Lit Vader commanding the Executor at Endor?

I noticed this line on my current walk through the Thrawn Trilogy:

"Pellaeon had often wondered how the Battle of Endor would have ended if Thrawn, not Vader, had been commanding the Executor."

Which is cool and all.....but Vader wasn't commanding the Executor at Endor; Piett was. Now from what I understand, Pellaeon didn't take command of the Chimera until the battle was almost over, so I suppose it is possible that he didn't know that Vader was otherwise occupied on the Death Star, and just assumed that he was on the Executor. But, unless I'm mistaken, it's fairly common knowledge that Luke fought Vader on the Death Star by this point in the timeline, so Pellaeon, who'd reasonably be in the know, should know that Vader wasn't on the Executor.

So, I assume this is just a mistake on Zahn's part?

 

Or Pellaeon assumes that Thrawn, not being a Sith, would have had no reason to leave his post aboard the Executor and ignore the overarching battle.

 

I would go with this...as a Sith Apprentice Vader was split between 2 duties...1 as the apprentice of Sheev and 2 as millitary commander of Death Squadron. Thrawn would have sat in his command chair with a complete picture of the battle.

 

Another factor is hindsight. It's easy to look negatively at the actions of Vader and Palpatine in that battle, since the Empire lost, and then compare them to a new figure of faith who has turned the fleet around and improved readiness and morale in a matter of months after 4 years of losses, and wonder what if.


Doesn't the NuEU have Sloane as the one who ordered the retreat?

 

That wasn't Zahn's intent though- it was grafted on to the story long after the event. Even then, I'd say TEGTW takes the tack that Pellaeon, as commander of the next communications ship after the Executor and the Pride of Tarlandia - was within his rights to order the retreat - and nobody charges him with mutiny afterward.

Which raises the question of - would Teshik's ship even have been able to properly take command of the fleet, send orders, etc - or does the lack of a full communications suite make it unsuitable for that purpose?

It does. However, there's no references to there being officers senior to her participating in the battle.

 

Actually the HttE-novel states something different (I have to translate the version of text I have back into English, if somebody could provide the actual, original quote I would be grateful):
"The fleet had never recovered from that catastrophe. Without the leadership of the Executor the battle had quickly turned into a wild stampede, where a number of other star destroyers had been destroyed until finally the order to retreat came.
Pellaeon, who took over command after the death of the Captain of the Chimera, hadn't managed despite all desperate effort to order the lines and regain the initiative against the rebels."

The BS-idea, that it was actually Pellaeon, who gave the order to retreat originated in the HttE-sourcebook. A possible solution to reconcile every description of the event might be, that Teshik, seeing that the battle was lost and unable to escape himself sent the order to retreat to Chimera and Pellaeon relayed it to the rest of the fleet.

As for Teshik's "flagship" lacking C3 abilities, IIRC Teshik was in command of AzureHammerCommand, which included at least on Executor-class vessel. Considering this it is very unlikely, that Elyseemonary was his actual flagship, but just the ISD-cab he took to travel to Endor (doesn't every ship with (the highest ranking) officer of flag-rank aboard become a "flagship"?). Alternatively Elyseemonary might have already been to badly damaged to have much of its C3 abilities left.

 

Original quote:


The Fleet had never recovered from that fiasco. With the Executor’s leadership gone, the battle had quickly turned into a confused rout, with several other Star Destroyers being lost before the order to withdraw had finally been given. Pellaeon himself, taking command when the Chimera’s former captain was killed, had done what he could to hold things together; but despite his best efforts, they had never regained the initiative against the Rebels.


So, at least at the time, there was no reason to believe Pellaeon had given the order to retreat himself, going over the heads of admirals who wanted to stay.


If you go by Saxton - the comics suggest the Chimaera had a special bridge with more windows than a standard ISD - hinting at special command and communication capabilities:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/towers.html

A bridge of the Chimaera, a common destroyer which was chosen as a makeshift flagship for Grand Admiral Thrawn after his return from the fringes of civilisation. The number of windows clearly exceeds that of an ISD-II bridge, suggesting that this vessel is augmented for superior command and coordination capabilities. It seems likely that this bridge has twice the capacity of an ISD-II bridge. Perhaps it is like one of the more elongated nodules the multi-bridge type of tower. Alternatively, it could be a subordinate control centre elsewhere on the ship's body and not on the main tower.

 

Or it was crap research by the artist

 

Teshik, after the Far Orbit incident, was removed from Azure Hammer Command - and was sent into the Hapes Cluster with a small task force, where he got his injuries. I would guess that he got assigned the Eleemosynary afterward.

Given that the failure to apprehend the Far Orbit, and the mission to Hapes, took place in 0ABY, it's entirely possible that Teshik lost command of Azure Hammer Fleet before its SSD, the Whelm, was completed and entered service.

