Martio Batch
Physical description
Species	Human[1]
Gender	Male[1]
Hair color	Brown[1]
Eye color	Blue[1]
Chronological and political information
Era(s)	Rebellion era[1]
Affiliation	Galactic Empire[1]

[Source]

BiographyEdit

Martio Batch, a Human male, was an officer of the Galactic Empire who rose to prominence and became one of the twelve Grand Admirals appointed by Emperor Palpatine during an elaborate New Year's Fete Week ceremony two years before the Battle of Yavin. Unlike his fellow Grand Admirals, Batch had a distaste for Imperial court politics and made fewer public appearances, earning him the nickname "the Invisible Admiral."^[1][2]

After the loss of the Death Star at the hands of the Rebel Alliance at the Battle of Yavin,^[3] the Emperor tasked Batch with designing a fool-proof cloaking device.^[1] The Imperial loss at Yavin had enraged the Imperial hierarchy, who sought a weapon that would catch the Rebels off-guard and ensure the Empire's ultimate victory,^[3] and Palpatine considered Batch an ideal candidate to lead the secret development project due to his low profile.^[1]

Batch spent years aboard the Imdaar Alpha research station trying to develop the cloaking device. The devices had once been common, operating on stygium crystals mined from the planet Aeten II in the Dreighton Nebula. However, as the mines began to run dry, cloaking technology became increasingly rare,^[1] with the Sith Infiltrator developed shortly before 32 BBY being among the last known examples of stygium-cloaked vessels.^[4]

Using hibridium as an alternative, Batch developed an experimental cloak, but it suffered from a fatal flaw; while the cloaked ship would be invisible, the pilot would be unable to see out.^[1] Around 3 ABY, Batch abandoned the hibridium-based cloaking technology and instead attempted to recreate the successful stygium cloaking screen used in the Sith Infiltrator.^[5] Batch came upon success when he pulled rank^[2] to divert the Empire's new Tarkin superweapon, a stripped-down version of the Death Star, to Aeten II. Using the weapon's powerful superlaser, Batch shattered Aeten II, releasing millions of free-floating crystals from the planet core.^[1] This was the Tarkin's only offensive action before it was destroyed by a Rebel strike team at Patriim.^[6]

Now that he had crystals at his disposal, the Grand Admiral easily recreated the stygian screen used long ago. Under Batch's command,^[1] the Empire began fitting modified V38 assault fighters with the technology at the facility on Imdaar Alpha, with the aim of producing a fleet of the cloaked starfighters. In addition to the stygium, the fighters required a supply of oridium fuel, and the Empire established a mining facility in the Belt of Arah to extract and process the ore.^[3] To protect his investment, Batch requisitioned the Executor-class Star Dreadnaught Terror, under the command of Admiral Sarn.^[1] Both the Terror and the Imdaar Alpha facility were also fitted with the cloaking technology.^[3]

The initial prototypes^[3] of Grand Admiral Batch's new TIE Phantom starfighters^[1] were tested near Dreighton; however, some early mishaps caused delays to the project and the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader eventually arrived to oversee the final stages of the project. Under the Dark Lord's supervision, the final field tests were soon completed and Vader ordered the full scale production of the new fighters. Before long, a fleet of thousands of the TIE Phantoms stood ready at Imdaar Alpha.^[3]

"The Empire continued to implement grand schemes, including the Tarkin superweapon and the Phantom TIE project. The Tarkin, a scaled-down version of the Death Star similar in principle to the one created inside Maw Installation, was capable of shattering worlds. Grand Admiral Batch had been tasked by the Emperor with developing a working cloaking device, and he used the Tarkin to demolish the burned-out planet Aeten II--blasting loose millions of rare stygium crystals. Boasting stygium invisibility screens, Batch's "Phantom TIEs" would have proved invincible in dogfights had Rebel saboteurs not scuttled the project. Years later, one of Grand Admiral Batch's discarded cloaking designs (which suffered from the flaw of not letting its users see out) would be used during Grand Admiral Thrawn's military campaign."(NEC)

Personality and traitsEdit

Behind the scenesEdit

Martio Batch was created by Star Wars authors Kevin J. Anderson and Daniel Wallace for The Essential Chronology, released on April 4, 2000. Batch's backstory was later expanded upon by Wallace, along with fellow author Abel G. Peña, in the Star Wars Insider 66 article Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals. Further details of the Grand Admiral's backstory were featured in the New Essential Chronology, and Batch was given a small entry in the 2008 reference book, The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia.

Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals co-author Daniel Wallace has unofficially suggested that Batch's personal Star Destroyer was named Meniscus on his StarWars.com blog. The blog entry also included an equipment list for Batch, which included a blaster pistol, a comlink, his code cylinder, a datapad, and a stygium splinter.^[7]

The Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals article appearing in Insider 66 was originally slated to appear in Star Wars Gamer, though when the magazine was discontinued, it instead appeared in Insider. The original Gamer article, titled Dirty Dozen: Imperial Grand Admirals, contained more information and was longer than the version appearing in Insider.^[8]

SourcesEdit

• The Essential Chronology (First mentioned)
• "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals"—Star Wars Insider 66
• The New Essential Chronology
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• The Essential Atlas

Notes and referencesEdit

External linksEdit

•  Martio Batch in The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia (backup link on Archive.org)
• The Imperial Grand Admirals—Martio Batch
•  "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Cloaking Devices" – "Continuity, Criticisms, and Captain Panaka," Daniel Wallace's StarWars.com Blog (content now obsolete; backup link on Archive.org)
•  "Grand Admirals: What Have They Got in their Pocketsses?" – "Continuity, Criticisms, and Captain Panaka," Daniel Wallace's StarWars.com Blog (content now obsolete; backup link on Archive.org)

Category:Engineers Category:Galactic Empire science and engineering personnel Category:Grand Admirals of the Galactic Empire Category:Humans Category:Males

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