Chapter Summaries

After the Death Star’s destruction, the Galactic Empire tried to distance itself from Wilhuff Tarkin and requested a ceasefire with the Fourth Empire. Tang Xiao approved peace talks and left Harry Seldon in charge while he went to his Dark Altar on Muunilinst.

• The Fourth Empire publicized the Death Star’s destruction, causing liberal activity within the empire to quiet as its military power appeared overwhelming.
• Isanne Isard’s Imperial Loyalty Committee condemned Wilhuff Tarkin for the Death Star’s destruction and stripped Gideon Tarkin and Garrosh Tarkin of their military status and honors.
• Sate Pestage requested a ceasefire and submitted diplomatic credentials, blaming the Rebel Alliance for the war and offering peace talks on terms involving concessions.
• The Fourth Empire’s officials agreed to negotiate leniently so the Galactic Empire could focus on fighting the Rebel Alliance, then submitted their proposal to Tang Xiao.
• Tang Xiao approved the proposal without reading it, gave Harry Seldon full authority over the talks, and went to Abola Island on Muunilinst.

The Galactic Empire and the Fourth Empire prepared for peace talks on Planet Kira, choosing the Death Star’s impact site as a demonstration of the Fourth Empire’s victory. Both sides organized their delegations while the Fourth Empire restored the planet and salvaged Death Star wreckage; a major fragment was brought to Kira to serve as a landmark at the negotiation venue.

• The Fourth Empire announced its agreement to peace talks beginning June 30 on Planet Kira, at the site struck by the Death Star’s superlaser.
• Cruel Vanderon organized the Galactic Empire’s negotiation delegation, while Isanne Isard and her faction stayed out of the talks.
• Hari Seldon led the Fourth Empire’s delegation as it drafted terms based on the Galactic Empire’s weakened position.
• The Fourth Empire arranged for private companies to recover Death Star fragments and assigned the 90-billion-ton fragment to the United Mining Group.
• The Fourth Empire intercepted or destroyed most fragments headed toward Planet Kira, though about 50,000 tons entered the atmosphere and damaged the planet’s ozone layer.
• The Fourth Empire and the United Mining Group slowed the 370-million-ton superlaser fragment and prepared to move it to Planet Kira as a backdrop for the talks and the core of a future museum.

The Fourth Empire mobilized its corporations to cool and stabilize Kira planet after the Death Star’s superlaser strike, then built a conference venue at the impact site. When ten unarmed Imperial-class Star Destroyers arrived on June 30, the venue stood ready amid the ongoing engineering fleet.

• Sun Power Energy Company began cooling the superlaser impact zone with orbital heat-dissipation pipes and heat-exchange stations, while the Trade Federation delivered ice.
• United Mining Group used three Ishimura-class Planet Crackers to churn the lava, and Salarian Industrial Group helped solidify it until ground work could begin.
• Tyran Heavy Industries deployed gravity generators and crust stabilizers, while Fourth Group installed atmospheric processing stations and an environmental monitoring network.
• United Mining Group placed the Death Star’s dish-shaped wreckage at the center of the impact site, and Sanya Tagge directed construction of the conference venue.
• On June 30, ten unarmed Imperial-class Star Destroyers emerged from hyperspace and saw the completed venue surrounded by engineering vessels.

Koru D'ron led the Galactic Empire's delegation to Kira planet to negotiate with the Fourth Empire and witnessed the planet's rapid recovery and the Empire's strength. The delegation endured increasingly humiliating security measures as it arrived at the negotiation venue.

• Koru D'ron saw Kira planet bustling with reconstruction and civilian activity, and concluded that the Galactic Empire had lost far more than the Fourth Empire in the war.
• Hari Seldon welcomed Koru D'ron remotely, then a lieutenant colonel ordered the delegation's ten Star Destroyers to lower their shields and shut down their engines.
• Fourth Empire vessels towed the Star Destroyers to an orbital spaceport, where armed soldiers escorted Koru D'ron and his fifteen-hundred-member delegation to the planet without ceremony.
• Koru D'ron saw the Death Star wreckage, the newly built Tagge Company structure, and the planet's hardened black surface as he traveled to the negotiation venue.
• Christy Anson led the delegation through three identity checkpoints staffed by B-1 battle droids before they could enter.

