I aim to be the supreme ruler, and to reach that goal, I have a policy of my own. It is to fight my own battles. That's the difference between myself and the warlords I've fought and defeated. That's also the reason why the soldiers follow me.
—Bacharan Valak
Bacharan Valak was the Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Navy and the Prime Minister of the Galactic Empire, also holding the title of Imperial Prince. Rising to power after the death of Emperor Palpatine, the young admiral came to dominate the post-Endor government on Imperial Center and launched a campaign to reunite the feuding warlords. Valak was considered to be a brilliant strategist and managed to piece together the fractured Empire by 7 ABY, at which point he launched a massive offensive against the New Republic, which was recovering from its own civil war. By the time of his death in 9 ABY, the majority of the galaxy was back under Imperial control and the New Republic had been reduced to some remote sectors in the Outer Rim Territories.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Do you think I can do what Palpatine did, Remintal?
—Valak voices his ambitious at an early age
Valak and Dantornis, shortly after graduating from the Academy
Bacharan Valak was born on Coruscant into House Valak, an old aristocratic family that could trace its history back to the times of the Zhell–Taung War, but whose glory days were long behind it and its only item of inheritance being a list of debt it owed. His mother died early on in an accident, while his father was a drunkard who had no concern for the boy. Originally, the young Bacharan had no interest or desire to get involved in politics, but as he grew up during the Dark Times and witnessed the corruption of Galactic Emperor Palpatine's regime, he became increasingly disillusioned. However, Valak believed in the cause of the New Order itself and that the ideals that the Empire claimed to stand for were genuinely good. He thought that all that was needed was for the Empire to be purged of the corrupt elements and put to use for the good of the people of the the galaxy, and that it was still far more efficient than the Galactic Republic had been. In his early years, that was what Valak set upon himself to do, believing that no one but him was up to the task.
It was also early on that he met another resident of the Imperial City, who was named Alaric Remintal. The two of them lived in the same area and became close friends over the years, getting into various misadventures in the Coruscanti government district. It reached a point that when Valak asked Remintal to lie about their age and go with him to the Corulag Academy when they were sixteen, he agreed. Valak had been an intelligent student and studied many subjects on his own time, and Remintal was similarly gifted, although not the same level as his friend. Nonetheless, with Valak's tutoring he was able to pass the entry exams with high marks as well. It was then not surprising to their instructors that both of them excelled at the Academy upon entering its navy midshipman program, with Valak having a particular talent in strategy and tactics while Remintal was among the best of their marksmen and Teräs Käsi champions.
During their time at the Academy, they also happened to meet a couple of other cadets, who were several years older and were senior cadets during Valak's early months there. The blond cadet and his red-headed friend assisted Markus Cadell and Valerian Raeder in defending themselves from a group of aristocratic students that were picking a fight due to Cadell's commoner background. Although Valak and Remintal were helping the older pair fight them off, later rumors at the Academy turned it into just the two of them beating up the senior noble cadets. It was a minor incident in and of itself, but it led to Valak becoming acquainted with Cadell and Raeder, who were near the top of their class and graduated not long after that.
In 1 BBY, shortly after the start of the Galactic Civil War, Valak graduated at the top of his class, with Remintal also being in the top quarter. The two of them were commissioned as a sublieutenant and ensign of the Line, respectively, and were given their first assignment aboard the Lancer-class frigate Cobra, which was assigned to patrol duty in the backwater Greater Javin region of the Outer Rim Territories. Valak was initially annoyed at their first assignment, hoping to be sent to the front lines and face the Rebel Alliance, but as Remintal pointed out, there would be plenty of opportunities to distinguish themselves in such a lawless area.
