Second Charge Matrica

The Second Charge Matrica was one of the conflicts of the New Sith Wars. It began in 1040 BBY, shortly after the death of the Sith Lord Chagras, the last child of Vilia Calimondra. Vilia was left with several grandchildren, each of whom, like their parents, claimed to be the sole heir of Vilia's legacy. Vilia initiated the Second Charge Matrica, the victor of which would be the grandchild who could expand Vilia's empire the most. However, like the first Charge Matrica, it eventually caused infighting among the grandchildren.

Background
Following the first Charge Matrica, the sole surviving heir of Calimondra was her son Chagras. He became the ruler of an empire in the Grumani sector known as the Chagras Hegemony. However, his mother Vilia still controlled most of her holdings since she was still alive. The only thing that Chagras was guaranteed was the cooperation of his multiple nephews and nieces in reconstructing the war-torn region. By 1042 BBY, Chagras was ready to face the Galactic Republic with his forces under Sith Lord Odion invading the Republic world of Aquilaris Minor. In 1040 BBY, Chagras died after being infected with a powerful nerve toxin that prevented his body from healing. His death sparked infighting among Vilia's grandchildren for control of Chagras's holdings. Xelian's estranged sons Odion and Daiman were the first Sith warlords to go to war with each, carving up their own states.

The Chagras Hegemony splintered into five factions, then ten and several more; destabilizing much of the Grumani sector. Chagras' eldest daughter Arkadia Calimondra started her own state in the remote fringes of the sector. Meanwhile, his youngest children Quillan and Dromika became the rulers of the Dyarchy&mdash;which was centered around the planet Byllura with the Krevaaki Saaj Calician acting as their regent. Each of these Sith Lords ruled their own fiefdoms in accordance to their own philosophies but answered to Vilia and met in a bequest held at least once a year. While these Bequests officially functioned as arbitration sessions, Vilia exploited them as a means of subtly encouraging her grandchildren to attack each other. According to Arkadia, Vilia held a large amount of wealth, military power, and corporate holdings, she was able to keep her descendants in line by doling out presents to keep them in the game. Due to the enormous stakes involved, none of the players wanted to lose the Charge Matrica.

The nihilistic Odion saw himself as the Destroyer of the universe and began the founder of a death cult while his younger brother Daiman viewed himself as the Creator of the universe and all other beings as soulless automatons. Meanwhile, the scholarly Arkadia tried to create an "enlightened" totalitarian Sith regime which sought to promote flexibility and versatility amongst its citizenry by forcing them to alternate between different jobs throughout their lives. By contrast, the more moderate Quermian Sith Lord Ayanos Bactra, ruler of the Bactranate, preferred to work through several corporate partners including Industrial Heuristics. Another Sith Lord Malakite eschewed technology in favor of using Sithspawn mutants as tools of war and ruled a realm known as the Menagerie. Besides fighting each other over resources and dominance, these Sith states also fought with the Jedi, the Republic and interlopers like the Hutts.

For many ordinary people, the Second Charge Matrica marked a time of chaos and uncertainty. Since the Republic had shut down its hyperspace relays in large areas of the galaxy to avoid further incursions into the Core Worlds and Colonies, interstellar trade had collapsed in many regions including the Grumani sector. Many Sith Lords exploited their subjects as expendable slave labor and cannon fodder with little regard for their lives and welfare. Lord Odion notably imprisoned all the children in his realm within a network of planet-sized orphanages known as cloisters since he believed that children burned too brightly in the Force which irritated his senses.

Due to the volatile politics of the Second Charge Matrica, the Grumani sector experienced many leadership transitions. In one case, the planet Verdanth was ruled by 17 rival Sith Lords during the Republic Dark Age. Due to the lack of mass media and reputable historians in the Grumani sector, most of the Sith rulers and their inhabitants were ignorant of their history and had little knowledge of the larger galaxy.

