Transcripts

PROFESSOR:
Welcome to Galactic History. I must emphasize the galactic portion of that title here, because this is a big picture kind of course. If you're looking to dissect every tiny detail of every military engagement to ever occur in our corner of the cosmos, I would recommend Here Today, Thrawn Tomorrow. It's an excellent primer on military tactics and philosophy starting just down the corridor later today, and should only take a minute of your time.Rather, what we are here to discuss are stories. Stories involving family, royalty, scum & villainy, an Empire, several Republics, Separatists, treasures found, bounties lost, guest appearances by a few hundred thousand clones, and even a Force user or two. We will discuss war because after all, war, along with peace and revolution, is one of the three beats of this endless galactic waltz we all find ourselves dancing to. However when we look at war and battles our focus will be less on the minutiae of the engagements themselves but rather how they shaped the course of history and impacted the lives of beings across the galaxy.If you're interested in these stories and how their threads weave together to create our shared history, I can only hope you'll join us.

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Hello there, and welcome to Galactic History. Please be sure you are in the correct lecture hall, and once you’ve accomplished that, find yourself a seat and get comfortable.Good? Excellent.Given that you are all still here I’ll assume that you know what you’re in for, but just to be certain allow me to briefly wax poetic about our purpose in this and our future lectures together. This course is not meant to chronologically guide you through the wave tops of the major moments in the history of our galaxy. Rather, like a Sarlacc, we are going to dig in and really chew on the topics we cover. Our purpose is to examine less the what and more the why and how of some of the most important beings, events and objects in our galactic history.For our opening salvo of lectures I thought it best to discuss something we were all, or mostly all, familiar with to one degree or another. The DS-1 Orbital Battle Station, or more commonly, the Death Star. Like many things from the early to mid Imperial era was a source of fantastical rumors whispered in dim cantinas long before becoming a terrifying reality right at the beginning of the Galactic Civil War. Today, we will discuss the origins of the Death Star’s design as well as the bulk of its construction right up until the days leading to the official large scale outbreak of hostilities between the Empire and Rebel Alliance which marked the beginning of the Galactic Civil War in earnest. We will dip a little bit into statistics dealing with size and armaments but our main focus will be to look at the impact that the construction of the station had on the Empire, the Rebels, the beings that actually built it and the wider galaxy.Typically, I’m not one to have a hyper focus on numbers and statistics, but in the case of the Death Star numbers are vitally important in order to help wrap our minds around the sheer scale of a station that Wilhuff Tarkin described in his posthumously published memoir as, quote:“Both as an impregnable fortress and a symbol of the Emperor's inviolable rule, the deep-space mobile battle station was an achievement on the order of any fashioned by the ancestral species that had unlocked the secret of hyperspace and opened the galaxy to exploration."End quote. The DS-1 had a diameter of 160 kilometers, which for reference would be like parking 100 Imperial 1-class Star Destroyers end to end. It contained 357 internal levels, and a surface area of over 45,000 square kilometers.The Death Star had two notable external features that were easily visible from a distance. The first was the equatorial trench that ran around the middle of the sphere. The trench housed hangars for the station’s complement of over 15,000 spacecraft, which included TIE fighters and bombers, shuttles, AT series walkers and assorted landing craft. It also contained a bevy of tractor beam emitters, and mooring platforms for larger Imperial vessels up to and including Star Destroyers. The second notable external feature was a concave dish which acted as the emitter for the Death Star’s primary superlaser weapon. Above the dish sat the Northern Polar Command Sector of the battle station which housed the main bridge as well as private quarters for the Emperor.Due to its size and shape, the best way to describe the physical makeup of the Death Star is to look at it in the same terms we would a planet. The crust of the station, as we can think of it, was habitable and contained armories, barracks, maintenance facilities, storage areas, detention centers, all the things needed to make a battle station of that size operational on a day-to-day basis. The center, or core, of the station was hollow and housed the main reactor, sublight engines, hyperdrive and other components of the Death Star’s primary weapon.Tyrants and despots across the galaxy have been dreaming of and building super weapons for millenia, so the concept of an “Ultimate Weapon”, as the Death Star was often referred to, is as ancient as the cosmos itself. The exact origins of the Death Star, however, are a little on the mysterious side. It isn’t completely clear who began designing the platform initially, but we know that it spawned from the relationship between the Confederation of Independent Systems, or CIS or Separatists and the Genonsians.Archduke Poggle the Lesser of the Geonosian Stalgasin Hive was a major player early on in the development of the battle station. The Archduke was captured by Republic forces during the Second Battle of Geonosis. During his interrogations, Poggle would claim that conceptual designs for the weapon had been delivered to him by the leader of the Separatists, Count Dooku. He would also claim that the Stalgasin Hive had not had time to design the station’s devastating primary weapon before development was stalled by the First Battle of Geonosis, which marked the outbreak of the Clone Wars.Poggle’s information hints at the origin source of that design, but the Republic didn’t actually need him when it came to dissecting the plans themselves because the Republic already had the plans.The Republic Strategic Advisory Cell, which oversaw the overall war effort for the Republic during the Clone Wars, was presented with plans for the Death Star by then Chancellor Palpatine not long after the Second Battle of Geonosis. At the time it was assumed the plans had been recovered by Republic forces during the fray at the First Battle of Geonosis and delivered directly to the Chancellor due to the highly sensitive nature of the information. Once in possession of the plans the Strategic Advisory Cell would quickly go to work developing the project. The Cell would routinely hold meetings with high ranking military advisors, select Senators, and representatives from the top starship and space station development firms in the galaxy such as Corellian Engineering, the Kuati Drive Yards and Rendili StarDrive to name a few. The notable exception to those invited to the meetings were Jedi Generals. For a secret project this was a massive gathering of minds and egos.With secrecy being top of mind on the Death Star project, the Republic had to find a way to hold those in the know accountable should there be any information leaks. This was done by forcing all individuals and companies involved in the research and development of the DS-1 to sign what was known as an Official Secrets Oath. There’s no surviving records found as to what exactly this oath was or what the punishment for breaking it would be, but clearly it must have been sufficiently frightening as it had the desired effect and the project remained clandestine. It also didn’t hurt that at this period in galactic history, in the midst of the first full scale war the galaxy had seen since the formation of the Republic, it didn’t take much to be accused of espionage or sympathizing with the enemy, and that would certainly ruin your career, if not land you in Republic custody.The DS-1 had a nearly endless budget. Under normal circumstances the extravagant spending would have drawn unwanted attention to the project but the Clone Wars made for a convenient cover as to where precisely the funds were going. As long as the credits were earmarked for the war effort, there were not going to be many questions asked.Work on the Death Star moved at a feverish pace during the Clone Wars due in part to the belief that the Separatists were in the process of developing their own battle station based on the captured designs. Construction would take place above Geonosis, with a massive fleet of ships working tirelessly to deliver materials to the site. The Republic used tractor beams to tow in asteroids that were rich in ore and then used laser batteries to break them up. Once the ore was extracted it was sent down to the surface of Geonosis to be refined in the newly repurposed droid foundries. Eventually the Republic built refineries in orbit to further speed up the process. Cutting edge new droids were developed to piece together the superstructure of the massive battle station.Despite the secrecy of the project and the number of parties involved, construction of the Death Star moved quickly, and less than one year after the start of the Clone Wars, Phase One of construction was completed as the last of the superstructure, which stretched 160km from pole to pole, was secured into place. Phase Two of construction began with creating an equator that would eventually develop into the aforementioned trench, which would allow for the attachment of longitudinal bands thus creating the spherical shape of the station. As the bands were put in place construction of the hull could begin as well as the creation of interior decks and compartments. The goal of this two pronged approach to construction was to be able to seal and pressurize the interior compartments as exterior construction continued so that sentient labor could be used for the finer detail while droids finished the insertion of the longitudinal bands.The Republic considered turning to the Kaminoans who had created the clones for the Grand Army of the Republic in order to create a labor force fit for deep space work, but a cheaper alternative presented itself. Orson Krennic, an at this point life-long bureaucrat and ghoul of a man, was involved with the project from its earliest days and brokered a deal with Poggle the Lesser. The Archduke would be allowed to return to his home on Geonosis as long as he convinced the Geonosians to serve as the construction force for the Death Star. Poggle agreed and was sent to begin the process of integrating his people into the construction.Once the equatorial band was completed and a few of the longitudinal sections were secured the droids turned to the task of creating the sealed compartments that would be key to the involvement of sentient workers, the Geonosians, in the project. The Geonosians would become the first organic construction workers on the Death Star and were first tasked with creating large concave sections that when assembled would create the focusing dish for the main weapon. The plan was that once the sections were completed, the pieces would be assembled in space and then the entire dish would be towed into place using a combination of ships and tractor beams.Orson Krennic was placed in charge of overseeing the construction and assembly of the sections as well as installation of the dish itself. The exact nature of the main weapon was still a mystery at this point given that construction had begun before design had been completed, but Krennic was already scheming on how to be the hero on that front.To this point progress had been speeding along, but as the project carried on and began to involve the development of the interior sections of the battle station to a greater degree, things slowed to a crawl. The Geonosian workforce became problematic shortly after they completed the final dish section. As they were redirected towards more menial construction tasks below their skill level the Geonosians became unruly and would often destroy recently finished work in protest. On top of this, owing to a unique physiological trait in their species, large numbers of Geonosians were dying from lack of work due to delays in construction of pressurized sections. Geonosian drones actually require their minds and bodies to be consistently and effectively challenged in order to survive.These issues would eventually come to a head just before the finale of the Clone Wars, when the labor force went into full rebellion and destroyed three months worth of work. Republic forces were confused by the riot as improvements had been made to the living quarters and workflow in an effort to appease the Geonosians.It is suspected, though it has never been confirmed, that this large scale uprising was merely a distraction meant to occupy forces in the area because during the riot Poggle the Lesser managed to flee the system and escape Republic custody. I for one buy into this particular rumor. As construction continued and the battle station neared completion, the Republic would have less and less need for the Archduke. Couple that with the issues we have already covered concerning the Geonosian drones and the writing may well have been on the wall telling Poggle it was time to find a way out.As the Clone Wars came to an end and construction of the project passed from Republic to Imperial control the future of the battle station was in serious jeopardy. There was no labor force, no design for the primary weapon, construction delays were piling up and credits were being wasted en masse. The newly self-appointed Emperor was getting impatient and reassigned overall responsibility for construction to the Imperial Navy while placing both Willhuff Tarkin and Orson Krennic in charge of completing the project.The Emperor had hoped that the involvement of the Imperial Navy and a man of Tarkin’s nature would inject the discipline that the project lacked and get things back on track. Krennic was kept on board due to his lengthy familiarity with the DS-1. Speaking of Krennic, he was furious over Tarkin’s involvement. Tarkin, among others, had been critical of the project at times while Krennic had pinned his career to the project from the outset. There were those amongst the upper echelons of the Empire who were vehemently opposed, as much as one can be without upsetting one’s Emperor, to the project. They saw it as a waste of credits and resources.Additionally, there were objections to the DS-1 from a military tactics standpoint. Was a single battle station, no matter how powerful, really the best way to keep the entire galaxy in line? These complaints were exacerbated by the fact that at this point in the construction, about three galactic standard years deep, nobody even knew what the primary weapon was supposed to be. The DS-1 is supposed to be an ultimate weapon, but that weapon element was thus far missing from the plans.Krennic viewed those who objected to the project as lacking vision. He considered himself to be in pursuit of a grander purpose. He saw the Death Star as the key to not only pacifying resistance to the Empire, but as an opportunity to rewrite history and change the way that the galaxy and the beings who inhabit it function. You need look no further for proof of this than the man’s own words taken from an Imperial log at the first successful test-firing of a prototype of the Death Star’s main weapon some years later. Quote:"You look at the history of any sentient species and what do you find but tableaux of violence and slaughter. It's finger painted on the ceilings of caves and engraved into the walls of temples. Dig a hole deep enough on any world and you'll find the skulls and bones of adults and children fractured by crude weapons. All of us were fighting long before we were farming and raising livestock...Violence is hardwired into most of us and there's no eliminating the impulse—not with an army of stormtroopers or a fleet of Star Destroyers. That's why we've embarked on a path to a different solution. We have a chance to forge a peace that will endure longer than the Republic was in existence."End quote. Rather full of himself, wasn’t he? As I said earlier, a ghoul of a man and if you don’t yet agree with that sentiment just wait until the end of this lecture.The issue of the primary weapon was a top priority and Tarkin turned to architect and starship designer Tiaan Jerjerrod to help with the development of the weapon. Jerjerrod would eventually rise up the Imperial ranks to become a Moff, and due to his involvement in the DS-1 was tasked with overseeing completion of the DS-2 many years later. Krennic wasn’t about to be outshined though, and where Tarkin had Jerjerrod, Orson Krennic placed his faith in Galen Erso.Continued

PROFESSOR:
Galen Erso was a brilliant scientist who at the age of only 16 joined the Republic Futures Program, an initiative which sought to foster promising young minds and create the next generation of scientists and leaders. During his time in the Futures Program he met and became close friends with Orson Krennic, who at the time was an architecture student. Krennic helped Erso get a professorship at the Institute of Applied Science on Coruscant where he would earn a reputation as a leader in the field of crystallology with a focus on kyber crystals, the ultra-rare, extremely powerful, Force-attuned crystals used by the Jedi to power their lightsabers. His desire was to find a way to use kybers to develop affordable energy for planets and populations in need.Around the outbreak of the Clone Wars, Galen and his wife Lyra, who was already pregnant with their first child, found themselves on the Outer Rim world Vallt where they were trying to create synthetic kybers. While there, the Republic backed government was overthrown by CIS loyalists and the Ersos were held captive in an attempt to get Galen to work for the Separatists. Krennic learned about this situation after intercepting a transmission from Galen to Zerpen Industries, Galen’s employer at the time, requesting help. Krennic saw this as an opportunity to put Erso in his debt by rescuing him personally in the hopes of getting him to join the Special Weapons Group. As a result Krennic did not pass the message on, instead opting to let Galen sit in custody just a little while longer while Krennic negotiated Erso’s release.I trust you’re all beginning to see the ghoulishness in Orson Krennic, yes? He received a distress signal from a friend, whom he knew was accompanied by and working with his pregnant wife who was due to give birth in short order, and ignored it in order to appear to be the hero and get Galen to work for him so that he could advance himself up the ranks a notch or two. Sadly, by the end of this series of lectures, this will seem fairly minor compared to some of the things Krennic does.This first attempt to woo Galen failed, however. He chose to avoid military work, which upon his return to Coruscant led to Erso being viewed as untrustworthy. If you recall earlier, we touched on this being a time of high paranoia, and as a result of dodging military work Erso was accused of being a Separatist spy. Why else would a being who had just been detained by the Separatists, causing his child to be born in captivity, not immediately want to go after his captors? The truth was that Galen Erso was a devout pacifist. He only avoided being charged with espionage due to the intervention of a casual acquaintance: a man by the name of Wilhuff Tarkin.Galen accepted a tedious and boring job well below his considerable skill level in order to get off of Coruscant and out from under the eye of government officials. Eventually the job would lead to a second run in with the Separatist forces that nearly resulted in the death of Galen and his family, who were only spared from death at the hands of the droid army by the deactivation order which officially ended the Clone Wars. This second harrowing experience finally convinced Erso to listen to Krennic and take a posting with the newly formed Galactic Empire.Krennic knew that kyber crystals and Galen’s research were the key to creating a weapon with the kind of destructive power they wanted out of the Death Star. Krennic brought Erso aboard Project Celestial Power, which on the surface had the goal of using kyber crystals to provide power to war ravaged planets as they sought to rebuild following the Clone Wars. With the seemingly endless resources of the Empire at his disposal, Galen became enraptured with kyber research to a new degree. Erso was feverishly working with the belief he was finally getting his chance to fulfill his dream of using kybers to provide energy to beings in need. Galen’s single-minded obsession with his research made Krennic look like a mastermind and gave him a leg up on Tarkin in the never-ending race for the Emperor’s favor between the two Imperials.Eventually Krennic was able to pervert Erso’s research enough to develop a prototype of a kyber powered laser which was tested at a remote binary black hole system known as Hero Twins. This was the test at which Krennic delivered the quote we discussed earlier. The test proved that Krennic was correct in thinking kybers were the key to creating a planet killer and it earned Krennic a promotion to full admiral.After nearly a year with Project Celestial Power and almost no information from Krennic as to where his research was being used, Galen Erso began to suspect what his wife had long been trying to convince him of; that he was being manipulated into developing weapons for the Empire. Recall that Galen is a devout pacifist, so the notion that his research, which was aimed at an altruistic purpose, was actually being used to create not only a weapon for the Empire, but their ultimate weapon, would have horrified him. Once he accepted the truth, Galen fled Coruscant with his family, leaving his notes and research behind in the hopes that having them would dissuade Krennic from coming after them. Blame for Erso’s escape was laid at Krennic’s feet and he was demoted back to Lieutenant Commander while Tarkin was granted full oversight of the Death Star.Construction continued to crawl along under Tarkin for years, but progress was progress and with no shortage of sources to blame for delays, the fact that anything was being accomplished on the DS-1 bought Tarkin time and kept the Emperor reasonably appeased.Slave laborers, most of them Wookiees, were brought in to serve as a disposable workforce at the station. These Wookies, many of them children by their species’ standards by the way, were treated with contempt and brutality by their Imperial slavers. There was no record kept of how many Wookies were forced to work on the DS-1, but the fact that by this point in time the Empire had established permanent slave camps on Kashyyyk makes it not unreasonable to assume that we are likely talking about tens of thousands of Wookies who were worked to death to build the battle station.Factories and manufacturing facilities across the galaxy were put under Imperial authority in order to feed the beast that the Imperials were raising in orbit above Geonosis. The Death Star was quite literally built with the blood sweat and tears of the very being it was meant to keep in line. I’m sure for the Empire this just seemed like the DS-1 was doing its job even before it was completed.Despite the progress being made, Tarkin’s time at the helm saw the project become further bogged down by bureaucratic squabbles as individuals sought to attach their name to the project and push their own agendas. This was distilled glory chasing. Krennic remained involved in a diminished capacity with the project. He would begin to reclimb the ladder though when he eventually managed to track down Galen Erso and returned him to his work on the Death Star. Beyond delays created by bureaucracy and workforce disruption, the DS-1 encountered myriad types of problems, particularly with shipping due to piracy in the Outer Rim, leading to further delays.Despite its best efforts to maintain secrecy, as the years passed more and more beings took note of the massive amounts of materials being sent to seemingly nowhere. The Death Star itself remained secret but there was simply no way that the amount of resources and beings which the Empire was snatching up and sending away would go unnoticed. Amongst those who took notice were small cells of beings that had begun to push back against the Empire across the galaxy, eventually leading Tarkin to move the Death Star to orbit above the planet Scarif for the final stages of construction.(MUSIC FADES IN)PROFESSOR:
These early Rebel cells will take center stage in the evolution and completion of the Death Star in our next lecture.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Welcome back. Welcome, welcome, please make yourselves comfortable so that we can get started, or suppose I should say so we can continue. Everyone settled in? Excellent!In today’s lecture we will continue to dive into the saga of the Death Star battle station and how it shaped the history of our galaxy. In our last lecture we covered the origins of the station’s design and the bulk of its construction beginning under the Galactic Republic and continuing under the Empire. We even crunched some numbers to appease those with a hunger for such information. Now we approach the completion of the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station, the first glimpse at the true destructive power of the station and it’s main weapon, and the continued efforts of non-Imperials to stop the Imps from deploying their Ultimate Weapon.When we left off the DS-1 battle station had been relocated from its orbit above Geonosis, where the vast majority of construction took place, to Scarif. Why Scarif? Why swap one Outer Rim world for another? Well, in terms of Imperial presence, Scarif was much more secure than Geonosis. Scarif is a secluded tropical planet in the Abrion sector of the Outer Rim. The sector is also home to the Rishi System which saw some action during the Clone Wars. Other planets in the Abrion sector include Ukio, Abrion Major, Gibad, and Tieos, which were all agrarian worlds that provided food to the Core Worlds. Now during the Clone Wars, these worlds joined the Separatists because they felt neglected by the Core Worlds which they had been feeding all these years.Scarif is mostly a water world with a mixture of shallow seas and deep oceans, both dotted by volcanic archipelagos The planet looked like a tropical paradise. Tranquil beaches and lagoons, with some of the bigger islands giving way to jungles. Scarif first caught the Imperial eye due to dense metals valuable for starship manufacturing in the mantle. However, the aforementioned remote location made supplying shipyards in the Core Worlds with metals too expensive. A planet tucked away in the Outer Rim like Scarif may have not been ideal for starship manufacturing, but it was exactly what the Tarkin Initiative was looking for.The Tarkin Initiative, as one could guess from the name, was founded by Governor Wilhuff Tarkin as a secret think tank within the Imperial Military Department of Advanced Weapons Research. The Initiative was a joint venture between Imperial Intelligence and the Imperial Security Bureau, or ISB. Now, anytime the ISB is involved you know that something serious is happening and it isn’t a poor guess to assume that it lies near and dear to Emperor Palpatine’s heart. The ISB was feared even among the Imperial military because they were ruthless in their pursuit of anti-Imperials to the point that they didn’t mind executing some innocent beings within their own ranks to make sure that they got everybody. The ISB was in many ways a miniature Death Star meant to keep beings in line through fear, but I digress.Scarif was an ideal place to hide the Empire’s most classified projects away from the prying eyes of the neutered yet still somewhat functional Imperial Senate. Tarkin established the Imperial Security Complex, also known as the Imperial Center of Military Research, or Scarif Base, to serve as the primary research facility on the planet. The Citadel Tower sat at the center of the complex, with the central spire surrounded by multiple landing pads that were connected by long transit tubes to the main building. This complex became a research hub for Imperial projects such as the Death Star, code named Stardust within the Scarif files, and hyperspace tracking among others. The Empire also built a planetary deflector shield to boost security, with a Shield Gate in orbit above the planet being the only way in or out Despite the highly sensitive nature of the work being done on Scarif, many higher ranking Imperial officers saw the beautiful tropical world as an ideal place to ride out the twilight of their careers until retirement. This complacency would prove costly and put the Empire on the back foot when a small group from the fledgling Rebel Alliance staged a daring raid on the facility upon learning that it housed the plans to the Death Star.At this point the Rebel Alliance is a fragile alliance at best. It exists as a loose confederation of individual cells that have been conducting anti-Imperial operations. Some of these cells focus on humanitarian missions to worlds that are under the boot of the Imperials. Others gather intelligence and publish propaganda in an attempt to expose the Empire for the oppressive and corrupt regime that it was. Several are militaristic in nature but even among those cells that favored military action there was disagreement on what form that action should take. The key takeaway here is that the Rebels aren’t one big happy family. They all want to see the Empire fall, but they aren’t in agreement as to how that should be done. Some favor passive and non-violent methods, while others view war as the only option.One of these cells that plays a major role in getting us to the Battle of Scarif is the Partisans, led by Saw Gerrera. The Partisans were viewed as terrorists by the Empire because of the violent nature of their operations. Founded as the Onderon Rebels by Saw during the Clone Wars, they fought alongside the Republic during the Onderonian Civil War with the goal of restoring the rightful king to the throne, which they eventually succeeded in doing. Upon the conclusion of the Clone Wars and the Republic’s transition into the Galactic Empire, Saw reorganized his Onderon Rebels into the Partisans, and began striking against the Imperials across the galaxy.
The Partisans excelled at the use of violence to achieve their goals, often carrying out attacks at the cost of civilian lives. This caused them to be ostracized even from the rest of the Rebellion.
The thing that made Saw and his Partisans important to the Battle of Scarif however, is his relationship with Galen Erso and his daughter Jyn.In our previous lecture we discussed Galen Erso and how his relationship with Orson Krennic, and particularly Krennic’s manipulation of that relationship, resulted in him working on development of the Death Star. I mentioned previously that Erso had left his notes behind when fleeing Coruscant because he hoped Krennic would be content to let Galen go as long as the research he needed was in his hands.What Galen failed to consider was the personal stake Krennic had in the Death Star project, and the impact that Galen’s escape would have on Orson, personally and professionally. Krennic had been reprimanded and demoted for the escape, and his pride was wounded. Eventually the project stalled, and Krennic managed to track down Galen and his family on the remote agricultural world of Lah’mu. Galen was captured and his wife Lyra was killed after attempting to stop Krennic from taking Galen back to the Empire. Only Galen’s daughter Jyn escaped and was rescued by Saw Gerrera, with whom she would spend most of her formative years.Jyn was eventually abandoned by Saw because members of the Partisans had begun to piece together that she was Galen Erso’s daughter. By this time Galen was viewed as a willing Imperial collaborator, so it would have been a risk to Jyn’s life if she had stayed with the Partisans much longer. Jyn bounced around the galaxy commiting crimes in an attempt to eke out an existence. She eventually wound up in an Imperial labor camp on Wobani, which is where the Rebel Alliance tracked her down upon learning of the existence of a new Imperial weapon described as a “planet killer”.Given that the Rebellion was an underground operation, it had an impressive network of spies and intelligence personnel keeping an eye on the Empire’s dirty little secrets. Any time the Imperials took a particular interest in a planet, and started either bringing in or taking out large amounts of resources, the Rebels took special interest.The Rebels had suspected the Empire of developing super weapons for years, and had even managed to sabotage some projects like the development of the TIE Defender on the planet Lothal, which was the brainchild of Grand Admiral Thrawn and unbeknownst to the Rebels had been competing with the Death Star project for funding and favor from the Emperor.Saw Gerrera especially was convinced that the Empire was building a devastating weapon, primarily because he was aware of Galen Erso’s research. Saw’s particular interest in Galen was shared by Rebel Intelligence, who had been trying to discover the whereabouts of the missing scientist, who as I mentioned earlier was viewed as an Imperial collaborator.This led the Rebels, and Saw especially, to take interest in the large amount of kyber crystal that was being looted by the Imperials from Jedha, a moon with rich deposits of the powerful crystals. One of the spies watching the Holy City on Jedha delivered a message to Captain Cassian Andor of Rebel Intelligence on the Ring of Kafrene which linked together the kyber, Saw, Galen Erso and a weapon described as a “planet killer”. The Rebels couldn’t afford not to follow the lead. The message of the planet killer was delivered initially by an Imperial pilot who had defected and attempted to seek out Saw on Jedha. Bodhi Rook claimed that he had been working as a cargo pilot at the Imperial facility where Galen Erso was being held, and that it was Erso who asked him to defect and get the message out about this super weapon.As I mentioned earlier though, Saw is considered an extremist by the rest of the Rebellion. He had broken with them by this point and was holed up on Jedha trying to find out what the Empire wanted with the kyber. He was paranoid and dangerous. There was no guarantee that he would share information with anybody, even the Rebels. That is what led the Alliance to Jyn Erso. Jyn had been very close to Saw. Saw had practically raised her since rescuing her on Lah’mu. If they had Jyn, they might be able to get to Saw and learn what this pilot had to say. That is what led them to spring her out of the labor camp on Wobani and whisk her off to Rebel HQ on Yavin 4.Erso was briefed on the story Andor had been given and the Rebels tried to recruit her into helping them authenticate the story by speaking with the pilot. A potential reunion with her father, whom she had just learned was still alive, and a chance at a clean slate (because the Rebellion had promised her that their technical masterminds would wipe her criminal record out), that was enough for Erso to agree. Andro, Erso, and Andor’s companion, a reprogrammed Imperial droid designation K-2SO, set off to try and meet with Saw, confirm the pilot’s story, and get any additional information they could on the location of Galen Erso and the super weapon he had seemingly helped the Empire build.Their destination was a small moon orbiting the planet NaJedha called Jedha. The Pilgrim Moon as it was also called, had once been home to one of the first civilizations to delve into the study of the Force. It was considered a spiritual home of the Jedi Order, which likely bumped it higher up on the list of planets that the Emperor wanted to plunder, and plunder it he did. The Empire occupied the moon and its Holy City in order to ransack the temples there in an effort to acquire kyber crystals as well as to further erase the Jedi from the galactic consciousness.We don’t know much about what happened on Jedha outside of what was relayed back to the Rebellion by Andor after he eventually returned to Yavin 4 shortly before the Battle of Scarif for a debrief. From Andor’s report we know that he and Jyn set down outside the Holy City and went in to try and make contact with Saw’s band of Rebels. They got caught in the crossfire when an Imperial patrol was attacked by Saw’s men and only avoided arrest when two Guardians of the Whills intervened to help take down the Imperials. They were then immediately ambushed and taken into custody by Saw’s men.Andor found himself in a prison cell with the Guardians in what he assumed was Saw’s hideout, and in a strange twist of fate in the cell next to them was the Imperial pilot he had come to find. Though Bodhi Rook was in a stupor, he was at least able to confirm he was indeed the pilot sent by Galen Erso. Thanks to a distraction from what seemed like a ground quake, Andor was able to hotwire his cell door and recover his gear, thus allowing him to call in K-2 for an extraction. Andor managed to find Jyn and Saw, attempted to get them both out, but only got Jyn out as Saw refused to leave. Cassian and Jyn emerged from Saw’s hideout into pure chaos. Saw’s Partisans were scrambling to get off the planet in what few ships they had because something had just dealt the planet a massively powerful blow. K-2 managed to arrive just in time to pick up Cassian, Jyn, the pilot Bodhi, and both Guardians of the Whills, who would be identified as Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus. They were then forced to jump to hyperspace while still in the atmosphere to avoid being destroyed.As a brief aside it should be noted that the remaining members of the Partisans who managed to get off Jedha eventually rejoined the rest of the Rebellion not long after the Battle of Yavin when a contingent from the Rebels led by Princess Leia Organa sought them out.The Imperial Senate was informed that a mining accident had been the cause of the destruction of the Holy City and the surrounding area of Jedha, but Andor and those who were there knew better. They knew that the Death Star had dropped into orbit above the moon and that the carnage they witnessed must have been wrought by the battle station’s main weapon. Once safely in hyperspace, Andor sent a coded message back to the Rebellion that read, quote:“Weapon Confirmed. Jedha destroyed. Mission target located on Eadu, please advise.”End quote. That message told the Rebels that the Empire now had its hands on a planet killer. A weapon that could bring the galaxy in line through fear of the awesome power it possessed. The Rebels responded, telling Andor to proceed, that General Draven’s orders still stand, and that he should proceed with haste and keep to the plan.Shortly later they lost contact with Captain Andor’s U-Wing and the decision was made to send a squadron of X-Wings and Y-Wings to bomb the facility on Eadu where they suspected Galen Erso was conducting his research. If they couldn’t get to him, they were going to make sure he couldn’t build any more deadly toys for the Emperor to play with. We know now that Cassian and his group crash landed on Eadu after attempting a low altitude landing in poor weather conditions.While en route to Eadu, Jyn told Cassian what the message that the pilot delivered, a holo recording from Galen, contained. She said that her father knew the Empire could finish the Death Star without him, so he worked for the Empire in order to intentionally build a tiny but catastrophic flaw into the Death Star. This flaw was hidden in the reactor and that if you could blow the reactor, the whole system would go down. The message said that the flaw could be found via close analysis of the Death Star plans. Plans that were on Scarif. Unfortunately Jyn didn’t have the message, and she was the only one who had seen it. Cassian knew that would make convincing the Rebel council to launch an attack on the Imperial facility at Scarif very difficult, so to confirm the message they had to get Galen Erso off of Eadu alive.So we know that they made it to Eadu, and that they are stranded on Eadu. The ship was unflyable, but the comm unit was salvageable, so Cassian set out with Bodhi Rhook, the now-former Imperial pilot, to find the research facility and locate Galen while securing transport off the planet, and he tasked K-2 with repairing the comms.Continued

