| abstract
| - The Third Galactic Civil War was a conflict involving several factions and their struggle for galaxy-wide domination, it was started in 48 ABY when the Third Galactic Republic (which had seceded from the Galactic Alliance several years earlier after being defeated in it's attempt to take over) invaded the Galactic Alliance capital, Corellia. The Alliance responded with a declaration of war, and it's allies the Second Galactic Empire, led by Emperor Jagged Fel did the same. With much of Fel's forces occupied fighting the Republicans, a renegade faction of the Empire, the Moff Insurrectionists, led by Admiral Natasi Daala, declared war on Fel's Empire. Irek Ismaren, who had earlier declared himself Palpatine's heir and Emperor saw the conflict as a perfect opportunity to take over, to bolster his claim he married Palpatine's cousin Ederlathh Pallopides and sent out intelligence agents to spread rumors that he was Palpatine's son. Unbeknownst to much of the galaxy Ismaren had become a Sith lord, Darth Nyax, and created his own Sith Order. To conceal this until the time was right, he set up a fake meeting between his dignitaries and Darth Nyax, making it look like Nyax was working with Ismaren's Empire but they were not one and the same, this deception was discovered by Jagged Fel as he had his agents place a tacking beacon on Ismaren in preparation for an assassination attempt, when the assassin's followed Ismaren's signal they were led to the meeting, where they discovered the truth, but were foiled in the assassination attempt, but they brought back word of Nyax's true identity to Emperor Fel who, instead of telling the rest of the galaxy, decided to keep the information to himself, his senior advisers, Hogrum Chalk and Treis Sinde and the assassin who had discovered it, Maarek Stele, formerly one of Emperor Palpatine's Hands a man who served with Fel in the 181st Starfighter Wing on many occasions. Emperor Fel instructed Stele to join Darth Nyax's Sith Order Stele, being known for his former loyalty to Palpatine and for being a dark side adept, easily infiltrated Nyax's order and rose quickly to become Darth Nyax's apprentice, Darth Tyro, he also was given Command of Ismaren's Starfighter Corps and became the Procurator of Justice for the Ismaren Empire. The President of the Republican faction, Brenn Mothma gave out orders to his forces, that in the event that a defeat in battle to Alliance forces was imminent, instead of fighting to the end, they are commanded to surrender, as Mothma planned to conquer the Alliance from within, another tactic utilized was instructing several major senators to defect to the Alliance, and to sow the seeds of mistrust between the Alliance and Fel's Empire, this tactic worked exceedingly well on several of the hardliner Alliance leaders, as they well remember the atrocities committed by Palpatine's Empire and they declared their support for a democratic Government free from Imperial influence, Emperor Fel, realizing that his Empire would be no match for the combined might of the Alliance and the Republic, takes several steps to prevent this from happening, whilst simultaneously preparing for the worst. Moff Konrad Rus was instructed to double the efforts of the Imperial Mission, and managed to pass a law in the senate in which Missionaries could operate on Alliance worlds, this combined with the hardships and suffering of Alliance citizens because of the war, led many Alliance worlds to join the Empire, another law, stating that all planets have the right to choose to be Fel-Imperial or Alliance, allowed this to happen without the Alliance being able to declare it an act of war, meaning that Imperial influence begins to spread further and further. Fel also assigns Moff Fehlaaur, a Chiss Admiral, and head of Fel's diplomatic corps to the task of forming alliances, the most important of these missions was to secure the loyalty of the Chiss Ascendancy, which was helped greatly by Jagged's former service to the Ascendancy and friendship with many of its leaders. Fehlaaur's advice to Fel to send his son Jagged to treat with the Chiss payed off and the Ascendancy became an Independent Affiliate of the Empire, with Ascendancy backing, and many brilliant Chiss minds serving in the Imperial Military, Fel's Empire was then powerful enough to discourage the Alliance leadership from siding with Mothma's Republic, and they remained in permanent union with the Empire, although trust between the two became very strained, as the Alliance were sending envoys