- "It spoke with a male Human voice. A voice I can only describe as sinister… threatening… and evil!"
- ―C-3PO to Mistress Mnemos
Cronal, supposedly born as Perek, was a Human male and former Prophet of the Dark Side who was better known by his code name Blackhole, the mysterious Director of Imperial Intelligence. He also collaborated with Darth Vader after the Battle of Yavin to eliminate the Rebel Alliance. Adept at divination, Cronal was recruited by Emperor Palpatine from the Prophets to join the Empire. He abandoned himself to his meditations in the dark side, becoming withdrawn, physically frail, and paranoid. Considered Palpatine's "monster maker," Cronal was responsible for the creation of several Sithspawn and other devices of Sith alchemy. As time passed, Cronal withdrew further, growing steadily more mad as the dark side consumed him.
After being exiled during the Galactic Civil War, Cronal returned as a warlord, and took the name of Shadowspawn. With a cadre of the Emperor's Royal Guards and a legion of shadow stormtroopers at his disposal, Shadowspawn laid waste to worlds of the New Republic. He and his splinter Imperial faction blazed a path of death and destruction, committing acts of piracy, terrorism, and mass slaughter. Conquering the Inner Rim, the warlord established his base of operations on the world of Mindor. The New Republic, responding to the threat of Shadowspawn, sent the newly appointed General Luke Skywalker after him, starting a campaign that resulted in a substantial loss of life. Planning a trap for Skywalker on Mindor, Shadowspawn was defeated during the ensuing battle, where he perished. However, through means of the Force, he revived himself and later served the reborn Palpatine.
Biography[]
Early life[]
In the time of the Galactic Empire, rumors abounded regarding Blackhole's origins. Some believed he was once a senatorial page taken under Palpatine's wing, while other rumors asserted that he was an assistant at the Jedi Archives on Coruscant who was ultimately seduced by the dark side of the Force.[4] Palpatine's court knew him as a Prophet of the Dark Side, a Sith splinter sect based out of Dromund Kaas. However, as it turned out, his involvement with matters dark and arcane went even deeper.
Lord Cronal was, in fact, originally a member of the Sorcerers of Rhand, heads of a dark-side cult based in the Perann Nebula, located in the Unknown Regions, which was associated with the Nihil Retreat. He was supposedly born as Perek to a Dathomiri witch. The Sorcerers ripped him from his mother's chest shortly after he was born and raised him as one of their members. By the time he reached adulthood, Cronal had committed to their nihilistic philosophy known as the Way of the Dark. Among the abilities he mastered was the power of Darksight: the capacity to foresee viable futures and beget the fate he favored among them so long as it aligned with the Way of the Dark by achieving maximum annihilation. It was his use of Darksight and his craving for knowledge which ultimately led to him leaving the Sorcerers and the Unknown Regions to go to Dromund Kaas where he joined the Prophets of the Dark Side. Cronal spent many years among the Prophets, mastering his Darksight ability by supplementing it with the Prophet's divination abilities. It was during this time he took on a Nightsister prophetess apprentice named Merili and passed his Darksight abilities on to her.[1] He also had carnal relations with another prophetess, resulting in him fathering a daughter, Sariss, though she remained unaware of her parentage.[5] Cronal shamefully deemed his daughter's existence a tribute to creation and a transgression against the nihilism of the Way of the Dark. Thus he disavowed his daughter by allowing the other prophets to abuse her, and by partaking in the abuse himself. Sariss suspected one of them was her father, but never knew which.[10]
Sometime before the Clone Wars, Darth Sidious discovered the Prophets and secured their service. As Cronal clashed with an ex-Jedi prophet named Kadann for the title of Supreme Prophet, the Dark Lord summoned Cronal to work for him directly. Cronal's abilities at divination were unequaled, and the unerring precision of his visions impressed Palpatine. However, as it turned out, Cronal was using his Darksight ability to not merely see the future, but to influence it as well. At the same time, however, Cronal feared his own fellow Prophets were beginning to turn against him. When Palpatine, realizing that Cronal's power was such that he could not be ignored, recruited him as an Emperor's Hand, Cronal felt that it was just in time.
Dark servant[]
- "You've made a new enemy today. I'll make you regret ever crossing my path!"
