The Martyr was a transport vessel utilized by the Kaleesh military leader Grievous. This grey transport was armed with several energy cannons and also served as a personnel carrier, having the capacity for Grievous and his entire eight-member elite Izvoshra squad. In 29 BBY, Grievous and the Izvoshra boarded the Martyr on Grievous's native planet Kalee, with the intention of restarting the Huk War between the Kaleesh and the Yam'rii race.
However, the transport was destroyed by an act of sabotage orchestrated by InterGalactic Banking Clan Chief San Hill, Archduke Poggle the Lesser, and the Sith Master Count Dooku, who sought to manipulate Grievous into joining the ranks of the burgeoning Confederacy of Independent Systems. Grievous survived, although with critical injuries, and was transformed into a machine-man through arrangements made by Hill. Scholars later debated whether the crash was the definitive cause of Grievous's transformation, since he maintained that he had chosen to be upgraded.
The Martyr was a transport and personnel carrier employed by the Kaleesh military commander General Grievous. It was grey in hue, featured a boxy design, and its rear section angled inwards, with the entrance capable of folding down to create a ramp. The Martyr had two wings, each containing an engine, and displayed a yellow symbol painted on them. The front underside of the vessel was equipped with three energy cannons, the central one being a double-cannon, and another double-cannon was situated on the upper portion of the stern. The Martyr could be operated by a single individual, and the command deck was designed to function as a detachable life pod.
By the year 29 BBY, Grievous returned to his birth world Kalee to reignite the Huk War against the Yam'rii race. His actions provoked the ire of his then-employer, InterGalactic Banking Clan Chief San Hill, who conspired with Geonosian Archduke Poggle the Lesser and the Sith Master Count Dooku to bring Grievous under their influence. Their plan was to sabotage the Martyr by planting an ion explosive onboard.
At the sacred temple of Shrupak, the Martyr was being re-supplied with fuel while a Kaleesh priest anointed Grievous in preparation for renewed warfare against the Yam'rii, with his elite soldiers, the eight Izvoshra, accompanying him. Grievous used a ladder to ascend to the command deck and assured his Kaleesh compatriots that he would be successful, provided the Martyr remained operational. While Grievous was in flight, Dooku and the automatons accompanying him activated the ion explosive, causing the transport to malfunction. Grievous realized his systems were failing but was unable to react. Just as the Martyr impacted the surface of the Jenuwaa Sea, Dooku detonated the ship and forced the ejection of the command deck to save Grievous. Dooku's IG-100 MagnaGuards extracted the seriously wounded warlord from the wreckage. One of the Izvoshra, Bentilais san Sk'ar, survived the explosion, but the rest of the crew were killed.
Grievous awoke with his extremities severely damaged in a healing tank on the planet Geonosis, where he was greeted by Hill, who falsely claimed that a Banking Clan warship had accidentally responded to the beacon from the life pod and stated that all of the Martyr's other crew had died in the crash. Grievous was enraged to discover that a transport crash had injured him so severely after his years of combat and requested that his healers grant him a warrior's death, declaring that he would prefer to die in the vacuum of outer space than in a healing tank. Instead, Hill offered Grievous the opportunity to become a machine-man and regain his combat prowess while serving as a general in the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
Later researchers disagreed over whether the transport crash was genuinely the cause of Grievous's transformation or if the general had willingly agreed to the changes, as he asserted. The destruction of the Martyr was later mentioned in the notes of Senior Anthropologist Mammon Hoole, which were compiled into a complete book after the conclusion of the Swarm War in 36 ABY. It was also acknowledged in a historical record assembled by the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances Historical Council in that year.
The novel Labyrinth of Evil, penned by James Luceno and released on January 25, 2005, was the first source to reference the transport crash that resulted in General Grievous becoming a machine-man. The transport then made its first full appearance in "The Eyes of Revolution," a graphic novel story written and illustrated by Warren Fu that was published in the anthology Star Wars: Visionaries, released on April 2, 2005. It was first identified in the article "The Story of General Grievous: Lord of War," authored by Abel G. Peña and published in 2006 on the online service Hyperspace: The Official Star Wars Fan Club.
While the graphic novel depicts Grievous being forced into receiving his mechanical enhancements as a consequence of the crash, another slightly contradictory backstory has emerged. In "Lair of Grievous," the tenth episode of the initial season of the animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which premiered on December 12, 2008, Grievous insists that he voluntarily chose to have his body mechanically upgraded.
Series creator Dave Filoni stated in a behind-the-scenes commentary for "Lair of Grievous" that he was aware of the transport crash backstory for Grievous in the Expanded Universe, but he had chosen to adhere to Star Wars creator George Lucas's concept for the character, that Grievous desired the power and skill of the Jedi Knights but lacked their Force abilities, leading him to enhance his body with mechanical improvements to compensate. The episode's writer, Henry Gilroy, expressed in an interview that he felt that the transport crash origin transformed Grievous into too sympathetic a villain and believed that him voluntarily becoming a machine-man was more aligned with Lucas's vision when he created the character. In the same interview, Filoni felt that fans could select the version of the story that they believed, with the plausible explanation that Grievous fabricated the notion that he chose to become a machine-man.
When writing the 2012 reference book The Essential Guide to Warfare, Jason Fry dismissed the idea of attempting to reconcile both backstories. Instead, he presented the idea of disputes between historians as an in-universe explanation for the discrepancy.