Gilad Pellaeon

Captain Gilad Pellaeon - By: Chris Trevas

Imperial Era

New Republic Era

Imperial Remnants

First Order

**Gilad Pellaeon**, nicknamed **Gil**, was a Human male naval officer who served for decades in various fleets throughout his career including the navy of the Galactic Republic, the Galactic Empire, and the Imperial Remnant. He started his career in the Republic’s Judicial Forces, where he ascended the ranks and captained an assault ship in the Clone Wars. Gilad developed a strong attachment to the navy as an institution, and when the Republic became the Empire, he continued serving aboard the Imperial Star Destroyers, including the Seventh Fleet flagship *Chimaera*. After the Battle of Endor, Gilad remained one of the navy’s more prominent officers until the rise of Grand Admiral Sloane and Fleet Admiral Rax, both of whom held Pellaeon in high regard and sought to make him one of their right-hand men. With the Empire crumbling all around, Gilad Pellaeon and other Imperial loyalists were forced to retreat into the Unknown Regions to regroup and rebuild.

After the death of Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax, Admiral Pellaeon worked alongside Grand Admiral Rae Sloane and played a key role in forming the First Order. Together Gilad, Sloane, and several others united the remnants of the Empire to build a new order and ended Imperial warlordism while establishing the first set of leaders, with Gilad among them. Pellaeon had a hand in the creation of the new fleet for the First Order, holding the title of a Supreme Commander of the naval forces. He fought in the Cold War campaign against the New Republic, but eventually Gilad came to see the New Republic as a government with which the Imperial Remnant should not only be at peace with but allied with. His hopes of a peaceful coexistence with the New Republic and attempts in trying to stop the First Order leadership's plans of an upcoming war would ultimately lead to his fall, as Gilad Pellaeon was assassinated for refusing to support Supreme Leader Snoke.

## Biography

### Early Life and Career

**Gilad Pellaeon** was born fifty-one years before Galactic Civil War on Corellia, where Gil stayed long enough to develop memories of his home planet. However, Gil spent the majority of his formative years on Coruscant, the Republic capital. Gilad did not care for this ecumenopolis however, and always enjoyed departing it, having never considered it an home. Gilad Pellaeon was eager to become an officer in the armed forces of the republic, and to that end he sought to enter a prestigious Raithal academy. Not yet being old enough to enter, Gilad persuaded an slicer to alter the records before he submitted his application to the academy. When he was fifteen years old. The academy never discovered his deception, and he was accepted. Gilad performed respectably but without distinction at an Academy. Gilad graduated with honors in the top third of this class and entered the Judicial Forces as an ensign. Upon graduation, Gilad Pellaeon served in his first command assignment as an Ensign assigned aboard an escort craft for an convoy near the Mid Rim planet Gavryn.

#### Clone Wars Service

He earned a rapid series of promotions for quick thinking in a pirate incident at Gavryn and received commendations for fighting pirates, eventually participating in efforts to combat pirates activity throughout the galaxy. By the time Gilad was twenty-four, Gilad been placed high enough to hear rumors of some sort of a grand effort to extend a Republic-authority outside the galaxy, launched just before the Clone Wars broke out, but not enough to know much about it. Pellaeon had an eye for women, and pursued an series of casual relationships and rendezvouses. Such relationships were considered unsuitable by his superiors, and kept him from promotion into the admiralty. When the Separatists formed and the Clone Wars began, the Judicial Forces were folded into the Republic Military. Pellaeon, sporting the rank Captain, commanded an *Acclamator*-class assault ship. Though he wondered where the clone Grand Army of the Republic had come from, he enjoyed working with professionals. He was committed to the men, and didn't care to draw distinctions between a crew.

### Imperial Service

#### Early Imperial Service

Over the course of Clone Wars, Pellaeon developed a respect for the Clone Troopers and regarded them as fully human unlike many other fleet personnel. Pellaeon later recalled fighting unstable Clones as part of their fleet; he may well have spent the last months of the Clone Wars serving in an Siege of Saleucami. When this Clone War came to an end and the Senate declared Palpatine Emperor and reformed the Republic as the Galactic Empire, Gilad Pellaeon continued serving in this new Empire Navy. In short order, *Imperial*-Class Star Destroyers was introduced and Gilad Pellaeon was assigned to one of them, the Star Destroyer *Chimaera*, as soon as it was built. He'd served as part of the command crew and was quickly made executive officer aboard the ship. During the years after their Empire's formation, the *Chimaera* sometimes undertook slaving raids on which he had served. During those years, he had the opportunity to serve under such various and illustrious personages as Imperial Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Lord Darth Vader, and even Emperor Palpatine himself.

