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Yeah but regular Moffs are mentioned as existing in Legacy, still governing territories.

 

Head-cannon

 

LEGO STAR WARS Palpatine is the best Palpatine.

Serious-ish answer? Yes, absolutely, but I think there's a certain practical logic to the system - while Palpatine does stuff for Siths and giggles, and the idea of the Empire creating internal rivalries as a form of policy goes back at least to early WEG, to the extent that the different positions and chains of commamd in the hierarchy may as you say be less important than they seem, I don't think that's the whole picture; the sectors, subsectors, oversectors and priority sectors assigned to individual governors have a real function, as zones to solve the problems of government in, so Palpatine doesn't get cranky, and in conjunction with that they function as a "bookkeeping" matrix for deployment of Imperial resources, and thus a basis for those resources' movememt and reallocation...

So I'd suggest that it's relative status and to an extent the boundaries of authority that are sources of friction, rather than the Empire encouraging overlapping squabbling where assigned resources and specific problems are concerned...

Others may, of course, prefer to disagree...

I think the starting point has to be the panel of eight sector Moffs introduced in Specter of the Past; I don't think it's ever explicit if that number remains constant in the NJO, but in the immediate post-NJO, the council has become a much larger body with several Grand Moffs, and then as you say evolves again so we get the half-dozen "cabinet Moffs" who hold positions like Director of Intelligence, and a larger number of ordinary sector Moffs who no longer seem to have any council status...

I'd originally taken "High Moff" to be a specific title for the head of the council, an alternative to "Grand Moff" (it first appears as a title used by at least one of the warlords Daala executed in 12 ABY), but I think that ended up being countermanded later, with all the "cabinet" Moffs being accorded the title...

We certainly have hints that the Moff Council increased its size by adding some other surviving Imperial governors with enclaves outside the original eight-sector core of the Remnant, as well as adding former New Republic space that was ceded in one way or another; it's an interesting question what happened to the strong Imperial presence in the "southern" range of the Outer Rim - there was an active Imperial presence beyond Sluis Van and Bpfassh during the Thrawn trilogy, and even after Dark Empire, this area was a base for several prominent Imperial commanders...

Nothing particularly wrong with a simple answer (though my own assumption has been that it's something to do with localised priority-sector status for Quile and Siralt and perhaps some unnamed others, rather than a particularly wide sphere of authority), and I definitely like the idea that they reduce the Moff numbers (before perhaps expanding them again, as @Havoc123 says, as they gain territory in the Sith-Imperial War and perhaps promoting some other commanders - General Jaeger appears to be the resident Moff on Bastion, for example); but the idea that there were no female Moffs can only be explained as Daala being detached from reality (though I always headcanoned that she was actually a cover identity of Mara's) - we have Tavira, Crowal (as @Noash_Retrac rightly points out), and by implication Tethys, and maybe one or two more pre-reboot examples I'm forgetting (as well as other senior officers like Admiral Oxtroe and General Corvae)...

I have a vague idea that at one point there was a policy of not constraining the actions of game-characters too strictly in prose canon, or maybe just a theory about it to explain the underuse of Kyle Katarn...?

Though I realised quite abruptly yesterday that Keyan Farlander may appear on-screen in ANH, as one of the surviving Rebel pilots along with Luke, a second Fake Wedge, and a tall guy who must be Fake Hobbie...

https://starwarsscreencaps.com/4k-star-wars-episode-iv-a-new-hope-1977/page/116

I mean, the obvious intention in the Rebel Assaul games was that Captain Merrick Simms from the first game and Captain Ace Merrick from the second game were the same guy, but whoever decided that Merrick Simm ought to be the same guy as Blue Leader at Endor missed the target, and General Merrick from Rogue One is just Pablo being deliberately confusing...

The problem with this is that canonically, the Azameen kids only train as pilots after Yavin - so Ace could be in Rebel Assault II, but neither of them really fits with the original Rookie One, who is female and from Tatooine... maybe it's Cammie?

