Nightswan's campaign

In the years leading up to the Battle of Yavin, the Empire was confronted by a multitude of rebel insurgent factions, including the Free Ryloth Movement, Berch Teller's rebel group, the Spectres of Lothal, Phoenix Cell, and Saw Gerrera's Partisans. Another figure among these insurgent leaders was the smuggling "consultant" known as Nevil Cygni, who previously held a position at the Kanauer Corporation's mining operations situated in the Thrugii asteroid belt. Adopting the alias "Nightswan", Cygni viewed the Empire as a corrupt and oppressive regime that needed to be overthrown and replaced with a new system founded on principles of justice, compassion, and liberty.

During the Imperial Era, Cygni became associated with a group that had separated from the Mining Guild and sought to capitalize on the growing instability in the Empire's metal markets, which was negatively impacting numerous small businesses, particularly those involved in shipbuilding. Nightswan joined this group with the intention of diverting a sufficient amount of resources from the Imperial Navy's demand to provide assistance to these struggling businesses. However, Nightswan ultimately left after discovering that the group was simply reselling stolen metals back to the Empire through illicit channels. This experience motivated Nightswan to assist ordinary citizens who had been harmed by the Empire and were unable to seek redress. To finance these activities, Nightswan began offering his services as a consultant to various criminal organizations, including Angel's Culoss pirates, who were descendants of Q'anah's Marauders.

While Nightswan primarily focused on aiding innocent individuals, he occasionally provided assistance to emerging insurgent groups. Nightswan's "consultancy" activities encompassed the instigation of protests and unrest, such as the Circle Bay mayor's office protest. Nightswan's actions attracted the attention of the Imperial Security Bureau, which assigned Colonel Wullf Yularen to investigate Nightswan. While working as a "consultant", Nightswan considered returning to the Mining Guild. However, by that time, the Mining Guild had become aware of the splinter group and had alerted the Imperial authorities. Around that time, Nightswan heard rumors of a mysterious Imperial project that was consuming vast quantities of doonium, iridium, and other metals, which turned out to be the classified Death Star project. Nightswan enlisted the help of Driller MarDapp's Higher Skies Advocacy Group and the Yinchom Dojo instructor Juahir Madras to spy on Imperial officials in the galactic capital Coruscant.

Two years prior to the Batonn insurgency, Nightswan received information from a friend who had worked in the Thrugii asteroid belt about a blue-skin non-human collaborating with Jedi Generals during the Clone Wars. This alien was identified as the aspiring Imperial Navy officer Thrawn, who, along with his aide-de-camp Eli Vanto, took an interest in Nightswan's activities.

Eighteen months after Senior Lieutenant Thrawn and Ensign Vanto completed their studies at the Royal Imperial Academy, Nevil Cygni and the Culoss pirates seized the freighter Dromedar, which was transporting tibanna gas. Cygni had gained access to the Dromedar by impersonating a new crew member. They confined the ten-member crew in a cage located in the aft-starboard cargo bay of their pirate ship and proceeded to transport the tibanna to Uba in the Barsa sector. The Imperial Gozanti-class cruiser Blood Crow unexpectedly encountered the Dromedar. Cygni pretended to be one of the Dromedar's crew members and claimed that pirates had abducted his crew. Thrawn successfully persuaded his commanding officer Captain Rik Virgilio to allow him, Vanto, and three Imperial technicians to remain aboard the Dromedar with the crew.

While investigating the freighter's cargo, Thrawn discovered that Cygni and his accomplices were the actual pirates. Cygni captured the Imperials and imprisoned them alongside the original crew on the pirate ship. Cygni and his followers departed aboard the Dromedar with the smuggled tibanna but arranged for the prisoners to be transferred to a designated drop zone. Distrusting Angel's intentions towards the Imperials, Cygni ensured that Thrawn's buzz droid was left behind. This played into Thrawn's plan, and he utilized the buzz droids to liberate the prisoners from their cage. After escaping from their confinement, the Imperials and Dromedar crew members overwhelmed their captors. Thrawn defeated the remaining pirates by using a second buzz droid moored to the pirate ship's hull to expose the ship's entrance chamber and amidships section to the vacuum of Space.