Gilad Pellaeon had had a relatively promising career under the Republic, in the new order however, his career seemingly stalled. Gilad spent decades aboard this *Chimaera* as an second-in-command without advancing in the fleet. Pellaeon's career was hardly floundering, but Pellaeon simply never moved from his position aboard this *Chimaera*. Pellaeon would later look on these years under a Emperor Palpatine's empire without fondness, though there was little evidence of overt discontent; certainly not enough for Pellaeon to have defected. Pellaeon was above all loyal to the fleet as an institution; the main quarrels with this government were in the form of Sheev Palpatine's right hand, Vader, whose easy spending of officers under this command generated some significant measure of resentment within Pellaeon and many other officers in the fleet; many officers also did not care for Palpatine's Death Stars weapons, regarding them as a bloated, inefficient expenditures that threatened the Empire fleet's position. However, Pellaeon's loyalty to the Empire overall did not waver.

#### Serving Under Thrawn

Pellaeon was sufficiently dedicated to the Imperial Navy to live life as a bachelor, considering the navy his family. Gilad's dedication to the Navy Fleet was most evident in his expectations of the subordinates. He demanded that their conduct, discipline, and efficiency be worthy of the honor and prestige of an officer's commission in their Imperial Navy. He would not tolerate sloppiness, inefficiency, or casual demeanor from the *Chimaera*'s crew but instead instilled his own sense of professionalism and pride in this fleet within them. Eventually, the *Chimaera* fell under the command of a Empire Admiral Thrawn, the emissary of the Chiss Ascendancy who would make captain Pellaeon one of the right hand officers. Serving Thrawn during the early campaigns against rebellion uprisings, the captain Pellaeon developed an strong respect for the Chiss and a firm belief in his tactical genius, appreciating the direction Thrawn was taking the military and revitalizing his confidence. The captain was convinced that Thrawn could well be the greatest tactician strategist in the Imperial history.

Eventually Thrawn had acquired control of the Seventh Empire Fleet and reorganized it with the *Chimaera* as an flagship and in short time the *Chimaera* was known as among the most efficient starships in their Imperial navy. captain Pellaeon continued to serve in the naval forces of the Galactic Empire's Seventh Fleet during Thrawn's campaign against a Rebel movement at Lothal, in the year prior to the Battle of Yavin, Pellaeon was deployed in the Imperials blockade in the orbit around Lothal when a band of rebels were attempting to liberate the planet from a Imperial occupation. During their final battle at Lothal their entire blockade was destroyed by "several unidentified objects", Thrawn contacted Pellaeon to ask about this situation above, but only to hear that their attackers came out of hyperspace before their communication was quickly cut off. After the flocks of purrgils had destroyed their ships, the Imperials forces were defeated and their loss of Thrawn, captain Pellaeon was forced to issue the retreat order of the remaining Imperial forces to leave the world Lothal.

### Maintaining the Empire

At the Battle of Endor, the Star Destroyer fell under Pellaeon's command, and he issued the retreat order. Captain Pellaeon remained one of the fleet's more prominent officers until the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who selected Gilad's ship as his one of his flagship's and made Pellaeon his right-hand man. Pellaeon grew to respect and admire Thrawn throughout the Grand Admiral's campaign against the New Republic, but when Thrawn was killed during the campaign, Pellaeon again was forced to call a retreat. After Thrawn's death and the failed return of the Empire's power, the Empire crumbled around Pellaeon. He found himself serving as the second-in-command of the warlord Treuten Teradoc, but when Admiral Natasi Daala shared with him her vision of rebuilding the Empire and ending warlordism, he defected to her and played a key role in forming the First Order.

### Straying from the First Order

For his service to the Empire, Snoke made Gilad in charge of forging a new fleet for the First Order to use in order to defeat the New Republic. Pellaeon eventually rebuilt the fleet and fought a series of campaigns against the New Republic and the Resistance during the Second Galactic Civil War. After years of endless conflict, Pellaeon finally accepted that the only way for the ideals of the Empire to survive was through a peace treaty, and attempted to persuade Snoke to accept a truce with the New Republic. When Snoke rejected Gilad's propasal for a peace treaty, he decided that his service was no longer needed in the Empire and so he retired believing that he had outlived his usefulness in the First Order. In order to ensure that Gilad would not sell any information to the Resistance for a potential peace, Snoke sent one of his Knights of Ren to assassinate Gilad.