Yes Gilad Pellaeon, poster boy for the Imperial Remnant. The venerable Grand Admiral, and hero of the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. But who was this man really? And does his military history suggest that he deserves the praise many EU fans heave upon him? Let the story be told. . .

Pellaeon entered the Academy fifty years before the Battle of Yavin, lying about his age, when he was just fifteen. He served in the Judiciary Defense Forces and Republic Navy where he achieved some clout and rank possibly due to his exemplary administration skills.

During the Clone Wars, Pellaeon continued to serve with the Navy, and by the Battle of Merson, he was a twenty-year veteran and a Captain serving as a courtesy flag-officer in command of a flotilla of Assault Frigates to provide support for the invasion of Merson. However, Merson would prove to be (presumably) the first time he demonstrates a lack of stomach for pitched battle. Upon the arrival of Separatist reinforcements, Pellaeon declared his position untenable and informed Jedi General Rhonar Kim of his imminent withdrawal. General Kim informed Captain Pellaeon that he and his army would be slaughtered if Pellaeon left without retrieving the ground forces, but Pellaeon was stubborn. He refused to attempt to salvage the ground forces and withdrew, leaving Kim, his Padawan Tap-Nar-Pal and their entire army to be slaughtered by the Separatists. For Pellaeon, this decision would prove disastrous and nearly career-ending. Pellaeon would lose his command and was demoted to at least Commander.

His life between this debacle and his eventual appointment to the Chimaera decades later is somewhat foggy. He must have spent those decades struggling to restore his damaged reputation, and get his respect back, after evidently being blacklisted by the Navy. It is also thought that during this time that he fathered a child out of wedlock, a boy named Mynar Devis. Somehow he recieved a promotion to the command staff of the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera, an important ship which had been modified for increased communications and command duties. Although on the command staff, he was not part of the command triad (the Commanding Officer (CO) the Executive Officer (XO) and the Command Master Chief (CMC)), therefore he must have been a department head. He also must have had some inside help from old friends within the Navy to achieve such a position, possibly from Chimaera's flag-officer and CO (most likely a Commodore or Rear Admiral). Only after his transfer did he begin to work his way back up the chain of command eventually regaining the rank of Captain and becoming the XO of Chimaera.

His dignity restored, Pellaeon would now face his next great test in battle. The expected Imperial victory at Endor took a horrible turn for the worst and with the losses of the Communications ship and the flagship Executor, the death of the Emperor, the destruction of his vaunted Death Star and the abrupt end of battle meditation being provided by Grand Admiral Nial Declann, the Imperial fleet was in disarray. Pellaeon's CO (who was likely next in the chain of command to take control of the fleet) attempted to coordinate the Imperial forces to ensure a victory. The battle continued for an hour until Chimaera's CO was killed when the ship was damaged. Admiral Harrsk, another Flag- officer was also wounded when his flagship took damage. Now serving as the acting CO of Chimaera, Pellaeon was back in a situation he loathed, a Commanding Officer in a pitched combat scenario. Pellaeon did the only thing he could think to do. Not rally the fleet or follow Harrsk (the rightful commander of the fleet by this point), he illegally issued a retreat order for the entire fleet, bypassing not only Admiral Harrsk, but every senior CO present at the battle. The circu mstances surrounding the order are somewhat confusing, but this can be attributed to the communications breakdown of the Imperial Fleet. Some, like Captain Dorja, knew that it was Pellaeon who issued the order, and "almost didn't follow it" because it was from a "junior officer" (Dorja's words). Others, like Admiral Harrsk did not know that Pellaeon issued the order, and thought that it came from his (dead) CO (the Com. or Radm.) and was so furious when he discovered at Annaj that his command had been usurped by an acting CO that he took his task force and defected from the Empire becoming that first breakaway warlord. Sadly, the communications breakdown also kept most of the Imperial fleet in the dark regarding the return of Grand Admiral Teshik, who assumed command of the ISD Eleemosynary and (he thought) the rest of the fleet. When Pellaeon's order came down, Teshik was abandoned. He fought on for three additional hours alone until he was captured. Had the Imperial Fleet followed Teshik into battle, the outcome at Endor may have been dramatically different. Pellaeon rightly handed over command of the fleet at Annaj over to Admiral Prittick, the commander of that sector's Naval forces. Pellaeon had faced his second great test as a commanding officer in the face of combat. He had failed.

