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It does raise questions about his legal authority to operate pretty much across the Galaxy. Perhaps he had direct orders from the Emperor giving him the authority, orders unrelated to his normal gubernatorial duties in his fixed Oversector. Sort of how Tigellinus probably continued his normal control of his Oversector at the same time he was also overseeing an investigation into Jerrod MacClaine at the direct order of the Emperor.

There's a similar question that has existed since the original movie and the Poster Monthlies: if Tarkin was the Governor of the Outer Rim, then what was his legal authority for destroying Alderaan, which was not one of the worlds under his jurisdiction?

All I can conclude is that while he was the commander for a huge amount of fixed territory, his command of the Death Star, a unique mobile Priority Sector unto itself, superceded the authority of whatever Grand Moff was in control of the Core Oversector containing Alderaan. Tarkin also had authority directly from the Emperor to move into the Core for his "demonstration".

Also, since this is the head-canon thread, any dispute among the Grand Moffs over jurisdiction was resolved by Seniority. Tarkin, as the original Grand Moff, had seniority over the other Grand Moffs. As every GM answered directly to the Emperor, it's really the only way that disputes and jurisdictional issues could be resolved amongst themselves. To ensure unambiguous seniority among the Grand Moffs, no two were ever appointed on the same date.

 

Seerdon wasn't even a grand moff

He was a regular moff, which makes things even more confusing

 

@SheaHublin Glad you liked the way WARFARE handled the command structure, though honestly most of it's from WEG, and the rest is really just fitting in individual details in an attempt to ensure that every reference maps neatly onto the system (most obviously, the line-officer ranks had to be hastily redone to match Choices of One when WARFARE was in galleys, which was fun - but a lot of the quirky detail comes from WEG too, like Michael Unther's "command of a sector fleet" and subsequent retirement promotion "from admiral to rear admiral" from SWAJ #2 - and I was reminded yesterday that the diagonal promotion from general to vice-admiral is established in the TIE Fighter game material, and was left wondering if I referenced that deliberately or not)...

You're right that Moff Comark is moved to what's described as an "advisory office within Renik" rather than the command of the entire subdivision, but I think the real question is whether the statemet that he "diverted Renik's resources to his own personal projects" means he's overstepping his authority, or simply applying the resources that come under his command as a normal exercise of his authority - I'd read it as the second option, thus inferring that what we see under his command, including a spacedock at Jaemus, control of specific secret hyperlanes into Wild Space, and the garrison on Zera Zero Nine, would be indicative of the sphere and scale of "sector-level" authority that a Moff might command within Imperial Intelligence...

Hence I'd question @Carib Diss's conclusion that he's "lost his moffship", though I mention it as much for the pun as anything.

I tend to think that every Moff has a level of autonomy, the same type of authority within the perimiter of his responsibilities, however wide or localised that "sector" might be - no "honorary Moffs", so to speak - but I concede that I can't think of any no absolute canonical proof of that, and even an ex-Moff might retain some kind of "personal autonomy" over a private space and a few aides in perpetuum...

Possibly it's a classic example of a "priority sector" as defined by WEG, that incorporates idiosyncratic and adjustable areas that are relevant to a specific problem, in this case the suppression of the Rebellion (Chandrilla and the Rimma Trade Route, perhaps the linking hyperlanes, and some widely-scattered resource worlds); I have a vague idea that we had this in mind in WARFARE, where Seerdon is charcterised as one of the original oversector commanders, and implicitly as a Grand Moff / "priority sector high commander"; but it was well over a decade ago, so I'm a long way from certain about that...

As to how the authority of Grand Moffs relates to that of Moffs, I'm pretty sure that was something we did NOT want to systematize in WARFARE, in case we ran afoul of some random reference - as I mentioned above, some early WEG material seems to indicate that a "priority sector" is created by territory detached from ordinary sector government, but the pre-existing backstory for the oversectors implied that the multitude of "ordinary" Moffs are to an extent backfill under this system, and my (rather-hesitant) inference was that while the typical Grand Moff commands a localised "priority sector" that's an addition to the conventional structure (essentially, although they can be large, they function as new subsectors with special status), some large "regional" oversectors - Outer being the obvious example - might have a more directly hierarchical relationship with a large number of lower-ranking Moffs, and there'll also be room for promoting the governors of pre-existing "1024" sectors to Grand Moff rank on their original boundaries (though I can't immediately think of any certain examples of this)...

