Thrawn campaign

"None of you needs to be reminded that in the past few weeks our war against the remnants of the Empire has changed from what was once called a mopping-up exercise to a battle for our very survival."

- Admiral Ackbar

The Thrawn campaign was a series of innovative military and political maneuvers executed by Grand Admiral Thrawn in 9 ABY. Thrawn's attacks, feigns and policies constituted the first major internal and external conflict for the New Republic, and nearly succeeded in toppling the fledgling government.

Preliminary Stages


In 9 ABY, Thrawn emerged from the Unknown Regions, consolidated remnant forces of the Galactic Empire, and planned his reconquest of the Galaxy. Thrawn viewed his strategy as a series of interlocking pieces that added up to "the only puzzle worth solving... the complete, total, and utter destruction of the Rebellion". His initial force consisted of only several Imperial-class Star Destroyers and their support lines. During this period, Thrawn used individual Star Destroyers to gently probe the defenses of the New Republic border worlds like the Draukyze system.

The initial phase of Thrawn's plan aimed to alleviate the problem of his limited military forces. He hoped to steal New Republic warships using mole miners, locate and seize the lost Katana fleet and build an army of clones to crew his new fleet. To build the clones, Thrawn sought Palpatine's hidden supply of Spaarti cylinders, which he planned to use at an accelerated pace to fill his ranks with loyal crewmen, soldiers and pilots. But to keep the accelerated process from creating mad, unstable clones, Thrawn planned to use the ysalamiri, a creature able to create a Force-blocking bubble. Thrawn learned of the creatures years earlier when he noted during his time in the Unknown Regions that Myrkr had been avoided by the Jedi Knights for the last 300 years of the Galactic Republic. The ysalamiri were also crucial to Thrawn's plan to rein in Joruus C'baoth, the mad Dark Jedi clone. While the Spaarti chambers would provide Thrawn with acceptable soldiers, he lacked sufficient officers to command his new fleet and determined that C'baoth could provide coordination between the Imperial forces as Nial Declann and Palpatine did at Endor.

To uncover the location of his prizes, Thrawn launched a raid against the comprehensive archive computers of Obroa-skai. The raid also provided Thrawn with a wealth of up-to-date information&mdash;Thrawn's most lethal weapon&mdash;on the New Republic, its allies and the state of the Galaxy at large. After the final raid, which provided Thrawn with the information he required, a skirmish with a New Republic pursuit force afforded Thrawn his first opportunity to display his tactical brilliance by detecting the species of the pursuit force's commander, initiating an attack that the commander's species would be unable to counter, and defeating the task force with a numerically inferior force. See Battle of Obroa-skai for more information.

From the partial data dump, Thrawn was able to gain the location of Wayland, the site of Mount Tantiss, Palpatine's secret storehouse. Chimaera ventured first to Myrkr, where Thrawn encountered Talon Karrde, who was convinced to aid the Imperial commander despite his preference to remain neutral. After collecting a suitable number of ysalamiri, Pellaeon and Thrawn traveled to Wayland. Protected by nutrient rack-mounted ysalamiri, Thrawn convinced C'baoth to aid his campaign in exchange for Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa Solo and her unborn twins. C'baoth, enticed by the offer of young Jedi minds to shape, pledged his assistance and allowed Thrawn access to the wonders of Mount Tantiss, including the Spaarti chambers and a working cloaking shield.

Early Strikes


Mount Tantiss was seeded with ysalamiri and, using exceptional warriors like Maximilian Veers and Soontir Fel as templates, the Spaarti cylinders began churning out thousands of clones, Thrawn began his military campaign in earnest. With the Inner Rim recently liberated from Imperial hands, Thrawn carefully aimed his attacks against a number of Inner and Mid Rim worlds. Feign attacks at Bpfassh and Nkllon allowed Thrawn easy access to the shipyards at Sluis Van. Cloaked freighters delivered fifty mole miners stolen from Nomad City into the system, which were used to place boarding parties aboard the docked New Republic starships. Thrawn intended to steal the starships, but was foiled when Lando Calrissian activated their engines, disabling the ships. A minor set back for Thrawn, and a loss for the dwindling New Republic fleet. Fortunately for Thrawn, his loss at Sluis Van coincided with the arrest of Admiral Ackbar, potentially the only New Republic commander most likely to provide a challenge, at the behest of Borsk Fey'lya.