Early military career[]
Javin anti-piracy operation[]
The Cobra
As part of the Javin sector fleet, the Cobra was often tasked with patrolling the busy Corellian Trade Spine and preventing pirates and other criminals from preying on merchant shipping. Sub-lieutenant Valak was assigned as the chief navigator aboard the frigate, while Ensign Remintal was the chief of security. The crew was skeptical about having officers in important positions being so young, and felt more distrust when they found out that Valak was a descendant of ancient nobility. They came to believe that he must of have gotten the position and the rank of sub-lieutenant (graduated cadets usually received the rank of ensign) because of his noble birth. In reality, it was due to his good performance at the Corulag Academy, but that was not known to them. They distrusted him behind his back, although they did follow his orders when they were at the bridge with him.
An incident occurred three months after Valak's arrival, when they were carrying out a routine patrol along with a small squadron of other Lancer-class frigates. Unbeknownst to them, they entered an area home to Mugaari pirates and were close to their asteroid base. The pirates ambushed the frigates while they passed a nearby asteroid field, moving in from the debris and taking them by surprise. Most of the frigates tried to retreat away from the pirates in disorder, but Valak ordered the Cobra to enter the asteroid field instead. Some of the Mugaari ships peeled off to pursue them, but they ended up being destroyed in the asteroid field, allowing the Cobra to locate a large asteroid to cling on to. The rest of their squadron had been destroyed, but they pirates could tell that they missed one and entered the field to search for them. The captain of the Cobra disagreed with the chief navigator's decision to abandon the rest of the squadron, but he had no choice in the matter since the rest of their retreating allies had been destroyed.
As the Mugaari fighter and bomber squadrons entered the asteroid field and split up to search, the Cobra began to move and took them out one by one. The Lancer-class frigate also deployed its two shuttles, commanded by an ace pilot named Flight Captain Jarl Osborne. Osborne and the bridge crew under Valak worked together well to lure the enemy craft into the firing range of the main turrets of the Cobra, resulting in them being quickly defeated by superior firepower. The Mugaari were nearly wiped out in the asteroid field, with enough of them being destroyed for the Cobra to leave the area and escape back to the sector fleet headquarters on Javin. It was the only Imperial stronghold in the region and served as a general headquarters for local anti-piracy operations. There, the crew were commended for single-handily annihilating a pirate group that had been plaguing the region for a year. Valak received his promotion to full lieutenant and, along with Remintal, was transferred.
The Transporter[]
The armored freighter Emperor's Arrow
A week after the incident in Javin, Lieutenant Valak was made the captain of the Gozanti-class cruiser Emperor's Arrow. They were reassigned to the Core Worlds, where they initially had the uneventful task of hauling cargo aboard the armed freighter from Coruscant to the Deep Core Security Zone. Valak was frustrated by this as well, viewing it as a demotion and not understanding why he was given such a simple task with no opportunities to garner battlefield accolades. Remintal calmed him down, saying that he should be satisfied with having earned his first promotion so quickly. But he was wrong, as the chance to prove himself did occur.
They ended up being selected to transport a member of the Imperial Ruling Council and officer of the Navy, Rear Admiral Karn Geldar, who was assigned to take over the leadership of a certain Core World as the regent in the place of its recently deceased king. The king had left a note before his death, picking Lord Geldar — one of his distant relatives — as his replacement. Unbeknownst to them, the king's brother was furious and challenged the claim, believing he was the rightful regent and deserved to lead. Thus the king's brother sent a unit of hired mercenaries to intercept and destroy the Emperor's Arrow before it could reach the target. Since the vessel was an armed transport, he informed the mercenaries that they should have no problem destroying it with their gunships and fighters.
He gave the mercenaries the planned path of the Arrow and they found an uninhabited system to wait for them in. As the transport passed through the system and approached them, the leader of the hired attackers communicated with the ship and told Valak that they were sent as an escort by the deceased king's government. The transport's sensors could detect their weapons were primed and ready to fire, however, tipping off the Imperials to the small fleet's real intent. The lieutenant knew they could not outgun them and there was not enough time to make a hyperspace jump out of the system. So Valak played a verbal game with the mercenary leader to distract him as he ordered the crew to turn around and head toward a gas giant nearby.