Counter-strategies
Over the preceding years, the Second Charge Matrica saw several Sith Lords warring each other in a series of never-ending protracted conflicts. Odion attempted to end this stalemate by commissioning a project to locate the Helm of Ieldis, an ancient Sith artifact capable of driving sentient beings into a homicidal frenzy. However, Project Pandemonium was postponed after its trail dried up at Sarrassia in 1038 BBY when the Bactranate acquired the planet. To prevent the Sith from gaining access to Republic technology and military secrets, the Galactic Republic ordered all corporations to withdraw from Sith territory but some like Industrial Heuristics ignored such directives, preferring to do business with Sith warlords.

At some point, the Alderaanian Republic agent Baron Lemayne commissioned a black operation which aimed to sabotage the Sith war effort by seeding their forces with the narcotic spice Deluge. The humanitarian relief agency Grace Command and its paramilitary wing Devil Squadron became a cover for Lemayne's operations which succeeded in weakening the Sith warlords' armies but also perpetuated a drug addiction problem among the civilian population.

While most Jedi and Republic forces had abandoned much of the Outer Rim Territories as part of a defensive strategy that emphasized defending the Core Worlds and Colonies from further Sith advances, the Jedi Master Vannar Treece continued to lead independent "knight errant" operations into the Grumani sector. For these operations, Treece utilized volunteers rather than regular Jedi and Republic military personnel since Supreme Chancellor Genarra and the Ministry of Defense were reluctant to commit substantial forces and other resources to invading the Sith-controlled territories due to the weakened state of the Republic.

He was also able to exploit a loophole that allowed Jedi Knights a period of sixteen days of free travel anywhere in the galaxy between their regular routine of serving three months in law enforcement patrols and nine months of active service on the Republic's contracting frontiers. The Jedi Order and the Republic also tried to exploit the infighting between the Sith warlords as a means of preventing further incursions into Republic Space.

By 1032 BBY, Daiman had carved up a large interstellar fiefdom within the Grumani Sector. He also fought the Sullustan warlord Buruun the Bloodbringer for control of the planet Cmaoli Di&mdash;a transit world leading into the Brema sector. Buruun controlled much of the Brema sector during the Republic Dark Age. In 1032 BBY, the Council of Makers and Spinners succeeded in having their neutral status recognized by both Daiman and Buruun. Daiman's forces also acquired the oceanic planet of Aquilaris Minor&mdash;which had fallen under a string of different Sith warlords since its annexation by the Chagras Hegemony in 1042 BBY.

The Chelloan affair
By 1032 BBY, Treece's "knight errant" operations became the sole Jedi activity within the entire Grumani sector. In 1032 BBY, the Jedi Master Vannar Treece received intelligence from the undercover Jedi operative Gorlan Palladane that Lord Daiman had begun mining large deposits of baradium&mdash;a volatile compound used in the manufacture of munitions&mdash;on the agrarian planet Chelloa. Fearing that Daiman's baradium advantage would allow him to end the stalemated conflict and pose a greater threat to the Republic, Treece organized an independent Jedi operation known as Operation Influx. This was a lightning raid that aimed to disrupt baradium shipping operations on Chelloa before they could depart for munitions factories situated on the Daimanate's front lines. Despite initial successes on the Daimanite hub world of Oranessan where the Jedi team stole a Daimanite Heavy-Lift Starcrosser transport with minimal delay, the entire team with the exception of the novice Jedi Knight Kerra Holt was wiped at the Chelloan spaceport of Jenith when the Sith Lord Odion raided the planet.

Earlier, Palladane had used a stolen transmitter to activate a hyperspace routing station but Odion had been intercepting the correspondences between Treece and Palladane. Due to his nihilistic beliefs, Odion sought to destroy the planet with a fleet of kinetic corruptors since he regarded the planet's high concentration of baradium deposits as creating an imbalance in the Force. Faced with the Jedi and Odion, Daiman devised a counter-strategy which involved luring Odion onto the surface of Chelloa and then destroying him and his army with his own fleet of kinetic corruptors, which were disguised as Mobile Munitions Complexes. Daiman then used Kerra to leak false information to Odion that he was planning to expand his baradium operations on Chelloa and had purchased new mobile war forges. Taking the bait, Odion invaded Chelloa only to find himself in a trap. Meanwhile, Kerra and Palladane successfully evacuated the planet's 63,000 inhabitants on a fleet of transports known as the Freedom Fleet before this apocalypse. While Odion survived, he was grievously wounded and swore vengeance against both Kerra and Daiman.

