Warlord Zsinj

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Star Wars character
Zsinj
Image:WarlordZsinj.JPG
An ambitious officer of the Imperial Starfleet, Zsinj turned feral after the defeat at Endor and tried to carve out his own empire as an independent warlord.
Position Warlord
Homeworld Fondor
Species Human
Gender Male
Height 1.68 meters (5 feet, 6 inches)
Affiliation Galactic Empire, himself
Portrayed by N/A

Warlord Zsinj was the most powerful warlord opposing both the Empire and the New Republic within the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Contents

[edit] Beginnings

A cultured, machiavellian genius, and a corpulent man from the planet Fondor, he wore the uniform of a Grand Admiral, though the highest rank he ever officially received from the Empire was the rank of "Admiral". He was originally a captain of a Victory-class Star Destroyer, assigned to patrol the planet of Dathomir (circa The Battle of Yavin) until he, recognizing the imminent threat and thinking quickly, destroyed the orbital docking facility on Dathomir, thus preventing the Force-sensitive Nightsisters (and Dark siders) from leaving; if they had succeeded in escaping, they would have spread havoc through out the galaxy, and with their exceedingly strong Force powers and the immense genetic potential for Force-sensitivity latent amongst the Dathomirans as a power base, they could conceivably have threatened the Emperor's rule. Emperor Palpatine rewarded him with promotion to, and command of, the Super Star Destroyer Brawl, which he rechristened Iron Fist, after his original command.

After Endor, the Grand Vizier Sate Pestage was soon deposed, and a "Ruling Council" took charge. They ordered Zsinj and other commanders to withdraw from the Quelli Sector. Zsinj refused, and thus Zsinj was one of the first Admirals to go rogue after the Battle of Endor (39 AGR), eventually commanding a disparate, but very large and effective, fleet of Star Destroyers, Corellian Corvettes, and other craft. He used this growing fleet to take control of the Quelli sector and consolidated, using Iron Fist as a tool of terror to compel outlying systems to pledge fealty to him; Iron Fist represented a vast concentration of power within a small space, and Zsinj understood the strength and weakness inherent to it, and exploited it appropriately: he began a series of expertly planned and executed hit and fade attacks on the Empire and New Republic. For a time, Zsinj was the most fearsome threat to peace in the galaxy, his defeat the most important objective: his threat only grew as he led the greatest warriors on wild goose chases, into ambushes, and wrong positions. By this period, his conquests had grown even more.

With the aid of Imperial Army General Melvar's expertise at ground assaults and Zsinj's renowned ability at subterfuge and use of Imperial Intelligence agents, Zsinj had conquered a full third of the galaxy at the time of the disastrous Kuat Drive Yards raid. Zsinj had taken several lessons from the Emperor's demise, among which was a near-obsessive need to decentralize, obscurate, and reinforce his holdings; not just militarily either: Zsinj plowed his tribute and loot into a veritable financial empire comprised entirely of aliases, pseudonyms, and dummy corporations extending not only merely through his own territory (which would be vulnerable to conquest) but that of the New Republic and of the Empire as well; this feat of financial legerdemain would have been impossible except for the vast former resources of Imperial Intelligence at his command.

However, Zsinj was growing increasingly worried about the Mon Remonda task force led by General Han Solo; after Wraith Squadron killed Admiral Apwar Trigit and destroyed Trigit's Star Destroyer, he knew he had to find a way to achieve a decisive victory over either the Republic or Imperial fleets if his empire was to endure.

