Continuing our series of endnotes for Star Wars: The Essential Atlas, this installment talks about the history of the Republic including galactic exploration missions, Sith Space, and the Clone Wars. Click here to go back to part 3!

PART III

BEFORE THE REPUBLIC

DAN: I've always been intrigued by the powers that existed prior to the Republic, partly because no story has ever been set in this time period - it's all just sourcebook references and the like. The lineup of pre-Republic powers include the Rakatans (from the Knights of the Old Republic game), the Gree (from the Star Wars Adventure Journal), the Columi (from West End Games' Galaxy Guide 4), the Sharu (from Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu), the Kwa (from Star Wars Republic: Infinity's End), the Killiks (from The Illustrated Star Wars Universe originally, but more familiarly from The Swarm War), and the Taungs (from, believe it or not, the CD liner notes that accompanied the Shadows of the Empire soundtrack). One power, the Celestials, first appeared in indirect fashion in The Corellian Trilogy (as the ancient builders of Centerpoint Station) but remain largely a mystery.

MAP: THE RAKATA

DAN: Note that the worlds in the Rakatan Empire are single planets and there's no great sweep of territory which you find on other political maps. This is a result of the Rakatan hyperdrive, which can only zero in on planets with strong Force signatures. My first take on this map had dozens of little territorial patches but mapmaker Modi rightly suggested going with this approach instead.

Planets such as Hijarna (The Last Command), Seylott (Boba Fett/Zam Wesell) and Xo (Crimson Empire), all previously been specified as having pre-Republic ruins, are now identified as having been part of the Rakatan empire.

MAP: THE CONQUESTS OF XIM THE DESPOT

JASON: The decision to include alternate names for some systems conquered by Xer and Xim was an effort to lend a sense of antiquity to the region, and to convey how thoroughly the Tionese had fallen from glory. There's much more about Xim, Xer and the Tionese in the Xim feature on Hyperspace.

MAP: ORIGINS OF THE JEDI

JASON: Note that this map also doubles as a political snapshot of the very early Republic. We looked for ways to show the galaxy's expansion over various historical maps so readers could get a sense of that expansion without having to puzzle apart the colors on the very dense Galactic Explorations map. But we wanted to fit that progression into maps that were showing other things to add interest to them. For instance, I think this map would be quite flat if all it showed were systems connected with Jedi origins and mystic Force traditions. (There are some maps later in the Atlas that only show one thing, and I think they suffer a bit in contrast.)

Note that the borders of Hutt Space will change as the Atlas maps move forward in time, with minor trade routes also changing course, appearing and disappearing. An early idea for the Atlas was that the position of the star systems would also change over the eons. This would be a realistic reflection of the fact that stars are revolving around the galactic center at different speeds and on different vectors, but it would have left readers familiar with the modern galaxy completely unmoored. So we quietly dropped it.

GALACTIC EXPLORATION

DAN: Listing all the signatories of the Republic was a fun bit, trying to tie together as many "early" planets as possible without making our shaky maps fall apart. Obviously we needed these kinds of planets to bunch together in relatively contained geographical groupings or it started to seem far too scattered. "Praediums" is a new term which describes short hyperspace snippets connecting several systems but which aren't easily connected to larger routes.

MAP: GALACTIC EXPLORATIONS

JASON: This map was a bear. You'll find lots of little islands of exploration and odd peninsulas to reflect the fact that so many worlds we were once told were charted, founded or settled late in galactic history have shown up in the eras explored by the various Knights of the Old Republic tales. In the final days of work on the Atlas, a good chunk of "blue" space had to be hastily turned turquoise to account for two things: the forthcoming The Old Republic MMO and its new origin story for the Hydian Way, and the mention of the Minos Cluster in an online comic connected to the game.

