The Daimanate was the name given by Jedi Master Vannar Treece to one of the "successor states" to the Chagras Hegemony established in the Grumani sector during the Republic Dark Age. It was created during a succession crisis caused by the death of the Sith Lord Chagras in 1040 BBY. It was named after its ruler, the Sith Lord Daiman, and its capital was the planet of Darkknell.
The Daimanate was a totalitarian and authoritarian dictatorship ruled by the Sith Lord Daiman, who believed that he was the creator of the universe. Its name reflected a naming convention within the Sith territories in Grumani sector of placing the suffixes "-ate" or "nate" after the Sith Lord's name. Soldiers and subjects of the Daimanate were known as "Daimanites." Daiman also created a personality cult within the Daimanate by erecting thousands of statues and holographic displays which served as public announcers to promote his ideology. Daiman also employed the services of propaganda historians and scribes to indoctrinate the population and doctor historical documents to show the Daimanite alphabet.
Daimanite subjects were officially taught that Daiman had created the galaxy twenty-five standard years ago and that any earlier historical events or people had been planted by Daiman in the past to allow him to escape from his own body. Daiman referred to his own subjects as the "Encumbered" and were also taught that they were soulless automatons who had been created as extensions of his own will. The Daimanate's civilian population were treated like slaves and indentured laborers and were forced to work for long shifts in harsh conditions with poor pay and minimal food rations. Unlike the "reformist" Sith Lord Arkadia Calimondra, Daiman did not invest much expenditure into education and many children were required to work for at least one eight-hour shift each working day. Educational services were instead contracted to private tutors and corporations like Industrial Heuristics, which recruited children to train as war researchers.
The Daimanate had several important resource worlds in the Grumani sector including Chelloa and Aquilaris Minor along with several planets devoted to the production of weapons, starships and other technologies including its capital Darkknell and Tergamenion. The Daimanate's main research facility was the "Daimanate Dynamic Testing Facility" which was situated on Darkknell's main city Xakrea. There, new war technology was developed to combat the Odionate including the prototype warship Convergence. Due to fluid and evolving nature of the Daimanate's borders, Daiman also commissioned the construction of mobile munitions complexes to ensure a steady supply of weapons and equipment to the frontlines.
The Daimanate had a significant military fleet that was used for both internal defense and external invasions of other Sith states. The Daimanate's ground forces consisted of "Sith warriors" or troopers. These armored soldiers were recruited from Humans as well as other species such as T'surr and Nosaurians. For internal security purposes, Daiman also utilized the services of Sith adepts known as "Correctors" to maintain order on Daiman's inner systems and to punish dissenters.
Daiman also dismantled all cantinas and other public facilities throughout the Daimanate since the Sith Lord believed that his subjects only existed to entertain him. Meanwhile, any dissidents and anyone who made any mistakes, like one Snivvian grandmother making an offhand expression to invoke the spirits of her ancestors, were designated as "Faulty Encumbered." These were subjected to draconian punishments including public spectacles where members of the public inflicted mental and physical abuse on them. These measures were designed to both humiliate and terrorize real and perceived enemies of the state.
Due to the continual warfare of the Republic Dark Age, starvation and deprivation led many civilians to subsist on the addictive spice known as Deluge, creating a spice addiction problem throughout the Daimanate by 1032 BBY. The spice had been distributed by the Galactic Republic's Grace Command under Operation Deluge as part of a strategy of indirectly weakening the Sith states and preventing further incursions into the Republic. In response, Daiman ordered the culling of known Deluge addicts within his home defense forces rather than diverting resources to rehabilitate them. This had the effect of weakening his forces during the Aquilaris campaign and the Battle of Darkknell.
The Daimanate was formed following the death of the Sith Lord Chagras in 1040 BBY, ruler of the Sith state known as the Chagras Hegemony. Chagras's death sparked a second series of military contests within the Sith Calimondra family known as the Second Charge Matrica, which was both overtly and covertly abetted by the family matriarch Vilia Calimondra. Daiman and his estranged older brother Odion were the first of the Calimondra Sith Lords to go to war with each other. Over the years, Daiman carved up his own princedom which was centered around his own personality cult of himself as "Creator of the Universe." Over the next eight years, Daiman was locked in a series of stalemated conflicts against rival Sith Lords particularly his estranged Odion, whom his propaganda depicted as the "evil" Destroyer. Besides creating a personality cult, Daiman also took steps to propagate his own worldview that he had created the universe only twenty-five years ago.