Finally, the hired pilots realized the Imperial crew saw through their deceit and followed the armed transport in pursuit. By then the Arrow had made it into the lower atmosphere of the gas giant and had prepared its engines to make a fast upward surge out of the atmosphere back into orbit. As the mercenary ships neared the Arrow, Valak had the gunner of one of the vessel's two laser cannons fire off as many blasts as possible into the gases below. After that the transport quickly made its way out of the atmosphere. The mercenaries attempted to pursue, but by the time they did it was too late: the fired lasers combined with the gas giant's hydrogen to cause a massive explosion, which destroyed all of their vessels before they could get away.
The Emperor's Arrow made it to the planet without any more incidents, and for his quick thinking that saved them, Rear Admiral Geldar promoted Valak to lieutenant commander.
Blockade of Yavin[]
Militarily, this is pointless. The blockade is a political action by the scared politicians on Imperial Center to save face in front of the galaxy after the Death Star was destroyed. As we sit here wasting resources to do nothing, the Rebels are probably preparing an evacuation."
"You always speak of it negatively, but the Death Star's destruction did speed up our promotion, Lord Valak."
"That may be true, but my promotion should not come as the result of millions of meaningless sacrifices. We are not like the Emperor. Still, you try to see the positives in everything, don't you, Remintal?
—Valak and Remintal discussing the Yavin blockade
Valak on the bridge of his ship
With his new promotion, Valak and Remintal were again reassigned, this time given a staff job at a small naval supply outpost in the Mid Rim for some months. However, with the destruction of the Death Star in 0 BBY at the hands of the Rebel Alliance, a large number of some of the Navy's top officers were killed aboard the battle station. The resulting vacuum meant new openings had to be filled within the hierarchy and both Valak and his friend got a promotion, to commander and sub-lieutenant, respectively. This also meant the beginning of a retaliatory military action against the Rebel base on Yavin IV, under Darth Vader's personal command. Valak, who had believed the Death Star to be a ridiculous waste of credits, was given command of a new Tagge battlecruiser Fury as part of the blockade around the Gordian Reach sector, home of the Rebel base.
The early weeks of the operation were uneventful, with the Fury mainly being stationed near the Feswe Corridor and not seeing much action. Valak did not waste those days, however, drilling the crew to their limits along with Remintal. Mostly the bridge practiced maneuvering and reacting to different situations, while the rest of the new battlecruiser's crew carried out combat simulations to repel boarding teams. His first officer, Lieutenant Commander Anvir Astorek, helped him in running these drills, and Valak became impressed with the man's efficiency. He strove to keep his crewmen in top shape and always alert for the chance that the Rebels would try to break out, and these drills did not go unnoticed by his superiors. Finally the commander was selected by General Ulric Tagge to help test a new superweapon against the rebels known as Omega Frost, meant to freeze the Alliance Fleet as it tried to move through the corridor. The Fury provided escort for his battlecruiser, but a Rebel strike team destroyed the Omega Frost's conductor towers, rendering the weapon inoperable. Valak viewed it as another example of the current Imperial admiralty's incompetence.
Valak, Remintal, Astorek, and another officer aboard the Fury
At that moment, the Rebel ships moved into the corridor and attacked the Imperial vessels. Baron Orman Tagge's personal flagship was quickly overwhelmed by the numerically superior Rebel fleet. However, the Fury, positioned further down the corridor, was able to put up a fight. Valak had Astorek and the crew move the cruiser into a narrow part of the Feswe Corridor between an asteroid field to restrict the Rebels' numerical advantage, and with the battlecruiser's firepower he was able to keep the Corellian gunships at bay for some time before recovering the Baron's escape pod. At the insistence of Remintal and Astorek, they stayed for some time longer to try to recover as many other escape pods from the Baron's flagship, much to the annoyance of Tagge, as he wanted to leave right away.
