The CIS Droid Army vs. the Yuuzhan Vong — The War That Should Have Happened

The Yuuzhan Vong began their campaign before the first warship crossed into known space. Executor Nom Anor, operating under diplomatic cover years before the invasion proper, infected Mara Jade Skywalker and roughly a hundred other New Republic diplomats with coomb spores — microorganisms he engineered specifically to destroy the Jedi Order. In normal beings, the spores broke down the victim's molecular structure and delivered an agonizing death within weeks. That was the advance work. The diversionary play. Mara Jade survived because of Force abilities most organic beings don't possess. The others didn't all fare as well. When the main invasion force arrived in 25 ABY, their primary ground weapon was the amphistaff — a living serpent two to three meters long, genetically engineered from creatures native to the Vong's long-destroyed homeworld. A warrior directed it at a target's eyes from twenty meters, and the venom entered the bloodstream, choked off the oxygen supply, and delivered twenty hours of excruciating death. As Wedge Antilles noted after studying them in the field: "The amphistaff isn't just a Vong's weapon, it's his most important ally. With an amphistaff in his arsenal, a Vong is never truly alone." For heavier engagements, they brought Fire Breathers. Ten-meter leviathans with hides thick enough to withstand all but a turbolaser blast, their proboscises deployed streams of gelatinous flame and their pores exhaled anti-laser aerosols that degraded standard blaster fire. They were first encountered on Gyndine, where they burned the forests and boiled the lakes. Warmaster Tsavong Lah characterized the invasion's purpose directly to Leia Organa Solo: "We don't live side by side with impurity. Your civilization is built on abominations. Your galaxy is polluted. We have come to cleanse it." Every one of those weapons — the coomb spores, the amphistaff venom, the Fire Breather flame — requires a biological target. A bloodstream. A nervous system. Tissue that can be infected, choked, or burned.