to the Republicans, and the Empire started sending envoys to both the Ismaren Empire and Daala's forces. The Jedi Order refused to really take a side in the conflict between the Alliance and Republic, as both sides' leader's support the Jedi, but many Jedi lean towards the Republicans because of the Imperial influence on the Alliance faction. Emperor Fel recieved a message from Darth Nyax, stating that Nyax has managed to convince Irek Ismaren to order a strike on an Alliance-Republic meeting that will take place on Commenor, which will be attended by President Mothma of the Republicans, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Alliance, and several important military leaders, that a strike of this scale will totally cripple both factions, allowing the Empire to rule the galaxy once more, the message states that if Fel sends his forces to aid in this attack, Nyax will personally depose Irek Ismaren and will swear loyalty to Fel's Empire along with all of Ismaren's forces, unbeknownst to Nyax, Fel knows that he is in fact Irek Ismaren, realising Nyax's deception, despite this, Fel is advised by Hogrum Chalk to accept Nyax's offer but once the strike is complete, to order the undercover Maarek Stele to assassinate Nyax. Chalk has also advised Fel to take steps to eliminate the Jedi as they would be a threat to his rule, being staunch supporters of the Alliance and Republicans, Treis Sinde, one of Fel's senior Imperial Knights has often advised against this course of action, stating that such a brutal move would by hypocritical from an Emperor who wanted to change the Empire for the better, whose founding philosophy was rule by respect, not by fear as Palpatine did. Chalk, a great believer in the power of fear, believing that Fel will never strong-willed to do what he believed was necessary to rule, begins planning his own strategy to bring the galaxy under the Empire's rule, which includes feeding information to Emperor Fel's enemies, such as the Ismarens and Admiral Daala, he has also taken steps to commission several superweapons which could be used to bring about galaxy-wide domination, his plan for the use of these is to attempt to turn Emperor Fel to the dark side, so that he will be willing to use them. Knowing that Fel would never agree to Nyax's plan, Hogrum Chalk decided to go along with it himself, feigning an assassination plot to persuade Fel to go into hiding, he accepted Darth Nyax's offer, began preparations for the strike at Commenor & ordered Maarek Stele to be ready to assassinate Darth Nyax after the strike, as he deduced that it was better to serve under an Emperor who wasn't as ruthless as Ismaren, but trusted Chalk implicitly and was not prone to the psychotic & murderous outbursts that Irek Ismaren was known for. At the secret meeting on Commenor, where representatives, leaders and high-up figures of the Alliance, Republic, Jedi and Hapans were assembled, along with their combined military forces the Imperial Coalition unleashed their master plan, Admiral Edouard Fenel's Bastion 1st Fleet, the Ismaren-loyal Outer Rim Third Fleet led by Krion Grail, the First Sith-Imperial Strikeforce's Fleet and the Maw Irregular Fleet led by Admiral Natasi Daala all attacked the fleets in Commenor's orbit, easily defeating the surprised & confused Alliance-Republic fleets, Grand General Geist and Darth Nyax then proceeded to lead the Imperial Coalition's ground forces, made up of both Stormtroopers and Sith Troopers onto the surface to destroy the Alliance-Republic Army stationed on planet, as with the space battle this was as much a massacre as a battle, with the element of surprise the Imperials obliterated the defenders. Whilst this was going on, Maarek Stele had been assigned to lead a small group of Sith-Imperial commandos to assassinate the leaders gathered for the meeting, being successful, with no casualties on their side. The Alliance Prime Minister Burbakker Teep, hearing of the attack, assigned the Seventh Fleet to save the beleaguered Commenor forces, this played straight into Hogrum Chalk's plans as several years earlier he had Bevel Lemelisk, the Death Star architect cloned and commissioned the clone to produce a new superweapon, which he revealed to be on board the Star Destroyer Conqueror II once the Alliance reinforcements arrived at Commenor, he fired the superweapon, completely obliterating Commenor and all Alliance, Republic, Jedi & Hapan forces in the system. This strike proved devastating for the Alliance, but more importantly brought together the