master strategist through experience and commanding a loyal and elite force that grew with each passing year as he bested rivals, convinced forces to defect to him and absorbed Imperial remnants fleeing to the Deep Core from the rest of the Galaxy. By 4.5 years after Endor Kosh had established a tiny yet powerful mini Empire that could hold its own against much stronger opponents. This was when he received a startling message from Treuten-his brother needed help badly. Kosh might well have laughed and left Treuten to his fate but the idea of being his brother's savior, lording it over him and absorbing much of his brothers holdings to boot to bolster his own Deep Core holdings was too good to pass up. Kosh took command and in a series of brilliant rear guard actions stabilized the rapidly disintegrating Greater Maldrood. With the situation somewhat stable now Kosh and Treuten entered into a long term military and civil alliance joining their holdings together into the Federated Teradoc Union. While Treuten held more forces and territory, Kosh held more elites and experience. Together they prospered while the NR focused on Thrawn. Then Palpatine returned and called for the Teradoc's to join with him in an all out assault on the NR. Kosh was hesitant to commit their still recovering forces to a major campaign but Treuten threw his full support behind Palpatine to try and recover his lost territory and dominant position compared to Kosh. The results were disastrous. Treuten suffered appalling losses in the campaign and afterwards was driven to near ruin by NR forces. Kosh, disgusted with Treuten's pride filled failures he sacked his brother from command of the Mid Rim forces and sent him to the relatively secure Deep Core holdings with his forces while he tried to salvage what was left of the Mid Rim.
Treuten however descended to even further levels of gluttony and depression and started a war with Harrsk bleeding his forces yet further. Shortly after this Treuten was killed at Tsoss Beacon by Admiral Daala and his forces absorbed by her united empire.
Kosh when hearing this in the Mid Rim was struck-not by rage at Daala, not by anger at the loss of his Deep Core Holdings and forces...but by sadness and regret. He realized he and Treuten had wasted their lives fighting. Rather than enjoying the family they were they had competed in bitterness and anger their whole lives. Kosh likely blamed himself for his brother's death as Treuten's last major campaigns had been launched to try and impress kosh or show him up in their rivalry-and Kosh had not dissuaded it. With his vastly reduced forces, tiny holdings and surrounded by the NR, Kosh might well have realized he was doomed and lost a lot of the will to live. he waged no campaigns after Treuten died and barely defended his shrunken borders, he stayed away from the front now, remaining in his personal fortress alone and ever more isolated in the past. He was eventually assassinated by Wraith Squadron when they disguised a pressure bomb in a gem he had sought since childhood with Treuten. Kosh died clinging to the last memento of his childhood with his brother. He had lived and died from the rivalry and link to his brother.

14
Star Wars Discussion / Character Study Treuten Teradoc
« on: February 06, 2017, 03:59:44 PM »
Sorry about the delays in getting this up, army annoyances and surgery were partially responsible, internet outages were another. This will also be divided into two separate character Studies-first for Treuten then another for Kosh tomorrow.


Treuten Teradoc was born into a lower middle class family on Er' Kit. From an early age he developed a rivalry with his brother Kosh. They competed in all things and always strove to outdo one another as many siblings often do, but with Treuten it became a lifelong obsession nearly. Both brothers grew up watching adventure holos of pirates and treasure, Treuten determined to gain the power and glory he saw in these early holos for himself and as a way of fully outdoing his brother by joining the Imperial Navy-however Kosh joined at roughly the same time. At the academy, Treuten was a poor physical specimen but his fierce need to outstrip Kosh drove him relentlessly forward in his studies and performance. He was judged competent enough and was assigned to the Crimson Command with the commission of Captain-the same as Kosh- who was given command of an ISD while Treten was given a smaller and older VSD, which infuriated him and drove him to push himself to new heights of strategy and tactics gaining enough notice from his commanders to rise rather quickly to the position of High Admiral over Kosh-a fact he never failed to lord over Kosh. Ironically however this promotion was when Treuten began to stagnate. His rivalry with Kosh was what drove him to excellence, now that he had apparently 'won' he no longer saw the need to further improve his skills.

