Nuso Esva

Warlord Nuso Esva was a Storm-hair male who emerged from an Unknown Regions planet alongside a group of warriors, the Chosen. After emerging, Esva built a realm in the Unknown Regions. Using a massive battle fleet, the Storm-hair launched a series of conquests across the galaxy. In 1 BBY, the Chiss Senior Captain Thrawn, Esva's nemesis and an officer of the Galactic Empire, began opposing the warlord, pushing him back. In response, the Storm-hair designed a plot to destroy the Chiss in an attempt to destroy him. With the goal of drawing Thrawn to the Outer Rim Territories Poln system, Esva had his Chosen kidnap the family of the system's Imperial governor, Bidor Ferrouz. The warlord forced Ferrouz to ally himself with the Rebel Alliance that opposed the empire Thrawn served and commanded the Chosen to murder Ferrouz, an event that would bring the warlord's Chiss nemesis to the Poln system.

Esva infiltrated the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera, assuming the pseudonym of Imperial Court dignitary "Lord Odo." The warlord brought the Chimaera to the Unknown Regions Teptixii system, where the Star Destroyer and Thrawn's Task Force Admonitor fought one of Esva's attack squadrons. The squadron fled the engagement after the Chimaera began to divide it under the Storm-hair's directive, and Esva had Thrawn's second-in-command, Captain Voss Parck, tell his superior that he was to travel to the Poln system in response to an insurrection. The senior captain, traveling aboard his freighter, the Lost Reef, followed his task force and the Chimaera to Poln. Esva sabotaged the latter vessel's engines and set the warship on a collision course with a nearby Golan I space station. He summoned his Eastern Fleet and commanded it to destroy any ship that attempted to assist the Chimaera.

However, Thrawn moved the Chimaera away from its collision course with his freighter's tractor beam. The Chiss summoned the Imperial Death Squadron fleet, which shattered Esva's forces. Esva fled the battle aboard his freighter, the Salaban's Hope. By 8 ABY, Esva's conquests had been brought to an end by Thrawn's Empire of the Hand forces from Wild Space. The Storm-hair was hiding on the Unknown Regions planet Quethold, allying himself with the world's ruler, the Quesoth Queen of the Red. After Thrawn sent his forces to Quethold in an attempt to destroy Esva, the warlord's troops—including Quesoth Soldiers and thirty Chosen warriors—attempted to commandeer the Imperial vehicles that brought the Imperial forces to Quethold. During the ensuing battle, Thrawn manipulated a speaker that transmitted the Queen of the Red's orders to the Quesoth forces and commanded the Soldiers to rush at Esva. The warlord feared that the Quesoth monarch was a traitor, killing her, and prompting her troops to kill him in retaliation.

Biography

Emergence

Warlord Nuso Esva was a Storm-hair male who emerged from an unidentified planet in the Unknown Regions alongside his Storm-hair warriors, the Chosen.^[2] Using a massive battle fleet consisting of three fleets of equal strength, one of which was the Eastern Fleet, and the Chosen, Esva conquered several planets in the Unknown Regions and Wild Space, which formed the warlord's realm.^[3] In 1 BBY,^[4] the Storm-hair warlord began to fight the Chiss Senior Captain^[3] Mitth'raw'nuruodo, core name "Thrawn,"^[5] who served the Galactic Empire. The senior captain sent several communiqués and treaties to the warlord that suggested an alliance and a bargain; however, the latter turned them down, forcing Thrawn to oppose Esva. The senior captain's forces were unable to defeat the Storm-hair's forces, and the Chiss asked Emperor Palpatine to give him six Star Destroyers that would allow him to deal a crushing blow to Esva; however, the emperor refused.^[3]

The choices of one

Promises of glory

Under Esva's directive, the Chosen traveled to the Imperial Candoras sector's Poln system—consisting of the planets Poln Major and Poln Minor. There, they kidnapped the family of the sector's Imperial governor, Bidor Ferrouz, and gave him a note written by Esva. The note commanded Ferrouz to offer a base and supplies to the Rebel Alliance that opposed Palpatine's Empire in an attempt to draw an Imperial presence and Thrawn to the Poln system. The Storm-hair also made a promise to the Rebel Vestin Axlon: he promised that when his forces destroyed the Empire, avenging Axlon's homeworld, Alderaan, which the Empire had destroyed, Esva's battle fleet would join the Alliance and assist them in their war against the Empire. Axlon believed Esva's promise to be genuine, and he helped the Chosen in their efforts on Poln Major.^[3]

