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- "'You treat war like Chess. Games with identical units and laws set in stone that all must adhere to. Did you honestly think Essik would play by rules you dictated?"
- ―Lyccane
Essik Lyccane is a Gand male of the lungless sub-species serving in the fleet of Clan Odan-Urr. A lifelong soldier, Lyccane has spent almost his entire life serving on one ship or another throughout the myriad of conflicts which shook the galaxy to its core. First serving in the Republic Navy during the Clone Wars, he quickly sided with the Rebel Alliance following the purge of all non-humans during the rise of the rise of the Galactic Empire. While both loyal and extremely diligent, he vehemently disagreed with what he saw as mistakes by both the leaders of the New Republic and Resistance in its later years, and was forcibly retired due to his advancing age.
Tired of watching blind men leading the galaxy to ruin, he was only stopped from returning to his homeworld by a chance encounter with Ka Tarvitz. After being convinced that there were still those who could use his experience, he joined the White Lotus Resistance and has since served directly under the Jedi of Odan-Urr at the rank of Commander.
Character History
Clone Wars (20 BBY - 19 BBY)
One of the rare few Gand who opted to associate themselves with the wider galaxy over their isolated homeworld, Lyccane rose to prominence during early 20 BBY. While initially tasked by his Pocket Colony with assisting the few traders which visited the backwater planet, a growing fascination with the technologies and ships of foreign powers led to him breaking away from his home within a matter of months of accepting the role. While initially serving as an adjutant on a sprint-trader travelling between the core worlds of Coruscant, Corellia and Chandrila, Lyccane's natural talent for tactical countermeasures and quiet pragmatism marked him for officer material. Despite his limited experience with stellar mechanics, Lyccane's capacity to pick out inherent weaknesses prevented the freighter's capture by CIS aligned privateers on no less than two occasions and directly contributed to crippling a vastly larger enemy vessel during a boarding action. While under most circumstances this would have merely marked him as a skilled figure, word of these actions reached Republic command on Chandrila. Two years of relentless warfare had sapped the Republic Navy of skilled officers and soldiers alike, and Lyccane found himself unexpectedly conscripted into the war effort.
While resistant at first, Lyccane's mind was soon changed upon realising the benefit of this recruitment, and the opportunities it would provide in the wake of the conflict. Rushed through basic combat training and taught the essentials of fleet warfare, he showed promise in the vast majority of combat scenarios. While lacking the inherent familiarity of warship designs or Republic equipment, Lyccane's capacity to pick out patterns within larger formations and unconventional uses of their units granted him an edge most recruits lacked. Thanks to these qualities, he eventually found himself serving in the Chandrila Defense Fleet under the command of Hiram Drayson.
As with most recruits in the final months of the Clone Wars, Lyccane was rushed through his training. Granted basic combat understanding and tactical acumen, while he retained a basic grasp of the chain of command and discipline the Gand lacked the finer points of mechanical detail and operating within a larger standing force. This often left him relying more on personal guile or opting for unorthodox strategies to win the battles he supported. On the few occasions he did not serve as an officer under a more experienced superior, Lyccane opted to use everything but direct methods of confronting enemy forces. This mentality led to a surprisingly beneficial outcome during the Cyphar skirmishes. During a disastrous initial assault, the Republic ships were destroyed or downed while attempting to rush the linchpin world in the enemy defensive network. Gathering any survivors who could be found, Lyccane led an ad-hoc battalion of Clone Troopers and militia volunteers to repeatedly harry a much larger Confederacy force. Opting to shadow them but always maintaining a tactically superior position on the terrain, he limited the capacity for one side to attack the other. The few strikes made were to limit their capacity to maneuver or defend their few holdings on the moon, forcing the enemy Commander to draw on defensive platoons on the surrounding worlds in an effort to drive off the Republic units. Lyccane never pressed the advantage when given it, nor did he ever fully meet the enemy invasion force in battle, instead opting to slowly push them to consolidate as many units as possible on their position. This weakened Confederacy defenses throughout the system, leading to a swift series of counter-offensives by another Republic taskforce and retaking the system with relatively little bloodshed. He would later tell the defeated enemy Commander that "Lyccane wins because you didn't". Glory meant nothing to him in the face of a long-term victory.
