During the Battle of Umbara, we got to see a tragic and disturbing side to the Clone
Wars, with the sacrifices of the 501st and the dark betrayal of fallen Jedi Pong Krell.
But what happened to the shadowy planet of Umbara after the battle and the end of the
Clone Wars?
I’m going to break down exactly what happened on Umbara after the Clone Wars and Order 66,
including the tragic story of how one man destroyed the lives of the Umbaran people.
So before we get into it, make sure you smash the subscribe button down below for more awesome
Star Wars lore content.
The trailer for the Mandalorian Season 2 is also dropping tomorrow, so make sure you tune
in for that monumental event!
After the Republic’s decisive Victory over the separatist alliance at the Battle of Umbara,
thanks to actions of Captain Rex and the other Clones, the planet was placed firmly under
Republic control and under permanent protection from further threats.
Umbara remained a member of the Republic right until it eventually fell after the events
of Order 66.
Once the Republic had fallen and the Empire was created by Darth Sidious, Umbara became
an independent system, free from the tight grip of imperial control…
At least for now.
Shortly after becoming an independent system, Umbara became a major exporter of the ultra
rare material known as doonium.
Doonimum was one of hardest known substances in the galaxy, making it the perfect material
for use in the construction of a super laser reactor.
Of course, that super laser soon became known as the DS-1 orbital battle station, or the
death star.
The citizens of Umbara had absolutely no idea that the mines on their independent home planet
were being used to funnel resources to the Empire’s death star project, but the people
selling the doonium didn’t know this disturbing fact either.
The salesmen of this tough substance simply believed that the Empire was using the ultra-tough
material for the construction of their ever-growing star destroyer fleet.
After many years of freedom and independence from the cruel reign of the Empire on Umbara,
things were about to change when one young human rebel named Nevil Cygni became absolutely
disgusted with the horrific treatment of people throughout the galaxy.
Cygni decided that he was going to begin his own small scale rebellion against the Empire,
while obtaining the funding for the project through stealing the doonium and iridium from
the mines of Umbara, stripping the planet down to bare rocks and pebbles, potentially
destroying the ecosystem of the dark planet completely.
Let me know in the comments down below if you think it was wrong for this one man to
completely destroy another species planet in order to fight the Empire.
It’s a tough one because he is ultimately fighting for their freedom too, but he is
destroying their lives and homes in the process, so let me know how you feel about his actions.
Nevil Cygni began to form his new rebel group, and took on the codename “Nightswan” to
conceal his identity from his intelligence contacts and imperial attention.
Nightswan then recruited as many people who held a deep hatred for the empire as he could,
and began a smuggling operation on Umbara, where he would steal doonium, tibanna and
iridium from the local Umbaran mining facilities, in order to sell them on the black market
and raise funds for his small scale rebellion there.
Despite Nightswan getting off to a good start with his smuggling operation, he eventually
found it far too difficult to bribe the native Umbarans working in the mines on the planet.
The Umbarans were very concerned that their planet was being destroyed by this one man’s
rebel operation, and therefore made it extremely difficult for him to smuggle the precious
materials off world.
Because of this, Nightswan decided that he would have to stage an uprising on Umbara,
hoping to overthrow the rightful Umbaran government, and giving control of the planet to Darth
Sidious and the Empire.
He thought that it would be much easier to bribe imperial mining officers than the Umbarans
because they had no personal attachment to the resources on the planet, and were often
overworked and underpaid.
As you can expect, this plan to install an imperial government on the planet was not
going to be easy.
Nightswan believed that if the imperials took control of the mining facilities on the planet,
he would easily be able to steal enough resources to fund his entire rebellion for many years
to come, and later get back at the Empire with his newly funded ships and weaponry.
Although this man had good intentions, you can definitely see that his actions are morally
questionable.
Pretty similar to Saw Gererra if you think about it.
As Nightswan’s rebellious uprising began to swing into motion, his team installed a
ground-based radio transmitter on the outermost moon of Umbara, to aid in the uprising and
to control some separatist battle droids that he was about to purchase.
Nightswan also had incredibly deep ties to the Coruscant underworld and criminal syndicates
of other planets because of his past as a scoundrel pirate, allowing him to purchase
400 former separatist vulture droids on the black market.
It’s honestly always so cool to see separatist technology making a return in the Imperial
era.
Nightswan planned to use these 400 vulture droids as part of the uprising, to overwhelm
imperial air support forces, but lure then onto the surface.
As this uprising began to take hold on the shadowy world of Umbara, Emperor Palpatine
dispatched an imperial task force, led by an Admiral known as Carlou Gendling, to suppress
the uprising and send a message to the galaxy that rebellion will not be tolerated.