Then came the death of Palpatine and Vader at Endor and the Empire was thrown into chaos. Seeing a chance to achieve all his childhood dreams for glory and wealth Treuten followed Harrsk's example of Warlordism and seized the Maldrood sector and several surrounding systems by imprisoning his superior Grand Moff Selit after he had declared for Warlord Zsinj-also seizing control of the Crimson Command in the process and earning the permanent enmity fo Zsinj. By promising protection to rich and industrial Imperial Worlds from Warlords, pirates and the New Republic in exchange for their financing his war Treuten gained a powerful military state with relative ease and speed. It was around this time his brother Kosh sought sanctuary in the Deep Core, much to Treuten's amusement, he now felt as ruler of his own nation state and Kosh only commanding a single ISD that he had without a doubt proven his superiority to his old rival sibling. He further stabilized his kingdom by seizing much of the Perlimean Trade Route and shipyards making his holdings relatively self sufficient. While clearly a rogue nation now Teradoc maintained nominal loyalty to the central Empire so as to avoid their attention. Secure in his power and arrogantly convinced of his own invincibility Treuten descended into gluttony and sloth. Becoming exceptionally fat and lazy he stayed away from the front lines, becoming detached and stagnant, his only concerns now living a life of luxury and comfort. He remained at his capital for the campaign which quickly bogged down and achieved nothing but a waste of resources at the expense of a new enemy. To his north the border skirmishes with Zsinj further drained resources with no results, Teradoc attempted to launch a campaign against the NR and launch campaigns against the Hutt's to his south, believing the gangsters to be weak and vulnerable to a human led faction. The NR, whom he detested as rebels and a nuisance to his ambitions turned out to be more dangerous than he realized. The campaign was an utter failure with his planned expansion to Kashyyk smashed and the loss of Togoria cutting him off from the mainstream Empire. While Teradoc was secure in his own borders he was incapable of leading successful offensives against his enemies which always ended in inconclusive stalemate or defeat. In spite of these setbacks, when Coruscant fell Treuten felt secure enough to declare himself fully independent titling his nation the 'Greater Maldrood', while he did loan some forces to Isard at Thyferra when that unit was damaged he withdrew it and cut ties with her mockingly and returned to a sedentary life style in his holdings.

Things remained fairly stable in the Greater Maldrood for the next year and a half with only border skirmishes and little attention from the NR due to their focus on Isard then on Zsinj. Treuten felt that when Zsinj earned the ire of the mainstream Empire and the NR that he had an opportunity to strike at his hated enemy and launched attacks along Zsinj's border with the Maldrood, again nearly all of these ended inconclusively- a testament to Teradoc's degradation of command ability and inventiveness due to his complacent lifestyle. Only when Zsinj was killed at Dathomir did Treuten begin enjoying success in his offensive operations. He expanded well into Zsinj's former holdings absorbing some forces that had no where else to turn to but him. He expande dhis title to High Admiral of the Mid Rim to match his new status, but got caught in a war with Rogriss and Ackbar. He defeated Teren Rogriss at Feriae Junction after a hard fought campaign ending Rogriss's participation and earning him much of Zsinj's former forces that rallied to him. Teradoc seemed poised to take Zsinj's place as the premier Warlord however he lacked Zsinj's tactical and strategic ability. He inherited a disorganized and largely demoralized force that only joined him for lack of any other options and was not used to coordinating with him-in fact most of these units had viciously fought AGAINST him for years. Teradoc then took this mass force and promptly attacked Ackbar and was badly beaten by the elite NR Admiral at key worlds deep in Maldrood territory- Maridun and Thanos. Reeling from the defeats and now the sole focus of attention from the, IR, hutts and NR's Forces that were caving in his borders at from every direction Teradoc realized he could not salvage the situation himself and desperately put out a call for help to his brother Kosh who far from dying alone in the Deep Core had FLOURISHED, developing new tactics, carving out a small but very powerful military state with battle hardened units reared on endless civil war while Teradoc's had grown sloppy and lethargic in their comfort. Realizing that Treuten's attempts to hold a massive frontier and expand had led to this state Kosh demanded operation control of the Mid Rim Forces while Treuten was to take the Crimson Command and hold the now relatively stable Deep Core Empire of Kosh. The two Kingdoms would be joined into the Federated Teradoc Union. Treuten at first refused but after Kosh fought his way to the Mid Rim with a relatively small force and stabilized the deteriorating Greater Maldrood Treuten bitterly agreed and fled to the Deep Core while Kosh performed a gradual fighting retreat in the shrinking Greater Maldrood.

In the Deep Core holdings of Kosh Treuten stewed, he had been forced to call his rival to save his life and Empire and now sat on rear guard while Kosh scored victories against opponents Treuten had been roundly bested by with far less forces than Treuten had at his disposal. For a time the situation stabilized and the brothers prospered, then Palpatine returned and demanded fealty from Teradoc. Determined to change his losing streak and prove to Kosh he was still viable as a commander Treuten accepted the call and-against Kosh's wishes- launched into a vicious series of attacks on the NR in the mid rim while his judgement was clouded by emotions and his desire for comfort. Treuten enjoyed almost no success in Shadow Hand and his forces suffered horrible casualty rates at both the NR and other Warlords. With Palpatine's death and the NR counter attack treuten was again and again handed a string of defeats to the point the Mid Rim holdings were almost non existent and Kosh in exasperation sent his brother back to their shrunken Deep Core Holdings. Humiliated and driven by blinding rage and pride at this point Treuten sought to prove to his brother that he was still the better commander and so launched a series of surprise hit and run attacks on Harrsk's holdings with the intention of absorbing the Warlord holdings. The campaign went poorly, while damage was inflicted on both sides Treuten could not deliver the knock out blow he sought because while he would commit waves of forces against Harrsk he would not commit fully to a decisive battle that might lead to his final ruin and as a result created a prolonged civil war that bled his brother's few holdings to near galactic insignificance while achieving nothing-exactly as he had done against Zsinj, the Hutts and NR in his early years. Despite having one of the greatest commander sin Imperial Service on retainer- Gilad Pellaeon, Teradoc would not allow Pellaeon to determine strategy, even though he promoted Pellaeon to Vice Admiral he micro managed him to the point Pellaeon essentially was still performing a captains role-further hindering the campaign's effectiveness as Teradoc commanded from far from the front lines, often not aware or able to adapt to a changing situation as it occurred- much to Pellaeon's frustration. Treuten also slipped fully into debauched gluttony tripling his weight in a single year alone, becoming so fat that he could barely stand and never venturing far from his command bunker-further detaching himself from reality. He had lost any and all care for his men, seeing them as disposable drones for his use and neglecting duties as a commander toward them in favor of his own comfort.