[edit] The Kuat shipyards raid

Zsinj's infamous intelligence networks (second only to the Reborn Emperor's or to Isard's) reported to him about a top-secret project being financed by the Empire at the Kuat shipyards: a new Executor-class Star Destroyer, the first to be constructed since before the Battle of Endor. Zsinj immediately decided that he would strengthen himself, weaken his enemies, and heap further glory on his rule by accomplishing the seemingly nigh-impossible task of stealing the new SSD just before its completion, and finishing the vessel himself. A SSD is a truly gargantuan construction task, taking years to fully finish - indeed, members of the Imperial Design Section have been known to wryly remark that a Star Destroyer is never truly finished, and that an ISD Mark II is "100,000 design flaws waiting to happen." Therefore, Zsinj had ample time to infiltrate his Imperial Intelligence agents (such as Gara Petothel) onto the new SSD. He then prepared the assault on the Kuat Drive shipyards, one of the most heavily defended locations in the galaxy, almost as fortified as Coruscant or Byss. He placed Iron Fist at the center of a wedge, which would penetrate to the heart of the shipyards; simultaneously, his agents aboard the unnamed SSD would take control of the main and auxiliary bridge, and begin fighting out of the shipyards as best as they could with their limited manpower. Zsinj's forces were insufficient on their own, so Zsinj offered extravagant pay to all mercenaries and soldiers and pirates he could recruit, bribe, or force to serve as a screen (thereby taking the brunt of the casualties) for his invasion. The operation was initially a success, with the SSD (now renamed the Razor's Kiss) successfully extracted from the Kuat system, and jumped to the remote staging point, along with the Iron's Fist (but not the rest of the armada). However, things began to go wrong for Zsinj when agents from Wraith Squadron, aligned with the New Republic planted a Trojan horse aboard the Razor's Kiss, sending out a signal across the HoloNet, informing Han Solo's waiting fleet of the location of the incomplete SSD, and more importantly, of Zsinj and the Iron Fist; Zsinj was considered such a threat that the Empire and the New Republic had appointed some of their best commanders to defeat him: Fleet Admiral Teren Rogriss, and General Han Solo, respectively.

Solo's armada immediately jumped in-system and began a running firefight with the two vessels. To make matters worse, Wraith Squadron deployed its TIE Interceptors, taking out the shield generators of the Razor's Kiss, which led to the vessel being slagged by fire from a Mon Calamarian Star Cruiser. Zsinj, seeing the failure of his grand plan, and with his own vessel losing the fight against two Star Cruisers and associated vessels, reluctantly gave the order to retreat. He would have further close shaves, such as when to gain respite from the two front war he was fighting, he cobbled together a mockup of a SSD from the wreckage of the Razor's Kiss into what he dubbed the Second Death, which would later be destroyed after a devastating battle with both the New Republic and the Empire (Solo and Rogriss had negotiated an informal truce to defeat Zsinj), the Battle of Selaggis, which Zsinj was lured into due to his irrational hatred of Han Solo; its destruction had the salutary benefit of fooling the New Republic forces into believing the Iron Fist destroyed. The real Iron Fist was hidden by "Night Cloak satellites" (the same satellites which would later be put into orbit over Dathomir) and retreated to Dathomir, to lie up in repair.

[edit] Zsinj's Fall

Zsinj's death was due to essentially bad luck in the Battle of Dathomir: Han Solo had won a deed to his shipyard planet Dathomir in a sabacc game, and seeking Leia's affections, kidnapped her and stole her away to the planet. Prince Isolder, Solo's rival in his courtship, followed to rescue her. However, as Isolder was the crown prince to the Hapes Cluster, a massive Hapan rescue fleet was dispatched when Isolder's personal Battle Dragon-class cruiser returned to the cluster with the news that Isolder was trapped on a planet deep within the heart of Zsinj's territory, and indeed the secret long-sought shipyard of Zsinj. A New Republic fleet was similarly dispatched to rescue Princess Leia. The combined forces arrived at Dathomir while Iron Fist was in space dock, and Zsinj had placed an ultimatum upon the entire planet of Dathomir to render unto him Han Solo (and more specifically, upon the Nightsisters, so Zsinj could wreak his revenge. In the ensuing battle, the Millennium Falcon was tractor-beamed within the Iron Fist's shields and then destroyed the shield generators, which led directly to the destruction of that SSD, and that of Zsinj, who was on board.

[edit] Aftermath: Zsinj's empire crumbles

Zsinj's holdings had not been noticeably attrited during the two-front war he had fought; his holdings still comprised an enormous segment of the galaxy. Without Zsinj's genius, his subordinates could not coordinate their decentralized, complex and multi-faceted operations, and the entire empire was up for grabs. The New Republic and the Galactic Empire were the two organizations who raced to conquer the most of the area, each attempting to deny it to the other. The devastation on each side was terrible, and an enormous toll was taken on the recalcitrant prizes as well: the New Republic lost nearly all the gifts it had received from the Hapan Cluster, and the Empire lost many task forces, and even worse, they lost the fabled senior Kuat design team, which fled to the Reborn Emperor in the Deep Core, where they would aid in the design and construction of the Eclipse-class Star Destroyers, and the invaluable Kuat Drive Yards themselves. It was a Pyrrhic victory for the New Republic, however: though they gained the most territory, the shipyards were so heavily damaged it was years before they returned to full capacity and cleansed of Imperial loyalists and spies.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

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