Nar Shaddaa

Inside one of its many popular tapcafe

The moon was protected by often-malfunctioning planetary shields. Anything illegal elsewhere could be bought and sold on Nar Shaddaa, and many young smugglers, pirates and criminals started their careers on the Smugglers' Moon. Various sections of Nar Shaddaa were controlled by the Hutts and other criminal organizations.

Sections of the urbanized moon's vertical city included the Duros sector, the Rodian Sector and the Corellian sector, which contained three bars popular with bounty hunters - the Burning Deck, the Slag Pit, and the Meltdown Café (famous for selling bitter, syrupy drinks known as Tatooine Sunburns), and another corner tavern called the Orange Lady.

The Duros Sector around 5 ABY

After the fall of the Trade Federation and the rise of the Galactic Empire, the Duros Sector fell into disrepair and malaise, assuming the character of the rest of the moon. Many Neimoidians living there assumed the identity of Duros.

By the early years of the Empire, the sector had become abandoned, inhabited only by semi-intelligent predators. It then became known as the Old Duros Sector.

One of the busy back-alley residential areas

This sector housed many public merchant areas and an ill-kept warehouse district located along the perimeter of an expansive thoroughfare. The most profitable enterprise found in this region was the gambling industry. The entire city reeked of refuse and debris as repulsorlift garbage scows floated from level to level collecting garbage. The Sector could be reached by a secret tunnel entrance from the Duros Sector.

Culture Though dominated politically and economically by the Hutts and Corellian-descended Humans, people of many species lived in the Corellian Sector. One of the more populated habitats within the Corellian Sector was the public housing area and the machine shops atop Level 88. Outlaw tech Shug Ninx and his assistant Warb maintained their own repair workshop in this area and bartered for everything from power couplings for YT-1300 light freighters to heavy-duty hull plating for Starjammer IZX Freight Hauler.

Crime was abundant in the Corellian Sector, but the authorities at Corellian Port Control largely ignored the smaller offenses and partially encouraged the occasional bounty killing. Professional hunters such as Boba Fett and Dengar were able to find easy work tracking down wanted criminals throughout the various city-levels.

Han Solo spent part of his early career as a smuggler on Nar Shaddaa. There, he learned the tricks of the smuggling trade from some of the galaxy's best smugglers such as Salla Zend, Shug Ninx and Roa. He had an apartment on the Smuggler's Moon, which was maintained by his old house-keeping droid ZZ-4Z, but after he decided to leave the moon for the Corporate Sector, it was left unused. The Rodian bounty hunter Greedo and his family, members of the Tetsu Clan who had fled Rodia's clan wars, also lived in Level 88.

History In 0 BBY, this region became the focus of a major clash between the soldiers of the Galactic Empire and the freedom fighters of the Rebel Alliance. The Rebels had managed to insert covert Rebel SpecForce operatives into the ranks of Corellian Port Control. Through these agents, they were able to smuggle high-end munitions out of the district inside of sealed packing crates. In the dead of night, pilots would fly the weapons off-world in the cargo bays of huge Corellian Corvettes.

Two bounty hunters, Spurch Goa and Dyyz Nataz, learned of these operations from Greedo and sold the information to the Empire. As a result, Darth Vader sent two camouflaged Gamma-class Assault Shuttles to the Corellian Sector to raze the district. SpecForce operative Spane Covis recognized the disguised freighters and alerted the Rebel commandos. Imperial stormtroopers disembarked from the shuttles and engaged in a firefight with twenty Rebel soldiers. The Rebels managed to fight off the Imperials with a C4-CZN ion field gun. Despite the temporary victory, a large portion of the Corellian Sector was destroyed when a second wave of Imperials arrived. An entire quarter collapsed, taking out some twenty levels. Level 88, home to Greedo's family, was one of the areas devastated in the attack, though Greedo himself escaped to the planet Tatooine with Goa and Nataz.

The Red Sector was an area of Nar Shaddaa known for its illicit entertainment.

Ko Hentota

Ko Hentota was a district of Nar Shaddaa. A large ventilation nexus was buried in the lower levels. For a time in 22 BBY the Circus Horrificus ran out of this nexus until an arqet escaped and attacked 12 spectators.