Despite defeating Cygni's pirates and rescuing the Dromedar's crew, Thrawn faced suspension from duty for failing to prevent the theft of the tibanna gas canisters. While Thrawn and Vanto were stationed on Ansion, they seized the opportunity to assist Admiral Plor Wiskovis in interrogating three of the surviving pirates. Adopting a "good cop" approach, Thrawn convinced the pirates to reveal the location where Cygni and Angel had smuggled the tibanna in exchange for protection from Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin. Given that the pirates were descendants of Q'anah's Marauders, Thrawn exploited their fears of Tarkin. While the pirates deliberated on Thrawn's offer, Thrawn utilized his knowledge of Sy Bisti and deduced that Angel and Cygni had transported the Dromedar and its tibanna cargo to Uba. Accepting Thrawn's proposal, the pirates claimed that Angel and Cygni had gone to Cartherston on the planet Keitum.

Although Thrawn knew the pirates were lying, he proceeded with the deal to set a trap for Angel and Cygni. Acting on this information, Admiral Wiskovis dispatched forces to both Uba and Cartherston to recover the tibanna and apprehend the pirates. Despite their efforts, Cygni managed to evade the Imperial cordon around Uba. While Imperial forces managed to capture the other pirates, they discovered that twelve of the twenty cylinders recovered aboard the Dromedar were empty. Thrawn and Vanto discussed their findings with the ISB Colonel Yularen, who was surprised that Cygni had apparently found a way to extract tibanna from the cylinders. Thrawn was subsequently exonerated by an Imperial military court martial and promoted to Captain of the Arquitens-class light cruiser Thunder Wasp.

Following the Dromedar raid, a couple of ISB analysts speculated that Nightswan had settled down with a single organization. Colonel Yularen rightfully theorized that Nightswan and Cygni were one and the same. Later, Nightswan orchestrated a plan to purchase Vulture droid parts from a Rodian merchant using proceeds generated from smuggling iridium on the planet Paklarn. Nightswan hired several local smugglers, whose plan was to transport the stolen iridium from the mines to an old underwater transport. From there, the iridium would be transported to a group of fishing boats where they were formed into small discs and hidden inside grist mollusk shells. Despite Nightswan's instructions to disperse the mollusk meat along the entire path, the smugglers instead disposed of the meat in one dump, attracting a large number of makorr predators.

The smugglers' tardiness enabled Captain Thrawn, Ensign Vanto, and Commander Alfren Cheno to track down the smugglers and apprehend them. After questioning one of the smugglers, Thrawn deduced that Nightswan's carefully-crafted scheme had unraveled due to the tardiness of the smugglers. Thrawn had been monitoring Nightswan's activities for the past year. He took advantage of his regular trips to Coruscant to visit Colonel Yularen and share intelligence on their investigations into the mysterious Nightswan.

Nightswan then instigated an uprising on Umbara, a former Separatist world that had become a major exporter of doonium. Nightswan staged the uprising in order to instigate the Imperial takeover of Umbara's entire mining and refinery sector; reasoning that it was easier to bribe the Imperial inspectors than the Umbarans. In addition, Nightswan's operatives established a ground-based transmitter on one of Umbara's moons, which controlled 400 Vulture droids. The Umbaran uprising provoked the deployment of Imperial Navy forces under Admiral Carlou Gendling.

Captain Thrawn's Thunder Wasp was part of the Imperial pacification force dispatched to Umbara. The Vulture droids inflicted significant casualties on the Imperial forces. However, Thrawn studied the Vulture droids' attack pattern and deduced that they were being controlled by a ground-based transmitter. He convinced his superior officer Commander Cheno and the other Imperial commanders in the squadron to bombard the moon. While this neutralized the threat of the Vulture droids, Admiral Gendling was incensed that Commander Cheno and Captain Thrawn had usurped his command. Cheno took the fall for Thrawn in order to protect the Chiss officer's Imperial career. This allowed Thrawn to continue his investigation into Nightswan.

