30 BBY
• Gordon is born on the Holt family estate in the Sirpar Hills of Anaxes. Both the Holt nobility and the planet ("defender of the Core") are synonymous with naval service, a tradition into which Gordon was raised. Throughout his youth, he would often fight for distinction amid his competitive siblings and manifest his frustration through intimidation of his peers. 22 BBY
• The Clone Wars begin at Geonosis. "It was a time of uncertainty," Holt would later recall. "Whole planets were being destroyed for the first time in thousands of years, and there was this constant dread that we [Anaxes] would be next. It seemed to us that the Senate was unwilling (not unable, but unwilling) to act decisively to end the carnage. There is no episode in history more horrid, and more illustrative of the peril of timidity and bureaucracy than the Clone Wars."
20 BBY
• The furious Battle of Anaxes is waged over Holt's homeworld, a traumatic and formative experience for him. He would hereafter regard Captain Jan Dodonna as a boyhood hero, for his role in defending Anaxes from the Confederate assault (until Dodonna's eventual defection to the Alliance several years later, which Holt condemned as treasonous).
19 BBY
• The end of the Clone Wars, dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Declaration of a New Order (the founding of the Galactic Empire). Holt would recall the day many years later; "There was much pomp and jubilation for hours on end, and fireworks over the Citadel such that we'd never seen before. I remember vividly my uncles sporting their proud uniforms and regalia, drinking to the new era. It was exciting; we had won the war and the peace, at long last. Of course, that meant the peace was now ours to lose, but we didn't think about that. Not in those few, glorious weeks. On that night, we rejoiced in the promise of a New Order, the promise of a freedom from tumult."
18 BBY
• Holt joins COMPNOR at the age of twelve, and is purportedly an avid reader of Iron Will.
12 BBY
• Holt enlists in the prestigious Corulag Academy on his eighteenth birthday. He would often surprise his instructors, both for his knowledge ofnaval history and strategy, and for his zealous advocacy of "peace through strength" (a doctrine in which, according to Holt, the murder of civilians is morally permissible for the preservation of order). He would later write his thesis on this subject, in which he praised the controversial Battle of Renatasia as a just war. Holt graduates from the Academy with honors in 8 BBY, and attends two more years of officer training on Anaxes.
6 BBY
• Lieutenant Holt is assigned to the Victory-class Star Destroyer Bombard, in which he would serve more than 15,000 hours on patrol and counter-piracy missions on the Outer Rim. Throughout his service, he would learn much from the Bombard's infamous Captain Dadefra, who would later recommend Holt for promotion. "[Dadefra] was fearless," Holt once noted. "I've seldom met a man so confident in his own tact, and rightfully so. I don't recall him ever losing a battle, even when the odds were thoroughly against us. If nothing else, I learned from him the value of self-assurance under fire, which I believe has served me well."
4 BBY
• Holt is promoted to Captain and given command of his own vessel, the Imperator-class Star Destroyer Magnum. He is stationed for many months at Centax (the first moon of Coruscant) and later at Corulag, to partake in war games and other exercises to train the fledgling Imperial fleet. In this period of his career, he would make frequent restless visits to his nearby homeworld of Anaxes, to attend various social functions at the invitation of relatives and other venerable bureaucrats. Much to the discomfort of said bureaucrats, Holt would often find amusement in disregarding the rules of etiquette and recounting his battles and skirmishes in meticulous (and graphic) detail.
• During one of Holt's sojourns to his homeworld, he would meet his eventual love interest, Celeste Arden. "We are opposites in almost every way," Holt once joked, "She is caring and thoughtful, and I am admittedly brash and even fatuous at times. We disagree on just about everything, except that we do agree to disagree. Or rather, we love to disagree." Their relationship, at first an adversarial one, would soon become intimate, and the two would eventually share several romantic liaisons in the months that followed. They are engaged in the following year, but Holt's duties aboard the Magnum postpone their wedding indefinitely.
2 BBY
• The founding of the Rebel Alliance, and the commencement of the Galactic Civil War.
0 BBY
• Gerrard V revolts against the Empire and declares its independence, and the Magnum and several other Star Destroyers are assigned to pacify the world. Holt enthusiastically orders its bombardment, eliminating all resistance (as well as countless civilians and the planet's entire eco-system). For this battle, he would recieve a formal commendation and a reputation as a zealot. "Any self respecting government must remain firmly intolerant of such insubordination among its ranks," Holt would later recall. "The Empire can't possibly use its authority as a force for righteousness if that authority is being undermined from within. It is therefore entirely justifiable to forfeit righteousness in defense of that authority. Moral absolutes were the downfall of the Republic; they must not be ours as well."