It would appear that Tigellinus:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rufaan_Tigellinus

was both Grand Moff and Grand Admiral of the Imperial Center Oversector at the time of the Battle of Endor - and thus would have controlled the Whelm (along with the rest of the Azure Hammer Fleet) during that period.

With Admiral Kiez as his immediate subordinate:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Feyet_Kiez

who took command after his death (unless Tigellinus had already delegated command before that).

 

Is this removal from Azure Hammer Command confirmed by official sources or conjuncture from the events of Far Orbit? Because Palpatine, after seeing what was left of Teshik, could have very well have said "I hope you learned your lesson, not get back to your post Osvald."

That doesn't prevent Azure Hammer from having Star Dreadnoughts other than Executor-class ones or ISDs modified to serve as dedicated command-vessels for so many ships.

Not necessarily. We know Imperial Center Oversector was under the control of Grand Moff Trachta until 1 BBY, who didn't have control of Teshik and Azure Hammer Command, so I think it highly unlikely, that Tigellinus as his successor would have. Especially since that would have put too much power into the hands of a single man for Palpatine to feel comfortable (not to mention, that he loved putting his underlings in positions, where they had to compete against each other).
So Kiez could have been subordinate to Teshik until he died at the Battle of Endor and then been the one in command of AHC until he was called into the Deep Core.

Also the good Tigellinus should either be a Grand Admiral OR a Grand Moff at a certain point of time, but he can't be both. Also, as far as I know, Whelm and Azure Hammer Command played no role in the "Central Committee of Grand Moffs"-affair despite being valuable bargain-chips.

 

Peña thinks he can be both informally - it's not clear if he can be both formally.


Peña stated on the StarWars.com message boards that, in his view, it was possible for Tigellinus to hold both positions, at least informally, because of his political influence.[14]

I doubt it. I personally would put the command system as follows:

Clone Wars- Moff Trachta controls Azure Hammer Command
Early Empire - Moff Trachta promoted to Grand Moff at some point after Tarkin. Continues to control Azure Hammer
Later Empire (2BBY onward - Teshik promoted over Trachta's head- gains control of Azure Hammer
1BBY- Trachta killed. New Grand Moff appointed
0ABY- Teshik removed - Tigellinus replaces Teshik in command of Azure Hammer
Between 0ABY and 4ABY - Tigellinus gains post of Grand Moff in addition to Grand Admiral - replacing previous Grand Moff of Imperial Center Oversector.

 

No it doesn't. This is from Pellaeon's point of view, remember. And he would certainly reminisce about how he had given the order to retreat himself. Either with pride because he managed to save, what was left to save or with shame because he screwed up on a still possible Imperial victory or anger at the higher ups at Endor (Palpatine, Vader, Piett) who actually got the fleet in the mess the battle turned out to be. It is only AFTER the Battle of Endor, that Pellaeon ends up in charge trying to hold the fleet together.

 

On a totally random note, I know I've spent too much time in law school and as an attorney when my brain interprets Executor immediately as e-xec-u-tor instead of ex-e-cu-tor. My Star Wars fandom has been overridden.

 

Huh. I always thought they'd called it that instead of Executioner because someone made a mistake and wasn't called out on it until it was already written. Because, to me,"executor," while not strictly related to wills, is so overwhelmingly tied to the estate process that it makes for one of the least fear-inspiring names in the Imperial fleet.

 

Vader, being Sidious's Sith apprentice, would probably inherit Sheev's estate.

 

Vader in Legends held the title Executor of The Imperial Military. So from a certain point of view, she was named for him.

 

The Executor is the means through which Vader enforces his will.

 

So considering the significence of the event, why doesn't Pellaeon reminisce the prominent role he played in said event and which you attribute to him?

I wouldn't call the death of ones superior officer in combination with a battle, that appeared to have been won, but suddenly went haywire and on top of all that the news, that the most important facility of your war-effort was destroyed and all of that within barely five minutes a "slight provocation".

Same goes for being in command of eleven ISDs and being thrown over the distance of an entire star-system by forces unknown.

I'm unaware of any other instances that could be described as "slight provocation".

 

And, indeed, his immediate reaction was not to retreat after that, but to advance - heading full sublight speed, plus hyperspace microjumps, for Yavin IV - only to find out once he'd gotten close, that the Rebels had arrived and destroyed the Knight Hammer.

The PT-era had its own "Pellaeon retreats in the face of superior power" stories - retreating from the more heavily armed Separatist ship Reaper in Clone Wars: No Prisoners, and from another Separatist force (with the agreement of the Jedi Master commanding him) at the Battle of Merson (Star Wars Republic 64: Bloodlines)