Thrawn campaign

In the aftermath of the campaigns that followed the defeat of Warlord Zsinj, Imperial Space had shrunk drastically to only a quarter of its original size. Furthermore, the Empire experienced a decline in available crew members as it continued to lose ground. Instead of relying on Academy graduates, dedicated officers such as Captain Gilad Pellaeon were forced to depend on on-the-job trainees and even resorted to conscription raids to forcibly enlist individuals.

However, the New Republic was also facing its own difficulties. The relentless battles following Zsinj's demise resulted in substantial fleet losses for both the Empire and the New Republic. With the Kuat shipyards nearly obliterated by Kuat Drive Yards itself, both factions were compelled to either seize ships from each other or rely on smaller, strained shipyards. Given the magnitude of the conflict and the Empire's increasing fragmentation, a swift recovery for either side seemed improbable, resulting in closely matched fleet sizes. Consequently, by the conclusion of 8 ABY, Mon Mothma mandated a cessation of New Republic operations to facilitate the rebuilding of its forces, consolidate the government, and integrate its territories. Imperial Space lacked economic development, and she favored a strategy of slowly winning over systems through economics. Thus, the Empire maintained control over its territories beyond the Hydian Way in the New Territories, while Zsinj's former domain between the Hydian Way and the Perlemian Trade Route became a region of divided loyalties known as the Borderland Regions. Meanwhile, the New Republic held a salient along the Celanon Spur from Ord Mantell, captured during the post–Zsinj campaigns, and theoretically governed the galaxy south of the Perlemian. However, many of these systems had yet to send representatives to Coruscant, and the New Republic's authority remained largely symbolic beyond the major trade routes. For a short period, an uneasy truce prevailed.

However, in 9 ABY, approximately two years after Coruscant's capture, the New Republic received reports of a Grand Admiral leading the Imperial fleet. This individual was Mitth'raw'nuruodo, a Chiss more commonly known by his core name, Thrawn. Upon returning from the Unknown Regions, Thrawn assumed control of the Galactic Empire and initiated a new campaign against the New Republic.

Raising his flag aboard the Star Destroyer Chimaera, Thrawn appointed the well-regarded Captain Gilad Pellaeon as his second-in-command. Thrawn garnered the respect of the Moffs by suppressing pirate bases within Imperial territory, and warlords such as Ardus Kaine and Delak Krennel consented to a temporary military confederation. Ars Dangor's Ruling Council on Orinda bestowed upon him the honorary title of Supreme Commander, but in reality, the Council and the Moffs were as wary of each other as they were of the New Republic, and thus hoarded military resources. Thrawn's truly available force consisted solely of the dozen Star Destroyers and their support vessels that remained in Death Squadron after the defeat at Endor, with only six—the Chimaera, the Judicator, the Death's Head, the Stormhawk, the Nemesis and the Inexorable—deemed entirely loyal. Thrawn divided the squadron into two fleets: the fleet of six Loyalist Star Destroyers led by the Chimaera under his personal command, and a second force of six ships led by Captain Dorja aboard the Relentless. Furthermore, Thrawn reaffirmed the Noghri's service to the Empire, employing them as bodyguards and commandos.

Thrawn perceived his overarching strategy as a sequence of interconnected elements culminating in "the only puzzle worth solving... the complete, total, and utter destruction of the Rebellion." In the campaign's early stages, Thrawn deployed individual Star Destroyers to conduct raids on New Republic worlds located in the Borderland Regions, such as the Draukyze and Saarn systems, in order to assess their defensive capabilities. The initial phase of Thrawn's scheme was intended to address the challenge of his limited military resources. He sought to acquire any capital ships available—which included stealing New Republic warships using mole miners, and locating and seizing the lost Katana fleet—and to establish an army of clones to crew his new fleet. To produce the clones, Thrawn aimed to secure Palpatine's hidden cache of Spaarti cloning cylinders, which he intended to utilize at an accelerated rate to populate his ranks with loyal crew members, soldiers, and pilots. However, to prevent the accelerated cloning process from resulting in mad, unstable clones, Thrawn devised a plan to employ the ysalamir, creatures capable of generating a Force-blocking field. Thrawn had learned of these creatures years prior, noting during his time in the Unknown Regions that Myrkr had been avoided by the Jedi Knights for the last 300 years of the Galactic Republic. The ysalamiri were also essential to Thrawn's strategy for controlling Joruus C'baoth, the deranged Dark Jedi clone guarding Palpatine's secret stores (although Thrawn had initially expected to find a different Guardian). While the Spaarti chambers would provide Thrawn with adequate soldiers, he lacked sufficient officers to command his new fleet and determined that C'baoth could provide coordination between the Imperial forces as Nial Declann did at Endor (although Thrawn believed it was the Emperor who used battle meditation).

