Dagobah/Legends

"There it is Artoo. Dagobah.... I'm not picking up any cities or technology. Massive life-form readings, though. There's something alive down there."

- Luke Skywalker

Dagobah was an Outer Rim planet in the Dagobah system. A remote world of swamps and forests, it served as a refuge for Jedi Grand Master Yoda during his exile, but otherwise had no notable intelligent life.

Geography
"Yes, I'm sure it's perfectly safe for droids."

- Luke Skywalker to R2-D2

Dagobah was a harsh, humid, swampy planet, mostly covered in shallow marshland, interspersed with stifling forests. There were very few truly open bodies of water on the planet: the water supply was thinly invested throughout the planet's main habitat, swampland, although there were vast expanses of mud fields. Dagobah was home to many creatures, such as bogwings, dragonsnakes, nudj, sleens, vine snakes, and swamp slugs. Examples of flora included the Gnarltree and Meat flower. The planet was devoid of any advanced civilization.

Discovery and surveys
Hundreds of years before the Clone Wars, the Jedi Minch battled and killed a powerful Bpfasshi Dark Jedi in this unchartered planet. The Dark Jedi's energies absorbed into its surroundings, first tainting the passage with the dark side.

The first official Republic survey of Dagobah occurred in 39 BBY. In early 22 BBY, just prior to the outbreak of the Clone Wars, a Republic research team under Halka Four-Den was stationed on Dagobah to research the native flora and fauna. From even the initial assessment, the team concluded that Dagobah was crawling with an incredible diversity of life, and made notes to recommend Dagobah for more extensive surveys, given the likely advances in genetics and medicine that even a few of its lifeforms would cause. Unfortunately, Halka Four-Den and her research team died on Dagobah before they could be retrieved. Likely due to the outbreak of the Clone Wars, their distress signals were ignored until it was too late. The few survivors were forced to raise their children as cannibals.

At the outbreak of the Clone Wars, Jedi Master Yoda was quick to recall Master Kenobi's search for Kamino, a lost planet beyond the Outer Rim. He knew that if Kamino was deleted from the Jedi Archives, other such planets must exist. He discovered thirty-seven such worlds, Dagobah was one of them. He passed over it, but not before considering it as a refuge. He also might have remembered the time he spent on a similar swamp planet long before in his past.

Yoda's exile
"Into exile, I must go. Failed, I have."

- Yoda

Near the beginning of the Great Jedi Purge, Yoda entered into exile in the swamps of Dagobah after facing Darth Sidious. He had decided long before, that in case  his failure  became a reality, he would go there. By choosing a world that "didn't exist" and living on a planet writhing with the Living Force, Yoda remained completely undetectable. He made his dwelling near the cave, which further negated his light side presence.

Tash Arranda and Zak Arranda met Yoda on the planet, but he chose not to train them in the Jedi ways at that time, explaining to them he was awaiting a different student. Afterwards, the Arrandas assisted in the rescue of the descendants of the survey team dispatched in 22 BBY, thus ridding Dagobah of the closest thing to an "advanced civilization" it had probably ever boasted.

The next Skywalker
"You will go to the Dagobah system. There you will learn from Yoda, the Jedi Master who instructed me."

- Obi-Wan Kenobi to Luke Skywalker

In 3 ABY, during the Galactic Civil War, Luke Skywalker was visited on the ice planet Hoth by the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi, who instructed him to seek Yoda on Dagobah in order that he might be trained in the ways of the Jedi. Skywalker traveled to Dagobah in his T-65 X-wing, along with R2-D2, after the end of the Battle of Hoth. Due to a bumpy landing, Luke's X-wing ended up being half-buried in the swamp, and a grumpy and irritable Luke met a strange creature that turned out to be Yoda. During his grueling training, Luke learned control and power in the Force.