- ―Cronal
Blackhole's usual holographic form, seen in communication with Darth Vader
Cronal was a master of both Sith Alchemy and the science of genetic engineering, and his skill at using these abilities to transform living beings into Sithspawn earned him the epithet of "monster maker."[12][13] Palpatine made him his chief dark side adept and tasked him with exploring the "Science of Darkness" in the tradition of Darth Plagueis.[1] When Cronal sought a pair of subjects to run one of his tests on, he turned to Tuzin Gast, whose Project Chubar provided him with a Kowakian monkey-lizard and a Gamorrean. Cronal's alchemical experiments on his two subjects resulted in the creation of the Dark Jedi "twins" Pic and Gorc, who would later serve under Jerec.[12]
Cronal was also one of Palpatine's many servants involved in bridging the gaps between technology and the Force. Cronal was put in charge of modifying all the Empire's Force detectors using his "Science of Darkness." With thaissen crystals from Mimban and techniques adapted from lightsaber construction, Cronal gave the Force detectors the ability to magnify any Force detected, as well as sense dark-side tendencies in the subject.[9] In the course of his work, Cronal used many secrets of the long-dead Sith Lord Belia Darzu, preserved over the millennia in Sith scrolls.[14] He planted a mind-control device in the molar of the Emperor's supposed son that replicated the effects of the Nihil smokestone used by the Sorcerers of Rhand.[1] [8] He also helped train Palpatine's Inquisitor Jerec, and first taught him about the legendary Valley of the Jedi.[5]
Imperial Intelligence[]
Cronal saw these technological tricks and transmogrifications as annoyances to be tolerated while he fulfilled the will of the Dark. When Director of Imperial Intelligence Armand Isard was executed by his daughter Ysanne Isard, Palpatine installed Cronal as the interim director and gave him the codename "Blackhole".[1] Lord Cronal's addition to the ranks of Imperial Intelligence was so smooth that few even realized he had joined. Cronal himself was extremely reclusive, even more so than the Emperor himself, which led to the Emperor's distinctive distrust in him. Most of his work was carried out through droids, agents, and various fronts. In his rare appearances, Cronal presented himself through a holographic transmitter equipped with an image distorter and went by his code name, "Blackhole." Blackhole, to most, took the form of a vaguely humanoid figure anywhere from 1.8 to three meters tall, with a body resembling a shimmering starscape—or the robes of the Prophets of the Dark Side. The figure's head was entirely featureless, though eyes were sometimes visible[4] and sometimes not,[6] and the voice Blackhole transmitted was modulated so as to be androgynous.[4] While many of the Emperor's Hands were adept in combat-related skills, Cronal used fear and paranoia as his tools.[4]
Cronal's "Blackhole stormtroopers" kidnap Skywalker and Organa
Only a handful knew Cronal's true form: a shrunken, withered, and frail old man. Steeped in the affairs of the dark side, Cronal had abandoned what was left of his former self. The dark side sapped his physical and mental health, and he was forced to spend his time in a specially designed life support chamber. To aid his servant, Palpatine gifted Cronal with a Neimoidian mechano-assembly that could carry the spherical chamber around on its insectile legs.[4]
As head of Intelligence, Cronal was granted virtually unlimited access to and control over the Imperial HoloNet and all of the galaxy's knowledge at his fingertips. He could take control of and appear in any holocomm unit in the Imperial Navy, or any one connected to the few civilian HoloNet nodes that still existed, though instead of using this to further his goals, he spent most of his time his sanctum meditating and awaiting visions from the dark side of the Force.[4]
Cronal was given a ship of his own, the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Singularity, a wing of TIE/LN starfighters, the 123rd Nightstalker Group, and his own division of shadow stormtroopers, all of which he covered in a black stygian-triprismatic polymer coating that gave them increased stealth to sensors. Only a short time into his position as head of Imperial Intelligence, Cronal became convinced that his life was in danger and relocated to the Singularity, from which he would spend the rest of his career on the move.[4]
The Vorzyd V affair[]
