Kilji

The Kiljis were a sentient species that hailed from the Unknown Regions' Kilji homeland. The species' wrinkly, rubbery-looking, dark orange skin stretched and formed patterns that reflected the Kiljis' emotions. Deeply religious, the Kiljis sought to enlighten the universe to the Kilji religion and were hostile to those that did not follow the Kilji philosophy. The species' nation was the Kilji Illumine, which the Generalirius Nakirre ruled. The Illumine's battle fleet, the Illumine Kilhorde, engaged in conquests of enlightenment of several Unknown Regions worlds.
In 18 BBY, Nakirre allied himself with the Grysk operative known as "Jixtus," who promised to guide the Kilhorde's conquests while Nakirre allowed Jixtus to travel aboard his Kilji war cruiser, the Whetstone, while helping the operative destroy the Chiss Ascendancy nation. When the pair attempted to instigate a civil war in the Ascendancy by manipulating the Chiss families into fighting each other, Illumine General Crofyp's task force—consisting of the Kilji war cruiser Anvil and Colonel Tildnis's Kilji picket cruiser Hammer—and the Kilhorde attacked several worlds in the Unknown Regions. The Chiss Senior Captain Mitth'raw'nuruodo destroyed the Anvil and retrieved data on the Kilhorde from the Hammer. The Chiss shared the data with the Paataatus Hiveborn nation, which obliterated the Kilji battle fleet, prompting Jixtus to murder Nakirre as he considered him useless without the Kilhorde.
==Biology and appearance==
The Kiljis were a sentient species with dark brown hair and rubbery-looking, wrinkly, dark orange skin that formed patterns that reflected their emotions. The Kiljis were bipedal and had raspy voices that were far less melodious than that of a member of the Grysk species.
==Society and culture==
The Kiljis were deeply religious, conquering worlds and species with the goal of enlightening them to the Kilji religion, the Kilji way of order and enlightenment. Those enlightened to the Kilji way became Kilji vassals, beings willing to trade their freedom to the Kiljis so that they would take care of them, which served their Kilji commanders and were unable to create any thought or make any move without their leaders. The vassals ignored the orders given by those unenlightened to the Kilji philosophy. The religion established that the enlightened did not run from battle and that they fought and prevailed. The Kilji way's followers were hostile to the unenlightened, and they were impatient and short-tempered.
The warships of the Kilji nation, the Kilji Illumine, were designed around a first-strike strategy. The Kiljis sought to enlighten the universe's inhabitants to the Kilji way. The species spoke several languages, including the Kilji language and the trade languages of Minnisiat and Taarja. The Kiljis used multiscreen devices to display recordings on a number of screens with poor magnification and peace-sealing plating to cover their starships' weaponry.
==History==
===An uneasy alliance===
The Kiljis' home was the Unknown Regions' Kilji homeland. Ancient Kilji dictums dictated that Kilji enlightenment was seldom an individual's first choice and that that choice could be changed, further stating that the fate of those who opposed the Kilji way could not be changed. In 18 BBY,Star Wars: Timelines places the main events of Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil in 18 BBY. the Illumine was ruled by a Kilji generalirius, Nakirre, whose decisions were approved by the Kilji Overlords. He commanded the Illumine Kilhorde, the Illumine's battle fleet, and the Kilji war cruiser Whetstone. The generalirius allied himself with the coordinator of the Grysks, a Grysk operative known as "Jixtus," who vowed to guide the Illumine's conquests. In return, Nakirre allowed the operative to travel aboard the Whetstone while they attempted to conquer several nations in the Unknown Regions.
The pair traveled to the Unknown Regions planet Zyzek, where they encountered the Chiss heavy cruiser Springhawk and its commander, the Chiss Senior Captain Mitth'raw'nuruodo, core name "Thrawn." The Chiss broadcast a message that claimed that he held Watith prisoners, prompting Nakirre to offer his assistance in bringing the Watith to their home, remarking that the Kilji religion required that he served others; however, Thrawn refused, and the generalirius and the Chiss engaged in a brief confrontation that the Zyzek System Defense shut down. The Kilji war cruiser then left Zyzek for the Chiss species' nation of the Chiss Ascendancy, which Jixtus sought to destroy by manipulating its families into engaging each other in warfare.
===The unenlightened strike===
Nakirre and his ally visited the Chiss planets of Avidich and Rhigar, where they met with the Mitth family Patriel Thistrian and Captain Clarr'os'culry ("Roscu"), respectively. Roscu boarded the Whetstone, and the Kilji generalirius offered to give the Clarr several Kilji warships, an offer that the captain refused. While the Kilji and the Grysk sowed discord among the Ascendancy's families, Jixtus sent Illumine General Crofyp's task force, formed by Crofyp's war cruiser Anvil and Colonel Tildnis's Kilji picket cruiser Hammer, to the Unknown Regions Rapacc system. The Kilji force attempted to capture a group of refugees that had taken refuge on the planet Rapacc; however, the task force was confronted by the Paccosh-commandeered Nikardun blockade frigate Aelos.
