Senate Building/Legends

The Senate Building, sometimes known as the Senate Rotunda or Senate Dome, was the building on Coruscant which served as the seat of the Galactic Senate at the end of the Old Republic. The designers claimed that any weapon capable of destroying the Chamber would also have to be powerful enough to destroy the entire planet, making the facility invulnerable against sabotage or orbital bombardment.

During the Old Republic
A massive building boasting a diameter of more than two kilometers, with a shield-shaped dome mounted on a narrower drum-shaped body, the Senate Rotunda was built some time after 4,000 BBY, possibly due to the older Senate building being damaged during one of the Old Sith Wars.

Located in the heart of the Senate District, the building was situated at the end of a large, flat concourse known as the Avenue of the Core Founders. This area was lined with tall, thin humanoid statues. At the end of the concourse was one of the ceremonial entrances, the Great Door. It was adorned with the Great Seal of the Republic and the sigils of the Thousand Worlds, which were members of the Senate. Directly inside the Great Door was the Atrium of the Senate. This was a grand entry hall, that was lined with statues of the Republic's greatest heroes and politicans.

Inside each Senatorial delegation was given large amounts of office banks that could be customized to more closely resemble the native environment of the specific Senator's home planet. The Senate's communications were handled by the Senate Communications Center.



The majority of the building was dedicated to the Grand Convocation Chamber, a large round room several hundreds meters tall, filled with floating repulsorpods for each senator, and dominated in the center by a podium used by the Supreme Chancellor, the Vice Chair and the Senior Administrative Aide to coordinate the sessions. There were 1,024 repulsorpods for located in the chamber, one for each Senator. When a Senator wanted to speak the their pod would detach from the wall and move towards the center of the chamber so that all the Senators could see it. Underneath the Grand Convocation Chamber was the Chancellor's holding office, which was a preparations area used by the Chancellor to prepare to address the Senate and entertain guests. When not in use, the Supreme Chancellor's Podium would rest in this space. When he wished to address the Senate when it was in session, the podium, mounted on a large hydraulic pillar, would rise up through retractable ceiling of the office and into the Senate Chambers. The Podium contained controls that were used to coordinate the movement of the Senate's repulsorpods.

Later reuse
The Senate Building survived the Galactic Civil War largely intact, although not without some wear and tear. Plans were being put in motion to overhaul the building in 17 ABY when the venerable structure was severely damaged by a terrorist bomb, necessitating a major rebuilding. The subsequent reconstruction saw the internal fittings of the auditorum completely replaced, and the Grand Convocation Chamber which reopened in 19 ABY was thought of by many contemporaries as an entirely "new" structure, distinct from the old Senate Hall. The chamber was extensively redecorated, the Chief of State's podium was lowered to ground level, and most strikingly of all, in place of the former geometric arrangement of repulsorpods, the seating for delegates was organized into clusters of differing size and shape arranged around the rotunda, connected to each other by ramps and stairways, and capable of holding more than 2,000 delegates. The overall effect of the design was to create a complex arrangement of contrasting forms and details, combined nevertheless into a clear, coherent harmony.

However, the old Senate Building proved to be an exceptionally durable structure, and substantial elements of the original fabric remained in situ following the rebuilding. The main entrance was still through the venerable Great Door and the Atrium which it enclosed, and while the fittings of the Senate Chamber might have been entirely new, they had been reverently installed in old auditorium, leaving the preexisting structure intact underneath.

After the Fall of Coruscant, the conquering Yuuzhan Vong selected the Senate building for transformation into the Well of the World Brain, the lodging for the yammosk-like pazhkic al'tirrna which was in charge of terraforming the planet into a new Yuuzhan'tar and subsequently governing its biosphere.

To this end, the Yuuzhan Vong sheathed the building inside and out in a thick layer of dark yorik coral, and installed the World Brain in the deep well that still survived beneath the speaker's podium. The ancient Great Door was finally destroyed in Ganner Rhysode’s legendary last stand, but the Yuuzhan Vong subsequently repaired the atrium in a way that disguised the damage to the ancient structure underneath.

Following the liberation of Coruscant at the end of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, the World Brain remained in situ, beneath the Senate Chamber, and although the Senate body had returned to the capital by 35 ABY, is not known how the old Senate Building was subsequently used, or how extensively the Yuuzhan Vong accretions were stripped away.

Behind the scenes
Although the Senate chamber in Traitor (28 ABY) is clearly intended to be the same space used in the Prequels, references in several novels, including Specter of the Past (dated 19 ABY) and Dark Tide: Onslaught (26 ABY), suggest that the old Senate building had been irreparably damaged in the attack in The New Rebellion (17 ABY), and subsequently demolished.

While the earlier authors had obviously intended the new Senate to be a completely new building, it is possible to reconcile the novels by assuming that the new structure was in fact erected within the shell of the old Senate Building.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Republic: The Stark Hyperspace War
 * Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan: Last Stand on Ord Mantell
 * Cloak of Deception
 * Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
 * Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
 * Star Wars Republic 63: Striking from the Shadows
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (DVD)
 * The Courtship of Princess Leia
 * Young Jedi Knights: The Emperor's Plague
 * Specter of the Past
 * Vector Prime
 * Dark Tide I: Onslaught
 * Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial
 * Star by Star
 * Traitor
 * The Unifying Force