I suppose we ought to really make a list of "odd Moffs" - other obvious examples include Kadir running Coruscant Security, Comark within Renik, Tharil Tavira apparently holding a quasi-ambassadorial role on Eiattu IV with a modest force of TIEs and stormtroopers, and whatever Bartam's role is (I don't think there's any immediate reason to reject the idea he's actually an ex-Grand Moff, but my own working inference is that he was in charge of Coruscant the planet, minus the parts that were assigned to Palpatine's direct jurisdiction, Trachta's space-sector authority, Kadir's police command, and other extraterritorialities like the Alderaanian embassy compound, thus basically civil governor of Imperial City)... but perhaps that should be in a different thread...?

... a Mofference?!

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Speaking of Grand Moffs, the Central Committee of Grand Moffs has two unidentified Grand Moffs, unless one of them is Disra before he aged very very terribly in 15 years.


The one closest to Trioculus to his left, and the one furthest from him to his right, my proposed candidates for these enigmatic officers are: Disra before he aged terribly, Grand Moffs Argon based solely on him getting scammed before and seeming proximity to Tatooine, Therbon based on his proximity to Kessel and hatred of Mon Calamari, and Wilkadon based solely on his name rhyming with Whaladon.

My personal top picks of this group is naturally Argon and Wilkadon simply because they are the funnier options.

 

Takel died earlier in the book, the first act of the first book in fact.

 

I think it's been suggested that the other Grand Admiral in Jedi Prince might be Rufaan Tigellinus.

 

For "odd Moffs" , there's several that immediately come to mind. I know that I have saved Notes on others from various works.

Moff Rebus, from Dark Forces, who was a weapons designer within the IMDR who helped design parts of the Dark Trooper Project. I wonder what the Rebels did with him after capturing him...

...Rebus is surely the same person as the Moff Rebu, the IMDR Inspector General, mentioned in the in-game FU2 Databank entries:



... and in a classic example of the EU and how overly literal Wookers interpreted it, made him two separate characters in spite of it obviously being a typo of a mere apostrophe:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rebu

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rebus_(Galactic_Empire)?so=search

... somebody really should merge the two articles. It should also be noted that the Position of Inspector General of the IMDR was important enough to warrant a commander with the Rank of Moff.

Besides Rebus, we have Black-uniformed "Moff Tragg Brathis" of the "Grand Imperial Union" standing alongside the Yevetha in the Black Fleet Crisis books. It's yet another Deep Core/Negs/Imperial Warlord bit of lore that never got explained or resolved. If he was a real Moff that aligned with Nil Spaar (possibly only to get at the New Republic) then only Grand Moff Gann would have outranked him at the time.

"The Grand Moff of the Imperial Navy" mentioned in Children of the Jedi was somebody the Will of the Battlemoon invoked to give orders to the Affeytechans, and can only have been Wilhuff Tarkin, as he was the only Grand Moff when the station was created. It means that the Position of "Grand Moff of the Imperial Navy " existed early in the Empire, probably when the Starfleet was much smaller and before the Sector Groups were created.

The Empire: Betrayal TPB version makes it clear that Kadir was a Grand Moff, and like his father was in charge of "city security", but not Palace security. So, there were two different Grand Moff Kadirs, and that the responsibility of Imperial City Security was itself a Position that warranted a Grand Moff and the equivalent military resources of at least two Sector Groups. It makes perfect sense, something that crucial and big.

I'll try to find my Notes on a few other unusual Moff cases.

 

Just as a minor correction, the specific quote from Children of the Jedi is:

"Commander," announced the stormtrooper with a sharp salute, "emergency orders have arrived from the Grand Moff of the entire Imperial Battlefleet! Priority one, sir!"

 

The Darkside Sourcebook by WOTC states that palpatines closest advisors were darkside adepts.

Therefore I believe the situation with Pestage's clone is a straightforward case of body transfer, rather than two Pestages running around, just to simplify what is basically a minor plot knot

 

Now this sort of Moff-shuffling is exactly why Star Wars continuity is fun. And all the better with as much Glove meta as possible...

QFKT.

