The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force

The Unifying Force is the final novel of the New Jedi Order series. Its hardcover version was released on November 4, 2003. A CD-ROM was included with the hardcover release, which contained the eBook version of Vector Prime. The paperback included the Star Wars: New Jedi Order Round-Robin Interview.

Editions

 * ISBN 0345428528; November 4, 2003, Del Rey, 529-page hardcover
 * ISBN 0553713701; November 4, 2003, Random House Audio, Abridged CD
 * ISBN 0345428536; August 3, 2004, Del Rey, 576-page paperback
 * ISBN 8324124276; Amber, 596-page Polish paperback
 * ISBN 0099410524; 2004, Arrow Books Ltd., 576-page UK paperback

Back cover
'''Triumph or obliteration? For the New Jedi Order and the unrelenting Yuuzhan Vong, it will be the last, epic battle&mdash;the ultimate fight that will decide the fate of the universe...'''

Internal flap
''The Galactic Alliance's hard-won success in combating the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong has proven all too brief&mdash;and the tide has turned again to the invader's advantage. The Yuuzhan Vong, having overcome the strategies of the Jedi and their allies, have pushed deeper into the galaxy and conquered more worlds. Coruscant has been remade into the capital of the extragalactic aliens and renamed Yuuzhan'tar. The remaining defenders of the galaxy are struggling to form a united front. Luke, Mara and Jacen are missing in action. Clearly the stage is set for endgame.''

''While Han and Leia receive the horrifying news that hundreds of high-ranking Alliance prisoners face death in a sacrifice to the alien invader's bloodthirsty gods, Luke and his team try to persuade Zonama Sekot to help in the war effort. Yet as they speak, the Alliance capital world Mon Calamari is under attack.''

''At the same time, the Jedi's alliances throughout the galaxy are being tested and the chances of an Alliance victory are being jeopardized by rogue factions determined to deploy the lethal Alpha Red that will exterminate the entire Yuuzhan Vong species. Also among the Yuuzhan Vong, there is a threat of revolt by the oppressed lower classes of their society. Oppressed Shamed Ones and high-ranking officials alike fear that their Supreme Overlord Shimrra's actions will provoke the wrath of their gods. Ultimately, for both opposing forces, too much has been sacrificed and too much is at stake. And now, the final battle between the Yuuzhan Vong and the Galactic Alliance.''

Paperback
In the spectacular finale of the New Jedi Order series, Luke, Han, and Leia rally for their last stand against the enemy that threatens not only the galaxy but the Force itself.

''The Galactic Alliance's hard-won success in countering the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong onslaught has proven all too brief&mdash;and the tide has turned more to the invaders' advantage. The marauding aliens have pushed deeper into the galaxy in their ruthless quest for domination. The remnants of the resistance are struggling to form a united front. Clearly the stage is set for endgame.''

''Now, as Luke and his team try desperately to convince the living world of Zonama Sekot to join the Jedi's final campaign against the Yuuzhan Vong, a lone space station is all that stands between Alliance headquarters and ferocious enemy forces, which are poised to wage their most decisive assault. For both sides, too much has been sacrificed&mdash;and too much is at stake&mdash;to ever turn back. And now nothing can stand in the way of seizing victory...or facing annihilation.''

Plot summary
The novel begins on the Yuuzhan Vong prisoner-of-war camp on the planet Selvaris where a Jenet named Thorsh and three Bith memorize a code encrypted mathematically by a Givin on a smuggled computer chip, courtesy of the Ryn Network. The four prisoners escape but are soon chased down by Vong security patrols. The chase results in two of the Bith getting killed and the other one getting captured. Thorsh, however, is saved by the crew of the Millennium Falcon and he is taken back to the Galactic Alliance in order to give out the mathematical code. Translated by a Givin among the Alliance, they find out that the prisoners on Selvaris are due to be publicly sacrificed on Yuuzhan'tar, the captured Coruscant. Selvaris is also the rendezvous point for the prison transfer ships from other Vong-held worlds, so the plan is to save most, if not all, of the prisoners at the planet. Commander Malik Carr, overseer of the prison camp, fails to divulge this information from the captured Bith as he uses a tkun to strangle him for the mathematical code in front of the other prisoners.