This might have continued on for years had Natassi Daala and Gilad Pellaeon not cooperated to end the futile bloodshed. Deciding to go to the meeting at Tsoss Beacon to see if an advantage might be gained that he could then lord over Kosh rather than any desire to actually unify-his belief in ANY Empire other than his own had died with Palpatine- Treuten went without Kosh's knowledge and in his belligerent arrogance and unrepentant animosity he first mocked the reunification bid by Daala and declared that no Empire existed save for the Warlord's individual ones- showing he had firmly left the path of the Imperial he once was. He provoked Harrsk to the point the little man choked Treuten. At this point Daala had enough, realizing that if left to their own devices the Warlords would just destroy themselves and the Empire with them in time. She gassed them all. Teradoc was the only one to remain at the conference table-not by choice, but because he had become so morbidly obese that he could not even stand up under his own weight, Instead he slapped the table frantically and choked ironically dying after all the other Warlords in the room, sagging into his chair a sorry mass of fat that had driven itself to it's end in a last attempt to outdo his Brother Kosh who ironically looked back on their rivalry with sorrow, missing his brother, even though Treuten never had anything but rivalry and hatred for Kosh.

In summation Treuten made himself who he was out of a desperate desire to be better than Kosh, in many ways he had an inferiority complex to kosh who he always saw as superior to him and drove himself to overcome that gap. When he had 'surpassed' Kosh he immediately fell into stagnation and over indulgence having lost his primary motivation in life. After his Empire caved in due to his indifference and indulgence he called Kosh for help in salvaging a situation HE couldn't with more forces suggesting that deep down he saw Kosh as his better-even if he hated him for it. When Kosh succeeded it was salt in the wound for Treuten, he descended into angry depression lasing out at subordinates, insisting he alone had authority to command and driving himself further and further down the path of self destruction that culminated in his pathetic death at Tsoss Beacon.

15
Star Wars Discussion / Character Study Warlord Zsinj
« on: January 15, 2017, 03:37:24 AM »
Zsinj is possibly one of the richest backstories and personalities in the EU. Coming from a lower middle class fondor mechanic  and a rising commander from chandrilla, Zsinj rose to the position of Grand Moff, High Admiral and was given the ceremonial title of Warlord by Palpatine and after the Emperor's death he seized control over 1/3 of the entire galaxy. To some he was a coward, to others a psychopath, and to others he was an unbalanced genius. As with most cases the truth was more complicated. Zsinj was a genius of deception and he wore personalities and traits as masks to hide, confuse, and distort what everyone around him saw to his benefit.

Zsinj was a momma's boy from an early age, his mother was a rising star in the republic navy and was known as the Ace of the spacelanes. He looked up to her and in many ways sought to prove himself as her equal. he joined the Navy and displayed amazing aptitude in logistics and tech but turned down postings in them because he felt he was destined to gain glory as a great warrior instead. Fate soon gave him the chance.

