The History of the War That Shaped ‘The Phantom Menace’

When you think of the Star Wars prequels and conflict, you probably think of one of the most important interstellar campaigns of the entire saga, the Clone Wars. But in Star Wars‘ old expanded universe, only fleetingly touched upon in the rebooted continuity, a conflict preceded both the Clone Wars and the broader prequel trilogy itself that helped pave the way for the state of the Galactic Republic as we knew it coming into The Phantom Menace, one arguably that helped create the circumstances for the Clone Wars too: the Stark Hyperspace War.

First introduced in background material for the run-up to The Phantom Menace, and ultimately more fully explored in the pages of Dark Horse’s Star Wars comics, the Stark Hyperspace War has largely made its way into modern Star Wars canon through offhanded mentions in name only. But the bones of the conflict itself in the Expanded Universe set the stage for the politics at play both among the Jedi Order itself and within the Galactic Senate by the time we see them both facing existential crises by the time of The Phantom Menace.

Although the prequels and the EU alike would go on to explore the cracks running deep in the Republic that allowed Palpatine’s machinations to splinter it and forge the Galactic Empire, the Stark Hyperspace War was one of the earliest windows into the timeframe around the prequel trilogy, and with it, our first indicators of some of those cracks in the galaxy’s institutions.

The Prelude to War

Even before the war formally broke out in 44 ABY—roughly 12 years before the events of The Phantom Menace—the Galactic Republic had faced longstanding issues with increased corruption and lawlessness, especially in the Outer Rim territories. The Rusaan Reformations that had radically overhauled both the representative structure of the Republic and the military power of the Jedi Order centuries prior had both seen an increase in the political power of industrial conglomerates within the Republic, such as the Trade Federation and banking clans, as well as a diminished reach for the Republic’s judiciary branch, under which the Jedi and the minor security forces the Republic could muster served.

It was this perfect storm that ultimately led to the rise of Iaco Stark, a noted smuggler, as a major power in the Outer Rim. Building a Robin Hood-esque reputation on raids against Trade Federation transports, stealing goods to sell to communities for less than the costs enacted by the Federation, Stark successfully convinced a growing group of business allies and mercenaries to form the Stark Commercial Combine, one of the largest conglomerates of pirate activity ever formed in Republic history.

But Stark was secretly working with the Trade Federation’s leader, Hask, and another crucial business figure, Adol Bel, head of the Thyferran Xucphra Corporation, one of the only companies in the galaxy that could distribute and produce the vital medical supply, bacta. Preparing to stage a conflict between the Combine and the Trade Federation, Stark had grander dreams: to draw the Galactic Republic into a conflict that would consume it entirely.

The first phases that set the stage for the Hyperspace War saw Xucphra sabotage one of its own bacta facilities on Thyferra, rendering galactic supply incredibly scarce. The bacta crisis instantly drove up demand and prices of medical treatment, especially in the Outer Rim, as hoarding of what remaining supply was available created even more economic pressure.

Working in tandem with the Trade Federation, Stark’s Combine began staging raids on bacta supplies owned by the corporation, selling it at a profit but still below the skyrocketed demand while dramatically raising Stark’s reputation even further, not just as a shield against the Trade Federation but as a figure people could point to as a sign of the Republic’s inadequacies.

Republic Backfoot

The bacta crisis, as well as the Combine’s growing “hostility†towards the Trade Federation, suddenly made the issues in the Outer Rim a key issue in the Senate, although not necessarily out of a concern about corruption in the outer territories. Both Nute Gunray, at the time a ranking minister of the Federation and its Senate representative, rather than its outright leader (and unaware of Hask’s deal with Stark), and Senator Ranulph Tarkin, an avowed militarist advocating for changes against the Rusaan Reformation’s decrees on Republic military assets, both used the crisis to advocate for increased martial power, both privately and on a galactic scale.

They were defeated in the tide of Senate opinion, however, by then-Senator Finis Valorum, who successfully pushed the Senate to open diplomatic negotiations with the Combine. With Valorum and Gunray tasked as the Republic’s primary negotiators, alongside a task force of Jedi diplomats (who were surreptitiously tasked by the Order to investigate the true nature of the bacta shortage on Thyferra, believing industrial sabotage was in play), the Republic and the Combine agreed to meet on the world of Troiken to enter talks. However, in secret Gunray leaked the location of the peace talks to Tarkin, who had been privately accumulating his own militia from Republic member worlds’ own defense forces sympathetic to his anti-reformist beliefs.

Hoping to stage a surprise assault on the gathered Combine forces at Troiken, Tarkin believed his victory would advance the militarist cause within the Senate, and make him a prime candidate to assume the Chancellorship—while also eliminating one of his key rivals in Valorum and the Jedi’s negotiation party as a necessary cost of the conflict. But, through Hask, Stark already knew of Tarkin’s fleet, using the pretense of Gunray’s betrayal of the peace talks to immediately hold the Republic and Jedi delegation hostage upon arrival at Troiken.

Stark even managed to lace Gunray’s surreptitious messages to Tarkin’s fleet with a Navicomputer virus that destabilized Tarkin’s ships’ ability to safely navigate hyperspace, destroying many as they re-entered realspace in unsafe environments such as planetary atmospheres or within stars and black holes, and leaving the few that did make it to Troiken, Tarkin’s flagship included, vastly outnumbered by the Combine fleet.

