Vaal system

The Vaal system was a star system located in the Gordian Reach of the galaxy's Outer Rim Territories that contained the planet Vaal, homeworld of the hyenax and site of Imperial relay outpost V-798. The planet's orbit around its sun intersected several asteroid fields, one of which contained the Rukabi Major asteroid.

Description

A star system located in the Gordian Reach of the galaxy's Outer Rim Territories, the Vaal system^[1] contained the planet Vaal,^[3] the homeworld of feral, dog-like creatures known as hyenax.^[6] Orbited by a moon, Vaal's trajectory around its sun intersected several asteroid fields,^[3] one of which contained the Rukabi Major asteroid.^[4] This made any approach to the planet trecherous at best, and because of its regular passages through the aseroids, Vaal was often struck by meteors and other chunks of debris.^[7] The Vaal system was connected to the Glade and Jovan systems by the Wetyin's Way hyperlane, and to the Yavin system by the Yavin Bypass.^[5]

History

By the year 3643 BBY,^[8] the holographic life form Holiday came into the possession of Glorzo, a masculine Hutt collector on the planet Nal Hutta. While the slicer Tharan Cedrax made the Hutt a generous offer for her, he had already made a deal with a scavenger. Seeing an opportunity for amusement, Glorzo proposed a contest: Cedrax and the scavenger would enter the Vaal asteroid field, and the first to bring back a stone from Rukabi Major would win possession of Holiday. Despite the scavenger's clever piloting, Cedrax knew certain navigational algorithms that allowed him to retrieve the stone first, which he exchanged for Holiday after returning to Nal Hutta days before the scavenger.^[4]

In the years before the Battle of Yavin, the Galactic Empire maintained a relay outpost on Vaal, the legacy of a Moff who hoped to make the planet into a destination for big-game hunters.^[5] In 0 ABY,^[9] Darth Vader escaped the destruction of the Death Star in his TIE Advanced x1, which sustained damage during the Battle of Yavin that disabled its communications and limited its hyperspace navigation capabilities. As a result,^[3] Vader was forced to limp^[9] to the only Imperial outpost in range, relay outpost V-798 on Vaal. However, he crash landed on the planet's surface when his starfighter was damaged by a metiorite upon exiting hyperspace in the Vaal system's asteroid fields.^[3]

Circa 25 ABY, the Vaal system had a population of less than 1,000,000.^[5]

Behind the scenes

The Vaal system first appeared, albeit unidentified, in Empire 14, a Star Wars Legends comic written by David Land (credited as Paul Alden) and pencilled by Raúl Treviño^[3] that was released on December 10, 2003.^[10] It was first identified in The Essential Atlas, a reference book written by Jason Fry and Daniel Wallace^[5] and released on August 18, 2009,^[11] which placed the system in grid square P-5.^[5]