After another several weeks of drilling and gripping about the incompetence of their superiors, Valak and the Fury were again called into action. Admiral Gial Ackbar's forces launched three attacks at different points along the blockade, including the Bakka system where the Fury was stationed. Valak and Remintal correctly deduced that these attacks were diversions for an evacuation and conferred with the blockade commander, Admiral Amise Griff, to give him some suggestions on how to proceed. Instead of deploying a significant portion of the blockade to counter the retreating Rebel Home Fleet as Valak suggested, Griff decided to send just three Star Destroyers, much to they young commander's annoyance. All three ended up being destroyed and did not stop the Home Fleet.
The battle in the Bakka system concluded with the Imperials' destroying the attacking Rebel task force, Valak's battlecruiser leading the vanguard in the final assault. Although the Yavin blockade was a failure, the Coruscanti nobleman distinguished himself enough during those six months to warrant a promotion to captain.
In the halls of power[]
Don't you understand? I hate Palpatine and his ilk. I would like to destroy him and his cabal, with my own hands if possible. But the Empire would need a new leader to take his place. That would be you.
—Commander Lucius Macer
Captain Valak on Coruscant
With the Coruscanti noble's promotion to captain came a new staff position at the high command on his home world, the Imperial Admiralty wanted all front line officers to experience at least some staff work before promotion to senior officer ranks. Sublieutenant Remintal was assigned there as his aide. The Yavin fiasco cost the Empire a large amount of credits in terms of supplies that had to be delivered to the front lines for the blockade to be maintained. Valak and Remintal were first tasked by Fleet Supply directorate to check through the records to confirm the total amount of goods shipped to and received at the front. The response of the two officers to the task was not one of enthusiasm, as expected, but they want about their work.
Since Valak's arrival on Coruscant, the 21-year old captain naturally drew the attention of the military and political elites. His meteoric rise through the Imperial naval hierarchy, while justifiable in light of his military accomplishments, was still unpopular and brought resentment among many other officials for obvious reasons. This was especially true in the Supreme Naval Command, where Valak had to work with captains more than twice his age, and was considered a "spoiled brat" by many. Some members of the court attributed his rise to some kind of blood relation to Emperor Palpatine or a member of his dark side coterie, leading to a rumor that he was a secret member of the Imperial family and the Emperor's unofficial heir-apparent, much to Valak's disgust and his friend's amusement.
Around that time, the two Coruscanti officers discovered by examining shipping records that the numbers of supplies sent out to the blockade and what the fleet actually received did not add up, meaning much of it went "missing" at some point. Valak brought this to his superiors, only to be told that it was due to corruption — as he assumed — as some officers sold it on the black market to make extra credits. The Supply chief viewed it as a "necessary evil" to turn a blind eye to such things in order to keep the officers content, giving Valak and Remintal a thinly veiled threat to not pursue the matter further.
ISB Commander Macer in Valak's office
But as a result of all of this gossip in the Imperial court, it was not long before the young captain was sought out by Commander Lucius Macer of the Imperial Security Bureau. Macer sought to become a subordinate of Valak, perhaps lead the ISB contingent aboard the next vessel he would get to command. The security officer told Valak he saw potential in him to be the catalyst for changing things in the Empire, and related to him his recent history. Macer had reported a high-ranking Imperial Customs official in the past for corruption, only to have that man's contacts in the government go after the ISB officer in exchange. Since then he has been followed by the former official's agents and nearly killed. This made him disillusioned and realize the Empire's deep internal corruption, something that Valak had recently experienced.
Valak agreed to help Macer in exchange for putting his talents into the Coruscanti noble's service. The captain promised to get him transferred to his command in the future, and to solve the ISB officer's more immediate problem he arranged a scheme. Valak met with the former customs official's contact in the Imperial government (a member of the COMPNOR Select Committee), and during their conversations he gained the man's trust. Valak brought up a particular ISB agent to him and start talking about how he was nosing his way into the captain's "dealings". When the customs official admitted to sending agents after him and the circumstances of his deal with Macer before as well, Valak recorded it and submitted the information to the Imperial Military Police. MP Commander Yohan Rallis oversaw the official's arrest and thanked Valak for his cooperation.