Calling Kintaro's original Sector Fifteen "Hook Nebula Command" in WARFARE was meant to imply that it evolves into the oversector to which the Qeimet fleet and Scimitar Wing are attached, so the commander there after Kintaro might actually be Governor Lobax Resuun, as he seemingly uses Scimitar Wing's carrier as his command ship; "his sector" overlaps with Tamarin Sector, but the source never quite equates them, and Tamarin was the trailward flank of the original GAR oversector, so it works (I'd like to say we planned that fifteen years ago, though the truth is that I only noticed that cameo by the ISD Retribution in The Politics of Contraband just yesterday)...

Hook Nebula Command is centred on the sectors on the spine of the Five Veils hyperlane - Juris, Bajic, Sarin, and the adjacent Hook Nebula, but several of the other "1024" sectors in the original command area get ordinary sector governors - Moff Rais in Parmell, Moff Jandi in Quence, Moff Balfour in Parmic, and Moff Ammar in Portmoak... other people may be able to think of others...

The one known location in Grand Moff Wilkadon's "holdings", the Askaj system, is actually located in the adjacent Sector Eighteen, Night Hammer Command, centred at Eriadu - that's characterised as rather a personal powerbase for Tarkin and Kaine, but Askaj is Rimward of the territory seized after Endor by Delvardus, so (while this might be an enlargement of Hook Nebula oversector and a replacement of its governor) Wilkadon might equally be Kaine's loyalist replacement, or a self-promoted warlord, or governor of a separate priority sector created by subtracting territory from Night Hammer...

And obviously, Kintaro's eventual successor as Grand Moff of the Hook Nebula is Leonia Tavira, but don't tell anyone.

Not sure why you think that Ravik and Therborn should be in the same oversector (though you may have good reason!)...

Therborn and Selit are associated with Sector Twelve, the Greater Maldrood - the simplest explanation is that Thereborn, who last seems to be referenced in 2 ABY in Strongholds of Resistance, is replaced by Selit, who is first mentioned around 3 ABY in The Imperial Sourcebook; a more subtle answer would have Grand Moff Selit, whose oversector isn't specifically mentioned in that source, promoted from some other command, as he doesn't seem to be specifically confirmed in the Greater Maldrood until after Endor; but the version I prefer is that Therborn's command was divided at some point - a reduced territory centred in the Mid Rim part of the old oversector, retaining the old Greater Maldrood / Sector Twelve designation and its capital at Lantilles, is swapped over to Grand Moff Selit, but Grand Moff Thereborn is left commanding a fleet in the Rimward stretch of the Perlemian towards Mon Cal - the eponymous Cerulean Spear Command, which is a fairly obvious reference to the hyperlane thrusting towards the troublesome secessionist water-planet people and their shipyards (by authorial intent, I can confirm, but again, while I'd love to say this division of the oversector was some kind of deliberate planning, really it wasn't - even I can't consciously predict these things five years before they happen )...

For comparison, authorial intent is that Zsinj's Quelii Oversector is similarly created by subdividing Grand Moff Tanniel's Sector 10, but in this case it's the new Grand Moff who gets the Crimson Dagger Command fleet and its red-hulled VSDs... though that is quite deliberately NOT explicit page-canon, and only intended to be latent in the text by way of evocation...

Another one that's related, and more implicitly explicit is the extension of Bright Jewel Oversector from the New Territories across the Hydian to Yavin in former Sector 10 territory, although someone (perhaps not me!) backfilled behind Riders of the Malestrom to imply that its original comander, Governor Vanko, retained an oversector in the original Sector Eight around Albarrio...

Similarly, Grand Moff Argon's command needn't be a direct successor of Ravik's Tolonda Oversector, the territory might have been divided with a new command centred in Arkanis - but I'm guessing his subordinate "Colonel Parq", introduced commanding the stormtroopers who raid Wuher's in Tales from the Moss Eisley Cantina (July 1995), is actually the character who the CCG identified later as "Commander Praji" (Premiere Limited, December 1995), sooooo, that implies that Argon is actually the Grand Moff who the Devastator and Lord Tion are technically serving under...

Oh, this is great..

Yes, I'd definitely go with all of that. Very nicely noticed indeed.

Oh, that's a great catch - he's called a "black-shirt commander" in dialogue, and Leia POVs him as having the "black uniform of an Imperial Moff" - these may be two POVs of a combined costume paring the black uniform we associate with stormtroopers and the black Moff robe referenced in Specter of the Past, but (whether or not we accept that) it's possible that he represents a subtype of black-uniform Moff who's very scary indeed (and Commander Convarion in The Bacta War could be seen as another of these)...