The Gazzari trap
Kerra further harassed Daiman by raiding his slave world of Nilash III and freeing the native slaves from his munitions factories. As a further insult, she beheaded several of his statues to remind him that she "existed." Later, Odion learnt that Daiman's researchers were doing top-secret research on a new prototype warship known as the Convergence and sent the Bothan spy Narsk Ka'hane, an independent operative, to obtain intelligence on the vessel and to destroy the Black Fang research installation. Unknown to Odion, Narsk was actually a deep cover agent working for the Calimondra family matriarch Vilia Calimondra but posed as a mercenary spy who sold his services to the highest bidder. However, Kerra intercepted Narsk and destroyed the datapad containing the data before destroying the building with baradium thermal charges. She then stole Narsk's Cryricept Mark IV stealth suit and left him behind to be captured by Daiman's Correctors. Despite Narsk's denials, Daiman suspected that Odion had a role in the bombing and concocted a scheme to lure Odion into another trap on Gazzari.

Daiman approached the Bactranate Ayanos Bactra with an offer to buy an arxeum&mdash;a mobile university dedicated to war research&mdash;from Industrial Heuristics. Daiman also offered to provide the students for the university. The transaction would occur on Gazzari and he promised Bactra's forces safe passage to the Gazzari system. However, he arranged for Narsk to listen to the proceedings and then to escape back to the Odionate. Daiman also contracted the services of several mercenaries including the Brigadier Jarrow Rusher and convinced to set up a trap on Gazzari. They assembled their forces including artillery cannons on the edge of a massive caldera. As planned, Odion saw the Gazzari deal as an opportunity to wreak further bloodshed and destruction and dispatched a fleet to invade the planet. Odion's forces invaded the planet only to be trapped in the caldera by enemy fire. During the fighting, Odion quickly regained his advantage by deploying the Death Spiral&mdash; a massive mobile siege platform. However, Kerra destroyed the Death Spiral and managed to save the children. She then convinced the mercenary Rusher&mdash;who lost five-sixths of his forces&mdash;to evacuate the refugees offworld aboard his troopship Diligence.

Unknown to Kerra, the Calimondra family matriarch Vilia was able to monitor her movements since the stealth suit tapped onto an information network used by the Sith despot to monitor her underlings. In the middle of the Battle of Gazzari, Vilia sent a coded transmission to Narsk ordering him to transmit a message to her grandsons Odion and Daiman. The matriarch had felt that Lord Bactra had outlived his usefulness to the family and ordered them to turn on the Bactranate. Odion's and Daiman's forces ceased fighting each other and turned on the Bactranate fleet in the system. They then launched an invasion of the Bactranate with Odion's forces capturing the capital Jutrand. Meanwhile, Lord Bactra fled into hiding at a Quermian retirement colony.

Within days, the Bactranate had collapsed and Vilia convened a Bequest. The Bactranate's territories were divided up between the Sith Lords Odion, Daiman, Malakite, and Lioko while his vast corporate assets were divided up among the family. While Odion acquired Jutrand through military conquest, Daiman acquired Industrial Heuristics. However, Odion challenged Daiman's claim to the company on the basis that it had been based on Jutrand and was thus booty. As quid pro quo, Vilia compensated Odion by send two legions of Trandoshan slave warriors from her own forces to augment the Odionate. Odion reluctantly accepted the deal but tensions continued to linger between the two brothers.

Delusions of Grandeur
Rusher and Kerra's escape from Gazzari brought them to Byllura, which was the domain of a Sith state known as the Dyarchy. The Regent Calician had harnessed the powerful Force abilities of Lord Chagras's younger children Dromika and Quillan to create a global telepathic network that enthralled all sentient beings on Byllura. Dromika was proficient at using the Force to mentally coerce other sentients into doing her bidding while Quillan was capable of farsight and seeing distant developments. Under the Dyarchy, Byllura's inhabitants were reduced to mental thralls who functioned as mere extensions of their Sith masters. The arrival of Rusher's starship Diligence at Hestobyll led Calician to prepare his fleet for an invasion of the neighboring Daimanate, mistakenly believing their arrival meant that Daiman's control over his territory had weakened.

