Gilkarg nar Kiranka was the former Crown Prince of the Kilrathi Empire and Kalralahr of the Kilrathi Armada.

HistoryEdit

Gilkarg nar Kiranka was the son of the Emperor Joor'rad nar Kiranka and as such, the Crown Prince and legal heir to the throne during the 2600s. He fathered two sons to succeed him, his elder son Ratha and Thrakhath. Gilkarg had already risen to the rank of Kalralahr of the Kilrathi Fleet by the year 2634, the year in which the Kilrathi War broke out. Envious of his father's glory during the Kilrathi-Varni War, he was pushed politics towards war with the Terran Confederation in order to achieve his own glory.^[1]

Gilkarg had a strong hatred for the humans of the Terran Confederation, and was charged with leading the assault that would destroy their empire. His first step in this grand plan was an attack on the human colony of McAuliffe, located on the frontier of the Vega Sector.

Gilkarg kept the attack secret until he could unleash his full fury on the human colonies at McAuliffe. It was this expert secrecy that prevented the Confed Fleet from discovering that the fleet they were expecting was four times its expected size. When the attack was launched, Gilkarg used shield-piercing torpedoes and an enormous number of starfighters to decimate Confed forces. After four days of intense fighting, several Confed ships are destroyed, but so are many of Gilkarg's, so he retreats to reorganize his forces. Despite a formidable and devastating resistance from the Confed Fleet, McAuliffe eventually falls and 250,000 colonists are imprisoned. The Enyo Engagement was also fought around this time, resulting in the fall of Enyo and the capture of another 250,000 colonists. All of these prisoners would be massacred by orbital guns if approached by Confed. Despite Gilkarg's mounting success, he lost his son Ratha to Confed pilot Vance Richards, who would one day rise to the rank of Admiral. Ratha ejected, but out of contempt and disgrace he removed his helmet and died in space. Thrakhath became Gilkarg's sole heir as a result of this loss.

Gilkarg's success did not last forever, though. During the year 2639, Confed mounted a counterattack against the McAuliffe occupational forces. A large flight of Raptor Heavy Fighters laid a large array of Porcupine Mines around one of the system's primary jump points, forcing the Kilrathi to back off. The Kilrathi fought off the Raptors when suddenly the mines were remotely detonated. The mines were just a ploy to clear Confed's route into the system, as the entire fleet poured into McAuliffe's skies within moments after the detonation. Within a few hours Gilkarg's fleet and orbital guns were annihilated, forcing the Kilrathi to retreat while the vast majority of the colonists were liberated. Gilkarg ultimately lost McAuliffe, but he was not finished with humanity. Even after his defeat, he continued to formulate plans to claim the ultimate prize: Earth.

During the 2650s, the Kilrathi waged war against humanity in the Vega Sector in what became known as the Vega Campaign. The Terran Confederation ultimately won that battle with the Kilrathi defeat at Venice System in 2654, effectively forcing the Kilrathi to abandon the Sector.^[2]

However, Kalralahr Gilkarg was in the Sector at the time and was not ready to surrender. On the Kilrathi colony of Warhammer XII, Gilkarg commissioned the Gravitron Weapon, a device that when launched into a planet's atmosphere increased its gravitational field 137 times, annihilating everything on the surface. Gilkarg attached the weapon to the newly-commissioned KIS Sivar and successfully tested the device on Warhammer XII in order to hide the evidence. The planet was left in ruins, prompting Gilkarg to use the device on the human colonies. In the Epsilon Sector, Gilkarg used the device on the colony of Goddard, destroying it completely and killing 250,000 human colonists. Gilkarg then pulled back the Sivar Fleet to prepare for future attacks on the colonies. Gilkarg had hoped that with the Sivar and its weapon, he could blast his way towards Earth. However, Gilkarg was unprepared for what happened next.

In retaliation for the disaster on Goddard, the Confederation sent the famed TCS Tiger's Claw to intercept the Sivar and its weapon behind enemy lines in what became known as Operation: Thor's Hammer. They managed to destroy all of the Sivar's escorts and an enemy supply depot. Finally, the Sivar itself was spotted, and the Claw took immediate action to derail Gilkarg's plans. Famed human pilot Christopher Blair and comrade Joseph Khumalo tracked down and destroyed the Sivar and the Gravitron Weapon. With the destruction of this ship, Gilkarg's plans came crashing down.

Gilkarg was ordered back to Kilrah to answer to his father for his failure. Upon arrival, he was thrown in chains and sent to the Imperial Palace. Gilkarg knew that there was no excuse for his failure and would pay the ultimate price for it. Gilkarg was executed by disintegration in 2655 on his father's orders, leaving young Thrakhath to assume leadership and the throne.

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