Difference between revisions of "Nar Shaddaa"

Revision as of 21:48, 3 March 2008

Astrographical
Region:	Mid Rim
Sector:	Y'Toub system
System:	Y'Toub system
Planet:	Nal Hutta
Geographical
Primary Terrain:	urban sprawls
Points of Interest:	The Burning Deck, The Slag Pit, Meltdown Café, Orange Lady, Rimmer's Rest, the Black Market
Society
Native Species:	originally Ganks; then Hutts, t'landa Til, Humans, Colicoids, Evocii, Many others
Population:	72-95 billion
Affiliations
The Hutt Empire

""Ah… the beautiful stench and decay of desperate living.""

―Atton Rand

Nar Shaddaa was the largest moon of Nal Hutta. More commonly known as the Vertical City, the Smuggler's Moon and Little Coruscant, Nar Shaddaa was similar to Coruscant in that its surface was entirely overgrown with city sprawl since 24,500 BBY, although unlike Coruscant which was only relatively dangerous on the lower levels of the world city, Nar Shaddaa was filthy, polluted, and infested with crime throughout.

History

Old Republic

"Never have I been to a place so alive with the Force, yet so dead to it. The contrast is like a blade."

―Visas Marr

When the Hutts left their homeworld of Varl, they displaced the Evocii, native to Nal Hutta, to Nar Shaddaa in 25,000 BBY. Eventually the moon was annexed by the Hutts, who started building spaceports and docking bays across its surface, some stretching out into orbit. Although the moon was only starting to be built it quickly began to prosper, along with Nal Hutta.

In 24,500 BBY the moon was completely urbanized due to the physical slave labour of the Evocii, enforced by the Hutts and the Evocii were finally free since their work was complete. It rivaled the galactic capital Coruscant as an important center of interstellar trade and continued to grow. Ancient refueling spires and loading docks reached out from the native soil and some built in the upper atmosphere. In between these ports, massive vertical cities grew. The urban areas on Nar Shaddaa were known as vertical cities since new layers of housing and entertainment buildings were built on top of older layers.

Like Coruscant and Taris, the lower levels fell into disrepair and became havens for the lowest lifeforms (particularly the mutated descendants of the Evocii) on the moon. The Hutts continued to exploit the Evocii in their new home, buying up their land and using them as a cheap labor source.

The Vertical City

After the end of the end of the Tionese War around 23,900 BBY, Nar Shaddaa became a criminal haven and gained a reputation of being the center of illegal operations in the galaxy. While much of Coruscant was filled with gleaming apartments and well-maintained skywalks, the entire moon that was Nar Shaddaa was dominated by decaying urban landscape and congested, polluted cities. Now distant from most galactic trade centers, the moon was allowed to run its own affairs with little outside interference.

The moon was protected by often-malfunctioning planetary shields. Anything illegal elsewhere could be bought and sold on Nar Shaddaa, and many young smugglers, pirates and criminals started their careers on the Smugglers' Moon. Various sections of Nar Shaddaa were controlled by the Hutts and other criminal organizations.

Sections of the urbanized moon's vertical city included the Duros sector and the Corellian sector, which contained three bars popular with bounty hunters - the Burning Deck, the Slag Pit, and the Meltdown Café(famous for selling bitter, syrupy drinks known as Tatooine Sunburns), and another corner tavern called the Orange Lady.

Inside one of its many popular tapcafe

In 3,951 BBY, the moon was visited by the Jedi Exile in her search for Zez-Kai Ell, a Jedi Master who cast her out of the Jedi Order. After the Jedi Civil War ended, Nar Shaddaa became swarmed by thousands (if not millions) of refugees from destroyed worlds across the Galaxy, and still more ex-soldiers from both sides in the conflict choking up its spaces looking for work and/or new homes. Its refugee sector was one of the most crowded in the entire galaxy, and tightly controlled by the Exchange. The Exchange was exploiting the refugees to lure any remaining Jedi into their hands. The Exile did many things to hurt the Exchange (including killing one of their criminal bosses) and eventually got captured by G0-T0. But her companions rescued her and they succeeded in destroying G0-T0's yacht, destabilizing the Exchange and other criminal organizations throughout the entire sector for many years.

Around 1,002 BBY, the Brotherhood of Darkness operated a Sith academy on the world that specialized in the training of Sith Assassins. In 1,000 BBY, after the Battle of Ruusan, Set Harth and Bal Serinus dueled on the moon, but were both imprisoned by a Hutt crimelord.