Pellaeon avoided any reprimand or court-martial upon his return to Imperial Center. The Imperial State under Sate Pestage appears to have made a conscious decision to not punish any ranking officers for indiscretions at Endor (Gadms. Miltin Takel and Afsheen Makati, who had abandoned the Imperial fleet at Endor in what was surely a display of cowardice punishable by execution were not punished either, nor were the 30 odd ISD commanders who followed Pellaeon's illegal order) in order to prevent any further political embarrassment. So Pellaeon kept his rank, and his CO position aboard the Chimaera for the next several years, doing little during the Empire's campaigns against New Republic and Warlord Zsinj and other defectors. However, he demonstrated how good an Administrator and XO he had been. The Chimaera would come to be regarded as the one of the "best run Star Destroyers in the Empire." Indeed Pellaeon excelled at administration, he simply had no stomach for combat.

Possibly because of the name he made for the Chimaera, and his known administrative abilities, Pellaeon was soon contacted by the long-exiled Grand Admiral Thrawn, who had returned from his conquests in the Unknown Regions to find the Empire in disarray. Thrawn swiftly assumed command of the Fleet, and hoisted his flag aboard Chimaera making Pellaeon the Flag Captain and Captain of the Fleet. Thrawn's choice was a wise one. Putting up his banner aboard Chimaera meant that Pellaeon would be in the position he loved best, that of an administrator, while Thrawn took over much of the command duties that Pellaeon shied from in combat. Pellaeon would learn much throughout Thrawn's brilliant campaign against the New Republic (in which Thrawn ignored the opinions of those Moffs and bureaucrats who wanted to control the Empire), and while often puzzled by Thrawn's unconventional methods, they would prove better than those that protocol dictated (to which Pellaeon had always closely adhered). However, the good times came to an abrupt end, during Thrawn's attempt to destroy the Rebel fleet at the shipyards of Bilbringi. The battle was going well until Thrawn's Noghri bodyguard unexpectedly assassinated the Grand Admiral. With Thrawn dead, Pellaeon, once again, was in a position of command. A position in which he could not function in combat. Pellaeon saw the tide begin to turn in the Republic's favor. Rather than attempt to hold the line, or at least evacuate Imperial personnel from the shipyards, Pellaeon ordered immediate retreat on the grounds that "[he] was no Grand Admiral Thrawn." And so the Battle of Bilbringi became a New Republic victory, in which the New Republic gained countless Imperial prisoners, and information on the Navy and ship production. Once again Gilad Pellaeon demonstrated his inability to turn a victory, or even salvage a defeat. However, his role in the Thrawn campaign made him an icon for the Empire, which would aid in his rise to power later in his career.

With end of Thrawn's campaign, much of his forces were recalled to the Deep Core where it was discovered that much of the fleet that had been missing during Trawn's campaigns had been taken to Byss. Pellaeon joined up with Imperial forces there, once again falling into the background. Unbeknownst to Pellaeon (or most of the other Imperial commanders for that matter) the planned operation was being coordinated by the Galactic Emperor Palpatine himself reincarnated. Pellaeon was surprised to find himself fighting under such defectors as Teradoc, Delvardus, and even Harrsk, as if they had never left the Empire. And so he fought for his nation, and it seemed the Empire would rise again. His abilities in administration and his participation in several victories during Operation Shadow Hand, earned him a string of promotions, eventually landing him the rank of Vice-Admiral. However, on his first mission as the commander of a task force, the assault on Duro, in which he led elements of Thrawn's old fleet, he miscalculated the attack and lost Chimaera to the New Republic. Although the operation was a victory for the Empire, and to his credit Pellaeon didn't retreat in the face of the enemy, his first mission as a flag officer role led to the loss of his flagship.

Shortly after the attack at Duro, the reborn Emperor was killed, and once again, the Empire splintered. With the legitimate Imperial government in the hands of the inept Ruling Council, numerous warlords took precedent over the Empire itself (or what was left of it). Vice-Admiral Pellaeon would choose to follow self-styled High Admiral Teradoc, who had absorbed much of Warlord Zsinj's forces when he was defeated by the New Republic, and was the leading warlord of the time. Teradoc made Pellaeon his second in command and placed him in charge of his sizable fleet that was part of "the largest intact military" of any of the ex-Imperial warlords, or even the Empire proper. Pellaeon raised his flag aboard the Victory-class Star Destroyer 13X. Therefore Pellaeon was in command of Teradoc's Navy when the forces of "Grand Admiral" Harrsk, under such officers as the fraudulent "Fleet Admiral" Daala, attacked Teradoc's fortress. Pellaeon succeeded in destroying the Shockwave, Harrsk's large Star Cruiser, although with heavy losses to his own fleet, and one of Harrsk's Star Destroyers, the Firestorm under Daala, succeeded in penetrating Pellaeon's line and entered within firing range of Teradoc's command fortress. However, Daala instead fired on Harrsk's personal ISD Whirlwind, incapacitating it, and threatened to annihilate both warlords unless an immediate ceasefire was put into effect. Against Teradoc's orders, Pellaeon agreed to Daala's terms, and they called for a conference among the warlords to be held at Tsoss Beacon. Little did Pellaeon know that his treachery had just cost Teradoc, and most every every other major warlord their lives, for after they had all arrived at the conference, Daala murdered them all with toxic gas, and assumed command of all of their combined forces. Pellaeon's treachery had put him under the command of deceitful Admiral madwoman hell-bent on destroying the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin IV. Pellaeon, in a single stroke, managed to get his commanding officer killed, and hand over the combined forces of all the Imperial warlords to Admiral Daala.

