Dithiar Minum

Dithiar Minum was a male Mezzel officer of the Navy of the Tetrarchy of Mezlagob. He was best known in history for surrendering Mezlagob itself to the Golden Empire at the Battle of Mezlagob.

Career development
Minum was born on Mezlagob itself, the scion of the influential Minum family, which had produced several generals and admirals of note in the Tetrarchy's history. He attended elite private schools and graduated from the Tetrarchy Naval Academy, embarking on a career in the Navy. His father and three uncles were all current or former naval officers themselves, and their influence and connections helped Minum find prestigious postings. He had commanded of his own Hydra-class cruiser by the age of thirty-eight in 94 ABY, assigned to the Vall`to sector. There he served under the overall command of Admiral Garyth Quorr. Minum married while assigned to Baes.

In 98 ABY, Minum was transferred to the Mezlag sector and promoted to flag rank, serving as a senior staff officer to Hudrelan Admiral Yman Ailad. The two became close, and Ailad helped Minum develop his career, providing exposure to the responsibilities and complexities of high command. Ailad also introduced Minum to the Tetrarchs.

An unpleasant promotion
When the Great Liberation began in 100 ABY, the commander of Mezlagob's Home Fleet was dispatched to command the military depot at Tizgo V; Ailad became the new Home Fleet commander, and Minum his executive officer. The two watched with trepidation as the war slowly turned against the Tetrarchy. Familiar with the Vall`to sector from his time there, Minum became privately convinced the Tetrarchy was unlikely to prevail after the Battle of Vall`to, in which the sector capital was captured and Admiral Quorr was killed.

With Quorr's death, the surviving Tetrarchs Idiian Gundo, Lahek Gril, and Pexereca Tainer appointed Ailad the new Supreme Commander of the Tetrarchy military. When the Empire's push toward Mezlagob became inevitable, Ailad met with Gundo, Gril, and the new Tetrarch Catel Embri to advise a surrender at terms, hoping to preserve some semblance of society. To Minum's horror, the Tetrarchs took Ailad's advice as treachery and had him executed. When they asked him point-blank whether he was prepared to serve the Tetrarchy loyally, Minum replied in the affirmative to prevent retaliation against his family.

Inevitability
Taking command of the Home Fleet and Ailad's flagship, the Cleansing Wave, Minum prepared for the Royal onslaught. When the Prime Fleet decanted from hyperspace, he formed the fleet for battle, but did not give the attack order. He received contact from Tariun Sakaros, offering surrender, and was weighing the idea when one of his cruisers offered surrender on its own. The Tetrarchs, aboard the Cleansing Wave as passengers, ordered an attack on the offending ship, but Minum countermanded their orders, and the fleet chose to obey its admiral.

One-by-one, half the front line surrendered, and Minum finally seized the holotransceiver from the Tetrarchs and offered the surrender of the entire fleet. He directed his crew to seize the Tetrarchs at Tariun's command; Lahek Gril committed suicide rather than face Rin Sakaros, but the two Mezzel Tetrarchs were taken alive. Minum surrendered himself to Royal custody as a prisoner of war, and used his command codes to disable Mezlagob's defenses and power down its army of battle droids.

Quiet life
Minum was held in a commandeered prison on Mezlagob's surface for most of the following year as the Empire purged the officials responsible for the worst of the Tetrarchy's abuses. In 103 ABY, however, Tariun Sakaros personally released him, subject only to lifelong house arrest and confiscation of some of his assets to provide relief to the former Tetrarchy's more impoverished worlds. Having feared his family would be made to suffer for his allegiance, Minum did not complain.

Minum, his wife, and their two children lived a quiet life on Mezlagob from then on, with Minum declining numerous interview requests from News First Mezlagob and other media. In 126 ABY, for Minum's seventieth birthday, Rin formally pardoned him and released him from house arrest. He spent most of his remaining years visiting family and continuing to eschew public attention.

He died in 130 ABY at the age of seventy-four.