Raithal Academy

"My time at Raithal wasn't pleasant, but I left there a true soldier."

The Raithal Academy, also known as the Imperial Army Academy, Raithal Military Academy,^[3] and Raithal Army Academy^[4] was a prestigious school that trained citizens to serve in the Judicial Department of the Galactic Republic. It later became assimilated into the Imperial Academy, and remained one of its most prestigious branches, along with the Academy of Carida and Corulag Academy. The specific portion of the Imperial Military that it trained various attendees in was the Imperial Army.^[5]

History[]

Imperial Cadet — A cadet of the Raithal Academy

Recruits spent a year at the Academy. In Imperial times, the experience would include indoctrination in the New Order, a thousand hours in tactical simulators, survival in a sixteen-day mock siege,^[6] and a week spent in simulated interrogation which occasionally killed recruits.

Raithal's Imperial Army training consisted of cadets familiarizing themselves with hardware such as ground-based artillery and vehicles including the HAVw A5 Juggernaut, the HAVr A9 Floating Fortress, the PX-4 Mobile Command Base, and All Terrain Armored Transports. Trainees commonly demonstrated their abilities in full-immersion holo-simulations against enemy targets.^[7] It also had large live-fire training grounds.^[2]

Caul Gentis, Shens and Laurita Tohm were graduates of the Raithal Academy months after the Declaration of a New Order. That same time, the Academy was also involved in a military coup against the newly-made Emperor Palpatine orchestrated by Headmaster Gentis.^[6]

During an inspection tour of the Academy sometime during the assembling of Darth Vader's Death Squadron, Maximilian Veers noted the considerable skills of a cadet named Nyrox, who astutely took a defensive, kneeling position in an AT-AT, allowing simulated enemy craft come to him, rather than seeking to hunt them down. Nyrox was able to destroy each craft. He was awarded the rank of lieutenant straight out of the Academy and was personally selected by Veers to pilot Thunderer One, the lead walker of his AT-AT fleet, Thundering Herd.^[7]

Shortly before the battle of Talus, a small Rebel force led by Major Coret Bhan led a hit-and-run attack on the Raithal Academy. A Rebel strike force has landed just outside the Academy and—without trying to capture or destroy it—tried to disrupt Imperial planning in preparation for the operation in the Corellian system. When the cadets of the Academy put up reasonable defense, Rebel forces fell back in good order towards their landing craft, leaving behind some explosives which they planned to use to blow the starport on their way out.^[8]

In 42 ABY, Richeu served as commandant of the Raithal Academy.^[5]

Behind the scenes[]

Prior to the development of the Academy of Carida in the Jedi Academy Trilogy, the Raithal Academy was established as the most prestigious branch of the Imperial Academy.