Grievous/Legends

"More machine than alive, Grievous is&mdash;though more dangerous for it."

- Yoda

Qymaen jai Sheelal, better known by his assumed name and title, General Grievous, was the Supreme Commander of the Droid Armies of the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars.

His body was a fusion of a powerful robotic structure and an organic brain, nervous system and sensory organs. Brilliant gold eyes with a reptilian black pupil and red sockets were the only visible reminder of his organic past as a Kaleesh warlord.

Grievous was a cold and calculating general, a brilliant strategist, and a cunning military mastermind. He was known as a Jedi hunter and a collector of fallen Jedi lightsabers, which he showed and used in battle with his foes. It was believed he killed well over thirty-two Jedi, and it is highly likely he killed even more.

The general used his body's dexterity and mechanical forearms to gain an advantage in lightsaber combat. By dividing his six-fingered mechanical forearms, Grievous was able to wield four lightsabers simultaneously. He also was able to use his feet to hold two more while being supported with repulsorlifts built into his legs. His standard speed was three strikes per limb per second, and could go to at least twenty total strikes per second, which allowed him to overwhelm most foes instantly.

Grievous traveled with a cadre of droid bodyguards known as IG-100 MagnaGuards, who wielded dangerous electrostaffs made from lightsaber-resistant phrik alloy.

Early life
"And judging from the cloak we found, you are a Kaleesh General, are you not?"

- San Hill to Qymaen jai Sheelal

Though he would achieve his greatest infamy as the cyborg General Grievous, Qymaen jai Sheelal was originally an organic being, a Kaleesh. These were the reptilian natives of Kalee, a world torn by famine and war that the justice of the Republic never touched. For generations, Kalee had been assaulted without respite by a technologically superior insectoid species, the aggressive Yam'rii (referred to by the Kaleesh as the "Huk", or "soulless bugs"), who coveted the Kaleesh as slaves.

Sheelal was born on a world still embroiled in this brutal conflict, known as the Huk War, so it was, perhaps, inevitable that he grew up hating the Huk. Sheelal's father, seeking a useful outlet for his son's anger, taught him how to handle a slug rifle. The young Sheelal proved himself an excellent marksman, with a mind as finely honed as any weapon; by eight years of age he had already become an expert sniper, with more than forty Huk kills to his credit. By the age of twenty-two, he had slain so many Huk that the Kaleesh people considered Sheelal a demigod.



Sheelal and Kummar
Sheelal's closest comrade was a fellow Kaleesh warrior and mercenary, Ronderu lij Kummar. According to legend, his relationship with this wild and skilled swordswoman had its beginnings in a dream, in which Sheelal saw himself slaying a wild mumuu in the Kunbal jungle with Lig swords. So taken was he with this vision that he set out in his mumuu hunting mask to kill one in reality, but instead of finding a mumuu in the jungle, he saw Kummar, and realized that the slayer in his dream had not been himself, but the woman standing before him in a karabbac mask and wielding twin Lig swords. The two of them were, therefore, considered living manifestations of the cryptic Kaleesh parable Sheelal, or The Dreamer/The Dreamt One.

The exact nature of their relationship is uncertain, even now. Some say Kummar was Sheelal's long lost half-sister; some say she was actually his lover. Whatever the truth, their bond, once forged, was considered absolute and sacred. Kummar taught Sheelal to wield a sword, and in turn he introduced her to the powerful Czerka Outland rifle. Both clad in masks, Kummar with her karabbac skull and Sheelal with his mumuu skull (inherited from his father, who had fallen in battle), the two warriors became legends, twin demigods blessed by their ancestors. Together they mercilessly cut through the Huk invaders in countless campaigns.