Esva's agents kidnapped the family of a Human known as "Sorro" and forced the Human to serve as Esva's pilot aboard the warlord's Kazellis-class light freighter Salaban's Hope to redeem his family. The light freighter rendezvoused with the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Chimaera, whose captain, Calo Drusan had verified Esva's credentials after the warlord promised him a victory over the Rebellion that would make Drusan an admiral. Once the Kazellis freighter dropped out of hyperspace near the Chimaera, six starships of Esva's realm attacked the Salaban's Hope. Esva, who assumed the pseudonym of Imperial Court dignitary "Lord Odo," instructed Drusan to pull the two endmost attackers toward the Chimaera with the Star Destroyer's tractor beams and destroy them. While Drusan did as the warlord instructed, the Salaban's Hope helped destroy the other marauders. After two of the attackers fled and the rest were destroyed by Esva and the Imperial vessel, the warlord's freighter was brought aboard the Chimaera. To conceal his alien identity, Esva donned a mask and clothing before leaving the Salaban's Hope. The Star Destroyer's third bridge officer, Commander Gilad Pellaeon, greeted the warlord before the Storm-hair was brought to his new quarters.^[3]

Shortly afterward, Esva requested new quarters closer to the Chimaera's bridge from which he could monitor the warship's every system. While Sorro had lunch, Pellaeon attempted to interrogate him but was stopped by Esva. The warlord requested Pellaeon's help to move his belongings to his new quarters. While on their way to the Storm-hair's new residence, the warlord told the commander that Sorro had made the wrong choices and lost his family in the process; he explained that that was the reason for the pilot's deep sadness, citing an excerpt of the Song of Salaban, an Arkanian legend. After the Chimaera's crew prepared his quarters, Esva made a brief visit to an unknown world where he and his commanders planned Thrawn's destruction. He also visited the^[3] Inner Rim^[6] planet Wroona, where he acquired thermal detonators and cylindrical equipment that he planned to use to sabotage the Chimaera. After returning to the Star Destroyer, the Storm-hair brought his equipment to his quarters.^[3]

Storm-hair versus Storm-hair

After arriving on the bridge, Esva instructed Drusan to travel to the Unknown Regions, where the Chimaera would attack one of the Storm-hair warlord's attack squadrons. The Star Destroyer then arrived in the middle of a battle in the^[3] Teptixii system,^[7] between Esva's attack squadron and Thrawn's Task Force Admonitor, whose flagship was the Star Destroyer Admonitor. Esva instructed Drusan and Pellaeon to divide his attack squadron's Firekiln warships and their escorts by moving the Chimaera behind the squadron's formation, which would prompt its components to flee. As the Storm-hair force was attempting to capture Task Force Admonitor's two Strike-class medium cruisers and four Carrack-class light cruisers, Esva ordered Drusan to angle his Star Destroyer thirty degrees to portside and begin dividing the attack squadron, which then fled.^[3]

After his forces' retreat, Esva told Captain Voss Parck, Thrawn's second-in-command, that Thrawn was to travel to the Poln system as a response to a possible insurrection; however, the captain had received no communications regarding the insurrection and refused. Soon after, however, the Admonitor received a message from Imperial General Kauf Ularno of the Poln system invoking Directive Four-Seventeen, requesting all nearby forces of the Galactic Empire to assist the system after the Chosen attempted to murder Ferrouz. Ularno broadcast a message that established that Rebel involvement in the assassination attempt was suspected as suggested by Emperor's Hand Mara Jade, who knew that if no broadcast was made, Esva would be suspicious. Task Force Admonitor and the Chimaera then left for Poln.^[3]

Ballet and broken promises

Following Thrawn's task force and the Chimaera's arrival over Poln Major, Esva and Sorro organized a Mon Calamari ballet performance with a dozen MSE-9 droids in the Star Destroyer's main engine room. Pellaeon arrived while searching for Esva and demanded an explanation, which the Storm-hair provided. According to Esva, his Troukree spies, who were actually Thrawn's agents and not Esva's, had infiltrated the Chimaera. The warlord claimed the ballet and an Arakyd Mark Two seeker droid he hid in his clothing were locating the Troukree.^[3]

