Gorgon

"Daala, I am giving you the power to turn any planet to slag."

- Wilhuff Tarkin

The Gorgon was an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer and flagship of Admiral Natasi Daala. It was constructed by Kuat Drive Yards over Kuat, along with sister ships Hydra, Basilisk, and Manticore. These ships were part of the Maw fleet, stationed at Maw Installation, a secret asteroid research facility under the command of Admiral Daala. With her second-in-command, Commander Kratas, Daala would drill the crew of the Gorgon until it became, in Daala's opinion, one of the best performing Star Destroyers in the Imperial Fleet. Daala and the Gorgon were stationed at Maw Installation without any outside contact for over a decade before a lone shuttle entered the Maw and was captured by the Gorgon's tractor beams. From the prisoners, Daala would learn the fate of the Empire, and took it upon herself to launch a guerilla war against the New Republic.

The Star Destroyer would fight in many battles throughout Daala's short campaign before returning to Maw Installation for a final confrontation with the forces of the New Republic. The Gorgon would prove to be the Installation's bane when the vessel fired upon the facility's unstable reactor core. Severely damaged in the battles of Daala's campaign, the Gorgon was irreparable, and after transporting Daala to the remnants of the Empire in the Deep Core, was dismantled by the warlords for use in the construction of newer vessels.

Specifications
"I had forgotten how sleek and maneuverable a Star Destroyer could be, after all the damage we suffered on the Gorgon."

- Kratas

The Gorgon was 1,600 meters long, the standard length for an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer. It was a powerful vessel, with 60 turbolaser batteries and 60 ion cannons. Daala considered her vessel powerful enough to lay an entire planet to waste. It also possessed 10 powerful tractor beam projectors and a sizable hangar. For support craft, the Gorgon was capable of carrying up to six full squadrons of TIE/ln starfighters and 2 Gamma-class assault shuttles, one of which was the shuttle Edict, used personally by Admiral Daala, who often piloted it herself. The Gorgon was unusual in that it possessed a complement of assault and support craft that shied away from the standard size of a Star Destroyer's complement. Similarly, the Gorgon did not carry any TIE bombers or TIE interceptors, though the latter had not been manufactured at the time of the Gorgon ' s construction. The Star Destroyer also held 20 AT-AT walkers and 30 AT-ST walkers.

Construction and deployment
"Those were our defenses. Maw Installation depended entirely on Admiral Daala's fleet."

- Qwi Xux

The Gorgon was constructed over Kuat by Kuat Drive Yards and was commissioned by Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin. The Gorgon was constructed alongside three other Imperial Star Destroyers: the Hydra, the Basilisk, and the Manticore. These vessels were intended by Tarkin to guard his secret military research facility, Maw Installation, where monstrosities such as the Death Star and the World Devastators were designed. The Gorgon and the rest of the Maw Fleet were put under the direct command of Tarkin's mistress, Admiral Natasi Daala, the first female to become an admiral under the Galactic Empire. The Gorgon was meant to be Daala's flagship. Daala personally oversaw the construction of the Gorgon from its early stages, and was bent on turning it into a model of Star Destroyer perfection.

The Maw Fleet was placed in a gravitational island at the center of the Maw, a cluster of black holes, by Grand Moff Tarkin with no outside contact and a strict mandate to remain and guard the facility at all costs. The Maw Installation was unknown to the outside galaxy and the Empire, known only to Tarkin, and the Emperor. Therefore, Tarkin chose individuals with no ties to the outside galaxy for Daala's fleet, so that they would not be missed from isolation in the Maw, and no one would raise questions. Daala feared that a lack of active service would cause her crew's skills to deteriorate. This, and the fear that her crew would resent being commanded by a woman, caused Daala to drill her crew constantly and she executed several officers to show her crew that she would stop at nothing to keep them in line. In depths of the Maw, the Gorgon sat at full battle readiness, waiting for chance to prove itself, its crew constantly put on edge by its relentless commander and her second-in-command, Commander Kratas. But as the crew slowly grew bored over a decade, despite their commander, they yearned for a chance to break free of the Maw, and return to active duty.

Leaving the Maw
"The Empire lies wounded and vulnerable on the outside, and we can't just sit here and wait. We have four Star Destroyers, a full fleet and the Rebellion knows nothing about it."

- Natasi Daala

This chance came in 11 ABY, when a lone shuttle, Endor, entered the Maw. When its crew, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Kyp Durron, failed to provide the correct Tarkin-issued securtity code, the Gorgon used its tractor beam to pull the damaged shuttle into its hangar bay. Because of the inability to transmit signals through the HoloNet from the Maw, due to the ionized gases around the black holes, the crew of the Gorgon, especially Daala, were unprepared for the news the outsiders brought with them. While in isolation, Grand Moff Tarkin had died on the first Death Star, and Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader had died on a failed attempt to reconstruct the battlestation. Due to the latter two's deaths, the Empire was tearing itself apart in a civil war, while the Rebel Alliance had evolved into the New Republic and had become a dominant power in the galaxy.



Dumbstruck by the news, Daala decided that now that Tarkin was dead, she was no longer held down by his orders and could fight her own guerilla war against the New Republic. Imprisoning the shuttle's crew and declaring to the Maw scientists that she was leaving, Daala scrambled her forces and prepared to depart. During the departure preparations, the prisoners escaped with the Installation's latest project, the Sun Crusher, aided by Maw scientist Qwi Xux.

The four Star Destroyers scrambled to stop the escapees from leaving the Maw. However, since the Sun Crusher's hull was practically invulnerable to harm, the most the fleet could do was physically smother the superweapon with TIE fighters. Meanwhile, the Hydra positioned itself to block the Sun Crusher from escaping out of the only direct route out of the Maw. Undaunted, the Sun Crusher sped out of the TIE fighter swarm and through the Hydra's bridge. The crippled vessel was drawn in by the gravitational force of a nearby black hole. Its way cleared, the Sun Crusher fled into hyperspace.

Vowing that the Sun Crusher had to be recovered at all costs, Daala ordered the Gorgon and its two remaining sister-ships to follow the superweapon out of the Maw. The Gorgon caught up with its quarry as it exited the Maw, but ran straight into the mercenary fleet of Moruth Doole, which was looking for friends of Han Solo who had been searching for him and Chewbacca since their disappearance from Doole's prison on Kessel. The confused fleet fired fruitlessly on the imposing Star Destroyers. Daala's fleet quickly mopped up the rag-tag force, and the Gorgon sustained minimal damage. With the latest unexpected threat out of her way, Daala ordered the Gorgon to conduct a campaign of piracy on New Republic shipping.

War against the New Republic
"We have three Star Destroyers. That's enough to wipe out civilizations on any number of worlds. We must hit fast and run fast. We will continue to pound the Rebels for as long as we can."

- Natasi Daala

Their first (and last) merchant target was a small Corellian corvette. The Gorgon fired several shots on the ship before it surrendered. The Star Destroyer then pulled the corvette into its hangar. From the ship's captain, T'nun Bdu, Daala learned that the vessel was delivering relief supplies to a "peaceful" colony on Dantooine. The Gorgon's crew, however, found a large cache of high-grade weapons and communications equipment. Daala ordered the corvette to be released, and after it had sent out a distress call (which Daala was sure would distract the New Republic), the Gorgon opened fire on the helpless vessel and destroyed it. The Gorgon then set course for the colony on Dantooine.

Despite being a vital communications outpost, the Gorgon ' s sensors showed that the small colony possessed few means of defense. Nevertheless, the Gorgon launched several AT-AT walkers with which to obliterate the colonists. The operation was a success, and recalling her men to the Gorgon, Daala set her eyes on the vital shipyards of the ocean world of Dac.