DAN: Here's a scenario: you're mapping an era in which the planet Ithor is way out in the distant Outer Rim, far too distant for anyone to reasonably have reached it in your ancient era in which civilization is tightly clustered around the Core. However, Ithorians are cool. It's a virtual certainty that some writer or artist will stick an Ithorian in a comic book set during that time period. For Jason and me, we had to either (1) extend the sweep of civilization in that era to include Ithor, (2) identify Ithor as an isolated outpost way out in the uncharted wilds, (3) assume that the Ithorian character in that hypothetical comic was a wanderer far from home which would allow Ithor to stay unknown, or (4) ignore it. Multiply that scenario 1000x and you have the colossal headaches that were the Atlas' historical maps.

JASON: Note that this map also shows the extent of civilized space in 25 ABY - another example of using one map to show two interesting things.

MAJOR TRADE ROUTES

JASON: The Balmorra Run, unveiled in the Clone Wars show, struck us as an interesting name for a trade route. The name implied that the route went to Balmorra, but for it to connect Balmorra and Kaliida Shoals would have made it a pretty major route, forcing us either to come up with a not very convincing explanation of why it disappeared before the classic era or to add it to the galaxy map and shrug when people asked why such a big route had never been mentioned before. So I came up with this explanation and held my breath hoping no other Star Wars source would blow that out of the water before the Atlas hit shelves.

THE SLICE

JASON: The Slice is pretty well established in Star Wars lore, so I thought the best way to make this section interesting was to explore the Slice's historical development. Historical atlases are full of the ebb and flow of empires and wars, but it's hard to translate that to a galactic atlas: Interstellar empires are basically dots connected by lines that can be drawn fairly arbitrarily. We tried everywhere we could to give a broader picture by figuring out how settlement would have flowed, how trade routes would have changed, and what galactic powers would have won or lost based on that historical forces.

A decicred-dreadful is, of course, a spacey name for a "penny-dreadful." It seemed logical that the Hutts would be the stuff of fearful rumor for citizens on the frontier of the expanding Republic - a cruel, powerful alien species somewhere out there. But of course that's just one side of the story - in this section you can also see the seeds of anti-alien bias that the Empire would one day exploit.

GREAT SPACEFARING SPECIES

DAN: The illustration in the upper left originally read "An Ithorian, Baragwin, and Human play holochess." Note that the human in question is actually a self-portrait drawn by Atlas illustrator Chris Trevas. To poke fun at Chris a little bit, our editor Erich Shoeneweiss changed the caption at the last minute to read, "An Ithorian and a Baragwin about to win a Human's starship in a game of holochess."

ANCIENT MYSTERIES OF THE GALAXY

DAN: This section is largely a nod to the article "From the Files of Corellia Antilles," written by Timothy O'Brien and published in issue #14 of the Star Wars Adventure Journal. The article was meant as a listing of quest items for Gamemasters to include in the roleplaying game, but O'Brien made the entire thing a tribute to Indiana Jones (note that Indiana/Corellia = place names, Jones/Antilles = common surnames).

Three items in this sidebar - the Shrines of Kooroo, the Loag Dagger, and the Sharka'k Noor - originally appeared in "From the Files of Corellia Antilles." The Infant of Shaa originally appeared in the Boba Fett/Zam Wesell comics, while the Mindharp of Sharu is from the aptly-named Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu.

Two more Ancient Mysteries round out this section. The Nova Vaults of Kakitai bel Toyouin is my homage to the Money Pit of Oak Island, something that fascinated me as a kid. Finally, the Bedlam Spirits is a reference to the one-of-a-kind Alan Moore story "Tilotny Throws a Shape," which can be found in the comic collection Star Wars: Devilworlds.

THE GREAT HYPERSPACE WAR

DAN: This war seems to get bigger and bigger every time somebody writes about it. In the original comics it's pretty much a done-in-one affair, but the story feels like it should be more epic, so subsequent sources (including the Essential Chronology, which I co-wrote) have put more meat on it. Late in the Atlas editing process we ran across the "Lost Tribe of the Sith" ebooks, in which it was mentioned that various members of Republic species were already part of the Sith empire prior to the arrival of Gav and Jori Daragon and that the Republic (or at least the existence of a civilization outside the borders of the Sith Empire) was not an entirely new concept for the Sith Lords. After a consultation with ebook writer John Jackson Miller, a hasty rewrite of one paragraph allowed us to squeeze in an acknowledgment of these events.

The end of this section, detailing the fate of the Sith Empire, includes a mention of one Sith Lord building up a new Sith Empire in the Unknown Regions. This is a tie-in to LucasArts' upcoming MMO The Old Republic.

MAP: SITH SPACE

DAN: This is the first time that Sith Space has been mapped. I wanted to give some geographical explanation for their isolation and a sunken ring in the hyperspatial fabric called the Stygian Caldera was the result. When I needed to invent new names for planets and routes to flesh out this map, I went with a mix of 50% pseudo-German and 50% H.P. Lovecraft.

MAP: THE GREAT HYPERSPACE WAR

JASON: Note lots of systems from the Tales of the Jedi era on this map, and the very different trade routes. (I always wanted to know why Cyrillia was such an orphan on maps.) The trade routes will change drastically in subsequent maps of the "ancient" galaxy, settling down somewhat at the end of the era of fixed hyperspace beacons. Note also that this era's coreward border of Hutt Space lines up with a later trade route to Randon - the idea being that traders of that era wanted to stay out of the Hutt's dominion and so blazed a route to accomplish that. Hutt Space later contracted, but the route proved stable.

THE GREAT SITH WAR

DAN: On this map we tried to find as many ways as possible to make the war busier. It was a devastating galaxy-wide conflict, so just depicting the events of the comics felt too small. Therefore, some of the arrows on the map reflect what seemed like logical movements in a time of war. For a while it was as if we were Republic generals, trying to decide where to send our troops in response to the Sith movements we'd drawn on the map just minutes before. Events such as "the Sith cut the Slice in half" and the arrival of the Republic Swift Fleet came out of those discussions.

MAP: THE GREAT SITH WAR

JASON: The Hydian Way doesn't exist yet, but you can see some of the islands and spurs it will connect. Some trade routes used by the Sith here will cease to exist, reflecting the destruction of their hyperspace beacons and the ruin of worlds and commerce along them.

MAP: THE JEDI CIVIL WAR

DAN:This map is based on the events (and backstory) of the first Knights of the Old Republic game. I really wanted to include the events from Knights of the Old Republic 2 on the same map, but it was simply too much information. All the KOTOR2 events were dropped in order to have the resulting map be at least semi-legible.

THE MANDALORIANS

JASON: Some of this material is new, and startling. It'll be clearer soon, promise. The first outline of the Atlas called for a map of the Mandalore sector with an accompanying "Closer Look," but with so many Mandalorian tales being told, we scrapped that for fear of creating contradictions and accidentally tying authors' hands.

MAP: THE MANDALORIAN WARS

DAN: For this map we were lucky to have the advice of Knights of the Old Republic comics writer John Jackson Miller, who critiqued our first efforts and added material he planned to introduce in his Knights run.

ZENITH OF THE REPUBLIC

DAN: This section features a few references to The Old Republic, the MMO due for release in a year or two. We added these references at the last second and didn't have time (or room) for anything more extensive.

MAP: THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC

DAN: I really like the way this map turned out, with the red and the blue. At one point while making my rough map sketches in GIMP I made up my mind to delete the line depicting "Darth Bane's travels." I thought it would mess up the visuals, but my kill instructions were never received and I'm now glad of it.

THE KANZ DISORDERS

JASON: Geography fans will note that Lorrd used to be up by the Corporate Sector. This was your authors' mistake in preparation for the map in The New Essential Chronology, and one of a handful of geographical flubs that we put right instead of trying to work around via a retcon.

THE HAPES CLUSTER

JASON: Readers who look up many of the worlds newly placed in the Hapes Cluster will find lots of them are famous for riches, luxury items or ancient mysteries - all the better for making Hapes seem exotic and mysterious.

MAP: THE HAPES CLUSTER

JASON: I think this might be my favorite map in the book. It's simply beautiful - great work by Modi.

THE HYDIAN WAY

JASON: Peter Schweighofer invented the Kallea Cycle for the old Star Wars Adventure Journals, and I was always intrigued by the idea. A Star Wars opera? A heroic explorer? The founding of a new trade route? What was the story of the Kallea Cycle? What "historical" truths did it reflect?

Peter didn't have any background notes he hadn't used, and kindly gave me carte blanche to run with his creation. To honor the material that so intrigued me, I decided to stick with the opera, writing a synopsis that would be presented to an audience that wouldn't understand the Old Brentaal in which the arias were sung.

The opera portrays Neimoidians, Gran and Dugs in a rather bad light, so you can see how the Empire would have used it as propaganda for exalting a largely human Core culture - think about the Nazis and Wagner. I took that a step further by having the Empire do away with the long-standing tradition of having the lone heroic alien part played by an actual Duros.

DAN: This might be my favorite part of the book, and I'm glad that Jason decided to go this route. It's not at all a typical way to detail the formation of the Hydian Way. We rarely get a glimpse of actual in-universe theatrical productions in the Star Wars universe. Besides the opera that Palpatine and Anakin watch in Revenge of the Sith (Squid Lake? Seriously?) there's "Uhl Eharl Khoehng" by Patricia Jackson from the Star Wars Adventure Journal and Michael Kogge's upcoming "The Despotica" on starwars.com.

JASON: Very late in the publication process, we found out that the Hydian Way's founding had been pushed back seven centuries for The Old Republic MMO. Happily, we were able to accommodate that by simply changing dates. Whew!

MAP: THE HYDIAN WAY

JASON: We went for a very minimalist treatment here that's a bit at odds with the rest of the book, but I think was helpful in spotlighting the Hydian Way and Kallea's explorations. I also liked the simplicity of "The Mandalorian Road" as a name. You might object that Republic citizens wouldn't use such a threatening-sounding name, but our idea was that the route began as a raiders' path into the civilized systems, and gradually became civilized but kept its rather ominous moniker. "Sort of like the Santa Fe Trail," remarked Dark Horse's John Jackson Miller, which was reassuring.

And behold Chris Reiff's gorgeous nebula!

DESCENT INTO DARKNESS

JASON: This section attempts to tie together a number of EU strands about the years before Episode I - the rise of the Trade Federation, Cloak of Deception's note that the Trade Federation blazed new hyperspace trails, militarism in the Senate, and changes in the Senate's rules. Kol Huro is mentioned in Rogue Planet.

"Luck is the remnant of manipulation" is an echo of the Branch Rickey quote that "luck is the residue of design."

MAP: SIDIOUS'S PREPARATIONS

JASON: Note that Hutt Space has expanded dramatically here, reflecting the Republic's weakness. Keeping track of the changing borders of Hutt Space was no fun for our mapmakers.

MOVIE MAP: EPISODE I

JASON: This section does add a bit of new information to the Episode I story: If Obi-Wan told Captain Panaka not to reply to Sio Bibble's message, how did Darth Maul manage to trace the royal starship to Naboo? Maul gets to Tatooine so quickly that it seems unlikely the message was traced through some legwork by Sidious's agents. Given Panaka's disagreements with Amidala and the Jedi about leaving Naboo, it seemed logical that he would disobey a mere Padawan's orders and give Bibble a quick reply.

A CLOSER LOOK: TATOOINE ETC.

JASON: Arkanis's history is explored in Adventure Journal #6; the Attack of the Clones Visual Dictionary ties the Lars family to Ator. The other worlds are drawn from a blizzard of sources. A recent issue of Dark Horse's Legacy series identifies Siskeen as being part of Arkanis Sector. It's not identified as such here, but a lot could have happened in the century between the Fate of the Jedi books and Cade Skywalker's day.

OUTBOUND FLIGHT

JASON: Outbound Flight's itinerary was a challenge - the ships jump all over the galaxy. The answer I came up with was that the expedition was calling at worlds represented by the project's Senate champions. But the Albanin Sector is home to Barab, practically on the other side of the galaxy. What to do? Well, no one said they actually went there - so I ruled that that stop had been eliminated in C'baoth's haste to begin exploring beyond Roxuli.

