TERRESTRIAL COLONY WORLD | CORE WORLDS

Features

Retrograde Moon. Dxun is the largest and closest moon of Onderon, and orbits the planet in a retrograde—reverse—fashion to most moons. It also does so with an unusual elliptical orbit, suggesting it is in fact a dwarf or proto-planet captured by Onderon’s orbit rather than forming in place. This strange orbit makes aspects of Onderon and Dxun inseparable and the two astral bodies have interacted significantly in their past.

Subterfuge. Because of the unique situation of its cultural development, the government of Onderon has discouraged interest in the planet at least in terms of commerce and tourism. It has become very culturally insular in many ways, and yet is more a part of the galactic community than most other Sith-controlled worlds.

Monitored. Both the Imperial Security Bureau—because it does not trust their “allied” government on Onderon—and the Sith leadership of the planet itself, both carefully monitor traffic into and out of the system. This attention benefits the data available for hyperspace jumps, but also means almost all traffic is watched.

Garrisoned. A large military presence maintains order on the planet, which exists in a permanent state of martial law. A small number of these garrison forces are Imperial, but the bulk of them are Sith—a situation which the regular army garrison find disquieting.

Sith Controlled. One of the few planets within the Core Worlds which are not legitimately controlled by the Galactic Empire directly, or at least by a corporation under their heel, Onderon has managed to exist within the larger aegis of the Old Republic and the New Order thanks to its particular breed of Sith being a notably pragmatic sort, able to forgive the punishment of the Jedi from centuries ago, as well as defer to the overarching laws of the more recent imperial regime. Whether that makes them cultural trailblazers, cunning manipulators, ideologically spineless, or simply cowardly fools, is a matter of significant debate.

Locations

Ondera. The fortress-city of Ondera is the planet’s capital and—for a planet which has effectively vowed fealty to the Galactic Empire—boasts a flagrant display of Sith iconography and is dominated by their enormous temple architecture. The entire city is enclosed by gigantic plasteel walls, and turbolaser towers surround its perimeter, to a degree that several ordinances have passed the Galactic Senate—and been rejected—which were essentially aimed at curtailing Onderon’s excessive defensive capabilities.

History

Exiles Within The Fold. While having remained an unusual enclave on the very edge of the Core Worlds and an outwardly loyal member of the Old Republic and later the Galactic Empire, the people of Onderon have, nevertheless, remained outcasts and exiles of a sort, and the planet has attracted its fair share of dissenters and disenchanted political exiles whose stomach for the Outer Rim has seen them drawn to the hybrid nature of Onderon’s position as political pariahs within the fold of the overarching galactic community.

Phenomena

A standard day on Onderon lasts twenty six hours, and the length of its solar year is three hundred and fourty two hundred local days. However, the close orbit of Dxun shifts the speed of the planet’s rotation, which results in a shortening of its day by several hours for the week or so every two years that the moon passes close enough to affect its rotation.

Native flora and fauna on the planet has is diverse and widespread across its many biomes, and has largely adapted to the immense atmospheric friction and tectonic destabilisation brought on by the proximity of the moon Dxun by favouring extended hibernation periods every two years.