Moff

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"The Regional Governors now have direct control over their territories."

―Wilhuff Tarkin^[1]

Moff, also known as Sector Moff,^[2] was a political rank held by the Sector Governors in the First Galactic Empire and Imperial Remnant.

It predated the Galactic Empire, having been used by both the Galactic Republic in its earliest and last days as well as the Sith Empire following the Great Hyperspace War. Following the Galactic Empire's rebirth as the Fel Empire and later Darth Krayt's Sith Empire, the title was also worn by the topmost officials of institutions such as the Navy, Army and Intelligence.

History

Origins

The term "Moff" came from the early days of the Republic's expansion. Warlords who allied with the Republic instead of fighting it were awarded the term Moff or Grand Moff of an Allied Region. Across thousands of years, nearly all of those territories were subdivided into Republic sectors and gradually vanished. The few surviving Moffs and Grand Moffs retained their titles solely as ceremonial honors.^[3]

Odile Vaiken is honored as the first Grand Moff of the Sith Empire.

The Sith Empire following the Great Hyperspace War instated Grand Moff as an honorary title awarded in recognition of great contribution to the Empire. Odile Vaiken, who played a key role in establishing the Imperial Military, was the first officer to have received the title of Grand Moff from the Empire.^[4] Others of the Empire who held this rank are Grand Moff Zellos^[5] and Rycus Kilran.^[6] In 1000 BBY^[7], The Ruusan Reformations eventually eradicated the final traces of the role of Moff entirely. In its stead, the reformations replaced it with a Governor-General system, allowing the Chancellor to appoint a Governor-General during emergencies to coordinate military operations with the sector's senator.^[3]

Re-establishment

Chancellor Palpatine repeatedly invoked this once-obscure law during the Clone Wars, claiming the Reflex Amendment turned it from a right into an obligation.^[3] During the final days of the Clone Wars^[7] Emperor Palpatine issued the Sector Governance Decree^[7], which installed a permanent class of governors across the regional sectors.^[3] It established the Governor-General military system as universal and permanent.^[3] Honoring the minor empires that birthed the Republic, these governors carried the title of Moff. Palpatine's Decree assigned twenty of the new Moffs to support the Republic's twenty Sector Armies. Their military regions, termed oversectors, corresponded to their armies' operational zones, spanning multiple regional sectors and reducing the need for ongoing coordination with Senators.^[7]

The decree thus laid the groundwork for Palpatine's eventual rise to Imperial rule, who he portrayed as a revival of the magnificence and prestige of ancient monarchies like the Kitel Phard Dynasty.^[8] It also sparked the Petition of 2000 and helped precipitate the revolution that ultimately overthrew the Empire.^[7]^[9]

In the Galactic Empire

Following the Separatists' defeat, one of the Moffs, Wilhuff Tarkin of Eriadu, proposed reorganizing the oversectors to support the Empire's militarization efforts. Some remained unchanged, including the Imperial Center Oversector, designated Sector One due to its traditional priority in military briefings. Others sectors were enlarged, the Greater Seswenna sector, for example, became Oversector Outer.^[3]

Additional oversectors were disbanded and replaced by a changing number of new ones made up of systems prone to rebellion.^[3] This proposal became the foundation of the Tarkin Doctrine, which consolidated central authority by grouping dozens or even hundreds of traditional sectors into massive Oversectors, further eroding Old Republic institutions.^[10]

By the time the Senate was dissolved in 0 BBY, Moffs had been assigned to most of the thousand historic sectors of known space, tightening the Empire's grip on the galaxy. However, a number of further modifications had been made to the system, most notably the creation of a cadre of higher-ranking Grand Moffs, governors-general of a new class of Priority Sectors, also known as Oversectors. Proposed by Moff Wilhuff Tarkin of Seswenna sector, these were areas of the galaxy in which Rebel activity and unrest were proving more than the local Moff could handle, and within which the apparatus of control was strengthened by the diversion of vastly increased military, paramilitary and judicial resources. The best-known Priority Sectors were vast reaches of space, rather similar to the large sectors of early Imperial Moffs, in which a number of existing sectors with their local Moffs were now subordinated to a new Oversector command: Imperial Center Oversector incorporated most of the Core, while Tarkin's own Oversector Outer essentially incorporated the whole of the former Outland Regions, and the Bright Jewel Oversector embraced another vast tract of the Outer Rim Territories.

