Imperial Core

The Imperial Core was the unofficial term used to refer to the remaining Imperial bulwarks in the Core, Inner Rim and Colonies, areas which had been given greater legislative weight in the closing days of the First Clone Wars by the Emperor Palpatine. It eventually covalesced into a political entity.

Foundation
The collapse of the Second Galactic Empire following the destruction of Byss and the defeat at the Battle of Ord Cantrell, the Imperial war machine collapsed into warlordism within the Deep Core. The warlords were united by Admiral Daala, and then the Imperial Remnant abandoned the Deep Core, leaving the remaining independent warlords to their own devices.

These warlords were reorganised by Daala followed the fall of the Antemeridian sector and surrounding space, fribbling away the overall Imperial territory to a quarter of the galaxy. The Imperial Core territory, located primarily in the Deep Core, made up the majority of remaining Imperial territory, and was too much to lose to the New Republic. The Imperial Core thus consolidated, securing control of over a hundred sectors.

Galactic Civil War
Admiral Daala led the Imperial Core in securing its territory, while Pellaeon did the same in the Outer Rim, himself ruling as many sectors, but with a great deal more warships and Star Destroyers. Daala made do with two sector groups and masses of smaller vessels, organising them into recon and picket lines that centered around fortress worlds such as Prakith.

The Imperial Core nonetheless slowly shrank, but received a bonus when four Victory-class Star Destroyers arrived from the Black Fleet in 17 ABY, and took those vessels and the smaller warlord fleets to engage the New Republic late in the year. The Fourth Fleet scattered the offensive, Admiral Daala vanishing into the depths of space.

While the majority of the Imperial Core Navy was destroyed, and its leadership missing, very little territory was lost, while in the Outer Rim the Imperial Remnant lost the majority of its territory and settled on eight sectors but two hundred Star Destroyers, enough to control many dozens more sectors under the old system the Remnant had used. With few fortress worlds remaining, the Imperial Remnant signed a peace treaty in 19 ABY, ending its participation in the war.

Resurrection
The Imperial Core was resurrected by the remnant Inquisitors, whom had covalesced in the Deep Core. Those remaining darksiders, led by Brakiss, formed the Second Imperium to raise a Dark Jedi army centered around the mobile Shadow Academy, which was laden with the best technology the Imperial Core had.

Star Destroyers were slowly constructed in secret shipyards, and the Imperial Core made efforts to create a fleet and army. Led by the apparently resurrected Emperor, the Second Imperium appeared, sitting on a hundred sectors, ready to recapture the galaxy. A wealth of raids and hit and fade strikes at Kashyyyk and Coruscant gathered new hyperdrives and combat systems, new Stormtrooper corps and Dark Jedi gathered from the underbelly of the New Republic. An alliance with the Nightsisters provided the Imperium with many more darksiders.

It became quickly apparent, however, that the Imperial Core would never conquer the galaxy unless the Jedi were destroyed. And so an invasion of Yavin was planned.

Defeat
In 23 ABY the Battle of Yavin was fought, and the command structure and Navy of the Imperial Core once again decimated. Brakiss was killed, the Shadow Academy self-destructed, and the Emperor revealed to be a fraud created by four Imperial Guards. With the Core ruined, and the New Republic relatively untouched by half a decade of planning, the Imperium collapsed, the surviving warlords taking what little resources that remained - including the last Super Star Destroyer of the Imperial Core - and devolving into mass piracy.

Prakith fell after a long siege, and the New Republic unleashed the Viscount upon the Imperial Core pirates, defeating them in detail on the eve of the Yuuzhan Vong Invasion in 25 ABY. The few remaining holdouts in the Deep Core either surrendered or were lost, the New Republic's mapping efforts cut short by the Yuuzhan Vong advance.

The Imperial Remnant unveiled the location of these holdouts to the New Republic in 28 ABY, the New Republic taking their resources and using them to defeat the invaders in detail at the Battle of Ebaq 9. What was left of the Imperial Core was too weak to resist even the severely weakened New Republic, let alone the Yuuzhan Vong, becoming the battleground of choice by the newly formed Galactic Alliance as it lost the Core itself, driven to the depths of the Deep Core or to the edges of the Outer Rim; cruel irony for the Imperial Core and Imperial Remnant, fulfilled at last.