By 1032 BBY, Daiman had carved up a large interstellar fiefdom within the Grumani sector. He also fought the Sullustan warlord Buruun the Bloodbringer over control of the planet Cmaoli Di—a transit world leading into the Brema sector. Buruun controlled much of the Brema sector during the Republic Dark Age. In 1032 BBY, the Council of Makers and Spinners succeeded in having their neutral status recognized by both Daiman and Buruun. Daiman's forces also acquired the oceanic planet of Aquilaris Minor—which had fallen under a string of different Sith warlords since its annexation by the Chagras Hegemony in 1042 BBY. The planet was rich in marine life including fleek eels and became a major source of seafood produce within the Daimanate. Besides rival Sith Lords, Daiman also had to contend with the Jedi Order particularly the Jedi Master Vannar Treece who launched "knight errant" operations into the Grumani sector.
That year, Daiman also discovered that the agrarian planet Chelloa had large reserves of baradium—a volatile compound used in the manufacture of explosives including thermal detonators. He begin shipping large amounts of baradium on cargo liners for processing at mobile war forges situated near the front lines. The undercover Jedi operative and Chelloan resistance leader Gorlan Palladane leaked intelligence about the Chelloan mining project to Master Treece. Fearing that the Daimanate's baradium resources would end the stalemated Second Charge Matrica and enable Daiman to pose a greater threat to the Republic, Treece launched Operation Influx which involved launching a lightning raid to knock out baradium shipping operations on Chelloa offline. Palladane and the Rodian mechanic Skodo had used a transmitter to re-activate an interstellar relay station but their transmissions were intercepted by Daiman's rival Odion, who decided to destroy Chelloa because he believed that the high baradium concentration created an imbalance within the Force.
Treece's Jedi strike team raided the Chelloan spaceport town of Jenith and succeeded in their primary objective. However, Odionate forces then raided Chelloa and the entire Jedi strike team with the exception of Treece's former Padawan Kerra Holt were killed. The young Jedi Knight managed to infiltrate the Daimanate and was sheltered by Palladane. In response to the raid on Chelloa, Daiman decided to strategically deny the planet to his rival Odion by implementing a "scorched earth" tactic of destroying the planet's surface with a fleet of kinetic corruptors—large machines used to ignite baradium during extraction. However, Daiman seeded his enemies with false intelligence that he was expanding baradium mining operations on Chelloa. Daiman used his Jedi adversary Kerra to deliver this misleading information to Odion. As planned, Odion abandoned his plans to destroy Chelloa and launched a ground invasion. However, his invasion force was trapped at the town of Arboth and wiped out by the kinetic corruptors. Odion himself was grievously wounded during a duel with Kerra.
Meanwhile, Kerra and Palladane succeeded in evacuating the planet's 63,000 civilians on a makeshift fleet known as the Freedom Fleet. En route to the Republic, Kerra also raided the Daimanate slave world of Nilash III and freed its enslaved natives. As a final gesture, she beheaded Daiman's statues to show that she was a "real" sentient being as opposed to a soulless automaton.
Later, Daiman's researchers began developing a new prototype warship known as the Convergence at the Black Fang research facility in Xakrea, main city on Darkknell, the Daimanate's capital world. His enemies Odion and Kerra obtained intelligence on the Convergence project and sought to sabotage it. Odion dispatched the Bothan spy Narsk Ka'hane to obtain its military secrets and to destroy the complex. Meanwhile, Kerra also sought to destroy the complex in order to sabotage the Daimanate's war effort. During the Darkknell mission, Kerra intercepted Narsk and destroyed the datapad containing the data before destroying the building with baradium thermal charges. She then stole Narsk's Cryricept Mark IV stealth suit and left him behind to be captured by Daiman's Correctors.