On the ground, confused crossfire caused by Gunray ordering the Trade Federation’s own Battle Droid security forces at the peace talks led to the mortal wounding of the Jedi’s lead negotiator, the Wookiee Jedi councilmember Tyvokka, and a hasty retreat by the remaining diplomats and Jedi to Mount Avos, the former hub of a spice mine that they could use to hide and entrench themselves from Stark’s forces. Above Troiken, Tarkin ordered his remaining troops to abandon ship, positioning their escape pods to link up with the Republic forces at Avos, turning the mountain into a siege target for Stark and his armies.

The Turn of the Tide

While the Jedi and Republic forces fought to defend their position at Avos against multiple waves of Stark’s mercenaries, on Thyferra, Jedi Master Tholme and his apprentice Quinlan Vos successfully managed to uncover Stark’s connections to the Trade Federation and Xucphra’s leadership, providing the burgeoning evidence needed to move against the Combine on Coruscant.

The united forces of Tarkin’s remaining militia as well as the Jedi—especially the Jedi Knight Plo Koon, who used his telepathic abilities to learn of the Combine’s plans and prepare the Republic’s successful defense of Mount Avos—opened a window of opportunity, as Stark pivoted to a siege of the mountain range, knowing the Republic defenders barely had supplies to last for longer than 10 days.

While Jedi Master Adi Gallia managed to successfully flee through the cave system beneath Avos with Gunray and Valorum and requisition a functioning Combine transport to get the senators back to Coruscant to petition the Jedi Council and the Senate to not give in to Stark’s demands, Koon and the other Jedi (including Qui-Gon Jinn and his recently elevated padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi) lead Tarkin’s forces to rebuff multiple failed assaults on the mountain by Combine troopers, loosening Stark’s tenuous grip on the alliance.

Although the Senate refused to send military backup to Troiken and relieve the Republic delegation—arguing that the threat of Stark’s navicomputer virus infecting trade ships in the Outer Rim took precedence over aiding what they saw as an illegal private military force—the Jedi Council, threatening Gunray with the exposure of the Trade Federation’s broader complicity in the war, convinced the minister to allow them use of a Trade Federation fleet to send a Jedi strike force to Troiken instead.

The plan was in part only able to be coordinated again thanks to the psionic abilities of Plo Koon, who meditated with his fellow Jedi between Combine assaults to not just telepathically liaise with the Council on Coruscant, but to learn of Stark’s increasing loss of sway among Combine leadership with each failed siege on Avos… and convince the smuggler to accept amnesty in exchange for aiding the Jedi in bringing the war to an end.

Buying time for the arrival of the Jedi strike force, helmed by multiple masters from the Council, the remaining Jedi and Republic soldiers, Tarkin included, laid out a plan to both transmit a patch to Stark’s navicomputer virus to the Jedi fleet upon its arrival and escape through the abandoned mining caves beneath Avos, sealing the exits behind them to stop the Combine forces from pursuing them altogether. But while the Jedi successfully aided the arriving fleet above Troiken, the plan on the ground went awry, due to Tarkin’s increasing frustration that Plo Koon’s commanding presence had brought the war to a largely peaceful end instead of advancing the militarist cause.

Attempting to kill the escaping Jedi and condemn the pursuing Combine armies to death, Tarkin blew himself up with a detonator, sealing the cave system entirely while also leaving the trapped Combine armies to be devoured by local wildlife living deep within Avos’ cavernous structures. The Jedi delegation and the remaining Republic wounded survived, but Tarkin’s legacy was secured as the “hero†that ended the Stark Hyperspace War with his sacrifice.

Aftermath

Although the Stark Hyperspace War lasted for mere days, it would have lingering ramifications for the Galactic Republic throughout the remainder of its waning across the next two decades. Although the Stark Combine broke up after the war, lessons learned by the pirates that had made the militia up only increased the effectiveness of piracy within the Outer Rim, emboldened by the Senate’s unwillingness to support Tarkin’s paramilitary with judicial forces.

Republic veterans of the war—whose lingering wounds from the conflict were compounded by the bacta shortage—established the Stark Veterans Assembly to both foster support for treatment and to continue Ranulph Tarkin’s military advocacy within the Senate after his death, a sentiment that would eventually lay the groundwork for the creation of the cloned Grand Army of the Republic in secret.

For the Jedi, the death of a councilmember sent shockwaves through the Order—as had its necessary role in increased peacekeeping to bring the war to its conclusion. With Tyvokka’s seat on the council now vacant, Plo Koon was advanced to the rank of Master to fill it in light of his key role on Troiken. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Valorum’s part in the conflict elevated his standing within the Senate, leading to sweeping support for his election as Supreme Chancellor just four years later.

Gunray in turn saw his own internal standing in the Trade Federation rise, even if he’d played his part out of necessity, setting the stage for him to assume leadership of the conglomerate… putting all the pieces into place for the manipulations that, less than a decade later, would begin to see the plans for the phantom menace of a Sith takeover of the galaxy fall into place.

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