Fixed. And I was wondering which of us would blink first. I admit I privately refer to my own ridiculous headcanon as "D'harhan moments"...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

...I don't know how I managed to forget that there's an entire WEG vignette about a Moff holding a Position within the Ministry of Logistics and Supply (also suggesting that whoever the head Minister was greatly outranked a mere Moff), and also that it was considered perfectly common for a Moff to be in charge of a sub-Department of another Ministry, so common that it was even used as the official cover story by Palpatine himself for Moff Jerjerrod's seemingly lateral movement across Ministries. The fact that the Advisors can openly diss a Moff and address him by his surname right to his face also goes a long way in giving us a look at just how powerful some of the Advisors were. Even Grand Moffs had to wait behind them in line to see the Emperor. This story also provides confirmation that there were several Grand Moffs at Court just in that time frame. @Thrawn McEwok

From the Empire comics, we have another (perhaps not so odd) case of a Moff having served as a diplomatic liason, specifically to the advanced Tisharl League, in the case of the late Moff Giiedt:


From the Bacta War, we have confirmation that several Grand Moffs were still in power after the Fall of Coruscant:

...it can be assumed that this refers to more than just Grand Moffs Gann and Disra, but among the known GMs from the timeframe of post-Isard/pre-Thrawn who else of the GMs was still around? @Sinrebirth

Something to note about the later Remnant Moffs is that from the time after the Vong War to the time of their collective near-annihilation on the Bloodfin, they were mostly the same individuals. The Official Starships and Vehicles confirms it:



For the Legacy comics Moffs, we were given an inconsistent mess. The Rank badges change appearances on the same pages in multiple Issues, and for all the world-building that they did right they never exactly clarified the Council structure and its relation to the other Moffs. There is one consistency worth noting, though: Nyna Calixte was a Grand Moff by 130 ABY, and still was one 7 years later:


...she's confirmed as such in multiple Issues. Perhaps each branch of the Empire really is headed by a Grand Moff? Veed is simultaneously referred to as both a Grand Moff and Grand Admiral, but also as "the High Moff". They could have kept things more consistent.

And, since this is the head-canon thread and this straying too much into actual continuity, I'll add some more of head-canon, also from the earlier Death Hunter story mentioned above: The Wastes are not only part of the Remnant they were still in active use well into the Legacy Era, for the same weapons testing, secret facilities, and "last stand" stellar strongholds where many Vong, Sith, and other enemy forces were often lured into and destroyed. Doubt it? Look at the Galactic Map and see how curiously close they are to the Remnant. It's right in their own backyard.

 

The Moffs in charge of ministries thing is specifically why i'd assume High Moff to be equivalent of cabinet Minister. Is there anyone bar from Calixte and Veed that have been mentioned as Grand Moffs? Though I'd love to imagine the official title is the Central Committee of Grand Moffs for the executive branch of the Felpire still, some of the lore stuff in relation to Legacy explicitly name them as 'Imperial High Moffs' of the High Moff Council.

 

Don't worry, I'd forgotten that one too...

But yes, that's quite a compelling example, isn't it...

Also, it emphasises two other things - that as @MercenaryAce said the formal rank of individual governors is often not an accurate reflection of their relative importance (and it's worth adding in this context that at least some of the Advisors have prestige "sectors" of their own, most clearly seen with Pestage in the Ciutric Hegemony), and that effective logistical "bookkeeping" is vitally important for the Empire...

This is more-or-less the same role I'd inferred Tharil Tavira held on Eiattu, a single-planet role with a limited footprint and extensive autonomy for the native sysyem, though it doesn't exclude the possibility of a useful chorus-line of TIE Fighters and stormtroopers...

Interesting. The question then becomes when the number of Moffs on the Council increases. As to the NJO, Saretti may directly replace the assassinated Disra, but Flennic, Freyborn and Crowal are additional to the seven survivors of the earlier group... I have no specific headcanon here, and this is the sort of thing

The other problem with this in continuity terms is that the ruin of the old Maw Installation was refurbished by Lando and the Jedi as Shelter Base during the first year of the NJO...

