Post by Darth Xaos on Jul 8, 2019 0:59:15 GMT
4 ABY: Emperor Palpatine is killed at the Battle of Endor and the New Republic is declared, causing waves of revolts against Imperial rule to wash across the galaxy. In the wake of this crushing blow Grand Vizier Mas Amedda is named Regent. Amedda’s power is largely a pretense, however, and the already-crippled Empire is split internally by a power struggle between two cliques. The first of these factions, referred to as the Shadow Council, is led by Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax, who grants himself the tile of Counselor to the Empire. This faction kept Mas Amedda under their firm control. The other clique’s power center was the Imperial Ruling Council, and was nominally led by Sate Pestage. True control of this second faction, however, was held by the Director of COMPNOR, Yssane Isard.
5 ABY: For a year, the Empire has been in rapid decline. Gallius Rax calls for all Imperial forces to assemble en masse in the Western Reaches to fight what he touts a final battle with the Alliance at Jakku. While large swathes of the remaining Imperial military heed the call, those forces loyal to Yssane Isard, Grand Moff Ardus Kaine, Warlord Zsinj, Baron Soontir Fel or Fleet Admiral Sris Lehhett refuse it. Rax has no time to strike at those who defy him before the Battle of Jakku begins. In the midst of the fighting Rax is assassinated by Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, who reveals to the Shadow Council that Rax was carrying out a contingency by Palpatine to ensure the Empire did not survive his death. Retreating from Jakku, the Shadow Council forces, now calling themselves the First Order, follow the urging of Sloane’s mysterious new ally into the Unknown Regions. Following Jakku, Mas Amedda formally surrenders to the New Republic.
6 ABY – 9 ABY: Left undefended by Rax’s actions, the majority of remaining Imperial territories acknowledge Mas Amedda’s surrender. Those Imperial factions that had refused Rax’s doomed call, however, were both willing and able to fight on, and united under the Regency of Sate Pestage. These Imperial remnants held large swathes of territory in the Outer Rim, along with much of the Core Worlds and most of the Deep Core. Though Rax’s influence had previously prevented Yssane Isard from maintaining true order on Coruscant, in the aftermath of Jakku and Amedda’s escape she was able to reassert Imperial control over its benighted capital world. Within a year of becoming Regent, Pestage died in an encounter over Ciutric IV, an event arranged by Isard who had grown tired of having to hold absolute power in secret. With Pestage’s death, Isard dissolved both the regency and the Ruling Council and invested their powers in COMPNOR. Over the course of three years, the New Republic waged a campaign against Isard that was much harder fought than any it had faced since Endor. Unhindered by Rax’s systematic sabotage, the Empire could now wage war to win. However, the damage that had been done over the last decade proved too much of a hindrance to overcome. In 9 ABY Yssane Isard died in battle when her Super Star Destroyer, the Lusankya, was destroyed.
10 - 13 ABY: In the wake of Yssane Isard’s death, unity among the remaining Imperial remnants shattered, leading to what is sometimes called the Imperial Civil War. The Core worlds, including Coruscant, would all have either surrendered to or been taken by the New Republic by the year’s end. In the Deep Core, the impenetrable astrography led to the development of many tiny post-Imperial warlord states. Soontir Fel led an exodus of those forces loyal to him into the Unknown Regions, purportedly to join an Imperial colonial state previously established by Grand Admiral Thrawn. Sris Lehhett seized control of the Centrality and dug in, establishing himself as a brutal dictator. Ardus Kaine transformed his oversector into a post-Imperial military confederacy called the Pentastar Alignment. Zsinj proved to be the most ambitious of the post-Imperial warlords and immediately launched a campaign to expand his territory.
With the other Imperial factions on the defensive, the New Republic focuses its military operations against Zsinj in a campaign dubbed Operation Warlord. At first, Zsinj’s initiative and aggression gave him an edge, however, after his Super Star Destroyer, the Iron Fist, was destroyed, the tide turned against the Warlord of the Empire. In the end, Zsinj retreated with the last of his forces behind the Stygian Caldera. Several fruitless months would be spent by a Republic fleet trying to pass through the Caldera and finish Zsinj. Determining that penetrating the Caldera would be too costly to be worth capturing a fallen warlord who now hid among dead worlds, Republic High Command recalled the fleet and declared Operation Warlord a success.
14 ABY: Emerging from the world of Byss, Lord Hethrir, a Dark Jedi and former Imperial Procurator of Justice, unites the Deep Core warlords into a new faction called the Empire Reborn. Having gone into hiding after Endor, Hethrir had been working to complete a secret project launched by Palpatine. The so-called Reborn project aimed to artificially transform individuals from non-sensitive to Force-sensitive. Having at last mastered the process, Hethrir created an order of Dark Jedi called the Reborn using the Dark Side power of Byss. Leaving most of his forces to dig in against any Republic siege of his territories, Hethrir and his lieutenants led a hit-and-run campaign against the Republic. While Hethrir occupied the Republic’s Forces, his Reborn, led by the first of their number, Desann, pursued his real goal. They sought the fabled Valley of the Jedi, to corrupt and use its powers to create a new generation of supremely powerful Reborn. Ultimately, Desann was slain by Kyle Katarn and Hethrir overextended his assaults, leading to his demise at the hands of the Republic fleet. The Empire Reborn promptly reverted to warlord states.
15 ABY: The few surviving Reborn, led by Tavion Axmis, having used up Byss’ potential to empower new Reborn and lost control of the local warlords, abandon the Deep Core. Heading to the Outer Rim, they strike a deal with Zsinj to set up on Korriban. While launching a series of terror attacks against the Republic, the New Reborn seek out locations strong in the Dark Side throughout the galaxy and drain their power with a Korribanian artifact called the Scepter of Ragnos, using this drained Force power to create more Reborn. A new Jedi Knight, Jaden Korr, would ultimately slip past Zsinj’s defensive blockades and defeat the New Reborn in their own territory. Only a handful of New Reborn survive the defeat on Korriban; one of their number, Andor Vaklas, leads his few fellow survivors back to Byss, taking with him a Sith Holocron he’d discovered on Korriban.