Gendling moved his star destroyer called “the Foremost” to Umbara, along with two raider
class corvettes and the imperial light cruiser called the “thunder wasp”, which was commanded
by Commander Alfren Cheno.
How cool is that name for a ship!?
One of the men that Cheno commanded aboard the thunder wasp was everyone’s favourite
blue Chiss, Thrawn.
As the imperial forces amassed in the dustry orbit of Umbara, Admiral Gendling hoped to
simply use his forces as a show of strength to intimidate the Umbaran rebels, before taking
any further action.
His fleet was however met by the vulture droids that were purchased earlier on the black market
by Nightswan.
The vulture droids viciously attacked the imperial ships, shredding their hulls and
blasting their plating to pieces, beginning what later became known as the second battle
of Umbara.
While the vulture droids swarmed the imperial task force fleet, Commander Cheno ordered
the gunners on the Thunder Wasp to intercept and destroy the enemy droids, which were currently
targeting the Foremost.
Thrawn’s good friend, Eli Vanto was then quickly able to analyze the attack patterns
of the vulture droids, where he detected that they were receiving their commands from the
outermost moon of Umbara.
The clever and cunning Thrawn was then able to deduce that the Vulture droids had not
actually been sent by the Umbarans on the surface of the planet, but instead by the
Insurgent rebel Nightswan.
Eventually, the Imperial task force fleet was severely overwhelmed by the vulture droids,
causing Thrawn, Vanto and Commander Cheno to take control of the chief sensor officer’s
station, and analyse the attacks for themselves.
After carefully examining the precise attack patterns of the Vulture droids once again
, Thrawn was able to pinpoint the exact location on the Umbaran moon where the Vulture droids
were receiving their commands from.
Having finally detected the location of the vulture droid command signal, Thrawn convinced
Commander Cheno to inform Admiral Gendling aboard the Foremost and to take action against
it, but the admiral was very unwilling to take risks and ignored Thrawn’s warnings.
Because the Admiral was unwilling to destroy the transmitter responsible for directing
the Vulture droids, Thrawn devised an incredibly smart and cunning plan.
He ordered the comms officer aboard his ship to contact all other ships in the imperial
fleet, and tell them to target specific locations in the Umbaran system where Vulture droids
did not have direct communication to the transmission beacon, and instead had to rely on their own,
in-built programming.
He made this tactical move to target these communication dark spots without the authorization
of his admiral.
Using these gaps in communication range to target the Vulture droids, Thrawn was able
to destroy every single Vulture droid, turning the tide of the battle in the favour of the
Empire.
At this point, the Umbarans knew they had no chance of defeating the Imperial fleet
above, and handed over their unconditional surrender to the Imperial Admiral, leaving
the dark planet of Umbara to fall into the tight grip of the Empire.
Nightswan’s plan had worked, he had successfully baited the Empire into invading an innocent
planet full of families who simply wanted to work hard and maintain their technological
hub, just so that he could more easily steal their mining resources
The Empire then immediately began to dispatch squads of stormtroopers to supervise the surrender
of the Umbaran insurgents, and to take control of the cities of Umbara.
The imperials did however, lose one raider-class corvette in the battle, and their larger ships,
the Thunder Wasp and the Foremost also sustained considerable damage.
For this reason, Admiral Gendling was incredibly angry at the Umbarans and wanted to make them
pay for their significant treason against the Empire.
You can guess how the imperial governor of the planet treated the citizens after that...
Although Thrawn and Cheno’s tactic did succeed in defeating Nightswans resistance, Admiral
Gendling was furious that they went behind his back and took part in strategic actions
without his approval.
Following the aftermath of the Battle, Thrawn’s friend, Vanto, travelled to the Outermost
moon of Umbara and investigated the ground transmitter that was powering the vulture
droids.
Once he arrived on the distant moon, he discovered that the station was not actually being operated
by Umbarans, but instead by Nightswans’ human rebels.
When Vanto reported this to Thrawn, he realized that the whole second battle of Umbara was
actually based on a lie.
Nightswan instigated the whole Battle of Umbara because he thought it would be easier to bribe
the new imperial mining staff after the invasion.
Nightswan disgracefully subjected the citizens of Umbara to a horrible surrender agreement
and horrendous living conditions in order to further his own rebel cause, without any
regard for the safety or wellbeing of the Umbarans.
So that is the tragic fate of Umbara after the Clone Wars and Order 66.
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Star Wars Lore content, including the Mandalorian season 2 trailer which should be dropping
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