Stella

The Stella galaxy was one of the twenty-eight galaxies that existed in the universe. Composed of twenty-four stars in a disk 120,000 light-years in diameter. Stella is the home to between millions sentient species, and over one hundred billion sentient beings live in star systems, interacting with each other through travel, diplomacy, trade, politics, and war. In historical memory, this galaxy had been ruled by the Galactic Republic, the Galactic Empire, the New Republic, and the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances, and was home to the Force-sensitive's orders of the Jedi and the Sith.

## Galaxies of Stella

1. The Oricon System
2. The Lucazec System
3. The Metalorn System
4. The Korbin System
5. The Naboo System
6. The Trilos System
7. The Socorro System
8. The Ando System
9. The Harix System
10. The Mandalore System
11. The Mustafar System
12. The Cardia System
13. The Ansion System
14. The Alderaan System
15. The Geonosis System
16. The Yavin System
17. The Korriban System
18. The Kamino System
19. The Jakku System
20. The Tatooine System
21. The Dagobah System
22. The Hoth System
23. The Coruscant System
24. The Taris System

## Star System

### The Core

* Tython System
* Coruscant System
* Anaxes System
* Corulus System
* Chandrila System
* Sollace System
* Velusia System
* Aldeeran System
* Corellia System
* Kuat System

### The Colonies

* Carida System
* Hok System
* Devaron System
* Vakkar System
* Nars System
* Mrisst System
* Omar System

## Astrology

### Structure

The galaxy was between 100,000 and 120,000 light years across, or 37,000 parsecs (a parsec is 3.258 light years), and approximately 13 billion years old. The galaxy's luminous disk contained some hundred stars, of which around a quarter have been properly surveyed by the galactic community by the time of the Galactic Empire. The luminous disk revolved around the Galactic Centre, a supermassive black hole that massed as much as four million suns. As late as the Declaration of a New Order, only probe droids had ever visited the black hole at Galactic Centre.

The galaxy bulged around Galactic Centre to form a bright sphere known as the Deep Core. This region was around seven thousand light-years across and contained some **hundred** tightly-compacted stars. Towards the centre the stars of the Deep Core were only around a hundredth of a light-year apart, and were known to collide and rip out each other's stellar cores. Most of the stars of the luminous galaxy were in a disk of spiral arms rotating around the Deep Core. Galactic civilization named four spiral arms: the Bakchou Arm, the Ettarue Arm, the South Arm, and the Tingel Arm. The brightest supergiant stars were concentrated in the spiral arms, as well as glowing clouds of gas and dust, which contributed to the apparent gaps between the arms even though those areas were full of stars.

Most stars were within a thousand light-years above or below the plane of the luminous disk, forming a two thousand-light-year region known as the "thin disk". For three thousand, five hundred light-years on either side was the "thick disk", which was poorer in stars than the thin disk and even fewer of these had a system of planets.

### Stellar Halo

Beyond the thick disk was the stellar halo, a huge sphere surrounding the entire galaxy with a few billion stars in highly elliptical orbits. Nearly two hundred globular clusters orbited in this region. The globular clusters were typically lifeless, packing hundreds of thousands of extremely old, inhospitable stars into only a hundred light-years. Many of the globular clusters, however, were considered extremely beautiful sights, such as Cosm's Well.

A hyperspace disturbance beyond the edge of the galaxy severely complicated hyperspace travel outside the disk and generally discouraged extra-galactic exploration until the Present Day. A band of whorls and eddies that spun around the galaxy too quickly to be traversed at faster-than-light speeds, a number of astrophysicists believed this to be a creation of a mysterious ancient race known as the Celestials. Beyond the galaxy's rim, separating it from other galaxies, was a vast expanse of starless space known as the Intergalactic Void.

