Escarte

Escarte was an asteroid mining facility which belonged to the Commerce Guild.^[4] Located in the Outer Rim Territories, in the Escarte system, it orbited between massive, multimooned gas giants in an otherwise uninhabited star system two hyperspace jumps from Belderone, on the Rimward side of the Perlemian Trade Route. Oblate when mining operations had commenced in 39 BBY, Escarte was, by 19 BBY, a concave hemisphere, heavily cratered by the forces of nature and the gargantuan labor droids of the Commerce Guild. Satisfied that every bit of ore had been extracted from Escarte, the guild had converted the asteroid’s consequent quarries, tunnels, and shafts into processing centers and field offices. State-of-the-art tractor beam technology allowed the guild to capture small asteroids and draw them directly into the facility, rather than have to use tugs or engage in on-site mining. In many ways Escarte was the ore-mining equivalent of the Tibanna-gas-mining facilities that floated in dense atmosphere of Bespin, far across the stars.^[3]

They controlled the asteroid with the Escarte Judiciary and the Escarte Guard, and it was defended by Commerce Guild corvettes and fleet patrol craft modeled on the Geonosian starfighter to deter intruders approaching from space. In the late Clone Wars, Republic Intelligence had managed to insert one of its agents onto Escarte. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker went there in search of Thal K'sar, the Bith artisan who had crafted Nute Gunray’s mechno-chair, as another lead the Jedi were pursuing in their hunt for Darth Sidious.^[4]

Appearances

• Labyrinth of Evil (First appearance)

Sources

• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• The Essential Reader's Companion

Notes and references