During the Republic Dark Age, specifically in 1032 BBY, a complex, three-pronged military endeavor known as Operation Influx was orchestrated by the Jedi, under the command of Jedi Master Vannar Treece. The central aim of this operation was to disrupt the export of baradium – a highly unstable substance crucial for manufacturing weapons – from the planet Chelloa. Chelloa was an integral part of the Daimanate, the fiefdom controlled by Sith Lord Daiman. Daiman's strategy involved exploiting Chelloa's abundant baradium reserves to bolster his war efforts against his adversarial brother, Lord Odion. Crucially, Vannar Treece received vital intelligence from Gorlan Palladane, a former Jedi Knight operating undercover as the leader of the Chelloan resistance.
The execution of Operation Influx necessitated infiltrating Sith space through Oranessan, a strategically important regional transportation hub. This initial step was to be followed by a direct Raid on Chelloa. Subsequently, the Jedi team planned to escape via a direct hyperspace route to neutral territories. Despite achieving initial successes on Oranessan, the Jedi force met a tragic end on Chelloa when Sith Lord Odion launched an assault, deploying a devastating kinetic corruptor that obliterated vast areas of the planet's surface. Vannar himself was killed by Odion, leaving Kerra Holt as the mission's lone survivor. However, despite the operation's failure, Kerra managed to establish contact with Gorlan's resistance and played a key role in evacuating the population of Chelloa aboard the Freedom Fleet during the Destruction of Chelloa.
During the Republic Dark Age, marking the final century of the protracted New Sith Wars, the Galactic Republic suffered a significant loss of control over substantial portions of the galaxy, particularly the Outer Rim Territories. By the year 1032 BBY, the Grumani sector within the Outer Rim had devolved into a battleground controlled by various warring Sith Lords, including Daiman, who deluded himself into believing he was the Universe's Creator, and his estranged older brother Odion, who styled himself as its Destroyer. These Sith Lords engaged in constant conflict with each other and the Republic, vying for dominance across the galaxy. While the Republic's military had largely withdrawn from the Outer Rim, certain independent Jedi, such as Master Vannar Treece and his followers, undertook daring "knight errant" missions to disrupt the Sith's operations and offer hope to the oppressed populations within Sith-controlled territories.
In 1032 BBY, Master Treece received critical intelligence from Gorlan Palladane, the undercover former Jedi and leader of the Chelloan resistance, regarding Sith Lord Daiman's discovery of a massive baradium deposit on Chelloa. Baradium, a highly unstable compound, was essential for producing a wide range of explosive weaponry. Daiman began to transport substantial quantities of baradium to his war foundries located near the front lines. This development greatly concerned Master Treece, who feared that Daiman's newfound resource would tip the balance of power in the Grumani sector in his favor. Consequently, Treece, along with his young assistant Kerra Holt, a former refugee from Aquilaris Minor who had become a Jedi Knight, proposed a three-phase strategy known as Operation Influx, aimed at dismantling a significant portion of Chelloa's baradium production.
Although Kerra initially suggested the name Operation Deadlock for the Chelloan military operation, Master Treece ultimately chose Operation Influx, as he saw stalemating the Sith Lords as a secondary objective of the mission, a motive they preferred not to openly acknowledge. Operation Influx was structured into three distinct phases: insertion into Daimanite territory via Oranessan, a critical regional transport hub; the actual raid on Chelloa; and extraction using a direct hyperspace route to neutral space. Master Treece presented the outline of Operation Influx to Supreme Chancellor Genarra, a highly respected Jedi Master who also served as the Republic's head of government. Unbeknownst to the Jedi planners, Sith Lord Odion had intercepted Palladane's communications and was assembling a force to annihilate Chelloa as part of his destructive agenda.
Given that Operation Influx was an unconventional "knight errant operation," Master Vannar Treece assembled a volunteer Jedi force that included his former apprentice Kerra Holt, the Cerean Jedi Master Dorvin Eltrom, the Quarren Master Berluk, and the Trandoshan Jedi Mrssk. During the initial phase of their operation, the Jedi traveled to Oranessan, a key transportation hub within the Daimanate, aboard one of their starships. While descending into the planet's atmosphere, they downed a small Daimanate personnel shuttle. While the rest of the Jedi team remained in their transport, Treece and Kerra went to the crash site to recover stolen cloaks and identification badges from the deceased crew. After eliminating a squad of Daimanite sentries led by a female ground crew chief, they seized control of an unoccupied Daimanate Heavy-Lift Starcrosser located in the transport zone.
After signaling the other Jedi to board the transport, the team proceeded with their plan to travel to Chelloa. However, the mission encountered an unforeseen complication when Kerra discovered that the transport's navigation computer was missing its activation cylinder. Without this cylinder, the Starcrosser would be unable to jump to hyperspace, potentially forcing the mission to be aborted. The Jedi were unable to use their own transport to reach Chelloa, as the planet was heavily guarded by Daimanate starfighters. Determined to proceed, Kerra left the transport and stole a replacement cylinder from a nearby hangar. After installing the device, the Jedi departed for Chelloa to continue the second phase of their mission.
