Gorgon

The Gorgon was an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer and flagship of Admiral Natasi Daala. It was constructed by Kuat Drive Yards over Kuat along with sister ships Hydra, Basilisk, and Manticore. These ships were part of the daunting Maw fleet, stationed at Maw Installation, a secret asteroid research facility, under the command of Admiral Daala. With her second-in-command, Commander Kratas, Daala would drill the crew of the Gorgon until it became one of the best performing Star Destroyers in the Imperial Fleet. Daala and the Gorgon were stationed at Maw Installation without any outside contact for over a decade before a lone shuttle entered the Maw and was captured by the Gorgon's tractor beams. From the prisoners, Daala would learn the fate of the Empire, and took it upon herself to launch a guerilla war against the New Republic.

The Gorgon would fight in many battles throughout Daala's short campaign before returning to Maw Installation for a final confrontation with the forces of the New Republic. The Gorgon would prove to be the Installation's bane when the vessel fired upon the facility's unstable reactor core. Severely damaged in the battles of Daala's campaign, the Gorgon was irreparable, and after transporting Daala to the remnants of the Empire in the Deep Core, was dismantled by the warlords for use in the construction of newer vessels.

History
The Gorgon was constructed over Kuat by Kuat Drive Yards and was commisioned by Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin. The Gorgon was constructed alongside three other Imperial Star Destroyers: the Hydra, the Basilisk, and the Manticore. These vessels were intended by Tarkin to guard his secret military research facility, Maw Installation, where monstrosities such as the Death Star and the World Devastators were designed. The Gorgon and the rest of the Maw Fleet were put under the direct command of Tarkin's mistress, Admiral Natasi Daala, the first female to become an admiral under the Galactic Empire. The Gorgon was meant to be Daala's flagship. Daala personally oversaw the construction of the Gorgon from its early stages, and was bent on turning it into a model of Star Destroyer perfection.

The Maw Fleet was placed in a gravitational island at the center of the Maw, a cluster of black holes, by Grand Moff Tarkin with no outside contact and a strict mandate to remain and guard the facility at all costs. Daala feared that a lack of active service would cause her crew's skills to deteorate. This, and the fear that her crew would resent being commanded by a woman, caused Daala to drill her crew constantly and she executed several officers to show her crew that she would stop at nothing to keep them in line. In depths of the Maw, the Gorgon sat at full battle readiness, waiting for chance to prove itself, its crew constantly put on edge by its relentless commander.

This chance came in 11 ABY, when a lone shuttle, Endor, entered the Maw. When its crew failed to provide the correct security code, issued by Tarkin himself, the Gorgon used its tractor beam to pull the ragged shuttle into its hanger bay. Because of the inablility to transmit signals through the HoloNet from the Maw, due to the ionized gases around the black holes, the crew of the Gorgon, especially Daala, were unprepared for the news the outsiders brought with them. While in isolation, Grand Moff Tarkin had died on the first Death Star, and Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader had died on a failed attempt to reconstruct the battlestation. Due to the latter two's deaths, the Empire was tearing itself in a civil war, while the Rebel Alliance had evolved into the New Republic and had become a dominant power in the galaxy.

Dumbstruck by the news, Daala decided that since Tarkin was dead, his mandate thus nullified, the only thing she could do would be to fight her own guerilla war against the New Republic. Imprisoning the shuttle's crew and declaring to the Maw scientists that she was leaving, Daala scrambled her forces and prepared to depart. During the departure preparations, the prisoners Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Kyp Durron escaped with the Installation's latest project, the Sun Crusher, aided by Maw scientist Qwi Xux.

The four Star Destroyers scrambled to stop the escapees from leaving the Maw. However, since the Sun Crusher's hull was practically invulnerable to harm, the most the fleet could do was physically smother the superweapon with TIE fighters. Meanwhile, the Hydra positioned itself to block the Sun Crusher from escaping out of the only direct route out of the Maw. Undaunted, the Sun Crusher sped out of the TIE fighter swarm and through the Hydra's bridge. The crippled vessel was drawn in by the gravitational force of a nearby black hole. Its way cleared, the Sun Crusher fled into hyperspace.

Vowing that the Sun Crusher had to be recovered at all costs, Daala ordered the Gorgon and its two remaining sister-ships to follow the superweapon out of the Maw. The Gorgon caught up with its quarry as it exited the Maw, but ran straight into the mercenary fleet of Moruth Doole. The confused fleet fired fruitlessly on the imposing Star Destroyers. Daala's fleet quickly mopped up the rag-tag force, and the Gorgon retained minimal damage. With the latest unexpected threat out of her way, Daala ordered the Gorgon to conduct a pirate on New Republic shipping.

Their first (and last) merchant target was a small Corellian corvette. The Gorgon fired several shots on the ship before it surrendered. The Gorgon triumphantly pulled the corvette into its hanger. From the ship's captain, Daala learned that the vessel was delivering relief supplies to a "peaceful" colony on Dantooine. The Gorgon's crew, however, found a large cache of high-grade weapons and communications equipment. Daala ordered the corvette to be released, and after it had sent a S.O.S. (which Daala was sure would distract the New Republic), the Gorgon opened fire on the helpless vessel and destroyed it. The Gorgon then set course for the "peaceful" colony on Dantooine.

Despite being a vital communications outpost, the Gorgon's sensors showed that the small colony possessed few means of defense. Nevertheless, the Gorgon spewed out huge AT-AT walkers with which to obliterate the helpless colonists. The operation was a success, and recalling her men to the Gorgon, set her eyes on the vital shipyards of the ocean world of Dac.

Daala laid out a seemingly full-proof plan which had been created by Tarkin himself. The battle would start with the Gorgon and Basilisk opening fire and launching an attack on the floating cities of the Mon Calamari, thus drawing forces away from the shipyards, while the Manticore would come out from the shadow of Dac's moon and destroy the helpless starship construction facilities. The plan was going well until a former slave of Tarkin's recognized the tactic and used the battlecruiser Startide to crash into the Manticore. Accepting her first real defeat, Daala's two remaining Star Destroyers fled to the safety of the Cauldron Nebula.

While there, Daala made plans to take Basilisk on a suicide crash on Coruscant, but Kyp Durron soon after arrived with the Sun Crusher and put an end to her plans by eliminating the Basilisk.

Damaged by the supernovas of the Cauldron Nebula, the Gorgon retreated to the Maw Installation where it encountered a New Republic fleet attempting to take the installation. Angry, she took the Gorgon on a suicide attack against the installation's power reactor, which exploded. When the New Republic sensors cleared, the Gorgon was nowhere to be found and was presumed destroyed. For all intents and purposes, it might as well have been.

Damaged nearly beyond repair and limping along with what amounted to a skeleton crew, Daala retreated with her flagship to the Deep Core where she'd hoped to find repairs and an able command structure. She was sadly mistaken. Upon arrival at the Core, she found an Empire in tatters, warlords pitted against one another in a civil war to advance their individual positions.

The damaged and obsolete Gorgon was soon dismantled and cannibalized for spare parts, while its crew were split up and sent to different factions of the crumbling Empire. This would eventually prove to be one of the deciding factors for Daala's push to reunite the Empire approximately one year later.

Appearances

 * Jedi Search
 * Dark Apprentice
 * Champions of the Force
 * Darksaber