In reality, the seeker was just one of several droids traveling through the Chimaera's ventilation systems en route to the engine room. Pellaeon apologized for the interruption and left. With the seekers and his thermal detonators, Esva prepared to destroy the Chimaera's engines. Shortly after, on the bridge, Drusan told Pellaeon to find Esva, who was not present as expected. However, the commander was unable to locate the warlord. Esva killed Drusan while his Eastern Fleet arrived in the Poln system and prepared to destroy the Admonitor and the Chimaera, moving to prevent any ship from assisting the latter Star Destroyer. The Storm-hair then destroyed the engines of both ships.^[3]

Esva attempted to incapacitate the Chimaera's crew by spreading the nonfatal vertigon gas through the ventilation systems. He set the Chimaera on a collision course with a nearby Golan I space station and destroyed the Star Destroyer's helm station, preventing the vessel from moving. When Pellaeon arrived on the bridge, he learned of Esva's promise to Drusan from the dying captain and learned the warlord's true identity from Thrawn, who spoke with the commander over comm.^[3]

A fiery collision

Sorro, who was wearing Esva's mask and clothing, rushed at Pellaeon on the bridge and was subsequently killed. Following this, Commander Thrawn and Esva engaged in a conversation via comm regarding the latter's sabotage of the Chimaera after the warlord left the Star Destroyer aboard his Kazellis freighter. The Storm-hair mocked Sorro and presented Thrawn with a difficult choice that would ruin his reputation and result in his destruction: the Chimaera was on a collision course with the Golan, and the Star Destroyer was unable to move. Task Force Admonitor was trapped with Poln Minor's gravity well, and the Firekilns of the Eastern Fleet were prepared to destroy any ship that attempted to assist the Chimaera. If Thrawn failed to choose between the Star Destroyer or the defense platform, both war machines and all aboard would die in a "fiery collision." However, if he chose the Chimaera, the Golan would be destroyed, damaging the Chiss's reputation.^[3]

The warlord was confident that Thrawn had been defeated; however, the senior captain's DeepWater-class light freighter Lost Reef used its tractor beams to move the Chimaera away from the Golan. Shortly after, a force of Whisperlike fighters—which had been armed with Caldorf VII interceptor missiles by Chosen commander Ranquiv on Poln Minor—attempted to destroy the Admonitor, but the fighters were destroyed by the Golan. As Esva boasted and explained in detail how he would destroy the Poln system, Thrawn focused on amplifying his transmission with the warlord, which reached the Quesoth^[3] homeworld of Quethold and the Stromma homeworld of Oristrom,^[2] both of which were located in the Unknown Regions and both of which housed two of the Storm-hair's allies.^[3]

Esva vowed to destroy the Poln system with his Firekilns, but the Chiss suggested that the system's inhabitants could become his allies. The Storm-hair dismissed the suggestion, revealing that his only allies were the Chosen and that everyone else was merely a tool. Esva then announced that his fleet was in position and that his nemesis's time was ended. Thrawn responded by summoning Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader's Death Squadron fleet, including the Super Star Destroyer Executor and several Imperial Star Destroyers. Aboard the Lost Reef, the freighter's pilot, Jorj Car'das, told Thrawn that he could destroy Esva's Kazellis and kill the warlord; however, the senior captain commanded him to focus on the main battle. Esva was caught off guard by Thrawn's reinforcements, which the warlord had not prepared for, and his Eastern Fleet was defeated by the Imperial forces while Esva fled aboard the Salaban's Hope.^[3]

Lost glory

A queen's rise; a warlord's fall

After his campaign against Thrawn, Esva launched his Braccio campaign, which nearly destroyed six species.^[2] On Oristrom, the warlord's forces fought the Stromma, who had the upper hand in the battle until Esva assumed personal command of his forces. However, Thrawn, who had become a Grand Admiral, arrived and forced the Storm-hair's forces to retreat.^[2] Eight years later, in 8 ABY,^[1] the Grand Admiral forced Esva—whose battle fleet the Empire of the Hand reduced to remnants—and thirty of his most loyal Chosen warriors to retreat to Quethold.^[2]