As planned, the Jedi strike team successfully infiltrated the Chelloan spaceport of Jenith undetected. Their arrival coincided with Daiman's slave laborers loading crates of baradium onto freighters destined for the front lines. The Jedi's Starcrosser freighter collided with several Sith freighters and ignited several baradium crates, causing widespread chaos among the Sith forces. Capitalizing on the element of surprise, Treece and his Jedi team, aided by Gorlan Palladane, managed to overwhelm Daiman's troops. Having successfully disrupted a portion of the baradium export line, Master Treece and the Jedi began preparations for extraction and for demolishing the spaceport's facilities.
Before Master Treece and his Jedi team could proceed to the third phase of Operation Influx, Sith Lord Odion and his forces launched a raid on Jenith. Driven by a desire to destroy Chelloa, believing that the planet's abundant baradium resources created an imbalance in the Force, Odion decided to test his kinetic corruptor on the town. The kinetic corruptor unleashed a massive explosion that devastated large sections of Jenith and its spaceport. Odion's forces then withdrew to prepare for a large-scale assault on Chelloa. As a consequence of Odion's attack, Treece and his entire Jedi strike force, with the exception of his former apprentice Kerra Holt, were killed. Kerra was rescued by Gorlan, who had survived the devastation by taking shelter aboard a Starcrosser freighter.
Following the destruction of Master Vannar Treece's Jedi strike team, Kerra Holt sought refuge with Gorlan Palladane, the leader of the Chelloan resistance. In response to the Jedi and Odionate attacks, Sith Lord Daiman initiated an investigation to uncover the source of the baradium leak. Daiman apprehended Skodo, a Rodian friend of Gorlan Palladane who possessed an illegal transmitter, and subjected him to torture in an attempt to identify the individual who had leaked information about his baradium operations to the Jedi and Odionate forces. When his torture methods failed to yield any information, Daiman arranged for the transmitter to be returned to Skodo's hut. His troops then monitored Skodo's adobe and caught Gorlan in the act of contacting Odion in an attempt to dissuade the Sith Lord from destroying Chelloa. As punishment for Gorlan's role in the leak, Lord Daiman ordered the destruction of the town of Jenith.
Meanwhile, Kerra Holt attempted to assassinate Daiman. However, the Sith Lord diverted Kerra by informing her of his brother Odion's plans to destroy Chelloa. Kerra and Gorlan managed to separately dissuade Odion from carrying out his destructive plan. After learning that Daiman intended to expand baradium mining operations on Chelloa, Odion decided to seize the planet for himself. However, this was actually a deception orchestrated by Daiman to lure Odion into a deadly trap on Chelloa. Unwilling to allocate significant resources to defending Chelloa, Daiman decided to destroy the planet using his own kinetic corruptors, which were smuggled onto Chelloa disguised as mobile munitions factories. As planned, Odion's armies invaded Chelloa, only to fall into a deadly ambush. By the end of the campaign, Odion's entire Lightning Guard was annihilated, and the Sith Lord himself suffered severe burns during a battle with Kerra and Gorlan Palladane.
Amidst the Sith sibling rivalry, Kerra successfully rescued Gorlan from Daiman's alpine retreat. Reuniting with other Chelloan resistance members in the spaceport town of Arboth, Kerra and Gorlan organized a large-scale evacuation of Chelloa's 60,000 inhabitants using a fleet of hijacked freighters known as the Freedom Fleet. This evacuation coincided with Daiman's destruction of Chelloa's surface. Following the Chelloan affair, Kerra resumed her guerrilla campaign against Daiman and the other Sith Lords of the Grumani sector.
- Jedi Order
- Vannar Treece
- Berluk
- Kerra Holt
- Mrssk
- Dorvin Eltrom
- A Koorivar Jedi
- A Twi'lek Jedi
- An Anomid Jedi
- Chelloan resistance
- Gorlan Palladane
- Skodo
The comic script writer John Jackson Miller initially conceived Operation Influx as a plot element for his Dark Horse Comics series Star Wars: Knight Errant, which debuted on October 9, 2010. The military operation was first referenced in his accompanying short story, Star Wars: Knight Errant: Influx, which was published on StarWars.com on October 19, 2010. The Knight Errant Gazetteer, an online supplement to Jason Fry and Daniel Wallace's The Essential Atlas reference book, published by Del Rey on August 18, 2009, further explored Operation Influx's background. The Knight Errant Gazettee was presented as an in-universe article penned by Jedi Master Vannar Treece, a supporting character within the Knight Errant franchise.