| This article is a fanon Legends adaptation of a topic appearing exclusively in Canon. For the canon entry, see here. |
The Foundry's specifications match those of three other space stations known by history. Each of these legendary stations could manufacture technology on a massive scale. One xenoformed planets; another built fleets of ships...
—Darth Malgus to Lord Kallig on the Rakata xenoforming station used to terraform Exegol
Exegol (/ˈɛks.ɛ.ɡoʊl/; EHKS-eh-gohl)—referenced in the Rakata language as Ixigul in antiquity and subsequently known by the phono-semantic neologism Ikzâdzûl in the Sith language—was a desert planet, fortress world, and dark side Force nexus located in the greater Unknown Regions west of the Deep Core. Though shrouded in secrecy and unknown to the greater galactic community for most of its history, Exegol was a mere quadrant removed from Csilla and Chiss Space to the south, Ilum to the east, and the Galactic Barrier to the northeast.
The planet was notable for serving as both a minor member world of the Rakata Infinite Empire during the pre-Republic era and as the adopted homeworld of Sith-blooded survivors of the 4999 BBY post–Great Hyperspace War counterinvasion. In the former capacity, Exegol came to serve as one of a number of refuge worlds that hosted a vestigial community of Rakata following the collapse of the Infinite Empire. In the latter capacity, the planet served as the capital of the Sith Empire of Exegol and the headquarters of the Sith Eternal, a marginal Sith order that only recognized Force users of Sith blood as pretenders to the Sith name and legacy while rejecting the legitimacy of groups like the Brotherhood of the Sith and Order of the Sith Lords for their inclusion of non-pureblooded Sith members.
Description
Exegol does not appear on any star chart. But legend describes it as the hidden world of the Sith.
—C-3PO
Exegol was the sole planet of the system of the same name, a remote star system that lay west of the Galactic Barrier in the greater Unknown Regions of the galaxy.[1][5] Though Exegol was the stellar neighborhood's sole natural satellite, the planet shared its sun, an unspectacular G-type main-sequence star,[1][7] with an extensive gaseous molecular cloud,[1][2] the vestigial remnants of interstellar clouds blown into the system by the Galactic Barrier's faster-than-light hyperspace anomalies.[8] With a diameter of 13,649 kilometers,[2] Exegol was a relatively standard-sized terrestrial world possessed of a Type I atmosphere and standard gravity.[1] Exegol rotated on its axis every fifty-three standard days and orbited its sun every two hundred and ten local days on average.[4]
Though originally a verdant world possessed of a diverse biosphere,[3] the planet Exegol was transformed into a dry and arid planet during its colonization by the Sith,[2] its surface covered with a thick carpet of charred rock, fine sand, and dust.[1][2] The planet's topography was characterized by expansive desert flats[2] punctuated at length by rocky outcroppings,[1] extensive forests of silica trees,[6] and volcanic fissures plunging deep into the planet's crust.[3][2] The intensity of the planet's surface winds frequently gave birth to heavy cloudcover and dust storms that ravaged the planet's surface.[1] The intense friction present between airborne dust particles in such storms,[2] coupled with the planet's dry and arid climate, generated protracted bouts of static discharge that took the appearance of lightning strikes.[1][2]
History
Early history
The planet Exegol was first discovered and surveyed by members of the Rakata species, a Force-sensitive species[9] active during the pre-Republic era[8][9] that was notable for its members' strong connection to the dark side.[10][11] Due to Exegol's relative proximity to the Rakata homeworld of Lehon[11] and the planet's status as a dark side Force nexus,[12] Exegol was readily reached by the technologically limited Force-powered hyperdrives of the Rakata[8][11][13] and was subsequently enfolded into the species's nascent Infinite Empire as one of its early colonies. Transformed into a verdant world with a rich ecosphere by the joint application of the Rakata xenoforming and terraforming space stations, a pair of orbital platforms of the same caliber as the Star Forge and Foundry,[14] the world, known as "Ixigul" in the Rakata language, boasted a large population of Rakata and slaves during the earliest days of the Pax Rakata, and came to serve the burgeoning Empire as a training ground for the Rakata's Force Hound warriors on account of its wide variety of diverse biomes.