Daala laid out what she considered a fool-proof plan which had been created by Tarkin himself. The battle would start with the Gorgon and Basilisk opening fire and launching an attack on the floating cities of the Mon Calamari, thus drawing forces away from the shipyards, while the Manticore would come out from the shadow of Dac's moon and destroy the helpless starship construction facilities. The plan was going well until a former slave of Tarkin's, retired New Republic Defense Fleet Admiral Ackbar, recognized the tactic and, using a Mon Calamari code, remotely took control of the half-finished battlecruiser Startide and used it to crash into the Manticore. Accepting her first major defeat in her guerilla offensive, Daala's two remaining Star Destroyers fled to the safety of the Cauldron Nebula.

While there, Daala made plans to use Basilisk in a suicide crash attack on Coruscant, the capital of the New Republic. However, just prior to the launch of the assault on Coruscant, Kyp Durron, one of the escaped Maw prisoners, arrived with the Sun Crusher and attacked the Gorgon. Daala rushed to reclaim her lost prize, but soon realized that it was just a stall tactic, and Durron had already instigated a supernova in several of the nebula's stars. Daala ordered the Gorgon and the Basilisk to make an emergency hyperspace jump. But it was too late, as the burst of energy radiated out from the supernova explosions the Gorgon barely made it out of the nebula. The Basilisk was not so lucky, however, and it was incinerated.

Return to the Maw and end
"Red alert, an Imperial Star Destroyer has entered the vicinity. Red alert! Prepare for attack."

- Wedge Antilles, from Maw Installation's command room

With the Gorgon severely damaged by the destruction of the Cauldron Nebula, Admiral Daala realized that she should have never abandoned her station at the Maw, and in her opinion too many good men had died because of her selfish actions. She then commanded the Gorgon to retreat to Maw Installation where she realized two things. First, she saw that the Death Star prototype, a semi-permanent fixture around the installation, was missing. Second, a small New Republic fleet was now orbiting the asteroids comprising the installation. Realizing that Maw Installation had been seized by the New Republic, Daala vowed to destroy the installation, or die trying. The Gorgon then unleashed a punishing volley of turbolaser bolts on the station from its remaining gun emplacements.

The New Republic fleet scrambled to meet the Gorgon. Soon, to add to the mounting confusion, the Death Star prototype, under the command of Maw Installation administrator Tol Sivron, entered the Maw. Despite the fact that Sivron would not fire his superlaser, the looming threat of his weapon made the New Republic frantic. Daala took advantage of the situation by using the Gorgon ' s computers to extract information from Maw Installation's archives. With vital schematics in hand, Daala ordered the Gorgon to fire on the installation's by-now unstable reactor core. As a bright explosion filled the viewports of the New Republic's ships, the Gorgon made its escape and fled to the remnants of the Empire in the Deep Core.

Bearing battle scars, damaged nearly beyond repair, and limping along with what amounted to a skeleton crew, the Deep Core Imperial warlords seized the Gorgon and dismantled it, using the parts for construction of other warships. Daala's crew was scattered across the Deep Core. Daala herself, along with Kratas, roamed from warlord to warlord in an attempt to unify the Empire.

Behind the scenes
The Gorgon was one of four Star Destroyers created by Kevin J. Anderson for the The Jedi Academy Trilogy. It recurred throughout the series as Admiral Daala's flagship. It was mentioned briefly in Darksaber, where its final fate was explained. It has not been mentioned or appeared in the EU since. In Jedi Search, it is stated that the Gorgon has a skeleton crew, although Daala remarks that she has 180,000 men between her four Star Destroyers. As 45,000 is a standard crew size for a Star Destroyer, it would seem her ships may have been unevenly crewed. This can also be seen as an error on the author's part, a stipulation made by this article.

Appearances

 * Jedi Search
 * Dark Apprentice
 * Champions of the Force
 * Darksaber

Notes and references
Gorgo