This willingness to set aside any and all personal glory in favour of more beneficial outcomes earned Lyccane little recognition, and his smaller scale victories were constantly eclipsed by the more successful campaigns of the Jedi led armies. Typically winning singular battles rather than benefitting overall campaigns, the accomplishments he made were often attributed to another superior, while his defensive actions were rarely reported on. Lyccane himself simply believed this due to the scale of the war and the benefit of greater experience on the part of veteran officers. His respect for the few Jedi he was permitted to serve under, notably Rahm Kota, was enough for him to accept he was a small cog in a much larger machine. More than once, however, he was surprised to find that all mention of his actions were erased from public propaganda or even limited his involvement. During the final Outer Rim Sieges of the conflict, his success in bypassing and then destroying the Confederacy's heavy orbital defenses the Battle of Triton proved critical to their final victory. The fortified planet had repelled three previous invasion attempts utilising a network of long range batteries and torpedo launchers to cripple incoming ships. Yet records glorified only the accomplishments of the crews whereas he went nameless as an "enlisted officer" who opened the way for the Clone Troopers. Lyccane himself would reflect upon this in years to come, regarding it as the first sign of cultivated anti-human resentment that would blossom under the Galactic Empire.
By the time the war drew to an end, Lyccane had found himself promoted to Captain but was pushed further and further away from the frontlines. Eventually pulled back to Chandila itself, he spent the final months assisting with ship maintenance and fleet logistics until word came to pass of the Confederacy's defeat and promotional holonet broadcasts glorified the purge of the traitorous Jedi Order.
Rebellion & Galactic Civil War (18 BBY - 19 ABY)
With an end to hostilities thanks to the dissolution of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and the rise of the Galactic Empire, Lyccane found himself in a very different galaxy than the one he had joined. Rather than the victory they had been promised, the galaxy seemed to become a far darker place which emulated the very things they had been fighting against. The Chandrila Defense Fleet was effectively dissolved soon after the war, as the role of defending the planet was given to Moff Kohl Seerdon as part of the new regime. A number of crewmen were integrated into the new Imperial Navy, but Lyccane found that he and a large number of others had been mysteriously ignored. Worse still, rumours arose of mysterious deaths even among those accepted into the new order. Individuals who respected the Jedi or even questioned the new policies such as Jace Dallin were executed as examples or seemingly disappeared without a trace. Knowing that there was little he could do, Lyccane attempted to return to a life of serving aboard civilian freighters and managing cargo shipments for a moderate shipping company. Eventually, between the increasingly tyrannical methods used by planetary governors and word of a growing Rebellion being spearheaded by pro-Republic loyalists, Lyccane opted to align himself with those resisting the Empire.
Rather than wholly returning to military service, Lyccane utilised his knowledge of the hyperspace lanes to supply the fledgeling resistance movement. Initially focusing on making low-level supply runs to smaller cells, the Gand privately sought out medical supplies and surplus weapons crates from surplus sources and criminal enterprises alike, often funding them privately. Utilising a small network of drop-off and collection points, Lyccane would typically collect and then drop the supplies during his journies. As the months wore on, he slowly began to work to create further support as he was promoted within the shipping company he served. Upon being given command of his own vessel, he gradually replaced the crew with other disillusioned figures who had fought in the Clone Wars, allowing him to make larger long-range drops and even entire runs in secret to major Rebel groups. While often requiring them to completely wipe segments of the navigation logs and even disguising their losses by faking pirate attacks, they were able to readily strengthen several groups when supplies were desperately needed. While Lyccane was often forced to rely upon unsavoury means or burning through old favours to ensure he could meet with requirements, the experience gave him a much-needed perspective on logistics in guerilla warfare which would serve him well in the years to come.