The Refugee Sector

The Refugee Sector was an area of Nar Shaddaa delegated to millions of refugees from the Mandalorian Wars and the Jedi Civil War. It was mostly a construct of cargo containers and prefabricated structures. The conditions were horrendous and the refugees were ruled over by brutal Serroco thugs and The Exchange.

The Jedi Exile visited the Refugee Sector in her search for Jedi Master Zez-Kai Ell, and in doing so decapitated the local leadership of both illegal factions, negotiating with the Serroco commander, and killing Saquesh and his men. It is unknown if the Exchange tried to reassert control over the Refugee Sector, but it is unlikely. Thus, though the refugees did continue to exist on a shoelace, their conditions improved greatly.

"Never have I been to a place so alive with the Force, yet so dead to it. The contrast is like a blade."

―Visas Marr

When the Hutts left their homeworld of Varl, they displaced the Evocii, native to Nal Hutta, to Nar Shaddaa in 25,000 BBY. Eventually the moon was annexed by the Hutts, who started building spaceports and docking bays across its surface, some stretching out into orbit. Although the moon was only starting to be built it quickly began to prosper, along with Nal Hutta.

The Vertical City

In 24,500 BBY the moon was completely urbanized due to the physical slave labour of the Evocii, enforced by the Hutts and the Evocii were finally free since their work was complete. It rivaled the galactic capital Coruscant as an important center of interstellar trade and continued to grow. Ancient refueling spires and loading docks reached out from the native soil and some built in the upper atmosphere. In between these ports, massive vertical cities grew. The urban areas on Nar Shaddaa were known as vertical cities since new layers of housing and entertainment buildings were built on top of older layers.

Like Coruscant and Taris, the lower levels fell into disrepair and became havens for the lowest lifeforms (particularly the mutated descendants of the Evocii) on the moon. The Hutts continued to exploit the Evocii in their new home, buying up their land and using them as a cheap labor source.

After the end of the end of the Tionese War around 23,900 BBY, Nar Shaddaa became a criminal haven and gained a reputation of being the center of illegal operations in the galaxy.

In 3,951 BBY, the moon was visited by the Jedi Exile in her search for Zez-Kai Ell, a Jedi Master who cast her out of the Jedi Order. After the Jedi Civil War ended, Nar Shaddaa became swarmed by thousands (if not millions) of refugees from destroyed worlds across the Galaxy, and still more ex-soldiers from both sides in the conflict choking up its spaces looking for work and/or new homes. Its refugee sector was one of the most crowded in the entire galaxy, and tightly controlled by the Exchange. The Exchange was exploiting the refugees to lure any remaining Jedi into their hands. The Exile did many things to hurt the Exchange (including killing one of their criminal bosses) and eventually got captured by G0-T0. But her companions rescued her and they succeeded in destroying G0-T0's yacht, destabilizing the Exchange and other criminal organizations throughout the entire sector for many years.

Around 1,002 BBY, the Brotherhood of Darkness operated a Sith academy on the world that specialized in the training of Sith Assassins. In 1,000 BBY, after the Battle of Ruusan, Set Harth and Bal Serinus dueled on the moon, but were both imprisoned by a Hutt crimelord.

Before her death in 32 BBY at the hands of Darth Maul, native-born Pa'lowick Aneesa Dym and her ship the Dusty Duck called the Smugglers' Moon home.

In 28 BBY, the Colicoids took over the spice processing on Nar Shaddaa. Roughly around the same time, the sectors got shifted around and yet another big sector came into existance: the Rodian Sector.

The Landings - a main shuttle landing area

Lando Calrissian also spent his early career on Nar Shaddaa. Prior to serving Raymus Antilles, C-3PO and R2-D2 traveled to the Smuggler's Moon in an attempt to apprehend the criminal, Olag Greck. An Imperial attack on a Rebel hideout resulted in the destruction and collapse of nearly twenty sector levels. Following the Battle of Yavin, Rebel agent Kyle Katarn traveled to Nar Shaddaa in order to find Imperial navigational charts related to the Dark Trooper Project; the Imperials had already put a bounty on his head which resulted in a skirmish in the streets.