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The Xen'Chi War, also called the Xen'Chi Invasion, was a galaxy-wide conflict between the oppressive Xen'Chi and the beings of the galaxy proper.
The invasion was the most devastating crisis the galaxy had ever faced in terms of casualties. Thousands of worlds were conquered by the invaders, including the galactic capital, Coruscant. Others were simply decimated and rendered uninhabitable.
The Xen Chi War spanned nearly three years, and ravaged the Galaxy. Xen Chi conquests stretched across both New Republic and Imperial territory, and ravaged the navies of both powers. The Xen Chi not only fought themselves but also forced conquered species to fight with them, dubbing them thrall fleets. The war was finally ended when a combined Galactic fleet featuring ships from every major power, dubbed Rogue Fleet, defeated the Xen Chi at their home planet of Chil’A’Chin.
Early Warnings[]
It is not clear how, but possibly from Grand Admiral Thrawn and his knowledge of the Chiss, that Emperor Palpatine knew about the Xen Chi threat. How long the Emperor knew is unknown, but it is suspected it could date back to before Yavin.
Grand Admiral Thrawn’s command in the unknown regions was one precaution taken by the Emperor to defend against the eventual incursion. Grand Admiral Ardin’s sojourn to the unknown regions shortly before his death was another sign of the danger of the Xen Chi. Both set up patrols and defenses in the unknown regions that were meant halt the eventual invasion. They proved unsuccessful.
The First Conflict[]
The first sign of the Xen Chi’s arrival came in the shape of the Adamar, an alien race subjugated by the Xen Chi and forced to fight for them. The Adamar, using their unique microbe technology, ravaged the Imperial fleet and other defenses in the borders of the unknown regions.
The remains of the destroyed fleet were discovered by Captain Byron Chamberlain and the rest of the Imperial fleet that defected with him. While investigating the lost fleet, Chamberlain joined forces with the United Defense Fleet, a combined New Republic and Imperial fleet from an alternate dimension. They engaged the Adamar, and after several defeats, entered into a decisive engagement with the aliens.
Staring destruction in the face, the combined fleet was saved by Grand Admiral’s Thrawn’s battlegroup, which had learned a technological secret that was essential in defeating the Adamar. Shortly afterwards, Thrawn revealed the fact that the Adamar were merely a thrall fleet sent by a greater threat, the Xen Chi.
A Great Defeat[]
Ord Mantell was the sight of the first major defeat at the hands of the Xen Chi. High Admiral Banner Ton and the Super Star Destroyer Cleansing engaged and destroyed a small Xen Chi flotilla. However, he was soon ambushed by two full Xen Chi fleets, and was defeated. The entire Imperial 6th fleet was lost, with Banner Ton and the Cleansing captured by the enemy.
It was an awful defeat for the galaxy and the Galactic Empire, losing its largest fleet and most feared ship, the Cleansing. The loss struck fear in the heart of the galaxy, and made clear the scope of the threat the Xen Chi posed.
The Cleansing would eventually be refitted and commissioned as the command ship for the Xen Chi and GAIT. Banner Ton would be turned against his fellow man, and used by the Xen Chi to assault the Galactic Empire at its core.
Other Battles[]
- The Xen Chi seized Mechis III, but was later pushed off the world by a combined force from Oremin and the Mandalorians. The Mandalorians proceeded to counter-attack and strike deep into Xen Chi territory, destroying many enemy ships and reclaiming lost territory.
- The only three remaining Adamar ships destroyed the Imperial garrison at Endor.
- The 4th and 5th New Republic fleets battled the Xen Chi at Corellia and in other area of Republic space.
- Reng Kasr and Admiral Gregory Dreskul repelled a Xen Chi invasion at Borleais.
- The Black Star Confederacy used their naval power to counter-strike into Xen Chi space with the goal of relieving pressure on the Imperial and New Republic fronts.
- At its peak, the Xen Chi conquered nearly half of the known galaxy.
The Xa-Tieron Appears[]
The entity known as GAIT, an advanced AI, stepped into a role long held sacred in Xen Chi society. After taking control of a Xen Chi priestess, she was proclaimed the Xa-Tieron, the Chosen One to lead the Xen Chi to greatness.
GAIT had long ago learned to manipulate the force, and in a mortal body with that ability, was able to touch the force once again. After showing her immense power, the Xen Chi leadership named her the Xa-Tieron in an effort to rally support from their people. She proceeded to take control of the war effort, and integrate her advanced technology into the war effort.
She used the Xen Chi Chosen as her most loyal and deadly soldiers. She taught them to use the force, and trained many to the skill level of Jedi Knights. GAIT also enhanced them with advanced technological implants, making them even more formidable.
Shortly after being proclaimed the Chosen One, GAIT eliminated her enemies on the Xen Chi ruling council and left only those loyal to her. She appointed a former criminal, Kattar, her new Warmaster. His willingness to go against Xen Chi ideology, the same thing that had him thrown in prison, is what made him attractive to GAIT.
As the Xa-Tieron, and trapped in a mortal body, GAIT began to change and exhibit some illogical tendencies. Some would argue she began to act like an organic mortal. As she changed, her ability to manipulate the entity known as the force increased exponentially. GAIT was able to manipulate the essence of the force, changing its very nature.
Jedi at War[]
The Xa Tieron’s Chosen assaulted Taylon, the City of the Jedi, decimating the Taylon army and killing many member of the New Jedi Order. With the Chosen were many of GAIT’s advanced droids, and other synthetic combinations. The shock and awe attack showed what a threat the aliens could be to the Jedi. It would foreshadow the impact GAIT would have on the force in the future.
Traitor’s Retribution[]
Former High Admiral Banner Ton, transformed into the Xen Chi thrall To’Barren, led a fleet deep into the Core with the goal of seizing Coruscant. The fleet conquered such strategic systems as Fondor, Thyferra, and Yag’dhul to clear a path to Coruscant. He battled constantly with Admiral Baldin who eventually retreated to Byss, where To’Barren trapped him and his fleet.
To’Barren cleared a path for Warmaster Hell’Kattar, who assaulted the Imperial Capital and took on Home Fleet, led by Grand Admiral Thrawn himself. Thrawn, using a clever trick with cloaks and asteroids destroyed the numerically superior Xen Chi fleet. But an apparent victory was quickly snatched away when To’Barren arrived with his Thrall fleet.
Outnumbered nearly 3-1, To’Barren offered Thrawn a chance to live if he named him Regent. Despite defeat being all but assured, Thrawn refused and joined battle. His fleet was quickly decimated, and with his flagship, the Chimaera, on the verge of destruction, fate intervened.
A black ship hanging in the outskirts of the system controlled by the Sith Empire, used some kind of force weapon to destroy To’Barren’s command ship, the Retribution, and crash it into its support ships, killing To’Barren. The assault put the entire fleet into disarray and scattered it. Second in Command, The Chiss Vice Admiral Chorn withdrew with the rest of the fleet. The Xen Chi did not threaten Coruscant again.
No one ever discovered exactly what happened, or how the Retribution was destroyed.
The Force Transformed[]
After salvaging the wreck of the Super Star Destroyer Cleansing, GAIT recognized something important about the ship. Apparently, when Damascus was killed upon it during the Battle of Corellia, a rift was created in the force. Damascus’ dead spirit was stored there, along with others that had died onboard the vessel. It was a virtual world in the nether regions of the force, populated by the dead.
Damascus used the rift to transfer his spirit to a new body, in an attempt to re-assert control over the galaxy. The rift in the force allowed any other force user unfettered access to the force and gave them untold power. The ship itself became one with the energy field and could be controlled by anyone that wielded enough power.
After GAIT vanquished the reborn Damascus, it used the rift to access the force like no one had before. Using its immense knowledge that it had gathered over the course of millennia it began to change the very nature of the force itself, reformatting it in its own mechanical image.
GAIT was able to instill the power of the force in its machines that it created on A’Shak. If allowed to continue, the force itself would have changed, altering the course of Galactic History. All force users in the galaxy could sense the coming crisis, which spurned them to action.
Rogue Fleet[]
A combined Imperial and Oremin fleet, known as Rogue Fleet, was the tip of the spear that led the invasion deep into Xen Chi space. After having learned the location of the A’Shak Research facility, which GAIT had made its base of operations, Rogue Fleet led an assault there.
A fleet led by Reng Kasr and Gregory Dreskul defeated the Xen Chi fleet in orbit, while Delth Ardin and Jedi Danolie Notorious led the surface attack. The Xen Chi fleet in orbit was destroyed and Ardin and his team managed to destroy the production facility on the ground, irreparably harming GAIT’s manufacturing capabilities.
Most important, the team managed to secure the location of the Xen Chi homeworld, Chil’A’Chin.
The Galaxy Unites[]
With the Xen Chi being pushed back from the known galaxy, and retreating to its own territory, the Galaxy pooled all of it resources to field a fleet that would be capable of neutralizing the remaining Xen Chi ships and destroying the alien homeworld.
The fleet would include ships from the Empire, the New Republic, Oremin, the Black Star Confederacy, the Mandalorians, the Loris Empire, and other smaller governments. The fleet was placed under the command of Grand Admiral Thrawn who led the assault.
The Final Battle at Chil’A’Chin[]
Using the location discovered on A’Shak, the combined fleet arrived at Chil’A’Chin to find that the Xen'Chi had withdrawn with a purpose. Kattar had set a trap for the combined fleet, and the alien forces greatly outnumbered them.
A battle ensued in which Thrawn drew the Xen Chi fleet away from their planet, and turned their flank away from Chil’A’Chin. Thanks to a deal brokered through the Black Star Confederacy, a Chiss fleet jumped into the system behind the Xen Chi, catching them in a pincer movement.
Aware that their long time enemies, the Chiss, would likely kill every last Xen Chi, Kattar brokered a peace with Thrawn to save his people.
Unbeknownst to the combined fleet and the Xen Chi, Imperial Inquisitor Prescott took matters into his own hands during the final battle. With tacit (but deniable) approval from Admiral Dreskul, he and his team delivered a substance called Agent Crimson to the surface of the planet. The agent was designed as a plague to infect and kill as many Xen Chi as possible. It was delivered into the planet’s water supply, and air filtration systems.
Meanwhile, just outside the system Delth Ardin, Kalja Leidias, and others led an assault on GAIT and her newly minted flagship constructed from the remnants of the Cleansing. Garrett Granth and a strike team composed of Grant Tirelli, Tanith, Josep and members of the Eclipse Consortium headed for the ship’s control center. There Granth took control of the ship from GAIT and sent it through hyperspace to Chil’A’Chin with the purpose of ramming it into the planet’s surface. During the mission, Sergius stole a huge cache of data from GAIT’s archives that he brought back to his criminal organization, The Syndicate.
Granth also installed a program that would prevent GAIT from transferring her consciousness off of the ship, an ability which had allowed her to survive for millennia. If the ship did indeed collide with Chil’A’Chin, GAIT would die with it. Of course, it would only work if Danolie Nortoious, Kalja Leidias, Skarrek, Ket Maliss, and Delth Ardin could defeat the Xa’Tieron.
After spending so much time on the Cleansing, GAIT had grown immensely in power. Her connection to the force far surpassed anything any mortal had ever achieved. Her transformation of the force via the rift on the ship was nearly complete and the force itself was acting out in self-defense.
It chose a protector, Delth Ardin, someone that belonged neither to the Sith or the Jedi, and imbued him with power and strength that might be able to defeat GAIT. But he would not be able to do it alone.
GAIT in control of Kalja.
GAIT saw Kalja Leidias as a future source of power. If GAIT could seize the body of the Jedi, and her powerful connection to the force, she would be unstoppable. Her minions kidnapped the Jedi after separating her from her companions, and GAIT took her body. When Delth and his companions finally found GAIT, they were looking at their friend Kalja.
The fight ended quickly, with Delth being disposed of first. Soon, Danolie, Ket and Skarrek joined him in defeat. With half a hand missing, broken ribs, and a separated shoulder, Delth went after GAIT once again. Understanding GAIT’s cold logic and lack of understanding of human behavior, Delth surprised the machine by activating a lightsaber behind his back, cutting a hole through his stomach and Kalja’s heart.
The action sent Delth into the nether in which he fought GAIT inside the energy field of the force. Alone, he would not have stood a chance against the immortal being. He began to fight the immortal being with the help of some of the dead trapped on the ship.
Meanwhile, GAIT’s healing ability had saved Kalja’s body, and she had woken up. Summoning her ship, the Mystic Aura, to the Cleansing, she used the special ability of the ship to contact every force user in the galaxy to ask for help.
In the nether, Delth fought GAIT with the spirits of the dead helping him along. Kalja helped focus the power of every force user in the galaxy to the Cleansing, joining their strength with Delth’s. With the force itself and the galaxy giving him strength, Delth defeated GAIT for good.
With GAIT dead, the Cleansing arrived at Chil’A’Chin and crashed into the Xen'Chi homeworld, a planet changing event. Those on-board barely escaped with their lives.
The war was over, and GAIT was vanquished. Whether she was dead was another question all-together. It’s difficult to kill something that’s immortal.
As for the Xen Chi, their ability to wage war was broken. Their planet was in shambles thanks to the impact of the Cleansing, and the plague let loose by Prescott. They would not be a major factor in galactic affairs ever again.