Holocron:Featured Articles/2013/November
The Battle of Beta', also known as the Beta Campaign, was a major battle in the ongoing Galactic Civil War in which Emperor Uebles' Galactic Empire grappled with King Kuraine's Falleen Federation and its allies for control of the Beta system. Occurring between Year 4 Day 338 and Year 5 Day 8, the engagement was one of the largest invasions in the recorded annals of warfare with a number of famous military leaders involved in the fray. Many veterans of the battle would later become notable figures in galactic history. Circa Year 4, Kuraine enticed Vir Calder, a dissatisfied Imperial Moff, to defect to the Falleen kingdom and to abscond with the Imperial Star Destroyer Shadowstone. This incident provoked the Imperial High Command to mobilize their forces and to invade the Beta system with a colossal strike-force commanded by Grand Admiral Black Lodge. Prior to this planned invasion, they were contacted by Prince Tholin Dur'aak, a disgruntled Fallen noble, who offered to betray Kuraine. Thus, shortly before the battle occurred, Kuraine and his consort were slain by Sith assassins — notably Adric Simms and Thraken Solo — while aboard the Shadowstones bridge due to clandestine assistance from Dur'aak. With Kuraine assassinated, the Empire moved to secure the Beta system. Ultimately, Lord Admiral Bisz Aldaris of the Falleen Navy could not stem the tide of invading Imperial vessels and undertook a strategic withdrawal from the system. Now in uncontested control of the battlefield, the Imperial forces emerged victorious and with minimal losses. The massive Falleen Federation-controlled space station Libra was subsequently obliterated, and the entire populations of Ul Yanin and Ulrike were allegedly exterminated by the Imperial Army commanded by Brigadier General Durand Somerville. The battle remains infamous to this day for its marked disregard for civilian casualties. Its aftermath, in which the Empire conducted a systematic extermination of life-forms on the planets Ul Yanin and Ulrike, resulted in disputed casualties ranging from 103 million to 1.5 billion sentient beings. Overall, the demise of the Falleen monarch, the Imperial conquest of the Beta system, the fiery destruction of the prized Libra battle station, and the heinous genocide of defenseless Falleen colonists made the conflict a defining moment in the early years of the galactic civil war. (Full article...)