During the Celestial-Rakata War, the Celestials, an incorporeal species of Force wielders[8] who ruled the galaxy in its earliest days,[8][15][16] searched for a way to contain the Infinite Empire to its core holdings in the Unknown Regions.[8] The end result was the establishment of the Galactic Barrier,[8] a chain of unpredictable, faster-than-light hyperspace anomalies that bisected the galaxy west of the Deep Core.[8] The presence of the Barrier initially frustrated the Rakata species's attempts to expand beyond their traditional holdings in the Unknown Regions, and Exegol, one of the northernmost worlds of the Empire a mere quadrant removed from the Barrier, came to serve as a launching point for Rakata missions to uncover safe passages through the Barrier. Astrogation data gathered from such voyages were stored in Rakata wayfinders, many of which survived the fall of the Infinite Empire during the Rakata Civil War.[11][17]
After ten millennia of unopposed galactic hegemony, the Infinite Empire finally collapsed around 25,200 BBY.[18][19] Stripped of their Force sensitivity by a Force plague[11][20] and unable to subjugate their colony worlds without the use of their Force-powered technology,[17][20] the Rakata faced slave revolts across their empire[17] that forced them to abandon their colonies and withdraw to Lehon and a handful of refuge worlds.[11][21] Though a number of Rakata statues and stonework monuments persisted on Exegol as testament to the planet's protracted membership in the Infinite Empire, the planet was among those abandoned in the hasty Rakata retreat. Only a small vestigial tribe of Rakata remained behind on Exegol after the Empire's collapse, persisting in isolation on the planet's surface for millennia.
Post-Manderon period
Exegol experienced its second period of heavy sentient colonization some twenty millennia after the Rakata.[18] The Great Hyperspace War, a pan-galactic conflict born of the old Sith Empire's failed invasion of the Galactic Republic[22][23][24] in 5000 BBY,[18] was followed by a joint Republic–Jedi counterinvasion of the Empire's holdings in the Sith Worlds[25] in 4999 BBY.[26] Those Sith-blooded survivors who did not wage irregular guerilla war against Republic occupation forces[25] or expire from the rampant disease,[25] famine,[25] and ritual mass-suicides[27] fled to isolated bastions far from the Stygian Caldera.[28] While most scattered to worlds as diverse as Ambria,[28] Dromund Kaas,[26][29] Korriban,[30] Thule,[28][31] Tund,[28][32] and Vjun,[28] some refugees fled further afield to the limits of known space, engaging in protracted perambulations across the greater Unknown Regions.[28]
One such group hailing from Upekzar, a minor Sith World notable for producing more cultists than conquerors,[33] escaped the Stygian Caldera aboard a commandeered Sith dreadnaught and headed northwest,[34] bypassing the Galactic Barrier at its northernmost extremity and swinging down into the greater Unknown Regions from above. These Sith, self-proclaimed caretakers of Sith cultural heritage who had made off with a sizable collection of Sith artifacts to prevent them from falling into the hands of iconoclastic Jedi Shadows,[35][36] eventually stumbled upon a Rakata wayfinder during their otherwise fruitless search for a suitably isolated homeworld in the Unknown Regions.
Following the wayfinder's astrogation data to Exegol, these Kissai-caste pureblooded Sith,[23][37] along with their Tapani Human Grotthu-caste slaves,[37] set about colonizing the planet, establishing it as a hidden fortress world and redoubt[12] on which the Sith heritage and legacy could endure far from the reach of the Republic and Jedi. This group subsequently adopted the name "Sith Eternal" in acknowledgement of their mission and overarching purpose, and gave the planet the Sith language name of "Ikzâdzûl,"[38][39] a phono-semantic neologism derived from the original Rakata "Ixigul."
Rakata–Sith war
In the course of constructing a Sith Citadel on the planet's surface to serve as a headquarters and place of refuge,[2] the Sith Eternal were discovered by the tribe of Rakata still in residence on the planet. Though not as technologically advanced as their peers in the Makatak and Tulpaa tribes of the Rakatan Archipelago,[40] the Forceless Rakata of Exegol had spent the last several millennia reverse-engineering the Force-based military technology of their ancestors and developing more conventional alternatives that did not require Force sensitivity to operate. Recognizing the red-skinned interlopers as Force users and desperate to restore their connection to the Force,[21] the Rakata initially attempted to capture the Sith alive, hopeful that subsequent experimentation on the Sith would reveal the secrets of the link between genetic expression and Force sensitivity.[40]
In the protracted conflict that followed, the once-verdant world was reduced to a barren, dusty husk by Rakata weapons and Sith rituals gone awry.[3] Discovering that they could not hope to overcome the dark-sided power and advanced technology of the Sith despite their superior numbers, the Rakata eventually abandoned their hopes of capture and instead unleashed their conventional weapons on the Sith in an effort to eradicate the interlopers and maintain control over their ancestral homeworld. The Sith Eternal responded in kind, conducting powerful dark-sided rituals of Sith magic and alchemy over which their Sith sorcerers had limited control.[3] Many of these soon spiraled out of control, scarring the planet's surface and poisoning its once-fertile ecosphere.[3]
The Sith were ultimately victorious on account of their Force sensitivity and more advanced weaponry, though their victory came at a heavy price. Their numbers were significantly diminished as a result of the conflict and their dreadnaught sustained heavy damage during the war, and possessing only the one Rakata wayfinder that had led them to Exegol, the Sith Eternal chose to remain on the planet rather than search the uncharted Unknown Regions at random for another suitable refuge world. The Rakata were pushed to the brink of extinction, with the handful of survivors impressed into slavery as members of the Grotthu slave caste.[37] The Exegol tribe died out several centuries after the conflict's conclusion, leaving the Sith and their Tapani Human slaves as the sole inhabitants of the planet.