PROFESSOR:
Andor tells us in his after action report that he set himself up to observe the facility landing platform from a distance to try and find transport and presumably a way inside. However, an Imperial shuttle approached, and Cassian observed the entire research staff, including Galen Erso, make their way onto the landing platform to greet the shuttle. That shuttle was carrying Orson Krennic, who had just watched his beloved pet project, the Death Star, perform its first successful test of the primary weapon.However, despite his moment of glory, Krennic was likely in a foul mood upon his arrival on Eadu. We know from Imperial communications that immediately following the destruction of Jedha by the Death Star control of the battle station was stripped from Krennic by Governor Tarkin who had often been critical of Krennic and what he saw as his wastefulness on the project. Imperial communications also tell us that Tarkin had told Krennic that the defector they had been looking for on Jedha had originated from the Eadu facility. Krennic was likely on Eadu not only to gloat, but to identify and execute the traitor who had dispatched the pilot, who he no doubt suspected was Galen Erso.So here’s Cassian, watching this drama unfold before him through his scope. He sees Krennic order the execution of the entire research team except for Galen Erso, before Krennic strikes Erso, knocking him to a knee. Why would Krennic execute the entire research team if he knew in his bones that it had been Galen who sent the message to the Rebellion? Most likely because Orson Krennic was a foul man who enjoyed abusing what power he managed to scrape up, and he knew that seeing these scientists murdered would just twist the vibroknife in Galen’s guts and cause him a bit more suffering before Krennic ended his life. Conjecture as to Krennic’s motivations aside, it was at that moment that Cassian spotted something he surely didn’t expect to see on that landing platform: Jyn Erso.Jyn, who he had left back on the U-Wing, was sneaking around on the platform trying to get to her father. Now in his mind, Andor is thinking, “this woman’s going to get captured after she alerts the entire facility to her presence”. They’re gonna capture her, and don’t forget she now knows where the Rebel base is, and they’ll likely be alert enough to stop Bodhi from stealing a ride off the planet, which Cassian had sent him to do. Then, just to make things more interesting, the comms come back up.On the comm is K-2 and he tells Cassian about that Rebel bombing squadron that I mentioned earlier. Cassian tries to get K-2 to get the strike called off, but by the time the message is relayed to Yavin 4, it’s too late. The squadron is engaged, and they are about to light that platform up. Cassian sees the first shots from the X-Wings hit the platform, and takes off to try and get to Jyn and Galen. By the time he gets there, Galen is dead, and all he can do is pry a devastated Jyn away to get her back to safety.Krennic, who manages to survive the attack, flees Eadu on his shuttle and makes his way back to Scarif. It is likely that Krennic suspected Galen Erso could have tampered with the designs of the DS-1, and in yet another attempt to crawl back up the ranks, or in this case crawl back into command of the Death Star, wanted to be able to insure the the Emperor’s Ultimate Weapon was safe.Bodhi Rhook manages to steal an Imperial shuttle and recover the rest of the group. They then make their way back to Yavin 4.So Galen is dead. He never got a chance to tell his story, so to most in the Rebellion he’s an Imperial collaborator who can’t be trusted, and the only person who knows that he wasn’t and knows about the weakness in the Death Star, and knows they have to go to Scarif happens to be his daughter. Jyn now has to convince the council to attack Scarif.Upon their arrival at the then secret Rebel base on Yavin 4, Jyn and Cassian depart the group to report to the council and plead their case for action against this new Imperial threat nicknamed “The Death Star”. The council is divided at best. Some members take the news as a call to action, while others believe it to be a fatal blow to even the concept of a rebellion against the Empire. Recall that this moment there has not been a large scale engagement between the whole of the Rebel Alliance and the Empire. Small individual cells have struck at the Imps but the war certainly hasn’t gone full hot. A central factor in the debate is the trustworthiness of Jyn and her father, Galen. As far as records are concerned, Galen Erso was a willing participant in this nefarious little project of the Imps, and isn’t it just too convenient that the only person who saw the holorecording that would clear his name was his daughter?In the end the council’s disarray dooms Jyn and Cassian’s petition for action. Without a unanimous path forward, Mon Mothma, the former Republic and now Imperial Senator from Chandrilla and de facto leader of the Rebel Council who along with Bail Organa helped establish the Rebellion, is reluctant to give permission for an attack against an Imperial facility.So what now? The council won’t grant permission to move against Scarif because the news of the existence of this battle station further divided them instead of uniting them. What is the next step? The thing about rebellions, is they tend to be made up of rebels.What we know from transmissions amongst the rebels and those who were there that day is that Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor, Andor’s droid K2SO, the Guardians of the Whills Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus, former Imperial pilot Bodi Rook, and a contingent of Rebel troopers commandeered the stolen Imperial shuttle which they’d arrived in and set off for Scarif under the call sign Rogue One. For fans of Rebel history and particularly Luke Skywalker, that call sign should put a smile on your face, as it served as the inspiration for the name of the ace Rebel starfighter squadron Rogue Squadron.From this point on our story gets a little tricky to tell. The Battle of Scarif unfolded on two fronts: a surface attack and a starship battle in orbit above the planet. For the space battle, we have eye witness accounts as well as official logs and transmissions to consult that tell the story of that day. For the surface engagement, all we know for certain comes from the final outcome of the battle, and what Imperial transmission logs remained intact following the battle.Based on Imperial records, we know that the shuttle carrying this hastily assembled strike team was able to get through the security gate of the planetary shield surrounding Scarif using access codes already on board. From there, the shuttle sets down at Landing Pad 9 on Scarif Base. Shortly after their arrival on the surface, a number of explosions erupt across the facility, and the garrison of troopers within Scarif Base are deployed to respond. As the troopers make their way across the surface of Scarif, they are engaged by Rebel forces, and multiple firefights break out.Scarif Base reports that they are in the midst of a rebel incursion, which sets off a chain reaction of events elevating the scale of the conflict. Grand Moff Tarkin orders the Death Star be made ready for a hyperspace jump to Scarif and sends an encoded message reporting the incident to one of the Emperor’s agents. The Rebel base on Yavin IV intercepts the report of a Rebel incursion on Scarif, prompting first Admiral Raddus and then all available Rebel starships and personnel to make for Scarif with haste.Back on the surface, Imperial radio chatter picks up as reports of skirmishes at landing pads across the base come in a flurry. As the conflict on the planet picks up, the Rebel fleet drops out of hyperspace, and for the first time, engages the Imperial Navy. During the initial frenzy a handful of Rebel fighters and troop transports from the Rebel’s Blue Squadron are able to slip through the planetary shield gate before it slams shut, sealing off the planet and cutting communications between the Rebels on the surface and the Rebels in orbit.With no line of communication to the surface, the Rebel fleet under Raddus’ command begins engaging the Imperial Star Destroyers in orbit and probing the planetary shield in the hopes of finding a weakness and punching through. The task of assaulting the shield gate fell to Red and Gold squadron, X-Wing and Y-Wing squadrons respectively, while the other fighter squadrons took the fight to the Imp capital ships. The space battle was a near deadlock early on, with the Rebels impressively holding their own against the might of the Imperial Navy. There have been losses on both sides, but almost exclusively amongst the squadrons of individual fighters. Red Squadron takes some casualties during the opening moments of the skirmish, including the X-Wing designated as Red Five.I’m sure I just got the attention of all the Skywalker fans again as that was the call sign of Luke Skywalker during the Battle of Yavin, so Scarif, in a way, gives him his seat for that fateful run against the Death Star. But more on that in our next lecture.The tide begins to turn when the shield gate defense station deploys its own contingent of TIE fighters which take the fight directly to the Rebel flagship, The Profundity, with Admiral Raddus at the helm. Raddus’ ship is taking a beating, but just as things look dire, a group of Y-Wings land a direct hit on an Imperial Star Destroyer with their ion torpedoes, disabling the ship and leaving it adrift in the middle of the battle. Moments later, the radio silence is broken and Raddus receives a transmission from the surface of Scarif. Raddus is told that the ground team has managed to secure the plans to the Death Star, but that in order to transmit them to the fleet the planetary shield must be down.In a stroke of tactical genius, Raddus calls up a hammerhead corvette and instructs it to ram the drifting Star Destroyer in an attempt to push it into the path of the Star Destroyer alongside it. Now we’ve all seen Star Destroyers, and we know they have those little notched angles along the sides. Well the Rebel hammerhead rams the ISD just right so that it wedges itself into the corner of one of those angles. The hammerhead puts the hammer down on it’s sublight engines and pushes, and pushes, and pushes, until...impact. Not only does it successfully impact the other ship, it slams into it in such a way that it shears off the entire top deck section of the ship. Bridge, everything, gone. To top it off, this collision happens directly above the shield gate installation. The wreckage of these two massive ships begins to slowly plummet towards the surface of Scarif, and as they fall, they slice through the shield gate orbital station. The planetary defense shield falls.Raddus’ gambit has paid off, and his ship receives a transmission from the surface. The Rebels, having successfully attacked a staunchly defended Imperial installation, are in the midst of receiving the plans to the Death Star. A space station with the capability of destroying an entire planet. A space station that had just dropped out of hyperspace before their eyes, returning to its orbit above Scarif just in time to get involved in the fray. The Rebel fleet bears witness as the Death Star fires its primary weapon for only the second time. Scarif is engulfed in flames. Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor, and the others who went to the surface to find the plans are all killed if they indeed managed to survive to that point. Rebel and Imperial troops alike are incinerated by the deadliest power the galaxy had seen to that point.In a stroke of cosmic irony, among the Imperials killed on Scarif by the Death Star’s attack was Orson Krennic. The man who had been the staunchest champion of the battle station from its earliest days was vaporized by the weapon he had helped create.For the Rebels, it was time to go. Having claimed their prize, Raddus orders all Rebel ships to flee the system. They begin their jumps to hyperspace and some make it away, but then a Star Destroyer drops out of hyperspace and cuts off the Rebel retreat. This new threat manages to quickly destroy some smaller Rebel ships and disable Raddus’ flagship, leaving it defenseless and adrift with the newly stolen Death Star plans aboard.You would be justified in wondering how a single ship, even an Imperial Star Destroyer, could incapacitate what amounted to nearly half the Rebel fleet. It was able to do this because it happened to be the Devastator. This was a notorious Star Destroyer that was linked to many particularly ruthless occasions of the Empire flexing its muscle to keep star systems in line. Furthermore, it was said to be the flagship of one Darth Vader. The mysterious being said to be the right hand of the Emperor himself. Vader was the stuff of myth across the galaxy at this point. He came to power from seemingly nowhere, with power like that of the at this point long fallen and mythologized in their own right Jedi. Now, he was taking aim at the Rebel flagship.A small contingent of TIE fighters and a Lambda class shuttle deployed to The Profundity to try and recapture the plans, but it was too late. Somehow, the Rebels are able to get the plans from the computers of their flagship and transfer them to a Corellian Corvette that jets away just in time to avoid capture or destruction.Now because of the events that immediately follow the Battle of Scarif, which we will be covering in depth in our next lecture, I am forced to concede that Darth Vader was indeed aboard the Devastator on that day. However, that does not mean that we must accept that he had a direct hand in the outcome of the battle itself.Your average Stormtrooper is one thing, but the crew of the Devastator are good at what they do. These Imperials don’t miss, and the crew of this nefarious ship were more than capable of dismantling the remainder of the Rebel fleet before them. Not every instance of the tide suddenly turning from the Rebels to the Empire needs to be explained away by the influence of a Sith Lord. It becomes ridiculous to think that Vader’s finger stirred the ebb and flow of all things he was close to.Rumors persisted amongst the Rebellion that Vader himself led the boarding party sent to The Profundity, but ask yourself this: if Darth Vader, the unstoppable mechanical monstrosity directed by the whims of the Emperor had boarded that ship, would he really have let the Rebels slip away? I for one simply cannot buy into this particular rumor. Was Vader on the Devastator? Yes. Did he personally go to retrieve the stolen Death Star plans while brutally butchering any being in his path? Almost certainly not.So the Rebels get away, and can now leisurely return to their base and analyze the plans and then go destroy the Death Star. Empire defeated, galaxy saved, cue the celebrations. Of course it doesn’t go down that smoothly, and the cost of acquiring the plans they wagered their existence on getting hasn’t been fully paid. The Rebellion now has Darth Vader’s full attention, and they are going to find out that that is not a place one wants to be.And that will conclude today’s lecture. In our next lecture we will continue and wrap up the story of the Death Star.(MUSIC FADES IN)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Hello there and welcome back. Please settle in so we can get to the thrilling conclusion of this lecture series.Thus far, we have followed the DS-1, or Death Star, on its journey from mysterious conception, to turbulent construction, to its first deployment over the doomed Holy City of Jedha, to its brief involvement in the Battle of Scarif alerting the newly unified Rebel Alliance to the DS-1’s existence.That is to say, we have discussed a period of over 20 galactic standard years spanning from the outbreak of the Clone Wars to the opening salvo of the Galactic Civil War. Over 20 years of mental and physical labor. Over 20 years of burning credits at a rate that even a Hutt would find gaudy. All of that time and effort, and at long last Emperor Palpatine had his ultimate weapon.
The only problem was that a rag-tag band of Rebels had just slipped into an Imperial facility on a world protected by a planetary defense shield and made off with the plans for the thing.At the conclusion of our last lecture the Empire’s mythologized, red-blade-wielding man in black, Darth Vader, was watching a Corellian Corvette jump to hyperspace, escaping with the plans for the Death Star. Recall that Lord Vader had been called to Scarif by Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin in order to stop the Rebel fleet from fleeing the system, and while he had managed to destroy several Rebel ships, including Admiral Raddus’ flagship The Profundity, he hadn’t managed to recover the plans.Now about that Corellian Corvette. That ship, named the Tantive IV, belonged to Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan. It had been the Senator’s home-away-from-home during and after the Clone Wars as he used it to conduct many of his dealings throughout the galaxy.This small, unassuming ship of which there were thousands built, brushed up against galactic history for decades. During the Clone Wars, it shuttled Senator Organa to Toydaria, where he negotiated with King Katuunko seeking to use his planet as a staging point for relief missions to Ryloth, which at the time was in the midst of a fierce battle to determine control of the planet.
Senator Organa began allowing his adopted daughter Leia to use the Tantive IV as she was coming of age and beginning to undertake the traditional Aldreaanian rights of passage to prepare her for a life of service to her people.During this period the ship traveled to Wobani on a humanitarian mission, where a few years later Jyn Erso would be sprung from an Imperial Labor Camp to help recover the plans to the DS-1. Other locales included Chasmeene, Chal Hudda and Paucris Major, which unknown to Leia was also the location of a Rebel Base that her father had helped establish.Details are sparse as to the specifics, but we know that shortly before the battle of Scarif the Tantive IV was badly damaged during a mission of some sort and had to dry dock aboard The Profundity for repairs. That put the ship in prime position to act as a life raft for those trapped aboard the Mon Cala ship as Vader and his troops swept it looking for the stolen Death Star plans. Along with beings fleeing the wrath of the Sith Lord, the Tantive IV of course also took the plans themselves, and it was those plans that would make Vader pursue the ship.In order to best grasp how this pursuit jumped from the Scarif system to another part of the galaxy, we must briefly pivot to a lesson in galactic navigation. Scarif sits on a hyperspace lane known as the Manda Merchant Route. That lane intersects with the Triellus Trade Route which begins at Centares in Mid-Rim. It winds through the Outer Rim Territories, touching planets such as Eadu, which you’ll remember from our last lecture, and eventually ending at Darkknell. Along that long and winding journey through the Outer Rim, not all that far from Scarif, the Triellus Trade Route passes through the Tatooine system.Most of you know about Tatooine. Given the planet’s climate and lack of resources none of us that haven’t personally set foot on the planet should know about it. It’s in the Outer Rim along a prominent trade route and it's a barren, scorched world that can barely support the native species and few scattered spaceports it has. For the bulk of its history, Tatooine was just a desert world ruled by the Hutts where one could take in thrilling pod races and likely get mugged or worse by the myriad of nefarious beings who passed in and out of the system. Despite all of that, most of us know about Tatooine because of two beings who come from that world: Anakin and Luke Skywalker.I won’t get too off topic here because I could easily devote multiple lectures to each of those two human males, and perhaps one day I will, but try to keep in mind the history that those individuals, especially Vader, have with this planet as we navigate through the rest of today’s lecture, because it is in orbit above Tatooine that Darth Vader in the Devastator ensnares the Tantive IV.After a brief firefight, the Devastator manages to snag the corvette with a tractor beam and haul it into drydock. As a boarding party, which included Vader himself, made its way through the Rebel ship searching for the stolen Death Star plans, an escape pod launched off towards the surface of Tatooine. Gunners aboard the Devastator noted no life forms aboard the pod and let it go rather than capturing it, assuming it had malfunctioned in the fray.Vader has Princess Leia Organa, who at this point has taken her father’s place in the Imperial Senate, arrested and orders his men to send a distress signal from the Tantive IV and to inform the Senate that all aboard were killed. This would remain the official story, of course, until the fall of the Empire when the New Republic was formed and former Rebels, including Leia, were able to tell their stories.After sweeping the ship and not finding the plans for the DS-1, Vader orders his men to go down to the planet and search for the jettisoned escape pod, assuming the plans were hidden within it. Vader himself never steps foot on the planet, which makes perfect sense considering his history with Tatooine. Recall that at this point in time, next to nothing is known about Vader. There is no explanation for where he came from. He just shows up immediately after the conclusion of the Clone Wars and steps into his role as the Emperor’s primary enforcer.It wouldn’t be until 28 ABY when New Republic Senator Ransolm Casterfo of Riosa exposed then Senator Leia Organa Solo’s parentage during a speech to the Senate in an attempt to sabotage her political career that we would be provided with a backstory for Lord Vader and learn that Leia was his daughter. From there it wasn’t hard to draw conclusions as to who Vader had been before donning the armor. It was common knowledge that Jedi Master Luke Skywalker was Leia’s brother, so it followed that Vader must have been Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, the famed hero of the Clone Wars who had been reported as killed during the Jedi Purge.So of course Vader, Anakin, has no interest in going down to Tatooine and confronting his past. He sends his men who locate the abandoned pod and the search team finds tracks leading away from the pod and conclude that there had been droids aboard. Vader orders a canvas of the entire planet in order to locate the droids and the stolen Death Star plans. Leaving his men to scour his homeworld for the plans, Vader returns to the Death Star with Princess Organa to begin interrogating her in an effort to learn more about the Rebellion and to try and locate their primary base.Most of us would buckle, even crumble, fairly quickly under the rigors of Imperial era interrogation, which of course means torture and rhetorical questions. However, Princess Organa isn’t one of us, and Vader isn’t able to get any information out of her. That is probably due to her being the daughter of a powerful Jedi who happens to be the man torturing her, but of course nobody knows that.All that Vader and the newly-minted Death Star Commander Grand Moff Tarkin know is that they can’t get her to tell them where the Rebel base is. They need a new plan of attack, and the plan Tarkin lands on will announce to the galaxy not only that the Death Star exists, but that it is perfectly capable of living up to its reputation as a planet killer. Tarkin orders the Death Star to set course for Alderaan.Similar to Tatooine we all know about Alderaan. How could we not? Alderaan, along with Chandrilla, Corellia and Coruscant, was a founding planet of the Old Republic. It stood as a beacon of pacifism and in many ways served as the conscience of that Republic. Alderaan’s role as the moral compass of the galaxy didn’t die with the Old Republic though. As that Republic took it’s dying breaths and the Empire was being born, Alderaan’s Queen Breha Organa and her husband Senator Bail Organa were busy founding the Rebel Alliance, initially as a secret means of trying to gather like minded beings who wanted to check Emperor Palpatine’s power, and then later as open resistance to his Empire.This planet means a lot of things to a lot of beings. Alderaan was a light in the dark for those who dared to hope that the Empire would fall, and that light attracted Tarkin and his new toy.The Death Star dropped out of hyperspace in orbit above Alderaan, and Tarkin had Princess Organa, whose execution he had just authorized, brought to the bridge in a final attempt to get her to reveal where the Rebel base was located.Tarkin tells Leia, and we know this from her own accounts of the events, that due to her reluctance to give up the Rebel base, he would be demonstrating the full destructive power of the Death Star’s primary weapon on her home planet. Alderaan would die if she didn’t betray the Rebellion. Faced with the destruction of her home planet and its millions of inhabitants, including her adoptive parents, Princess Leia Organa told Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader that the Rebel base was located on the Outer Rim world of Dantooine.Now Dantooine had at one point indeed been home to the Rebellion, but they had long since vacated the world to set up shop on Yavin IV. Leia surely believed that she could buy at least some time for her compatriots in the Rebel Alliance to recover and analyze the plans for the Death Star and locate the weakness that Galen Erso had supposedly planted there. As I said though, Dantooine is in the Outer Rim, and Tarkin is trying to announce to the galaxy that the Death Star exists and can obliterate entire worlds with one shot. Dantooine simply would not do as the site for a proper demonstration of the monster they had created. Tarkin wanted a Core World, an important world. He wanted to punish Princess Leia as harshly as possible before her death, so he ordered the Death Star to fire on Alderaan.The two previous times that the Death Star had used its main weapon, at Jedha and Scarif, it had done so with a single reactor ignition shot. That is to say, they only used a portion of the power the weapon had. Those single ignition blasts had been sufficient to pulverize the planets that absorbed the blows, but this time that wouldn’t be enough. Tarkin wanted there to be no doubt that the term “planet killer” was not a euphemism. As Vader held her in place, Princess Leia watched her beloved Alderaan shattered by the force of the Death Star. The ultimate weapon was in play, and the entire galaxy would have no doubt as to what it could do. If the Empire was willing to destroy Alderaan? They were willing to destroy any planet.Again, on that day none present knew it but here was a father forcing his daughter to watch the planet she had grown up on and had been destined to lead murdered at the hands of the Empire she was fighting against. A father who not long before that moment had been torturing his daughter in an attempt to get her to betray her closest friends and allies. The fact that Leia Skywalker Organa Solo was able to live the life that she lived after learning who her father was, and coming to grips with the horrific things that he had personally done to her as well as the atrocities he had committed across the galaxy...the fact that she kept fighting even with the weight of her family lineage on her shoulders...we do not give her enough credit for the beacon of strength, grace, leadership, and hope that she was for our galaxy.Shortly after the destruction of Alderaan, a Corellian YT-1300 freighter was caught by one of the Death Star’s tractor beams and brought into the hangar bay for inspection. Why would the Empire bother with a random freighter? Because this particular YT-1300 matched the description of a ship that had fled the Tatooine spaceport of Mos Eisley while the Imperials had been searching the planet for the missing Death Star plans. Vader and Tarkin assumed that the crew of this freighter was likely trying to return the plans to Princess Organa on Alderaan. An initial inspection of the ship turned up no life forms or droids aboard. That, coupled with the fact that some of the escape pods had been jettisoned, led the inspection crew to conclude that there was nobody left on the ship. Vader wasn’t satisfied however, and ordered a scanning crew be sent aboard to do a deeper search for beings or droids.Now, was the Dark Lord being thorough, paranoid, or did he sense something that only a fallen Jedi such as himself could? The answer might well be all three, but his motives don’t particularly matter for this story because he was right to keep searching. This YT-1300 was not empty. This freighter was the Millennium Falcon, crewed by the smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee first mate and co-pilot Chewbacca, and they had been hired to transport two humans and two droids to Alderaan.The droids were the ones the Empire had been looking for all along, and the humans were two that the Empire would come to regret involving in the Galactic Civil War. One was Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Jedi hero of the Clone Wars long thought to be dead and Vader’s former Master. Tthe other was Luke Skywalker.Anakin Skywalker’s twin children were hidden from him by some of the few surviving Jedi after his fall. His daughter Leia was sent to Alderaan, his son Luke was sent to Tatooine, and as far as Anakin, now Vader, knew, neither child had even been born. Now, after 19 years in hiding, both of them were on the Death Star, and both of them were trying to get the stolen Death Star plans to the Rebellion. Life is often stranger than fiction.Play a game of word association with any being; if you say "Death Star" they would respond "Luke Skywalker" almost every time. So how does this man who is inseparable from this battle station find himself involved with it in the first place, never mind aboard the thing? The answer, as it inexplicably tends to be during this time in our galactic history, lies on Tatooine.If you cast your mind back to earlier in this lecture the Empire was searching for the droids that wandered out of the Tantive IV’s escape pod on Tatooine. Those droids, a protocol droid designation C-3PO, and an astromech designation R2-D2, were rounded up, as almost anything that glints in the twin suns of Tatooine is likely to be, by Jawas.Jawas, for those of you who don’t know, are a meter-tall sentient species native to Tatooine. Jawas can be found on other worlds as well, but those clans are referred to as Offworld Jawas. Regardless of location, Jawas are scavengers by nature. They make their living scrounging up whatever the deserts of Tatooine offer them, and then selling those items to other species on the planet. Two droids wandering the deserts of Tatooine would have been a massive find for Jawas, and they would have been eager to offload their newfound treasures on another being. In the case of C-3PO and R2-D2, that being that ended up purchasing them was Owen Lars, a moisture farmer and Uncle of Luke Skywalker.The details of what occurred on Tatooine and in transit from that world to Alderaan have been pored over by various historians and described by those who were there, so if you’re interested in that information I encourage you to seek it out. The things that you need to know for our purposes today are as follows:Continued

PROFESSOR:
Upon discovering a holomessage within the astromech pleading to deliver it's contents to exiled Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker was mostly able to escort the droids to Kenobi. Seems he had a bit of trouble getting all the way there on his own. They traveled to Mos Eisley and secured passage with the Millenium Falcon under the pretense that Captain Solo would be handsomely rewarded by Alderaanian nobility for delivering the droids. Solo's smuggling past ironically prevented a quiet escape, putting the Falcon on the Imperial's radar and leading to the freighter's prompt capture by the Death Star upon reaching the suspiciously empty locale of Alderaan.The group managed to avoid being captured by the first boarding party by hiding in secret cargo holds that Solo used for smuggling. They then disabled the scanning crew and the Stormtroopers on guard outside the freighter and took their armor in order to move covertly through the DS-1 in order to disable the tractor beam that had hauled them in and make an escape. It was while trying to determine the location of the tractor beam controls that the astromech R2-D2 discovered that Princess Organa was being held prisoner on the Death Star, and was scheduled for execution.Skywalker convinced Solo, through promises of even more wealth, to help him free Organa from her cell while Kenobi went to disable the tractor beams. Skywalker and Solo set off for detention block AA23 while Chewbacca, in restraints, was used to create the guise of a prisoner transfer. Once in the detention area though, the ruse quickly fell apart, and the trio were forced to hastily release Princess Organa and flee down a garbage chute. For anybody familiar with the legendary razor wit of Leia Organa, it isn’t hard to imagine the dressing down Solo and Skywalker received for their botched rescue attempt.Eventually, after fighting their way through the belly of the Death Star, Skywalker, Solo, Organa and Chewbacca made their way back to the hangar bay where the Millenium Falcon was waiting under heavy Imperial guard. Their path was soon cleared though, as the Stormtrooper detail became distracted after catching sight of something that none of the men wearing that armor had likely ever seen in their lives: a lightsaber duel. After deactivating the tractor beam, thus making it possible for the Millenium Falcon to make her escape, Obi-Wan Kenobi encountered his former apprentice Darth Vader.As I said at the outset of this course, our purpose here is to examine the stories that make up our shared galactic history, and this moment aboard the DS-1 was in actuality the conclusion of one of the greatest stories in our history. One we will no doubt one day discuss in the depth and detail it deserves. These were the closing lines in the great narrative that was the relationship between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. A Jedi Master and his apprentice who fought side by side during the Clone Wars, their names becoming legend with each cunning and heroic act they managed to pull off. A Jedi Master’s failure to save his apprentice and best friend from himself and his fears. A Jedi Master’s final act of selfless heroism. Kenobi fell to Vader’s blade, and Skywalker, Solo, Organa, Chewbacca, and the droids were able to make their escape with the stolen Death Star plans thanks to Kenobi’s distraction.Upon their arrival at the Rebel Base on Yavin IV, the group quickly turned R2-D2 over to Rebel Intelligence to analyze the plans. This was the moment where they would find out if it was all worth it, and there within the plans they found the trap that Galen Erso had condemned himself to a life serving an Empire he despised in order to lay. Galen had built a thermal exhaust shaft that led directly from the reactor to the surface of the Death, Star leaving a two meter wide target for a small fighter craft to hit. Blow the reactor and the whole system goes down, or rather, up, in the worst of ways for the Empire. The key to the attack strategy would be to rely on small, individual fighters rather than large capital ships because the Death Star’s defenses were optimized to repel large scale attacks.The mood in the Rebel briefing room was not optimistic despite discovering this weakness. Rebel fighters would have to make a lengthy approach down a narrow trench to hit the exhaust port which would leave them badly exposed. The only one in the room who seemed at all confident was Luke Skywalker.Just as the Rebels were finishing their breakdown of the stolen plans, the Death Star itself dropped out of hyperspace on the far side of the gas giant Yavin and began an orbital approach that would give it a clean shot with its main weapon at Yavin’s fourth moon where the Rebel base was located.We aren’t sure exactly how the Empire managed to discover that the Rebel base was on Yavin. It is possible that a tracking device was put aboard the Millennium Falcon prior to it’s escape from the Death Star. It is also possible that the Empire was further along than previously thought in the development of a means of tracking ships through hyperspace.Every available Rebel pilot would be deployed in this engagement. This was a true do or die moment for the Rebellion and if a being was capable of piloting a starfighter they were getting a seat. Even if they were fresh off of a Tatooine moisture farm. Luke Skywalker was given a T-65B X-Wing and the call sign Red Five. R2-D2, the astromech who had stewarded the stolen Death Star plans to the Rebel Alliance, was loaded into Skywalker’s fighter as well, to serve as his astromech for the battle ahead.Despite the absurd odds and the monumentally difficult task that lay before them, there was a sense of purpose and unity that put durasteel into the nerves of the Rebel pilots on that day. Quote:“We’ll rely on each other up there like we always do, and as long as we do that I’ll go up against anything in the Galaxy and like our chances.”End quote. Those were the words of Commander Garvin Dreis, the leader of Red Squadron, to his pilots, prior to the battle.We now date events in our galaxy by counting either forward or backwards in terms of galactic standard years from a singular point in time. Everything we discuss is in terms of either BBY, or ABY. Why? History is written by the victors, and in this case, after the Empire fell, the New Republic would have wanted to mark Yavin as the point where the tide began to turn in their favor in their struggle against the Empire. Well now, my dear gentle beings, we have arrived in this lecture at BY: The Battle of Yavin. If Scarif was the large-scale beginning of the Galactic Civil War, Yavin was the place where it would be decided if there was actually going to be a war.The fate of the Rebellion rested with the pilots of the Rebellion’s Red and Gold Squadrons, an X and Y-Wing squadron respectively. Remember, the Rebels are already in a weakened state having lost numerous fighters during the Battle of Scarif. The Y-Wings of Gold Squadron were tasked with making the trench run up to the thermal exhaust port and attempting to deliver a flawless proton torpedo shot to the relatively tiny target, while Red Squadron, in their faster and more maneuverable X-Wings, would act as a diversion and draw the fire of the Death Star’s turbo laser batteries and defense towers.As the Rebels began their attack runs, Imperial troops aboard the Death Star were scrambling to mount a counter offensive, that is until Darth Vader ordered all TIE fighter crews to their ships so they could take the fight to the Rebels fighter to fighter. Red Squadron scored some quick victories, disabling and destroying defense towers on the surface of the DS-1. Those wins didn’t come without a cost however, as Red Six, a pilot by the name of Jek Porkins, became the first casualty of the attack shortly after taking out a tower just before the TIE squadrons entered the fray. The first TIE kill of the battle, either unsurprisingly given what we know about him now or surprisingly as this was his first time in a starfighter, went to Luke Skywalker.From this point the battle becomes a swirl of defense tower turbo laser salvos and ship-to-ship dogfights between the Rebel X-Wings and the Empire’s TIEs. All this is going on as the first three members of Gold Squadron dropped into the trench leading up to the exhaust port to make their run. As the Y-Wings made their approach, the Death Star’s surface defenses that were focused on the trench fell silent as three TIE fighters dropped in on Gold Squadron’s tails. Leading this pack of Imperials was Darth Vader himself, in his personal modified TIE fighter.Vader had the upper hand in most situations, especially combat situations, but nowhere was he more comfortable and formidable than in the cockpit of a starfighter.The TIES accompanying the Sith never took a shot at the Y-wings. Presumably, Vader's confidence in his own abilities led him to covet those kills for himself. This was his element, and this was how he would personally see to the death of the Rebellion.Vader quickly eliminated the three Gold Squadron bombers, thus forcing Red Squadron to try their hand at the trench run. Red One had his remaining pilots break into two groups. He would lead the first attack run down the trench with two extra fighters as escort, and should they fail to sink the shot, the second trio would then have their chance.Red One’s escorts were rapidly picked off by Vader, but Commander Dreis managed to take his shot at the exhaust port. His proton torpedoes impacted the surface of the battle station however, and Vader quickly closed in on Dreis. Luke Skywalker offered to come to his Commander’s aid, but Dreis cried him off and ordered him to set up for his own attack run on the DS-1. Vader then eliminated Red Squadron’s leader.After two attempts and only one attempted shot, the Rebel strike team was already whittled down to just three X-wings hurling themselves down a long, narrow trench with no room to take evasive maneuvers to fend off enemy fire while being directly pursued by a Sith Lord with an assured trigger fingerLuke Skywalker took point, and would be the one taking the shot on the thermal exhaust port. Biggs Darklighter, Luke’s childhood friend from Tatooine, and Wedge Antilles, a top-notch Corellian pilot, and that is saying a lot because Corellia turns out some excellent pilots, would be his escorts. Skywalker decided that their best shot at success would be to take the trench run at full speed, hoping it would be enough to keep the TIEs off of them.Darklighter and Antilles dropped back farther than previous escort fighters had during their trench runs hoping that Vader and his TIEs would focus on Skywalker, thus allowing them a chance to eliminate the TIEs and give Skywalker a clean shot. Antilles took fire early on in the trench run, and Skywalker told him to peel off and get clear of the fight. Vader stayed focused on Skywalker and let Antilles flee. Vader and his wingmen were coming up behind Skywalker at full tilt, copying the X-Wing pilots’ strategy. Vader picked off Darklighter, leaving Luke Skywalker alone in the trench.Darth Vader had Luke Skywalker dead to rights and even managed to score a hit on his astromech, further complicating Skywalker’s task. This was Skywalker versus Skywalker. Father chasing down son, though of course neither knew that at the time. Luke proved to be Vader’s greatest challenge of the day, with even the Sith Lord struggling to keep the X-Wing in his sights. Finally, however, Vader locked on and was ready to end the threat to the Death Star, thus allowing the main weapon to vaporize Yavin IV and end the Rebellion. Then along came a smuggler.Han Solo, who had indeed been handsomely rewarded by the Rebels for bringing Princess Organa and her droids back to them, had initially intended to flee the system and not participate in the battle. Perhaps it was the allure of more credits, or a chance at glory to further inflate his ego. It's possible that he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the lovely Princess he had just met who could go toe-to-toe with him in exchanging barbs. Maybe his old friend Chewbacca, who had once been an Imperial slave, convinced Solo to lend a hand because he knew that countless Wookiee slaves had been worked to death to complete the technological terror that was the Death Star. Regardless of motivation, Solo, along with Chewbacca in the Millenium Falcon, joined the fight.Solo dropped in from above the trench, taking out one of Vader’s escorts. The second escorting TIE took evasive maneuvers, but due to the tight confines of the trench ended up making contact with Vader’s fighter, sending the Sith spiraling off into space away from the battle. That second TIE then slammed into the wall of the trench and exploded. Luke Skywalker was clear to take a clean shot at the thermal exhaust port. The proton torpedoes struck true, and Galen Erso’s trap was sprung. Blow the reactor and the whole system goes down.As Skywalker and the Millenium Falcon beat a hasty retreat back to Yavin IV, the Death Star erupted and was torn to pieces. The DS-1, the Death Star, the Emperor’s ultimate weapon ultimately met the same fate it had dealt to Alderaan.Over 20 galactic standard years of research, development, construction, testing and spending an insane amount of credits was wiped away with an engagement that lasted less than 10 standard minutes. 160 kilometers in diameter, 45,000 square kilometers in surface area, 357 internal decks and the most destructive single weapon the galaxy had seen to that point were, in the end, not able to stand up to a group of about 30 fighters deployed by a fledgling Rebel Alliance.From conception to execution, the Death Star truly lived up to its title: the paid workers, the slaves, those killed to hide it's existence, those murdered to reveal it, the station's architect, it’s staunchest champion, and it's final commander, all dead. Now, counting the intended victims; the Holy City of Jedha, Scarif and Alderaan, all fell victim to the terrifying might of the Death Star. Countless lives and ships were lost.The price of the Rebel victory at the Battle of Yavin was mind-numbingly high, but in the end the Rebels paid their dues, and in a matter of days this small, motley crew managed to score back-to-back massive victories against the Empire. An Empire that for all its might couldn’t manage to protect a space station the size of a small moon that was packed with enough firepower to literally destroy a planet.Why did the Empire ignore the threat of smaller ships and instead opt to set up the defenses of the Death Star to repel a large-scale attack? Where in the galaxy did they think a fleet of ships large enough to mount an assault on the DS-1 would come from? Were they aware of a threat in the Unknown Regions or even an extra-galactic threat? Perhaps setting up the defenses in such a way was yet another part of Galen Erso’s trap, thus allowing those small fighters to get in close and exploit the flaw he built.The Rebel victory at Yavin showed that the Imperial beast could in actuality bleed, and if it bleeds it can be killed. We know for a fact that up until this moment not even many members of the Rebel Alliance believed that to be possible.This concludes our three lecture series on the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station, better known of course as the Death Star.(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
I invite you to spend some time going over this story in your minds and considering the impact these events had on the galaxy as a whole, and on the individual beings directly involved in the events we have detailed. I look forward to beginning a new story with you all during our next lecture.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC)PROFESSOR:
Greetings and welcome back to Galactic History. Please make yourself comfortable and we will dive into today’s lecture topic. As you’re aware, when we last spoke we wrapped up a three lecture discussion of the Death Star. Today we will still be discussing a weapon of sorts, and as it happens one that was quite closely linked to the man arguably responsible for introducing the plans for the DS-1 to the galaxy: Count Dooku.Like the Death Star, this is not a traditional weapon. This is a sentient weapon. A being that unfortunately throughout much if not most of her life was twisted to the will of others and used by them to vanquish their adversaries. Today, we will be discussing the early life of Asajj Ventress, and exploring how a former slave born to a tribe of witches became one of the most influential figures of the Clone Wars.Asajj Ventress was born on Dathomir to a tribe of Force wielding witches known as Nightsisters. Now the Nightsisters were not Force users in the same sense that the Jedi or Sith were. Rather, they used the Force to practice ancient rituals and spells known as Magick. Though “magic” is often a general term applied to anything that seems fantastical and impossible to the mind of the average being, in this case it is the name of a specific type of Force manipulation. This form of Force use has been referred to by other species as Force Magic or Force Sorcery, and is derived from a connection to the Dark Side of the Force.The Nightsisters' particular type of Magick was very ritualistic and mystical in nature. The source of this power, or at least the catalyst that made it much more potent, came from the planet Dathomir itself. For that reason, it was uncommon for Nightsisters to venture away from their home world for much of their history. The Nightsisters used their Magick for deception and illusion as well as attack. Additionally they used it to hold dominion over a tribe of male Zabraks on Dathomir dubbed Nightbrothers. This matriarchal relationship with the Nightbrothers would eventually help solidify a relationship between the Nightsisters and the Sith.Mother Talzin, the Nightsister elder who led the clan when Asajj Ventress was born, interacted with Darth Sidious, or Emperor Palpatine, on numerous occasions. Initially their relationship was academic, with the two exchanging knowledge of the Force. Eventually though, it led to Mother Talzin providing him with one of her sons as his apprentice. We aren’t entirely sure as to why Mother Talzin chose to deliver her son to Sidious for training. It is possible that she was running low on information and Force techniques and thought that providing the Sith with an apprentice would convince him that she was still useful and thus protect her people.Being born during Mother Talzin’s reign put Ventress in a position where she should have been able to ascend to a place of power amongst her people, but that was not meant to be. Despite their prowess with Force Magic, the Nightsisters were sometimes forced to negotiate with hostile forces that came to Dathomir. One such negotiation for peace, between the Nightsisters and a Siniteen pirate named Hal’Sted, saw Mother Talzin forced to surrender an infant Ventress to the pirate to be his slave.Hal’Sted took Asajj with him to the war torn world of Rattatak, where the Siniteen was constantly in conflict with rival Weequay pirate bands. By all accounts we have been able to uncover, Hal’Sted was a kind master to Ventress, despite his naturally violent profession and the conflict swirling around him. Rattatak’s location in the Western Reaches near the Outer Rim placed it in a region of the galaxy known for its lawless worlds, such as Jakku and Takodana. One of the failings of the Old Republic was its tendency to focus inward to the Core, and turn a blind eye to pirate and cartel havens that weren’t actively disrupting Republic business and life.That never ending conflict on Rattatak eventually caught up to the pirate however, and while Ventress was still a child, Hal’Sted was killed during a Weequay raid on the village they lived in. Ventress was saved from the same fate as her late master when the Jedi Ky Narec, who had been defending the citizens of Rattatak from the Weequay pirates since becoming stranded on the planet, found her.Sensing the young Dathomirian’s prowess in the Force, Narec took Ventress under his wing and trained her as his Padawan for some twenty galactic standard years. Under his tutelage, she received her earliest training in using the Force and lightsaber combat. She was also given the opportunity to join Narec in combating the pirates who had nearly left her an orphan. During this time in her life, Ventress came to be seen as a hero by the beings she protected due to her fighting alongside the Jedi. Had she continued down this path, its quite possible that her name would be spoken of in the same breath as Skywalker, Kenobi, Windu and Yoda as one of the great Jedi of the late Republic era.Unfortunately for Ventress, this time of learning and happiness would come to an end when Narec was eventually killed during a pirate raid. For the second time in her relatively young life, Asajj Ventress found herself robbed of a kind master and teacher by pirates. Ventress became enraged by the death of Narec, and struck out in fury at the pirates, wielding both her own lightsaber and the weapon of her fallen master. She waged a brutal and bloody war against the pirates of Rattatak, fueled by heartbreak, rage, and vengeance. Due to her relative lack of training, and no longer having any being to mentor her, Ventress was unable to avoid succumbing to those emotions, and in doing so gave herself to the Dark Side of the Force.This isn’t the first time in today’s lecture that I’ve made mention of the Dark Side, nor is it the first time that I’ve noticed the smirks and eye rolls throughout the lecture hall. I realize that the idea of all things in our galaxy being shuffled into the categories of either light or dark, good or bad, seems simplistic and even naive especially to those who don’t subscribe in a belief in the living Force. Trust me though my dear students; the Dark Side is real. All beings experience the emotions associated with that path during their existences; fear, anger, hate, suffering. Does that mean we have all fallen to the Dark Side? No. It does, however, provide each and every being with a choice on their path based on their response to those emotions.
When confronted with these painful feelings, we can accept that they exist and choose to rise above them in an attempt to bring goodness into our lives and the lives of beings around us, or we can give in to them and end up contributing more of those horrors to the galaxy, and I'd prefer to have less material to work with in this regard. It isn’t always as grandiose as the conflict between the Jedi and Sith, but it is a choice each of us are faced with, typically multiple times in our lives. Each of you can probably think of a moment in your own existence that has already brought you face-to-face with that decision. Whether you believe in the existence of the Force or not, I think we can all understand how the choice between positive and negative can impact the remainder of your life cycle.I apologize for that diversion into religious studies, but in the case of our subject it is important to understand these things. I believe we were at the point where Ventress began striking out against the pirates of Rattatak on her own, yes?Fueled by her newfound rage, Ventress took the fight to the pirates and warlords of Rattatak and eventually managed to kill most of their leaders and claim control of the planet for herself. From a devastated Jedi Padawan to the ruler of an entire planet...such leaps in power are what make the pull of the Dark Side so seductive. However, her dark powers proved to not be enough to finish the job she had set out to do. The final target for Ventress on Rattatak was a warlord named Osika Kirske, who had ordered the death of her Jedi master. Ventress attempted to assassinate Kirske, but failed and was captured. She once again found herself enslaved, and this time her master was decidedly not kind.Ventress was placed in a shock collar, and forced to fight in a gladiatorial arena on Rattatak for the amusement of her new master and his cohorts. Ventress butchered every opponent that was put up against her during this time, and as she continually struck down her enemies, her presence in the Dark Side of the Force grew. Eventually, it attracted the attention of the man who would play arguably the greatest role in Ventress’ life and set her on the path to becoming a feared name throughout the Galaxy.It was in this arena on Rattatak that Asajj Ventress caught the eye of Count Dooku.Dooku is a man who certainly deserves to be discussed and analyzed at great length, but allow me to provide a primer. Dooku was born to the ruling family of Serenno but was abandoned by his parents who contacted the Jedi order upon learning of his Force sensitivity. His father, it seems, had no desire to be associated with a child possessing the kind of power the young Dooku had. Dooku was taken to the Jedi Grand Temple on Coruscant where he trained as a Youngling, and was eventually selected by Jedi Grand Master Yoda to be his apprentice.As a Jedi, Dooku was obsessed with visions of the future and relics that could help him interpret those visions. This caused friction between Dooku and the Order’s Masters, including Yoda, who believed that taking such visions and prophecies too seriously and trying to dictate the future could lead one down a dark path. When one becomes convinced of what the future holds, they often do things that ensure that future either comes to fruition or is avoided. Such attempted control is not the Jedi way, as they are taught that all will be as the Force wills it. For the Jedi, the Force is meant to act as a guiding beacon. One must trust in the Force and give themselves to it in order to best serve the galaxy. To try and manipulate and twist the Force and wield it as a weapon...those techniques are seen as unnatural.Eventually Dooku became disillusioned with the Jedi and left the Order, returning home to claim his place as the Count of Serenno. After elevating himself to Count, Dooku became a recluse and was rarely seen in public. During his self-imposed exile, Dooku embraced the ways of the Sith and had become the new apprentice to Darth Sidious after Sidous’ previous apprentice, Mother Talzin’s son, had been seemingly killed on Naboo by the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi.Years after his disappearance from the public eye, Dooku re-emerged to deliver a holonet speech rallying against the corruption of the Republic, thus setting the stage for the Separatist movement he would lead during the Clone Wars. It was likely around this time or shortly thereafter that Dooku came across Asajj Ventress on Rattatak, and sensing the dark powers within her, recruited her to be his understudy and an assassin to be used by the Sith. It is the Sith way to constantly seek more power, which for Dooku meant scheming to find an apprentice of his own that could help him overthrow his master Sidious and claim the top spot in the Sith hierarchy.Ventress agreed to pledge herself to Dooku since allying with him would give her the opportunity to further develop her lightsaber and Force skills as well as allow her to strike at the Jedi, whom she blamed for abandoning her former Jedi teacher Ky Narec on Rattatak leading to his eventual death. Ventress began wielding twin red-bladed lightsabers with curved hilts, the style favored by Dooku, and was installed as a high-ranking official in the newly formed military of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the CIS, or Separatists during the Clone Wars. It was in this role that Ventress would become feared throughout the Republic as a being not to be trifled with.This reputation was well earned given that the moment which essentially served as her unveiling to the Republic and the Jedi was the execution of the Jedi Master Tholm, despite his surrender after a brief clash with Ventress. After that incident, Ventress had the full attention of the Jedi Order, especially the lauded duo of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, who would clash with the Sith acolyte on numerous occasions.The earliest such clash came at the Battle of Christophsis towards the beginning of the Clone Wars. Ventress led the ground assault, along with Kerkoidian General Whorm Loathsom, while the tenacious Harch naval commander Admiral Trench oversaw the fleet in orbit above the planet. Trench had his ships under his command form a blockade around the planet while Ventress took a droid army down to the planet’s surface and proceeded to raze major cities and harass the local population.Anakin Skywalker was eventually able to break Trench’s blockade, thus allowing him and Obi-Wan Kenobi to land a Clone force on the planet and take the fight to Ventress’ droids. The Clones suffered heavy losses early on, prompting Skywalker and Kenobi to rethink their strategy. The need for a new plan of attack was reinforced after the Jedi Generals discovered classified Republic intelligence briefs in the memory of a captured tactical droid, leading them to suspect there was a traitor amongst the Clones. Skywalker and Kenobi decided to sneak behind enemy lines and attempt to capture Ventress and end the conflict that way.Ventress had her droid forces give the Jedi easy access to her command headquarters and then engaged them in a brief but fierce lightsaber duel. This was done to allow time for Separatist reinforcements to land in the city. Once the additional droids were landing on the planet, Ventress disengaged and fled the system. Why flee when victory was seemingly at hand? Because the destruction wrought on Christophsis was in actuality only a distraction meant to occupy the Jedi.Ventress was off to Tatooine - yes, Tatooine,again - where she would kidnap the son of Hutt Cartel leader Jabba the Hutt, Rotta. Dooku and Ventress knew that Jabba was likely to contact the Jedi for assistance in recovering his son, in addition of course to sending a slew of bounty hunters after the Huttlet. The Sith duo sought to lure in the Jedi and edit footage of their attempted rescue of the Hutt to convince Jabba that it had actually been the Jedi who kidnapped the Cartel leader’s heir and swing the power of the Hutts to the Separatist side of the war.Jabba’s bounty hunters were successful in locating his child, tracking him to a monastery on the planet Teth in Wild Space, but fared rather poorly when it came to actually recovering Rotta. Ventress intercepted and beheaded each bounty hunter who entered the monastery and then sent their heads back to Jabba to mock the Hutt. This gesture also likely served the dual purpose of allowing the Hutt to see that his hunters had been killed by lightsabers, which would help reinforce the story Dooku hoped to convince Jabba of. Just as Count Dooku predicted, Jabba the Hutt reached out to the Jedi Order and asked them to help locate his son in exchange for free passage through Hutt space.After defeating the droid forces on Christophsis, Anakin Skywalker and his newly appointed Padawan, the Togruta Ahsoka Tano, were sent to Teth to recover the Huttlet, which they succeeded in doing. Ventress was able to capture footage of the two Jedi loading an ill and fussy Rotta into a pack while Skywalker, a native of Tatooine who was certainly familiar with Jabba from his pod racing days, went on about his distaste for the Hutts. Ventress transmitted the footage to Dooku who in turn showed it to Jabba to convince him that the Jedi had been the ones behind the kidnapping. The Hutt clan patriarch became enraged when shown the footage, and Dooku conveniently offered to have his apprentice retrieve the child from the Jedi. The first part of the gambit, convincing the Hutts that the Republic and Jedi couldn’t be trusted and that the CIS was a better ally had worked, and Jabba agreed that if Dooku could retrieve his son unharmed, he would join the Separatists. Now it fell to Ventress to recover Rotta.Continued

