Grysk

> Grysks are a species living somewhere in the Unknown Regions. Creatures half of myth, whom few have ever seen. It is said that they are nomads, with no fixed home, traveling in spacecraft so numerous they blot out the stars. They are said to be terrifying warriors, overwhelming their opponents by sheer numbers and ferocity.
>
> Thrawn to Darth Vader

The **Grysk** were a warlike sentient species that lived in the Unknown Regions. According to Chiss Grand Admiral Thrawn, they should not be underestimated and, if they fled, it would be because they chose to leave the battle. Thrawn believed that the Grysk were such a danger that they posed a threat to both the Chiss Ascendancy and the Galactic Empire. The Grysk would enslave the minds and souls of beings, having twisted their desires, fears, memories, and hopes to their will, to be their "clients." The Grysks ruled an empire known as the Grysk Hegemony.

## Biology and Appearance

The Grysk were a species with deep-set eyes, angled brow ridges, wide shoulders, and a tapered skull. Their eyes were white with faint gray or blue pupils, giving the appearance of solid-colored pale gray-white eyes. Their skin was pale with distinctive dark green striping across the limbs and spine. They were a rare evolutionary branch in the galaxy at large, mammal-like amphibians, which led to speculation concerning their origins.

The Grysk had slower metabolisms than most sentient species, leading to longer natural lifespans and an altered perception of time. The Grysk did not use the galactic standard year that the humans used, leading to issues with translations of time frames. Grysk reliance on gravity wells for much of their technology and the associated time dilation did not help matters, leading to a complete breakdown of how time was measured in everyday life and necessitating an alternate system of time.

## Society and Culture

#### Biocybernetics

The Grysk had a cultural appreciation of technology that bordered on a religious fervor. But unlike most machine cults of the galaxy, they did not relish the replacement of biological parts with mechanical. Rather, they revered the addition of biocybernetic parts to an otherwise less altered body. As such, the Grysk took implants, most often in the hands or replacing the teeth and linked their technology to the presence of these implants.

This reverence was most evident in their Client species, in non-Grysk who had been taken from their own cultures and implanted with control implants. These implants both uplifted and controlled their Clients, transforming them by replacing the white matter of the brain and linking them to vast hivemind supercomputers, each individual Client acting as a single neural node within the hivemind. These supercomputers then served the Grysk, calculating the ridiculously complex equations necessary to answer any questions the Grysk might deign to pose, from the control of gravity wells to the actions of alien governments to the hyperdrive calculations necessary for traversing the Maze. The service of these supercomputers was so integral to the control of Grysk technology that should a ship's hivemind ever be disrupted the Grysk themselves would allow themselves to take control implants, sacrificing themselves as Grysk to maintain the hivemind. Such a Grysk was considered 'the sacrificed dead' and no longer considered a Grysk by their peers, becoming a Client themselves.

#### Time Dilation

The Grysk relied on natural and artificial singularities for the majority of their advanced technology. Grysk hyperdrives were not based off of Rakatan technology, instead relying on artificial singularities for power production and hyperspace travel. This allowed for the easy development of interdictor technology and the creation of gravity wells for offensive, defensive, and propulsive reasons. However, universal laws of gravitation meant that this reliance on gravity wells altered the Grysk's experience of time. As such, the Grysk Hegemony did not use a single standard unit of time in everyday life. Rather, time was marked as a set of ratios comparing the speed of a single hydrogen atom charge flip between various specialized warships with carefully calibrated singularity drives and with specially grouped Clients to maintain the perfection of these ratios.

This led to a situation where the Grysk did not experience time the same as the rest of the galaxy. Indeed, different ships and planets within the Grysk Hegemony experienced time differently from each other, all of them set to different time ratios that constantly shifted due to engine use, location, and speed at sub-light. As a result, decisions made by the Grysk tended to occur ponderously slowly. However, once a decision was made, the Grysk could be expected to react with unnerving swiftness.

## Myth and legend

> We can't tell right now which signal originated from which group of prisoners. Also, without knowing the encryption method they were using—or even their language, for that matter—it's impossible to know how much they could have said.
>
> Karyn Faro, to Thrawn on the language used by the Grysk

The Grysk were a species half of myth who few had actually seen. They used an uncommon script and a rare language. Stories about the Grysk painted them as nomads that traveled in starships numerous enough to block stars, and that the Grysk were terrifying warriors, using their numbers and ferocity to overwhelm their opponents. They controlled an empire known as the Grysk Hegemony. The Grysk employed Client species, which were beings they had conquered and altered to serve them. It was believed the Grysk would probe deeply into a potential client's mind and soul, finding the individual's deepest fears and desires, their most treasured hopes and comforting memories, and then twist all of these to their will, eventually enslaving the individual. These new "clients" were then willing to fight and die for their masters. Because of this, the Chiss ozyly-esehembo Vah'nya believed it only took three Grysks to rule a nation and only one hundred to rule a world.