The "Grand Moff of the entire Imperial Battlefleet" is definitely an interesting puzzle, though I've wondered - without any particular militancy - if this could be Trachta his role in the Imperial Oversector.

I thought I remembered some source establishing Kadir as a Grand Moff, but I wasn't absolutely certain, so thanks for this!

And yes, if Coruscant Security comprises the Red Police, and we imagine that they deploy in even standard city-cop numbers, it's basically an absolutely staggeringly huge stormtrooper command...

Do!!

And I have one for you, which I had quite forgotten... Grand Moff 4-8C the assassin droid in charge of the Imperial Department of Redesign, which is (of course!) a fourth-tier subdivision of COMPNOR...

So does this mean COMPNOR has its own internal hierarchy of Grand Moffs? Perhaps this even explains the classic Hissa-and-Trioculus Mofference, with its curious lack of associated territorial sectors?

Some other disaggregated thoughts, which are more scattergun than strict headcanon...

Outside of the Glove books, the only unlocated Grand Moff I can locate ( )is Governor Dureya, whose activity at Gra Ploven around 4 ABY seems to be in the old Sector Two, though whether this means he succeeds Vorru and Dargon in the Corellian Oversector, I don't know...

I'd wondered for a while if coopting Disra onto the Mofference doesn't actually mean he was a Grand Moff - perhaps it was a move designed to give some representation for ordinary sector governors, which ultimately led to all the members of the Mofference being co-opted governors of ordinary sectors, their remaining Ubiqtorate and COMPNOR counterparts being excluded at that point as they did not have the same military/political responsibilities (no representation without taxation!), but potentially added to the council later...

(And if the Glove!Mofference is the COMPNOR Mofference, does that mean Disra was a Moff in COMPNOR at this point?!)

Another associated puzzle is the process by which Disra ends up on Kaine's old throneworld...

Reading between the lines of SWAJ #3 and Blaze of Glory, Kaine had done quite a lot to portray the Pentastar Alignment as a neutral power, retaining only the military arm of the Empire intact, and giving them all garish new badges, while completely replacing the Empire's police and government aparatus with new "civilian" institutions, a form of "continuing the Palpatinist revolution" that seems designed to make the Alignment paradoxically more acceptable to the New Republic... it's basically the same approach as Isard's Project Ambition, but rather more successful...

I'm not sure how much this was actually implemented in practice (my own headcanon is that Kaine never had real authority over the loyalist redoubt around Borosk, Prefsbelt and Yaga Minor, and that when Pellaeon showed up, he very much ovethrew Kaine's people, and pretty much everyone ditched the demented Kainist titulature and badges with glee, though I'm sure the Inquisition did a deft pivot as part of the whole process)...

Well, yes, but that means Palpatine could be doing that with anyone...

Headcanon: this means Tarkin and Isard showing up in Dark Empire...

*disguises himself as Kadann and hurries off*

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I do not remember Children of the Jedi well, but couldn't it be the case of a fake title like: prince-admiral, omnipotent battle leader, superior general, etc?

Grand Fleet Moff.

 

True enough - I'd remembered this line as being part of the dialogue of the Affytechans who think they're Imperial gunnery personnell (surely the most Glove thing ever written by anyone who's not Paul and Hollace Davids), but it's actually delivered by Triv Pothman, thought up as part of a bluff between him, Luke and the Gunnery Computer, and is no more reliable than "Major Calrissian, Special Services"...

(Well, okay, technically Luke is Lord Skywayker, Supreme Commander of the Imperial Military, so I'll forgive him this moment of warlordism, which just makes it even funner when you think about it...)

- The Imperial Ewok

 

@Thrawn McEwok any ideas on the titles of Moff and Grand Moffs in the Imperial Remnant of 40-41 ABY?

 

Characters created by typo or mistake are the bane of my existence.

 

I still consider "Captain Merrick Simm" from the Star Wars Encyclopedia Third Edition who was identified as "Blue Leader" from the ROTJ novelisation as a completely separate character to "Captain Merrick Simms" from the X-wing game. There were WAY TOO MANY Yavin survivors in Legends as it was.

 

Not beyond the named ones, no...