Though the rescue attempt goes well enough, several prisoners are shipped off to Yuuzhan'tar nevertheless. Meanwhile, the Millennium Falcon is greatly damaged in the battle and makes a random hyperspace jump that places them at Caluula, which has been fending themselves against the Yuuzhan Vong for several weeks. Nevertheless, the crew aboard Caluula Orbital agree to fix the Falcon up. And though Han and Leia Organa Solo help out in the space station's last stand against the Vong, they eventually escape to ship their load of freed prisoners back to the Galactic Alliance, despite that some of them, such as Major Pash Cracken, decide to stay aboard in order to keep fighting the Vong. Later on, however, the Alliance finds out that Caluula has willingly surrendered in the fall of its space station but asked the Vong to allow scientists on the planet because of a natural phenomenon called the Nocturne of the Winged-Stars, which occurs very rarely on the world. Han and Leia, with several other accomplices - Meloque, Wraw, Kyp Durron, and Judder Page - arrive on the planet disguised as scientists and meet up with two other spies, Ferfer and Sasso, to help them kill Caluula's yammosk, which would prove crucial to the Yuuzhan Vong's plans in attacking the Galactic Alliance capital world of Mon Calamari.

The team members, however, are intercepted by Vong patrols, with both spies killed and Han, Leia, and the others captured, taken to be executed at the yammosk. But the Yuuzhan Vong on the planet, commanded by Commander Carr, along with the yammosk and all the other artificially grown biots, die off because of an earlier deployment of the Alpha Red pathogen on the world. This explains why Caluula had willingly surrendered in the first place. Han, Leia, and most of the others find this to be a potential galactic catastrophe because Alpha Red could even harm and/or kill other life across the galaxy, just as the indigenous life, notably the winged-stars, on Caluula had suffered, which also explains the hindering of the Nocturne. The situation is compounded by the fact that if they wipe out the Yuuzhan Vong, then they will be committing genocide, an act not beneath the Vong themselves. It is all the more unfortunate for them as one of the ships on Caluula had made takeoff, with its crew fully aware of what they are harboring, in order to report back to Yuuzhan'tar so that they can warn the Elite high command there of the pathogen. The group, most of them emotionally weary of what will be done, go back to the Galactic Alliance as Mon Calamari is fighting the invading armada.

Elsewhere, the living planet of Zonama Sekot is still traveling via hyperspace for the Coruscant system since the events of the previous novel, The Final Prophecy. The characters taking refuge in the planet's caves and other safety features (see the plot summaries of Force Heretic III: Reunion and The Final Prophecy to find out who the characters on Zonama are, though Imperial Remnant xenobiologist Soron Hegerty is absent in this novel) recover the Yuuzhan Vong Priest Harrar, who was thought to be dead in his previous confrontation with the treacherous Nom Anor. Harrar had lost faith in his religion since discovering the connections between his species and the living planet as discovered by the late Vong Master Shaper Nen Yim, who was killed by Nom Anor in order to prevent her from stopping him trying to malfunction Zonama's hyperdrive cores. Sekot comes to recognize Harrar by his species via the encounter that it had with the late Zho Krazhmir's forces a few decades earlier. Because of Sekot's recognition of the Vong, the characters on the planet realize that the original Yuuzhan'tar back in the Vong's home galaxy had stripped the species of their Force-sensitivity. The reason for this was because the ur-Yuuzhan Vong were becoming a violent race who craved war and brutality prior to the the Cremlevian War, which was what led to their hatred for artificial technology as they fought the opposing droids that invaded their galaxy prior to this war. So the ur-Yuuzhan Vong's original home world had seen fit to cut them off from the Force. This caused them to experience great pain, as they had lived in symbiosis with the original Yuuzhan'tar, rendering them unable to contact the Force or be detected in it ever again from that point on. This was among one of the reasons that the Vong hold pain and death as such an essential part in their religion, because, when they were cut off from the Force, they realized that pain and death were the only other forms of symbiosis that they could achieve. Thus, the ur-Vong had cemented this new way of life into their religion by creating gods who look for such positive regard to embracing what all living beings must suffer in life and more. And when the ur-Yuuzhan Vong had devastated their own galaxy as a whole in the Cremlevian War, they were forced to journey into the Intergalactic Void in search of another galaxy for them to conquer and live in, thus leading into the eventual invasion of this galaxy.

