The Deep Core Warlords [Imperial Retcon Month!]

I'm pretty sure everyone knows who I mean when I say "the Deep Core warlords": Harrsk, Teradoc, Delvardus and the rest - the guys who're holed up in the Deep Core in Darksaber

Now this has always been a bit of a continuity problem, because both before (Thrawn Trilogy, CotJ) and after (Planet of Twilight, Hand of Thrawn duology) the Imperials are supposed to have been forced out of the Core towards the Rim. In Children of the Jedi, Harrsk is even said to be active on Spuma, in Atravis Sector, and near Belsavis - all on the Outer Rim...

Explaining how they were in the Core in Darksaber has tended to be one of the trickiest continuity issues in Star Wars...

Except...

... we missed the obvious answer.

The easy answer...

They're not in the Deep Core.







The only thing that's explicilty located in the Deep Core in Darksaber is Tsoss Beacon, surrounded by "the fiery soup of stars and gases near the heart of the deep core."

What we have apart from that are repeated references to something called the "Core Systems", which are certainly an area of inhospitable and decidedly hard-to-navigate space near the Deep Core: "a mere island in what had been considered the backwater territories and formerly uninhabitable systems near the core of the galaxy"...

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[i]True night was impossible in the Core Systems. Stars clustered so closely together that even the blackest regions of space were a symphony of stellar flares and hot ionized gas clumped in regions once considered uninhabitable. In a navigational hell like this, remnants of the Empire hid among uncharted systems where they could wait and recover--and war upon each other.[/i][hr][/blockquote]

But these "Core Systems" aren't necessarily the same place as the Deep Core. They're never [i]called[/i] "the Deep Core", capitalized or otherwise.

True, the non-Imperial planet of Khomm is [i]toward the center of the galaxy, near the Core Systems[/i]; and when Kyp looks up at the sky, he sees Imperial territory - but look at how it's described: [i]the densely clustered stars that made a broad river of light across the night of space. The Core Systems.[/i]

... "a broad river of light across the night of space"? That sounds like a side-on view of the Galactic disk, rather than the bulge of the Core ...

Looking at the map, I wonder if we shouldn't think of these "Core Systems" as fanning out [i]beyond[/i] the Deep Core - spreading out into the Galactic disk in the opposite direction from the "Slice", shading into the inhospitable and decidedly hard-to-navigate space known as the Unknown Regions.

But wait! I'm not done yet! :D

First, a quote from a Bothan:

[blockquote][hr][i]Five years ago the Empire was in command of about one third of the charted galaxy. Today the Imperial Core and other fragments make up less than one quarter of Known Space, with the majority of that space in the heavily fortified Deep Core.[/i]
-- Rear Admiral Kursk Mal'ia, [i]Cracken's Threat Dossier[/i], page 90[hr][/blockquote]

Now this does locate the bulk of Imperial space in the "Deep Core", but it still gives the various Imperial fragments a reasonably large area on the map - more than could really fit in the astrophycical Deep Core, I think - someone like Jason Fry might answer that better than me.

And more to the point, this must be dated to the end of the BFC, or 17 ABY: five years [b]after[/b] [i]Darksaber[/i]...

[i]Five years ago the Empire was in command of about one third of the charted galaxy[/i]... :-oo

[i]Cracken's Threat Dossier[/i] also gives us a political term, "Imperial Core", which ties in nicely with Darksaber's "Core Systems"; a political term, not an astrophysical one... :D

And for my next trick, I'm going to lever these scattered pieces of random continuity out of their contexts and spin them high up in the air above the stage... and when I catch them again, they're going to have become a beautiful retcon...

The "

 

McEwok, this is one of the few retcons you have put forth that actually makes sense to me, minus a few points. I don't accept it 100%, but parts do seem to fit.

The main one would be Harrsk having Bilbringi. We know that within months of the defeat of Thrawn that the New Republic had Bilbringi up and running. They have the Lusyanka undergoing refit there, plus a defense fleet that contained various warships, including Mon Cal cruisers, Neb-B's, corvettes, and at least a few VSD's.

There is no way that Harrsk had Bilbringi. And there is no source that shows the NR temporarily lost control of it. In the aftermath of the reborn Emperor's campaign, the Imperial forces were as you suggest, locked in the Deep Core and in isolated pockets of the Outer Rim.

--Adm. Nick

 

*applauds amazed* McEwok...

you are the second winner of my: GFFA Cartography Award

this retcon is better than I expected and I love the empty spaces it would fill, and it would also solve many problems about the true deep core.

 

It would explain how the NR managed to defeat the Deep Core warlords yet still needed Pellaeon's starcharts in Destiny's Way.

 

Ewok... I would never take so long to write a review of this horrendous book, let alone FIX it...

 

When and how did the NR defeat the DeepCore-warlords IN the deep core?

 

Darksaber is 8 months after Children of the Jedi; 8yrs after Endor.

There were Deep Coreans as late as New Rebellion. Bel Iblis repulsed Daala's last known strike, remember, at that time.

 

known cluster close to this region: THE REDOUBT.. where the chiss/empire of the Hand hid some secrets

 

Right around the time Ackbar was pushing the Remnant back to eight sectors, Daala reunited the Deep Core warlords and attacked the NR. The New Republic Fourth Fleet was put under the command of Garm Bel Iblis, who thrashed Daala's forces, though she escaped.

I think many assume the Deep Core was at least partially occupied by the NR.

--Adm. Nick

 

So Daala rules the redoubt now?

 

...

...

Thank you!!

(Unless you're joking, that is... )

This is true, especially in the "south": looking again at Wookieepedia, Ord Trasi is said to be in the same sector as Ando, which puts it coreward of Tatooine on the Corellian Run and in the area of Thrawn's campaigns; it's also supposed to be near Trogan, which Wookieepedia places inside the Slice...

