Serenno/Legends

"It is not our way. The Counts of Serenno do not complain or cry. We are born to take care of others. We don't expect others to take care of us."

- Dooku

Serenno was a planet in the Outer Rim Territories. It was known for its aristocratic Counts, the most famous of them being Dooku. It was also well known for its long history of resisting authority.

The Old Republic
In about 3661 BBY, during the Great Galactic War, Serenno was attacked and captured by the forces of the Sith Empire, under the command of the Sith Lord Darth Malgus. One thousand years before the Battle of Yavin Serenno was governed by the six Great Houses to which the Counts of Serenno belonged; the Counts were amongst the wealthiest beings in the galaxy and believed in noblesse oblige and self-reliance. Two of the six Great Houses were Nalju and Demici. Other lesser noble families allied themselves with the Six or were distant relatives.

Serenno capital backed many projects of the Galactic Republic of which the planet was a valued member, despite being a frequent hotbed of sedition.

In 990 BBY, the planet was the site of anti-Republic agitation, and a failed kidnapping attempt of former Supreme Chancellor Tarsus Valorum, both of which failed due to the manipulations of Darth Zannah. Since the kidnapping attempt involved killing servants and attacking a guest under the protection of Count Nalju, it offended the Great Houses, which quickly took steps to eliminate the seditious movements.

Separatist heartland
Nearly a millennium later, Serenno gave rise to a far more dangerous rebel demagogue. Dooku was born on Serenno in 102 BBY. His family bore the title of Count and lived in a great house with rose bushes. Dooku once visited the seashell-littered shores of a Serenno ocean as a child.

After resigning from the Jedi Order in the aftermath of the Battle of Galidraan, Dooku returned to Serenno and resumed his hereditary title as Count, giving him control of the vast fortune controlled by his family. The planet acted as one of his strongholds during the Clone Wars.

After murdering Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas, Dooku stored his cryogenically frozen body on the planet, to be retrieved several years later for transportation to Geonosis, where a blood transfusion between the dead Jedi and Qymaen jai Sheelal occurred. As the Clone Wars progressed, Dooku kept his castle on Serenno and used it as a base of operations from time to time. On one occasion, Darth Sidious contacted Dooku in his palace via hologram and ordered him to kill his apprentice Asajj Ventress, who was growing too powerful and posed a threat to the Sith. Ventress survived, and in retaliation, she led the Dathomiri Nightsisters Karis and Naa'leth to raid Dooku's palace and kill him. Despite their concealment power, Ventress and her two allies were no match for Dooku, who used the Force to hurl the three assailants out of the palace, a fall from which they barely survived. After the Skirmish, Dooku received a message from a old acquaintance, Mother Talzin, who offered him a new apprentice, the brother of Darth Maul, Savage Opress. Opress was delivered to Dooku by Mother Talzin and a couple of her Nightsisters. It was here Dooku started to train Opress as his new apprentice through brutal exercises.

After this Dooku brought eleven of the galaxy's best bounty hunters, which included Cad Bane and Obi-wan Kenobi, disguised as Rako Hardeen. Dooku wanted to test to see who was worthy to take part in Moralo Eval's plot to kidnap the Republic Supreme Chancellor. Dooku then put them in Eval's Box to test them.

When the Confederacy of Independent Systems was forced onto the defensive in 19 BBY during the Outer Rim Sieges, Serenno was at the heart of the Serenno theater, the Republic's offensive into Separatist territories in the Northern Dependencies. The Republic drove to Serenno from New Bornalex and Ord Radama, hoping to clear the way to the hyperspace crossroads of Celanon and Dooku's homeworld.