While Cronal saw the Emperor's apprentice as nothing more than a blunt instrument with no real understanding of the Dark, he still recognized that Darth Vader was his primary obstacle in his plan to outlive the Emperor. Cronal orchestrated his removal from Vader's command by pretending to be jealous of the Dark Lord and purposefully failing the missions Vader assigned so it appeared as if Cronal was sabotaging Vader.[3]
Approximately a year after the Battle of Yavin, the Rebellion embarked on a new strategy: they would lose all direct confrontations with the Empire, while focusing on recruitment efforts. When Cronal received word that Vader's children, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, would be going to Vorzyd V to make contact with local sympathizers, he saw their presence as an opportunity to obtain leverage on Darth Vader. Cronal had previously exposed Vader's identity as Anakin Skywalker and his secret parentage of Luke and Leia through Darksight visions and Force algorithms.[1]
Blackhole promptly informed Darth Vader of the rebel's plan on Vorzyd V and led him to believe that he wished to rashly take the opportunity to take out the Rebel recruiters one by one. Vader knew that this would only draw ire towards the Empire, and ordered the Intelligence Director to kidnap them instead, leaving no trace that the Empire was involved. Blackhole ordered his stormtroopers to stun and capture the two Rebels, and the soldiers successfully kidnapped them. In addition, Cronal's troops apprehended another pair of Rebels, Falud and Paxin.[6]
Cronal's stormtroopers took the four Rebels to the spaceport, and the Intelligence Director began his interrogation. Paralysis beams held the Rebels in place as Cronal used an interrogation droid on each of them in turn. The first three did not know the name of their contact, leaving only Leia left to face the droid's mind probe. Unfortunately for Cronal, the droids C-3PO and R2-D2 had seen him and made their way onto the ship, and they cut the paralysis beams. Luke attempted to attack Cronal, only to be surprised when his hand passed through the holographic apparition. Cronal and his soldiers caught up to the party as they fled the ship into the spaceport. He ordered his troops to hold their fire, since there were now witnesses.[6]
While Cronal's initial plan was to kidnap Luke and Leia to hold them over Vader's head, he was surprised how strong their wills proved to be during their torture. He also perceived Luke to be innate agent of the Way of the Dark due to his prodigious annihilation of over a million beings with the destruction of the Death Star. Thus, he began to conspire to transfer his consciousness from his withered body to Luke's robust Force receptacle.[1]
Blackhole presides over the interrogation of a group of Rebels.
Vader later lambasted Cronal for his failure, refusing to accept his excuses and ordering him to capture the Rebels and eliminate their contact. Cronal set a tail on them, and when Luke Skywalker left to meet with the Rebel contact, his troopers tracked him. However, the local Rebel sympathizers had been thorough in their preparations, and with their help Luke soon shook his tail. Cronal ordered his forces to close in and capture Luke, but Luke avoided the soldiers and made his meeting. The Director soon had a stroke of luck, however; the members of a local gang, the Freelies, were able to kidnap Leia Organa, and were offering her return for a ransom. Cronal learned of this through one of his spies, Rbann, and ordered him to take his soldiers and capture a Freelie. When they succeeded in capturing one, Cronal presided over his interrogation, though it was disrupted by the arrival of Luke Skywalker. Luke turned off the holographic transmitter and headed for the Freelie hideout. Cronal knew its location, however, and his troops launched an assault. Tired of excuses, he berated his soldiers to press the attack, but they were ultimately unsuccessful; the Rebels escaped.[6]
Later, in debriefing, the Rebellion was informed of the encounter with Blackhole. They ordered C-3PO to provide all information on the mysterious figure to the Rebel supercomputer Mistress Mnemos, who obtained Threepio's account of the events on Vorzyd V and visual data of Blackhole from his memories. Mistress Mnemos cross-referenced the data and located an espionage feed from a Rebel spy in the Imperial fleet, showing an earlier encounter between Vader and Blackhole.[6]
Later actions[]
Holographic Blackhole
- "We have visitors."