16-19 ABY: Having prepared where others had rushed in, the Pentastar Alignment at last begins its own attempt to reclaim the galaxy for the Empire. Intending to first unify the remaining Imperials in known space, Ardus Kaine dispatches Natasi Daala to bring the Deep Core under Pentastar’s control. Daala’s first action was to dislodge Andor Vaklas from Byss, from whence he had been raiding the other Deep Core warlords. Vaklas and his ex-Reborn, along with a small number of his military forces, flee into the uncharted regions of the Deep Core after a humiliating defeat at Daala’s hands. Daala then called the Deep Core warlords to meet and discuss re-unification. The warlords heeded her invitation but found this to be a fatal mistake when Daala gassed the meeting room, ending their lives. With their leaders dead, the Deep Core worlds and their forces submitted. In the wake of this event, Sris Lehhett proclaimed that the Centrality was part of neither the Empire nor the Republic and would pursue a policy of neutrality. This move, though craven, was wise, and both Kaine and the New Republic turned their attention away from the remote Centrality. With the re-unification of the Imperial remnants in known space, the Pentastar Alignment officially claimed the name of the Galactic Empire and Ardus Kaine was proclaimed Regent, ending the Imperial Civil War.
The Imperial remnant launched a two pronged assault against the Core worlds. From Kaine’s Oversector in the galactic north, Gilad Pellaeon led fleets of Star Destroyers in a bold charge while, emerging from the Deep Core, Daala’s forces engaged in lightning raids against key Republic positions. Though the strategic ability of Kaine and his commanders, along with years of preparation while the Republic was fighting others, allowed the Imperial remnant to achieve far more victories than would otherwise be possible, they ultimately faced the same problems that had brought low Yssane Isard. The fifteen years that had passed since Endor left the Imperials incapable of sustained expansion and, over the course of three years, the Empire’s last great offensive first slowed, then stalled, then rapidly reversed. By 19 ABY the remnant had been pushed back to a cluster of sectors around their capital world Bastion, along with a few Deep Core worlds. After Ardus Kaine died in a naval engagement with the Republic, Gilad Pellaeon was proclaimed Regent and immediately called for peace talks.
This offer was accepted by the Republic and, at a conference on Bastion, a document that is alternately called the Bastion Accords or the Galactic Concordance was signed, at long-last ending the Galactic Civil War. The remnant would be allowed to continue existing as a sovereign nation in those sectors it currently held at the Concordance’s signing. Daala, however, refused to acknowledge the peace and swore she would continue to fight. A joint Republic-Imperial taskforce was dispatched to remove Daala but, to their surprise, upon arrival in her territory they saw no sign of her fleet. An investigation would soon determine that Daala had, for undetermined reasons, abandoned the Deep Core and led her forces into the Unknown Regions.
19-24 ABY: With the galaxy finally at peace, Luke Skywalker sets about formally establishing a New Jedi Order. Though informal training of new Jedi Knights had been conducted by Luke and the small handful of remaining Order 66 survivors since 11 ABY, no formal academies or structure had ever been put in place. Establishing a Praxeum on the moon of Yavin IV, Luke and his fellows began to train a new generation of Jedi, who would, after decades of war, at last be peacekeepers again. Over the next five years, the New Jedi Order would grow in both numbers and experience. They would explore and seek out the ancient sites of the old Jedi and would, over the course of time, establish new temples on Coruscant, Ossus, Tython and Ach-To.
In the Senate, the new realities of peace were bringing shifts. Mon Mothma, who had held the position of Chancellor since the New Republic’s establishment, retired and initiated the first truly contested election for the position. Two parties had gradually emerged in the Senate over the years: the Centrists and the Populists. The Centrists believed in the centralization of the Republic’s power while the Populists advocated for as localized a power structure as realistic. While the election was hard fought, the Populists ultimately won out due to two factors. First was the popularity of their candidate, Leia Organa-Solo. Secondly, the central issue during the election was what to do with the New Republic’s military. Centrists wanted to maintain the current military, while Populists called for the military’s disbandment and a return to the model of Judicial and Planetary Security Forces of the Old Republic. After two decades of civil war, prevailing opinion favored leaning in to the new peace and casting aside remnants of war.
Leia’s Chancellorship was turbulent but successful. Though the rising tensions between Centrist and Populist, now unhampered by either war with the Imperials or Mon Mothma’s universally accepted leadership, made it difficult, Leia managed to accomplish the tasks for which she was elected. Having completed a highly successful first term, Leia shocked the Senate by choosing not to run for re-election despite general consensus that she would win, opting instead to return to her old role of Senator. Leia’s abdication would lead to an election which saw Borsk Fey’lya, another Populist, elected.
Meanwhile, in the Deep Core, Andor Vaklas’ seemingly uncoordinated retreat from Byss finally bears its true fruit when, after three years of searching, he finds Avernus Station. Avernus had been created by Palpatine as a store house for various Sith Holocrons he had unearthed. Here Vaklas proclaimed himself Dark Lord of the Sith, and began studying the Holocrons and selectively dispensing their knowledge to his ex-Reborn, now his new Sith Apprentices. Over the coming years Vaklas’ Sith would infiltrate the wider galaxy, seeking Force-sensitive recruits and establishing puppet cabals in the criminal underworld.
In 21 ABY, another event in the underworld occurred, unrelated to the new Sith involvement. After decades of decline, the Crimson Dawn is displaced from its status as one of the Five Syndicates by the Zann Consortium.
25-26 ABY: Concern over reports of violent encounters with unknown forces at the edge of the galaxy turns to panic as an extra-galactic invasion is confirmed. Calling themselves the Yuuzhan Vong, the invaders come in massive warfleets of biological vessels; the greatest of these, the Worldships, live up to all the grandeur of their designation. The Vong despise the use of mechanical technology and the Force, while reveling in the application of torture, slavery and mass slaughter.