The Chiss Grand Admiral Thrawn of the Galactic Empire believed, when compensating for the bias of artists on their art about the Grysk, that the stories of vast hordes of the Grysk were not accurate. Rather, he believed it was more likely that the Grysk used unfamiliar tactics and weapons to defeat their opponents. Thrawn also did not believe the myth that the Grysk were nomadic, as most species that begin on planetary worlds do not easily surrender them and because their starships, as depicted in art pieces, strongly demonstrated a preference for sun, sky, and soil, rather than the vast darkness of space. Additionally, the Grysk would isolate what mattered to a species, threatening it to help bring them under their will.

## War and Conquest

#### Conquest and expansion

Sometime before the rise of the Chiss Ascendency, the Grysk led conquests in the Unknown Regions of the galaxy. Where exactly they came from is a question even they have forgotten the answer to, though it is possible they hailed from extragalactic space. They settled the Maze, as this region of space was rich in the types of singularities that they based their technology upon. They built **shell-worlds**, megastructures of shells over shells that enclosed a stellar-mass black hole as a power source. These 'shell-worlds' were used to corral the Maze, keeping the unharnessed black holes shepherded in orbits where the Grysk could use them for defense, for terrorizing enemies, or for future power sources.

Once the Chiss Ascendency rose to power, the Grysk found themselves in conflict with the new government. Both sides spent centuries observing each other, the stability of the Chiss Ascendency enabling the Grysk to take their time understanding their enemy before any and every incursion. It was during these conflicts that the Grysk conquered a species of Force-sensitive hivemind insects that roamed the Maze in living starships. These Attendants, so named for their method of caring for their hive ships, became the basis for their biocybernetic supercomputers. By linking the Attendants together on a technological level the Grysk found they could extract information from the Attendant hives. The development of better control implants allowed the Grysk to expand this program past the Attendants to any biological species they encountered. It was during one of these expansionist periods that they began their tactic of raiding outposts for Captives, who were inevitably implanted as Clients. Survivors of these conquests created artistic pieces in memorial which were studied by Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Shortly after the defeat of Yiv the Benevolent and the Nikardun Destiny, the Grysk Jixtus and Haplif of the Agbui attempted to cause a civil war to erupt within the Chiss Ascendancy. The Chiss Ascendancy had records of many battles against the Grysk, some that they participated in and others they simply observed.

The Grysk kept their own records. Individual Grysk warriors degraded the right sides of their helmets and armor to detail the past battles of each warrior, of the actions of their ship, and the history of their particular hive or shell-world. Individual Grysk would compare distortions to identify each other's past actions, service history, and the time ratios of each ship they had served upon.

#### Capabilities and Mentality

> The Grysks are not to be underestimated. If they fled from combat today, it is because they chose to do so.
>
> Thrawn, sharing his deductions of the Grysk

Thrawn deduced that the Grysk should not be underestimated; if they fled, it was because they decided to do so. The Grysk, being a warlike species, had several types of starships at their disposal, including elliptical ships resembling Corona-class armed frigates, a type of long-range heavy freighter, a type of small transport, a type of spacetug, and a type of warship. In addition, the Grysk also utilized the living vessels of their Attendants while operating in the Maze. These living ships were specifically used to board enemy vessels for the purpose of trapping and preserving their prey to take as Clients.

Grysk warriors utilized a type of lightning gun, as well as several types of pellet guns, slugthrowers, and railguns. When boarding vessels they made use of poisonous gases to knock-out or kill, spread through a vessel's life support system. They also made use of armor and enclosed helmets, which had pleasing curves on the left half and a distorted right half. Grysk weapons and armor were ritualistically disfigured on the right side for reasons known only to themselves, the measure of degradation possibly related to the amount of animosity the Grysk had for the particular species the Grysk fought against, or perhaps, the length and bitterness of the particular conflict. The damages done to the armor and weapons also appeared to be chronological, as the deformities to the leftmost part of the right halves demonstrated more signs of age. Thrawn believed that the trophy collection held by a particular group of Grysk warriors could be a representative of what he considered to be overall the entire military history of the Grysk, and also thought that he could use it to help him uncover the location of their homeworld. Thrawn also noted that there were tales of some of the Grysks' wars.

In what Thrawn believed to be an ingenious tactic, Grysk warriors had their teeth removed and replaced with upper and lower moldings that contained break-apart weapons, communicators, and lock-breakers. As such, they could participate in back and forth conversations with their coded language using ultrasound signals through the metal bulkheads of a starship, which was done on at least one occasion.

Because the Grysk had been surveying the Empire, they were aware of Imperial-class Star Destroyers, the capabilities and limits of TIE starfighters, and other Imperial weaponry and technology, and utilized that knowledge in combat against Imperial forces. Despite the Grysks' knowledge of Imperial weaponry, they had not encountered a TIE/d "Defender" Multi-Role Starfighter before their encounter with the *Chimaera*, and as such, were unable to effectively combat against it.

