Task Force 231 was a task force belonging to the Imperial Navy that operated during the Lothal campaign. Following Imperial Karyn Faro's promotion to the rank of commodore, she was promised command of this flotilla. However, despite the passage of several weeks, no official appointment materialized. Imperial High Command also neglected to enroll the commodore in the customary pre-command orientation within the expected timeframe. After a disagreement with Imperial Assistant Director Brierly Ronan, Faro began to suspect that Grand Admiral Thrawn was deliberately preventing her from taking command of the task force. Surprisingly, Thrawn later disclosed to Faro that he was actually advocating for her to command the larger Eleventh Fleet instead, a request that High Command subsequently sanctioned.
Within the structure of the Imperial Navy, Task Force 231 was classified as a task force.
Around the time of the Battle of Atollon, which occurred during the Lothal campaign, Karyn Faro, who was then the captain of the Imperial Star Destroyer named Chimaera, received a promotion to the rank of commodore. Concurrently, Faro was also assured that she would be given command of Task Force 231, once the current commander of the flotilla was promoted to lead one of the larger fleets. However, six weeks passed, and Faro remained under the command of Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn within the Seventh Fleet. As the Chimaera fought in several engagements against the hostile Grysk Hegemony, she was uncertain about the direction of her career.
According to established Imperial Navy protocols, Faro should have been removed from the ship upon the Chimaera's return from these missions to attend pre-command orientation on the planet of Coruscant. However, this did not happen. The commodore considered the possibility of a simple delay, but Imperial High Command was typically strict about scheduling and would have sent a message to reschedule the orientation or assignment. Since no such message arrived, and her discreet inquiry received no response, she was left in the dark.
One week after Faro submitted her inquiry, she had a disagreement with Brierly Ronan, the Assistant Director from the Imperial Military Department of Advanced Weapons Research and a political rival of Thrawn. Ronan claimed to have discovered that Thrawn was the one preventing her appointment to Task Force 231, although the details were vague. Despite dismissing Ronan's accusation as false, the commodore was disturbed by his words and wondered if she had somehow offended Thrawn or other high-ranking Imperials, or if Thrawn simply did not want to lose her as his Star Destroyer's captain.
Shortly before the Liberation of Lothal, Thrawn revealed to Faro that he had indeed blocked her appointment to the 231st, but not to keep her in the Seventh Fleet or because of any perceived inadequacy. Instead, Thrawn had requested that Faro be assigned to the larger Eleventh Fleet, believing that her exceptional skills as an administrator, tactician, and officer were better suited for that command. The reassignment had been approved earlier that morning, and she was scheduled to leave the Chimaera shortly thereafter.
The novel Thrawn: Alliances by Timothy Zahn, published in 2018 and the second book in Star Wars: The Imperial Trilogy, contained the first mention of Task Force 231.