Calician dispatched Sith adepts known as Unifiers to "integrate" the newcomers but Rusher and Kerra fought back. This confrontation eventually culminated in a showdown at the Loft, a palace that functioned as the nerve center of the Dyarchy. After a vicious duel, Kerra overpowered Calician and kidnapped Quillan. Her actions effectively decapitated the highly-centralized Dyarchy since it was dependent on the presence of its leaders to function. The collapse of the Dyarchy's leadership led to mass uprisings across Byllura and enabled the Diligence to escape into space. At that point, Byllura was invaded by a third party: the Arkadianate, the realm of Lord Arkadia Calimondra.

After destroying the Dyarchy Fleet, Arkadia's forces occupied Byllura with minimal resistance and executed Calician. Arkadia also had Quillan and Dromika taken into her custody, albeit kept on separate planets. She also invited Rusher and Kerra to her throne world of Syned and promised to provide shelter for their student refugees. During their stay at her capital city of Calimondretta, Arkadia tried to win Rusher and Kerra over by portraying the Arkadianate as an "enlightened" Sith regime. During her rule, Arkadia had implemented several socially progressive policies including compulsory education, mass employment, and providing food and clothes for her subjects.

While there was more freedom and less exploitation compared to other Sith regimes like the Daimanate and the Odionate, Arkadia also had a controversial policy of regularly reassigning her citizens to different jobs even though they were not qualified for them. Like Calician, she also harbored expansionist ambitions of annexing other territories. Her chemical factories on Syned had developed a powerful nerve toxin known as Chagras's Blood, which had been developed from Synedian algae. These biological agents would be delivered through canisters during a planned invasion of neighboring Sith states, a prelude to her own ambition to conquer the galaxy. Finally, Arkadia had conspired to murder her own grandmother and family matriarch Vilia, whom she blamed for causing the death of her father Chagras and the stalemated Second Charge Matrica.

Thus, her public "friendship" towards Rusher and Kerra also concealed ulterior motives. While she intended to recruit the student refugees aboard the Diligence as citizens of the Arkadianate, she also conspired to eliminate Rusher and mercenaries by providing them with rogue coordinates to the Nakrikal Singularity, a black hole, due to her dislike of "specialists" like mercenaries. After introducing Kerra to the complex history of the Calimondra family and the Charge Matricas during a Bequest, Arkadia tried to recruit the Jedi woman as an assassin to kill her grandmother. Despite her eloquent arguments, Kerra refused to work for the Sith Lord and was imprisoned.

Arkadia was then forced to rely on the Bothan spy Narsk Ka'hane for the job. She had prepared a shuttle to ferry her younger brother Quillan to her grandmother's top-secret retreat world. Narsk would be hidden aboard the vessel and would then use a secret gas canister in Quillan's hoverchair to expose her grandmother to the nerve toxin. Unknown to everyone, Narsk was secretly working for Vilia and received orders from Vilia to sabotage Arkadia's plot. He successfully convinced Rusher to stage a diversionary attack on Calimondretta in return for providing hyperspace coordinates leading to the Galactic Republic and also freed Kerra from her prison. During the Siege of Calimondretta, Arkadia's enemies damaged much of the city and destroyed several warships she had assembled for blitz raids on neighboring Sith states in the event her grandmother was killed.

Meanwhile, Narsk took advantage of the chaos to escape with Quillan to Vilia's retreat. Several hundred Arkadianate citizens also took advantage of Rusher's attack to defect from the Arkadianate. These defections dealt a death blow to Arkadia’s earlier rhetoric that the Arkadianate was an enlightened island of stability within Sith Space. Due to the heavy damage on Syned, Arkadia was forced to recall substantial forces from Byllura and temporarily set aside her irredentist ambitions to concentrate on rebuilding her war-damaged capital of Calimondretta. Rusher and Kerra managed to escape with the Diligence's passengers into the Republic. Despite the damage that Kerra visited on the Sith domains of the Grumani sector, the family matriarch Vilia opted to leave her alone since she reasoned that the lone Jedi would provide her grandchildren with experience on dealing with the Jedi in preparation for their future invasion of the Republic.