To the Grand Moffs of 3 ABY as enumerated by Sinre we can perhaps add Dureya, who seems to have been active around the Corellian oversector after Endor (and the Corellian system itself generally remained Imperial until some time after Dark Empire) and possibly Harrsk, whose "Arrowhead Command" implies he was an oversector high admiral, if not an actual Grand Moff...

One thing that strikes me here is that, as that passage in The Bacta War implies, the big priority commands descended from the GAR in the Clone Wars prove relatively robust, providing the basis for many of the durable Imperial territories down to the Thrawn campaign and even subsequently, though in part this is deliberate continuity backfill, reverse-engineered behind the biographies of figures like Teradoc and Zsinj...

As to the confusion of ranks and titles in the Felpire, I think we can probably explain this in terms of two overlapping titles - High Moff, meaning "cabinet Moff", and Grand Moff, meaning what it always meant; but I agree that it's not terribly consistently employed... do I remember some earlier references which suggested that High Moff was originally envisaged as a unique title for the leader of the Moff Council, or was that always misaimed speculation?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I thought Disra was just convicted of treason and then executed, not assassinated?

 

Domain of Evil was clearly intended to be post Yavin, given the fact that the PCs are encouraged to reveal Obiwan's existence to make Halagad Ventor realize that the Jedi still existed after his betrayal, allowing him to pass on to the Force.

The Dark Forces Saga however has Qu Rahn learn about Halagad's redemption before he himself died, before Yavin.

My headcanon is that in the "canonical" series of events, Ferus Olin was involved in Halagad Ventor's redemption, they already work pretty well as foils despite never meeting with their connections to Anakin and Bail Organa.

 

I actually meant to say "executed", and you're right; but knowing how Shada did it swayed my subconscious...

(Associated headcanon/speculation about authorial intent, ironic in the context - Pellaeon's discomfort with Vader's leadership style is very specifically because he was the Avenger's unnamed first officer in Empire...)

Also...

Ugh, I think this incomplete sentence was an edit I abandoned then forgot to delete when I made another change...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

That's my headcanon now Pellaeon in ESB! Someone should tell Timothy Zahn.

 

Some of the recent discussion in the One Canon thread has got me thinking that Exegol may be what a planet that experienced the Nathema ritual from TOR looks like after a much longer span of time has passed.

 

There was an "Occupy Muunilinst" movement.

 

Disra was probably executed. It was the clone Grodin Tierce who was killed by Shada.

 

Hmm - Also, any other lore on the Pitta vs Grunger period?
And has that also been cemented yet... at 5, or 6 ABY... too?

Oh, and Fractalsponge's 'Urbanus' class has previously been referred to as the 'Titan' class in the Warlords mod - if I recall right?

Nice use of the 'us' suffix in Latin for it. Had two possible designs from Dark Empire (one 4.6 km) that I head-canoned once as the 'Validus' class, with a slightly smaller, similar, 'Retiarius-class'... too.

 

Nah, you're right. I also seem to remember in early FOTJ that Jagged Fel was named a High Moff. I can't find the exact source, but I actually vaguely remember even Wookieepedia addressed him as High Moff. Its possible to interpret that the separation between High Moffs, Grand Moffs and Moffs didn't come up until the Remnant expanded during the Cold War with the GA, which necessitated some sort of distinction between territorial/lesser Moffs and cabinet Moffs. Its also kinda Roman-esque in a way, in that titles that originally meant something else entirely (governors) were instead slowly translated over to another role (cabinet members) which fits in the way that the 'Imperial' aspect (Moffs) swept away the more Core-ish (or Sith-ish? They do dress the part) Advisors of Palpatine. Thus the Moffs, i.e. the military end up in charge of the Empire in earnest.

 

Mitth'raw'nuruodo Reconsidered: A Patriot's Perspective was quickly adapted into holofilm after its release, with Flim as a narrator.

 

EVO troopers are the Compforce equivalent of stormtroopers.

 

TFU is an inuniverse "based on a true story" video game or holoflick, while they have a kernel of truth too many elements that would later become iconic to the mythos of the Galactic Civil War get applied, like the death star, the emperor, the Three Founding Senators, and Leia etc.