Rising to command an old Victory class SD named Iron Fist Zsinj found he now faced his first challenge. His mother-pushed more and more to forced retirement and obscurity by the high huMAN culture of the Empire had instead gone rogue and was now a pirate that used her years of knowledge to evade capture and humiliate those that had rejected her.
Zsinj had to choose between his hero mother- and his dream of glory. He chose his ambition.
In an intense campaign Zsinj proved he was the better commander, hunting down and killing his mother. It's possible this incident psychologically and mentally affected him deeply. Zsinj had seen his mother declare her independence without any power base or chance of success in the open after she had taught him every secret she had and he had also seen that to gain power sacrificing morality was something that had to happen. He also became obsessed with not becoming like his mother at this point. From this point we begin to see Zsinj develop quirks, traits and mannerisms that are all directed at misdirecting enemies and allies alike. Zsinj would deceive crew members into believing he was drunk when he was actually sober and observing them, he would monitor stations from his quarters and then pretend to be ignorant of actions on the ship, he would switch personas to whatever he felt was needed to cause people to underestimate or overestimate him-all so no one knew the real Zsinj, because if you didn't know his true self you couldn't counter that self. His realization of the importance of discarding morals meant he would not hesitate to do the unthinkable to someone else if it would gain him the victory. Marrying these concepts to the extremely gifted tactical mind he possessed created a truly deadly commander. His belief in the unorthodox and deception showed in his tactics, hiding his victory in asteroid fields so that enemy fighters would use the larger asteroids for cover-so he could just blow up the asteroids making a giant flak gun essentially was just one example. With these tactics all through the outer rim Zsinj rose to the rank of Admiral and was assigned to conquer Drakmor Warlords based near Dathomir which was currently serving as an Imperial Prison planet. The inhabitants of the planet were a worry for Emperor Palpatine as the Nightsisters while a valuable source for Inquisitors, Dark Jedi acolytes and even possible replacements for Lord vader should something happen also had the potential to become a serious threat to the Emperor himself if they so chose. Palpatine didn't want them dead, but neither did he want them able to enter the larger galaxy and develop ambitions of their own. Zsinj realized this and acted with ruthless efficiency and speed. He orbitally bombarded the planet's only spaceport-stranding the Witches and the garrison then interdicted the planet itself. He felt no remorse for trapping the hundreds-if not thousands of troops there-it was justified in his mind by the results of the Witches being contained. Palpatine whole heartedly agreed and rewarded Zsinj with the Super Star Destroyer Iron Fist and a promotion to Grand Moff of the Quelli Oversector. with the added promotion to High Admiral of Crimson Command and the ceremonial title of Warlord of the Empire. Once again Zsinj had seen how unorthodox tactics and ruthless ambition had served him well. He now commanded the largest fleet in the Empire, to mark how far he had come he renamed his SSD into the Iron Fist after the old VSD that had started his rise to power-it was a name the entire galaxy would come to know well enough. It was at this time Zsinj met his future right hand man- Melvar. Zsinj saw a kindred spirit in Melvar, the man was someone who painted on the face of a sadist for the galaxy then slip into blandness in the background when it suited him. Zsinj personally cultivated Melvar's loyalty to him and groomed him as his right hand.

After Endor many Imperials went rogue right from the start declaring their new fiefdoms and declaring war on all their neighbors. Zsinj however had learned the lesson of his mother well. He declared loyalty to the Empire and ruthlessly locked down his sectors in the name of the Emperor-while actually securing it for himself, he quietly removed any commanders not personally loyal to him by framing them for rebel ties and executing them. While purging his ranks of some Zsinj took great pains to ensure others loyalty to him, Zsinj rewarded any efficiency or initiative in his forces and while firm on failures he did not waste personnel on whims of anger like the late Darth Vader. This showed Zsinj had a great understanding of the human mind, he rewarded success and punished failure encouraging the best in his soldiers. He also began replacing the stormtroopers in his territory with a new elite force of those loyal only to him and outfitting them with armor and weapons designed by himself. He called them Raptors and they were superior to the stormtrooper in training, equipment and ability. Zsinj also helped create a form of cloaking shield and a brand new TIE for his forces. Using his understanding of logistics he created a vast underworld of support networks and finance for his war machine under aliases on enemy controlled planets. In this way Zsinj would always have a second support network that was ironically protected by his enemies. With his support network set up, his elite troops and weapons created Zsinj just needed a show of force to start his rallying cry for his bid for power. The NR gave it to him. As the NR expanded they tried to push into his territory, Zsinj lured them in and then ambushed them with Iron Fist, personally crushing the invading force and sending it reeling back to NR space.
This was done at the same time the Ruling Council was failing on every front, Delvardus and Lankin were defeated and the NR seemed ascendant. Zsinj declared himself the savior of the Empire, donned the uniform of a Grand Admiral and began going by his title of Warlord to emphasize his qualifications to ignore the Ruling Council and fight the Rebels on his own terms. Not everything went as planned though, as Treuten Teradoc seized Zsinj's ally Grand Moff and with him the Crimson Command and Maldrood sector. In fury Zsinj went to full on war with Teradoc for the next four years though both sides avoided major losses.
Zsinj wanted his enemies to whittle themselves down before he struck, he felt that letting the central Empire bleed was good as he would absorb defectors and step in to save or conquer it soon. He let the IR and NR tear at each other until the NR took Coruscant and Thyferra apparently killing Isard. Zsinj now felt his time had come. He absorbed much of Isard's former network and allies and unleashed Iron Fist on the NR territories in high profile raids to appear as the Warrior of the Empire to attract support, it worked, Imperials flocked to his banner and his power swelled.

However as with his earlier actions, this was misdirection. Zsinj used the raids to distract from his true means of killing the NR- and preventing the IR from rallying WITHOUT him-civil war. and theft. Zsinj planned to use various alien species brainwashed as assassins against prominent NR members, though he didn't care if they succeeded in killing the individual targets. Their true aim was to create resentment, mistrust and rob the NR military of combat personnel and eventually trigger whole sections of the NR to abandon the faction or outright fall into civil war. While this was going on Zsinj would strike the IR at Kuat seizing the SSD Razor's Kiss while the Moffs still thought he was at least not attacking IR holdings. This would further weaken the Moffs and strengthen him while the NR was in chaos.

