The History Of The Shadow Council
Image Source: Disney+
The Battle of Endor was devastating to the Empire, but it didn't completely vanish then. Neither did it after the Battle of Jakku one year later. With the Emperor and his right-hand man Darth Vader gone, the so-called Shadow Council soon took command over the fractured remnants of the former regime, determined to execute Palpatine's Contingency Plan. Although he mostly stayed in the shadows (no pun intended), one man was pulling the strings to fulfill the Emperor's last will: Gallius Rax.
Another slave boy from a desert planet
More than a decade before the outbreak of the Clone Wars, a boy named Galli was born a Jakku. When his parents died, he was forced to work as a slave until he one day discovered a beautiful starship that had landed on the desert planet. Sensing his only chance of leaving his miserable life behind, he snuck on board only to be discovered by the ship's owner: Sheev Palpatine.
RELATED:
Although Galli had no Force sensibility, Palpatine saw potential in the boy and not only spared his life but made him his protege.
The boy's first task was to guard an excavation site on Jakuu, where droids dug a hole to the planet's core beneath an ancient observatory that contained maps to the Unknown Regions. Galli stayed there for a decade before Palpatine put him in military service and let him in about his Contingency Plan:
"If an Empire cannot protect its Emperor then this Empire must be deemed a failure. It collapses not only because its central figure is gone, but because it must not be allowed to remain."
Image Source: YouTube
By that time the young man had taken on the name of Gallius Rax, and with Palpatine's support, he quickly rose through the ranks, mostly operating outside the usual chain of command of the Empire, just like Vader.
By the time of the Battle of Endor, Rax was stationed onboard the Super-Star Destroyer “Ravager” when Palpatine contacted him to carry out the Contingency Plan should he not survive the upcoming Rebel attack.
A new Emperor
After the destruction of the second Death Star, Rax took on the pseudonym of Operator, working as a double agent, feeding the New Republic with information on where to find the shattered remains of the Imperial fleet. Following Palpatine's teachings, he regarded those who weren't able to defeat the dreaded New Republic as disposable and not worthy of becoming part of the "New Empire". While the killing of Imperial soldiers and pilots and the destruction of Imperial ships meant nothing to him, Rax decided that Rae Sloane, a female officer, was competent and strong enough and gave her command over the Imperial fleet.
Image Source: starwars.com
Rax suggested establishing a Shadow Council as a succession to the former Imperial Ruling Council. Another person Rax saw worthy of becoming part of this elite group was Brendol Hux, Commandant of the Arkanis Academy. Further members of the Shadow Council were Chief Informational Officer Ferric Obdur, Grand Moff Randd, General Hodnar Borrum, and Yupe Tashu, a former advisor of Palpatine.
As commander of the Imperial fleet, Sloane was kind of the poster girl of the Shadow Council, but it was always Rax who pulled all the strings, just like Palpatine had taught him. And he soon came to realize that the only person who could be able to stop him was Rae Sloan.
At the false premise of engaging in peace talks with the New Republic, Sloane barely escaped an assassination attempt by one of Rax's agents and had to go into hiding. Claiming that Sloan had been captured and imprisoned by the New Republic, Rax declared himself Counselor of the Empire, basically making him the new Emperor.
Failed Contingency
With Operation Cinder Rax made it look as if his main goal was not only to reunite the Imperial fleet to hit the New Republic, which was still struggling to re-establish order and democracy in the galaxy as hard as he could. He convinced the other members of the Shadow Council to amass the whole fleet over Jakku for a final stand against the forces of the New Republic. With Sloan presumably gone, he intended to kill all other members of the Shadow Council except for Hux, whom he saw vital for the training of the new Stormtrooper corps.
But Palpatine's Contingency Plan comprised not only the destruction of the former Rebels but also that of the failed Empire so that a new order could be established in the Unknown Regions to return one day and retake the galaxy. And Rax intended to carry through with this plan: Deep in the core of Jakku was a self-destruct mechanism, powerful enough to not only destroy the whole planet but also to wipe out the forces of the New Republic as well as those of the Empire and the members of the Shadow Council in its wake.
Image Source: CultureSlate
When the fleet of the New Republic arrived at Jakku, Rax intended to activate the self-destruct mechanism and travel to the Unknown Regions with Hux, using the maps from the observatory. But before he could reach his ship, he was confronted by Sloane, who shot Rax and deactivated the self-destruct mechanism. Before he died, Rax told Sloane that if she wanted the Empire to succeed, she had to take Hux, his son Armitage, and a group of child soldiers whom Hux had trained to the Unknown Regions.
A new Shadow Council
Sloane and Hux ultimately arrived in the Unknown Regions, meeting up with a huge fleet of other Imperial ships, and started to build what would eventually become the First Order.
Her ultimate fate is unknown, though it is clear that by the time of the Sequel Trilogy, she was either dead or had fled from the new regime.
As for the Shadow Council, this institution resurfaced in 9 ABY. Aside from Brendol Hux, who had gotten in charge of Project Necromancer, other members were Moff Gideon, Captain Paelleon, and a group of other warlords. Sloane was notably absent at a holographic meeting where the members of the Council discussed the upcoming return of Grand Admiral Thrawn and the sharing of resources. The further development of the Shadow Council is unknown, but it is clear that by the time Snoke (another puppet Emperor) took over the First Order, it was no longer in existence.
Gallius Rax and the Shadow Council were introduced in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath Trilogy but have not been part of any other canon material since then, except for a mention in the Battlefront II video game.
The "new" Shadow Council was featured in the seventh episode of season 3 of The Mandalorian and will presumably be included in season 2 of Ahsoka or Dave Filoni's feature film, set to be released not before 2027.
READ NEXT:
Disclosure: We hope you like the items we recommend! CultureSlate has affiliate partnerships, so we receive a share of the revenue from your purchase. This won’t affect the price you pay and helps us out.
Sources: Chuck Wendig: Aftermath - Life Debt, Aftermath - Empire’s End
Latest News
Featured