Koru Vandelron endured three security checkpoints before beginning treaty negotiations with Harry Seldon on Kira planet. The Fourth Empire pressed him for apologies, reparations, and concessions, while Vandelron struggled to protect the Galactic Empire’s political standing and negotiating leverage.

• Koru Vandelron passed facial and iris scans and received a stamp at three checkpoints before entering the venue.
• Harry Seldon confronted Vandelron over atrocities on Chardaan Planet and Paks Planet, and Vandelron agreed to issue apologies and fund refugee reconstruction.
• Vandelron agreed that the Galactic Empire would reopen the Hydian Way and build hyperspace relay stations on the ruins of Chardaan Planet and Paks Planet.
• Harry Seldon pressed the Galactic Empire to accept responsibility for starting the war, but Vandelron argued that doing so could bring down his government and undermine reparations.
• Vandelron resisted proposals to open the Perlemian Trade Spine and impose tariffs, insisting that the Galactic Empire retain authority over tariff rulings.

After three days of negotiations, Hari Seldon and Krul-Vandron signed the Kira Treaty, ending the three-year war and securing major economic and territorial gains for the Fourth Empire. Tang Xiao secretly left for Tatooine, disappearing and leaving a power vacuum behind him.

• Krul-Vandron negotiated with Hari Seldon while Fourth Empire media framed the war as the Second Galactic Civil War.
• The Galactic Empire and the Fourth Empire signed the Kira Treaty, establishing borders, transferring territory, opening trade routes, and imposing reparations and restrictions on superweapons.
• The treaty preserved Sate Pestage's government while binding the Galactic Empire to economic and military cooperation with the Fourth Empire.
• The Galactic Empire's delegation departed, marking the end of the three-year war and the start of a new era.
• Tang Xiao skipped the victory celebration and secretly traveled to Tatooine, where he soon cut off all contact.
• Tang Xiao's disappearance left a power vacuum that gave his former rivals room to consider seizing influence.

The Fourth Empire expanded its economic influence through the Kira Treaty, absorbed major corporations, and rebuilt its fleet while shifting toward carrier production. Liberalist uprisings had spread across its territories, leaving the Empire struggling to contain unrest.

• The Fourth Empire flooded the Galactic Empire with Currency Number Four, while Imperial credits weakened and companies began taking orders from the Fourth Empire.
• The Fourth Empire nationalized the Technological Alliance and gained Skako, while Tagge Company joined and brought its industrial holdings, including Tagge Space.
• The Fourth Empire commissioned the Taotie and increased its fleet to seven Titan warships, then planned a major expansion of carriers, Light Cruisers, and frigates.
• Liberalist uprisings spread across the Southern Free Trade Zone and affected Christophsis, the Sothis sector, and Hoth Sector.
• The unrest disrupted government, transport, and Kyber Crystal mining, while the Fourth Empire lacked the strength to suppress the rebellions.

The Rebel Alliance exploited the Galactic Empire’s collapse and widespread unrest to expand its influence, while the Fourth Empire faced resistance of its own. The chapter ended with the Rebel Alliance establishing a command center aboard the Super Star Destroyer Liberty near Alderaan.

• The Rebel Alliance armed and organized Ploo’s rebels, whose uprising toppled the Planet Governor and brought Ploo into the Alliance.
• X-wing fighters destroyed a Tenth Army reinforcement fleet headed for Ploo, leaving the planet’s governor without support.
• The Rebel Alliance used concealed X-wing bases to seize influence across both empires, while the Fourth Empire’s Public Health Department used sewage to disperse riots.
• Border referendums produced calls for autonomy, and more governors began considering joining the Rebel Alliance.
• Burha Organa and Bail Organa hosted a newly established Rebel Alliance command center aboard the Liberty, an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer, near Alderaan.

After Wilhuff Tarkin’s death, the Rebel Alliance took control of the Imperial Fourth Army, while the Imperial government was too weak to challenge Queen Breha Organa’s temporary leadership of the territory. On the Liberty, Galen Malek avoided a heated leadership meeting in which Padmé Amidala and her allies argued over whether the Alliance should prioritize its ideals or rapidly expand its military power to face the Fourth Empire.

• Wilhuff Tarkin’s death and the purge of his family left the Rebel Alliance in control of the Imperial Fourth Army, with Queen Breha Organa temporarily assuming its governorship.
• Galen Malek walked through the captured Liberty, saw Rebel soldiers and B-1 droids clearing the dead, and declined to join the leadership meeting.
• Borsk Feliya urged the Rebel Alliance to build its strength and accept Governor Seben’s fleet and resources, while Padmé Amidala argued that the Alliance needed comrades who shared its ideals.
• Mon Mothma warned that prosecuting Seben after accepting him would undermine the Alliance’s beliefs, and Bail Garm Iblis presented figures showing the Fourth Empire had seven times the Galactic Empire’s raw-material flow.
• Bail Garm Iblis warned that the Fourth Empire could soon overwhelm the Alliance unless it prepared for the rival empire’s growing industrial and military power.

The Rebel Alliance debated whether to accept defecting Imperial warlords and how to respond to the Fourth Empire’s expansion, with Padmé Amidala insisting that its convictions must guide its choices. After the meeting, Padmé contacted Master Shaak Ti, while Mon Mothma and Bail Organa worried about the Alliance’s increasingly compromising alliances.

• Mon Mothma opposed an arms race and argued that the Alliance should seek coexistence with the Fourth Empire, while Bail-Garm-Iblis and Borsk Feliya challenged her position.
• Padmé Amidala defended the Alliance’s convictions and proposed strict screening for defectors, rejecting warlords such as Seben and calling for trials or ideological reform where appropriate.
• Borsk Feliya questioned whether the Alliance would refuse Seben despite his four hundred Star Destroyers, and Padmé said she would accept any sacrifice demanded by their convictions.
• After the meeting, Padmé Amidala told C-3PO and R2-D2 that she feared the Alliance might succeed by becoming something else, then asked R2-D2 to connect her to Master Shaak Ti.
• Mon Mothma and Bail Organa discussed the Alliance’s acceptance of the Zann Consortium and the Empire’s Twelfth Army, and Mon Mothma criticized Borsk Feliya.

Borsk Feliya persuaded Galen Malek to lead a surrendered Imperial fleet against Nixor, presenting the mission as a restrained response to the planet’s betrayal. After Malek departed, Feliya revealed that Mr. Shen Jon’s judgment had been right.

• Borsk Feliya argued to Bail Garm Iblis that the Republic needed a powerful fleet to deter Nixor and other planets that exploited its support.
• Bail Garm Iblis agreed to speak with Governor Seben and make him disappear, while Feliya said his agents could stage the disappearance.
• Borsk Feliya told Galen Malek about Nixor and asked him to lead a surrendered fleet from the Galactic Empire’s Twelfth Army against it.
• Galen Malek accepted the mission, believing Nixor’s actions could not be forgiven and that his guidance could prevent a massacre or a clash with the Hutt.
• Galen Malek departed aboard a shuttle, and Borsk Feliya remarked that Mr. Shen Jon’s judgment had been right.

On Tatooine, Jing Fang trained Luke Skywalker to sense and extend the Force, and Luke unexpectedly manifested a one-meter-long invisible object that scratched the ground. Aden-Lin announced a major job and told her apprentices to prepare to leave the next day.

• Tatooine remained a lawless, sparsely settled world whose population and environment had grown since the Hutts' civil war and the spread of terraforming technology.
• Jing Fang taught Luke Skywalker to imagine holding a one-meter Lightsaber and use the Force to sense what lay within its reach.
• Luke extended his arm and carved a shallow scratch in the ground exactly one meter away, astonishing Jing Fang.
• Aden-Lin entered and announced that the apprentices had a major job, promising a trip to Mulcana planet for coastal cuisine if they succeeded.
• Aden-Lin told Luke and Jing Fang to pack their gear because they would leave the next day.