Zsinj also had a standard policy of only fighting where HE chose the battlefield, while some saw this as cowardice it actually ensured he always stacked the odds in his favor so that he appeared invincible. It also frustrated opponents as they never knew when or where Zsinj would attack and if they arrived Zsinj simply left and attacked somewhere else using the stateless strategy on his front. He was so effective Admiral Ackbar couldn't counter him or even LOCATE him. Zsinj was so far undefeated, his pride and sense of superiority over his opponents and so he drew himself into a three sided war.

Zsinj's plans began to unravel when Admiral Apwar Trigit fouled up the attack on Folor, it allowed the NR the gap they needed by capturing the Night Caller. The importance of this cannot be overstated, it revealed Zsinj's shadow empire of support networks, the Morrt project and worse eventually led to information about the upcoming raid on kuat through pirate recruitment.

After Trigit's death, the loss of Razor's Kiss and the resulting loss of face as well as the IR and NR both sending forces after Zsinj-in addition to the constant war with Teradoc, Zsinj had no choice but to try and regain the initiative, he sought to turn the tables on his hunters nearly succeeding at two battles, but however things began to come undone as the NR and IR tore apart his support network, his project Minefield was stopped dead by the NR and coordination between the IR and NR began pushing him back. Zsinj was despondent, he had always come out ahead as the maverick, the unorthodox, but now his tricks were being effectively countered and he couldn't reverse the situation. It seemed like he was doomed to an eventual defeat within five years. Seeing this Zsinj once again reverted to his chief characteristic- misdirection. He would prepare a ruse that he had lost Iron Fist-his main symbol his enemies chased-he would abandon much of his outer territory and consolidate at his Quelli holdings, expand his forces, let his enemies go back to fighting one another and develop new tactics and plans to rise again. First though he needed to kill the Solo Command to ensure he would be left alone. As it happened though Zsinj was badly defeated at Vahaba and Selagis thanks to Gara Petothal's treachery- his offensive fleet decisively crushed and Iron Fist itself badly damaged. Zsinj however managed to achieve his secondary goal though as he fooled Solo that he had lost Iron Fist by detonating Second Death, his use of misdirection with Tetran Cowell as Fel also paid off as it kept Antilles, the Wraiths and Rogues out of the critical arena around Iron Fist. Seeing Zsinj's threat as largely reduced the IR and NR ceased cooperation and went back to fighting each other. The manic genius had hoodwinked his enemies and gained his breathing space.

Zsinj returned to Dathomir where the Iron Fist was docked for repairs, Zsinj considered using the Nightsisters since the NR or IR didn't have any counters for them as a group at the time, but deemed it too risky to let them loose.
Then it all went to hell.

In a completely unexpected and impossible to anticipate action Solo came right to Dathomir after winning the planet from a Drakmor Warlord in a  sabacc game. This act set a chain of events in place wholly outside of Zsinj's control. Zsinj couldn't retreat anymore, Dathomir was his most vital shipyard-and the ONLY one that could repair Iron Fist-still largely ruined from Selagis- abandoning Dathomir would put the final nail in Zsinj's Empire's coffin, in addition the man Zsinj saw as the architect of all his misery was ON Dathomir and Zsinj would not pass up the chance to take Solo's head. Zsinj doubled down pulling in as many ships as he could and and digging in for a fight while trying to broker a deal with the witches for Solo-and when he felt he couldn't get solo he decided to just kill the entire planet-again displaying his ruthlessness to achieve his ends. When he heard that Solo had been captured Zsinj couldn't resist killing him personally, so he sent Melvar to retrieve his mortal enemy and planned a double cross to kill the Witches in typical deviousness, but instead lost Melvar to Gethzerion's betrayal.
It's hard to know exactly what was going through Zsinj's mind at this point, it's highly possible he finally snapped seeing no way out. His every scheme had come to naught, his SSD was a crippled wreck still in dock, his nemesis had escaped him yet again, his only confidante was dead and he was now trapped with his back against the wall by the Hapan navy's 70 ISDs and twice that of Battle Dragons and his only major shipyard was at stake.
The battle was never in doubt, the ruthless ambition, actions and scheming had all led to this point. Zsinj the master of the unorthodox and the study of contradiction had been undone by random chance and the worst luck of all time. In the end, Zsinj abandoned his own doctrine, he devoted TIEs to keeping the Nightcloak up to ensure Dathomir died rather than commit them to the battle and refused to flee himself, unable to abandon the ultimate symbol of power, his Iron Fist-his one true love. Zsinj was on the bridge red faced, sweating and enraged at how the entire universe had turned against him lashing out when he got that last call from Solo, gone was the manic genius, gone was the unorthodox, all that was left was a shattered man blinded by frustration and unable to accept it was over. Seeing the concussion missiles incoming Zsinj realized that for all his attempts to differ from his mother, to ensure her fate would not be his, his scheming, hidden personality and plans, his ruthlessness and deception in the end didn't matter...because he had ironically followed her path after all. Deeming his superiors to be beneath him, he had gone rogue, he had underestimated his opponents and now trapped at the end he was going to die because he wouldn't abandon his ship...exactly like his mother. His last word was defining in that it showed that he realized just how much this woman had influenced his life-and death.
"Mama..." Warlord Zsinj's last word.