The warlord formed an alliance with the Quesoth ruler, the Queen of the Red. He promised that if they captured Empire of the Hand juggernaut vehicles, he would siege Quethold's White City and assassinate the city's Queen of the White. Killing the latter queen would make the Queen of the Red's reign eternal. Esva's siege of the White City would give him access to the shipyards beneath the settlement, where he planned to build a new fleet of fighter aircraft to fight his enemies. The Queen of the Red granted the warlord and his warriors quarters in the Dwelling of Guests, a building in her Red City.^[2]

A month after his arrival on Quethold, in the Dwelling of Guests, Esva and his Quesoth ally discussed the destruction of Thrawn and his Admonitor, which was blockading Quethold after learning that the warlord was hiding on the planet. Aboard the Admonitor, Stromma Council Liaison Nyama, the Queen of the Red's servant and confidant, met with Thrawn and his top commanders. The Grand Admiral sought to study the artwork Esva had brought to Quethold and tasked Nyama with planting a holocamera on a member of the Red monarch's entourage. Unbeknownst to the Chiss, Esva had prepared for this, bringing paintings that would lead Thrawn to reach the wrong conclusions about the warlord's strategy to his quarters. The Queen of the Red's bowlcarrier Trevik, who carried a bowl of nectar for the ruler of the Quesoth, recorded Esva's art and Nyama shared the recordings with Thrawn, actions Esva predicted.^[2]

Knowing that Thrawn was going to attack the Red City, Esva had his Chosen set up defensive cannons and protected them and the Red Ciity with umbrella shields. Under the warlord's directive, the Queen of the Red arrayed her Quesoth Soldiers at the western edge of the Red City's Setting Sun Avenue, from which Thrawn decided to launch his attack based on his study of Esva's paintings. She also hid thousands of Soldiers in her city's homes, preparing an ambush on the Imperial forces. Once the Empire of the Hand's forces, which consisted of heavy juggernaut tanks, transports, and a squadron of stormtroopers were deployed, and a group of TIE fighters flew over the Red City, the Chosen's cannons fired at the newcomers at Esva's command. Meanwhile, the Chosen and the Quesoth attempted to commandeer the juggernauts.^[2]

A bitter last stand

Esva's forces soon discovered that the tanks carried no weaponry, rendering them useless to the warlord. While the Storm-hair commanded the Quesoth troops to travel to the Imperial transports and seize them instead, the TIEs destroyed most of the speakers that transmitted the Queen of the Red's commands to her Soldiers, sparing one. The speakers' destruction prevented the Soldiers from moving to the transports, and Esva ordered the Red monarch to travel to the juggernauts and give her troops their new target. However, the queen refused to comply.^[2]

The last speaker was commandeered by the Imperials, who used it to command the Soldiers to surround and protect Esva. As the Quesoth troops rushed at Esva, the warlord asked his Quesoth ally what she had told them to do, fearing she was a traitor. The queen claimed that she had not given any orders.^[2]

In response, Esva shot the Queen of the Red and most of her entourage with a weapon, sparing Trevik. By killing the Quesoth ruler, Esva had sealed his fate as the Soldiers would avenge their queen by killing the Storm-hair. Knowing that his death was imminent, Esva tasked Trevik with telling Thrawn that no matter where he hid, the CHosen would find and kill him. After Trevik left to fulfill his mission, Esva was killed by the Quesoth, and the Imperial forces killed his Chosen. After the battle, Thrawn's Admonitor traveled to the Chaos Triangle, where it would clean up what the Chiss referred to as Esva's "legacy."^[2]

Personality and traits

A military mind

As a Storm-hair, Esva had hair the color of a black storm cloud, shimmering, multicolored skin,^[3] and two multifaceted yellow eyes.^[2] As the Storm-hair cited a line from the Song of Salaban to Pellaeon, the commander believed Esva was an Arkanian as the warlord's height and mass were within the Arkanian species' range. The Storm-hair's voice was melodious. While operating under the pseudonym of Lord Odo, Warlord Esva was calm, considered competent by Pellaeon, and helpful aboard the Chimaera, offering tactical insight to Drusan and Parck during the engagement at Teptixii.^[3]