Nightswan's operatives on the planet Nubia later instigated a protest at the Circle Bay mayor's office. They engineered the dismissal of the kitchen staff and embedded their own people among the new staff. This incident led Colonel Yularen and Captain Thrawn to deduce that Nightswan was planning to target Imperial government officials and bureaucrats on Coruscant using dojos. Nightswan's spy ring on Coruscant was uncovered by an unlikely source: the Lothalite emigrant and former senatorial staffer Arihnda Pryce. She befriended Driller MarDapp and Juahir Madras.

Driller was the head of the Higher Skies Advocacy Group, which covertly gathered intelligence on Imperial mining and industrial operations using bodyguards, who worked for Imperial bureaucrats and senators. Nightswan hope to uncover the Empire's secret Death Star project. These bodyguards were recruited by his friend Juahir, who worked as a martial arts instructor at the Togorian H'sishi's dojo Yinchom Dojo. Madras used her position to blackmail and "indoctrinate" bodyguards about the "evils" of the Empire. The bodyguards were tasked with spying on their Imperial employees but were not supposed to assassinate them. The intelligence obtained by the bodyguards was stored on Higher Skies' computer database, which was then passed to Nightswan. Driller and Madras convinced an unsuspecting Pryce to work for Higher Skies and to hone her martial arts abilities at Yinchom Dojo.

As part of their investigation, Yularen along with Thrawn and Vanto visited the Yinchom Dojo under the pretext of verifying their credentials. Pryce, who had met Thrawn earlier following the Dromedar Incident, managed to inform Thrawn that she was working for the Higher Skies Group. Thrawn engaged in a martial arts demonstration with dojo H'sishi to test whether she harbored any malice towards the Empire. While Thrawn ascertained that H'sishi was innocent, he suspected something aloof about Madras' behavior and suspected that she had something to hide. Growing uneasy about Higher Skies' illicit activities, Pryce secretly contacted Thrawn and offered to become a double agent in return for immunity. Thrawn accepted her offer and asked her to copy Higher Skies' files.

Pryce's work was complicated when Ottlis Dos, one of the bodyguards she worked with, revealed that he was working as a double agent for Moff Ghadi, a rival of Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin who despised Thrawn for being an alien. Pryce turned the tables on Ghadi by offering to share Higher Skies' intelligence on Grand Moff Tarkin with Ghadi. After securing an audience with Tarkin, she exposed Higher Skies' espionage activities and Ghadi's plot to exploit the illegally–obtained data. In return for immunity, Pryce managed to convince Tarkin to appoint her Governor of Lothal and to promote Thrawn's friend Eli Vanto.

As a result of Pryce's information, Imperial Security Bureau forces under Colonel Yularen arrested members of Higher Skies and Yinchom Dojo. Yularen personally arrested Madras after one of her bodyguards Kaniki tried to assassinate Senator Evidorn. While most of the conspirators were executed, Juahir's punishment was commuted to imprisonment after she cooperated with Yularen. H'sishi was cleared of any wrong-doing and allowed to leave Coruscant. Pryce's actions dealt a serious blow to Nightswan's intelligence-gathering efforts in the Imperial capital.

Meanwhile, Nightswan became embroiled in the Cyphar Incident. In order to raise funds for weapons and supplies, Nightswan helped a group of smugglers on Cyphar to smuggle a pre-spice material that was used to produce a spice variety called scarn. While Nightswan was uncomfortable with smuggling spice, he had no choice since the smugglers were armed. To distract both the Cyphari Afe clan and the Cyphar government, the smugglers instigated a land dispute between the Afes and human colonists around a new doonium vein beneath Afe territory. At Nightswan's advice, the doonium was smuggled offworld hidden is shellfish shells.

Commander Thrawn and Ensign Vanto were dispatched to resolved the Cyphar dispute. Studying the planet's shipping records, Thrawn and Vanto ascertained that the dispute was linked to the illicit smuggling of doonium and a rise in the export of shellfish. Thrawn also rightfully deduced that Nightswan had a hand behind this dispute. After meeting with the colonists' representatives Clay Tanoo and Brigte Polcery and the Afe Chief Joko, Thrawn and Vanto decided to set a trap for the human raiders. Imperial forces managed to capture several raiders including their leaders Tanoo and Polcery. While examining the site, Thrawn also discovered that the disputed ground contained a pre-spice material that was used to produce scarn.