However, not all Oversectors were created in this way. Sometimes, a Moff was simply promoted to Grand Moff and given additional resources to deal with the threats within his existing sector, and sometimes, a rash of troublesome areas across several adjacent sectors were removed from their Moffs' control and grouped in a new Priority Sector under a new Grand Moff. Occasionally, a single existing sector might be converted into an Oversector and subdivided into new sectors, as with the planned transformation of the Tapani sector that was interrupted by the Battle of Endor.

As well as the stratification introduced by the creation of Grand Moffs, further complexity was added to the organization of regional governors by the appointment of Moffs to control areas smaller than the historic sectors of the Old Republic; fortress worlds like Prakith had their own Moffs, and on Imperial Center, even ministries of the planetary administration were incorporated as sectors in their own right, such as Planetary Security, commanded by Moff Kadir.

Following the Battle of Endor, few individual Moffs or Grand Moffs were sufficiently powerful to serve as major players in the civil war for control of the Empire. Control of the single most powerful Sector Fleet, that of the Quelii Oversector, was seized by its Navy commander, Admiral Zsinj. Meanwhile, Tarkin's successor, Grand Moff Ardus Kaine, held aloof from the conflict and concentrated on securing his control of his stronghold territory on the Outer Rim. The first major move by the Moffs was the belated formation of a coalition of Priority Sector governors led by Grand Moff Hissa, calling themselves the Central Committee of Grand Moffs; while they controlled the combined might of several Oversectors, they were conscious that to successfully win over other areas of the Empire, they required leadership and legitimacy outside of their own ranks.

Nevertheless, as the power of the central authorities diminished, the Moffs did gradually assume more prominence and more capacity for collective action. Late in 8 ABY, a number of Moffs joined the remnants of the Imperial Ruling Council in endorsing Grand Admiral Thrawn as the new commander-in-chief of the Starfleet, and in 10 ABY, the Moffs and Grand Moffs collectively demanded the right to join the Ruling Council in electing a new Emperor. By 12 ABY, following the final implosion of what remained of the Ruling Council, a Council of Moffs had emerged as the primary executive power in what remained of the Empire.

Remnant and reorganization

, who seized her husband's sector after the , and briefly ruled as Moff — Leonia Tavira, who seized her husband's sector after the Battle of Endor, and briefly ruled as Moff

Against this background, a number of individual Moffs declared their independence, beginning soon after Endor with events like the secession of Grand Moff Kaine, and Leonia Tavira's seizure of her husband's powers on Eiattu 6. Some were simply cut off from potential allies by Rebel advances, while some no doubt saw themselves as heroic saviors of their beloved subjects amid a general collapse of galactic civilization. Others were loyal Imperials unwilling to become embroiled in the running conflict between the senior commanders and courtiers who claimed to lead the New Order, and in counterpoint, the Admirals and Advisors competing for control of the Empire were themselves unwilling to alienate the Moffs—or reveal the weak foundations of their own authority—by asking too much of them. Nevertheless, personal ambition undeniably played a part in the fragmentation of the Empire. Men like governor Foga Brill on Prakith in the Deep Core and Moff Tol Getelles of Antemeridian sector on the Outer Rim were not be able to conquer the galaxy, but they remained entrenched for many years behind the guns of Sector Fleets and the defenses of fortress worlds, as the lords of local despots. While most of these men maintained the fiction that they were merely local viceroys of a nebulous Imperial regime, and some even attempted to keep their sectors ignorant of the general collapse of the New Order, many indulged in displays of shameless self-aggrandizement, adopting grandiloquent new titles such as High Moff, and most probably saw that in practice, their power depended on rewarding their beholden followers: Getelles, for instance, promoted his loyal Sector Fleet commander to Grand Admiral, while Foga Brill consolidated his grip on Prakith by building a new system of patronage, clientage and control from the ruins of his planet's economy.