The Imperial remnant had the misfortune of being first in the invasion path. Help from the New Republic was neither asked nor offered at this point, the popular belief being that the Vong onslaught would stall once it reached Bastion. Bastion had stood against every siege brought against it during the Galactic Civil War and was defiant in the face of invasion. But what the Republic had failed to accomplish in years, the Vong achieved in weeks. The size and scale of the invading forces was beyond anything that had been expected and, from the fall of Bastion, the Vong rapidly spread out to overwhelm all of Imperial space and further beyond.
With a massive refugee crisis growing and the Vong spilling into Republic space, the Senate voted to join what was now being called the Yuuzhan Vong War. The Planetary Security Forces were reinforced and the Judicial Forces were assembled into an attack group dispatched to the galactic north to wage what was dubbed the Vector Prime campaign. The Judicial task force proved woefully unequal to its mission, and was driven before the Vong.
What followed were two years of brutal, often-doomed Republic defenses as those worlds that fell under Vong occupation suffered enslavement and genocide. The New Jedi Order was mobilized heavily in these years, and engaged in many heroic actions on the battlefield. But these heroic actions were often heroic sacrifices, and many Jedi died. A generation of Jedi, who had come into the Order after the Galactic Concordance and lived with a hopeful vision of Jedi as peacekeepers, were traumatized by enduring the horrors of the war seemingly to only slow down the unstoppable Vong advance. Jacen Solo, Jedi son of Han and Leia, is captured by the invaders.
Meanwhile, Andor Vaklas’ Sith Order was growing strong, its intention being to wait out the war and strike at the overextended victors. However, one day a stranger unexpectedly arrived on Avernus. Clad in the appropriate color, and with the presence in the Force to back up his claim, the stranger said that he was the Red Warrior, a legendary Dark Side warrior whose appearances had been sporadically reported throughout history. The Red Warrior claimed he had come to test Vaklas, as he had many Sith before. By the time the warrior’s “tests” were concluded, Vaklas and many of his followers lay slain by his blades. Gathering up the Sith Holocrons present, and bidding those he had spared to follow him, the Red Warrior led the survivors to an ancient Sith temple in the Unknown Regions. Here he placed them within magical sarcophagi, in which they would hibernate, unaging, alongside many other Sith from the ages. The Warrior too returned to his rest, awaiting, as he had for millennia, an awakening in which he would find a Dark Lord worthy of their service.
27 ABY: The Vong invasion continues unabated into Hutt Space and the Core Worlds. With the fall of Fondor and Coruscant, the Republic Senate reluctantly votes to open peace talks with the Yuuzhan Vong. The Vong emissary, Nom Anor, delivers a list of demands which include the Republic ceding all planets held by the Vong and turning over every member of the Jedi Order. The Republic has no choice but to accept but intentionally delays the process to give the remaining Jedi time to flee to Tython and Ach-To.
The refugee crisis reaches an all-time high as the Hutt mercenary forces rapidly lose ground against the invaders. Many seek refuge in the Tion Cluster but, as more and more refugees arrive, the Tionese states, fearing that the Vong will follow the train of refugees, close their borders. This leads to the refugees desperately fleeing behind the Stygian Caldera, which they hope will be impenetrable to the Vong navigators. Upon arrival, they are impressed by Zsinj into his slowly recovering empire.
28 ABY: Believing that their time had finally arrived, the First Order emerges from Unknown Regions to combat the Yuuzhan Vong. Led into Imperial remnant space along secret routes provided by Natasi Daala, the First Order caught the invaders completely off-guard. But, most shocking, the First order brought with them Starkiller Base, a superweapon made from a planet and based on ancient Rakatan technology.
With awe-inspiring efficacy, Starkiller Base began to destroy Vong Worldships. In a panic, the Vong Warmaster orders all his forces to converge on Starkiller’s location. In the ensuing Battle of Starkiller Base, the Vong were given a taste of what their foes had been suffering previously. They hurled fleet after fleet against the First Order’s position, but against the state-of-the-art battlecruiser, dreadnaughts and TIE fighters, not to mention Starkiller itself, the losses were catastrophic.
Though the Vong eventually succeeded in destroying Starkiller Base by flying a Worldship point blank into its superweapon as it fired, it exemplified a Pyrrhic victory. So badly depleted by the battle, the Yuuzhan Vong were forced into full retreat mere moments after Starkiller’s destruction. The First Order chased them for some time, placing much of the galactic north under their occupation as the Vong withdrew.
29 ABY: With the Vong forces severely thinned by their disastrous losses to the First Order, revolts and resistance movement began to break out in Vong-occupied territories. These freedom fighters would occasionally find unexpected aid from the droid General Kalani: one of the last remnants of the old Separatists. Kalani had led strikes against the Empire throughout the Galactic Civil War, without joining the Rebel Alliance. As he remerged towards the end of the Vong War, he used the battle droids he had recovered to similarly strike against the Yuuzhan Vong. Several worlds that were liberated by revolt owe their victories to Kalani’s assistance.
As the First Order advance slowed to consolidate their gains, the Republic Senate determined the time had come to take up arms again. With the Senate voting overwhelmingly to break the ceasefire, a new fleet was assembled by any means necessary. Though the New Republic forces were ad hoc, the Vong were unable to hold their ground after the mass losses of 28 ABY.
After losing Hutt space and Fondor, the Vong Warmaster ordered all remaining Vong forces to withdraw to Coruscant for a final stand. The combined forces of the Republic and First Order descended on the planet and the Vong were soon overwhelmed, with the Warmaster dying aboard the last Worldship.
