Intimidator (Executor-class)

The Intimidator was an Executor-class Star Dreadnaught of the Imperial Navy. Later captured by the alien Yevetha and renamed the Pride of Yevetha, she was the flagship of the Duskhan League fleet during the Black Fleet Crisis.

Characteristics
As one of the later-production model ships of her class to be built, the Intimidator was equipped with an additional shield generator mounted amidships.

History
Assigned to Black Sword Command, she began construction at a shipyard in the Core Worlds, where the Rebel Alliance managed to learn of her existence. Rebel intelligence lost track of the ship during the tumultuous time surrounding the death of Galactic Emperor Palpatine, when the Intimidator was sent to the secret Black-15 shipyards over N'zoth in the heart of the Koornacht Cluster. There, she was meant to undergo the final stages of her fitting-out before entering service, in order to free up the construction dock where she had been built, to lay the keel of another Executor-class ship.

Eight months after Endor, just as the Imperial garrison at N'zoth was pulling out, the native Yevetha rose up against them. Seizing the nearly-completed Intimidator was their first priority, and was assigned to a force of Yevethan commandos led by Nil Spaar. Once they had taken the bridge&mdash;the temporary command post of garrison commander Jian Paret&mdash;they used the ship's turbolasers to destroy a number of transports, carrying Governor Crollick and over 20,000 Imperial military personnel and civilians.

Service in the Duskhan League
The massive Star Destroyer was soon renamed Pride of Yevetha by her captors, and became the most powerful warship of the Duskhan League. Unsurprisingly, Nil Spaar claimed her as his flagship when he became Viceroy of the League. But the Yevetha had been denied access to key Imperial technologies like the turbolaser and hyperdrive, and it was more than a decade before the Star Dreadnaught and the other captured Imperial capital ships of the Black Fleet were ready for war.

To achieve this, the Yevetha had to acquire technological know-how from the Imperial personnel who they had taken captive during their coup; after initial resistance, the Human "slaves" proved remarkably cooperative, and the Pride of Yevetha and the other Imperial ships of the Black Fleet were modified with extensive slave circuit system, reducing crew capacity drastically&mdash;from several hundred thousand to only around 15,000 in the Pride of Yevetha's case&mdash;and allowing them to be operated by relatively small numbers of trained Yevetha. Other modifications were more esoteric: for example, the Star Dreadnaught's detention blocks were converted into hatcheries for the "birth-casks" of Nil Spaar's offspring.

By 16 ABY, the vast warship was ready, and she spearheaded the cleansing operations in which the Yevetha committed genocide against a number of colonies within the Koornacht Cluster. As the Black Fleet Crisis developed, she was later stationed over N'zoth as part of the defense squadron at the League's capital, and identified during a New Republic recon probe into the N'zoth system.

In common with other ships in their fleet, the Yevetha used unneeded docking bays aboard the Pride of Yevetha to house large numbers of prisoners, used as Human shields to deter New Republic assaults&mdash;although unbeknownst to the Yevetha, the Fallanassi had rescued at least some contingents of the captives, with only a few White Current adepts like Enara remaining to create an illusion that the rest remained. When Han Solo was captured by Yevethan forces, he was likewise held on the Pride of Yevetha, being tortured by Nil Spaar and then thrown in with the "rest" of the prisoners, where he remained in Enara's care until he was rescued by Chewbacca and a team of Wookiee commandos.

Imperial revolt
During the Battle of N'zoth in 17 ABY, the Pride of Yevetha was intended to be the central element of the Yevethan defense. Recognizing this, the New Republic tasked twenty heavy warships to engage her. Before the battle began, however, the 513 Imperial personnel assigned by the Yevetha to serve aboard the command ship, led by Major Sil Sorannan, overpowered and massacred the Yevethan crewmembers, and used a hidden command override to retake the Star Dreadnaught and all other Imperial vessels in the Yevethan Fleet, sending them on a hyperspace course for Byss. While en-route the captured Nil Spaar was ejected from the Intimidator in an escape pod, to die in hyperspace.

When the men of what Sorannan had styled the Camp Pa'aal Squadron learned of the planet's destruction, the remnants of Black Sword Command split up, with Intimidator leaving for the Unknown Regions. She was discovered in 21 ABY, wrecked and adrift near the Unknown Regions, with no clear evidence as to what she had encountered.

Behind the scenes
In the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, the Intimidator is described as a Super-class Star Destroyer, and said to be eight kilometers long&mdash;copying the designation and size then currently accepted for Darth Vader's command ship, Executor. However, the Executor is now described canonically as a 19-kilometer-long Executor-class Star Dreadnaught, and sources presenting it as a smaller Super-class ship have been retconned as reflecting Imperial misinformation to disguise her true size and capabilities.

The novel Shield of Lies contained the first reference to the Executor as a class name, with the Intimidator being described as an "Executor-class Star Destroyer".

Appearances

 * Before the Storm
 * Shield of Lies
 * Tyrant's Test
 * Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial

Notes and references
Intimidator Intimidator