The warlord was stubborn and did not consider anyone but the Chosen his allies, treating those he used in his conquests as tools that merely did his bidding. If the warlord considered those tools useless or broken, Esva would force them to be useful. The Queen of the Red saw the warlord as an equal, not demanding a death-pledge from the Storm-hair as mandated by Quesoth custom. Esva believed that a true queen did not sit back and accept the way of the world, instead believing that a true queen "grasped the world by the throat and squeezed her destiny from it." Before Esva murdered the Quesoth ruler, the Queen of the Red commented that Esva sought to capture the Imperial transports and use them to flee Quethold, a comment that the warlord considered "foolish prattle." As the battle on Quethold came to a close, Esva grew furious and his voice was barely within the limits of civility while he spoke with the Queen of the Red.^[2]

One goal: victory

To accomplish his goals, Esva kidnapped children, suborned Imperial officials, and threatened to shatter planets. His methods prompted the Hand of Judgment, a group of five Imperial stormtrooper deserters that helped the Empire free Ferrouz's family, to join Thrawn's Empire of the Hand and help turn his Troukree agents into Imperial stormtroopers so that they could use their maximum potential in their battles against Esva.^[3]

The Troukree agent Vaantaar saw that Esva sent a "dark challenge" before his attacks, and did not wish to see the warlord's legacy of destruction,^[3] which he created after he was forced to retreat. Esva conquered more than twenty species that suffered under his reign of "terror." The Chosen were loyal to the warlord—who was also loyal to his warriors—fighting with fanatical zeal for the warlord and following the Storm-hair's scorched-ground policy, destroying everything they could not take with them when Thrawn forced them to retreat. Esva was determined to kill Grand Admiral Thrawn, presenting himself with determination and bitter melancholy moments before his demise.^[2]

Equipment

While posing as Odo, Nuso Esva wore a metallic mask, a burgundy hooded robe, black gloves, and black boots^[3] Before fleeing to the Quesoth homeworld,^[2] Esva commanded three fleets as powerful as the Eastern Fleet.^[3] During the battle on Quethold, Esva carried a sheath that contained a weapon, which he used to kill the Queen of the Red. He pointed that weapon at Trevik when he tasked the bowlcarrier with taking a message to Thrawn. Esva spoke his language into a communications device during the attack on the Red City.^[2]

Skills and abilities

Rebel General Carlist Rieekan feared Esva because the warlord could replace the Empire with an empire of his own. Axlon considered Esva a military genius. Pellaeon believed that Esva was a competent member of the Imperial Court while the warlord operated under the pseudonym of Lord Odo. Esva spoke the Basic language^[3] in addition to his own. Esva did not understand the Quesoth Soldier Speak language.^[2]

Behind the scenes

Warlord Nuso Esva first appeared in Choices of One, a novel written by Timothy Zahn^[3] and published on July 19, 2011. He was first mentioned in an excerpt of Choices of One published in the same year's June 7.^[9]

In a September 28, 2011, Facebook chat, the author confirmed that Esva's name was a coded version of Moriarty,^[8] a character from Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.^[10] If each consonant of "Nuso Esva" is replaced with the consonant before it in the Latin alphabet and each vowel is replaced with the preceding vowel in the Latin alphabet, counting y, "Nuso Esva" becomes "Moriarty."^[8]

In a February 27, 2022 interview with the Fandom Spotlite site, Zahn stated that Choices of One and Crisis of Faith would not fit into the current Star Wars canon and that Esva was "adequately defeated" when asked if he had planned to write more stories about him.^[11]

Appearances

• Choices of One (First appearance)
• "Crisis of Faith" — Heir to the Empire: The 20th Anniversary Edition

Sources

• Choices of One Excerpt on StarWars.com (original site is defunct) (First mentioned)
• The Essential Reader's Companion
• Who Is Thrawn? on StarWars.com (original link is obsolete)

Notes and references

External links

• Timothy Zahn On THRAWN & ELI VANTO - Farpoint 2022 Interview on the Fandom Spotlite YouTube channel (February 27, 2022) (backup link)