- ―Cronal
Around 2 ABY Cronal sent a group of ISB agents led by Captain Jeffren Brek on a mission to find and capture the Dathmomiri Nightsister Kyrisa. She had achieved a remarkable skill in the power of Animal friendship, and Cronal wanted to check several of his theories about applying beast mastery in espionage.[15] However, as Cronal's madness and paranoia increased, the Empire relied on him less, though he remained an effective enemy of the Alliance. The Alliance launched its own attacks at Blackhole, including a mission to infiltrate his Star Destroyer. How they fared is unknown, but at some point after the affair, Lord Cronal vanished completely.[4] The Emperor had begun to suspect that Cronal was purposefully failing his missions to sabotage Darth Vader's operations. He believed that Cronal could best serve the Empire far from Coruscant (and Vader) in the Outer Rim Territories.[3] While Palpatine believed that this was his own idea, Cronal had been orchestrating his banishment by subtly manipulating the Emperor.[3] Cronal's disappearance in turn allowed Ysanne Isard to rise to power, also as Director of Imperial Intelligence.[4] Even once Isard officially took over Imperial Intelligence, Cronal never relinquished his mandate or surveillance powers. He instead assumed an equivalent role overseeing the Imperial Security Bureau. Cronal also assisted the Emperor with laying down the foundation for the shadow government that would inevitably supplant the Galactic Empire: the dark side theocracy dubbed the Dark Empire.[1] Cronal's exile allowed him to freely study the ancient Sith and amass a wealth of knowledge on their ways, and also those of other dark-side traditions. He returned to the Unknown Regions, using his Darksight ability to help guide him. Cronal first traveled to the Gunninga Gap, where he found remnants of the Taurannik Codex, which was destroyed in the Muurshantre Extinction over a hundred thousand years prior. The knowledge in the Codex helped him locate the Temple of Korman Lao, where he discovered knowledge that he used to later summon the spirit of the Sith King Dathka Graush. From Graush, he gained teachings of Sith Alchemy. He also developed an expertise in the field of modern technology, giving him the confidence to mount a bid for galactic domination.[3]
One of Cronal's subsequent efforts as the head of the Imperial Security Bureau was a campaign to locate a large shipment of ryll, which had vanished on its way to an Alliance medical facility. Many ISB agents were ordered to pursue various leads, but ultimately Cronal's own sources and abilities allowed him to determine that the shipment was located on Skip 52, an asteroid in the Smuggler's Run near Wrea.[11] A group of ISB agents, backed up by shadow stormtroopers, were dispatched to the asteroid, where they ambushed and killed the smugglers, who had originally stole this shipment; Blackhole observed the operation through the hologram from his mechno-assembly. However, as the agents began to secure the ryll containers, the Alliance agents looking for the shipment had arrived. The ISB forces had already sustained casualties during their firefight with the smugglers, but nevertheless put up a terrific fight; with nowhere to retreat, they fought to their deaths. However, the battle turned up in Rebels' favor, and the entire ISB force was eliminated. Blackhole's mechno-assembly was damaged in the firefight, but he promised the Rebels his retribution, before his hologram faded. Believing themselves to be victorious, the main Alliance forces left the asteroid, while the remaining agents began to secure the shipment.[16] However, in a few hours another group of ISB agents arrived, having acquired the location of ryll independently. The few remaining Rebels and smugglers had no chance in the firefight, so they boarded one of the transports and escaped with a small number of ryll crates. Nevertheless, the main shipment ended up in the hands of the ISB, and the operation was considered a success.[11]
Jedi's Revenge[]
In the wake of Palpatine's seeming death at Endor, Cronal was able to return from exile and resume his duties as the director of the Empire's propaganda machine. Following the Empire's defeat at Endor, the Imperial HoloNet slowly returned to the people and free speech began to disseminate. Rather than threaten and intimidate citizens to return to an Imperial mindset, he gave them a figure to rally behind: Luke Skywalker. Luke had thrust himself into the spotlight and cemented his extraordinary reputation by defeating Vader and repelling the Ssi-ruuk, Nagai, and Tof invaders. Cronal exploited the farmboy's wave of favorable poll ratings by privately producing holotrhillers such as Luke Skywalker and the Dragons of Tatooine and Luke Skywalker and the Jedi's Revenge.[8]
The latter presented a twisted retelling of the events that occurred between the Jedi Purge and the Battle of Endor: Luke Skywalker was the son of Jedi hero Anakin Skywalker who had tragically died during the Jedi Rebellion. To Emperor Palpatine's dismay, infant Luke was taken by the Rebels and ensnared in a web of lies. When Luke confronted the Emperor at Endor, the Emperor rejoiced at the return of the son of his most beloved protégé and declared Luke the heir to the Empire. Mad with ambition, Darth Vader attacked the Emperor in a mindless fury. Luke cut the cyborg down, but was too late to save the Emperor. It was Skywalker's grief and guilt at his failure to save the Emperor that drove him back into the grasp of the Rebels as he believed he deserved no better than to be just another outlaw among the thieves, pirates, and murderers of the Rebel Alliance.[3]
Luke Skywalker and the Jedi's Revenge was an immediate blockbuster hit upon its release. Viewers considered Jedi's Revenge a life changing masterpiece. Since there was little information surrounding the events that occurred in the Death Star II throne room outside of Skywalker's vague testimony, viewers on both sides of the war believed that the events portrayed in Jedi's Revenge were a true, albeit dramatized retelling. Cronal produced Jedi's Revenge to establish Luke Skywalker as the Emperor's true heir in the minds of the Empire's citizens. He presented the film to the Empire's troops and instilled the idea that their "Great Cause" was to rescue Skywalker and restore him to his rightful place as Emperor. Once Luke Skywalker was captured, Cronal planned to transfer his essence to Luke and rule the Empire from his youthful body.[3]