Despite Narsk's denials, Daiman rightfully suspected that Odion had a role in the bombing and concocted a scheme to lure Odion into another trap on Gazzari. Daiman approached the Bactranate Quermian Sith Lord Ayanos Bactra with an offer to buy an arxeum—a mobile university dedicated to war research—from Industrial Heuristics. Daiman also offered to provide the students for the university. The transaction would occur on Gazzari and he promised Bactra's forces safe passage to the Gazzari system. However, he arranged for Narsk to listen to the proceedings and then to escape back to the Odionate. Daiman also contracted the services of several mercenaries including the Brigadier Jarrow Rusher and convinced to set a trap on Gazzari. They assembled their forces including artillery cannons on the edge of a massive caldera. As planned, Odion saw the Gazzari deal as an opportunity to wreak further bloodshed and destruction and dispatched a fleet to invade the planet. Both sides sustained heavy casualties during the fighting.
At the height of the Battle of Gazzari, Vilia sent a coded transmission to Narsk ordering him to transmit a message to her grandsons Odion and Daiman. The matriarch had felt that Lord Bactra had outlived his usefulness to the family and ordered them to turn on the Bactranate. After receiving Vilia's transmission, Odion's and Daiman's forces stopped fighting each other and turned on the Bactranate fleet in the system. They then invaded the Bactranate with Odion's forces capturing the capital Jutrand. Meanwhile, Lord Bactra fled into hiding at a Quermian retirement colony. Within days, the Bactranate had collapsed and Vilia convened a Bequest.
The Bactranate's territories were divided up between the Sith Lords Odion, Daiman, Malakite, and Lioko while his vast corporate assets were divided up among the family. While Odion acquired Jutrand through military conquest, Daiman acquired Industrial Heuristics and its subsidiaries—a powerful corporation that specialized in military technology. However, Odion challenged Daiman's claim to the company on the basis that it had been based on Jutrand and was thus booty. As quid pro quo, Vilia compensated Odion by send two legions of Trandoshan slave warriors from her own forces to augment the Odionate. Odion reluctantly accepted the deal but tensions continued to linger between the two Sith brothers.
By late 1032 BBY, the Daimanate had become affected by an epidemic of Deluge spice addiction. Many civilians and soldiers alike had come to subsist on the drug due to the harsh and impoverished conditions of the Daimanate. The Deluge spice had actually been seeded by the Republic's Grace Command—a relief agency that was actually a front for the Republic intelligence agent Baron Lemayne's Operation Deluge. This was a black operation that sought to undermine the Sith war effort without having to commit substantial Republic resources. While it succeeded in undermining the morale and effectiveness of many Sith military forces, many civilian populations also became addicted to the drug which created large-scale social and health problems within the Grumani sector. Daiman took a heavy-handed response to the problem by executing Deluge addicts within his home defense forces which affected its fighting capacity.
Meanwhile, the remote planet Aquilaris Minor was invaded by the Hutt crime lord Zodoh, who had decided to expand his business operations into Sith Space at the expense of the Daimanate. He then coerced the Grumani Sith Lords including Odion into supporting his invasion of the Daimanate by unveiling his new superweapons: a fleet of Stormdrivers, capital ships equipped with weaponized vaporizers that were capable of flooding entire worlds. Aquilaris Minor was then "liberated" by Grace Command which also distributed the Deluge narcotics. Another threat to the Daimanate emerged in the form of the Jedi Kerra Holt, who had returned to the Grumani sector after helping evacuate student refugees from Gazzari to the Republic with the assistance of the mercenary Jarrow Rusher. She briefly allied herself with Grace Command until she discovered the existence of "Operation Deluge." Zodoh quickly captured Grace Command and unleashed his Stormdrivers on Aquilaris, flooding much of the planet.
Kerra survived and managed to evacuated thousands of locals into aquatic shelters with the assistance of her childhood friend Joad Kreel and the Seacroppers' Guild leader "Old" Padgett. Satisfied with his test demonstration, Zodoh intended to test the Stormdrivers on the Daimanate capital Darkknell. He also convinced Daiman's relatives to keep Daiman's forces preoccupied at the frontiers in return for supplying them with slaves and munitions in the event of his victory over the Daimanate. Zodoh invaded Darkknell and swept aside the weakened Daimanate home fleet before proceeding to flood Darkknell. However, the Hutt crime lord was stopped by Kerra and the last surviving member of Grace Command: Captain Jenn Devaad. The duo destroyed Zodoh's flagship Voracious which led to the scattering of Zodoh's forces, allowing the Daimanate fleet to regroup and launch a counterattack.