PROFESSOR:
Dooku sent additional droids and ships to reinforce Ventress, and they managed to force the Jedi and the Clones accompanying them back into the Monastery. After a brief delay in opening the sealed front blast doors, Ventress gained access to the building and pursued Skywalker and Tano, but wasn’t able to capture them or the Huttlet, and after a brief lightsaber fight with Obi-Wan Kenobi, who had arrived on Teth with Republic reinforcements, Ventress was forced to retreat and inform her master Dooku that she had failed.She wasn’t quite ready to give up on the scheme she and Dooku had put into play, however, as she informed Dooku and Jabba that Skywalker had killed his son and was en route to Tatooine to slay Jabba as well. Ventress must have thought that this gamble would have given either her or Dooku a chance to defeat Skywalker and in doing so find a way to salvage some favor from Jabba, but it wasn’t to be for the pair of Sith.Skywalker and Tano were able to return Rotta to his father and in doing so show that he had been manipulated by the Count. If you know anything about Hutts there are few things, other than stealing credits from them, that could possibly anger them as much as wounding their egos. Jabba agreed to a treaty of cooperation with the Republic, sealing the fate of Dooku and Ventress’ mission as a total failure. As I mentioned earlier, Christophsis and the Hutt incident were only the first of many situations in which Ventress would be tasked with going up against the Jedi and the Republic in an effort to either outright defeat them in battle or sway a neutral planet to their cause.Another notable example from early on in the war included an incident on the moon Rugosa in which Ventress was deployed by Dooku to try and convince the Toydarian King Katuunko to side with the CIS upon learning that the King was traveling to the moon to meet in secret with Jedi Grand Master Yoda concerning an arrangement that would allow the Republic to use Toydaria as a staging ground for relief missions to Ryloth. That occasion once again saw Ventress and her forces gain a significant advantage over the Republic and Jedi, only to eventually fail in their mission. When Ventress failed to convince King Katuunko to join the Separatists, Dooku ordered her to kill the Toydarian so a pro-CIS monarch could be installed, but she was stopped from assassinating the monarch by Yoda.Ventress was beginning to develop a habit of failing Count Dooku, and one thing that any Sith apprentice should avoid at all cost is failing their master, especially repeatedly. Despite these failures however, Dooku continued to rely on Ventress during the Clone Wars. The only other being he relied on as heavily as Ventress was the part-droid commander of the Separatist military General Grievous. This led to a rivalry between Ventress and Grievous that would see them butt heads and try to outmaneuver one another for many years to come.The last early-war example of Ventress’ struggles against the Jedi that I would like to touch on takes us to Rodia, or at least to the Rodia system, where the high-ranking Separatist leader and Viceroy of the Trade Federation Nute Gunray had been captured by the Republic after a failed assassination attempt on the Republic Senator from Naboo, Padme Amidala. Dooku knew that Gunray being in Republic custody was a massive risk to him and his master Sidious personally as well as a threat to the future of the Separatist movement. The Count needed to either recover the Viceroy or find a way to ensure the Republic didn’t gain any information from him by terminating the Neimoidian. Dooku turned to his apprentice once again to take charge of the situation and sent Ventress and a detachment of droids to intercept the Republic Star Destroyer that Gunray was being held captive aboard, the Tranquility.The strike team traveled to Rodia in a Droch-class boarding ship which allowed them to pierce the armor of the Star Destroyer and deploy directly inside of the Republic ship. Ventress and dozens of B2-series Super Battle Droids swept onto the Tranquility and quickly dispatched the initial wave of resistance. Ventress then left the droids to wreak havoc on the ship while she took to the ventilation shafts to move towards Nute gunray’s position.Republic forces managed to neutralize the battle droids and likely thought that the threat had passed when Ventress dropped into the detention area and confronted Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano and Republic Senate Commando Captain Faro Argyus, who were guarding the Viceroy. After a brief engagement, Ventress managed to free Gunray and temporarily neutralize Tano by trapping her inside of the cell that had just held the Neimoidian. Ventress’ victory was short lived however, as she was ambushed by Jedi Master Luminara Unduli who managed to free Tano so that the pair of Jedi could take the fight to the Sith assassin. Ventress was quickly overwhelmed by the Jedi and surrendered.What Unduli and Tano didn’t know was that Ventress had made a stop in the engine compartment of the ship on her journey through the ventilation system and planted multiple thermal detonators prior to her arrival in the detention block. At the moment of Ventress’ seeming surrender the timers on the explosives hit zero and a rapid series of explosions rocked the ship, providing the Sith acolyte with the distraction she needed to escape her would-be Jedi captors.Unduli pursued Ventress with Tano not far behind her, leaving the Viceroy in the custody of Captain Argyus. Unduli tracked Ventress back to the ruined engine room of the Star Destroyer where the Sith managed to gain the upper hand, disarming Unduli and pinning the Jedi Master under heavy pipes she had cut free using her lightsabers. Before the killing blow could be struck, Ahsoka Tano interrupted and managed to rescue Unduli and recover her lightsaber for her. As the two Jedi engaged Ventress again, the Sith used a stolen Clone communicator to send a signal to somebody aboard the ship. Unbeknownst to the Republic, Ventress had a collaborator on the Tranquility, and it happened to be Captain Faro Argyus, who found himself alone with Nute Gunray save for a small security detail.Argyus killed his fellow commandos and began escorting the Viceroy towards freedom. He signaled Ventress, who was holding her own against the pair of Jedi, that they were on their way to make an escape, prompting Ventress to break off the fight right as Tano and Unduli were informed of Argyus’ betrayal. Gunray and Argyus managed to escape the Tranquility aboard a stolen Republic frigate, while Ventress used an escape pod to flee the wounded vessel and rendezvous with the pair. Ventress successfully escorted Gunray back to Dooku, and according to old CIS records Argyus was found aboard the frigate with a lightsaber hole burned through his chest. Perhaps Ventress was unwilling to share the success of the mission with the Republic traitor.The recovery of Viceroy Nute Gunray would have been a boon for Ventress given that other early key missions she had been tasked with were not successfully completed. It likely bought her more time in Dooku’s good graces and perhaps gave her an advantage over, or at least brought her even with, General Grievous in the Count’s eyes. Dooku would continue to pit Ventress and Grievous against one another throughout the war, and at times would deploy them on large scale missions together, perhaps in an effort to bring the rivalry to a head and force one of his proteges to step up and claim their place as his true second in command.Jumping forward now to a later point in the Clone Wars we will take a look at one of those collaborative engagements with Ventress and Grievous; The Battle of Kamino. Kamino was the homeworld of the Republic’s clone army, and housed the production and training facilities used to continuously supply the Republic with a top notch fighting force. A target like that could only avoid drawing the Separatists’ interests for so long before they sought to strike at the heart of their enemy’s army.Dooku had ordered Ventress and Grievous to collaborate on an attack on Kamino years prior to this particular assault, but the plan had fallen apart when Grievous was unable to stop the Rishi Station outpost from warning Kamino of an imminent attack. Though the clone troopers at Rishi Station had succeeded in preventing that attack, the outpost was destroyed in the process, thus leaving Kamino vulnerable to an assault at a later point. As the war slogged on and the CIS found itself unable to gain a signifcant or lasting advantage over the Republic, the temptation of attacking the planet that was solely responsible for delivering the Republic’s fighting forces became too much to resist despite the risk or hitting such a hard target.Ventress was sent to Kamino ahead of Grievous and his fleet in a Trident-class submersible assault craft with a contingent of amphibious AQ-series battle droids. The goal was for the Separatist fleet under Grievous to engage the staunch Republic defenses in orbit over the planet while dropping more Trident assault vehicles disguised as debris from wounded ships to reinforce Ventress and her small strike team as she launched a surface mission aimed at recovering the genetic source material for the clones.Just prior to the assault, Ventress sent a transmission from her position beneath the Kaminoan waves to Grievous informing him that everything was set for the plan to be put into action. What neither Separatist military commander knew though was that the Republic had managed to intercept and decipher that transmission, prompting them to quickly deploy Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the 501st Clone Legion to Kamino in an effort to stifle the offensive. Grievous dropped out of hyperspace and threw his fleet at the Republic forces above Kamino, intentionally sacrificing several of his ships to covertly drop the Trident assault craft down into the turbulent Kaminoan waters where they could join Ventress’ assault.
As the space battle drew towards a conclusion, with the vastly larger Republic force crushing the Separatists, Ventress launched her prong of the attack, using the Trident submersibles to drill into the support struts of Tipoca City and inserting her forces into the cloning facilities while Grievous led a frontal assault to try and hold the attention of the clones and their Jedi Generals. Using a similar tactical approach to the one she employed on the Tranquility over Rodia, Ventress broke off from her droid forces and made her way directly to her objective; the DNA archive room containing the genetic material of the Bounty Hunter Jango Fett which had been used to create the clones. Without that material the Republic would be forced to find a new donor and develop new clones from that DNA, thus delaying their troop production to a potentially catastrophic degree.En route to the archive, Ventress encountered a group of clones holding their own against Grievous and his droid troops, whom she quickly and brutally dispatched. Apparently impressed by his rival’s skills Grievous offered to send a group of droids to help Ventress in her task, but she refused. Ventress managed to infiltrate the DNA archive successfully and retrieve the coveted genetic material, but was unable to make a hasty escape due to the intervention of her now long-time recurring rival Anakin Skywalker. Skywalker and Ventress engaged in a fierce lightsaber battle through the corridors and across the platforms of Tipoca City with the advantage turning from one being to the other repeatedly. Eventually the battle came to a halt outside the cloning facility when Skywalker managed to force Ventress to drop the DNA canister, and it was recovered by one of many clone troopers who had noticed the clash of lightsabers and came to aid the Jedi General.Just as it seemed that Ventress was finally going to be either captured or killed, General Grievous passed overhead in a stolen Kaminoan flight pod that Ventress was able to use her force abilities to leap to and escape. Yet again Ventress had come so painfully close to accomplishing her task and had failed, and while the attack on Kamino had been a joint effort with Grievous, it had been Ventress’ job to recover the genetic material while Grievous provided a distraction. That, coupled with her refusal to take supporting droid troops with her to aid in her objective, placed a greater responsibility for the failure on Asajj Ventress.In order to avoid a complete retelling of the entirety of the Clone Wars, I’d like to jump to the final event that we will examine during today’s lecture. Ventress continued to serve Dooku, both successfully and unsuccessfully, but the most pivotal point in Ventress’ life to date would come during an assault led by Ventress and a fleet under her command on Sullust.Ventress’ considerable fleet engaged a Republic force in orbit over Sullust consisting of ships under the command of Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Admiral Wullf Yualarin with Ventress leading the fight from her Ginivex-class fanblade starfighter. Early on in the battle the CIS forces were pummeling the Republic ships and even managed to destroy Yularin’s Venator-class Star destroyer, the Resolute, though the Admiral was able to escape.The tide turned for Ventress when she engaged Kenobi and Skywalker, who had deployed into the fray in their personal fighters. Ventress managed to score a hit on Kenobi and disable his fighter, but immediately took damage from Skywalker who was on her tail, forcing both Kenobi and Ventress to crash land in the hangar of her Dreadnaught with Skywalker following to lend support to his master. Ventress contacted Count Dooku for reinforcements to help her defeat the Jedi pair, but quickly learned that her time as Dooku’s apprentice had come to an end.It is unknown why exactly Dooku picked this moment to abandon Ventress. Perhaps her repeated failures had become too much of a nuisance. It is also possible that as Ventress became more powerful, the Count’s own master sensed the plot to use Ventress against him and ordered Dooku to kill her. The specific motivation remains a mystery, but what is known is that Ventress was refused reinforcements, and Dooku ordered one of the other Separatist ships to fire on Ventress’ position.Skywalker and Kenobi fled the hangar as the ship took heavy fire and began to break up, leaving the wounded Ventress to die. Somehow the now-former Sith managed to crawl into her damaged fighter and escape the dreadnought before it exploded, wiping out most of the remaining Separatist fleet with it. Ventress once again found herself alone and without a master or any other guidance. Yet again she had struggled to carve out a place for herself in the galaxy only to be dealt a crushing defeat. Unlike the previous times in her life however, this time her former master wasn’t dead and Ventress was much more powerful than she had ever been. A woman as strong as Asajj Ventress and with her lust for vengeance would not go quietly from the holos of history.In our next lecture we will explore just how Ventress went about seeking her revenge on Dooku.(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for your time and enjoy the remainder of your day.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Welcome back to Galactic History. I hope everybody has had time to chew over our last lecture and is ready to continue the story of Asajj Ventress’ life. In our last lecture, we covered Ventress’ turbulent early life from her birth on Dathomir up to the point where she was betrayed and left for dead by Count Dooku. If you were unable to attend that lecture I highly encourage you to seek out the recordings we make available at your earliest convenience to get the necessary backstory.Despite the considerable amount of heartache, loss, and betrayal she had experienced, Asajj Ventress was somehow still alive, and as I said in closing during our last lecture, she was not going to just go away. She was going to do what had previously been a path to power for her. She was going to seek revenge on those who had wronged her. Specifically, she was going to try to kill Count Dooku.There is no direct record of where Ventress went or how she got there following Dooku’s betrayal at the Battle of Sullust. However, we can draw conclusions as to what happened based on the events that followed in the weeks and months after that battle. Let us start unraveling this mystery by first examining an assassination attempt against Count Dooku at his palace on Serenno that took place a short time after the Battle of Sullust.Security holo footage from within the palace as well as Dooku’s own account of the events tell us that three figures, disguised by what appeared to be personal stealth generators, infiltrated the Count’s personal chambers. Dooku was struck in the neck by a poisoned dart which jolted him from his sleep, and also caused the Count to temporarily lose his vision. He was able to recover his lightsaber to arm himself against his attackers, and relied on the Force to sense where the assassins were striking from. Count Dooku had a brief battle with the three stealthy figures, all of whom were armed with lightsabers, and during the conflict it began to look as if the assassins might actually achieve their goal until the Count summoned his dark powers and caught all three of his attackers in a blast of Force Lightning. While electrocuting his assailants, he flung them through the window to fall into the forest below.I hesitate to give any Sith too much credit but do feel it necessary to pause briefly and acknowledge Dooku’s prowess. The man, who at this point was around 80 galactic standard years of age, which for a human is certainly toward the elder end of a life cycle, managed to fight off three assassins after being woken from his slumber by a poison dart. All that while being unable to use his eyes to see his attackers. It leads one to wonder what could have been had Dooku not left the Jedi Order and subsequently fallen to the Dark Side, or at the very least gives one a heightened appreciation for the talents of the Separatist leader.Shortly after the failed assassination attempt, Dooku was contacted by Mother Talzin of the Nightsisters who revealed that she was aware that Dooku had lost his apprentice and favored assassin Ventress. Talzin managed to satisfy Dooku’s suspicion as to exactly how she knew this by alluding to sensing the fall of the former Nightsister through the Force. Talzin offered Dooku a new apprentice from amongst the Nightbrothers, the tribe of male Zabraks that the Nightsisters held dominion over which I briefly mentioned during our last lecture. Having just survived an attempt on his life and likely feeling a bit vulnerable, Dooku agreed to travel to Dathomir to meet with Mother Talzin and take on a new apprentice from amongst the Nightbrothers.Dooku traveled to Dathomir and met with Mother Talzin, where she offered him a Nightbrother of the same bloodline as the apprentice she had provided Darth Sidious with many years prior. Having disposed of Ventress and believing that the Jedi had just attempted to kill him in his home on Serenno, Dooku agreed to take on a Nightbrother as his new apprentice and personal assassin.Some time later, Mother Talzin traveled to Serenno and presented Count Dooku with his new apprentice: Savage Opress. Dooku took Opress under his wing and began using him in the same fashion he had used Ventress.The first mission Opress was sent on took him to the planet Devaron. Dooku had tasked his new apprentice with seizing the temple of Eedit, which was the headquarters for Republic operations on the planet. Savage succeeded in taking the temple, and in doing so brutally killed the Jedi Halsey and his apprentice Knox. The fall of Devaron, and the murder of two Jedi, got the attention of the Jedi Council who tasked Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker with identifying this new Separatist threat and tracking him down.After examining the bodies of their fallen comrades and reviewing holo footage from Devaron, Kenobi determined that the assailant had originated from Dathomir. Kenobi and Skywalker departed Coruscant for the planet of the witches. Upon their arrival on Dathomir, the pair of Jedi were ambushed by the Nightbrothers, but got them to stand down from their attack when Skywalker captured Brother Viscus, who was the leader of the Zabrak clan.Viscus informed the Jedi that the man they were seeking had been taken by one of the Nightsisters and that Mother Talzin would know his whereabouts. Kenobi and Skywalker were captured by the Nightsisters and brought to Mother Talzin who, in order to protect her clan from the prying of the Jedi, informed the pair that Savage Opress was on Toydaria, where Dooku had sent him to capture King Katuunko in order to force him to ally with the CIS, thus completing the task that Ventress had failed at on Rugosa some years prior.Kenobi and Skywalker arrived on Toydaria as Opress was attempting to kidnap the King and a scuffle broke out between the Jedi and the new Sith apprentice. During the fray, Katuunko attempted to flee, and Opress, who had been training under Dooku to improve his lightsaber and Force skills, reached out with the Force and snapped the Toydarian’s neck, killing him instantly. Oppress fled the planet with the King’s corpse and delivered it to Dooku, who was waiting aboard a CIS ship in orbit above the planet for his apprentice to return. Once again using holo recordings and reports from aboard the ship, we know that Dooku was enraged at his apprentice’s failure to bring King Katuunko in alive and began punishing him with a flurry of Force Lightning attacks.
About now you all may be wondering why I’m telling you all about Dooku’s new apprentice instead of regaling you with the story of how Ventress managed to survive her Master’s betrayal at Sullust and continue on with her life. It is because everything I have told you was all put in motion by Asajj Ventress herself.Following her near death experience at Sullust, Ventress had returned to her home planet of Dathomir where she had been taken in and healed by Mother Talzin and the Nightsisters. Once she had regained her strength she had set out on her path to try and destroy Count Dooku. Those three lightsaber wielding assassins we discussed earlier who had attacked and poisoned Dooku in his sleep? Ventress and two of her fellow Nightsisters. Though that attempt had failed, it provided them a new opportunity to try and strike at the Count. Dooku was vulnerable and in need of a new apprentice and assassin, so why not offer him one from Dathomir? One you had used your Magick to quickly empower and bring under your command. One you could hand deliver to your enemy and have gain his favor and benefit from his training until he was strong enough to help you defeat Count Dooku.That was the plan that Ventress and Mother Talzin had put into play with Savage Opress, or at least that is what the surrounding evidence leads us to believe is most likely the case. To Ventress and Talzin, it had no doubt seemed that the plan was working to perfection, and once they sensed Opress was strong enough they would spring their well laid trap, killing the Count and giving Ventress her revenge. However, the interference of the Jedi likely forced the Nightsisters to accelerate their plan. With Kenobi and Skywalker pursuing Opress, they couldn’t afford to wait and possibly have their chance spoiled by the Jedi taking out the Nightbrother. Whether Opress was prepared or not, they had to act and try to kill Dooku before the opportunity slipped away. That is why, while Dooku was pouring Force Lightning into the body of Savage Opress, the door to his quarters aboard the CIS ship opened and he was confronted by his former apprentice Asajj Ventress.Ventress sprang at the Count and tried to rally Opress to join her and strike the killing blow against her former master. Dooku was able to keep the fight a one-on-one affair however, because every time Opress tried to engage him he would deliver another painful blast of Force Lightning. As the fight went on and Opress continued to not be able to gain his footing and aid Ventress, she began to berate the Nightbrother. As the verbal assault went on, Opress reached out with the Force, grasping both Dooku and Ventress in his clutches and throwing them against the wall before charging at them with his double bladed lightsaber. Ventress and Dooku managed to survive the onslaught by temporarily working together.When Dooku used his Force Lightning against Opress yet again, Ventress hit him with a telekinetic blast that flung him across the room. This bought the pair just enough time to drop through a hatch in the floor and escape to a lower level of the ship. Opress tried to pursue them, but the hatch sealed and he was forced to make his escape from the ship. Ventress engaged Dooku yet again in the lower levels of the ship, but didn’t have the power to defeat the Sith Lord on her own and was forced to flee in an escape pod that took her down to the surface of Toydaria.
Following yet another failed attempt to kill her former master, Ventress eluded the eye of history for a brief period before eventually returning to Dathomir. Meanwhile, Dooku was plotting revenge of his own against Ventress and the Nightsisters. Dooku would deploy a fleet led by General Grievous to Dathomir, with instructions to eradicate the Nightsisters. Following attack runs by Hyena bombers and Vulture droids, Grievous deployed ground troops and sent them towards the witches’ stronghold.Ventress led her sisters in battle and they were managing to hold their own against the droids until the Separatists deployed defoliator missiles against the Dathomirians. Defoliator missiles had been developed early on in the war by the Neimoidian General Lok Durd and were capable of incinerating all organic matter while leaving the machines unharmed. The Nightsisters were forced to fall back in the face of such a devastating weapon, but were able to advance once again when they were reinforced by a large number of their fellow sisters.There are some reports from the droid data that survived the invasion of Dathomir that suggests these reinforcements came in the form of undead Nightsisters that spawned from the burial pods that the Nightsisters would ritualistically lay their mummified fallen to rest in. I am no expert in the Magick used by the Nightsisters, but at first pass I must say I find it unlikely that these warriors were reanimated corpses. It is more likely that they were Nightsisters who were hiding in the canopy waiting to ambush the droid forces.That said, there are other instances from across our galaxy of parasitic creatures such as Geonosian brain worms and Abersyn symbiotes that allowed the queens of their colonies to take control of the beings they feed off of, and can even reanimate a corpse. That being the case I can’t completely rule out the possibility that a parasite of some sort controlled by the Nightsisters or perhaps even their Force Magick was used to provide them with an undead army with which to strike back at Grievous’ forces. It is, after all, a strange galaxy in which we live.Regardless of what their reinforcements were or where they came from, the Nightsisters were able to turn the tide of the battle and Ventress, having commandeered a droid Armored Assault Tank and using it to destroy the Defoliator Deployment Tanks, advanced to the droid staging area, where she challenged Grievous to a duel in an attempt to limit the casualties of her clan.
Grievous agreed, but after being bested by Ventress in the duel, ordered his B-2 Super Battle droids to kill Ventress before the final blow could be struck. Ventress was overwhelmed and took a blaster bolt to the shoulder, forcing her to flee into the wilderness of Dathomir. Grievous and his forces then proceeded to carry out the genocide they had come to deliver and killed every remaining Nightsister in the clan, save for Ventress, who they were unable to track down.So at this point in her life, Asajj Ventress has been a slave, twice, has seen two of her mentors murdered and has been betrayed by another, and then saw the decimation of her entire clan at the hands of her longtime rival General Grievous. The burden of such a painful life must have been massive, but still she persisted. For a being so tainted by the Dark Side, she really was rather admirable.
Eventually, Ventress resurfaced on our favorite ball of twin-sun-baked dirt Tatooine, where she embarked on a new life as a bounty hunter which began by running a job with a young Boba Fett and his crew. I mention Fett here because the intersecting paths of notable figures in Galactic History never cease to amaze me. Ventress worked with the son of the man whose genetic material, which she had once been tasked with stealing, and was the blueprint for the entire army she had fought under Dooku’s service. Simply fascinating.I won’t spend time discussing every bounty that Ventress took but there are two of note that should be examined. The first was acquired on Tatooine in the same cantina where she was introduced to life as a bounty hunter. Ventress overheard other bounty hunters in the cantina discussing a highly lucrative target worth one million credits. This bounty happened to have a name that was all too familiar to Ventress: Savage Opress.Ventress claimed the bounty for herself and set off in pursuit of the Nightbrother whose lack of polished skills and betrayal had led to her second failed attempt at killing Count Dooku. Her search eventually led her to the Outer Rim planet of Raydonia, which in terms of space travel was not all that far from Dathomir, where she spotted and boarded a cargo ship which then took off and made its way into space. On this vessel, Ventress did indeed find her bounty, Opress, but found two other beings she surely did not expect to see. Along with Savage Opress, Ventress discovered a captive Obi-Wan Kenobi and Savage’s long thought to be dead brother Maul. A bit of a Dathomirian family reunion, plus Kenobi.Ventress came out of hiding and taunted the brothers into pursuing her deeper into the cargo hold, and eventually back into the cockpit area. As Maul and Savage went into the cockpit looking for Ventress, she circled back and freed Kenobi, no doubt knowing she couldn’t take on both brothers alone and win. She gave one of her two red bladed lightsabers to Kenobi just as the brothers came into the cargo hold and engaged the unlikely allies.Ventress and Kenobi held their own against Savage and Maul, but as the fight went on it became obvious that due to Savage’s strength, which had been enhanced by the Nightsisters’ Magick prior to him being taken to Dooku, and the injuries Kenobi had sustained during his captivity, that they were outmatched. Kenobi made his way to the cockpit and was joined by Ventress after she had bought them some time. They detached the cockpit from the cargo hold using an escape module feature common on certain types of cargo ships and escaped.Ventress and Kenobi parted ways, with the Jedi having a heightened respect for the former Sith, and relayed her assistance in his escape to the Jedi Council. The Council was unconvinced Ventress was no longer in the service of the Separatists, but at least it planted the seed in their minds that perhaps she could one day be of use to the Jedi.Continued

PROFESSOR:
By this point Ventress had taken to wearing a helmet with a retractable face shield in order to move more covertly through the galaxy, which was necessary considering she was wanted by both the Republic and the CIS. This disguise even allowed her to operate on the Republic capitol world Coruscant, which is where she acquired the second bounty we will examine.
While awaiting payment for a bounty she had just brought in, Ventress saw a news holo advertising the Galactic Senate bounty for Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan Ahsoka Tano, who was wanted in connection to a bombing at the Jedi Temple which had just killed multiple Clone Troopers. Ventress caught up to Tano in the underlevels of Coruscant, where the Togruta had fled after being pursued by her master and a contingent of Clone Troopers, and captured her with the intention of taking her to a bounty broker to claim her credits, as it would have been ill advised for a being wanted as a war criminal to try and approach the Galactic Senate or Jedi Council.Tano pleaded her case to Ventress and asked her to help her prove her innocence, or to at least allow her to go free so she could prove it on her own. In this moment, Ventress likely saw much of herself in Ahsoka Tano: a young being strong in the Force who was seemingly betrayed by the beings closest to her, including her own master. Ventress agreed to aid Tano, and asked that she try to convince the Jedi Council and the Galactic Senate to pardon her if Tano was able to clear her own name.Their brief moment of bonding was interrupted when they were ambushed by Clone Troopers led by both Anakin Skywalker and Jedi Master Plo Koon. Ventress helped Tano escape and Skywlaker, having seen his Padawan in the company of a being the Jedi still believed to be a Sith, became convinced that Ventress had been behind the attack on the Temple and had framed Tano for the crime.The pair fled to Ventress’ hideout where Ahsoka reached out to one of the few Jedi she thought she could still trust for help in clearing her name. Using a public holobooth Tano contacted Barriss Offee, the Padawan of Jedi Master Luminara Unduli, and then set off for a munitions warehouse where she believed she would find proof of her innocence. Ventress agreed to escort Tano to the location, and after fighting off another Clone ambush succeeded in doing so, then parted ways with Tano.En route back to her hideout where she would wait for the rest of Tano’s saga to unfold, Ventress was attacked by a stealthy assailant who managed to knock her out and made off with her helmet and both of her lightsabers. This rogue attacker then ambushed Tano in the munitions warehouse wearing Ventress’ helmet and wielding her twin red blades, which not only convinced Ahsoka that she had been betrayed by Ventress, but delayed her long enough to be apprehended by Clone Troopers in a room surrounded by the exact type of explosives used to attack the Jedi Temple. Ventress went into hiding again while Tano was taken in and convicted of the attack, leading to her expulsion from the Jedi order. Convinced that Ventress had been the true culprit, Anakin Skywalker set out to track her down and restore his Padawan’s honor.Skywalker quickly caught up to Ventress and she relayed to him that she had been attacked and her gear stolen after guiding Tano to the warehouse, and that while she couldn’t identify her attacker, there had only been one other being aware of Tano’s plan: Barriss Offee. Skywalker believed Ventress’ story, and went to the Temple to confront Offee who upon questioning by a military tribunal admitted that she had been behind the attack on the temple after losing her faith in the Jedi Order during the war. Tano was released from custody and given a chance to return to the Jedi Order, but she refused and departed the Temple. After having seen how easily her fellow Jedi and the Republic military could be convinced that she would betray them, she could no longer find it in herself to serve their cause.Young Ahsoka Tano was perhaps more wise in that moment than the entirety of the Jedi Council. The Clone Wars were certainly not lacking in atrocities and tragedies, but perhaps the greatest of them was the way in which the Jedi were so easily led astray from their path as guardians and peacekeepers, a neutral party that could be trusted to adjudicate on disagreements across the galaxy, and embraced their role as Generals and soldiers. The question of what could have been had they swallowed their pride and sought answers as to why their ability to see and read the Force had been hampered instead of rushing to fight in Palpatine’s war is one of the most painful and powerful “what if” scenarios in our Galactic History...my apologies I didn’t mean to stray off topic so much there.The lesson I hope you take away from these two bounty hunting adventures that Ventress set out on is the change in her character. After so much heartache and pain, it would have been easy for her to offer no aid to either Kenobi or Tano, or to simply strike them down in their moments of weakness. Instead, she did what was right, and helped her former enemies. Yes, she had personal stakes in both scenarios as she needed Kenobi to fight Maul and Savage, and wanted Tano to try and get her a pardon, but it is worth acknowledging that it appeared as though the longer she spent out from under Dooku’s thumb, and really having nothing to do with Dooku at all, she become more like that Jedi Padawan on Rattatak and less like the vengeful Sith assassin she had been turned into.Unfortunately for Ventress, she wouldn’t be able to outrun her ties to Dooku for very much longer. While pursuing a bounty on Pantora, Ventress came into conflict with a rival bounty hunter who was also pursuing her mark. After verbally and physically sparring in pursuit of the target, the pair eventually completed the contract and despite Ventress’ tendency to work alone, she agreed to partner with this other bounty hunter for a time.Unbeknownst to Ventress, this being was not actually a bounty hunter. He was Jedi Master Quinlan Vos, and he had been sent by the Jedi Council to go undercover as a bounty hunter in order to gain Ventress’ trust and convince her to help him with the mission he had just been assigned: the assassination of Count Dooku. The Jedi had been trying throughout the entirety of the Clone Wars to capture Dooku in an attempt to neuter the CIS war effort and force a surrender. They changed their strategy from capture to assassination however, after the CIS attack on Mahranee, during which Dooku ordered the destruction of refugee ships loaded with Mahran citizens trying to flee the carnage.The Genocide on Mahranee finally convinced the Jedi Order that Count Dooku was well and truly lost, and had to be killed. They tasked Vos with tracking down Ventress and getting her to agree to help him go after Dooku. Nobody in the galaxy knew as much about the Count as Ventress, so she was seen as an integral part of the mission. Vos accompanied Ventress aboard her ship, the Banshee, for months, during which he trained alongside her, playing the role of a new bounty hunter in need of a guiding hand. As the pair completed numerous missions together their relationship began to develop into more than a professional one, though it wouldn’t be until after a particularly difficult mission to Mustafar that Vos, overcome by his blossoming affection for Ventress, would admit his true identity and purpose to the Nightsister.Ventress surprised Vos by telling him she had long suspected he was a Jedi given his unique combat prowess and ability to survive unsurvivable situations. She was however surprised that the Jedi Council would turn to assassination to deal with Dooku. She warned Vos that in order to accomplish his mission, he would have to stray from the Jedi path, and despite having long ago given up on the idea of killing the Count, she would help him if he was willing to further submit to her tutelage.Ventress had come so close to freeing herself of the spectre of her former Sith master. She had managed to carve out a successful life as a bounty hunter, managed to make some allies within the Jedi Order by aiding Kenobi and Skywalker, and had even taken to carrying a single yellow bladed lightsaber she had acquired on the black market, thus abandoning the style of blades Dooku had favored. Yet here, at the precipice of letting go of her past, she allowed herself to be dragged back down into the darkness because the Jedi selfishly would not let her be. Another in the long, sad list of failures of the Jedi in the darkest days of the Order. I’m not trying to free Ventress of blame here because she could have refused to help Vos, rather I want you to grasp the full picture.Vos agreed to the deal and left to deliver a report to the Jedi Council while Ventress began tapping back in to her old CIS connections in order to try and locate Dooku, and find an opportunity to strike at him. She also decided the best place to begin training Vos in the dark side techniques she believed he would need in order to kill Dooku was her now desolate homeworld of Dathomir.Upon their arrival on the planet, Vos was overcome by the pain and sorrow laced within the world from the eradication of the Nightsisters. Ventress encouraged him to focus on those feelings instead of rejecting them in order to bolster his strength and resolve. She insisted that the teachings of the Jedi alone would not be enough for him to overcome Count Dooku. Vos sympathized with the loss Ventress had struggled with and understood how such trauma could lead one down a dark path. He revealed to Ventress that he had been conflicted and nearly strayed from the Jedi path previously after the death of his master, Tholm. Hopefully you recall from our previous lecture that the execution of Tholm served as Ventress’ unveiling to the Republic. Ventress knew she could not tell Vos she had killed his master as it would crush his willingness to train under her, so she instead told him that Dooku killed Tholm. This not only gave Vos a personal reason to want to kill Dooku, but shook his trust in the Jedi for seemingly hiding the truth from him and made him more pliable to her dark teachings.Ventress subjected Vos to rigorous physical and mental training on Dathomir all the while continually trying to convince him to embrace the dark side more and more. His training eventually led Ventress to take him to the ruins of the Nightsisters village. Once inside the village, Ventress told Vos that an ancient and powerful creature known as The Sleeper lived in the depths of the underground pools in the village, and as a rite of passage Nightsisters would use the dark side to control the beast and harvest one of its many limbs which they used to create potions for their Magick. She also told Vos that he would have to face this same trial to solidify his dark training.As they prepared for this test, Vos informed Ventress he would not go back to the Jedi following the death of Dooku and confessed his love for the Nightsister, leading her to confess in kind. Despite her dark intentions, Ventress was discovering a new and potentially happy life that had escaped her for so long with Vos. The couple was interrupted by a transmission from an old associate of Ventress’, who informed them that Dooku was en route to the Separatist capital on Raxus.This forced Ventress to accelerate her plans for Vos’ final test, and the two set off for the caves beneath her village to confront the Sleeper. Vos succeeded in using his new dark side powers to lure the beast to the surface and onto the shore of one of the pools, but Ventress told him that control was not enough and he would have to kill the creature. Vos hesitated, not wanting to kill such a rare and ancient creature, but this allowed the Sleeper to seize him and drag him into the pool. After a struggle in which Vos was wounded, he eventually gave in and strangled the beast using the dark side. He reveled in his hate and power, and Ventress deemed him ready to face the Count so they departed for Raxus.Upon their arrival on the planet, the pair changed into formal attire to blend in at the gala where they planned to ambush Count Dooku. When they arrived at the gala, Vos set off to distract General Grievous, who was in charge of security for the event, while Ventress sought out the Count. She confronted Dooku in the dining room, and knowing he wouldn’t publicly kill her at an event celebrating his supposed humanitarian efforts, convinced him to meet her on the hall’s long balcony for a one-on-one duel. Dooku agreed to her terms, then of course tried to call Grievous for backup, but Vos had succeeded in trapping the General in the security command center and cutting him off from the Count.Dooku arrived and was caught off guard by the presence of Quinlan Vos. Ventress and Vos engaged the Count and quickly gained the upper hand, but during their duel Vos revealed that Ventress had trained him, which allowed Dooku to develop a strategy to fight back and take advantage of their relationship. Dooku managed to separate the pair, flinging Ventress from the overlook to the floor below them, where she was forced to fight off droids before rejoining Vos to spar Dooku. The Count had overcome Vos using his Force Lightning however, and Ventress was forced to retreat as Vos was dragged off by droids. She fled the planet but swore to herself she would rescue her newfound love from the clutches of her former master. For the third time she had failed to get revenge on Dooku, and this time her failure came at its highest cost yet.Believing the Jedi would not trust her and lend their aid in recovering Vos from Dooku, Ventress turned to her old bounty hunter contacts and despite their not-so-friendly relationship, sought help from Boba Fett and his crew. Ventress offered Fett what amounted to all the credits she had to her name if he would help her raid Dooku’s palace on Serreno and recover Vos. Fett agreed and they departed for Serreno on Fett’s ship, Slave I. Fett and his crew created a distraction at the cargo docks near Dooku’s palace, which caused enough droids to be diverted away from the palace for her to slip in. She rushed to the prison bloc and found Vos, physically and mentally broken from torture, in his cell.Vos seized Ventress in a Force choke and accused her of betraying him. During his captivity Vos had been given his dead master Tholm’s lightsaber by Dooku. Vos had a unique Force ability known as psychometry which allowed him to see the history of an item upon holding it. By picking up Tholm’s lightsaber, he saw that Ventress had lied to him and it had been her, the woman he had come to love, and not Dooku who slew his master. Vos attacked Ventress with his fallen master’s lightsaber in a fight that saw Ventress repeatedly wounded while trying to reason with Vos and bring him back from the dark side, a place she knew she had pushed him to. She continued to plead with him while falling back in the hopes that if she could get to the docks her bounty hunter compatriots could help her capture Vos. When she arrived at the docks she saw that the bounty hunters had actually managed to snag Dooku, who had come to investigate the disturbance there, in an incapacitating webbing. Knowing they couldn’t hold off the droid forces any longer, the bounty hunters were forced to flee, and Ventress was forced to accept she had lost Vos when he chose to run to aid Dooku instead of pursuing her.In her relentless pursuit of revenge against her former master who had so terribly wounded her, both mentally and physically, Ventress had driven a man she had come to trust and love not only to the dark side from which she had made her way back, but into the service of her greatest enemy.Left with no other options, Ventress returned to Coruscant and met with Obi-Wan Kenobi in the bar he had been using to convene with Vos during the early phase of his mission against Dooku. She informed Kenobi what had become of Vos, and the two parted ways. Following a period of wallowing in her own grief, Ventress was approached by a Jedi Knight named Akar-Deshu who had been a close friend of Vos.Continued