three Imperial Governments, Natasi Daala and the Maw Irregular Fleet rejoined the Empire & Ismaren-Fel war was ended. Darth Nyax then departed, allegedly to depose Irek Ismaren and bring him before Emperor Fel. Emperor Fel, hearing of the attack going ahead without his approval was furious, but was convinced by Antares Draco to not admit that he didn't order the attack, as it was currently working to his advantage for his enemies to believe he had ordered the attack. Another undermining of Emperor Fel's orders came when he dispatched a force under Moff Rulf Yage to Ossus in order to conduct diplomatic talks with the Jedi Council, but Hogrum Chalk contacted Yage en route to inform him that the Jedi had attacked Fel and that his new orders were to rendezvous with a Sith-Ismaren Imperial strike-team in the Cron Drift and to attack the Jedi on Ossus, the mission was an Imperial success, with much of the Jedi Order being wiped out. Rulf Yage was hailed as a hero, but privately harbored doubts about why he was sent and was plagued by visions of the atrocities committed on Ossus, it was also his belief that Fel would never order the murder of children and civilians, after the attack, Yage had a deep mistrust of both the Sith, and Hogrum Chalk. Several days later Darth Nyax came to Coruscant's Imperial Palace, along with Dart Tyro (really Fel's double agent Maarek Stele) and an impostor Irek Ismaren and several Sith, the Sith Lords brought "Ismaren" before Emperor Fel & his Moff Council, Nyax had planned to assassinate Fel at this point and claim the Imperial throne for himself, but Fel, knowing Nyax's true identity foiled the attempt and Maarek Stele revealing his duplicity to his "master" killed Darth Nyax. Emperor Fel then demanded the surrender of Ismaren's forces, which was agreed to by Admiral Peto Kelsan. Fel then assigned Daric Vandron & the Secret Service to arrest Derick Veed, and any remaining Imperials who would not surrender, and Maarek Stele, Antares Draco & the Imperial Knights to hunt down the Sith. The war continued when the Republic remnants rejoined the Alliance and Burbakker Teep was forced to resign as Prime Minister (due to his refusal to respond to Imperial aggression) his successor, the Rodian Gianacono Farr declared war on the Empire in retaliation for the attack on Commenor after the Senate refused to believe that Fel had not ordered the attack, despite the declaration of war, many prominent Alliance leaders refused to fight the Empire, especially those who knew Fel personally, as they knew he would never order the brutal massacre perpetrated at Commenor, these leaders included Fel's brother-in-law, Wedge Antilles, Han Solo, his former classmate at the Imperial Academy and his son Jagged's father-in-law, Admiral Gial Ackbar convinced the Mon Calamari & Quarren to remain neutral, as did former Prime Minister Burbakker Teep with the Gran, other parties who withdrew from the war include: Corellia, now led by Garm Bel Iblis and Fels homeworld, the Wookiees of Kashyyyk, the Mandalorians and the Ithorians also refused to take sides, other worlds, such as Neimoidia did not take part simply because they knew that the Alliance was both fractured and outnumbered, there were also many worlds who joined the Empire, including Eriadu, Fondor and Kamino, whose cloning facilities were being used to produce Stormtroopers for the Empire once again. Maarek Stele and the ISF Commander, Davin Stark, were assigned by Fel to find out just what Hogrum Chalk was up to, since Chalk organised the massacre on Commenor without Fel's permission, the Emperor became increasingly suspicious of his close advisor, another step Fel took was to assign Moff Fehlaaur, publicly an Admiral & the leader of the Imperial Diplomatic Corps to root out Imperials who are loyal to Chalk rather than the Emperor, instead of using Imperial agents (who could be working for Chalk) Fehlaaur has been tasked to use Chiss Intelligence agents, to prevent any leaks to Chalk, as Fel trusts the Chiss implicitly. Chalk's often repeated advice to Fel to not trust anyone may yet backfire upon Chalk, as Fel is having every part of the Empire investigated, so as not to repeat the mistakes of his early reign, one of the best tactics (devised by Chalk himself) was to have all intelligence agencies investigating one another, the Secret Service is investigating the ISB, the Chiss are investigating the Secret Service, the Imperial Knights are investigating the newly-defected Inquisitors formerly loyal to Ismaren, who Fel assigned to