Gilamar Skirata
The most important step is always the next one
- Intent: To create an in-universe take on the evolution of the Chaos factory rules and the growth in allowable ship lengths in relation to Site Canon, Legends Canon, and Disney Canon. This is intended to be “peer review non-fiction” in universe but not a document or book that is to be taken as the ultimate truth of the universe. Much like non-fiction books of our real universe, these are simply the takes, ideas, and research of an individual historian, not the words of a Chaos Universe god.
- Image Credit: Original Image edited using https://www.canva.com/
- Canon: None
- Links: N/A
- Media Name: The Rise of the Behemoth
- Format: Book/Holo-Novel
- Distribution: Common
- Length: Long
- Description: A non-fiction book written by a war historian of Coruscant University, The Rise of the Behemoth strives to answer the question of why vessels have increased in size exponentially since the end of the Gulag Plague. The book attempts to utilize documents dating back to 37 ABY. Realizing the discrepancies in the last few centuries of history however, he does attempt to pull from contradicting sources in an attempt to show that while outliers existed, general galactic trends and military doctrine leaned towards smaller vessels in the early years and have steadily grown in length with the culmination of one of the most infamous battlecruisers in the Galaxy, the Behemoth.
- Author: John Eckhart
- Publisher: Coruscant University Publishing
- Reception: Due to the author’s use of dubious sources and how far he attempts to go back in history, much of the historical community of the Galaxy isn’t united one way or the other on how accurate his book is. What is accepted is that the author put in a tremendous amount of work to even find some of the documents used in the creation of this work.
The Rise of the Behemoth came in dozens of formats including audio, flimsy, digital, and paper.
CONTENT INFORMATION
Table of Contentst:
- Introduction
A simple introduction of ideas, sources, doctrine, and method. He first introduces the term “Behemoth-Class Warships” here and gives his inspiration to the name. He references and gives an brief overview of the Annexes War College classification of vessels and the way it has been modified over the years. He also acknowledges that not every culture follows the Annexes War College’s designations and points specifically to the Mandalorians’ use of the category name battleship, dreadnought, and super dreadnought in their contemporary warship designs.
[*]The Fall of Giants
- The Fall of Giants was a historical overview of the believed events of the Yuuzhan Vong War along with the two conflicting accounts of the years immediately following the change of the most widely used date identifier (BBY to ABY).
[*]Mon Calamari Drives Progress
- An admittedly self-indulgent chapter that gushes over the genius of Mon Calamari engineering and laments the destruction of their homeworld at the hands of the Sith, arguing that had the Sith left them be then the advances seen in ship miniaturization during the time of the New (Old) Republic and the Old Galactic Alliance could make their way back to the Galaxy.
[*]The Birth of the 5th Fleet and the Empire’s Response
- A short chapter that introduces the Republic’s Fifth Fleet and the Turbulent Star Destroyers, both ideas that are hotly contended in the historical community due to their contradicting of later historical reports of factions such as the First Order and the “Resistance”. Regardless however, John doubles down that these vessels, which were more specialized and slightly smaller than most of their contemporaries, began the trend towards smaller vessels. As a way to appease his naysayers, John attempts to argue that these vessels would have coexisted with vessels such as the Raddus and the Mega-Class Super Star Destroyer.
[*]Specialization and the Scale of Galactic Strife
- John digs his heels in, drawing on further evidence left by historical records from what was left of the Coruscant Galactic Library after the Galactic Alliance’s fall and the crash landing of their Behemoth vessel. He indicates the high degree of specialization vessels began to show and the general decline of vessels simultaneously acting as carrier, destroyer, and mobile base that previous generations of vessels had before. He points again to the vessels of the New Republic’s 5th Fleet and the later MC140 Scythe’s designs being highly specialized with enough firepower to rival most vessels in the Galaxy in their respective eras.