In order to end the land dispute, Thrawn ordered the Thunder Wasp and its TIE fighters to level the disputed land, destroying the scarn and farmland. Despite resolving the Cyphar dispute, Thrawn's actions antagonized Chief Joko, who objected to the loss of farmland and damage to property. The Imperial Military was also displeased that Thrawn had not followed procedure and court-martialed him. However, Thrawn was cleared by a military panel due to Grand Moff Tarkin's influence. He was promoted to Commodore while Vanto was promoted to Lieutenant Commander. Thrawn was also made captain of the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera, giving him more resources in the fight against Nightswan's insurgency.

Following the disruption of Higher Skies and the Cyphar dispute, Nightswan and his followers subsequently took an interest in freeing Wookiee slaves from the Empire. After the Clone Wars, the Galactic Empire had annexed Kashyyyk and enslaved the Wookiee species. The xenophobic Empire wanted to exploit the Wookiees for their massive, robust physiology allowed them to work for long hours in extreme conditions. Besides being forced to harvest lumber and crops, and mining for raw materials on Kashyyyk, large numbers of Wookiee slaves were shipped across the galaxy to work in mines and to build the Death Star. In addition, Wookiees were also used as experimental subjects for testing medicines and weapons.

The insurgents ambushed the troop ship Sempre with the frigate Castilus and two squadrons of V-19 Torrent starfighters. After jamming the troop ship, the insurgents boarded the Sempre and liberated the Wookiee slaves. Commodore Thrawn and Lieutenant Commander Vanto responded to the Sempre's distress call. After examining the troop ship's interior, Thrawn discovered that the Empire was trafficking Wookiee slaves. Meanwhile, the insurgents attacked the space station Lansend Twenty-Six, which was used to process Wookiees who were being exported offworld. The insurgents were aided by a saboteur aboard Landsend, who managed to disable the long-range comm and shut off the starboard-side defense systems before being captured.

With reinforcements from Baklek Base on the way, the Chimaera came to the aid of Landsen Twenty-Six. By that stage, the insurgents had already boarded the station. After establishing contact with Colonel Zenoc, Thrawn ordered the Star Destroyer's turbolasers to bombard the starboard part of the station. Meanwhile, Thrawn's TIE fighters neutralized the insurgent starships, reducing the enemy forces to the crippled frigate and three V-19s. Despite helping to foil Nightswan's latest venture, Vanto felt uneasy that the Empire was using slaves. Thrawn responded that these slaves were Imperial assets and sought to rationalize slavery.

Following Admiral Thrawn's suppression of the uprising on Botajef, Nightswan turned his attention to the planet Batonn, which was an exporter of doonium. Nightswan became affiliated with the Batonn insurgents, who opposed Governor Restos and his Imperial overlords. The Batonn insurgents captured the Imperial garrison on Scrim Island. In response, Fleet Admiral Jok Donassius decided to take action against insurgent groups within the Batonn sector including Batonn.

Admiral Thrawn and his Ninety-Sixth Task Force were tasked with recapturing Scrim Island from the insurgents. However, the mission was reassigned to Admiral Durril and his One Oh Third Task Force after Thrawn insisted on studying the siege first. Instead, Thrawn was reassigned to quelling the insurgents on Sammun while Admiral Kinshara's One Twenty-Fifth task force was tasked with dealing with the Denash insurgents. Thrawn tasked Commander Karyn Faro with handling the Sammun insurgents while he and Commander Vanto traveled undercover to Batonn to gather intelligence on Nightswan.

Posing as an arms dealer, Vanto managed to infiltrate Nightswan's base aboard a Nomad starship on Batonn's main continent. Nightswan told Vanto about his plans to overthrow the Empire and regarded Thrawn as an obstacle. Eli and Thrawn managed to escape Nightswan's ship by staging an explosion. Meanwhile, the Scrim Island insurgents inflicted heavy damage on Admiral Durril's forces, forcing them to retreat from the battle. On Sammun, Commander Faro destroyed two enemy ships, and captured four others as well as a considerable amount of ordnance. Elsewhere, Admiral Kinshara encountered little resistance since most of the Denash insurgents had retreated to Batonn.

