Executor/Legends

"I&mdash;it looks like a battle cruiser, sir&hellip; the largest one I've ever seen!"

- C-3PO to Luke Skywalker

The Executor was the personal flagship of Darth Vader and the lead ship of its class of Star Dreadnoughts. It was primarily the flagship of Vader's Death Squadron and was involved in the battles of Hoth and Endor, among others.

Specifications


"I guess you ground-thumpers don't need to keep up with Fleet news. The Executor just happens to be the brand-new flagship of the Lord Darth Vader."

- Joak Quiller to Daric LaRone and Saberan Marcross

The Executor was the first of the Executor-class Star Dreadnought line. It was 19,000 meters long, almost twelve times the length of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, making it as large as a small city.

It sported more than 5,000 turbolasers and ion cannons, wings of TIE Fighters, at least 200 other combat and support ships, 2 prefabricated garrison bases, and enough stormtroopers and walkers to destroy any conceivable Rebel base.

It functioned with a crew of over 270,000, far less than might be expected for a ship of its size.

History


"Vader's on that ship."

- Luke Skywalker

Designed by Lira Wessex, manufactured by Kuat Drive Yards, and built in secret at the shipyards of Fondor, the Executor was the first of four Executor-class Star Destroyers in service before the Battle of Hoth. It was built concurrently with its sister-ship, the Super Star Destroyer Lusankya. Both ships were provisionally named Executor to make it appear as if only one ship were truly being constructed. After construction was completed, Executor was pressed into military service, while Lusankya was secretly taken to Coruscant to serve as the Emperor's secret escape vessel. In a military sense the Executor was somewhat impractical, since a smaller ship could fulfill its mission duties. Rather, the Executor served a largely political purpose. Its massive size served as physical proof of the Emperor's unlimited power and resources. The sheer size of the ship served as sufficient means to frighten a planet into submission. The incredible cost to fund the construction of such a large ship had practically bankrupted several systems. The Executor was presented to Vader shortly after the Battle of Yavin and replaced the Star Destroyer Devastator and several battlecruisers as Vader's personal flagship. It served as Vader's headquarters and the flagship of the newly formed Death Squadron while he searched for the secret Rebel base and his son, Luke Skywalker. The ship's maiden voyage saw it destroy the Rebel Alliance outpost at Laakteen Depot. This demonstration was meant to show the galaxy that the Rebellion's victory over the Death Star was by pure chance and that the Executor, as well as the Empire, was unstoppable. Vader christened the ship in reference to his role as the Executor of the Emperor's will.

The only person known to have broken into the Executor was Kyle Katarn. He stowed away aboard a corvette leaving a fueling station on Ergo. Singlehandedly he managed to reach the Executor's boarding hangar and smuggle himself along on the ship's voyage to the secret position of the Arc Hammer.

The ship served in the Fifth Battle of Yavin IV, where it suffered two accidents: first, the shield-weakening effects of Vrad Dodonna's power gem; and second, a ramming by three Imperial warships (under the command of Amise Griff) leaving hyperspace. Both events allowed the remaining Alliance forces to escape. The Executor later redeemed itself in a number of strikes against Alliance bases.

The Executor, as flagship of Darth Vader's personal Death Squadron, led the assault on the secret Rebel headquarters on the planet Hoth under the command of the newly appointed Admiral Firmus Piett after Kendal Ozzel was assassinated by Vader for incompetence. Ozzel, believing a surprise saturated bombardment was the best tactic to begin the attack, foolishly brought the fleet out of hyperspace close enough to the planet so that the Rebels, alerted of the fleet's presence, were able to evacuate a considerable amount of equipment and personnel relative to the losses they sustained during the battle.

Immediately after the battle, believing Luke Skywalker had fled the planet aboard the Millennium Falcon, Darth Vader ordered the Executor and Death Squadron to pursue the fugitive ship through the Hoth Asteroid Belt. The fleet sustained a considerable amount of damage due to asteroid collisions and was ultimately unable to capture the ship, believing it had escaped into hyperspace after successfully navigating through the asteroid field when, in reality, Han Solo had cleverly attached the freighter to the backside of the Avenger's bridge tower. The Executor and Death Squadron then jumped into hyperspace along several different possible escape trajectories that the Millennium Falcon may have taken. Soon, however, on information from the bounty hunter Boba Fett, the Executor arrived in orbit over the planet Bespin to capture the crew of the Millennium Falcon on Bespin's Cloud City. After a lightsaber duel in the city between Vader and Luke Skywalker ended in Skywalker's escape aboard the Falcon, the Executor attempted to intercept the fleeing ship. The Rebels were narrowly captured by the Executor's tractor beams, but the Millennium Falcon managed to finally escape into hyperspace and elude Imperial capture.

It was aboard the Executor, during the ship's pursuit of the Millennium Falcon just after the Battle of Hoth, that IG-88 received the information he would use to formulate the ultimate step in his Droid Revolution. After being debriefed by Darth Vader concerning his desired parameters for capturing the crew of the Falcon, IG-88 secretly gained access to the Executor's main computer core. He downloaded the entire computer core's records into his own memory banks, gaining a vast collection of secret Imperial data, including Vader's own code-locked personal files. It was within these files specifically that IG-88 discovered the Empire was creating a second Death Star over the Sanctuary Moon of Endor. He immediately decided it would be to his own advantage to upload his own identity into the new Death Star.

Several droids stationed aboard the Executor, including courier droids, were built on the planet Mechis III after IG-88's droid takeover there. They were specially programmed, as IG-88 had designed them after his own programming, to be uniquely sentient. These infiltrated droids also laid electronic pathways through the ship's computer systems which enabled IG-88 to easily access the computer core without being blocked by security measures.

