User:Supreme Commander Raxus/Workbench 2

The Whelm was an Executor-class Star Dreadnought in service with the Galactic Empire.

History
The Whelm belonged to one of the many warship models colloquially termed "Super Star Destroyers". During the Galactic Civil War, it was part of Azure Hammer Command, the Imperial fleet that defended Sector Zero.

A few months before the Thrawn Crisis, the Whelm, then commanded by Admiral Feyet Kiez, absconded from Anaxes, to which Osted Wermis, upon surrendering to the New Republic shortly thereafter, also admitted that even he did not know what was going on at the time, or his destination. The New Republic, upon gaining this report, felt this was, among the other strange reports, the most worrisome. In actuality, the Whelm, alongside Inos Fonada and his armada of scavenged Imperial warships, various top designers and hundreds of schematics for experimental weapons, and various Moffs, warlords, and fleet commanders (often with their warships) from the Pentastar Alignment to the isolated Imperial satrapies, were summoned to Byss by the reborn Emperor Palpatine.

As the Imperial forces retook the Core from the New Republic, the Whelm was part of the fleet that invaded Republic space. During the Imperial Civil War, the Whelm was destroyed in battle with the Mandator III-class dreadnought Panthac.

Behind the scenes
The name Whelm, more specifically its origin, resulted in a large amount of debate among fans, with several guessing that Whelm was a shortened version of "Wilhelm." Jason Fry, in his Endnotes for The Essential Guide to Warfare, explained that its name was not derived from "Wilhelm," although he did state that it was a "very smart guess." He stated that the name Whelm was actually a reference to the Jack Vance novel Alastor, more specifically to the military force that answered to the ruler, the Connatic.