The Republic and First Order fleets hung in the skies of Coruscant for a week, as a terse stand-off built up, fueled by uncertainty about control of the world. Eventually a summit was held on Coruscant’s surface to discuss the future, not only of that planet, but of the entire galaxy in the aftermath of the war. Borsk Fey’lya himself attended but the mysterious Supreme Leader Snoke (who, to this day, has never been seen by anyone outside of the First Order’s highest officers) sent General Armitage Hux as his representative instead.
Despite the First Order’s fanatical militancy, they were reluctant to press an attack against even a weakened Republic without their superweapon, and the summit went surprisingly smoothly. The ultimate agreement amended the Galactic Concordance in two ways. Firstly it recognized the First Order as the legitimate authority in the Empire and, second, it ceded all the worlds rimward of Datar to the First Order that they had liberated from the Vong. Many among the former hierarchy of the Imperial Remnant resented being deposed by the Coruscant deal and, rather than re-integrate into the new First Order regime, a group led by Gilad Pellaeon departed to join with Baron Soontir Fel’s still-mysterious project. Though the deal on Coruscant was shockingly peaceable, it did not take long for a cold war of espionage to break out between the New Republic and First Order.
With the war concluded, the Senate officially sent an invitation for the Jedi to return to the wider galaxy. They came back with a surprising solution to a problem of the war’s aftermath; while most of the Vong had fought to the death, and some small warbands continued to raid remote areas, a number had surrendered. What to do with these prisoners of war had proven a dilemma for the Republic (unlike the First Order, who simply killed their Vong prisoners en masse). The Jedi, however, had spent their time in exile searching for answers about the Yuuzhan Vong, and what they found was the sentient planet Zenoma Sekot. This astronomical anomaly was the lost homeworld of the Vong, and it was aggrieved to hear of what its lost children had become. The Yuuzhan Vong prisoners were resettled on Sekot and most of the Vong still at large would turn themselves in for resettlement as the news spread.
A few Vong warbands, too stupid or fanatical to give up the hopelessly lost war, continued to conduct terror raids against vulnerable Republic targets. General Kalani and his independent regiment of battle droids made it their mission to hunt down these last stragglers, chasing them into Wild Space.
Swearing to never again face the pain and humiliation endured during the Vong occupation, the Hutt Clan begins constructing their own standing, centralized fleets and military.
30 ABY: Internal strife grips the Republic Senate as the rift between Centrist and Populist factions deepen the wake of the Yuuzhan Vong War. Tensions peak as a proposal to create an office of First Senator passes by narrow margins and an election begins. A scandal which emerges around the sudden revelation of Leia Organa-Solo’s true parentage, along with the so-called Napkin Bombings, force the indefinite postponement, though not full cancellation, of the First Senator election, leaving the New Republic’s political tensions dangerously unresolved and boiling under the surface. The Populist movement becomes increasingly polarized internally between a Left wing advocating for replacing the Senate with a direct democracy and a Right wing which believes in planetary self-rule; the moderate Populists rapidly dwindle in the aftermath of Leia’s scandal.
Meanwhile, Jacen Solo reemerges on Yavin IV. His body, horribly twisted by years of captivity among the Vong, is covered in a dark cloak and heavy mask but it is his mind that has undergone the most changes. Having been rescued by the First Order, his time among them, alongside the traumas he’d suffered in the war, convinced him that the Republic and Jedi could never maintain peace in the galaxy. Now calling himself Kylo Ren and leading an order of Force users called the Knights of Ren, he preached to any Jedi that would listen that he would complete his grandfather’s quest to bring universal peace and order. Within a few months, both Luke Skywalker and the new Jedi Council despaired of ever convincing Jacen of the error of his new ways and, concerned for the damage he could do within the Order, expelled him. Jacen departed peaceably for First Order space but took with him a number of Jedi who had been convinced by his words.
31 ABY: The Tion Hegemony, Cronese Mandate and Allied Tion Sector, each with governments controlled by Right-Populist politicians, announce a convention on Raxus Secundus to discuss the possibility of leaving the Republic. In a shocking turn of events, Rakshesh Dawnstar (a Separatist commander presumed dead in the Clone Wars) arrives unannounced at the convention. He is accompanied by Kalani and a cabal of strange figures (in reality the Red Warrior and his previously slumbering Sith).
At the conference, Dawnstar calls for a, quote, “new union, with a purpose and resolve clear and unbending as polished obsidian.” Dawnstar’s words seal the forgone conclusion of the three states’ secession and motivate their formation of a new galactic power, dubbed the Obsidian Union after the evocative quote from Dawnstar’s speech. Rakshesh Dawnstar is summarily elected Consul of the new nation and his exotic companions become known as the Obsidian Knights, Force users in service to the Union.
32 ABY: Though having successfully hung on to the office due to the war, Borsk Fey’lya, realizing how deeply unpopular his administration had become, announces that he will not run for re-election as Chancellor. The ensuing election sees Cal Omas, a moderate Centrist and Leia’s replacement as Senator for the Alderaan Sector, winning as a compromise candidate, though this does little to ease the growing tensions in the Senate.
Wide swathes of the Outer Rim and Western Reaches, emboldened by the Tionese secession but not wishing to join the Union, quietly cease recognizing New Republic authority. These sectors begin to be referred to as the Disputed Systems in popular discourse.
Hutt space joins the Obsidian Union along with numerous systems between and around the Tion Cluster and Hutt territory as well as further abroad. The Techno Union, Trade Federation, Commerce Guild and Corporate Alliance are reestablished under the Union to, alongside the Hutt Clan, create and mange the Union’s fledgling economic infrastructure as the Council of Guilds.
Ostensibly in response to the rising “Neo-Separatist threat,” the First Order begins a massive build-up of military force. Many in the New Republic Senate consider this a violation of the Galactic Concordance and some begin accusing the First Order of masterminding the Napkin Bombing attacks.
