Operation: Cinder

"Operation: Cinder is to begin at once. Resistance. Rebellion. Defiance. These are concepts that cannot be allowed to persist. You are but one of many tools by which these ideas shall be burned away."

- A posthumous message from Emperor Palpatine, to a select group of Imperial officers

Operation: Cinder was carried out by the Galactic Empire as a means of devastating several Imperial planets in 4 ABY, only a few weeks following the Battle of Endor. The operation was part of the Contingency, a plan devised by Emperor Palpatine to ensure that the Empire and its enemies did not outlive him should he perish. The plan was put into action following the Emperor's death during the Battle of Endor.

Imperial forces placed satellites in orbit of planets to form a climate disruption array. Electrical storms and other extreme weather events would begin to ravage targeted planets.

Operation: Cinder lasted for at least three months after an attack on Naboo, the homeworld of Emperor Palpatine and a rallying point for many Imperial sympathizers. Other worlds that were targeted included Vardos, Burnin Konn, Candovant, Abednedo, and Commenor. By the end of the war in 5 ABY, the Contingency was carried out to rebuild the Empire in the Unknown Regions, though the New Republic was triumphant and survived the Galactic Civil War.

Prelude
"If an Empire cannot protect its Emperor then that Empire must be deemed a failure. It collapses not only because its central figure is gone, but because it must not be allowed to remain!"

- Emperor Palpatine to Gallius Rax

Emperor Palpatine, ruler of the Galactic Empire, believed that if he was to ever perish unexpectedly then the Empire did not deserve to live beyond him. He likened it to the strategy game of Shah-tezh, in which the role of each game piece was to protect an Imperator. If the Imperator was to fall, then the surviving game pieces had failed and the game was over, as the others did not deserve to carry on. As a result of that belief, he entrusted Gallius Rax, who knew Palpatine since Rax was a small child before rising to the rank of Fleet Admiral in the Imperial Navy, with carrying out a Contingency plan with only one purpose: the annihilation of the Empire and its enemies. Rax altered the nature of the Contingency, however, by allowing a select group of Imperial survivors to regroup in the Unknown Regions where he intended to build a stronger Empire.

In 4 ABY, Palpatine was killed during the Battle of Endor. The Contingency was activated soon after. As part of the plan, several worlds were targeted for destruction in what was known as Operation: Cinder. Messenger droids were sent to select Imperial officers to relay the last orders of the Emperor: to begin Operation: Cinder at once.

The Operation
"Operation: Cinder is the last command of our Emperor, and the first step in securing our future."

- Admiral Garrick Versio to his daughter, Commander Iden Versio

Acquiring satellites at Fondor
"Now more than ever, power is the only path to peace. Admiral Versio will cleanse the galaxy, Commander. To remind them who is truly in control."

- Moff Raythe to Commander Iden Versio

After the Battle of Endor, Iden Versio, Commander of the Imperial Special Forces commando unit Inferno Squad, was summoned by her father, Admiral Garrick Versio, aboard the Eviscerator in orbit of Vardos to receive her next orders. She received her orders via a Messenger droid carrying the Emperor's last command, though she was suspicious of what Operation: Cinder entailed. Inferno was sent to an Imperial shipyard above Fondor to provide security for Moff Raythe, who was procuring and transporting satellites that were crucial to Operation: Cinder, although Inferno was not informed of the target of the satellites. During this time, the Rebel Alliance attempted an assault on the Dauntless but their MC80 star cruiser flagship was ultimately destroyed by Inferno.

Deployment of the satellites
"The Emperor commands it. We will purge this planet and others. Fear shall spread, and the galaxy will remember who is in control."

- Admiral Garrick Versio rationalizing Operation: Cinder to his daughter, Iden

After securing Raythe's satellites and destroying the Emperor's Observatory on Pillio, Iden and Inferno Squad returned to Vardos, an Imperial haven and the homeworld of the Versio family. Upon arrival, they noticed the experimental satellites they had protected at Fondor deployed in the planet's upper atmosphere along with the Dauntless itself, the flagship of Raythe. Now aware of their target, Iden confronted her father aboard the Eviscerator, furious that their own homeworld was a target of Operation: Cinder despite its loyalty to the Empire. In response, Admiral Versio stated in his point of view of Operation: Cinder that, for the greater good of the Empire, Vardos and other worlds had to be sacrificed so that the utter fear and brutality would prove beyond a doubt to the galaxy that the Empire was still in charge. Garrick then ordered for the satellites to be activated, spawning massive electrical storm systems within minutes. Whilst the storm systems laid waste to the planet surface, anti-air batteries shot down any non-Imperial ships attempting to leave in order to contain them on Vardos.

Iden and Inferno Squad were ordered by Garrick to extract Protectorate Gleb alone from the planet and bring the Aqualish to him. However, at the Archive in Kestro City, Iden and Del Meeko attempted to bring along other civilians with them to transport them off world. Agent Gideon Hask, refusing to disobey Garrick's command, attempted to prevent this from happening, but was unable to stop the civilians from fleeing to the Corvus. Iden claimed that the Empire's job was to protect civilians from things like Operation: Cinder; Hask responded that this was the "new Empire," prompting Meeko to state that he sought no part in this "new Empire" and would follow the orders of his commanding officer, Iden. When Hask refused to lower his blaster and aimed it at Iden, she shot him first in his leg. Hask returned alone to Garrick with Gleb and a Rodian while Iden and Del escaped aboard the Corvus with their crew, jumping into hyperspace to the Outer Rim Territories. There, they decided to formally surrender themselves to the Rebel Alliance.

Target: Naboo
"By order of the Emperor, Naboo is to be scoured."