Meanwhile, Jedi Knight Jacen Solo experiences the return of the voice that told him to "stand firm" at Duro three years earlier, along with the vision of failing to catch the lightsaber tossed to him by his uncle Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. From this, Jacen begins to wonder if he will make the right decisions in the near future against the Yuuzhan Vong.

On Vong-shaped Yuuzhan'tar, Nom Anor is accepted back into his species' society by Supreme Overlord Shimrra, who also promotes the former outcast to the rank of Prefect of Yuuzhan'tar, Nom Anor's ultimate goal in life. This promotion was influenced under the mistaken belief that Nom Anor had killed Zonama Sekot. But unfortunately for him, he still has to bare the existence of High Prefect Drathul, who is also secretly a Quorealist, a member of the forbidden party who believes that Shimrra's late predecessor, Quoreal, was killed dishonorably by the current Supreme Overlord, and that Quoreal was right about refusing to conquer the galaxy while Shimrra was wrong in doing so. Drathul is vaguely aware of Nom Anor's lack of faith in the Vong religion and in Shimrra's competency as the Supreme Overlord. So the High Prefect tries to use this as leverage in order to subtly coerce Nom Anor into being a Quorealist. And what is even worse for Nom Anor's return to Vong society is that his own Jedi heresy, which he conducted as Yu'shaa, Prophet of the Shamed Ones, continues to stand strong by the will of the Shamed and worker castes even without his leadership, thanks to his once-trusted aide, the Shamed warrior Kunra. This is evident as the Shamed Ones break up the sacrifice of Alliance and Peace Brigade captives (since the rescues at Selvaris, the Vong had to compensate using the Brigade members), saving many of the Alliance captives, including Major Cracken, even at the cost of their own lives. And even with Shimrra demanding the deaths of many Shamed, the Jedi heresy still stands strong. All of this simply adds to the problems that Shimrra and the rest of Yuuzhan'tar are going through with the World Brain still making unpleasant activities to disturb the Yuuzhan Vong high command, the rumors that the Supreme Overlord is growing mad with power, and loss to the Galactic Alliance is inevitable.

Eventually, Zonama Sekot arrives in the Coruscant system, coinciding with Nom Anor's false prophecy to the Shamed Ones and workers' Jedi heresy as it appears in Yuuzhan'tar's skies. This coerces Warmaster Nas Choka to recall his armada from their winning battle against the Galactic Alliance at Mon Calamari to Yuuzhan'tar. It also distorts the mainstream social hierarchy of the species and causes great joy in the Shamed Ones and workers for bringing their oppressive rulers down. Shimrra even seems to go insane, as Nom Anor sees from the demands that the Supreme Overlord makes to the highly placed officials at his command. This apparent insanity is further proven when Shimrra, who believed that the Yuuzhan Vong no longer need their gods whether or not the deities existed, declares open war on Yun'o (the gods). The Dread Lord backs this up by saying that Yun'o fear that they will lose their own power over the Yuuzhan Vong as the species gain their independence from the deities; pitting Zonama against the Vong is just one final test to see if the species is worthy of ruling the galaxy. Suspicions to Shimrra's insanity further increase when he orders the deaths of all potential future Supreme Overlords meant to replace him when it was time for his reign to end. But despite these suspicions, this order from the Dread Lord is successfully carried out. Meanwhile, as the Alliance loses its great Admiral Ackbar from old age, the military passes through Vong defenses at the captured planet of Corulag after a victorious battle, making it possible for an advance on Yuuzhan'tar.