Church of the Dark Side[]
During this time, the acting-Imperial sovereign Sate Pestage approached Cronal with an idea. He planned to lift the ban on religion in the Empire and introduce a state religion to fill a gap in Imperial spirituality and morale.[14] This Church of the Dark Side would be loosely based on the practices and teachings of Cronal's former brotherhood, the Prophets of the Dark Side. Cronal accepted Pestage's proposal and populated the clergy of the Church with a retinue of deep-cover intelligence operatives and holomelodrama hack actors. While the real Prophets of the Dark Side remained hidden on Bosthirda, Bimm thespian Rajah Ubooki would impersonate Supreme Prophet Kadann while intelligence agent Heingort Giddis posed as Prophet Jedgar.[8]
The Church of the Dark Side served as the mouthpiece of Cronal and Pestage's manipulative messages. The public ate up the Supreme Prophet's mystically cryptic and sensational prophecies that always seemed to come true. In reality, the "prophecies" were either informed by intelligence, or Imperial Intelligence used their resources to ensure they came true.[17] Eventually the Church's influence spread to the point where only an Emperor with the Church's blessing could be accepted by the people. While Sate Pestage used the Church of the Dark Side as a tool to prepare the Empire for Palpatine's return, Cronal saw this venture as a means to draw attention away from his own plans and to mock the Prophets he fell out with.[1]
Approximately one year after Endor, Cronal contacted his old student Jerec on his master's behalf, and charged Jerec with finding the Valley of the Jedi for the Emperor. As a show of loyalty, Jerec turned his Star Destroyer Vengeance II over to Cronal to take back to Byss and Palpatine.[5]
The Mindor campaign[]
Cronal as "Lord Shadowspawn"
Shortly after the Church of the Dark Side's establishment, Cronal and his legions of Shadow Stormtroopers disappeared. Later in 5 ABY Cronal, taking the name "Shadowspawn,"[18] became a warlord,[3] heading one of the many Imperial splinter factions that opposed the New Republic. He had devised a technique that made him able to take over people's minds, and he used this also on Nick Rostu. Nick then became the figure known to the galaxy as 'Shadowspawn'. Blackhole had more of these Pawns, all people he had taken prisoner in his campaigns.[19] Following the death of their master, several of the Emperor's Royal Guards that had not participated in the mass suicides thinning their number joined Shadowspawn's cause.[14] Shadowspawn was able to capture and hold the Inner Rim,[20] while making the strategically advantageous world of Mindor his base of operations. With his shadow stormtroopers deployed, Shadowspawn committed acts of terrorism and piracy, in addition to wholesale slaughter against worlds of the New Republic. It was Shadowspawn's hope that he could break the Republic's hold on the galaxy and breed fears of an Imperial—and Sith—resurgence.[3] In aid of this, he declared himself to be the new Galactic Emperor, intending to fully restore the Galactic Empire.[21]
Refusing to tolerate Shadowspawn's destructive bid for power, Luke Skywalker—now a General of the New Republic—led the campaign against Shadowspawn to free the worlds of the Inner Rim he had conquered, resulting in a protracted and bloody string of battles that left thousands dead.[20] Prophecy had told Shadowspawn that he would have to face one significant obstacle, which he surmised to be Skywalker. Looking forward to the confrontation, the warlord devised a trap for the general. Unknown to Skywalker, he also planned to transfer his soul from his own old body into Skywalker's young body.[3]
Toward the end of the campaign, his troops entrenched themselves on Mindor in preparation for Skywalker's inevitable assault.[22] There, Shadowspawn hoped to lure the heroes of the Republic into his trap.[3] Skywalker soon attacked the planet, with the aid of Fenn Shysa's Mandalorian Protectors,[23] Han Solo, Leia Organa, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, and the pilots of Rogue Squadron.[3]
Shadowspawn and his shadow stormtroopers fought in the Battle of Mindor against Skywalker and his allies,[23] with the warlord (actually Nick Rostu) himself taking to his enemy with an alchemically enhanced sword,[3] although he had underestimated the resourcefulness of his foes.[21]
Shadowspawn and his troops on Mindor
As the battle progressed, Shadowspawn sensed another being strong with the Force, though the power was untrained, raw, and inexperienced. He realized that it was Skywalker's twin sister, Leia Organa.[3] Like Darth Vader before him,[24] he considered that if one sibling could not be seduced, then perhaps the other could. While Skywalker was trained in the ways of the Jedi, Organa was not. With all her powerful diplomatic talents and royal family connection, Shadowspawn could destroy the New Republic from within.[3]
The arduous battle finally ended, with the participation of the Mandalorians on the side of the Republic turning the tide.[23] Shadowspawn's men fought to the death,[19] resulting in a tremendous loss of life on both sides. Eventually Skywalker found out about the real identity of Shadowspawn and managed to kill Blackhole by interrupting his control of the Shadow Crown, which resulted in him and his escape vessel being petrified by the meltmassif via his orifices while in hyperspace.[2][23] Disgusted at what he perceived to be tremendous waste, Skywalker resigned from the New Republic military as a result of the events on Mindor, and focused on his Jedi studies.[20]
Somehow, Cronal brought himself back to life despite Luke decohering his body with the Force. One possibility is that necromancing Dathomiri shamans, or even Sate Pestage, summoned him back from Chaos. Another is that he negated his oblivion by stretching out with his infinite dying thought to cross the threshold from hyperspace to Otherspace. In any case, Cronal lived, albeit at a tremendous cost. His mind was shattered from his transcendental duel with Skywalker, and he was forced to reconstruct his body from the neck down via mechu-deru.