Sith Empire-in-exile
The Sith Eternal abode on Exegol for the next five millennia, persisting in isolation in the Unknown Regions. Though the Exegolian Sith established a Sith Empire of Exegol they claimed was the sole legitimate successor state of the original Sith Empire, this government was little more than a system-state whose borders ended at the edge of the Exegol system. Reverse-engineering and repurposing ancient Rakata technology previously retained by the Exegol tribe, the Sith established a large shipyard on the planet[41] and set about constructing a fleet of starships of an ancient Rakata design. This defense fleet, though smaller than many of the Republic's regional Planetary Security Forces, was nonetheless large enough to defend the Exegol system against intrusions by pirates and Vagaari raiders alike.
As the memory of the Sith species and the Great Hyperspace War gradually faded from the collective consciousness of the galactic community, the Sith Eternal began undertaking furtive, sporatic visits to locations outside the relative safety of Exegol, journeying as far as the interior of the eastern galaxy on occasion. The group evolved into a marginal Sith order and cult during this time, one characterized by its speciesist belief that only Force users of pure Sith blood were worthy pretenders to the legacy and heritage of the Sith. As such, the Sith Eternal rejected the legitimacy of groups like the Brotherhood of the Sith[42] and Order of the Sith Lords[42] for their inclusion of non-pureblooded Sith members,[42] and actively sought to undermine the initiatives of such perceived heretical groups whenever possible.
To this end, the Sith Eternal applied the teachings of the ancient Sith stealth regiment of Thule[31] to the training of dedicated Sith assassins specializing in the clandestine subtleties of espionage and assassination. These Sith assassins, all of whom could disguise their true selves using fundamental stealth-based Force powers like Force stealth, Force mask, and Force conceal, were used to infiltrate other Sith groups and governments for the purposes of gathering intelligence or assassinating key figures of note.
Inter-Sith Wars period
With the rise of the reconstituted Sith Empire during the inter-Sith Wars period,[43] the Sith of Exegol experienced a schism that led to a protracted period of civil conflict. Though the Sith Eternal acknowledged the legitimacy of the Sith Emperor's claim to rulership over the Sith on account of his pure blood and direct association with the old Sith Empire, many members of the order were hesitant to reveal themselves to the Sith Empire and abandon their sovereignty as rulers of an independent system-state. However, other members of the Sith population were eager to exact revenge upon the Republic and the Jedi for the events of the Great Hyperspace War, and sought to pursue formal association with the Sith Empire.
The subsequent conflict between the Sith isolationist and Sith unionist factions divided the population, and was only resolved by the Sith Eternal's brokering of a compromise that permitted unionists to depart Exegol for Dromund Kaas in exchange for withholding information about Exegol from the Empire. In the years that followed, many members of the Sith Eternal left Exegol for the Seat of the Empire with the start of the Great Galactic War, and remained in the service of the Empire through the subsequent galactic conflicts that followed its conclusion in 3653 BBY.[43]
With the eventual fall of the reconstituted Sith Empire in the millennia preceding the New Sith Wars, Exegol became one of the last surviving colonies of pureblooded Sith in the greater galaxy, a reality which led to the Sith Eternal's subsequent adoption of a strict isolationist policy aimed at ensuring the survival of the species and its heritage. Though the Sith of Exegol continued their sporatic visits to the eastern galaxy, the Sith Eternal forbade its members from formally affiliating themselves with other groups, and only sanctioned trips outside the Exegol system under specific circumstances.
