Welcome to Dans on Fandoms. I’m Dan.
There are few planets in the Star Wars galaxy that are as impressive,
cool, and extraordinary as Coruscant. It’s a truly remarkable planet.
I'll never forget seeing Coruscant for the first time in The Phantom Menace and being
amazed by how baller it looked. In today’s video, we're going to
delve into 5 facts about Coruscant that you might not be aware of.
First, let’s discuss some basic facts about the city covered planet.
For starters, Coruscant was an ecumenopolis-or a city-covered planet-in the Coruscant system
of the Core Worlds region of the galaxy. Its first appearance in legends was in May
1991 with the release of Timothy Zahn’s novel, Heir to the Empire.
In canon, Coruscant was first introduced on March 14th, 1997, with the release of the The
Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition. However, it wouldn’t be until the
release of The Phantom Menace in May 1999 that Star Wars fans were able to
truly behold the planet in its full glory. Like Earth, a day on Coruscant was 24 hours,
and a year was 365 standard days. Coruscant had a population of over 1 trillion
individuals hailing from a myriad of species, with over 50% of the population being humans.
Because of its strategic location and access to multiple trade routes,
Coruscant served as the Galactic Capital since the days of the Old Republic and was home to the
Jedi Temple and Republic Senate Building. Additionally, Coruscant was made up of
5,127 levels, with the surface level of 5127 being known as Imperial City,
which was formerly known as Galactic City. The surface levels of the planet served as
homes and businesses for the wealthy, powerful, and politically connected.
The streets of Imperial City bustled with the planet's blue collar working population.
Below the surface levels was the population inhabiting the Coruscant underworld,
which was used to describe both the thousands of levels underneath the surface,
as well as Coruscant’s criminal inhabitants. The underworld was home to millions of the
planet's population who were too poor to move upward, and rarely, if ever,
saw the surface of the planet. Now that we got some basic info
about Coruscant out of the way, let’s dive into 5 facts you might not know about Coruscant.
The Jedi Temple is built atop a Sith Shrine At least 5,000 years before the rise of the
Galactic Empire, a rogue Jedi rebelled against the Jedi Order and was ultimately
cast out of the order during an event known as the Hundred-Year Darkness.
This event led to the birth of the Sith Order. Sometime later, the Sith waged war against
both the Republic and the Jedi Order during a conflict which became known as the Sith War.
During the war, Sith dominance spread across the galaxy and the Sith were
able to take control of Coruscant. While the Sith controlled Coruscant,
they constructed an immense black shrine on a mountain at the heart of the planet,
over a vergence in the force. The Shrine was built on top of a vergence in
the force so as to corrupt it with the dark side. The Jedi, however, eventually laid siege to
the shrine, burned it to its foundations after defeating the Sith, and constructed
a temple above the former site of the shrine. The Jedi Order hoped to combat the dark side
energy that flowed outward from the shrine, believing that their light side force energies
flowing from their temple, along with the presence of so many light-side adepts, would neutralize the
dark side energy emitted by the Sith shrine. Additionally, the Jedi believed that their
newly constructed temple would also serve as a way for the Order to symbolically bury the
legacy that the Sith had left behind. Unbeknownst to the Jedi, however,
the residual dark side power inherent in what was left of the shrine seeped out over
the course of thousands of years, weakening the precognitive abilities of the Jedi Order,
which helped contribute to their eventual downfall by the hands of Darth Sidious and Darth Vader.
Throughout the prequel films, there are several moments where the Jedi are talking about the
dark side clouding their abilities in the force, and the shrine that lurks
under the Jedi Temple is in part to blame. In the book Tarkin, it’s revealed that no
sentient being-aside from Darth Sidious- had stepped foot in the shrine below the
Jedi Temple for nearly 5,000 years. Coruscant Was Controlled Yet Again
by the Sith during the Jedi-Sith War An unknown number of years after the
Sith War, the Jedi and Sith once again found themselves gripped in battle.
This conflict, known as The Jedi–Sith War, was the last Sith War fought between the Jedi Order's Army
of Light and the Sith Order’s Brotherhood of Darkness during the fall of the Old Republic.
It’s unknown at this time when the war exactly started, but it ended in 1032 BBY.
During the war, the Jedi and Sith fought each other at the Battle of Coruscant, where
both factions fought for control of the planet. The Sith wound up winning the battle and captured
control of both the planet and the Jedi Temple. Although the planet fell under Sith occupation
for a time, Jedi and Republic forces ultimately liberated Coruscant and
regained control over the world. The Republic and Jedi Order would
eventually go on to prevail in the conflict, ending the war in 1032 BBY,
and it was believed that their victory over the Sith had resulted in the Sith Order’s extinction.
Sometime after 1032 BBY, the Old Republic reorganized itself, resulting in the
establishment of the modern Galactic Republic. Additionally, due to the Galactic Republic's
demilitarization, the Jedi Order embraced their responsibilities as peacekeepers, but rejected
their roles as soldiers, and were responsible for maintaining law and order across the galaxy.