Later movements[]
"Perek the Artist," Cronal's new cyborged body constructed via Mechu-deru
With Cronal missing, Sate Pestage inherited the codename "Blackhole". He confiscated one of Cronal's holographic distorters and co-opted his façade. Pestage then exploited Cronal's intelligence connections to further serve the reborn Palpatine and further his Grand Plan: the transformation of the Empire into a dark side theocracy. This led to conflicting reports that Cronal was serving Darth Sidious after his supposed death at the Battle of Mindor.[8]
Much like his offspring, Cronal's persistence to exist was an affront to the Way of the Dark. Having forsaken his faith, Cronal sought out his daughter to beg for her forgiveness for the unforgivable abuses he perpetrated against her. When Cronal found her, she was nothing more than a worm-eaten corpse on the planet Ruusan, cut down in a lightsaber duel with Kyle Katarn.[1] In that eternal moment of guilt and heartbreak, Cronal lost all grip on reality and abandoned the Way of the Dark. He instead embraced mechu-deru by blending technology with Sith alchemy to therapeutically sow creation from the seed of destruction.[1]
Dubbing this new practice "Stygian Art", Cronal appeared on the planet Trailia to experiment on the natives. He began abducting the native Trailians to perform alchemical experiments on, intending to turn the planet's population into a race of dark-side warriors that could be used against the New Republic. Cronal conducted his experiments from a hidden lab in the Trailian jungle, guarded by several of his own alchemical creations. Though he was pleased with his creations and their success on his missions, Cronal's processes were imperfect, and as a result his warriors were unstable and poor at following orders. His plans for Trailia were ultimately thwarted.[13]
Cronal collected the best of his Trailian technobeasts and abandoned Trailia in favor of the bowels of Coruscant. There he conducted the transformation of Irek Ismaren into a colossal cyborg masterpiece. Ismaren proved unstable and killed Cronal's Trailians. Cronal barely survived the titan's rampage by hammering a lightsaber through Ismaren's head.[1]
During the height of the Imperial Civil War, Palpatine arranged for the capture of the traitorous Mara Jade, who had left the service of the Empire and cut herself off from the Emperor's telepathic commands after killing a clone of Luke Skywalker in 9 ABY. Jade was intercepted on a mission to Senex sector and was imprisoned by Cronal (likely Sate Pestage in disguise[8]), but she was eventually rescued by New Republic forces under the command of Kyle Katarn.[12]
The Imperial leader Carnor Jax, who seized power after Palpatine's final death and had once himself been a member of Blackhole's stormtroopers,[14] obtained some of Cronal's forces for his own ranks.[4]
The end[]
- "Flesh will be deconstructed into fuel. Machine will be reconstructed into art. Art will transform the galaxy!"
