Gherant

From Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki.

Gherant was a Human male commander of the Imperial Navy during the height of the Galactic Civil War. By 3 ABY, Gherant had been hand-picked by then-Captain Firmus Piett to an assignment aboard Darth Vader's flagship, the Star Dreadnought Executor, where he was responsible for overseeing authorized access of the Super Star Destroyer's sensitive areas. During the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, Gherant served aboard the Executor's bridge under the command of the since-promoted Admiral Piett, as the fleet commander of the giant Imperial armada assembled to protect the second Death Star. Gherant died during the battle along with Piett when a wayward RZ-1 A-wing interceptor crashed into the Executor's bridge tower, destroying the Super Star Destroy shortly thereafter.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Personality and traits 3 Behind the scenes 4 Appearances 5 Sources 6 Notes and references 7 External links

[edit] Biography

Gherant was a commander of the Imperial Navy during the Galactic Civil War, serving aboard Darth Vader's flagship, the Super Star Destroyer Executor, by early 3 ABY. Prior to the Battle of Hoth, then-Captain Firmus Piett personally selected Gherant as a deck officer to Vader's command ship. Gherant was responsible for preventing unauthorized access to sensitive areas of the Executor.^[2]

Gherant's service aboard the Executor continued into 4 ABY, while Piett himself ascended to the rank of admiral in charge of Vader's flagship. During the Battle of Endor, Gherant served aboard the Executor alongside Piett as the fleet commander in charge of the massive Imperial Star Destroyer armada assembled in the Endor system to both protect the incomplete second Death Star and to ambush the imminently-arriving Alliance Fleet.^[3]

As the Imperial Fleet under Piett's command reached attack position at the beginning of the battle, Gherant was left flabbergasted by Piett's order for the Executor to refrain from engaging the Alliance Fleet. Piett explained that his orders came down from the highest authority—Emperor Palpatine himself had instructed the Executor and the remainder of the Imperial Fleet to simply hold the Rebel capital ships at bay to give the Death Star's secretly operational superlaser the opportunity pick them off one by one.^[1]

Gherant and Piett both died at the apex of the Battle of Endor when the wayward A-wing of Rebel pilot Arvel Crynyd crashed into the Executor's unprotected command tower after the warship's main bridge deflector shields had been knocked out. Although Gherant had seen the starfighter barreling out of control toward the bridge, there was little he could do to escape. With primary bridge control lost, the Executor plummeted into the Death Star's gravity well, obliterating upon impact.^[1]

[edit] Personality and traits

During the Battle of Endor, he, like many involved in the battle, was unaware of the second Death Star's secretly operational status and was therefore initially surprised to learn that the Executor would not enter the fray after reaching attack position.^[1]

[edit] Behind the scenes

Gherant first appeared in the novelization of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, just prior to the film's theatrical release. In the film he appears in two scenes aboard the Super Star Destroyer Executor's bridge as a subordinate to Admiral Firmus Piett. He was portrayed by Pip Miller in the film and credited as "Stardestroyer Captain #1."^[1]

The character was first identified by name and provided a bit of a backstory in the April 1997 Dagobah Limited expansion set of the Star Wars Customizable Card Game.^[2] It should be noted, however, that while the character is included in the Dagobah Limited set, which primarily includes characters seen in the film Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Gherant's character does not actually appear in that film.^[4] Additionally, while he is only seen in the film Return of the Jedi, there is no card devoted to the Gherant character in any of the Return of the Jedi SWCCG expansion sets.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]}

The Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi PhotoComic, which retells the film's story while featuring live-action shots and accompanying speech bubbles with lines from the film, credits the line, "Sir, we've lost our bridge deflector shield," to Gherant, rather than the bridge officer who speaks this line in the film. The PhotoComic also mistakenly credits Gherant's subsequent line, "Too late!", to Firmus Piett, though incorrectly cites the line as "It's too late!"^[12]

[edit] Appearances

• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi novelization (First appearance)
• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi junior novelization
• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi PhotoComic

[edit] Sources

• Star Wars Customizable Card Game – Dagobah Limited (Card: Commander Gherant) (First identified as Gherant)
• Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
• Star Wars: Behind the Magic
• Star Wars Customizable Card Game – Death Star II Limited (Card: Something Special Planned For Them) (Picture only)
• Star Wars: The Official Figurine Collection 48 (Imperial Admiral: Firmus Piett) (Picture only)
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• The truth about Commander Gherant