Supreme Commander (Empire)/Legends

The title of Supreme Commander was borne in succession by several of the most senior officers in the military of the Galactic Empire, including Darth Vader before the Battle of Endor, Luke Skywalker during the resurrection of Emperor Palpatine, and later by Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon.

In fact, specific references had Vader and Skywalker as "Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces" and Admiral Pellaeon rather as "Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet" or "Supreme Fleet Commander"; but all three men's ranks were sometimes abbreviated to "Supreme Commander", and as the precise relationship between the different ranks is presently unclear, they will be treated together in this article.

Lord Vader occupied a personal role as Palpatine's lieutenant, with several titles and offices including Dark Lord of the Sith, Warlord and Military Executor; the specific title of Supreme Commander became more prominent in the post-Endor Empire as a position of great power, until in the era of the Imperial Remnant some nineteen years after the Battle of Yavin, the Supreme Fleet Commander assumed the duties and responsibilites of head-of-state of Imperial Space.

Before Endor
As mentioned above, Lord Vader held several different military and paramilitary titles within the Imperial hierarchy; in particular, the title of Military Executor seems to have described a role that overlapped largely with the duties that we would expect to devolve to the Supreme Commander: but it was as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces that Luke Skywalker took up his father's place at the side of a reborn Palpatine, hoping to destroy the Empire from within, and for this reason, Vader can be seen as the prototype of later Supreme Commanders.

During the Battle of Yavin, Lord Vader was apparently only Palpatine's observer aboard the Death Star, with operational control in the hands of Grand Moff Tarkin, who was clearly capable of "holding Vader's leash"; soon after, however, he was given command of the forces charged with prosecuting the war against the Rebel Alliance, and perhaps a wider commission to maintain order throughout Imperial space. His new powers may be presumed to have been conferred by the time he returned to destroy the Rebel base: by this point he had taken charge of the Executor, the largest warship in the Galaxy, as his command ship; and Admiral Griff and the Sector Group of the Bright Jewel Oversector&mdash;one of the most important Navy commands in the Empire&mdash;were subordinated to his command.

Vader would remain in a similar role for the next three years and more, hunting the Rebels&mdash;and in particular, his son Luke Skywalker&mdash;all across the known Galaxy, leading Executor and her attached armada of Star Destroyers through the battles of Derra IV and Hoth, and the preparations for the Battle of Endor. Although Vader did not command directly at Endor, it appears that the fleet believed that he was in charge, and it was his second-in-command, Firmus Piett, who directed the naval aspect of the battle from the bridge of Executor.

After Endor
Vader's death, along with that of Palpatine, threw the Empire into turmoil. After Endor, it is unclear whether any new Supreme Commander was appointed by any of the factions claiming to rule the Empire, and no obvious leader emerged until Grand Admiral Thrawn returned from the Unknown Regions. Thrawn was endorsed by the Advisors and the Moffs and Grand Moffs, although with the rank of Grand Admiral and the title of Warlord, he was already de jure the senior officer in the attrited military, and by virtue of the legatine powers these ranks conferred, de facto commander-in-chief. If Thrawn was not formally constituted as Supreme Commander&mdash;and he may have been&mdash;he certainly exercised the powers of the office in all but name.

After Thrawn's death at Bilbringi, the military hoped to appoint a new Grand Admiral, but the struggle for power between fractuous Imperial factions precipitated a civil war, out of which emerged the "reborn" Palpatine in a series of clone bodies, ruling from the Deep Core world of Byss. Against this background, Rebel hero Luke Skywalker took up his father's old post of Supreme Commander, part of a remarkable battle of wills between Palpatine and the Jedi Master. Palpatine knew that Luke was attempting to bring down the Empire from the inside, and Luke knew that Palpatine was hoping to seduce him to the Dark Side. As Supreme Commander, Luke deliberately fought a wasteful and destructive campaign designed to cripple the Imperial war machine, and ensured the destruction of the World Devastators; although it seemed for a time that Palpatine's machinations had nevertheless eclipsed the good man that he was, threatening to plunge the Galaxy into a new Dark Age, the son of Anakin Skywalker soon returned to the Light, and joined with his sister Leia Organa Solo and his unborn nephew Anakin Solo to destroy the tyrant.

The demise of Palpatine's clone and Skywalker's defection to the New Republic did not, however, prompt a crisis to compare with that which had ensued after Endor; command passed smoothly to Sedriss, a Force-adept Imperial with the rank of Military Executor&mdash;a rank that had also been held by Vader, though one which seems superfluous when set against that of Supreme Commander. It is possible that, as in other aspects of Imperial government, Palpatine deliberately created overlapping spheres of responsibility, with the Executor being formally a proxy of the crown and the Supreme Commander the official head of the military chain of command; alternatively, it may be that "Military Executor" and "Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces" are in fact two styles for the same position&mdash;perhaps Palpatine, confident that Luke was now his creature, had removed him from military command to further mould him to his will, and placed Sedriss in his stead as Supreme Commander.