PROFESSOR:
He convinced her to come with him to the Jedi Temple and seek help in once again attempting to rescue Vos from Dooku.The Jedi Council was torn as to if they could trust Ventress, but Kenobi convinced them to at least hear her out and learn about the nature of her relationship with Vos and how she had trained him. During her testimony she accepted her failings in pushing Vos too far into the darkness, but also claimed that the Jedi themselves were partly to blame for his fall by sending him on such a nefarious mission to begin with. Lastly, she swore that even her love for Vos would not force her to embrace the dark side once again and that all she wanted was to rescue him.Despite the concerns of many of the Masters on the council, Kenobi and Yoda agreed to help Ventress recover Vos, with Yoda even promising a full pardon for her past crimes in return for her efforts. Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker were tasked with accompanying Ventress on the mission, and they were soon informed that Vos had been tracked to a ship en route to the planet Taris. The trio took Ventress’ ship, intercepted the CIS dreadnaught, infiltrated the ship and managed to free Vos, who had been in the brig of the ship, and escape with him back to Coruscant.Kenobi and Ventress initially thought that Vos being held captive in the brig meant he hadn’t fully committed to Dooku, but Ventress claimed she could still sense a darkness within her former lover and refused to trust him, despite his repeated attempts to make amends. In the end she decided it didn’t matter whether he was being truthful or not, as his return to the Jedi Order marked the end of their relationship. Yoda was true to his word and Ventress was pardoned of her crimes against the Republic.Ventress disappeared for a time again, but eventually resurfaced on Pantora where she and Vos had first formed their partnership. To her surprise, Vos was on the planet looking for her in an attempt to reconnect and explain his actions on Serreno. He told her that he had only gone to rescue Dooku because he wanted her to escape and he knew that she wouldn’t abandon him. He also said he still planned to leave the Jedi and rejoin her once Dooku was defeated. Ventress couldn’t help but be drawn in by the words she no doubt longed to hear, and returned to Coruscant so she and Vos could secretly continue seeing each other.During one of their rendezvous on Coruscant, Vos revealed to Ventress that he had once again been tasked with assassinating Dooku, and she begged him not to pursue the mission as she feared it would either result in his death or in him once again falling to the dark side.Vos was insistent that he had to accomplish this task, so Ventress agreed to accompany him on the mission. Vos took Ventress to the Jedi Temple, much to the displeasure of many of the Jedi who still didn’t trust the former Sith. They however accepted her presence knowing then as they did when they first tasked Vos with the assassination of Dooku that she would be a boon to the effort. They were given information that Dooku was in orbit above Christophsis and departed to kill the Count.Ventress and Vos managed to capture Dooku, but in an attempt to flee with the Count crashed on Christophsis. Vos’ plan was to use Dooku to lead him to his master Darth Sidious, thus allowing him to kill both Sith and end not only the war but the greatest threat the Republic had faced since its formation. Unbeknownst to Ventress, the Jedi were still suspicious as to where Vos’ true allegiances lay, as he had failed several key missions upon his return to the Order. He viewed this plan as a way to finally prove he was free of the dark side and regain the trust of his friends amongst the Jedi.The trio were all injured in the crash, and a Jedi search party was sent to recover them. Vos suspected the Jedi would not allow him to execute his plan, however, and fled the pursuing Jedi with Ventress and Dooku in tow. During their attempted escape, Dooku learned what Vos was planning, and lashed out at him with a massive blast of Force Lightning. Ventress stepped into the path of the attack and in her already weakened state it was enough to be her doom. Count Dooku escaped as Asajj Ventress died in Quinlan Vos’ arms.
With her final act, Asajj Ventress, who had spent so much of her life consumed by rage and a lust for revenge, sacrificed her life to save the man she loved and in doing so proved to her former Sith master that he had not broken her fully. Vos, accompanied by Obi-Wan Kenobi, returned to Dathomir with Ventress’ body and laid her to rest in the waters of her village so she could be at peace with her fallen sisters. If you are of the belief that Anakin Skywalker was redeemed in the end by his decision to destroy the Emperor and save his son Luke at the cost of his own life, then you must also admit that in the end Asajj Ventress was redeemed, and that while we must hold her legacy accountable for the wrongs she committed, we must also allow that with her final moments, she returned to the light.I appreciate your time and hope you will reflect on what we have discussed, and not just for the sake of your grades.(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
Thank you, and I will see you all next time when we open a new topic for discussion.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Hello there and welcome back to Galactic History. I hope you enjoyed our last two lectures in which we discussed one of the pivotal, if not lesser known, figures of the Clone Wars, Asajj Ventress.Today, we will continue along the same general theme which we have been exploring, that being weapons and weaponized beings that the Sith or the Sith-led Galactic Empire used to strike at their foes and terrorize the populace during the Clone Wars and the early Imperial era, right up until roughly the outbreak of the Galactic Civil War.Today’s topic will be a sort of combination of the first two subjects we focused on in that it is a clandestine program developed by the Sith during the early Imperial era, and that the primary weapon was a living being, or in this case, beings.In this lecture we will be diving into The Inquisitorius, which was a program developed by Darth Sidious and shepherded by Darth Vader, in which Force Sensitive beings were captured, corrupted, and bent to the will of the Sith, with the goal of hunting down rouge Jedi, Force Sensitive children, and other dissidents across the galaxy.The Inquisitorius Program, also known as the Order of Inquisitors or simply the Imperial Inquisition, was formed shortly after the Great Jedi Purge, which initially occurred at the end of the Clone Wars.However, there was an incident during the Clone Wars that could have marked the first attempt made by Sidious, then known as Chancellor Palpatine, to begin turning the Jedi children to the Dark Side of the Force.At one point during the Clone Wars, the notorious bounty hunter Cad Bane, who had a bit of a history when it came to tangling with the Jedi, kidnapped several Force sensitive children from across the galaxy that had been identified by the Jedi as potential future Younglings.Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan Ahsoka Tano managed to track the bounty hunter and the missing children to the volcanic planet Mustafar, and successfully recovered the young beings. The Jedi duo was unable to identify who had hired Bane for the job, but knowing what we do now, it is reasonable to conclude that this was likely an early attempt at beginning the Inquisitorius Program.Records indicate that there may have been as many as twelve members of the program, with each Inquisitor being identified only by a number and their gender. They were trained to use the Dark Side of the Force, wielded double-bladed red lightsabers, and often wore masks to conceal their true identities.Known Inquisitors, and these are Inquisitors whom we have been able to identify who they were before being indoctrinated into the program, included the Tenth Brother, former Jedi Master Prosset Dibs, the Dowutin Ninth Sister, who was the former Jedi Masana Tide, the Second Sister, identified as former Jedi Padawan Trilla Suduri, and the leader of the Inquisitors known as the Grand Inquisitor, whom we do not have a name for, but it has been confirmed that he was once a Jedi Temple Guard.As these Force sensitive beings were captured, they were tortured and corrupted by Darth Vader himself in order to twist them into tools to be used by the Sith. Once they were turned to the Dark Side, they would then be sent out to hunt down more beings like themselves, be they other former Jedi or merely Force sensitive children scattered across the galaxy.As one would expect from the notoriously cruel Vader, the training undergone by the Inquisitors was brutal and painful. It was not uncommon for Vader to lop off his students’ limbs in order to enforce lessons on the literal pain of loss. Perhaps Vader felt the surest way to teach was from experience.According to records of these training sessions, Vader’s tactics were once questioned by the Grand Inquisitor, which was a bold, dangerous, and honestly foolish move on his part. Vader insisted that only by being so brutal would the Inquisitors learn to fight offensively, thus abandoning the combat techniques impressed upon them by their former Jedi teachers.Beyond cruelties in training, Vader was a harsh teacher in the field as well. It was not uncommon for the Dark Lord to leave wounded Inquisitors to fend for themselves. Vader, like any Sith, would have believed that if they survived they would be stronger for having done so, and thus be more useful to himself and the Emperor. Should they die, then Vader would have weeded out a weak link in his underlings.Now that you have a basic idea of who was involved in this program and what they were tasked with, we will look at some examples of missions the Inquisitors were sent on during their time as weapons of the Empire in order to gain an understanding of how they interacted with other beings, with other Inquisitors, and how that impacted galactic history during their time.The first mission we will look at took the Inquisitors to the heart of the newly formed Galactic Empire, Coruscant. Darth Sidious tasked Vader and the Grand Inquisitor with tracking down Jedi Master Jocasta Nu, who had served as the Chief Librarian of the Jedi Order just prior to the purge.Nu would have had a wealth of knowledge of the Force, and that knowledge would not have been limited to just the Light Side. As Chief Librarian, Nu was charged with protecting both Jedi and Sith artifacts identified and collected by the Jedi Order. She would have been a prize worth pursuing for the new Emperor as he sought to further solidify his rule and accumulate even more dark power.There had been no record of Nu falling during Vader’s sacking of the Jedi Temple, nor had there been any credible reports of her leaving Coruscant. This led Vader and the Grand Inquisitor to begin their search for Nu at the Jedi Grand Temple on Coruscant.While shuffling through the volumes in the library at the Temple, the Grand Inquisitor was ambushed by Nu, who had apparently used her vast knowledge of the Temple and its library to escape capture and death during Vader’s earlier attack.After a brief battle, the Grand Inquisitor overpowered Nu and was going to kill her until Vader stopped him from delivering the final blow. Sidious had wanted Nu alive, and while Vader argued with his underling, Nu managed to slip away.Vader pursued Nu without the Inquisitor’s help, and quickly caught up to her. Data recovered from the transport ship Vader was traveling on reveal that Sidious had sent Vader after Nu to find two things in particular: a missing list of Force sensitive children across the galaxy that the Jedi had intended to recruit and train, and the location of secondary Jedi Temples scattered across the cosmos which could be used to rebuild the fallen Order.The shuttle mysteriously crashed shortly after it took flight and Nu was killed in the impact. Vader reported back to his Emperor that he had failed to learn anything of value from the fallen Jedi Master.This sort of outright failure is rather uncharacteristic of Vader, and as such it makes me wonder if Vader didn’t kill Nu and the troopers aboard that shuttle to cover something up. Remember that the Sith are constantly trying to gain an advantage, especially over other Sith who could threaten their position. Vader is already having to oversee a program in which former Jedi are being taught the ways of the Sith, and has thus far managed to keep them below his station through brutality and fear.That couldn’t have seemed like a long term solution to the Dark Lord. Vader would have known that the more Force sensitive children they found and brought into the Inquisitorius, the more competition he would have for the prized position of Sidious’ apprentice. It is possible that some sort of malfunction occurred that caused the shuttle to crash, o r perhaps that Nu managed to cause a disturbance leading to the crash as a last-ditch effort to escape capture.However, with a known ace pilot and powerful Force wielder like Vader aboard, I suspect that perhaps he learned something he saw as a threat to himself and his station, and thus either outright crashed the shuttle himself or allowed the ship to go down to cover up the information he didn’t want getting back to the Emperor.We will likely never get a solid answer as to what exactly happened on the shuttle, but keep in mind as we move through this lecture that the Sith are always trying to one-up each other and stay ahead of the literal life-and-death game they find themselves playing.Approximately one year after the Republic was replaced by the Empire, Vader and three Inquisitors, the Sixth and Tenth Brother and the Ninth Sister, were dispatched to Mon Cala to investigate degrading relations between the aquatic world and the Imperials overseeing it.Immediately upon the group’s arrival on Mon Cala, the Imperial Ambassador to the planet was assassinated. This prompted Moff Tarkin, who I trust you all remember from our series covering the Death Star, to launch a full invasion of the planet.Vader and the Inquisitors struck out to locate Lee-Char, the king of Mon Cala, and interrogate him, because Sidious believed a Jedi to be behind the increasing tensions on the planet.Vader and his minions were successful in capturing Lee-Char, and during his interrogation learned the location of the Jedi they had come to root out. They lost possession of the Mon Cala King however, due to a disturbance created by one of the massive sea creatures native to the planet.The quartet of Sith chose to seek out the Jedi, later identified as Padawan Ferren Barr, in an attempt to complete the mission that their Emperor had sent them to the planet on. When they caught up to Barr, they discovered that he had been training six other beings as his disciples.It is unclear if these followers of Barr’s had any potential to use the Force, thus we cannot conclude that he was attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order, which was a constant fear for Sidious, and one of the primary reasons for the existence of the Inquisitors. However, it is clear that Barr and his disciples were trying to disrupt Imperial affairs, and thus earned themselves a date with the red blades of Vader and the Inquisitors.Upon being discovered, Barr and his disciples fled, with two of them getting killed in the pursuit. Vader was contacted by Tarkin, who requested the Sith Lord’s assistance in recapturing King Lee-Char, and departed, leaving the three Inquisitors to finish the job.When the Inquisitors caught up to Barr and his remaining followers, there was a brief fight in which more of Barr’s disciples were cut down before Barr managed to bring the conflict to a standstill by identifying the Inquisitors by their Jedi names. Furthermore, Barr used the Force to remove the helmets from the Purge Troopers accompanying the Inquisitors, thus identifying them as surviving clones.Purge Troopers were select clones of Jango Fett taken from a group activated following the Jedi Purge, meaning they had not had their inhibitor chips activated, and were instead loyal to the Empire due to the circumstances of their activation. They were viewed, as most Imperial Troops were, as expendable and tasked with aiding the Inquisitors in their hunts.Knowing that these troopers were clones, and having just identified the Inquisitors as former Jedi, Barr used a Jedi mind trick on the clones which activated their inhibitor chips, causing the Purge Troopers to turn on the Inquisitors.
Barr and his last remaining disciple managed to escape during the ensuing firefight. To make things worse for the Inquisitors however, the Purge Troopers managed to kill the Tenth Brother. The Sixth Brother and Ninth Sister fled, but during their escape the Sixth Brother turned on the Ninth Sister, cutting off one of her legs and leaving her to fend off the remaining troopers on her own.Despite being trained to function as a team and having common goals, it was a somewhat regular occurrence for one Inquisitor to attack another in an attempt to either gain more credit for a mission’s success, or in the case of our Mon Cala example, to increase their own odds of survival. After all, the Inquisitors were trained in the ways of the Sith, and as I said earlier on in our lecture, any Sith would gladly spill the blood of their compatriots and competition to gain an edge.The mission to Mon Cala was a mixed bag for the Inquisitorius Program. They had managed to confirm the existence of another Jedi survivor and kill most of his followers, but the Jedi himself had escaped capture, one Inquisitor was dead, and another was gravely wounded. Knowing what we do about Lord Vader’s methods, it isn’t hard to conjure up horrible images of the punishment the remaining Inquisitors received for this debacle.It seems the Sixth Brother might have gotten off easy, however, as he was quickly back out in the field. Perhaps the Emperor saw fit to reward him for his ruthlessness in pursuit of power.Following his betrayal of the Ninth Sister, the Sixth Brother set out for the Outer Rim world of Thabeska, seeking a Force-sensitive child. He would abandon that search in pursuit of greater prey, however, when he received information that another Force-sensitive being, this one old enough to have possibly been trained as a Jedi, was hiding in the Outer Rim.The Sixth Brother’s search led him to the farming moon of Raada, where reports linked the Force wielder he was seeking to a group of combatants resisting Imperial control of the moon. He was ambushed by the group as he tracked them, but quickly and violently dispatched most of their members, while taking one being, identified by Imperial records as Kaeden Larte, into custody in order to lure out the potential Jedi.The Sixth Brother’s ploy worked, and the former Jedi revealed themselves to the Inquisitor. Holorecordings show that the Sixth Brother confronted a young Togruta woman on Raada who quickly overwhelmed and killed the Inquisitor. The Empire was not able to confirm the being’s identity, but the ease with which she killed the Sixth Brother prompted the Grand Inquisitor to set out in pursuit of the likely former Jedi.Another notable hunt involving Vader was the pursuit of Jedi Master Eeth Koth. Vader and a trio of Inquisitors tracked the former Jedi High Council member down and ambushed him as his wife was giving birth to their first daughter. Koth tried in vain to negotiate with Vader, but in the end was forced to fight Vader off as his wife and newborn child attempted to flee.While Vader locked blades with Koth, the Inquisitors set off in pursuit of the Jedi Master’s child, seeing an opportunity to not only kill a Jedi but bring a new Force-sensitive being into their ranks, thus gaining more favor with their Emperor.There is no record as to what happened to Koth’s wife, but we know that the Inquisitors managed to return the child to Vader, who cut Koth down when he was distracted by the sight of his child in the arms of an Inquisitor.Following Koth’s defeat, the Inquisitorius found itself in a position it hadn’t yet been in to that date: out of leads and forced to wait for any of the Jedi still listed as unaccounted for to show themselves. Up to this point there were an ample number of credible leads on the location of Jedi who had avoided destruction, but as the Inquisitors and Vader chased those leads to their ends, the list of targets got shorter and shorter.One Jedi who would reveal himself to the Empire was Caleb Dume, who since escaping death at the hands of Clone Troopers on Kaller, had assumed the name Kanan Jarrus. As was the case with several Jedi, Jarrus bounced around the galaxy for several years, burying his Force abilities to avoid detection by the Empire and their Inquisitors.Eventually, Jarrus joined up with one of the more notable early resistance cells that were beginning to spring up across the galaxy in opposition to Imperial rule.This group, known as Phoenix Cell, operated on the planet Lothal, and had been moderately successful in harassing Imperial interests there. Local Imperial forces had been tasked with dealing with the Rebels, but once it was reported that a Jedi was among their ranks, the Grand Inquisitor set out to capture the Force user and destroy the resistance cell.Continued

PROFESSOR:
The Grand Inquisitor succeeded in his task to capture Jarrus, but his victory was short lived as Phoenix Cell staged a daring raid on the facility Jarrus was being held in, and a boy named Ezra Bridger, who Jarrus had been training to use the Force, managed to kill the Grand Inquisitor and free his teacher.With the fall of their leader, the Inquisitors began scouring the galaxy for the Jedi responsible for his death. Most likely not out of a sense of loyalty to their dead commander, but rather in yet another attempt to advance their own stations amongst the Inquisitorius.The Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister were officially tasked with tracking down Phoenix Cell and the pair of Jedi amongst their ranks. Vader opted to send two Inquisitors instead of just one because in addition to learning that Jarrus was attempting to train Bridger, Vader discovered that his former apprentice Ahsoka Tano, who if you recall from our previous lecture left the Jedi Order after being falsely accused of an attack on the Jedi Temple during the Clone Wars, was alive and working for the fledgling Rebellion.It is likely that Tano was the aforementioned Togruta responsible for defeating the Sixth Brother on the farming moon Raada. That display of prowess coupled with the success that Phoenix Cell was having against the Imps on Lothal made capturing or destroying these Force users vitally important.The Fifth Brother and the Seventh Sister had several encounters with Phoenix Cell over the next few months, and each time failed to capture or kill Jarrus, Bridger and Tano.Following one of those encounters, at an abandoned Jedi Temple on Lothal, Vader vowed to personally see to the destruction of the trio of Jedi.Eventually, Phoenix Cell would pop back up on the radar of the Inquisitorius when the Eight Brother, who was tracking a different Force user on the planet Malachor, sent out a distress signal requesting backup as he had encountered Jarrus, Bridger and Tano in addition to his initial target, the ever-resilient Maul.The Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister arrived on Malachor to reinforce the Eighth Brother, and the trio of Inquisitors battled the three Light Side users and Maul across Malachor. Vader arrived shortly after to even the numbers.We do not know for sure what exactly unfolded on Malachor, but we know the results: Vader was the only Sith to leave the planet, with all three Inquisitors dying in the fray. Kanan Jarrus reported to Phoenix Cell that Tano had engaged her former master in single combat in order to allow Bridger and Jarrus to escape, but he didn’t know the outcome of the battle and Vader reported her missing along with Maul.Take a moment and imagine what this fight must have looked like. Three Inquisitors and Darth Vader locked in combat with two former Jedi Padawans, an up-and-coming Jedi Padawan, and a former Sith Lord. The convergence of stories here surrounding Vader alone is incredible. Despite the dwindling number of Force users in the galaxy, they were being brought together rather frequently. Phenomena like this lend credence to the concept of the Force as a living entity, constantly seeking to balance itself.Vader, the final apprentice of Darth Sidious, fights Maul, who as far as we know was the first apprentice of Sidious. Then Vader squares off with Ahsoka Tano, his former Padawan and one time closest friend, apart from perhaps Obi-Wan Kenobi. These are the sort of encounters that we as students of galactic history dream of. They answer so many of the “what if” scenarios that are posed as one makes their way through the chronology of this period of history, and even when there isn’t a decisive conclusion, such as one being killing another, they still provide a glimpse at those answers we so desperately seek while posing all-new questions at the same time.After the Inquisitorius failed yet again to capture the high-value targets in Phoenix Cell, responsibility for shutting down that group of Rebels was transferred over to Grand Admiral Thrawn and the fleet under his command.As history marched on ever closer to the outbreak of the Galactic Civil War, activity from the Inquisitorius grew more and more sparse, with the program eventually seemingly disappearing from history altogether. Was the program’s failure to defeat the Rebels on Lothal a death blow to the Inquisitorius? We know that Sidious has a very finite amount of patience and the Inquisitors’ track records were not stellar at this point. We also know from what we have covered that as many as potentially half of the Inquisitors were dead by the end of their operation on Malachor.Perhaps with fewer and fewer reports of surviving Jedi, the program became obsolete and Vader took complete ownership of hunting down any Force-sensitive beings that happened to pop up. Additionally, the continued failures of the program and its Inquisitors could have led Vader or Sidious to destroy the remaining Brothers and Sisters either as punishment or simply as a means of cleansing their hands of the program. Sidious may have finally accepted that the ideals of the Sith simply do not permit such a large group of Dark Side users to coexist for more than a short period of time.We don’t know exactly how the program came to an end, but it left behind a legacy of fear in the galaxy. The red blades of the Inquisitors were feared not only by Jedi who survived the purge, but by all beings in the galaxy.Imagine you are a being living their life after the finale of the Clone Wars and before the outbreak of the Galactic Civil War. You live on an agrarian world, or you’re an artist on Naboo, or you own a shop on Batuu. You have a family and the struggle for galactic power doesn’t have much impact on your daily life, which is overall a happy one.Then one day, you notice your child pull a small object into their hand from across the room. You still vaguely remember the Jedi, and you know that Emperor Palpatine blamed them for the fall of the Republic. You’ve heard stories about what happens to beings that showcase abilities similar to those wielded by the long-dead Jedi, and now in the back of your mind and in the pit of your stomach, you know that the red blades will come for your child. That they will either drag them away or kill them and your entire family.That is how the Inquisitorius struck fear in the hearts of all living beings in the galaxy, despite only being meant to hunt down a small group of beings. It was yet another way in which the Sith and the Empire used their weapons and devious programs to rule both the average galactic citizen, and their own elite group of assassins: through fear.(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
Thank you as always for your time, please do stay up to date with our lectures so you don’t fall too far behind.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Greetings gentle beings and welcome back to Galactic History!Over our previous lectures we have been exploring various weapons, beings and programs that were utilized by the Empire in an attempt to achieve their goal of unifying and pacifying the galaxy under its rule through fear and death on an industrial scale.Authoritarian regimes across our cosmos have sought this kind of control over those they rule since the beginning of recorded history, but few were as efficient and effective at doing so as the Empire headed by Emperor Sheev Palpatine.Today we will examine how the Empire sought to achieve domination by making power and control through fear a central and guiding policy of their Navy and politics.The principle of rule through fear was certainly not new by the time the Galactic Empire came on the scene around 19 BBY; but it was cemented in Imperial protocols in 14 BBY by Grand Moff Wilhuf Tarkin.Tarkin has made an appearance in many of our lectures thus far, and that shouldn’t be a surprise given the topics we have been covering in the course.Tarkin was the embodiment of what the Empire wanted it’s high-ranking officers and officials to be. He was calculating, calm under pressure, intelligent, predatory, and above all else ruthless in his pursuit of the Empire’s goals.During the late Republic Era, Tarkin served in the Republic military and the Republic’s Judiciary department. It was during training for his Judiciary duties that Tarkin first met then-Senator Sheev Palpatine and developed a relationship with the future Emperor.Tarkin served as a Captain during the Clone Wars battles of Murkhana and Kamino. Later, he was under the command of Jedi Master Even Piell when the pair were captured by the CIS military after a mission to capture the Nexus Route, which was a hyperspace route of extreme importance to both sides curing the Clone Wars.Tarkin and Piell were taken to the Citadel prison on Lola Seyu where both were tortured during their captivity. The pair were eventually liberated by a rescue team led by Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, and it was during this rescue mission that Tarkin first began to find common ground with Skywalker, who would of course become one of his closest allies as Darth Vader following the rise of the Empire.It is unclear whether Tarkin knew that Skywalker had become Vader despite their close proximity to one another throughout Tarkin’s Imperial career until his death. One of the things that we historians enjoy pondering the most when examining this era of Galactic History is who did and didn’t know about Vader’s real identity. The list of those who knew the truth was most certainly a short one, but beings like Tarkin who had known Vader before his fall to the Dark Side, and had brilliantly deductive minds, might have been able to glean the truth about who the dark lord was over time.Following his rescue from the Citadel, Tarkin was appointed to the Republic’s Strategic Advisory Cell. He was a particularly key part of the Cell’s Special Weapons Group, which among other things oversaw the development of the DS-1 project. It was during this time that Tarkin also carried out Judicial duties for the Republic.Tarkin presided as judge over the trial of Ahsoka Tano when she was falsely accused of bombing the Jedi temple, which you’ll recall from the second part of our lecture series covering the life of Asajj Ventress.Out of concern that Tano would be given a biased or lenient trial should only the Jedi be allowed to discipline her, Tarkin personally requested that the Jedi hand Tano over for a military tribunal and got his way despite the reluctance of the Jedi Council.Following the fall of the Republic at the hands of the Empire, Tarkin continued to serve in the military and take on special assignments. Eventually he would enter the Empire’s style of politics when he was appointed to be a Moff, which was Palpatine’s solution to maintaining control over sectors of the galaxy while he continued to weaken the senate and grow his own power.Tarkin oversaw the Outer Rim Territories as a Moff, and would go on to be the first to receive the title of Grand Moff some five years after the formation of the Galactic Empire.Immediately after his promotion, while being interviewed by media sources, Tarkin made a statement that would go on to steer the Imperial Navy - and in fact the entire Imperial Military - and be used to justify the cruelties of the Empire long after his death.This statement, which would come to be known as the Tarkin Doctrine, is actually rather short. It is only some 443 words in length and on the surface isn’t overtly tyrannical. However, those words, limited as they may be, would provide justification for the Imperial military and all the atrocities they would go on to commit.From this point in the lecture onward we will examine specific portions of the Tarkin Doctrine and consider how they laid the blueprint for what was to come during the Empire’s reign. We will also look at some of the horrific events the Doctrine was used to justify.First though, I’ll read the statement in full, so that if nothing else, we won’t be accused of only picking out the lines that serve the narrative we are creating:“The factor that contributed most to the demise of the Republic was not, in fact, the war, but rampant self-interest. Endemic to the political process our ancestors engineered, the insidious pursuit of self-enrichment grew only more pervasive through the long centuries, and in the end left the body politic feckless and corrupt. Consider the self-interest of the Core Worlds, unwavering in their exploitation of the Outer Systems for resources; the Outer Systems themselves, undermined by their permissive disregard of smuggling and slavery; those ambitious members of the Senate who sought only status and opportunity.The reason our Emperor was able to negotiate the dark waters that characterized the terminal years of the Republic and remain at the helm through a catastrophic war that spanned the galaxy is that he has never been interested in status or self-glorification. On the contrary, he has been tireless in his devotion to unify the galaxy and assure the well-being of its myriad populations. Now, with the institution of sector and oversector governance, we are in the unique position to repay our debt to the Emperor for his decades of selfless service, by lifting some of the burden of quotidian rulership from his shoulders. By partitioning the galaxy into regions, we actually achieve a unity previously absent; where once our loyalties and allegiances were divided, they now serve one being, with one goal: a cohesive galaxy in which everyone prospers. For the first time in one thousand generations our sector governors will not be working solely to enrich Coruscant and the Core Worlds, but to advance the quality of life in the star systems that make up each sector-keeping the spaceways safe, maintaining open and accessible communications, assuring that tax revenues are properly levied and allocated to improving the infrastructure. The Senate will likewise be made up of beings devoted not to their own enrichment, but to the enrichment of the worlds they represent.This bold vision of the future requires not only the service of those of immaculate reputation and consummate skill in the just exercise of power, but also the service of a vast military dedicated to upholding the laws necessary to ensure galactic harmony. It may appear to some that the enactment of universal laws and the widespread deployment of a heavily armed military are steps toward galactic domination, but these actions are taken merely to protect us from those who would invade, enslave, exploit, or foment political dissent, and to punish accordingly any who engage in such acts. Look on our new military not as trespassers or interlopers, but as gatekeepers, here to shore up the Emperor's vision of a pacified and prosperous galaxy.”Okay, now that we have heard the full text and know what Tarkin actually said, let us examine how his words were used to tighten the Imperial fist around the galaxy’s throat.The opening statement of the doctrine is where Tarkin sets the stage for why the Empire came to power. Tarkin repeats the Imperial line that the Republic fell due to rampant corruption. He then goes on to claim that the last hope for the galaxy was the incorruptible Palpatine who had been the only politician not acting in self-interest, which is why only he was able to weather the storm and lead the galaxy into its next glorious age. Praise be to our wise and pure leader!There is no arguing that corruption was a major issue in the closing decades of the Republic. There can also be no arguing that Sheev Palpatine was responsible for much of that corruption due to his manipulation of events that perfectly set the stage for his rise to power via a democratic process which gave him legitimacy as he dismantled the Republic government from the head down.
The opening half of the doctrine is all fairly standard Imperial-era propaganda. Just past the halfway mark of his statement, Tarkin praises the new system of Moffs controlling sectors of the galaxy. He claims the system is in place to help ensure that each sector is working to better itself instead of just feeding the core words. He leaves out the fact that what it really allowed was for those Moffs to have much more oversight in their sectors thus allowing them to keep problematic systems, by which I mean those opposed to the Empire, under their thumb.Furthermore it allowed those Moffs to profit from the illegal activities such as smuggling and slavery that Tarkin condems in his opening paragraph. The Empire did little to curb these practices so long as they didn’t endanger Imperial interests directly. Instead, they extorted money from the organizations that ran such businesses in a kind of pay-to-play system which they could crack down on at any time in order to sway favor with the populace.So far Tarkin has waxed poetic about the failings of the corrupt Republic, and sung the praises of Palpatine the Pure. He follows that up by justifying his new position as the overseer of the Moff system of governance. This brings us to the most important portion of the Tarkin Doctrine.In his closing statements, Tarkin justifies the massive size and invasive practices of the Imperial military by saying that they are necessary to maintain peace in the Empire. These ships that blockade your worlds and these troops who patrol your streets, they are here for your safety, dear citizen.They are also here to ensure that any political dissenters are punished accordingly. Tarkin doesn’t even bother making you read between the lines here; he flat out says, “don’t speak ill of the Empire or the Emperor, or else”.These closing words are what turned this interview statement into The Tarkin Doctrine, capital T-D-D. These are the words that give the Empire justification for the atrocities it will commit during Tarkin’s life and long after he is dead.Tarkin’s polestar philosophy in life was rule through fear, and he lays it bare for us here that that is exactly how his Moffs and the Imperial Military will operate under his watch.The Empire will be watching. We will not tolerate opposition. We will not even tolerate the shadow of opposition. If we get a hunch that you aren’t swallowing the narrative and loving the taste we will deal with you accordingly. Off to Wobani or Kessel to be worked to death, or maybe just a trip down to the outpost so we can introduce you to an interrogation droid. Better yet why don’t we shoot you where you stand? Why don’t we blow up a city? Why don’t we blow up a planet?We have already discussed some of the most glaring examples of the Empire using Tarkin’s method of rule by fear and his message that part of the Imperial military’s duty was to deal with political dissidents to justify the murder of literally billions of people.
The use of the Death Star’s primary weapon on the holy city of Jedha, the Imperial research facility on Scarif, and the planet of Alderaan are perfect examples of how far the Empire thought they could go simply because they had Tarkin’s words to serve as a guiding doctrine. The man himself gave the kill order on each of those occasions so of course this must be allowed. We did warn you, after all, that this is what the Empire’s all about.The Empire, or at least those within the Empire with the real power and those who hoped to gain real power, believed fully that these actions were just. That, or they knew well enough to pretend they believed it in order to blend in and advance.Central to Tarkin’s “rule by fear” ideal was the belief that massive shows of force themselves could keep the peace even if they weren’t used or were used surgically. While it’s hard to think of the destruction of entire installations, cities and planets as surgical, it had the intended effect on a large swath of the galaxy.The destruction of Alderaan galvanized a portion of the galaxy and led to the swelling of Rebellion ranks, but it shocked and frightened vastly higher numbers of beings into believing that there was no hope against the Empire.Even the destruction of the DS-1 did little to ease those fears. Yes, the Death Star was gone, but it had come out of seemingly nowhere in the eyes of the majority of the populace and the message it delivered was painfully clear: this is how far the Empire is willing to go to silence those that speak and act against it. Furthermore, these are the tools that the Empire is capable of and willing to build in order to stay in power.The murder of billions of billions of beings in and of itself was in no way passive, but it struck fear into the hearts of hundred of billions of beings across the galaxy.The empire claimed that the destruction of Alderaan had been just because the Alderaanians had been secretly developing powerful weapons to use against the Empire. This was a lie and many citizens in the Empire didn’t buy the line, but this obvious falsehood didn’t weaken the effect that the DS-1’s use had on the public.The Empire could do terrible things and justify them with an obvious lie, but that didn’t matter because they still had more than enough firepower and gravitas to keep average citizens and the vast majority of planets in line.Darth Vader even used the claim that Alderaan had been developing weapons to use against the Empire as justification for killing any and all Alderaanian refugees he came across, be they individuals, small groups, or even entire convoys of transport ships. Even escaping the destruction of your planet didn’t mean you were safe if the Empire thought they could justify your own death.The size and firepower of the Imperial fleet was another result of Tarkin’s vision. Many believed the end of the Clone Wars would see the disbanding of the former Grand Army of the Republic and a return to the policy of letting local systems and their militaries and law enforcement agencies handle peacekeeping efforts.However, the exact opposite happened. By the time of the Battle of Yavin, the Imperial Fleet was 900% larger than the Republic Fleet had been at the height of the Clone Wars. This certainly aligned with Tarkin’s strategy of using passive fear and an imposing presence to discourage opposition rather than constant violence. The appearance of a single Star Destroyer could be enough to make a system fall in line, but the knowledge that it was only one of some 25,000 Star Destroyers the Empire had at its disposal certainly served to make a single ship even more intimidating.Continued