- ―Perek
The final death of Lord Cronal, at the hands of his own Mechu-deru
After fleeing Coruscant, Cronal set up in an abandoned droid depot on the industrial world Andooweel. He reinvented himself as a cyber-artist named "Perek", his supposed birthname. Perek tried to establish himself as a warlord on Andooweel by creating art. He hoped to use mechu-deru to overthrow both the Imperial Remnant and New Republic, creating an "Empire of art." While Luke Skywalker served under the reborn Emperor, his mechanical hand was replaced with a cybernetic that was polluted with mechu-deru. This alchemically-altered hand would draw Luke to Andooweel and his final confrontation with Cronal. Perek infected Luke Skywalker's cybernetic hand with his mechu-deru techno-virus, causing it to mutate into a grotesque tendril, but the appendage quickly grew outside Cronal's control and throttled him to death of its own volition, even as Luke severed it from his body with his lightsaber, finally ending the life of Lord Cronal.[25]
Personality and traits[]
Cronal, Imperial Intelligence agent
Lord Cronal was cunning,[4] and one of Palpatine's most powerful dark-side mages.[13] But Cronal's heavy immersion in the dark side of the Force took a toll on him. Physically, the dark side ate away at Cronal, making him frail, shrunken, and dependent upon his life-support chamber. Cronal suffered mentally, too, with every vision and use of the dark side chipping away at his sanity. He became paranoid over nonexistent threats to his life, driving him further into seclusion. Cronal's tendency to mark his forces in black was another mark of his eccentricity, though it provided a tactical advantage as well.[4] He was also able to manipulate his foes so they would play directly into his hands. Considered to be vicious in temperament, he ordered his troops to lay waste to many Republic worlds, and in doing so created wholesale slaughter and carnage in the year following the Battle of Endor. He was eager to confront Skywalker on Mindor,[3] but was proven foolhardy when his trap failed.[21] As a result, he was defeated, but not before having his soldiers fight to the last man.[23]
His goals were in line with the teachings of the Rhandites, namely the philosophy of thought that centered around the Way of the Dark. Even his codename was made with the intention of representing destruction incarnate which was why he called himself Blackhole. He was devoted to the concept of destruction as he believed that it was the only true power in the cosmos. Thus, he desired a never-ending cycle of entropy until all of existence was destroyed, whereupon he would resign himself to his fate. As such, he had low views on the Prophets of the Dark Side, who he felt were conjurers who did not understand true purpose. Similarly, he felt that the likes of Palpatine believed themselves to be deluded as they desired to control the Dark when in fact the opposite was the case. In regards to Palpatine, he admired his machinations during the Clone Wars but held the view that he abandoned the power of destruction when he decided to rule the Galactic Empire. In contrast, he felt that Darth Vader was simply a blunt instrument, a brutish thug who did not recognize the power he had possessed. Regardless, he felt nothing but scorn towards his comrades, who he felt were not understanding of the true aspect of the universe through the Dark or were simply pretenders. This meant that he had a dim view of the Sith, who he felt were not worthy acolytes of bringing about the Way of the Dark, and that he saw himself as the only true disciple of this path.[3]
The mysterious Blackhole
Cronal was deeply involved in power plays and the political games that were necessary for a person in his position to survive within Palpatine's court. As such, he often pretended to show jealousy to the likes of Darth Vader and even seemingly fail in an effort to cause his foes to underestimate him. As such, he often had complex strategies and played on the weaknesses of his foes. An example of this was using eye gestures and a softer tone in order to invoke sympathy among the Mon Calamari, who judged a person's worth through their eyes. He also navigated the tense relationship Palpatine had with his apprentice and often showed a rivalry with Darth Vader. In addition, he played on perceived strengths in others in order to move himself away from positions of power. An example of this was ensuring Darth Vader's success so that the Sith apprentice would stay closer to his master rather than have Palpatine elevate Cronal to his right-hand man. This had the dual role of keeping him safe, which was seen by not being placed on the Death Star II, and to get both followers of the Sith's oversight away from Cronal so he could safely work his operations in the shadows.[3]
Powers and abilities[]
Much of Blackhole's power derived from fear and paranoia. Individuals who spoke with him claimed to feel a noticeable chill, though measurements showed that the temperature of the air did not change. Though part of this fear was his physical presence, Cronal was also capable of inducing fear in others through the Force.[4] After being made aware of the feat, he also gained the necessary Sith knowledge as well as developed techniques that allowed him to transfer his mind into another body. In addition, his great knowledge of Sith lore allowed him to use Sith alchemy to create enhanced objects such as swords resistant to the blows of lightsabers.[3]
His greatest strength was the ability to divine and even influence the future, an ability he called Darksight.[3] Cronal had many other powers of the Force, including the ability to control minds, rip thoughts from the minds of others, cast Force illusions, and heal himself. Cronal could also speak Bothese, Huttese, and Neimoidian.[4]
Cronal claimed that his understanding of, and power over, the dark side of the Force surpassed Darth Vader's.[3]
Behind the scenes[]
- "The only reference I had for Shadowspawn was the Tommy Lee Edwards pic for The Essential Chronology [sic]…and it was thankfully very abstracted, so I got to fill in lots of detail. I got a kind of Napoleon-Revolutionary War Admiral-Pirate-Samurai kind of vibe from it, and went with it for character design. I loved that he had an over-scaled sword hilt on his lightsaber that looked Middle Ages in a Japanese-techno vein…so I gave him a shortsword-tanto to go with it…all very east-meets-west."
- ―Dave Seeley
Joe Corroney's original concept of Blackhole as Shadowspawn
Blackhole first appeared in the comic Gambler's World by Russ Manning. Little information was given on the character, including his true name and why he only appeared in an insubstantial form. He would not make a second appearance under that name until 2001, 23 years later, for the article The Emperor's Pawns, in which some of these questions were answered.
The Emperor's Pawns author Abel G. Peña originally intended for Blackhole to be Lord Shadowspawn, an Imperial warlord first mentioned in 1993's Dark Empire Sourcebook, by Michael Allen Horne, as one of the numerous warlords defeated by the New Republic early in its tenure. Rather than be a hologram projection, Blackhole/Shadowspawn was supposed to be a dark-side spirit returned from death, an idea that Peña would later use for the Dark Underlord. However, Pablo Hidalgo had already prepared a biography of Blackhole for the Rebellion Era Sourcebook; rather than have two conflicting reports, Hidalgo's biography was used in place of Peña's in the article. Peña later, in The Dark Forces Saga, identified Blackhole with Cronal, a villain from Gamemaster Screen for Second Edition. Minor elements concerning Shadowspawn cut from The Emperor's Pawns were later resurrected by Peña for use in The History of the Mandalorians, published in 2005.[27]
Joe Corroney had drawn a preliminary illustration of Blackhole based on the idea that he was Shadowspawn, which he labeled "Blackhole aka Lord Shadowspawn." When Peña's text was dropped, Corroney redrew Blackhole without the Sith sword and physical details. When Daniel Wallace was writing The New Essential Chronology, he gave Corroney's original sketch to illustrator Tommy Lee Edwards to use as the basis for his own illustration of Shadowspawn at Mindor. Peña, however, no longer considered the two characters to be the same. In 2004, along with Wallace, he developed a new framing story for Shadowspawn in an article on Imperial Warlords intended for Polyhedron magazine, but the publication was canceled before the article could be published.[27] The article would have identified Shadowspawn as Atha Prime, the villain from an abandoned project submitted to Lucasfilm by Kenner in 1985.[28]
Shadowspawn returned to the Star Wars franchise as the primary villain of Matthew Stover's Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, released in December 2008. Stover's novel adapts and expounds upon a brief account of the Battle of Mindor given in The Essential Chronology. A blurb of the book released by StarWars.com provided a number of new details on Shadowspawn's character, identifying him as a Prophet of the Dark Side and an Imperial Intelligence agent like Blackhole. Phrasing from the blurb concerning Shadowspawn's exile and eventual return following Palpatine's death also mirrors Kenner's brief for the Atha Prime figure,[7][29] leading to speculation on the Jedi Council Forums that the character would be finally proven to be Cronal and Atha Prime at the same time.[30] Approximately a month before the novel's release, The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia revealed that Cronal and Shadowspawn are now, in fact, the same character. While reading the Jedi Council Forums thread on Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, cover artist Dave Seeley noted that some were disappointed with the fact that the cover did not feature Shadowspawn. This prompted him to create a back cover for the book featuring its primary villain. Working from Tommy Lee Edwards' original artwork from The New Essential Chronology, Seeley set out to add more detail to Shadowspawn's design, using influences from both Eastern and Western culture.[26]
In 2010, Hasbro released a set in their line of Comic Packs that featured a reprint of Classic Star Wars: The Early Adventures 1 and included a black-armored stormtrooper and a figurine depicting the holographic image of Blackhole.
In 2014, part 3 of the article, The Imperial Warlords: Despoilers of an Empire, repeatedly referred to Cronal as a Rhandite, which implies that he may not have been considered a true[31] Sorcerer of Rhand.[1]
Appearances[]
- "Gambler's World" (colorized in Classic Star Wars: The Early Adventures 1–3) (First appearance) (First identified as Blackhole)
- Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided (Mentioned only)
Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game — Agents of Deception (Light Side scenario campaign)- Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game — The Nightsister's Revenge (Dark Side scenario campaign) (Mentioned only)
- "The Monster Maker" — Star Wars Gamemaster Screen (First appearance as Cronal)
- Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor
- "Collapsing New Empires" — Star Wars Tales 19 (Retcon)
- The New Jedi Order: Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand (Possible mention)