Uncovering the corrupt dealings of a Select Committee official, which ultimately led to his network within the government, earned Valak more fame on Imperial Center. He and Remintal also briefly met Markus Cadell and Valerian Raeder, their friends from the Academy who were then lieutenant commanders, on the planet shortly after that affair. Thanks to their work it was not long before the two Coruscantis were promoted again, to commodore and lieutenant, respectively, and given a new command.
Mirvek Rebellion[]
In late 1 ABY, Moff Vilkata Rald, who ruled the Inner Rim world of Mirvek, rose in revolt against the Empire when the ISB discovered he had been secretly sending weapons to the Alliance. Apparently, the Moff was an old former Republic official, and his son had defected to the the Rebels year ago. When confronted about the issue, he decided to stop hiding the colors of hid flag and rose in open revolt, even though he knew the only Alliance support he would get was from the local Sector Force. Moff Rald's personnel were mainly local Planetary Security Forces and the Imperial garrison was outnumbered, quickly stormed and overwhelmed. The Moff acted surprisingly quick and dispatched PSF and Rebel ships to take over nearby lightly-defended worlds, carving out a small swath of space in the Inner Rim that he claimed to be Rebel territory.
Needless to say, such a thing would not be tolerated by the Empire. Commodore Valak's squadron was commanded to proceed to Mirvek and "restore order" to the breakaway region. A commodore typically commanded a larger systems force, and Valak's unit was small even for a squadron. He believed it was the intent of his enemies on Naval Command to test his abilities, either to prove himself worthy or perish. As Imperial Naval Intelligence reported, there was only one hyperlane corridor leading to the Mirvesk cluster, and the rogue Moff had divided his force into three fleets to assault the Imperials from all sides and surround them as they entered the system. The force under the Coruscanti nobleman was smaller both in terms of firepower and numbers, consisting mainly of light cruisers, frigates, and corvettes. Rald's fleet consisted of those as well as several larger vessels dispatched by the Rebel navy when the Alliance Civil Government heard of the former Moff's success.
However, by the time the commodore's squadron arrived at the other end of the Mirvesk Corridor, Valak had worked out a plan. Instead of wait to be surrounded by the three Rebel forces, his ships moved at full speed and attacked each three fleets individually. Their individual strength were more comparable with the Imperial squadron, and the element of surprise assisted Valak greatly. The first fleet was caught off guard, not expecting the Imperials to attack so quickly, and did not hold out long under a sustained Imperial assault. With most of it destroyed, they moved onto the nearest Rebel fleet, attacking it from the rear and annihilating it as well. The third force, under Moff Rald's personal command, was shocked by their losses but was able to hold out from Valak's attack, as the Imperials had begun reaching the limits of their supplies and energy.
Rald used a tactic that put several ships into battle against the enemy before switching them out for another unit of ships, meant to exhaust and drain the enemy's numbers. It worked and Valak decided to temporarily withdraw to reorganize their lines as Rald took the opportunity to retreat to Mirvek. There, his ground forces prepared to fight off an Imperial planetary invasion as Valak's fleet eventually arrived. The Moff had (correctly) gambled that Commodore Valak would not want to cause civilian casualties with a Base Delta Zero operation, but instead what the Coruscanti did was target the Moff's palace with a precise missile strike. It destroyed his headquarters and killed Rald along with his staff, and with their deaths, over the course of several days the rest of his forces on Mirvek collapsed as desertions began and arguments over the Moff's successor began. By the time Valak's shuttle landed on on the surface of the planet, many of the Rebels had either slipped away into the countryside or had started fighting each other over disputes.
With the Rebel forces in such a state it was not long before the Imperial Army contingent mopped up the remnants and restored order.
As an admiral[]
Ascension to the admiralty[]
Our so-called superiors, who waste Imperial revenue building grandiose super weapons just to have them blow up in their faces over and over again, are now angry that an upstart with a vision is challenging their position. But even if they become our enemy they are too incompetent for that role."
