There is no problem too great that cannot be solved by casting 'summon bigger fish.'
—Comment by Interpolator B in sidebar margin, page 154.
The Grimure, a portmanteau of "grimoire" and "Mure," was an ancient Gree grimoire that was written, redacted, and interpolated by members of the Gree, Kwa, and Rakata species over a period of several millennia. Though it was primarily a tripartite discussion of Force-based magic as applied to the topic of Infinity Gates, its ancillary margin and sidebar comments indirectly provided valuable insight into the cultures of the Gree Enclave and Kwa Holdings, the events of the Celestial-Rakata War, and the specifics of the Rakata occupation of Mure during the rule of the Infinite Empire.
In 15 ABY, the Obroan Institute for Archaeology listed it as the eighty-seventh oldest relic of the Pre-Republic era and acknowledged it as "one of the galaxy's principal cultural artifacts." Due to its importance to the Murese as an embodiment of their planet's history, the Grimure was stored in a subterranean reinforced durasteel vault, guarded ceaselessly by a dedicated regiment of the Murese military.
Description[]
The Grimure appeared to be a simple codex and illuminated manuscript taking the form of a conventional Gree grimoire. Its outer cover was leather reinforced with bronze, while its five hundred and seventeen pages were of a vellum parchment construction. Its original Gree handwritten contents were written with a unique luminous amber-colored ink derived from the natural wildlife of Gree. The later Kwa margin notes were written with a royal blue Dathomiri tannic acids composite, while the Rakata additions were penned with Lehonese iron gall ink.
As per their bookmaking traditions, the Gree included a variety of illuminated miniatures and diagrams related to the included incantations, depicting scenes of the spells' effects on subjects and illustrations displaying the proper form and means of their casting. The subsequent Kwa owners of the book continued this practice in the margins of the work, including diagrams related to the spells' effects on their Infinity Gate technology. The Rakata did the same on the blanked and erased pages they turned into palimpsests, with diagrams displaying the intended multistage progression of the Murese terraformation project.
History[]
Gree ownership[]
The Grimure began its life as a traditional handwritten Gree grimoire detailing arcane aspects related to the ancient Gree study of Force-based spellcasting.[2] Carbon dating by future Murese researchers indicated that the book was likely written at the height of the Gree-Kwa conflict, a protracted millennia-long conflict between the Gree and their fellow Celestial client species, the Kwa.[3] Identical penmanship flourishes and similar word choices found in these original handwritten passages suggested they were written by a single author, notated in related derivative academic texts as "Author." It was believed that the work was reviewed at some point by another Gree, denoted in academic texts as "Redactor A," who was responsible for overwriting certain passages present in the original text and replacing their contents with updated versions of the included spells from other concurrent texts. Restoration attempts by later researchers unveiled the originals through a combination of raking light and X-ray light.
Kwa ownership[]
The Grimure eventually came into the hands of the Kwa through unknown circumstances, popularly attributed to the Gree-Kwa conflict and the likelihood of looting by Kwa forces in occupied Gree settlements.[3][4] It was apparent that the book's subsequent owner, mentioned in academic literature as "Interpolator A," had an academic interest in the book's spellcasting techniques, as the margins of some two hundred and thirteen pages included comments and diagrams in the Dathomiri Kwa tongue related to the subject matter. These comments ranged from suggested improvements to specific spells to comments expressing irritation at the interpolator's difficulty grasping the Gree language. The specific manner in which this contributor wrote, making use of an overly formal style, suggested this Kwa was a high-ranking Force user, possibly an engineer with a vested interest in arcane Force techniques. This individual made a total of fifty-nine references to the Kwa Infinity Gate technology, including discussions of how the Gree spells contained therein could be applied to enhance the Gates' transgalactic materialization mechanisms.
Further comments in a different dialect of the ancient Kwa language indicated that the book found its way into the hands of an additional two Kwa interpolators, believed to be residents of the Kwa colony on Mure. These individuals, denoted as "Interpolator B" and "Interpolator C," appeared to share access to the book, judging from margin comments directly addressing each other's points in a dialogue-like format. Unlike the style of Interpolator A, Interpolators B and C wrote in a more obscure dialect of ancient Kwa called "Murese Kwa," using some unknown vernacular and slang that frustrated translation efforts by later researchers. Offhand comments related to the specific society of their planet provided later researchers with a conception of how the Murese Kwa colony functioned, though most of these individuals' comments concerned difficulties faced in casting the improved spells suggested by Interpolator A. Because of this interest in the practical application of Interpolator A's Infinity Gate-based spells, researchers posited that these individuals were Infinity Gate technicians stationed in the planet's Star Temple.
Rakata ownership[]
The conquest of Mure by the Infinite Empire during the Celestial-Rakata War brought the book into the hands of the Rakata.[5] The fact that the book survived the extended Rakata orbital bombardment, a common Imperial tactic used to subjugate worlds,[6] provided further proof that the book had been stored by the Kwa in the Meseren, as this was the only structure spared the destruction of the planet and was later repurposed to serve as the palace of the Rakata Predors of Mure. If this was the case, the successive five Rakata interpolators and redactors could have possibly been Predors, warriors of the elite Predorian Guard, or members of the court or royal household.
Unlike the book's Kwa owners, the Rakata were more prone to liberal redaction than interpolation. The Rakata had been interested in Infinity Gate technology since the Battle of Lehon and had spared the Murese Star Temple in the hopes of accessing its Gate.[7] Finding it destroyed however, they turned to the next best artifact. Redactor B was responsible for converting one hundred and eighty pages of unrelated Gree text devoid of Kwa comments into palimpsests, blanking and erasing their content. The subsequent Interpolators D and E spared and preserved all pages containing notes made by Interpolators A through C, filling the blanked pages with extensive commentary in Old Rakata related to the Empire's efforts to understand and harness Kwa technology. As with Interpolators B and C, Interpolators D and E appeared to be working in concert, as both individuals wrote in the "Lehonese" dialect of Old Rakata and addressed each others' comments in a dialogue format.
However, no further mention was made of the Infinity Gates in any subsequent additions. Instead, the remaining blank pages were filled with content composed several decades later concerned with the applications of Gree and Kwa spellcasting to the Rakata terraformation effort of Mure. The author of this account, denoted as Interpolator F, included detailed notes as to the individual stages of the intended terraformation process. On one such page, these expected stages were arranged in a table of contents format, listing the page numbers of relevant spells beneath them. The notes contained within frequently mentioned the Rakatan terraforming space station and Rakatan xenoforming station, two wonders of the ancient Infinite Empire considered on par with the Star Forge.[8] The application of these stations, which drew raw silicate rocky material from the Five Deaths' asteroid fields, were instrumental in restoring Mure's damaged planetary crust.
The formal prose, neat penmanship, and authoritarian style of this account indicated that Interpolator F was likely a highly trained, high ranking Rakata within the Predorate of Mure. Some early Inter-Sith Wars period scholars suggested this individual may have even been the first Predor himself, though subsequent research into postbellum Infinite Empire culture seemed to suggest that the Rakata considered clerical duties to be the domain of lesser caste members or slaves, work unfit for the upper classes. Thus, Interpolator F may have simply been a well-educated Rakata servant tasked with transcribing the details of the terraforming as dictated by the project overseers.
Sources[]
- Dawn of the Jedi: Force Storm 1
- Dawn of the Jedi: The Prisoner of Bogan 4
- Star Wars: The Old Republic—Codex Entry: "The Foundry"
- Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare Author's Cut—The Celestials
- The Essential Atlas
- The Essential Guide to Warfare
- "The Gree Enclave"—Star Wars Adventure Journal 8
- The New Essential Chronology
- The Unknown Regions