- "The identity of the architects remains a mystery…"
- ―Historical Council
The
Celestials, also known as the
Architects, were an ancient civilization who were present long before the dawn of the
galactic community and even the
Rakatan Infinite Empire.
Believed to be responsible for a number of large artifacts and
anomalous planetary formations and species placements throughout
the galaxy, what little was known of the Celestials came from
xenoarchaeology. The
Jedi and the
Sith alike theorized that the balance between the
light and
dark sides of
the Force was actually under the guidance of the Celestials.
- "We are sorry. We do not know how to explain the Celestials any better. They are beyond the understanding of mortals."
- ―Thuruht
What little was known of the Celestials owed to the permanence of their cosmological constructions.
They were considered one of the earliest and most potent cultures of
their time that were identified by the colossal objects they had left
behind.
Their identities were considered largely a mystery due to lack of
information on them. Evidence of their works led many to determine that
the galaxy was once visited by these stunningly powerful alien
architects. Even their appearance was something of a mystery: the Celestials were said to have malleable form,
and another theory held that they were a group of discorporate entities
who had perhaps merged themselves with the Force thousands of
generations earlier and continued to guide the fate of the galaxy ever
since.
Doctor Insmot Bowen, a
pre-Republic
specialist, identified a common motif of sinuous patterns - perhaps
serpents, tentacles or vines - in the art of ancient civilizations
thought to have had contact with the Celestials, ranging from the
Ophidian grotesques of
Coruscant to similar patterns found on
Caulus Tertius and
Shatuun.
Some held that the Celestials were a higher order of intermediaries
whose powers were beyond the understanding of mortal beings.
The origin of the Celestials was unknown:
Thuruht, the oldest of the
Killik hives, claimed to remember seeing
the Ones, a group of
Force wielders apparently related to the Celestials, coalescing out of a geyser on an
unnamed tropical planet more than a million years before the events of the
Clone Wars.
It should be noted that the collective memory of a Killik hive does not
make distinctions between fact and fiction like the human mind—any
individual memory joined to that of the collective, be it mythology,
incontestable fact, or the plot of a
holodrama, is history to the Killiks.
Nevertheless, by
100,000 BBY,
this spectacularly powerful species had dominated the stars and had
made contact with a number of other species in various states of
advancement. These included the
Gree,
Kwa,
Sharu,
Columi,
Killiks,
Humans, and
Taung.
The Columi retreated from the stars in fear of the Celestials, while
the Sharu sought refuge in primitivism: a brief expansion period by the
Sharu saw their race push
Coreward as far as
Aargau. This was believed to have attracted the notice of the Celestials. Their presence was believed to have frightened the Sharu into adopting a forced culture of primitivism, and it was further speculated that the frightened Sharu buried their cities beneath immense plastic
pyramids
and drained their intellects in a last-ditch effort at escaping
Celestial attention. Similar pyramid designs would later be identified
among the Kwa.
The Celestials are known to have conscripted the insectoid
Killiks of
Alderaan to serve as laborers, and the Killiks were seeded up and down the
Perlemian. According to the Killiks, a connection was present between the Celestials and the group of
Force wielders known as
The Ones; it was believed that the Force wielders were descendants of the Celestials. Similarly, the Gree, Kwa, and the
Rakata
acted as servant races to the Celestials alongside the Killiks.
Together, they worked to build astonishing technological projects that
ranged from the assembly of star systems to the engineering of
hyperspace anomalies.
Architects
- "He said no mortal mind could know everything, and the last thing he wanted was to become a Celestial."
- ―Feryl, on Jacen Solo
The Celestials were known to have created a number of projects that took place near
Corellia,
Kessel, and other sites in the eastern galactic disc. Notable achievements of this race included assembling the
Corellian system,the
Vultar system, the
Hapes Cluster, the
Kathol Rift, and the
Maw black-hole cluster.
The
Corellian system
was highly anomalous: chemical composition of the Corellian planets
matched no known model of the formation of stars or planetary discs.
Mathematical analysis of the system's planetary orbits indicated they
had decayed into near-ellipses from perfectly circular orbits, something
that was extremely rare. A further 17
star systems had been identified with similar signatures by
1 BBY. Thus it was generally accepted by researchers that the Corellian system had been assembled at some point from pre-existing planets that were brought together by a combination of buried planetary
repulsors and hyperspace tractor engines like
Centerpoint Station or the
Cosmic Turbine. It was believed that the Architects were responsible for seeding the
Core Worlds with life and in particular with Humans, though some claimed this was the result of the Rakatan empire. These Architects were held to be responsible for populating the worlds in the Corellian system with
Drall,
Selonians, and Humans. While the
Drall and
Selonians were believed to be native to their worlds, it was possible that the Human
Corellians were transplanted to their world by the Celestials.