Zodoh himself was captured and personally executed by Daiman in the presence of several of his Sith relatives including Odion, Arkadia Calimondra, and Malakite. However, the Daimanate throne world Darkknell sustained heavy damage and much of its surface was flooded. The Daimanate also lost control of Aquilaris Minor which became a transit point for refugees fleeing Sith Space into the Galactic Republic after the flood waters had drained away. The Grace Command Captain Devaad also underwent a "change of heart" and decided to sabotage Operation Deluge by dumping shipments of the spice into hyperspace while transporting refugees into the Republic. This effectively dried up the supply of Deluge spice flowing into the Grumani sector. Despite the defeat of Zodoh, the Deluge campaign proved a pyrrhic victory for the Daimanate which suffered heavy losses.
Kerra's role in turning the tide of the Battle of Darkknell in Daiman's favor earned Daiman's grudging respect. Regarding his brother Odion as the greater evil, Daiman made contact with Kerra and helped her to infiltrate the Odionate. Daiman himself had experienced visions of a future apocalypse emanating from Odion's realm and was willing to assist any foe of his nihilistic brother. Kerra infiltrated the Odionate disguised as a Force-sensitive young Human woman named "Mercy" who had embraced Odion's nihilistic teachings. She became a Novitiate—an Odionate Sith adept—and learnt that Odion had recommissioned Project Pandemonium to locate the Helm of Ieldis, an ancient Sith artifact capable of driving sentients into a destructive homocidal frenzy. However, Daiman also sent one of his own spies—the Kubaz Novitiate Glenk—to monitor Kerra's whereabouts.
On Sarrassia, Kerra discovered that the Helm of Ieldis was located on Skarpos, a barren desert world that was being fought over by the armies of Odion and the Sith Lord Malakite, the ruler of the Menagerie. She located the Helm only to be captured by Odion, who acquired the Helm for himself. Based on Glenk's report, Daiman ordered his forces to invade Skarpos and to crush Odion's and Malakite's forces. Daiman had only used Kerra because he had intended to acquire the Helm for himself. However, Odion used the Helm to wipe out three entire armies. Satisfied with his test demonstration, the Destroyer travelled to Vanahame where he planned to use the Helm of Ieldis to destroy all life in the galaxy by harnessing the emotions of the captive children with the cloister there.
Daiman and Malakite survived the battle and managed to inform Vilia and the other Sith Lords about the threat posed by the Helm to the galaxy. The Matriarch ordered her grandchildren to put aside their differences and the various Calimondra Sith Lords including Arkadia Calimondra, Lioko, and Trevayne mustered their forces for an invasion of the Odionate. However, Odion succeeded in activating the Helm and its Force-induced homicidal rage devastated much of the Grumani sector including the anti-Odionate fleet. Daiman himself was forced to fight off several maddened crew among his flagship. However, Odion's nihilistic ambitions were thwarted by Kerra and his second-in-command General Beld Yulan. Kerra convinced Yulan to free the Cloister children which had the effect of unleashing a surge of positive emotions that killed Odion.
With Odion's death, the Odionate collapsed and its territories were divided up among the various Calimondra Sith Lords. The Daimanate acquired the largest share of the former Odionate's territory including several cloisters. Despite the demise of the "Destroyer", Kerra's survival ensured that the lone Jedi woman still continued to pose a threat to the various Sith fiefdoms in the Grumani sector including the Daimanate.
Nilash III Daimanite munitions plant.
The Daimanate was first developed as a major antagonistic Sith entity in John Jackson Miller's Star Wars: Knight Errant comic series and the related novella Influx and the stand-alone novel Knight Errant. The Daimanate was also briefly mentioned in Pablo Hidalgo's 2012 reference guide The Essential Reader's Companion. On his personal website Faraway Press, Miller commented that the Daimanate was inspired by several real-world totalitarian regimes which were dominated by personality cults including the late Turkmen dictator Saparmurat Niyazov, who dubbed himself as the "Turkmenbashi" or "Leader of the Turkmen". As with Daiman, "Turkmenbashi" was known to have renamed the months after himself.
- The Essential Reader's Companion