Battle of Coruscant ( Yuuzhan Vong War ) The Battle of Coruscant , also known as the Fall of Coruscant or as the First Battle of Coruscant , was a titanic battle which resulted in Coruscant , the capital of the New Republic , falling into the hands of the invading extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong . It was one of the most ferocious battles of the Yuuzhan Vong War and perhaps the most destructive conflict witnessed on Coruscant during its long history . It was also the battle that essentially destroyed the New Republic . The Battle for Coruscant . Preparations . Warmaster Tsavong Lah ' s strategy called for an eventual invasion of the galactic capital of Coruscant . His initial plan revolved around gathering several large fleets and combining them with his own . The plan , which was called Battle Plan Coruscant , also hinged on the Yuuzhan Vong conquering the world of Reecee , which they planned to use as a staging area . The Yuuzhan Vong took Reecee and managed to almost completely destroy the New Republic fleet which had been based there . However , following the Yuuzhan Vong capture of Reecee , Han and Leia Solo scouted a nebula which was known as the Black Bantha . The Yuuzhan Vong attack . As foreseen by Mace Windu nearly five decades before the start of the Yuuzhan Vong War , an enormous Yuuzhan Vong warfleet attacked Coruscant from the OboRin Comet Cluster , having first assembled at Borleias . They used refugee ships containing prisoners from earlier battles to shield their forward elements . Even with the efforts of a number of influential leaders , the New Yuuzhan Vong invasion fleet was simply too immense to repel : commanders such as Garm Bel Iblis , who commanded the Second Fleet Group , attempted to confront the Yuuzhan Vong fleet head on ; Admiral Traest Kre ' fey , commander of the First Fleet Group , who chose to harass the invaders through long range combat and bombardment ; Wedge Antilles , commander of the Third Fleet Group , who throughout the battle ran a running assault against the rear of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet ; and Carlist Rieekan , who commanded the Coruscant Planetary Defense Force , organized and led the ground defense of Coruscant . It was said that the Yuuzhan Vong fleet numbered " tens of thousands " of ships , and that half of the New Republic Defense Fleet was present . For the battle , Borsk Fey ' yla gave Admiral Sien Sovv , Supreme Commander of the New Republic Navy , full command of the fleet . Sovv ' s unwillingness to risk the refugee ships in order to stop the Yuuzhan Vong advance led to disciplinary breakdowns and caused Bel Iblis to eventually take full command of his fleet — leaving Kre ' fey with only a few thousand ships while others joined Bel Iblis . A distress signal was sent out to the various other New Republic fleets stationed at Corellia , Kuat , Balmorra and Kashyyyk , but no reinforcements were able to arrive in time to affect the outcome of the battle . The refugee ships , which had been taken from captured refugee convoys from worlds including Ralltiir and Rhinnal and had been commandeered by the Yuuzhan Vong , were then deliberately piloted into Coruscant ' s shields to weaken them . This tactic eventually worked , as whole shield - grids began to fail , and the surface - based shield generators were gradually destroyed . To combat the suicidal refugee ships , Coruscant ' s orbital defense platforms were put into intense service , but even these were not enough to stop the advance of the Yuuzhan Vong . Eventually , Coruscant ' s skyline was sodden with crashing vessels , and plasma fire rained down from the battle above the planet . Even the New Republic ' s Orbital Defense Headquarters facility was crippled , and fell out of orbit , crashing to the surface of Coruscant . As the space battle continued , the Jedi discovered that the Yuuzhan Vong had learned from earlier defeats and had brought into service several yammosk war coordinators , instead of the traditional ' one ' . This effectively worked in the Yuuzhan Vong ' s favor , as the Jedi were now unable to destroy a single yammosk and thus send enemy forces into disarray . Nonetheless , in an effort to influence the battle , and cause as much confusion for the enemy as possible , Luke Skywalker and a number of other Jedi from Eclipse Station targeted the war - coordinating yammosk s , and managed to destroy four of them . A desperate rescue . Meanwhile , Han Solo and Leia Organa , on board the " Millennium Falcon " , attempted to evacuate Chief of State Borsk Fey ' lya from the planet , but were tasked with rescuing Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker at the Western Sea . The second assault wave consisted of thousands of Yorik - trema dropships , Tsik - Seru airskimmers , swarms of Yorik - vec assault cruiser s and coralskippers , legions of Yuuzhan Vong warriors , and Chazrach support troops . In desperation , Bel Iblis ' fleet was firing on the refugee ships in an attempt to halt the enemy advancement , but this tactic fell foul of Admirals Sovv and Kre ' fey , who did not agree with the killing of innocent refugees . Coruscant did have extensive mine fields , but these didn ' t have quite as large an impact as desired . With forces closing in on him at the Imperial Palace , Borsk Fey ' lya declined the Solos ' offer of transport , deciding to remain rather than be branded a coward . Before their departure , Fey ' lya asked Organa Solo to make one final address to the people of Coruscant . She implored the people of the galaxy to never give up in the fight against the Yuuzhan Vong . Following the Solos ' departure , Tsavong Lah ' s aide Romm Zqar tried to force Borsk Fey ' lya to surrender . When Fey ' lya refused , he was killed . Before the Chief of State died , however , he had planted a proton bomb in the Imperial Palace that would be triggered by the cessation of his heartbeat . The inevitable detonation of this proton bomb resulted in the deaths of Romm Zqar , 25 , 000 Yuuzhan Vong warriors , the destruction of a portion of the Imperial Palace along with its data towers , many surrounding buildings , and several Yuuzhan Vong vessels . Prior to his death , Fey ' lya had ordered the data towers to be destroyed , to prevent valuable information getting into the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong . Through his suicide tactic , he had achieved this task himself . Aftermath . The battle lasted for several days , with heavy casualties on both sides . The Chazrach slave soldiers would perform most of the hard fighting deep down in the lower levels of Coruscant . Many of the planet ' s citizens were forced to flee the capital world during the battle , while those who did not manage to escape were forced to retreat into the city planet ' s lower levels . Potentially one hundred billion of the planet ' s trillion inhabitants were killed or enslaved by the Yuuzhan Vong as a result of the battle , and hundreds of millions of the survivors were sent into space on camp ship s to further reduce the resources of the New Republic . Many Senators , fearing for their lives , commandeered bits of the fleet and escaped to their sectors as the battle progressed . The New Republic Defense Fleet was somewhat diminished as a result . The third wave was a biotoxin in the form of green algae released by the Yuuzhan Vong which devoured many of the buildings including dead bodies and left behind black spots . Coralskipper and Yorik - Vec squadrons bombed the already - devastated city world , causing damage to the defenders . The Yuuzhan Vong eventually captured Coruscant and had it terraformed and renamed Yuuzhan ' tar , after their lost homeworld . Yuuzhan Vong losses . Despite scoring a massive symbolic and strategic victory against the New Republic , Tsavong Lah had also made a huge military mistake . By simply sending the Warrior s in waves , and by ordering some of his own vessels to collide with the planet ' s shields , he caused massive casualties among his own soldiers . The first two waves he sent into the teeth of the New Republic fleets and orbital defenses were wiped out ; the third wave , although successful , paid an exorbitant price with severe losses . Supreme Overlord Shimrra would later comment that , following the costly losses of ' Battle Plan Coruscant ' , a full third of the Warrior caste had died during the course of their invasion of the galaxy . The Yuuzhan Vong now had a massive empire to control , and Yuuzhan Vong Domain s once again began competing for resources . Shortly after this battle , the Yuuzhan Vong ' s single strategic reserve was destroyed in a New Republic ambush and , combined with the horrific losses , as well as the destruction of several other Vong fleets in other places , it meant from this point on if the Yuuzhan Vong moved forces to any part of the galaxy , it would be at the price of somewhere else being left undefended . Disintegration and despair . New Republic Army Colonel Stavin Thaal was one of the few New Republic officers who elected to remain behind rather than evacuate . He and his soldiers under him relocated to Vandor - 3 , the next inner planet of the Coruscant system , where they formed a guerrilla unit called the Pop - Dogs . Thaal and his Pop - Dogs harassed the Yuuzhan Vong until the system was liberated at the end of the war . The New Republic all but disintegrated after the battle . Though the Senate had been withdrawing fleets to the Core Worlds since the war began , many of these fleets lost coordination . Several planets immediately capitulated outright , receiving little better treatment . In the initial aftermath , Councilor Pwoe , the Quarren Senator for Mon Calamari , declared himself Chief of State , intending to sacrifice the New Republic in his hopes for securing his own survival . The Senate denounced Pwoe , but the Republic did not regain any sort of cohesion until the election of Cal Omas as President of the Senate . Cal Omas , a former Rebel soldier , had come to the conclusion that the Senate and the Advisory Council were grossly unqualified to conduct the War in any competent fashion , an opinion the New Republic populace also soon held . There was also the realization that the Yuuzhan Vong had broken their word too many times to be trusted with future negotiations . Perhaps most importantly , however , was that the actions of the Jedi at Coruscant had placed them on the populace ' s better side . Using this political clout , Omas reorganized the New Republic into the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances , stripping the Senate of much executive power , and confining it to legislative duties . He also formed the High Council , which finally gave the Jedi a role in the war effort . While it may have killed the New Republic , the Fall of Coruscant also decided the eventual outcome of the Yuuzhan Vong War .