"Still, they should not be underestimated. Our battle will not just be of a military nature from now on, but of power struggles and court intrigue. Many of them are willing to go to great lengths.
—Valak and Macer discussing their situation
Upon defeating a larger force with a small squadron of ships and pacifying the rogue Moff, in spite of the expectations of many elites on Imperial Center, the high command no choice but to promote him to rear admiral, making him the youngest in the Empire's history at the age of 23. This caused even more resentment from the upper echelons of Imperial society, and the young Rear Admiral began attending important events during his time at the capital, entering court politics. Macer, who became the head of the ISB contingent aboard Valak's flagship, helped him out in that role, providing him with political advice. The media, meanwhile, portrayed him as a hero of the Empire and lavished him with praise. So while the upper strata of the Empire became increasingly hostile towards Valak, he did gain much popularity with the enlisted soldiers and junior/senior officers of the Imperial Military, especially for often being on the front line in the thick of the fighting himself.
At that point he attracted the attention of Emperor Palptine, who received him in his audience chamber at the Imperial Palace to praise Valak's contributions to the war effort. It was a formal meeting and the two did not converse directly, but the Emperor stated he would monitor the young admiral's progress with great interest. Not long after that meeting, Naval Command gave him and Remintal a new assignment: they were given command of a formation within the fleet of Grand Admiral Harleck, stationed at the planet Yag'Dhul. The system was the junction of the Corellian Trade Spine and the Rimma Trade Route, being an important point where virtually all Imperial military supplies passed through on their way from the Core to the units on the Rim. The heavy traffic in the system caused logistical problems in moving large amounts of supplies, but a new orbital military port was under construction over Yag'Dhul to ease the Navy's logistical problems and make providing Imperial units with supplies much easier.
Battle of Yag'Dhul[]
Valak commanding at Yag'Dhul
Naturally, it was not long before the Alliance Command came to the conclusion that the new station would raise the Imperial military's efficiency south of the Core, and would threaten Alliance cells operating there. Therefore they decided to send a sizable force to strike the orbital supply base, as the Imperial commanders intended. Valak understood that they were essentially using this as bait to draw out a significant amount of the Rebel fleet and give them a bloody nose.
Personality and traits[]
Valak had little patience for incompetent subordinates or superiors
Unparalleled aggressiveness and ambition were described to be Prince Valak's dominant traits by those who knew him, and they were a large part of what made him charismatic. Since his early years he was determined to make the galaxy his, but unlike many of Valak's rivals, he did not say it as mere empty arrogance. His brilliance in war and politics allowed him to rise through the ranks of the Imperial Navy at a young age, to eventually become the youngest flag officer in the Fleet. However, at the same time, he did not fight just for his own personal power but with a desire to improve the living conditions for the galactic populace, believing that the Empire was the perfect tool to do that with. He despised Emperor Palpatine for his corruption and abuses of power, saying that although he created the Empire, Valak could not forgive him for all that he did.
Titles and styles[]
Born into a minor Coruscanti family of untitled nobility, Valak did not possess any aristocratic titles until he was elevated by the Emperor.
- 2 ABY – 3 ABY: His Excellency The Count Valak
- 3 ABY – 4 ABY: His Excellency The Landgrave Valak
- 4 ABY – 7 ABY: His Excellency The Duke Valak, Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Fleet
- 7 ABY – 9 ABY: His Imperial Highness The Prince Valak, Prime Minister, and Regent of the Empire
Military ranks and date of promotions:
| Rank | Date |
|---|---|
 Sub-lieutenant
|
1 BBY |
 Lieutenant
|
1 BBY |
 Lieutenant commander
|
0 BBY |
 Commander
|
0 BBY |
 Captain
|
.5 ABY |
 Commodore
|
1 ABY |
| Rear Admiral | 2 ABY |
| Vice Admiral | 2 ABY |
| Admiral | 3 ABY |
| Fleet Admiral | 3 ABY |
| Grand Admiral | 4 ABY |
 Lord High Admiral
|
4 ABY |