[*]The Sith Dagger Ships
- John engages in a dialogue contending that even though the decades after Endor saw the construction of large vessels such as the Resurgent-Class Star Destroyer, the Viscount and Strident Star Defenders that the birth of the Galactic Alliance and the assertion of the Empire as a separate galactic power gave birth to a reinessance in ship design that began with the MC140 Scythe-Class Battleship and peaked with the Impirius-Class Sith Star Destroyer. He contends that both of these vessels saw advances in technology so vast and different from even today’s that they could easily take on the gargantuan warships of old. He also alludes to the lose of such technologies in the 400 year Darkness.
[*]The Rise of the Republic and the New Sith Empire
- A shorter chapter that detailed the consolidation of power under the Galactic Triumvirate into what would become a New Era’s Republic and the rise of a new Sith Empire in the Tingle Arm of the Galaxy. This chapter also lightly touches on the growth of the mercenary organization known as the Omega Pyre into the Omega Protectorate and the reunification of the Mandalorians after the Pirate Wars.
[*]The Ash’amur and Rise of the Mandalorians
- A chapter that uses the rise of MandalMotors as a capital ship producer as a case study to display the rise of capital ship construction in the galaxy as well as highlight that even cultures that hadn’t created vessels larger than freighters in over 800 years were beginning to produce warships that rivaled the Star Destroyers of ancient Sith Empires and the significance their rise had on the Galaxy at large. He also alludes to the massive warships utilized by Mandalorians even during the Gulag Plague as once again becoming cornerstones to many of the large ship designs seen in later and current years.
[*]Battlecruisers and Flagships
- Dives into more recent naval history with the introduction of Battlecruisers as flagships for the most powerful galactic powers of the time including the Republic, the Sith Empire, Mandalorians, and Omega Protectorate.
[*]The Return of the Behemoths
- The book finishes looking by looking over the last two decades and the steady introduction of what he calls “Behemoth-class Warships”. John uses this term because while the vessels are certainly larger than most battlecruisers of old, they don’t come close to the gargantuan size of the Super Star Destroyers of the ancient Galactic Empire. He calls them Behemoth-class Warships as a nod to the current Sith Empire’s infamous Behemoth and Behemoth II Star Dreadnoughts. He also makes a small note on the sudden resurgence of inferior Slugthrower technologies and poses a semi-rhetorical, half joking question whether or not technology has just begun to fall back in on itself.
[*]Conclusion
- The true conclusion. John admits that records of the past are fuzzy, but reasserts that the general trend was towards smaller ships as the threats of the Galaxy took on smaller and smaller scale and technology advanced. He claims again that a large factor in the sudden explosion of large vessels is in part due to the terrorist Zero’s actions, the start of the Gulag Plague, and a renewed wariness, distrust, and sometimes complete refusal to utilize droids in warship design in a Post-Omni Crisis Galaxy.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
The Rise of the Behemoth was published just before the fall of the Core Imperial Confederation by Coruscant University Publishing. John, a relatively unknown writer up to this point, had been writing this book during the fall of the Galactic Alliance and for logistical reasons had to put his writing on hold as his home was subjugated by the members of the Imperial Bloc Treaty. While his work wasn’t intentionally inflammatory, many in the Sith Mof Council saw his work as such, resulting in him being locked in a joint First Order-Sith Empire low security prison for political prisoners on Sullust.
During his time there he wrote this book along with a second titled The Failed Tyranny of the Sith. After subsequently being freed from his prison after the Alliance in Exile liberated Sullust, John went on to publish this book and opted to re-writing his book on the Sith Empire. Contacting his colleagues on Coruscant he was able to find a publisher who would put out his work. Because the book had little to no words to say about the Core Imperial Confederation, the book was allowed to be published on the word without a second thought. It hit bookstores around the Galaxy in a mater of months.
The book saw limited commercial success, its metrics showing a high purchase rate among newer shipwrights and business owners, and the book would put John’s name in the mouth of millions of historians Galaxy wide, sparking a debate on whether the accuracy of documents pre-Gulag Plague should be taken into account or if they should try, like John did, to make the most of what they had and attempt to find a middle ground of coexistence with the two seemingly contradictory accounts of history floating in the Galaxy.