• Mere weeks after his success at Gerrard, Holt is dispatched to quell a rebellion on the planet Dalron 5. Here, he would confront the traitorous Jan Dodonna and defeat his former hero with his own tactics. Holt's task force would then subject the world and neighboring Dalron IV to an intense siege (including the deliberate targeting of refugee camps), bombarding the planets into submission.
• When later asked by Celeste, Holt would privately deny any intimate involvement at either Gerrard or Dalron 5.
0 ABY
• The Empire orders the subjugation of hundreds of worlds in retribution for its loss at the Battle of Yavin. Holt is incensed and eager to join the campaign, but the sudden defection of his estranged uncle, Arhul Holt (a prominent Imperial fleet admiral), prompts suspicion upon the entire family. The Magnum remains without an assignment for months, until a frustrated Gordon writes a formal letter condemning Arhul in incendiary terms and reaffirming his own dedication to the Empire. Holt is eventually successful in clearing his name, but he would thereafter resent what he referred to as "the nescience of bureaucracy."
3 ABY
• Holt's next engagement of note occurred several years later while on patrol at Gall, when the Magnum (and one accompanying warship) were ambushed by Rogue Squadron in an attempt to distract them from a raid on the planet's Imperial enclave. The two Star Destroyers are successful in driving the fighters into retreat, and the operation is a costly failure for the Rebellion.
4 ABY
• The Magnum became one of 50 Star Destroyers to participate in the Battle of Endor, during which it would destroy two Rebel transports (one of them by ramming) and over a half dozen starfighters. When the Imperial flagship Executor was destroyed and the fleet plunged into disarray before his eyes, Holt resisted the order to retreat, and the Magnum was one of few ships to continue fighting for two more hours before eventually limping back to the rendezvous point at Annaj.
• Magnum spends six restless months in repair at the Tolan Navy Yards, throughout which Holt would distinguish himself as a prominent voice for the most conservative sects of the fracturing Empire. He made no secret of his resentment for Gilad Pellaeon (the steward of the Imperial fleet who refused Holt's demand for an immediate counterassault at Endor) or the unpopular interim Emperor Sate Pestage, who he once referred to as "... a fetid bureaucrat with pretensions to power."
• The Rebel Alliance is consolidated into the "New Republic," and begins a campaign to liberate the Core Worlds from the Empire.
• "Dearest Celeste," wrote Holt in one of his frequent letters to his fiancee on Anaxes, "There is a sort of malaise descending upon the loftiest ranks of the Empire. The rebellion has bested us, the fleet is despondent, and I fear that we are entering a new era of untold misery and disorder... I want to believe that I can return to you, that I can soon show you the wonders I've seen at the farthest reaches of this galaxy, but I fear that if we do not fight now to stop this rebellion, that our children will never know those wonders of the galaxy, and will know only its horrors... I think of you often and want desperately to see you again, but so too do I want desperately to see our Empire remain whole, salient in its might, for you and I and all posterity."
5 ABY
• The Imperial Ruling Council becomes increasingly uncomfortable with Holt's criticisms, and suspicious of his secretive associations with dozens of other conservative officers informally called the "cadre of captains." The viziers of the Council, imagining a threat to their authority, threaten to demote Holt for insubordination. Holt (described by his Lieutenant as "aggravated beyond tolerance") immediately denounces the "putrid and petty" Ruling Council and defects with the Magnum to the Imperial faction of hardline Admiral Blitzer Harssk in the Deep Core.
• Holt soon earns the tenuous respect of Admiral Harssk, who admired the Captain's adherence to the Empire and shared his disgust for its leadership. The following year, Harssk places the Magnum in command of an Imperial fleet assault on the New Republic's secluded and unsuspecting Hast Shipyards. The attack, under Holt's direction, inflicts significant damage, putting out of commission over twenty corvettes, five Nebulon-B's, seven MC80 cruisers, and thousands of personnel. This battle alone was reputedly responsible for pushing back New Republic military plans for several years, but Holt recieved little recognition under the self-aggrandizing Harssk.
7 ABY
• Holt is eventually disillusioned with Harssk, who had since claimed the pompous title of "Supreme Warlord" and refused Holt's insistence on retaliation for the Stenax Massacres. "He has no interest in the greater good of the Empire, and every interest in advancing his own fiefdom at the expense of the next fiefdom," Holt decides, "I will not partake in warlordism." The Magnum soon leaves Harssk's fleet, after which Holt would maintain contacts with many colleagues but refuse to affiliate with any one faction.