Killiks were believed to have had a hand in the construction of
Centerpoint Station, which they called Qolaraloq. In addition, they
witnessed the creation of other Celestial wonders such as the Maw and
the
Vultar system. Killik slaves were also present on
Sinkhole Station where they created a pressure seal that was adapted from their own construction techniques that used technology of the station. A suspected Celestial sensory operations complex on Kessel contained planetwide underground machinery tended to by the
Bogeys and contained a type of gigantic astronomical observatory detailing the location of gravity wells across the entire galaxy.
Pre-Republic specialists believed the Celestials were responsible for the
hyperspace disturbance beyond the edge of the galaxy, possibly as a defense against outside interference. They were also believed to be responsible for the chain of
hyperspace anomalies west of the Core that bisected the galaxy and prevented travel into the
Unknown Regions. The ancient creature known as the
Mnggal-Mnggal
claimed to have witnessed the golden age of the Celestials. Speculation
holds that the Celestials had crafted the hyperspace anomalies that
bisected the galaxy in order to separate and isolate the influence of
the predatory creature. Other academic speculation held that this barrier had been created to contain the
Rakata.
Such was the scale of the Celestials' achievements that Doctor Insmot
Bowen was prepared to contemplate the possibility of the entire
universe being a Celestial construct.
Disappearance
Around
35,000 BBY, the domain of the Celestials was usurped when the
Rakata slave race revolted. Stealing technology from the
Kwa, another Celestial client race, they waged a war against the other servant races.
Some hypotheses over the hyperspace turbulence in the Unknown Regions
claimed that it was created to serve as a barrier between the Celestials
and the upstart Rakata. Despite the Celestials' efforts, the Rakata broke through the barrier and waged a
war of extermination upon them. The ancient grimoires of the
Gree Enclave,
which referred to the Celestials as the "Ancient Masters," recorded
that they were undone by curses unleashed by the Rakata, or the "Soul
Hunters," which they called the "Gray Swallowing" and the "Hollowers of
Beings," and further referred to them as the "Faceless Mouths" and
"Eaters of Worlds."
Information discovered from the
Thuruht hive in
44 ABY suggested that the Celestials' decline may have been associated with the rise of the being
Abeloth:
The Killiks believed that the Force was the dominion of the Celestials
and then their power was usurped when the "Bringer of Chaos" emerged. It is known that the
Son and the
Daughter, two of
the Ones
that the Killiks claimed were what the Celestials became, approached
the Killiks to gain their assistance in the construction of
the Maw cluster of
black holes. Using
Centerpoint Station,
the Killiks moved numerous black holes to form a prison for Abeloth,
lest she throw the galaxy into chaos and disorder. The Son and the
Daughter joined the hive mind and lent the hives their knowledge and
their enormous power in the Force. It is believed that after they
completed their labors, the siblings left the hive mind and somehow
removed the Force powers that they had shared with the hive.
The eventual fate of the Celestials was unclear. They may have
been trapped inside the galaxy by their barrier and destroyed by the
Rakatan revolt, or they may have escaped through the barrier. Insmot
Bowen suggested that they may have withdrawn from this dimension
completely. The
Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Plagueis mused on the possibility that the Celestials were the ones who, according to Jedi and Sith legend,
merged into the Force to control its path.
By
30,000 BBY, the Celestials were nowhere to be found, and the Rakatan
Infinite Empire had taken center stage. Similarly, the Killiks vanished from the galaxy and
migrated beyond the veil of the Unknown Regions, which was an act presumed to be attributed to the Celestials.
After the construction of Centerpoint Station, it was claimed by the
Killiks that the Celestials had grown angry with their Kind and had
emptied them from their homeworld of
Alderaan.
It was theorized that the Celestials drove the Killiks into the Unknown
Regions after they devoured their own homeworld and attempted to lay
claim to another planet. The Mnggal-Mnggal similarly claimed that it had witnessed the sudden withdrawal of the Celestials from the galaxy in this era.
Legacy
- "Could this be from the same makers? The so-called Celestials? It doesn't look that old."
- ―Han Solo, on the machinery at Kessel
Despite their achievements, little evidence remained of where the
Architects came from and what was their eventual fate. Many of their
extraordinary works and machines were known to have survived the ages
with some races claiming the engineering marvel that was Centerpoint
Station was a product of their own civilization. The barren
Tion Cluster world of
Foran Tutha became famous following the discovery of the
Foran Tutha star probe.
Scholars debated for centuries on whether the fragments of this ancient
starship were a remnant of Celestial, Rakata, or an example of early
Core technology.
This argument continued for five centuries with the true origin of the probe being unknown. Other traces of the Celestials that remained ranged from the anomalous like
the Quintarad star group and the
Aur Diamonds, to the ruined like the
Penegelen Shards and the
Ianane Ring, to the obviously artificial like the
Ciratu Spheres and the
Diatian Clockwork.