PROFESSOR:
Not to mention that a fleet of that size could be used to blanket the galaxy either to seek out specific individuals or to rain destruction upon numerous planets simultaneously. The hunt for the Rebel Alliance after the destruction of the DS-1 and Project Cinder were only possible due to the sheer size of the fleet and the number of ships and personnel at the Empire’s disposal. That was the intent behind Tarkin’s vision: make the galaxy fear you then enforce that fear with a constant presence. Be it a Star Destroyer in orbit or Stormtroopers marching through your streets, the Empire had the resources to be everywhere at all times.The Inquisitorius was yet another shining example of the Tarkin Doctrine in play. Fear of the Red Blades, as the Inquisitors were known amongst the populace, was fervent enough that Force sensitivity in a child became something to dread. It didn’t matter if you were on the most back-water of worlds in Wild Space. If you saw your child move an object with their mind you knew in your soul that it was just a matter of time before the Empire sent their Inquisitors to collect or kill them.I mentioned Operation Cinder earlier, but allow me to circle back to it briefly since it is a perfect example of the Tarkin Doctrine outliving its namesake.Operation Cinder consisted of a series of orbital bombardments, TIE bomber attacks and myriad other methods of destruction used against select planets that were either key to Imperial life or held other significance in the galaxy following Emperor Palpatine’s death in 4 ABY.It was Palpatine’s failsafe put in place to punish the Empire and the galaxy as a whole for allowing the Emperor to be killed. It also served as a smoke screen to distract Rebel-becoming-New-Republic-forces at this time and spread them out across the galaxy so that a select few Imperials hand-picked by Palpatine could escape to the Unknown Regions where they could slowly rebuild Palpatine’s vision for the galaxy.Cinder was only possible because the Empire had been using the Tarkin doctrine as a guiding beacon for nearly 20 galactic standard years by that point. Not only did the doctrine allow the fleet to grow to the size that it did, but it justified the placement of satellites above worlds like Vardos that could be used to wipe out the planet on a moment’s notice.You would be justified in wondering how the Tarkin Doctrine, which again began as a simple statement given to the media following Tarkin’s promotion to Grand Moff, and which was about 70% standard Imperial propaganda...how did that become such a powerful tool used by the Empire to justify so much death, destruction and chaos?The answer is as simple as it is terrifying: The Tarkin Doctrine, which again was only 443 words long, became such a powerful statement-turned-principle simply because Emperor Palpatine said it was important and that it summarized the purest Imperial thought process. That is all the justification it took for the Empire to fully embrace the practice of keeping their form of peace intact by any means necessary. A peace driven not by harmony, but by order.Even that small contingency of Imperials who fled to the Unknown Regions to rebuild and wait for their moment to strike was guided by the Tarkin Doctrine. Those individuals that had been deemed worthy of carrying on Palpatine’s legacy believed in the power of fear and the absolute authority that fear gave you more fervently than any other beings in the Empire. These were the true believers, and that was the power of the Tarkin Doctrine.Tarkin’s philosophy, which he laid out in that interview, was the ideal Imperial thought process laid bare in its purest form. It was enough to justify two Death Star battlestations, a fleet the size of which had never been seen and hasn’t been seen since, the complete destruction of a planet and the continued genocide of that planet’s people after the fact, the obliteration of other worlds through Operation Cinder, countless shadowy Imperial programs, the day-to-day practices of the Imperial Security Bureau, and any and all cruelties committed by individual Imps throughout the years.It was even enough to convince a group of the most motivated and loyal of Palpatine’s flock to slither off into the Unknown Regions for some thirty galactic standard years to simply wait for the moment to strike back by returning their brand of peace through total domination to the galaxy.Wilhuff Tarkin was a cold, calculating, cruel man who valued strength above all else. Those are likely the reasons he rose to such prominence in the Imperial ranks. He was also a tactical genius who knew how to turn the bleakest of situations to his favor and come out with a win. Those traits all come together in the Tarkin Doctrine and Emperor Sheev Palpatine saw it as the perfect example of Imperial thought to the point that he made it the guiding principle for his Empire.Without Tarkin and his philosophies, the Empire may well have not lasted as long as it did, nor is it likely that events following Palpatine’s death would have played out the way they did. Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin not only ensured that the Empire he served held enough power to be nearly untouchable during its reign, but that it would survive long after the death of its patriarch by providing them with a simple compass by which to navigate: rule by fear.(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
I appreciate your attention as always and look forward to discussing our next topic together soon.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Hello there and welcome once again to Galactic History. Please get settled in quickly so we can dive into our subject.Throughout this course so far we have been primarily focusing on various ways in which the Empire, Republic and CIS have sought to try and hold on to power in order to maintain their existence and ensure order and peace as each entity saw it.We have primarily been doing that by looking at the weapons, programs and philosophies that drove the actions of these governments. Today we will examine what happens when one of those governing bodies we touched on, in this case the Galactic Empire ruled by Emperor Sheev Palpatine, fails to do what is necessary to ensure its survival.Specifically we will look at a set of events that unfolded following the death of Emperor Palpatine during which the Empire went on the offensive and sought to seemingly go out with a bang. Today we will discuss Operation: Cinder, which was Palpatine’s contingency plan for what should happen throughout the galaxy he controlled in the event of his death.Emperor Palpatine was of the belief that should he be killed, his Empire should die with him. Now he did not believe this in the sense of “okay now we’re going back to a Republic, everybody gets freedom and democracy again”, but rather in a “you failed to preserve my life and thus you too shall be killed” sense.Palpatine thought that responsibility for his death, regardless of the consequences surrounding it, must rest on the entirety of the Empire for failing to protect their leader. That belief led to the development and eventual implementation of the first part of Operation: Cinder. On the surface, Cinder called for the destruction of over a dozen worlds within the Empire as a punishment for allowing Palpatine to die. In reality, this wanton destruction served a purpose beyond that of vengeance-fueled punitive measures. These attacks would draw the attention of not only the Rebel Alliance but the entire galaxy.The Rebels were likely still feeling the effects of their hangovers following the victory celebration after the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY when Cinder began to unfold. They would have to respond to a wave of attacks across the galaxy while simultaneously trying to communicate to the populace that they had indeed killed the Emperor and that they were now the ruling power.Transitions between systems of governments are messy in the best of circumstances, and this was far from the best of circumstances. By the time of Palpatine’s death, the Rebel cause had spread, and thus Palpatine’s popularity had fallen, if not only behind closed doors. So while his death was welcome news to a large swath of beings, there were still those who weren’t willing to go quietly into the new era. You had your true Imperial believers who wanted to keep fighting in the name of their fallen leader, but you also had the Imperials who were in it for themselves, who used the Imperial system as a means to gain power to wield for their own purposes. Additionally, you had pirates and various criminal organizations that saw this transitional period as the perfect time to solidify and grow their own enterprises.This was a power grab perfect storm. Any and every being or group that had the desire to improve their lot in life was making a play, and again let me reinforce that this began moments after the battle above and on Endor had ended. Once news of the Emperor's death hit the holos, it was a free for all. On top of all that, you had Cinder. Just slather a thick layer of indiscriminate slaughter on top of that violent political upheaval. It is pure chaos. It is the final wrath of Emperor Palpatine unleashed on the galaxy. To quote Admiral Garrick Versio from aboard the bridge of his Star Destroyer the Eviscerator:“Operation: Cinder is the last command of Our Emperor, and the first step in securing our future.”Orders to carry out Operation: Cinder were delivered to the appropriate Imperial personnel by sentinel droids. These were humanoid droids clad in all red armor similar to that of Palpatine’s Royal Guard. They had black face plates which, based upon their programming, would illuminate the ghostly visage of the recently fallen Palpatine when it was time to deliver a command. The sentinel droids would only respond to the exact being that they had been sent to rendezvous with, and only after DNA confirmation. This is how the details of Cinder were kept secret prior to the execution of the order to eliminate a planet. These droids were the key to catching the Rebellion, which is in the midst of trying to become the New Republic, and the target planet by complete surprise.The first attack we will examine is one of the ones for which we have the most information due to those involved. This was the attack on Vardos, a staunchly loyal Imperial world, and it would be carried out by the man I quoted just a moment ago, Admiral Garrick Versio.Admiral Versio was a Vardos native and also the man responsible for bringing his planet into the Empire. He was seen as a hero by his planet and the Empire, and he had just been tasked with the destruction of his planet and murder of all it’s people in the name of his fallen Emperor. Now Admiral Versio himself is not why we know so much about the attack on Vardos as part of Operation: Cinder. We have his daughter, Iden Versio, to thank for that who, at the time of Operation: Cinder was the Commander of an Imperial Special Forces commando unit under her father’s command.Inferno Squad, as Iden’s unit was known, was to play a key role in Operation: Cinder on Vardos. The squad had already helped the Admiral secure a number of specialized satellites from an Imperial shipyard at Fondor, and now Inferno had been brought to Vardos to learn what role those satellites would play in Cinder.The satellites were part of the Empire’s climate disruption array program. This was cutting edge Imperial tech, designed specifically for Cinder. The satellites would fire a beam down to the surface of the planet from orbit, and when the beam made contact with the surface, it would cause devastating storms that were powerful enough to scrape entire civilizations off the face of the planet.This is Palpatine playing at being the deity he saw himself as. Even in death, he will control nature itself to deliver your doom. The man was evil incarnate with a flair for the dramatic.Admiral Versio reveals to his daughter and her squad that this is the plan. This is what Cinder is, the brutal destruction of even the most loyal of Imperial worlds, and while the satellites begin doing their business of wiping out a civilization and murdering millions, Inferno Squad is going to go down to the surface and secure a single,high-value Imperial, and get them off-world. That was the important mission that these three top-notch Imperial operatives were risking life and limb for on Vardos: the extraction of one being the Empire thought of as more valuable than all the other lives on that planet.While Iden Versio and her squad are on the surface, the truth of not only what is happening right there on her homeworld, but what has been in front of her this whole time, hits Iden Versio. The Empire is going to slaughter countless innocents because a dead man inside a droid told them to. They knew full well that Palpatine was dead and there was no bringing him back, yet in his name they would murder planets full of beings. This was the machine she had been a part of for her entire life.No more though. While on the surface of Vardos, Iden Versio and fellow Inferno Squad member Del Meeko made the decision to defy her father’s orders as to who they should take off of Vardos. Admiral Versio had ordered that they only take the Imperial VIP with them, but upon seeing beings on her own planet fearful and desperate in the face of what the Empire they had been so loyal to was doing, Iden Versio began directing civilians to Inferno Squad’s ship.Gideon Hask, the other member of Inferno Squad, accused Versio and Meeko of disobeying orders and treason. Hask was a true Imperial believer, and even in that moment with the horrid true face of the Empire unmasked for all to see, he was going to stick to orders and do the job like a good Imp. Hask drew his blaster and took aim at his fellow squad members, and following an intense confrontation, Iden Versio shot Gideon Hask in the leg, wounding him. She allowed Hask to leave with the Imperial VIP while she and Meeko escaped aboard Inferno Squad’s ship, the Corvus, with the refugees.For Iden Versio and Del Meeko, Operation: Cinder was not only the event that caused them to realize that they were decidedly on the wrong side of history and needed to break away from the Empire. Cinder also gave them a chance to escape because it was such a chaotic operation by nature.Had Vardos not been swirling with chaotic storms and in the midst of a massive military evacuation while trying to abandon civilians, there is little chance that Versio and Meeko would have been able to get off-planet without being captured or killed by the Empire. The death of Vardos allowed Versio and Meeko the chance to get the word out about what the Empire was planning.Versio and Meeko immediately sought out and surrendered to the Rebel Alliance. The former Imperials went on to become key operatives within the New Republic. Iden Versio’s defection delivered vital information about the nature of Operation: Cinder into the hands of the Alliance, thus giving them an idea of what they were up against. The problem was they didn’t have any idea which planets or even how many had been targeted.As I mentioned earlier, these attacks began very rapidly following the destruction of the second Death Star above Endor, and they continued for weeks afterwards, so the entire galaxy was left holding its collective breath waiting to see if their planet was next on the dead Emperor’s hit list.Some twenty galactic standard days after the Battle of Endor, the Imperial Star Destroyer Torment dropped out of hyperspace in orbit above Naboo. Naboo didn’t hold much strategic importance, but the destruction of the beautiful and peaceful world known for producing some of the best artists in the galaxy would have been a dagger to the heart and a massive loss for the New Republic.Additionally, Naboo was Palpatine’s homeworld, so striking against it sent the message that no matter how near and dear to the Emperor your planet might have been, there was still a chance that the Empire would drop in and try to wipe it out. Palpatine’s decision to target Naboo might not have been completely out of spite however. He knew that there were those on Naboo, especially beings who had worked with or simply admired former Queen-turned-Senator Padme Amidala, who opposed his rule and had thrown in with the Rebel Alliance. Furthermore, Palpatine would have known Naboo’s significance as a political piece and robbing the New Republic of that piece could allow an opening for the remnants of the Empire to strike back at the fledgling new government.The Torment, under the command of Captain Lerr Duvat, began deploying the same climate disruption satellites the Empire had used on Vardos once it was in place above Naboo. By the time that the satellites had hit a quarter of their potential destructive power, they had already generated at least three massive hurricanes on the planet.
The storms began ripping apart civilian settlements, causing fires to break out and inciting mass hysteria.Meanwhile on the surface, Alliance Lieutenant Shara Bey, who had accompanied Princess Leia Organa on a mission to recruit Naboo into the New Republic, was relaying information to both the Princess and the Alliance as to what was unfolding on Naboo. They quickly determined that their only chance of preventing the razing of the planet was to destroy the satellites.Now that would prove difficult, however, as Naboo had been demilitarized following the Clone Wars, and had nothing to try and strike at the satellites with beyond a few decades old N-1 starfighters. Despite the odds, and honestly in typical Rebel fashion, the trio of Bey, Princess Organa, and Queen Sosha Soruna of Naboo took to orbit in the outdated N-1s to try and destroy enough satellites to spare the planet. Unfortunately, two royals and a Rebel officer against a Star Destroyer doesn’t typically lead to victory, and the three quickly found themselves outgunned more than two dozen-to-one by the Torment and its TIE fighter squadrons, but were spared from certain death when General Lando Calrissian arrived in orbit with the Rebel Fleet. Among those present were Danger Squadron, which had just gained two new members in Iden Versio and Del Meeko.Alliance forces managed to destroy the satellites and deal a crippling blow to the Torment, which ended the threat from orbit. However, as the operation fell apart, Imperials on the surface began retreating into the center of Naboo’s capital city Theed, and taking up defensive positions from within the Royal Palace.Versio, Meeko, and Danger Squad commander Shriv Suurgav went to the surface of Naboo and linked-up with Princess Organa, who had returned from orbit upon the arrival of the Alliance fleet. Together, the group managed to reactivate the palace security systems, which sent an ion pulse across the city, disabling all of the Empire’s weapons and forcing the remaining Imperial troops to surrender. Inferno Squad was officially welcomed into the Alliance by Leia Organa following the Battle of Theed as recognition of Iden Versio and Del Meeko’s efforts in saving Naboo and seeking to make amends for all they had done during their time in the Empire.The planet Nacronis was also among the worlds targeted by the Empire’s climate disruption satellites, and the planet was ravaged by silt storms as a result of the attack. Nacronis is notable as a target during Operation: Cinder because it highlights not only the viciousness of the attacks, but the seemingly random nature of some of the targets as well.According to Yrica Quell, a member of the Empire’s fearsome 204th fighter wing, better known as Shadow Wing, who defected following the attack carried out by the 204th on Nacronis, most beings in the wing had never even heard of the planet prior to the order to attack and destroy it.So Operation: Cinder was both specific and intentional with its targets and completely random. One assumes that this was a symptom of both the fallen Emperor Palpatine’s cruelty and a means of keeping the New Republic on the back foot. It becomes nearly impossible to find a pattern to the attacks if random objectives are thrown into the mix.Continued

PROFESSOR:
Nacronis, Abednedo, Candovant, Dybbrin III...no disrespect to these worlds and the others like them which were attacked, and apologies for the likely horrific pronunciation of their names, but these are not planets that held significance, be it symbolic or strategic, to the Old Republic, the Empire, or the New Republic. In the eyes of Palpatine, and the aforementioned Shadow Wing, who renewed and continued Operation: Cinder after the initial wave of attacks, these were merely planets there to be crushed.Burnin Konn was another fairly unknown planet targeted by the Empire during Operation: Cinder. Here the Empire encountered heavy Rebel and local civilian resistance to the Imperial efforts to destroy the planet. That resistance was met with typical Imperial brutality. In one case, a city under assault from an Imperial Division led by General Valin Hess was completely wiped out.Hess decided that if the spirit of Operation: Cinder was total destruction, then why fight for the city when he could level it, thus killing not only the entire civilian population but the majority of his own Division, some five to ten thousand Imperial Troops. It should be noted that Hess was a bit of an outlier in that the majority of units tasked with executing Cinder didn’t do so in a way that sacrificed their own troopers, but Hess wasn’t entirely alone either. On Vardos a good number of Imperial units were left to die on the surface as well.In a way you might be able to see how true Imperial believers would think the way Hess did. If this was punishment for the Emperor’s death, shouldn’t the soldiers who failed him be held accountable as well? Hess himself survived the Operation of course, along with a handful of other troopers including decorated Imperial Marksman Migs Mayfeld.There are more planets we could cover which were attacked either by the Empire’s climate disruption array or by bombing and bombardment runs by Shadow Wing and other Imperial remnants, but I feel like we have done well to establish just what was going on with Cinder during this phase. Wanton destruction of planets and execution of civilians in the name of a dead man. That was Cinder, or at least the initial phase of Cinder.As I said at the outset of this lecture, this was Palpatine’s final act of wrath intended for the galaxy that in his mind failed him by allowing his death. Punishment from the heavens from the Emperor you failed. As it always was with the Empire’s attitude towards the beings that inhabited it: you brought this on yourselves.Months of nearly endless destruction and death following what was supposed to have been the death blow to the Galactic Empire, and it was all just meant to keep the galaxy distracted while select Imperials regrouped and fled to the Unknown Regions to rebuild and wait.In the end, that was the real purpose of Operation: Cinder. Palpatine was an unfathomably cruel man, so commanding his remaining fanatics to lash out at the galaxy and rain death and chaos down on dozens of worlds fit his style. However, he was also a master manipulator and knew exactly how to draw the focus to where he wanted it. A Sith of Sheev Palpatine’s hubris no doubt believed himself to be truly immortal. Even if his physical form was destroyed, he believed himself to be so powerful enough, a master of the Dark Side of the Force that he could find a way back from death, and if he could do that, he would certainly need loyal servants lying in wait to carry out his whims.As the New Republic sought to establish itself as a legitimate government and a multitude of Imperial remnants squabbled and scrapped with one another and the New Republic for control of pockets of the galaxy, the real future of Palpatine’s Empire was looking to slip away unnoticed and wait for their time to come around again.Cinder was as much an attempt to escape the consequences of the crimes committed over the course of their careers for high-ranking Imperials as it was a punishment doled out to the populace of the galaxy. Again, this is Imperial standard operating procedure; let the lower beings on the ladder do the dirty work by inflicting suffering upon the galactic populace in order to provide the elite an opportunity to avoid consequences so that they can commit all the same crimes again later on down the line.The name Cinder proved apt for both phases, to reduce parts of the now
New Republic to ash, and to act as a smokescreen for the Imperial retreat, the remaining heat burning quietly, unnoticed, until the perfect opportunity presented itself to once again fuel the flames of tyranny.Luckily for the New Republic, there would be an opportunity to once again spoil Palpatine’s plan and set the galaxy on a course that would take it out from under the Imperial boot, not only by limiting the damage done by Imp attacks carried out during Operation Cinder, but by cutting off their grand retreat.You see, Cinder wasn’t the only thing that the Alliance had gotten wise to. They had taken notice of Imperial movements across the galaxy, and were beginning to notice a pattern that pointed towards the planet the Imps would be staging their exit from. Of course the Alliance didn’t know all the details of what the Empire was planning on this planet, but they knew that the vast majority of remaining Imperial forces would be there, and that it represented a chance to end the threat posed by the remnants of the Imperial Navy and Army for good.(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
We will explore that particular battle and its lasting impact on the history of our galaxy in our next lecture.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Greetings students, and welcome once again to Galactic History.In our previous lecture we discussed Emperor Palpatine’s contingency plan for what should happen to the Empire in the event of his death. That plan, known as Operation: Cinder, saw the Empire do what I would say they did best; terrorize and murder its own citizens on an industrial scale.You’ll recall that Cinder began almost immediately following the Rebel victory at the Battle of Endor where the DS-2 battle station was destroyed with Emperor Palpatine aboard. In the aftermath of that engagement, Sentinel droids draped in red robes sought out key members of the Imperial remnant and delivered instructions for what would be Palpatine’s blood soaked farewell to the galaxy. The orders delivered by the Sentinel droids contained a list of planets that the Imperial Navy was to destroy, primarily through the use of cutting edge climate disruption array satellites the Emperor had designed specifically for Cinder.In addition to those orders, some of the droids relayed instructions for when and where the most important and loyal members of Palpatine’s Empire should rally together. Not, as some believed, to stage a last stand against the Rebel Alliance, but to give those key Imperials a chance to slip away unnoticed while the remainder of the Empire, including the bulk of the Imperial Navy, fought and died to provide a distraction. This would not only allow them to escape facing consequences for the atrocities they committed, but also give them a chance to slink off to the Unknown Regions where they could build what they saw as a more pure version of the fallen Emperor’s vision for a galaxy united by fear under his banner.Before that could happen though, the Empire had to rally together. More than that, they had to do so in a way that created an ample enough distraction to allow the chosen few to make their escape. What better way to celebrate the end of an Empire than with one last massive battle against your greatest rival; the Rebel Alliance.Today we will begin our exploration of this pivotal point in galactic history by examining the key figures involved and how they steered the galaxy towards what would be the decisive battle between the Imperials and Rebels: the Battle of Jakku.First though, some notes on the planet Jakku itself. In some of our previous lectures we have made mention of the planet Tatooine; a barren, sparsely populated, desert planet with no notable natural resources and a blistering hot climate. Why it was the will of the Force that our galaxy should be populated with at least two planets matching that exact description, we may never know, but that is the case as Jakku is strikingly similar to Tatooine.Jakku is in the western reaches of the Inner Rim. It only has one sun and two moons compared to Tatooine’s two and three respectively, but location within the galaxy and composition of nearby celestial objects is essentially where the differences between the two worlds end. Beyond geography and climate, Jakku is even similar to Tatooine in the type of beings it attracts. Jakku is the type of world where beings tend to end up rather than one they set off in search of. Scrappers, moisture farmers and a not insignificant criminal element make up the majority of the population. So Jakku is, essentially, nowhere. It has nothing to offer the galaxy. Why, then, is it the planet that Emperor Palpatine picked as the focal point of the final chapter of his Empire? Because a planet that offers nothing can be the perfect place to hide something, and Palpatine hid something on Jakku.Having covered Operation: Cinder and knowing what we now know about Sheev Palpatine it should come as no surprise that he was a being who, in addition to often being able to steer the course of galactic history through political maneuvering, planned for every possible outcome. He was also, as most Sith tend to be, a secretive being. One of Sheev’s secrets was that he kept these observatories scattered throughout the galaxy. Each was designed to seek answers beyond the physical limits of our known galaxy. They housed weapons, designs for super weapons, Sith artifacts and myriad other things that might come in handy if one found themselves in a situation where one needed to make a quick retreat to a far, far away place. Thus far only two of these observatories have been found, though most historians believe there are more of them out there. As I said, we know Palpatine’s style and I don’t see him stopping at two ultra-secret doomsday bunkers. One of the two that have been discovered is on Pillio. The other is on Jakku.We will get to what was in the Jakku Observatory at a later point. First, let’s discuss the two most important Imperials when it comes to the Battle of Jakku and their roles in how the final moments of the Empire play out: Grand Admiral Rae Sloan of the Imperial Navy, and Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax of the Naval Intelligence Agency. As a fair warning, the bulk of today’s lecture will be spent on these two beings as, in my opinion, they are the most important beings when it comes to getting us to Jakku.Following the Battle of Endor, the Empire shattered into numerous factions. Some of these remnant groups wanted to reunify the Empire under the command of any of a number of Moffs and high ranking members of the Imperial military who were vying for the job.
Others dug in and tried to hold control of individual planets as happened on Kashyyyk, while others still kept fighting their own personal wars using the newly unchecked power they found themselves in possession of.Additionally, there were some Imperials who seemed only interested in fueling the chaos by feeding the rumor that Palpatine wasn’t actually dead. Whether this was some kind of strategy meant to buy time to settle on a new course or mere delusion is still up for debate. At that time, the former Grand Vizier Mas Amedda, one of the top bureaucrats and closest advisors in Palpatine’s service, was dug in at the Imperial Palace on Coruscant. As things stood, he was officially the leader of the Empire. He wasn’t necessarily doing anything with his new found authority, but his presence did cast doubt as to who was truly clutching the Imperial reins.
An emerging contender for that position was Rae Sloan. A human female, Sloan was born on Ganthel, in the Core Worlds, in 41 BBY. Early in her career, during her time at the Flight Training Institute aboard the Imperial Cruiser Defiance, Sloan helped thwart an attempted assaassination of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader by the Institute’s Commandant Pell Baylo. This was only the first sign that Sloan was destined to be a major Imperial player.In 11 BBY, Sloan was in temporary command of the Imperial Star Destroyer Ultimatum when the ship was tasked with escorting Count Denetrius Vidian, a thorilide mining mogul, to the planet Gorse, where he was to assume control of Imperial mining operations there and on Gorse’s moon Cynda. During the course of serving the Count, Sloan discovered that he was not actually planning to mine the thorilide, which was a mineral necessary for the production of starship turbolasers, inside the moon. Rather, his plan was to destroy the moon and vaporize all of the thorilide within Cynda in order to discredit his Imperial rival, Baron Lero Danthe.
Sloan managed to stop Vidian from carrying out his scheme and was given permanent command of the Ultimatum as a reward for protecting valuable Imperial assets. The conflict on Gorse brought Sloan into contact with two Rebels who would go on to be rather problematic for the Empire: Hera Syndulla and Kanan Jarrus.Syndulla had tailed Count Vidian to Gorse on assignment as a Rebel spy and it had been Hera who had first discovered Vidian’s plan to betray the Empire. Syndulla didn’t care about the Empire losing out on thorilide, that actually would have been a win for the Rebellion; however, she did care about the miners on Cynda who would be killed in the blast, as well as the impact the moon’s destruction would have on Gorse. Syndulla recruited Jarrus, who at the time was working as a miner on Cynda, into helping her stop Vidian. As part of that effort, they contacted Rae Sloan and revealed the Count’s plan in order to get the Empire working in their favor.
Later on at the Battle of Endor, Sloan, then a Vice admiral, commanded the ISD Vigilance and following the destruction of the second Death Star, and losing communication with the Emperor, found herself the highest ranking surviving Imperial in the battle.In a maneuver that would allow a key portion of the Imperial Navy to live to fight another day, Sloan ordered all remaining Imperial vessels to form up around the Vigilance and prepare to jump to hyperspace and retreat. Sloan even shot and killed an Imperial Security Bureau loyalty officer who had been placed on the ship to observe her when he objected to her order. As long as there was an Empire, Sloan wanted to keep fighting. She managed to jump with what remained of her fleet to the Annaj System in the Outer Rim where they were able to regroup and try to come to grips not only with what had just happened with the DS-2 being destroyed and the death of Emperor Palpatine, but with the task before them. They had to figure out what was left of the Empire and what to do with the pieces.Rae Sloan looked at this situation, with all of these splinter groups squabbling and going in countless different directions, and knew that it was an extremely dangerous position for the Empire to find itself in for any considerable amount of time. She decided the best course of action was to get as many remaining Imperials with clout pulling in the same direction as possible. Sloan held a summit on the planet Akiva and invited several high-ranking surviving Imps in order to try and convince them that the best way forward was to set aside their individual power lust and work together to restore the Empire.This meeting did not go well however, as the New Republic military was tipped off about a gathering of Imperials on Akiva and attacked the planet, leading to the capture or death of the majority of those in attendance. Sloan narrowly escaped, accompanied by her personal pilot Morna Kee, and the pair found safe passage to the ISD Ravager. Upon her arrival on the Ravager, Sloan met face to face with Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax, who unbeknownst to most surviving Imperials, was not only alive but had been secretly leading the contingency plan laid out by Palpatine since his death.
Rax went on to reveal to Sloan that he had been the one that had tipped off the New Republic to the summit on Akiva. He saw having the summit ambushed as a way to trim the fat off of the remnants of the Empire. Rax felt that any Imperial who wasn’t clever or tenacious enough to escape Akiva wasn’t worth having around as they sought to rebuild. Rax praised Sloan for making her way back to the fleet and evading capture or death at the hands of the New Republic. He promoted her to Fleet Admiral and later Grand Admiral thus placing her in charge of the Imperial Navy. He even went so far as to dangle a future bid for Empress in front of Sloan.
You see, while Sloan had managed to keep together the fleet consisting of the survivors of the Battle of Endor, Rax had been gathering his own forces.By 5 ABY, almost one galactic standard year after the Battle of Endor, Gallius Rax had gained control over several Imperial fleets that had gone into hiding across the cosmos, and thus had command of the majority of the Imperial remnant, making him the de facto leader of the Empire. This was not a role he wanted to publicly assume, however. Rax didn’t want the spotlight. He was a being who preferred the shadows where he could move covertly and do what had to be done to execute Palpatine’s vision. He offered the public role of Imperial Leadership to Rae Sloan, so long as she remained loyal to him and the contingency plan that Palpatine had set.
Gallius Rax was, in general, a very mysterious being. He came into Imperial service from seemingly nowhere and rose up the ranks rapidly. Public records as to his past were heavily redacted at the time, which only added to the mystery, and all of that added up to Rae Sloan not trusting Gallius Rax. She would take the power he had given her, but she was not about to allow herself to believe that Rax was actually an ally.Furthermore, Rax had disclosed to Sloan that he was planning to assemble what he called a Shadow Council to help run the Empire. This not only highlighted Rax’s lust for power, as he saw himself as the leader of this council, but it showed Rae just what Rax’s vision for the Empire was. Gallius Rax was as fanatical as they came in terms of Palpatine’s followers. Those closest to the Emperor had always viewed him as an almost godlike figure, which considering that these would have been the beings with insight into Palpatine’s Sith prowess makes sense. As a result of being among those who viewed the dead Emperor in such a way, Rax wanted the Empire that came out the other side of Cinder to essentially be the Cult of Palpatine. Even more so than the Empire already had been.Sloan thought that organizing the Empire in such a way would only exacerbate the worst traits it had come to display under Palpatine’s eye. By essentially worshiping Palpatine in the way that they did, as an all-wise, all-powerful entity, it made it easy for the Empire to brush away threats like they had early on with the Rebellion. In Sloan’s eyes, this was merely setting up for failure yet again. So Sloan developed a strategy that would give her some insight into who Gallius Rax really was in the hopes that learning more about his past could inform her what decisions he might make for the future of the Empire.Continued

PROFESSOR:
Rax had tasked Sloan with finding and rescuing Brendol Hux and his son Armitage Hux from the Imperial Academy on Arkanis where they had been trapped behind a New Republic siege. Hux’s experience with training cadets and molding young minds into loyal and obedient ones would be vitally important to upcoming phases of the Emperor’s contingency. Sloan hired the bounty hunter Mercurial Swift to handle the Hux situation while she set off for Coruscant in an attempt to uncover more of Rax’s past. Sloan arrived on Coruscant and went about searching the Hall of Imperial Registrar for information on Rax. There wasn’t much to uncover, but she did find discrepancies in the logs pertaining to the location of Palpatine’s personal Super Star Destroyer at the time of its destruction. This small detail was enough for Sloan to enlist the help of the Registrar’s droids in sifting through the data available.Finally, one of the droids brought her a recording of a small boy disembarking a shuttle and being presented to Colonel Wulff Yularen, Mas Amedda, and the Emperor himself. With only that clip to steer her search, Sloan set off to confront the only being from the video she knew to be alive and who happened to be right there on Coruscant: Mas Amedda. En route to Mas Amedda, however, Sloan was captured by local criminals and held captive for a short time until Mercurial Swift, freshly returned from extracting Brendol and Armitage Hux from Arkanis, rescued the Grand Admiral and escorted her to the Imperial Palace.Sloan located Amedda and interrogated him as to the source of the video and the identity of the boy. Amedda, never one to miss out on an opportunity to attach himself to powerful beings, told Sloan he would provide information about Rax if she guaranteed him a place in the new Empire. Sloan agreed. Amedda informed Sloan that the shuttle in the video had departed from Jakku and that the boy was indeed Gallius Rax. Furthermore, the wreckage of that shuttle was located on the junk moon of Ord Mantel, Quantx, and it might contain further clues as to who Rax really was and what his relationship with the Emperor was. Sloan sent Swift to investigate the remains of the shuttle while she returned to the fleet to avoid suspicion.A short time after returning to the fleet, the first meeting of the Shadow Council was called. The Council consisted of Sloan, Rax, Brendol Hux, Grand Moff Randd, General Hodnar Borrum, and Imperial propagandist Ferric Obdur. During this meeting, Rax revealed the true size of the force he had managed to assemble to his fellow Imperial survivors. The news of this larger force came as a welcome surprise to the other Imperials in attendance. There is even debate as to if Sloan was aware of the true size of Rax’s fleet up until this point, though she didn't display any surprise in the council meeting.Following this first meeting of the Shadow Council, Sloan and Rax met privately to discuss his next steps for the Empire. He revealed to Sloan that he was planning to attack the New Republic capital of Chandrila. His plan involved Sloan reaching out to New Republic Chancellor Mon Mothma and suggesting they meet to discuss options for a peaceful transition of power in the galaxy. Sloan agreed to the plan, but her mistrust of Rax was only growing. In the time that had passed since returning from Coruscant, Sloan had discovered that Rax was intentionally ignoring distress signals from certain Imperial leadership he saw as a threat, opting to let the New Republic destroy his competition instead of trying to bolster their ranks. It was with this information rattling around in her mind that Rae Sloan made contact with the New Republic under the guise of peace talks. Rax had convinced Sloan that this was the best course of action as it would not only buy time for the Empire to gather strength, but it would allow them to spring a surprise attack on Chandrila in the process.Mon Mothma was suspicious of Sloan, especially since Sloan insisted she could not offer a full Imperial surrender as she didn’t have control of several pockets of Imperial resistance, but not wanting to pass up a chance to finally end the Galactic Civil War, Mon Mothma agreed to host Sloan on Chandrila and negotiate a peace between the New Republic and Sloan’s portion of the Imperial remnant. It’s no doubt Mon Mothma thought that by negotiating with Sloan, perhaps the surrender of this large section of the remaining Imperials would signal to the others that it was indeed time to accept the reality of the situation and Palpatine’s death, and that they needed to pivot to a new way forward.This trip to Chandrila would bring Sloan back into contact with a group of Rebels turned Imperial head-hunters for the New Republic led by Norra Wexley.Norra Wexley was a veteran Rebel pilot who had fought at the Battle of Endor along with multiple other key battles for the Rebellion. She had hoped to retire to a life of peace with her son Temmin following Endor, and with that goal in mind went to find Temmin on their home planet, Akiva. Norra reunited with Temmin, but their relationship had become severely strained by years of separation as well as Temmin blaming Norra for the disappearance and assumed death of his father, Brentin, during the war. Those personal battles would have to be fought later, however, as unbeknownst to either Wexley they were about to be pulled into the final chapter of the war they were hoping to finally escape from.As I mentioned the Wexley family is from Akiva, and yes that is the same Akiva where Rae Sloan had gathered former Imperials in an attempt to guide the Empire forward. It is the same Akiva where Gallius Rax had tipped off to the New Republic as the gathering place for that Imperial huddle, and it is the same Akiva where Norra Wexley is forced to abandon her dream of a peaceful retirement.The New Republic had sent Rebel hero Wedge Antilles to Akiva to investigate the tip they had received about an Imperial gathering, and it was Wedge’s capture during this scouting mission that forced Norra and Temmin to partner up in order to free Antilles. Following the events on Akiva, Norra and Temmin joined the New Republic and went on to lead a small strike force tasked with rooting out dug-in Imperial holdouts and bringing them to justice.
Princess Leia would eventually recruit the strike force to go to Kashyyyk and locate her husband Han Solo who had traveled there in an attempt to assist his life-long friend and co-pilot Chewbacca in liberating his fellow Wookies.While in the process of helping Solo complete his mission on Kashyyyk by freeing Chewbacca, who had been captured by the Empire while trying to liberate a Wookiee slave camp, Norra Wexley discovered that her husband Brentin was still alive and amongst the Imperial prisoners on the Wookiee homeworld. In an interesting twist of fate, it had been an ignored distress call from Imperials on Kashyyyk dealing with the insurrection led by Solo and Wexley that led to Rae Sloan discovering Gallius Rax was allowing some Imperial remnants to die out while saving only the ones he valued and knew he could control.As fate would have it, Wexley and Solo were returning to Chandrila with the prisoners they had liberated on Kashyyyk at the same time that Sloan was on Chandrila orchestrating fake peace talks with the Republic, and it was at a ceremony celebrating the liberation of those very prisoners that all of the pieces to Gallius Rax’s plan would click into place.
During a speech by Mon Mothma, New Republic Senate Guard Windom Traducier, who had been recruited as a double agent by the Empire, used a device to activate hidden organic microchips, similar to those used in the development of the Clone Army during the Clone Wars, inside the brains of the newly freed prisoners.This caused the prisoners to erupt in violence in response to their secretly programmed assassination orders, with Brentin Wexley managing to shoot and wound Chancellor Mon Mothma in the fray. Mon Mothma survived the attack, as did fellow key New Republic leaders Fleet Admiral Gail Ackbar and General Carlist Rieekan. Meanwhile, Sloan realized that the outburst had been Rax’s plan all along, and sensing that it had also been Rax’s plan to hang her out to dry on Chandrila, Rae ordered her guards to open fire and carve an escape path for her.
During her escape, Sloan was wounded by Norra Wexley and forced to kill her personal assistant Adea Rite who had been turned against her by Gallius Rax, before stealing a small freighter and using it to make a covert escape from Chandrila. Believing that Sloan was dead, Gallius Rax declared himself the Counselor to the Empire, essentially making him the new Emperor in all but name.Now the stage was set. The New Republic had received a clear message that the Empire was not going to go out without a fight and that they were willing to fight dirty in order to reascend the galactic power structure. Gallius Rax had betrayed his way into full control of the largest remaining portion of Imperial firepower in the galaxy. Both sides knew that soon they would be drawn into a decisive final battle to determine which of them would inherit the galaxy.
(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
We will begin examining the final moments leading up to that engagement, and the engagement itself, the Battle of Jakku, in our next lecture.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Hello there, and welcome back to Galactic History. Please settle into your seats, I know you’ve all been waiting to dive further into this battle, so let’s reward your Yoda-like patience and get going.If you recall from our previous time together we were in the midst of laying the groundwork for what would be the most important battle of the Galactic Civil War.We have discussed who the major players were: On the Imperial side is Grand Admiral Rae Sloan, the publicly facing leader of the Empire who had just been betrayed, hung out to dry by her own side on Chandrila thanks to a botched assassination attempt aimed at New Republic leadership.Gallius Rax, who was both the being behind that betrayal and the one pulling the Imperial strings from the shadows, had just stepped onto the public stage by declaring himself Counselor to the Empire following the incident on Chandrila which he likely thought would be a death trap for Sloan, thus eliminating another of his rivals for power while simultaneously crippling the fledgling New Republic.On the New Republic side of the conflict we have the political leadership; the likes of New Republic Chancellor Mon Mothma and Senator Leia Organa Solo, as well as the upper echelons of the New Republic military such as General Carlist Rieekan and Admiral Gial Ackbar.In addition to that key leadership there was a somewhat hastily assembled New Republic strike force who, since the incident on Akiva where they managed to disrupt an Imperial attempt to seemingly reunite the remnants of the Empire, had been tasked with high-importance missions by the upper echelons of the New Republic.Their tasks included tracking down and capturing or eliminating key remaining Imperial leadership, as well as undertaking some personal missions for the aforementioned leadership.
This group was composed of former Rebel, now New Republic, pilots Norra Wexley and Wedge Antilles, Norra’s son Temmin aka “Snap”, his customized B-1 battle droid companion and bodyguard dubbed Mr. Bones, the Zabraak Bounty Hunter Jas Emari and former Imperial loyalty officer Sinjir Rath Velus. A former Imperial loyalty officer…on a team of Rebels…hunting down Imperial holdouts. Does that count as successfully failing at one’s job?Beyond the Akiva engagement, the team led by Wexley was also entangled in the assassination attempt on Chandrila.Norra’s husband, and Temmin’s father, Brentin Wexley, was among several former Rebel military members rescued from an Imperial facility on Kashyyyk. Unbeknownst to any beings in the New Republic however, these prisoners had been implanted with organic microchips that upon receiving a specific command would turn them into Imperially controlled assassins.
Just like the devices converting Clone legions from protectors to assassins, these chips ensured the prisoners never quite left Imperial control. Brentin Wexley shot and wounded Chancellor Mon Mothma during the fray, forcing Rae Sloan to make a run for it. Recall, Sloan had been sent to Chandrila under the guise of engaging in peace talks with the New Republic, but had been set up to look like the engineer of the assassination by Gallius Rax. Norra Wexley pursued Sloan on Chandrila and managed to wound the Grand Admiral, but Sloan made good her escape.Now Norra and her crew, certainly her son Temmin and his ever-faithful B-1 companion, had a personal score to settle with Sloan and the Imps in addition to the game of truly ending the war.
It was this personal vendetta that would lead the New Republic to its chance to finally snuff out the Imperial spark from the galaxy: on a nowhere world called Jakku.The remainder of this lecture we will focus on the space battle that, after so many years of rebel attacks, Imperial cruelty and full-scale Galactic Civil War, would mark the decisive final engagement between the Alliance to Restore the Republic, aka the Rebel Alliance now the New Republic, and the Galactic Empire established by former Emperor Sheev Palpatine.In the process of discussing the space battle itself we will delve into the obstacles, both physical and political, that stood between the beings I’ve just listed, and the showdown at Jakku.Recall that Gallius Rax had been charged with developing and implementing Emperor Palpatine’s contingency plan for what should happen within and to the Empire in the event of his death.Remember Palpatine believed any Empire incapable of protecting its Emperor deserved to die along with its leader, so Rax has essentially spent his entire life devoted to not only the obliteration of Palpatine’s Empire after his death, but also with ensuring that a chosen few Imps are able to escape to the Unknown Regions where they could quietly begin rebuilding an even more cruel version of the dead Sith Lord’s vision.The fall and dismantling of Rax’s mentor’s empire was a truly galactic event. Between Operation: Cinder, the liberation of Kashyyyk, the Akiva incident, the assassination attempt on Chandrila, and Imperials engaging in clashes with every social strata, including other Imps, spread across the scale of society from Coruscant to any number of scummy and villainous hives dotted across the farthest reaches of the galaxy...…there wasn’t a single planet or population not impacted by the collapse of Sheev Palpatine’s Empire.This wide scale, ubiquitous conflict meant Gallius Rax was able to hide his role in the destruction of the Empire, per Palpatine’s instructions, within the chaos that the Emperor’s death had created merely by occurring.Beyond ensuring that only those he desired to have the information he possessed were in the know, likely a hefty task on its own, Rax needn’t bother being overly secretive about the strings he pulled.Once he believed that Rae Sloan was dead, Rax was able to devote nearly all of his attention to the second task given to him by Palpatine: the survival and escape of the chosen few who would rebuild in secret.That task could only be completed in one place, and that was Jakku. Specifically, it was at Palpatine’s Observatory on Jakku. If you recall from our last lecture, Palpatine left observatories scattered across the galaxy as points from which to look beyond the borders of the galaxy for answers to whatever questions float around the mind of a Sith Lord. Two of these observatories have been found thus far; one on Pilio, and one on Jakku.The Jakku Observatory was located below a flat outcropping of rock known as the Plaintive Hand plateau, an area considered sacred by some on Jakku, such as the Anchorite sect, and thought to be cursed by others. It is where a young Gallius Rax first encountered Sheev Palpatine as he had his loyalists begin the secret construction of what was to be the observatory. Rax’s first task in service to his new mentor and master was the protection of the site from local meddling while the observatory was under construction.This observatory was home to what became essentially the escape pod for select Imperials to use in order to flee justice and scurry off to the Unknown Regions. It housed a replica of Palpatine’s yacht, The Imperialis, computers containing detailed maps of the Unknown Regions, and a vast collection of Sith relics and artifacts, among other things.While it was a refuge for certain Imperials, the plateau was considered cursed among the locals, due in part to the large number of children going missing near it. This too was part of Gallius Rax’s plan to ensure the survival of a more pure version of Palpatine’s vision.Rax had brokered a deal with local crime lord Niima the Hutt wherein Niima would guard the pass to the Plaintive Hand plateau as well as kidnap local children and deliver them to Rax and his henchmen. These children were put through a brutal process which stripped them of their identities and individuality while training them to be unquestioningly loyal to authority and to kill without compunction. This was the framework of what would become the First Order’s Stormtrooper program, and these kidnapped children were the first wave of those troopers.
So it was from the surface of Jakku that Rax would orchestrate his escape with those few deemed worthy of survival and his collection of child soldiers. In order to guarantee that escape, Rax had assembled the vast majority of the remaining ships in the Imperial fleet above the planet.This fleet, as impressive in scale and firepower as it was, served one purpose, though none of the Imperials aboard the ships in orbit save perhaps Grand Moff Randd knew it: to shield the Imperialis as it fled Jakku for the Unknown Regions.
Perhaps it was the will of the Force then, that Rax’s shield of durasteel and lives he saw as disposable, would be the reason that the New Republic discovered where the bulk of the Empire was gathering following the failed assassination of Chancelor Mon Mothma on Chandrila.
Norra Wexley and her team had been tracking down information on the whereabouts of her husband Brentin and Rae Sloan since they both disappeared following the Chandrila incident. Their pursuit eventually led them to an encounter with the bounty hunter Mercurial Swift on the planet Taris.Swift was a known associate of Sloan, and had been hired by the Imperial on several occasions to assist her with missions passed down from Rax. Though the bounty hunter was initially hesitant to talk, he caved when former Imperial loyalty officer Sinjir Rath Velus threatened Swift’s mother. Swift told Norra Wexley that Sloan had been sighted on Jakku in the company of a human male. Furthermore, Wexley noted in her after action report, he mentions the name Gallius Rax in connection with Jakku and Sloan.This marks the first time that Rax’s name comes onto the New Republic radar, and as they will find out in due time, he is a much greater threat to long-term peace in the galaxy than Sloan and the entire Imperial Fleet combined.With fresh information on Sloan, Norra Wexley and her crew set course for Jakku, and upon exiting hyperspace set eyes on the Imperial fleet orbiting the planet. In a snap decision, Norra sets her freighter’s hyperdrive to return to Chandrila before jumping in an escape pod with bounty hunter Jas Emari and heading for the surface of Jakku. Temmin, furious at his mother for once again leaving him behind while she chases a mission objective, sends his B-1 battle droid companion Mister Bones to follow his mother in another escape pod.Snap Wexley had a complicated relationship with his mother Norra. In interviews and memoirs, both would discuss how Temmin was scarred by the loss of both of his parents at a young age. His father Brentin had been arrested by the Empire, which immediately prompted his mother to join the Rebellion.After action reports from the group’s missions made mention that on several occasions when Norra would try to split off from Temmin to accomplish an objective, he would become insulted and accuse her of leaving him behind to chase the newest cause.That brief foray into Wexley family politics aside, we will pick up with Admiral Sloan and Norra Wexley, among others, in our next lecture when we will dive into how the Battle of Jakku unfolded on the planetary surface.For now, let us return our focus to the stars above Jakku.Temmin Wexley and Sinjir Rath Velus arrive back on Chandrila and find themselves faced with a terrifying problem not seen in the galaxy at that point for over twenty galactic standard years: the slow moving wheels of bureaucracy and Senate approvals.Continued