Soon, the Galactic Alliance finally arrives at Yuuzhan'tar, and Shimrra telepathically orders the World Brain to destroy Yuuzhan'tar so that if the Yuuzhan Vong lose against the Alliance, they will not have Coruscant to reclaim. As a result, Nom Anor, realizing the full extent of Shimrra's insanity when the World Brain begins enacting this order, returns to his guise as Yu'shaa the Prophet and sides with the Shamed Ones and workers against Shimrra's order. All of this marks the beginning of the final battle of the Yuuzhan Vong War. And while the Galactic Alliance forces duel the Vong fleet in space, on Yuuzhan'tar, around Muscave and at Zonama Sekot, Han, Leia and Harrar lead a mission aboard the Millennium Falcon to either convince the World Brain to cease its efforts of trying to destroy Yuuzhan'tar or kill it. But they are then captured by High Prefect Drathul and his forces, and Han, Leia, Harrar, C-3PO, R2-D2, Cakhmaim, and Meewalh are taken by them in order to be executed at the Well of the World Brain as sacrifices to the creature. Meanwhile, Jedi Master Mara Jade Skywalker, Jedi Knight Tahiri Veila, and Master Kenth Hamner fight alongside the Shamed Ones and workers against Shimrra's forces, and Tahiri comes into contact with Nom Anor. She captures him and holds him for Mara to come over so that the latter can see it her way as to how he should be punished for all of the wrong that he has done throughout the war. However, Nom Anor escapes Tahiri's grasp and flees, but Mara chases him down into an abandoned building. After a brief fight between the two of them, Mara defeats and nearly kills Nom Anor for giving her the coomb spore virus years earlier and for all of the other misdeeds for which he has given the Jedi and the late New Republic during the invasion. But the false Prophet pleads for mercy, telling Mara that he has changed as Yu'shaa; he also knows that even if his species wins the battle, and more importantly the war, Coruscant could never be Yuuzhan'tar; and finally, killing Nom Anor would be an act of vengeance, of the dark side of the Force, which would greatly break Mara's son Ben's heart. So, even though Mara does not believe his claims that he has changed, she spares him for other people to decide his fate after the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar, assuming that the Galactic Alliance will win. He also tells her that Shimrra has ordered an Alpha Red-infected Vong ship, transferred from Caluula, to Zonama Sekot, because since Zonama's biology is closely related to the Yuuzhan Vong and their creations' own biology, it can kill the living planet. So the Jedi, Shamed Ones, and workers ally to save Han, Leia, Harrar, and the others from being executed and subsequently warn Galactic Alliance forces about the Vong's attempts at destroying Zonama Sekot. The latter situation is all for naught as the Alpha Red-infected ship successfully evades the Alliance and Zonama's defensive forces to arrive at the living planet. Despite this, Drathul's forces are overwhelmed at the Well of the World Brain, even by traditional warriors who have seen the error of Shimrra's ways, while the High Prefect himself is strangled to death by Nom Anor, being that they were personal enemies.

Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker and the Solo twins, Jacen and Jaina, are off to kill Shimrra and bring the war to its end with the his death on the Galactic Alliance's victory. They travel to the Dread Lord's Citadel via the Sacred Precinct in order to accomplish this task. Jacen, thanks to the mental connection that he made with the World Brain, breaks Shimrra's own telepathic connection over the planet-controlling dhuryam and convinces it to cease its destruction of Yuuzhan'tar. This prevents Han, Leia, and Harrar from killing the World Brain (Han, Leia, and Harrar's hostage, Master Shaper Qelah Kwaad, had told them that it would be impossible to sway the dhuryam of Shimrra's commands). Jacen also convinces the Yuuzhan Vong biots, Sgauru and Tu-Scart, who are nicknamed the Biter and Beater respectively by the Vong, into helping him, his uncle, and his sister. And while Luke and the Solo twins are battling and killing their way through Vong warriors as they travel up Shimrra's Citadel, Luke surrenders himself to the Force, letting it engulf him so that he is an unstoppable force of nature which no Yuuzhan Vong can counter, and which neither Jacen nor Jaina can comprehend visually or through the Force as their uncle.