To be confused with "General Antoc Merrick" who was Blue Leader in Rogue One, and "Captain Ace Merrick", who leads the renamed Rascal Squadron in Rebel Assault II...

And then there's the confusion between the original, canonically female Rookiee One who fought at Yavin, and the male version from Rebel Assault II, who's presumably Ace Azameen...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I'm surprised no attempt was made to make the unnamed navigator on the Falcon "Ace" Azzameen in Legends (what's his name now? And how does he have red hair?). I headcanon "Ace" and MK-09 were present but aboard the Otana at Endor.

 

I think I posted an idea here before, but my idea was that the Cabinet-level Moffs in the Felpire and Remnant were called High Moffs, as per the Legacy comics. That'd mean that the ones in charge of the Navy, Army, Intelligence, Mission, etc. all get to be titled High Moffs. Then this Council would be chaired by a Supreme Moff, in reference to Tarkin being after that title in the Galaxy Guide for ANH, so we can presume it existed, maybe even as a replacement for Supreme Chancellor? But no one ever claimed to hold it until the Remnant, where Vitor Reige would be the first officially elected Supreme Moff.

 

I headcanon that the duties and authorities of moffs and grand moffs was fuzzy and arbitrary in-universe as well, and this was done by Palpatine both as the classic "encourage slap fights over jurisdiction between subordinates so that they don't conspire to overthrow you" and because he found it funny.

 

The following OneCanon-headcanons are not for the faint of heart...

The High Republics Shrii Ka Rai Leveler creatures are an offshoot of the gigantic Leviathans. Like Terentateks or Vornskrr, during the NSW Sith tried to create a smaller more mobile and easier transporteable version via alchemy. It failed and the project destroyed its makers stranding them on Planet X where they continued to evolve naturally.

The Yuuzhan Vong scouts of the KOTOR era sampled the GFFA to replenish the rather starving and ressource lacking Vong main fleet. They brought back Voduun Scrabs from the galaxy's edge and other materials that would later be essential to the Vong, as if they had brought them from their home satellite galaxy. In the same vein, some Vong scouts stranded in the galaxy even further back before KOTOR on the planet Everon.

Since these Evereni-Vong tried to be their new homes caretakers and reform the paradise they had lost in their galaxy, the unkind climate and destructive storms changed their society profoundly yet many old traditions and beliefs still survived through their millennia of nomadic journey across the GFFA, clashes with the Jedi and lately even cults like the Path of the Open Hand/Closed Fist and the Nihil Pirates.

Later during the NJO, when their distant cousins from the main fleet invaded the galaxy, the Vong Shapers reconised the genetic code of their kin to their surprise. Sparing them the fate of a slave species, the few Evereni left were adopted into Vong society bringing with them vital knowledge of the galaxy and weapons to use against the Jedi. Recovering Leveler DNA, the Vong finished what the Sith started and Vongshaped Shrii Ka Rai, Vornskrr, Ysalamir and a couple other creatures into the dreaded Voxyn creatures. While some qualities of the Shrii Ka Rai were lost in the process, the Voxyn proofed even more effective against the Jedi.

During the NJO, when some far of the main invasion Path Vong scouts landed on Endor, a new Ewok saying became popular as they dealt with them:

"Ooloo ooloo, Bok chuu-ock shetai yun yum di goot roda chees tyehtgeethin!"

Can you translate it without peaking at the spoiler tagged translation using actual Ewokese?

Spoiler

Ooloo ooloo - Phrase pertaining to eating of someone
Bok chuu-ock - Far away
Shetai - Warrior
Yun yum di goot - It is very good/tasty
Roda - To eat
Chees - Route/path
Tyehtgeethin - Stranger

Or: "Far away warrior (aka Yuuzhan Vong) tastes as good as / like Path Stranger (Evereni)!"

The Merrick Clan is mighty!

But if Ace Azameen is Rookie One from RA2, then RA1's female Rookiee One should be his sister Aeron Azameen! She's a pilot and a skilled Slicer, too.

 

We must take this further, Rookie One/Ace Azameen shot another thermal exhaust port on the other side of the death star in another trench, the other X1 advanced TIE was piloted by... X1(heh) the Dark Jedi.

 

Moff Crowal of Valc III must have been forgotten by the LOTF writers. She was created by Michael A. Stackpole in Ruin.