Amise Griff

"I worked in his shadow for the sake of my career&hellip;No longer! Today the Rebel escape will be stopped&hellip;The Rebellion crushed by me! Alone!"

- Griff about his career under Darth Vader at the Blockade of Yavin

Admiral Amise Griff was an officer of the Imperial Navy who commanded the Sector Group in the Bright Jewel Oversector and oversaw the development and construction of the Executor-class Star Dreadnought at Fondor. He later commanded the Blockade of Yavin.

Biography
Griff was loyal to his Grand Moff, Governor-General Nox Vellam, but after the Battle of Yavin, he found himself reassigned to serve under Darth Vader's direct command. At first, he served as an agent provocateur on Fondor, a role in which he proved successful; he infiltrated a cell of traitorous officers with part in the Executor construction, regularly reporting on them to Vader. The officers were not very sympathetically inclined towards the Rebels, but were growing jealous of Vader's unique position in the naval hierarchy and hoped to weaken him by selling the Executor schematics to them. By feigning sympathy for their cause and organizing their operations successfully, Griff eventually became their leader.

Griff was ready to arrest them when Luke Skywalker, their Rebel contact, arrived, and Vader, who was obsessed with the boy, ordered his capture. Griff then befriended Skywalker and helped him in his mission, still posing as a Rebel sympathizer. After some time, he formed a new plan: to organize a meeting between Skywalker and the conspirators to incriminate them and set up a trap for the Rebel hero. However, Vader insisted on personally supervising the operation, and Skywalker felt his powerful dark presence through the Force. Although Griff's Stormtroopers managed to arrest the traitors, the now-alerted young Jedi escaped, bringing the schematics with him.

Later, Griff was placed in charge of the Blockade of Yavin. This long, drawn-out operation was marked by rivalry between Vader's supporters and Vellam's. Early in the operation, Griff warned that the blockade was ineffective and that the Rebels were steadily building up their fleet, advocating a decisive strike before the balance shifted to their favor. Vader, however, was too preoccupied with a scheme involving a fake Obi-Wan Kenobi to engage in such an operation at the time, and Griff, stretched thin, watched his numerical superiority dwindle.

When the Rebels later mounted their final escape attempt, Vader once again pursued his own agenda, this time to leave a portion of the blockade deliberately weakened, allowing the Rebels to escape so that he could he lure them into a trap, again not bothering to inform Griff. Instead, the Admiral spotted the flaw by himself, sending three Star Destroyers to reinforce the breach and taking personal command of this force. The Rebels, led by Luke Skywalker, managed to defeat Griff's fighters and escaped past his positions at the climax of the siege. He then opted for a gamble and ordered an immediate Hyperspace leap after the fleeing enemy. With all the required information, the plan may well have worked. As it were, however, he brought his fleet out of hyperspace too close to Vader's flagship, the Executor, which had secretly been waiting for the Rebels at this precise spot, and the ships collided. Griff was killed and the three Star Destroyers that collided with the Executor were destroyed by the impact; the Executor lost its shields but suffered no major structural damage. It was, however, delayed long enough to allow the Rebels to escape.

Personality and traits
Griff was an ambitious man with few moral scruples, always ready to take advantage of the mistakes of others. He was also more than a little vain, wearing an expensive fur-brimmed coat, in addition to his standard service uniform. However, he was a competent, albeit at times somewhat brash, naval commander, and an accomplished agent with a working knowledge of ground combat tactics, making up for some of his other character flaws.

Behind the scenes
In the Classic Star Wars comics in which he appears, Griff wears a non-standard, all-red rank insignia, rather than a standard admiral's badge.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Rebellion
 * Darth Vader Strikes
 * The Night Beast
 * The Return of Ben Kenobi
 * Race for Survival
 * The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader