Continuing our series of endnotes for Star Wars: The Essential Atlas, this installment talks about the Wonders of the Galaxy, Hutt Space, and the Unknown Regions. Click here to go back to part 1!

THE WONDERS OF THE GALAXY

DAN: This was a hugely fun section to work on and is perhaps my favorite section in the Atlas. The concept of "wonders of the galaxy" is clearly borrowed from the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. What wows me is the fact that only one of the Seven Ancient Wonders (the Great Pyramid of Giza) is still standing. Accordingly, several entries on this list are lost or are modern reproductions.

The concept "Twenty Wonders of the Galaxy" originated in the roleplaying sourcebook Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds, where I worked on fleshing out the planet Makem Te (home of the Swokes Swokes, the species of Gragra the gorgmonger from The Phantom Menace). In that book I mentioned that the Tract of Makem Te was one of the Wonders of the Galaxy.

The book Arturum Galactinum is a new invention. Whenever I need to create something related to Coruscant (such as the name of a Supreme Chancellor, or a legal provision, or a historical era) I break out the faux-Latin.

Of the 20, half of them came from pre-existing sources. These are: Coruscant's Imperial Palace (many, many sources including Heir to the Empire), the Valley of Royalty on Duro (Mission to Mount Yoda), Crevasse City on Alderaan (The Illustrated Star Wars Universe), the Coruscant Ice Crypts (Before the Storm and Coruscant and the Core Worlds), the Tract of Makem Te (Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds), the Esraza Temple of Oligtaz (Riders of the Maelstrom), the Cyrstal City of Calius saj Leloo on Berchest (The Last Command), the Halls of Knowledge on Phateem (The Power of the Jedi Sourcebook), the Cathedral of Winds on Vortex (Dark Apprentice), and the Space City of Nespis VIII (Dark Empire II).

The remainder are all new inventions:

The Dawn Pyramid of Aargau: This illustrates the extent of the pre-Republic Sharu civilization (which first appeared in Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu). Aargau is a Core World famous for its banks, and it originated in issue #48 of Marvel Comics' Star Wars series in a tale entitled "The Third Law."

The Brass Soldiers of Axum: Clearly a gloss on the famous Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang. I rather like the idea that these are actual soldiers transformed into brass statues through magic, but I left it vague.

The Shawken Spire: Chris Trevas illustrated this. I thought it was fun to imagine how an ancient culture would have built what is essentially a space elevator using "primitive" materials.

Belgoth's Beacon: Chris Trevas also illustrated this one, bless him. When I described it to him and tried to explain how it had a face on every side, it turned out we were both essentially saying "...you know, kind of like the Quintessons from Transformers the Movie." Not all of its 3 faces are visible in the illustration, but they include a Columi (an ancient spacefaring species), a molator (an Alderaanian beast seen in A New Hope as a holo-chess piece), and a cacodemon (a mythological demon which I referenced in my short story "The Monster").

The Celebratus Archive of Obroa-skai: The planet Obroa-skai has existed as a library world since its introduction in Heir to the Empire. The Celebratus Archive is a specific analogue to the Library of Alexandria, and Obroa-skai seemed like the most logical place to put it. (For clarification, the Library of Alexandria is not one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.)

The Statue of Xim on Desevro: This is a specific analogue to the Colossus of Rhodes.

The Ark of Baron Auletphant: Something about this idea appealed to me, that of a crazy Noah collecting fish from across the galaxy in his golden starship. I'd imagine that when the ark was rediscovered 10,000 years later the smell was terrible.

The Caliginous Automaton of Tomo-Reth: God, I loved naming these things. This particular one - a robot that breathed fire at awed visitors - may have been inspired by the giant statue of Bender from an episode of Futurama. I saw the episode again recently and wondered if I wasn't unconsciously acknowledging it in a George Harrison/"My Sweet Lord" sort of way.

The Forbidden Gardens of Nuswatta. Technically this location was originally referenced in the comic Jabba the Hutt: Betrayal, but I wanted to note that it made a perfect stand-in for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the original Wonders of the Ancient World.

The Alsakan Mosaics. This references the Core World of Alsakan, and is another wonder that has been largely destroyed in the modern era.

THE MID RIM

DAN: This is a good point to discuss my thoughts on structuring the galaxy, and what it would mean from a cultural standpoint. Apologies in advance for the U.S.-centric nature of this explanation, but it's what I was drawing on from personal experience, and I thought a society that initially formed in a concentrated area and later spread out into a vast, untamed frontier lent itself well to such parallels. The Republic is split into six major divisions, and while working on the Atlas my mental stereotypes were:

Core: Manhattan. An undisputed center of business, fashion, music, publishing, tourism, food, you name it. "If you can make it there you can make it anywhere." Undeniably impressive, but its residents are hated by outsiders as arrogant elites.

Colonies: Brooklyn/Queens. The outer boroughs of New York City just aren't the same as Manhattan, but what the hell, it's still New York.

Inner Rim: New Jersey. The object of much mockery from New Yorkers, despite the fact that New York City and New Jersey are all right on top of each other. Culturally, New Jersey is considered some sort of remote hinterland, but only to New Yorkers. Outsiders don't quite get it (somebody from Indianapolis has no reason to make a New Jersey joke) and that's part of the point. To those who live in the area, once you've traveled out of their small patch of the eastern seaboard you've left the Core and entered the Rim.

Expansion Region: Detroit. The beginning of the Rim, i.e. a place settled during frontier expansion where it eventually became an industrial powerhouse. (Actually Detroit was settled in 1701 by the French, but let's not split hairs.) Like many such places in the so-called "Rust Belt," Detroit's days as a factory town are on the wane and it is filled with empty symbols of industry.

Mid Rim: Iowa. A place of modest towns and modest ambitions, known for honest, hard-working friendly folk. Derided as hopelessly behind the curve and about as exciting as a bowl of unbuttered mashed potatoes.

Outer Rim: Dogpatch, Arkansas. If you live here you live a long way from anywhere with cultural bragging rights. It doesn't matter how smart, stylish, or brilliant you are - as soon as you announce your hometown even Midwesterners give you "that look" and mentally classify you as a hillbilly.

I'm sure I annoyed many U.S. readers with my gross stereotyping, but this isn't meant to be a commentary on America so much as it is a structure with which I could set my head and write about the regions as if they were real places. (It's obviously an incomplete structure anyway, since a city like Los Angeles has no place in this particular cosmology.) I'm a Mid-Rimmer by birth who has lived in the Expansion Region so I'm certainly not one to cast any culture-war stones. Except for this one aimed at Jason, who is from the Colonies and is therefore a huge snob.

MAP: THE MID RIM

JASON: The Celanon Spur was one of the trade routes that frightened me most during the Atlas's long journey to publication. Celanon was one of the first worlds we placed, and it dictated the placement of numerous other things, in ways that were soon too tangled to easily undo. (If I ever do another atlas of a make-believe galaxy, I'll have learned my lesson: Document every placement and the reason for that placement!) I lived in fear of opening a Dark Horse comic or young-adult book and finding that Celanon had been placed, say, just west of Bespin. Thankfully, it didn't happen.

That little sliver of the Mid Rim and Outer Rim between the northern "arms" of Hutt Space must be an interesting place.

CLIENT STATES OF THE EMPIRE

JASON: The discussion of the CSA is drawn largely from Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Soucebook, which I think is one of West End Games's best books - parts of it read like a very good novel or short story. Regarding Hapes, we tried to address something that's struck me as a key question since the first chapter of The Courtship of Princess Leia: If the Hapans are so powerful, why did the Emperor tolerate their existence? Readers will find a number of other Atlas attempts to make Hapes and Hapans the stuff of cultural references in galactic society.

The discussion of Hutt Space leads into the "closer look" section, but a couple of points. We wanted to develop the idea that the areas "east" of Hutt Space have always been dominated by the Hutts and weren't formally governed from Coruscant until the days of the Empire. We also wanted to make plain the relationship between Hutt Space and the Empire, and used the question of language and translations to paper over the inconsistencies. (This happens in the real world, too - recall that Yasir Arafat used to habitually say peaceable things in English and warlike things in Arabic.)

The term felinx-and-rodus was first used by me in Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds. Felinxes first appeared in The Mandalorian Armor; a rodus is, of course, a rat. I normally dislike making real-world terms "spacey," but since we already had felinxes....

HUTT SPACE

JASON: This was the first of the "A Closer Look" sections of the Atlas written. After I finished it, I confess to being mildly terrified by how much work we'd taken on.

The Hutt view of history is drawn from New Essential Chronology, Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds and the New Essential Guide to Alien Species; for more on the Tionese exterminations, see the Hyperspace feature about Xim. Budhila Hestilic Amura's name draws from two Sanskrit words referring to wisdom.

The planet Sleheyron was developed for the Knights of the Old Republic game but largely cut; its depiction follows what Bioware developer David Gaider had in mind for it. (Sleheyron also made its way into the Clone Wars Visual Guide.) The Ootmian Pabol is a corruption of Ootmian Pankapolla, which the Galactic Phrase Book tells us means "Outlanders' Spaceship Road," more or less. You can hear Watto complain about ootmians in Episode I.

Nar Shaddaa's time as a respectable port is discussed in the Dark Empire Sourcebook; Blotus the Hutt is mentioned in the New Essential Chronology. The Thornhedge Nebula is from Underworld; the Kyyr system is a hasty reversal of Ryyk, which I discovered late in the publication process had to be near Mandalore.

The Atlas makes plain that the expanded borders of Hutt Space seen in the Clone Wars era aren't actual political borders, but reflect economic domination. Even at its feeblest, it's very hard to imagine the Republic surrendering a planet such as Gyndine to the Hutts, and other sources seem to show pretty clearly that the Hutts are de facto rulers of Tatooine, not de jure rulers - Episode I watchers shouldn't take Shmi's conversation with Qui-Gon and Padme so literally. (Secrets of Tatooine, for instance, notes the planet's nominal Republic membership.)

Regarding the Hutt worlds, some quick notes of interest or things that aren't apparent from the text: Ganath is from Dark Empire II, Gar-Oth's attendants from Star Wars Republic #27 are meant to be Jilruans, Circumtore is from The Mandalorian Armor, Rorak 5 is from Jedi Quest: Path to Truth, the Parliament of Moralan is from Polyhedron #170, and Sionian Skups are from Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina.

MAP: HUTT SPACE

JASON: This was the first detail map drawn for the book. I wanted Hutt Space to feel slightly strange and dreadful even as visualized on a map. Remember looking at the map of Mordor in the Lord of the Rings books and seeing precincts of Sauron's kingdom that didn't appear in the story or even get discussed? I'd always wonder about those, and I wanted that feel - I wanted to see spacelanes and sub-regions with alien or forbidding names, and that would be the stuff of rumor and legend among spacers who'd never been there.

THE OUTER RIM

JASON: The Triellus is from Secrets of the Sisar Run, which indicates it runs from near Hutt Space to Tatooine. The Atlas elongated this route greatly, while trying to explain why it isn't a super-route like the Perlemian or the Corellian Run.

MAP: THE OUTER RIM

JASON: I like that the general population of the Outer Rim and the boundaries of civilized space can be inferred by the placements we made here. For instance, you can tell the area around Eriadu is booming, while Virgillia is on the frontier.

Readers who trace placements from the appendix back to the original sources will find some other implied tales here. For instance, there are a lot of battles, Imperial suppressions and Rebel struggles out around Virgillia and near Mon Calamari. If some future Star Wars creator runs with that ball, fantastic.

WILD SPACE AND THE UNKNOWN REGIONS

JASON: While the Atlas was taking shape I read lots of Star Wars manuscripts in order to keep the appendix as up to date as possible and to head off potential geographical errors. One thing I kept seeing was authors mixing up Wild Space and the Unknown Regions. It's an understandable error: Wild Space sounds far more interesting and much more evocative for storytelling, yet it's the Unknown Regions that are the Star Wars saga's true terra incognito.

The location and nature of the Unknown Regions is a bit controversial: Some fans dislike the idea (introduced in works such as Vision of the Future and reinforced through the galactic maps) that a large swath of the galaxy is unexplored. Their feeling is that having just 25% of the galaxy be Known Space badly diminishes the Galactic Empire, and they cite all manner of reasons to discard the EU concept that the Unknown Regions are part of the main galaxy, from in-universe evidence (Han Solo discussing flying from one side of the galaxy to the other, Jocasta Nu saying that if the Jedi don't know about a system it doesn't exist) to logical arguments about the speed of exploration and settlement by galactic civilizations.

I'm definitely sympathetic to this argument, particularly since Timothy Zahn's model of the 25%-explored galaxy has been eroded by subsequent placements in the formerly blank western galaxy (Ilum, Rakata Prime, etc.), shrinking the Unknown Regions to a rather paltry part of the disk. But while we did override some faulty placements in the Atlas (Lorrd and Concord Dawn are two examples), overhauling the basic geographic vision of the galaxy wasn't something we considered. Or wanted to consider, frankly. (Ditto for the idea that hyperspace anomalies block the way "west" from the Core - I understand why people dislike the idea, but a mechanism explaining the "frontier Core" was necessary, and the anomalies and eddies are a long-established piece of Star Wars lore that wasn't ours to discard. And frankly, I think they work fairly well as a remnant of some conflict between the Rakatans and the Celestials. Someone could write a terrific story, Wizards feature or something else addressing them in that context.)

DAN: The hyperspace anomaly was in fact something that I helped create during the development of the original Star Wars galaxy maps in the late 1990s. Even at that time, the existence of an Unknown Regions within the galactic disc was established as a given. Trying to establish an internal logic for why an Unknown Regions would exist at all, I hit on hyperspace and the truism that traveling through it ain't like dusting crops. While hyperspace disturbances are generally tied to real-world objects and their mass shadows, that doesn't mean they always need to be - we're talking about an alternate dimension after all - and appealing to the enigma of hyperspatial physics helped establish three things: (1) why there was an Unknown Regions, (2) why the galaxy had "superhighways," and (3) why nobody had traveled outside the galaxy and made a start at establishing a multi-galaxy civilization. (No, the satellite galaxies don't count.)

JASON: I've read arguments that the Unknown Regions are actually "above" the galactic disk (in the halo, for instance) and so their apparent location is a 2-D illusion of a 3-D reality, but these are grasping at straws: Dan helped create the first maps of the galaxy, so he'd know if that was the intent or even a possibility. As for Jocasta Nu, fans who cite her statement as proof that the entire galaxy is known are ignoring the context of the scene: Jocasta is emblematic of the Jedi Order's arrogance and smug close-mindedness, dismissing the idea that anything could be wrong with the library she loves and tends. That's hardly evidence - and note that her blithe assurance that Kamino can't exist is promptly revealed as incorrect by the galactic equivalent of Mel from "Alice."

Anyway, apologies if that got ranty, but I just don't have a lot of patience with cherry-picking quotes or claiming that maps actually show something very different than what they appear to represent. But as I said, I'm sympathetic to the root causes of the arguments. And so I did try to respect that point of view and those arguments (not to mention the erosion of the Unknown Regions on maps) and find a compromise of sorts. So in the Atlas, that 25% Known Space figure takes into account not only the galactic disk but also the halo and the satellite galaxies, and there's an acknowledgment that by some calculations just 15% of the disk is part of the Unknown Regions. That statement is weaselly on purpose -- only those who want to create the need for more retcons deal in absolutes.

MISCELLANEOUS REGIONS

JASON: Atrisia is from the Imperial Sourcebook; Kitel Phard is from Adventure Journal #14. Making them one and the same seemed logical - the Imperial Sourcebook is clear about the fact that Uueg Tching united a planet. Atrisia's antiquity and apparent importance to galactic culture argued for putting it in the Core Worlds; we stuck it out on the frontier to give it more of a whiff of the exotic and in hopes that future Star Wars creators might find intriguing possibilities in that.

The Botor/Daupherm conflicts are discussed in the Dark Empire Sourcebook and Cracken's Rebel Operatives.

The Ktilac Regions are discussed in Alliance Intelligence Reports. The Murachaun are from Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds, while the Tocoyans are from the Customizable Card Game.

Nouane was introduced in Before the Storm, while the Four Sages of Dwartii (about whom we tried to offer a bit of context without ruining their mystery) are from Complete Locations. Paqwepori is also from Before the Storm.

GLOBULAR CLUSTERS AND SATELLITE GALAXIES

JASON: The biggest surprise here will be the addition of five other satellite galaxies besides the two we see in Episode II. Those two are the Rishi Maze, aka Companion Aurek, and Companion Besh, the home of the Nagai and the Tofs from the Marvel series. The others are a new invention, but not an unlikely one - the Milky Way is thought to have as many as 14 satellite galaxies.

(click here to go back to part 1)
(click here to go on to part 3)

Dan
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