The Hutt Interloper
By late 1032 BBY, much of the Grumani sector had become affected by an epidemic of Deluge spice addiction. Many civilians and soldiers alike had come to subsist on the drug due to the harsh and impoverished conditions of the Daimanate. The spice was deliberately distributed by the Republic under Operation Deluge. While Operation Deluge it succeeded in undermining the morale and effectiveness of many Sith military forces, many civilian populations also became addicted to the drug which created large-scale social and health problems within the Grumani sector. In the Daimanate, Daiman was known to have taken a heavy-handed response to the problem by executing Deluge addicts within his home defense forces which affected its fighting capacity.

Meanwhile, the Sith warlords of the Grumani sector faced a new threat when the Hutt crimelord Zodoh decided to expand his business operations into Sith Space at the expense of the Daimanate. Earlier, Zodoh and his Hutt compatriots had succeeded in subduing the Sith Lords in Hutt Space and the ambitious Hutt attempted to replicate the same situation in the Grumani sector. During his invasion, Zodoh coerced the other Grumani Sith Lords into supporting his invasion of the Daimanate by unveiling his new superweapons: a fleet of Stormdrivers, capital ships equipped with weaponized vaporizers that were capable of flooding entire worlds. The watery planet of Aquilaris Minor was the first to be targeted by Zodoh. However, the planet was then "liberated" by Grace Command which also distributed the Deluge narcotics.

A third threat resurfaced in the form of the Jedi Knight Kerra Holt, who had returned to the Grumani sector after helping evacuate student refugees from Gazzari to the Republic with the assistance of the mercenary Jarrow Rusher. She briefly allied herself with Grace Command until she discovered the existence of "Operation Deluge." Zodoh quickly captured Grace Command and unleashed his Stormdrivers on Aquilaris, flooding much of the planet. Kerra survived and managed to evacuated thousands of locals into aquatic shelters with the assistance of her childhood friend Joad Kreel and the Seacroppers' Guild leader "Old" Padgett.

Satisfied with his test demonstration on Aquilaris, Zodoh intended to test the Stormdrivers on the Daimanate capital Darkknell. He also convinced Daiman's relatives to keep Daiman's forces preoccupied at the frontiers in return for supplying them with slaves and munitions in the event of his victory over the Daimanate. Zodoh invaded Darkknell and swept aside the weakened Daimanate home fleet before proceeding to flood Darkknell. However, the Hutt crimelord was stopped by Kerra and the last surviving member of Grace Command: Captain Jenn Devaad. The duo destroyed Zodoh's flagship Voracious which led to the scattering of Zodoh's forces, allowing the Daimanate fleet to regroup and launch a counterattack. Zodoh himself was captured and personally executed by Daiman in the presence of several of his Sith relatives including Odion, Arkadia Calimondra, and Malakite.

However, the Daimanate throne world Darkknell sustained heavy damage and much of its surface was flooded. The Daimanate also lost control of Aquilaris Minor which became a transit point for refugees fleeing Sith Space into the Galactic Republic after the flood waters had drained away. The Grace Command Captain Devaad also underwent a "change of heart" and decided to sabotage Operation Deluge by dumping shipments of the spice into hyperspace while transporting refugees into the Republic. This effectively dried up the supply of Deluge spice flowing into the Grumani sector. With the defeat of Zodoh, tensions between Odion and Daiman resurfaced since the latter resented the former for conniving with the Hutt interloper.