Following the war, the galaxy entered into a period of time known as the Great Peace, which
saw the Jedi construct a new academy on Coruscant to train Jedi younglings in the ways of the Force.
The Planet Troith Once Rivaled Coruscant as the Galactic Capital
Introduced in the book Alphabet Squadron: Shadowfall, Troithe was a planet in the Cerberon
system of the Deep Core region of the galaxy. In Shadowfall, we learn that, centuries before
the rise of the Galactic Empire, Troith once rivaled Coruscant as the Galactic Capital,
as the planet saw a growth of development and vibrancy over the course of a millenia.
Troithe’s city encompassed half the globe and was once a bustling planet with billions of residents.
In fact, Troithe was home to some of the Republic’s most respected
artisto-mercantile families, as the planet was a place of invention and manufacturing.
The planet boasted skilled artisans, as well as technicians and engineers, that oversaw
what was called the Innovator Droid Army. However, several factors contributed to
the fall of Troithe’s potential glory and to Coruscant’s rise in the galaxy.
Coruscant had already been the political center of the Republic,
which helped contribute to its population growth as migrants from thousands of Republic member
worlds and foreign allies flocked to the planet. Because of this population growth,
Coruscant continuously grew, sector by sector and level by level.
Moreover, this spike in Coruscant’s population helped bolster its manufacturing and production
capabilities, which led to the planet outpacing Troithe as an industrial powerhouse.
Furthermore, as Coruscant’s industrial output waxed, Troithe’s industrial output waned.
Troith’s decrease in industrial output was due to several factors,
including the exhaustion of precious minerals, the Cerberon system’s decreasing accessibility,
a gradual decay in Troithe’s planetary orbit-which caused it to spiral towards a black hole
known as the Cerberon singularity-as well as a short lived civil war.
By the time of the Clone Wars, Troithe had settled into a state of decline,
as it’s once billions strong populace had gradually decreased year over year.
Although Troithe seemed to be a planet that could potentially rival Coruscant for the
status of capital of the Republic, several factors contributed to Coruscant maintaining
its status as Galactic Capital. Though debated by historians,
it was generally believed that Coruscant was the original homeworld of humanity.
Humans were a species that were commonly encountered throughout the Star Wars galaxy,
and they could regularly be found living on some of the most hostile
planets to some of the most lush, beautiful, and bountiful worlds found across the galaxy.
Furthermore, humans were one of the most successful colonial species, having migrated
and adapted to dominate a wide variety of planets. Because of their success as a colonial species,
their exact homeworld is still unknown in the Star Wars galaxy.
It is generally believed, however, that Coruscant was their original homeworld.
Additionally, The Zhell, who were a people indigenous to Coruscant,
are believed to be possible ancestors of the Human inhabitants of Coruscant,
a belief that further bolstered the theory that Coruscant was the homeworld of Humanity.
Following the Fall of the Empire, Coruscant was No Longer the Galactic Capital and Eventually Fell
Under The Control of Criminal Syndicates In 4 ABY, following the Battle of Endor
and the destruction of the second Death Star, Coruscant descended into rioting and civil war.
By 5 ABY, the Galactic Concordance was signed-officially ending the
Galactic Civil War-and the Empire ceded its capital of Coruscant to the New Republic.
Following the signing of the Galactic Concordance, the Imperial Grand Vizier,
Mas Amedda, was granted a provisional and powerless government on Coruscant,
with New Republic overseers keeping tabs on him to assure that he was nothing more than
a figurehead within Coruscant’s government. Furthermore, the New Republic stripped
Coruscant of its central role in the galaxy as the galactic capital,
planning to instead award the Galactic Capital status to different worlds on a rotating basis.
As years passed without a strong leader and government,
law and order on Coruscant steeply declined. Criminal syndicates came to dominate Coruscant
in the absence of a strong governmental presence, allowing gangs to roam even the more respectable
districts of Imperial City by 34 ABY. As syndicates fought one another,
vying for power and dominance over the planet, Coruscant became an undesirable destination to
many outsiders and potential visitors. As a result, tourism all but vanished
on Coruscant while gang violence became commonplace for the local Coruscanti.
Because of the violence that dominated the planet, individuals needed the protection
of security droids and/or armed bodyguards to remain safe, which was a luxury that was
often only available to the wealthy. Sadly,the once prosperous and former
capital had become a symbol of the disorder associated with the New Republic era,
and it represented the disturbing realities of the galaxy's current time period.
And there you have it. Those are 5 facts about Coruscant that you might not have known.
As mentioned, Coruscant is one of the dopest planets Star Wars fans have gotten to see
thus far, and it’s a planet I’m always excited to see in new Star Wars content.
But what do you think about the facts discussed?
Are there any other interesting facts about the planet that I didn’t mention?
Let us know down in the comments. Want more star wars content?
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