In conclusion, Zsinj appeared contradictory most of his life due to an obsession he had in believing he had to do things differently than his mother to avoid her fate. Ironically in the end it didn't matter because at his core he stayed true to what she had espoused. Belief in oneself, fighting as a warrior and love of one's ship. Zsinj could have sent forces to Dathomir and left himself, but to do so would be to admit he didn't believe he could win , that he wasn't a warrior, to do so would be to abandon Iron Fist to her fate. Zsinj could not do these three things as they were the opposed to the very CORE of who he felt he was. These traits killed him as much as they did his mother.

16
Star Wars Discussion / Character Study Ardus Kaine
« on: January 02, 2017, 04:55:19 PM »
Continuing the character study theme I plan to do on a roughly weekly basis, this week we have Ardus Kaine, the Grand Moff of Oversector Outer and the founder of the Pentastar Alignment of Powers.

Ardus Kaine was born the son of a humanocentric father who kept pressing Kaine to excel in life but also instilling in him a sense of inadequacy and fear of failure that would paralyze him with indecision throughout his life. Kaine was devoted to the New Order and became one of it's most ardent Moffs but not it's humanocentric policies at heart, rather because he felt his father would have wanted him to do so. While he bore no love for aliens he didn't despise them either. He was a confidant of Emperor Palpatine and in many ways Kaine came to see Palpatine as  a replacement father figure and hero. He also disdained many of the seedier variety of the Court, personally becoming a lifelong enemy of Ennix Devian, one of the Emperor's assassins. Kaine seemed destined to become a center of power on Coruscant. Then came the death of Tarkin and Kaine was given Tarkin's old position of Grand Moff of Oversector Outer. While this was a promotion and gave Kaine control of the largest territorial region in the Empire, he saw it as a punishment and rebuke. He saw it as exile from the true centers of power- Coruscant and the Emperor. Kaine stewed over this and ruthlessly put down rebellions in the Outer Rim with such cold efficiency that he soon became more feared in his locales than Vader and the Emperor. He also used his position to pull corporations to the New Territories and many business contracts by granting tax breaks to any that did. Kaine turned the New Territories from a backwater into an economic powerhouse in little more than four years. He was to lead the attack to blockade Mon Calamari after the Rebels were crushed at Endor in preparation for the DSII's annihilation of that world. However at the staging area for the assault Kaine received word that Palpatine and vader had been killed and the Empire was rudderless. He saw an opportunity here.

This was where Kaine made a fateful decision that was to have long ranging consequences beyond his imagination. He decided to abandon the attack on Mon Cal and to pull ALL his forces to Entralla and the New Territories under the pretense of awaiting a clear chain of command and pulling back from an 'indefensible' amount of territory due to size. This decision directly led to many worlds with Rebel leanings in the outer Rim to declare for the NR, it also opened Mon Cal to the NR lanes fully and gave a much needed respite to the badly mauled rebel forces after Endor. In short Kaine's decision to fall back likely saved the Rebellion when it was badly weakened and gave it strength to boot with new worlds. In addition his defiance of the Ruling Council showed that any commander with sufficient local strength could ignore commands from Imperial Center and get away with it, this example led to Delvardus going rogue  from kaine and a whole host of Imperial Commanders in the Outer Rim forming their own little Kingdoms after Kaine withdrew further weakening the central Empire.

Kaine however saw the Empire itself as doomed and planned to create an improved version in the New Territories that would be a condensed version of the Empire that would thrive on business while keeping a massive military as a deterrent to outside interference. he quickly gathered five of the most powerful corporations in the region and fourteen of the Moffs to sign the Pentastar Alignment into effect. This would insure they all kept their power and profits under Kaine's protection from outside influence while they would in turn support his military and economy in a new state. Since a majority of the forces from Oversector Outer had followed him to the New Territories Kaine held the largest personal fleet and force of all the Warlords in a condensed state of 14 sectors that all had strong Imperial leanings and populations. In short kaine had created the most stable and sustainable Kingdom of all the Warlords. Kaine also invited many prominent figures to his new Kingdom, Jerec and many of his Dark Jedi came as inquestors, Grand Admiral Grant joined the PA in an unofficial advisory role. Kaine also put in a policy of non intervention in the galaxy's affairs outside the Alignment's borders. In this way he felt the other Warlords would bleed themselves white fighting each other and the NR while his state would only grow stronger with time. It was in this that kaine really hit his stride, he was an administrator and improved on the old system. He created a streamlined governmental system divided into five parts. Politorate, insurrection, Judgement, Protectorate and the Pentastar Patrol all handling their own departments while answering to him.He allowed near humans and some non humans to serve in the PA Enforcers, bolstering his forces while also giving non humans a stake in the PA. He allowed corporations to runt heir own affairs and ethics so long as they were loyal which gave them incentive to keep his regime going and finally he ensured peace and stability in his regions instead of the endless war promised by the Warlords making his faction seem extremely appealing to imperial refugees.