Daala made Pellaeon her second in command and placed him in charge of a fleet of over forty Imperial Star Destroyers and the the Executor-class Star Dreadnought Knight Hammer which had been stolen from "Superior General" Delvardus upon his murder. She charged Pellaeon to destroy the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin IV before they could begin their assault on the New Republic, however, they planned the assault poorly, and the attack resulted in over forty ISDs being put out of commission, and the destruction of the SSD Knight Hammer when Jedi infiltrators destroyed her engines. At the wrong end of another defeat, and with the mad Daala placing herself in exile, she (illegally) promoted Pellaeon the rank of Admiral, and gave him command of the fleet. Pellaeon returned to the legitimate Empire, still run by a cadre of Moffs and other officials, and, with the Empire in dire straights for seasoned officers (Pellaeon had over 30 years of experience under his belt) found himself placed in the position of Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet.

Pellaeon used his new position to launch a renewed offence against the New Republic, finally uniting the Imperial forces as one. With the rogue warlord's fleets and that of the Empire proper, Pellaeon surged out of the Deep Core in a spell of uncharacteristic aggressiveness. Utilizing the knowledge he had learned from his brief tenure with Thrawn and the strength of his new fleet, Admiral Pellaeon launched a series of successful operations against the embattled New Republic in the Mid and Outer Rims. Perhaps his most notable achievement was the absorption of Grand Moff Kaine's rogue Pentastar Alignment into the Empire and the capture of the SSD Reaper. Other notable moments in this renewed offense by Pellaeon's Empire was the Battle of Orinda, in which the Reaper went head to head the the New Republic's own SSD Lusankya, and turned a victory for the Empire when Pellaeon successfully outfought New Republic General Wedge Antilles (a glorified starfighter pilot), and also the Battle of Gravlex Med, in which Pellaeon scored a personal victory in which Imperial infiltrators recaptured the Chimaera, and Pellaeon's forces staved off an attempt by Admiral Ackbar himself to reclaim her. Noting his newfound abilities in command the Ruling Council (aka Moff Council) saw fit to promote Pellaeon to Fleet Admiral as well as make him the chair of that committee. His victories would eventually come to an end, as the New Republic launched a massive counterattack. Pellaeon lost much of his fleet, among them, the Reaper, and most of the territory he gained. When the Republic was done, all that remained of the Empire was a mere eight backwater sectors in the Outer Rim and 200 ISDs. Pellaeon called for a cessation of hostilities. However, many on the Ruling Council called for a renewal of the offensive to drive the Republic back, but Pellaeon felt it was time for this war to end. An attempt by renegade Moff Disra and mad clone of a guardsman to reignite the flames of war by using a pretender to bring back Grand Admiral Thrawn from the dead was narrowly foiled by Pellaeon and several New Republic operatives. After this attempted revolution by the Moffs, Pellaeon consolidated control, and signed a lasting armistice with the New Republic's Ponc Gavrisom.

With peace marginally restored Pellaeon issued a general recall for all Imperial holdouts in the Deep Core and elsewhere to join Pellaeon's Rimward Empire and cease their fight with the Republic, in this he was largely successful. Now Pellaeon was once again in a position in which he excelled, that of an administrator. In the subsequent years Pellaeon would work to boost the Empire's economy, he got the shipyards at Yaga Minor and elsewhere running again, and boosted the standard of living. Perhaps because of this, on top of his campaigns against the New Republic, the Moffs saw fit to issue him a purely symbolic appointment to Grand Admiral (technically they had no authority to issue that rank, which is why this must be an emblematic promotion). And so, Gilad Pellaeon, the boy who had lied about his age to join the military, who fought through the Clone Wars, and was demoted and blacklisted for his actions, regained his rank and prestige despite his relatively poor combat performance being overly conservative, and not having the stomach for pitched combat, went on to receive an illegal promotion to Admiral, a symbolic promotion to Grand Admiral, and ultimately became the de facto ruler of what was once the great Galactic Empire. If there's one thing that can be said about Gilad Pellaeon, it is that he has seen a lot in his times. On other points you may judge for yourselves.