Over the years after Endor, the number of Moffs steadily declined, as the Empire was reduced by New Republic advances and driven by internal conflicts. At the time of Endor, there were significantly more than a thousand Moffs, but barely three or four hundred remained five years later, and in spite of brief periods of resurgence, by 19 ABY the area of territory in what remained of unified Imperial Space was reduced to a mere eight sectors, while the last of the rogue Moffs were being steadily conquered and deposed by the New Republic.

In this situation, Admiral Gilad Pellaeon persuaded the remaining Moffs that the survival of the New Order in the fragment of territory that remained to them was best secured by peace with the now-dominant Rebels, and subsequently, the eight remaining Moffs, along with the Supreme Commander, became the leaders of the Imperial Remnant. By now, the Moffs were the Empire; the central authorities and the paramilitary apparatus of COMPNOR and Imperial Intelligence had essentially disappeared, leaving only a strategic military command charged primarily with frontier defense; what remained of the Galactic Empire was thus a federation of autonomous sectors, in which the Moffs controlled their own star systems with minimal outside interference, and such a situation was obviously highly amenable to the Moffs themselves.

In spite of devastating attacks on Bastion and Muunilinst, the Moffs of the Remnant survived the Yuuzhan Vong War with their power largely intact, and the Imperial military played a significant role in the eventual defeat of the invaders. In the last phases of the war and the first years of the peace, the Moffs laid claim to many of the "liberated" star systems in former New Republic space.

Grand Moff Morlish Veed and Moff Fehlaaur'aitel'loro

Apart from these hints at the expansion of their territory, there is little available evidence to show how the Moffs were affected by the attempts to integrate Imperial Space into the new Galactic Alliance. At some point after 40 ABY, however a new Galactic Emperor was appointed, and under the Fel dynasty, the Moffs retained their role as the leaders of a resurgent and independent Empire—a position they retained at the time of the Sith–Imperial War in 127-130 ABY.

By this time, however, it appeared that the title of Moff had become at least partially separated from the office of regional governor, and if the leading Moffs of this era controlled any sort of "sectors," these seemed to have been major components of the Imperial state, rather than territorial provinces. The High Moff was the Grand Admiral in charge of the military, and the Council also included the Director of Imperial Intelligence and the heads of the Imperial Mission, Imperial Navy, Imperial Army and the Imperial Diplomatic Corps. These six formed a quorum of the Council—indeed, the six may have been the entire complement of the Moff Council at this time. All in all, the situation may have been closest to that which prevailed in the years immediately after the Clone Wars, when a handful of Moffs had controlled vast sectors.

One of the Moffs at this time, Fehlaaur'aitel'loro, was an alien, albeit a near-Human Chiss, a member of one of the species most closely associated with the New Order over the decades.

Role and powers

Under the Sector Governance Decree, each Moff was armed with little more than a broad mandate to monitor sector government, and a force of stormtroopers that was sufficient to secure their residence, maintain control in the surrounding streets, and provide protection to a few administrative personnel on detached duty. This was enough to provoke the Petition of Two Thousand and precipitate the revolution that overthrew the Old Republic.

