Sir Torin Saedrin OSO was a distinguished Synnott officer of the Royal Navy of the Golden Empire. During the Vagaari War, he served as captain of the Sith Star and the second-in-command of the Prime Fleet.
Biography[]
Initial service[]
Born and raised on Synno, Torin was an intelligent and athletic young man. After the Golden Empire conquered the Tetrarchy of Mezlagob, Synno conceded to the new arrangement without much grievance, and life went on for the Saedrins much as it had before the war. However, by the time he turned nineteen, the Empire had installed a Royal Naval Academy on Iscandar, and Torin applied for admission. Turned down, he instead attended tertiary education on his homeworld before applying to the Officer Training Institute at Sileria instead. This time he was accepted for training as a Royal Navy officer.
Following his commissioning, Saedrin served on numerous ships throughout the Empire, always with distinction. An effective manager and a good tactician, he excelled at war games, both leading them on simulators or participating in them during drills. Training hard to keep physically fit despite the enclosed nature of the Navy, he won the respect of his enlisted subordinates, and his ongoing quest to learn about other parts of ships besides his own areas of responsibility gave him a broad view of shipboard operations.
Rising star[]
Though his early career centered on small capital ships and picket craft, by the time he was a Lieutenant, Saedrin had been transferred to a Firebird-class war cruiser. He flourished with the broader command afforded by a major ship of the line, and continued to receive positive reports from his superiors. At the age of forty-three, after only twenty years of service, he was already a Captain, given command of the Firebird cruiser Inimitable. The next year, he was installed as the Legate who led the Royal effort to suppress the Second Battle of Shel Du. In 136 ABY, he was given a larger command, of the Imperial Star Destroyer Stronghold, and led the ship into war under the command of Sorrik during the Conquest of the Chiss Ascendancy.
Offered promotion to the Royal Starfleet's High Command, Saedrin turned down the promotion, opting to remain in a command role. He was assigned to the Royal Naval Academy at Iscandar—the very academy at which he himself had been denied a place—from 138 ABY to 140 ABY. In mid-140, he was given the most prestigious command in the Empire: captaincy of the Prime Fleet's flagship, the Sith Star.
Captain of the flagship[]
Command over not only the mobile capital of the Empire, but also by far the largest ship in the fleet, brought several unique challenges, but Saedrin took to his post quickly, showing himself an able leader with the ability to delegate and avoid the micromanaging that would bring a quick end to command of such a massive vessel. He became one of Tariun Sakaros's inner circle of advisors, along with Sorrik, Tarse Medrego (who had succeeded him as captain of the Stronghold), Sato Raltharan, and Salome Hrek.
In 141 ABY, the Vagaari attacked Tenupe and murdered the Vorsyt Consul and Centurion Tesshen Manytrek, sparking the Vagaari War. Tariun set Sorrik as a Legate, and the two carried a two-pronged war into Vagaari territory. Torin Saedrin, as captain of Tariun's flagship, became his de facto second-in-command, overseeing the battle operations of the Star so Tariun could focus on grand strategy.
When the Ssi-ruuk invaded the south of the Empire, however, Sorrik and Queen Rin Sakaros herself went south to meet the threat. Deprived of his most talented subordinate commander and more than half his Armada, Tariun split his remaining force into thirds, with Medrego and Hrek appointed as Legates. He initially considered giving Saedrin the command that ultimately became Medrego's, but ultimately decided that the Synnott captain was of greater use as his right-hand man.
With most of his war council dispersed through the Empire, Tariun came to rely heavily on Saedrin as an advisor, and the two discussed tactics regularly. In the numerous engagements of the war, Tariun left Saedrin in almost completely command of the Star, focusing on the broader battle unless he had something special in mind for his flagship. Saedrin himself consulted nearly every day with the engineers aboard his ship, as the Star was large and easy to target (and thus easily damaged), and there was great need to keep it up and running at all times. When Jira Seezhli unconsciously began to use Battle Meditation to bolster the Empire's forces, it was Saedrin who first realized what was happening.
When the Ssi-ruuk were vanquished and Sorrik brought his part of the Armada back to the Vagaari front, the Vagaari were quickly exterminated as the Empire brought the full weight of its military down on them.
After the Vagaari[]
With the Vagaari defeated, the Empire began its slow transition off war footing and began to return its attention to rebuilding the Empire and annexing the systems it had conquered or passed through in the process of hunting the Vagaari. At the conclusion of the war, Saedrin was made an Officer of the Sovereign's Order. He continued to serve as captain of the Sith Star after the war, though by 149 ABY he had been succeeded by Meerk Hozzit.
At the end of the Nightmare War, Saedrin was serving as an instructor at the Royal Navy OTI on Sileria. Tariun approached him for a new duty. The Synnott was given supervisory command of Rin's secret project, the construction of a Super Star Destroyer, and began the transition process immediately, working closely with Tariun to learn the ins and outs of the project. He was promoted to Commodore when he assumed command of the new project. As the project became more complex over the years, he received a subsequent promotion to counter admiral.
By the mid-150s, Saedrin felt ready to retire, but remained at his command out of a sense of duty. In 157 ABY, Tariun Sakaros took his brother Nagarian as a Sith Apprentice and took command of the project so as to have an isolated place to train him. In doing so, he invited Saedrin to retire at the age of sixty-six and awarded him the Royal Navy Superior Service Medal. Saedrin retired to Synno.