In the years of
Darth Plagueis, some believed that the Celestials were a higher order of Force beings that guided the events of the galaxy, though many
Sith Lords
dismissed this theory as such a theoretical line of thinking as to have
no bearing on their desire to make the galaxy subservient to their
will, since it meant that this was only in the realm of the enlightened
elite.
At some point after the
Yuuzhan Vong War, the
Jedi Jacen Solo traveled the galaxy to learn from various Force sects. On these travels, he met with the
Mind Walkers of Sinkhole Station who offered him to enter into the
Pool of Knowledge, but he refused as he did not want to become like the Celestials and hold all the knowledge of the universe. In
35 ABY, the
Unu Joiner Raynar Thul stated that the Celestials had emptied
Oroboro
on Alderaan, around ten thousand Killik generations ago, approximately
twenty thousand years in Human time. He also claimed that the
Killik Colony
had built Centerpoint Station and shortly after the construction of
Qolaraloq, the Celestials had become angry with them over an unspecified
matter. Later, in
41.5 ABY,
Jaden Korr encountered debris from a large structure the creation of which he attributed to either the Celestials or the Rakata.
Two years later, ancient machinery was discovered on Kessel which prompted
Han Solo
to wonder if it was a creation of the Celestials. The lowest levels of
the planet had massive amounts of this technology, and almost destroyed
the entire planet. Afterwards,
Grand Master Luke Skywalker and his son
Ben Skywalker
discovered Sinkhole Station within the Maw Cluster. Ben Skywalker
theorized that the Celestials may have constructed Centerpoint Station
and created the Maw in order to contain
Abeloth,
who was believed to have some connection to the Celestials. Sinkhole
Station, a similar structure to Centerpoint, also had possible ties to
the Celestials. Once there, they discovered the body of a dead Killik
slave who was involved in the station's construction. The Mind Walkers
would tell a
transcended
Luke Skywalker that they had invited Jacen Solo to bathe in the Pool of
Knowledge, but that he declined, stating it would make him too much
like the Celestials.
After traveling to the
Celestial Palace,
the Thuruht hive explained what they knew from their hive mind of the
Celestials. This led to Raynar Thul wondering whether Abeloth was a
member of this mysterious race, though the Thuruht did not know the
answer to that question. The Killiks debated on whether Abeloth was the
Bringer of Chaos because of the Celestials desires or because she took
such a role after defying the wishes of the Celestials. Ultimately, the
Thuruht concluded that the true nature of the Celestials could not be
comprehended or grasped by a mortal mind nor could one discern their
will.
Behind the scenes
The term "Celestial" was created by writer
Troy Denning for his 2005 novel
Dark Nest I: The Joiner King,
though the concept of a highly advanced "precursor" race that greatly
influenced the early galaxy, a recurring motif in science fiction, is
much older, most notably figuring in
The Corellian Trilogy with the debut of
Centerpoint Station, revealed to be the Celestials' masterwork. They would play a key backstory role in Denning and his colleagues' work on
The Dark Nest Trilogy,
Legacy of the Force, and
Fate of the Jedi. Prior to
The Joiner King, Centerpoint's builders had been given the name "Architects" in 1999's
The Essential Chronology.
"Hyperspace aliens" is a
fanon nickname of the otherwise undescribed aliens who, according to
Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, gave Humans hyperspace technology. According to
The New Essential Chronology, the
Rakata developed the technology, whence the
Corellians
adopted it, although the book refers to the Architects separately from
the Rakata, signifying they were only a part of the Architects' "myth."
The Essential Atlas
equated the Architects with the Celestials and identified several star
clusters and astronomical phenomena that were a result of their
manipulation. In
Darth Plagueis, the eponymous Dark Lord of the Sith muses on the possible fate of the Celestials, equating them with the
Force wielders of
Mortis. The
Star Wars Blog article "
Galactic Architecture 101 and the History of Centerpoint Station" concretely identifies the Mortis denizens as Celestials.
The New Essential Guide to Alien Species
stated that the Rakata are the Architects and built Centerpoint
Station, but this can be attributed to the fact that this guide came out
before much of the information on the Celestials did.
According to
Jason Fry's endnotes for
The Essential Guide to Warfare, a piece of cut content would have involved a transcript where Dr. Insmot Bowen of the
Obroan Institute explained that the barrier west of the Core was a remnant of Celestial technology. In addition, he explained that a
war was fought between the Celestials and the Rakata.
In Part 1 of
Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare Author's Cut,
one of the revealed cut concepts, a debriefing that was originally
supposed to act as the prologue of the book, dealt with the Celestials,
including the Celestial-Rakata War.
Source :
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Celestial