• Anaxes surrenders peacefully to the New Republic, only months after the fall of Coruscant. Letters from Celeste (which had become terse and less frequent) now stop entirely. Holt is beset with concern for her safety and vows somehow to return to Anaxes.
9 ABY
• Grand Admiral Thrawn emerges from the Unknown Regions, consolidating the Imperial starfleet in preparation for his campaign against the New Republic. Despite Thrawn's reputed brilliance, Holt does not join his ranks, refusing to take orders from a "blue-skinned freak" and referring to his campaign as a "gimmick." In the following year, he would react similarly to the resurrected Emperor Palpatine, whom Holt denounced as a charlatan. During this time, the Magnum travels the Outer Rim, infrequently participating in minor skirmishes such as the ambush of Republic forces at Cadinth.
10 ABY
• Holt takes leave of the Magnum and smuggles himself through a New Republic picket fleet and onto his homeworld, Anaxes. He commandeers a keffi and, riding under cover of night, arrives at the Holt estate in the Sirpar Hills only to find it abandoned. Here, he discovered that Celeste long ago renounced her engagement to the despotic Holt and remarried. Gordon, devastated and furious at the betrayal, blames the New Republic (which Celeste now supports) for "... corrupting her, and all that she was, and all that we were and all that we had together. Meaningless. All of it meaningless, all along." Holt intends to confront Celeste, but is discovered by a Republic sentry and forced to flee the planet.
• Upon his return to the Magnum, the crew notice a subtle change in Holt's demeanor. "He seems to possess a new sort of intensity," wrote Lieutenant Wenzel Thatch (one of Holt's few trusted confidants) in his log, "He's always been a volatile man, but he is seemingly more so of late. I've never seen him so incensed, or so determined as he is now to destroy the rebellion. It is, I suppose, a singularity of purpose. It is invigorating and, dare I say, it is inspiring."
• Holt devotes himself to a campaign of unrelenting destruction against the New Republic. The Magnum begins a tour of the Outer Rim, visiting disparate Imperial worlds and recruiting (or bullying) ships and soldiers to his cause. He makes the best of his contacts with other fleet officers, and establishes a tenuous supply network. Within several months, he has re-
emerged from obscurity with a task force of four Star Destroyers and Carrack cruisers.
11 ABY
• Holt establishes a front organization (Holt Investments, Ltd.) to ostensibly and secretly arm and fund the ambitious casino baron Shilen Nalls, instigating a criminal war with rival Njon Anjiliac ("Njon the Hutt") on the smuggling haven of Nar Shaddaa. Holt then insidiously offers to arm Njon's forces (after weeks of intense combat and damage to the Hutt's wine distilleries) in exchange for a share of the lucrative Kessel spice market. Njon, unaware of Holt's machinations, agrees to the deal. Shilen Nalls and his organization are destroyed, and Holt recieves much needed funding for his campaign.
• Holt, whose task force now includes several more Star Destroyers, a Strike Cruiser and an Acclamator Assault Ship, ambushes the New Republic fleet near Manaan, destroying two Republic vessels and officially beginning his campaign.
• One of Holt's officers betrays him, however, and he is reported to New Republic Intelligence and summarily captured. He is tried for crimes against civilization for the bombardments of Gerrard V and Dalron 5 during the war, and sentenced to two consecutive life terms at Centax-1 Maximum Correctional. His campaign is blunted (and his fleet scattered), but his hatred of the Republic is only magnified. Holt goes several years without speaking, with the exception of reciting poetry or literature to himself, from memory, or reading aloud passages of his memoir/manual of warfare, which he writes and refines over the period of several years.
12 ABY
• Both the Remnant and the Republic seek the whereabouts of the Magnum, which Holt managed to conceal, abandoned, in the Dreighton Nebula before his capture. Holt refuses to tell his captors and, meanwhile, his Lieutenant and friend, Wenzel Thatch, is detained by the Remnant and questioned (despite the fact that he, too, is unaware of the Magnum's location). He dies of a heart attack during interrogation, aged 70. Holt is unaware of this.
19 ABY
• The Imperial Remnant, under now-Fleet Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, signs a peace treaty with the New Republic, ending the war.
20 ABY (Present)
• Its economy in crisis and currency in freefall, the Imperial Remnant appeals to the Hutts, as Holt once did, for revenues in the form of the lucrative spice market. Njon the Hutt, now aware that Holt had manipulated him, agrees to the deal in exchange for the Captain delivered to his custody. The Remnant desperately seizes a New Republic ship and its crew to compel the Republic into a prisoner exchange. Chief of State Ponc Gavrisom reluctantly agrees, and Holt is released after nine years in prison.