PROFESSOR:
Mon Mothma was struggling to keep the New Republic Senate focused long enough to get any work done, partially from infighting amongst its members, but primarily due to the specter of Palpatine and the real threat posed by the yet-to-be-defeated Empire.Temmin and Sinjir initially go to Han Solo for help and ask for the use of the Millennium Falcon so they can return to Jakku and rescue Norra. Solo refuses because, well because it is the Falcon, and because he is in the midst of confronting a new challenge his life as a smuggler didn’t prepare him for: fatherhood.As Temmin and Solo argue, with Temmin going so far as to call on the life-debt Solo owes him and his mother for finding him, Leia Organa Solo and Mon Mothma enter the room, joining the fray.Temmin briefs Chancellor Mon Mothma on the fleet they spotted above Jakku. Mon Mothma’s impulse reaction is to send the newly christened New Republic Defense Fleet to Jakku to deal a killing blow to the Empire. However, the days of making snap military decisions are over and before she can take action she must seek the approval of the revived Galactic Senate.Temmin Wexley and Sinjir Rath Velus decide they cannot leave the fates of Norra Wexley and Jas Emari up to senatorial debate. They continue to plead with Han and Leia until eventually Solo relents and agrees to lend them his prized Millennium Falcon.Having finally secured a ride to Jakku, Snap and Sinjir make their way towards where the Falcon is docked only to be stopped by a group of Senate Guards. The pair is ordered to return to their quarters and await further instruction.Leia awakes later that night to a HoloNet News report stating that one of Mon Mothma’s primary political opponents, Senator Tolwar Wartol of Orish, had denounced the Chancellor for concealing news of the presence of a large Imperial fleet above Jakku. Leia left the political battle for Mon Mothma, and turned her attention to determining how news of the fleet above Jakku had been leaked.Mon Mothma met with her advisor Auxi Kray Korbin and Admiral Gail Ackbar to discuss how best to respond to Wartol’s accusations. Korbin and Ackbar reassured Mon Mothma that the accusations were unjust and didn’t fit the facts.Mon Mothma would go to the HoloNet News and issue a statement detailing that she had known of the Imperial presence above Jakku for less than a day, and that she chose to consult with her advisors on a path forward before panicking the New Republic with news of an amassing Imperial threat.Additionally, Mon Mothma instructed Ackbar to send a scouting party to Jakku to confirm the sighting and gather intelligence. She then heads to the Senate to deliver a speech pleading with the Senators to approve military action against the Imperials on Jakku prior to their departure for the New Republic’s new capital on Nakadia.While the Chancellor tangled with her political opponents, Sinjir enlisted the help of his boyfriend, a hacker by the name of Conder Kyl, to scan the Solos’ home for listening devices. They find a device hidden within the couple’s nanny droid, T-2LC. Having discovered how the information got out, Leia contacts Mon Mothma to discuss who could be behind the espionage. Shortly later Mon Mothma would receive news that the vote did not pass in the Senate, and that the New Republic Defense Fleet was grounded.Six Senators spelled doom for Mon Mothma’s plea to take military action against the Imperial forces on Jakku: Tolwar Wartol, Ashmin Ek, Rethalow, Dor Wieedo, Grelka Sorka, and Nim Tar. Wartol’s motivations were fairly obvious given that he had been a vocal opponent of Mon Mothma’s for some time. That being the case, Leia decided to enlist Sinjir, Temmin, Conder and former New Republic Special Forces soldier Jom Barell, previously discharged for taking part in the unsanctioned mission to liberate Kashyyyk, to spy on the other five Senators.Conder hacks into Senators Ek and Wieedo’s bank accounts and discovers that both have been receiving unusual credit deposits despite the economic struggles of the time. They begin following several of the senators and are eventually led to a restaurant where the Senators mingle for several hours.Rath Velus gets distracted at one point and loses sight of his team members. He leaves the restaurant and spots Senators Ek and Tar departing down an alley. As he moves to confront the Senators, Sinjir is attacked from behind and knocked unconscious. Temmin eventually finds Sinjir and having lost contact with their companions following a distraction organized by one of the Senators using their own children, set off in search of them. They find Solo, who was also knocked out, and then eventually track down Jom Barell, who had kidnapped Senator Rethalow in order to get answers.Rethalow reveals that the negative votes had been orchestrated by Black Sun and Red Key operatives, who sought to profit from the lawlessness of a prolonged war and had kidnapped family members of some of the Senators. The group then tracks a signal from the missing Condeer that leads them to a warehouse near the Quarrow Senate house on Nakadia. They then seize the warehouse and locate Conder, along with the missing senatorial family members.While Leia had Temmin and company tracking down information on the other five Senators, Mon Mothma focused on Wartol. She had accompanied him aboard his personal ship on the journey to Nakadia and while in transit took the opportunity to question Wartol about the other Senators. Eventually Wartol defiantly admitted to manipulating the others in order to block the vote from passing. Furthermore he admitted to planting the bug in the Solo home.One can only imagine that Senator Wartol felt so confident because he knew that almost immediately upon their arrival at the new capital there would be a re-vote on the matter and, assuming the fix was in, he wanted to gloat to Mon Mothma before crushing her first crucial measure in the New Republic Senate. What he didn’t know, however, was that Mon Mothma had intentionally smuggled some pta fruit aboard Wartol’s cruiser, and Nakadia has some of the most strict biosecurity laws in the galaxy. By bringing a snack along for the journey, Mon Mothma had guaranteed a hefty delay before the re-vote could take place.The pta fruit ploy worked, and Mon Mothma bought enough time for Leia and her spies to uncover the conspiracy in the senate. Posing as Mon Mothma’s advisor, Conder had sent messages to the five Senators involved in Wartol’s plot offering them pardons if they voted in favor of the effort during the re-vote, and informing them that their family members had been recovered. The second vote passes.Sinjir is convinced by Conder to stay on Nakadia and let Temmin and Jom handle the combat to come. Temmin is offered a seat in the resurrected Phantom Squadron under the command of Captain Wedge Antilles, and Jom Barell joins a SpecForce team waiting to depart for Jakku aboard a U-Wing. Why was a being who had just been discharged from SpecForce now riding into battle with them, you might ask? Especially after he had been part of a group that had spied on New Republic Senators?At this point it had been nearly a year since the Emperor’s death, and the Empire was still a tangible threat capable of nearly assassinating the Chancellor of the fledgling New Republic.
They knew where the Imperial fleet was. They knew that the Imps were busy on the surface of the planet, which meant there was a good chance that Imperial leadership was present, and even if they weren’t this was too big of an opportunity to not take. It was all hands. Former Imperial? Grab a blaster. Discharged SpecForce grunt struggling with the transition from Rebel to soldier? Well today, we need Rebels.The New Republic Fleet sets course for Jakku and one last fight with the Galactic Empire.
When the New Republic drops out of hyperspace above Jakku, they immediately engage the Imperial fleet, and almost from the start the New Republic is on the back foot.
The Imperial fleet uses its Star Destroyers to create a defensive net around the Super Star Destroyer, the Ravager. New Republic ships can’t breach this perimeter net, and begin to get pummeled by the superior firepower of the ISDs.New Republic fighter pilots, like Temmin and his new wing mates in Phantom Squadron, engage the TIE fighters deployed by the Star Destroyers in deadly and intimate ship-to-ship combat taking place in the no man’s land between multiple capital ships lobbing death at one another.
Eventually, Phantom Squadron decides that they don’t want to hang out in that hell any longer, and they dive for the surface of the planet to provide cover for the troop transports making the daunting journey from capital ship to planetary surface. As they escort the shuttles and provide cover for ground forces, Temmin is ordered to pursue a fleeing Imperial shuttle.As he approaches the shuttle, the loading ramp drops and Snap is greeted by Mister Bones, who had caught up to Temmin’s mother and was unmistakable due to the heavy modifications Temmin had made.Norra tells him of a hidden Imperial base on the planet and orders him to keep clear of the area. Temmin, knowing his mother is alive and in the fight, breaks off and returns to his squadron.
Above the planet, the New Republic is holding on by the thinnest of threads, until the Imperial Star Destroyer Punishment breaks formation in order to ram the New Republic Starhawk Amity. Admiral Ackbar notices this gap in the Imperial defenses, and sends a message to the Starhawk-class battleship, Concord, which was under the command of Commodore Kyrsta Agate. Commodore Agate had been disfigured in the failed assassination attempt on Chandrila and had only agreed to return to her command at the personal request of Ackbar.Agate orders her crew to abandon ship, and then flies straight into the heart of the Imperial formation with her sights set on the Super Star Destroyer Ravager.To give you context into the type of being Commodore Kyrsta Agate was, I’d like to read a quote from the Commodore that was later relayed by Norra Wexley, who had just asked Agate if she wanted the Rebels to regret what they had done in fighting the Empire.“I do. A little. We should. I don't want unrepentant killers, Lieutenant Wexley. I want soldiers who hate what they had to do and fear having to ever do it again."Perhaps this act was Agate’s gift to those under her command, and to all the New Republic. To relieve them of the burden of having to deal this massive killing blow.The Concord is shredded by Imperial turbolasers, but Agate manages to snag the Ravager with the Concord’s powerful tractor beam. The two ships, one New Republic, and one Imperial, began their doomed dance together down towards the surface of Jakku.Grand Moff Ran dd, who had been at the helm of the Ravager, realizes he has no hope of saving the ship when New Republic fighters took out the ship’s engines once the Concord had it in her grip. Randd abandoned his post, fleeing in an escape pod.As the doomed ships plummeted toward the surface of the planet, Admiral Ackbar broadcast warnings to the New Republic troops and pilots on the ground to watch for falling debris. Temmin Wexley didn’t quite get that message in time. His X-Wing was struck by debris and he crash landed on Jakku. He survives the crash, watching in the distance as the Concord and Ravager impact the surface.With the fall of the Ravager, the space battle was essentially over. The Imperial chain of command was shattered, and ships were more concerned with getting out of the path of the plummeting dreadnoughts than with defending themselves. In the chaos the New Republic gained the upper hand and were able to snuff out Imperial resistance and capture any Imperials willing to surrender and face whatever justice awaited them at New Republic tribunals.Commodore Kyrsta Agate’s sacrifice led to the end of the Imperial fleet. Yes, there were still some isolated pockets of Imperial resistance in the galaxy after Jakku, but nothing that could ever earnestly be called “capital-The, capital-Imperial, capital-Fleet”. After 24 galactic standard years, the threat of the Empire was no more in the galaxy.To fully understand how the Battle of Jakku ended the Empire for good, however, you need to know what happened on, and below, the surface of the planet while the two mighty fleets dueled in orbit.Before we close I’d like you to indulge me and consider what is missing from this battle that sets it apart from the majority of other major clashes during the Galactic Civil War; The lack of Force users.Vader and Palpatine are dead, as is Yoda, and despite there being a popular legend told in cantinas across the galaxy about Luke Skywalker bringing down Star Destroyers with his lightsaber, he was not present for the Battle of Jakku. Some of you may point out that Leia Organa had been briefly trained by her brother and was Force sensitive, but she wasn’t personally at the battle either.I’ve always found it fascinating that the will of the Force saw fit to keep those who could wield it out of the final attempt to kill a Sith Empire.(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
In our next lecture we will close the book, so to speak, on the Battle of Jakku by examining the surface battle. I look forward to it.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Welcome back one and all to Galactic History! I trust you’ve all been poring over your notes for our last two lectures in anticipation of today’s thrilling conclusion to our three lecture series discussing the Battle of Jakku.We have covered the leadership and key players for both the remnants of the Galactic Empire and the freshly formed New Republic. We have also navigated some of the political hyperlanes that Chancellor Mon Mothma and her allies had to pass through in order to get Senate approval to strike at the gathering Imperial remnant.Which, considering the fact that at that point there had been no political procedure in place other than “Does Sheev like it?” for over twenty galactic standard years, it is stunning Mon Mothma was able to even get the New Republic Senate up and running in time to handle this crisis, let alone the lack of opportunity in that timeframe to keep her political skills sharp outside of working with the Rebel Council.The Chancellor could have decided the New Republic was not yet in a position to operate as a republic, and thus issued an executive order to take military action against the Empire at Jakku. Outside of her political rivals making a stink on the HoloNet I doubt there would have been much in the way of backlash to that kind of executive action, and at the end of the day if you win the battle the galaxy would have celebrated, regardless of how the ends were achieved.However, even when faced with yet another life-or-death decision in a life cycle filled with them, Mon Mothma stayed committed to democracy and the republic. She chose the more difficult path because it was the morally correct path, and given the Chancellor’s character there is no doubt she felt that it was time for the galaxy to see a leader who was willing to trudge through those difficulties in order to do what was right.I say all of this to highlight just how fragile the situation, and indeed the entire galaxy, was. If the New Republic didn’t act like a new republic in their first test as a functioning government, and instead opted to take the well-worn Imperial path, then everything they had fought for during the Galactic Civil War would have been for naught. Nearly every single moment and decision surrounding the Battle of Jakku carried those kinds of lofty consequences. This backwater world would be a proving ground for the New Republic both politically and militarily, while simultaneously serving as a stage for the Empire’s final stand and a launching pad for its sinister hidden future.Following the political drama, we dove into the battle as it unfolded in orbit above the planet. The destruction of the vast majority of the remaining Imperial Fleet was a massive achievement for the New Republic, and was the victory they needed to show the galaxy that the Empire was well and truly dead.They needed to be able to share harrowing accounts of individual star fighters scrapping amongst the turbo laser battery exchanges. They needed to be able to put footage of a Super Star Destroyer falling from the sky and crashing into the hard desert surface on the HoloNet to serve as the symbolic final blow to the might of the Imperial Navy. The space battle would be the victory the New Republic celebrated with the galaxy.The surface battle was less glamorous than the one that took place in orbit, as is often the case. Combat between star ships is impersonal, and thus beings are more comfortable celebrating those victories. The harsh sands of Jakku and the brutal, often hand-to-hand, combat it took to secure the New Republic victory on the ground was vital and heroic, but it was also the true face of war which is not one we enjoy gazing into.I will begin my quest to do justice by those who fought on Jakku, by taking us back to the escape of Grand Admiral Rae Sloane from Chandrila.Recall that Sloane had been sent to Chandrila under the guise of negotiating the terms of an Imperial surrender to the New Republic. In reality, she had been sent there by Gallius Rax to keep Chancellor Mon Mothma and the rest of the New Republic leadership distracted while the Empire carried out an assassination plot.Rax had kept Sloane in the dark as to how the plan would unfold, so the Grand Admiral was genuinely as surprised as all others in attendance when newly liberated Rebel POWs opened fire during a Liberation Day celebration.These Rebels had been prisoners of war under the Imperials on Kashyyyk and had been unknowingly implanted with biochips that made them Imperial sleeper agents. They had been freed by a group led by Han Solo and Norra Wexley’s strike group. Norra and her son Temmin Wexley had a personal stake in freeing the prisoners as Brentin Wexley, Norra’s husband and Temmin’s father, was among them.It was Brentin who shot and wounded Chancelor Mon Mothma during the assassination attempt due to the Imperial chip he had been implanted with, and it was Rae Sloane that had been hung out to dry by the Empire. Gallius Rax took the reigns of the Empire and left Slone to take the fall for the assassination.It was both Brentin Wexley and Rae Sloane who would hunt down Rax on Jakku. Once he was free from the grips of the Imperial chip, which seemed to have had a short life-span as most of those affected came out of it mere seconds after they took their shots, Brentin Wexley followed the fleeing Sloane and hid aboard the cargo ship she stole to escape the planet.Once in orbit Wexley confronted the Grand Admiral, who talked him out of killing her by offering him something more valuable than revenge: answers. She told him that they had both been betrayed by Gallius Rax. Wexley was wary of Sloane, but he saw Rax as an opportunity to clear his name and accepted her help.We know that at some point after the pair fled Chandrila, Mercurial Swift, a bounty hunter and frequent employee of Rae Sloane, contacted the Grand Admiral and gave her information that led her to set course for Jakku.The reason we know is because Norra Wexley pulled star ship departure data from the day of the attack on Chandrila and discovered that a small cargo ship was missing. Norra and her team then tracked down Mercurial Swift and got him to divulge what information he had passed to his boss.However, it had taken Norra months to track down a solid lead on Sloane, and that whole time she had been on Jakku with Brentin Wexley tracking down leads of her own. Leads that would take her to Gallius Rax. They eventually met a human male named Kolob who was a member of the Anchorite sect that ran the orphanage Gallius Rax had grown up in.It was this man who gave the Imperial and the former Rebel information that steered them towards the Plaintive Hand plateau. He also divulged that Rax had been kidnapping children in that area for years, and that passage to the plateau could only be reached by traveling through Niima the Hutt’s territory.As with most Hutts, Niima was ruthless in her pursuit of credits and power, and was always open to plunging a vibroknife into the back of the beings she was allied with if a better offer came along.Sloane and Wexley managed to gain an audience with Niima the Hutt during which Sloane requested permission to travel to the Plaintive Hand, using her rank as Grand Admiral as reason. Niima revealed that she had already struck a deal with the Empire via an alliance with Gallius Rax and had the pair subdued by her slaves.During their captivity, Sloane was able to determine Niima didn’t know what was hidden at the Plaintive Hand, so she came up with a scheme to trick the Hutt into helping her. She told Niima that there was an Imperial super weapon at the facility hidden beneath the plateau, and that if the Hutt betrayed Rax and helped Sloane, she would give the weapon to Niima.Niima agreed to this bargain. The next morning Rae Slaone and Brentin Wexley began a week long trek across the desert with Niima and a caravan of her slaves. It was somewhere along this journey that Counselor Gallius Rax became aware that Niima had turned on him, and that Sloane was alive and closing in on his position.He had been informed of this by one of the red robed Sentinel droids designed to carry out Emperor Palpatine’s wishes in the event of his death. At that time Rax was inside the Jakku Observatory continuing to lay the plans for his escape and the escape of a select few upper echelon Imperials to the Unknown Regions aboard a replica of the Emperor’s yacht Imperialus. He would have been none too pleased to have his scheming interrupted by a rival he thought had already been dealt with.Turbolaser batteries that were part of the Jakku Observatory’s defense systems opened fire on the caravan, which descended into chaos. Sloane and Wexley managed to escape the kill zone and find cover from where they could plan their next moves.While waiting for an opportunity to continue their path towards the Plaintive Hand and the facility neither of them knew was there, the Imperial and former Rebel spotted a Corellian shuttle heading towards their position on the horizon. Unbeknownst to them, that shuttle was piloted by Norra Wexley and her bounty hunter ally the Zabrak Jas Emari.You’ll recall from our previous lecture Norra made haste for Jakku immediately after hearing from Mercurial Swift that Sloane was there, and in her fervor to get to the Grand Admiral had stumbled upon the gathering Imperial Fleet above Jakku. She had leapt into an escape pod with Emari and launched off towards the planet, leaving her son Temmin to report back to Mon Mothma and the New Republic they had found where the Imps were hiding.Norra and Jas survived what couldn’t have been a pleasant landing on the surface of Jakku, and found themselves in an unenviable position. Because of Wexley’s snap decision to jump into the escape pod with Emari without telling her what the plan was, they had no weapons or supplies other than what was on them and in the pod.They gathered those meager sundries and continued their search for Rae Sloane by beginning a search for civilization. Their fortunes did not improve upon finding civilization however, as they got into a scuffle with some locals only to be rescued by a Stormtrooper patrol that promptly subdued and arrested the two known Rebels.First they fall into a nest of gundarks when they stumble upon the Imperial Navy, then in their haste to both continue their mission and allow their allies to escape they end up with no weapons or supplies on Jakku, where they’re ambushed by local criminals before being ambushed by Imperials and taken captive.A series of events impressive for both its rapidity and steep downward trajectory. What is that saying about the Force and mysterious ways?Norra Wexley was sent to work at an Imperial work camp. After a day of brutal labor under the equally brutal Jakku sun, Norra finds herself staring at a rather familiar B-1 battle droid whom she surely must have thought was a mirage.Mister Bones, Temmin Wexley’s customized B-1 companion whom Snap had sent after his mother in a second escape pod before returning to Chandrila, had tracked Norra down. Norra Wexley wasn’t given time to savor her reunion with Mister Bones, however, as the Imperial guards immediately blasted the droid to pieces upon spotting him.This was not the first time that this particular droid had found itself in pieces. Snap Wexley had built his companion with an emergency protocol where upon being destroyed the system would play dead for a period of time to allow the threat to pass. Then, if enough of the system was intact, the droid would reboot and reassemble itself.That is what Mister Bones did the night after his destruction, and upon completing the task of reassembling himself, he went about repaying the favor by literally disassembling the Imperial guards and freeing Norra Wexley and the other captives.Wexley and Bones steal a speeder bike and set off in search of anything that isn’t Imperial. After a few hours they spot a ship and flag it down only to find their wayward ally Jas Emari at the controls, the Zabrak bounty hunter recently escaping her own captivity.Where the Imperials had sent Norra Wexley to a labor camp, they then gave Jas Emari over to Niima the Hutt, who allowed her current guest Mercurial Swift to use Jas as a punching bag. Swift had a score to settle with Emari after she and the rest of Wexley’s team had ambushed him on Taris and gotten him to inform on his employer Grand admiral Rae Sloane.Eventually Emari was able to escape her cell with an impressive display of strength and will. She breaks off some of her cranial horns by slamming her head against the walls and floor of her cell. She then uses those horns to pick the lock to her cell and as weapons against the slaves that tried to apprehend her.Let us take a moment to consider what I just told you. She broke off living pieces of her own skull by repeatedly smashing her head into solid rock in order to gain freedom and aid her allies. For the beings among us with teeth, this would be equivalent to using a stone to bash out your teeth in order to escape.Jas Emari makes her way to a hangar where she finds herself confronted by two more bounty hunters, Hutts seem to collect them, don’t they? The bounty hunters, Dengar and Embo who both knew Emari well, had come to collect a bounty on her head. Emari appeals to Embo, who is a family friend, to let her pass out of honor. Bounty Hunters are as diverse a group as any in our galaxy, but many try to abide by a code of honor when dealing with fellow hunters.Dengar was not one of those hunters, and would never consider allowing such an escape to happen, but it bought Emari time and created enough of a distraction for Jas to escape with their ship. The same ship that Norra spots her in, and the same ship that Brentin Wexley and Rae Sloane had seen on the horizon.Once she had reunited with Jas Emari, Norra Wexley continued her pursuit of Rae Sloane. Norra, Jas and Mister Bones set off and begin their search by scouting out Niima the Hutt’s temple. What they found were the charred remains of her caravan, fresh off an attack from the turbolasers guarding the Jakku Observatory.Continued

PROFESSOR:
They circled the area looking for any evidence that Sloan might have been with Niima. Eventually, they spot the Grand Admiral in hiding and find that she isn’t alone. For the first time since she stopped him from assassinating the Chancellor of the New Republic, Norra Wexley laid eyes on her husband Brentin.When Brentin’s biochip had been activated and he had drawn a blaster to try and kill Mon Mothma, he got into a scuffle with his wife Norra who instinctively kneed him in the stomach to stop the attack. Brentin then faded in and out of control of his own actions as the chip struggled to remain in charge. He struck Norra with the grip of his blaster and fled into the crowd.While making his way through the panicked spectators, Brentin bumped into Temmin who began questioning his father trying desperately to get to the bottom of what was happening. Brentin pled his innocence to his son, but the chip still had it hooks in and he kept trying to raise his blaster to kill Temmin. Finally he broke away and then followed the fleeing Sloane.Now here he was on Jakku, in the company of the Imperial Norra Wexley had been chasing across the galaxy for months. Before she could reunite with her husband and capture Sloane however, Imperial shuttles arrived and cut off their path.Norra Wexley and Jas Emari hadn’t been the only ones watching the smoldering wreckage of the Hutt caravan for signs of life. Gallius Rax had been keeping an eye on the scene from the Observatory, and had decided to lead a strike force to wipe out the remaining threat.Rax captured Grand Admiral Sloane and Brentin Wexley, and ordered his Stormtroopers to kill Niima’s remaining slaves as well as the Hutt herself. Niima fought valiantly, even destroying one of Rax’s shuttle with her brute strength before being gunned down by the troopers.Rae Sloane took a stab at establishing some control of the situation by ordering the Stormtroopers to arrest Rax for treason only to find them loyal to the Counselor. In an interesting show of loyalty, or perhaps merely sensing she would still need an ally, Sloane convinced Gallius Rax not to execute Brentin by claiming he was still under the control of the chip. Rax allowed Brentin to live, and shuttled them off to the Observatory.Upon their arrival at the facility Rax gave Sloane and Wexley a demonstration of what he was up to on Jakku by introducing them to his child soldiers. Rax orders these brainwashed, kidnapped children to kill the contingent of Stormtroopers that had just brought the prisoners in.
Rae Sloane and Brentin Wexley bear witness to the brutal slaughter of a squad of veteran Stormtroopers which served as an initiation for the first foot-soldiers of the First Order. Gallius Rax then informs the pair that they will be joining him and his Shadow Council to watch the final battle between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance that had become the New Republic.With his Shadow Council gathered and his enemies there to watch as well, Gallius Rax delivered a speech to rally his troops for the grand and glorious battle to come, during which the fate of not only Jakku, not only the Empire, but indeed the entire galaxy would be decided. The speech is full of the typical hypocritical tyrannical rhetoric that permeated Palpatine’s Empire the way it does every fascist regime, but it lacked the flair and fear of a Sheev speech.Take these lines for example:
“Brutes and barbarians! They are subhuman. They are alien to us in the truest sense of the word and are deserving of no mercy from us. This is our zero hour, and I call you now to do your duty by the light of the glorious Galactic Empire.”
“The battle is upon us. Go! Go and drag them down to the ground and break their necks with your boots! Take their heads! End their tyranny!”You can imagine the spittle flying from his lips as he raves, no doubt picturing himself as the second coming of his mentor. These words reek of false bravado and unearned authority. Rax takes the lowest path possible and lays the prejudices of the Empire bare for all to see.
Of course it was no secret that the Imps felt this way, but Palpatine could twist words and spin a tale that could convince even the most ardent Rebel that, maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy. Gallius Rax? He had none of his idol’s prowess when it came to this. If you’re going to call for the death of all non-humans and non-Imperials, at least dress it up in pretty rhetoric. I’m surprised the Empire didn’t immediately die of embarrassment after this speech.If she wasn’t already convinced that the Empire she sought to serve was dead, I imagine Grand Admiral Rae Sloane came to know the truth during that speech. She had been a true believer in the Empire’s stated mission of bringing order to a chaotic galaxy through discipline and focus.
Now all that was left was Gallius Rax and his hollow ravings which had become the only thing loud enough to drown out the Imperial death rattle. Now, with the New Republic fleet dropping out of hyperspace to clash with the Imperial Navy she had commanded, Grand Admiral Rae Sloane would watch it and her entire life’s work all end.Brentin Wexley would not sit and watch. Rather, he managed to break free of his restraints and free Sloane, allowing them to subdue their captors and make a break to look for a ship with which they could pursue Rax, who had set off for a second facility. While searching for transport, Brentin and Sloane run into Norra Wexley and Mister Bones.Norra and Jas Emari stuck around to search the caravan site after Rax escaped with Sloane and Brentin. They had come upon a severely wounded but still living Niima the Hutt, who told them in exchange for taking her back to her temple she would provide clearance codes for the Imperial Observatory.Norra and Jas took Niima back to her temple, where Emari broke off in order to confront the bevy of bounty hunters that had gathered to capture her yet again. Norra and Mister Bones took an Imperial shuttle and set off into the thick of a rapidly developing surface battle.New Republic dropships are delivering troops to the surface of Jakku where they engage the Imperial Garrison. The two fleets are slugging it out in orbit and the first debris is beginning to drift back into the atmosphere, lighting up the sky and creating a deadly cascade of durasteel. It is there in the fray where for a brief moment mother and son are reunited.In our previous lecture I mentioned a moment when Snap Wexley, who flew with Phantom Squadron during the Battle of Jakku, encountered an Imperial shuttle while providing cover for ground forces and found his mother Norra behind the controls. We find ourselves once again at that moment in the story.After informing her son of the Observatory and telling him to keep clear, Norra Wexley set off for the Observatory where she encountered her husband and Rae Sloane. Norra wanted to kill Sloane, but the Grand Admiral convinced her that they should work together to stop Gallius Rax since he was the real architect of the attack on Chandrila.Together Norra and Brentin Wexley, Rae Sloane and Mister Bones set out to track down Gallius Rax and put a stop to whatever he was doing at the second Observatory facility. Bones would depart the group while in transit however, as upon witnessing the Super Star Destroyer Ravager falling from the sky, he determined he needed to go track down his master Temmin.Upon their arrival at the Observatory the trio finally discover that Rax’s plan all along had been to initiate the Contingency laid out by Palpatine. They realize that the Empire came here to die a symbolic death and take as many beings as possible with it while the corrupt soul made its escape.Gallius Rax had loaded Brendol Hux, the Commandant of the Empire’s lauded Arkanis Officers Academy, along with his son Armitage and the child soldiers aboard the Imperialis replica. He had also uploaded detailed maps of the Unknown Regions to the ship’s computers that would ferry them to the designated rally point from which they were to rebuild a more pure and cruel version of the Empire.Keep in mind that is what all of this was for. All of the death, destruction and mayhem of two massive fleets locked in a battle in orbit while legions of ground forces skirmished in the desert was to provide cover for a single ship to slip off unnoticed to the Unknown Regions. The narcissism of Palpatine’s Empire distilled.Gallius Rax was if nothing else a man of preparation, and he wouldn’t be content to leave it to the battle alone to create the distraction needed to make his escape. Nor would he want to leave any evidence behind. Instead, just like his mentor, he would destroy an entire planet to sell his lie.Within the Jakku Observatory was a borehole that led to the core of the planet and had been built with the purpose of destroying Jakku as the final step in the Contingency. By the time Sloane and the Wexleys had arrived Rax had already put this plan into motion.Norra and Brentin dashed off to try and seal the borehole and prevent the destruction of the planet while Sloan engages Rax, who was trying to make his way back to the Imperialis. Sloane loses the initial struggle with Rax, who having overpowered her, began to taunt the Grand Admiral by snapping her fingers one at a time.Norra, hearing Sloane’s anguish, left Brentin to seal the borehole while she went to help Sloane given that he was an accomplished slicer who could hack into most anything in the galaxy. Brentin soon abandoned his attempts to seal the borehole as well, opting to make sure Rax didn’t escape. He joined the fight and in the fray was mortally wounded by a blaster bolt to the chest from Rax, who scurried away as Norra managed to shoot him in the shoulder.As Norra Wexley made peace with and said goodbye to her dying husband, she passed her blaster to her enemy Rae Sloane so that she could see to the end of Gallius Rax. Sloane caught up to Rax and shot him multiple times in the stomach, finally killing him, but not before he could divulge the secret of the waiting Imperialis and the plan to rebuild in the Unknown Regions to her.With Rax dead, Rae Sloane and Norra Wexley bid farewell and parted in peace as Norra took her husband’s body to her shuttle and Sloane finished sealing the borehole and ending the threat to Jakku.Norra Wexley was reunited with Jas Emari, who had brokered a deal with the other bounty hunters, who were willing to listen to offers since the entity that posted the bounty on her was literally falling from the sky, and then sought out Temmin and Mister Bones. They found Temmin, but learned that Mister Bones had been vaporized in an airstrike moments after saving Temmin from an Imperial ambush.Norra Wexley and her crew would return to Akiva to bury her husband, Temmin’s father, and Rebel hero Brentin Wexley before returning to Chandrila to toast to fallen allies and set about the continued efforts to rebuild the New Republic in peace.After all, the threat was over. The Imperial fleet was shattered and the might of the most fearsome Navy the galaxy had known was broken. Palpatine was dead and all of the most important Imperial leaders were either dead along with him or in New Republic custody.
Except for Rae Sloane, Brendol & Armitage Hux, and a ship full of child soldiers that had slipped away into the darkness to nurse the next generation of evil and oppression.Was that one ship breaking away into the Unknown Regions the difference between lasting peace, and the horrors wrought by the First Order that for so many beings made it feel like all that had come before had been meaningless? Did those programs and ideals bloom because of the seed planted by Gallius Rax, or would the ever crafty Palpatine have found a way to ensure his vision even without the boy from Jakku?All important questions that I encourage you to ponder, and while you do so consider this as well. During this lecture I have said next to nothing about the engagement between the New Republic and Empire at the Imperial Garrison on Jakku or across the surface of the planet. That is because those skirmishes were utterly meaningless. I don’t say this to discount the beings who fought and died that day, as they deserve praise for their individual acts of valor, but don’t forget what the Battle of Jakku was truly about.All those beings in orbit and on the planet’s surface were put there to die so that the Empire may live. They were merely turbolaser fodder. A living piece of armor that Gallius Rax wrapped himself in to try and escape. The last stand of the Empire laid bare the truth at the core of its policies: you are here to live and die serving those in power.(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
Thank you as always for your time. I look forward to our next lecture together.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Hello again and welcome back to Galactic History. Please settle in so we can begin today’s lecture.Throughout our time together thus far we have given a great deal of focus to Emperor Sheev Palpatine’s Galactic Empire. We have discussed weapons developed by the Empire, secretive programs that Palpatine and Darth Vader developed in order to further tighten their grip on the galaxy, some governing principles and a few key battles from that era.For today’s lecture we will pivot, for the sake of keeping you on your toes so to speak, to another organization that kept the beings they held sway over in line through fear and intimidation. A criminal empire that spread across numerous planets and flourished in the dark corners of the galaxy that neither the Galactic Empire nor the Republic that it replaced cared to pay attention to.It was a crime syndicate held together by a racial bond, though that wouldn’t always be enough to keep individual ambitions from getting out of hand. In our lecture today we will be discussing the Hutt Clan.Most of you are likely familiar with the Hutts as a species, if not from your own life experience than perhaps from our lectures covering Asajj Ventress, and our recently concluded series on the Battle of Jakku.The Hutt species is native to Nal Hutta in the Outer Rim, sometimes referred to simply as Hutta. The planet is covered in bogs and plagued by greasy rain due to an incident known as the Drengir Crisis during which sentient, carnivorous plants known as Drengir infested the planet.
The Drengir infested several planets including Nal Hutta, and though they were defeated by a coalition consisting of members of the Jedi Order, the Galactic Republic and the Hutt Clan themselves, the conflict left the planet a scarred swamp.This climate didn’t bother the Hutts, however, whose large slug-like bodies were as comfortable in the swamps and bogs as on dry land. Their powerful tails could propel them faster through the murk and muck than beings with legs could manage, thus the species continued to inhabit the planet.Despite their legendary bulk, which to this day is a topic of debate concerning whether their size is purely from their lavish lifestyles or a natural occurrence, Hutts begin life as less-than-a-meter-long babies called huttlets. Hutt’s can live over 1000 years, though due to their lifestyles and occupations most do not survive to experience a natural death.The Hutts have been linked to the criminal underground for centuries, but next to nothing is known about how that connection began, with sociological inquiries into Huttese history resulting in stiff rebuffs at best, and messy assassinations at worst.Their reputation as gangsters is well earned, yet the Hutts have kept a focus on the organized part of organized crime. The Hutt Clan was governed by the Grand Hutt Council, which oversaw all Hutt business and would take disciplinary action against individual members when necessary. The council was composed of the leaders of the individual Hutt families which each oversaw their own criminal operations on Hutta, Nar Shaddaa, Tatooine, Toydaria and a number of other planets.One notable example of the Grand Hutt Council convening to address the failings of one of their members is the brief saga of Ziro the Hutt. Ziro was the uncle of arguably the most famous Hutt, Jabba, and unlike most Hutts he left Hutt space and established a residence on Coruscant.Ziro was involved in a plot, along with the Confederacy of Independent Systems, or Separatists, during the Clone Wars which aimed to bring the hutts into an alliance with the CIS. The plan to forge that alliance included the kidnapping of Jabba the Hutt's son Rotta by Asajj Ventress, who would then frame the Jedi Order for the kidnapping in the hopes of enraging Jabba enough to convince him to join the Separatist cause.After that plan was thwarted by Anakin Skywalker and his padawan Ahsoka Tano, Ziro was arrested by the Republic for his role in the plot as well as the kidnapping of Senator Padme Amidala, who had infiltrated Ziro’s palace in an effort to discover who was behind the huttlet’s kidnapping.This was problematic for the Hutts, as they feared Ziro, who had already proven himself untrustworthy, would hand over detailed information about the Hutts’ criminal organization and activities in an effort to gain his freedom.The Council decided that in order to keep Ziro from talking, they had to break him out of prison, and hired the bounty hunter Cad Bane for the job.Bane kept his end of the bargain, sprang Ziro from prison, and delivered him to the Grand Hutt Council who demanded that he hand over all records he possessed of Hutt criminal activity. Ziro refused and immediately found himself back in prison, though this time his captors were the leaders of his own species.Ziro was again broken out of prison, this time by his long time on-again-off-again love interest the Pa’lowick singer Sy Snoodles. The Grand Hutt Council turned once more to Cad Bane to bring Ziro back to them. Bane never got the chance to deliver Ziro and the records he held that threatened the Hutts, however, as Ziro was killed by Sy Snootles, who had been paid by Jabba to eliminate his problematic uncle and deliver the sought-after records to Jabba personally.It is little surprise that the governing body of a species synonymous with criminality would use their skills and connections within the extra-legal world to keep their own kind in check.
It is unclear exactly when in our galactic history the Hutts organized themselves into the Hutt Clan criminal network, but we do know that this organization was well established and operational on a galactic scale as far back as the High Republic Era, which ran from approximately 300 - 80 BBY.We are able to deduce this timeframe because in 257 BBY the Hutts seemingly joined forces with a rival criminal organization known as the Directorate. This era in our history was defined by its relative peace and prosperity for most beings, which the Hutts saw as a threat to their criminal operations. If governments are not distracted by larger threats, they just might find the time to deal with slave-trading gangsters like the Hutt Clan.The Hutts devised a plan with Lord Isamer, a Lasat male who was in charge of the Directorate, in which the Directorate would kidnap Monarch Cassel of E’ronoh and Queen Consort Thandeka of Eiram.E’ronoh and Eiram were typically at odds with one another, and the Hutts along with Lord Isamer believed that by abducting their leaders the planets would be forced to turn to the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order for help, which they did.The Hutts part of the plan was to disrupt Republic and Jedi efforts to recover the sovereigns, thus causing the planets to lose faith and trust in the Republic, which would allow criminality to spread in the region.In reality, the Hutts did nothing to impede the investigation, and Lord Isamer was killed while the rest of the Directorate leadership was arrested. It is widely believed that the Hutts never intended to hold up their end of the bargain and that the true intention of the plot was the elimination of their criminal rival and the acquisition of the Directorate’s territory in order to widen their own sphere of influence.The Hutt clan would keep to themselves and continue to grow their criminal operations within their territory in the Outer Rim. They notably held dominion over the Twi’leks of Ryloth and the Nikto of Kintan during this time period.The Hutts exploited Twi’leks for slave labor and left Ryloth in the hands of the Zygerrian Slave Empire, until the Jedi Order eradicated the regime and control of the planet shifted to the Clan Assembly, which led to Ryloth joining the Galactic Republic.Incidents such as this are precisely why the Hutts steered clear of entangling themselves in the business of the Galactic Republic. Ryloth was close enough to Republic space that when the Republic outlawed slavery within its teritories they sent the Jedi to destroy the abhorrent practice on Ryloth and free the twi’leks.The Galactic Republic soon became distracted by the Nihil Conflict and other anti-piracy operations, which provided the Hutts with ample shadows within which to operate. This was the beginning of an unofficial live-and-let-live relationship between the Republic and the Hutts.The Hutts would continue on with their operations unharried by the Republic for centuries. The next time the Republic would come into contact with the Hutt Clan in an official fashion would be during the Clone Wars.We have already covered the kidnapping of Jabba’s son Rotta in the first part of our two lecture series on Asajj Ventress, so we won’t rehash the details.It is important to note though, that the result of the failed CIS plot was the return of Rotta to Jabba by the Jedi Order, which led to the Hutts agreeing to allow the Republic to use the space lanes and hyperspace routes that ran through Hutt space during the war.Toward the end of the Clone Wars. The Hutts would again be pulled into the conflict, this time by the criminal alliance and rival to the Hutt Clan, the Shadow Collective.Security footage recovered from the Hutt Palace on Nal Hutta shows a contingent from the Shadow Collective, led by the ever persistent former Sith apprentice to Emperor Palpatine Maul and his brother Savage Opress as well as the Mandalorian Pre Vizsla.Maul and his cadre threatened to kill all the members of the Grand Hutt Council should they not agree to join the Shadow Collective. The Hutts refused, laughing off Maul’s threat, and a brief but vicious battle broke out during which Maul and his cohorts were driven off of Hutta.Never one to cry off a crusade, and ever the schemer, Maul again tried to force the Hutts into an alliance, this time by attacking Jabba while he was isolated at his palace on Tatooine. This time, Maul was successful, and Jabba surrendered his criminal operations and the Hutt Clan to the Shadow Collective.The most notable result of this alliance was sifted from the ashes of Sundari, the capital city of Mandalore, following the Mandalorian Civil War and the Siege of Mandalore. The Hutts provided credits, resources, and Nikto warriors to Maul in an effort to help him and the Shadow collective conquer Mandalore.Given that they are slavers, I have no kind words for the Hutts, yet their participation, coerced or otherwise, in the wanton destruction on Mandalore which destabilized the planet to the point that it allowed the Galactic Empire to later come in and carry out the Great Purge of Mandalore is a notably horrific low moment for the Hutt Clan.Following the end of the Clone Wars and the rise of the Galactic Empire, we inexplicably yet seemingly predictably return our attention to Tatooine, which became the beating heart of the Hutt Clan under the rule of Jabba the Hutt.Jabba primarily profited from smuggling and the running of spice, but he also found ways to make life even more miserable for the beings that called Tatooine home by enforcing a water tax on the planet’s moisture farmers during a particularly intense drought. Jabba’s bounty hunters and henchmen would claim a portion of the meager amounts of water collected by the farmers as their own.Continued