After Vader's battle with Skywalker, Vader and the Executor returned to Coruscant, likely so that the Emperor could personally debrief Vader of the encounter. With Vader's personal hunt of Skywalker temporarily on hold, the Executor was stationed above Coruscant during this time, in accordance with Vader's own temporary stationing on Imperial Center, from where it was dispatched during its brief campaigns during the following year before assignment to protect the Second Death Star in orbit over Endor's Sanctuary Moon.

In the months following the Battle of Hoth, the Executor participated in the Second Battle of Bajic, leading an assault on a secret Rebel shipyard in the Vergesso Asteroids, in the Lybeya System of the Baji Sector, in the Outer Rim. On a tip from Black Sun Syndicate leader Prince Xizor alerting the Empire of the Rebel outpost, Darth Vader was dispatched by Emperor Palpatine to eliminate the facility. With support from the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Avenger and two Victory II-class Star Destroyers, the Executor, under command of Admiral Okins, landed a crushing blow to the Alliance, destroying the shipyard and hundreds of vessels stationed there, ranging from capital ships undergoing repairs to snubfighters.

Shortly thereafter, the Executor attempted to retrieve stolen plans to the Second Death Star under construction near Endor in the Battle of Kothlis. Chasing a group of Bothans fleeing from the colony world of Kothlis, the Executor failed to recover the plans after destroying the space station Kothlis II orbiting the planet and then subsequently capturing the Corellian Corvette Razor in conjunction with the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Avenger. Although the Razor was seized by the Avenger, the plans were finally secured into Alliance hands when a Bothan, carrying the plans, launched from the ship in an escape pod and was recovered by the civilian Dreadnaught Mercury, from which it was transferred to the Mon Calamari Cruiser Independence.

Just prior to being assigned to protect the Second Death Star in orbit above the Forest Moon of Endor, the Executor destroyed Prince Xizor's personal skyhook Falleen's Fist in orbit over the planet Coruscant, killing Xizor and severely crippling Black Sun from that point forward.



The Executor was destroyed at the Battle of Endor after the shields protecting the bridge superstructure were knocked down by a heavy bombardment from the Rebel fleet. Rebel fighter pilot Arvel Crynyd, his A-wing spinning out of control, crashed into the Executor ' s unprotected command tower, smashing through portions of the bridge section, disabling the massive ship's navigational systems and causing it to drift into a collision with the incomplete second Death Star, where the Star Dreadnought was vaporized.

Ironically, the fighter responsible for the Executor ' s destruction was designed by Walex Blissex, the father of Lira Wessex, the naval architect who designed the Executor.

Commanders
"Assignment to the Executor is the fast track to promotion&mdash;as well as an early grave."

- Saying on board the Executor

While Vader wielded the Executor as his personal weapon, its military functions were commanded by a series of admirals, each of which met an untimely demise. Admiral Amise Griff was the ship's first officer, having overseen its construction at Fondor. Griff, in a ploy by Vader, led a foolhardy assault on Yavin 4, and perished.



Command was then handed to Admiral Kendal Ozzel, famous for his part in allowing yet another escape by the Alliance at Hoth by making an Imperial fleet exit hyperspace too close to the rebel base. For his failure, Ozzel was force-choked to death by Vader and was succeeded by Admiral Firmus Piett.



Piett, a competent commander, was the only commanding officer of the Executor not responsible for botching an important operation. Despite this, luck would conspire against him when the astromech droid R2-D2 successfully repaired the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive and allowed the Rebel heroes to escape from the grasp of the Empire. Despite Piett's failure to capture the Falcon, he was not killed by Darth Vader as other Imperial commanders had been. Piett would later perish at the Battle of Endor when Arvel Crynyd's A-wing smashed into the Executor's bridge.

It is likely that the day-to-day operations of the ship were overseen by a captain, and the admirals mentioned above merely used the Executor as their command ship for Death Squadron.

Behind the scenes


Many Expanded Universe sources have claimed that the Executor was only 8,000 meters long. Some other sources, most notably starwars.com, have claimed that the Executor was 12,800 meters long. Both of these figures are in direct contradiction with the films themselves, which consistently show the Executor to be around eleven to twelve times as long as accompanying 1,600m long Star Destroyers, or 17,600-19,200m. The 12,800m figure was apparently intended as a "compromise", being halfway between the length seen in the movies and the West End Games 8,000m version. In September 2005, the starwars.com Databank was finally updated with the 19,000 meter length. These lengths still remain a point of contention among some Star Wars fans.

The miniature Executor used in filming was 2.83 meters long (9 1/4 feet).

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Dark Forces
 * Sand Blasted
 * Classic Star Wars
 * Allegiance
 * Star Wars Rebellion: My Brother, My Enemy
 * Imperial Spy
 * Galaxy of Fear: The Hunger
 * Splinter of the Mind's Eye comic
 * Revenge of the Jedi comic
 * Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
 * Star Wars Infinities: The Empire Strikes Back




 * Star Wars: Imperial Ace
 * Shadows of the Empire comic
 * Shadows of the Empire novel
 * Star Wars: X-wing Alliance
 * Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike
 * Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption
 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
 * Star Wars Infinities: Return of the Jedi
 * A Day in the Life
 * Mara Jade: A Night on the Town
 * Heir to the Empire
 * X-wing: The Bacta War
 * A Grand Admiral Returns
 * Heir to the Empire
 * X-wing: Isard's Revenge
 * Therefore I Am: The Tale of IG-88