Wookieepedia:Featured article queue/February 23, 2010

Yo'gand's Core was a battle tactic employed by the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong species to destroy entire planets. A warfaring race, the Yuuzhan Vong utilized biotechnology in all spheres of life; one of the many creatures they made use of was the dovin basal, an organism capable of manipulating gravitic fields. During a war to gain control of the Yuuzhan Vong galaxy, the warrior Yo'gand was confronted by the forces of a rival warrior, Steng, who was based on the heavily fortified world of Ygziir. Rather than fight Steng's forces directly, Yo'gand created an innovative tactic. He secretly installed a dovin basal on Ygziir and instructed the creature to harnass Ygziir's moon through gravitic manipulation. The dovin basal then pulled the moon in closer to Ygziir until its orbit decayed and it crashed into the planet, wiping out the bulk of Yo'gand's enemies in a single strike. Use of the tactic proliferated and the Yuuzhan Vong species eventually left the ruins of their galaxy and headed into the Intergalactic Void in search of a new home.

Thousands of years passed before the tactic of Yo'gand's Core was employed again. When the Yuuzhan Vong finally reached another galaxy and selected it for invasion, an advance force was sent first to pave the way for the main Yuuzhan Vong fleet. To lessen the chances of detection, the leader of the advance force decided to wipe out the well-populated planet Sernpidal, utilizing Yo'gand's Core to convince the other inhabitants of the galaxy that a freak natural disaster had occurred. Sernpidal's moon Dobido was subsequently pulled out of orbit and impacted with the planet, destroying both spheres. Yo'gand's ancient tactic was again made use of in 26 ABY, when Hosk Station, an Esseles-class space station built into the surface of the moon of the planet Kalarba, was dragged down onto the world, destroying the planet and leaving the Kalarba system strewn with radioactive material. Although the principal purpose of Yo'gand's Core was that of a terror tactic, several variations existed and it was used for a number of reasons, such as cracking a planet open in order to harvest resources beneath its crust, pulling unwanted objects out of orbit, or reconstructing star systems.