investigate the Chiss. Under increasing pressure from the Corellian government and worried that Corellia may defect to the Empire, Prime Minister Farr reluctantly decides to move the Alliance capital to the planet Denon, following the move, Corellian Senator Garm Bel Iblis, declares Contemplanys Hermi for the second time in his career, thereby withdrawing all Corellian representatives from the Alliance senate and preventing the Alliance from conscripting military personnel from the Corellian sector or utilising the sector for it's military campaign in any way, this clause also allowed Emperor Fel and his family entry into the Corellian sector once again, as Corellian citizens, since the outbreak of war, no Imperial citizen had been allowed into Alliance space, leading to the deportation of millions of Imperials on Alliance worlds, including Jagged Fel's uncle Todr and Todr's wife and son from Corellia. The Imperial Mission were also able to once again enter the Corellian sector, leading to a huge increase in Imperial recruitment from Corellia. Alliance Military Command was also forced to relocate, the Esseles-class Space Station Hosk II orbiting Denon was chosen as Military Headquarters for the duration of the war. The Alliance's relations with Corellia came under increasing strain after the election of former Imperial pilot, Turr Phennir to the post of Prime Minister, Phennir was very critical of the Alliance and after an attempt on Phennir's life by Alliance Special Forces, the Corellian Parliament voted to gain even further independence from the Alliance and became an Autonomous Allied Region of the Alliance, preventing Alliance leadership from having any say in their government, Phennir also called for an vote on whether Corellia should gain full independence from the Alliance, but Garm Bel Iblis and many other senior politicians vetoed this move, as it would of made Corellia a target for Alliance attacks, remaining as an Autonomous Allied Region meant that it would be illegal for the Alliance to take any military action against Corellia unprovoked. Turr Phennir increased the tax on trade from the Alliance and began allowing Corellian companies to sell to the Empire, these measures were being taken by Phennir in order to provoke Alliance aggression, in the event of which, the Corellian Parliament would have little choice but to declare war on the Alliance and join the Empire. The Ismaren Empire returned to the conflict when Elderlathh Pallipides took up the throne of her deceased husband and became Empress of the Ismaren Empire, but behind the scenes, Darth Nyax's former apprentice, Darth Voracis was controlling the Empress and unknown to all but a few, Voracis was in actuality Ken, the grandson of Emperor Palpatine who considered himself to be the true heir to the Empire, he was aided in his struggle by his apprentice, Darth Oblivion, who was known publicly as Raynar Thul a rich businessman from a prominent Alderaanian family. In the closing weeks of 49 ABY an Alliance warship was destroyed on the edges of the Corellian sector, many Alliance citizens and even higher-ups blamed the attack on Corellian forces, the President was forced to invade Corellia, to prevent it from rising against the Alliance, the Corellian government, seeing no other option, called for Imperial aid, seceded from and declared war on the Alliance. The Empire answered Corellia's call and came to it's aid, the Imperial-Corellian joint forces were successful in defeating the Alliance forces in the Corellian sector and in order to prevent any further Alliance aggression, Prime Minister Phennir announced his decision for the Corellian sector to become an Independant Affiliate of Fel's Empire. Another blow to the Alliance came when the Hapes Consortium and the Hutts seceded from the Alliance and joined the Ismaren Empire, after coups in their respective governments, secretly backed by the Sith, removed the Alliance-loyal leaders from power and put Sith-backed leaders in their places. Reluctantly, seeing an opportunity to end the war, Emperor Fel ordered an attack on the Alliance capital of Denon, the resulting battle was a crippling defeat for the Alliance, most notably when Fel's forces once again unleashed the superlaser on the Star Destroyer Conqueror II upon Alliance Central command, based on the Space station Hosk II leading to it's central government to surrender and sign a Treaty, which stipulated total surrender of Alliance forces to the Empire and in return they would be granted some degree of self governance. With