Ghymnon was a sentient acellular pathogen that was the sole inhabitant of the Unknown Regions planet Uokara. For millions of years, the pathogen covered the planet and killed thousands who attempted to conqueror it. During the Imperial Era, the Sith Lord Darth Vader surveyed the planet for the Galactic Empire, but failed to detected the presence of Ghymnon, who infected the Sith via his respirator.
During quarantine in a bacta tank, Vader passed out and was confronted by Ghymnon in a hallucination that was controlled by the pathogens focus and based on the Sith's fears. Ghymnon attacked Vader while chastising the invader and then cast him into a stream of fire, believing that this would kill the Sith's mind. Vader instead took control of the fire and used it to defeat the infection, expelling the pathogen's physical form through his eyes so that it was sterilized by bacta. The Sith then had range troopers eradicate Ghymnon from the surface of Uokara.
Ghymnon (pictured as a hallucination within Vader's mind) confronted and killed would-be conquerors of Uokara for millions of years.
The sentient, microscopic, acellular pathogen Ghymnon was the sole inhabitant and native of Uokara, a fertile Class IV planet in the Unknown Regions. For millions of years, the pathogen covered the entire world, killing thousands of would-be conquerors and despots over the eons.
During the reign of the Galactic Empire, the Sith Lord Darth Vader–a human cyborg–surveyed Uokara for the Empire. He incorrectly concluded that the world was uninhabited and that there was no sentient life to oppose the Empire there, greenlighting Imperial mining efforts on the world. However, while Vader was on the planet, Ghymnon infected the Sith by infiltrating his respirator and clung to Vader's brain stem. With the survey over, the Sith underwent a standard Imperial quarantine in case of infection, during which a inconsistency was found in his biometrics while he was submerged in a bacta tank. A diagnostic discovered Ghymnon's presence, but could not identify the pathogen, with the bacta only able to sterilize exterior plasmoids but not anything internal to the Sith's system.
Ghymnon fought with Vader inside the Sith's mind.
Vader then passed out, hallucinating Ghymnon as a towering alien figure who confronted the Sith within his own infected mind amidst a blazing world of poisoned sands that the pathogen had created from Vader's own fears. The pathogen declared that Vader would not claim Uokara uncontested, explaining that the world they were now in was defined by the pathogen's own focus when the Sith discovered he lacked his lightsaber. The pathogen then attacked with a huge blade, slicing off Vader's right hand and chastising the Sith for missing the presence on Uokara during the survey. When Vader used the Force to push Ghymnon back, the pathogen was unimpressed, shattering Vader's helmet and lifting the Sith by the throat before casting him into a stream of fire.
Vader's mental form began to burn away, which Ghymnon believed would lead to the death of his mind followed shortly by that of his physical form; however, using his fear as fuel, Vader took control of the fire an used it to recreate his own form. Stepping forward, he shattered Ghymnon's blade as the shocked pathogen attacked once more. Recognizing defeat, the pathogen declared that all those like Vader met the same end, and so too would Vader, even if the pathogen was not the one to cause it. Vader then slashed Ghymnon's towering form across the chest with a lightsaber made from the flames, defeating the hallucination within his mind.
Vader eradicated Ghymnon from Uokara with bacta.
The pathogen was then expelled from Vader's physical form through his eyes and sterilized by the surrounding bacta. Exiting the quarantine, the Sith then deployed range troopers of the Imperial range corps to Uokara where they used mobile bacta units to eradicate Ghymnon's presence all across Uokara by spraying bacta onto the world's surfaces and any instances of the pathogen they came across. Vader used his lightsaber to destroy one piece of Ghymnon that was attached to a rock. The Sith noted the demise of Uokara's sole inhabitant within Imperial records.
Ghymnon underestimated Vader and paid the price.
Ghymnon thought little of those who tried to conquer Uokara, believing all such lords came to the same end one way or another and claiming that Vader was even lesser than those that came before him. Considering the Sith a butcher, the pathogen was able to infect him easily and thought that only arrogance could have caused Vader to miss the sole inhabitant covering Uokara.
With a process that had been perfected down to a science, Ghymnon was able to isolate Vader within his own mind in a world controlled by the pathogen's focus. Having refused to consider that Vader had been underestimated, the pathogen was shocked when Vader took control of the fires but soon accepted defeat and used the last exchange with Vader to assure the Sith that he would one day meet his end.
The pathogen's physical form was that of a red liquid capable of being separated into distinct pieces and covering an entire planet. The form that Ghymnon took within Vader's mind was that of a bipedal alien-like figure that towered over Vader, with layered, overlapping white strands of skin, red eyes, spiked shoulder blades and wrists, and two huge teeth on the lower jaw. The form used a huge blade in its three-fingered hands and possessed the strength to fully lift Vader from the ground while stood on clawed two-toed feet.
Ghymnon appeared in "The Inhabitant," a story written by Steve Orlando, illustrated by Paul Davidson, and published in the comic book Darth Vader – Black, White & Red 4 on July 26, 2023.