Be that as it may, Executor Sedriss took over Supreme Commander Skywalker's role in charge of the Galaxy-wide campaign code-named Operation Shadow Hand, and continued in this capacity when another, final clone of Palpatine awoke on Byss. After Sedriss' death, another Dark Jedi, Xecr Nist, was appointed his successor, but defeated by Skywalker and Kam Solusar, he became a prisoner of war, and died in captivity soon after the destruction of Palpatine's final clone.

Reorganization after the final death of Palpatine
The final death of Palpatine, and the subsequent implosion of the Interim Ruling Council removed any illusion of order from the remnants of the Imperial government and military; during 11 ABY, it seemed that the Empire had ceased to exist, but by 12 ABY, legitimate authority rested with an enfeebled Council of Moffs on a secret capital code-named Bastion, while most of the Empire's military resources were in the hands of warlords who recognized no authority but their own. It is not known whether the Moff Council appointed a Supreme Commander immediately, but an attempt by the Ancient Houses and the major Imperial-aligned corporations to forge a new focus of legitimate authority around Palpatine's putative son Irek Ismaren seems to have enjoyed tacit support from Admiral Harrsk, the most powerful of the warlords: given his status, Harrsk may have been offered overall military command by the new regime, but in the end, this scheme proved unsuccessful.

Imperial Reunification
It was instead Admiral Daala who next emerged to lead the Imperial war machine. After Imperial authorities decommissioned her crippled flagship, she appointed herself to a roving ambassadorial commission, uniting the rival warlords' forces by assassinating their leaders and combining their fleets under her command, with all the powers of a Supreme Commander or Military Executor and, to an extent, the trappings of an "Empress", such as a cadre of Royal Guards. This notion is not unusual and is similar to how Ysanne Isard was the effective stewardess of the Galactic Empire in the years before the First Battle of Coruscant despite the fact her official title remained Director of Imperial Intelligence.

Following the debacle at Yavin, Daala surrendered her command to Vice-Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, who was soon after found serving the Moff Council as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet, or "Supreme Fleet Commander". It is unclear what difference, if any, there is between the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet and a Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces, but Pellaeon certainly held comparable power to previous Supreme Commanders, commanding the remnants of the Empire's military across the Galaxy from the Super Star Destroyer Reaper and then his old Imperial-class ship Chimaera.

In this capacity, Pellaeon consolidated Loyalist Imperial forces on the Outer Rim, sometimes gaining territory from the New Republic, other times being forced into grim retreats. By 19 BBY, the Imperial Remnant had only 200 Star Destroyers and eight sectors left, and while many loyalists believed that the New Republic would soon collapse, allowing the Empire to move into the power vacuum, Pellaeon persuaded the Moff Council that a negotiated peace with the "Rebels" was at least the best short-term expedient&mdash;a peace that he, in a sign of his post's growing political power, proposed that he negotiate personally.

Imperial Space after the Pellaeon-Gavrisom Treaty
After peace was secured between the New Republic and Imperial Space in the form of the Pellaeon-Gavrisom Treaty, the position of Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet became one of the most important posts in the Imperial government. Pellaeon was the chief Imperial negotiator and signatory to the peace treaty, and by some means whose details are, as yet, unknown, he came to assume the rank of Grand Admiral and also the chairmanship of the Imperial Council of Moffs, thus making him effectively both the commander-in-chief of Imperial forces and Imperial head-of-state. The powers of this position included the ability to override military decisions made by individual Moffs, most especially concerning the use of the Starfleet, and the power to federate the individual Sector fleets. His powers could be checked by the Council, however, including the ability to recall the Supreme Commander from expeditions outside the territory of the Imperial Remnant.

As Grand Admiral Pellaeon had been the only Imperial Supreme Commander in the post-treaty era, it is unknown whether he wielded his authority as a constitutionally-appointed magistrate, or through personal prestige and precedent. With the Imperial Remnant later a part of the Galactic Alliance, it was also unknown what political powers the Supreme Commander still retained; however, because of the Galactic Alliance's confederate-style of government, he most likely retained power in Imperal Space as head of state and military commander-in-chief answering to the government of the Galactic Alliance, much as Queen Mother Tenel Ka did in Hapes.

Ascension to the Post
The several Supreme Commanders who led the Imperial war machine came to power in a variety of different ways. Vader was apparently made Supreme Commander by a direct appointment from Emperor Palpatine, as was his son when Palpatine was reborn in a clone body. Xecr Nist and probably Sedriss before him were likewise appointed as Executors by Palpatine. Thrawn was ranking officer in the military, and Daala assumed command by killing off the thirteen most powerful warlords and taking control of their fleets. Daala later relinquished command to Pellaeon, but it is unknown how and when he became officially Supreme Fleet Commander.

Provisional List of Supreme Commanders

 * Darth Vader (as Military Executor, Warlord and Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces, 19 BBY–4 ABY)
 * Grand Admiral Thrawn (as ranking officer in the military, Warlord and Grand Admiral, 8 ABY–9 ABY)
 * Luke Skywalker (as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces, 10 ABY)
 * Sedriss (as Military Executor, 11 ABY)
 * Xecr Nist (as Military Executor, 11 ABY)
 * Admiral Daala (de facto if not de jure, 12 ABY)
 * Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon (as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet, 12 ABY&mdash;30 ABY)