With the defeat of Admiral Durril, Thrawn was tasked with recapturing Scrim Island. Having studied the enemy's tactics, Thrawn used his task force's Imperial light cruisers as decoys to absorb the enemy ion cannons. Though the light cruisers were disabled, this enabled Thrawn to deploy the Chimaera and bombard the insurgents from orbit. The Chimaera's turbolasers generated mini tsunamis that overwhelmed the insurgents' defenses, forcing their surrender. However, other insurgents managed to retreat to the Creekpath Mining and Refining complex near Paeragosto City; setting the stage for a siege.

Nightswan's forces took control and occupied the Creekpath Mining and Refining complex, driving out the mining staff in a coordinated operation. The Batonn authorities were caught off guard since Governor Restos had requisitioned the Batonn Defense Force to guard his palace. While Nightswan did not want civilians to get involved, many civilians took shelter inside the Creekpath complex, which was defended by a deflector shield generator. Many of the local civilians including Governor Pryce's parents Talmoor and Elainye Pryce were sympathetic to the Batonn insurgents due to their grievances with Governor Restos and the Empire.

Forces of the Empire and Batonn's defense established a siege around the Creekpath complex. Because her parents were inside, Governor Pryce persuaded Colonel Yularen to let her go with ISB Agent Gudry on a mission aimed at deactivating the shield generator. Concurrently, Thrawn orchestrated a clandestine meeting with Nightswan, hoping to discover a peaceful solution to the Creekpath siege. During their discussion, Nightswan admitted his involvement in prior insurgent actions, including the Dromedar Incident, the Battle over Umbara, Higher Skies, the Cyphar dispute, the attempted liberation of Wookiee slaves, and the siege of Scrim Island. Thrawn proposed to secretly transport Nightswan to the Chiss Ascendancy for his safety, but Nightswan refused to leave his followers at the mercy of Governor Restos. Despite their differences, Thrawn committed to minimizing civilian casualties.

Subsequently, thirty insurgent ships jumped out of hyperspace and launched an assault on the Imperial light cruisers orbiting Batonn. Thrawn responded by deploying TIE fighters, which had been concealed within repair ships. The freighters found themselves caught between the Chimaera and the TIE fighters. Meanwhile, Pryce had a disagreement with Gudry and murdered him when he declined to assist her in evacuating her parents. To conceal his murder, Pryce triggered the explosives that Gudry had attached to the insurgents' munitions depot, but she deliberately left the shield generator functioning. This created an explosion that devastated a large portion of the mining complex, resulting in the deaths of all the insurgents present, including Nightswan, as well as numerous civilians. Observing the explosion, the insurgent ships in space withdrew, bringing an end to the Batonn insurgency.

Nightswan's demise during the Siege of the Creekpath Mining and Refining complex brought his insurgent campaign against the Galactic Empire to a close. The Empire accepted Pryce's account that Gudy had detonated the explosives to avoid being captured by the insurgents. Despite the significant civilian casualties on Batonn, Governor Pryce deemed them acceptable losses, as there were no longer any insurgents in the Batonn sector. Though disturbed by the high death toll, Thrawn reluctantly accepted Pryce as a political ally. Thrawn was later promoted to the rank of Grand Admiral by the Emperor and given command of the Seventh Fleet.

Pryce's dissatisfaction with Admiral Kassius Konstantine's efforts against the Phoenix Cell prompted her to request Grand Moff Tarkin to send Thrawn and the Seventh Fleet to the Lothal sector. Even after Nightswan's death, rebellion against the Empire persisted. By 2 BBY, Thrawn realized that the Empire was on the verge of fighting a galaxy-wide insurgency. Later that year, the various rebel cells, under the leadership of former Senator Mon Mothma, united to form the Alliance to Restore the Republic, which championed many of Nightswan's ideals. After years of warfare, the Alliance's successor, the New Republic, defeated the Empire at the Battle of Jakku in 5 ABY.

Nightswan's campaign is a subplot in Timothy Zahn's 2017 novel Thrawn, a Canonical origins story of the character. Nightswan is the novel's primary antagonist.