Unfortunately, while they were invincible together, they were less so when fighting apart. In one engagement on the beaches of Kalee, the two of them were separated. Kummar died violently on the Huks' barbed shears, and her body vanished into the Jenuwaa Sea. Sheelal, unable even to retrieve her from the waters, was driven to the bottommost depths of despair, as if he himself had been pierced by the Huk and his soul had slipped out of the breach. Inconsolable, he set off on a dangerous journey across the ocean to Abesmi, an island-monolith far from the mainland. There, he beseeched the gods to raise her from her watery grave just so he might see her one final time, but the gods remained silent.

Sheelal did what he could to bury his grief. He ended up taking ten wives and siring thirty children, but none of them, spouse or child, seemed to be able to fill the void Kummar's death had left in him. Eventually, he realized that it was his destiny to mourn her for as long as he lived. With this realization, Qymaen jai Sheelal cast off his old identity, adopting a name more appropriate to a being destined to grieve forever, and, even more terribly, who was determined that he would not do so alone. Grievous, he would be.

Transformation to cyborg
"Who am I? I am the future!"

- General Grievous to Asajj Ventress

Gathering to his side a group of equally bloodthisty Kaleesh elite, the Izvoshra, Grievous became a vicious warlord and managed to force the Huk from Kalee. But his bitterness did not end with that triumph, and he pushed them further back, storming their colony worlds. His vicious counterattacks and mass destruction of entire Huk planets ensured Kaleesh victory&mdash;until the Huks unexpectedly turned to the Republic for help. Jedi Knights, sent to resolve the conflict, sided with the Huks, and hefty fines and embargoes came down upon the Kaleesh. Kalee ended up in poverty, and hundreds of thousands of Kaleesh starved and died.

The arrival of San Hill, Chairman of the InterGalactic Banking Clan, brought an opportunity to Grievous. Hill saw Grievous' potential as an IBC "collection agent," and in exchange for his services, the Banking Clan offered to take on Kalee's massive debt, thus helping his people overcome the effects of the embargo. Grievous felt disgust at the notion of being a glorified leg-breaker for a soulless megacorporation, but he understood what the agreement would mean for his people, and besides, there was something in this innate warrior that needed to keep fighting&mdash;if not the Huk, then someone, somewhere. Eventually he agreed, taking command of the Clan's private army of droid enforcers.

The IBC kept its promise, alleviating Kalee's deficit and resucitating its trade. In exchange, Grievous became an extremely effective enforcer. It was through his efforts that the IBC aggressively collected overdue credits from Ord Mantell, and seized Phlut Design Systems when the company defaulted. But he found he missed the comforts of his former life; he wanted his old elite, the Izvoshra, but apart from himself, the Banking Clan would not hire Kaleesh. He would have to make do with droids, but, having no confidence in the IBC's basic battle droids, he demanded more intelligent models to take the place of his elite. With Dooku's permission, Hill consented, and began production on the IG-100 MagnaGuards.

The fall of Martyr
Soon, however, Grievous learned that the Huk had vandalized sacred Kaleesh burial grounds on the colony worlds, and that the Republic had done nothing. It reawakened his desire to act directly in defense of his people, so he abandoned his contract with the Banking Clan and returned to Kalee, to avenge the descecration. San Hill was far from pleased. He considered ordering Grievous' assassination, but he feared the vengeance the general would take if he should survive. Instead, Hill conspired with Poggle the Lesser, the Archduke of Geonosis, and with their mutual ally, Count Dooku, to arrange Grievous' permanent servitude.



On Kalee, Grievous and his Izvoshra boarded his troop shuttle, Martyr, off to resume the Huk War, unaware that Dooku, Hill, and Poggle had planted an ion bomb aboard, and rigged Grievous' pilot seat to enable remote-guided ejection. The resulting explosion sent Martyr plunging into the Jenuwaa Sea. Dooku's remote command ejected Grievous from the wreck at the last moment, but all his Izvoshra perished in the crash. His body, hemorrhaging and in shock, was dragged from the water, and Dooku used a blast of Sith lightning to keep him from succumbing to cardiac arrest while en route to Geonosis. Then, MagnaGuards dragged him to a nearby shuttle, where FX medical droids worked to stabilize his condition during the journey. Dooku, in the meantime, traveled to his homeworld of Serenno, to retrieve one more important component in his plan.

