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"This is not about your little planet. We will take your whole galaxy. We will destroy your machines; they are an abomination. We will share our ways, we will share our beliefs. We will share pain, like us, you will come to embrace it."
Commander Sha'kel to Kaye Galfridian[src]

The Yuuzhan Vong empire, also known as the Empire of the Yuuzhan Vong, was a theocracy of Yuuzhan Vong tribes, a extra-galactic species emerging from another galaxy. Functioning as a theocracy presided by a god-king, the Supreme Overlord was the Yuuzhan Vong's link to their gods, and the only one capable of addressing Yun-Yuuzhan.

After several decades of preparations, scouting and provocations, the Yuuzhan Vong swiftly conquered much of the Outer Rim. Opposed by the New Republic, the Yuuzhan Vong then launched a devastating invasion of the New Republic and eventually established a vast, if short-lived, dominion over the galaxy.

After the war, the remains of the empire withdrew to the living planet of Zonama Sekot, where it then disappeared into the Unknown Regions.

History[edit | edit source]

Despite the victory achieved in taking the enemy capital, the warrior caste had suffered horrible casualties at this point, which forced the Yuuzhan Vong to consolidate their newly acquired territory. In order to compensate for the loss in strength, they forced a reorganization of their forces as ordered by the Supreme Overlord, and placed slave troopers and auxiliaries to defend these positions.[1]

This inability resulted in the empire defeat during the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar, when the Galactic Alliance retook Coruscant from the invaders and killed Supreme Overlord Shimrra.[2]

Organization[edit | edit source]

Government[edit | edit source]

Yuuzhan Vong worshippers

The ruler of the empire was the Supreme Overlord, who was aided by the Great Council consisting of the heads of the four castes. The Warmaster, High Prefect, and High Priest were known to sit on the Council. In the event of the Supreme Overlord's death, there was typically an heir present who would ascend to the leadership of the Yuuzhan Vong empire. Amongst their politics, it was considered a duty to punish insubordination of lower ranking individuals;[1] in fact, it was typically expected that a newly risen leader had killed their predecessors.[3]

Local planets were ruled by the Intendant caste, with Prefects administering the worlds under their command. However, a few systems were known to have been granted to select Domains. The members of the Priest caste were charged with managing ceremonies and ensuring the loyalty of the masses. As events in the war progressed, the Yuuzhan Vong noted a disturbing rise in clandestine meetings among the lower castes such as the Shamed Ones, who began to venerate the Jedi.[1] The Order of Yun-Yuuzhan were noted as being a powerful political force within the empire, until their ranks were executed by Tsavong Lah.

Military[edit | edit source]

A Yuuzhan Vong warrior on the attack

The Yuuzhan Vong empire's military consisted chiefly of the Warrior caste, who led both the fleets and ground forces. Support elements included the servitor race known as the Chazrach,[4] as well as slaves who were converted into Thralls through the use of surge coral.[2] There were certain elite elements within the military of the empire, which included the Praetorite Vong. The warriors of the Yuuzhan Vong gained infamy for being brave, having little fear of death, rarely retreating and never surrendering. This made them potent warriors who were obedient, following the chain of command as well as being disciplined. However, these same strengths were also weaknesses; the warriors rarely employed other tactics than those initially planned, and the fact that they were obedient meant that they were largely inflexible, and only obeyed their superiors. Their bravery meant that they could be foolhardy, as well as prone to charging into situations that might require second thought.[1] This changed somewhat during the rule of Warmaster Nas Choka, who encouraged his subordinates to change their thinking and allowed them to retreat in engagements in order to preserve their forces.

Communications from outsiders that contacted a Yuuzhan Vong fleet typically spoke to the lowest ranking warrior within the fleet. If the speaker managed to convince this individual of their worth, then the warrior would alert a superior of their find. Thus, the speaker would end up speaking to a higher ranking warrior, and had to prove their worth once more. Through this, a person speaking to a Yuuzhan Vong fleet often had to prove themselves through the various warrior ranks. With every success, a speaker came closer to addressing the commander of the fleet. It was noted that this was a way of alerting the senior officer of the most worthy finds that demanded the commanding warrior's attention.[5] Military analysis and communication was often handled by the yammosk war coordinators and Battle Tacticians.[6]

There were a number of different military units utilized by the Yuuzhan Vong. These included pod troopers, who were deployed from orbit in yorik coral shells onto a planetary environment. There were also the paratroopers, who dropped from ships in the atmosphere of a planet on membranous parachutes. Another aerial unit included warrior caste soldiers, who were carried in the air by large mynock-sized creatures for deployment in various locations on the battlefield.[7] There were also highly trained warriors known as Hunters that were employed by the Yuuzhan Vong for stealth attacks and tracking missions.[8] In addition, there were an elite sect of Yuuzhan Vong warrior caste known as Nuun, who made use of the Cloak of Nuun to camouflage themselves in their surroundings. Near the end of the war, the Yuuzhan Vong Shapers were also involved in breeding a new type of soldier dubbed Slayers.

New Republic Intelligence noted that, in the initial stages of the war, that the Yuuzhan Vong possessed thousands of capital ships that traveled in flotillas of up to seventy-five vessels. Amongst their ranks were warships that were the equivalent of Super Star Destroyers, with firepower levels that were the equivalent to the heaviest models of turbolasers and ion cannons.[6]

Strategies[edit | edit source]

"You err in believing that they strategize as we do when, in fact, they are waging a psychological war. The destruction of natural beauty and repositories of learning, the pursuit of refugees…such tactics are meant to confound and dishearten us. The Yuuzhan Vong are as much as saying that the civilization we have fashioned means nothing to them. All that we hold sacred is imperiled."
General Etahn A'baht to leading military leaders of the New Republic Defense Force[src]

During the war, the Yuuzhan Vong were involved in numerous tactics that were used against the inhabitants of the galaxy. These included:

Dulac, a cloaked Yuuzhan Vong spy

  • Infiltration—a favored strategy of the Yuuzhan Vong during the initial stages of the invasion, which saw the insertion of agents within enemy planets who wore Ooglith masquers to disguise their features. These individuals pretended to be members of other species while they worked to sabotage any equipment as well as intercept any messages that revealed the existence of the Yuuzhan Vong. This tactic was effective in silencing the ExGal Society outpost on Belkadan[9] and preventing a warning to Artorias about an incoming Yuuzhan Vong armada.[10]
  • Information gathering—before the invasion began, the Yuuzhan Vong began an intensive information gathering campaign, which included the capture of various members of different species who were experimented on in order to better understand them. This led to the capture of Obroa-skai, where information from that world's extensive libraries was transferred into villip speech for ease of use.[6] Additionally, the Yuuzhan Vong commanders sought to research the weaknesses of the galaxy's native races and learn how much pressure was needed before they were broken.[10]
  • Tracking—The Yuuzhan Vong also made use of dovin basal mines to record the gravitational signature of both friendly and enemy vessels for security purposes, as well as to track potential threats. In addition to this, the Yuuzhan Vong had a history of locating displaced populations who were accepted as refugees and targeting those worlds, making few worlds willing to accept such individuals.[11]
  • Far-reaches destabilization program—Created by Executor Nom Anor, the program involved a campaign of infiltration and subversion of various star systems in order to entice the enemy to fight one another, thus leaving them weakened for the warrior caste to conquer with ease. As the war progressed, this tactic began to fail due to intervention from the Galactic Alliance.[12] In addition, early on in the war, the Yuuzhan Vong tried to turn the New Republic as well as its citizens against the Jedi by claiming that the Yuuzhan Vong's invasion would halt at Duro so long as the governments of the galaxy surrendered their Jedi.[13]
  • Interdiction—Orchestrated by Warmaster Tsavong Lah, this tactic involved the deployment of dovin basal interdiction mines along major space lanes in order to cripple the enemy's movements as well as monitor ship deployments through their gravitic signatures.[11]
  • Holy programs—Secretly ordered by Supreme Overlord Shimrra, this project involved Shapers who were tasked with developing new organic technology in secret for use against the enemy, and involved an attempt at shaping the mind of Jedi captive Tahiri Veila into a Yuuzhan Vong warrior,[14] as well as creating anti-Jedi weapons.[8]
  • Resource acquisition—The Yuuzhan Vong empire made various attempts at bolstering its resources as the invasion continued; this included the establishment of a Shipwomb,[15] breeding larger biots such as dovin basals,[6] the seeding of planets with bio-organisms for later extraction as was the case in Hutt Space,[15] and the capture of slaves.[16]
  • Communication disruption—Implemented near the end of the war, this plan involved deploying the newly created mabugat kan, which could trace and destroy HoloNet stations in order to disrupt the Galactic Alliance's ability to coordinate its forces.[17] However, this resulted in the Galactic Alliance using mobile transceiver stations and preventing the Yuuzhan Vong from monitoring their communications.[2]

Tactics[edit | edit source]

"Don't make the mistake of underestimating the Yuuzhan Vong. Too many of us have already paid a terrible price for doing just that."
Danni Quee[src]

In addition to these stratagems, the Yuuzhan Vong made use of their various biots for specialist tactics against the enemy. This included the devastating Yo'gand's Core tactic, which involved dropping a moon onto a planet as well as the deployment of planetary shielding teams who inserted a dovin basal onto a planet, which stripped a world of its orbiting defenses.[9] Yuuzhan Vong interdiction vessels became known for waiting just outside their assigned locations and suddenly revealing themselves in order to ambush any vessels passing through that region of space.

After the defeat of Warmaster Tsavong Lah at the hands of Jacen Solo, the Yuuzhan Vong began a program aimed at sacrificing the Jedi in order to curry favor with the gods. This became known as the Solo Project, and was an attempt by the Yuuzhan Vong to capture Jacen Solo along with his twin Jaina Solo in order to pit them against one another.[11]

The band of collaborators known as the Peace Brigade were used extensively by the empire, who used them to subvert the planetary governments, provide them with information, and to serve as escorts for their supply lines. The Yuuzhan Vong also made use of a technophobic terrorist group, the Red Knights of Life, as another supporting element in their forces.[9]

Foreign relations[edit | edit source]

"The Yuuzhan Vong have done the impossible. They've united the galaxy."
"Nothing like war to bring folks together."
Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker[src]

At the time of the Yuuzhan Vong War, the empire's relations with any of its neighbors were virtually nonexistent due to the fact that it was waging a holy war to cleanse the galaxy of anything not inherently Yuuzhan Vong. The Yuuzhan Vong believed that the galaxy, or "Promised Land", was rightfully theirs and that they owned all of known space. To that end, they attempted to educate the inhabitants in the ways of the Yuuzhan Vong and their gods. The invaders also took note of the wide diversity of races within the Promised Land, like those which they themselves had eliminated in their home galaxy long ago as part of a costly campaign that saw the destruction of countless worlds. During the invasion, the Yuuzhan Vong sought to destroy simply what they needed to in order to accomplish their goals.[6]

The Yuuzhan Vong regularly dispatched spies wearing Ooglith masquers allowing them to infiltrate galactic society and subvert it from within. In at least one operation, the Deception sect was used to deploy a bioweapon against the Jedi. Furthermore, as part of the far-reaches destabilization program, the Yuuzhan Vong attempted to encourage conflict between the various governments in the galaxy. This included an attempt to frame the Chiss for an attack on the Esfandia base.[5]

Territory[edit | edit source]

"It is not your galaxy. You have merely infested it for a time. We have come to end the infection, in the name of glorious Yun-Yuuzhan."
―Yuuzhan Vong warrior[src]

Territory of the Yuuzhan Vong empire between 27 and 29 ABY

The territory of the Yuuzhan Vong consisted of the planets that were conquered during the battles before the conquest of Coruscant. This stretched from the invasion corridor, starting with the Vector Prime entry point, all the way from the Outer Rim to the Core Worlds. During the later stages of the War, the Yuuzhan Vong were also making incursions into the Unknown Regions, sparking a number of skirmishes with the Chiss government.

During the initial invasion, the Yuuzhan Vong made use of the central part of the Tingel Arm as a way of moving their forces in the direction of the Core Worlds.[6] By the latter stages of the war, the Yuuzhan Vong empire began to suffer from some of the same problems as the New Republic and its successor, the Galactic Alliance, due to the fact that it now comprised enough territory and resources that it was difficult to adequately protect all of its space.[8]

The empire's reasons for conquering a world often varied; planets such as Belkadan and Tynna were terraformed and used for production of vital materiel such as dovin basals and villips, while the worlds of Malastare and Brentaal IV were captured to lock up supply lines and establish strategic rendezvous points for Yuuzhan Vong fleets. Others still, like Kalarba and New Plympto, were destroyed outright. Regardless of the purpose a given planet would ultimately serve, each successful attack expanded the Yuuzhan Vong empire's territory.

Appearances[edit | edit source]

Sources[edit | edit source]

Notes and references[edit | edit source]

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