- Captain Lerr Duvat

Not long after the Battle of Endor, Captain Lerr Duvat of the Star Destroyer Torment was approached by a Messenger droid, which relayed the Emperor's final command: to begin Operation: Cinder at once. Twenty days after the Battle of Endor, Duvat's Star Destroyer was relocated to Naboo and launched satellites in orbit to form a climate disruption array. The array was used to create massive hurricanes and electrical storms across the planet. By the time the array's power reached twenty percent efficiency, three class-five hurricanes were already formed&mdash;with another dozen forming. As fires, flooding, and chaos ripped across the surface of the planet, Lieutenant Shara Bey of the Alliance to Restore the Republic&mdash;who accompanied Princess Leia Organa to Naboo, where Organa rallied the support of Queen Sosha Soruna in establishing the New Republic&mdash;realized that satellites had to be behind the phenomenon. The only means Naboo had of fighting back was to scramble starfighters to destroy the satellites.

Bey was placed in command of the mission, with Organa and Soruna accompanying her. The Emperor demilitarized Naboo many years earlier, but a few N-1 starfighters remained in storage from the Battle of Naboo decades earlier. Once in orbit, Bey destroyed a number of the satellites while Organa and Soruna dealt with TIE fighters dispatched from the Torment. The three pilots were outgunned against seventy-two TIE fighters and were nearly killed until General Lando Calrissian arrived with a Rebel fleet, along with Danger Squadron, whose newest members were Iden and Meeko, former Imperial commandos who provided key intel to the Alliance about Operation: Cinder. The Alliance had also gathered intelligence of Operation: Cinder during a raid at an Imperial Security Bureau complex at the Wretch of Tayron, allowing them to move their forces to Naboo in time to help save the planet.

Though Danger Squadron was able to destroy the satellites and cripple the Star Destroyer in orbit of Naboo, surviving Imperial forces, following standard protocol, evacuated to the nearest safe haven: Theed, the capital city of Naboo. There, Danger Leader Shriv Suurgav, Iden, and Meeko met up with Organa, who covered Meeko as he repaired Theed's defenses. Once rebel forces were inside the royal palace, the defense system was activated, sending an ionic disruption across the city that disabled all blasters and starfighters, forcing the remaining Imperials to surrender. Afterwards, Organa confronted Iden and Meeko over the damage that they had done to the Alliance in the past. Iden apologized on behalf of them, and wished to continue to fight with the Alliance in order to continue the fight against Operation: Cinder and the new Empire. Organa complimented them on being images of hope for the galaxy, and formally welcomed them to the New Republic, which Inferno Squad was integrated into.

More targets
"Your efforts in combating Operation: Cinder have been instrumental in saving countless innocent lives. That said, as much as Admiral Ackbar and I wish we could tell you the end is at hand&hellip;we see no respite from hostilities at this time&hellip;"

- General Crix Madine, to New Republic soldiers

Three months after the Battle of Endor, the Empire continued to carry out Operation: Cinder on countless worlds. A dozen other worlds were targeted, including Burnin Konn, Candovant, Abednedo, and Commenor. The Republic was able to determine the purpose of many of these attacks, though they found that the Empire's motivations behind others were less clear. Nonetheless, Republic forces were able to save untold numbers of civilians as a result of combating the Imperial operation. Despite that, it would still be many months until the war came to an end, with Admiral Gial Ackbar and General Crix Madine seeing no end to hostilities with the Empire in the short-term.

Aftermath
"Palpatine's greatest weapon was terror. He reveled in the knowledge of Naboo's fear. That he could and would destroy all of this beauty the moment it suited him&hellip;just as he did Alderaan."

- Leia Organa

Naboo was targeted by the Empire again during the Naboo invasions in an attempt to wipe out New Republic forces on the planet, but the Republic was able to thwart these attacks as they had done with Operation: Cinder. The final phase of the Contingency was ultimately carried out in 5 ABY, as New Republic forces attacked the Empire, assembled on Jakku by Counselor Gallius Rax, during the Battle of Jakku. Using the power of ancient Sith artifacts buried in the surface, Rax sought to carry out the final part of Palpatine's Contingency by corrupting the planet's core and life essence with the dark side, thus destroying the desert planet and wiping out both the Imperial and Republic forces, crippling both sides. The Contingency was thwarted, however, by Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, who further sought revenge against Rax after he removed her from power. She killed Rax, though in his dying breaths, he urged Sloane to regroup with select Imperial officers and loyalists in the Unknown Regions and begin the Empire anew.

The Republic emerged victorious during the battle and signed the Galactic Concordance with the Empire's Grand Vizier, Mas Amedda, bringing an end to the Galactic Civil War. However, in the Unknown Regions of the galaxy, Sloane, Brendol Hux, and other Imperial loyalists formed the First Order, seeking to one day reclaim the Imperial legacy as they plotted their return to power.

Behind the scenes
Operation: Cinder first appeared in the second issue of the Marvel comic book series Star Wars: Shattered Empire, written by Greg Rucka. The second issue, released on October 7, 2015, depicted the beginnings of the attack on Naboo, while the third issue, released on October 14, 2015, showed its resolution. Operation: Cinder is further depicted in the story campaign mode of Star Wars Battlefront II, where the Imperial utopia of Vardos is targeted and the battle of Naboo is resolved. The events of the 2017 novel Aftermath: Empire's End, written by Chuck Wendig, revealed that Operation: Cinder was part of a greater Contingency devised by Emperor Palpatine to destroy the Empire and its adversaries so that it could begin again.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Battlefront II
 * Shattered Empire, Part II
 * Shattered Empire, Part III
 * Shattered Empire, Part IV
 * Poe Dameron: Flight Log