Grievous had suffered near-fatal injuries, rendering a body that had survived many battles useless, or so he was told. Planted evidence pointed to a Republic plot. In truth, Grievous once again proved his resilience, and additional injuries had to be added after the crash to make his body as broken as was claimed. San Hill repeated his proposal, including a promise to replace Grievous' broken body. Desiring vengeance against the Galactic Republic and the Huk, he agreed on the condition that his mind would not be tampered with.



Dooku provided blood from the frozen body of Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas as a means of keeping Grievous' body alive during his transit to Geonosis, where Poggle the Lesser and his Geonosian scientists implanted his brain, eyes, and vital organs into a duranium alloy body reminiscent of a Krath war droid. The Geonosians would also alter his brain, both to trim away disturbing memories (while enhancing his rage centers) and to enhance his equilibrium, allowing him to better employ his newfound agility. While the midi-chlorian-rich blood of Sifo-Dyas may have played a critical role in maintaining Sheelal's life, the Kaleesh saw it as a personal failure that the transfusion did not also give him a degree of sensitivity to the Force. To San Hill and his allies, however, the experiment was a phenomenal success. Qymaen jai Sheelal had become General Grievous in form as well as spirit. The same droids and techniques used to rebuild Grievous would later be used to transform Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader.

The cyborg project was funded by San Hill to create a military leader that could counter Count Dooku's growing political influence, although he presented the finished General Grievous as a twisted gift to Dooku. Though taken aback by his appearance, Dooku was pleased and bestowed upon Grievous the title "Supreme Commander of the Droid Armies", and planned to use him in his efforts to conquer the Republic. Grievous still displayed some of his Kaleesh heritage by adorning himself and his MagnaGuards with the styles of masks and cloaks closely resembling those found amongst his people.

Dooku trained Grievous in the art of lightsaber combat, which Grievous took to at a rapid pace. His new skills were tested at the Battle of Geonosis, but none of his Jedi or clone opponents lived to tell of his existence. Despite his obvious prowess, and the time and resources expended to creating him, Dooku still viewed him as second to the Chiss general Sev'rance Tann, and it was only after Tann's death one month after Geonosis that Grievous truly began to come into his own.

The general revealed


"Jedi, you are surrounded, your armies decimated. Make peace with the Force now, for this is your final hour. But know that I, General Grievous, am not completely without mercy. I will grant you a warrior's death. Prepare."

- Grievous to Ki-Adi Mundi and several other Jedi during the Battle of Hypori

Grievous' first public appearance against the Republic was at the Battle of Hypori, where he dispatched a team of seven Jedi Knights, including Council members Ki-Adi-Mundi and Shaak Ti. These two, along with Aayla Secura and K'Kruhk, were the only survivors of the battle, as a rescue team comprised of ARC Captain Fordo and several other Advanced Recon Commandos, sent to Hypori by Obi-Wan Kenobi, arrived before Grievous could kill them.

Six months after the Battle of Geonosis, Count Dooku tested the General by pitting him against Asajj Ventress and Durge onboard the Count's Trenchant Space Station. Grievous successfully humiliated both Separatist Commanders, thus showing Count Dooku he was worthy of the position of Supreme Commander of the Droid Armies. Soon the whole of the Republic would tremble before Grievous' brutality, and his skill at killing Jedi Knights would have the HoloNet news networks dubbing him "The Knight Slayer".

Victorious on all fronts
"So, the Republic would have the Galaxy believe that its heart is secure. Today's events, however, show that there is nothing that can stop our forces from total victory."

- Grievous, referring to the terrifying invasion of Duro by the General's forces

Months later, Grievous put into motion Operation Durge's Lance, a major Separatist campaign whose goal was the complete conquest of the Core Worlds. Hundreds of planets along the Corellian Trade Spine fell before his forces, including the major world of Duro, whose surrender Grievous personally supervised by forcing a public surrender from Hoolidan Keggle in a Galaxy-wide HoloNet transmission. Grievous was also responsible for melting the crust of a heavily populated and urbanised planet called Humbarine, one of the founding members of the Galactic Republic, during an hour-long orbital bombardment by the Separatist starfleet under his flagship, Invisible Hand. Due to these acts of wanton destruction, Grievous soon became an avatar of terror in the eyes of the citizens of the Republic, as he won battle after battle.

In 20 BBY, Grievous baited the Republic forces to Vandos by kidnapping Ambassador Quiyyen. Jedi Knights T'chooka D'oon and Jmmaar were killed in the assault, though the Republic was successful in securing Quiyyen. This led to T'chooka's Padawan, Flynn Kybo, gathering a group of other Jedi, including B'dard Tone and Codi Ty, to take revenge on Grievous, something the Jedi Council hardly approved of. They eventually tracked him down to the moon Belsus in the Anoat system and attacked. While Codi rescued a group of younglings Grievous had captured, B'dard and Flynn dueled with Grievous himself; both of them were killed. Seven months later, on Boz Pity, he easily killed Soon Bayts. With a lot more effort, he then killed Jedi Council member Adi Gallia.

Endgame


"If you are to succeed in combat against the best of the Jedi, you must have fear, surprise, and intimidation on your side."

- Count Dooku to Grievous

As the tide turned against Grievous, he led his flagship, Invisible Hand, and the rest of the Confederacy starfleet in an all out assault on the Republic capital, Coruscant. While a battle raged in space between Confederate and Republic warships, Grievous led an assault on 500 Republica with intelligence provided by Darth Sidious. In pursuit of Palpatine, he dueled Mace Windu atop a speeding maglev train, before reaching the hardened bunker of the Chancellor. With six of his MagnaGuards in tow, he cut a bloody path of destruction through the Chancellor's personal bunker, killing four of Palpatine's Jedi protectors and numerous clones before kidnaping the Chancellor. As he fled, Jedi Master Mace Windu used the Force to dent the plates covering Grievous' internal organ sac, aggravating the General's already irritating wheezing and coughing problems; a result of his organic form not taking well to his cyborg implants. This crippling blow injured Grievous for life.

A false distress call was sent to Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi to rescue Palpatine. The Jedi killed Darth Tyranus and escaped with the Supreme Chancellor, but the rescue mission was a trap. The two Jedi were soon entrapped in an energy shield, and they were surrounded by droids, who then brought them before Grievous in Invisible Hand's bridge.



When the Jedi managed to uncuff themselves and defeated Grievous's IG-100 MagnaGuards, the general shattered the front window of the cruiser in a final attempt to kill the two Jedi. Obi-Wan, Anakin, and the Chancellor managed to stay in the ship, but Grievous was sucked into space. Since he was almost completely mechanical, the general could survive in space and used a grappling hook installed in his arm to return to the ship and fled in one of the escape pods.

The general then managed to board his Sheathipede-class shuttle and head for the recently secured planet Utapau in the Outer Rim, where the Separatist Council was currently hiding.

With Count Dooku's death Grievous was now the Separatist Head of State and, under the direct order of Dooku's master, Darth Sidious, he relocated the council to the planet Mustafar while he stayed on Utapau.

Though Nute Gunray and the other council members doubted Grievous' ability to lead, they followed his orders.

Death of the general
"Army or not, you must realize... you are doomed!"

- General Grievous

General Kenobi eventually caught up with Grievous on Utapau with a fleet of Venator-class Star Destroyers in orbit. Still weak from his encounter with Windu, he immediately revealed his four arms&mdash;something he usually kept a secret&mdash;in an all-out assault. Due to his permanently craven reflexes, he could not stop Kenobi from cutting two of his hands off before Clone Commander Cody and his clone troopers arrived.



Grievous rode off on his wheel bike, being chased by Obi-Wan on a varactyl lizard named Boga. After the prolonged chase and duel, Kenobi caught up with Grievous on his landing dock, as they fought a deadly hand-to-hand with Grievous as the obvious superior fighter. Kenobi fell off the platform, but he managed to get a grip on its side before he could fall into the massive sinkhole. However, during the fight, Kenobi had pulled Grievous' stomach plate off, revealing his organic insides. Using the Force, Kenobi called Grievous' blaster to his free hand. He blasted Grievous' organ sack with the general's own blaster just as the general was about to finish him off. His organic components burst into flames, charring him from the inside out.

His mechanical corpse lay on the Utapaun landing platform, never again to hold any organic material or life. General Grievous, amongst the greatest foes of the Jedi Order, was dead.

A partial rebirth
"Am I more in fact than just a droid? Am I alive, and perhaps... even the reincarnation of Grievous?"

- N-K Necrosis's thoughts

Following the Declaration of a New Order, clone troopers recovered Grievous's body, transporting it and his captured starfighter to one of Emperor Palpatine's secret storehouses on Utapau. Years later, the cyberneticist Nycolai Kinesworthy used the body of the Confederacy's greatest General for the N-K Project, to create the highly advanced droid N-K Necrosis. This war droid enjoyed a brief life in the Myyydril Caverns on Kashyyyk, before being destroyed by an anonymous group of spacers. The combatants looted the droid's remains, taking its weaponry and anything else they deemed valuable. The facemask ended up on the Invisible Market, where it would be purchased for its artistic properties by a high-ranking Imperial admiral&mdash;purported to be none other than Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Jedi kills
"Your lightsabers will make a fine addition to my collection."

- Grievous to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker onboard Invisible Hand



Cutting a swath of destruction across the galaxy during the Clone Wars, Grievous personally murdered as many as one hundred Jedi, collecting dozens of lightsabers as personal trophies&mdash;despite his hatred for the Jedi Order, his past as a swordsman gave him an appreciation of the craftsmanship involved in their construction. The following are just a handful of the slain.


 * Adi Gallia&mdash;killed on Boz Pity
 * B'dard Tone&mdash;killed on Belsus
 * B'ink Utrila&mdash;killed on Coruscant
 * Daakman Barrek&mdash;killed on Hypori
 * Firkrann&mdash;killed on Xagobah
 * Flint Torul&mdash;killed over Belderone
 * Flynn Kybo&mdash;killed on Belsus
 * Foul Moudama&mdash;killed on Coruscant
 * Jmmaar&mdash;killed on Vandos
 * L'lacielo Sageon&mdash;killed over Coruscant
 * Nystammall&mdash;killed on Tovarskl
 * Pablo-Jill&mdash;killed over Coruscant
 * Quarmall&mdash;killed protecting the Bergruutfa Clan, location unknown
 * Puroth&mdash;killed on Tovarskl
 * Roron Corobb&mdash;killed on Coruscant
 * Roth-Del Masona&mdash;killed on Coruscant
 * Sha'a Gi&mdash;killed on Hypori
 * Soon Baytes&mdash;killed on Boz Pity
 * Tarr Seirr&mdash;killed on Hypori
 * T'chooka D'oon&mdash;killed on Vandos
 * Ur-Sema Du&mdash;killed on Geonosis
 * Waldan Bridger&mdash;killed on Togoria
 * Zephata'ru'tor&mdash;killed over Nadiem

Aside from these individuals, Grievous' collection was known to include lightsabers belonging to at least three beings he did not personally kill&mdash;K'kruhk, Sifo-Dyas, and Darth Zannah.

