Eye of Palpatine

"The biggest, most dangerous, most secret vessel of them all, a supership, a dreadnaught, a battlemoon. One the enemy wouldn't see coming until it was too late."

- Triv Pothman

The Eye of Palpatine was a colossal, asteroid-shaped super dreadnought constructed at the behest of Emperor Palpatine during the second year of the Galactic Empire. It was destoryed twelve years after the Battle of Yavin.

Characteristics
"Huge, more vast than even the biggest of the Super Star Destroyers, bigger than a torpedo sphere, with firepower to waste a planet."

- Luke Skywalker's thoughts on the Eye of Palpatine.



This deadly warship was the Emperor's first superweapon. It was referred to as both a "dreadnought" and a "battlemoon." As part of its secretive origin, the vessel was made to look similar to an asteroid. Akin to a Torpedo Sphere in role, the Eye of Palpatine was armed with much more weaponry and built on a much larger scale. Its firepower rivaled and possibly exceeded that of an entire fleet carrying out an orbital bombardment.

Because of the secrecy involved, the ship was unmanned and all its systems were controlled by an artificial intelligence known as the Will. The ship was equipped with many TIE squadrons as well as Beta-class ETR-3 escort transports and Skipray Blastboats. Much of the ship's onboard equipment was supplied by SoroSuub Corporation.

History
"Looking at the kind of thing he designed later&mdash;military and industrial both&mdash;I'd say the Emperor paid him to design a supership of some kind. That was back when they needed a vessel the size of a city to carry the blasting power they wanted. Whatever was on Belsavis, it looks like the Emperor didn't want anything breathing when the dust settled."

- Mara Jade on Keldor's involvement.

The dreadnaught was designed by Ohran Keldor, who also had a hand in the Death Star project. Palpatine had the Eye constructed in 18 BBY, and he intended to use it to destroy Belsavis's Plawal rift, where the Children of the Jedi were being sheltered by the Ho'Din Jedi Master Plett in the same year. This rift was a lush, steamed-filled geothermal vent gouged into the planet's icy wastes and covered by a transparisteel dome. Since this action would have caused outrage in the Imperial Senate, he scattered the vessel's contingent of troops across the Outer Rim Territories to await pickup.



The ship was constructed at the shipyards of Rothana and at Patriim, where it was activated and sent to Belsavis to destroy the Jedi. Scheduled to fly along lightly traveled hyperlanes, it would pick up contingents of troops at Pzob, Dom-Bradden, Kirdo III, Tatooine and Alzoc III. The vessel failed to arrive at any of these places, however, thanks to sabotage by two Jedi Knights, Geith Eris and Callista Ming, in the Moonflower Nebula. Callista was forced to trap her spirit in the ship's computers in order to stop it. Plett and the children of the Jedi were able to leave Belsavis and escape as a result of Geith's and Callista's heroic act.

Later service
The Eye remained dormant until 12 ABY, when the Emperor's Hand Roganda Ismaren located it. She used her son Irek Ismaren&mdash;who had been implanted with a sub-electronic converter that allowed him to control any machine by thought&mdash;to "summon" the dormant ship to Belsavis in her attempt to revitalize the Empire. Upon activation, the Eye of Palpatine attempted to fulfill its programming by picking up its Imperial stormtrooper contingent. But, after so many years, the troops had disappeared, except for Triv Pothman, one of 45 troopers left on the Gamorrean colony Pzob, who survived the bloodshed brought on by the various warring Gamorrean tribes.

Undaunted, the Eye went after any sentient beings found in the appropriate locations. It began grabbing groups of prisoners from various species located on many worlds. Soon the Eye was filled with numerous species including Talz, Affytechans, Jawas, Kitonaks, Tusken Raiders, Tripods, and Gamorreans. They were all brainwashed into thinking they were Imperial stormtroopers. The Eye was eventually destroyed by Jedi student Nichos Marr over Belsavis. Although no evidence could be found in any of the surviving Imperial records recovered by the New Republic, Qwi Xux believed that the Eye had a sister ship; that ship's mission or final fate, if it even existed, had not been discovered as of 25 ABY.

Appearances



 * Children of the Jedi
 * Darksaber
 * Planet of Twilight
 * The New Rebellion
 * Dark Tide II: Ruin
 * Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse
 * Force Heretic II: Refugee
 * Allies