, the most powerful Moff in what remained of until his imprisonment in — Vilim Disra, the most powerful Moff in what remained of Imperial Space until his imprisonment in 19 ABY

By the time the renamed Imperial Senate was swept away nineteen years later, the machinery of power that the Moffs directed had increased almost beyond recognition. Within the civil chain of command, they became the formal superiors of all Planetary Governors, while the paramilitary apparatus of COMPNOR and the intelligence networks amalgamated as Imperial Intelligence were both supposed to be channeled through the Moff's office at sector level. Most imposingly of all, they held authority over the immense military resources of a Sector Fleet or Sector Group within the Imperial Navy, as well as a Sector army in some cases (the latter due to the political complications of sector administration):^[2] as regional governor, every Moff had ultimate authority over the deployment of all military forces within his sector, but the additional naval and military dignities of High Admiral and Surface Marshal of the sector were normally also held by the Moff, and only rarely delegated to subordinates.

According to sources produced by the Rebel Alliance, the Navy forces in a typical sector included twenty-four Star Destroyers, 1,600 other warships, and 800 support ships, while the field forces of a typical Sector Army numbered 774,576 front-line troops, and a little over 400,000 support personnel, to say nothing of the dozens or hundreds of planetary garrisons—usually small stormtrooper brigades commanded by Major Generals. However, in many sectors, the actual deployments were much smaller: in Minos Cluster, the Sector Group comprised a single aging Victory-class Star Destroyer and a few small capital ships, while in the Tapani sector, on the eve of its planned transformation into an Oversector, the primary Army presence consisted of a single Battlegroup based at the Tallaan shipyards. Nevertheless, in terms of both manpower and firepower, the strength of the Imperial Service was unprecedented across the galaxy; it was a rare Moff who found himself outnumbered or outgunned by any organized enemy force that he might face.

Moff , a typical regional governor at the height of the — Moff Balfour, a typical regional governor at the height of the New Order

In reality, there were little more than vague ideals about what a Moff was expected to do with so many resources: they were expected to maintain order, prevent corruption, enforce the law, and not otherwise interfere with the operation of the local bureaucracy or sector government. The most important enhancement of their powers likely came through the removal of the Senate and the associated administrative bureaucracy, eliminating many of the procedural channels and public political platforms that had once been the means of challenging or circumventing their authority.

The vagueness of their defined powers led to infringements of civil liberty and tyranny; Moffs may have, in the name of restoring order, had their soldiers fire on a peaceful demonstration, or bombard a planet into submission for purely political defiance.

By 130 ABY, the role of the Moffs evolved. The title was held by the governors of Imperial sectors, such as Nieve Gromia of the Arkanis sector, as well as the heads of Imperial institutions such as the Navy, Army, Intelligence, Diplomatic Corps and Mission.

Insignia

Moff aboard the second — Moff Jerjerrod aboard the second Death Star

The first Moffs, appointed in 19 BBY, wore Imperial military uniforms with four code cylinders, and rank badges carrying five blue tabs above a varying combination of red and two gold: Wilhuff Tarkin had three red and two gold pips, while Marcellin Wessel wore one red and four gold. Later Moffs usually retained four code cylinders, but various Moffs had a variety of different patterns of pips on their badges. Although the uniform and insignia of Moffs varied, Grand Moffs typically wore six red squares above three blue and three gold, while others wore six red squares over six blue, similar to an Admiral.

Moffs could also wear civilian robes, as they did for meetings of the Moff Council. Ephin Sarreti, Moff of Braxant Sector after the Bastion Accords, wore a uniform without military insignia to stress the fact that his office as regional governor was fundamentally a civilian one.

By 130 ABY, Moffs typically wore the modified version of the Imperial uniform then in use, with a rank plaque placed centrally beneath the Imperial insignia at the throat of the tunic, and additional rows of tabs on either side of the collar. Konrad Rus, head of the Imperial Mission, wore a distinctive white uniform with gold wings.

Behind the scenes

The first edition of Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope includes a reference to a theoretical "Supreme Moff" position that the author believes Tarkin would have received had he not perished at the Battle of Yavin, though this section was dropped from The Movie Trilogy Sourcebook and the Galaxy Guide's second edition.