His campaign was stalled, but Thrawn carried on his guerrilla strikes on Republic worlds while he built up strength. A race ending with Thrawn's capture of some 180 Dreadnaughts enabled him to launch his attack earlier than even he expected. The new Imperial fleets renewed the offensive by striking up the Corellian Run at several sectors, including the major agricultural world of Ukio and the Republic base at Ord Pardon.

As the Republic reeled from that offensive, more ships proceeded up the Rimma Trade Route core-ward, while others still secured Imperial territory by capturing border worlds such as Ord Mantell and Generis. Simultaneously, he launched feints Core-ward towards Coruscant, linking up with the Imperial Academy at Carida, which had been cut-off from the main Empire since the Core's fall.

The New Republic fleets were crushed in individual sectors, as Thrawn's massive Dreadnaught fleet gave him a numerical advantage in each separate sector or planetary system. A feint at Mrisst enabled him to launch a daunting attack on Coruscant itself, knocking it out of the war with cloaked asteroids. The New Republic let Thrawn rampage as they hastily patched together a counter-offensive at Bilbringi.



Despite all his victories, Grand Admiral Thrawn was a few defeats away from being routed. A combination of his death, the loss of the Bilbringi shipyards, the loss of the cloning facilities on Wayland and defeats at Garos IV and the Kathol Sector forced the ships under his command to retreat Rim-ward, or be split up and destroyed. Pellaeon took much of Thrawn's personal squadron into the Unknown Regions, to be recalled by the Emperor Reborn.

Imperial Intrigues
While Thrawn proved to gain strategic and tactical superiority with a smaller force, his moderate armada did not represent the full strength of the Imperial remnants. The cloned Emperor Palpatine, already consolidating power on Byss, ordered most of the Imperial forces to ignore Thrawn and return to the Deep Core. It is unclear if Palpatine intended for Thrawn to be a distraction while he continued to rebuild his strength, or if his extended out-of-body period affected his mind to the point of considering Thrawn as a threat rather than a loyal officer.

Conclusion


The Battle of Bilbringi marked the conclusion of the Thrawn campaign. As the fallen leader's forces fell into retreat, the New Republic was allowed a brief respite before the reborn Emperor would emerge to launch another near-fatal assault. To quote Admiral Ackbar's analysis of New Republic military losses:
 * "The [New Republic] sustained considerable losses in the Thrawn campaign: ten percent of our forces killed, thirty percent wounded&mdash;but those are just averages. On the worlds Thrawn actually hit, the devastation was significant."

In addition, the campaign further fractured the political unity of the New Republic, giving rise to Borsk Fey'lya's political career, though Fey'lya's actions during the campaign nearly destroyed his political career.

On the positive side, the campaign led to the creation of the Smuggler's Alliance, the return of Garm Bel Iblis, an increase in the organization and size of the New Republic military, the liberation of the beings of Wayland and the Noghri, and a spark of interest in Luke Skywalker to seek out other Force-users that would eventually lead to his creation of the Jedi Praxeum.

From the Imperial perspective, the Thrawn campaign may have been more damaging to the cause of the New Order than not. Following Thrawn's death, the disperate forces he had united fell into the Imperial Civil War after a single collaborative initiative in the retaking of Coruscant. Imperial insiders criticized Thrawn's campaign for focusing on the reclaiming of territory, but not planning on methods of holding those planets and star systems. It is unclear, however, if each of these pieces was a carefully planned segment of Palpatine's plan for reemergence, or if Thrawn did indeed have a plan that he was unable to implement before his death.

Battles

 * Battle of Obroa-skai
 * First Battle of Nomad City
 * Battle of Sluis Van
 * Battle for the Katana fleet
 * Battle of Ord Mantell
 * Third Battle of Coruscant
 * Second Battle of Nomad City
 * Battle of Bilbringi
 * Battle of Xa Fel

Appearances

 * Tatooine Ghost
 * Heir to the Empire
 * Dark Force Rising
 * The Last Command
 * X-wing: Isard's Revenge