Eventually, Luke, Jacen, and Jaina arrive at Shimrra's Citadel and proceed to kill him. But the Supreme Overlord is joined with several genetically modified warriors called Slayers, who were created for the sole purpose of killing Jedi, and sends them to duel Luke, Jacen, and Jaina. Then the Citadel begins to sway and tip in all directions, making the characters think that the World Brain is doing this in order to help the Jedi combat the Slayers, but the battle becomes all the more difficult for both parties because the swaying and tipping is affecting both groups' performances against each other. In the end, though, the Slayers are all killed in combat against the three Jedi despite the special Yuuzhan Vong warriors' efforts thanks to their opponents' awesome skills with their lightsabers, combat training, and the Force. However, after forcing his Citadel to stay put in its regular placement because of the mental connection that he has with it, Shimrra knocks Jacen unconscious when the latter tried to attack him, destroys his lightsaber, attacks Luke, poisons him with his special amphistaff, the Scepter of Power, and begins to suffocate the leader of all the Jedi by wrapping the Scepter around him. The Supreme Overlord then tries to finish Luke off with the lightsaber of the late Anakin Solo, which was collected by the Yuuzhan Vong after Anakin died at the Mission to Myrkr two years earlier and which was brought to Shimrra after the late Ganner Rhysode used it against the galactic invaders prior to his death in the same year. Disregarding the Vong's hatred of mechanical technology to show Luke how it feels like to be fighting something that is part of, or at least similar to, their society, Shimrra reflects on his species' battle against Zonama Sekot, the living planet that they feel should be sacred to them, but was thrust into fighting them by the will of their gods (even though the Vong's sacred texts stated that attacking a galaxy with a living world in it was sacrilege). Meanwhile, Jaina follows the Supreme Overlord's Shamed familiar Onimi into the top of the Citadel, which acts as an evacuation ship for Shimrra. On the ship, the familiar knocks her unconscious via poison in his fang and then chains her up in between statues of two Vong deities on the vessel's bridge.

Back with the confrontation between Luke and Shimrra, Luke manages to cut the Scepter of Power into pieces with his lightsaber, preventing the Scepter from cutting off his air supply any further, retrieves his late nephew's lightsaber out of Shimrra's grasp, and uses both lightsabers to decapitate the Supreme Overlord. The Jedi Master then collapses from the poison injected into his system by the Scepter of Power, and throws Anakin's lightsaber to Jacen, who woke up from being knocked out shortly after Shimrra defeated him. But Jacen misses the lightsaber, reflecting the vision that returned to him at Zonama Sekot of failing to catch the weapon. Despite this, Jacen is sent by the faltering Luke to retrieve Jaina.

On the bridge of the Citadel's top, Jaina wakes up to Onimi, who reveals that he was actually the real Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong even before Shimrra seemingly ruled the species. Onimi believes that the Jedi are the avatars of the Vong gods, with Jaina being Yun-Harla the Trickster goddess, which she used as a persona in the latter half of the invasion as psychological warfare against the invaders. This supports Onimi's motivations as he explains that he was once a Shaper who fused his brain with yammosk tissue in order to gain knowledge for what he discovered to be the empty eighth cortex of Shaper science. The eighth cortex was meant to find a way to save the Yuuzhan Vong from the decades of violence against each other as they crossed the Intergalactic Void in order to arrive in the galaxy. From the yammosk tissue fusion to his brain, Onimi became a Shamed One, blaming Yun'o, especially Yun-Harla, for his afflictions in their motivation for retaliation against the Shaper who was trying to divulge their divine knowledge. However, Onimi found that he had regained the Yuuzhan Vong's lost connection to the Force, and then used it to manipulate Shimrra via hypnotism into invading the galaxy. Behind the scenes at Shimrra's throne, Onimi was the one who really led his species into the invasion, as he previously confirmed, and he originally thought that Yun'o were just testing him and his species to see if they were worthy of the planets that the galaxy provided. But just after Zonama Sekot arrived at Yuuzhan'tar, Onimi later then evaluated that the gods wanted to destroy him and his rule with Shimrra acting as his puppet, and thus, destroy the Yuuzhan Vong as a whole. He asserts that Yun'o would not want one with such power to be stronger than they were if this was the reason that their creations were losing the war, especially with the living planet of Zonama Sekot among those battling the Vong. Since these events have transpired, Onimi had lost his mental hold on what was left of Shimrra's psyche, which was what brought upon the false Supreme Overlord's "insanity," as Nom Anor observed before the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar had begun. It is also revealed by the real Supreme Overlord that he was responsible for controlling the World Brain in the failed attempt to destroy Yuuzhan'tar and that he was also responsible for the swaying and tipping of the Citadel. Onimi did the latter by using the mental connection that he had with it, which was obviously greater than Shimrra's, in order to increase whatever minuscule chances that the Slayers had in winning the battle. Now, with the presence of Zonama Sekot, Shimrra's death, and the fall of Yuuzhan'tar, Onimi believes that he will be able to become a god with Zonama's destruction via Alpha Red. He has now gone so crazy that he is planning to wipe out every single living being and thing in the galaxy.

Before the top of Shimrra's Citadel launches under Onimi's command, the Jedi, the Shamed Ones, the Yuuzhan Vong workers, their traditional Vong allies and captives, and some of the Galactic Alliance soldiers and commandos involved in the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar arrive at the Citadel. They find Shimrra's decapitated form and Luke dying. Mara takes Luke aboard the Millennium Falcon for medical healing, while Harrar announces to the Shamed Ones, the workers, and their traditional Vong allies and captives that Shimrra is dead, which enhances the joy of those who were against Shimrra, while those still loyal to the false Supreme Overlord are either in a state of surrender or disbelief. Meanwhile, Nom Anor, who is shocked with Shimrra's demise, leads Han and Leia aboard the top of the Citadel to search for the Solo twins, and then the evacuation ship launches. And as the vessel reaches for space above Yuuzhan'tar, Jacen arrives on the ship's bridge and confronts Onimi, who senses in him the "divine glow" of Yun-Shuno, the Pardoner goddess of the Shamed Ones and workers, the betrayer of everything that the real Supreme Overlord has "set out to create" (it is implied that Onimi believes that if Zonama Sekot dies of Alpha Red and he kills Jaina and Jacen, he will become a god. This would explain why he plans on exterminating everyone and everything in the galaxy; so he could make a galaxy that he could rule over). After the voice that told him to "stand firm" returns to Jacen one last time, having him realize that it was his late grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, telling him to use the Force wisely against Onimi in this situation, he does just that as he launches into a fight with the Supreme Overlord. And the young Jedi Knight who started out in the war as a doubtful and hesitant individual manages achieve oneness with the Force in order to "fight without fighting," countering and throwing off Onimi's actions at every turn without making a single misstep or mistake in the combat himself. The Supreme Overlord does his best to fight off his opponent with martial prowess, the poisonous toxins which he uses inside his own body, and the Force, but to no avail. Jaina attempts to help Jacen against Onimi through the Force, but the former communicates to her with the energy source that they share as Jedi to save her power in order to recuperate herself from the Supreme Overlord's fang poison. Then Jacen realizes that he could not catch the lightsaber in either his vision or in real life because he is the (figurative) lightsaber who will defeat Onimi, the true Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong, the darkness that represents everything that the species stands for. As a result, the Jedi Knight becomes too powerful for his opponent to fight off, uses the Force's pure energy to pin Onimi to the bulkhead at his back, and effectively defeats the one responsible for bringing about the whole war. Shortly after, Han, Leia, and Nom Anor come aboard the bridge to see Jacen's victory, and they find that he has seemingly aged five years older, erasing any trace of his childhood, an event, coupled with the backdrop of stars and fighting space forces shown from the evacuation ship's transparent hull, which burns into Leia's memory and will remain with her until the end of her life. Meanwhile, thanks to Jacen's Force energy fixing the Supreme Overlord of his Shamed deformities, Onimi has been shapen properly again. But, because his disfigurements were the result of his regaining of the Force in the first place, the loss of the deformities and the Force also results in the loss of control over the poisons in his body. As a consequence, the Supreme Overlord slides down along the bulkhead behind him and dissolves into a puddle of foul hydrocarbons. Onimi's liquid remnants are then sucked in by the yorik coral deck of the vessel. After Onimi's death, which marks the end of the actual Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong, the evacuation ship starts to die off because of the connection that it had with him, now severed thanks to his passing. The process of the vessel's own death begins just as Shimrra's Citadel on Yuuzhan'tar explodes because of the same reason. Jacen picks Jaina up off the Vong statues which Onimi put her in between, explaining that he refused her help against the dead Supreme Overlord so that she could use it for herself, confirming what he already told her through the Force. Then Nom Anor tries to kill the Solos for the misdeeds that they have given him by nearly tricking them into going into a garbage chute, making them think that it was an escape vessel known as a yorik-trema. But because of Jacen's Vongsense, he detects Nom Anor's treachery and prevents the deaths of his family and himself by providing this information to all those present. Nom Anor desperately tries one last attempt to escape them by using his plaeryin bol in order to shoot poison out at Jacen and use a device, disguised as a finger on his hand, to depart. But Jacen uses a Force technique taught to him by the late Vergere on rendering Nom Anor's poison barren in terms of its intended effects to transform it into water, thereby saving himself. Leia also stops Nom Anor from escaping by quickly cutting off the hand from which he pulled the device with her lightsaber, bringing upon him great pain as he is immobilized. After Jacen tells him that it did not have to be this with way, Nom Anor proclaims that it did, because he fit in neither the native galactic society for his manipulation and treachery or the Yuuzhan Vong for his cowardice and selfishness. Regardless, he is offered by Han to escape the dying evacuation ship when the Solos enter the real yorik-trema. But Nom Anor finds that since the Yuuzhan Vong have lost the war, he does not want to have any part of what is to come, and that he and Onimi were "both alike." So he pushes Han aboard the yorik-trema with the latter's family, then leaves himself aboard the dying evacuation vessel as it explodes above Yuuzhan'tar, displacing nearby Yuuzhan Vong battleships in its wake. This ends the life of Nom Anor, the Vong agent responsible for approximately half of the war as the Solos survive in the escape vessel, which is picked up by the Millennium Falcon that already has Mara and the dying Luke aboard. Jacen uses his tears to heal Luke and he recovers from Shimrra's amphistaff poison. The Solos and Skywalkers then reunite in a bittersweet embrace, glad that the war is finally over while C-3PO and R2-D2 watch on, with Threepio telling Artoo that he envies over what joy humans must feel in times like this.