Behind the scenes



 * General Grievous was developed for Revenge of the Sith as a powerful new villain on the side of the Confederacy. The initial instructions that director George Lucas gave the Art Department were very open-ended: "a droid general." From that vague direction, the artists developed a lot of explorations, some purely mechanical, some not, for General Grievous' look.


 * The initial design for General Grievous was done by Warren Fu. That initial sketch was refined and made into a foot-tall maquette sculpture. That was further refined when it was made in to a realistic computer-generated model by Industrial Light and Magic. This was one of the most complicated models ever created by Industrial Light and Magic, with many parts of differing physical qualities. General Grievous is completely computer-generated imagery in the movie. On set, Duncan Young read the lines off-screen, while Kyle Rowling wore a bluescreen or a greenscreen suit to act out the fights with Obi-Wan Kenobi.


 * Grievous was first "revealed" to the public in Chapter 20 of the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon.


 * In the Clone Wars cartoon, he was voiced by John Di Maggio and Richard McGonagle; for Revenge of the Sith, the Revenge of the Sith video game and Star Wars: Battlefront II, he was voiced by Matthew Wood.


 * He was initially going to be voiced in Revenge of the Sith by actor Gary Oldman; however, he later learned that he was unable to do so, as the movie was being made outside of the Screen Actors Guild, of which he is a member.


 * The reason for Grievous's cough actually is more complicated than the initial reason planned during production of the last Star Wars film. During the production of Revenge of the Sith, George Lucas came into work one day with a cough, and decided that it would be amusing to record it and use it on the new Episode III villain. In-universe, the initial reason for the cough was that cybernetic technology wasn't advanced enough at the time. Palpatine had in fact injured Grievous and reconstructed him as an experiment with this technology. The cough also foreshadows the trademark breathing of Darth Vader. Another reason was given in Clone Wars Volume II, where Mace Windu crushed Grievous's chest with the Force, and Grievous coughs after the attack. This has stirred debate among fans of being the real reason of Grievous's constant coughing. The reason for the cough is a source of great confusion for fans as well, as either the cough or Grievous's damaged chest were presented in at least three different Expanded Universe sources (Deep Forest, Obsession and Clone Wars Volume II, all three of which take place prior to Revenge of the Sith). The cough simply grew worse and more frequent, culminating with Windu's strike, which led to the almost constant violent coughing we see in the final film.


 * In the audio commentary for Clone Wars Volume II, it is revealed that the inspiration for Greivous' fighting style came from more exotic martial arts such as capoeira.


 * On October 25th, 2005, the official Star Wars website released an Halloween themed Audiocast featuring Star Wars sound effects along with new dialogue specifically recorded for the file by Matthew Wood. The file is only available to Hyperspace members.


 * Though the canonicity of a pronunciation is debatable, Abel G. Peña, author of the article revealing Grievous' birth name, has stated that he considers the name to be pronounced "Ky-Main High She-lall".


 * In Episode III, Grievous uses four lightsabers, two of which were the same hilt design as Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, even though they still possessed theirs. The other two are supposed to be Adi Gallia's, who was killed during the Battle of Boz Pity, and Ki-Adi-Mundi's, although he was still alive.

Appearances

 * The Eyes of Revolution
 * Star Wars: Republic Commando
 * Star Wars: Clone Wars
 * Chapter 20
 * Chapter 21
 * Chapter 22
 * Chapter 23
 * Chapter 24
 * Chapter 25
 * Hiding in Plain Sight
 * Rogues Gallery
 * General Grievous
 * The Cestus Deception
 * Jedi Trial
 * Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
 * Boba Fett: A New Threat
 * Star Wars: Republic
 * Star Wars: Obsession
 * Deep Forest
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * Reversal of Fortune
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
 * General Grievous Halloween Audiocast
 * Star Wars Battlefront II
 * LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game
 * LEGO Star Wars: Revenge of the Brick
 * Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader