Quesh war

Around 3642 BBY the tense Cold War between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire began to dissolve into the Galactic War. While the Treaty of Coruscant that had ended the Great Galactic War a decade earlier was still in effect, the Empire began launching military campaigns against the Republic with the intention of drawing them into open warfare, while the Republic began to supply aid to the Balmorran resistance on the Imperial-occupied planet of Balmorra more openly. Upon learning of the existence of Quesh, a planet that contained the valuable chemical venenit queshaaga—better known as Quesh venom—which could be refined into military adrenals, the Empire decided to launch a campaign to destroy the Republic's mining operations there and provoke a military response.

Upon arriving on Quesh, Imperial tacticians believed that they could launch a single swift strike to devastate the Republic presence on the sparsely populated world. However, the Imperial Military only succeeded in capturing a few Quesh venom mines and a single processing station before the forces of the Republic Military and the Three Families—a trio of Hutts who had split from the neutral Hutt Cartel to profit from Quesh and an alliance with the Republic—pushed back the Imperial offensive. Moff Dracen, the Imperial commander, ordered the processing station and its warehouses converted into an Imperial Garrison. Moff Dracen and his subordinates, including General Koloch, Major Faradin, and Colonel Drefin, set up headquarters in one of the storage warehouses from which he conducted the Imperial offensive. The Republic's defense of Quesh was placed under the command of the experienced General Korvan and his subordinate Major Treeg, and the miner barracks at the Republic Operational Headquarters were converted into a full military base.

The Three Families initially conducted their part of the defense of Quesh from their Palace, but several factors led them to move their command center to a new war camp to the south. The Three Families Palace was largely off-limits to Republic personnel, as the Three Families kept their sensitive files in the building, and the Hutt Portho Kaltemmic's addiction to adrenals had been a source of embarrassment to the other members of the Three Families, Jeelta Urdosh and Broga Masrii. The palace was also not a strategic or efficient operational headquarters, and so the Three Families established their new war camp between Broga's Palace and the Republic Operational Headquarters. The Empire also established an that they intended to use as a base for venom research, but setbacks and attacks by the Republic forces greatly hampered the Empire's efforts. As a result, the Hutt Cartel stationed some of their forces at the outpost, and the base became more of a staging point for Cartel battle droids than a research base as the battle went on.

The Three Families made preparations to move an experimental adrenal formula to Attis Station, and when Captain Franges intercepted their transmissions, he dispatched an Imperial force to retrieve the formula samples—though he ended up keeping the formulas for himself, as he was addicted to adrenals. Sergeant Molvar and Alpha Squad was deployed to secure an area for a supply depot so that the Empire could move troops and equipment deeper into the nearby mines, but they encountered Republic defenders who had been injected with powerful adrenals. The Republic soldiers tore apart Molvar's squad, killing all twelve of his soldiers, and Molvar only survived because he was knocked unconscious by a grenade. Severely injured, Molvar sought aid from other Imperial forces in the area, and they were able to secure the site for the supply depot.

The Republic began building a powerful shield generator to protect their mining operations using a large crane, and Sergeant Darro—who was in charge of organizing raids against the Republic's mining operations—dispatched a complement of soldiers to destroy the crane. However, his reconnaissance was not accurate, and his forces were wiped out by three times the amount of Republic defenders they were told to expect. As a result, he sought help from other Imperial forces to destroy the crane, and the loss of the crane severely damaged the Republic mining efforts. After the Republic's Manka-class Armored Transports began to disrupt Imperial mining operations, Moff Dracen dispatched Bravo Team on Operation Tripwire. The Imperials were ordered to plant proximity explosives, specially calibrated to cripple the Republic walker convoy, at checkpoints along a bridge on a walker route. However, Bravo Team was killed before they completed their mission, and Moff Dracen was forced to rely on other Imperial operatives to plant and detonate the explosives.

Early in the invasion, the Republic admiral Monk—actually a spy in the service of the Sith Lord Darth Baras—foiled an attack on outlying star systems by Baras's former Sith Master, Darth Vengean of the Empire's ruling Dark Council. Baras dispatched his apprentice to pursue Monk as part of Plan Zero, Baras and Vengean's plot to reignite war, and the Sith Warrior located Monk at Fort Phalanx on Quesh. Baras's apprentices was successful in the mission to kill Monk, though the admiral revealed that Baras had manipulated the entire affair to make Vengean look like a fool in the eyes of the Dark Council.

Major Faradin wanted to lure the Republic leaders into an ambush using false peace negotiations, but Moff Dracen decided to dispatch Imperial forces to destroy the specialized filters that the Republic were using to keep their mines clear of noxious gas. Imperials attacked the and destroyed the filters, depriving the Republic of a valuable source of Quesh venom. By that time, the Hutt Cartel sent the Hutt Graag to oversee Cartel forces on Quesh until the Three Families were destroyed, as a way of making amends with the Empire and protecting their neutrality. However, Graag and his Cartel droid armies were unable to make progress against the Three Families because of their factories were defended by Jedi, prompting Dracen to send Imperial forces to target the Republic's adrenal synthesis factory. Upon penetrating the factory, Dracen's forces either destroyed the production equipment or killed the Selkath scientists working there, striking a significant blow against the Three Families's finances.

Dracen also secured the allegiance of Portho Kaltemnic, and with the aid of the Hutt and his Chevin adviser Norvaan Kel, the Empire either smuggled a small force into the Three Families's palace or simply stormed the structure's entrance. However, Jedi Master Berin Fraal had personally evacuated Broga from the palace before the Empire moved to take the structure, and Dracen's strike force was only able to kill Jeelta during their raid. The squad also killed Portho, as the Hutt outlived his usefulness, and then transmitted the Three Families's data on processing adrenals to Moff Dracen. As part of his final strikes against the Republic and the Three Families, Dracen dispatched Imperial forces to hunt down Master Fraal and Broga at the Quesh Venom Refinery.

Dracen's forces killed Fraal but spared Broga, as the Hutt agreed to work with the Empire.

Broga did not remain loyal to the Empire, however, and returned to the Republic's fold not long after his release. As a result, Moff Dracen ordered a siege of Broga's palace that ended in the capture of the structure, and a furious Broga was forced to command the Three Families's remaining forces from their war camp as the Moff set up the palace as his personal fortress.

Suria of the Republic Strategic Information Service, the Republic's covert intelligence agency, was tasked with aiding the defection of Doctor Orlian, a key scientist at the Empire's Quesh venom processing lab. Suria sent Agent Meldo undercover into the factory to handle the operation, but when he failed to report at two consecutive check-ins, Suria sent in another Republic operative to knock out the Imperial facility's security station and meet with Meldo at a rendezvous point. It turned out that Meldo had been unable to respond because of tightened Imperial security, but Meldo decided to take advantage of the operative's presence and extract Orlian. The operative was successfully able to extract the scientist, despite an attempt by an Imperial Captain Jesh and his security team to stop them, and Meldo removed Orlian to one of the SIS's safe houses.

Gallia, the foreman of one of the Republic's mining crews, was sent by General Korvan to drill a tunnel underneath a nearby Imperial base so the Republic could attack it from below, but the crew's drill broke down. In order to acquire replacement parts for the drill, Republic forces raided one of the Imperial mining operations, allowing Gallia to continue the plan for using the drill. When the Ithorian Jedi Goonawaro discovered that the Imperial method of extracting Quesh venom—carving massive pits into the ground to reach the chemical—was releasing clouds of noxious gas into the environment, he sought aid from General Korvan's forces to plant explosives on Imperial storage tanks and thereby cripple the Empire's production.

Lieutenant Meric identified Imperial activity on the rooftops of several captured Republic factories, and when the soldiers he dispatched to investigate did not return, additional forces stormed the roofs of the factories and were able to prevent Imperial war droids from detonating explosives that would have destroyed the structures.

Republic Major Donovan dispatched the Safecrackers, a platoon in the Republic Special Forces Division that specialized in assaulting enemy bunkers, on an assignment to raid an Imperial bunker, but the mission went wrong and the platoon became trapped. The head of Special Forces, General Elin Garza, dispatched the elite Havoc Squad to aid Donovan in the rescue operation, and Havoc attacked an Imperial command bunker to draw away enemy forces from the Safecrackers. Despite the overwhelming number of Imperial forces that assaulted Havoc Squad in the command bunker, the squad was able to overcome the enemy and distract them long enough for Lieutenant Coria to lead the rest of the Safecrackers back to Republic lines.

A Republic privateer named Captain Ozzik, who had been running combat meds and adrenals to anti-Imperial organizations in the Outer Rim Territories, was pinned down on Quesh when the Imperial admiral Harridax Kirill, better known as the Voidwolf, attacked Ozzik's convoy with turbolasers. Trapped in the hangar that his convoy normally used, Ozzik sent out a distress signal that was picked up by a smuggler in the employ of Senator Bevera Dodonna, and the smuggler's crew came to the privateer's aid. After rescuing Ozzik, the smuggler destroyed the Voidwolf's Planetary Sensor Station, which was tagging starships for the Imperial turbolasers to target, and Ozzik's convoy was able to depart Quesh.

As war ignited across the galaxy, Darth Baras—newly ascended to Vengean's place on the Dark Council—sent his apprentice once more to Quesh in order to aid the Imperial offensive there. Commander Ollien became aware of a Republic strike force that was attempting to detonate a series of caverns under an Imperial command center, and the Sith located Captain Trey-yen and his men just as they finished installing the explosives. However, Trey-yen's attempts to detonate failed, and the warrior eliminated the Republic strike team—only to be contacted by Baras's other apprentice, Lord Draahg. Draahg revealed that Trey-yen had been sent by one of Baras's Republic moles, and the entire operation was a trap for Baras's first apprentice. Draahg promptly detonated the explosives, but the Sith was barely able to escape the collapsing caverns and survive.

The Quesh War appears throughout the video game Star Wars: The Old Republic, released by BioWare and LucasArts. The events of the War are detailed throughout the in-game Codex, the Imperial and the Republic world and class missions. All missions can be completed by a group of players, and any class can complete both the world missions and side missions. Therefore, this article refers to the player characters in each quest as a group of Imperial or Republic operatives, and assumes that each faction completes their respective missions according to their respective alignments. However, during the Imperial mission "Quesh Showdown," players are given the option of killing Broga the Hutt for dark side points. Despite this, Broga appears throughout the Republic missions, which take place after the Imperial missions, so it is assumed that the choice to spare Broga for light side points was the canonical one.

• The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Old Republic
• Star Wars: The Old Republic Explorer's Guide
• Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia