| Chimaera (star Wars) |
Article Index for Chimaera |
Information AboutChimaera (star Wars) |
|
The ''Imperial''-class Star Destroyer Chimaera was a starship in the fictional Star Wars Expanded Universe . Even though the ship was at Endor, the vessel has not been explicitly named in any of the movies. It was first encountered in the Timothy Zahn book Heir To The Empire . SERVICE Early history and the Battle of Endor The ''Chimaera's'' early history has been left largely unrevealed, although her name appears to indicate that she was one of the extremely early ''Imperial''-class ships produced along with the ''Gorgon'', ''Manticore'', ''Hydra'', and ''Basilisk''. The latter four ships would be assigned to protecting the Maw Installation, and would never be reunited with the ''Chimaera'' after that assignment. The ''Chimaera'' was part of the Imperial fleet that participated in the Battle Of Endor . After the destruction of the fleet's flagship (the Super Star Destroyer '' Executor ''), the second Death Star , and the death of the Emperor , the Imperials found the tide had turned against them, and the cohesion and morale of the Imperial forces was rapidly collapsing. Six Star Destroyers and the fleet's "communication ship" were lost, and the Captain of ''Chimaera'' was killed during the course of the battle. The ship's executive officer, Gilad Pellaeon took command of the ''Chimaera'', which was the vessel delegated command of the fleet in the event of the loss of the ''Executor''. After reviewing the rapidly-degenerating situation, then-Captain Pellaeon issued the order to retreat from the Endor system. For the next five years, the ship was in what was later termed "rear guard harassment" of New Republic forces. A crew shortage became so acute that the Empire was forced to conscript young people into the crew. Young and inexperienced people who never would have even seen the bridge of an Imperial warship--much less an ''Imperial''-class Star destroyer--made up the bulk of the crew aboard ''Chimaera''. New Republic era About four years after the Battle Of Endor , Grand Admiral Thrawn returned from the unknown regions of the Galactic Halo . Thrawn found the ''Chimaera'', and decided to use it as his flagship. Pellaeon remained in command of the ship while Thrawn commanded the fleet. As one of Grand Admiral Thrawn's first acts as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces, he took the ''Chimaera'' on a mission to Tatooine to retrieve a rare piece of art that contained classified New Republic intelligence. Thrawn took over the former Captain's suite and remodeled it into his personal command room, with a vast collection of holographic and real art. From there and the ''Chimaera'''s bridge, Thrawn used his understanding of Art and Psychology to craft strategies against the New Republic, which he used to devastating success. Over the next year, the ''Chimaera'' participated in a number of actions that were directed by Thrawn, including the Battle of Sluis Van , where an Imperial attempt to steal a New Republic fleet resulted in the irreparable damage of a large number of New Republic ships. Thrawn directed the Imperial forces during the Battle of Bilbringi from the ''Chimaera''. During the battle, Thrawn was assassinated by his Noghri bodyguard Rukh just as the situation was becoming the most grim for the Imperial fleets involved in the operation. Leaderless and increasingly pushed to the breaking point, Pellaeon was forced to order another disheartening retreat. Rukh was killed attempting to escape from the ship. Following the death of Thrawn, Pellaeon commanded most of the fleets from Bilbringi from the bridge of the ''Chimaera'' to the edge of the Unknown Regions, in preparation for a last stand of some sort against the New Republic. While organizing there, word of the cloned Emperor's appearance reached the Empire, and the ''Chimaera'' once again fought under the banner of Palpatine. During the cloned Emperor's extremely costly ''Operation Shadowhand'' campaign (as recorded in the Dark Empire trilogy), the ''Chimaera'' was critically damaged during wave assaults against the Core world of Duro , and Gilad Pellaeon was forced to order the ship abandoned. High Admiral Teradoc 's forces retrieved the ''Chimaera'' survivors before Imperial forces abandoned the Duro system. It was through this event that Gilad Pellaeon would come to be a vice admiral in the employ of Teradoc during the brief but fratricidal warlord period (following the eventual success of a long-standing assassination plot by a cabal of Imperials against the repeatedly-cloned Palpatine). The ''Chimaera'' herself was captured by the New Republic before she could be pulled into Duro's gravity well and destroyed, and was paraded back into Republic space as a valuable war prize. She was placed in drydock at the fleet repair yards at Gravlex Med, and underwent repairs by the New Republic for several years until Pellaeon, by that time a full admiral and Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces (a position once held by Darth Vader and Grand Admiral Thrawn), would recapture the old ship. From that point, Admiral Pellaeon would consistently make the ''Chimaera'' his flagship. The ''Chimaera'' was next seen in the Timothy Zahn book '' Specter Of The Past '', which took place during the Caamas Document Crisis in the New Republic. The new captain of the ''Chimaera'' was an aspiring but relatively inexperienced officer named Ardiff, who was to Admiral Pellaeon what Pellaeon himself was to the legendary Thrawn in many respects. ''Chimaera'' spent most of this time with Pellaeon aboard, personally investigating the unauthorized use of remaining cloned personnel by a group of pirates and attempted to seek a negotiated peace settlement with the New Republic , which by this time Pellaeon had become convinced the Empire could not defeat. He also devoted resources into investigating rumors that Grand Admiral Thrawn was still alive and had recently returned to Imperial service. After finally unraveling the conspiracy to seize control of the Empire with the faux Thrawn, Pellaeon was able to complete his peace mission to the New Republic. Shortly thereafter, the Bastion Accords which would end the monumentally destructive Galactic Civil War were signed in orbit of the Empire's capitol aboard the ''Chimaera''. Following the conclusion of the Galactic Civil War, Pellaeon was promoted by the Imperial Council of Moffs to the rank of Grand Admiral, and the ''Chimaera'' remained in service as the flagship of the Supreme Commander. Yuuzhan Vong crisis When the Yuuzhan Vong invaded the galaxy after an all-too-brief period of relative peace, the New Republic eventually dispatched Princess Leia Organa Solo to request military assistance from the Imperial Remnant . After meeting with and convincing Pellaeon of the dire threat the Yuuzhan Vong, the Empire reluctantly allowed Pellaeon to assemble a fleet to aid the Republic. While Grand Admiral Pellaeon's forces were rallying, the "Old Man of the Empire" took the ''Chimaera'' and the ''Victory''-class Star Destroyer ''Red Harvest'' to rescue embattled New Republic forces in the Garqi system. That done, Pellaeon returned to the Empire to take command of his assembled assistance fleet, which quickly moved to the New Republic member world of Ithor. A combined force of New Republic and Remnant warships defended the planet against a giant Yuuzhan Vong force, including a ship massing more than an 8,000 meter long "Super Star Destroyer". Despite vociferous protestations from the Chief of Staff of the New Republic, the New Republic forces deferred overall command to Grand Admiral Pellaeon, and as a result, the ''Chimaera'' became the command ship for the combined nations' fleets for the duration of the battle. Despite a heroic defense of the planet against conventional attack, Yuuzhan Vong biological weapons of mass destruction utterly devastated Ithor. However, before the Yuuzhan Vong forces could retreat from the system, a massive missile and torpedo barrage by the allied fleets managed to destroy the ''Legacy of Torment''--the giant command ship of the enemy force--and maim several other Yuuzhan Vong vessels. After word of the atrocity reached Imperial space, mass panic by the Imperial population forced the Council of Moffs to order Pellaeon and his fleet to return to Imperial space to defend against possible Yuuzhan Vong attack and maintain order among the frightened population. With the exception of a small task force centered around the ''Imperial''-class Star Destroyer ''Erinnic'', Pellaeon, the ''Chimaera'', and all of the Imperial forces withdrew back into their borders, where they would remain for the next couple of years. When the Yuuzhan Vong eventually attacked the Empire, they struck directly at its heart: The capitol of Bastion. By launching a number of hit-and-run attacks against other Imperial planets (most notably the Empire's financial hub-world of Muunilist, which was bombarded from orbit by the Yuuzhan Vong), the Yuuzhan Vong were able to keep the Imperials uncertain of their true target, and when they eventually attacked Bastion, they did so with an unprecedentedly huge number of Gruchin organisms (which attack spaceships in much the same way as the robotic buzz droids that the Separatist forces employed late in the Clone Wars). The Braxant Sector Fleet, with the ''Chimaera'' as its command ship, wound up divided by the enemy forces. The Yuuzhan Vong pushed all the way through the shattered Imperial lines, pummeled Bastion's planetary defenses away, and burned the capitol city of the Empire to the ground. Realizing that the Yuuzhan Vong had come mostly to destroy the Imperial Starfleet, Pellaeon ordered the Braxant Sector Fleet to abandon the system and regroup at Yaga Minor. Before the Grand Admiral could follow suit with the ''Chimaera'', a Yuuzhan Vong kamikaze attack to the Star Destroyer's bridge nearly killed Pellaeon, and with the ship's command and control functions crippled, ''Chimaera'' was severely damaged and unable to jump hyperspace. Through presumably superhuman efforts, her crew was both able to evacuate the near-death Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces to Yaga Minor aboard a ''Lambda''-class shuttle and eventually--but just barely--save the ''Chimaera'' herself. She was able to limp into the Yaga Minor fleet yards some days later, where she would undergo massive repairs for the remainder of the war. The ''Chimaera'''s status is currently unknown; as the Supreme Commander of the Galactic Federation Of Free Alliances , Pellaeon's flagship is the '' Megador ''. TRIVIA As a side note, 'Chimaera' is also the name of one of the European servers powering the game . The server was named after the Star Wars spaceship by Sony Online Entertainement. Despite it once had a great and living community composed of thousands of Star Wars fans playing on it, today it is a place where only hundreds of hardcore fans still play. |
|
|