33 ABY: Surprising the galaxy by emerging from exile, Warlord Zsinj, never a signatory to the Concordance, annexes the sectors surrounding the Stygian Caldera from the Republic. An organized Resistance movement, secretly backed by the New Republic, becomes active in First Order space. Several riots of Quarren occur on Mon Cala and piracy against Republic trade lanes in the Outer Rim reach severe levels; the New Republic claims the Obsidian Union is behind these both these disruptions. First Order fleets begin testing the Republic’s borders by conducting fleet maneuvers.
5 ABY: For a year, the Empire has been in rapid decline. Gallius Rax calls for all Imperial forces to assemble en masse in the Western Reaches to fight what he touts a final battle with the Alliance at Jakku. While large swathes of the remaining Imperial military heed the call, those forces loyal to Yssane Isard, Grand Moff Ardus Kaine, Warlord Zsinj, Baron Soontir Fel or Fleet Admiral Sris Lehhett refuse it. Rax has no time to strike at those who defy him before the Battle of Jakku begins. In the midst of the fighting Rax is assassinated by Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, who reveals to the Shadow Council that Rax was carrying out a contingency by Palpatine to ensure the Empire did not survive his death. Retreating from Jakku, the Shadow Council forces, now calling themselves the First Order, follow the urging of Sloane’s mysterious new ally into the Unknown Regions. Following Jakku, Mas Amedda formally surrenders to the New Republic.
6 ABY – 9 ABY: Left undefended by Rax’s actions, the majority of remaining Imperial territories acknowledge Mas Amedda’s surrender. Those Imperial factions that had refused Rax’s doomed call, however, were both willing and able to fight on, and united under the Regency of Sate Pestage. These Imperial remnants held large swathes of territory in the Outer Rim, along with much of the Core Worlds and most of the Deep Core. Though Rax’s influence had previously prevented Yssane Isard from maintaining true order on Coruscant, in the aftermath of Jakku and Amedda’s escape she was able to reassert Imperial control over its benighted capital world. Within a year of becoming Regent, Pestage died in an encounter over Ciutric IV, an event arranged by Isard who had grown tired of having to hold absolute power in secret. With Pestage’s death, Isard dissolved both the regency and the Ruling Council and invested their powers in COMPNOR. Over the course of three years, the New Republic waged a campaign against Isard that was much harder fought than any it had faced since Endor. Unhindered by Rax’s systematic sabotage, the Empire could now wage war to win. However, the damage that had been done over the last decade proved too much of a hindrance to overcome. In 9 ABY Yssane Isard died in battle when her Super Star Destroyer, the Lusankya, was destroyed.
10 - 13 ABY: In the wake of Yssane Isard’s death, unity among the remaining Imperial remnants shattered, leading to what is sometimes called the Imperial Civil War. The Core worlds, including Coruscant, would all have either surrendered to or been taken by the New Republic by the year’s end. In the Deep Core, the impenetrable astrography led to the development of many tiny post-Imperial warlord states. Soontir Fel led an exodus of those forces loyal to him into the Unknown Regions, purportedly to join an Imperial colonial state previously established by Grand Admiral Thrawn. Sris Lehhett seized control of the Centrality and dug in, establishing himself as a brutal dictator. Ardus Kaine transformed his oversector into a post-Imperial military confederacy called the Pentastar Alignment. Zsinj proved to be the most ambitious of the post-Imperial warlords and immediately launched a campaign to expand his territory.
With the other Imperial factions on the defensive, the New Republic focuses its military operations against Zsinj in a campaign dubbed Operation Warlord. At first, Zsinj’s initiative and aggression gave him an edge, however, after his Super Star Destroyer, the Iron Fist, was destroyed, the tide turned against the Warlord of the Empire. In the end, Zsinj retreated with the last of his forces behind the Stygian Caldera. Several fruitless months would be spent by a Republic fleet trying to pass through the Caldera and finish Zsinj. Determining that penetrating the Caldera would be too costly to be worth capturing a fallen warlord who now hid among dead worlds, Republic High Command recalled the fleet and declared Operation Warlord a success.
14 ABY: Emerging from the world of Byss, Lord Hethrir, a Dark Jedi and former Imperial Procurator of Justice, unites the Deep Core warlords into a new faction called the Empire Reborn. Having gone into hiding after Endor, Hethrir had been working to complete a secret project launched by Palpatine. The so-called Reborn project aimed to artificially transform individuals from non-sensitive to Force-sensitive. Having at last mastered the process, Hethrir created an order of Dark Jedi called the Reborn using the Dark Side power of Byss. Leaving most of his forces to dig in against any Republic siege of his territories, Hethrir and his lieutenants led a hit-and-run campaign against the Republic. While Hethrir occupied the Republic’s Forces, his Reborn, led by the first of their number, Desann, pursued his real goal. They sought the fabled Valley of the Jedi, to corrupt and use its powers to create a new generation of supremely powerful Reborn. Ultimately, Desann was slain by Kyle Katarn and Hethrir overextended his assaults, leading to his demise at the hands of the Republic fleet. The Empire Reborn promptly reverted to warlord states.
15 ABY: The few surviving Reborn, led by Tavion Axmis, having used up Byss’ potential to empower new Reborn and lost control of the local warlords, abandon the Deep Core. Heading to the Outer Rim, they strike a deal with Zsinj to set up on Korriban. While launching a series of terror attacks against the Republic, the New Reborn seek out locations strong in the Dark Side throughout the galaxy and drain their power with a Korribanian artifact called the Scepter of Ragnos, using this drained Force power to create more Reborn. A new Jedi Knight, Jaden Korr, would ultimately slip past Zsinj’s defensive blockades and defeat the New Reborn in their own territory. Only a handful of New Reborn survive the defeat on Korriban; one of their number, Andor Vaklas, leads his few fellow survivors back to Byss, taking with him a Sith Holocron he’d discovered on Korriban.