PROFESSOR:
Moisture farmers on Tatooine, perhaps seeking to prosper via association with a famous being, tell a story of a young Luke Skywalker sneaking up to the speeder of one of these tax collectors and trying to steal the water back for the farmers.According to the tale the boy, who would have been around 8 galactic standard years old at the time, was discovered while trying to recover the water and defiantly stood up to the criminals.
The henchmen were then ambushed from the shadows and the boy rescued from certain physical harm, and perhaps even death or enslavement, by the kind old desert hermit known as Ben Kenobi, who fulfilled Luke’s mission of returning the water to the farmers.We know for a fact from local records that this water tax was put in place for a time and that eventually it was lifted by Jabba after some complications. While the story of young Skywalker valiantly standing up for good in the face of armed hooligans certainly fits his persona, and his rescue at the hand of Kenobi definitely adds up given his protective stance towards his former Padawan and friend’s son, we have no way to confirm if it is true or not.I wanted to share the story with you as a further example of the cruelty of the Hutts, and because I enjoy believing it to be true. It also serves as an excellent introduction to Jabba and the Hutt Clan’s role in the Galactic Civil War.Given it is an oft-retold part of the story of how the Rebellion defeated the Empire, most of you are likely familiar with the fact Han Solo owed Jabba the Hutt a rather sizeable debt at the time he threw in with the Rebel Alliance. That being the case we will skip over the details of how the infamous smuggler found himself in the clutches of one of Jabba’s favorite bounty hunters, Boba Fett.The Mandalorian Boba Fett escaped Bespin with Solo encased in carbonite and returned him to Jabba where the Hutt put the smuggler and Rebel hero on display. We will pick up that story, and how it would spell Jabba’s doom, shortly. First I want to touch on the history that Darth Vader had with Jabba the Hutt.Of course, Jabba wasn’t aware that Darth Vader had been Anakin Skywalker, the slave boy who had won the Boonta Eve Classic Podrace on Tatooine, and the Jedi Knight who had helped rescue his son Rotta during the Clone Wars.He only knew Vader as the right hand of Emperor Palpatine who had gone to Tatooine to negotiate an alliance with the Hutts wherein they would provide raw materials for weapons production following the destruction of the Death Star.Initially, Jabba was supposed to send an emissary to meet with the Empire on his behalf, but the shuttle carrying the emissary was hijacked by Rebels and used to attack Weapons Factory Alpha on Cymoon 1 in the Corellian Industrial Cluster.Following that attack, Vader went to Jabba personally to seal the deal, which Jabba happily agreed to as it meant not only profit, but protection. The Empire was in the midst of cracking down on criminal elements in the Outer Rim, and by aligning himself with Palpatine, Jabba had protected his interests while his competition was wiped out by the Empire. Yet again the Hutt Clan found a way to make nice with the current ruling power in the galaxy while taking out their rivals.Jabba continued to oversee his criminal empire as the Galactic Civil War raged on. That is until the war caught up to him, or perhaps I should say until the Rebellion caught up to him.
As with the Cloud City adventure, the story of how several key members of the Rebel Alliance came together to free Han Solo from carbonite is well known, so we will jump to the part where things start exploding.We find our assembly of Rebels aboard The Khetanna, Jabba’s sail barge, where Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Chewbacca were set to be executed by being thrown into a Sarlacc Pit. For those of you unfamiliar, sarlaacs are carnivorous creatures related to rathtar which live in the ground and feed on any being unlucky enough to fall into their pits.Princess Leia had been enslaved by Jabba, who was showing her off as his new slave girl, but luckily for all Rebels involved, Lando Calrissian had evaded detection and was disguised as a guard on the skiff carrying Solo, Skywalker and Chewbacca.Upon a signal from Luke, R2-D2, who had been working as a server droid on the barge, shot Shywalker’s lightsaber, which had been hidden inside the droid, out to Luke where he and Calrissian went about the business of eliminating the guards and rescuing Solo, who was still suffering from the effects of hibernation sickness.Taking advantage of the chaos, Princess Organa wrapped the chain holding her captive around Jabba’s massive neck, and using the Hutt’s own bulk as leverage strangled arguably the most prosperous Hutt overlord in galactic history to death.R2-D2 then broke Leia’s chains, allowing her to sabotage and destroy the sail barge before escaping with her allies.Jabba’s death sent shockwaves through the criminal underworld, both within and outside of the Hutt Clan. The Hutts searched the wreckage of the Khetanna in an effort to ascertain how Jabba had died in order to settle his will. They recovered a holorecording of Jabba’s last moments and witnessed his death at the hand of Princess Leia.In an exercise of both self-preservation and vanity the Hutts attempted to dispose of all evidence of how Jabba had been slain, but copies of the footage managed to circulate in some circles and Leia was given the moniker “Huttslayer” by those who had seen the recording.With the collapse of the Empire and the death of Emperor Palpatine following rapidly after Jabba’s demise, the Hutts struggled to keep their criminal empire whole and ended up losing a massive share in the Kessel spice trade.This triggered widespread gang warfare and left the Hutts and their smuggling routes vulnerable. The Spice Runners of Kijimi would rise to take control of the bulk of the spice trade, and the Hutt Clan was left a shadow of its former self.Niima the Hutt, who we discussed in our previous series of lectures covering the Battle of Jakku, oversaw the black market salvage operations on Jakku for some time following the epic battle that left the planet a buffet of vulnerable scrap, but was eventually assassinated by a bounty hunter.By the time of Niima’s demise the Hutt Clan was already breathing its death rattle, and her death was a symbolic end to their reign as masters of the galactic criminal underworld.The Hutt Clan was a criminal organization that for over 300 galactic standard years was powerful enough to be treated as an equal, or at least as a threat large enough to negotiate with, by multiple Galactic Governments.They managed to keep numerous planets under their control by being ever-ready to side with the current leading power in the galaxy and never missing an opportunity to eliminate their competition.Their legacy is simultaneously impressive and despicable. What I would like you to consider between now and our next lecture is not what the Hutts managed to accomplish, but why they were allowed to accomplish it.Even at the height of its power when it was busy wiping out other criminal elements across the galaxy, the Republic never stood up to the Hutts. It would have been a hard fight, but the Republic would have won.The Hutts built an empire driven by greed, fear, intimidation and slave labor. All things the Republic stood against. The Republic outlawed slavery but allowed a gang of overgrown slugs to ruin countless millions of being’s lives by forcing them into bondage. They let the Hutts work those beings to death in the spice mines of Kessel and under the blazing suns of Tatooine and Jakku.The Republic chose to turn a blind eye to that suffering, and even negotiated with the beings inflicting that pain on several occasions. Not once did they try to stop what they knew was happening.Was this due to apathy, a fear that the fight would be too costly, or were there key figures inside the Republic taking payoffs to allow the Hutts room to operate? It remains up for debate, but regardless of the truth I find all these reasons to ring hollow.Above all else the existence of the Hutt Clan should be remembered as the Galactic Republic’s greatest failure. Had the Republic done the right thing, the hard thing, and stomped out the Hutts and all other slavers in the galaxy it is possible that the Empire would have never risen.(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
After all, it was a slave boy from Tatooine who became Palpatine’s Sith apprentice and helped him dismantle the Republic from within.Thank you as always for your time.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Hello there and welcome back to Galactic History! There is a great deal of information to get through on our next subject so please find your places so we may begin. Thank you.Yes a great deal of information to cover on our subject for the next, oh, I would venture to say three lectures. This being has been in the background, and at times the foreground, of a few of our previous lectures, but rest assured we will go deeper into those events and explore a bevy of others during our time examining this individual.The son of the Nightsisters of Dathomir’s Matriarch, a Dark Lord of the Sith, an exile on no less than two occasions, a planetary ruler, a crime lord, and a being possessed with the need to reclaim his station in the galaxy. Today we will begin our discussion of the being known at times as Darth, but always as Maul.Born in 54 BBY to Mother Talzin of the Nightsisters of Dathomir, Maul had a younger brother named Feral who he was charged with protecting from an early age. The pair were given their first facial tattoos, a common part of Zabrak culture that traditionally symbolizes familial ties though sometimes other meanings can be added, prior to their first birthday.Maul and his brother were raised in the Nightbrother Village on Dathomir, where the Nightsisters kept the males of their clan. Maul’s Force sensitivity was apparent at an early age. He felt drawn to the forest near the village due to a connection through the living Force with the creatures who lived there.Maul was known as a brooding child who took to anger quickly, but rather than lashing out, he would use his rage as fuel to prove that he was worthy. Maul was obsessed with self worth and angry that he had been left aside with the other males of the clan despite his obvious gift with the Force.He also had a habit of hiding when a certain powerful Force user would arrive on Dathomir. Darth Sidious, publicly known as the politician Sheev Palpatine, had taken to frequenting the planet when Maul was young. He would exchange information on Dark Side rituals for knowledge of the Nightsisters’ magicks with Mother Talzin.Despite Maul’s fear of the man, Sidious was drawn to the boy because he sensed something in the boy that all Sith, but particularly Sidious, sought in potential Apprentices: anger. Sidious saw the discarded boy. He saw the potential in Maul and in his anger, and went about doing what he did best; manipulating the situation to favor him.Sidious had been considering taking Mother Talzin on as his apprentice, but hadn’t yet committed to the idea. Maul presented him with a younger option that could still be molded to serve his purposes. Sidious convinced Mother Talzin to have Maul given over to a Keeper, an older male Nightbrother who would take the boy in as his own, as a way of seemingly offering the child guidance.From what can be gathered from records, Maul’s time with the Keeper was not pleasant. Upon overhearing his mother agree to the plan, Maul fled into the forest in anger, but his new Keeper tracked him down and returned to the village with a bloodied Maul in tow.This introduction would seemingly tell young Maul all he needed to know about his new life. The Keeper, which is what I’ll continue to call this being since there is no record of a name for him, was physically abusive towards Maul, and encouraged the same from his two sons whom Maul also lived with.So: an already angry young man, who feels like an outcast, is torn away from his blood brother never to see him again and placed under the control of an abusive Keeper by his mother who hadn’t seemingly noticed her son’s potential in the Force after she was convinced to do so by a man the boy feared. This was an environment purpose-built to either build or break a young being.No doubt this life of physical and emotional torment was exactly what Sidious had in mind when he convinced Talzin to give Maul over to a Keeper. Sidious wasn’t looking to nurture the boy, only his anger.Maul lived in these conditions for several months, and his time with the Keeper and his sons came to an end by Maul’s own hand. A Selection, a trial during which an offworlder comes to select a male of the clan to serve as his personal warrior, was set to occur, and on the morning of the Selection Maul was locked away and forbidden by his Keeper to attend.Maul not only broke out of his confinement, but managed to sneak into the Selection Arena and Force choke the Keeper and both of his sons in front of all in attendance, including Sidious and Talzin.Sidious was delighted by Maul’s abilities and on the spot declared that the boy would be his new apprentice. This proclamation shocked Mother Talzin, who had been led to believe she would serve as the Dark Lord’s apprentice. As Sidious departed Dathomir with Maul in tow, Mother Talzin raged that she would have her revenge on the Sith for Sidious’ treachery in stealing her son.That revenge, which would come in the form of a third son, will become important later down the line in our story. For now we will remain focused on young Maul as he began his apprenticeship to The Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious.The information we have on Maul’s life during this time period can be described as, scraps, at best. We are talking about a decade plus time period and what information we have is only available either because non-Sith were somehow involved and survived to talk about it, or it was among the shreds of records kept by either Sidious or Maul.Both men were incredibly secretive, and both were talented at covering their tracks. We know a good deal about Sidious and Vader because they were part of the Imperial machine and the Empire kept excellent records.They were good enough at it that even Sith Lords couldn’t cover up their every move. Somewhere along the way there would occasionally be an Imperial officer who smelled a promotion, or somebody who wanted to brag to their friends about whose ship they saw in the hangar over coffee in the mess hall.Not so with Sidious and Maul. Palpatine was a Senator at this point, and an important one later on in Maul’s apprenticeship based on the timeline, but there wasn’t the kind of scrutiny on him yet that there would be when he eventually became Chancellor, and by then Maul was no longer his apprentice.This creates a scenario where despite his rising stock on the galactic stage, we don’t have the behind the scenes information on Palpatine needed to speak in depth about what Maul’s apprenticeship looked like under the Sith Lord day in and day out.Now that I have told you what we do not know, allow me to tell you what we do know. We know that Maul was trained to be an acrobatic assassin based on his fighting style in later battles. He had an admirable grasp of telekinesis but his true prowess was in lightsaber combat, and hand-to-hand fighting in general.Maul preferred to use a double-bladed lightsaber design that was more in favor during the Old Republic period and was fairly commonly used even among Jedi, perhaps most notably by members of the Shan family.Based on what we have recovered from the two discovered Observatories that Palpatine maintained during the Imperial period, we know that the Sith Lord collected holocrons and other archival data on the ancient Sith. Thus it is likely that Maul’s fondness for the double-bladed lightsaber came from studying some of this information that Sidious had on hand.We also know that the Maul who would appear to the galaxy some years later was driven and focused in the way that beings who are molded by extreme circumstances often are.Whether this was the result of years of strict tutelage or the product of a specific ritual or trial we do not know, but we do know the cruelty of the Sith was as innovative as it was relentless, so while it may be hard to imagine the exact scenario it isn’t as difficult to conjure up ideas of what Maul was likely subjected to in order to produce the result Sidious desired.For example, we know that during their involvement in trying to put down the Free Ryloth Movement during the early years of the Empire, Sidious once forced Darth Vader to slaughter an entire village of twi’lek non-combatants in order to make up for a perceived short-coming in Vader’s performance, or perhaps due to a flaw in Vader’s mindset.We are aware, again based on previous findings, that Sidious had a particular interest in the planet Malachor and the battle between the Sith and Jedi which took place there during the Old Republic. While defending a subterranean Sith temple during that battle, the Sith employed a superweapon that killed and petrified all combatants, Sith and Jedi alike, which could explain where Sidious got his obsession with superweapons.Later in his life, Maul traveled to Malachor himself seeking answers, so given the focus that the planet was given by both master and apprentice, it seems likely that Malachor played a significant role in Maul’s Sith training.I bring up Malachor and the suspected connection between that world and Maul not to show you how good I am at guessing, but to impress upon you the kind of environments that Maul would have grown up in and been shaped by during these formative years.Sidious began his relationship with Maul by having him taken from his mother to live with and be beaten by strangers.Taking that as the starting point for his tutelage prior to Maul even actually being Sidious’ apprentice, we can make some reasonable assumptions about how Maul was treated and what he was subjected to once he was officially the right hand of the Dark Lord of the Sith.We also know that one of the primary foci of Maul’s anger was his hatred of the Jedi. There are stories we will get to in a later lecture about his relentless pursuit of a specific Jedi. There is the vitriol and vigor with which he combats Jedi in particular, and the physical, emotional and psychological trauma he inflicts on them. Additionally Maul has a record of manipulating lesser trained Jedi in order to both achieve his own goals and to sprinkle seeds of dark doubt over their Jedi training.Additionally we know that Maul’s master hates the Jedi and that his ultimate plan is to turn the galaxy against the Order and wipe them out in the process of becoming Galactic Emperor. Sidious would want an apprentice with a hatred or suspicion of the Jedi or the Jedi way, and based on his manipulation of Anakin Skywalker we know that he would fuel that hatred, given the chance.All of that hate-fueling and anger-stoking leads to Maul going out of his way to stalk Jedi, and in one instance to try and purchase a Jedi Padawan who was being auctioned off by pirates as a sort of side quest to a mission Sidious had sent him on.Not long after a pirate attack on Trade Federation mining control ships in orbit above Kellux, a group of pirates turned up dead and covered in lightsaber wounds on the planet. Shortly later, Maul was spotted on Nar Shaddaa.Continued

PROFESSOR:
He had been sent to Kellux to kill the pirates and it would appear that in the process of completing his mission for Darth Sidious, he learned of a Jedi Padawan named Eldra Kaitis who was being sold at an underworld auction.Once on Nar Shaddaa, Maul got involved in an altercation at a cantina after reportedly being accused of being a Jedi and taking offense, and was helped out of his predicament, though one imagines Maul didn’t truly need any help at all, by a group of bounty hunters including, among others, Cad Bane and Aurra Sing.After busting up the fight, Bane told Maul that the bounty hunters had managed to secure an invitation to the pirate auction by ambushing and killing a group of local gang members and then stealing their ship and protocol droid, whom they used to learn the location of the auction.The group then traveled to a moon in the Drazkel system to attend the auction and come up with a plan on how to extract the Jedi Padawan for whatever dark purposes Maul intended. The plan they came up with was to allow another bidder to win the Padawan, then simply ambush them at their landing pad and escape with their living trophy.Based on records from the Drazkel moon facility and eye witness accounts, we know that a Moogan industrialist named Jee Kra won the auction, and was shortly thereafter murdered along with his crew. Maul, Bane and the bounty hunters stole Kra’s ship in an attempt to escape, but the ship went down while still in the atmosphere due either to an internal explosion aboard the ship, or due to ground fire. There are conflicting reports as to exactly what caused the crash, but what matters is that they crashed on the surface of the moon.The group split up to avoid capture and to force the assassin droids that had been dispatched by the pirates to pursue them to hunt in smaller groups. The bounty hunters split off and left Maul with Kaitis. Footage recovered from the wreckage of the droids show the Sith and Jedi fighting together to fend off their mechanical attackers. Kaitis never left the moon, however.The twi’lek Jedi Padawan Eldra Kaitis was found dead on the Drazkel moon with a lightsaber wound in her chest. The leader of the pirate organization known as the Xrexus Cartel, Xev Xrexus, was found at the facility where the auction took place, having met a similar fate.Not long after the Drazkel incident, a new crew in the spice trade named the Kaitis Cartel sprung up and started disrupting shipments of scarn, which is a low grade source material that after undergoing chemical manipulation and refinement can be converted into spice.A red skinned zabrak was said to be among the members of this cartel, and though no official records can connect Maul to the group it seems likely he was involved given the name of the organization and Maul’s role in the galactic criminal underground later in his life.After these two incidents, Maul disappears from the scanner for a while, but he knows how to make an entrance, and when he does re-appear it sends ripples throughout the galaxy.In 32 BBY, the Trade Federation under the leadership of Viceroy Nute Gunray blockaded and then invaded the planet Naboo. This forced the Queen of the Naboo, Queen Padme Amidala, to flee the planet in the company of a few of her handmaidens, Captain Quarsh Panaka of Naboo’s royal security force, Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn and his padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi.After sustaining damage to their ship while running the Trade Federation blockade, the group are forced to set down on Tatooine for repairs. Jinn and Kenobi later told the Jedi Council that they had selected the planet due to the fact that it was controlled by the Hutts and they knew the Trade Federation would have no influence there.The Jedi pair were correct in their assumption that the Trade Federation would not follow them to Tatooine, but they would be pursued by a far deadlier threat than Nute Gunray.Through the cunning use of gambling, pod racing, and Force sensitive children, Qui-Gon Jinn managed to acquire the parts needed to repair Queen Amidala’s ship and get them back on their way to Coruscant.It was when Jinn was mere steps away from returning to the Nubian Starship, and with a newly freed Anakin Skywalker in tow, that Maul launched his attack. The Sith leapt from his Bloodfin speeder after nearly running down Skywalker, his Master’s future apprentice, and engaged Jinn in a brief lightsaber duel.Kenobi had the ship fly low to the ground over the area where Jinn and Maul were locked in combat, which allowed Jinn to escape by leaping up to the open ramp of the Queen’s ship. Maul failed to capture Amidala and wasn’t able to add another Jedi to his kill list, but the Sith had stepped out of the shadows for the first time in a millennium.Jinn and Kenobi safely escorted Padme Admidala to Coruscant where she was met by, among others, Sheev Palpatine, who at the time served in the Galactic Senate as the Senator from Naboo. Out of the grasp of the apprentice, only to be snared by the master.Palpatine convinced Amidala to plead with the senate for immediate assistance for her planet and her people, and furthermore he planted the idea in her head that if they refused to act it was only due to corruption and bureaucratic interference in the upper echelons of the galactic government.That idea sprang forth in the Senate chamber, when after being told that the Senate would need to form a committee to investigate her claims, Queen Amidala called for a Vote of No Confidence in Chancellor Finis Valorum, thus setting in motion the process of electing a new Chancellor.Unbeknownst to Amidala or any other being in attendance, Sheev Palpatine, Darth Sidious, was making his move to destroy the Republic and become Emperor in that moment some 13 galactic standards years prior to when he would actually do so. He was also ushering Amidala back off to Naboo, where his apprentice Maul would be waiting to force her into signing a treaty with the Trade Federation.Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi accompanied Queen Amidala in her return to Naboo, and it would be the Knight and his Padawan that engaged Maul once the Sith sprang his trap following their return.Maul confronted the group in the hangar of the Naboo royal Palace. Amidala, Quarsh Panaka, and a group of newly liberated security force personnel, broke off in order to reach the Throne Room and retake control of the palace from the Trade Federation, while Kenobi and Jinn squared off with the Sith and his double scarlet blades.Remember, Maul’s mission is to capture Queen Amidala in order to get her to sign a treaty with the Trade Federation which would make their invasion legal. That is what Sidious tasked him with, finding and capturing the Queen. He chose to face the Jedi instead of pursuing his target.
Perhaps this is merely strategy, and Maul knows that once he dispatches these Jedi Amidala will be much easier to capture. Or perhaps Maul is doing what his Master has taught him to do since they first met and he is giving in to his hate to give him dark power.Sidious encouraged Maul’s anger and hatred, particularly his hate of the Jedi, and now it was causing his apprentice to abandon his mission in favor of killing two more Jedi. If he follows Amidala and manages to get her away from Jinn and Kenobi he could have advanced his Master’s plan by years. Maul is a fighter though, and he wants to fight.From the hangar Maul, Jinn, and Kenobi brawled their way through a subterranean generator complex, and though Maul was giving ground he was also luring the Jedi deeper into this maze of a complex.Eventually, he managed to catch Kenobi off guard and knock him over a ledge. Kenobi lands several levels below Maul and Jinn, and though he does manage to get back up to that level, the fight has moved on by then through a hallway of laser-shielded gates that open and close on a timer. Maul managed to separate the pair of Jedi, and the hallway gave him a chance to widen the gap enough to try and exploit his advantage.I won’t stray too far from our narrative, but I did want to mention that despite exhaustive research I cannot find any purpose for those gates in that hallway. It is as if they existed only to be used as a plot device at that moment, but I digress.Maul retreats, Jinn advances, Kenobi pursues, and when the gates close, all three are separated. Maul is in a circular room with a reactor vent shaft in the middle that drops off down into an abyss below. Jinn is in between two shield gates, and Kenobi is back at the beginning of the hallway.Jinn takes a moment to kneel and meditate while his padawan and the Sith apprentice pace and wait for the gates to begin opening again. Qui-Gon is the calm eye of this storm that marks the beginning of a turbulent era in galactic history. Even in this moment which he likely never imagined he would find himself in, locked in combat with a Sith, Qui-Gon Jinn remains the embodiment of the Jedi Code. Emotion, yet peace. Chaos, yet harmony.The first gate opens. Maul engages Jinn and Qui-Gon defends while Obi-Wan Kenobi waits for the series of gates to finish opening so he can sprint towards his master. The last gate opens and Kenobi runs towards the fight but gets caught as the first gate, the same one Qui-Gon had been behind moments before, closes again. Kenobi is a spectator to the fate of his master.Maul stunned Jinn by striking him in the chin with the hilt of his lightsaber, which gave him an opening to drive one of his blades into Jinn’s torso, mortally wounding the Jedi Knight. Kenobi cries out as his master falls to the ground, and the Sith turns to face him.When the gates opened once more, Obi-Wan stormed into the room and furiously battled Maul. He cut Maul's lightsaber hilt in half, evening the number of blades in the fight, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the Sith. Maul disarmed Kenobi, and used the Force to shove him back and into the reactor shaft.The Jedi Padawan managed to get a hand hold in the shaft and was dangling just out of Maul’s reach. Maul kicked Kenobi’s lightsaber down the shaft and stalked above him, sorting out just how he would kill his third Jedi.After a few moments, Obi-Wan Kenobi leapt out of the shaft in a move that caught Maul unawares. He called his fallen master’s lightsaber into his hand and used it to bisect the Sith standing before him.Maul teetered on the edge of the shaft for a moment in stunned silence, and then the apprentice to the Dark Lord of the Sith fell back and split in two at the waist as he tumbled downwards out of sight.Obi-Wan Kenobi had become the first Jedi in over one-thousand years to kill a Sith in lightsaber combat, but he had seen his Master Qui-Gon Jinn cut down in the process. There are data banks and libraries filled with arguments from beings over just how monumental a moment the death of Qui-Gon Jinn was for the Jedi Order and the galaxy as a whole.I’ve written on the subject myself, but that is a discussion for another day. If your patience doesn’t allow you to wait for that day, the recordings are available in the university archives and I’d be happy to discuss them with any of you during my office hours.Today we have seen a Zabrak boy from Dathomir beaten and abused in order to fuel his hate and shape him into a weapon to be wielded by another being as the apprentice to Darth Sidious. We have discussed his lust for Jedi blood and even gotten a glimpse at his first foray into the criminal underworld. We then of course covered how he was killed by Obi-Wan Kenobi on Naboo, so why did I say this would be the first of a three-part lecture?Sith have a habit of not staying dead, and though with his failure on Naboo Maul was no longer in the service of the Dark Lord of the Sith, he was still a being brimming with anger and a durasteel will to survive.There is the spoiler for our next lecture: Maul is alive. Most of you likely knew that but I’m sure there are those in the class who chose to skip over some chapters of our galactic history for one misguided reason or another…(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
How did he survive being cut in half? How did he get off Naboo and go on to form a feared criminal organization and even rule a planet?Those will be subjects for discussion in our next lecture. Thank you as always for your time.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Welcome back to Galactic History. Make yourselves comfortable and settle in as we turn our minds back to the subject at hand.When last we spoke, the Zabrak-Nightbrother-turned-apprentice-to-the-Dark Lord of the Sith known as Maul had found himself in a precarious position. Just moments ago he had added another Jedi, Qui-Gon Jinn, to his kill count, and looked likely to expand that list to include Jinn’s apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi.Maul had fairly quickly disarmed Kenobi and used the Force to push the Padawan into a reactor shaft where he had somehow found a handhold that kept him from plummeting to his certain death.Our subject found himself on the figurative edge of his greatest victory to date, glaring over the literal edge of a reactor shaft at one of the Jedi he had chosen to try and kill rather than complete the mission his master had sent him on. Then it all fell apart: or rather Maul did.More accurately, Maul was split apart at the waist by Qui-Gon Jinn’s lightsaber when Kenobi summoned the Force and leapt from the reactor shaft, calling his fallen master’s lightsaber to his hand and delivering the decisive blow.Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn’t the only being capable of finding a desperate, life-saving handhold as he tumbled down a reactor shaft, however, as Maul managed the task somewhere deeper down the shaft. I imagine that being separated from the lower half of his body might have had an impact on his reaction time.The next bit of Maul’s tale should be familiar to you, as we covered these events during our duology of lectures on Asajj Ventress. That being the case, we will begin this portion of the lecture with a story we have not previously touched on.Junkyard and scrap worlds are dangerous places. Beyond the dangers presented by the galaxy’s decaying refuse ranging from empty blue milk bottles to dead starships, there lies the danger presented by the types of creatures that live in such places. It isn’t uncommon to find dianoga and other fauna ranging in levels of sentience on these worlds.It is because of the stories told about the creatures in these places that some scrapping guilds and crews would break in new crew members by making them spend time exposed and alone on one of these worlds.The crew of the starship Salvage-1 was one such crew that left a cadre of recruits to spend the night on the junkyard planet Lotho Minor as a way of earning their way onto the crew. Shortly after the ship departed, a conflict erupted between a human male named Brennar and a Kadas’sa’Nikto male named Gritz. The altercation turned physical and the ground gave way, dropping the two and a Roonan male named Seles down into a labyrinth of scrap.The three were separated during their attempts to find a way out and Seles came face to face with a nightmare creature. A being whose torso was crudely connected to an arachnid-like lower body made from a hellish maze of metal and wire. Under the surface of Lotho Minor, Seles found Maul, and time in isolation with nothing but hate to keep him connected to the Dark Side left Maul's mind in rage soaked tatters.Brennar happened upon Seles in Maul’s clutches, the former Sith Lord muttering to himself distractedly, until Maul noticed Brennar and flung Seles at him before chasing after the pair. He cornered them, but was captured by an electronet deployed by Gritz at the last moment.
The trio hauled Maul back to the surface of the planet and signaled the Salvage-1 for a pick-up. It was at that time Gritz revealed that he and the Salvage-1’s captain, a droid named Spikewheel, had been hired to capture Maul and that the rite of passage was cover for the bounty operation.The trio got Maul aboard the Salvage-1 and began a slow departure while Gritz and his Captain contacted the being which hired them to find Maul, only to realize that their employer and their bounty were one and the same.Maul broke free of the electronet and told the crew he had put out the contract in order to lure in a ship he could steal to escape the junk planet. It would seem that at this point in his exile, Maul’s madness hadn’t yet cost him any of his cunning.A fight broke out aboard the starship during which Maul destroyed Captain Spikewheel after the droid fired on him, which caused Seles to lunge for the controls in a panic, jerking the ship into an ascent.Riki, a Theelin female who had been among the group left on Lotho Minor as part of the bogus rite of passage, hit the hatch release and Maul, having lost his footing during the improvised maneuvering brought on by the scuffle, fell out of the ship managing to snag Gritz and pull him out to accompany Maul in the descent.This incident tells us that while Maul’s mental state was beginning to slip at this point, he was still determined to escape his predicament. Did Maul want to escape to disappear under his own terms, or did he have loftier goals about what his station in the galaxy could be considering what it once had been?The crew of the Salvage-1 fled Lotho Minor, abandoning Gritz to absorb the full consequences of Maul’s wrath, and lived to pass on the story of the insane being they had nearly been lured to their deaths by. Their story and others like it about strange happenings on the junkyard world likely contributed to Maul’s eventual rescue from exile.On Maul’s homeworld of Dathomir, Mother Talzin knew that her son was alive and had put a plan in motion to bring him back to her so she could heal his mind and set him on a path of revenge alongside his brother Savage Opress.When Savage returned to Dathomir after recovering Maul from Lotho Minor, Mother Talzin used her Nightsister magicks to repair his frayed mind and forge him new, bipedal legs from bits of Separatist droids who met their end during the slaughter of the Nightsisters at the Battle of Dathomir.Maul had yet again been cast aside by the galaxy and left to die or fade into obscurity, and yet again he had overcome and was ready to re-insert himself into galactic happenings.From this point Maul could have diverged on a number of paths. He and his brother could have sought out fellow Dathomirian Asajj Ventress and formed a trio of Dark Side users set to take aim at anything from the Jedi Order to Darth Sidious.He could have pursued Count Dooku and tried to kill the being who publicly led the Separatist cause and secretly had replaced Maul as Sidious’ apprentice. Assassinating Count Dooku certainly wouldn’t have been an original idea, but it was an option that could have led to him reclaiming his place as the right hand of the Dark Lord of the Sith or even to becoming that Dark Lord himself.There are nigh endless pursuits that Maul could have taken up after having his mind and power restored. He chose the thing he had always and would always choose above all else: to pursue and try to kill Jedi out of longing for personal revenge.In our previous lecture I pontificated on the idea that by choosing to challenge Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi on Naboo instead of remaining focused on the task his master had given him, Maul may well have set back Darth Sidious’ plans to wipe out the Jedi Order and establish the Empire by as much as a decade.That is to say that by focusing on his personal hatred of the Jedi and immediate need for revenge rather than a collective or long-term goal, he had actually worked against his best interests on Naboo. That decision on Naboo wrote the outline of the script that would become the remainder of Maul’s life.The details still needed to be filled in, but the driving force behind every decision he would make until his death was established in that fateful duel on Naboo because his anger, hate and lust for revenge had been given a navigational beacon to guide it in the form of Obi-Wan Kenobi.Kenobi, whom Maul had lured in with the death of his master so skillfully. Kenobi, whom he had disarmed, whom he had beaten and had on the cusp of death…until he didn’t. Until it all went wrong and Kenobi did one of the things that added to his legend like little else did; he fought from underneath and pulled out the unlikely victory.Obi-Wan Kenobi had defeated Maul and left him to die, had caused him to lose years of his life writhing in filth and madness on a planet of refuse and other discarded things like him. In Maul’s mind Kenobi was the sole architect of the Nightbrother-turned-Sith’s downfall, so Maul put revenge against him at the top of his priority list.Maul left Dathomir with his brother Savage Opress in search of a way to conjure up an encounter with Kenobi. The method he settled upon was wanton slaughter.The brothers travel to the Outer Rim world of Raydonia, set down near a village, and murder every last resident. They then send a holorecording to the Jedi Council stating that in order to stop the slaughter all that needs to happen is for Obi-Wan Kenobi to come to Raydonia and face them alone.Jedi Master Mace Windu immediately sensed a trap and recommended sending a task force of several Jedi to deal with Maul and Opress, but Obi-Wan Kenobi disagreed, saying that Maul still being a threat to the galaxy was his responsibility since he had failed to finish him off on Naboo.Kenobi travels to Raydonia where he is ambushed and captured by Maul and Savage before being dragged to their stolen starship. The pair planned to leave Raydonia and torture Kenobi to death en route to whatever adventure they decided to set out on next.We know that doesn’t happen though, because we also covered this moment in galactic history during our lectures about Asajj Ventress. Kenobi is rescued by Ventress, who had seen a bounty posted for Savage and set out to find the Nightbrother, and the pair manage to escape Maul and his brother’s clutches.So Maul’s first second attempt to kill Kenobi doesn’t work, and now not only does the Jedi Master know how the former Sith’s abilities stack up after his exile, he knows what kind of ship the Nightbrothers are using and he knows that for some reason Asajj Ventress is trying to capture or kill the pair as well.For Maul, none of that matters. Yes, he would have no doubt liked to have gotten his revenge on the day, but Maul knows that Kenobi is going to be if not hunting him, keeping an eye on galactic happenings for signs of where Maul is. He has shown Kenobi and the Council that he is still a threat to be taken seriously.Maul and his brother are next spotted on Florrum, still in the Outer Rim. Prior to landing on the planet, the pair had managed to convince a portion of the pirates under Hondo Ohnaka to betray their Weequay leader and help Maul and Savage conquer the planet and the pirate operation.As the brothers prepare to attack the pirate stronghold on Florrum, Obi-Wan Kenobi and fellow Jedi High Council member Adi Gallia were arriving on a space station in orbit over Cybloc which had been raided by Maul and Savage Opress.Continued