NR territory here is perhaps best seen as leading Corewards from Bothawui, Sullust and Sluis Van, with the Empire in control rimwards - which is what CotJ describes, after all...? Alternatively, the frontier could be far more fluid and irregular...

In the "north", I'm still thinking more of a "linear" frontier area stretching from Core to Rim, defined approximately by Ord Mantell, Ithor and Bilbringi on the one side, and by Dathomir, Kwymar and Makem Te on the other... with a NR salient through Yavin to Ord Mantell and Ithor - didn't Wedge say in Specter of the Past that Ord Mantell had been the NR's forward base against the Empire for a long time?

What's the source of the 50% figure for 7 ABY, out of interest? I thought that one of the X-wing books suggested an approximately even split between the NR, Zsinj, and other Imperials...

You're forgetting that the Warlords weren't in the Deep Core...

And since the Inquisition had a major HQ on Prakith, I'm not sure whether Sector 5 was ever truly outwith nominal Imperial space in the way that the Warlords' territories were...

But that said, I do rather like the idea that Gann represents a reassertion of Imperial control...

That's okay...

Actually, The Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook, page 111, says that the damage to the defences left Bilbringi too exposed, so the NR remove

 

Kind of. Admiral Daala is my favorite character next to the boy who has been cloned. So I have a hard time accepting she vanished without leaving a body, also kind of offscreen. With this retcon (or a part of it) putting the redoubt next to the deep core I wonder who is in charge there. And hope it is Daala. Just for fun.

 

see f.e. the Cron Cluster or Hapes Cluster... tight clusters. Cron cluster was as tight, when it went supernova nearby systems also went nova and were devastated. Hapes Cluster is tight, difficult to navigate and enclosed by nebulae.. all these descriptions fit and resemble deep core navigational and density, like the Chiss Redoubt or others.

even if the deep core warlords are in the galactic deep core, they are not INSIDE it but above or below it, and not too deep into the galactic core. maybe 2D viewed they are in it but in 3D they are on top.

though with the classification of imperial deep core, core systems etc. dividing imperial space into new regions, and with Bastion being moved in name and role, from coruscant to byss and from byss into the rim.. these new territorial classifications could be also moved with bastion. bastion is imperial deep core.. wherever it goes, the names follow. etc. so bastion moved several times before SOTP and VOTF maybe it was in the "deep core" mcewok is suggesting.

ps: the hyperspacial anomalia around the Unknown Regions are gravitational, so DENSITY of masses has to be there, maybe lots of starclusters and stars and planets and rocks in space. many nebula, dark matter and clusters would qualify to make this hyperspace barrier plausible.. and it too would fit the description of imperial deep core, right?

thoughts?

 

Oy! This is a long retcon, with lots of really wordy replies. Needless to say, I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I did notice something interesting: The title of the thread!

"[Imperial Retcon Month]" Is this your attempt to make NRM last even longer after RF announced in Cooper's thread about gay characters that NRM would be officially over on the 26th?

 

So...
This would explain how the Pentastar Alignment/Oversector Outer contains the territories near Dantooine and also Sullust and Seswenna in the south.

I really like the Koornacht retcon, I was thinking about something similar to this (Rim being west of the Core near the UR, but not as part of the "Deep Core" )

The Empire's territory post-Endor (Empire+warlords):
(x% of the Known Galaxy, so no western disk)

7 ABY - 50% (X-wing)
8 ABY - 50% (Dark Empire Sourcebook?) (33% Zsinj)
9 ABY - 25% (NEC)
9 ABY - 50% (NEC) after Thrawn

12 ABY- 33% (Crackens Threat Dossier)

17 ABY- 25% (Crackens Threat Dossier)
18 ABY- 1% (NEC) 8 Sectors and some Deep Core worlds, before the Corellian Insurrection

Any info about the "Dark Empire"?

The problem is: how de we define territory in space? 50% means every second inhabited system (There were 50 million of them) ? Or 50% of the star systems? About 10% of the star systems are in the bulge (Deep Core), and even the uninhabited systems count as part of the Empire/NR. (SOTE sourcebook mentions that the Empire contained billions of stars.)

 

Which source gives us so specific infos about Zsinj's territory? (like 4% to the NR, 4% to the Empire) And what do you mean by "1% Empire"?

My 8 ABY number is from DE sourcebook:

Also I found another qoute there:

This is 10 ABY, after Coruscant, before Operation Shadow Hand

Also I missed the 8.5 ABY info from NEC

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The Empire's territory post-Endor (Empire+warlords):
(x% of the Known Galaxy, so no western disk)

7 ABY____50% (X-wing)
8 ABY____50% (Dark Empire Sourcebook) (33% Zsinj (Rebellion Era Sourcebook))
8.5 ABY__25% (NEC)
9 ABY____25% (NEC) before Thrawn
9 ABY____50% (NEC) after Thrawn
10 ABY___50% (Dark Empire sourcebook) this is after the Imperials recaptured Coruscant and most of the Core Worlds, but before Operation Shadow Hand

12 ABY___33% (Crackens Threat Dossier)

17 ABY___25% (Crackens Threat Dossier)
18 ABY___"1%"(NEC) 8 Sectors and some Deep Core worlds, before the Corellian Insurrection

 

WHAT? Zsinj lost 8% of his INCOME, not his territory.
You assume it based on what? (50-50) But it doesn't really matter...

Source?

Since when was the Imperial Ruling Council a lesser warlord? You really think that the Galactic Empire between Ysanne and Thrawn controlled a territory as small as the Remnant during the NJO?

This whole thing is based on a non-existing information. Isn't it?