Ansiura

## Overview

A lesser known celestial in Inshiwizan myth is Ansiura, with no major centers of worship across the land. Several monuments to the Starbird, along with the Skydragon still stand in Kiaris’yinima, but few come to worship it. Widely regarded as a vanguard rather than a protector, the Starbird is said to wage an unending war against dark forces beyond the known world. Blessed with the ability to never die, legends say that Ansiura returns to the heart of a distant star to regenerate itself, should it be wounded in battle, and of the two sky deities, it is regarded as the more distant one. Unlike Nuri, however, stories of the Starbird are not bound to the elusive myths of Inshiwizi. Going by many names in different cultures, the Starbird appears in both mainland Exegoli lore and that of the known world, at times wearing the title of Phoenix or Halcyon.

### Conflicting Records

Several different histories of the Starbird's existence and doings have been recorded by different lands and cultures, and whether it is unknown if they speak of Ansiura or not, these myths generally share the common denominator of a Starbird-like creature as their subject. Mainland Exegoli scripts claim that the Starbird kept vigilant watch over the potential enemies of Exegol in the known world, rather than beyond the world itself. It is also said that the Starbird belongs specifically to Exegol, while other accounts claim the Starbird to be bound to various other groups.

The Lothalite inscriptions claim the Starbird to be a universal protector of light across the universe. In accordance with some mainland Exegoli myths, it left Exegol and ventured to the known world's main landmass. However, the Lothalite also described it to have fought against Sith Empires of old, something that contradicts the accounts of the Sith.

### Other Appearances

Naboo legend speaks of six impenetrable gates, each corresponding to a Royal House of Naboo, that guard the barrier to chaos. Each house, respectively, bears the emblem of a Force-beast, one of them being the Starbird. Others include the griffin, pegasus, varactyl, eagle, and dragon, but of the six, the Starbird is regarded as the "second" in importance (the first being the dragon). The House of Lantorel depicts the Starbird as its insignia; Tapalo, the griffin; Veruna, the dragon; Palpatine, the eagle; Naberrie, the pegasus; and Parnelli, the varactyl.

A legion of the Jedi Order's Army of Light during the New Sith Wars and Ruusan campaign was named after the Starbird, featuring a stylized icon of a phoenix on its banners. Nothing notable appears to have come from this particular depiction, but it solidifies the idea that both Jedi and Sith worshipped the Starbird during ancient times. In accordance with Inshiwizan history, this means that the Starbird most likely dates back to at least 9000 BE, before the Great Schisms that split the ancient Je'daii Order into the historical Jedi and Sith.

### Vanishing Point

Without the stability provided by a consistent timeline, Exegoli historians have been hard-pressed to date Ansiura's exact appearances and disappearances in standard years. However, two major ideas can be found across Inshiwizi that attempt to explain the reason behind its sudden disappearance, unlike Nuri, whose presence is always existent but out of sight unless called upon.

The first of these ideologies is that the Starbird was struck down in a final confrontation between light and dark, lighting up the skies in a brilliant supernova thousands of years ago. Without any living remains, Ansiura was unable to renew itself and continue its cycle of death-and-rebirth. This theory appeals to the more practical scientists of the Citadel, as in accordance with their beliefs, one single physical entity cannot endlessly regenerate.

The second is that the Starbird fell, but was not killed. Instead, they say that the forces of darkness corrupted Ansiura to their own will, but there is a major flaw with this theory. As Ansiura and Nuri were the two protectors of light, if one not only fell but *joined* the dark, then surely Nuri alone wouldn't have stood a chance. This has led to a series of deviations, ranging from an eternally chained Starbird to one simply frozen in time, perhaps under even Inshiwizi itself. More radical ideas came in the form of a hypothesis that the Gravity Anchors were not built to stabilize Inshiwizi, but to trap the contaminated Starbird beneath--and that the result of their deactivation led to the temporal and gravitational anomalies of the land, as well as a strengthening of Exegol's dark-side vergence.

An unstable combination of the two ideas has also emerged as a more modern theory; the Stabird was corrupted and *then* struck down, losing its ability to be reborn due to its fall to the dark. Exegol scientists have theorized that the ashes of the dead Starbird became the first strixes as a way of explaining the shadowbirds' anomalous properties. However, this idea was strongly developed during the early stages of the Finality Project during testing phases on the physical composition of strixes, and thus, most of the information remains locked away under the watchful eye of Eternal Intelligence.

### Proof of Existence

While Nuri's existence is simpler to believe in and easier to prove--as it only has one major source of mythos, Inshiwizi itself--Ansiura's many conflicting records make it difficult, if not impossible to tell possible fact from complete fiction. Many across the entire world, Exegol and beyond, have claimed to have spotted the legendary Starbird across the entire written history of time. However, few have discovered any physical evidence that could prove its existence.

Generally, newly-discovered "evidence" comes in the form of large, fiery feathers that belong to no bird of the world or talon-prints that could've just as easily been that of a giant eagle's. One such feather is on display in the Tatooine territory, close to Port Shaddaa; but as most things in Tatooine are, it is most certainly facsimile. Another was once held in the Jedi Archives of Coruscant, but vanished after the fall of the Republic. It is unknown whether this feather was real or not, or where it was taken. Yet another recorded instance of 'starbird feathers' appears in documentation from the Sith Citadel, but it was claimed to have been "used in experimentation", leaving behind no true evidence of whether it was real or existed in the first place or not.

### Operation: Ansiura

A Sith Eternal operation was labeled *Ansiura,* (ur-Kittât: *Operation Halcyon)* occurring some time before the Battle of Endor. Its significance regarding the actual Starbird is unknown, as the Sith Eternal happened to name several projects after Force-beasts during that particular span of time. The most prominent of the Force-beast named operations was Operation: Lothwolf, conducted somewhere in the Lothal grasslands' territory.