The real starkiller was an inquisitor trained by Tremayne who was assigned to infiltrate Rahm Kota's Rebellion, which was believed to have ties to Garm Bel Iblis, a senator who recently went into open rebellion against the Empire. Eventually he would seemingly "go native" in his mission, and would be betrayed by his master, who captured both Kota and Iblis and planned to bring them to the Emperor.

Starkiller would intercept and rescue his master and the senator.

I had also considered the idea of Starkiller being a clone of Drake Lo'gaan.

 

We don't know how Luke died in the EU. But my head-canon is that he heard Padmé's voice calling him by his name immediately before he passed away.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if this was Zahn's intention all along, though I don't know for sure - that's what I mean by "speculation about authorial intent"! Pellaeon's carefully-navigated POV of Vader's command-style is certainly designed to evoke what happened to Ozzel and Needa in ESB...

For all that Daala claims to hate "the Moffs", she clearly has allies and supporters among them, which is typical of her unconscious hypocrisy...

Another interesting reference is "Callron the Younger", also an ally of Daala, and implied to be the son of the Moff Callron who was governor of Clacis Sector before Endor - half of Clacis formed a sector in the Remnant, and as we have a full list of Moffs we know it wasn't held by Callron any longer in 19 ABY, so there's an interesting story there...

Further out, of course, Getelles is still hunkered in his enclave in Antimeridian with his four ISDs...

An even deeper cut is Moff Poliff of Tunka Sector right over at the trailward end of the Outer Rim, from an old role-playing scenario, whose career thus spans fron Endor to the Fel-Daala war... there's our first confirmation of holdouts at that end of the Rim...

I don't think needs to be a problem - Arrowhead could be an additional oversector created by rearranging the original commands, or simply a "geographical" name for one of the known oversectors in the same way that Cerulean Spear, Green Mantle and Crimson Dagger are known as Greater Maldrood, Corellian and Quelii... the question is which, if any, of the known Oversectors in the Arrowhead we assign to Harrsk?

Azure Hammer makes the most sense in literal terms, as it covers the tip of the Slice, and would nicely explain Harrsk's ability to shipjack the massive Megador (headcanon: the Mega Star Destroyer also known as Supremacy!) and Dominion, but that would imply that he was not a Grand Moff, but originally subordinate Sector Fleet High Admiral under Tiggy, and that he left behind Wermis and the Whelm; alternatively, we could infer a reallocation of the space trailward of Anaxes to another command, presumably the adjacent Sector 3 or Sector 4...

And I'm reiminded now that WARFARE actually preempted your frown about Governor Seerdon's rather odd area of responsibility by giving him Sector 3, which was already gaining rather sprawling responsibilities in Luceno's early-Empire Vader novel - whether that makes it more or less likely to be "Arrowhead Command" is really up to personal headcanon...

I mean, if you look at the places where Seerdon's active, they do support a focus inside the Slice - retrofitted onto Bimmisarri and Kashyyk and by implication the Lesser Lantillian Route as the unnamed Moff in Luceno's novel, given control of the Coreward thrust of the Perlemian by WARFARE, subsequently active in Chandrilla - and with random exclaves elsewhere - Fest, Thyferra, Taloraan - and that lines up nicely with what we know of Harrsk, associated with the Arrowhead, Atravis and the Deep Core - but I'm about 95% certain that was not authorial intent by anybody!

Given that Corellia is Corellia, and we find Dureya's flagship throwing tantrums at Gra Ploven, I'm not sure this is a significant problem per se...

This just proves my point that my perception of the scene is very much distracted by Shada...

Random adjacent Dark Empire dissidence - these ships at Byss are not Vengeance-class SSDs, cool though those are, but Quasar Fire bulk cruisers...

I do rather like this, though it's entirely in keeping with the trajectory of the Empire as seen in ANH and the odd canon remarks on "departmental Moffs" - there's a "Mofferization" of the Empire's whole administration...

Thanks to this, I am now going to headcanon Thrawn as Lawrence Olivier...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

We should ask Timothy Zahn directly Meantime, it's my headcanon.