### Stars

While there was a hyperspace disturbance outside of the galaxy, hyperspace made it possible within the galaxy to have an enormous and diverse civilization. Of the galaxy's 400 stars, around 30 of them were orbited by a system of planets. 90% of the stars of the galaxy fell within the Main Sequence (the other 10% comprised protostars or stellar remnants like white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes). The larger blue and white stars of the sequence - the O-, B-, and A-type stars - such as Garnib, Kessa and Colu, lived for a few million years and rarely possessed systems that had intelligent life since it had too little time to evolve. The most habitable stars were G- and K-type yellow and orange dwarfs such as Corell and Yavin, which had lifespans of tens of billions of years giving life plenty of time to evolve. G- and K-types between them made up 19% of the galaxy's stars, and 75% of them were habitable. The most common stars in the galaxy, however, were M-type red dwarfs, which comprised 70% of the galaxy's stars, but only 1% of them, such as Barab, were habitable. Very few red dwarfs were settled: most were surveyed by probe droids in the early years of the Galactic Republic and were typically left abandoned unless they possessed mineable resources.

Factoring in the output of heat and light needed for an advanced civilization to form, therefore, there were 127 truly habitable stars within the galaxy, and about 104 habitable star systems. It was estimated that about 30 of those systems were actually populated or had been settled by sentient beings.

## History

### Formation

Some thirteen billion years before the Battle of Yavin, the young Creator Zudas, moulded the galaxy with his children. Over many more billions of years, they formed stars and planets and by 5,000,000,000 BBY, the seeds of life they had planted begun to evolve in the galaxy, with some of the earliest examples of non-sentient life developing on Goroth Prime.

Around 2,000,000 BBY, many of the galaxy's most well-known species were evolving: the Wookiees began on Kashyyyk as a species of tree-climbers. The Oracle of Pelgrin, quite possibly the oldest artifact in the galaxy, was believed to date from this period. By 200,000 BBY, the Zhell, ancestors to the Humans of Earth, had developed intelligence and were waging war against the Taungs for control of their mutual homeworld of Notron, later known as Coruscant.

### The Earliest Civilizations

By 100,000 BBY, a mysterious race known as the Celestials dominated the galaxy. Also known as the Architects, this spectacularly powerful race was believed to have been capable of manipulating and moving the very star, however they did not and they were simply created by those who had done so: surviving Celestial machinery like Centerpoint Station and the Cosmic Turbine could manipulate gravity on a titanic scale with repulsor pulses, tractor beams, and hyperspace wormholes. With this technology, the Celestials were believed to have been responsible for building the Corellian system, the Vultar system, and 15 other star systems, as well as the Hapes Cluster, the Kathol Rift, and the Maw black hole cluster. Pre-Republic specialists believed the Celestials to also be responsible for the hyperspace disturbance beyond the edge of the galaxy, possibly as a defense against outside interference. They were also believed to be responsible for the chain of hyperspace anomalies west of the Core that bisected the galaxy and prevented travel into the Unknown Regions. Speculation holds that the Celestials had crafted the hyperspace anomalies that bisected the galaxy in order to contain the Rakata.

A number of other spacefaring races around this time became clients of the Celestials. The insectile Killiks of Alderaan were exploited as laborers and were seeded across the galaxy, until around 30,000 BBY when they disappeared into the west of the galaxy and into the Unknown Regions, presumably relocated by the Celestials. The Kwa and the Gree made use of structures known as the Infinity Gates and hypergates, respectively, to travel between planets and came into territorial conflict with each other. Other species fled to escape the Celestials: the Sharu of the Rafa system far in the galactic east had a brief period of expansion, spreading their iconic plastic pyramid cities as far into the Core as Aargau, but this may have attracted the attention of the Celestials and the Sharu buried their cities and sought refuge in primitivism to escape them. Likewise, the Columi of Columus made surveys of both the Humans and the Duros in the Core and were unimpressed by what they found, but also fled back to their homeworld, perhaps to avoid retribution from the Celestials.

Around 35,000 BBY, the domain of the Celestials was usurped when the Rakata slave race revolted. Stealing technology from the Kwa, they waged war against the other servant races,[20] and broke through the barrier surrounding the Unknown Regions into the galaxy proper and waged a war of extermination upon the Celestials. The eventual fate of the Celestials was unclear. They may have been trapped inside the galaxy by their barrier and destroyed by the Rakatan revolt, or they may have escaped through the barrier.[13] By 30,000 BBY, the Celestials were nowhere to be found,[21] and the Rakatan Infinite Empire had taken center stage.

