Abstalia

Abstalia was a planet in the Abstal system of the Unknown Regions. It was primarily famous in the rest of the galaxy as the first member world of the Golden Empire, as well as the home of the Abstalian Phoenix.

Geography
Abstalia was justly famous for its volcanoes, which were both numerous and active. Some existed as part of large chains of mountains, while others were freestanding, dominating the surrounding area. Due to regular volcanic eruptions, much of Abstalia's land was a mix of arid desert and steppe. The only fertile areas existed along the planet's rivers, with major concentrations of arable farmland at the rivers' deltas, all of which emptied into inland seas.

All rivers on Abstalia flowed down from mountains, and without exception all were both heated by volcanoes in the mountains and infused with various sediments and minerals expelled by the volcanoes' near-constant, low-scale eruptions. As a result, river banks were hotbeds of diverse and abundant plant life, nurtured to stature several times larger than the native Abstalians.

Society and culture
Following Abstalia's admission to the Golden Empire, Royal scientists theorized that a semi-sentient or even sentient species had existed on Abstalia tens of thousands of years before the modern era, but had been annihilated by an extinction event caused by one of Abstalia's worst eruptions in measurable geologic history. The Abstalians, the only sentient race on Abstalia, evolved to sentience some time after 10,000 BBY.

Prior to 87 ABY, the Abstalians existed in tribal cultures, mostly centered around inland seas and riverbanks where food was plentiful, although some Abstalians were forced to live further inland in steppe regions due to banishment, failed or lost wars, or food scarcity by populations becoming larger than the rivers could support. The Abstalians lived in fear and awe of the Abstalian Phoenix, a massive avian predator immune to any physical harm of which the primitive Abstalians themselves were capable. Abstalian tradition dictated that anyone who slew the Phoenix would rule all Abstalians, the entire planet over.

After Rin Sakaros killed the Phoenix and the Golden Empire annexed Abstalia in 87 ABY, the Abstalians underwent a tumultuous period of cultural shock. As the Empire added new worlds, many of its new citizens visited Abstalia, exposing the natives to many new species and mindsets quickly. In addition, Rin deployed the Empire's assets to upgrade both technology and education on Abstalia, rapidly transforming a planet of straw-and-mud huts into one of functioning cities. Abstalian children were taught by Royal educator droids, and thus many of them grew up with scientific knowledge common to the galaxy at large, but millennia ahead of Abstalia's previous state. This created a marked cultural gap between younger and elder generations, and Rin herself believed the Abstalians only endured such total upheaval because she, the "Slayer of the Mighty Firebird", had condoned it.

History
Cave and rock paintings made by the Abstalians were dated as early as c. 5,000 BBY, establishing a sentient and communal culture no later than that period. In addition, several of these images (and spread out over a vast geographic area, totaling some twenty percent of the planet's surface if connected) featured the Abstalian Phoenix, suggested that the apparently-immortal bird had been a staple of Abstalian life and culture at least that early.

Warfare, mostly oriented around acquiring better plots of land around fertile river deltas and inland seas, wracked Abstalia's many tribes for thousands of years. Confederations sometimes formed to give two or more weaker tribes a better chance against a larger enemy, and tribes would almost always unite in an attempt to drive off the Phoenix from their collective lands. However, long-term alliances were few, though cautious trade emerged in the millennia before the Battle of Yavin.

By 2,200 BBY, however, all tribes were united in the view that any being who could slay the Phoenix would rule every tribe—and, consequently, the entire civilized planet—for life. The Phoenix's near-invulnerability guaranteed that only a Force-sensitive could hope to achieve the feat, and by 87 ABY it had only happened twice. After the first time (Royal investigative historians could not pinpoint a date or even a century, but they were fairly certain it was before 1,300 BBY), all the tribes of the world came together every five years for a meeting unimaginatively called The Meet.

In 87 ABY, Rin Sakaros arrived with her brother Tariun and her apprentice, Keltrayu, at The Meet. Using the Force to learn the Abstalian language with only a long moment of intense telepathic concentration, she spoke to the gathered Abstalians, explaining her purpose and goal. The elders responded that only by slaying the currently-living Abstalian Phoenix could she lay claim to rule over the planet. Undeterred, Rin accepted the challenge and, after a grueling battle, slew the firebird and won the allegiance of Abstalia.

Under the administration of the Golden Empire, modernization of Abstalia was so fast and complete that many older, traditional Abstalians were shocked and frightened. On the other hand, many younger Abstalians reacted positively to the changes, and Rin ensured that the youngest would grow up never knowing anything else, the old ways relegated to tradition and oral history. By the time of the Great Liberation, and with the aid of her Iscali subjects, Rin had established a spaceport on Abstalia, and had overseen the importation of irrigation and other farming technologies to extend the habital areas of the planet for as much as a hundred kilometers from major rivers. The first "Queen's generation" of Abstalians, those raised knowing nothing but Rin's rule, often rose to prominence on their homeworld or sought life elsewhere in the Golden Empire.

At some point following the Great Liberation, Abstalia became one of the sites of basic training for the Royal Starfighter Corps.