#### Monitoring galactic affairs

> I propose two questions. First: How did the Grysks know that cortosis would be an effective defense against blasters and lightsabers?
>
>
> You suggest they were studying us as far back as the Clone Wars?
>
>
>
> I do, my lord. After all, the Chiss were watching you. Why not the Grysks? My second question: Once the Grysks knew the value of cortosis against blasters and lightsabers, how did the Separatists gain that knowledge?
>
> Thrawn, explaining to Darth Vader Grysk activities during the Clone Wars

The Grysk routinely monitored the affairs of the galaxy. The speed at which the greater galaxy seemed to change unnerved the Grysk, who experienced time much slower than most races.

During the Clone Wars between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the Grysk maintained surveillance on both governments. It would later supply Count Dooku, Head of State of the Confederacy, with information on cortosis, which was resistant against lightsabers. Dooku dispatched Duke Solha to Mokivj to mine the cortosis and manufacture it into B2-series super battle droids. To the surprise of the Grysk, however, the Mokivj droid factory began producing clone trooper armor as well. Unknown to the Grysk, Dooku was Sith apprentice to Darth Sidious, publicly Supreme Chancellor of the Republic Sheev Palpatine, who sought to add cortosis to clone armor in order for the clone troopers to be better protected when they eventually betrayed their Jedi Generals as part of Order 66. Ultimately, the mine was destroyed. The Grysk were insulted that they had been used in such a way and remained antagonistic to both sides in that war. This animosity extended to the Empire as they considered the Empire the inheritor of both the Republic and the Confederacy.

After the fall of the Empire the Grysk continued to monitor galactic affairs, unsure if the First Order or the New Republic, or both, or neither represented the latest inheritor of the Confederacy who had betrayed them.

#### Inbound Invasion

> The invasion is coming, Lord Vader. But I have now bought the Empire time to prepare.
>
> Thrawn to Darth Vader

Shortly after the Battle of Atollon, which was part of an uprising rebellion against the Galactic Empire, the Imperial capital ship *Chimaera* traveled to Batuu in order to uncover the cause and meaning of a disturbance in the Force sensed by Emperor Palpatine. As the *Chimaera* was above Batuu, Sensor officer Commander Hammerly detected four small transports above the planet in loose formation, with six starships already on Batuu's surface. Commodore Karyn Faro spoke with Hammerly as the crew of the Chimaera attempted to gather as much information as they could on the vessels, deducing that they could be either small freighters or small warships. As the information gathering continued, two more ships exited hyperspace straight ahead from the Chimaera at a distance of 400,000 kilometers, which Hammerly deduced where a type of long-range heavy freighter, bearing straight for Batuu. Faro believed that all of the unidentified vessels were headed for Black Spire Outpost, where Grand Admiral Thrawn and Darth Vader were investigating.

Hammerly discovered that the two new starships had arrived from over the *Chimaera's* shoulder on the same hyperlane that the Chimaera had arrived from. Shortly prior to a skirmish on Batuu between Thrawn and Vader against a group of Darshi, one of the heavy freighters headed towards Thrawn and Vader's position while the remaining vessels maintained orbit above Batuu. Vader ordered Commander Kimmund and his unit to intercept, examine, and engage the other heavy freighter.

Shortly after the skirmish, Kimmund and his stormtroopers approached the heavy freighter in the *Darkhawk*, although the Grysk vessel was able to detect the *Darkhawk* and broke orbit. Defender Squadron One arrived and was able to prevent its escape by disabling the starship, and later chased away the other smaller transports.

After the expedition of the *Chimaera*, Grand Admiral Thrawn believed an invasion of the galaxy would be imminent and that he had tricked the Grysk into possibly attacking the Chiss Ascendancy before the Empire as Thrawn believed that the Grysk considered the nearest enemy to be the most dangerous. Thrawn held up the Grysk's history of antagonizing the Chiss Ascendency as proof of this bias. This was not the case and by 1 BBY, the Grysk had begun to make advances into Imperial territory, committing multiple criminal acts against it as noted by Admiral Ar'alani.

## Astrography

By 35 ABY the homeworld of the Grysk was unknown, even to them. Rather, the majority of the Grysk lived on colony worlds, megastructures called 'shell-worlds', and generational city-ships that traveled along and through the Maze. The nomadic legends of the Grysk were based loosely on fact as their colonies were most often built on rogue planets, known poetically by the Grysk as 'dark planets lit by no sun'. The locations and numbers of these rogue plants were closely guarded secrets; a ship finding one could expect to be trapped by strange gravity wells, boarded by Client ships, and then made Captives of the Grysk. As such, factual numbers and locations were difficult to determine.