THE CLONE WARS

JASON: As you might imagine, this section was rewritten multiple times as more information became available about the Clone Wars. Since the Clone Wars show can't be fit into a timeline yet, we decided the best thing to do was to discuss the war thematically, focusing on strategies and techniques so we could avoid the awkwardness of addressing the TV show without knowing exactly where to do so.

The idea of the Confederacy's foundry is a new one - if you delve into the appendix, you'll find Metalorn has lots of neighbors that saw fighting in the war and/or are industrial worlds.

MAP: THE CLONE WARS

JASON: Given the still-evolving timeline, mapping the Clone Wars was a challenge. Before the show became part of our Atlas plans, we were going to have three maps offering snapshots of the war's beginning, middle and end. Instead, we recast the first map as a snapshot of the initial Republic and CIS territories, eliminated the middle map and left the third map as a snapshot of the beginning of the Outer Rim Sieges.

A CLOSER LOOK: KASHYYYK

JASON: This is a much larger region than that explored in the other Closer Looks - we wanted to capture some of the flavor of numerous competing power interests in a region ripe with intrigue.

Lantillies is one of the EU worlds with a much larger profile post-Atlas, going from basically an adjective for starships to a major trade world. Avenelle is from Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook. Randon is from Vader's Fortress. Ota is from Classic Star Wars: The Early Adventures, the site of an early encounter between Our Heroes and Boba Fett. Rorgam is from Jedi Apprentice: The Call to Vengeance. Coachelle is the homeworld of Jaxxon, the infamous Lepus carnivorous from the early Marvel days. Deysum (and many of its neighbors) are from West End Games's Classic Campaigns. Blimph is from the Dark Horse one-shot Bounty Hunters.

MOVIE MAP: REVENGE OF THE SITH

JASON: Note that the secret route taken by Grievous and the later Byss Run correspond.

SECRETS OF THE CLAATUVAC GUILD

JASON: I held my breath waiting to see if the folks at Lucasfilm would like this section or not - it's the place in the Atlas where we dealt most directly with the classic characters, which obviously is something you take great care in doing.

The EU material around Revenge of the Sith complicated the previously known picture of Kashyyyk's place in the galaxy and the Wookiees' role as hyperspace scouts and navigators. Complete Locations says Kashyyyk is "close to a major route for the southwestern quadrant," which given Kashyyyk's place in the galaxy we interpreted as the southwest quadrant of the Slice. The same book says the Claatuvac Guild is responsible for surveying and maintaining the galaxy's hyperspace routes. That seemed like an overreach given a lot of established EU lore that never mentions the Guild - furthermore, Dark Horse's subsequent Clone Wars comics treated the Wookiees' hyperspace lore as secrets, which seemed to make more sense. A breakdown of the Claatuvac operations in Tree Vikkilynn is found in Complete Locations; Gumbaeki's role in the Guild is explored in the Clone Wars comics.

What of Chewie? Revenge of the Sith: Incredible Cross-Sections says he spent years as a route-planner, which was the key to this section. Making Chewie a key member of the Guild offered a nice way to deepen his character, take an amusing dig at Han's reputation and give the Rebels an advantage against the Empire that wouldn't have been widely known. It also honors George Lucas's explanation that starships are fast not because of their engines, but because their captains have the best routes.

THE DARK TIMES

DAN: This list of Imperial atrocities helped us flesh out a time period that is still largely blank. The atrocities and their sources: the Cleansing of New Plympto (Star Wars: Dark Times), the Byss Lure (the Dark Empire Sourcebook and the webstrip Evasive Action: Recruitment), the Eye of Palpatine (Children of the Jedi), the Caamas Firestorm (Specter of the Past), the Dessication of Gholondreine-Beta (one of my faves, from Slave Ship), the Enslavement of Kashyyyk (many sources including Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader), the Ghorman Massacre (the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook), and the Subjugation of Mon Calamari (many sources including Galaxy Guide 4).

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(click here to go on to part 5)

Dan
(writing projects and current releases)