PROFESSOR:
The pair of Jedi Masters learn that the Nightbrothers acquired a new ship during their attack on the space station and are making their way towards the Sertar sector. Gallia doesn’t make much of this information, but Kenobi knows that there is a pirate stronghold under the command of a Weequay he has had dealing with in the past.Maul could have picked any number of pirate or other criminal organizations to seize control of as he reacquainted himself with the underworld. He chose Ohnaka’s operation because he was betting that Kenobi wouldn’t leave an ally, even a pirate, to die by his hand. He was right.Kenobi and Gallia are able to get in contact with Hondo Ohnaka prior to Maul’s arrival on Florrum with his brother Savage and a band of traitorous pirates in tow. The Jedi and Ohnaka make a deal to form an alliance against the pair of Sith.I say Sith despite Maul being replaced as Darth Sidious’ apprentice and despite Opress no longer being the apprentice of Maul’s replacement, Count Dooku, because they still saw themselves as Sith.In his report back to the council following the engagement on Florrum, Kenobi makes mention of either Maul referring to himself as Savage’s master or of Savage outright calling Maul master. The record is either damaged or Kenobi himself was unsure of the exact wording he heard during the battle. What he wasn’t unsure of was that Maul and Savage had taken on a master and apprentice dynamic.It is important to note that the brothers saw themselves as Sith and were using the traditional Sith leadership structure known as the Rule of Two. One Master, one Apprentice, no more no less.It is important that we note these things because it tells us quite a lot about their long term motivations. About why Maul wanted off of Lotho Minor so badly. Maul wanted Kenobi dead, but embracing this dynamic with his brother tells us he was thinking well beyond that.Maul wanted Sidious dead. He wanted to kill his former master and the being that he had been replaced by following his defeat on Naboo. Maul’s vision was to become Dark Lord of the Sith with his brother as his apprentice. Then he could finally have ultimate revenge against the Jedi and all who had wronged him.More on that later, however. By the way, the entire reason the Rule of Two exists to begin with is to prevent what I just talked about. All throughout Sith history when they have not mandated the Rule of Two there have been amongst them brief periods of prosperity and power separated by long swaths of infighting and betrayal.In the period of time we are discussing there are four beings who consider themselves Sith. Only four. One of them leads the Galactic Republic and is treating the galaxy like a dejarik board manipulating everything from the shadows. One of them, the first one’s apprentice, leads the Confederation of Independent Systems that is locked in a galactic civil war with the aforementioned Republic.Another, the first one’s former apprentice, has taken the fourth as his apprentice and is trying to build a pirate army in the Outer Rim after going on a multi-planet killing spree. That is a lot of chaos, destruction and death and there are only four Sith.Power and total domination through fear, anger and hate is the only end game for the Sith. If you want non-stop betrayal, that is how you get non-stop betrayal. Look at all the infighting to try and get a leg up amongst the Inquisitorius during the Imperial Era. Sith will always kill one another if given the chance.It is sad that the one or two Sith remaining are always able to still cause so much harm to the galaxy, and frightening to know the reductions are generally due to self-regulation.I believe we were on Florrum, though, and that Maul along with his brother Savage Opress and a band of pirates were about to attack Hondo Ohnaka, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Adi Gallia and another band of pirates.Maul and his allies launched their attack on the pirate stronghold, but quickly had their attention diverted from conquest to one-on-one combat as Kenobi and Gallia arrived early in the battle to engage the Sith pair.Kenobi locked blades with Maul as Gallia took on the task of battling Opress. Maul found a match in Obi-Wan and was unable to gain an advantage against his rival, while Opress fared better in his fight.Savage Opress’ brutal style of combat was too much for Adi Gallia to withstand, and after a charging attack with his horns gained an advantage and landed the killing blow with his lightsaber.Obi-Wan Kenobi witnesses his fellow Jedi Council member fall and, while still holding his own against Maul, uses a telekinetic blast to knock Opress to the ground, but is not able to finish off the more physically imposing of the Nightbrothers due to Maul’s intervention.Kenobi took stock of the situation surrounding him and found it grim. His Jedi ally was dead, and Ohnaka’s forces were sustaining heavy losses. Seeing the bigger picture, Kenobi recovers Gallia’s lightsaber, disengages the Sith pair and retreats into the stronghold.Now the Jedi General’s mind was moving and he came up with a plan to try and balance the battle out to give Ohnaka’s forces a fighting chance. Acting as bait, Kenobi leads Maul and Savage away from the main conflict and instructs Ohnaka to implode the passageway behind them in order to block the Sith from rejoining the fray.Ohnaka, who was in the midst of laying an ambush for the remainder of the pirate forces fighting under Maul’s banner, agrees and destroys the passage.With the knowledge that they are cut off from the rest of the battle, Obi-Wan Kenobi ignites his lightsaber, and the lightsaber of his fallen comrade, and engages the brothers with the pair of blades.The battle which followed was intense, but the lauded Jedi Master and General more than held his own. He managed to off-balance Opress during the engagement and separate the Sith from one of his arms.Seeing that they were beaten, Maul uses the Force to knock Kenobi down a passageway and collapse it, giving him a chance to make an escape with his wounded brother.Maul made his way back to the exterior of the complex and tried to rally what remained of his pirate allies only to find that Ohnaka’s ambush had been successful to the degree that it gave cause for Ohnaka’s former Lieutenants to reconsider their new allegiance.In the chaos of the ambush, Ohnaka found a moment to converse with his former allies and made sure to point out that their new Sith leaders were nowhere to be seen while Hondo was on the front lines with his men. This convinced these beings to rejoin Ohnaka and help drive the Sith off of the planet.Hondo leaves out that it was he and Kenobi who had been the cause of Maul and Savage’s separation, but that doesn’t matter because the brothers would not have been anywhere else during that battle, even if they hadn’t been cut off. Maul wanted Kenobi, and Savage would serve his brother and Master in pursuit of that goal. The pirates were a disposable distraction.Upon discovering that the allegiance of his new allies left something to be desired, Maul’s interests quickly turned from killing Kenobi to keeping his own life. Maul made a direct line for his starship with his wounded brother in tow. In the hail of blaster bolts that pursued the brothers to their ship, Maul loses one of his cybernetic legs, but manages to limp up the ramp and get the ship in the air by using the Force to topple a rock formation to provide cover.In another edition of “things Obi-Wan thought were important so we should do the same”, Kenobi mentions in his report to the Council that despite losing a leg and finding himself in a position where capture or death was likely, Maul never gave up on trying to get Savage off planet as well.Opress was physically a much larger being than Maul, who had been essentially dragging the one-armed Zabrak from the location of an intense lightsaber duel with Kenobi to their ship. Then he saw that he no longer has any other allies. Then he lost a leg. Had I been present that day I would have wagered heavily on Maul abandoning his brother to scurry off-world, and I would have lost.Which begs the question: does a brotherly bond between two beings strengthen or weaken a Master-Apprentice relationship? What does that say about the Old Republic Jedi way of forsaking familial bonds?Give some thought as to why Maul was so determined to get Savage out of there with him. Is it familial bond, a sense of duty to his apprentice, or mere practicality that prevented Maul from leaving his brother to be captured or killed?Maul needed Opress. Savage may be unpolished and at times a hindrance due to his reckless combat style, but Maul had just been shown that he is not strong enough on his own to succeed in achieving his goals. Not only had he again failed to kill Kenobi, but the Jedi had fought off both of the brothers simultaneously and taken an arm from Opress.Did Maul save his brother on Florrum, or did he make sure his apprentice lived long enough to be of use to him?Regardless of the reasoning, Maul and Opress made it to their ship and managed to get it in the air. They sustained engine damage from small arms fire on the ground during their sprint to the ship, and after a brief foray into the sky, their ship came crashing back down to the surface of the planet.Obi-Wan Kenobi and Hondo Ohnaka set off to search the ship for signs of Maul and Opress, but found none. Ohnaka theorizes that the pair must have been vaporized during the crash, but Kenobi knows better. This wasn’t the first time he thought he had killed Maul, and the Jedi was determined to not make the mistake of writing the Sith off again.Kenobi returned to Coruscant to deliver his report to the Jedi Council, and then the Council went to inform Chancellor Palpatine of the situation and their concerns over Maul.Palpatine listened to the Jedi report and dismissed Maul as a serious threat, encouraging the Jedi to remain focused on ending the Separatist threat. Jedi Grand Master Yoda agreed with the clandestine Dark Lord of the Sith, but for much different reasons.Yoda cautioned Kenobi about fixating on Maul because it had become a personal matter for the Jedi, and that distraction could prove disastrous with so much at stake during a galactic Civil War.Palpatine? Darth Sidious? It is impossible to know what his exact motivations for not encouraging the Jedi, specifically Obi-Wan Kenobi, to pursue and kill his former apprentice. A distracted Kenobi would have been even less able to try and guide the deeply conflicted Anakin Skywalker, whom Palpatine was already grooming to take Count Dooku’s place by this point.
Palpatine tells them to focus elsewhere, however, and to essentially leave Maul to his own devices, I think because Palpatine was looking for a bit of theater.Perhaps Maul would continue to harass the Jedi and draw their attention, giving Palpatine even more cover under which to operate. It was possible that Maul would challenge Dooku for his place at Sidious’ side, and if Maul won then Palpatine would have a far younger and more powerful apprentice to serve him until the moment was right for him to turn Anakin Skywalker.Regardless of his motivations, Palpatine chose to steer the Jedi away from his former apprentice and to thus give Maul more time to do whatever it was he had set out to do, because keep in mind that other than doing things that will draw out Obi-Wan Kenobi, no being in the Republic or CIS knew what Maul’s game was. So far these were seemingly random acts of destruction with no real strategic purpose.Raydonia was all about drawing Kenobi out. The raid on the space station above Cybloc was a supply run with a side of murder. Had he won the day on Florrum, Maul would have had a force to command which would have given him myriad options as to how to continue spreading havoc and gathering influence and power across the cosmos.Maul showed us that he didn’t care about being a leader and having legions to command because he chose to pursue Kenobi instead of helping his pirate allies.Outside of that one glaring goal, Maul’s ambitions were a mystery to even his former Master, so Sidious, ever confident that nothing could throw off the plans he had set in motion, decided to take it in as entertainment.At that moment though, there was no sign of Maul or his brother Savage Opress. After their ship crashed on Florrum they sank back into the shadows of the galaxy, and it was in those shadows that Maul would find a home and beings willing to put themselves at his disposal in pursuit of their own power.When Maul next shows himself on the galactic stage he will be in the company of Death Watch, the Mandalorian splinter group that followed ancient Mandalorian martial traditions and opposed the pacifist government in control of Mandalore at the time.Maul would forever alter the Mandalorian landscape, and indeed that of the entire galaxy, with what was to come next.(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
That is where we will pick up the next time we meet. Do please think over the whys of today’s lecture and our previous lecture as we continue to dissect Maul.No pun intended.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)

(OPENING MUSIC ENTERS AND FADES)PROFESSOR:
Greetings and welcome once again to Galactic History. I trust you have been eagerly awaiting the next chapters in the chronicles of Maul, so far be it from me to keep you in suspense any longer.When we began our examination of Maul I made mention of covering his life over a span of three lectures meaning that this would be our final day looking into the fascinating life of the former Sith. I must now admit I underestimated the time needed to accomplish the task at hand, and that being the case this will now be the third of four total lectures we will dedicate to Maul.
Taking a full four lectures to cover Maul might seem to some like taking an intriguing looking background character with barely any lines from a holonet drama and trying to make a new project based entirely around that individual.Is there enough substance to make it work, or will it feel unnecessary to the point that it is slow and boring? I cannot speak to every being who receives a disproportionate amount of attention in relation to their contributions to the galaxy, but as for Maul I can say that we have a multitude of parsecs left to travel before reaching the end of his story, and that those distances are far from devoid of information.When last we spoke, Maul and his brother Savage Opress had just fled Florrum after an attempt to recruit pirates to act as foot soldiers for him had gone rather poorly.The pair’s ship was shot down as they sought to flee the deteriorating engagement at Hondo Ohnaka’s pirate stronghold, and the Nightbrothers were forced to make a second escape - yes, an escape from their escape - by scurrying into an escape pod and launching moments before the ship tumbled to the surface of Florrum.Maul and Opress drifted through space long enough for them to pass out from lack of oxygen, but not long enough for them to die, before their derelict escape pod was spotted and recovered by a passing ship. Which brings us to one of the grand “what if'' moments in our galactic history that I’d like you to keep in mind as we navigate this and the next lecture: What if Maul and Opress don’t get picked up and instead suffocate in that escape pod? One thing that would have been different is that the pair of Sith would have never come into contact with the organization that would give Maul greater access to influence and power: Death Watch.Having splintered off from the pacifist regime that ruled Mandalore during the latter part of the Republic era, Death Watch was an organization that held to the ways of ancient Mandalorian warrior culture. Their aim was to restore those traditions, along with a historic hatred of the Jedi, in Mandalorian culture.Led by Pre Vizsla, who had been governor of the Mandalorian moon Concordia until he was exposed as the leader of Death Watch by Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and the leader of Mandalore’s pacifist government Duchess Satine Kryze, the renegade warriors had been forced to flee Concordia and await their next chance to strike at the Duchess and the Jedi.Upon discovering the lightsabers the beings whom they had just rescued were carrying one of Vizsla’s Lieutenants, Bo-Katan Kryze (who happened to be the sister of the Mandalorian empress Satine), suggested they kill the Zabraks since they could be Jedi.Pre Vizsla stayed Bo-Katan’s hand, however. Perhaps he had developed a sense for picking out dark side users after his time in Count Dooku’s service, which had ended with Dooku betraying and wounding Vizsla following a failed plot to overthrow the Mandalorian government. Regardless of his motivation, Pre Vizsla wanted to at least find out who these beings were before sending them to their deaths.While Death Watch waited for Maul and Opress to regain consciousness, their medical droids healed the brothers’ wounds and replaced the legs Mother Talzin had given Maul, which took a great deal of damage during their escape from Florrum, with new mechanical ones.
Maul woke up shortly after the surgery to replace his legs had concluded to find his brother still unconscious and in the process of having a mechanical arm fitted to replace the one he lost to Obi-Wan Kenobi on Florrum.Pre Vizsla and Bo-Katan returned to where Maul and Opress were being held and began to question Maul, insinuating that should he not loosen his tongue they would kill Opress.
Maul told the pair of Mandalorians that he and the man they had captured him with were brothers, and Sith Lords. Upon the mention of the Sith, Vizsla inquired as to Maul’s ties to Count Dooku whom he still very much wanted to kill for casting him aside.Maul was insulted by this line of questioning, declaring that he and Opress served no being and were the real Lords of the Sith in the galaxy. With confirmation that this lightsaber-wielding duo was not associated with the Jedi, and likely thinking that they might be useful in furthering his own causes, Vizsla asked Maul what his goals were.The self proclaimed Lord of the Sith told Vizsla that he sought to gain power and influence across the galaxy in order to exact his revenge on the Jedi order. Furthermore, he laid the blame for the situation on Mandalore, the source of Vizsla’s anger, at the feet of Obi-Wan Kenobi, insisting he was the being that they should be focused on destroying.In this explanation of who he was and what he was seeking, Maul really only told Vizsla one thing: my greatest enemy is a close ally of your greatest enemy. That was all Vizsla needed to hear to convince him to have his medical droids complete their work on Maul and Opress.So Maul and Opress barely escaped Florrum with their lives. They were wounded and alone, having passed out from lack of oxygen leading to their capture. When Maul awoke, he was surrounded by well-armed strangers who threatened to kill his brother if he didn’t reveal their purpose. Maul then not only gets himself and Opress out of danger, but gets complimentary medical care and sets himself up to ally with his captors by telling them…next to nothing.
“My brother and I are Sith who want power and influence in order to kill the Jedi.” That is every Sith, ever. No revelatory information there, but it is just enough to take him from prisoner to potential ally in the eyes of his captors.Captors who wore Mandalorian armor and had a severe distaste for their home world’s current pacifist government which was led by a being whom Maul’s greatest enemy cared a great deal about. With just that information Maul knew how to play the situation. If these Mandos stood in opposition to Empress Satine Kryze’s policies of pacifism, the odds were good that they adhered to the old ways of their people which would have included a not insignificant hatred of the Jedi.He would have known about the Mandalorian - Jedi War, and not just the incidents most recent to his time. He was, after all, once apprenticed to the Dark Lord of the Sith and as such his training would have included the study of any conflict waged against the Jedi. Maul would have known about the Mandalorian crusades, and the sacking of the Jedi Temple by Mandalorians during the decline of the Old Republic. He would have known what kind of Mandalorians these were. Maul read the situation and knew he could flip it in his favor by revealing only enough to buddy up to the mutual hatred in the room. Secrets and shadows had become Maul's world, and he ruled it with authority and cunning.Eventually Maul would be taken to see Pre Vizsla who, without even knowing he was doing it, confirmed Maul’s intuition about what kind of Mandos these were by telling him that he was the leader of Death Watch.Vizsla detailed how he and Death Watch had been exiled from Mandalore following their failed coup, and the seed that Maul had planted about who was to blame for their strife began to take root as Vizsla pondered Kenobi’s role in his plight. Maul had read them to perfection. By dropping Kenobi’s name during his questioning Maul had led Vizsla to the conclusion he wanted him to reach: that they had a common enemy in Kenobi and that the brothers were potential allies.Now that Vizsla had come back around to Kenobi, Maul seized the moment he had created and proposed an alliance between Death Watch and the Sith brothers. Bo-Katan was suspicious of Maul as she had been earlier when she suggested they kill Maul and Opress before they woke up. Death Watch had been betrayed by one Sith already, and she didn’t intend to entertain that possibility again.She shoots down Maul’s offer, letting him know that Dooku’s betrayal had been enough to convince her that the Sith were no better for Mandalore than the Jedi. Maul did not receive this critique particularly well.Maul Force chokes Bo-Katan, lifting her off the ground. Every Mandalorian blaster in the room gets aimed at Maul, and he sees it as the perfect time for a brief yet impactful speech. He tells the beings who appear to be strongly considering killing him that if they join forces they would leave all of their enemies dead in their wake, including Kenobi and Dooku, as they took Mandalore for themselves. He then mic-dropped Bo-Katan and waited to see the reaction that promising them everything they wanted while choking one of their Lieutenants would get him. It at least got him out of that room and back to where Savage Opress was still being treated, where he was told to wait while Death Watch took a vote on the proposed alliance.When Pre Vizsla later entered the medical area to inform the brothers how the vote had gone, he was greeted by the mangled remains of his medical droids. Apparently Opress took umbrage with the service he had received and took it out on the staff. Opress seemed to have settled down though, and the loss of the droids was not enough to change the decision the Mandalorians had come to: Death Watch would ally with the Sith brothers.Maul took himself and his brother from captives for whom execution was a potential, even likely, outcome to allies on equal footing with the renegade Mandalorians who had found them adrift in space, and he managed to do it by being the smartest being in the room. No need for acrobatic lightsaber theatrics this time.The Sith brothers had Death Watch to support them now, but Maul wasn’t done recruiting. He knew they needed more support, more warm bodies to carry blasters, if they were to accomplish the lofty goals laid out as the aim of this new alliance. An alliance that would come to be known as the Shadow Collective. Whether this was a name used internally by the group or one given to the organization it would become by outsiders is unclear, but it sounded as mysterious and dangerous just like the beings within it so the name stuck.What to do about those warm bodies they needed to carry blasters, though? Maul’s suggestion was to continue to seek out like-minded individuals who operated away from the public eye and were willing to do anything to gain power, wealth, and influence. Maul did not want to recruit criminals to his Shadow Collective, but rather entire criminal organizations. Maul’s first target was Black Sun, who had been gaining power as the Clone Wars stretched on since the Jedi Order was too busy with the Separatists to focus on keeping a cap on organized crime in the galaxy.The Shadow Collective traveled to Mustafar, where Black Sun’s main base of operations was located, and were escorted to meet the organization’s ruling council. Maul made his pitch to the council, promising them wealth and power just as he had Death Watch, but this time his vocal powers of persuasion fell short and Black Sun refused to join the Shadow Collective.
Maul, playing the role of reasonable negotiator, made his offer a second time. When he was again refused the Sith had his brother Savage Opress activate and throw his lightsaber at the council, decapitating all of Black Sun’s leadership.The now highest ranking member of the syndicate in the room, Captain of the Guard Ziton Moj who had greeted and escorted Maul upon his arrival on Mustafar, took this as his cue to assume leadership and his first act as leader of Black Sun was to agree to an alliance with the Shadow Collective. Twice now Maul has stood before killers, assaulted or killed at least one being while telling them they should join him, and both times it has worked. He has proved to be the most dangerous being in any room he is in, even when overwhelmingly outnumbered.News travels quickly in the criminal underworld, and whispers of what Maul was building, as well as how he was going about building it, made their way to the leaders of the Pyke Syndicate, who took swift action to protect themselves against this new threat: they joined the Shadow Collective without hesitation. The Pykes coming aboard peacefully would prove to be the only non-violent recruitment for The Shadow Collective. Now that he had Death Watch, Black Sun and the Pyke Syndicate at his disposal, Maul turned his attention to the Hutts.Similar to their field trip to Mustafar, Maul and company traveled to Nal Hutta for an audience with the Grand Hutt Council during which they would attempt to recruit the well established, independent criminal organization to join his newly formed alliance.Again, just like on Mustafar with Black Sun, the Hutts rejected Maul’s initial offer with their reasoning for doing so beginning and ending with Maul not being able to pay for their allegiance.
One might wonder why a lack of credits when recruiting criminals hadn’t come up until now and I would say that lack of opportunity is one of two factors. Maul could offer Death Watch Mandalore, so no need to pay. He had chosen recruitment through murder to bring Black Sun aboard, and the Pykes came to his side out of self preservation. Why talk about credits when there are other more motivating factors?The second factor in credits having not come up until this point in The Shadow Collective’s recruitment drive is they hadn’t yet talked to the Hutts, and if any criminal organization is not going to be squeamish about acting as guns for hire, it was the Hutts. Violence erupted and after a skirmish between The Shadow Collective and the bodyguards and bounty hunters in the Hutts’ employ, Maul ended up negotiating with Oruba the Hutt, who was the leader of the Grand Hutt Council at the time.Oruba wasn’t particularly tight-lipped, and told Maul that other members of the Grand Hutt Council who were absent when the Sith arrived had gathered at Jabba the Hutt’s palace. Maul then killed Oruba as thanks for the information, and set course for Tatooine.Death Watch attacked Jabba’s palace in a frenzy, quickly killing many of his guards and underlings while Maul, Oppress and Death Watch leaders took a leisurely stroll to Jabba’s audience chamber. Jabba the Hutt agreed to join Death Watch and to back their plot to overthrow the government of Mandalore.Some of you might recall from a previous lecture that early on in the Clone Wars the Hutts signed a treaty with the Republic following the safe return of Jabba the Hutt’s kidnapped son by the Jedi Order. So how can the Hutts now ally with The Shadow Collective without incurring the wrath of the Republic?Continued

PROFESSOR:
That treaty gave the Republic access to Hutt hyperspace lanes, while limiting the extent to which the Republic was allowed to look into Hutt affairs and forbidding the Hutts from cooperating with the CIS, which amounts to a nice deal for the Hutts.Yes, cutting off the Separatists as a revenue stream for the Hutts would have hurt, but the secrecy that the treaty allowed the Hutts to maintain concerning their affairs was worth far more. That guaranteed lack of Republic oversight, combined with the simple fact that Mandalore was not a member of the Republic or the CIS, gave Jabba enough security to ally with The Shadow Collective without much concern for backlash from the Republic.One imagines that a pair of Sith and a herd of Mandalorians kicking in the doors to your palace and cutting through your forces like a lightsaber through plasteel probably had something to do with Jabba’s willingness to agree to Maul’s terms as well.The final criminal organization Maul set his sights on was the Morubas crime family which operated out of the planet Bahlah. The Shadow Collective stuck with the strategy that had served them well against the Hutts and attacked the Morubas base head on, with Savage Opress leading the charge. While his brother battered the facility from the outside, Maul snuck into the base and made his way to the throne room of the Morubas family’s leader, Jjan, where he allowed himself to be captured as a distraction.Maul’s ploy was enough to buy Opress time to fully surround the base, and upon the realization that they were not only under attack but now under siege with little hope of escape, Jjan surrendered and The Shadow Collective added the resources and influence of yet another criminal organization to their fold. Maul had his army and was prepared to unleash The Shadow Collective on their first objective on the path to galactic domination: Mandalore.Death Watch wanted Mandalore because they viewed it as their birthright, but what did Maul stand to gain from toppling the government of Duchess Satine Kryze? He saw Mandalore not only as an opportunity to gain control over more resources and beings, but as a chance to do the thing he wanted to do most: capture and kill Obi-Wan Kenobi, or at the very least cause the Jedi Master a great deal of emotional turmoil.Duchess Satine came to power following the Mandalorian Civil War fought between Mandalorian traditionalists like Death Watch, who favored their people’s warrior way of old, and the pacifist minded younger generation known as the New Mandalorians. It was the Mandalorian Civil War that first brought Satine into contact with Obi-Wan Kenobi, who at that time was still a Padawan under the tutelage of Qui-Gon Jinn.Though Mandalore was not a member of the Republic, they had peacefully coexisted with the galactic governing body for generations through various treaties. That history of cooperation led to the Jedi Order sending Jinn and Kenobi to protect a young Duchess Satine from the near endless parade of mercenaries being sent to kill her by those who opposed the New Mandalorians.
Due to their enemies' constant tracking of Satine’s movements, Qui-Gon Jinn decided that the best way to protect Satine was to get her off of Mandalore and into hiding. Jinn, Kenobi and Kryze fled the planet and spent most of the next year on the run. During that time the young Obi-Wan and Satine began to develop feelings for one another and eventually fell in love. Though the pair would part ways once the situation on Mandalore stabilized, both choosing to fulfill their individual duties rather than pursue a life together, there is evidence to suggest that their feelings for one another went well beyond the fawnings of youth.Earlier on in the Clone Wars, Duchess Satine traveled to Coruscant aboard the New Mandalorian luxury liner Coronet. During the journey Senator Tal Merrik of Kalevala, a planet in the Mandalore system and the homeworld of the Duchess, revealed himself as a traitor and captured Satine in an attempt to deliver her to Death Watch.Audio sensors aboard the Coronet picked up a notable exchange during a tense standoff between Kenobi, Merrik and Kryze. Kenobi told the Duchess that had she asked he would have abandoned the Jedi Order for her. The situation was diffused when Anakin Skywalker saw a distracted, grandstanding Merrik and took it as an opportunity to run him through from behind with his lightsaber. We will bypass discussion on what Skywalker’s solution says about the being he would become, and focus on the fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi loved Satine Kryze enough to have left the Jedi for her.Earlier in the lecture we talked about the things Maul knew that gave him an advantage when dealing with Death Watch. I believe that this information about Kenobi and Kryze also belongs in the category of things Maul would have known.Maul would have known that Kenobi escorted Satine on that voyage from Mandalore to
Coruscant. He would have been aware that Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn had been the ones assigned to protect Satine during the Mandalorian Civil War and that they fled the planet and were on the run for almost a full year. He would have been given additional information on the perceived relationship between the Jedi and Duchess by Death Watch as they assembled their army and planned their takeover of Mandalore.That is to say, Maul would have known that if he attacked Mandalore and the government of Duchess Satine Kryze there was a high probability that Obi-Wan Kenobi would come to her aid, thus giving Maul yet another chance to kill the Jedi who had separated him from his better half on Naboo.Maul’s plan to take Mandalore was fairly straightforward: the criminals that had been recruited to The Shadow Collective would be sent in small groups to Mandalore where they would harass civilians and disrupt life across the Mandalorian capital city of Sundari. This spike in criminality would make the Duchess appear weak and unable to protect her people.Then, Death Watch would swoop in and make a show of arresting the criminals to further undermine the efficacy of Satine’s government and turn public opinion against her and the New Mandalorians.The Shadow Collective put their plot into action, and it played out exactly as they had planned it…at least for Death Watch.Pre Vizsla and Death Watch swept through Sundari, arresting and imprisoning the criminals they were secretly in league with, including Maul and Savage Opress, which was not part of Maul’s vision for the operation. Death Watch had decided that one betrayal at the hands of a Sith was plenty for them, and to avoid even the possibility of being caught off guard again made the decision to end their alliance with Maul as they declared themselves the rulers of Mandalore and imprisoned Duchess Satine Kryze.Maul and Opress took their imprisonment and Death Watch’s double cross in stride, and did not remain in custody for very long. The brothers broke out of their cells not long after being placed in them, and also freed former Mandalorian Prime Minister Almec, who had been imprisoned by Satine on suspicion of corruption, whom Maul saw as a new and useful pawn to replace Pre Vizsla. After brawling their way out of the prison complex and all the way to the Mandalorian throne room where Pre Vizsla and Death Watch had taken up residence, Maul challenged Pre Vizsla to a duel to the death. Vizsla agreed and commanded Bo Katan to return Maul's lightsaber to him so that the fight could commence.For his weapon Pre Vizsla chose the Darksaber, a unique lightsaber that had been stolen from the Jedi Temple in the aforementioned sacking of the temple by Mandandalorians during the Old Republic era. Beyond its one of a kind, sinister appearance, the Darksaber was important because according to tradition the being who claimed it through combat had the right not only to the weapon itself, but to lead Death Watch and all of Mandalore.The duel was a brutal spectacle to withhold, with the advantage passing back and forth. Vizsla used a multitude of weaponry to try and win the battle, but his jetpack, blasters, wrist blades and grappling cable would prove to not be enough. Eventually, Maul overpowered and disarmed Vizsla. He pummeled the Mandalorian with a flurry of kicks and punches, driving him back until Vizsla fell to the ground before the throne.Maul stepped past Pre Vizsla to stand before the Mandalorian throne and used the Force to call the Darksaber to his hand. Vizsla bowed his head, accepted his fate with the dying words, “Like you said, only the strongest shall rule'', and was beheaded by Maul with the Darksaber in front of the rest of Death Watch. With the killing blow struck, Maul declared himself the rightful owner of the Darksaber, leader of Death Watch and ruler of Mandalore. Roughly half of the Death Watch members present immediately knelt and pledged their loyalty to Maul.This did not sit well with Bo Katan, the self-proclaimed Mandalorian traditionalist. Apparently in her eyes the hard and fast rule that the being who laid claim to the Darksaber would rule was negotiable and did not extend to non-Mandalorians. Maul calmly informed Bo Katan that if she did not intend to uphold this Death Watch tradition she and any beings who supported her would die. Bo Katan and several other members of Death Watch started to back out of the throne room all the while declaring that all those who followed Maul were traitors. Bo Katan managed to escape with a small contingent of supporters and disappeared into the city. Maul didn’t pursue her however, as he received word that the Duchess had made an escape attempt and had managed to get a distress signal to the Jedi Order.While the timing of Satine’s transmission likely wasn’t ideal, it was exactly what Maul wanted. Above all else he wants revenge on Obi-Wan Kenobi, and his rival’s old flame had just called out to him for help. This was, in my opinion, the entire reason Maul had come to Mandalore.
Obi-Wan Kenobi now knew that Duchess Satine Kryze, a woman he loved enough to have considered leaving the Jedi behind, was imprisoned inside a palace in the capital city of Mandalore under the eye of not only Death Watch, but Maul. To further stack the odds against the Jedi Master there is the tiny detail of Mandalore being a neutral system during the Clone Wars.Kenobi, being a Jedi Master and General in the Grand Army of the Republic, cannot be seen going to free a political prisoner on a neutral planet. That means no backup, no reinforcements if it goes wrong, no extraction. Kenobi infiltrates the palace, frees Satine, and gets them back on his ship and in the air…before it is destroyed in a hail of missile fire by Death Watch. Obi-Wan wakes up in a daze after the crash landing and engages an approaching Maul and Savage Opress. He isn’t in fighting form though, and Maul easily disarms and captures Kenobi, taking the Jedi and the Duchess to the throne room.Obi-Wan Kenobi regains his center and is made to watch as Maul holds the Duchess off the ground in a Force grip. Maul taunts him, trying to break Kenobi and force him to give in to the dark side of the Force. Kenobi responds by recounting his visit to the Nightbrother village on Dathomir and telling Maul that he doesn’t believe Maul chose the dark path, rather it was thrust upon him by Mother Talzin and the Nightsisters.Maul doesn’t appreciate the Jedi’s psychological evaluation of him, and responds by playing the sabacc card he had up his sleeve. He tells Kenobi that he did not lure him to Mandalore to kill him, but to make him suffer as he had been made to after his defeat on Naboo.Maul used the Force to pull Duchess Satine Kryze to him, and ran the Darksaber through her chest. He then basked in his dark glory as Mandalore’s pacifist hope, and the love of his sworn enemy’s life died in that enemy’s arms. Obi-Wan Kenobi held Satine Kryze as she confessed her never ending love for him with her dying words, and then was taken to be imprisoned where he would contemplate his great loss.I am among the historians who believe that Obi-Wan Kenobi was fully aware of Anakin Skywalker’s relationship with and marriage to Padme Amidala. I believe he allowed them their life together despite the multitude of risks because it was the life he had denied himself with Satine Kryze.Obi-Wan Kenobi was the best of the Jedi. Not because he kept perfectly to the code, or because of his abilities with the Force and skills with a lightsaber. He was the best of us because he saw a being in his Padawan who was lonely and despite, or perhaps because of his gifts, struggled to find balance and peace within himself and his life. A truly great Jedi seeks to do good, not just to prevent the bad.Obi-Wan saw Anakin’s suffering, and saw that Padme was the only thing in the galaxy that could guide Anakin to balance, peace and happiness. He allowed his best friend, his brother, to love in the way he had at first denied himself, then been denied by Maul. Regardless of what followed I cannot and will not fault Kenobi for giving them that.Obi-Wan deserved better. He deserved happiness…instead he was on his way to prison.But he never made it to prison, because he was intercepted in transit by Bo Katan. After escaping Maul and fleeing Death Watch, Bo Katan had reorganized the Mandalorians who had followed her into a resistance group known as the Night Owls. Bo Katan, Kenobi and the Night Owls fought through Sundari to a transport that was waiting to get the Jedi off-planet. As he made his way up the ramp, Bo Katan told Kenobi to inform the Republic what had happened on Mandalore. The Jedi cautioned her that such a report would likely lead to a Republic invasion of Mandalore. She responded that yes, it likely would lead to an invasion, and that invasion would lead to Maul’s death, but that Mandalore would survive.Bo-Katan’s fiery rhetoric must have struck a memory for Kenobi. As he turned to leave the planet he commented that Bo Katan must have been Satine’s sister, and apologized for her loss.Mandalore was in flames and a new civil war was brewing between Maul’s Death Watch and Bo Katan’s Night Owls. Duchess Satine Kryze, who had sought to lead her people to prosperity through pacifism, was dead and a Sith sat on the Mandalorian throne. Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi watched the love of his life die at the hands of the being he thought he had killed a decade before, the same being that had killed his master Qui-Gon Jinn.(MUSIC ENTERS)PROFESSOR:
That scene of chaos, which Maul no doubt soaked in every moment of, is where we will return to next time, when we conclude our series of lectures discussing Maul. Thank you as always for your time, and do please take time to reflect on what we have discussed thus far. There will, after all, be a test at the end of the semester.(MUSIC CONTINUES)PROFESSOR:
Thank you for listening to Ewok This Way - Galactic History. Bibliography and transcripts are linked in the episode description. If you like what you’ve heard, please join us for our next lecture, and don’t forget to do the Yub-Nub Rub.(MUSIC FADES OUT)