Following the destruction of Shimrra's yorik-trema, with Warmaster Choka witnessing this event (having not believed that Shimrra was killed even before he saw the evacuation ship coming from Yuuzhan'tar), he knew then that the Supreme Overlord died with it (which is technically true, since Onimi was the one who really led the Yuuzhan Vong into the war). Now, for the first time in the history of the species, the Yuuzhan Vong are without a Supreme Overlord. Seeing that they have lost under the belief that his species has lost Shimrra as the species' conduit to their gods and that their deities have turned against them, Choka ordered all of his forces in the galaxy to either surrender to the Galactic Alliance or commit suicide, officially heralding the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War. As for the Alpha Red-infected ship, Zonama Sekot managed to destroy it before the vessel could arrive at the living planet, similar to the fate of the rest of Alpha Red as the Galactic Alliance destroys all remaining samples, considering that it is no longer needed. Director of the Galactic Alliance Intelligence Service Dif Scaur, for his actions in creating Alpha Red with the Chiss Ascendancy, is quietly forced to resign by Alliance Chief of State Cal Omas and is replaced by Belindi Kalenda. Sekot also brought down all battleworthy vessels - its own, the Alliance's, and the Vong's - down to Zonama's surface, getting rid of the invaders' weapons and halting the entire battle around it. And after the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar, the Peace Brigade is disbanded and Choka makes a deal with the Galactic Alliance at the Sekot Accords; they will be spared, despite the invasion that they had caused which resulted in 365 trillion native galactic deaths, and they will be brought to Zonama Sekot. During this time, Sekot realizes that it is the seed of the original Yuuzhan'tar, and shares this information with Luke, Jacen, and Harrar, which is something that the Vong themselves will soon come to realize. After Choka and his remaining obedient forces collect, as part of the deal, all other remaining Yuuzhan Vong forces in the galaxy for Zonama, especially those who have not heeded Choka's announcement that the war has ended, the living planet takes the remaining Vong in the galaxy and travels into hyperspace. From this hyperspace jump, Zonama Sekot disappears back into the Unknown Regions so that the Vong will be safe from the vengeful Bothans, who still have their ar'krai declared against them. On the planet Zonama, and by the intelligence Sekot, the once-violent species will learn the meaning of peace and regain their connection to the Force. Joining Zonama Sekot and the Vong are the likes of Danni Quee, Tekli, and Tahiri Veila, because Danni and Tekli want to study the living planet while Tahiri, being half a Vong because of her fusion with her Riina Kwaad personality, wants to help the species regain the Force and become peaceful. The Galactic Alliance also automatically reclaims Yuuzhan'tar as Coruscant as part of their victory, rebuilding what the Vong have destroyed and keeping some of what they introduced to the planet for vanity reasons, including the World Brain, a sign of compromise that even Bothan Admiral Traest Kre'fey appreciates. Though it would be unlikely that Coruscant could be properly habitable within any foreseeable amount of time, the citizens of the galaxy are optimistic. In the meantime, the Galactic Alliance relocates their capital to Denon as Coruscant heals with Vong Shapers that Zonama Sekot didn't take with it. Admiral Kre'fey, meanwhile, is promoted to Supreme Commander for his heroic efforts in rescuing Coruscant from the enemy's clutches, replacing Sien Sovv.