To discover the locations of his objectives, Thrawn launched a raid against the comprehensive archive computers of Obroa-skai. This raid also furnished Thrawn with a wealth of current information—Thrawn's most potent weapon—regarding the New Republic, its allies, and the overall state of the galaxy. Following the final raid, which provided Thrawn with the necessary information, a skirmish with a New Republic pursuit force presented Thrawn with his first opportunity to demonstrate his tactical brilliance by identifying the species of the pursuit force's commander—an Elomin. He initiated an attack employing a Marg Sabl maneuver that the Elomin commander would be unable to counter, and subsequently defeated the task force despite being outnumbered.

From the partial data recovered from Obroa-skai, Thrawn obtained the location of Wayland, the site of Mount Tantiss, Palpatine's clandestine storehouse. The Chimaera first journeyed to Myrkr, where Thrawn encountered Talon Karrde, who was persuaded to assist the Imperial commander despite his inclination to remain neutral. After acquiring a sufficient number of ysalamiri, Pellaeon and Thrawn traveled to Wayland. Shielded by ysalamiri mounted on nutrient racks, Thrawn convinced Joruus C'baoth to support his campaign in exchange for Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa Solo, and her unborn twins. Enticed by the prospect of shaping young Jedi minds, C'baoth pledged his assistance and granted Thrawn access to the marvels of Mount Tantiss, including the Spaarti chambers and the schematics for a functioning cloaking shield.

Mount Tantiss was populated with ysalamiri, and utilizing exceptional warriors such as Maximilian Veers and Soontir Fel as templates, the Spaarti cylinders commenced the production of thousands of clones, at which point Thrawn initiated his military campaign in earnest. Thrawn employed the ancient stateless strategy: leveraging mobility to strike where the New Republic was absent, compelling them to either overextend their forces in an attempt to defend everything, or concentrate their forces to defend a select few crucial planets, thereby sacrificing legitimacy elsewhere. With the Inner Rim recently liberated from Imperial control, Thrawn meticulously targeted a number of Inner and Mid Rim worlds. He feinted at Bpfassh to draw New Republic forces away from other systems, then raided Lando Calrissian's mining operation of Nomad City on Nkllon, seizing fifty-one mole miners. Noghri Death Commandos also raided Bimmisaari and Kashyyyk in an attempt to capture Leia Organa Solo.

The feint at Bpfassh left the shipyards at Sluis Van inadequately defended. A cloaked freighter delivered the mole miners stolen from Nomad City and their TIE fighter escort into the system, which were then used to bore through the ships' hulls and deploy boarding parties onto the docked New Republic starships. Thrawn intended to seize nearly one hundred starships, but his plan was thwarted when Lando Calrissian utilized the command codes he had memorized to activate the mole miners' plasma cutters, causing them to bore through the starships' command centers and disabling the ships Thrawn aimed to capture. Although Thrawn did not achieve his objective, the ships were also denied to the New Republic.

Fortunately for Thrawn, his setback at Sluis Van coincided with the arrest of Admiral Gial Ackbar, potentially the New Republic commander most likely to pose a challenge. Unbeknownst to the New Republic, Thrawn was utilizing Delta Source, a Clone Wars-era audio surveillance system installed within the ch'hala trees in the Grand Corridor of the Imperial Palace. Unaware of the source of the leak, the New Republic government came to believe that there was a traitor within its ranks, and Ackbar was arrested at the instigation of Borsk Fey'lya after Thrawn planted information implicating him in the treason.