Many of the teaching methods he learned here were later applied at his Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4. On Dagobah, Luke confronted a Droid Bounty hunter, whose mission was to kill Luke. Luke defeated the droid in armed battle. Luke had a feeling that the encounter was a test arranged by Yoda but had no idea whether he had passed or failed. Luke later entered the cave where the Dark Jedi had been defeated to test himself and experienced a vision where he fought a version of Darth Vader with Luke's face underneath his mask, hinting at both Vader's identity as his father and his own later involvement with the dark side. Later in his training, Skywalker had a vision of his friends Han Solo, Leia Organa, and Chewbacca suffering on Bespin. As a result, he left his training early, promising Yoda that he would return to complete it.

He did return in 4 ABY, but only in time to have one final conversation with Yoda before his death. Afterward, he spoke extensively with Obi-Wan Kenobi about the conflicting stories of Luke's parentage.

Jedi involvement
The New Republic established a base on Mount Yoda in 5 ABY.

Luke Skywalker would return to Dagobah in 9 ABY, this time seeing a vision of the past in the cave and finding the Dark Jedi's beckon call. He would return again in 12 ABY with his then-love Callista Ming, trying to re-establish her connection to the Force.

In 14 ABY, the dark side power of the cave there was siphoned by the Disciples of Ragnos. This supposedly removed all of the dark energy, but it presumably returned to its source when the Scepter of Ragnos was destroyed or otherwise somehow regenerated itself.

In 22 ABY, Anakin Solo along with Ikrit, Tahiri Veila, Uldir Lochett, Peckhum and R2-D2 returned to Dagobah because Anakin had been troubled by visions of himself as a Dark Jedi; this was due to his heritage as the grandson of Anakin Skywalker, who had become the infamous Darth Vader. After surviving encounters with the planet's dangerous fauna, Anakin and his companions finally reached the same cave to which Luke had gone years before. There, Anakin faced the manifestations of his own doubts, but emerged victorious.

In 36 ABY, Grand Master Luke Skywalker sent Jedi Knights Tahiri, Lowbacca and Tesar Sebatyne to Dagobah to meditate in exile. They had been deemed a threat to Jedi security due to the three Joiners passing Jedi information to Aryn Dro Thul during the Swarm War. Luke told them that he would call them once he felt they were ready to rejoin the order, and that they were not to leave until they felt that call.

Fauna

 * Accipiptero
 * Bogwing
 * Butcherbug
 * Dagobah python
 * Dagobian swamp lizard
 * Dragon snake
 * Jubba bird
 * Knobby white spider
 * Leaf-tail
 * Lobel
 * Morp
 * Nharpira
 * Nightbat
 * Nudj
 * Scrange
 * Sleen
 * Spade-headed smooka
 * Spotlight sloth
 * Swamp slug
 * Vine snake

Behind the scenes
Dagobah is the name of a container used to hold a Buddha's relics.

Slated to appear in one scene in Revenge of the Sith, the planet was cut from the final film, leaving it for the DVD release.

In The Empire Strikes Back Luke notes that "there's something familiar about this place." This may have been hinting at an unknown earlier concept of Luke's youth with the planet that was eventually not used in the prequels. Since nothing like that has been revealed yet, Luke possibly refers to Force visions he had in dreams back on Tatooine or to Yoda's presence, which he may have felt as a newborn infant on Polis Massa.

Heir to the Empire describes how Yoda returned to Dagobah in pursuit of a Dark Jedi from Bpfassh and killed him on the planet. In Star Wars Insider 98 Leland Chee writes that this is no longer considered part of continuity because Yoda had never been on Dagobah before his exile. It has been suggested the battle occurred shortly after the exile, however such theory was not confirmed, yet.

A segment of Wizards.com's Planet Hoppers feature was planned for Dagobah, but it was never released.

Non-canon appearances

 * Star Wars Infinities: A New Hope
 * Star Wars Infinities: The Empire Strikes Back
 * Star Wars: Yoda Stories
 * Return of the Ewok
 * LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
 * LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
 * Star Wars: Battlefront II
 * Star Wars: Demolition
 * Star Wars Infinities: Return of the Jedi
 * Star Wars: Visions of the Blade
 * Star Wars Infinities: Return of the Jedi
 * Star Wars: Visions of the Blade