16-19 ABY: Having prepared where others had rushed in, the Pentastar Alignment at last begins its own attempt to reclaim the galaxy for the Empire. Intending to first unify the remaining Imperials in known space, Ardus Kaine dispatches Natasi Daala to bring the Deep Core under Pentastar’s control. Daala’s first action was to dislodge Andor Vaklas from Byss, from whence he had been raiding the other Deep Core warlords. Vaklas and his ex-Reborn, along with a small number of his military forces, flee into the uncharted regions of the Deep Core after a humiliating defeat at Daala’s hands. Daala then called the Deep Core warlords to meet and discuss re-unification. The warlords heeded her invitation but found this to be a fatal mistake when Daala gassed the meeting room, ending their lives. With their leaders dead, the Deep Core worlds and their forces submitted. In the wake of this event, Sris Lehhett proclaimed that the Centrality was part of neither the Empire nor the Republic and would pursue a policy of neutrality. This move, though craven, was wise, and both Kaine and the New Republic turned their attention away from the remote Centrality. With the re-unification of the Imperial remnants in known space, the Pentastar Alignment officially claimed the name of the Galactic Empire and Ardus Kaine was proclaimed Regent, ending the Imperial Civil War.
The Imperial remnant launched a two pronged assault against the Core worlds. From Kaine’s Oversector in the galactic north, Gilad Pellaeon led fleets of Star Destroyers in a bold charge while, emerging from the Deep Core, Daala’s forces engaged in lightning raids against key Republic positions. Though the strategic ability of Kaine and his commanders, along with years of preparation while the Republic was fighting others, allowed the Imperial remnant to achieve far more victories than would otherwise be possible, they ultimately faced the same problems that had brought low Yssane Isard. The fifteen years that had passed since Endor left the Imperials incapable of sustained expansion and, over the course of three years, the Empire’s last great offensive first slowed, then stalled, then rapidly reversed. By 19 ABY the remnant had been pushed back to a cluster of sectors around their capital world Bastion, along with a few Deep Core worlds. After Ardus Kaine died in a naval engagement with the Republic, Gilad Pellaeon was proclaimed Regent and immediately called for peace talks.
This offer was accepted by the Republic and, at a conference on Bastion, a document that is alternately called the Bastion Accords or the Galactic Concordance was signed, at long-last ending the Galactic Civil War. The remnant would be allowed to continue existing as a sovereign nation in those sectors it currently held at the Concordance’s signing. Daala, however, refused to acknowledge the peace and swore she would continue to fight. A joint Republic-Imperial taskforce was dispatched to remove Daala but, to their surprise, upon arrival in her territory they saw no sign of her fleet. An investigation would soon determine that Daala had, for undetermined reasons, abandoned the Deep Core and led her forces into the Unknown Regions.
19-24 ABY: With the galaxy finally at peace, Luke Skywalker sets about formally establishing a New Jedi Order. Though informal training of new Jedi Knights had been conducted by Luke and the small handful of remaining Order 66 survivors since 11 ABY, no formal academies or structure had ever been put in place. Establishing a Praxeum on the moon of Yavin IV, Luke and his fellows began to train a new generation of Jedi, who would, after decades of war, at last be peacekeepers again. Over the next five years, the New Jedi Order would grow in both numbers and experience. They would explore and seek out the ancient sites of the old Jedi and would, over the course of time, establish new temples on Coruscant, Ossus, Tython and Ach-To.
In the Senate, the new realities of peace were bringing shifts. Mon Mothma, who had held the position of Chancellor since the New Republic’s establishment, retired and initiated the first truly contested election for the position. Two parties had gradually emerged in the Senate over the years: the Centrists and the Populists. The Centrists believed in the centralization of the Republic’s power while the Populists advocated for as localized a power structure as realistic. While the election was hard fought, the Populists ultimately won out due to two factors. First was the popularity of their candidate, Leia Organa-Solo. Secondly, the central issue during the election was what to do with the New Republic’s military. Centrists wanted to maintain the current military, while Populists called for the military’s disbandment and a return to the model of Judicial and Planetary Security Forces of the Old Republic. After two decades of civil war, prevailing opinion favored leaning in to the new peace and casting aside remnants of war.
Leia’s Chancellorship was turbulent but successful. Though the rising tensions between Centrist and Populist, now unhampered by either war with the Imperials or Mon Mothma’s universally accepted leadership, made it difficult, Leia managed to accomplish the tasks for which she was elected. Having completed a highly successful first term, Leia shocked the Senate by choosing not to run for re-election despite general consensus that she would win, opting instead to return to her old role of Senator. Leia’s abdication would lead to an election which saw Borsk Fey’lya, another Populist, elected.
Meanwhile, in the Deep Core, Andor Vaklas’ seemingly uncoordinated retreat from Byss finally bears its true fruit when, after three years of searching, he finds Avernus Station. Avernus had been created by Palpatine as a store house for various Sith Holocrons he had unearthed. Here Vaklas proclaimed himself Dark Lord of the Sith, and began studying the Holocrons and selectively dispensing their knowledge to his ex-Reborn, now his new Sith Apprentices. Over the coming years Vaklas’ Sith would infiltrate the wider galaxy, seeking Force-sensitive recruits and establishing puppet cabals in the criminal underworld.
In 21 ABY, another event in the underworld occurred, unrelated to the new Sith involvement. After decades of decline, the Crimson Dawn is displaced from its status as one of the Five Syndicates by the Zann Consortium.
25-26 ABY: Concern over reports of violent encounters with unknown forces at the edge of the galaxy turns to panic as an extra-galactic invasion is confirmed. Calling themselves the Yuuzhan Vong, the invaders come in massive warfleets of biological vessels; the greatest of these, the Worldships, live up to all the grandeur of their designation. The Vong despise the use of mechanical technology and the Force, while reveling in the application of torture, slavery and mass slaughter.