Despite the Sluis Van setback, Thrawn's campaign was not halted, merely delayed. In the interim, Thrawn continued his guerrilla strikes on Republic worlds as he amassed strength, inflicting damage to Taanab and a convoy near Sarka. His efforts were focused not on destroying Republic convoys but on stripping them of their defenses, forcing the New Republic to either allocate more vessels to these convoys or abandon entire regions, thereby weakening them in either case. Thrawn sought a new source of ships for his clone crews, targeting the Katana fleet, a pre–Clone Wars force of 200 Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers that had vanished after a hive virus had driven its crews insane. Thrawn kidnapped Captain Hoffner, who had stumbled across the "Dark Force" years before, at Pantolomin, and his former navigator Talon Karrde to uncover the fleet's location. The New Republic raced to intercept Thrawn, but in the ensuing battle for the Katana fleet, Thrawn escaped with 178 of the Dreadnaughts, enabling him to launch his main campaign earlier than even he expected. With his burgeoning clone army and his new cloaking device, coupled with the "Dark Force," Thrawn had tipped the scales significantly in the Empire's favor and was poised to sweep away all resistance.

The revitalized Imperial fleets resumed the offensive by attacking the Corellian Run in multiple sectors. Thrawn's acquisition of the Katana Dreadnaughts bolstered his fleet's capabilities to the point where it could immediately assault more than twenty New Republic systems. Thrawn executed a series of feints at Ando, Filve and Crondre that compelled the New Republic fleet at Ord Pardron to engage. Thrawn then destroyed the undefended military base at Ord Pardron, which in turn allowed him to capture the major agricultural world of Ukio.

Imperial forces stationed in the New Territories eagerly awaited the opportunity to advance on the Core Worlds, while inner systems fortress worlds prepared their forces to join his invasion fleets. Concurrently, in the Deep Core, warlords who had heard of his campaign began to stir like fire, tempting the New Republic to deploy rapid-reaction fleets to defend Coruscant, Kashyyyk, Mon Calamari, and Bothawui.

As the Republic reeled from this offensive, Thrawn committed additional forces to other fronts. Further feints stripped numerous worlds of their defenses, with Thrawn besieging Qat Chrystac and Ketaris, tying up New Republic resources. He committed to capturing Wistril, destabilizing more than a dozen New Republic sectors, and he secured Imperial territory further by capturing border worlds such as Ord Mantell and Generis, erasing the Celanon Spur salient. The Grand Admiral launched a second raid on Nkllon, providing him with four months' worth of strategic resources to sustain his offensive.

The New Republic fleets were overwhelmed in individual sectors, as Thrawn's massive Dreadnaught fleet granted him a numerical advantage in each separate theater, whether it was a sector-scale or planetary-scale battle. Advancing from Ord Mantell, Thrawn feinted at Mrisst to draw the Coruscant Sector Fleet away from the capital, and launched a daring attack on Coruscant. Garm Bel Iblis assumed command of the Coruscant defense, seemingly placing Thrawn in a position where he would have to commit himself and suffer immense casualties or retreat. Demonstrating his tactical genius, Thrawn instead deployed two dozen cloaked asteroids. These asteroids blockaded the planet, and by faking signals for more than three hundred asteroids, Thrawn effectively knocked Coruscant out of the war while dedicating hardly any material to the effort.

The New Republic allowed Thrawn to rampage as they hastily assembled a counteroffensive at Bilbringi. Hundreds of systems either declared neutrality or rejoined the Empire as the New Republic's defeat appeared imminent. The since-released Admiral Ackbar pinned his hopes on retrieving a CGT array from the Bilbringi Shipyards, the only type of sensor capable of detecting cloaked objects, thereby ending the Siege of Coruscant. He also hoped to capture the yards and shatter the perception of Thrawn's infallibility in a single strike, and the New Republic assembled a fleet from across the galaxy, withdrawing individual vessels and reconfiguring battle groups to provide them. Ackbar feinted at Tangrene and struck at Bilbringi with the belief that they would have their "second Endor" and defeat the Empire. Instead, Thrawn set a trap and engaged the beleaguered New Republic Fleet in a decisive battle to cripple the New Republic.

While Thrawn demonstrated strategic and tactical superiority with a smaller force, his armada did not represent the full strength of the Imperial remnants. The cloned Emperor Palpatine, already consolidating power on Byss, arranged for a significant portion of the Imperial forces to disregard Thrawn and return to the Deep Core. It remains unclear whether Palpatine intended for Thrawn to serve as a distraction while he continued to rebuild his strength, or if his prolonged out-of-body experience affected his mind to the extent that he viewed Thrawn as a threat rather than a loyal officer.

