The best-documented element of the Chiss state was the military, but even here, there are many uncertainties. The front-line armed forces of the Ascendancy were referred to variously as the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force or "Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet", and sometimes by the acronym "CEDF", or by shorter forms such as "Chiss Expansionary Defense", "Chiss Expansionary Force", or "Chiss Defense Fleet". In part, this oscillation in terminology may have reflected only a quirk of translation or idiom, but within the CEDF, there was apparently a clear distinction between the Chiss Defense Fleet and Chiss Expansionary Fleet, and given the complex semantics and linguistics of the Cheunh language, it is not impossible that the other differentiations of terminology, such as the alternation between 'Force' and 'Fleet', also carried subtle inflections of meaning for the Chiss. We might compare the concurrent use of the terms "Fleet", "Navy" and "Defense Force" under the New Republic, the usage of which sometimes reflected the subtle complexities of linguistic register, political ideology and inter-service rivalry—and sometimes meant nothing at all.
The Defense Fleet was charged with repelling invasions of the Ascendancy and patrolling the systems firmly inside the Ascendancy's borders, but little is known for sure about its strength or organization, except that it seems to have been the senior arm of the CEDF: Admirals of the Defense Hierarchy took direct command of Defense Fleet battlegroups, and also held oversight over the Expansionary Fleet. The mandate of the Expansionary Fleet, in contrast, was defined as guarding the Chiss frontier and exploring unknown space beyond the edge of the Ascendancy, and its forces included Picket Forces commanded by officers known as Force Commanders (sometimes shortened to Commander; Crahsystor in Cheunh). The best-known of these frontier units is Picket Force Two, which in 27 BBY apparently consisted of three light cruisers, each with three fighter escorts, plus a further five fighters and two transport shuttles at their asteroid base in the Crustai system.
Adding to the confusion is a variety of evidence for other Chiss military forces operating alongside, and sometimes in opposition to, the black-uniformed personnel of the Expansionary Fleet and the Defense Fleet. Thrawn's Household Phalanx has already been mentioned, and in 27 BBY, the Chaf Family were also observed to deploy military forces of their own, capable of deploying nine light cruisers at short notice, in an effort to overwhelm an Expansionary Fleet picket force. Just as some of Thrawn's warriors would later wear the burgundy colors of the Ruling Family to which Thrawn belonged, many Chaf Family personnel were observed at this time wearing uniforms in the yellow of the Family they served. These Chaf Family forces are never called a Household Phalanx, however, and there is thus no clear evidence whether there was a precise parallelism between the two
A Chiss bodyguard.
Further complicating matters, the University of Sanbra study does not mention House forces directly, but makes a clear-cut distinction between the CEDF, whose duty was to guard the frontier and retaliate against attacks, and the Colonial Phalanxes which guarded the twenty-eight colony worlds of the Ascendancy. The Sanbra material says that Colonial Phalanxes were designed to provide reinforcements for the Expansionary Defense when required, but also states that they were answerable under normal circumstances to "House leaders" rather than the Defense Hierarchy, which suggests that they may have been at least partially identical to the forces loyal to the Ruling Families, not least because the Families seem to have governed at least some of the Chiss colony worlds as fiefs within the Ascendancy. As usual, the evidence can hardly be called unambiguous, and even if the majority of Colonial Phalanxes were assigned to the Ruling Families, some may not have been.
Additional to all this, of course, were the forces of Thrawn's rogue Household Phalanx: in 19 ABY they could deploy at least a hundred Blastboat-sized TIE scouts, and in 26 ABY they deployed a wing of 36 Clawcraft at Garqi and Ithor. It is likely that overall numbers were significantly larger, and the Nirauan garrison may have included distinct elements of infantry and gunnery specialists, but is not known whether the Phalanx maintained any major surface-warfare or capital ship forces.
There were thus potentially as many as five distinct military organizations within Chiss society:
* Defense Fleet—defensive fleet units under the authority of a central high command.
* Expansionary Fleet—frontier patrols and exploration missions.
* Colonial Phalanxes—planetary militias guarding the Chiss colony worlds.
* Household Phalanxes—paramilitary guards loyal to the aristocratic Ruling Families.
* Chiss warriors fighting for the Empire of the Hand—including Thrawn's rogue House Phalanx and possibly also other Chiss personnel among the "forces of the Empire".