This is however when kaine's indecision began to surface again and became his dominant policy, while he did fund Jerec's quest for the valley of the jedi likely as a deterrent against a revived Jedi Order, he stopped short of providing the Inquisitor any real forces to assist him overtly and when Jerec died he was simply replaced by a weaker Darksider and the policy of waiting continued. Delvardus was defeated and fled to the deep core, the NR closed on the Core and Imperial Center and still Kaine did nothing. Kaine was seen by many of his followers as the natural savior of the Empire and a possible next Emperor, but Kaine wasted this by declaring he would not ever be an Emperor and was content with his position currently as head of the Alignment. He refused to assist the imperial Forces outside his borders, he didn't come to Imperial Center's aid when it as under Rebel attack-when if he had he would have been given the mandate with Isard more or less deposed and he reaffirmed that his only policy was one of preparation rather than intervention citing the Empire as doomed. This was the final straw for Grand Admiral Grant who felt that Kaine would NEVER act and so defected to the now ascendant NR.  The Alignment slipped to second place among the Warlords when Warlord Zsinj absorbed much of the IR after Isard's loss of Coruscant and Thyferra. Then Zsinj died, his Empire dissolved, Teradoc lost most of his Empire and fled to the deep core, the IR lost more and more territory and the NR was practically on the Alignments doorstep, yet still Kaine refused to act. In truth Kaine was afraid, though he wouldn't admit it to anyone, even himself. He had created the PA and was it's Emperor in fact if not in name, yet he was deathly afraid of losing what he had built, within the Alignment he was absolute, even if he had to constantly guard against his corporate allies discontent with him. If he gambled that on the outside he could lose everything, and Kaine simply wasn't willing to risk that, claiming he was only a steward of the Imperial ideal and would not commit his forces to anyone unworthy- in short an excuse to bide time indefinitely. Kaine did allow non humans to serve in the PA Enforcers

This was when Thrawn returned and with only a few ISDs began to play havoc on the NR forces for a year with hit and runs, rebuilding morale and showing that the NR could be bested in battle. Thrawn became massively popular in the rank and file of the military. Kaine began to fear a coup  so to head that off he joined his cause to Thrawn's claiming to fully support him in his supply needs under the name of a temporary confederacy. Thrawn's campaign was a wildly successful event in Imperial history with very few casualties for much gain, Kaine was even preparing to bring in the Reaper to assist at Bilbringi and no doubt reclaim his mantle as Thrawn's and the Empire's savior with a crushing victory there when news came of Thrawn's death and Kaine again wasted an invaluable opportunity to seize a victory. Rather than attacking bilbringi and defeating the wounded NR fleet there and saving the valuable Imperial Shipyard, Kaine instead saw Thrawn's death and defeat as vindication that he should not sally forth. If even Thrawn with his advantage had failed and died at the height of his power, Kaine could also die and lose everything and so the Grand Moff waited again. However a mysterious commander appeared to summon all the Warlords together into a coalition to retake Coruscant. With the Deep Core forces mobilizing to their fullest Kaine stayed locked in his Alignment as the Imperial Forces dove into full scale civil war, this was when Palpatine revealed he had returned and demanded Kaine pledge fealty to him. Kaine who had pledged his whole term as PA head of state to be Palpatine's steward was now forced to prove it and launched a campaign from the Outer Rim in a drive to the core. In a dozen victories Kaine steamrolled over the NR opposition all the way to the core in a startlingly effortless series of successes. For all intents and purposes the NR had ceased to exist, driven from control and massively reduced with the Imperial coalition recovering vast swaths of territory they now sought out the various pockets of resistance that had been left isolated in their lightning advance. It was in this moment of seeming triumph that Kaine was at his most vulnerable, he was outside his alignment and surrounded by fellow Imperials that hated him as much as any rebel did. One of these helped a NR deception to kill the Grand Moff, after learning that the NR had persuaded Grand Admiral Grant to feign wanting to return and assist Kaine by meeting him over Palahni without forces as Grant wanted to be sure he wouldn't be killed by Imperials for his past defection, Ennix Devian leaked information about Kaine's exact itinerary and shuttle to the NR so they could tailor their attack to succeed without issue. Ironically, in the end Grand Moff Ardus Kaine, the eternally cautious and meticulously untouchable leader of the largest Imperial faction left standing at this point was killed alone in a lambda shuttle by NR E Wings of Apha Blue because for the first time in his life he acted instead of waiting.

Kaine was a brilliant statesman, a calculating tactician and strategist who ironically saved the Empire he abandoned with his legacy in the end but he was a woefully indecisive man and his early actions did lasting damage to the Empire as a whole.