Sith–Croke war
Despite their isolationism, the Sith of Exegol maintained formal relations with a number of other vestigial Sith communities, most notably the pureblooded Sith of Tund.[32] Like the Exegolian Sith, the Tundan Sith were the descendants of refugees who had fled the old Sith Empire during the Republic-Jedi counterinvasion[28][32] and were ruled by a marginal Sith order of their own, the Sorcerers of Tund.[32][44] However, despite their shared blood and mutual heritage, the Sorcerers of Tund differed significantly from the Sith Eternal on matters of doctrine. While the Exegolians were a mainline Sith denomination whose thinkers espoused traditional krato-magocratic principles and cosmological dualism, the Sorcerers of Tund were Unifying Force monists who taught that the Force was a single entity that could not be divided into clearly demarcated light and dark sides.[44]
Despite their fundamental differences in belief, the Sith Eternal and Sorcerers of Tund remained on good terms on account of their shared heritage and belief that only those of pure Sith blood could truly understand the Force's essential nature.[44] Many promising sorcerers of the Sith Eternal spent time on Tund studying the Sorcerers' unique blend of traditional Sith magic and mystic ritualism.[44] However, in 5 BBY,[32][45] Tund was destroyed by means of a biological weapon and electromagnetic torpedo that eradicated all life on the planet's surface and turned the once verdant Force nexus into an irradiated wasteland.[32][45][46]
The Sith Eternal spent the next several years hunting down leads to identify the perpetrator, and eventually discovered that a snail-like Croke from the Unknown Regions by the name of Rokur Gepta had used his species's natural skill in illusion-casting to infiltrate the Sorcerers of Tund.[32][46] After co-opting their secrets for his own purposes, Gepta had destroyed Tund to ensure their lore remained his alone.[32] Though the Sith Eternal sought to kill Gepta as revenge for the eradication of their Sith cousins, they discovered the Croke had already fallen at the hands of a certain Lando Calrissian,[47] and elected instead to repay the loss of a Sith colony with the destruction of the Croke homeworld of Crakull.[46] The subsequent Sith–Croke war ended inconclusively after a period of years, but saw a significant percentage of the endemic Croke population eradicated at the hands of the Sith Eternal.
Inhabitants
Exegol tribe
During its tenure as an Infinite Empire member world, Exegol was governed by a presiding predor warlord who ruled the planet as a vassal of the Empire's Over-Predor.[48] At its height, Exegol was home to a sizable population of Rakata of the priest caste drawn to the planet for its verdant ecosphere and potent connection to the Force.[21] The planet was likewise inhabited by a significant slave population of many varied species, and notably served as a training center for the development of the Rakata's Force Hound slaves on account of its diverse assortment of various biomes.
With the Infinite Empire's collapse several millennia later,[18][19] Exegol was largely abandoned by the surviving Rakata, apart from a small tribe who chose to remain on the planet rather than return to the Empire's capital world of Lehon. For many millennia thereafter, the Exegol tribe persisted in isolation on the verdant world, toiling to restore their lost Force sensitivity and seeking to reclaim their cultural heritage.[21] The tribe met its end during the Rakata–Sith war, and the surviving members of the species on Exegol died off several centuries after their subsequent enslavement by the members of the Sith Eternal.
Sith Eternal
Following the collapse of the old Sith Empire in 4999 BBY,[26] Exegol came to host a vestigial Sith population of refugees who had fled from their homeworld of Upekzar, a Sith World notable for eschewing the traditional martial culture of the Sith in favor of a mystic society of oracles and mystics.[33] These Sith, most of whom were half-breed Sith-Humans of the Kissai priest caste[23][37] who had proclaimed themselves caretakers of the Sith species's cultural heritage, organized themselves into the Sith Eternal, a military order that only recognized the claims of pureblood Sith to the heritage and legacy of the Sith. They were serviced by a small Tapani Human population belonging to the Grotthu slave caste,[37] most of whom were descended from outcasts of the exiled House Nidantha who had wandered into the Sith Empire in the aftermath of the Unification War.[49][50]
The Sith instituted a feudal system of government inspired by that of the old Sith Empire during their period of uncontested hegemony over the planet.[51] Under their system of the government, the Sith Empire of Exegol was governed by a presiding Dark Lord who held the formal titles of "Jin'yari" ("Dark Lord"[23][52]) and "Kyantûshikzâdzûl" ("King of Exegol"[38][39][53]). The Dark Lord ruled more or less as an absolute monarch, though this individual was required to seek the approval of the oracles and priests of the Sith Eternal prior to making certain major political decisions. In accordance with the prevailing krato-magocratic cultural norms of the Sith people, the Dark Lord was expected to be the strongest, most powerful Force user on the planet, and any Sith, regardless of caste, age, or sex, could make a claim to the title and challenge the sitting king to a ritualistic kaggath.[54]
Behind the scenes
In the same vein as his previous "Tarre Vizsla-in-Legends" concept article, the author undertook this recasting of Exegol in the context of the pre-Disney Expanded Universe canon continuity as part of his ongoing project to adapt elements from present Disney canon to Legends. The concept of a Sith-blooded diaspora existing in isolation in the Unknown Regions was first confirmed by The Essential Atlas and explored by the author to some extent in his previous projects, but the idea of including Exegol in Legends as a possible post–Great Hyperspace War Sith world for such a diaspora was inspired by MPK's musings about porting Exegol to his untitled KotOR III series as the capital of the second Sith Empire.
Exegol was voted "Best Location" in the 2021 Sixteenth Wiki Awards.
Appearances
- Star Wars: The Old Republic (Indirect mention only)
Sources
- The Essential Atlas (Indirect mention only)