While he risked being caught more than once, Lyccane was able to gradually use this to his advantage. Framing his pro-Imperial employer for his own acts, he was able to place one of his older comrades into a position to immediately succeed him upon being removed from power. This benefitted them considerably, allowing them to slowly build up a smaller fleet of loyal captains to provide essential resources to the war effort and more direct long-term support. When the company was forced to scrap a number of its GR-75 Transports, they made sure that they would fall into Rebel hands. Upon having several of its assets seized by order of the Empire, every effort was made to create blind spots and vulnerabilities for the Rebels to raid and capture facilities and ships alike. However, it was clear that these minor acts would only work for a time. Lyccane knew that one suspicious act too many would eventually draw infiltrators or more likely a direct raid by Imperial Intelligence, and began preparing to cut and run at a moment's notice. Moving as many essential assets and material as possible onto the freighters in dummy cargo containers, they began moving them as far from the Core worlds as possible on a series of long-range supply runs to various defunct contacts. When the Imperials were able to begin moving against them following unusual flight patterns which might have suggested meeting with Rebel ships, Lyccane tied them up in red tape long enough to broadcast a signal to every vessel within the company before quietly departing himself. All eighteen vessels owned by the company defected en mass, using a series of false IFF signals and sensor scramblers to rapidly disappear into the Outer Rim territories.
For all their efforts, not everything went as planned. Three were lost amid their random jumps, caught either by Imperial patrols or pirate raids and destroyed before they could escape. The survivors eventually regrouped at Polis Massa, where Lyccane announced his plan to openly defect to the Rebellion, outlining their lack of choices. Most had been open to the idea, and those who had been wavering on the act of open support were eventually swayed into agreeing with the move. Only two ships and a handful of crewmen objected to this, and instead departed for regions unknown further toward the Outer Rim. With the matter otherwise settled, Lyccane used his contacts to meet with Hiram Drayson after word of his own defection to offer their services. While the Rebellion itself needed warships, the multitude of freighters and experienced crews was nevertheless a major boon to the various fleets, allowing them to ferry more material between isolated groups and hidden bases. Under the direct control of the Support Services, Lyccane served for over a year in this capacity while occasionally lending his assistance to Ordnance and Supply in gathering Clone Wars era equipment from both sides of the conflict. Often having to make use with whatever they had on hand, Lyccane put his mind to reworking existing equipment or even vehicles to carry out the blind spots within the arsenal of several rebel cells while remaining one step ahead of Imperial Intelligence. Simply targeting and raiding disassembly yards would have led to an easy ambush, and so instead he opted to focus upon building links with groups which had suffered with the rise of the Empire. Figures too morally upstanding to tolerate the tightening iron grip of Imperial doctrines, settlements which had found themselves placed under martial law and even corporations which were under threat of liquidation to benefit the Empire's war machine were quietly approached. Many refused, either out of fear of reprisal or the inability to believe that the Rebellion might succeed, but the few who accepted conveniently lost certain shipments to Rebel attacks or mislaid essential parts.
Lyccane's ploys worked for some time, but one too many near discoveries and a lack of support from the Rebellion often put any established deal into question. Inspired by both the Mon Calamari capacity to refit their cruisers into warships, he began considering how best to rework his own GR-75 freighter, the Yastobaal, to suit these needs. Eventually salvaging the prow heavy turbolaser cannons of a Munificent-class star frigate too heavily damaged to be worth more than mere scrap, he installed them and two sets of torpedo launchers within its superstructure. Hidden beneath the freighter's sensor reflective shell and a multitude of fake cargo pods, it permitted him to operate the vessel as a q-ship to draw out Imperial privateers and provide some limited protection for wavering supporters. While this came at the cost of the Yastobaal's capacity to transport cargo and the lack of military grade shielding meant that it was an ambush predator rather than a true warship, it nevertheless proved to be an effective method of quickly silencing hostile threats attempting to raid vital supply lines provided they could get the first shot in. When word of this broke out following the successful destruction of a Guardian-class light cruiser and two escorting Imperial Customs Frigates, Chief of Ordnance and Supply Ral'Rai Muvunc motioned to return the Gand to a military role rather than to continue serving as a logician. While it was never substantiated, a long-standing rumour afterwards was that Lyccane had never requested permission to refit his vessel and Muvunc did not wish to deal with the possible fallout of his actions.
Seconded to the newly aligned Atrivis Sector Force, Lyccane was one of several figures dispatched to smooth over the transition of power now that they were an officially recognised subsidiary of the growing Rebellion. Given the rank of Captain once more, he immediately set to work analysing the group's greatest threats to its command structure and possible organisational shortcomings.
The Unsung Wars (20 ABY - 35 ABY)
The White Lotus Resistance (36 ABY)
Physical Description
Personality
Equipment
Powers and Abilities