The Helm of Ieldis
Following the elimination of both the Bactranate and Zodoh, Odion decided to resume Project Pandemonium. Desiring a strategic advantage in the Second Charge Matrica, he wanted to obtain the Helm of Ieldis, an ancient Sith artifact capable of driving sentients into a destructive homicidal frenzy. Meanwhile, Kerra decided to work with her former enemy Daiman to defeat Odion and to find her long-lost parents. Daiman agreed to help Kerra since he hated Odion and had also experienced visions of a future apocalypse emanating from Odion's realm. Kerra infiltrated the Odionate disguised as a Force-sensitive young Human woman named "Mercy" who had embraced Odion's nihilistic teachings. She became a Novitiate&mdash;an Odionate Sith adept&mdash;and learnt about Project Pandemonium. However, Daiman also sent one of his own spies&mdash;the Kubaz Novitiate Glenk&mdash;to monitor Kerra's whereabouts.

On Sarrassia, Kerra discovered that the Helm of Ieldis was located on Skarpos, a barren desert world that was being fought over by the armies of Odion and the Sith Lord Malakite, the ruler of the Menagerie. She located the Helm only to be captured by Odion, who acquired the Helm for himself. Based on Glenk's report, Daiman ordered his forces to invade Skarpos and crush Odion's and Malakite's forces. Daiman had only used Kerra because he had intended to acquire the Helm for himself. However, Odion used the Helm to wipe out three entire armies. Satisfied with his test demonstration, the Destroyer traveled to Vanahame where he planned to use the Helm of Ieldis to destroy all life in the galaxy by harnessing the emotions of the captive children within the local cloister.

Meanwhile, Daiman and Malakite survived the battle and managed to inform Vilia and the other Sith Lords about the threat posed by the Helm to the galaxy. The Matriarch ordered her grandchildren to temporarily end the Second Chagre Matrica. The various Calimondra Sith Lords including Daiman, Malakite, Arkadia Calimondra, Lioko, and Trevayne then mustered their forces for an invasion of the Odionate. However, Odion succeeded in activating the Helm and its Force-induced homicidal rage devastated much of the Grumani sector including the anti-Odionate fleet. Daiman himself was forced to fight off several maddened crew among his flagship. However, Odion's nihilistic ambitions were thwarted by Kerra and his second-in-command General Beld Yulan. Kerra convinced Yulan to free the Cloister children which had the effect of unleashing a surge of positive emotions that killed Odion.

With Odion's death, the Odionate collapsed and its territories were divided up among the various Calimondra Sith Lords. The Daimanate acquired the largest share of the former Odionate's territory including several cloisters. Despite the demise of the "Destroyer", Kerra's survival ensured that the lone Jedi woman still continued to pose a threat to the various Sith fiefdoms in the Grumani sector.

Aftermath
The New Sith Wars lasted until 1000 BBY when the Jedi-led Army of Light destroyed the Brotherhood of Darkness, the last remaining Sith movement, at the Seventh Battle of Ruusan. The Second Charge Matrica was one of the conflicts that devastated the galaxy during the Republic Dark Age. During that period, interstellar commerce declined throughout much of the galaxy after the Republic disabled its HoloNet communications network. Economic collapse led to widespread social instability which encouraged the spread of diseases like the Candorian plague which killed as many as two-thirds of the populations of some major population centers. The Sith exploited the Dark Age by taking over large tracts of the galaxy outside of the Core Worlds and the Colonies. However, these Sith Lords eventually fought among themselves and many carved up princedoms.

The Calimondra family and their counterparts in Hutt Space merely reflected this general trend of decline and pandemonium during the Republic Dark Age. While the Galactic Republic had retreated into a defensive cordon centered around the Core Worlds, several Jedi like Vannar Treece and Kerra Holt embarked on independent "knight errant" operations to harass these Sith warlords. They were concerned about the plight of civilians living under Sith rule and were outraged at both the excesses of these Sith warlords and the apathy of the Republic's leadership and citizens. Eventually, the remaining Jedi were shaken out of their complacency and helped the Galactic Republic to reassert its authority over the galaxy. During the last decades of the New Sith Wars, the Republic presumably reclaimed the Grumani sector and defeated the local Sith warlords there.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knight Errant: Aflame
 * Knight Errant novel
 * Star Wars: Knight Errant: Deluge
 * Star Wars: Knight Errant: Escape