The Imperial remnant had the misfortune of being first in the invasion path. Help from the New Republic was neither asked nor offered at this point, the popular belief being that the Vong onslaught would stall once it reached Bastion. Bastion had stood against every siege brought against it during the Galactic Civil War and was defiant in the face of invasion. But what the Republic had failed to accomplish in years, the Vong achieved in weeks. The size and scale of the invading forces was beyond anything that had been expected and, from the fall of Bastion, the Vong rapidly spread out to overwhelm all of Imperial space and further beyond.
With a massive refugee crisis growing and the Vong spilling into Republic space, the Senate voted to join what was now being called the Yuuzhan Vong War. The Planetary Security Forces were reinforced and the Judicial Forces were assembled into an attack group dispatched to the galactic north to wage what was dubbed the Vector Prime campaign. The Judicial task force proved woefully unequal to its mission, and was driven before the Vong.
What followed were two years of brutal, often-doomed Republic defenses as those worlds that fell under Vong occupation suffered enslavement and genocide. The New Jedi Order was mobilized heavily in these years, and engaged in many heroic actions on the battlefield. But these heroic actions were often heroic sacrifices, and many Jedi died. A generation of Jedi, who had come into the Order after the Galactic Concordance and lived with a hopeful vision of Jedi as peacekeepers, were traumatized by enduring the horrors of the war seemingly to only slow down the unstoppable Vong advance. Jacen Solo, Jedi son of Han and Leia, is captured by the invaders.
Meanwhile, Andor Vaklas’ Sith Order was growing strong, its intention being to wait out the war and strike at the overextended victors. However, one day a stranger unexpectedly arrived on Avernus. Clad in the appropriate color, and with the presence in the Force to back up his claim, the stranger said that he was the Red Warrior, a legendary Dark Side warrior whose appearances had been sporadically reported throughout history. The Red Warrior claimed he had come to test Vaklas, as he had many Sith before. By the time the warrior’s “tests” were concluded, Vaklas and many of his followers lay slain by his blades. Gathering up the Sith Holocrons present, and bidding those he had spared to follow him, the Red Warrior led the survivors to an ancient Sith temple in the Unknown Regions. Here he placed them within magical sarcophagi, in which they would hibernate, unaging, alongside many other Sith from the ages. The Warrior too returned to his rest, awaiting, as he had for millennia, an awakening in which he would find a Dark Lord worthy of their service.
27 ABY: The Vong invasion continues unabated into Hutt Space and the Core Worlds. With the fall of Fondor and Coruscant, the Republic Senate reluctantly votes to open peace talks with the Yuuzhan Vong. The Vong emissary, Nom Anor, delivers a list of demands which include the Republic ceding all planets held by the Vong and turning over every member of the Jedi Order. The Republic has no choice but to accept but intentionally delays the process to give the remaining Jedi time to flee to Tython and Ach-To.
The refugee crisis reaches an all-time high as the Hutt mercenary forces rapidly lose ground against the invaders. Many seek refuge in the Tion Cluster but, as more and more refugees arrive, the Tionese states, fearing that the Vong will follow the train of refugees, close their borders. This leads to the refugees desperately fleeing behind the Stygian Caldera, which they hope will be impenetrable to the Vong navigators. Upon arrival, they are impressed by Zsinj into his slowly recovering empire.
28 ABY: Believing that their time had finally arrived, the First Order emerges from Unknown Regions to combat the Yuuzhan Vong. Led into Imperial remnant space along secret routes provided by Natasi Daala, the First Order caught the invaders completely off-guard. But, most shocking, the First order brought with them Starkiller Base, a superweapon made from a planet and based on ancient Rakatan technology.
With awe-inspiring efficacy, Starkiller Base began to destroy Vong Worldships. In a panic, the Vong Warmaster orders all his forces to converge on Starkiller’s location. In the ensuing Battle of Starkiller Base, the Vong were given a taste of what their foes had been suffering previously. They hurled fleet after fleet against the First Order’s position, but against the state-of-the-art battlecruiser, dreadnaughts and TIE fighters, not to mention Starkiller itself, the losses were catastrophic.
Though the Vong eventually succeeded in destroying Starkiller Base by flying a Worldship point blank into its superweapon as it fired, it exemplified a Pyrrhic victory. So badly depleted by the battle, the Yuuzhan Vong were forced into full retreat mere moments after Starkiller’s destruction. The First Order chased them for some time, placing much of the galactic north under their occupation as the Vong withdrew.
29 ABY: With the Vong forces severely thinned by their disastrous losses to the First Order, revolts and resistance movement began to break out in Vong-occupied territories. These freedom fighters would occasionally find unexpected aid from the droid General Kalani: one of the last remnants of the old Separatists. Kalani had led strikes against the Empire throughout the Galactic Civil War, without joining the Rebel Alliance. As he remerged towards the end of the Vong War, he used the battle droids he had recovered to similarly strike against the Yuuzhan Vong. Several worlds that were liberated by revolt owe their victories to Kalani’s assistance.
As the First Order advance slowed to consolidate their gains, the Republic Senate determined the time had come to take up arms again. With the Senate voting overwhelmingly to break the ceasefire, a new fleet was assembled by any means necessary. Though the New Republic forces were ad hoc, the Vong were unable to hold their ground after the mass losses of 28 ABY.
After losing Hutt space and Fondor, the Vong Warmaster ordered all remaining Vong forces to withdraw to Coruscant for a final stand. The combined forces of the Republic and First Order descended on the planet and the Vong were soon overwhelmed, with the Warmaster dying aboard the last Worldship.
The Republic and First Order fleets hung in the skies of Coruscant for a week, as a terse stand-off built up, fueled by uncertainty about control of the world. Eventually a summit was held on Coruscant’s surface to discuss the future, not only of that planet, but of the entire galaxy in the aftermath of the war. Borsk Fey’lya himself attended but the mysterious Supreme Leader Snoke (who, to this day, has never been seen by anyone outside of the First Order’s highest officers) sent General Armitage Hux as his representative instead.