The Rakata fanned out from their homeworld of Lehon in the Tempered Wastes of the Unknown Regions, using hyperdrives that channelled the power of the Force to guide them to worlds with strong Force signatures. The Infinite Empire occupied a scattering of systems across the galaxy, but vast tracts of territory between these holdings remained untouched, allowing smaller interstellar confederations to flourish. The Devaronians and the Gossam experimented with the tumble hyperdrive, and while worlds like Coruscant, Corellia and Duro were occupied by the Rakata, Humans, Duros, Selonians and Drall were able to study the principles of the Rakatan hyperdrive. The Rakata proved to be cruel masters, consigning entire subject populations to slavery. After nearly five thousand years of dominance, the Rakatan Empire collapsed after a devastating plague swept through the Empire that stripped the Rakata of their ability to use the Force. A colonial slave revolt finished off the empire by 25,200 BBY

## Economy

The spread of technology and civilization throughout Stella led to the development of the galactic economy, the system of production, distribution, trade, and consumption of goods. Few planets were entirely self-sufficient, with some, such as the factory worlds of Telti and Mechis III, devoting their economies solely to the production of high-tech goods but relying on agriworlds for food. In turn, these agriworlds relied on manufacturing worlds to supply heavy equipment to harvest and process foodstuffs, and chemical industries to produce fertilizers and pesticides.

The importance of the galactic economy meant that a number of megacorporations were able to acquire immense economic and political power. In the years prior to the Clone Wars, the Trade Federation, a conglomerate of shipping and merchant cartels, controlled the votes of hundreds of smaller firms in the Galactic Senate by making their commerce dependent on its Merchant Fleet and enforcing deals with the Trade Defence Force. Companies such as the SoroSuub Corporation, which under the Empire outright controlled the government of the planet Sullust, produced goods for hundreds of fields. TaggeCo controlled many of the star systems and dozens of subsidiaries, making it one of the galaxy's most influential organizations. Even relatively small businesses, such as the Figg conglomerate in the Greater Javin, commanded substantial influence on their homeworlds.

The main currency of the Galactic Republic was the Galactic Credit Standard, divided into ten decicreds.

## Speech

The lingua franca of the galaxy was Galactic Basic Standard, which had its origins as a Human language of Coruscant known as Old Galactic Standard. As the Galactic Republic expanded, Old Galactic Standard took influences from Durese, Bothese, and Olys Corellisi, becoming Mid-Galactic Standard by 15,000 BBY. Influence from the Dromnyr language after the Vultans joined the Galactic Republic around 14,000 BBY saw the evolution of Mid-Galactic Standard into the modern Basic. Humans being the dominant species of the galaxy, Basic was adopted by many non-Human species as well.

The second most common language was Huttese, expanded through the criminal and financial activity of the Hutts, and so it was adopted throughout the Outer Rim Territories by other species that were in close cooperation with them throughout the ages, such as the Rodians and the Toydarians.

The dominant writing system in the galaxy was Aurebesh, derived from the script of the Rakatan Infinite Empire by its former subject species after the Empire collapsed, though the symbols themselves were possibly much older. Aurebesh spread throughout the galaxy during the Tionese War between the young Galactic Republic and the Honorable Union of Desevro & Tion, when the new Republic Military found it needed to standardize its communications, and so adopted the writing system of Coruscant. The second most-common writing system was the High Galactic alphabet, promoted by Alsakan after 17,000 BBY during the Alsakan Conflicts as part of its efforts to be recognized as the galactic capital. Derived from Tionese characters, the High Galactic alphabet was popular among the upper class, and as late as 22 BBY, one-third of Republic citizens who spoke Basic used the High Galactic alphabet. Consequently, notices were often written in both Aurebesh and High Galactic.