Wookieepedia:Featured article queue/March 28, 2011

Martio Batch was an Imperial officer who rose through the ranks to become one of the twelve Grand Admirals of the Galactic Empire appointed by Emperor Palpatine during an elaborate New Year's Fete Week ceremony two years before the Battle of Yavin. Batch disliked the Imperial court politics that his fellow Grand Admirals reveled in, and as a result of his low profile, he earned the nickname the "invisible admiral." Following the Imperial defeat at the Battle of Yavin in 0 BBY, the Emperor tasked Batch with designing a fool-proof cloaking device that would catch the Rebel Alliance off-guard and ensure the Empire's ultimate victory. Batch spent years aboard the Imdaar Alpha research station trying to develop the cloaking device, using hibridium to develop an experimental cloak. His efforts, however, suffered from a fatal flaw; while the cloaked ship would be invisible, the pilot would be unable to see out.

Around 3 ABY, Batch abandoned his hibridium-based design and attempted to recreate the successful stygium cloaking screen used in cloaked ships in the past. Batch diverted the Empire's new Tarkin superweapon to the planet Aeten II, where the stygium crystals required for the cloak had been mined before the supply ran dry, and used the weapon's powerful superlaser to shatter the planet, releasing millions of free-floating crystals from the planet's core. Now that he had crystals at his disposal, the Grand Admiral easily recreated the stygium screen, and the Empire began fitting modified V38 assault fighters with the technology. Following extensive testing, Batch's new cloaked TIE Phantoms were soon ordered into full production. However, the Rebel Alliance had discovered the project. During an operation to acquire one of the TIE Phantoms, the Rebels managed to destroy the Imdaar Alpha research facility, as well as all the cloaked fighters and the cloaking technology in the process. Batch survived the attack and fled to the Outer Rim Territories with his remaining ships. However, his crew soon turned on him, assassinating the Grand Admiral before joining renegade Warlord Harrsk's new splinter kingdom in the Deep Core.