17
Star Wars Discussion / Character Study Jerec
« on: December 19, 2016, 03:01:26 AM »
Gonna start trying to do at least a weekly character analysis and study of various EU heroes and villains. This week's one is my first EU character that left an impression on me two decades ago. JEREC

Where to start? The first impression I had of seeing Jerec with all his different Darksiders, his personal SSD and how he starts out ripping information from a JEDI MASTER against his will, then effortlessly kills that Jedi after said Jedi wrecked six Darksiders at once was very impressive and left a lasting mark. His mannerisms and actions also left a mark, the actor really played him over the top and I loved it. The idea of a blind Darksider who saw via the Force had never been done before and I felt it added to it(this was before retconning as a miraluka) Jerec  also had the unique plan in all the EU to use the Valley of the jedi to give HIMSELF godlike powers, something not seen before or since. Jerec would have been able to use the combined powers of 100 Jedi and 24 Sith Lords combined with his OWN power in one body. Think about that for a second. A dozen barely trained jedi initiates of Luke's academy were able to hurl 17 ISDs out of a system. Jerec would have had the power of 124 FULLY TRAINED Jedi and Sith to use with his knowledge of the Force as well as all the residual Force energy from the THOUSANDS of Force users who died on Ruusan. Qu Rahn states "Jerec, the man who murdered your father, is a great evil. He searches for the location of a sacred place, the Valley of the Jedi. The Force of thousands of Jedi is trapped here. If Jerec captures this power, he will be a creature such as the universe has never seen. A supernova of stars in a fleeting thought—the eradication of life from a star system in a whisper—will be within his power." That is far and away a greater threat to the Galaxy than Palpatine at the HEIGHT of his power. He'd basically be God at that point.

Then you get to this guy's abilities, he's beaten and converted a Jedi Shadow, he's bested and turned a Prophetess to his side, he's manipulated Cronus to get two Sith Spawn, he played three sides against the middle betraying each one and got away with it. He invented Force Destruction, can use force lightning and can actually overshadow and smother someone elses connection to the Force. He was only weaker than Darth Vader and the Emperor in the Darksiders of his time.

What really got my respect though is how Jerec acts when he's been cut off from the Force and is at Katarn's mercy. he doesn't cower or beg. He GLOATS, he has absolutely NO regrets except that he couldn't see the blood of his victims. He's PROUD of it all. He tries to turn Katarn, not to save himself, but as a last hate filled way to insure the Galaxy burns if he has to go down. When Katarn refuses and tosses Jerec back his weapon, he could have fled, but instead Jerec attacks Katarn, spurning his mercy in a final act of pride, hate and defiance. He dies an unrepentant villain.

In many ways Jerec is a mirror version of Saruman the White after he fell. Both were obsessed with Knowledge and order that only THEY could bring, both betrayed their former order for what they felt to be a greater power, both betrayed that power for their own ends, both sought to posses an ancient well of power(or ring) to boost their own power grab, both spurned mercy in defeat and both cursed and gloated to their enemies trying to get them to kill them in anger mocking how they had ruined the heroes life and home, both were consumed by Pride and Hate that directly led to their death, both died powerless, both died unrepentant.

What are your thoughts and who would you like me to do next?

18
The Lounge / AMVs and Star Wars
« on: November 11, 2016, 08:18:56 PM »
Some good music videos in the spirit





If you have any neat ones share them. i'm always interested in good music vids

19
Imperial Civil War Community Mods / Jerec's Seven Dark Jedi for ICW
« on: April 27, 2016, 10:05:36 AM »
As some of you who have known me on the forums for the past eight years might be aware of, I found this mod while looking for a mod that had Jerec in it(and also voice him ingame)
Seeing Sariss in the last preview really reignited an old idea I had. I want to include Jerec's Dark Jedi from Dark Forces II-Boc, Maw, Gorc, Pic and Yun added to the PA hero roster in place of the generic Dark Jedi the PA have now. I would have the generic DJ moved to Brakiss in IR in era 5. Currently working with Delta, Kucsidave and Vulcanus on this.
My idea is for each of the Dark Jedi in Jerec's band to have specific strengths and weaknesses as well as being hero units so that they still have to be used strategically instead of being able to be replaced en masse with generic darksiders.
For instance Sariss, fitting with her role as the Prophetess gives a sight bonus to the worlds connected to the one she is above and has force sight on land as well as speed.
Boc is a combo of Gorc and Pic medium anti vic but with speed and stealth to deal with Inf too. Perhaps give him a bonus that boosts infantry effectiveness since he often worked with commandos.
Maw has Force sight and allows hero units to be seen on nearby worlds to show his Jedi Shadow past. Also is anti infantry but has higher movement speed for his hovering.
Gorc I want to be anti vehicle, slower, but very powerful and with Force crush, big health but slow.
Pic, I want to make similar to Yoda in the base game, small and fast but with low health, and Yoda's berserk slashing ability
Yun I want to be basic, just speed and a slight boost to troop skill as Jerec's soldiers worked better under him on Ruusan.

In this way each Dark Jedi brings a specific skill set to the table, but also specific weaknesses another player can exploit plus if they die you can't replace them so they are balanced out.
What do you all think?

20
It is New Years Fete in the Galactic Empire. You are Emperor Palpatine. Which 12 Imperial Officers do you promote to be your Grand Admirals and Why?

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