the death of President Giaconno Farr in the battle, Alliance space was then ruled by a triumvirate, made up of Wynn Dorvann representing the Alliance Senate, Admiral Piers Petan representing the Alliance Military and Grand Master Luke Skywalker representing the Jedi. Despite the Treaty, many Alliance Military personnel refused to surrender to the Empire, and formed the Galactic Alliance Remnant, led by Admiral Nek Bwua'tu they continued to fight the Empire in an attempt to free the galaxy, they were helped along in their struggle by several members of the Alliance Senate, who had surrendered to the Empire, but were secretly siphoning off weapons, starships, equipment and personnel to aid the fight against the Empire. Within the first days of 50 ABY, Ken Palpatine, now married to Empress Palipides took over the Ismaren Empire for himself, revealing his identity as Palpatine's heir and as the Dark Lord of the Sith, he transformed the Ismaren Empire into the Sith Empire. With the Sith revealed to the Galaxy once again, many Alliance leaders decided to join Fel's Empire, as they saw the survival of the Alliance as an inferior cause than that of the defeat of the Sith, but Admiral Bwua'tu and his forces refused to join any Empire, whether ruled by a Sith or not, and they continued their war against both Fel's Empire and the Sith Empire. During the course of 50 ABY, Luke Skywalker withdrew the Jedi Order from direct affiliation with the Alliance, leaving the government with only two of the triumvirs remaining, Emperor Fel suggested an election to ascertain what form of governance the people of the Alliance would like, there was three distinct results of this election, firstly, many planets voted to simply leave the Alliance & join the Empire as full members independently, another group wished to leave the Empire altogether and the remaining worlds voted for the status quo, but with a single leader, with an overwhelming majority voting for Wynn Dorvan, due to the wartime pressures Emperor Fel, in concert with Dorvan decided it would not be conducive for any planets to join the Empire fully at this time, but these worlds accepted the rule of Dorvan for the duration of the emergency, the worlds who had voted to leave the Empire completely were certainly very displeased by the results of the Fel-Dorvan talks as the consensus was that if any planet was to leave the Alliance/Empire, it would have been prey to Sith-Imperial advances, when some of these pro-independence leaders argued that they would instead join Admiral Bwua'tu's Galactic Alliance Remnant, Dorvan retorted that he was the elected head of the true Alliance government and that the Remnant was a terrorist movement that refused to accept that the only way for the Alliance to survive was to become an Independent Affiliate of the Empire, Dorvan also reminded them that the majority of planets that had seceded from the Alliance had not been "invaded" by the Empire as Bwua'tu claimed, but had actually voted to join the Empire & the remaining worlds had voted to become an Imperial Independent Affiliate in order to preserve the Alliance, Emperor Fel reiterated these words & added that he never had any intention of going to war with the Alliance, that it was the Alliance's previous government that had declared war on the Empire, he also promised that he would not take away any of the freedoms that the Alliance citizens had previously enjoyed & that their status as an Independent Affiliate would not change without the consent of the Alliance people. Most Alliance citizens remained hopeful that their situation was for the best and most believed that it was much better for them to have a large measure of independence under a benevolent Alliance-friendly Emperor, than be fully independent and surely be obliterated & conquered by the Sith. Wynn Dorvan also managed to convince Fel to allow the Alliance a military force of their own once again, though only designed to be a defensive force, it did put many of the more dubious citizens at ease, Fel also opened up several Imperial military units to Alliance citizens, so that those who wished to fight against the Sith could do so, Wynn Dorvan was also given a seat on the Emperor's new Galactic Security Council, the new command authority responsible for coordinating pan-governmental defence against the Sith Empire. This series of events helped to heal much of the rifts that had come between the Alliance & Empire since their split two years earlier.
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