Writing in 55 ABY, Lenang O'Pali asserted in Mitth'raw'nuruodo Reconsidered: A Patriot's Perspective his belief that Palpatine had recalled Thrawn from the Unknown Regions to restore the Empire in preparation for repelling the impending Yuuzhan Vong invasion. He cited Thrawn and Palpatine's discussions of the Vong (then known only as the "Far Outsiders") during their initial encounter during the events surrounding the Outbound Flight Project in 27 BBY, and argued that Thrawn perceived the New Republic as an inefficient, corrupt government that would need to be replaced by an orderly, militarized one to resist the Vong. However, O'Pali's piece was highly biased, pro-Imperial, and revisionist.

On the verge of total victory, with nearly all of the New Republic's available forces caught before him, Thrawn was defeated by a confluence of numerous factors, too many for even his genius to manage simultaneously.

On Honoghr, Princess Leia exposed the ongoing damage Thrawn had been inflicting on the Noghri homeworld, rather than healing it, and they secretly turned against him, sabotaging his efforts. At the Battle of Bilbringi, Thrawn's bodyguard struck, assassinating the Grand Admiral. With the Smugglers' Alliance and Rogue Squadron coordinating, the shipyards' defenses were breached, and two New Republic Assault frigates were advancing on the yards. Thrawn's death, occurring at this precise moment, forced Captain Pellaeon to assume command, and he chose to retreat, unable to reverse the situation.

On Wayland, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Talon Karrde, Luke Skywalker, Lando Calrissian, and Mara Jade confronted the deranged Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth, killing him and destroying the clone facilities, thereby disrupting the Empire's supply. On Garos IV, the Committee of Seven for Garosian Unification finally liberated their world, eliminating the source of Hibridium for the cloaking device technology, negating that advantage for the Empire as well. Regardless, the limitations of the cloaking device would prevent the Empire from reusing it again without Thrawn's genius.

With these losses, Thrawn's nascent Empire, which had controlled half of the galaxy, was left entirely without direction, its offensive unsustainable, and its advantages nullified within a few hours. Without Thrawn, the Empire crumbled, further hastened by the clone Emperor's efforts to consolidate his own forces.

The Thrawn campaign reached its conclusion at the Battle of Bilbringi. With the enemy forces of the deceased Grand Admiral in retreat, the New Republic gained a short-lived reprieve before the resurrected Emperor initiated another attack that almost resulted in their destruction. Admiral Gial Ackbar's evaluation of the New Republic's military casualties stated the following:

"The New Republic suffered substantial losses during the Thrawn campaign: ten percent of our personnel were killed, and thirty percent were injured—these figures are merely averages. The devastation was far more significant on the planets that Thrawn directly targeted."

This is important because it demonstrated that the New Republic, despite only losing a third of its territories to Thrawn, had lost forty percent of its military strength, thereby diminishing its control over a larger portion of territory than it had actually lost.

Furthermore, the campaign exacerbated political divisions within the New Republic, paving the way for Borsk Fey'lya's political ascent, even though his actions during the campaign nearly ruined his career. The Mid Rim felt abandoned by the New Republic's inability to defend them from Thrawn's attacks, and New Republic forces became entangled in a political mess after Coruscant fell to the Empire, pushing them further towards the Rim. Nevertheless, the campaign resulted in the formation of the Smugglers' Alliance, the return of Garm Bel Iblis, an expansion in the organization and size of the New Republic military, the liberation of the inhabitants of Wayland and the Noghri, and inspired Luke Skywalker to seek out other Force-sensitive individuals, ultimately leading to the establishment of the Jedi Praxeum. Following the campaign, Ackbar led New Republic fleets into the Outer Rim, dismantling Delak Krennel's Ciutric Hegemony. However, this left the Core Worlds poorly defended and susceptible to a new Imperial offensive originating from the Deep Core under Palpatine's command.

From the Imperial perspective, the Thrawn campaign may have been more detrimental than beneficial to the New Order's cause. After Thrawn's demise, the scattered forces he had unified descended into the Imperial Civil War following a single collaborative effort to retake Coruscant. Imperial insiders criticized Thrawn's strategy for prioritizing territorial gains without adequately planning for the defense of those acquired planets and star systems. It remains uncertain whether these events were meticulously planned components of Palpatine's resurgence strategy, or if Thrawn indeed had a comprehensive plan that he was unable to execute before his death.

Gilad Pellaeon's position as Thrawn's second-in-command significantly enhanced his standing within the Galactic Empire, making him a sought-after figure by warlords such as Treuten Teradoc and Natasi Daala in the years following Emperor Palpatine's final death. His reputation eventually propelled him to the rank of Supreme Commander by 19 ABY.