The Landings - a main shuttle landing area

Before her death in 32 BBY at the hands of Darth Maul, native-born Pa'lowick Aneesa Dym and her ship the Dusty Duck called the Smugglers' Moon home.

In 28 BBY, the Colicoids took over the spice processing on Nar Shaddaa. Roughly around the same time, the sectors got shifted around and yet another big sector came into existance: the Rodian Sector.

Galactic Empire

One of the busy back-alley residential areas

Lando Calrissian also spent his early career on Nar Shaddaa. Prior to serving Raymus Antilles, C-3PO and R2-D2 traveled to the Smuggler's Moon in an attempt to apprehend the criminal, Olag Greck. An Imperial attack on a Rebel hideout resulted in the destruction and collapse of nearly twenty sector levels. Following the Battle of Yavin, Rebel agent Kyle Katarn traveled to Nar Shaddaa in order to find Imperial navigational charts related to the Dark Trooper Project; the Imperials had already put a bounty on his head which resulted in a skirmish in the streets.

Sectors of Note

The Duros Sector

In the decades prior to the Clone Wars the Duros Sector received large-scale funding from the Neimoidians of the Trade Federation and was known throughout the galaxy as a cosmopolitan haven of the Outer Rim. It contained the Old Duros Spaceport and a secret tunnel entrance into the Corellian Sector.

After the fall of the Trade Federation and the rise of the Galactic Empire, the Duros Sector fell into disrepair and malaise, assuming the character of the rest of the moon. Many Neimoidians living there assumed the identity of Duros.

By the early years of the Empire, the sector had become abandoned, inhabited only by semi-intelligent predators. It then became known as the Old Duros Sector.

The Corellian Sector

The Corellian Sector was a high-rise district. Casinos and trendy hotspots such as the Meltdown Café attracted patrons from all walks of life.

This sector housed many public merchant areas and an ill-kept warehouse district located along the perimeter of an expansive thoroughfare. The most profitable enterprise found in this region was the gambling industry. The entire city reeked of refuse and debris as repulsorlift garbage scows floated from level to level collecting garbage. The Sector could be reached by a secret tunnel entrance from the Duros Sector.

Culture

Though dominated politically and economically by the Hutts and Corellian'-descended Humans, people of many species lived in the Corellian Sector. One of the more populated habitats within the Corellian Sector was the public housing area and the machine shops atop Level 88. Outlaw tech Shug Ninx' and his assistant Warb maintained their own repair workshop in this area and bartered for everything from power couplings for YT-1300 light freighters to heavy-duty hull plating for Starjammer IZX Freight Hauler.

Crime was abundant in the Corellian Sector, but the authorities at Corellian Port Control largely ignored the smaller offenses and partially encouraged the occasional bounty killing. Professional hunters such as Boba Fett and Dengar were able to find easy work tracking down wanted criminals throughout the various city-levels.

Han Solo spent part of his early career as a smuggler on Nar Shaddaa. There, he learned the tricks of the smuggling trade from some of the galaxy's best smugglers such as Salla Zend, Shug Ninx and Roa. He had an apartment on the Smuggler's Moon, which was maintained by his old house-keeping droid ZZ-4Z, but after he decided to leave the moon for the Corporate Sector, it was left unused. The Rodian bounty hunter Greedo and his family, members of the Tetsu Clan who had fled Rodia's clan wars, also lived in Level 88.

History

In 0 BBY, this region became the focus of a major clash between the soldiers of the Galactic Empire and the freedom fighters of the Rebel Alliance. The Rebels had managed to insert covert Rebel SpecForce operatives into the ranks of Corellian Port Control. Through these agents, they were able to smuggle high-end munitions out of the district inside of sealed packing crates. In the dead of night, pilots would fly the weapons off-world in the cargo bays of huge Corellian Corvettes.

Two bounty hunters, Spurch Goa and Dyyz Nataz, learned of these operations from Greedo and sold the information to the Empire. As a result, Darth Vader sent two camouflaged Gamma-class Assault Shuttles to the Corellian Sector to raze the district. SpecForce operative Spane Covis recognized the disguised freighters and alerted the Rebel commandos. Imperial stormtroopers disembarked from the shuttles and engaged in a firefight with twenty Rebel soldiers. The Rebels managed to fight off the Imperials with a C4-CZN ion field gun. Despite the temporary victory, a large portion of the Corellian Sector was destroyed when a second wave of Imperials arrived. An entire quarter collapsed, taking out some twenty levels. Level 88, home to Greedo's family, was one of the areas devastated in the attack, though Greedo himself escaped to the planet Tatooine with Goa and Nataz.