The situation is only rendered more complex when it is considered that the different organizations may have overlapped considerably. For example: the Defense Fleet seems to have had oversight over the Expansionary Fleet, and both were certainly combined within the "Expansionary Defense", and it is possible that a House Phalanx could also be a Colonial Phalanx, but if so, that does not mean that every Colonial Phalanx was a House Phalanx—some of the colonies may have been controlled by democratic leaders or state-appointed governors rather than Family leadership. It is known that military academies existed, such as that at Rhigar in the Rata Nebula, but it is not clear whether Rhigar provided personnel for all arms of the Chiss military, or if it represented a single Ruling Family or colony world—in 19 ABY, the names of the Commandant and Cadet Commander suggest that they both belonged to the Nuruodo affinity, but again, this is not certain evidence, and even if the names is being interpreted correctly, they may merely indicate merit adoption within a wider CEDF framework.
Equally difficult to ascertain are the overall numbers of personnel, capital ships and starfighters in each grouping. By the time of the Swarm War in 36 ABY, the CEDF could deploy a powerful fleet of thirty Chiss Star Destroyers in the Battle of Tenupe, with each Star Destroyer massing more tonnage than an entire Picket Force of sixty years earlier; but it is not known what the relative contributions of the different elements of the Chiss military apparatus were to this fleet—or even whether the old distinctions remained intact.
Even more uncertain is the question of ground forces. Sizeable forces of armored infantry and artillery were deployed by dropships at the Battle of Tenupe, but their position in the order of battle is unknown, and apart from the bodyguard details who typically accompanied senior figures, the only other surface-army soldier known to have been directly encountered by outsiders was General Prard'ras'kleoni, the senior military officer on the Chaf Envoy's mission to Outbound Flight in 22 ABY. He identified himself as a ground officer and also as an officer of the Defense Fleet, which suggests that a sizeable force of surface-warfare troops was assigned under direct Defense Hierarchy control but again, this is just an inference from the slender evidence available, and the situation may appear very different if even a little more evidence becomes available. Many of these forces have been trained since early childhood to be soldiers or commanders in the Chiss military. Some selected few that showed exceptional dedication was given the honor or extra training and medical advances from the science community. Some of these advances including bio-chemical re-engineering that produced results of accelerated healing (i.e. quick healing of wounds, cuts, and abrasions) and immunizations to toxins and poisons.
Much of the Chiss rank structure seems to have paralleled the patterns that would have been familiar to contemporary Basic-speakers, though it is unclear how much the semantics of the original Chiss terminology survived the translation from Cheunh, and most Chiss ranks can be read as titles reflecting officers' specific roles, rather than elements of an abstract hierarchy comparable to the militaries of mainstream Galactic civilization. The title of Commander was common, denoting the officers in charge of many elements, varying from a cadet squadron upwards through a frontier patrol and a space station, to a major fleet unit. Junior officers, including personnel in cadet units, were titled Lieutenant, while the ranking officers of naval ships were styled Captain. Some senior ground-combat officers serving with the Defense Fleet bore the rank of General, while the rank of Admiral was used by senior officers of the Defense Hierarchy. There is as yet no direct evidence that other conventional ranks, such as Major and Colonel, existed outside the Imperial-influenced forces of Thrawn's House Phalanx, and it is only after 35 ABY that clear evidence exists of CEDF officers using styles like Commander and Captain as substantive ranks, formally equivalent with Galactic Alliance command structure: previous examples may be looser titles denoting position.
Other primarily positional titles included Chief Engineer, borne by Yal'avi'kema of the Springhawk in 27 BBY, medical officer, used by Baltke of the Fell Defender in 36 ABY, and Chief Navigator, apparently a very senior title within the hierarchy, borne in 29 ABY by the Human ex-Imperial officer Peita Aabe.
At the same time as Aabe was Chief Navigator, another ex-Imperial, Baron Soontir Fel, was introduced as Assistant Syndic of the CEDF, seemingly another very senior post. This implies an even more senior position of Syndic, perhaps analogous to Supreme Commander, and Syndic was also cited in one New Republic source as the title of Colonial Phalanx commanders; but Syndic is also—and more clearly—recorded as a political position associated with at least some of the Ruling Families. It is thus unclear exactly what the position of Assistant Syndic operated, or how this rank related to the powerful Admirals of the Defense Hierarchy: whereas both the Assistant Syndic and Chief Navigator wore the usual black uniforms, an Admiral wore white: an important distinction that will be discussed in the next section