After Crofyp had his vessels prepare a cross-fire attack on the Aelos, the Springhawk arrived in the outer system and disabled the Anvil starboard with plasma sphere weapons. The Chiss destroyed Crofyp's vessel, and the Hammer was able to flee to the Unknown Regions' "Sunrise" system after the larger Kilji vessel shielded it from the Chiss attack. The Aelos crew and Thrawn tracked down the picket cruiser to the Sunrise system, where the vessel was keeping station with one of Jixtus's Grysk warships. A squad of Paccian commandos and the senior captain boarded the Hammer and killed all the Kiljis aboard, including Tildnis. Thrawn had the vessel's navigator, Pathfinder Sarsh, steal a Kilji data rectangle containing data on the Kilhorde before leaving the Kilji picket cruiser, which Jixtus's vessel destroyed before fleeing to hyperspace.
===Downfall===
====The enlightened show fear====
As the Ascendancy's families engaged each other in battle and Nakirre and Jixtus met with many Chiss officials, the Kilji and Jixtus engaged each other in their own conflicts. While the Ascendancy was destroying itself as Jixtus desired, Jixtus mocked the generalirius and denigrated the Kilji path, which he classified as simplistic, self-contradictory, and self-defeating. Such mockery of the Kilji way angered Nakirre, who contemplated murdering Jixtus but decided against it as he knew that if he murdered the operative, his fleet would know and attack the Kilji homeland and eradicate the Kilji species. Because of that, the Kilji followed the Grysk coordinator's every command. Jixtus continued to mock the Illumine and threaten Nakirre with crushing the Illumine and twisting the Kiljis' culture, souls, and lives so that they served the Grysks without question. After the Grysk gave the Kilhorde permission to move against the nations to the southeast of the Chiss nation, the battle fleet conquered several worlds and species, aiming to enlighten them to the Kilji way.
However, Thrawn shared the data he had retrieved from the Hammer with the Paataatus Hiveborn nation, which deemed the Kilji force's operations near its northeast borders unacceptable. The Chiss senior captain highlighted the weaknesses in the Kilhorde's design and battle doctrine, and the Paataatus had a Paataatus attack fleet shatter the battle fleet and free the worlds and peoples it had conquered. After Nakirre did not receive any reports of victory from his field commanders, he feared that his generals had extended their conquests to the Chiss world of Colonial Station Chaf, an attack that would have disrupted the operation of the world's long-range triad transmitter. He speculated that his commanders had not contacted him because they had disrupted the transmitter's operation, the only link between them and their ruler.
====The Kiljis' revenge====
Shortly afterward, Thrawn amassed a large fleet of Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet vessels and brought it to Sunrise. He and his Expansionary Defense Fleet colleagues deactivated the fleet and spread scrap in the system while preparing for Jixtus's arrival. When the Whetstone and Jixtus's fleet arrived, the Chiss senior captain told Nakirre that the Hiveborn had destroyed his battle fleet. In response, the generalirius snapped at his Grysk ally, remarking that the Kilhorde had been destroyed by the Paataatus because the coordinator had not provided adequate support for the Kilji conquests of enlightenment and because he had not accepted the Kiljis as true allies. Jixtus then murdered the generalirius with a blaster in retaliation, prompting Nakirre's Kilji vassals to go catatonic and mourn their late master.
As Thrawn's fleet came back to life and began to destroy Jixtus's fleet, the Grysk fled to his Shatter-class WarMaster FateSpinner flagship, leaving the Whetstone Pathfinder navigator, Qilori, alone with Nakirre's vassals. After his fleet had been reduced to seven vessels by Thrawn's forces and vessels of the Garwian Unity, Paccian Governance, and Vak Combine nations, Jixtus moved to flee. Qilori realized that the Grysk could destroy the Whetstone while he fled and kill him in the process in an attempt to leave no non-Chiss witnesses to the battle, and promised to lead the Kilji vassals until he could return them to their home after one of them told him about their inability to think for themselves. Under the Pathfinder's directive, the vassals fired all of the Whetstone weaponry at the FateSpinner, destroying its aft flank and inducing Jixtus to activate a self-destruct mechanism aboard his flagship and destroy it, killing himself. Soon after, Thrawn instructed Qilori to bring the Kiljis to their home.
==Kiljis in the galaxy==
Crofyp's Anvil and Nakirre's Whetstone crew consisted of several Kilji vassals. The former war cruiser's crew included Vassal One, a weapons operator; Vassal Two, a sensor operator; Vassal Three, another vassal that operated the Anvil weaponry; and Vassal Four, the cruiser's comm officer. Nakirre's vassals included Vassal One, a pilot; Vassal Two, a sensors operator; comm operator Vassal Four; a helm vassal, who told Qilori about his and his fellow vassals' inability to think for themselves; another comm vassal; another sensors operator; another pilot; and a weapons vassal. Tildnis's Hammer carried seventeen Kiljis.
==Behind the scenes==
The Kilji species appeared in the 2021 novel Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil, the final volume in the Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy written by Timothy Zahn.
==Appearances==
*Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil 
==Notes and references==
Category:Unknown Regions species