Battle of Ord Radama

The Battle of Ord Radama, later known as the Harrower Disaster, was a major engagement of the Great Galactic War between the belligerent powers of the reconstituted Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic. Ord Radama had previously been a holding of an old Sith Empire, but had fallen under the rule of the Republic since the conclusion of the Jedi Civil War. Although it was situated within the Esstran sector in the Seat of The Empire, the planet had resisted Sith conquest in the Great Galactic War until 3660 BBY, during the Rim Campaign led by the Sith Lords Darth Malgus and Darth Venemal. That year, the two led a detachment of the Imperial naval armada to the world and began an eighty-six-day–long campaign to secure it for the Empire.

The battle began with an assault on a mountaintop Republic stronghold while Imperial dreadnaughts set up a defensive perimeter in orbit above the planet. Malgus and Venemal led the successful incursion on foot and established a beachhead on the planet to plan for an advance on the capital city of Livien Magnus, which was heavily fortified against attack by Republic soldiers and artillery, as well as an all-enveloping ray shield. Fourteen days after their touchdown on the planet, the Imperials launched their siege of the capital, with Malgus planning on winning though attrition. A week into the onslaught, he and Venemal were joined by Lord Adraas, who traveled to the planet with platoons of battle droids under the orders of the Empire's ruling Dark Council. Although Republic infantry quickly destroyed Adraas's droids, the distraction allowed Malgus and Venemal to lead troops into the city and destroy the shield generator.

After using air strikes to quash native resistance, the Sith Lords occupied the capital as a headquarters while they waited to be resupplied. The situation quickly turned to crisis for the Imperials: as they ran low on war matériel, the Republic retaliated by sending a sizable fleet of corvettes and cruisers to retake the system and uproot the entrenched Imperial ground forces. Although Malgus attempted to take command of the situation in space, he quickly lost most of his fleet, and the battle became untenable. After one of the Empire's damaged Harrower-class dreadnaughts fell to the surface of Ord Radama and obliterated Livien Magnus and all of the Imperial forces stationed within—including Darth Venemal—Lord Malgus was forced to retreat from the planet aboard the dreadnaught Lindworm.

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