Despite the First Order’s fanatical militancy, they were reluctant to press an attack against even a weakened Republic without their superweapon, and the summit went surprisingly smoothly. The ultimate agreement amended the Galactic Concordance in two ways. Firstly it recognized the First Order as the legitimate authority in the Empire and, second, it ceded all the worlds rimward of Datar to the First Order that they had liberated from the Vong. Many among the former hierarchy of the Imperial Remnant resented being deposed by the Coruscant deal and, rather than re-integrate into the new First Order regime, a group led by Gilad Pellaeon departed to join with Baron Soontir Fel’s still-mysterious project. Though the deal on Coruscant was shockingly peaceable, it did not take long for a cold war of espionage to break out between the New Republic and First Order.
With the war concluded, the Senate officially sent an invitation for the Jedi to return to the wider galaxy. They came back with a surprising solution to a problem of the war’s aftermath; while most of the Vong had fought to the death, and some small warbands continued to raid remote areas, a number had surrendered. What to do with these prisoners of war had proven a dilemma for the Republic (unlike the First Order, who simply killed their Vong prisoners en masse). The Jedi, however, had spent their time in exile searching for answers about the Yuuzhan Vong, and what they found was the sentient planet Zenoma Sekot. This astronomical anomaly was the lost homeworld of the Vong, and it was aggrieved to hear of what its lost children had become. The Yuuzhan Vong prisoners were resettled on Sekot and most of the Vong still at large would turn themselves in for resettlement as the news spread.
A few Vong warbands, too stupid or fanatical to give up the hopelessly lost war, continued to conduct terror raids against vulnerable Republic targets. General Kalani and his independent regiment of battle droids made it their mission to hunt down these last stragglers, chasing them into Wild Space.
Swearing to never again face the pain and humiliation endured during the Vong occupation, the Hutt Clan begins constructing their own standing, centralized fleets and military.
30 ABY: Internal strife grips the Republic Senate as the rift between Centrist and Populist factions deepen the wake of the Yuuzhan Vong War. Tensions peak as a proposal to create an office of First Senator passes by narrow margins and an election begins. A scandal which emerges around the sudden revelation of Leia Organa-Solo’s true parentage, along with the so-called Napkin Bombings, force the indefinite postponement, though not full cancellation, of the First Senator election, leaving the New Republic’s political tensions dangerously unresolved and boiling under the surface. The Populist movement becomes increasingly polarized internally between a Left wing advocating for replacing the Senate with a direct democracy and a Right wing which believes in planetary self-rule; the moderate Populists rapidly dwindle in the aftermath of Leia’s scandal.
Meanwhile, Jacen Solo reemerges on Yavin IV. His body, horribly twisted by years of captivity among the Vong, is covered in a dark cloak and heavy mask but it is his mind that has undergone the most changes. Having been rescued by the First Order, his time among them, alongside the traumas he’d suffered in the war, convinced him that the Republic and Jedi could never maintain peace in the galaxy. Now calling himself Kylo Ren and leading an order of Force users called the Knights of Ren, he preached to any Jedi that would listen that he would complete his grandfather’s quest to bring universal peace and order. Within a few months, both Luke Skywalker and the new Jedi Council despaired of ever convincing Jacen of the error of his new ways and, concerned for the damage he could do within the Order, expelled him. Jacen departed peaceably for First Order space but took with him a number of Jedi who had been convinced by his words.
31 ABY: The Tion Hegemony, Cronese Mandate and Allied Tion Sector, each with governments controlled by Right-Populist politicians, announce a convention on Raxus Secundus to discuss the possibility of leaving the Republic. In a shocking turn of events, Rakshesh Dawnstar (a Separatist commander presumed dead in the Clone Wars) arrives unannounced at the convention. He is accompanied by Kalani and a cabal of strange figures (in reality the Red Warrior and his previously slumbering Sith).
At the conference, Dawnstar calls for a, quote, “new union, with a purpose and resolve clear and unbending as polished obsidian.” Dawnstar’s words seal the forgone conclusion of the three states’ secession and motivate their formation of a new galactic power, dubbed the Obsidian Union after the evocative quote from Dawnstar’s speech. Rakshesh Dawnstar is summarily elected Consul of the new nation and his exotic companions become known as the Obsidian Knights, Force users in service to the Union.
32 ABY: Though having successfully hung on to the office due to the war, Borsk Fey’lya, realizing how deeply unpopular his administration had become, announces that he will not run for re-election as Chancellor. The ensuing election sees Cal Omas, a moderate Centrist and Leia’s replacement as Senator for the Alderaan Sector, winning as a compromise candidate, though this does little to ease the growing tensions in the Senate.
Wide swathes of the Outer Rim and Western Reaches, emboldened by the Tionese secession but not wishing to join the Union, quietly cease recognizing New Republic authority. These sectors begin to be referred to as the Disputed Systems in popular discourse.
Hutt space joins the Obsidian Union along with numerous systems between and around the Tion Cluster and Hutt territory as well as further abroad. The Techno Union, Trade Federation, Commerce Guild and Corporate Alliance are reestablished under the Union to, alongside the Hutt Clan, create and mange the Union’s fledgling economic infrastructure as the Council of Guilds.
Ostensibly in response to the rising “Neo-Separatist threat,” the First Order begins a massive build-up of military force. Many in the New Republic Senate consider this a violation of the Galactic Concordance and some begin accusing the First Order of masterminding the Napkin Bombing attacks.
33 ABY: Surprising the galaxy by emerging from exile, Warlord Zsinj, never a signatory to the Concordance, annexes the sectors surrounding the Stygian Caldera from the Republic. An organized Resistance movement, secretly backed by the New Republic, becomes active in First Order space. Several riots of Quarren occur on Mon Cala and piracy against Republic trade lanes in the Outer Rim reach severe levels; the New Republic claims the Obsidian Union is behind these both these disruptions. First Order fleets begin testing the Republic’s borders by conducting fleet maneuvers.