Hapes Cluster

"You should see what the queen mothers have built over the centuries: Their cities are beautiful, stately, serene. But it's not just the homes or factories, it's their people, their ideals."

- Leia Organa after first contact with the Hapes Consortium

The Hapes Cluster was a grouping of several hundred stars within the area of nebulous gases known as the Transitory Mists within the Inner Rim&mdash;an impediment to hyperspace navigation that had kept the stars of the cluster isolated from the rest of the galaxy from before 3000 BBY. This region's high density of stars, nebulae and moons bathed its worlds&mdash;particularly Hapes itself&mdash;in bright light, which, over the centuries, caused the Hapans to lose most of their night vision.

History
"The Hapes cluster was originally settled by pirates, a group called the Lorell Raiders. For hundreds of years they stalked the trade routes of the Old Republic, seizing ships, stealing cargo. And when they found a beautiful woman, some raider would take her as a prize to the hidden worlds of Hapes.[&hellip;]''" "So the women of Hapes raised their children as best they could. The pirates would steal the boys, making them pirates in turn. They would leave for months at a time, then come back to rest." "''When the Jedi finally wiped out the Lorell Raiders, the pirate fleets never returned. The worlds of Hapes were forgotten for a time, and the women of Hapes took control of their own destiny and vowed that no man would ever rule them again. For thousands of years now, the queen mothers have kept that vow."

- Princess Leia, Threkin Horm, and Prince Isolder

The Hapes Cluster was colonized around 4000 BBY by a band of pirates, known as the Lorell Raiders, who had found safe routes through the Transitory Mists to hide from Galactic Republic forces. The Lorell Raiders would abduct beautiful women along with their plundering, they would take them back to Hapes and eventually, due to an isolated gene pool, this created the near-Human Hapans. When the Jedi finally wiped out the Lorell Raiders, leaving the male population practically nonexistent, Hapes became a matriarchal monarchy led by a Queen Mother. The first Queen Mother then established the Hapes Consortium based on the planet of Hapes, and closed the borders of the Cluster around 3000 BBY, which would remain thus until 8 ABY. By the time of the New Republic, the Hapan state contained sixty-three explored star systems with inhabited worlds, although it was suspected that as many as one hundred nineteen habitable planets existed in the Cluster.

Regions
"The Hapes Cluster has sixty-three worlds, with hundreds upon hundreds of different governments and thousands of cultures."

- Ambassador Yfra to Jaina Solo.

There were seven distinct regions within the Cluster:


 * The Interior Region contained Hapes itself, Thrakia, Selab, and Gallinore, among others. The area was originally utilized as a base for the Lorell Raiders, and later became the first region that the first Queen Mother conquered.


 * The Gateworlds


 * The Rifle Worlds, so named because of an earlier attempt from several worlds of that region to secede from the Hapes Consortium. It eventually became the commerce base of the Consortium, much to the annoyance of the region's residents.


 * The Hapan Rim Worlds (not to be confused with the Outer Rim) were the systems located near the edge of the Cluster.


 * The Corsair Outback


 * The Lorelli Reach


 * The Transitory Mists were mostly made up of the Transitory Mists themselves. The Hapan pirates liked to hide in this area in order to ambush unsuspecting travelers. Planets in this region include Terephon and Shedu Maad.

Interior Regions

 * Arabanth
 * Archais
 * Baldavia
 * Carlania
 * Ediorung
 * Farnica
 * Gallinore
 * Hapes
 * Harterra
 * Jovaria
 * Kavan
 * Lalmy'ash
 * Lemmi
 * Millinar
 * Novi
 * Rbollea
 * Selab
 * Sivoria
 * Talcharaim
 * Theselon
 * Thrakia
 * Tinta
 * Tumani
 * Ut

Hapan Rim Worlds

 * Calfa
 * Dreena
 * k'Farri
 * Orelon
 * Rainboh
 * Reboam
 * Rynmar
 * Shedu Maad
 * Terephon
 * Zalori

Corsair Outback

 * Jodaka
 * Nantuker
 * Stalsinek

Lorelli Reach

 * Andalia
 * Chosper
 * Daruvvia
 * Ket
 * Sennex
 * Telkur Station

The Rifle Worlds

 * Algnadesh
 * Charubah
 * Cheruba
 * Divora
 * Lovola
 * Maires
 * Modus
 * Relephon
 * Vergill
 * Wodan

Gateworlds

 * Febrini
 * Phelope
 * Sargon
 * Zadaria

Other

 * Luurha
 * Olanji

Behind the scenes
In terms of real-life astrophysics, the Hapes Cluster would appear to be a star cluster of the open cluster or possibly stellar association type, while the Transitory Mists describe either an H II region and its Bok globules, or perhaps a dark nebula.