Luke announces that coinciding with the war's end is the beginning of the New Jedi Order's belief of the Unifying Force, which combines both the light and dark sides to a perfect harmony. This belief also allows the Jedi to embrace the idea that the best way to serve the Force is to act accordingly to their consciences and, for all those who wish it, stay out of the affairs of the Galactic Alliance in the postwar galaxy. Jacen, in the aftermath of achieving oneness with the Force in his fight with Onimi, decides to go off on a sojourn throughout the galaxy in order to study numerous beliefs and theories about the Force, train under them, and find out which Force belief will be the most appropriate for him to follow now that the war is over. Imperial Remnant Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, as a token of his gratitude to the Galactic Alliance for helping the Remnant fight back the Yuuzhan Vong, gives Han and Leia the late Ob Khaddor's Alderaanian moss painting known as the Killik Twilight, which Han and Leia lost to Grand Admiral Thrawn 21 years earlier when the recently-married Solos were on a mission to Tatooine. Cherishing it as one of the few remnants of her destroyed home world, Leia is especially thankful to Pellaeon for giving her the memorabilia. Jaina is forced to finish her relationship with Colonel Jagged Fel because of Jag's duties to the Chiss and Jaina's duties to the rest of the galaxy, though Jag promises that whenever he can, he will visit Jaina as a galactic ambassador of the Chiss Ascendancy.

The novel, and the series, finishes with many of the characters, including Jacen before he leaves for his sojourn, going back to Kashyyyk in order to honor the late Chewbacca, who gave his life early in the war at Sernpidal so that Han and Anakin Solo, along with many other inhabitants of the planet gathered aboard the Millennium Falcon, could live when the Praetorite Vong, the specialist advance force of the extragalactic invaders, destroyed the world. Han plants Anakin's lightsaber on Chewbacca's memorial so that if another threat like the Yuuzhan Vong were to arise in the galaxy ever again, someone worthy of the lightsaber will take the weapon and conquer that potential menace. The characters then have a celebratory feast, finding humor and relief in the fact that, once again, the galaxy is at peace.

Behind the scenes
Several details stated in this book contradict previously established facts. For example, Nom Anor was identified as an executor in Dramatis Personae, despite the fact that he was already a prefect at the beginning of the book. Also, Harrar was identified as a High Priest, while he always held the rank Priest in previous books, and Pash Cracken was identified as a Major, while in The Final Prophecy, mere months earlier, he was identified as a General. In addition, there is a reference to Dewlannamapia being at Chewbacca's funeral, but she had died over 30 years before. Gilad Pellaeon mentioned that the Bastion Accords were signed five years earlier, while in fact the event had been ten years earlier. The Jedi Masters were referred to as members of the Galactic Alliance Advisory Council, while they should be the members of the High Council. Sometimes, Ebaq 9 is referred to as "Ebaq Nine".

The book also saw several retcons and premieres. Commander Czulkang Lah was retconned as a Supreme Commander. Leia's Killik Twilight made its first real-world appearance since Tatooine Ghost, and Boba Fett returned and fought side by side with Han Solo for the first time.

Several references to famous works of literature exist. For example, Shakespeare's Macbeth is notably referenced when Shimrra refers to three women as "black midnight hags" and when Onimi asks Nom Anor if he thought "we three would meet again." Also, one of Mark Twain's famous quotes is referenced near the end of chapter 13 when Nom Anor is on his way to speak to the heretics. He reassures the Shamed Ones that, "The rumours of my death were greatly exaggerated."

Cover gallery
This is a gallery of the different cover variations of The Unifying Force.